Social Me(dia) Rivers

It took me a while to catch onto what Tama was on about with this topic with the cute name. Having heard the iLecture, read the Course Work and the readings, done the activities and done some of the Discussion Board questions, I may have a better handle on it now. Maybe. There seem to be two main threads, firstly the concept of continuous partial presence (in miniblogs) and secondly the integration of the different components ("contexts") of our internet footprints.

Ross Mayfield coined the term continuous partial presence and applied it how "a never-ending steam of presence messages prompts you to update your own". This mysterious impetus causes us to become a frequent microblogger, with individual posts not meaning much, but collectively they allow a nuanced profile of our style, behaviour and interests. We saw this in action in an activity by studying the tweets of a prolific twitterer. Microblogs such as Twitter with their strict character limits require much less effort and commitment than other forms of online communication such as email or blogs, and so participants are more inclined to use them frequently. This argument must surely apply to SMS messages on mobile phones.

Elizabeth Lawley clarifies this mystery somewhat in language easy to digest. "But asking 'who really cares about that kind of mindless trivia about your day' misses the whole point of presence. This isn't about conveying complex theory--it's about letting the people in your distributed network of family and friends have some sense of where you are and what you're doing. And we crave this, I think. When I travel, the first thing I ask the kids on the phone when I call home is 'what are you doing?' Not because I really care that much about the show on TV, or the homework they're working on, but because I care about the rhythms and activities of their days. No, most people don't care that I'm sitting in the airport at DCA, or watching a TV show with my husband. But the people who miss being able to share in day-to-day activity with me--family and close friends--do care." This makes a lot of sense to me, and goes a long way to explaining the phenomenon of serial-twittering at least amongst family and real-life friends. And her definition of presence is also very illuminating: "The big 'P' word in technology these days is 'participatory'. But I'm increasingly convinced that a more important 'P' word is 'presence'. In a world where we're seldom able to spend significant amounts of time with the people we care about (due not only to geographic dispersion, but also the realities of daily work and school commitments), having a mobile, lightweight method for both keeping people updated on what you're doing and staying aware of what others are doing is powerful. I don't have to add anything to this!

Tama introduced us to FriendFeed, and as an activity, we were asked to open an account and link it to the accounts in Web 2.0 platforms that we created in previous activities. This consolidation of individual threads creates the social me(dia) river of the title. The outcome reminds me of a primitive form of personal web presence, which is maybe what Tama intended. It doesn't have the flexibility of a PWP, or its ability to customise in a style which represents our persona, but FriendFeed's collection of posts from different contexts is just what our PWP assignment requires. It's quite easy to see that studying anyone's FriendFeed site (if they have one, and if they link their other platforms in) will quickly reveal a lot about the person's identity and interests. This picture may be deliberately crafted of course, but one way or another, it will add up to a pretty complete profile, be it real or fictitious.

Conversations on Privacy, Reputation and Banality

In the last week or two, the NET11 Discussion Board has been running hot on issues of banality, reputation and privacy. Because I have a respect for people’s privacy, I have only shown contributors’ initials below.

We have been amazed at references to users of social networking sites who post considerable detail about themselves, much of it showing them in a very unfavourable light, and some of it sufficient to make contact, without, apparently, ever thinking that it may be seen by a villain, or by an employer, or by a parent, and without a thought being given to privacy settings on the SNS platform.

We discussed how SNS users share intimate details happily with people that have never met. NW said “maybe it will be a generational thing, children and adolescents who grow up now with social networking sites as the norm, may have numerous strong ties to people that they have never physically met. I don't believe that it will replace face-to-face relationships but what impact might it have on young people's social skills? I'm sure I'll be bringing out the old parents line ‘when I was a boy we...’, to my kids!”.

We pondered over why users feel the need to share every gruesome, banal detail of their life. I said “it just seems to me that there is some pressure amongst Facebook devotees to report their every action, as if not to do so implies some sort of defect or failure. Twitterers seem to have the same behaviour.” MN said “But this is different, it is like a showroom of banality, tragedy and performance, often negative. Disclosure of personal things is taken for granted” and he referred the class to lamebook.com which appears to be a site devoted to collecting feeds from the very worst Facebook has to offer.

Much bandwidth was used up discussing whether employers should use online resources to seek additional intelligence on job applicants.

MN discussed the case study of Mimi whose activist history found in her digital shadow affected her job application. “Sure she might have felt very strongly once in protesting but now she is qualified and willing to do the job. I agree with boyd if Mimi is the non-traditional person who can business wise and culturally work the store to a level of success then I would say hire her.”

KL was very frank with us and admitted to a case where she overlooked a job applicant due to a black digital shadow. I said “if her out-of-hours behaviour would have no effect on her capacity to perform [the job]then you should not taken that information into account. Maybe in the back of your mind, you were looking for human qualities like tact, discretion and judgement in the role, and felt that the candidate had disqualified herself in those regards. [However] you were perfectly entitled to Google up both candidates, and should not feel guilty about it. It's a perfect illustration of Tama's point, that our reputation is increasingly sourced from the internet and will influence employers and the like whether we like it or not. So we should take pains to manage our digital shadow with an internet footprint, so to speak!” SC agreed, and added that “online communication is such an important part of our lives these days that in many roles, not knowing appropriate behaviour online seems tantamount to not knowing proper spelling and grammar, or not knowing how to use a word processor. This is, of course, not the case with all jobs. But I feel like for many jobs, not knowing proper online etiquette is a bad sign.”

SP argued that “shouldn't we be judged on our professional use of online communication rather our personal use when applying for a job?” but I felt that the proposition “when people apply for jobs, they submit their CV’s which includes their previous jobs, publications, referees etc. Recruiters are permitted to consult these, and they recognize that such references will always be selected to cast a positive light on the applicant. There is no justification to stop employers looking for an independent or more balanced view, but what those applicants also have a right to expect is that the employers will keep what they find in context, and will only consider material that is relevant to the job. The trouble is, a rejected applicant will never know for sure that it was their online reputation which cost them a job or an interview.”

This gets us to what is possibly the strongest argument in this NET11, namely that you can’t control what others post about you, and you may regret what you posted about yourself in the past, but you can try to counter an unfortunate digital shadow with a positive internet footprint, a personal web presence. MN is sceptical: “If something negative exists get a blog then? Recreate your image? There is a difference in skill from just posting to making a full blown hey i'm wonderful just because I was throwing up at a mate's party please don't neglect my job application blog or website. But if someone sees something on the net and determines you are the 'hoon' or whatever for relationships or jobs, and no amount of arguing with evidence convinces them you are not, then rent, mortgages and food are important, as is love, but do you really want to be with people or work with people like that?”

My comment on this topic “we would hope that prospective employers would respect [that] online reputation is not a black and white question of good and bad. What teenagers post about themselves, or have posted about themselves should not generally count for much 10, 20 years later especially if it's about relatively trivial matters such as partying, nudity etc. or even political views. What would definitely be of more concern would be if those early posts pointed to seriously warped values, like encouraging terrorism, violence, abuse or even discrimination. Values held deeply as a teenager don't go away, even if immaturity does for most of us. On one hand, a boss should not disqualify an applicant unless the poor reputation found online is identifiably relevant to the job at hand. And on the other hand, every single job applicant must accept that any employer is perfectly within his or her rights to seek any legally available information on that applicant.” The sickening example of Kenny the cat abuser, posted by MN, is an example of those “seriously warped values”. I would never employ that guy!

