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30 Nov 09

Twitter and the Global Brain - Google Docs

The prevailing model for many years of how synapses between neurons in the brain are altered during learning has been Hebbian learning, which can be summarized as "neurons that fire together, wire together". In other words, in two neurons fire at the same time, the connection(s) between them will strengthened.

But recent evidence in neuroscience shows the truth is actually an interested twist on this idea - a twist that could have important implications as a model of how global consciousness could emerge from real-time social media like Twitter.

In reality, synapses are modified according to a rule called Spike Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP). In a nutshell, STDP says that if two neurons fire (= spike) in rapid succession, the connection from the one that fires first to the one that fires second will be strengthened.

In other words, if neuron A reliably fires shortly before neuron B, the connection from A to B will get stronger, so that next time when neuron A fires, neuron B will be more likely to fire too. And the opposite holds as well. In this example, since the firing of neuron B lags behind neuron A, the strength of the connection in that direction (from B to A), will be weakened. You could think of it as the neural equivalent of the old saying 'the early bird catches the worm' - a neuron that fires first gains increasing influence on its downstream neighbors.

STDP is a simple idea, but it has been shown to be a surprisingly powerful way that the brain uses for rapid pattern recognition and classification [1][2]. It turns out that using STDP, neurons naturally learn to specialize in detecting certain patterns in their inputs, even in the presence of lots of noise.

So what in the world does this have to do with social networks? There is an intriguing analogy between networks of neurons operating by the STDP rule and the emerging structure and functioning of real-time social networks like Twitter.

docs.google.com/Doc - Preview

twitter social_networks neuroplasticity collective_intelligence

24 Nov 09

EtherPad: conf-budtheteacher-readingsocialnetworks

For this activity, we would like for you to take a step back from your role as a participant in some social networks and to take a moment to assume the role of ethnographer. Social networks are texts - let's take a look at them as such. Below is a list of several popular or niche social networking sites. Either log in using an existing account, create an account, or borrow Bud's account (Bud has an account on most of these), and take a tour through the networking site with the following list of questions present in mind.

You might wish to copy and paste this list of questions to wherever it is that you take digital notes and jot some thoughts down while you take your tour. Feel free to skip questions - the goal of this activity is not for you to fill out a worksheet, but to think about how the social networks and networking tools that we use shape the way that we use them. In addition, be mindful of how our students approach these sites, and how we might build our classroom networks to facilitate the bahaviors that we value, rather than using the tools that come along.

etherpad.com/eteacher-readingsocialnetworks - Preview

educational_technology social_networks

On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors - Rosabeth Moss Kanter - HarvardBusiness.org

"In the World According to Twitter, giving away access to information rewards the giver by building followers. The more followers, the more information comes to the giver to distribute, which in turn builds more followers. The process cannot be commanded or controlled; followers opt in and out as they choose. The results are transparent and purely quantitative; network size is all that matters. Networks of this sort are self-organizing and democratic but without any collective interaction.

The significance of Twitter is yet to be determined; it is a simple, impersonal, and transient application of technology. But very real network effects are a new source of power in and around organizations.

America in the 20th century was called a "society of organizations." Formal hierarchies with clear reporting relationships gave people their position and their power. In the 21st century, America is rapidly becoming a society of networks, even within organizations. Maintenance of organizations as structures is less important than assembling resources to get results, even if the assemblage itself is loose and perishable. "

blogs.harvardbusiness.org/...power-to-the-connectors.html - Preview

twitter networks social_networks

21 Nov 09

People Search | Find People | Spokeo

"Learn something new about your friends... GUARANTEED. Find People instantly through the best people search tool on the internet. Try it Free! You can also search for people and find hidden photos and videos.
Want to see something juicy? Spokeo searches deep within 48 major social networks to find truly mouth-watering news about friends and coworkers. "

www.spokeo.com - Preview

privacy social_networks

18 Nov 09

The Rise Of Networks, The End Of Process - /Message

"And some, a few, are trying to think through a new model for business, reconstructed around what we have learned in the open web, balanced with what we know about the conduct of business. A new hybrid, intentionally devised to keep the best of the old (or at least the parts that will still work) and fuse that with the new, social models that dominate the web revolution.

From a social viewpoint, the architecture of business seems all wrong. People aren't really designed to do one thing, like a cog in a watch. They have various relationships with other people, and through these relationships they have influence on the work going on all around them. They are not alone, like a moth in a bell jar. We are not alone, in our work. Even the most repetitive of work -- screwing bolts on an assembly line, or delivering the mail -- happens in the context of other people, and is made more valuable by their exertions.

Increasingly, people's work is being viewed as a shared aspect of social relations. Time is a shared space, where we cooperate toward shared ends.

