Observing Facebook...

For the final essay my job is to observe Facebook. Since I use Facebook more than I use my own textbooks this shouldn't be hard. Observing Facebook is something that I have been doing since I joined the site a few years ago. Facebook has changed drastically since I first began to use it. The introduction of the mini feed was perhaps the biggest change of them all. I know that Facebook is a social networking site, but once that was created it seemed more like that annoying little sister snooping around for dirt. The mini feed has caused an eruption of privacy on the site and it details everything that all of your friends are doing as well what non friends are doing. When I was first introduced to it it bothered me very much because I knew at this point everything I did on the site would be completely highlighted. Although, I realize that Facebook is a social site and that you pretty much knew that all of this was public when you signed up, it is more annoying that you know everyone will defintely see it. It is hard to explain the privacy issue with Facebook especially since people are willing to put their phone number and home address on the site. That is something I will personally never do because that is a bit extreme. Despite the privacy issues I really enjoy using Facebook especially since it has kept me in contact with old friends and family members who live far away. Some of the applications are cool, especially the friend wheel, and the whole idea of you being the star of your own show makes it interesting. Facebook was created for people to connect and despite the other problems, it does just that.

Fitting our tools to a small world

For today’s class I read chapter 9; Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations by Clay Shirky. This chapter discussed social networking and the creation of two types of social capital. First, Shirky discussed the phenomenon of a “small world” network and how in most cases social networks connect because of the few people that are connected rather than a large number of people that are connected. One reason that we are often connected to people in a “small world” scenario is “homophily” or “the grouping of like with like” (p.213). The chances that you will share a common friend or an acquaintance with someone is more likely than one would think especially when you both live in the same city.

According to Shirky, bonding capital and bridging capital are different ways that people can connect to increase their social networks. The difference between the two are bonding is the strengthening of a group of people who are within the same group and bridging is the strengthening of connections between different groups of people. One other way of looking at it is bonding capital is exclusive and bridging capital is inclusive.

One of the things that I found interesting in this article is how small the world actually is. It is amazing that you can meet someone at a random location and happen to know someone that they are connected to. It is even more interesting when you happen to know the same people in a large city such as New York City. If you look on Facebook you can discover connections between people that you know. I remember I was on Facebook and I was looking at someone’s profile that I went to middle school with and I realized that she was also friends with someone that I had met in Albany. In a situation like this you realize just how small the world.

LiveJournal

For today's class I read "Shout into the wind, and it shouts back" Identity and interactional tensions on LiveJournal by Lori Kendall. Throughout this article Kendall sought to explain the dichotomous nature within LiveJournal such as: private journal vs. public performance, efficiency vs. audience management, control vs. connection and autonomy vs. the desire for comments. Each one of these is strategies used on this site. The first the thing Kendall delves into is the idea that people are using LiveJournal as a diary for everyone to see. Many of the people that she interviewed for her research admitted that their journals were a way for them to publicly perform for an audience, while others liked LiveJournal because updating friends and family on their life was much easier.

Some problems that may arise are the lack of total privacy. Although it is used in a public space, your journal can be controlled to allow for some people to see one thing while others may not gain total access (Kendall, 2008). In some cases mistakes have been made where confidential information was shown to the wrong people, which lead some people to only post information that everyone can see. Besides this issue some people enjoy being able to connect with people on LiveJournal through the material they present. This connection leads to increased commenting on a journal entry which is one of the things that people admit, they enjoy.

One of the things that I found interesting about this article is how people desire comments. I think that’s interesting because it gives people that sense of importance while at the same time stroking their ego. Even more interesting, people posted things that they thought were sure to give them a lot of attention that got absolutely nothing. I think one reason why people do not respond well to postings about how miserable life is because they don’t know what to say. I am sure that they don’t want to say the wrong thing that would be unhelpful or could make matters worse.

Blogging @merica

The idea of blogging is still a fairly new concept in the world that we live in. Many people perceive blogging to be a waste of time and energy. There has been a lot of negativity aimed towards bloggers who some stereotype as “weirdo loners in their mothers’ suburban basements” (Barlow, 2008 pg.37). Many argue that bloggers are simply trying to form a community extensive to the one that they live in. In my observation of the blogosphere I realized that shared interests can contribute to the rise of community.

The blog that I decided to observe was Popwatch Blog which is located on popwatch.ew.com. I chose it because it is an entertainment and pop culture blog and I thought that this would be something that I would find interesting. Most of the stories related to celebrities, new movies, television shows and random video clips. These all contained a mixture of humor, information and creativity. While observing this blog I noticed there was also a high level of activity on the site. This was evident in the Latest Comments section located on the right side of the screen. It provided the audience with the amount of comments a certain blog had as well as the last person who wrote it. There was also a blog roll on the side of the screen that linked to similar blogs such as PopBytes and Tv Tattle. I also noticed that there was some hierarchal system within this blog because they had a sectioned that was designated for the “top authors”, which insinuated to me that there were other authors who wrote on the site.

One of my duties was to post a comment to the blog that I was observing. None of the stories that I read was of any interests to me, so I decided to search for the HBO television series True Blood. I found something that was dated September 8^th, 2008 and the question was What did you think? Many of the comments I read were positive about the show and many people were optimistic about its future. Although it was posted awhile ago the comments were coming in on a daily basis, so that is where I decided to comment. I made a simple comment about my love for the show that did not earn any responses from anyone. I noticed that many of the people that commented on the post were regular posters and this created a relationship between some of them.