MN admitted the value of a managed internet footprint and called for judgement with “online presence can be crafted, I am now accepting that argument, but there might be something from over 10 years ago out there that may haunt, but people change, so let's hope there is a sensible approach from all parties on this issue.”

The above is only a selection of the posts on whether a person’s digital footprint should be accessed by prospective employers for example. It could hardly be said that we resolved this difficult question, but one thing looks certain – as today’s young move into and the workforce and up through career structures, their digital shadow looks as though it will be increasingly consulted by those recruiting them and promoting them. It’s best to be alert and prepared, if not alarmed.

Demonising Facebook

One of my fellow students mentioned that our blogs and conversations in NET11 were tending to demonise Facebook. Indeed, there have been little argument citing value in the social networking site, but (surprisingly) many people admitting that they are Facebook users despite the privacy issues we have been discussing.

Facebook has had two further dishonourable mentions in the news recently.

First, some students at the all-male St. Paul's College at Sydney University established an "open, public ... pro-rape anti-consent" site on Facebook. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, which broke the story on Monday 09Nov2009, the NSW Rape Crisis Centre described the site as "grooming perpetrators of sexual violence". The newspaper said that the students "proudly displayed their membership on their personal Facebook pages. Note to employers: don't forget to Google up male graduates of Sydney University over the next few years. A follow-up letter to the SMH editor criticised Facebook for "allowing these groups to indulge their sick ideas".

Then today, an item on the Channel Ten Sydney news reported that one Natalie Tomkins had been stalked by someone who got her details off her Facebook site. (The stalker had been identified and appeared in court today.) On the news, Ms. Tomkins said she had since removed all identifying information from her Facebook profile. I suggest you have a look at her Facebook site to see if you think she would like prospective employers to see this, or to consider whether she may have been inviting undesired attention. (By the way, I can't be sure this is the same Natalie Tomkins. It might be a case of mistaken identity, but I can say the image of her on Facebook resembles the person who appeared on TV tonight.)

There must be some good in Facebook. Googling terms like "worthwhile Facebook" didn't find me much - maybe this isn't a hot topic for research. But, prompted by another news item, I did find a personal Facebook page of "value". The site is that of Yoani Sanchez , who is a prominent Cuban blogger (Generation Y) who, in a parallel to the Baghdad Blogger, wrote about daily life and its frustrations living in Cuba. The news report talks about how Ms. Sanchez has been beaten up by Cuban authorities.

It's nice to discover that there are some serious (non-business) users of Facebook.

What Happens on the Internet, Stays on the Internet

Can, and should, this information be considered by future employers?

The proposition “what happens on the internet stays on the internet” is as absurd as its sporting and travel equivalents. I can see no basis to prevent future employers from obtaining whatever information they can readily and legally access on prospective employees. When people apply for jobs, they submit their CV’s which includes their previous jobs, publications, referees etc. Recruiters are permitted to consult these, and they recognize that such references will always be selected to cast a positive light on the applicant. There is no justification to stop employers looking for an independent or more balanced view, but what those applicants also have a right to expect is that the employers will keep what they find in context, and will only consider material that is relevant to the job. The trouble is, a rejected applicant will never know for sure that it was their online reputation which cost them a job or an interview.

An applicant aware that he or she has an unfavourable digital shadow would be well advised to counter it with a favourable Personal Web Presence as Tama has taught, and to possibly admit it up front in the job application, to prevent the “eureka!” moment. Even employers were young and immature once, and should be prepared discount history which is irrelevant to the job and to the applicant’s present situation. As Dana Boyd puts it: “Many of today's teens will also look back at the immaturity of their teen years and giggle uncomfortably. Over time, foolish digital pasts will simply become part of the cultural fabric.” However, where the unfavourable digital shadow is pertinent to (for example) a job’s requirements, then the applicant will have to live with it, and will learn Tama’s mantra to jealously guard your online reputation.

boyd states that "my generation isn't as afraid of public opinion as his was. We face it head-on and know how to manage it. We digitally document every love story and teen drama imaginable and then go on to put out content that creates a really nuanced public persona." Do you agree? Is boyd overemphasising the extent to which young people can design their online image?

Boyd is probably right to assert that “her generation” is less concerned about public opinion, but that is possibly because they are not aware how public are the details they have shared with their friends, and how they can count against you in the not too distant future. I reckon that young people can theoretically craft their online image to an incredible degree – they just need to make the determination to do it and have their wits about them from a very early age. I suspect this is not often the case!

Digital Shadow - Boyd's Trainwreck

danah boyd's article raises a number of interesting points regarding our perceptions of privacy and the arrangement of personal information online. This is a timely reading, as those of you with facebook will have noticed that the 'news feed' feature has been changed yet again. As always, a few questions to start us off:

- Inadvertent exposure: boyd addresses how personal relationships are transformed into quantifiable data online. How do you feel when your daily interactions, likes and dislikes are presented back to you as a public 'news feed' or list of actions?

I would not appreciate this at all, but then again, I don’t let it happen. Everything I read about Facebook makes me glad I have little involvement with it. Why would anyone post on Facebook everything they do when they know that it will be broadcast to everyone they know? Surely, to do so is the height of naivety and immaturity. Peer pressure must be the explanation.

- For those of you who use facebook, have you felt exposed as a result of the changes in format? Do you think twice, knowing that performing an action will produce data that is visible to all of your 'Friends'?

Not applicable to me, but I wonder what drivers are behind the “changes in format”. Is it (as we discussed in a previous module) commercial motivations driving Facebook’s quest for information about everyone? (Sounds unlikely, because it doesn’t add to Facebook’s database.) Are users actually asking for this facility? (I doubt it.) Are the ongoing changes part of experiments by Facebook to make the site more attractive to its impressionable customers, thus enabling it to grow? (I suspect so.)

- Information invasion: boyd comments that "the stream of social information gives people a fake sense of intimacy with others that they do not really know that well. If this is true, it could be emotionally devastating" (p17). Does the constant updating of your facebook Friends make you feel closer to them? Is this an asymmetrical relationship? Is it so different from 'following' a celebrity on Twitter?

Again, I can’t comment from personal experience. Facebook must be an interesting “topic” to study in that it produces such questions. I can only respond with another question: what motivates people to post anything on Facebook at all? It just seems to me that there is some pressure amongst Facebook devotees to report their every action, as if not to do so implies some sort of defect or failure. Twitterers seem to have the same behaviour. I joined Twitter as part of this Unit, but I find that most tweets, including my own, are most banal.

- - boyd argues that "infinite social information" can be ultimately destructive. Do you agree?
Infinite anything will probably destroy anything, but in this case, destructive of what? I think it’s Boyd who says that she receives so much information that it causes her to read none of it. In such a case, it is “overwhelming” and a waste of bandwidth. I suspect the biggest risk of destruction is to an individual’s time management and maybe self esteem?

