Facebook

Hmm, so much to think about when talking about my personal
experiences with social software, where do I start? Let’s start by saying that
I am old and am a creature of habit – not to say that I would never consider
using all of these technologies to some degree, but I am so used to doing
things online in one way that I don’t know when I would find the time to get
into new habits. For instance, I am sure RSS is a good thing and can really
synthesize my online surfing, but I like going to each website separately

I wanted to say a little more about online social networks that I didn't elaborate on in my last post. One thing that I thought was interesting is danah boyd's comment that MySpace was started by 20 something's who are into indie music because I had heard that it was actually initially populated by the queer (mostly gay men I believe) and Burning Man communities. Has anyone else read/heard this? I was also unaware of the strong teenage presence on MySpace.

Well I'm back from my holiday, and am ready to rock social software. I was pleased to see the topic for my first week back was social networks. This is an area where I have particularly strong feelings. In this case my feeling are overwhelmingly negative believe it or not. I think there is a marked difference between this kind of software and other social softwares we have seen in the course. Primarily my issue extends from the fact that social networking sites are privately owned for profit enterprises in general, and more specifically they seem to violate privacy issues with gusto.

Social Networking Online: The Hot Topics

As social networking sites are (arguably) the most well-known of the web 2.0 tools, we understandably had a wide spectrum of articles and topics this week. I tried to select a few articles that looked like they might touch on the most prevelant of concerns or issues about social networking online in order to be able to explore a wider variety and be able to think about the implications of a variety within a library environment.

Implications for relationships

I finally get a topic that I actually feel like I know the material for beforehand (in spite of my belief at the beginning of the term I had lots of Web 2.0 experience). :)

The debates for this week's readings were really interesting to me, not only because I'm a social networking site fanatic, but also because I generally consider myself a proponent of freedom of access and speech.

So much to discuss when talking about social networking
sites – where to start?

This topic is the one I have become the most familiar with, especially over the past few weeks working on the group Facebook project (which all of you should check out!). Personally, out of the networks discussed in this week's readings, I find Facebook to be the most interesting and also have the most options for incorporation into a library.

I could not help but chuckle a little at quite a few of the articles this week.  Some of them seem to be written from an adult/scientific perspective.  It calls to mind an image of a crazed scientist holding Facebook out at arm's length, disgusted, and carefully placing it under a microscope to have a closer look at it.  I can just imagine: "WOW!  Look at all of those young people gathering around Facebook!  I must observe them!"