Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Wasn't there also an article awhile back about Second Life, in which some people became so wrapped up with their alter-identities that their real-life marriages hit the skids? In that case, perhaps it's possible technology was simply the catalyst that exposed the true nature of a relationship that was doomed to begin with. I'm also thinking it's paradoxical that the more plugged in I get, the more of a hermit I physically become. I hardly even answer the phone anymore, and often I'll call someone hoping to get their answering machine. How's that for branching out into the world? There's an interesting book called *Snow Crash*http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Bantam-Spectra-Book/dp/0553380958/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1201844506sr=8-1by Neal Stephenson, which describes a world where the inhabitants spend half their time in the physical world, and the other half goggled in to a virtual one. It was a mix of social networks, Second Life, and take-out pizza. In that story, however, the goggle world didn't fizzle out but instead became something far more scary. (Hey, did ya notice that? At first glance, it looks like I wrote google world. Hmmm. I wonder what that means.) -G http://glpetron.typepad.com/plastic_fantastic/ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
It is fair to point out the deficiencies or differences between various online formats and F2F meetings. However, let me point out that a social network says nothing about the technology or methods being used to support communication or relationships within it. Here's a few examples of 'social networks'. - A group of friends talking in a bar in 100 AD Rome talking about people met while traveling on horseback to trade with other cities - A military commander in medieval Europe communicating by carrier pigeon to his troops - A new American immigrant in 1800 receiving mail via ship from relatives in Europe - A government employee on the US frontier communicating with the home office in New York via telegraph messages. - A group of 1950s housewives chatting on the phone during the day while they are at home working - A modern day businessperson going to a professional group to meet with business contacts who they wouldn't want to spend time with on a personal basis - An engineer working with a remote team in India via a phone connection - A shy teen using SMS to flirt with a girl from school who he otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable around - An astronaut on a space station placing a video call to talk with their new baby for the first time. Who is to say which of these is a real social interaction? Who is to say which of them is most useful or highest quality? They all connect people in networks, and different methods of connecting have different advantages and disadvantages. I think we are focusing a bit too much on the negative side of a very new medium (web-based-social-networking-services) without placing them in the context of many other forms of socialization which we use for different purposes and get variable results with. Cheers, Jeff On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:10:35, Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jeff Axup said (with what I perceived as a touch of irony, and I think not too seriously): I really like this quote - 'people are, just, well, bored of social networks.' As if humanity will ever be bored of social networks, considering that we have been happily using them for thousands of years. Not like this. To compare this technological simulation to a true social network is to say you've been skydiving because you watched a video that was taped from the point of view of the guy who actually did it. It has some value if viewed with sufficient empathy (we supply that ourselves), but lacks the validation needed for a genuine experience of society. What do Facebook, MySpace, et al *not* have that traditional social networking has? Things like body language, eye contact, genuine social context, validation that you are in fact talking to another 16-year-old like yourself ... In short, they lack the element of trust -- in part because participants have whatever degree of anonymity they choose to have. Whatever other metrics are applied to assess the decline of online social networks, I think this lack of trust will be the bottom line. We'll have heard one too many stories about people who pretended to be something they aren't, and others getting hurt in some way because of it. I do think that online social networks can be a valuable way to reinforce existing social interactions, but it seems unlikely to me that they could ever stand alone. Nor should they. I can't imagine calling any group a society when all their interactions are superficial and transient. Anything that evaporates in a power outage is not a society. Thank you, Murli and everyone, for some very thought-provoking ideas. I'm enjoying your comments very much, in spite of my uncertainty about your existence in real time and space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Thanks, Jeff Jeff Axup, Ph.D. Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego Research:Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability E-mail:axup at userdesign.com Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com Designers mine the raw bits of tomorrow. They shape them for the present day. - Bruce Sterling
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Terrific point Jeff, and great choices of examples. Might be good to trot out McLuhan and sense ratios, when thinking about your examples below as well. And, not to put a damper on the discussion or anything, but just to note, since the mid-1990s, CMC researchers have delved quite deeply into most of the quality of community relationships online, the strength of weak ties and a whole host of socio-cultural issues these things raised, including the issue of how to define a real community, if one can. I have a full review of this literature in one of the more boring sections of my dissertation ( www.nutball.com/dissertation), but a livelier account of the issues raised can be found in Stephen Doheny-Farina's book, The Wired Neighborhood (1998). http://www.amazon.com/Wired-Neighborhood-Stephen-Doheny-Farina/dp/0300074344/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1201888662sr=1-1 I'm sure academic HCI researchers at least are busily applying all that previous research to social networks and FOAF, rather than inventing the wheel from scratch. Chris On Feb 1, 2008 12:13 PM, Jeff Axup [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is fair to point out the deficiencies or differences between