Digital Shadow - Solove: Information, Liberation and Constraint

How might we protect our reputation online, given the speed with which unflattering or incorrect information can spread?
Tama has given us the answer to this question. If we fear that unflattering or incorrect information is spreading online, or is going to, the best defence is attack with a preemptive strike, namely a Personal Web Presence. This is best done early, so that search engines will have picked up the PWP and keywords of your name will cause the PWP to rank highly.

Another proactive stance is to modify one’s behaviour so that noone will be inclined to publish anything untowards. This would be hard for many to comprehend, especially the very young, but just as little children are taught “don’t talk to strangers”, so must they be trained in digital literacy (“don’t post anything you don’t want your mum/teacher to see”) and general good behaviour (“don’t do anything you’d be embarrassed about”). These sound like motherhood statements, and they are, but they are also values we should be imbuing in our children and adopting as adults.
The examples that Tama showed us in his lecture, and that Solove described, make fine case studies, and could be used more widely.

The internet may be a 'global village' but as Solove points out, it lacks the corrective familiarity of a real village. Or does it?
Even real villages have long memories. Whilst embarrassing information may live forever on the internet, some of the examples we have been shown demonstrate that people can learn from their mistakes and even overcome them (and others don’t). Heather Armstrong (dooce.com) may have been fired, but she has become a very successful blogger – she took advantage of her notoriety. Little Fatty is now a “star” although he was initially “devastated”. Both of these cases demonstrate that the global village can repair reputational damage, or at least compensate for it. Other examples have less happy endings.

Consider Solove's discussion of "John Doe," the anonymous person who contacted him online. If you want to check up on a person, how can you identify truth from misinformation online?
Nowadays, anyone offering themselves for employment or other consideration renders themselves liable to online scrutiny. It is in the interests of both parties for the scrutiny to be critical, but this is not easily achieved. Instruction will be given to “ensure that the source is credible”: this is good advice but it is often difficult to implement, especially when searching in unfamiliar territory or on controversial subjects. In academic pursuits, peer reviewed articles in “respected” journals score high in credibility, but these options are usually not available when investigating the reputation of a prospective employee, for example.
Checking up on someone, a scrutineer must rely on his/her judgment in the particular circumstances. Information on SNSs or in gossip columns would always have to be suspect, while data on government sites or from previous employers would be more credible, but still not infallible. Sources of news items in the media are supposed to be collaborated, but just view Media Watch on ABC1 for exceptions. Images are telling but they make be fake, manipulated or just taken out of context. Personal Web Pages are bound to be positive, by definition, but are not necessarily true. People lie about their past: one case in recent news concerns an 83 year old whose false claims have netted him $400,000 in unjustified pensions. See http://www.smh.com.au/national/fake-war-veterans-five-more-cases-investigated-20091011-gsdv.html .

What if someone has the same name as you? Not so good if they commit a crime or publish dubious photographs of themselves. How can you protect and define your identity as an individual online?
Having the same name as a criminal (or a terrorist) must be particularly hazardous especially if your name is not so common, and you are passing through immigration is some airport somewhere! Such matters make the news from time to time. Online, the problems are potentially similar, and the consequences may be just as embarrassing, inconvenient, expensive or career-busting!
This question reminds me of readings elsewhere in this Unit of the balance between anonymity and self-disclosure. Basically, the more (accurate) information you give about yourself, the less you could be mistaken for someone else or vice versa. For example, including an image with a biography online (in your Personal Web Presence) increases its strength of definition, and may help a scrutineer distinguish you from someone else (only if that someone else has his mug shot in there too!).
But total disclosure in a PWP will surely help overcome mistaken identity in an online search scenario, but that total disclosure must be balanced by an individual desire for privacy.

Digital Footprint - No Ego Surfing for me!

I’ve been mulling over this since the start of NET11, but the lecture and notes on Your Digital Shadow have finally crystallized for me what the Web Presence required for Assignment 4 is all about. It is Tama’s solution to the problem of managing your online reputation when faced with the reality that you can’t control what others may post about you, and whether its true or false. A Web Presence will certainly (eventually) appear high up in Google’s and other search engine’s rankings for any individual, and will help balance any misinformation or undesirable truths which are also there.

I find this a persuasive argument, but I’m still not quite buying it. Well, not for me anyhow. My reasoning lies in the answers to the questions that Gwyn has posed us on Ego Surfing …

This week Tama asked you to go 'ego surfing' using Google, Blindsearch and Spezify
- How did you go? Were you comfortable with the results, did you find information or images that surprised you?
- If you did not find much information on yourself, are you happy about this? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having little or no digital shadow?

I have an unusual name, so by Tama’s logic, that should help search engines find me without too much other noise. However, my surname happens to be a noun in English and other languages that gets associated with businesses and functions. I also have not participated in online social networking, and my previous business life was professional but confidential, and has definitely not led an online trail. Accordingly, putting my name into Google produced pages and pages and pages of links nothing to do with me. In Tama-speak, I am an online nobody, I have no reputation! Similarly, Blindsearch and Spezify produced nothing on me.

When I deliberately helped Google by adding keywords for specific organizations that I work with that have web presences, at last the search engine found me successfully. I am now only nearly an online nobody.

Did this shatter my ego? No, au contraire, I am comfortable with this situation. I don’t operate in industries where your online persona is all there is of “you”. My reputation is with people I see and work with on a regular basis. I am not looking for a job. I don’t care that people can’t find me online. It’s possible that old buddies would like to contact me, but they are disappointed when they can’t find me on Facebook. Well, they could try the hard copy or online phone books! I don't deeply feel the need for a Personal Web Presence at this stage.

As an aside, while trying to stroke my ego, I came across www.intelius.com which admits that it only covers US residents. This site found 48 people with my name, told me where they lived, who their relatives were, what their criminal record was etc. Crikey!

It’s a legitimate question to ask why I am doing this Unit? I’m obviously an SNS virgin! That doesn’t make me disinterested, however. I’m a technophile doing a Computer Science degree for fun. I’m fascinated by all this twittering about Facebook, I’ve done all of Tama’s activities, and I have found the learnings to be interesting and entertaining. I can now astound my younger friends and family members with my knowledge of “their preserve”. I think it makes them a bit uncomfortable.

It occurs to me that those associated with running this Unit (no disrespect to anyone) believe that virtually “everyone” is engaged in online social networking, and are surprised to find examples or people who are not. The statistics such as we saw at http://pewinternet.org/Infographics/Growth-in-Adult-SNS-Use-20052009.aspx are stunning, but that same graph shows that there is a very sizable demographic not engaged in SNS. With my ego-surfing such a failure, I thought I would try an experiment. I tried vicarious ego-surfing on behalf of a cross-section of my friends. I deliberately looked for friends in each age decade. I only used Google, and I looked at the first 3 pages for each name. I was careful to spell their names correctly and did not use nicknames. I used only first and last names. The results are below, with only initials shown to preserve my friends’ privacy (but to remind me who they are), together with sex, age and hometown.