One casualty of this large-scale shift in business doctrine may be the hallowed business process. The notion of a process -- a defined series of steps in the production of goods or the delivery of services -- subordinates individuals to the their roles in the process.

For decades, business planners have made a distinction between repetitive, lock-step processes, where very little variability is involved (think pharmacy), and more free-form, unstructured processes where a higher degree of variability is expected (think emergency room). Taking the abstraction of a process out of the world of chemistry, manufacturing, and logistics, and treating the people involved as so many chemicals, gears, or trucks seemed like a good idea in the past, but is not going to be workable, going forward.

We will have to devise a new, richer way to think about people's interactions -- via social networks -- and our connection to mechanical processes and devices."

www.stoweboyd.com/...tworks-the-end-of-process.html - Preview

networks social_media social_networks

16 Nov 09

Network Capital: An Expression of Social Capital in the Network Society

This article deals with an emerging type of social capital which is labeled as ‘network capital’. It is formed from collaborative practices emerging from e-enabled human networks. It is proposed that network capital is a specific type of social capital in

ci-journal.net/...317 - Preview

social_software social_capital social_networks networks

This
article deals with an emerging type of social capital which is
labeled as ‘network capital’. It is formed from
collaborative practices emerging from e-enabled human networks. It is
proposed that network capital is a specific type of social capital in
the Network Society, and that it holds significant value for the
advancement of human development around the world.
According
to Amartya Sen, ‘human development’ refers to the
expansion of choices (i.e. freedoms) for people to live better lives.
This concept has universal application, so it is not only valid for
under-developed nations (
16 more annotations...
- Social
  capital is a measure of social cohesion, and one of the indicators of
  the overall ‘wealth’ of a country/society (together with
  financial, human, natural and physical capitals). The World Bank
  defines it as “the institutions, relationships, and norms
  that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social
  interactions. (…) . Social capital is not just the sum of the
  institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that
  holds them together.”
- Another
  definition for social capital, this time in relation to networks, is
  as “the networks of social interaction and the norms of
  reciprocity that allow the individual and the community to assume a
  habit of civic collaboration aimed at common goals” [UNV
  2000]. This definition has the double advantage of treating social
  capital as a network concept and it introduces the fundamental
  element of ‘commonality’ which puts it in the sphere of
  public goods.
- It
  is relevant to discuss social capital in the new context given by the
  emergence of a new phase of history, the Information Age, and its
  functional structure, the Network Society. Wellman writes that “the
  transformation of national and global societies into ‘network
  societies’ suggests the usefulness of thinking of social
  capital as a product of personal community networks as well as of
  formally institutionalized groups.” It is well beyond the
  scope of this article to try to explore social capital in this new
  social context. Rather, our focus here is merely one aspect of it,
  which can be named ‘network capital’.
  
  Communities
  are no longer defined only by place, but also by interest, becoming
  organized into social networks. When the interaction takes place
  among members of an electronic network, which are likely loosely-knit
  in geographic terms, the resulting social capital is network based.
  Network capital could then be understood as a measure of the
  differentiated value in the Information Age that communities
  structured as social networks generate on the basis of electronic
  (digital) networks for themselves, for others and for society as a
  whole.
- Wellman describes network capital as the form of social
  capital that makes resources available through interpersonal ties. He
  writes that it consists of “knowing how to maintain a
  networked computer, search for information on the Internet and use
  the knowledge gained, create and sustain online relationships, and
  use these relationships to obtain needed resources, including
  indirect links to friends of friends.” [Wellman 2001] and
  that it can be measured by “the frequency of social contact
  with friends, relatives, and workmates.” While these are
  indeed elements of network capital, they clearly do not sufficiently
  explain it.
- Network
  capital can be characterized through a combination of attributes,
- It
  is a result of cooperation via electronic networks,
- It
  is largely produced by volunteer action and contributions
- It
  is created by communities of interest, where membership is based on
  personal interest, skills, background/experience and sharing of a
  common purpose.
- t
  is generated by people organized as a virtual community who share a
  communal cyberplace
- t
  is largely produced from asynchronous communications which provide
  greater flexibility for the human nodes of the networks
- It
  has been particularly concerned with knowledge
  generation,
- It
  favors the expanded participation of people in matters of common
  interest, by facilitating the logistics and dynamics of such
  involvement. It thus opens up a wider array of possibilities for
  individuals to behave as ‘global citizens’, and to
  become involved in actions and issues not bounded by their physical
  location.
  
  An
  early and still paradigmatic example of network capital comes from
  the creation of Free/Open Source software (FOSS). People from
  different locations, who may not ever see each other, use Internet
  and net-based tools to exchange information, generate knowledge, work
  collaboratively and develop well-defined products, ‘all for the
  love of it’. These people consider themselves as software
  artists (even activists), and participate on a voluntary basis. They
  meet at specific cyberplaces, eg. distribution lists, extranets or
  project management applications, and sometimes in person as well, at
  conferences or other public events.
  
