The interpersonal nature of blogs

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/stefanone.html

The Economist Debate on Social "Networking"

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/01/15/the_economist_d.html

I'll come back to this one, from dana boyd, in due course. I think it's important I frame what is included in what I'll focus on my thesis.

The Fractalization of the Public and Private

I sense my thesis will address the issue of what constitutes the private and public. Social networking and social networks can be particularly problematic when it comes to defining what is a private or public space.

As Patricia Lange points out, a number of scholars draw the private and public divide without defining what is meant by these terms. Warren and Brandeis' (actually it was the judge, but we'll let that slide) said that privacy was the "right to be let alone". Perhaps this was an easy way to define privacy back then, but defining the notion of a private space is a complex undertaking.

Lange argues that spaces are fractal in that there component parts take on the nature of the context in which they are situated. She provides the example of a home which, to the community is a private space, but within the home there are both private and public spaces. Lange refers to Gal (2002) who proposes that spaces can be defined as both private and public dependant on the perspective of the observer at the time of the observation. In other words, what is a private space at one point of a day may become public at another - a public toilet is no longer a public space when in use.

Lange suggests YouTube videos are posted in a similarly fractalised manner as publicly private (where people post videos that are potentially available to a very wide audience but use the software and coded tags as a way to make the videos fact difficult to find and view except for close friends) and privately public (where people post public videos but actively hide or disguise their identities in the movies and/or their profiles). One such example provided by Lange is that of MadV who actively takes steps to disguise his identity both in the video and an his profile but presents videos that have broad appeal to a wide audience.

In the context of research into the issue of sovereignty between organisations and employees, much of the parry and thrust of the debate must occur in the realm of what constitutes a public space. Does a blog intended for the writer's family and friends become a public space because it can be found - albeit with some effort - by members of a wider audience? And what rights do companies have to dictate what is said inside walled gardens, such as Facebook? If a person takes active steps to disguise the identity of the subjects of the blog or the writer?

Gal, S. (2002). A semiotics of the public/private distinction. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 13 (1), 77-95.

A couple of beauties

A couple of beauties
Originally uploaded by peterfletcher38

Rita and Kaz at the Queen's. Hot looking pair, huh?

Thesis statement

In working on being clear on what my thesis is going to be I recently posted an article about what was meant by social network sites. Much of this article was based on the work of dana boyd, and whilst useful, it really doesn't serve the purpose and the direction of my thesis. Let me explain.

My thesis is going to focus on the battle for sovereignty between individuals and employers as evidenced by the extent to which an employer can control what an employer says or does on a social networking site. To make the definition of social network/ing too narrow I will remove sites such as YouTube, flickr, RSVP, and Youporn, along with blogs and wikis. All these sites utilise collaborative, social software, and all provide the user with the ability to publish.

It is the act of publishing the self that is at the heart of the battle for sovereignty. If the issue were merely one of lost productivity my thesis would best be addressed through a legal framework - it is well tested that companies can direct what activities are conducted on their corporate networks. However, the waters become very much murkier when we start addressing how far an organisation can go in directing the private activities of an employee.

These activities are only ever problematic when they become public; and it is the public nature of social networking that makes these issues so interesting for businesses. Really, therefore, any media which an employee might utilise to publish becomes relevant in this regard (and I think that's a point that's worth making in the thesis) but it's the nature of self-publishing on the Internet - ubiquitous, public, permanent, replicable - that makes such technologies so fascinating for individuals and so concerning for employers.

Leading from this clarification I will say that it is "the-self publication" software that will be the focus of my thesis. That is to say, any software that allows an individual to publish any aspect of the self to an online audience. I'm confident this early definition is in some way problematic, but I think it's a useful start. It includes the sites and software genres mentioned above, but it excludes print media and public demonstrations (although I'm sure the same "battle for sovereignty" thesis could be proposed).

Cisco emraces social networking - others not so sure

A recent article on Times Online points out that tech firm Cisco actively encourages their employees to get involved with social networking. The company is reported to have built their own social networking and collaboration platforms that they claim improves innovation and speeds product development. Cisco management, the article suggests, is unfazed by the possible loss of productivty that has lead to many companies implementing a blanket ban on social networking sites.

Such a ban, the article reports, may be a knee-jerk reaction by people who fail to understand the business benefits. The author points out that banning social networking may be inconsistent in that many companies presume to invade on the private lives of employees through the Internet bringing work to a person's home - but the same companies have issues when people bring their private lives to work.