various online formats and F2F meetings. However, let me point out that a social network says nothing about the technology or methods being used to support communication or relationships within it. Here's a few examples of 'social networks'. - A group of friends talking in a bar in 100 AD Rome talking about people met while traveling on horseback to trade with other cities - A military commander in medieval Europe communicating by carrier pigeon to his troops - A new American immigrant in 1800 receiving mail via ship from relatives in Europe - A government employee on the US frontier communicating with the home office in New York via telegraph messages. - A group of 1950s housewives chatting on the phone during the day while they are at home working - A modern day businessperson going to a professional group to meet with business contacts who they wouldn't want to spend time with on a personal basis - An engineer working with a remote team in India via a phone connection - A shy teen using SMS to flirt with a girl from school who he otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable around - An astronaut on a space station placing a video call to talk with their new baby for the first time. Who is to say which of these is a real social interaction? Who is to say which of them is most useful or highest quality? They all connect people in networks, and different methods of connecting have different advantages and disadvantages. I think we are focusing a bit too much on the negative side of a very new medium (web-based-social-networking-services) without placing them in the context of many other forms of socialization which we use for different purposes and get variable results with. Cheers, Jeff On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:10:35, Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jeff Axup said (with what I perceived as a touch of irony, and I think not too seriously): I really like this quote - 'people are, just, well, bored of social networks.' As if humanity will ever be bored of social networks, considering that we have been happily using them for thousands of years. Not like this. To compare this technological simulation to a true social network is to say you've been skydiving because you watched a video that was taped from the point of view of the guy who actually did it. It has some value if viewed with sufficient empathy (we supply that ourselves), but lacks the validation needed for a genuine experience of society. What do Facebook, MySpace, et al *not* have that traditional social networking has? Things like body language, eye contact, genuine social context, validation that you are in fact talking to another 16-year-old like yourself ... In short, they lack the element of trust -- in part because participants have whatever degree of anonymity they choose to have. Whatever other metrics are applied to assess the decline of online social networks, I think this lack of trust will be the bottom line. We'll have heard one too many stories about people who pretended to be something they aren't, and others getting hurt in some way because of it. I do think that online social networks can be a valuable way to reinforce existing social interactions, but it seems unlikely to me that they could ever stand alone. Nor should they. I can't imagine calling any group a society when all their interactions are superficial and transient. Anything that evaporates in a power outage is not a society. Thank you, Murli and everyone, for some very thought-provoking ideas. I'm enjoying your comments very much, in spite of my uncertainty about your existence in real time and space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
We all operate with theories about social interaction in our face-to-face world that could easily migrate to the design of products. Views about trust and use of photos and the degree of self-revelation and other social issues that are reflected in the design of social apps can come from one's own naive (as opposed to learned in college) social psych theories. So whether research was involved or not, products reflect personal theories that may or may not mesh with research. It is quite possible that some of the theories about self-revelation for example -- how much you reveal to others at different stages of a relationship -- have changed for recent generations. It seems as though students in grad schools share a lot more than students did the 1970s. Some students tell me that they share grades on assignments - when I went to grad school in the 1970s, I can't remember anyone telling someone else what his/her grades were. Chauncey 2008/1/31 Murli Nagasundaram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Social apps are far more complex than single-user apps. I wonder to what extent a lack of social psych research input into the design of these apps -- the most popular ones having been designed by college undergrads -- is causing their popularity to plateau? To me, this suggests a discontinuity similar to the one that occurred when command line interfaces were displaced by GUIs. Every GUI out there can trace its origins to the the multi-disclipinary, thoroughly grounded research conducted at Xerox PARC. I think it's possible to go only so far by the seat of one's pants. Without GUIs or at least the bastardized compromises that were delivered on the DOS platform in the mid-1980's, PC use would have plateaued in much the way the social apps are slowing down now. The next phase of Social App development might require Sproull, Kiesler, Turoff, Hiltz and others to re-emerge from the shadows. -murli http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ 'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networksSeven Two year itch pokeBy Chris Williamshttp://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ → More by this authorhttp://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Chris%20Williams Published Thursday 31st January 2008 15:19 GMT Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualizationhttp://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/341/reg2?td=toptextlink *Shhh!* Can you hear a hiss? That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad. Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes has been saying for months - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. The average length of time users spend on all of the top three sites is on the slide. Bebo, MySpace and Facebook all took double-digit percentage hits in the last months of 2007. December could perhaps be forgiven as a seasonal blip when people see their real friends and family, but the trend was already south. The story year-on-year is even uglier for social networking advocates. Bebo and MySpace were both well down on the same period in 2006 - Murdoch's site by 24 per cent. Facebook meanwhile chalked up a rise, although way off its mid-2007 hype peak when you couldn't move for zeitgeist-chasing where's the Facebook angle? stories in the press and on TV. You can survey the full numerical horror for youself herehttp://creativecapital.