1. T.E-A (16,M, Sydney): Very unusual name, Google produced only 4 entries in total, none associated with my friend. He tells me he is an active online social networker, but it’s obviously under an assumed name. I cheated with this friend and also tried his preferred first name abbreviation. Another 4 entries, two false and two contained his City To Surf results.
2. A. McC (21,F, Sydney): Slightly unusual name. Found numerous genuine references to her on skiing websites on the first page of Google, all posted by others. Found Facebook and Twitter sites for others by the same name, but not my friend. I know (from past experience) this person used to have a MySpace page – maybe she disguises her name.
3. K.M (30, F, Sydney): Very unusual name. Google only had 26 links total on this name, all were references to my friend regarding her profession, none were posted by her. Her reputation is indeed forged online, and she could well be advised to get her own Web Presence.
4. C.B (39, F, Central Coast NSW): Reasonably unusual surname. Google had 130 links in total for this name. Many pertained to my friend, all posted by others, almost all relating to her career and profession. Found her father’s Facebook site, but not hers (even though I know she has one). Also a photograph of her.
5. M.M.(49, M, Sydney): Common name. Google had 325,000 entries. He’d be embarrassed to see images of some people with the same name. Could not find any correct link to my friend, even after adding “linkedin” to the keywords, because I know he’s listed there. Is this the curse or the benefit of a common name?
6. A.S. (55, M, Melbourne): Moderately common name. Google had 1970 link for this name. The top link was for someone else, but the second and later links were for his own website (I created this for him a year ago – I should be proud to get such a ranking.). A “linkedin” page for A.S. (that I was not aware of) was also on Google’s first page.
7. D.S (67,M, Braidwood): Extremely common name, but I tried this friend because he is very well known in his profession, but not a celebrity. Google found 390,000 results. I couldn’t find any referring to my friend.
8. A.B. (73, M, Florida USA): Moderately uncommon name, Google found 351 links, many relating to my friend arising from his past professional career. Easily found a lot about his genealogy.

The lessons for me from these anecdotal exercises are that:-
• It’s best not to live in the USA.
• My friends, even the young ones, don’t have much of a digital footprint.
• You’d have to work harder than just putting a name into Google to find information on people with common names.
• Adding extra keywords (but only if you know them) helps a search engine immeasurably.
• People with uncommon names (like Tama) are easily found.

So, to Gwyn’s other questions…
- How were the search engines different? How might the presentation of information alter its impact or meaning?
Blindsearch was as Tama described. The 3 search engines gave quite different results for me and others from my list above, but I couldn’t distinguish quality or relevance.
Spezify has an attractive and interesting graphical approach, came up with noting for me, but found items on my friends that I hadn’t noticed in the Google search (it used MSN search). I can’t deduce how Spezify decides what graphics or text to use, or how to rank pages, but the effect is stunning. I’m going to use Spezify more often, especially when I’m looking for something offkey. I keyed in my suburb name and Spezify displayed a number of random photos of mine located in a website with a similar name. How did it do this?

- Would you be comfortable with an employer or employee searching for you? What about your family members?

No, I wouldn’t be comfortable with that, but it just brings home the lessons that Tama has taught us. Mainly, don’t post anything you don’t want you boss, staff or family to see, because it’ll be there forever. And manage your online existence with your own personal website.

Anonymity and Disclosure in Blogs

What role(s) can self-disclosure play in the relationship between bloggers and their audiences?
In informal forums (fora?), self disclosure, i.e. the revealing of information about oneself and one's views, would assist with credibility. Readers would feel that the writer is exposing him/herself to criticism and by taking that risk, is deserving of more attention. In formal or academic situations, self-disclosure would often be quite inappropriate and maybe unprofessional.

What did you think of the finding that bloggers feel most anonymous when the target audience is not one that the blogger knows offline?
I regard this finding as intuitively correct. When an audience knows the blogger personally, then that audience would have a greater chance of identifying the anonymous blogger from his language and views even when the blogger did not intend it.

What did you think about the study's finding that more bloggers were worried about their families reading their blogs (23%) than possible career damage (8%)?
That's an interesting finding, but it may be just a reflection of the sample, which was predominantly young people and students.

The study found that 43% of bloggers deal with their concerns over self-disclosure by self-imposed censorship. The author of a new book on the persistence of online information, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, argues that this kind of self-censorship stifles us. Do you agree?
I suppose it stifles us to some extent, but my inclination is to think that exposure to criticism and derision mostly causes bloggers to be more careful about accuracy and truth than they might otherwise be. Fanatics and bigots seem to be oblivious to this anyway - online bloggers and print journalists are equally capable of lies, bias and the selective use of data, when it suits them.

The authors argue that "the name "personal journal" is inaccurate and calls for revision, as many bloggers do not share their true feelings and thoughts. [...] When it comes to self-disclosure, it seems that they are cautious so as to avoid potential backlash." Do you agree?
Most bloggers would regard their material as more open to public scrutiny than their personal diary would be, no matter what the privacy settings. I agree that most people would have this in the back of their mind when blogging. The research suggests that true self-disclosure is proportional to the degree of discursive anonymity. The truth is that hard copy diaries are not that much more secure than private blogs - they can be read by family and friends, even after death, and they can be stolen.

Research methodology: was the study concerned conducted in such a way that you have faith in its results? Can you see any ways in which the results might have been biased? Was the research carried out in an ethical way?
The sample size was not great, but more importantly, the participants self-selected themselves. In this type of research, there is hardly an alternative, but self-selection invites biased participation and can lead to skewed results. I can't see anything unethical about the research.

Did you agree with the interpretation of the study's results?
My only comment here is that collapsing the categories to measure the interaction between parameters seemed simplistic, especially since the categories were not clearly mutually exclusive, but I'm not an expert in this field.

Is the study still relevant today? Are there aspects of it that need to be updated?
Given the evolution and rapid growth of blogging and social networking since 2005, the topic is more relevant than ever before, but these results would be obsolete. If the subject matter was deemed important (I'm not sure that it is), then a larger study would be warranted.

Sky's Questions on Internet Footprint

How important is 'netiquette' in our presentation of self online? Why do you think this?
I believe it to be very important. Failure to follow the norms and good practices of the relevant plaform diminishes your reputation amongst other users of the platform, and possibly causes inconvenience. Just as a trivial example, I retain emails as a "filing system" for a long period of time. When correspondents don't give good subject names, or none at all, it makes to much more difficult to find things later. Not following the implied norms leads to outbreaks of pedantry and wastes time.


What does your own Internet footprint look like at the moment?
My footprint is pretty light, because I don't engage in social networking, I've not been a prolific publisher of papers, and I'm not in the public eye. Last time I Googled my name, almost everything I found was not relevant to me. The one exception was the minutes of a community meeting I attended.

Did you try out the MIT personas installation? Were you surprised by the results? What does this tell you about the efficacy of data-mining?
Yes, I did try it out. Wasn't surprised by the results because I have a little experience with data mining and I know that imprecise data going in will yield wildly incorrect patterns and relationships. Data mining is a valid technique when sensible questions are asked and applied to relevant data.

Do you think carefully about what identity you want to present online?
Yes indeed, which is probably why my footprint is as if I've been walking on hard concrete.

Do you use an avatar online? If you do, why did you pick that avatar?
For the purpose of NET11, I have created an avatar. It is a rendering of a photograph of me, designed to "be me but not identify me". I have used this technique in some of my image manipulation work.

Do you agree that the presentation of identity has become technologised? What effects do you think this is having on us as individuals and as a society (or societies)?
I do agree with that proposition, but only for a particular (but very large and growing) demographic, mostly based on age. I had dinner last night with a group of people who (because I'm doing this unit) I surveyed on the subject. Most did not know what I was talking about! My adult son and a young woman at the dinner have a lesser online presence than I do, much to their amazement.

But (to get to the second part of the question) it seems that teenagers and young adults, as a group, are highly obsessed with their identity as revealed/displayed on their SNS of choice. By my observations, the people in this group are fairly open / honest in their online presence, and use it as a means of innocent (if banal) communication. I perceive that young people naively believe that their parents are unaware of their online activities.


Are there cues or keys that you consistently look for in dealing with people online. What are they? Why are they important? Why are they important online?
Yes, and I'm sure that I read more cues than I am aware of. Important cues to me are spelling and grammar in textual information, and in the selection of themes, images etc. Impressions count, and these cues tell me a lot about people that I am dealing with. When I know the individuals, these cues are a lot less important, but can still influence me.

Do you agree that social media is a fundamental shift in how we communicate?
Yes indeed, but again it depends on who "we" are. Newspapers and faxes, and even landline 'phones and email, have been subsumed by mobile phones and SNSs amongst the iGen demographic.

How actively do you 'read' others' profiles online? Do you look for clues as to who other Internet users are in their online content?
Not actively at all, I take my cues as they are presented to me. I'll look for more when I think I need it.

Content Sharing Activity

This is my motivational poster, made as instructed with http://www.bighugelabs.com.

The image I have used is from Flickr's library of Creative Commons - Attribution Non-Commercial photographs, but I couldn't quite see how to include the necessary attribution via BigHugeLabs, so I add it manually here below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/play4smee/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Maybe I did it wrong, but I found that BigHugeLabs did not integrate with Flikr that well even though I linked the two accounts. I had to leave BigHugeLabs, browse Flickr for the image, download it to my computer, then upload it to BigHugeLabs. I guess you get the hang of this with practice!

Course Material on Content Sharing

I thought this was going to be all about Napster, Bit Torrent and the like. I was wrong, it is much more interesting!

Thanks to the Mathes paper, terms I have heard before like taxonomy (science of classification) and folksonomy (tagging by the masses) I now understand. This paper highlights a concern I have felt when reading previous topics, that allowing users to create their own tags from an "uncontrolled vocabulary" will surely lead to numerous tags all meaning the same thing ("lack of synomym control"), and similar tags meaning different things ("ambiguity"). But then, Delicious suggests tags already applied to documents, so that's one way of reducing tag plethora. I like the Pareto-like analogy - compared to structured taxonomy, uncontrolled folksonomy delivers most of the value for a fraction of the effort! And, in my limited experience, searching keywords certainly does yield interesting and distracting surprises.

I never knew that Google's PageRank system was named after a person called Page. I thought it was just a way of ranking, well, pages on the WWW!

The Weinberger essay reading uses flowery language to say interesting things on the evolution of language (the archetypal folksonomy?) and how tags converge (e.g. on eBay, users have decided that "laptop" is preferable to "notepad") and as such folksonomy "operates as a loose, emergent thesaurus".

I've also learned what a "mashup" is. The video examples (both in the video lecture and the Notes) are indeed entertaining, but to answer Tama's question in the Notes, they are examples of both theft (in a legal sense) and creativity. The terms are not mutually exclusive. (One assumes the copyright holders did not give poermission!) To paraphrase our tutor, I am not at all interested on the genre, but I am greatly impressed by the skills applied and the dedication required from enthusiasts to produce these mashups.

In one sense, a mashup gives publicity to the original material, but I don't think it would be either welcomed or valuable. Faden's tutorial on copyright and fair use (fair dealing) was clever and most informative. I really wonder what could be produced if the creative energy of "pirates" could be better directed. Maybe a mashup is a job application?

Creative Commons looks to be a practical approach to copyright tailored for the internet, but one would not expect Hollywood or the major music distributors to embrace it. Nevertheless the Bon Iver record cover "open source culture" example in the Wolk reading is telling and probably cutting edge. I'd better move my Flickr photos over to CC, and tag them as well! And I'll use http://bit.ly/tamawiki to find image and maybe sound for Assignment 4.

Being a scientist, I subconsciously compare technical creativity with artistic creativity. All breakthroughs in science occur by building on someone's previous work. Patents delay that to some extent (26 years in Australia, I think), but (Tama explains) creative copyright has a life of 70 years after the creator dies! The commercial interests which lobbied hard and instigated this inequity deserve the contempt they attract. They are effectively nurturing the piracy they hate so much. Creative artists do deserve protection and reward for their efforts, otherwise, why should they bother? But the mainstream entertainment industry has by its own greed, failed to permit a decent balance between protecting the innovator/creator, and encouraging others to innovate/create.

I think I now know what a meme is, after hearing about them for a while in this Unit, but only because of the Muppet example. I remember them, Tama, thank you from the old-timers!

Thoughts of a Social Networking Virgin

Privacy

The boyd & Ellison paper outlines SNS' as challenging legal perspectives of privacy and asks "do police officers have the right to access content posted to Facebook without a warrant?" When do you think a social network is private and when is it public?
The internet is a form of open publication, and any material on it is able to be seen and used by anyone else unless rights are explicitly reserved. These rights may such as expressing a copyright for multimedia material, or, in the case of Social networking Sites, making privacy settings to suit your needs.

I would think that police would have every right to access content on Facebook or anywhere else when they can get it without being nominated as a “friend”, and without logging on with a username and password which is not theirs. If content is hidden behind passwords or privacy settings, then I believe it should not be available to any authority unless there is a legal warrant.

The Facebook terms of service, as quoted in our CourseWork has an intriguing clause: “subject to your privacy and application settings”. I’m no lawyer, but that clause seems to me to limit Facebook’s rights to “use” pretty extensively. But by all accounts (I’m a non-user of Facebook), Facebook does not encourage their users to stiffen their privacy settings, and the default privacy settings are “public”. This suggests that Facebook has scant respect for the privacy of their contributors. That said, Facebook does appear to allow its users to opt for privacy, if they try hard enough.

It is the personal responsibility of people posting information on Facebook to be aware of the implications. I have often read that “people are not aware of how public the internet is”. Well, despite the Stephanie Rice and British Intelligence examples mentioned by Tama, I think they should be aware, and it is their responsibility to be aware.

How do earlier identity modes such as anonymous identities in earlier virtual communities compare with public identities in SNS' such as Facebook? What do you think about the conflict between privacy and the need to share data (as stated in the curriculum - that's what social networking is about isn't it?).

The conflict is manifest. Facebook’s commercial interests may well be to collect information for consolidation and exploitation. The Terms of Service say “Facebook is about sharing information with others”. Facebook’s users may have certain privacy requirements even though they want to use the platform for the purpose of readily communicating with their nominated friends. If Facebook, through its Website and terms of use, allows users to specify privacy settings, then Facebook must respect them, regardless of the business objectives. Users must satisfy themselves as to the privacy of their information, and if they are not what is required, then they should not use Facebook.

