Facebook Fairytales

Modern-Day Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirit?

So, while this blog makes sense given the chapters I read.... I made a grievous error and simply read the first 10 chapters of Facebook Fairytales, rather than a mix of 10 different chapters. So, keep that in mind when reading my post for the week because I can completely relate to the online memorial which I have since read about and have personal experience of, sadly, using Facebook for this purpose.

While I liked the preliminary 10 chapters of Emily Liberts amusing and touching read on the remarkable occurrences that have taken place as a result of the Facebook revolution, I was still left wondering were these occurrences truly "Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirt"? While there were both undoubtably touching and moving accounts in Liberts compilation of stories, I can't help but to be skeptical of the notion that Facebook is this earth-shattering mechanism by which modern day miracles are taking place.

Not to belittle the touching stories and heart-wrenching tales of several individuals mentioned in Liberts' book, however for some reason I seem to be unable to regard these stories with the same seriousness and authority as I would have if they had taken place through a different medium beyond Facebook. I don't know if it is because from day one, in growing up with the tool (as someone put it yesterday), Facebook, while it has been a momentous means of staying in touch with all of my friends, family and the like, as well as, uploading photos, sharing videos and creating events, is such a mundane part of my everyday life that I could never put it on this level of being a life changing tool. When you use a tool like Facebook for such mundane means it is hard to believe that people can view the tool as revolutionary, let alone life changing.

And yet for the people mentioned in this book, that is exactly what Facebook did, change their lives? The one story I really connected to was the story of Chris Hughes use of Facebook during Barack Obama's campaign trail. There are the obvious reasons of course as to why I enjoyed his story, he took a tool and retooled it to market and appeal to a mass audience for political motives and made use of a demographic crucial and largely unaccounted for in voting numbers by using a built in social network, to which a large portion are members or have access. However, there is more to his story than his innovative use of Facebook in the political campaign. The reason that this story resinated with me was because Chris Hughes has grown up with this tool, literally. From the moments of its conception in his college dorm room in 2004, to his use of the Social Media Network in the 2008 presidential campaign Hughes has been involved in Facebook's innovation every step of the way. So, needless to say, in being current with the site from day one and has never lost something or someone to be rediscovered years later.

I don't know if its because I cannot relate to rediscovering old ties because all my ties are current on the network, but I really cannot seem to relate to this idea of taking the plunge into joining Facebook and reconnecting with someone I have not spoken to since Kindergarten. I use Facebook in a day to day, up-to-date, methodology, where as the generations who proceed me use the tool to take a walk down memory lane. Facebook (for me) is all about recording the current memories, in a sense, I am archiving and reaffirming what I already know. So I must ask, in considering Facebook and these stories within this context that have... I have to wonder, have I been so consumed by the next big evolution in technology that I have been blinded to the importance of the residual effects of Facebook.

Is the Tipping Point Toast?

I found it very ironic that I happen to select Clive Thompson's article "Is the Tipping Point Toast" this week; ironic because this summer apart from spending my daily commute into New York City sleeping, I had the opportunity to read both Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and his compilation of articles in What the Dog Saw. Even more oddly enough, last night, during our discussion on tie strength and the ideas of betweenness-centrality, density centrality and eigenvector centrality my mind kept jumping back to Gladwell's analysis of mavens, connectors and gatekeepers. I kept having this notion that if these connectors could be found in the flesh, why not in social media as well. Flash-forward to the end of Thompson's article, did I, by his standards, waste my hourly commute this summer, is Gladwell completely full of it? Is the world just too complicated and yet we are attempting to explain and study a natural order that is beyond the grasp of science?

With those pensive notions out of the way, one thing I want to comment on more specifically, which I found to be both very humorous and applicable to our previous class discussions, is how Duncan Watt got his start in the study of trend research. How exactly you might ask? By studying the chirping of the snowy tree cricket, of course. Not only did I find this funny, but I immediately thought of its likeness to Twitter. Change the animal from a cricket to a bird and the chirp to a tweet and what you have is an electronic social media site essentially mirroring the spread of chirping (information) through the cricket network. Not only did I draw on this direct parallel, but I also focused again on this idea that things take place on the internet and in social media as they do in natural life, but differently. Here you have this preliminary viral spread of information through a network, the biggest difference between the two however, stems from the scope at which this information has the ability to spread. Twitter, among other things, offers the unique ability not only for a tweet to spread like a contagion, but to do so on a global scale. However, as the worm on Twitter demonstrated yesterday, the sheer scale and volume of a network has its drawbacks. Information is inherently looking to break free, but if a network is exacerbated to its fullest potential can we stop this information when we want to? This capability seems obvious in the natural world, as the natural world possesses natural limitations; crickets are by no means above these limitations and like it or not they cannot swim so the issue of viral transmission can end at the edge of the ocean, but where is our ocean or fail-safe switch in social media. Can it be argued that there is too much influence and no good way in which to turn it off.