  FOSS
  communities have crafted a culture of sharing and solidarity which
  not only makes their processes sustainable, but is a stimulus and
  reference for others to also pursue electronic-based
  collaboration. The ‘Open-Source’ approach is becoming
  known for its methods and philosophy in fields outside of software
  production, as a collaborative methodology.
- This human network within the larger
  project (and largely virtual) community would only coalesce for the
  purposes of the project, because it would be created and tailor-made
  for that purpose. The collaborative working methods are sure to
  resonate with some of the people involved, who would apply them later
  in other spheres. Some of the relationships initiated by the projects
  would become lasting human bonds, either for professional or personal
  purposes. The results and outcomes of the project would arguably
  prove to be, to a significant extent, a consequence of the network
  capital formed during its implementation.
- Network capital is ‘ICT-enabled’
  and will be a measure of how people collaborate through electronic
  networks for personal, communal and even global benefits. In other
  words, it is the social capital of the ‘space of flows’
  described by Castells.
- Network
  capital holds important potential for human development and
  specifically for development cooperation, where global and local
  issues mix fluidly in the processes leading to greater options for
  people and improved living conditions. The global citizen will have
  more possibilities to become involved in social causes, with lesser
  constraints of place or time.
- Ultimately, network capital is a social asset
  which can appear spontaneously. But as a public good, it will grow
  better if adequately fostered and stimulated, in turn increasing and
  spreading its benefits.

09 Nov 09

Social Wargaming: Now Looking For Teams «

"I’ve been collaborating since with web ecologist Alexy Khrabrov on using games as a way of creating these focused scenarios that people can experiment with. Beyond being fun, it’s also a way of gathering data around what works and what doesn’t in terms of shaping and influencing social structures online.

Think of it like computer security Capture The Flag, but for social engineering and social hacking.

The general idea is this: judges will specify a “battleground” of unknowing, target users (who aren’t aware a game is going on) that form a common pool competed over by all the participants. Groups of teams will then descend on them, trying to get these people to behave in a particular way or influence the overall shape of the social structure. We keep score. And then teams are ranked accordingly. The hope is that teams will mine data about the targets and try to develop a strategy based around available data about the social terrain of the situation."

brosephstalin.com/...argaming-now-looking-for-teams - Preview

social_media gaming2learn social_networks

Map your brand's twitter social networks - Eventbrite

"Learn how to build a map of the social network surrounding your brand, conference, product, or event.

This is a hands-on guide to creating social network maps from live twitter data.

- Create a visualization that reveals groups, communities and influential participants in the swarm of people mentioning keywords of interest to you.

- Create a visual web of the relationships among the people who mention these keywords when they follow, mention or reply to one another.

- Learn how to calculate key metrics using a free and open add-in for Excel 2007 (NodeXL) that can identify key contributors who play influential roles in your communities.

- Compare your maps to other workshop participants and to a growing gallery of maps of keywords related to conferences like Web2.0, Enterprise 2.0, 140conf, and others.

- Come with your own query terms and make a map during the workshop with our assistance."

smanalysistwitter.eventbrite.com - Preview

social_networks visualization twitter

05 Nov 09

The Valley of My Dreams: Why Silicon Valley Left Boston’s Route 128 In The Dust

"A young professor at UC-Berkeley, AnnaLee Saxenian, wrote a book in 1994 which answers this question. At a time when Boston still thought it was the powerhouse of the tech industry, Saxenian declared Boston the loser in the tech race and explained why it would only fall further behind. This book was titled Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. It kicked off a firestorm of criticism from the Boston elite. Saxenian also alienated friends at her alma mater, MIT.

She noted that Silicon Valley had an amazing dynamism about it. There were extensive professional networks, job hopping was the norm, information was exchanged openly, and the culture encouraged risk taking. The Silicon Valley ecosystem supported entrepreneurial experimentation and collective learning. In other words, Silicon Valley was a very open network—a giant social networking site working in analog before the concept of such a thing even existed."

www.techcrunch.com/...-bostons-route-128-in-the-dust - Preview

networks social_networks technology innovation

04 Nov 09

Social Isolation and New Technology | Pew Internet & American Life Project

"This Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey finds that Americans are not as isolated as has been previously reported. People’s use of the mobile phone and the internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks. And, when we examine people’s full personal network – their strong and weak ties – internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks."