This is difficult for young and inexperienced people, and making mistakes is part of the process of growing up and becoming wise. The main obligation on Facebook in this regard is that they make it clear to all their users the extent to which their personal information may be public, and how they can adjust whatever settings are available.

Copyright

In relation to what you have read and experienced about the TOS (Terms and Services) of social networking sites, think about the copyright issues you face as a user of these sites/services... What do you think about the ownership and use as in the terms and services of SNS' ? Do companies have the right to use data as we have outlined, data has value in the information economy? What do you think about the comment that 'these companies trade in data'?


To some extent these questions are not greatly different to those on Privacy. Users posting content over which they hold copyright are obliged to be aware of the TOS applicable. Subject to the settings they make, they may be giving up that copyright.

An oft reported matter is that users are posting material whose copyright belongs to someone else. Goldman (2007) reports that (under US law) “a website isn’t liable for hosting user copyright-infringing content unless the website receives a notice from the copyright owner and fails to promptly remove the content”. This seems to give SNSs an out when pirates post illegally obtained material, as well as the obligation to do something about it when they are notified. Stone (2009) recommends that copyright owners should post material on their own domain in the first instance, on the argument that search engines are savvy about original sources.

As for “these companies trade in data”, how can this be a surprise? It’s not a secret is it? Data definitely has a commercial value, as has been amply demonstrated by Google with targeted advertisements. But the only data SNSs have to trade in is that given to them by hapless users!

Goldman, E. (2007). Social Networking Sites and the Law. Retrieved on October 16, 2009 from http://www.ericgoldman.org/Resources/socialnetworkingsitesandthelaw.pdf

Stone, P. (2009). Social Networking Sites and Copyright Violations, Or ‘Hey Wait A Minute... That’s Mine!. Retrieved on October 16, 2009 from http://www.pattiedesign.com/pattiedesign/winter08_09.html



boyd & Ellison

After reading boyd & Ellison Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, what do you think about the definitions of 'social network' boyd and Ellison outline? What *is* a social network? What could a 'network connection' potentially mean? Do you feel the definition of a social network might include other elements or shouldn't include some elements? Is or has anything changed since the paper was written?

I am basically unfamiliar with Social Network Sites such as Facebook, MySpace or the others mentioned in the CourseWork. I am not a member of any of these and am unlikely to ever become one unless obliged to do so by this unit or some other. (My venture into Twitter and Flikr has been scary enough!) However, I am prepared to accept the three part definition by Boyd & Ellison on the grounds that (a) I can understand it, (b) it seems to make sense and (c) I accept their expertise (although, with respect to Ms. Boyd, I am a bit doubtful about a person suffering an affectation that requires her to decapitalise her name, but acknowledge that that is a minor crime).

Since some SNSs seem to link people to the networks of their friends, as described in the video in Tama’s CourseWork “Social Networking in English”, then theoretically a network could cover the entire world’s population. James Valentine, an afternoon presenter on Sydney ABC local radio 702 used to have a segment called “degrees of separation” where he challenged two perfect strangers to find a common acquaintance in a time limited on-air conversation. Mostly they failed, but I was amazed at the occasional success and how close many others got to it. So a “network connection” could easily be anyone in the world! How terrifying to imagine a grandly popular Social Networking Site which could link any two people together.

How to Identify Authoritative Sources

The topic of "the authority of sources" is becoming increasingly interesting as the world grows its reliance on online research. We are encouraged to prefer "authoritative sources" for citing in essays, but I wonder how ungdergraduate students, by definition unfamiliar with the subject, are meant to identify them. As far as I know, Google does not rank its finds by credibility or authority!

We can probably assume that any sources actually referred in our Course Work will be deemed to be authoritative, but what can we do after that? For online sources, can we tell by the font or the styling they use? Doubtful. What about how the sources identify themselves? If there is no author at all apparent, or his/her name is something like "head-kicker", does that make the source less authoritive than an author with a name like Cloyd W. Schingledecker Jnr? I am always impressed when a webpage has a date on it, but I can hardly argue that a date implies authority. Maybe it's the language used itself - more credibility will surely accrue to an author who writes in complete sentences in structured paragraphs, and knows about punctuation and capitalisation. I hypothesise that the more arcane (that's French for highfalutin') the language, the greater the authority.

There's no doubt that peer reveiwed journal articles published by Universities are going to score well in the "authority" stakes, but search engines don't always capture these well. Sometimes we can only get abstracts, often they are incomprehensible to duffers like me. I personally haven't had much joy looking through the online libraries (such as Curtin's), but maybe my searching skills aren't up to scratch, maybe I'm using the wrong keywords. So I tend to rely on Google, and then I take my chances on authority.

Any advice would be most welcome. It will be more highly regarded if it is fully refereed and sourced from Nature, of course.

Wikipedia Exercise

We were asked to edit a Wikipedia entry and see what happened. I couldn't imagine any Wikipedia article that I would be knowlegeable enough to criticise, much less edit, but, in surfing around the 'pedia, I came up with the entry for my suburb, Surry Hills, NSW. There were no grounds to disagree with what was there, but even without researching the topic properly (i.e. looking up the entries for other urban suburbs), I felt there was plenty of opportunity to expand the article from its meagre self.

The existing item did have dot point lists of churches and heritage buildings in the area, so I felt it was only appropriate to add lists of cafes/restaurants and pubs, both of which abound in this inner city region. I also added an item on our newest, rather iconic, public building, the Surry Hills Library and Community Centre.

Learning how to make the edits, and to use Wikitext was good fun, just technical stuff. Wikipedia itself provides lots of help.

I suspected that a Wikipedia entry on an Australian city suburb would fall into the obscure category and would suffer the same fate (i.e. neglect) as the hoax item on Seigenthaler and JFK's assassination.

Actually, it took a mere 27 hours for another contributor to edit my edit, for the express (and probably justified) purpose of "restoring encyclopaedic style". You see, I used subjective assertions in my contribution to the effect that Crown Street "is the heart of the Surry Hills community, featuring an eclectic mix of cafes and restaurants and funky fashion and homewares stores". My editor obviously regarded "funky" and "eclectic" as adjectives unsuitable for Wikipedia. He basically just deleted them. I won't object, but an item without adjectives can be pretty bland! (For reasons I don't understand, my editor left my equally subjective use of "excellent and diverse" intact elsewhere in the stuff that I had added. Maybe he/she enjoys the eateries of Surry Hills.)

But it goes to prove the case. You can't just post what you like on Wikipedia. Sooner or later, someone will see it and do something about it. All articles are indeed just "works in progress".

More on Blood and Blogs

Prompted by Gwynneth Peaty's Discussion Board questions, I think Blood's ideas are standing up pretty well in 2009, with at least a small fraction of bloggers doing high quality work and being taken quite seriously. Professional journalists must be feeling threatened by the strengthening competition from the WWW, mostly in blogs. It's notable that mainstream media are making increasing use of blogs themselves, probably to try to claw back market share appeal to a younger audience.

