3.2 Social Me(dia) Rivers

Twitter as a river: as a metaphor works well for micro-blogging site twitter. Which means you don't get to see the same tweets from the same group of friends, it is fast and short so you get to see glimpses of what's happening in people's lives, engagement is usually partial and fragmented. Real life happens between blogs and emails, thus twitter fills the gaps.
Continual Partial Presence may be the core of Twitter. It's about observing the day to day activities of people we love or are in our social network. Things we get to miss out on because we are busy, it doesn't compel us to respond as emails do but we still feel involved, through observation. It's not really an interruption and we choose which discussions to get involved in.


Tama Leaver (2007) ‘It’s a Small World After All: From Wired’s Minifesto to the Twitterati’, Tama Leaver dot Net, March 11. Available:http://www.tamaleaver.net/2007/03/11/its-a-small-world-after-all-from-wireds-minifesto-to-the-twitterati/


Reading: Identity 2.0: constructing Identity with cultural software

Status updates with Facebook was introduced in 2006: this then made it a big concept of twitter and blogs, it's more essential to micro blogging tools as it allows people to check in with what you are doing. Life streaming is when you write a post on FB and it shows up in your twitter, friend feed, tumblr account. It makes it easier for you to keep all your social media sites on line updated. Search engines act as centralising forces of our distributed identity by indexing the content of the platforms we perform our identity on, and recently, by indexing the actions we perform within these platforms, including status updates. Search engines have changed platforms: the rise of search engines happened around the same time as the rise of blogs. Identity construction in the Blogoshere is largely performed by the engines. Google, being the main search engine and website, making this the main entry point to the web, through it's search engines reveals the traces of your activity online, The main objective of this cynical enterprise, google, is to monitor user behaviour in order to sell traffic data and profiles to interested 3rd parties. Social networking sites are favourite targets for search engines as they contain user profiles filled with data and a large amount of user-generated content. Walled gardens, means that no be can see your profile or personal info unless they are accepted by you into their network, online presence. They require registration and login to enter.

Cultural software, reconfigures identity online to = Identity 2.0. Cultural software is social networking sites and search engines. Identity 2.0 is seen as a break from online identity pre-Web 2.0, it's main characteristics are perpetual beta, networked, participatory culture with user-generated content, distributed, indexed by search engines ad persistent. Beta software, in which the product is developed in the open, and update fetish, with google's Google Me you have to keep updating your personal page and add more details to increase your page ranking, which offers users control over your page ranking. Search engines play a major role in identity construction online. Each social media platform has a different demographic using it. Life streaming is all about user activity but it is much less about the user than it is about the applications and platforms exchanging and distributing user data. It's more service centred than user centred. Networking identity: Each networking site serves a different purpose and different demographic users. Google and twitter are found in the centre of the social media flower. Google being the centralising force, indexing content, linking social media activity. Twitter is also in the centre as it acts as the central social node.

RSS also acts like a central node due to feeding all information from blogs, websites etc via this feed that sends updates. User generated also alters our identity due to the fact that people can upload photos about us and publish content that is tagged to us therefore affecting our online identity. Facebook relies on Flickr for its ease to upload photos that automatically share on FB.

Identity construction is largely performed by engines then tagging is the key, as it is he description mechanism. It's is starting to become more popular with Facebook via the @ symbol, twitter also uses this via # symbol for groups/topics and @ for individuals. Distributed identity: this enhances the need for a central identity hub, this is so all the photos, music, posts, updates are easily traced on line. Finding the line that connects all that you are online together. Indexed identity: changing your work status, relationship status, etc the cooperation of the services allows you to do all of this easy? So the changes are indexed just not uni formally changed. Persistent identity; this is creepy that you can leave posts for people after you die.

 Different social media pages have different terms as to what happens to your images etc after you die. Suicide machine works over months to remove everything, private content etc. insanely complex and time consuming. This all describes how online identity is performed and shaped within the symbiotic relationship between users, search engines and social software platforms. Changes of the centralised identity of the homepage to the distributed data of the life stream. Constructed by software engine relations and how identity formation is subject to software engine politics. The identity in identity 2.0 is never complete and always under construction. Ha got this one, very enlightening.

Facebook and it being a platform, where other programmers can develop apps and games so that people can from the onset keep you hooked especially when you time limits, virtual homes and friends. It is a money making scheme worth hundreds and millions of money where people can buy certain things in their virtual worlds. Zuckerberg has done this amazing thing for our social lives. The 80% of their persona is reflected on FB, the question is whether it is a distraction or a help, as we hide in this virtual world. It does open my world for me so when I feel lonely studying at home on my own during the day. We're better if we are open and connected, it is a social aspect of our online presence that we choose what we want, like pages we are interested in, it's easier to unsubscribe, to voice concerns. What we became cultural comfortable with, with releasing new technology that we may have initially found a bit intrusive, they over a longer period of time in a subtler way.

Anne Helmond (2010) ' Identity 2.0: Constructing identity with cultural software.' Anne Helmond. New Media Research Blog. Available: http://www.annehelmond.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//2010/01/helmond_identity20_dmiconference.pdf

Activity 1; Twitter: I have just opened another twitter account so only have a few of the group following me but since linking it with Tumblr and the website, I had 4 new people follow me in a day. Can't wait to get back on these sites after my social presence has been marked I want TI keep the plates spinning. Plus I found some awesome blogs on Tumblr and Del.icio.us that I would like to check in on. I chose what was trending globally and it seemed to be reality shows that are at a pinnacle stage overseas :/. Friend feed; love looking at this as it shows me what I have done in each of my social media applications. Therefore I update and do different activities on each, it has allowed me to easily group all my social media applications together. Posted my link in this weeks discussion topics.

How does the idea of ‘Continuous Partial Presence’ work in terms of building a picture about someone from their microblogging? Why we twitter: understanding microblogging usage and communities. This allows us to see how people are going about their day due to their constant updates, giving us updates during their day. Before reading this unit I found Twitter overwhelming and something I didn't really use on its own, it was always used as a repost model. This is due to its open source API and it's reciprocal nature of its links.

This reading has Have to edit this more later...

Akshay Java et al (2007) ‘Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities’, Procedings of the Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop 2007, August 12. Available: http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/get/a/publication/369.pdf