Archive for the 'Social software' Category

Social networking and social class: Survey

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For those who have experienced inequity on the wrong side of the social and digital divide, social networking sites may not be experienced in quite the same way as those who enjoy material privilege and/or stability. In this sense, webby fun is relative to inclusivity. Especially in spaces that are not designed according to our actual identities, values, beliefs and experiences but the value of our consumer demographic data.

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Select-all delete: Endangered species?

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Select-all is one of my favourite user controls. It allows me to quickly move, archive or delete large volumes of data quickly and easily. It’s also a means of defining my ownership over my content. In an increasingly undemocratic web of surveillance, abuse of power and corporate control, I believe users deserve improved control over their data.

All these cool new applications and services have one thing in common: They make it easy to get signed up and contributing, but not so easy to leave. There are also many documented cases of security bugs that have resulted in the publication of private user data. What’s that? You still don’t care? Read on.

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Classroom2.0: Avoiding the “creepy treehouse”

As today’s wired learners become increasingly alienated from an education system that is 50 years out of date, innovative teachers are exploring ways to make learning more relevant to learner’s social and cultural identities.

In addition to making learning more meaningful, these explorations have the potential to revolutionize education and transform it into something that equips learners for the social, cultural, political and professional realities of a globalised world.

But there may be a downside. Ironically, the promise of social and participatory technologies may also lead to even greater alienation when approached without pedagogical reflexivity, responsibility and transparency.

The problem of coercion and inequity must be addressed if educators plan to engage in the use of social and participatory tools in a context of institutional power and assessment. Some have called this problem the “creepy treehouse.”

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Client hacks: Twitter explained [boilerplate]

Has anybody else had a tough time explaining the value and purpose of Twitter to your non-Twittering friends, clients or colleagues?

After writing several lengthy emails, I threw all my best examples and links into a single message. My “Twitter explained” boilerplate is the result.

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[steal] My Social Media Policy

Despite the popularity and widespread adoption of social tools, there’s little agreement when it comes to matters of our individual terms of use. Without a collective social contract for social media, many of us are left wondering: How do I define my own social policy? Until now, corporate social media developers are defining those policies for us. Some of us feel it’s time we defined social media according to our our own terms.

In 2007, Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington created A Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web. Their bill was intended to “spur conversation and debate” around the need for users to be more proactive about the ownership and use of their personal social media content. For example, the right to:

“Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats.”

I was inspired to extend this idea to speak to the more elusive question of social granularity. For example, to define my own policies around connecting, professionalism and signal to noise. The need to define these things along more personal terms was the basis for developing my own policy for social networking and media.

The following is a template based on my own personal Social Media Policy (SMP) for you to hack and remix. As ever, the content, tone and format is entirely up to you.

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YLive! … Seesmic: I can has user controls?

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This weekend, I tried out Seesmic and YLive! with my brand new Microsoft Life cam (nothing fancy but it works - and it’s the best they had at The Source). Some are calling this “life streaming” (AKA streaming chat).

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my LOL cat: it not like bad TOS.

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Our data, ourselves: The User Bill of Rights


Lawrence Lessig on creativity2.0 and the law

I used to think standards were for squares. Especially when it came to the wild web. That was back in early days of my online life, before I knew about Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig and Open Source. At that time, I didn’t realise that (democratic and fair) freedom of expression was not incompatible with (democractic and fair) standards of use. And, like many people, I didn’t regard myself as a stakeholder or participant in the development of those standards.

And then I realised there were a whole lot of people who did believe they had a stake in how their information was distributed. Ordinary citizens and professional content producers alike were taking part in a user revolution that defied the top down models of the past. And everywhere I looked, the early adopters were having important conversations about what they would and would not accept. That was 2003 when social networking services were starting to emerge as the_next_big_thing and open source models of thinking and creating were starting to take hold.

A message to the late majority: Define and demand your rights

Read on …

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