A non-Facebook user (are there any?!), an outsider might see the time spent on changing statuses, exchanging pictures and throwing virtual sheep at each other as time wasted, while another will probably (unknowingly) see this as examples of fashion, though in an online sense.They are signals of social position in an information based society (Donath, in press).
There are fashions in clothes, slang, management techniques.As is the nature of fashion, it is constantly changing the way of doing something.Fashions are signals whose form is frequently transforming, while the social meaning remains the same (Donath, 2007).Fashion is about knowing the changing social meaning of an object or the way of doing things.
Even in the world of blogs, where the fashion is in the conspicuous ‘free’ medium of information (ahh, citizen journalism), being at the forefront can be costly, much like a misjudged upcoming clothing trend.
According to Judith Donath’s article Signals in Social Supernets, a tremendous amount of fashion exists on many social networking sites.It could be in images, movies, jokes, or even styles of profile pictures.These fashions spread like wildfire.Facebook applications are no different.Many could perhaps be considered social grooming aids for our online lives.What better way to tell someone that you’re thinking of them by giving them a zombie bite?(No, I do NOT want to be a zombie, pirate OR ninja).The profile of the fashion-conscious user will be plastered with many, many icons showing how many applications they have.Displaying these personally selected applications on your profile shows one’s fashion knowledge and status; is it a ‘cool new app’ or a lame one that everyone removed from their profiles weeks ago that is an embarrassment to your name?
In the public space of social networking sites, these virtual fashions can create virtual walls, allowing others within their subculture to recognise if they are ‘one of us’. Within these subcultures, people have a common understanding of things like inside jokes and references to other media like shows that may have not yet reached mainstream culture.An example, on Facebook’s SuperWall, there was an image circulating that depicted a cat with a piece of cheese on its head, with the caption “CHEEZ: you doin it wrong”.Anyone who is not aware of lolcats (once again, are there any?!) would have been a little confused by this photo.But for the rest of us, it is a reference to the earlier lolcats image “I can haz cheezburger?”
I have just come across the latest development in social networking sites. It's really quite amazing. It’s called Friend Connect, and it's the latest thing from Google.
Friend Connect is a collection of standards meant to make low traffic sites more social by harnessing existing social networking user bases. Google’s set of widgets let web developers quickly drop in code for widgets like sign-ups, comments, or really any other in web application. Google Product ManagerMussieShore explains what it can do and how to use it in this video.
With this new Friend Connect, anyone who has a website now has the ability to have comments, photos and videos posted on their site without any effort as the site owner. Similarly, networks within these websites are now possible and do not necessarily need to be created by the site owner.
So what does this mean, other than people will be able to connect with each other in just another way? This is where Chris Anderson's Long Tail configuration of popularity could be shaken up a bit. That 80% of sites with low traffic now have the ability to connect with potential users more readily.Will it begin to level out or will it remain just as it is now?
It could be argued that perhaps Google is trying to make profit from the growing popularity the social sites are starting to have and of the fact that more and more people are starting to own accounts on more than one site, making them wish for a service where contact information can be exported.
On the other hand, they are still a business, however much we seem to rely on them as an essential tool and molders of the direction of virtual culture.Also, a growing number of web page owners are trying to take advantage of this popularity and create a loyal community on their web pages by adding social capabilities.
Google’s Friend Connect has the ability to satisfy both communities, of course while luring people to spend more time online, where Google’s ads can be seen.
A worthy of note blog I came across on the topic is called Google Blogoscoped, and focuses on pretty much anything Google.Author Philipp Lenssen is a little pessimistic when explaining the search engine giant’s possible intentions:
Google seems to be trying to be the web features and account provider for the web at large – they allow other account providers, but they continuously bring the Google account more close to the action by positioning it near useful stuff (like the recent Google App Engine) – and in turn offer you some “lazy features" for your site that you can plug-in. This way, you don’t need to switch to e.g. Blogger.com if you just like the comments feature, or develop Facebook applications to create stuff that connects to Facebook.(Lenssen, 2008).
So much control by one organization seems to be against the idea of the Internet, which may be why there is such doubt on the topic of this new Friend Connect.The direction of Web 2.0 appears uncertain.The potential of such new capabilities is sure to open up brand new realms in the Internet.
I hate to start a post off with the first word as a uni term, but here we go.
PRODUSAGE is a term that can be related to so much within the mystical realm of Web 2.0. Any websites that provide a user-generated product actually for sale can be said to be comply to the absolute essence of Axels' FABULOUS term.
Am I about to mention such a site? Why yes, I certainly am!
One such website is the clothing site, www.threadless.com. I don't think that the people who run this site have too much to do. They take orders, print t-shirts and post them out. The 'real' creators of the product are the site's users; its customers. These designs are voted for by the users. the people who run Threadless simply take the top few designs for each month and print them onto t-shirts for sale to the public. The creators of the most voted for/printed designs even get paid around $12500US.
