Social Networks
Entries related to social networks, group psychology, anthropology, and really any of the social sciences.
General Updates
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 12/07/2008 - 17:52It is a quiet snowy, second Sunday of Advent as I sit at home and try to catch up from one busy week as I prepare for the next. I have a few different blog posts I need to write, but for now, I’m writing a general update. This morning, I read @professorkim’s tweets from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. I couldn’t get the live stream to work, so I relied on her tweets and tweeted a little bit about it.
At the same time, various people were tweeting about the Boston Media Makers gathering. I also picked up a little bit of it on Steve Garfield’s QIK stream. They talked a little bit about the Manfrotto 585 ModoSteady 3-in-1 Camera/Camcorder Stabilizer and Support System
They also spoke about gcast which I had signed up for back in August, tested once, forgotten, and never gone back to. However, it does seem to be the site that I was trying to think of for a person who was interested in getting started with podcasting. I should play around with it a little more.
Another system that they mentioned was ooVoo. It is for having video conversations with up to six people at the same time. It requires a download which is currently available for Windows and in beta for the Mac. I suspect that is why I didn’t try it last time I stumbled across it. It is all very similar to CUSeeMe from years ago as well as stuff I was working on with GroupIntervisual.
In other news, I’ve uploaded pictures of Papa and Nana’s new puppy, the snow we got here, and a chocolate pecan pie my wife made. I went with Kim and Fiona to the barn and am now hunkered down in the office for what sounds like a cold evening. In a little while, I’ll start preparing for this evenings episode of Fiona’s Radio Show.
Updated:
Forgot to mention that I added Google Friend Connect, check it out in my sidebar. I've set up ooVoo. So far nothing all that interesting. And, I want to note omeka.org as another site that got mentioned.
In terms of power.com, one person joined me, another friend is already there, and a third asked why to use it. In theory, it should be a nice aggregator of various other social networks. So far, I'm not impressed.
The EntreCard Twitter Fiasco
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/06/2008 - 12:38Yesterday, EntreCard announced a widget that would display tweets that anyone posted about them. The blog post, included an update:
Just a quick note that Entrecarders are expected to be on their best behavior. Any intentional use of profanity or harassment directed at other Entrecarders or Entrecard Staff using Twitter will result in immediate account deletion. We have a zero tolerance policy for harassment at Entrecard.
It is not clear if this update was put up before or after Turnip of Power tweeted Is that asshat from Entrecard still wearing his asshat?.
As a result, Turnip of Power has been banned from EntreCard. One person asked, “Can I still speak poorly of Entrecard’s users on my blog? How about in my living room?”
It appears as if Entrecard is making the classic mistake of inexperienced startups online. The danger of online social marketing is that you can’t control what people will say about you. An even greater danger is what happens when you attempt to do so.
It isn’t a new lesson. Last November, conservatives used the #dontgo to try and get their message out on twitter and beyond. The problem is that liberals hopped in and used that to promote their own message. The website that was set up to monitor #dontgo messages was quickly modified to filter out message that the conservatives felt were inappropriate.
It is even more problematic when people running one website place conditions on what people can say about the site on other websites. A response on the Entrecard blog is entitled ‘Embracing negative publicity’. It sounds like the classic mistake done in damage control. Instead of admitting an error and trying to address the problem, it is a defensive, “I meant to do that” response.
Meanwhile, more people, including top droppers have been leaving EntreCard. The discussion on Twitter is predominantly critical. It is too bad. EntreCard is a great idea, run horribly. It is surprising that a viable competitor to EntreCard hasn’t sprung up yet.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.
power.com
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 23:12Techcrunch has an article about Power.com, a new “social inter-networking” site that links Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Hi5 and other sites into one site.
They are a Brazilian based company with about five million users already, I suspect mostly gathered from Brazilian Orkut users.
I've gone in and played with it a little bit. Other than random places where Portuguese slips through, I haven't found any obvious glitches or anything especially noteworthy.
They are trying to grow the site virally and anyone that gets 100 people to join in the first 100 days gets $100.
I could send out email blasts through them to my friends on these various networks but that seems a bit spammy.
Instead, I'll post the banner they provide:
If a bunch of people sign up this way and we find good reasons to use other than simply as innovators and early adopters, I might send emails to some people as well, but probably not.
So, take a look at power.com and let me know what you think.
Two Views of Twitter for Journalists
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 15:20The Columbia Journalism Review, in light of the New York Times article, Citizen Journalists Provided Glimpses of Mumbai Attacks is asking, How Should Journalists Use Twitter?
What does Twitter add to the coverage of such stories? What does it subtract? ... Is Twitter anything more than just a stupid human trick? Where does it—where should it—fit into the larger universe of Web-based journalism?
Well, I’m no expert on journalism. I’m a blogger and a microblogger and people always get stuck on the relationship between blogging and journalism. As to Twitter, I have a pretty good ranking according to sites like Twitter grader and I have been on Twitter for over two years now, as well as just about any other microblogging system I can find, so I do have a few opinions.
Recently, I wrote a blog post entitled I Get My News on Twitter.... I talked about tools that I use to organize the information I get from Twitter and emerging tools in the space. This points to two ways that I believe journalists should be using Twitter.
It is a great place to get raw information. It is standing in a virtual crowd, listening for voices that have something to say. When you hear someone saying something interesting, you sidle over to them, listen to what they have to say, and if possible and appropriate, join in the conversation. This is useful for finding people on the ground who are smart and have something to say at a disaster far away, like the terrorism attacks in Mumbai.
It is also useful on a local beat. An editor of a local paper mentioned to me at dinner one evening that his reporters use Twitter to get reports from local emergency services, sort of like a twenty-first century police scanner.
I’m currently trying to get as many of my sources to use Twitter as possible. If something important happens at the capital, I might not get the first call or text message, unless it is a text message sent to Twitter, and then I get it as soon as everyone else, or maybe a little sooner if I’m better at using Twitter than others.
Beyond that, Twitter is a great way of getting your message out. When I create a blog post, Twitterfeed reads my RSS feed and creates a Tweet for me with a link back to my blog post. If I want to be the first person to get a message out, I’ll send a quick headline tweet out letting people know what is going on, and follow up with a blog post later.
I currently subscribe to the Twitter streams of quite a few news organizations. Twitter becomes my news scroll. News organizations that want me as a reader need to try and get in my news scroll.
To me, Twitter isn’t just another stupid trick and while it is using a new medium and a new format, it doesn’t seem all that new either. It sort of reminds me of the teletype at the college radio station that I would gather around with my friends decades ago. It will be interesting to see what other people have to say.
Oh, and by the way, I heard about the CJR article on Twitter.
XRI, OpenID, FOAF, XFN and Open Social Networks
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 11/29/2008 - 20:04Today, I stumbled upon QDOS’ FOAF Search Tool and spent a bit of time exploring FOAF and related technologies. I’ve been interested in these technologies for quite a while and always enjoy checking back to see what has been going on.