www.pewinternet.org/...lation-and-New-Technology.aspx - Preview

social_networks sociology mobile_devices

02 Nov 09

ijurr.wpd

Computer networks are social networks. Social affordances of computer supported social networks--broader bandwidth, wireless portability, globalized connectivity, personalization--are fostering the movement from door-to-door and place-to-place communities to person-to-person and role-to-role communities. People connect in social networks rather than in communal groups. In-person and computer-mediated communication are integrated in communities characterized by personalized networking.
"

www.chass.utoronto.ca/...ijurr3a1.htm - Preview

social_networks sociology online_community networks

Abstract

Computer networks
are social networks. Social affordances of computer supported social networks--broader
bandwidth, wireless portability, globalized connectivity, personalization--are
fostering the movement from door-to-door and place-to-place communities to person-to-person
and role-to-role communities. People connect in social networks rather than
in communal groups. In-person and computer-mediated communication are integrated
in communities characterized by personalized networking.
We find
community in networks, not groups. Although people often view the world in terms
of groups (Freeman 1992), they function in networks. In networked societies:
boundaries are permeable, interactions are with diverse others, connections
switch between multiple networks, and hierarchies can be flatter and recursive.
50 more annotations...
- Communities are far-flung,
  loosely-bounded, sparsely-knit, and fragmentary. Most people operate in multiple,
  thinly-connected, partial communities as they deal with networks of kin, neighbours,
  friends, workmates and organizational ties. Rather than fitting into the same
  group as those around them, each person has his/her own "personal community"
- he structure and composition of
  community networks affect people's control over their lives, and people's structural
  positions in community networks affect the kinds of resources to which they
  have access. The proliferation of personal community networks happened well
  before the development of cyberspace (Wellman and Wetherell 1996; Wellman 1999a).
  Yet the rapid emergence of computer-mediated communications means that relations
  in cyberplaces are joining with relations on the ground.
- Complex social
  networks have always existed, but recent technological developments in communication
  have afforded their emergence as a dominant form of social organization. When
  computer-mediated communication networks link people, institutions and knowledge,
  they are computer-supported social networks. The technological development of
  computer networks and the societal flourishing of social networks are now in
  a positive feedback loop.
- I define "community"
  as networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information,
  a sense of belonging, and social identity.
- I examine
  the "social affordances" of technology: The possibilities that technological
  changes afford for social relations and social structure.⁽³⁾
- The
  human use of these technologies is creating and sustaining community ties. These
  ties have transformed cyberspace into cyberplaces, as people
  connect online with kindred spirits, engage in supportive and sociable relationships
  with them, and imbue their activity online with meaning, belonging and identity.
- To be sure, these technologies
  also have negative affordances, such as interpersonal alienation, lessened privacy,
  increased surveillance, and machine-dependent vulnerability to computerized
  crime and breakdown (forecast a century ago by E.M. Forster 1909).
- "24x7", people
  get in the habit of sending email or web-surfing whenever the thought strikes
  them, glancing frequently at the incoming email box, or frequently checking
  to see who is currently available for instant messaging, that is email that
  happens in real time rather than through one-way sending and receiving (Issacs
  2000). The easily-available Internet --no need to boot up or connect--makes
  the web a convenient place to find quick information and makes email a handy
  way to share quick thoughts. It also makes it easier to work from home. Just
  as employers complain about workers' use of the Internet for personal matters,
  family members complain that their loved ones are tied to their computers during
  their supposed leisure hours
- We are moving to a world of both ubiquitous and portable
  computing
- The person--not the place, household or workgroup--will become even more
  of an autonomous communication node.
- The development of globalized portability will mean the potential availability
  of "small world" interpersonal connectivity. All will be connected to all, either
  directly or through short chains of indirect ties.
- The Internet has changed the nature of the continuing tension between centralization
  and personalization.
- "If
  you combine virtual community, collaborative filtering, and web-to-cellphone,
  you get a scenario in which you always know who in your physical vicinity at
  the moment shares certain affinities and willingness to be contacted" (Howard
  Rheingold, personal email, January 11 2000; see also Rheingold 1993, 2000).
- One transition
  was the nineteenth/twentieth century move from door-to-door to place-to-place
  community relationships. This transition was driven by revolutionary developments
  in both transportation and communication. It was a move away from a solidary
  group in a single locale to contact between people in different places and
  multiple social networks. Households became important centres for networking;
  neighbourhoods became less important.
  Another transition
  has already started: The shift away from place-based inter-household ties
  to individualized person-to-person interactions and specialized role-to-role
  interactions.
- since the Agricultural
  Revolution, community has traditionally been based in itinerant bands, agrarian
  villages, trading towns, and urban neighbourhoods. In these milieus, people
  walked to visit each other. The community was spatially compact and densely-knit
- Communities were
  bounded, so that most relationships happened within their gates rather than
  across them.
- Social class was based on control over labour power and
  resources. It was based on position within the small community and the access
  to external resources afforded by the few links to outside.
- Pastoralist nostalgia for quaint little villages leads to overlooking
  the evidence for preindustrial connectivity over long distances.
- The densely-knit interconnectivity of such communities
  made it easy to control material goods and behaviour.
  The tight boundaries that contained interactions insured that few resources--including
  knowledge--would be imported or exported. The broadly-based ties of community
  members ensured that much feasible support could be provided, but only when
  the community wanted to provide it. As there was only one network, the only
  alternative was running away--to the military, the church or merchant traders
- Although the telegraph
  was generally only used for short, high-priority messages, it was the harbinger
  of communication becoming divorced from transportation.
- If "community" is defined socially
  and not spatially, it is clear that contemporary communities rarely are limited
  to neighbourhoods. (Wellman and Leighton 1979; Wellman 1999a). This is because
  people usually obtain support, companionship, information and a sense of belonging
  from those who do not live within the same neighbourhood or even within the
  same metropolitan area. People maintain these community ties through phoning,
  writing, driving, railroading, transiting, and flying. Although characteristics
  of neighbourhoods remain important--as differential real estate values between
  neighbourhoods testify--neighbourhoods are not important sources of community.
- Living
  in networks has profound implications for the nature of place-to-place communities
  as compared with door-to-door communities:
  