Although I feel like I am bouncing around a lot today in my post, I also wanted to comment on another parallel between gatekeepers, betweenness-centrality and the award winning show Mad Men. Last night when we were discussing connectivity within a network based on nodes and ties and who actually was the most connected, I was especially interested in the comparison between the formal and informal structure of an organization. The notion that true connections within a business are based upon informal ties I find to be reinforced more and more; its not just about who you know, but in what capacity. Although the Vice President of a company has a far superior rank to the President's secretary on a traditional hierarchy, the VP still has to go through someone else to get to the President. This idea, "reach the gatekeepers, and you reach the world", not only thoroughly excites the pitchmen mentioned in Thomson's, but made me immediately think of the show Mad Men on AMC, which apart from being a standout show, really emphasized the power of the informal social network. While Sterling Silver (the marketing madhouse, home to the characters of Mad Men) obviously has the head honchoes, executives and all around important people, as Joan explains to Peggy (a new secretary at the firm), the people you want to be best friends with don't have a corner office, they are the women who operate the switchboard. What good is it if an executive has something important to say, but they don't have a line of communication to say it on? During the period of time in which Mad Men is set, the walled garden of Sterling Silver's organization was made especially high by the fact that the only way to communicate time sensitive or important information, ultimately flowed in and out through a single source, piss-off the switchboard operator and kiss your job goodbye.

While I acknowledge that the channels of information today are far less restricted, I do not feel that we can entirely disregard the importance of certain individuals in a social network. Maybe "influentials don't govern person-to-person communication", but they cannot be disregarded entirely. While we can come up with statistics, evidence and evidence that refutes evidence, what good does it do us? In studying how social ties and strengths are effected and affecting could we in fact be overanalyzing. Are we in fact trying to explain and oversimplify a natural order beyond the realm of exact science, can you really put a statistic on influence. Are we in fact, simply underestimating context and relativity because as Watts says its not "possible to will a trend into existence".

I really enjoyed this article for its relevance and use of current material, much of which I also have read. It allowed me to challenge and question my initial thoughts- there are two sides to every story. (9/10)

Crisis of Community

Upon looking at the reading list for this week, "The Wikipedia Revolution: Crisis of Community" immediately caught my eye. As I had indicated in my previous post, on Professor Gallaugher's text, Wikipedia still ceases to amaze me every time I consider the shear volume of content and information regulated by the people for the people. Not to mention, the pervasive stigma surrounding the validity of Wikipedia's content. Obviously with this in mind, it was only natural that I delve into the "The Crisis of Community".

In examining this particular reading, I was struck by several specifics. The first of which relates back to a brief discussion we had yesterday about the necessity of training people in the realm of social media - you cannot simply give people tools and expect them to know, not only how to use them, but to do so effectively. Social media and the Web 2.0 has become such a force to be reckoned with that while everyone from grandma to my seven year old sister is doing it, to be truly harnessing the power of the web, be it for monetary value or personal value, you cannot expect magic to happen. Social Media more and more is becoming a trained profession that requires time and a skill set to use effectively, despite the fact that 10 years ago this was hardly the case. With this parallel in mind, I was particularly intrigued by the evolution of the Wikipedia User:RickK. RickK really provided an evident example of just how rapid the evolution of the social media skill set truly is. Back in 2003 RickK, after just a few short weeks of being an active editor and contributor to Wikipedia, was nominated to be an administrator. With just six votes in his favor, RickK rose to the rank of administrator without even understanding what is was that an administrator did. With this in mind, flash forward to 2007, nominees to become an administrator on Wikipedia "[ran] the gauntlet" , requiring more than 1,000 edits and at least three months of experience on the site as an editor to even be considered. In the space of just four years, something that was '"not a big deal"' became a privy position. One thing that continues to amaze me about the innovation and expansion of social media and the web is the sheer speed and volume at which they expand. People often view change as a bad thing, however if people stop and stare, these innovations will pass them by, leaving them with a missed opportunity to take a tool and make it work for them. Social media and the web are of value because, as four years in the life of Wikipedia demonstrate, one must not shy away from the notion that the demands of social media and the web 2.0 are continually expanding and it is our responsibly to match those demands with expanded knowledge of what the web can do for you!