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/its-official-us-social-networking-sites-see-slow-down/at Creative Capital. That user engagement is dropping off (page impression growth is merely slowing) should be of particular concern for the sales people struggling to turn these free services into profit-making businesses. In the age of tabbed browsing, how long people stick around is particularly key for interactive sites, where people aren't attracted by useful information, but by time-wasting opportunities. And as we've noted here before, if the cash isn't raining down on you you need a phenomenal growth line to sell credulous reporters and investors. Expansion into non-English speaking countries is viewed as such a panacea for the increasingly obvious slowdown US social networks are suffering (see Facebook's trawl for translation bitcheshttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/fb_translation/ ). The fact is that web users people are just as fickle in Leipzig as they are in London, and it seems to us that a delayed Friends Reunited (remember that?) effect is kicking in. When Friends Reunited enjoyed its phenomenal growth period people would join, log in maybe a dozen times, catch up with those class mates they wanted to, then forget about it. On Facebook behaviour seems much the same; join, accumulate dozens of semi-friends, spy on a few exes for a bit, play some Scrabulous, get bored, then get on with your life, occasionally dropping in to respond to
[IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Social apps are far more complex than single-user apps. I wonder to what extent a lack of social psych research input into the design of these apps -- the most popular ones having been designed by college undergrads -- is causing their popularity to plateau? To me, this suggests a discontinuity similar to the one that occurred when command line interfaces were displaced by GUIs. Every GUI out there can trace its origins to the the multi-disclipinary, thoroughly grounded research conducted at Xerox PARC. I think it's possible to go only so far by the seat of one's pants. Without GUIs or at least the bastardized compromises that were delivered on the DOS platform in the mid-1980's, PC use would have plateaued in much the way the social apps are slowing down now. The next phase of Social App development might require Sproull, Kiesler, Turoff, Hiltz and others to re-emerge from the shadows. -murli http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ 'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networksSeven Two year itch pokeBy Chris Williamshttp://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ → More by this authorhttp://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Chris%20Williams Published Thursday 31st January 2008 15:19 GMT Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualizationhttp://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/341/reg2?td=toptextlink *Shhh!* Can you hear a hiss? That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad. Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes has been saying for months - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. The average length of time users spend on all of the top three sites is on the slide. Bebo, MySpace and Facebook all took double-digit percentage hits in the last months of 2007. December could perhaps be forgiven as a seasonal blip when people see their real friends and family, but the trend was already south. The story year-on-year is even uglier for social networking advocates. Bebo and MySpace were both well down on the same period in 2006 - Murdoch's site by 24 per cent. Facebook meanwhile chalked up a rise, although way off its mid-2007 hype peak when you couldn't move for zeitgeist-chasing where's the Facebook angle? stories in the press and on TV. You can survey the full numerical horror for youself herehttp://creativecapital.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/its-official-us-social-networking-sites-see-slow-down/at Creative Capital. That user engagement is dropping off (page impression growth is merely slowing) should be of particular concern for the sales people struggling to turn these free services into profit-making businesses. In the age of tabbed browsing, how long people stick around is particularly key for interactive sites, where people aren't attracted by useful information, but by time-wasting opportunities. And as we've noted here before, if the cash isn't raining down on you you need a phenomenal growth line to sell credulous reporters and investors. Expansion into non-English speaking countries is viewed as such a panacea for the increasingly obvious slowdown US social networks are suffering (see Facebook's trawl for translation bitcheshttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/fb_translation/ ). The fact is that web users people are just as fickle in Leipzig as they are in London, and it seems to us that a delayed Friends Reunited (remember that?) effect is kicking in. When Friends Reunited enjoyed its phenomenal growth period people would join, log in maybe a dozen times, catch up with those class mates they wanted to, then forget about it. On Facebook behaviour seems much the same; join, accumulate dozens of semi-friends, spy on a few exes for a bit, play some Scrabulous, get bored, then get on with your life, occasionally dropping in to respond to a message or see some photos that have been posted. Similarly, once the novelty of MySpace wears off, most people only stop by to check out bands or watch videos. They've basically developed a way to add a penny-scraping coda to the Friends Reunited pattern, thanks to diversions that have been enabled by broadband. The biggest difference is that Friends Reunited made easy profit because it didn't give all its features away to users for free. In the meantime, expect spinners to work on massaging the comScore figures, and happy-clappy bloggers to leap to social networking's defence by claiming the falls are sign of the market maturing, and of fierce competition. They could be right, but it still means that the individual business are not the goldmine their greedy backers slavered over. Despite his endearing deployment of rubber sandals in public, Mark Zuckerberg is yet to convince marketeers - the only people who are ever going to pay him for access to Facebook - that the popularity of his site heralds the next 100 years of media. And the
