20Jan/09
Links for January 19th 2009 through January 20th 2009:
- "Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics" by danah boyd (Phd Thesis, 2.1Mb PDF) - "Abstract: As social network sites like MySpace and Facebook emerged, American teenagers began adopting them as spaces to mark identity and socialize with peers. Teens leveraged these sites for a wide array of everyday social practices - gossiping, flirting, joking around, sharing information, and simply hanging out. While social network sites were predominantly used by teens as a peer-based social outlet, the unchartered nature of these sites generated fear among adults. This dissertation documents my 2.5-year ethnographic study of American teens' engagement with social network sites and the ways in which their participation supported and complicated three practices - self-presentation, peer sociality, and negotiating adult society."
- Where is Your Username registered - Checks pretty much every web 2.0 service out there to see if a specific username is already in use. Useful (and good to remind yourself where you've actually registered already if you use the same login everywhere.)
- Facebook irked by 'burger for friends' campaign [The Age] - "Burger King said Friday that pressure from Facebook has caused it to yank an application that gave members of the hot social networking website a Whopper for every 10 friends they dumped. Before the Whopper Sacrifice Campaign was halted, 233,906 friends were "sacrificed" by Facebook users more interested in relationships with the global fast-food chain's specialty hamburgers, according to Burger King. ... Changes sought by Facebook reportedly included ditching an application feature that sent deleted friends messages informing them that an online pal preferred a hamburger over them."
- The Boxxy Story - From the 4chan meme factory, the story of Boxxy, whose hyperactive YouTube antics caused a hormone-driven civil war, taking her from a micro-meme to the Queen /b/