  The ability
  to connect with multiple social milieus, with limited involvement in each
  milieu.
  The decreased
  control over inhabitants' behaviour that each milieu has.
  The decreased
  commitment of each milieu to its inhabitants' well-being.
  People must
  actively maintain their sparsely-knit ties and fragmented networks. By contrast,
  it is easier for people in groups to sit back and let group dynamics and densely-knit
  structures do the work. That is why friendship networks are less apt than
  kinship networks to persist in times of overload.
  The ability
  to re-establish relationships quickly with friends and relatives whom one
  has not seen in months or even years.
  A lowered proportion
  of interactions based on "ascriptive" characteristics people are born with--such
  as age, gender, race, and social class--and increased proportion based on
  "achieved" characteristics adopted through the life course -- such as lifestyles,
  shared norms, and voluntary interests.
  Fostering "cross-cutting"
  ties that link and integrate social milieus, instead of such groups being
  isolated and tightly-bounded.
  Increased choices
  in milieus in which to get involved.
  Reduced sense
  of palpable group memberships that provide a sense of belonging.
  Reduced identity
  and pressures of belonging to groups.
  Increased opportunity,
  contingency, globalization, and uncertainty through participation in social
  networks.
  Increased emphasis
  on structural position in different networks--such as brokerage ties that
  connect multiple networks--and decreased emphasis on group membership. Active
  networking is more important than going along with the group.
- Community networks now contain high proportions of people who
  enjoy each other and low proportions of people who are forced to interact with
  each other because they are juxtaposed in the same neighbourhood, kinship group,
  organization, or workplace.
  It is almost
  as easy to send a message to 10 friends as it is to contact one.
  Group aliases
  allow people to contact 100 or more friends by typing a single word.
  Email discussion
  groups and real-time chat groups provide specialized audiences--and some respondents--of
  the hundreds and thousands.
  Many online
  ties are palpable, supportive relationships. The Internet is useful both for
  maintaining strong ties of intimacy and weaker ties of acquaintanceship.
  Rather than
  being exclusively online or in-person, many community ties are complex dances
  of face-to-face encounters, scheduled meetings, two-person telephone calls,
  emails to one person or several, and broader online discussions among those
  sharing interests.
- Switching
  and maneuvering among networks, people can use ties to one network to bring
  resources to another. The very fact of their tie to another network will be
  a resource, creating the possibility of linkage, trade and cooperation.
- Moving around with a mobile phone made me almost completely
  independent of place. It was I-alone that was reachable wherever I was: at a
  house, hotel, office, freeway or mall. Place did not matter; person did. The
  person has become the portal.
- Because the connection is to the person
  and not to the place, it shifts the dynamics of connectivity from places--typically
  households or worksites--to individuals.⁽⁹⁾
- The shift to a
  personalized, wireless world affords truly personal communities that
  supply support, sociability, information, and a sense of belonging separately
  to each individual. It is the individual, and neither the household nor the
  group, that is the primary unit of connectivity.
- Rather than being embedded
  in one social network, person-to-person interactors are always switching between
  networks.
- This
  kinesthetic focus on the computer, combined with the bulkiness of the screen,
  draws computer users away from simultaneously having face-to-face contact with
  proximate others. Family members have to compete for attention, for closer-to-the-eye
  computer screens afford less scope for joint interaction than television screens.
  Telephones allow much more body movement and glances at others than does personal
  computing. I doubt that many spouses tell their mates to leave the room whenever
  the telephone rings, just as I assume that most spouses refrain from opening
  each other's snail-mail. Yet some people are miffed when their spouses read
  their email. They regard their email address and alias as parts of their personal
  identity--not to be shared lightly and to be protected in divorce settlements
  (Cohen 2000). One concern is that the Internet may be so immersive that its
  siren call turns people towards their screens and away from their husbands,
  wives and children
- People who withdraw
  inward in public space are unsettling, their behaviour signalling that their
  bodies, but not personas, are passing through.
- Mobile phone users are communicating, but their communication
  is often disassociated with the physical place which they are in. They ignore
  the public aspects of their behaviour. Their failure to relate simultaneously
  to both cyber place and physical place is what bothers others. Their awareness
  and behaviour is totally in private cyberspace even though their bodies are
  in public space.
- Can true community be found
  online--in whole or in part--as well as in homes, on the phone, in the mall,
  or on street corners? When I circulated a draft of my argument online, political
  scientist Robert Putnam responded:
  