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
I agree with you to the extent that most (All?) social networking sites are designed without the aid/help/input from social psychologists.. I only got interested in the social psych/cog psych of SNAs after I started designing an SNA. But first a comment - I know of only one SNA that was designed by college students - Facebook. And it is all about socializing and entertainment. People can connect - but other than twittering - their is no formalized publishing or blogging. There is no incentive system built in. Connections on Facebook and many other SNAs mean absolutely nothing. It offers no other value to the user. The other thing is that there may be a saturation point for some SNAs - a poiunt at which every person inclined to join an SNA has already done so. I know for a fact that Gather.com continues to gather momentum as an SNA since we launched it in August '05 - but it's value proposition and market positioning could not be more different from the likes of Facebook, which might account for it's continued growth. On Gather, at least - connections have meaning - you need to cultivate relationships through commenting, messaging, author-author collaboration. There are incentives built in to encourage people to connect, comment, publish - as well as contests for writers. That said - I agree that SNAs - to continue to grow - better grasp an understanding of basic socpsych if they wish to grow the networks and increased their value to users. -W 2008/1/31 Murli Nagasundaram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Social apps are far more complex than single-user apps. I wonder to what extent a lack of social psych research input into the design of these apps -- the most popular ones having been designed by college undergrads -- is causing their popularity to plateau? To me, this suggests a discontinuity similar to the one that occurred when command line interfaces were displaced by GUIs. Every GUI out there can trace its origins to the the multi-disclipinary, thoroughly grounded research conducted at Xerox PARC. I think it's possible to go only so far by the seat of one's pants. Without GUIs or at least the bastardized compromises that were delivered on the DOS platform in the mid-1980's, PC use would have plateaued in much the way the social apps are slowing down now. The next phase of Social App development might require Sproull, Kiesler, Turoff, Hiltz and others to re-emerge from the shadows. -murli http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ 'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networksSeven Two year itch pokeBy Chris Williams http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ → More by this author http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Chris%20Williams Published Thursday 31st January 2008 15:19 GMT Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualization http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/341/reg2?td=toptextlink *Shhh!* Can you hear a hiss? That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad. Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes has been saying for months - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. The average length of time users spend on all of the top three sites is on the slide. Bebo, MySpace and Facebook all took double-digit percentage hits in the last months of 2007. December could perhaps be forgiven as a seasonal blip when people see their real friends and family, but the trend was already south. The story year-on-year is even uglier for social networking advocates. Bebo and MySpace were both well down on the same period in 2006 - Murdoch's site by 24 per cent. Facebook meanwhile chalked up a rise, although way off its mid-2007 hype peak when you couldn't move for zeitgeist-chasing where's the Facebook angle? stories in the press and on TV. You can survey the full numerical horror for youself here http://creativecapital.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/its-official-us-social-networking-sites-see-slow-down/ at Creative Capital. That user engagement is dropping off (page impression growth is merely slowing) should be of particular concern for the sales people struggling to turn these free services into profit-making businesses. In the age of tabbed browsing, how long people stick around is particularly key for interactive sites, where people aren't attracted by useful information, but by time-wasting opportunities. And as we've noted here before, if the cash isn't raining down on you you need a phenomenal growth line to sell credulous reporters and investors. Expansion into non-English speaking countries is viewed as such a panacea for the increasingly obvious slowdown US social networks are suffering (see Facebook's trawl for translation bitcheshttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/fb_translation/ ). The fact is that web
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
I really like this quote - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. As if humanity will *ever* be bored of social networks, considering that we have been happily using them for thousands of years. It certainly wouldn't be surprising that there would be an upper bound on how much socialization an individual can maintain, and that the need for different types of socialization change throughout the phases of one's life. My guess is that the SNAs that offer more mature services such as finding employment may appeal to a larger audience and see longer-term usage, while those focusing on posting college party photos probably only appeal for a shorter period and see a high-turnover in their user base. I would also expect that there are high-value niche opportunities for SNAs that haven't properly been explored yet. -Jeff Jeff Axup, Ph.D. Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego Research:Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability E-mail:axup at userdesign.com Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com Designers mine the raw bits of tomorrow. They shape them for the present day. - Bruce Sterling 2008/1/31 Murli Nagasundaram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Social apps are far more complex than single-user apps. I wonder to what extent a lack of social psych research input into the design of these apps -- the most popular ones having been designed by college undergrads -- is causing their popularity to plateau? To me, this suggests a discontinuity similar to the one that occurred when command line interfaces were displaced by GUIs. Every GUI out there can trace its origins to the the multi-disclipinary, thoroughly grounded research conducted at Xerox PARC. I think it's possible to go only so far by the seat of one's pants. Without GUIs or at least the bastardized compromises that were delivered on the DOS platform in the mid-1980's, PC use would have plateaued in much the way the social apps are slowing down now. The next phase of Social App development might require Sproull, Kiesler, Turoff, Hiltz and others to re-emerge from the shadows. -murli http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ 'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networksSeven Two year itch pokeBy Chris Williams http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ → More by this author http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Chris%20Williams Published Thursday 31st January 2008 15:19 GMT Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualization http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/341/reg2?td=toptextlink *Shhh!* Can you hear a hiss? That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad. Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes has been saying for months - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. The average length of time users spend on all of the top three sites is on the slide. Bebo, MySpace and Facebook all took double-digit percentage hits in the last months of 2007. December could perhaps be forgiven as a seasonal blip when people see their real friends and family, but the trend was already south. The story year-on-year is even uglier for social networking advocates. Bebo and MySpace were both well down on the same period in 2006 - Murdoch's site by 24 per cent. Facebook meanwhile chalked up a rise, although way off its mid-2007 hype peak when you couldn't move for zeitgeist-chasing where's the Facebook angle? stories in the press and on TV. You can survey the full numerical horror for youself here http://creativecapital.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/its-official-us-social-networking-sites-see-slow-down/ at Creative Capital. That user engagement is dropping off (page impression growth is merely slowing) should be of particular concern for the sales people struggling to turn these free services into profit-making businesses. In the age of tabbed browsing, how long people stick around is particularly key for interactive sites, where people aren't attracted by useful information, but by time-wasting opportunities. And as we've noted here before, if the cash isn't raining down on you you need a phenomenal growth line to sell credulous reporters and investors. Expansion into non-English speaking countries is viewed as such a panacea for the increasingly obvious slowdown US social networks are suffering (see Facebook's trawl for translation bitcheshttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/fb_translation/ ). The fact is that web users people are just as fickle in Leipzig as they are in London, and it seems
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
I dunno. It appears to me that the biggest sector for manufactured outrage over social media numbers going up or down comes from VC or others (tech media) with such a vested interest in people slathering all over something with mass media-scale obsession numbers that they appear to lose all perspective. No massive numbers, and VC are bored, perhaps because they are offended when people don't behave like utter sheep and move around en masse when their buttons are pushed. Thank god for interactivity, heterogeneity, long tails, diversity, and other things that vex these people so horribly. Anybody who participates in social media, and has over long periods of time (The Well? Remember listservs? Usenet?) understands very well that there are lifecyles for all gathering places. When was the last time you wept over a dead shopping mall with grass growing in the cracks in the parking lot? How long can an active church go on without some doctrine dispute that leads a chunk of the parishoners to split off into a rival congregation? I suspect that the people with the deep pockets are primarily gold prospectors, looking to mine rich veins, and when they discover faster money or better gushers (to mix the metaphors thoroughly), they will move on, and the social networks will remain to give them the finger. Which type of folks would you rather side with? Social networks and the virtual landscapes they have authored preceded the flow of money online, and they persisted through the last crash (imagine that!), and they will persist again, regardless of how crowds migrate and social groups change and morph, who splits off from which church, or which discussion group has the greatest center of SOCIAL gravity (which bears little correspondence to MONEY gravity). Chris 2008/1/31 Jeff Axup [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I really like this quote - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. As if humanity will *ever* be bored of social networks, considering that we have been happily using them for thousands of years. It certainly wouldn't be surprising that there would be an upper bound on how much socialization an individual can maintain, and that the need for different types of socialization change throughout the phases of one's life. My guess is that the SNAs that offer more mature services such as finding employment may appeal to a larger audience and see longer-term usage, while those focusing on posting college party photos probably only appeal for a shorter period and see a high-turnover in their user base. I would also expect that there are high-value niche opportunities for SNAs that haven't properly been explored yet. -Jeff Jeff Axup, Ph.D. Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego Research:Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability E-mail:axup at userdesign.com Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com Designers mine the raw bits of tomorrow. They shape them for the present day. - Bruce Sterling 2008/1/31 Murli Nagasundaram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Social apps are far more complex than single-user apps. I wonder to what extent a lack of social psych research input into the design of these apps -- the most popular ones having been designed by college undergrads -- is causing their popularity to plateau? To me, this suggests a discontinuity similar to the one that occurred when command line interfaces were displaced by GUIs. Every GUI out there can trace its origins to the the multi-disclipinary, thoroughly grounded research conducted at Xerox PARC. I think it's possible to go only so far by the seat of one's pants. Without GUIs or at least the bastardized compromises that were delivered on the DOS platform in the mid-1980's, PC use would have plateaued in much the way the social apps are slowing down now. The next phase of Social App development might require Sproull, Kiesler, Turoff, Hiltz and others to re-emerge from the shadows. -murli http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ 'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networksSeven Two year itch pokeBy Chris Williams http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/ → More by this author http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Chris%20Williams Published Thursday 31st January 2008 15:19 GMT Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualization http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/paper/view/341/reg2?td=toptextlink *Shhh!* Can you hear a hiss? That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad. Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