"Others make the point that bans on bringing one’s personal life into work time are a bit rich when companies now harness the internet to such effect that employees can never entirely escape from work."

The article also points out that the conflict between social networking and employment predates the techhnology that brought with it social networking sites. It shows that social networking - company golf days for example - has been an important part of business life for a very long time.

The long tail of social networking

I'm in the throws of reading Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail, a story of an Australian bush kangaroo - kidding, OK? - and got to thinking that a power law may exist in the world of social networking. Such a power law (1/x) may show up in the amount of time spent on SNS activity and the threat to a business as a result of SN activity may follow a similar power law. For example the threat to a business of the most dangerous post is twice as much as that of the next most threatening and three times that of the following etc.

Not sure if this will go anywhere but thought I'd jot it down anyway.

IBM creates social software mashups

A report on Internetnews.com claims that IBM is merging business and social networking. Don't do one or the other says Big Blue, do both.

IBM's strategy places even more pressure on leaders and managers to wrap their heads around social networks and social software and formulate a meaningful strategy rather than waiting for their competitors to dictate the terms of engagement. Think back to 1995 when Microsoft switched their focus into making all their office productivity applications web-friendly. There's nothing more certain than a similar effort occurring but this time it will be around enabling human interaction.

Managers who miss the boat may end up participating very heavily in the next round of corporate redundancies.

Social networking a no-brainer for real estate

There appears to be little conflict between real estate and social networking in the real estate industry - or so it seems on the surface. According to a recent article real estate agents are jumping on the social networking band wagon in droves.

I wonder if there's going to be some big train wrecks down the track as agents shift between firms and possibly make negative comments about current and past employers. And what of the potential for agents to over step the legislative mark without the knowledge of their principals.

One wonders if the genie, once out of the bottle, can ever be recaptured.

What do we mean by "social network sites"

There appears to be a fair amount of confusion around what is meant when people refer to the term "social network/ing site". For many the first response is to equate the term with sites such as Facebook and Myspace. Dana boyd makes this observation and points out that such a narrow-cast definition precludes other platforms of interaction such as blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking sites. Can flickr and Youtube, for example, be classified as social networking sites?

I would contend there's a distinction between social networking per se, which can and does happen in real life, and social networking sites, social software, and collaborative software.

To give examples, social networking often takes place at a pub. You arrange to meet a friend, they bring along one of their friends, who you meet and with whom you form a life-long friendship. For me, a network can best be likened as a spiders web where threads connect and form paths to all other parts of the web. Meeting friends friend in this way creates a new connection and a new thread leading to other similar opportunities.

Boyd suggests that social networking emphasises the initiation of relationships and proposed an early definition of a social networking site that included mention of the ability of participants to interact with strangers. Certainly the meeting of strangers happens in a networking environment, but I would argue that social networking is very much driven by, or augmented by established relationships that encourage and enable the development of further relationship connections. Social networking, both on and off-line, is lubricated by a conducive environment.

Narrowing the definition down to "social network sites" Boyd points out that the term networking is problematic in that it indicates a much more active role of the initiation of new relationships between strangers than actually occurs on social network sites. Whilst new connections occur, she believes, the primary reason for people to be on a social network site is to maintain a relationship with people they already know. On most SNS's, Boyd observes, a participants profile is usually supplemented by a display of a person's contact or friends network; and it is amongst this group that most of the network activity occurs.

However, this argument also has it's problems. Certainly on "social network sites" by which I refer here to as the likes of MySpace and Facebook, there is a level of passiveness to the activity of networking. There appears, from my experience to be little in the way of any active efforts to become acquainted with perfect strangers. However, to use these sites as the standard bearers, whilst understandable, would preclude others where activity has a very different nature.

As examples, sites such as RSVP, Adultfriendfinder, Xtube, and a host of other adult networking sites - where the active pursuit of new connections is the expectation rather than the exception - would be precluded from boyd's narrow-cast definition of a "social network site". Such a preclusion makes sense if what we are attempting to research are those sites where the networking is much more passive and benign. I would question the value of research, though, that failed to take into account these more assertive networking fora.

Going further with this problematic term of "network" or "networking" is the difficulties faced when we begin to consider the nature of a blog. Some blogs, such as Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist, and Darren Rowse's Problogger, are heavily trafficked by a loyal readership who regularly contribute and debate via comments. The activity in which these people are engaged appear to be both in the nature of "networking", as in people attempting to create new connections with other readers through interesting comments, and "network", as in a network of bloggers.

