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Concept 5: The mobility of electronic digital data
Advanced Internet communicators always think about the ways in which their own exploitation of the technological ease of mobile data can impact on other Internet users, seeking to ensure that technical possibility is not simply substituted for effective communication requirements” (Allen, n.d.).
Concept 5 mentions email as the example which has been adopted as part of our social culture (Allen, n.d.). Emails are, understandably, preferred to posted mail for its speed of delivery and ability to attach other forms of digital data such as images, and files. Beyond file attachment there is the ability to pass links in the form of URL’s. Methods of data transmission such as emails provide opportunity to store print and forward copies of documents/files with very little effort or technical know-how (Allen, n.d.).
Upon reading Concept 5 my thoughts turned to how similar Twitter is used to share news, and information either as a short 140 character message or in the form of shortened URL’s (Java, Finin, Song, & Tseng, 2007; TinyURL, n.d.). Twitter has the potential to become an effective, public alternative for communication because it shares many of the attributes with email.
The advantage of Twitter is its ability for meta data to be attached to messages by using meaningful or contextual tags prefixed with a hash tag ‘#’. An example say ‘#webdesign’ would brand the message as being web design related. The challenge of users is to ensure that they provide meta data that fits the often shortened URL (using an application that condenses URLs) (Huberman, Romero, & Wu, 2009).
A side-effect of email sharing and Twitter utility is the probability that information being sent to many recipients may not necessarily be of any benefit to them (Allen, n.d.). Hence, further reinforcing Allen’s (n.d.) discussion regarding gratuitous notifications. Another common example would be that of spam via email whereby the title of the emails are conveniently devised with meta data to grab your attention.
Advanced users are considered such when they know how to apply meta data to notifications, understanding the needs of their intended recipients (Allen, n.d.;Ryan, 2006). The activity of creating rules for how emails are sorted, based on certain criteria, is an example. In retrospect, it makes us consider how to title our emails more effectively. Ryan (2006) suggests that there are social rules which govern the way people communicate using the Internet. Ryan (2006) also identifies these behaviours as following “notification norms” describing how Internet users reflexively consider what channels to use in order to disseminate information.
Furthermore, Ryan (2006) notes that users are quite particular in their decisions about how to go about informing others, outlining the notification dissemination hierarchy and factors about the situation. Such notification norms determine how information is distributed and to whom. An example of how these notification norms were neglected involves a story where a 16 year old girl in the U.K. mentioned on her Facebook page that her job was “boring” (Facebook remark teenager is fired, 2009). Apparently, other work colleagues saw the comment and mentioned it to her employer. She soon found herself fired from her job on that basis (Facebook remark teenager is fired, 2009).
Therefore as advanced users we follow social rules in determining who and how we will notify others of information. However, as we find ourselves participating in many communication circuits notification norms present complexities in how we choose to disseminate information (Ryan, 2006).
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Getting the Word Out: Notes on the Social Organization of Notification
Ryan, D. (2006). Getting the Word Out: Notes on the Social Organization of Notification. Retrieved May 11th. 2009, from
http://djjr.net/papers/published/ryan-notification-norms.pdf
Dan Ryan’s piece evaluates the ways in which social theory has been applied to the idea of information dissemination. In particular, the ways how social norms shape the process of dissemination outlining the processes we as individuals go through before we decide to pass on information to another or a group of others. It was an excellent outline of how social theories look at society and its treatment of information dispersal. Moreover, it reinforced Allen’s (n.d.) Concept 5 in proving that we do think about how we should present our information to the recipients no matter what technological options we may have to make the job easier.
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UPDATED: New ‘WSJ’ Conduct Rules Target Twitter, Facebook.
Strupp, J. (2009). UPDATED: New ‘WSJ’ Conduct Rules Target Twitter, Facebook. Retrieved May 14th. 2009, from http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003972544
Stan Strupp (2009) highlights the changes being made to workplace policies, in particular the Wall Street Journal, with regard to social networking and how it is acknowledging the fact that employees use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Employers are bracing themselves for what they identify as the potential of social networks to mobilise data. Hence, policies are being created and enacted to protect companies but also sanction the actions of workers. As such, changes to workplace policies are signs of the changing face of society’s engagement with online social networks and its ability to mobilise digital data in a way that may be detrimental to businesses.
