References
Skip on down to the very bottom of this page and read backwards to follow this blog from start to finish.
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Adida, B. (2007) Privacy vs. Omnipotence, Mashups and your browser [Internet]. Benlog, Harvard. Available from: <http://benlog.com/articles/2007/12/04/privacy-vs-omnipotence-mashups-and-your-browser/> [Accessed 5 December 2007]
Bales, R. F. (1970) Personality and Interpersonal Behaviour. New York. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
eBay (1995) eBay Help [Internet]. San Jose, California. Available from: <http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/index.html> [Accessed 14 November 2007]
English Club (1997) Use of Large or Capital Letters [Internet]. London, UK. Available from: <http://www.englishclub.com/writing/caps1.htm> [Accessed 9 October 2007]
Facebook (2004) Facebook [Internet]. Palo Alto, California. Available from: <http://www.facebook.com> [Accessed 9 October 2007].
Hauben, R. (1995) The World of Usenet, Chapter 4 [Internet]. Netizens, An Anthology. Available from: <http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x04> [Accessed 7 January 2008]
HotUKDeals (2000) Corsair 4GB Voyager USB Flash Drive Hi Speed USB 2.0 [Internet]. London, UK. Available from: <http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/125748/corsair-4gb-voyager-usb-flash-drive/all/deals/hot/> [Accessed 15 December 2007]
LabourSpace (2007) Campaign to give more support to UK based Inventors [Internet]. London, UK. Available from: <http://www.labourspace.com/campaign.php?whichcampaign=90> [Accessed 29 November 2007]
PESGaming (2006) PESGaming Forums [Internet]. Leeds, UK. Available from: <http://www.pesgaming.com/index.php> [Accessed 16 October 2007]
Reed, A. (2007) Andy Reed MP | Welcome to Andy Reed’s web site [Internet]. Loughborough, UK. Available from: <http://www.andyreedmp.org.uk/> [Accessed 29 November 2007]
SitePoint (1998) LCD Screen and smoke [Internet]. Melbourne, Australia. Available from: <http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=510012> [Accessed 30 October 2007]
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What a bargain!
The face of the web marketing is changing. Users are becoming blind to conventional advertising (though my Grandfather still believes it when it says his screen tells him “You win the prize for being the 10 millionth visitor!”). Companies are realising the need to utilise its members in order to generate more sales. A great example of this would be Amazon’s recommended lists produced by fellow shoppers. Just 3 short years ago another web company spotted the decline in income from standard ‘banner’ advertising and created an entirely user-run entity known as HotUKDeals.
HotUKDeals is a web community which exists to allow people to share information, unsurprisingly, about Hot UK Deals. An example deal can be found here. Users can then rate the deal Hot or Cold – with the hottest deals going onto the homepage, while all other deals remain in the forum area of the site. Although not selling any products directly, HotUKDeals generate their revenue from affiliate links which are automatically placed where possible in the deals posted. If a deal is posted for Play.com, for example, the URL would be recognised and replaced to include an ID tag which will let Play.com know where the sale originated from.
The concept of sharing deals is, of course, not new to many of us. I am quite certain at some point we all have been informed of a great product at a great price by a friend. But by harbouring the technologies available and identifying what the public wants, HotUKDeals has created a VERY profitable website (the site currently attracts anywhere up to 7,000 users online at any one time).
The site does have potential drawbacks, however. Occasionally people submit voucher codes or link to deals which are illegal. An recent example of this happening is the posting of a code exclusively for use by NHS staff. In that particular instance the code was removed without any action from the retailer it was attached to. However, there have been reports of some companies who HotUKDeals links too seeking compensation after voucher codes where made public by the HotUKDeals community.
Other websites who formally relied on ‘banner’ advertising are also now taking note of HotUKDeals rapid rate of success and moving away from banners to concentrate on more personal adverts. Contextual text-adverts are one of the key emerging technologies from the past 5 years as far as webmasters are concerned. The ads read the content of a page and provide users with adverts which match what is on the screen. The idea being the user will be far more interested than a standard banner which displays the same image no matter what the page. Unlike the Beacon project (discussed last time), contextual text-ads do not invade your privacy as although they are displaying ads relevant to you, they are not using your own personal details to generate them.
Filed under: Advertising, Communities Online | 1 Comment
Tags: Advertising, beacon, forums, privacy
The end of Internet privacy?
Every time you log onto the Internet, your actions are being logged and someone (or something) is making use of your online habits.
One site which profits from this technology is Amazon. Unless it is a first visit, every time you log on to Amazon you will be presented with recommended products for purchase. Amazon collect this data based upon your past purchases as well as other peoples similar purchases to your own. This technology has been in place for several years, but recently the Facebook Beacon project gained a lot of bad press for a similar type of software.
Beacon records user actions from various websites and then passes this data onto Facebook. How do they do this? I can’t say I personally understand all the technical jargon, but here is an extract from an article about the project written by Ben Adida:
The reconciliation happens in your browser, of course, since your browser is logged in to Amazon and (most likely) to Facebook. The Amazon HTML includes some JavaScript code that it pulls down from Facebook. This JavaScript code opens up a hidden frame onto Facebook, which recognizes you. There’s some fancy inter-server communication stuff going on (the details are interesting only to folks like me), but the point is that the communication between Amazon and Facebook is mediated by your browser.
Initially, there was no opt-out option from sending this data, but after all the negativity Facebook swiftly moved to ensure users where aware of the information being sent.
Although both Amazon and Beacon essentially do the same thing (gathers information about others to recommend things to you) there is one significant difference; the Amazon algorithms for producing the suggested links don’t expose any individuals personal data. This is Beacons major downfall. People don’t want the fact that they just purchased a cuddly toy from Shop.com on their Facebook profiles – after all, it could well be a gift for a friend. On the other hand, if Facebook merely used the users purchase history privately and displayed relevant product ads to them, I doubt there would be too many complaints. Using the technology in this way would no question increase ad-revenue for Facebook as they would be providing user-generated targeted ads.
What does Beacon signal for our all round user privacy online? Beacon gathers it’s data by harnessing the power of your web browser. If you log into Facebook and then in the same session log into one of the partner sites your data is being exposed. What about when Beacon expands? Your every action could theoretically be tracked.
Visit illegal sites? They’ll know.
Buy your wife’s Christmas present from a second hand auction? They’ll know.
Download music without paying? They’ll know.
The legitimate uses for Beacon are of course clear (as Amazon’s similar technology has proven), but once other companies ‘cotton on’ to this new found possibilities of communicating within your browser – we could all be at risk of losing our online freedom.
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Tags: amazon, beacon, facebook, privacy
Politics and the web
In the US, politicians have long since been making use of the web as a key tool to encourage people to vote. Slowly, but surely, this trend is making its way across the water. Indeed, in a recent list published by ‘Short List Magazine’ Issue 22 on November 22nd, politics came out 7th in the top ten most blogged about subjects in the UK (perhaps unsurprisingly moaning came out top!).
Online communities can prove very powerful in raising the number of votes a particular party receives. Social networking sites in particular have great significance. By creating a group on a site like Myspace, a party can reach out to younger voters who would not normally be interested in politics. In some constituencies candidates have used the major networking sites (Myspace, Facebook and Bebo) to encourage participation in electons.
One such politician who I recently read about is Labour MP for Loughborough, Andy Read. Andy has his own blog, as well as profiles on all popular Social Networking sites. The benefits of this are quite clear – increased exposure and staying better connected with the citizens of Loughborough. Indeed Andy himself points out:
I aim to provide an effective service to my Loughborough constituents at every level – and that increasingly means via this website and other web 2.0 applications.
Politicians do need to tread very carefully on the web, however. Some sites I have found go as far as allowing discussion boards for people to post comments or share opinions. This material can often go against (or indeed be offensive) the views of the politician or their party. To some readers, this content could be seen as being promoted by the party.
Labourspace.com is a new venture similar to that which have already proved successful in the US. It allows the public to identify issues in their local area and create a campaign to promote it. People can then vote for or against the campaign, with the most popular issues highlighted on a monthly basis. At the time of writing, the most popular campaign was for more support to be given to UK inventors. Despite being the top pick of the month, only some 300 people had actually voted for the motion… showing that clearly the concept has only thus far reached out to a very small minority of Britains 60 million inhabitants.
Filed under: Blogging, Communities Online, Social Networking | Leave a Comment
Tags: blog, politics
Communities within organisations
When considering all the types of communities that exist, often the most obvious are over looked. This very software upon which this blog is written, for example, has a community of web developers behind it.
In this article I will look at the role of communities within organisations. There are various types which can be utilised but the most common is an Intranet system. This allows users to share files, discuss issues and manage e-mail. Unlike many communities online, those which relate to organisation have far more stringent rules. Generally speaking, the format is very formal and there is rarely any abuse of the rules. Doing so would bring consequences to the user as you can’t hide your identity or change it, unlike regular communities such as forums.
The key benefit to a community in an organisation is the ability to share information quickly and efficently between many users. In a University, the community exists to store lecture notes and to publish assignment materials. In addition discussion boards benefit the students by allowing them to share ideas or receive answers to their queries. Such discussion does need to be heavily moderated, however, to ensure students do not share work or plagiarise other peoples material.
Intranet can be looked upon as a complete contrast to ‘Web 2.0′ social networking sites; although both have the same base functionality (user discussion and sharing of information), when using sites like Facebook or Myspace, you can never be certain of who you are conversing with, whereas with Intranet there is no opportunity for false identity.
Being critical towards the use of Intranet, it can be said that people lose a proportion of their face-to-face contact with their peers. People become more inclined to post questions on a discussion forum as opposed to discussing it in person. The workplace is beginning to follow a similar trend that of the boom of sending SMS text messages over phone calls. In another 10 years time, will we still be phoning in sick for work or just sending the boss a message in the community?
Filed under: Communities Online, Intranet, Social Networking | Leave a Comment
Tags: Intranet, organisation, university, work
Analysing community interaction
In 1970, R. F. Bales released a book titled ‘Personality and Interpersonal Behaviour’. It dealt with the communication patterns between a group of people. This has since been used to analyse online communities using what is commonly known as Bales’ Interaction Process Analysis (or IPA). IPA contains 12 different categories which can be used to breakdown the communication within a given environment.
It was interesting to notice when comparing the different communities which I visit just how much they differed from one another using the IPA. On social network sites such as Facebook, the majority of the discussions, as I expected, fell under the social-emotional heading at number 2 (Shows tension release, laughs, jokes, shows satisfaction). What surprised me, however, was that the majority of the communities I am part of followed the same trend.
Despite being dedicated to a specific video game, the discussion forum PESGaming.com also fell under category 2 when analysing a number of topics. It seemed although people had gathered in the community for shared enjoyment of a video game, once they were there they wanted to talk socially as opposed to discussing the game its self. The only community where I found predominantly task orientated topics was SitePoint.com – but even then, over a third of the topics I looked at began as task orientated but quickly turned social and falling under the same category as Facebook. This thread is a good example of this happening.
Certainly from my own observations, the web seems to becoming much more of a social environment as opposed to task related; people are using the Internet as a second form of socialising.
Filed under: Communities Online, Interaction, Social Networking | Leave a Comment
Tags: bales, Interaction, Social Networking
Who do you think you are?
In the early days of the WWW, nobody wanted to be anonymous. The whole point of Internet based communities was to interact with people who you would not normally meet and share your life experiences. These days, the trend has shifted and many now use the Internet as a way of hiding away from their ‘real life’ issues.
In almost all of the communities I have encountered there is no certainty people are who they say they are. In fact, I dare say only the Leeds Metropolitan message boards which I use are the only place I can be almost sure of the persons identity. Even on Facebook, a social network which prides it’s self on the privacy of it’s users, there is the possibility of users creating accounts under fake identities.
In many situations it is harmless, but there are occasions when it can spill over into the ‘real world’ and become a ‘real’ problem.
In a blog on which I write news there was a particular post which harboured much attention this week. The entry had over 300 comments in 24 hours and became a nightmare to moderate. Because the blog did not require users to sign up, there were hundreds of comments where the username was simply listed as ‘anonymous’. Not only is this a problem for me as a moderator, but also for users as it became almost impossible to reply to individual comments.
Furthermore, a user decide to post a telephone number claiming it was that of a local game shop (to save explaining in full what all the comments were about, have a quick read here). It turned out to in fact be the home telephone number of a friend who he wanted to annoy. I received a phone call at 2am from a very irate chap asking why his number was plastered all over our blog. Of course I explained it was not us who had posted the number, but nevertheless apologised as it was my fault for not putting in place a better system for stopping this kind of commenting. Need less to say we have since improved our commenting system, but there is nothing stopping people signing up with false names and e-mail addresses.
As the Internet and it’s communities continue to expand, I dare say the problems with anonymity will only grow. But then there is the problem of just what to do about it. Is there any way around these kind of issues without asking everyone for a N.I. number on sign-up?
Filed under: Blogging, Communities Online, Identity, Social Networking | 1 Comment
Tags: anonymity, blogs
Sorry, I think I misunderstood
Anyone who has spent time using message boards or social networking will be fairly familiar with the concept of being misunderstood. We can often try our hardest to put forward a well structured argument, only for another user to turn it around and take it as something totally different.
As an administrator of a forum myself (see last week’s entry), I regularly find conflicts starting between users because one of them read a post in a way other than how it was intended. The most difficult type of conversing is that which includes ironic humour. Here is an example of such usage where it was misinterpreted:
Originally posted by user ‘Darren’ at PESGaming
I think we should sign Essien. They’ll take 5 million plus Essien won’t want to stay.
In this instance, ‘Darren’ was referring to Manchester United football club signing Michael Essien from Chelsea for a low sum. Many users picked up on the fact he was being sarcastic, due to the fact Manchester United already have far too many central midfield players as it is. However, several users responded as if believing what he had suggested:
Originally posted by ‘MUFCDean’
Are you a complete idiot, why on earth would we need another centre mid? Thank **** you are not the manager.
Fortunately, the original poster ‘Darren’ corrected ‘MUFCDean’ and the matter was closed. But there are many occasions when this is not the case and users can start arguments.
Let’s look at the style which ‘Darren’ used. His tone was very formal that the format and, to the untrained eye, could easily be looked upon in the same way in which ‘MUFCDean’ viewed it. When conversing online it is often recommended you should include a smiley if you intend on including sarcasm or ironic humour. It lightens the atmosphere, makes people feel at ease and generally a ‘wink’ is accepted as meaning you are not being entirely serious.
Of course, in the professional environment, this practice is not recommended. Posting smiley faces at the end of the account figures for the month just to cheer up the boss is not going to win you praise!
Filed under: Communities Online | 1 Comment
Tags: misunderstood, sarcasm, smiley
Me, Myself and Communities
Thank you for stopping by. My name is Peter Willis, a student (and webmaster, but I’ll get to that shortly!) at Leeds Metropolitan University in the final year of a degree studying Web Media Management. As part of my final year I am currently doing a module looking at online communities.
When we talk about online communities, just what is it that we mean? For me an online community can be just about anything where we are conversing with others via the Internet as opposed to face-to-face. The two most obvious examples of these would be discussion forums and social networking. But there are a whole range of other unique communities where it may not be instantly recognisable as being a community such as deviantArt (artwork sharing), World of Warcraft (computer game) and del.icio.us (social bookmarking).
On a personal level, I actively partake in around 5 different online communities – Facebook, SitePoint, PESFan, YouTube and DigitalPoint. Each of these has their own unique characteristics, which gives me a broader prospective when looking at the issues which arise in communities. I also administer several discussion forums of my own, one of which has over 100,000 members (PESGaming) which gives me some great background knowledge.
Over the next 12 weeks I will be taking a look at the various aspects of online communities.
Something which came up during my first tutorial for the module was the issue of SHOUTING. I went on to raise the issue in the online discussion forum where other students can share their thoughts. The general consensus seemed to be that using capital letters for entire words or phrases is a big no-no online. Apparently, some American geeks decided in the 90’s that it was to be deemed ‘shouting’.
For me, I think there are certain instances where it IS acceptable to make use of capitals to highlight keywords (OK, so that was a bit of a poor example there on the ‘is’, but you get the idea!). I much prefer this method to the suggested ‘bolding’ of words or phrases. This is not to say, however, that the director of a company should send out memos in bold capital letters. This approach can easily be deemed patronizing by the reader.
On that note I will leave you to get on with your travels around the web. Next week I’ll take a look at the problem of being misunderstood online.
Filed under: Communities Online | 4 Comments
Tags: community, peter willis, shouting
Communities Online 