I wonder about the extent to which the major social network sites realize they are in the entertainment business. As such, their stickiness is based on novelty, and has an inherent ceiling effect since there is only so much time to devote to entertainment. As the novelty wears off, and there is no answer to the now what question, people will start spending their time elsewhere. It's interesting that the sites seem to have hitched their continued novelty to the 3rd party app bandwagon. Contrast that with another major entertainment platform - game consoles - where the platform providers are also major contributors of novelty (i.e. new games) to help ensure that people stick around. There is also another alternative which Will pointed out - get out of the entertainment business and provide a different kind of value. There is a lot of power locked up in social networks, it's just not being captured right now. Facebook at least seems to realize this and thus is moving in the platform direction, it's just a matter of whether the platform is structured in a way that allows for value extraction. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Another anecdote (note- I no longer have stock in Gather) - Gather takes it's advertising revenue and revenue from allowing companies to set up groups around their products - and turns around and pays people for their contributions to the SN - you earn points by connecting, publishing, and commenting - which can be redeemed for gift cards to borders/home depot, etc if you generate a min number of points/month - you can earn cash. My mom (blogging about 3 hours a day), gets about $150-$250/month in gift cards. So different SNAs need to really find out what value they are offering to users/members. MySpace obviously allows you to stalk children, Facebook allows you to watch your connections Twitter (and stalk your ex-bf/gf), LinkedIn allows you to keep track of all your business connections, but my real questions is for the 300+ other me-2 SNAs that don't offer anything unique, or anything at all - and expect to generate income from eyeballs and stickiness without offering a compelling reason to be sticky On Jan 31, 2008 11:52 AM, Todd Roberts [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wonder about the extent to which the major social network sites realize they are in the entertainment business. As such, their stickiness is based on novelty, and has an inherent ceiling effect since there is only so much time to devote to entertainment. As the novelty wears off, and there is no answer to the now what question, people will start spending their time elsewhere. It's interesting that the sites seem to have hitched their continued novelty to the 3rd party app bandwagon. Contrast that with another major entertainment platform - game consoles - where the platform providers are also major contributors of novelty (i.e. new games) to help ensure that people stick around. There is also another alternative which Will pointed out - get out of the entertainment business and provide a different kind of value. There is a lot of power locked up in social networks, it's just not being captured right now. Facebook at least seems to realize this and thus is moving in the platform direction, it's just a matter of whether the platform is structured in a way that allows for value extraction. *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Christine's comment is prescient given the blog posting by Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/tribal-manageme.html Tribe Management Brand management is so 1999. Brand management was top down, internally focused, political and money based. It involved an MBA managing the brand, the ads, the shelf space, etc. The MBA argued with product development and manufacturing to get decent stuff, and with the CFO to get more cash to spend on ads. Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at the world. It starts with permission, the understanding that the real asset most organizations can build isn't an amorphous brand but is in fact the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them. It adds to that the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about. And of course, since this is so important, product development and manufacturing and the CFO *work* for the tribal manager. Everything the organization does is to feed and grow and satisfy the tribe. Instead of looking for customers for your products, you seek out products (and services) for the tribe. Jerry Garcia understood this. Do you? Who does this work for? Try record companies and bloggers, real estate agents and recruiters, book publishers and insurance companies. It works for Andrew Weil and for Rickie Lee Jones and for Rupert at the WSJ... But it also works for a small web development firm or a venture capitalist. People form tribes with or without us. The challenge is to work for the tribe and make it something even better. 