Having used this site myself, as a customer rather than as a contributor (so far), I found that the quality of the designs available are quite professional. The amateur and ..crap.. designs are 'weeded out' in the voting process. Also, the idea that this user system allows for products that the consumer body actually wants (the addition of the 'I'd buy it!' check box in the voting section illustrates this), rather than a product that a company either guess will be popular and liked, or forces upon people as desirable, I think is quite romantic. This too relates to Jenkins' idea of expert logic vs. community logic. (We don't want no expert fashion fat-cats a'tellin' us what to wear now..)
When it comes to products and consumer goods, expert logic can be more easily dismissed, especially in niche markets which Threadless caters for, in favour of a community logic or decision on what is a 'good' product. Folksonomies work well in this context; a number of niche markets are at work in the Threadless voting process. With more than one design printed each month, each of the designs printed onto t-shirts for sale is usually a different style and favoured by a different niche.
Ok, I will acknowledge that it could be argued that a voting system may limit the availability of very original, very niche designs in that only the most popular are printed. However, this can be overcome, thanks to Web 2.0! Threadless provides profiles and contact details for each designer/user. So in the occurrence that a favourite design is not winning the other users' votes, the design in an image format could potentially be provided for the user.
To conclude, Web 2.0 and produsers help me to find nice t-shirts.
There was a time when my sources for cartoons were shows like Saturday Disney, and the Simpsons. As time went on I grew out of children's cartoons, leaving the ever reliable Simpsons at 6. But that too has been taken away from me, thankyou very much Channel 10. Similarly, i got my comic fixes from Factor X and the back part of the Courier Mail. That too, however, I have lost since moving out of my parents' newspaper delivered home. Alas, the Internet has come to the rescue for both of these predicaments.
While televised cartoons are readily (but not necessarily legally) available for free on the net, this is not the 'rescue' I'm referring to. I'm talking about Flash animation series and web comics. The Internet has offered us choice, catering for almost every type of humour. Different to television, we can choose exactly what episode of which show we would like to watch.
Web comics provide an extended functionality. With Web 2.0 comes social websites, forums, blogs, people's 'walls.. Any user generated and/or personalised page which allows for posts or comments. Now, if someone comes across a comic on the Internet which they may have enjoyed, or one that is otherwise worthy of telling another about, a person can simply copy and paste the image onto their webpage or friend's profile. If it is not copyable, a simple link will do. Previously, one probably would have has to show another the comic within the newspaper or magazine. Not terribly inconvenient, but the life or time frame of the availability of the comic may be limited. And the Internet is usually free!
Back to the Flash cartoons, not only are they so accessible and cater to individual desires, their context is often affected by its audience. This is where Jenkin's idea of expert vs. consumer logic and the handiness of the 24/7 nature of the Internet comes into play, as well as Axel's term, 'produsage'. Let me give you an example. Take the popular Homestar Runner website, particularly the Strong Bad Email Flash cartoon series. Each week a new episode is released, each one a response to a fan email, usually asking a hypothetical question to the Strong Bad character. The content of the episodes are essentially user defined. This produsage element to web comics allow them to remain 'fresh' and in touch with the audience and their opinions. In this respect perhaps I am better off without my six o'clock Simpsons.
Flew, Terry. (2005). Virtual Cultures in Flew, Terry, New media : an introduction, Melbourne: OUP, pp.61-82.
Axel Bruns. (2008). Wikipedia: Representations of Knowledge in Axel Bruns, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, New York: Peter Lang, pp.101-136.
I don't really know quite what I'm doing yet, so I'll just address this topic first.
So, how do online communities organise themselves? I guess Terry Flew's New Media: An Introduction book is the first to come to mind for this question. In his Virtual Cultures chapter, he argues that online and offline communities aren't separate worlds anymore. The part of our lives that previous were dissociated from the internet have now incorporated our online activities into everyday living and culture. Though our on and offline lives may have merged, according to Flew, each are organised differently in an hierarchical sense. While the hierarchy of an offline community is governed by a physical position, power and authority in online communities are earned through frequency and depth of involvement in that community.
Ok, this is nowhere near long enough and I've had enough.
Hello, it's me, Josie. And this is my blog for Virtual Cultures. So all capitals and punctuation here.
There are a few things I would like to investigate for posts in this.. Being an animation student, I wouldn't mind looking into the world of web comics or flash animation series. With my delicious bookmarks, I didn't really look into that so much. I was concentrating more on folksonomies, hyperculture and social networking, and the impact of Web 2.0 on culture, so perhaps I can connect that with web animation. Fan culture is also a big part of web comics, I guess they could even incorporate Axel's term produsage in a way; sites such as Homestar Runner's Strong Bad Email weekly flash short is based on a response to a selected fan email.