Further still, there exist other platforms of collaboration and interaction, which create connections where none previously existed (with a nod and smile to dana boyd). Is it relevant for the sake of research purposes to exclude wikis and photo and video sharing sites from the field of focus? My instinct tells me no.

I'm still a long way from developing a definition, however I feel a sense that any definition that points to socially oriented human interaction on the Internet should necessarily be broad and inclusive. Only at the pointy end of the research might it be relevant to narrow the field down so as to achieve needed clarity and direction.

Ontario governement bans Facebook - faces backlash

The Ontario government has experienced a powerful backlash against their ban of Facebook and Youtube in the workplace, according to Intergovworld.com. In a country that claims to have the highest per capita membership to Facebook, it's understandable why Canadians are upset.

But, the article suggests, the ban may only be temporary whilst the powers that be get their head around the web 2.0 beast.

Notably, a government source claimed that they were struggling to keep up with the formulation of an appropriate response to this fast moving networking landscape. I have no doubt their concerns are reflected in other businesses across the world.

The debate for the government hinges primarily on lost time. But they also have their eye on the speed with which FB is moving, possibly looking at a ready-built platform rather than taking the slow boat by building their own collaboration platforms.

The article claims that Canadians spend an average of 29 minutes per day on Facebook; and that's a big dent in production. The argument by business is that they are entitled to direct how and why their resources can be used, with private social networking not welcome.

However, I question whether this debate is not just a case of old wine in new wine skins. After all, the debate about private phone calls is a live issue in most organisations and will continue to be for some time to come. Most companies have an acceptable use policy with private phone calls being permitted so long as it's within reason. How is social networking substantially different.

At another level I contend that social networking is very much more granular than making a phone call. After all, a person can check their Facebook feed or inbox in the brief period it takes for a customer to answer the phone or a document to come off the printer. Much damage done? I doubt it.

Finally, using social networking software teaches participants useful new skills in a non-threatening, enjoyable environment. I for one can't see how this can be bad.

But back to the article, the claim is made that activity on Facebook has potential to do great harm to the reputation of a business through leaking of confidential information and through others being able to see what employees get up to during the course of the day.

To this I'd say, so what? If, as a manager and leader you have this little faith in your team, then perhaps the problem is sitting on the chair in your office.

What's behind business's fascincation with social networking

This light-weight article gives a glimpse into why so many in the business community are so interested in - and getting involved with - social marketing. It's the new buzz, the article suggests, with hard-to-ignore success stories and low barriers to adoption.

Sounds too fascinating and far too compelling.

No wonder that FB is now known as one of the most hyper-viral platforms on earth. Since they opened the doors to application developers cool ideas spread faster then the Ebola virus. Businesses simply can't get enough of a good thing and move at lightening speed to attempt to monetise an audience's attention.

Schools begin to embrace SN

Watch out oldies, the schools of the future are on their way - to a social networking site in your lounge room.

A new service, Elgg, has developed an open source social networking platform that is targeted directly at the education market. As reported at Wired, the service allows users to create their own personal learning environment, complete with feeds from blogs and social bookmarking sites.

An exciting development is that, more than just knocking off the likes of Blackboard, Elgg is being looked at by a variety of businesses as a way of introducing SN as part of their operations.

Cleaning up a soiled reputation

So there's some concern about the manner in which data is near-permanent. This not-so-apparent feature of our online activities on SN sites can leave reputations in tatters. The fear being pedaled around the popular media circles is that future employers will use SNS's as a way to can a person's budding career.

My earlier post today suggests that this fear is not one shared by many in the SN scene, with few being concerned about long-term problems caused by less than well thought out posts to profiles.

That however hasn't stopped ReputationDefender who, for a fee, will apparently clean up the trail of destruction caused by pissy blogging and office party posts. Me thinks there's a chance they'll make some money tapping into the paranoia of a few.

Best of luck to them.

Can You See Me Now?

Drawing on work from Altman, Tufekci believes that the manner in which teenagers approach online interactions can best be understood as a process of optimisation. By this it is meant that individuals in fact want to be seen and use information about themselves as a way to be noticed but also being mindful of the pitfalls of extending too much information. He notes that doing so in an online environment poses significant increased threats thanks to the collapsing of many temporal boundaries that exist in the real world.

