Essay 1 - My own social media

Social media are something that have partially changed my approach to internet, most of all because I started to be not only a reader of the contents that are on the web, but I started interacting and, in a sort of way, making contents.

When I surfed the web for the first time I was just looking at things other people wrote or did and now I’m putting my own works, that can be various: code programming, advices, photos... I regularly check flickr.com for new interesting photos, or just to see if my friends have made some new cool shot. Moreover I often use newsgroups to share opinions, ideas and advices about software programs and programming troubles, so expecially informatical-oriented. And, of course, I do an intensive use of tools for online communication. I started with the old IRC chat, wich let me and my friend keeping in touch, even if we were far away, without using telephone (saving money :) ) and sharing, at the same time, the communication with other people. We after started using softwares as skype or messenger, to empower our communication, and for example now I’m kilometres far away from home, but I sort of feel near my family and my friends using such tools. They can be powerful too for exchanging file we are working on for some university project.

Moreover I read a lot of blogs, forums and websites about general thematics, all concerning my interests, at the top of whom there is sport. I read the forums of my favourite soccer team (Frosinone Calcio, the link) and other teams blog, and I regularly keep in touch with my rugby team mates, both by mail and a guestbook (Volsci Rugby Sora). What really makes me crazy is youtube.com: I see a lot of video everyday of sports, expecially the highlights of sunday matches, or music video and discuss them with other people.

Two main things have never convinced me about social media, the first one is related to social networks like badoo, where it’s all like a showcase and users do not create any sort of contents, no interesting information is given, at least according to me, since I don’t see any develop of interests.

The other thing that always frighten me is about privacy, expecially in web site like facebook: I’m not just talking about personal data (like photo, age, work) that can be seen everywhere, but the use that marketing company can do with our personal data, this is why I don’t use other site like delicious or tagged; I mean: it’s nice receiving information linked to our profile, categorize everything, but I sort of feel observed and controlled... And let’s hope it’s just marketing! However I keep using them “with care”: with other friends, we have created a group so that we pendulars, that go everyday from our houses to the work places or the university, can keep in touch, travel together, express opinions about train, tell stories, all done through ning.com. If you’re interested the group is here.

So the most important thing in social network, the thing I really like, is that distances can be tore down and it’s not only a matter of physical distances, but a real leveling, so that we can talk each other informally, and not thinking about the fact that someone is our boss ora an employee. And everyone can contribute to develop the knowledge of a community just sharing his own, which is one of the first things that purpose of www.

Social Media Around Me

The relationship between me and social media technology is kind of complicated, and sometimes it’s contradictory.

I used to be a heavy user of social media services. At that time, I followed the trends of all kinds of web2.0 website, social network services, blogs and microblogs, etc. I read “Mashable” and “Read/write Web”, etc, to find out some new social media web services. Because I feel it’s interesting and also I would like to study in this field. This kind of touching as much new web services as possible lasted for half a year until the end of 2007. Then I was so tired of using social media services. I felt it cost too much time to try those web services. And it’s not a good way to discover or study new media. I don’t think these fuzzy and tricky website provide me much value and knowledge. So I stop trying these new services, but focus on some services which I really enjoy.

Now, I use Facebook, LinkedIn to keep in touch with friends in Europe. For my friends in China, I use Xiaonei.com, Douban.com to maintain and expansion circle. These four social network systems are the main services which I used frequently. However, according to my using habit and relationship intensity, I spend much more time on Xiaonei.com and Douban.com rather than Facebook. Xiaonei.com is the largest social network system in China (active users are more than 22 million), focusing on university students. Most of my classmates and friends are in this service. Usually, I check this website every day. It has the same function as Facebook, but the open API part is just launch which is not as mature as Facebook. One of the most important functions for me is “Sharing”. We usually share interesting, useful or important websites, pictures and videos, etc with our friends. I think the users in China do more sharing information than the other parts. (While the weak point might be there are less original articles, photos or videos created by ourselves.) The other web service, Douban.com, is more culture and art based. There are many independent artists and designers are using this website. I read the reviews of books, films and music. Also I publish some comments or discuss some topic which in culture and art’s field. For LinkedIn, I use this service just for several months. As a student, I don’t have many contacts on LinkedIn. But now this is my final year of university study, so I would like to create the circle on the professional social network. I hope it would be helpful to find some opportunity when I graduate.

After discussion about SNS, blog is another important social media technology. I have written blogs for about 2 years. I use several different platforms, change several ideas and topics of my blog. I even tried to use “tumblr” for a while. This blog platform is simple than normal blog, but rich than microblog. But now, I focus on my new blog “shuguo.org” which I would like to share some ideas in media field, and record my study life in Stockholm. I use WordPress as the platform. There are lots of themes and plug-ins made by third party. I think this kind of collaborate working is also one kind of social media technology. Besides my main blog, I use twitter as my microblog service. When I have some short idea or some interesting sentence I usually publish them on twitter.

I like photography very much, so Flickr and Picasa give me the opportunity sharing and store photos online. But unfortunately, there are not so many people visit my albums, on other words, it seems not so “social”. While at least, my friends and family often watching my photos.

To aggregate my social media services, I use FriendFeed to realize. My friends when checking my FriendFeed could get my new update in different web service; also I can receive my friends’ news. I can also use this to share website which I am reading, so I don’t use Delicious that often any more.

At last but not least, Google, I use many Google services. More and more become or add social media technology in the feature. Such as, Google reader, now we can share articles with friends, and add comments etc. Blogger and orkut are consider as typical social media. I think Groups and Docs are also one kind of social media technology. Even Google Calendar, provide social function.

To sum up, I think social media technology is not one kind of service anymore. I think it will be a compulsory feature existed in most services in the future.

hello world!

Welcome to Group 6's blog.

Who are we?
Homayoun
Morgan
Nisarath
Shuguo
Giuliano

What are we doing here?

In this blog, we would like to focus on social media, and share our ideas on various aspects of Media.