  I think you're
  a wild-eyed optimist to think that "person-to-person" networks are "just as
  good as, if not better than" old-fashioned door-to-door (or rather faces-to-faces)
  networks. But regardless of the differences between us in temperament, you surely
  cannot think that the two sorts of networks are "essentially identical".
- Research
  shows that people interact happily and fruitfully online
- Many relationships
  do not exist only online but use online contact to fill the gaps between in-person
  meetings.
- Probably not, but the question may have an utopian assumption that if people
  were not online they would be engaged in stimulating community, household, or
  personal activities. Online relationships may be filling empty spots in people's
  lives now that they no longer can wander to the local pub or café to
  take up with their community members. Participating in online community probably
  substitutes for television watching more than for anything else (Nie and Erbring
  2000). As the networked individual substitutes for the lonely crowd, online
  relationships may be increasing the frequency and intensity of community ties,
  although at the potential cost of strained household ties.
- There already are unique
  email dynamics in community-building: the folding-in of two disconnected friends
  into the same conversation, asking personal messages of posters to online discussion
  groups, developing personal relationships in these groups, typographical conventions
  of embedding interleaved responses inside original messages, and responding
  to messages at the top of the message exchange rather than on the bottom (Baron
  2000). "Email may be richer than face-to-face among people who are distributed,
  or even between those who are nominally co-located, but on different schedules"
  (Caroline Haythornthwaite, post to the SocNet discussion list, Jan 14 2001).
  Online communication also extends the reach of networks: allowing more ties
  to be maintained and fostering specialized relationships in networks.
- With respect to history, tracing memory in aging
  online archives may be easier.
- most people communicate
  with their friends, relatives, neighbours and workmates by any means available
  and necessary, online and offline. The stronger the tie, the more media used
- Private contact with familiar
  friends and relatives is replacing public gregariousness so that people pass
  each other unsmiling on streets and highways. Such privatization may be responsible
  for the lack of informal help given to strangers who are in trouble in public
  spaces (Latané and Darley 1976). It may also explain the paradox of well-connected
  people feeling lonely because of the lack of physically-present community members.
- Low levels
  of communication and electrical infrastructure, marked geographical variations
  in what infrastructure does exist and uneven distributions of wealth mean that
  any kind of telephone connection is currently rare in large areas of the impoverished
  "fourth world". Four out of five people in the world do not have access to a
  wired phone; nine out of ten do not have access to a wireless device (Khanna
  2001). Telephone density is less than two lines per 1,000 persons in Africa
  and 48 per 1,000 in Asia as compared to 520 per 1,000 in high-income countries
  (Marcelle 1998: Darkwa and Mazibulo 2000). These "switched-off region[s] of
  the world" are in a state of "technological apartheid at the dawn of the Information
  Age" (Castells 1998: 93-94).
  
  The good news
  is that the cost of computing is becoming so low that in the developed world,
  the digital social class divide should get smaller just as the digital gender
  gap has. Even in the less-developed world, the growth of wireless computing
  has made affluent residents less dependent on the national communications infrastructure.
  The bad news is that schools do not formally teach networking skills.
- When one's strong ties are unable to provide information, one is likely to find
  it from weak ties.
- This focus
  on shared interests rather than on similar characteristics can be empowering
  for members of lower-status and disenfranchised groups.
- The proliferation
  of computer-supported specialized ties provide a basis for interest-based structures
  that provide support, partial solidarity, and vehicles for aggregating and articulating
  interests. This would be an Internet cum Tocquevillean substitute for
  the decline of organized groups that Robert Putnam (2000) has identified as
  a key problem in America. Even in the pre-Internet France of the early 1990s,
  friendship and intimacy differentially linked occupational groups. Sales workers
  and executives were rarely connected, but clerks and blue-collar workers were
  (Ferrand, Mounier and Degenne 1999).
- Such specialized
  communities, based on shared interests, can foster cognitive homogeneity. Despite
  the Internet's potential to connect diverse cultures and ideas, people are drawn
  to online communities that link them with others sharing common interests or
  concerns. They may be more diversified than "real life" community in their gender,
  ethnicity and socioeconomic status, but they still communicate about only a
  limited set of topics and ideas.
  
