Digital Culture Links: March 25th 2010
Links for March 25th 2010:
- The bosses who snoop on Facebook | Maxine Frances Roper [The Guardian] – I’m not sure I agree with this article, but the tensions between public and private spaces versus public and private as a technological setting are well articulated: “The practice of employers running internet searches on employees is now so widespread that employment agencies offer advice on “online reputation management”. As one such site puts it: “Even a family recipe for picked gherkins can influence an employer’s opinion of you.” But just because it’s possible for employers to unearth background information that once would have been the preserve of the most diligent East German spy, does that mean they should? There is a common belief that people who share information online are deliberately seeking attention, and therefore have it coming. Yet thinking that anyone with an online presence is out for publicity is as boneheaded as the idea that anyone who dresses up nicely is out to have indiscriminate sex.”
- How the internet will turn the world upside down [mUmBRELLA] – The *very* near future: “Talk about demonstrating the scary power of the internet. In this near-future science fiction story, blogger Tom Scott shares a scenario that could very easily become a reality. It centres around how one short video clip uploaded onto the web spreads across the world like wildfire. It results in a flash mob, which turns into a riot and then ultimately, several deaths. Now, keep in mind this is not a real story. But the incidences Scott mentions in his story have all occurred – just not at the same time. At least not yet.”
(This clip would give Cory Doctorow a run for this money.) - Nestle’s Facebook meltdown [Thought Gadgets] – A Nestle public relations disaster using social media. A good how NOT to guide.
- Social Networking Rants Against Exes Turning Up In Court [Techdirt] – Another reminder that the web never forgets: “For many people, it’s natural to treat social networking platforms as being the equivalent of just talking — rather than being any sort of formal written communication. Of course, the big difference is that everything you type can be accurately saved forever — and, potentially, used against you in court. Obviously what people say out loud can also be used in court, but in an argument between, say, a broken up couple, a yelling fight just becomes a screaming match. In the social networking world, it can become evidence. Two recent stories highlight this. The first, from Eric Goldman, is the “disturbingly humorous” transcript from the court concerning a blog post about a woman’s ex-husband …”
Merton Speaks.
Mashable have managed to track down and interview the mysterious Merton, the guy behind that wonderful Chatroulette Piano Improv video:
Merton seems like a nice enough guy, who genuinely seems taken aback with how viral the video went. This interview also reminds me about the perils of writing about things happening today on the web; in the next issue of Flow I’ll have a column called ‘How Chatroulette Taught Me Everything I Need to Know About the Internet’ which discusses the Merton and Ben Folds, but already be a little out-of-date since it doesn’t refer to this interview. *hmph*
Digital Culture Links: March 18th 2010
Links for March 18th 2010:
- Oops Pow Surprise…24 hours of video all up in your eyes! [YouTube Blog] – YouTube has 24 hours worth of video uploaded every minutes!
- AAP puts ‘strict curb’ on tweeting reporters [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “Australian Associated Press is cracking down on its journalists who use social networking sites while on the job. AAP reporter Sandra O’Malley wrote from her Twitter account yesterday morning that “work’s put a strict curb on tweeting”. The agency’s editor-in-chief, Tony Gillies, says this is because reporters have been posting their thoughts online while on assignment. He says he is trying to protect AAP’s brand. “I’m talking about people who work for AAP tweeting and blogging while on assignment for AAP,” he said. “If they are tweeting during those assignments – and let’s leave aside for one moment what they’re doing rather than paying attention to the story that’s unfolding in front of them – whatever they’re tweeting may reflect on AAP.”
- Networks, Crowds, and Markets: A Book by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg – Full book pre-print version; looks like a really useful read: “Networks, Crowds, and Markets combines different scientific perspectives in its approach to understanding networks and behavior. Drawing on ideas from economics, sociology, computing and information science, and applied mathematics, it describes the emerging field of study that is growing at the interface of all these areas, addressing fundamental questions about how the social, economic, and technological worlds are connected. […] The book will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2010.”
- Flickr Short URL Generator – URLkr – Useful tool to create flic.kr links, using Flickr’s own URL shortening service.
- Why short links can take a long time to get you around the web [Technology | guardian.co.uk] – Some URL shorteners are slowing down the web: “URL shorteners have become a fact of life, given the proliferation of short messaging services (and also the demands of print, which finds URL shorteners mean you can link to long URLs in a few characters). But they’re sometimes a roadblock – at least, the one from Facebook is.”
- 25 years of .com domain names [SF Gate] – Happy Birthday dot com: “On March 15, 1985, a Massachusetts computer systems firm registered the first .com Internet domain name. Although Symbolics.com didn’t spark an instant gold rush, the event planted the first seed of a transformation that has changed the world into a Web-fueled digital river of news, commerce and social interaction. Today, exactly 25 years later, life B.C – Before .Com – is already a distant memory, especially in the tech-centric Bay Area. […] In 1985, only six entities registered a .com, one of six top-level domain names created a year earlier in a reorganization of the early Internet’s naming bureaucracy. At the time, .cor (short for corporate) almost beat .com as the designation for commercial Internet addresses.”