2008/1/31 Christine Boese [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I dunno. It appears to me that the biggest sector for manufactured outrage over social media numbers going up or down comes from VC or others (tech media) with such a vested interest in people slathering all over something with mass media-scale obsession numbers that they appear to lose all perspective. No massive numbers, and VC are bored, perhaps because they are offended when people don't behave like utter sheep and move around en masse when their buttons are pushed. Thank god for interactivity, heterogeneity, long tails, diversity, and other things that vex these people so horribly. Anybody who participates in social media, and has over long periods of time (The Well? Remember listservs? Usenet?) understands very well that there are lifecyles for all gathering places. When was the last time you wept over a dead shopping mall with grass growing in the cracks in the parking lot? How long can an active church go on without some doctrine dispute that leads a chunk of the parishoners to split off into a rival congregation? I suspect that the people with the deep pockets are primarily gold prospectors, looking to mine rich veins, and when they discover faster money or better gushers (to mix the metaphors thoroughly), they will move on, and the social networks will remain to give them the finger. Which type of folks would you rather side with? Social networks and the virtual landscapes they have authored preceded the flow of money online, and they persisted through the last crash (imagine that!), and they will persist again, regardless of how crowds migrate and social groups change and morph, who splits off from which church, or which discussion group has the greatest center of SOCIAL gravity (which bears little correspondence to MONEY gravity). Chris 2008/1/31 Jeff Axup [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I really like this quote - people are, just, well, *bored* of social networks. As if humanity will *ever* be bored of social networks, considering that we have been happily using them for thousands of years. It certainly wouldn't be surprising that there would be an upper bound on how much socialization an individual can maintain, and that the need for different types of socialization change throughout the phases of one's life. My guess is that the SNAs that offer more mature services such as finding employment may appeal to a larger audience and see longer-term usage, while those focusing on posting college party photos probably only appeal for a shorter period and see a high-turnover in their user base. I would also expect that there are high-value niche opportunities for SNAs that haven't properly been explored yet. -Jeff Jeff Axup, Ph.D. Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego Research:Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability E-mail:axup at userdesign.com Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Merli - Wouldn't you agree that from a pure social psychology perspective - at least theoretically - pleasing or not - SNAs do allow for three key group/social dynamic needs, Stalking, imitation, and gossip - a recent book actually has come out talking about the huge importance of gossip in maintaining social networks... you might find the following interesting: *Stalking, imitation and gossip* What would a good social system be without some means of stalking, imitation and gossip? (Speaking of which - I was recently reading something about evolutionary psychobiology and the importance of Gossip in developing language and semantic maps in early humans, but can't for the life of me remember where -- need to come back to this - anyway, I will look into this and come back with some references). Part of social life is all the things we pretend we don't do when in polite company. Most of us, at some point or the other stalked someone (remember when you could fingerhttp://www.cs.indiana.edu:800/finger people). Some reporthttp://laughingmeme.org/articles/2005/12/26/tag-stalking *learning about others' personal lives* using their *me* and *craigslist*tags. And of course, we can *imitate people* we watch (copy their items and tags). Recently, I have started noticing the watercooler type post-event conversations around photographs on Flickr (facilitated by specific event tags). Luckily, tagging systems do not promote popularity lists the way blogs do. If they did, then this rich social tapestry might degenerate to popularity contests, and otherwise sane people would start behaving as in high school (specifically American high school. For a fascinating article on Why Nerds Are Unpopular - the importance of Gossip, pecking order, arbitrary hierarchies in social organizations and group flock behavior in american high schools - read this article by Paul Grahamhttp://paulgraham.com/nerds.html ). ~ will - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Jeff Axup said (with what I perceived as a touch of irony, and I think not too seriously): I really like this quote - 'people are, just, well, bored of social networks.' As if humanity will ever be bored of social networks, considering that we have been happily using them for thousands of years. Not like this. To compare this technological simulation to a true social network is to say you've been skydiving because you watched a video that was taped from the point of view of the guy who actually did it. It has some value if viewed with sufficient empathy (we supply that ourselves), but lacks the validation needed for a genuine experience of society. What do Facebook, MySpace, et al *not* have that traditional social networking has? Things like body language, eye contact, genuine social context, validation that you are in fact talking to another 16-year-old like yourself ... In short, they lack the element of trust -- in part because participants have whatever degree of anonymity they choose to have. Whatever other metrics are applied to assess the decline of online social networks, I think this lack of trust will be the bottom line. We'll have heard one too many stories about people who pretended to be something they aren't, and others getting hurt in some way because of it. I do think that online social networks can be a valuable way to reinforce existing social interactions, but it seems unlikely to me that they could ever stand alone. Nor should they. I can't imagine calling any group a society when all their interactions are superficial and transient. Anything that evaporates in a power outage is not a society. Thank you, Murli and everyone, for some very thought-provoking ideas. I'm enjoying your comments very much, in spite of my uncertainty about your existence in real time and space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
There's a nice exploration/rant on this topic over on Adam Greenfield's blog: Antisocial Networking http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2007/12/09/antisocial-networking/ From the post - All social-networking systems, as currently designed, demonstrably create social awkwardnesses that did not, and could not, exist before. [...] Having to declare the degree of intimacy you%u2019re willing to grant each friend, whether in public and for all to see or simply so that they see it, is a state of affairs I%u2019ve described, in comments elsewhere, as %u201Cfrankly autistic.%u201D [...] I believe that technically-mediated social networking at any level beyond very simple, local applications is fundamentally, and probably persistently, a bad idea. // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Greenfield makes some great points, Jeff. Thanks for that link to his Antisocial Networking rant. Looking at this from the standpoint of anthropology, I think there's something inevitable about how we're wrestling with some of these details just a few years after we've functionally connected ourselves in real time to the entire world (or those relatively few inhabitants of the world who can afford the time and technology to play along). When we superimpose new technology on a pre-existing convention, it becomes a sort of metaphor for that convention. But a web page is not in fact a page at all. Our friends on MySpace are not really friends, and the word apple is not an apple. The metaphor is profoundly useful for our understanding of any new thing -- if we don't forget it's a metaphor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
