Unit Structures Fred Stutzman’s thoughts about information, social networks and technology.

“Social Media is Here to Stay… Now What?”

danah boyd’s new talk, “Social Media is Here to Stay… Now What?“  Here’s the kicker:
Specific genres of social media may come and go, but these underlying properties are here to stay. We won’t turn the clock back on these. Social network sites may end up being a fad from the first decade of the 21st [...]

Spring 2009 Social Networks Syllabus

If you’re interested in checking out the syllabus from my spring Online Social Networks class, you can find HTML and PDF versions linked from my teaching page.  This course is a little bit of a departure from the previous two versions; I’m focusing a little more on practice-oriented challenges (OSN’s and LIS, OSN and Education, [...]

Twitter, the enterprise’s third space

When describing Twitter, I use a number of analogies. Most commonly, I think of Twitter as something like a slow-motion chatroom, or even a collection of away messages. I’ve got another one to add to this list: subject-only email.
This new analogy actually comes from my use of the iPhone, where the Twitter interface [...]

Twitter, Imagined Identity and Flux

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, and thanks to Techcrunch, I’ve finally got my excuse. TC describes a scheme for making Twitter “portable”, with a goal of solving the service’s technical problems. According to the post, if you glue enough “standards” together, a Twitter-killing Phoenix just might rise from [...]

Social Networks can’t be Bootstrapped

Via Techcrunch’s Erich Schonfeld, Google appears to be moving towards turning iGoogle into its own social network. As Google is notoriously ham-fisted in this space, I worry that a move to appease a VP may undermine the well-executed and popular iGoogle product.
Before you write this off as another Google rant, lets step back for [...]

Recent SNS Studies

In the past few weeks, I’ve come across a number of SNS-related studies. Thought I’d like to them here in case you’re interested. I haven’t had time to give them comprehensive reads, but I’m particularly interested in checking out the Bryon study.

Blake, R. (April 2, 2008). Social Networking. Ofcom (UK). [...]

Responding: Are social networks good for society?

Yesterday, I wrote about the Freakonomics blog post that asked if social network sites are good for society. I’ve had a little time to parse the responses; I don’t really have an answer to the question, but I thought I might add some observations.
The first respondent, Nicole Ellison, addresses a main issue concerning these [...]