- Facebook passes Google as most-viewed site in US in past week [Technology | guardian.co.uk] – “Is that Google in Facebook’s rear-view mirror? Why, yes, it is, at least in the US, according to the latest figures from Hitwise. The statistics will be worrying for Google, principally because that won’t be traffic heading downstream from Google to Facebook; it will be people logging directly into the social networking site. And pause to consider: if the problem of search – what Google aims to do – is solved not by building the most fantastic search engine, but by building the biggest social network, what does that tell us? That we’re not actually looking for that much? Heather Hopkins notes that Facebook was the most visited site in the US last Christmas eve, Christmas day and New Year’s day – but also on the weekend of March 6th and 7th. That starts to look like a trend. Compared to the same week in 2009, Google’s visits were up 9% – but Facebook’s were up 185%. So now Facebook was 7.07% of visits, while Google was put in the shade – just – at 7.03%.”
Chatroulette = Web R&D
I submit this video as evidence (a) the Chatroulette is not the work of the devil and (b) it’s probably the heart of cool R&D on the web today:
Go on, watch, it’’ll make you smile and is 100% free of visible genitals.
Digital Culture Links: March 15th 2010
Links for March 12th 2010 through March 15th 2010:
- 9 Million Australians Use Social Networks [Nielsen] – “Nielsen Online released their “Nielsen 2010 Social Media Report” today which has a wealth of statisitcs on the social media landscape here in Australia. Among the findings:
* 9 million Australians now interact via social networks
* content sharing is the most popular activity
* 4 in 5 Australian Internet users have shared a photo
* Twitter usage grew by 400% in 2009
* Nearly 3/4 of Australians read a wiki
* 2 in 5 Australians interact with companies via social networks”
Read a PDF of their press release. - “Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity” by danah boyd [danah.org] – danah boyd tackles the issues of privacy and social media head on, arguing privacy is far from dead, but that the world is a bit different, the rules are a bit different, and the way privacy, publicity and openess operate can be different but neither absolute nor gone.
- What’s Happening—and Where? [Twitter Blog] – Twitter now officially supports geotagging but quite sensibly you have to OPT IN to use it: “Every day, millions of tweets are created. These little bursts of information are about anything and everything—they make Twitter a hub for discovering what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world. A recent burst of interest in location sharing applications, games, and services has many Twitter users excited about appending geographic data to some of their tweets. Not everyone wants to add their current location to a tweet so this feature is off by default and must be activated to use. Check out How To Tweet with Your Location to learn how you can turn it on.”People who choose to add this additional layer of context help make Twitter a richer information network for all of us—location data can make tweets more useful.
- Reuters to Journalists: Don’t Break News on Twitter [Mashable] – “Last night, Reuters released their social media policy, which includes instructing journalists to avoid exposing bias online and tells them specifically not to “scoop the wire” by breaking stories on Twitter. The strict instruction makes it clear that even though news continually breaks on Twitter first — especially in disaster scenarios — Reuters journalists are to break their stories first via the wire and not on Twitter. The social media policy in question also addresses a number of other Twitter, Facebook, and online concerns, offering up instructions and recommendations whenever possible.”
- Conan O’Brien Embraces Team Coco – Poster and All – Media Decoder Blog – NYTimes.com – Conan knows his fans! “With Thursday’s announcement of Conan O’Brien’s 30-city tour, the former late-night comedian is fully embracing his online fan base, “Team Coco.” The official poster for the tour re-uses the image made famous on the Internet of a heroic Mr. O’Brien, orange hair aflame, in front of an American flag. The image was produced by Mike Mitchell, an artist in Los Angeles, as a show of support for Mr. O’Brien when NBC tried in January to move “The Tonight Show” to 12:05 a.m. Within days the image and its message, “I’m With Coco,” was a viral sensation, inspiring dozens of pro-Conan groups on Facebook. Several of Mr. O’Brien’s employees even made the image their Facebook profile photo. Now they have formally adopted the image as their own. Days after Mr. O’Brien signed off of “The Tonight Show” on Jan. 22, one of the comedian’s producers contacted Mr. Mitchell and said that they wanted the “Coco” illustration to be the emblem of a nationwide tour they were planning. “
- “I’m With CoCo” Artist Makes Big Bucks From Conan’s Tour [Mashable] – “Mike Mitchell, the artist who created the now-iconic “I’m With CoCo” image of Conan O’Brien that has circulated through Facebook profile pictures and blogs since NBC’s The Tonight Show scheduling controversy, told TMZ that he’s been paid by Conan’s producers for the right to use the image during Conan’s impending “Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.” TMZ reports that the producers paid him well enough that he can “take a very, very long vacation.” Mitchell originally posted the image to TwitPic, but it achieved meme status when it became the profile image for the huge “I’m With CoCo” Facebook (Facebook) group that was used to promote the real-world pro-Conan rallies. “
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