  Where person-to-person
  community is individualizing, role-to-role community deconstructs a holistic
  individual identity. A person becomes only the sum of her roles, and there is
  the danger of alienation. The compartmentalization of personal life--within
  the household and within the community--may create an insecure milieu where
  no one fully knows anyone
- Many interpersonal ties are based only on the specialized
  roles that people play--not the whole persons. These relationships are between
  fragments of selves, rather than between whole selves. Such role-to-role relationships
  have already become abundant in place-to-place community. Most ties are specialized,
  with different community members supplying emotional support, information, material
  aid, social identity and a sense of belonging (Wellman and Wortley 1990; see
  also Fischer 1982). People must maintain differentiated portfolios of ties to
  obtain a variety of needed and wanted resources.
- Specialization means that the emotional supporters will
  not have to worry about material need, and perhaps will not even know about
  it. This will lead to lessened loads and pleasures of caring.
- Atoms--things--as
  well as bits--computer-mediated communication--connect us. Spaces continue to
  be places, where in-person meetings or passive observations provide a tangible
  sense of personal identity, a feeling of community, readily-available support
  in the form of goods and services, and a literally concrete sense of the past
  and a future (Casey 1997; Orum and Chen 2002). Physical space continues to contain
  and shape interactions, providing opportunities and constraints.
- Role-to-role community networks consist of either
  like-minded people--such as BMW 2002 fanciers--or of people with complementary
  roles--such as violinists and cellists, sadists and masochists. While such communities
  are abundant now, they are flourishing on the Internet and will become even
  more abundant as the Internet's capabilities develop.
- Although physical
  place continues to be important, cyber space has become cyber place, affecting
  the ways in which people find and maintain community.
  
  In the short
  term, it has made the household more important, as a base from which to operate
  one's computer-supported social network. This can lead to a rise in neighbouring,
  as home-based people take more interest in their immediate surroundings and
  use the Internet to neighbour without physical intrusion and to arrange visits
  (Hampton and Wellman 1999).
  Jointly with
  the mobile phone, it is emphasizing the ascendancy of person-to-person community,
  contributing (along with other factors) to the de-emphasis of domestic relations.
  It has emphasized
  individual autonomy and agency. Each person is the operator of his/her personal
  community network (see also Wellman 1999a).
  It has afforded
  greater involvement in communities of shared interest. Such communities have
  probably become more spatially dispersed.
  It has afforded
  greater connectivity between communities. The ease of communication to a large
  number of people facilitates ties that cut across group boundaries.
  Online relationships
  and online communities have developed their own strength and dynamics. Participants
  in online groups have strong interpersonal feelings of belonging, being wanted,
  obtaining important resources, and having a shared identity. They are truly
  in cyberplaces, and not just cyberspaces (Rheingold 1993, 2000; Wellman and
  Gulia 1999).
  Often, the cyberspace-physical
  space comparison is a false dichotomy. Many ties operate in both cyberspace
  and physical space, used whatever means of communication is convenient and
  appropriate at the moment.
  It has increased
  the importance of network capital in the fund of desirable resources, along
  with financial capital, human capital and cultural capital. Such network capital
  is variegated. It consists of knowing how to maintain a networked computer,
  search for information on the Internet and use the knowledge gained, create
  and sustain online relationships, and use these relationships to obtain needed
  resources, including indirect links to friends of friends.
- 3.
  "Affordances" is a term widely used in the study of human computer interaction
  (Norman 1999). Erin Bradner (2000) writing for computer scientists, has coined
  the term "social affordances" to emphasize the social as well as individual
  implications of the technological features of computer-supported communication
  networks and human-computer interfaces. See also Gaver (1996).

01 Nov 09

Top Ten Best Visualization Tools for Social Media, Blogosphere, Internet & News | InventorSpot

"Visualization is a technique to graphically represent sets of data that makes it easier to read and understand. Tools for visualization exist in search, social networks, online communities, mobile apps and desktop applications.
"

inventorspot.com/...media_blogosphere_intern_34171 - Preview

visualization social_media social_networks

27 Oct 09

Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks - Annual Review of Sociology, 27(1):415 - Full Text

