Parker English
From Collectivate Course Wikis
http://www.jondb.com/temp/panoram4.jpg
Please visit my group section:
Socially Networked Video
Research
My research is about the implications and effects of socially networked projects.
Our project this semester will be an expansion of the previous version of Socially Networked Video. Having created a proof of concept last semester we will now be able to focus on creating the tool that we had originally conceived. With the completion of this project by the end of this semester, we will be opening the doors of Socially Networked Video to the public domain, allowing outside sources to create custom content.
Last semester, after seeing reactions to our project from other people who had the chance to experience it (other than ourselves), we noticed that the content, which was originally not the forefront of our project, seemed to take center stage. While on one hand this seemed to signify success, that the software-end of things worked seemlessly enough to deliver the intended experience, we also felt that it detracted from what we really really wanted people to see, the software itself. We not only want this software to engage the public as an interactive piece on the front-end, but we'd also like them to have personal realizations and possibly aspirations as to what they could do with the software themselves. So hopefully this time around, with the core group focusing on the application itself, we can produce a better user experience (and with feedback, tailored to what authors and viewers would like to see) as well as a nifty set of tools like live counters, stats trackers, chat, etc. (you can read more about it in the Tech Specs).
Week 4: Collaboration: For the Love Of It
Reading:
In the growing collaboration hype the 'alternative economy' aspect is underexamined thus far. If we know that we can get a piece of software, music or a book for free through our social network, why would we bother to buy it? Why pay for Britannica if Wikipedia has a comparable yet free offer? We are willing to live with (and work on) the many problems of this free encyclopedia. We shed no tears for those waspy pipe smoking Britannica editors! They are out-collaborated.
Lovink, Geert, and Scholz, Trebor . "Colaboration: For the Love Of It." Data, Death & Desire. 2006. 4 Feb. 2006 <http://wiki.critical-netcultures.net/wiki/index.php/Collaboration:_For_the_Love_Of_It>.
Response:
I find this quote and idea to be interesting because of the discussion on Wikipedia. Just recently have I started using Wikipedia for a reference when I am in need of some sort of knowledge. It seems to be one of the most up to date and extensive resources available anywhere today. The problem I have with it is it's credibility, can it be used as a reference when you are trying to do research on a particular subject? How are you to know that the person who wrote it is any sort of authority on the topic they are writing on?
As I continued to read on through this essay I was still thinking about the idea of Britannica Encyclopedia vs. Wikipedia. What came to mind is what authority do the writers of Britannica have in telling us about whatever topic they are reporting to me. We take for face value their Authority because they are printed under the name of Britannica. I have no doubt that they did the research on the topics by going to the people knowledgeable in specific fields and getting the information...so how is this any different then Wikipedia?
The difference is that a step is skipped, instead of going out to find the information, the person knowledgeable in the area of inquiry gives the public the information first hand. Like the editors of Britannica other people are constantly reading over and revising the information, often times doing a better job of finding factual correctness then a print editor could do.
To me Wikipedia is one of the best examples of collaboration I can think of. The constant revision and addition make it a great tool for people in search of information. I am not sure of whether it is an acceptable source in scholarly research but if it isn't then there is a strong case to be argued.
Week 5: Tracing the Evolution of Social Software
Reading: Tracing the Evolution of Social Software by Christopher Allen
Several years ago, in the depths of the tech recession, there were signs of creative life in weblog and journal communities, conversation discovery with daypop and then technorati, the growth curve of wikipedia, mobile games, photo and playlist sharing. The liveliness was about the communities, and also about the culture of tool mix'n'match bricolage. Many of the attributes of social software -– hyperlinks for naming and reference, weblog conversation discovery, standards-based aggregation -– build on older forms. But the difference in scale, standardization, simplicity, and social incentives provided by web access turn a difference in degree to a difference in kind.
These forms grew without any forced discussion "how to incent participation". People are compelled to write blogs and journals to show off and to share, to contribute to wikipedia and open source software projects for the joy of building things with other people. There are some lessons about social patterns and social affordances that this generation of social software communities and tools get right, are worth understanding and building on.
Response:This quote is interesting to me because up until this point I hadn’t thought of why people find it necessary to participate socially on the web. Do people do this because they want to reach out to their fellow man whether it be through providing them with information or just interacting with them? I think it is something more then this, while the resulting effect is the same, the main reason people do this is to make a mark on the world in someway. If you live in Texas and are able to help someone in New York with a programming question you are now spreading your name several thousand miles. It’s a small piece of fame you earn, maybe the person will never remember you but YOU know that you helped them.
To a certain extent I can understand the feeling of this, I take pride in being the person to come to if something needs to be fixed in the real world. I have trouble however with seeing the point of the social side. I have enough trouble with keeping my real life relationships working, never mind virtual ones. I have tried blogging but ultimately gave up because I didn’t believe there was anyone who would care to even bother reading it. I was never able to get hooked on social networking sites like Friendster and MySpace until Facebook came along. The only reason I find Facebook worth while however, is because it helps me keep in touch with friends I already had, I’m not using it to seek out people I don’t know and try to meet them. Not to say I am not “friended” by people I don’t know, I am, but its because they friended me and I didn’t want to be impolite.
