Welcome.

Welcome to my first blog. It is being constructed for my ICS 691 course, which is an in depth look at Social Networking. I typically don't engage in this type of activity as I work, so it will be interesting learning about this stuff.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Online Community Software

Yes, Ma'am and Yes Sir,

Now you can create your own online community!.

http://www.yourmembership.com/?s=ymyh

http://www.leveragesoftware.com/index.html

Regards, Tom

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Do social websites use databases?

This is an interesting attack on the database of Monster. Com. Probably not the pinacle of social networking software, but it uses the same technologies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090127/wl_uk_afp/britaincomputercrime;_ylt=AlgibDo0VZoXOPltwMeIVd5vaA8F

Notice while the information stole wasn't necessary critical, it could still be used for other types of attacks. The article reference phishing attacks. Which is a form of social engineering.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Reformulating the Internet Paradox.

Reformulating the Internet Paradox
Great paper to fall to sleep too. I needed to try to read it 3 times to get through it. I suppose the
summation is that the less you know about something the more stress it causes you and the more it will increase your chances of feeling depressed. This is probably an accurate statement. But I find it hard to believe that this is true in isolation about the internet, that is if there is only one thing causing you stress and that is the internet. I would find it more plausible if this was a review of first marriages, or first children. But internet use?

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism.
I liked this article. I thought it was well written and distinctly sarcastic., but true. Unless you are using these sites to accomplish something, they have become the new TV. People while away the hours creating false and well marketed personalities to attract users they have no intention of ever meeting., trading real and fulfilling relationships for public friendship. Yes, this does sound like youth culture, I think I am getting a zitt just writing this. But I loved it when I found out Obama and Clinton had facebook's.

Random blogging
Best blog I have seen so far was one called Max's World. Just a father's pictures of his baby. Photo's were professional. Color and arrangement of photo's was superb. Just beautiful, best use of cyberspace, I have ever seen. I was tempted to post but didn't won't to ruin the sense of intimacy. If I can ever find it again I will let you all know.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

1/22/09 Strgs for a discontinuous future.

I found this a less then brilliant article, its redeeming feature, was the posts that were attached, and only because the posts dramatize the author's main point, and the clear differences between the authors supporters and detractors.

The problem with the writers logic is that he equates utility and the ability to conceptualize and increase utility and productivity with a lack of creativity. I would suggest that being able to orchestrate utility and mass productivity is really a creativity in its own right. I disagree with a major premise "the notion that everything must be useful". First anyone who studies logic and human nature understands that it is not often when "everything" is ever any one thing. For example, pet rocks, and hiphop and basketball. How about this take, would the author of the article think that no creativity existed in the extremely useful light bulb? How about Einstein and Bell, anyone care to call them less then creative geniuses? How much creativity is found in the concept and ability to implement the production line (Thank You, Henry Ford, for bringing the car to the masses. I believe my quality of life was much improved, as well as the workers in the orginal factories.). I would bet if we could go back in time we would find many people who first ate a consistent quality meal, across an entire county at a fair price, who would think McDonalds was a stroke of creative genius as well as extremely useful. And how about Bill Gates "licencing software", absolutely creative genius, and IBM bought it! Much better then a Warhal painting, think how many people did Gates make wealthy on that? How many people were able to buy cars, fund retirements, send their kids to college, pay mortgages? How much GPD did he bring into a country hemorraging cash by buying cheap imports? I think that perhaps Umair needs to really reconsider his definition of creativity, he may find it somewhat narrow and lacking.

Interesting enough I could agree with the original premise that bloggers blog too much. Especially if they blog this type of ill thought out drivel. Perhaps they should spend more time reading and thinking, then posting.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

1/21/09 - First Session 2 Articles

Well, in the first articles "Does the Internet Strengthen Community?", I think the appropriate answer is that it depends. I don't buy the notion that Choice and Community are inversely proportional. The decision by individuals to put their own needs above others is a choice, just as to put others before themselves is a choice. I think the breakdown in Community is directly proportional to the breakdown of traditional Christian values and the rise of a consumer culture that stresses (sells) putting oneself first. Please note I am not making judgements, I am not saying one set of values is better then other just that the traditional culture is breaking down and another is rising in its place.

I liked the article "Social Responsiblity And the Web: A Drama Unfolds". The article reminded me of a quote "Don't write down on paper what you wouldn't want to read in the paper". The same applies here. But this article does let me get "up on my soapbox" against "offended people". The problem is that it violates the rights of the offender, that is guilty until proven innocent. Anyone with an AS degree has learned about the "Barriers to Communication". So why do we immediately assume that when someone cries "They offended me", that this person has actually been offended, maybe they just don't understand what the offender said. Maybe, and I know this is a strech for most, the offended person misunderstood. And the easiest way to resolve this is to just ask - "Did you mean to offend me?". In this article we see that such simple logic eludes the masses. How many responded negatively? How many felt "offended"? How many called the police? But not one asked her how she felt. Not one asked her if she was joking, not one exercised (un)common sense. What does this say about the quality of internet "communication"? In fact was there really any communication (look up the definition of the word)? Well enough of my soapbox. TTFN

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Session 1 Week 1 Assignment

Student: Thomas Harder
Instructor: Prof. Richard Gazan
Course: ICS 691 – Social Computing
Assignment 1:
The first sentence of the syllabus contains my thumbnail definition of social computing: Social computing is an umbrella term for technologies and virtual spaces that allow users to create, describe and share content, and for the communities that arise around them. Challenge this definition by making reference to the Session 1 readings. How does the term relate to others, such as social software, social networks, online community and Web 2.0? Conclude by crafting your own definition of social computing, and how it relates to topics you hope to explore in this course.