"Similarity breeds connection. This principle—the homophily principle—structures network ties of every type, including marriage, friendship, work, advice, support, information transfer, exchange, comembership, and other types of relationship. The result is that people's personal networks are homogeneous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily limits people's social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience. Homophily in race and ethnicity creates the strongest divides in our personal environments, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order. Geographic propinquity, families, organizations, and isomorphic positions in social systems all create contexts in which homophilous relations form. Ties between nonsimilar individuals also dissolve at a higher rate, which sets the stage for the formation of niches (localized positions) within social space. We argue for more research on: (a) the basic ecological processes that link organizations, associations, cultural communities, social movements, and many other social forms; (b) the impact of multiplex ties on the patterns of homophily; and (c) the dynamics of network change over time through which networks and other social entities co-evolve."

arjournals.annualreviews.org/...annurev.soc.27.1.415 - Preview

social_networks networks

22 Oct 09

Coming to Google Labs: Social search results | The Social - CNET News

"SAN FRANCISCO--Google Vice President Marissa Mayer made a surprise announcement at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday: "Social Search," a new Google Labs experiment that will bring in search results from a member's social-network contact circle.

It'll be launching as an opt-in project in the next few weeks. Then, you'll need to have a Google account and set up a Google Profile to fill in information about the social networks that you use. Google first launched Profiles about a year ago.

"What we've done here is inserted, on the bottom of the page, content written by people in your social network," Mayer said, adding that Google hopes this will "really improve the overall relevance, comprehensiveness, and quality" of search results. A search for a local restaurant, for example, could bring up your friends' Yelp reviews for the same establishment. A search for travel destinations could bring up a post from a friend's blog."

news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10380739-36.html - Preview

search social_media social_networks

20 Oct 09

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks

"Renowned scientists Christakis and Fowler present compelling evidence for our profound influence on one another's tastes, health, wealth, happiness, beliefs, even weight, as they explain how social networks form and how they operate."

www.connectedthebook.com - Preview

networks social_networks

19 Oct 09

Explore Your Twitter Network with Mentionmap | Asterisq.com

"Asterisq just released Mentionmap, an exciting web app for exploring your Twitter network. Discover which people interact the most and what they're talking about. It's also a great way to find relevant people to follow."

asterisq.com/...witter-network-with-mentionmap - Preview

twitter networks visualization social_networks

16 Oct 09

Social Networks: Wherever You Go, There They Are

"The number of people accessing social networks on their mobile phones at least once a month in the U.S. has doubled since the beginning of the year, to 10 percent in the third quarter from 5 percent in the first quarter, according to Forrester Research, in line with stats Facebook released last month. The number of people who accessed that social networking site from their mobile phones tripled to 65 million, up from 20 million people back in December. The data also heralds what many people sense, that mobile phones are becoming an extension of the lives we lead on our personal computers.

“Mobile phones have the potential to become the hub of social computing activities and to be more than just a complement to the PC experience,” Forrester analyst Thomas Husson wrote in a recent blog post. “Mobile phones will increasingly become the glue that holds the social graph together, offering creative tools and immediacy, presence, location, and context when interacting with the real world.”"

gigaom.com/...wherever-you-go-there-they-are - Preview

mobile_devices social_networks mososo

apophenia: Twitter: "pointless babble" or peripheral awareness + social grooming?

"I vote that we stop dismissing Twitter just because the majority of people who are joining its ranks are there to be social. We like the fact that humans are social. It's good for society. And what they're doing online is fundamentally a mix of social grooming and maintaining peripheral social awareness. They want to know what the people around them are thinking and doing and feeling, even when co-presence isn't viable. They want to share their state of mind and status so that others who care about them feel connected. It's a back-and-forth that makes sense if only we didn't look down at it from outter space. Of course it looks alien. Walk into any typical social encounter between people you don't know and it's bound to look a wee bit alien, especially if those people are demographically different than you.

"

www.zephoria.org/...twitter_pointle.html - Preview

twitter social_software social_networks

14 Oct 09

Wiley InterScience :: JOURNALS :: Sociology Compass

"The media landscape has changed dramatically in recent decades, from one predominated by traditional mass communication formats to today's more personalized network environment. Mobile communication plays a central role in this transition, with adoption rates that surpass even those of the Internet. This essay argues that the widespread diffusion and use of mobile telephony is iconic of a shift toward a new 'personal communication society', evidenced by several key areas of social change, including symbolic meaning of the technology, new forms of coordination and social networking, personalization of public spaces, and the mobile youth culture. The conclusion speculates on future trends in the sociotechnological climate."

www3.interscience.wiley.com/...abstract - Preview

networks social_networks mobile_devices digital_natives media

13 Oct 09

AnalyzeThe.US — Analysis

"Employees of KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) have been convicted of contractor fraud on numerous occasions. Although the employees themselves are blacklisted by the government – i.e. placed on the EPLS – there are no official links on record between these employees and KBR. This video uses both structured EPLS data and unstructured data from Department of Justice press releases to link excluded individuals to their employers.
"

www.analyzethe.us/analysis - Preview

visualization comm217 social_networks