To put it another way, The Map is Not The Territory. http://tinyurl.com/z4qps // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Jeff - going all Magritte on us now! To wit: This is not a pipe Not all social networks mediated by technology are the same. Friends on MySpace, Connections on LinkedIn, friends on Facebook -- may not be friends - but they are not precluded from being friends by the nature of the mediation. Some friends on Facebook may in fact be real friends. What may start out as 'fake' friends - may end up becoming friends in meatspace. No? On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:49:35, Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Greenfield makes some great points, Jeff. Thanks for that link to his Antisocial Networking rant. Looking at this from the standpoint of anthropology, I think there's something inevitable about how we're wrestling with some of these details just a few years after we've functionally connected ourselves in real time to the entire world (or those relatively few inhabitants of the world who can afford the time and technology to play along). When we superimpose new technology on a pre-existing convention, it becomes a sort of metaphor for that convention. But a web page is not in fact a page at all. Our friends on MySpace are not really friends, and the word apple is not an apple. The metaphor is profoundly useful for our understanding of any new thing -- if we don't forget it's a metaphor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Wow - now your busting out with Baudrillard? Welcome to the desert of the real! Actually - I suppose that social networks will only exhibit the kind of crisis of identity when simulacra replace simulation, and copies without originals rule the SNAs *http://tinyurl.com/y9kh9w * On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:27:35, Jeff Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To put it another way, The Map is Not The Territory. http://tinyurl.com/z4qps // jeff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
Will said: Jeff- going all Magritte on us now! To wit: 'This is not a pipe' Hah! Yeah, I was thinking something along the lines of the zen koan in which the monk says not the wind, not the flag, but mind is moving. Seriously, you're right that MySpace friends can transition (in either direction). If I have an objection to the whole concept of online social networks, it's the way the metaphors are used so casually and loosely. What are friendship, respect and love without accountability and the reciprocal obligation to _earn_ our place in the lives of others? What will these concepts mean to a person who evolves without sufficient understanding of that reciprocity? My friendships require considerably more maintenance than an occasional twitter, and I'm content with that. We've only recently heard about the girl who committed suicide because she was dissed online by somebody who didn't exist. I think that's one casualty we should think about when we consider the implications of implementing new social paradigms via technology. Sorry, that's probably way off topic here! I do think it's important to consider the social implications of these technologies, though. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Social app popularity begins to decline
I do agree with you on those points. I personally don't find this off topic because it goes to the nascent concept of a code of ethics for us - since many of us here are designing these new ecologies of simulated experience and identity - and we need to think about the implications of our design decisions both at the micro and at the macro level. I am reminded of the postmodern concept of fractured identity - like a broken mirror - managing various aspects of ourselves - at varying degrees of likeness to our true selves (whatever that means), and the extent to which certain 'invented' personas on SNAs might gain strength as they are reinforced through positive feedback - yet signify nothing (in the Lacan sense of signifier). I remember the article in Wired about the married man who got carried away with his invested persona, and actually developed a love affair with a 15-16 year old girl who thought the man was a 19 year old in Iraq - and the guys persona literally took over his real identity. So these issues are real - and we should think about them. On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:17:26, Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Will said: Jeff- going all Magritte on us now! To wit: 'This is not a pipe' Hah! Yeah, I was thinking something along the lines of the zen koan in which the monk says not the wind, not the flag, but mind is moving. Seriously, you're right that MySpace friends can transition (in either direction). If I have an objection to the whole concept of online social networks, it's the way the metaphors are used so casually and loosely. What are friendship, respect and love without accountability and the reciprocal obligation to _earn_ our place in the lives of others? What will these concepts mean to a person who evolves without sufficient understanding of that reciprocity? My friendships require considerably more maintenance than an occasional twitter, and I'm content with that. We've only recently heard about the girl who committed suicide because she was dissed online by somebody who didn't exist. I think that's one casualty we should think about when we consider the implications of implementing new social paradigms via technology. Sorry, that's probably way off topic here! I do think it's important to consider the social implications of these technologies, though. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25387 *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- ~ will No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it. Alan Cooper - Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems --- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