On a completely different note, the other issue raised by this article, which I actually found shocking was this mentality of "assume good faith". Wikipedia's mentality upon taking things at face value, while noble, is hardly embracing the realities of society. There is a good reason as to why my parents have told me time and again never to talk to strangers, be it on the web or in the living flesh. This idea seems to piggy-back what we were discussing in class about how morality exists on the web, but in doing so it does not necessarily mirror its role in the real world. Specifically, if you met someone and they claimed to be a professor with a pHD, you would for all intensive purposes believe them, especially if you saw their diploma or took one of their classes. However, if this person was simply posing as a professor and this information came to light, they would likely face sever consequences, as they are for all intensive purposes falsifying their identity. And yet the user Essjay on Wikipedia did just that, except he did it within the online community, and got promoted for it! In fact the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Whales, "[didn't] really have a problem with it"!

So I guess this leaves me with my question, why is it that we do not hold individuals accountable for their actions on the web in the same manner that we would in a physical face to face social network? When it comes down to it there is still a human interaction happening, there might be a computer in the middle, but at the end of the day two people are connected, albeit by fiber optics. And yet, in the split second that it takes for data to fly between the two, why is it that people do things that would never be tolerated in a face to face context?

Peer Production, Social Media and Web 2.0

In reading Professor Gallaugher's chapter on peer production and social media, I found extensive overlap between not only our class and the text, but even more specifically, the text and our class discussion yesterday, which we based around "Here Comes Everybody".

The first aspect of the reading that related heavily to our discussion was again this idea of the antiquated and bland technology making for the most interesting social media implications. A very appropriate example, as I am posting on one right now, is the blog. The blog, once known as a medium for posting online diaries, has developed itself from very humble beginnings, to public blogs numbering in the hundreds of millions (no thanks to me). Blogs have been so common placed that "blogging is now a respected and influential medium". Over the course of the last ten years blogs have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. And now as they sit at the other spectrum things really start to get interesting. Who would have thought 20 years ago, even 5 years ago that newspapers would be dying out, however in the last few years online news content has increased exponentially, leaving their paper predecessors in the dust. And with no limits on page size, word count or publication date the sky is the limit when it comes to blogs. It is no surprise therefore, that in our need for detail and depth that mainstream media sources are supplementing their content with blogs. Who knew blogs could have a hand in bringing down the NYT?

Further expanding upon this idea is the sheer size and success demonstrated by Wikipedia. One of the widest known Wikis in cyberspace, Wikipedia, like all other wikis, stems from the simple idea of "what you see is what you get". It is upon this simple platform that a highly accurate home to the wisdom of the crowds has spawned and contrary to popular belief, thanks to an active and up-to-date wiki community, is very accurate. The excessive amount of not only information, but accurate information, could never be possible if it weren't for the relatively simple and collaborative nature of the wiki.

I would also like to draw further upon the idea of blogs policing companies, be it their performance, product or response to the social media scene. I was extremely intrigued by the portion of chapter 6 that briefly touched upon the rise of an entire industry, as a result of this shift to the web 2.0. Online reputation management has grown exponentially in the past few years as companies have discovered that failing to address the online community is as good as playing with fire. Monitoring social media commentary is no longer a part time job, it is a force to be reckoned with. As we move even further into the depths of social media and online marketing, management of a corporation's image will rely even more heavily upon this new industry and will demand even more techniques, tools and methodologies to allow companies to put their best foot forward both in print and on the web.

One final thing I would like to draw attention to is IBM's use of social networking, as it appears to be very pertinent to our classes experiment with virtual attendance. As much as 42% of IBM's workforce works from home, thus requiring employees to rely heavily upon social media tools and virtual work groups to make it easier to locate expertise and specialization within the firm. As I think about IBM, I think not only about our experiment in class, but ten years down the road when it could be the norm for students to "attend" lectures via their computers. Technology, as it has proven time and again, has the ability to take something as common-placed, required even, as attending class and make it an antiquated notion of the past.

Rating: I would rate this article at a 3.0-3.5. It is exceptionally applicable to our class and provides a lot of material and cross over examples. It is interesting, though long winded at times.

Social Media Overload

With multiple wikis, facebook, twitter and now a BLOG its official I am having social media overload. More to come, later today, as I will be blogging about Peer Production, Social Media, and Web 2.0!