I'm older than most, and still enjoy reading the newspapers. But the page I've always liked the best is that of "Letters to the Editor", because that's where the public had a slight but very limited ability, highly moderated at that, to (a) comment on the news, but more tellingly, to (b) comment on journalists' treatment of the news. Blogs have freed up the citizen journalists from the agenda and bias of that editor and his or her publication.

Vegemite Mashup

This morning I read in the Sydney Sun-Herald (yes, I'm old enough to read newspapers in hard copy) that the winner of the Kraft Foods competition to name Vegemite's new cream cheese-laced version is Vegemite iSnack 2.0 . The news is also widely reported on the web. Try http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/mp/6103975/wa-web-designer-names-new-vegemite/

The entry was submitted by Perth web designer Dean Robbins - maybe he's a graduate of Curtin? His entry was "tongue-in-cheek", borrowing from both the "i" naming phenomenon and Web 2.0. But applying it to Vegemite? I'm quite happy that Dean should submit such an entry, but for Kraft to award it the first prize is quite amazing and it adds something to my understanding of how modern marketing works!

Now, I'm even spreading Web 2.0 on my breakfast toast!

Random thoughts on wikis

The argument that blogs emphasise individual writing (but give others a chance to contribute in the form of separate comments) whereas wikis emphasise collaboration (all contributors are equal) is accepted, but the distinction (drawn by Tama) that wikis are characterised by the ability to "edit within browsers" is more doubtful. Surely blogs are as well (I'm editing it in the browser now), as indeed are all forms of webmail, discussion boards etc.

Wikis are at best a defective form of collective intelligence (as defined by Levy & interpreted by Jenkins) because while "everyone knows something", that something is not available to anyone else on request as the definition would imply, but only by agreement and participation of that someone.

The technologist in me has some trouble distinguishing between wikis and blogs - as far as I know they are both based on scripting languages providing interactivity to web pages. The differences are just in the execution, in how that interactivity is structured. The "rules" which characterise blogs (latest at the top, comments allowed, links to related blogs etc) differ to those for wikis (all can edit the main document, history of changes kept, watchlists and rollbacks, intense hyperlinking etc) are firstly, just details in design, and secondly, just rules which can be innovated away. I imagine (i.e. I don't really know this) that the rules were largely established by following the protocols established by early successful exponents (such as Blogger and Wikipedia).

Despite my scepticism above, the power of collective intelligence displayed by Wikipedia is truly amazing. To have Dr. al-Halawi's deliberate errors corrected so quickly is incredible. And, like everyone, I was aware of the comparison between Wikipedia and Britannica, but did not realise until now that the study was conducted by Nature, making it extemely credible. It is interesting to note that that Anthony, Smith and Williamson report that the quality of Wikipedia's content is greater for registered contributors, and that repeat contributors are motivated by the reputation they accumulate.

In previous OUA units, I have bumped into academia's reluctance to allow citations from Wikipedia in research activities, but failed to really understand it. Tama's explanation (supplemented by appropriate other sources, of course) has clarified this for me. With my hand on my heart, I resolve not to cite Wikipedia again (if I can possibly avoid it!).

I like the view of Clay Shirky that effectively means that all Wikipedia articles are drafts, always and continually subject to correction. There is never a final version. Thus the hoax assertion of the journalist Seigenthaler's involvement in Kennedy's assassination was eventually corrected, although, being in an obscure article it took 4 months to be corrected and only after it was noticed by the journalist himself! Even before I read Danah Boyd's blog on the topic, I didn't accept Seigenthaler's argument that his experience proves the Wikipedia concept is (uniquely) flawed - to me, all journalism is potentially erroneous and has been demonstrated to be so time and time again. That obscure errors take longer to fix is only an example of prioritisation in action.

The video "Wikipedia as a News Source" is amazing. Who would have guessed that an online encyclopedia would be so effective in this way? Showing the historical evolution of the article is an incredible demonstration of the power of collaboration in an interactive medium. I'm very impressed.

It looks as though Wikipedia may be the only really popular wiki application which is serious in nature. Many of the others mentioned by Tama are to do with entertainment, TV shows, song lyrics, comics etc. These are serious topics for some people, but not for me. I like to be entertained as much as most people, but I'm not interested in studing that entertainment. I am not a fan! (So it was against my better judgement, I did sit through the screen cast on the Heavy Metal Umlaut.) So, apart from the 'pedia and recipes (surely the perfect topic for wikis), it seems that collective intelligence is not a widely valued concept. Maybe Wikipedia covers too much territory?

The above subjective response arose from Tama's popular wikis discussion. But the video "Wikis in Plain English" shines a different light on the topic, and provides an excellent illustration of a wiki's value for groups to collaborate on projects and for special purposes.

Bloggy Activities

The early days of blogging were extremely optimistic about the potential of blogs to give everyone who wanted one a voice and a venue to publish. Now that blogging is over a decade old, to what extent have these early predictions come true?

The predictions of that statement have certainly come true, at least to the extent of people with access to the internet. Only the most basic of computer skills are required to set up a blog, and these could be acquired by talking to the staff at your local library if you're nervous.

The Baghdad Blog of Salam Pax is evidence of this proposition, and the fact that he managed to convey a credible inside story to the world in a way that international media could not is a delightful irony. Also ironic is that he never intended it for this purpose at all, but was just trying to communicate with a lost friend!

The writings of Blood (2000) and Rettberg (2008) have been highly interesting but also somewhat disconcerting. Interesting, because they took me to places I would not otherwise have gone, and they explained many of the blog phenomena of Web 2.0, categorising them most effectively. Their historical perspective is most illuminating, and helps explain why things are the way they are today. For example, Blood notes that in 1999, Blogger, with its ready facility to respond with comments and to link into other bloggers, turned blogs from ... into a very frequently updated short-form journal on matters of personal importance. Moreover, the style transformed from possible editorial to conversational.

Also fascinating is Blood's discovery that, through her blogging, she discovered what she was really interested in, and that it wasn't what she had previously thought. I think that this arises from the therapy of writing for pleasure, and is something shared through the ages by journal-keepers and diarisers of their lives. The difference with a blog is that all the world can see it, and this no doubt has appeal due to people's hard-wired desire for recognition and a degree of celebrity. The very existance of plazes.com, which can track users geographically, is evidence that many people want their privacy invaded.

Rettberg's discussion of Granovetter's theory of weak ties highlights one area where Web 2.0, through some of its exponents, may be actually failing the dreams of Berners-Lee and other web forefathers. Sites which encourage closed clubs (Rettberg's examples are Facebook and MySpace) actually tend to stifle creativity and innovation by excluding new blood which are necessary to provide it.

Rettberg talks about blogs facilitating ‘distributed conversations’ and even ‘distributed communities’; what do you understand these terms to mean?

When Rettberg mentions distributed conversations, she is arguing that, in blogging, no one person, organisation or authority is leading the conversation, as for example happens with traditional media. Instead, the internet, with no central hub, is a distributed network, and bloggers on that network can communicate without needing reference (or permission) from the central body.