Week 6: Notes on Making Good Social Software
Reading:
Pillars of Social Software
1. Establishment of Handles: Anonymity doesn't really work well with social software, but users want their privacy. Allowing them a handle to use lets people start tracking who said what and for people to find each other and form groups. In general, switching handles must be penalized to encourage constructive behavior.
2. Allow for Members in Good Standing: Permit users that contribute well or do good works to get recognized. This can be as simple as associating their handle with their social activities or it can be much more sophisticated. There just needs to be a connection between the handle and the social behavior for others to observe.
3. Barriers to Participation: This seems counterintuitive to social software, but it isn't. The history of social software has time and again pointed to the need for certain controls in a social system to be harder to access. Anonymous users get lower credibility and abilities than identified users, and even fewer users have the power to moderate or exercise central control. Without this, the core group won't have to tools necessary to maintain order and defend the overall social group, and chaos would eventually reign.
4. Protect Conversations From Scale: With the Web, the numbers of users in a social setting has no practical upper bound, but most social activities are groups of two-way conversations. In a setting of thousands of people, no one can track the conversations and get involved. Forget about the social software sites that have tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Finding way for people to self-organize, split up and reform dynamically, and form affinities with groups is one way. There are many others.
Hinchcliffe, Dion. "Notes on Making Good Social Software." SOA Web Services Journal. 5 Jan. 2006. 10 Mar. 2006 <http://web2.wsj2.com/notes_on_making_good_social_software.htm>.
Response:
I think that these are interesting “rules” to follow for creating a strong social software site, especially the idea of establishing handles. The first version of SNV was rather limited in that it was only useful as a novelty item. Since we were the only people who could use the video player the entire idea was limited to our ability to create videos and since none of us claim to be filmmakers this is a large problem. By making it more of a tool this semester our concept is going to become a much stronger and practical project. Looking at the rules as listed by Hinchcliffe it is clear that we have already taken into consideration many of the concepts that he talks about.
Week 7: A Democracy of Groups
Reading:
We know that the design of the technology has implications for the production of power and social arrangements. The ability of people to collaborate with each other relates directly to the technologically produced environment. In particular, as this paper argues, the design of the screens and interfaces through which we interact with technology and with each other, can help us to see the group and understand the roles and relationships within the group. So if we normatively care about the potential of the group, then technologists should design for groups.
Noveck, Beth S. "A Democracy of Groups." First Monday. 11 Nov. 2005. 17 Mar. 2006 <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_11/noveck/>.
Response:
This excerpt is important to the concept of SNIVY. Since Tom came up with the idea of using the Dunbar number to limit friendships within our site I think this excerpt has become even more valid to our project. On our site, not only is the interface an important aspect of the group experience but also how you personally interact with others. Since you will have to maintain friendships your interface will be constantly changing without your direct control. This concept is built on the success that other socially networked sites have had while still trying to expand the validity of the social network system. In addition to the standard delayed interaction (ie message sending and response) that is found on sites such as facebook and MySpace our site has the first person interaction as a requirement. Not only do you meet people and share videos but you also chat with them in the same window you watch the videos in.
Week 8: The Significance of "Social Software"
Reading:
While the term social software may be contested, it is undeniable that this community has created a resurgence of interest in a particular set of sociable technologies inciting everyone from the media to entrepreneurs, venture capitalists to academics to pay attention. What is questionable, and often the source of dismissal from researchers, is whether or not the social software community has contributed any innovations or intellectual progress.
Boyd, Danah. "The Significance of "Social Software"" Many 2 Many. 8 May 2005. 1 Apr. 2006 <http://many.corante.com/archives/2005/05/08/the_significance_of_social_software.php>.
Response:This is an idea that we had to deal with when we decided to make SNV a tool that would be open to the public. Our initial idea was to make it free for everyone who wanted to use it without requiring them to be a member a network but this was counterintuitive to the overall concept of Socially Networked Video. Since we wanted to promote the idea of participating socially while watching videos we realized that having the social interaction end with the video tainted the concept. There needed to be more social networking for it to fit our ideas but we also didn’t want to create a clone of MySpace or Facebook. While both those forms have had obvious successes we wanted to take cues from their ideas and integrate them with ours. In addition we didn’t want our video player to be nothing more then an added bonus of being on our network. We wanted it to be the reason for being on the site, if you’re on it and not watching the videos then there is no point in being a member of the site. In other words, to be in good “social standing” you have to be a participant and not just an onlooker.
Week 9: The Joy of Tec - Anti Social Software Suite
Response:This site gives a humorous look at the idea of social networking. It makes fun of the fact that so many people waste a great deal of time interacting on these sites as well as the stereotypical things that people do on these sites. A good example of this is the “Disturb-a-tars” which is really the opposite of what most people do when they create an online account. Most people find the best picture they can of themselves so as to portray themselves in the best light this site promotes using pictures that portray you poorly. It’s a pretty ironic look at social networking because it offers all these useless ways of avoiding it while the real solution is to just not participate at all. It also implies that the idea of social networking is addicting even if you don’t really want to participate.