He makes the point that an online environment captures data by default. This is done via cookies, ISP's, databases, RSS feeds, etc, etc. and makes for a prime environment for surveillance. On the other hand, the real world requires a conscious decision PRIOR to a conversation to record the conversation eg a wire tap, or some other form of surveillance. Unlike a real world conversation that, unless recorded, disappears immediately as it occurs, a digital conversation is recorded and can be retrieved months and years later. This is a significant difference in that the default positions are at polar ends of the surveillance spectrum.

Tufekci claims the Internet can be divided into the instrumental Internet and the expressive Internet. By this he means that the former is where we go online to achieve an outcome and uses the purchase of airline tickets as an example. The latter, he contends, refers to the creation of self trough identity expression and impression management through the release of personal information.

He suggests that Altman's model of privacy, where boundaries are actively negotiated, is a more accurate reflection of what occurs in an online environment then early conceptions of privacy as "the right to be let alone". He suggests that people don't necessarily seek more seclusion, but rather, at times, seek more self-disclosure as a way of self-creation.

For me, this rings true. As an active participant on FB, I'm aware that the most interesting profiles and relationships are with those participants who "open up" or show some form of vulnerability or express an outrageous opinion. Others who treat FB as a personal brochure have little interaction and therefore an unexciting presence. Interesting people are usually interesting both on and offline.

He draws on the findings of Pallin and Dourish who suggest that an online environment creates special problems for privacy. We have no idea of who is watching and where and therefore have no control over our spatial boundaries and, because conversations are recorded, virtually forever, we have no control over our temporal boundaries. Our audience can exist far into the the future. Finally there is the problem of the management of context. What is posted on MySpace may well not be appropriate in a job interview, however, because of the nature of the digital environment, these two contexts can (and often do) intersect with often unintended consequences.

Tufecki's research indicated that a staggering 94.9% of Facebook users used their real names on their profiles. There was some tendency of Facebook users to make their profiles visible only to friends, but the research found there was no correlation between an open profile and the use of a real name. They found there was a general link between concerns about online privacy and making telephone numbers available. Males were more likely to display their phone numbers.

The study showed that participants modified their profiles, particularly the display of telephone numbers in line with their own privacy concerns, but they were generally unconcerned about a future employer reading their profile. Participants showed little concern about the consequences of a potential future partner seeing their profile. On the contrary they saw it as a potential benefit for a potential partner to see their profile.

He concludes by suggesting that disclosure is sought by youth as a way to create the self and as a way to limit access to the self through proactive self-disclosure. Although most concern, he claims is for present issues, youth could be more concerned about future problems that could result from the persistence of data.

Can You See Me Now? Audience and Disclosure
Regulation in Online Social Network Sites (subscription required)
Zeynep Tufekci
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

DOI: 10.1177/0270467607311484
2008; 28; 20
Bulletin of Science Technology Society
http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/20

Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck

Here's a few comments on an article from Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
London, Los Angeles, New Delhi and Singapore Vol 14(1): 13–20

Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck
Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence
danah boyd
Harvard University and University of California-Berkeley, USA

Boyd argues that changes made to the public feed feature on Facebook have significanly altered the dynamic of what is viewed as private. She uses the example of a party conversation where one needs to shout to be heard only to find that everything suddenly goes quiet as you're about to finish your sentence. What was a conversation protected in some way by the din of the surroundings, the need to be physically proximate, and the assessment that only those nearby could hear what was being said suddenly becomes a very public communication.

Boyd notes that a similar event happened when Facebook created the public feed and caused what seemingly were private moments and events - despite them being available if someone searched hard enough - into easily accessible public information. It is this disruption she suggests that is new in the digital world.

In the physical world we have become accustomed to ways to protect our privacy, notably walls, physical distance, volume of speech. However, Boyd points out that in a digital world these disappear and are replaced by search capabilities that make previously "private" information very public.

Privacy is all about control one has about information about the self, Boyd suggests. Information is private therefore, not because it is not known, but because it is carefully controlled. It is far more difficult to keep a secret then to not allow the information out at all. Some information, she opines, is only relevant in certain social settings, but Facebook's public feed obliterated the context of this "grey"area information and disrupted the way in which people approached their privacy online.

This collapsing of social domains has resulted in what Boyd calls "social convergence" where previously discrete social contexts are brought together through technologies and digitisation. This convergence raises a number of questions, says Boyd, and significant concerns about the future of privacy as people deal with these converged domains without any form of social scripts.

Social networking sites pose danger to law firms

By Kevin Lo

Damned if you do and damned if you don't by the sounds of what Kevin Lo has to say. Here he recommends that companies be vigilant about what information finds its way onto SN sites, such as FB. He recommends either banning mention of the company at all, or at the least setting up a policy on what can and can't be said about a company on a SN site. He suggests that FB is great, but building a company controlled SN site is better.

But Lo here, appears to take the side of the company. He fails to address the question of who has sovereignty - the corporation or the individual. One suspects he believes that, if the company pays the coin, they own the person. That somewhat flies in the face of basic human rights but it appears that commerce continues to seep into every pore of the free speech membrane.

Is there inconsistency in corporate SN policy?

With the rush of organisations banning access to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, I can't help wonder if there's more than a little bit of double-standards at work. Let's say for a moment that a worker participated on LinkedIn as a way of forming a better network, would they find this acceptable? If so why would this form of networking be acceptable and not the Facebook kind?

Simply because a social networking site is fun, does that automatically make it unproductive? And does the fun diminish the quality of the relationship? I'm a member of both LinkedIn and Facebook and can say that, as a professional, I get little out of the former, and plenty out of the latter.

It's time for businesses to consider the longer term ramifications of too much control around SN.

Do social networking sites really result in networking?

Dana Boyd claims that:

Social network sites do not help most youth see beyond their social walls. Because most youth do not engage in "networking," they do not meet new people or see the world from a different perspective. Social network sites reinforce everyday networks, providing a gathering space when none previously existed.

I can't see how this statement stacks up? How can Boyd say that "most youth don't engage in "networking""? If someone adds a friends friend as a friend, does that not amount to "networking"? Or is that something else? What if you started seeing that person offline? Still not networking? I guess a rigourous definition of "networking" might say no, but instinctively I'd say it was networking.

Then there's the bit about social networks reinforcing everyday networks, but then she says that it's a gathering space where none previously existed. That just doesn't make much sense to me. If they reinforced everyday networks surely the networks existed before.

Social networking costing business billions?

A recent article on ZDNet suggests that social networking is a huge drain on company resources. The article reports that the practice costs businesses $6.5 billion pounds caused by staff spending on average 30 minutes per day on social networking. Around 30% of this cost, it is claimed, comes from the consumption of band width.

Interestingly, the article reports a growing tension between network managers, who would ban social networking sites completely, and recruiters HR managers, who encourage the practice believing that such sites give them an opportunity without the need for interaction.

The article then sensibly asks the question; what about the benefits of social networking such as the deals that flow from an active network - particularly from sites such as LinkedIn.

Good question that.

Editorial: Convergence Culture

I never thought of media much before.

It's described here as a medium between people, communities, organisations, and industries. In the classic view, a few media organisations act as the medium but this is now changing as we see the democratisation of the means of production of media content. These changes have brought about a hybrid media that is no longer creates a homogenising effect as did big, monolithic media organisations. These media outlets are everywhere and include individual, government, groups, etc.

This blog is an example of a component of this hybrid media.

The authors call this "socialised media". Of course, the big media companies want a piece of this action and seek to regain control of this new social media through mergers and acquisitions (note the Murdoch purchase of MySpace and the WSJ).

The convergence of these media types is both bottom up and top down. Big media attempts to re-badge content and make it available on other sites and in other contexts as a way of earning further revenue, decrease costs, and improve brand awareness. On the other hand consumers attempt to control what media they do and don't see and this can create conflict and negotiation between the players.

This negotiation plays itself out in a way that sees business claiming to harness collective intelligence where the business gets something for free by providing the means for participation. On the one hand, these platforms for participation can help a business build a brand - note the hyper-viral way applications spread on Facebook - but this same viral effect can also damage reputations and cause harm.

Some businesses boast about how cleverly they've harnessed this collective intelligence, only to find that they have ceded control of their brand to an environment that will never yield them control they once had - and of course this doesn't always work out the way the business hoped.

In the one moment, businesses can gain and lose control of their brands.

Downloaded from http://con.sagepub.com by Peter Fletcher on January 21, 2008
Editorial: Convergence Culture
Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze
Convergence 2008; 14; 5
DOI: 10.1177/1354856507084415