According to Aaron Barlow (2008), “community, that is what lies at the heart of the blog” (pg.37). Reading many of the comments about True Blood embedded that in my mind. Everyone wants to be apart of a community at some point in their lives and I think that blogs offer people that opportunity. Barlow also comments that bloggers do not wish to reject the idea of community, but to embrace it. While I was reading the comments many of them related to one another. For example, I read a comment from “NACHO MAMA”, who admitted that that site was to addicting to stay away, “Carlos” another poster was telling a fellow poster “NOLA” that he had a flat screen television that was exactly like one in show. Also, “NOLA” refers to “Carlos” as lover and she even calls him that in one of her comments, and she tells “malee” that she hopes that she is feeling better because “malee” has pneumonia. Another example I saw was “Kristin” gave “NOLA” her email address and told her that she had a facebook page. The idea of the “blogging glass”, as discussed by Lance Strate, can also play a role in blogging communites (Barlow, 2008 pg.61). This idea sheds light on the fact that as we look through that glass we began to see similarities between ourselves and others as we move through it we began to connect with others around us.

While observing this blog I realized that it was a lot more entertaining then I initially believed it was going to be. I think one of the problems that bloggers have is that many people underestimate just how important the blogosphere is. A lot of things that we read on the Internet from the nytimes website or aol.com can be put into someone’s blog and exposed to more people than you can imagine. One of the things that are important about the blogosphere is it is a community where people can share their interests and interact in a space where they feel comfortable. Connecting with people who share your passion makes it much easier to connect with them. For some people it may be easier to talk over the Internet than face to face. Blogs may have not always been popular, but they are sure to grow as we head into the future.

Works Cited

Barlow, Aaron. (2008). Blogging America. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Joining the Blogosphere #5

Today is the final day that I have to observe my blog. I enjoyed doing it especiallybecause it was all about entertainment. Today they had a blog about the new Karate Kid movie that may come out without the legendary Pat Morita. The idea of a Karate Kid without him sounds absurd, he was the heart and soul of the movie. They also were rating new music releases from Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Taylor Swift, T Pain as well as David Archuleta( the American Idol guy). Most of the ratings were quite dismal with the average being a B, but some artist weren't even fortunate to get that. Speaking of American Idol, a blog was up there about the deal that was struck with YouTube to air exclusive Idol footage. I guess that's a cool idea, but I don't watch the show so it doesn't matter to much to me. I checked back on True Blood and unsuprisingly there wasn't much going, just a couple of new comments. I had a good experiencing with this and I will most likely come back to check it out.

Joining the Blogosphere #4

I observed my blog today and I noticed that they have a lot of video clips. I think adding video clips with the story makes it a bit more interesting. They also have a special clip that they call Clip du jour which is something they seem to have at random moments. The clip today was a landslide in Japan from 2004. They also had another Twilight story, which is bugging me. Then I looked harder at it and realized that they are doing it in different parts and they are on part 3. I'm not sure how many parts there are, but I'm hoping the movie is as good as the hype. I checked back into the true blood story and there were a lot of comments especially after last nights episode. I also noticed that someone posted a comment that had nothing to do with the show. They complained that the PopWatch Blog never have any blogs about "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" a television series on FX. I'm not done observing just yet; I'll just see what is next.

Joining the Blogosphere #3

I was observing my blog today and there wasn't a lot of new stories. I also noticed that many comments were posted to old stories and many of the newer stories had few comments. I mentioned before that they have a section that names the top contributors, but today I noticed that there was a different author not named in the section. Also, beneath the title of the stories they have categories where you can also find the same story. I went to check on the True Blood post that I had a made and it is still pulling in traffic. True Blood is growing in popularity so that explains the high traffic. I also noticed the community atmosphere especially when I read some comments and they mention the authors of the other comments that were made. I never really thought that you could really build a community within a blog but obviously it exist.

Joining the Blogosphere #2

I guess vampires are all the rage these days. I was observing my blog again today I continued to notice a lot of stories about the new vampire flick Twilight. It's based on a series of books by Stephanie Meyers. I've never read any of the books, but I heard they were amazing. In light of this I went back to where I posted my comment yesterday and I noticed there were 4 new postings. I find this amazing because the article that I posted the comment to was from September 8th. I noticed that there were a lot of the same people posting to the blog and they were in between in on going conversation. The few I really noticed were Nola, malee smith and Carlos. I noticed that not any one can blog here. They actually have a section titled Top Authors, that makes me think that there is some kind of hierarchy here. I also notice that on the side they have a section for the latest comments on a particular story and they have a link to it. I like what I am seeing here and it is pretty easy to traverse from story to story; It's also pretty fun.

Joining the Blogosphere #1

Having to choose a blog to observe was a lot tougher than I thought. When I first received this assignment I thought that it was going to be a breeze, man was I wrong! After some careful consideration I decided a couple of days ago to observe this blog called Popwatch; It is affiliated with the magazine Entertainment Weekly. I chose this one because my life pretty much revolves around anything "pop culture." I also thought that it would be interesting to see how many other "fanatics" were out there.

At first observation they had stories about the new vampire movie "Twilight" and a video of the star saying that he wasn't "beautiful" enough for the role. I read some comments that some of the readers made and most of them were pretty positive such as: from ker, "He's so natural and adorable. I'm very fond of him" and from di, "He's the most beautiful man I think I've ever seen." Since we were on the subject of vampires I decided to search for my new obsession, HBO's True Blood. I found an article and I was excited so I decided to post a comment about my love for the show under the name "Tea." I also noticed the blog roll with links to other entertainment blogs. I'm excited to continue my journey through the "blogosphere."