Week 10: Trend Spotting
A satirical video about social networking that aired on Comedy Central's Daily Show
Response:This video really looks at many of the problems that we are trying address with SNV. As is shown in this video, it is impossible to maintain 9000 true friendship online. The clip itself makes it seem like it's actually easier to be friends with people online because of the automations that technology gives us. On our site however this will not be an option, we are forcing people to interact with each other and to forge true friendships. With our site, like in real life, if you do not maintain contact with a person they will become nothing more then an aquaintance. This will hopefully add an edge that the rest of the social networking sites lack.
Week 11: Dodgeball.com : mobile social software
Description: A social networking site that is designed to be used with text messaging. When you your location the site automatically recognizes where your friends are and sends them messages telling them you are near by and where you are.
Review: The concept of this site seems to be a good one in theory but the over all execution is tough to execute. Your friend list is limited to the people you know that are listed on the site. If this was somehow integrated into a more popular site like facebook or myspace perhaps this would work fine but as is I think it would be hard to get people to sign up, especially when people are required to give their cell phone numbers.
This brings me to another thing that limits the potential of the site. Many people enjoy the anonymity of other sites because they are only required to enter an e-mail address as identification. A cell phone however has a direct tie to you with your name, address, and billing information attached to it and I think that giving out information like this on the web is still scary to most people.
The last thing that I dislike about this site is that most people are aware of where their real friends live and if you are in touch with them, when they will be in town. I feel if one of my true friends is in town then they will call me and try to get a hold of me. Without direct invites I would find it hard to just show up and see someone because I received a text message saying they were 2 blocks away. So overall this site is a neat concept but I think lacks in its usefulness.
Week 12: friendsorenemies.com
Description: A social networking site allows you to network with people and like other networking sites allows you to friend people. The catch on this site is that you can also make someone your enemy which is basically saying they are the opposite of your friend.
MISSION STATEMENT (taken from site)
So we've all been lurking around the internet, anonymously hating on each-other - we've all done it. We've all had it done to us. Over here at the brain-trust of Friends or Enemies we've been sitting around in lab-coats trying to come up with a solution. We figured rather than try and play nice we'd bring the beef to you.
Review: I can honestly say that I hate this site and the idea behind it. It is an exact clone of all the other socially networked sites with the one added feature. In examining the site it can be seen that the site is popular with in the "emo rock" scene, maybe because it allows you to "hate" on other people. This is what disturbs me the most about the site, if I dislike someone, I avoid them rather then trying to make it known how I feel. To me, listing someone as an enemy could only make any tension between the two of you many times worse.
Overall I think that this site really brings nothing positive to the world of social networking. Even if what they claim to be the "revolutionary" part of the site is valid, it is doing nothing but trying to destroy both real and virtual relationships. http://www.friendsorenemies.com
Week 13: flickr.com
A site for sharing and linking personal images based on keyword tags
Review:Although I have known about flickr for some time I had never really thought of it as a social networking site until recently. One day while happening upon the site accidentally I noticed that under the images people had been commenting about the quality and the positive aspects of the image. From those comments I started jumping around from photographer to photographer and looking at their images. I spent several hours looking at pictures that I would never have seen if it weren't for the site. Many of the people were novice photographers, taking photos with nothing more then a point and shoot digital camera. By participating and commenting on other's photos it drew me to their site full of images. I thought that this is an interesting aspect of the site. In order to get noticed you really have to participate... I wasn't searching for the images I found, I only happened upon them by accident. It was also nice to see that the overall community was very positive and supportive. Many (obviously professional) photographers commented on good pictures that were taken by novices. In fact all the photos had positive comments, which makes sense; what is the use in expressing your dislike for a photo?
Overall I enjoy the interface of this site, it allows people who want to just post personnel photos of whatever. In addition it allows people to show off their photographic skills and receive assistance from people with more experience. http://www.flickr.com
Week 14: OpenSourceCinema
A site that allows you to upload/download footage and remix it into a piece of your own then put that piece up on the site and have it viewed by others.
Review: I like the concept of this site but I also think it might be somewhat limiting. I feel it will probably be a good place to screen your work and maybe a good place to find resources (once it's more mainstream) but I find it hard to believe that people will be able to create work that is not abstract from the "found footage" they get from the site. There is nothing wrong with abstract film but I am not sure that this is what the site is promoting. Another problem I forsee is issues with stolen footage, while posting your own work it is acceptable but what happens when people post interviews from NBC or FOX? I feel that the site could quickly run into legal troubles when the files they supply start becoming repurposed in a bad way.
Over all the site seems like a good idea and I am interested to see how it progresses beyond its current state but right now it is difficult to get a good read on what the site will evolve into. http://opensourcecinema.org
Project
Group Members:
Links
User Contributions
(Please Place your comments here)
Trebor's recommendation
Read: