As the Internet became a critical environment for modern people to communicate and connect with others, people have begun to innovate wireless technologies so as to create a ubiquitous online space, where they can surf on the Web whenever and wherever they want. Moreover, as Mizuko Ito asserted in his article, the use of mobile phones enables a private form of communication among people, increasing the opportunities for people to socialize and contact with others. Regardless of time and space, people have access to other people’s lives via mobile connections.

However, Mizuko Ito also pointed out that the popularity of mobile phones has created a demand for people to be always-on and available to their friends, family, peers, etc. It reminds me of the dilemma of slavery or cooperation stated in the book “Smart Mob: The Next Social Revolution “. Is people’s private and free time being taken away when the mobile technologies provide so many channels and access that can reach them? Or are they becoming more collaborative and efficient in doing their jobs or fulfilling their social tasks through the use of mobile connections? It is hardly to reach an absolute answer for the debate. In my viewpoint, the mobile phones indeed facilitate and accelerate people’s ways of communicating and extend the time people keep in touch with each other; whereas the technologies also demand people to bring and turn the mobile devices on all the time. People need to be aware of and accept the negative effects of the technology when they enjoy the fruit of it. They could try to reduce the negative effects by self-governing the managing the use of mobile phones such as by arranging and limiting their availability to others. The mobile operators and mobile phone manufacturers could help solve the problem by allowing the users to set their current status to “busy” or “away” on their mobile devices just like what they do when using the Instant Messaging system. Meanwhile, people could establish a mutual understanding and social expectation of receiving late instead of immediate responses when people limit their accessibility to others.

 
Moreover, I totally agree with Mizuko Ito’s viewpoint that characteristics of mobile phones and mobile communication are determined by social context. For instance, Japanese and Americans have very different use of media. Unlike the Japanese, the Americans don’t rely so much on cell phones; instead they use more portable MP3 players. I think the phenomenon is due to the different adoption of transportation tools in these two countries. Since Japanese depend more on public transportations, people are allowed to read and type to kill time when they commute. In contrary, Americans depend more on driving cars so their eyes can not shift attention to reading and sending messages when commuting. As a result, reading is achievable for Japanese on the way of commuting while listening is more adequate for Americans’ lifestyle. The different use of transportation tools is one critical reason that results in different use of mobile media in the two countries.

This week’s readings focus mainly on user-oriented social metadata such as feedback and tagging systems. From the readings, I realized the importance of feedback/rating system, which not only collects users’ preferences and the whole community’s interests, but also allows the status system to operate. This kind of reputation system helps establish users’ social awareness as well as encourage user interaction and contribution, which together create a sense of connection to other users and belonging to the community. Besides, the system enhances navigating and provides content filtering by collecting recommendations from previous users’ comments and experience. The feedback/rating system also creates incentives for users to participate and contribute. People tend to achieve and maintain good reputation within the community when they are granted status point, privileges, or rewards. A feedback system is critical for building an online community.

Also, I must say I’m in favor of easy-to-use authoring tools even though they may lead to low quality content. As far as I’m concerned, such tools are critical to encourage user participation and thus to increase user base of an online community. People are more inclined to generate and share more content if they are offered easy-to-use tools. For example, one of the main reasons of YouTube’s success is its ease-of-use feature. Since the website offers the simplified authoring tools and allows all kinds of content to be published, users are freer and more willing to make contributions. In addition, it is important to allow every kind of content being presented since nowadays is the era of content decentralization. Users could have the right to choose what they view and publish. Of course, it is hardly to prevent low-quality content under this kind of circumstance but we could increase the popularity of quality content by “recommending” quality content to users via sorting options such as “editor reviewed”. We could also encourage users to create quality content by offering incentives such as status points, rating/reputation system, or rewards mentioned earlier.

YouTube’s non-censorship on user-generated content also goes well with the concept of tagging system: Everybody is an editor on the Web. People themselves decide what to view and how to label. That is, they organize and rank content in their own ways. Rather than conforming to traditional authoritative categorizing system, now individuals make their own decisions on which tags to use or which content to view. After then, the most used tags or viewed content are aggregated, which represent the voice of a large group of audience on the Web.

The readings also suggest that tagging system contains organizational/task-oriented and social elements. People either use personalized tags to retrieve content quickly and easily, or use tags to find content or people that match their interests. Since tagging requires users to do more of the work themselves, I am curious to see which element contribute to more adoptions of tagging system, as well as how to create incentives that could drive users’ participation on using tags.

This week’s readings examine the behaviors of the Internet users in groups. I was inspired (though not surprised) by the discussions upon online users’ tendency to conform in groups. I had thought that people would conform less in online rather than face-to-face environment due to the physical distance and anonymity. However, it turned out that the Internet has caused different effects of conformity, which led to situations such as group polarization and biased discussion. While people have more courage to speak out with minority opinions or in brainstorming activities on the Internet, they also encounter more neglect and challenges from other group members. The Web’s characteristics of physical distance and anonymity become both advantages and disadvantages. It reminds me that the online environment also has its flaws as the face-to-face communication does. We should remember to make the best use of each environment’s advantages and avoid their shortages in order to bring out the best effect of group communication, which everyone’s voice could be listened, considered, and judged in a fair condition.

In addition, when Wallace talked about whether we should sacrifice certain freedoms in exchange for orderliness on the Internet, it occurred to me the debate on national security and personal privacy. The case of U.S. Justice Department vs. Google showed the dilemma between online users’ privacy and the whole nation’s security concerns. For me (and I assume for most of the Internet users), the Web is the safest environment to search and browse for various kinds of information due to its guarantee of anonymity. There is no need to worry about our research data being leaked out. Nonetheless, out of the national security concerns, the Department of Justice is asking search companies such as Google to give away their customers’ research data. In my opinion, the request will spoil the most valuable characteristic of the Internet: the total freedom and privacy behind the protection of anonymity. Does the government have the right to watch over people’s search content? I doubt.

Kollock’s article also made me aware of the possible problem that may be caused by online lurkers. As Kollock stated, since the public good is easy and free to access, there is the temptation for people to free-ride on the efforts of others, enjoying a public good without contributing to its production. If there are too many lurkers in the online forum, who do nothing more than accepting other people’s contributions, the group will ultimately collapse. Therefore, it is necessary for an online forum to encourage, create incentives, or even semi-force its users to make contribution to the group.

Meanwhile, as Wallace pointed out, online discussion groups often set up rules in order to maintain the orderliness within groups. I think it is proper to do so but if there are too many regulations the users may feel overly restricted and thus become more reluctant to participate in the groups. Consequently, we should carefully design the rules so that we don’t oppress users and push them away from the groups while we also keep the groups in order.

Regarding the blog types discussed in the article “Bridging the Gap: A genre Analysis of Weblogs”, the blogs I’ve created are all belong to the k(nowledge)-log type. I use blogs primarily for knowledge/comment sharing in classes. I’ve never had a journal type blog because I was too lazy to maintain it and I don’t have the habit of keeping a diary. However, I enjoy viewing my friends’ and some strangers’ personal blogs. My friends’ blogs keep me updated about what’s happening to them and the gossips in my social networks. Their blogs function as social connection, which enable me to know them better and have something to talk with them when we meet. However, I read strangers’ personal blogs for different purpose. The reason that keeps me revisiting their blogs is their thoughtful and insightful observations of the world. I care more about their ideas rather than what’s happening to them. Here is the example of such blog: The Sartorialist. For me, this kind of blogs is more like a magazine. I appreciate and expect to see their ideas and observations of this world.

In addition to my own experience of using blogs, the article also made me think about why and how people use blogs, as well as the future development of blogs. First of all, I want to talk about the research result that the personal journal blog is a newer type that is gaining ground. In my interpretation, the burgeoning of this type of blog refers to Web 2.0 trend, which means people use the Internet for social interaction and more online communities are built and developed. People tend to follow this trend and increasingly use blogs as an online communication and socializing tool. Besides, the research result that teens create more personal journal type blogs may be because they are more familiar and willing to use the Internet as a socializing tool since they grow up using social networking websites such as MySpace & FaceBook. The other reason is that they are easier to be influenced by peers. At first, there may be only a few peers using the blog for self-expression and communication. And then, friends invite one another to join the group and as the group become bigger and bigger, the ones who haven’t created their own personal journal blogs may feel necessary to do so under peer pressure.

This week’s readings provide an important concept in building and maintaining an online community: Communities develop and continuously evolve. To illustrate, a community’s purpose and needs may change over time as its members change.

This concept appears simple but is often overlooked by designers. Consequently, the features and functions designed for operating the community are outdated as the community itself updates. The Fakester phenomenon on the Friendster website serves as a good example of failing to adapt the design for the continuously evolving community. The Fakester phenomenon reveals that the Friendster members’ purpose and needs within the community (Friendster) have changed and developed toward a new or unexpected direction. However, the website developers failed to see the trend, or rejected to accept and conform to the change even though they did know something was happening. As a result, the gap between the designers and community members has become wider and wider and ultimately resulted in conflicts. In my opinion, the community may be endangered because its policies and supportive features can no longer fulfill its members’ purpose and needs. The community developers should bear in mind that the community is always user-centered and the design principles should always follow users’ purpose and needs. It is important to detect the change and develop correspondent sociability (e.g., policy) and usability (e.g., communication tools) as community evolves.

The readings also inspired me on the communication tools design for communities. In my opinion, the suggestion of offering synchronous and asynchronous communication tools (e.g., IM chat and message board) is great because it makes communication more convenient and seamless. Users can choose which communication tools to use according to their specific needs, purposes, and situations. I think it is important for community developers to provide the complementary communication tools to the members so they can communicate better and thus are possible to develop stronger ties and a sense of belonging to the community.

Reading the article “Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networking”, I was surprised to find most of Friendster’s users value the Fakester phenomenon. It made me think why the identity deception behaviors appeal to the users. I guess perhaps it’s because Fakester allows users to develop their wildest fantasies and imaginations through identity playing and experimentation. In addition, Fakester is just like gossiping, people know most of them are fake or far away from truths but they still love them. One of the reasons is because Fakester and gossiping create topics that are interesting enough to arouse their curiosity. People get to know or imagine others’ lives through these activities.

Besides, the article made me rethink the problem when there are conflicts between users and system designers. Do users need to conform to the system designers in exchange of order, or do designers must achieve users’ goals which may lead to chaos? As in Fakester’s case, Friendster’s users favor Fakester while the company dislikes and has removed the fake profiles in order to maintain the trustfulness of the website. It is critical that the author pointed out that the popularity of Fakester reflected the fundamental weakness of trust on Friendster: Nothing presented on Friendster is actually real. In other sense, Friendster’s popularity may partly come from this characteristic of unreal-ness.

However, if Friendster had not regulated and removed the Fakester, wouldn’t the website have become a complete disorder and aroused confusion among its users? What to do when system designers want to protect its users when users themselves don't want to be protected? Maybe they may even think the protection, which is out of good will, has become a restriction to them? It is hard to find the balance point and a perfect solution. In my opinion, I would say that the system designers are obligated to alert and inform its users the possible results and risks they may confront when viewing the potentially fake profiles. However, if the users still insist on taking the risks, then system designers should conform to users’ desires because the social websites are fundamentally user-centered.

Reading the other articles “Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview” and “You Don't Know Me, but…Social Capital and Social Software”, I was excited to find that the ways teenagers use social network sites is a good example of the idea that social software actually implement online and offline interaction rather than replace the offline communication. As the author in “Social and Teens” referred, most of teenagers use social software to keep in touch with friends they already know, rather than make new friends. This survey suggests that the Internet actually enriches our daily lives instead of distracting us from them. I am eager to explore more how social software can be integrated into our everyday lives.

This week’s readings discuss human psychology, the problems and design space of interpersonal communication on the Internet. Among these discussions, I am especially interested in the identity experiment and identity deception, which are two-edged in the online environment.

As Wallace implied, we human beings inherently tend to play role-playing games in order to satisfy our fantasies and desires of taking adventure. However, growing up, being imposed and restricted by social values and rules, we can’t follow this nature at will. Fortunately, the Internet provides an outlet for us to release our imaginations and create various identities. This medium opens windows and brings many possibilities to our lives. As Wallace mentioned, we tend to stop in the moratorium period of our lives, questioning ourselves and our lives. The role playing (as known as identity experiment), offers a space for us to take a break and to explore a deep self. This description reminds me of the movie “American Beauty”, which shows successfully the so-called mid-life crisis. I wonder what if the depressed suburban father in the film had found the Internet as a place to release his dissatisfaction and doubt toward his life. He might have been able to gain identity achievement to know his self better through the online identity experiment in stead of through the way of changing so rapidly in real life.

Nonetheless, the fact that the Internet is the safest place for identity experiment means that it can also be the safest place for identity deception. Reading Donath’s article, the discussion about the identity deception of Usenet newsgroup reminds me of similar incidents happening in BBS forums. BBS forums are very popular among college students in Taiwan. Students seek and share information on the forums. For example, in the cosmetic forum, students share their commentary on cosmetic products and make recommendations. This online community has grown so popular that the recommended products would often become the best sold items in stores. Being aware of the popularity of BBS, some marketers started making use of the anonymity of the Internet and pretend to be one of the students. They’ve posted articles recommending their own products, trying to gain profit by identity deception. The deception has harmed the credibility of the forum. Now the forum members tend to judge first if the postings are posted by marketers or real customers.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the identity deception in the forum somehow helps unite the online community. Its users now tend to fight together against the pseudo-customers, reminding each other if certain postings are suspected to be commercial promotions. They have developed stronger sense of belonging and the responsibility to protect the community.

This week’s readings discuss three different ways of social interactions (impersonal/interpersonal/hyperpersonal) of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and examine the use of email, from psychological perspective. For both of the topics, I have some personal experience and example to share.

Reading the articles talking about the four attributes (sender, receiver, channel, and feedback) to the hyperpersonal communication of CMC, I recalled my friend’s experience. My friend is a heavy Internet user, who relies very much on the Internet chat system and is very addicted to online games. She’s known her boyfriends all from the Internet. As a message receiver, she idealizes and optimizes the senders on the Internet exactly like what Walther described in the article. I think it is O.K. for her to get to know people through the Internet, at least she was attracted by the personality (whether it was constructed selectively or not), rather than by physical appearances. However, one day she told me she was not really in love with the person she knew from the online game; she was actually in love with the role in the game, not the player who played the role. To illustrate, she liked the appearance, figure, and status of the role with the selective self-presentation given by the player. She had very strong feeling for the role in the virtual game but not for the guy in the real life. From her experience, I found that there was one thing Walther did not mention, which was the projection of affection on the virtual role in online games. In my viewpoint, this projection somehow reflects the dissatisfaction toward reality and the tendency to escape from reality into an imaginary and ideal world. I don’t know whether it is a negative or just a natural effect of CMC. However, I personally do not favor this kind of projection because it is fragile and sort of an illusion.

Reading the other article discussing the personal information management (PIM) function of email application, I was surprised to find out that I rarely established folders to manage information in my email system. For me, email functioned mainly on the interpersonal communication, document exchange, information sharing, and served as a to-do list reminder. I seldom felt there was the need to categorize the mails into several folders so as to manage the information. Perhaps it is because that I use email primarily for personal purpose. I feel I can handle the information without organizing it since I don’t use email for project and organizational purposes. However, after reading the article, I think it’s necessary for me to start creating folders in my mail box in order to more efficiently manage my mails, and be prepared to deal with the more and more overloaded information.

As far as I’m concerned, by empowering users to create and publish content, websites such as YouTube and MySpace have formed strongly-held online social communities. The democratization of content satisfies people’s expectations of having their voice being heard and gaining the sense of belonging to the groups of people having similar interests, while allowing them to remain anonymous. This kind of online environment provides a safe and open platform, which invites everyone to choose and participate in communities that fit their needs and interests. In the future, as these communities attract more and more people, I anticipate the content-publishing and –sharing communities will achieve network effects, like email and mobile phone, which will draw the late adopters to join the communities because most of the people are using the systems.

 

Having the anticipation, I am interested in exploring how to manage the user-generated content to fulfill its users’ needs. First of all, it is often argued what counts as quality content since there is no editor and guide. However, it is hard to draw a conclusion because the value of content is decided by users’ personalities, life stages, and the social contexts they’re within. For example, a married scholar with introvert personality may think a video recording a nightclub life as valueless, while a single graduate student with extrovert characteristic may find it interesting and worth watching. Since different people have different opinions upon what counts as quality content, appropriate content management can serve as one of the solution that filters the most relevant information for different users.

 

Reading the articles “Research in Social Computing” and “Social Translucence”, it occurred to me that the use of social metadata can facilitate the way for users to find content that meet their goals. According to the articles, the social metadata system implicitly traces and establishes users’ profiles and explicitly asks users to provide inputs and ratings of their likes and dislikes. In my viewpoint, the social metadata serves as a requirement for building a user adaptive system, which automatically filter the content for users and make recommendations based on the collected user profiles. I think the use of social metadata in the consumer-created content websites can help enhance users’ experience on using the websites.

 

Some may ask for the control and guidance over the user-generated content in order to suggest the potentially most valuable content to the users. However, imposing the controls upon users will decrease the democratization of content and may again exclude the content distribution right to the hands of the mainstream media. As a result, I agree with Wallace’s assertion in “The Psychology of the Internet”, that Internet users should be granted freedom to choose their preferred content in the online sharing world.