The term distributed communities arises from the argument that blogging is not really conversing because the listener is not (necessarily) present when the speaker is speaking, so to speak. But Rettberg quotes blogger Danah Boyd (who has an affectation causing her to decapitalise her initials) that blogs have the advantage of persistance over conversation. Thus advantaged, blogs can maintain their perceived importance in social networking, even if the word 'conversations' has to be struck out.

---

Blood, R (2000). weblogs: a history and perspective. Retrieved September 21, 2009 from http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Rettberg, J., (2008), Blogs, Communities and Networks in Blogging. Polity Press; Cambridge.

Is Web 2.0 Worth it?

Having read the Intro to Web 2.0, there is really no doubt in my mind that O'Reilly has it wrong. At best, it should just be Web 1.01 or something like that to highlight that the change is really just incremental at the most. The significant changes, as has been argued, are really just in the way designers are designing, and users are using, and I submit that that evolution doesn't justify the label of a whole new version.

When the web designers decided to use scripting languages like PHP to build interactivity into webpages (no doubt it started with forms, but soon expanded into blogs, which are just big and versatile forms), they probably didn't realise that they were relinquishing their monopoly on content. I'm saying nothing new here, but giving users control over the content of the world wide web is the most material aspect of Web 2.0, but only because it changed people's behaviour, not because it was a great leap forward in technology or engineering.

My grasp of where Tim Berners-Lee was headed is that he wanted a globally accessible and cross referenced database of all information. Parts of Web 2.0 would serve that objective - I'm thinking of Wikipedia here. But I can't see that he would see the rise in social networking as contributing to the goal - I suspect he would view it as a waste of time.

Corporation for National Research Initiatives

Today, when researching answers for our first Assignment, my surfing led me to the website of CNRI, and in particular, the 1999 paper by Kahn and Cerf entitled What Is The Internet (And What Makes It Work). This provided valuable insights for the Assignment, but what I also found fascinating was its predictions for the next ten years, given that it was written ten years ago!

Kahn and Cerf correctly anticipated huge growth in the internet, much higher transmission speeds, and the net's penetration into other devices like telephones, but they largely seem to have missed the evolution of what we now call Web 2.0. They anticipated issues with intellectual property (which immediately brings to mind the phenomenon of Google Books), but don't appear to have considered the interactivity and user-participation that Web 2.0 promises and indeed provides.

It's easy to have 20:20 hindsight, not so straightforward to have clear forsight, and I'm not meaning to criticise these authors for their lack of clairvoyance. However, it will surely always be interesting to look retrospectively at predictions made in the past of what our current world will be like!

Coming to Grips with Web 2.0

Having read our course materials and watched the iLecture on "Intro to Web 2.0". I've realised that Web 2.0 is a concept to be grappled with. No wonder I've never been able to make head nor tails of it from what I've read in newspapers and the odd computer magazine. Merely defining it as "interactive websites" is way too simplistic O'Reilly's remark "Like many important concepts, Web 2.0 doesn't have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core" puts it into a good perspective for me. The YouTube video on Web 2.0 is also helping crystallise this concept.

Both of the above sites were found after joining Delicious and searching for net11_test, so thanks to those other students who had previously bookmarked these sites. Using other search terms in Delicious wasn't so fruitful, and I found a lot of irrelevant content. Maybe, with experience, I can get better at finding useful material in Delicious, and hopefully I can achieve Tama's target of bookmarking 5 new sites. I haven't found anything really good so far that doesn't have the net11_test footprint already.

So, what is this Delicious thing? It's got a delectable name certainly. My first thought is that it is a "WikiGoogle", i.e. mainly a search engine but one where we, the users, collectively dictate the ranking rather than the secret mathematical algorithm adopted by the conventional search engines. That term has no doubt been use elsewhere, but I haven't seen it personally. (Searching for that tag on Delicious produces mostly links about Google Maps.) I haven't yet cottoned on to the social nature of Delicious - that might come later.

I liked Tama's presentation on McAfee's SLATES, so searching for that produced the blog by Hinchcliffe, 2006 which had a cute graphic but didn't really seem to add much to my undertstanding of Web 2.0, other than that you can buy a PDF of O'Reilly's report on its Principles & Best Practices for a mere $US375. For less than double that, I can get to see and hear Tama's almost certainly more entertaining expositions on the subject.

Module 1 Activities

Name Check
I haven't encountered namechk.com before, but it was interesting to test it out with a variety of candidates for my web presence names. It's quite difficult to find a "normal" word which is generally available, but I tested a few of my favourites and found a couple of suitable names. I'll decide later what to use.

Routing in Action
The visual trace tool is a lot of fun. After a while, I tried skype.com which I thought was based in the UK, but their web server at least must be in Canada, by this account. I tried a domain that I maintain with a host in Melbourne, and the trace ended in China. Is my hosting company outsourcing?

Then I tried another that I maintain but don't host, and it went the full circle via China back to Australia (see image).

Going Way Back
How interesting! I bet some designers and organisations cringe to realise that their old websites have been captured in this way. It's scary enough looking at old versions of my own sites.

The Initial Questions

I've been really slow getting started on this unit, too much work, too much travel, but here's my responses to the initial list of questions ...
How many of you have used email this week?
I use email all day every day, and only get a break when my travels take me out of range of a wireless signal, like I had last weekend. I feel that my life revolves around email!

How many have used a social networking site in the last week? I'm fully aware of social networking sites but have steadfastly avoided getting involved with them. I fear they are a huge waste of time, and pose a risk to your privacy. From what I've read so far, this Unit will require me to get involved with social networking sites, so I guess I'll break this drought soon. Maybe, I'll become addicted, but I hope not. I value my time too much!


How many of you have watched video content online? (YouTube, Facebook Video, etc.) Occasionally at most, usually to research a topic. Already in this Unit, I've used YouTube more than ever before.

How many of you have created media in the past week? (Share a photo, video, posted to a blog, or Twitter, etc?) Quite a lot, apart from this blog. I create and maintain websites and online databases for some Clubs and Community organisations, and maintaining + improving these sites is a reasonably heavy workload.

Opening my Ongoing Portfolio

Today is the last day of the first week but it’s the first day that I have been able to do any real work on this unit. Last Wednesday night I finished my SP2 examinations, and what little time I had on Thursday was spent on downloading materials for NET11, knowing that I would have time to review them on the weekend, but that there would be no connectivity.
So, it’s ironic that here today I am starting a unit on the Internet but I’m in a location, Riverwood Downs, 20km into the Barrington Tops from Stroud, some three hours driving out of Sydney, where there is no connectivity via my Telstra 3G card, in fact not even any mobile phone reception at all! As if to compound the isolation, this 4.5star resort has no telephones in the rooms and cabins, and the only public phone is “out of order”.
So I read through the downloaded material for Module 1. No chance of accessing the links or doing the activities – that’ll have to wait until I get home, including the only first week activity of accessing www.namechk.com.
It dawns on me I know a lot of this stuff, and maybe I should have considered applying for an exemption from NET11. But I come to the same conclusion as previously that my whole purpose in doing this and other units is to get formal training in subjects that I have a reasonable informal understanding of. I have found in other units that my informal understanding was patchy at best, and the rigour of undergraduate coursework together with the discipline of assignments and examinations has rounded me out considerably. So I decide, as before, that it’s the right thing to continue.