Introduction
The term Social Computing is a composite term that is created from two terms and should therefore have some characteristics of the original terms. A review of the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary online, social has several meanings that closely deal the interaction of an individual with other individuals or groups. The term computing is a transitive form of the word computer; thus computing has to do with using the computer. Therefore put together the term should have something to do with using the computer to enhance social activities. And indeed the given thumbnail definition of social computing has elements of both these terms however it also lacks something.

Social
The term Social has to do with people coming together with other people, making a connection. This connection can between one’s peers, friends and family or it can be with complete strangers or other types of acquaintances. Sites that provide this type of service are called social network sites or social networking sites. Sites that allow strangers to meet are typically thought of as social networking sites. Social network sites however, are typically used by friends and family to communicate with each other. Some social network sites include Facebook, Friendster, and MySpace. These relatively new online spaces offer several advantages such as allow the users to create and post text, pictures, movies, and other rich and new content, allowing the user to communicate with many people in one place, relatively fast and reliably with low cost. The new features provided by these sites indicate their embracement of the Web 2.0 concepts. The term Web 2.0 is used to describe the changes in the use of WWW technologies and design that aim to enhance the creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web (Wikipedia 2008). Originally, under Web 1.0, these types of sites used more simplistic pages designed to be static and read, and not responded to. Under the newer Web 2.0 the concepts these sites can be contributed to by the readers with posts, making them dynamic and making them collective contributions by the original author and his/her readers. Applications that allow users to interact and share data are also known collectively as social software. Thus purely relation based sites such as Facebook or more business oriented sites such as Amazon and eBay can both be categorized as social software.

Computing
The term “computing” implies the meaning that the interaction takes place using modern computer equipment, protocols and technologies. Common types of social software include weblogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, tagging and social bookmarking. Many of these social software applications use technologies, or similar technologies, existed in Web 1.0. But it is the integration of many of these technologies, often in the same application, that allows users to interact and create content that allows them to be called a Web 2.0 application in concept. Additionally, the Web 2.0 concepts allow the designers of an application to view the web as the interface to the application and therefore any type of hardware that could possibly connect to the application is likely to be used for accessing the application, and needs to be considered in the design of the software. This encourages the designers to think beyond the standard PC as the tool a consumer/producer may use.

Social Computing
Social Computing is therefore using computers, computer networks, software and the associated technology to interact with other users. So part of the given thumbnail definition is true. What is missing is the concept of the purpose of the site and how individuals should interact on a site. A purely social site allows users to interact with each other as they normally would. This means as friends, family, acquaintances, in a non business setting. Therefore while it is possible for users to post their thoughts, at Amazon about the quality of a 3rd party vendor, this posting would not be thought of as a social interaction. However, the action of the same user posting the same thought at his blog for his friends to read would be considered a social interaction. So, while the technology is the same, the purpose is different and the relationships between the poster and the reader are different. The need for and consequences of social interaction is highlighted in the case of Mr. Bungle. It was Mr. Bungles’ highly antisocial behavior which caused the LambdaMOO to create a form of regulation which prior to Mr. Bungles’ actions was unnecessary. The social interactions between individuals in the LambdaMOO had been self regulating and apparently friendly.
Summary
In conclusion it is obvious that there is no black and white definition of a Social Computing application or technology. There are elements of Social Computing in many web applications that are meant mainly for business and marketing; for example a posting or comment about a book. And there are elements of business and marketing in accepted Social Website such as a bands site on MySpace. The same in more obviously true of the hardware used for facilitate the social or business activities. Consequently, a new definition of Social Computing could be – “a term for a general area of computer science that has to do with the behavioral interactions between people in a computerized environment.”

References
Social Computing – Wikipedia (2008)

Boyd, D.M., and N.B. Ellison (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Dibbell, Julian (1998; revised). A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society. The Village Voice, 23 December 1993. http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html

Beer, David and Roger Burrows (2007). Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations. Sociological Research Online 12(5). http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/17.html

Tenopir, Carol (2007). Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall? Library Journal, 12/15/2007. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6510681.html?industryid=47130

Nardi, Bonnie A., Diane Schiano and Michelle Gumbrecht (2004). Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary? CSCW’04, November 6–10, 2004, Chicago, Illinois.

Herring, Susan C., Lois Ann Scheidt, Sabrina Bonus and Elijah Wright (2004). Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs. Proceedings of the 37th Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-37).

Thursday, January 15, 2009

1/15/09

Well, today I spent most of my study time reading. And figuring out how to get feeds to work. I am using MS IE so I somehow doubt I am using the most sophisticated tool, but it will get the job done.

I was able to read more of the "sociology" stuff. I thought the Web 2.0 Our Cultural Downfall? was an interesting read. The argument was well thought out and thought provoking.

I enrolled in Citizendium. I like the idea.

I really liked the Design Recommendations in the Blogging as Social Activity, etc. Having messed around with Blogger, I understood where these recommendations would be very handy and usefull.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

My First Post

Well, this is my first Posting. During this session I spent most of my time figuring out how many of the tools worked. I added gadgets and subtracted gadgets. Played with fonts and colors. I will continue playing with this site.

The course reading was very interesting. I had never heard of MUDs, MOO's or mashups. I have been using Wikipedia but am very interested in Citizenpedia, although I found it more combersome. The mashups are quite interesting, I would like to play with ORC, but that will probably have to wait.

Well, must go get the dishes done.