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Concept 8: The invisibility of difference
“The daily practice of electronic communication is shaped by over-familiarity with one’s own computer system, and a tendency to assume that – as with much more established forms of communication – everyone is operating within compatible and similar systems. When in doubt, seek to communicate in ways that are readable and effective for all users, regardless of their particular systems” (Allen, n.d.).
It is true that one’s familiarity with own computer and peripherals system often renders one oblivious to the various differences and experiences of all Internet users. When we initially consider Concept 8, the main difference a web designer thinks of is the accessibility issues for those with a disability or different web browsers. Apparently in the Unites States, 65% of the population have a disability (Krug, 2007). Furthermore, there are differences between computing platforms such as PC users vs Mac users.
As such the web has developed in a way that creates shared platforms of communication so as to create an Internet that is accessible to some but not all. To illustrate, the popular way to distribute many paged documents is by creating a PDF (portable document file). PDF’s are a better way to distribute data as it retains the original formatting of a document but it is more portable in terms of distributing data over the Internet. Moreover, PDF readers are free to download to allow broader access for many.
It is the web developers and web designers who shoulder the bulk of responsibility when it comes to website accessibility on the web. Instead of opting for the greatest new development and flashiest design web developers/designers have to take into account delivery of their designs (McMullin, 2002). While many developers/designers believe that it is not a necessity it is the law in the United States – Section 508 (Krug, 2007). But it is a big responsibility of developers/designers as differences manifest between browsers, plugins such as Adobe Flash Player or Adobe Acrobat reader to name a few. But also cultural sensitivities such as the use of images, discussions of certain topics, or the colours used within a website (Cultural differences, n.d.; Hermeking, 2005)
Web accessibility guidelines provide an outline of 14 measures for web designers and developers to abide by so as to enable people with disabilities access to websites and services we would otherwise take for granted (McMullin, 2002). Since common computer technologies, used to facilitate access to the Internet, differ for those with hearing or visual impairment extra measures are needed to complement these systems also. Such technologies such as screen readers require better markup relying on semantic web coding and steering away from the use of tables and frames. Over-reliance on images in web pages is also another factor there is a need to alternative titles and viewing modes or scripts.
On a broader note, differences in how Internet users access the WWW also include connections such as dial-up, broadband and wireless services. Again web developments/designs need to take into consideration the speed of the Internet access for a variety of connections to provide better access. Then there is the issue of hardware, software availability, usage and technological advances which have given rise to the notion of the ‘Digital Divide’. The growing digital divide is thought to be one that has the ability to expedite social and economic polarisation (Gurstein, 2003). Hence, from a web developer/designer point of view it is always best to satisfy as many needs as possible – although not always an easy task.
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Towards an Information Ecology
Capurro, R. (1989). Towards an Information Ecology. Retrieved May 11th. 2009, from http://www.capurro.de/nordinf.htm
Capurro (1989) writes on the notion that information ecology and the discrepancies that the information age presents. He discusses the way in which the information distribution encourages ‘information rich’ societies and displace others into being ‘information poor’. Although this paper was written 20 years ago it still highlights many sociological issues of being in an age of where we, as Australian’s at least, are well connected to the Internet. We often forget that there are other countries in the world with no or very little availability of Internet related services. Thus, dispelling the myth we participate in a ‘global’ online community.
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WebAIM Screen Reader Simulation
WebAIM Screen Reader Simulation (n.d.). Retrieved May 17th. 2009, from http://www.webaim.org/simulations/screenreader.php
The landing page for this link is an ‘about’ page for a simulated screen reader which is used to navigate a web page. You will find the actual link for the screen reader simulation towards the bottom of the web page. It is a very apt simulation in highlighting just what people with screen readers actually experience when it comes to a fairly basic web page. Hence, reinforcing the notion of the invisibility of difference. This simulation certainly brings to the fore the arduous nature of the Internet for those who rely on technologies such as screen readers. It is an extremely helpful experience for web developers/designers.
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Concept 11:The relationship of data to meta-data
“Advanced Internet users learn to intuitively conceive of any document, file, message or communication as consisting of metadata and data. They then can explore the functions of various communications/information software looking for how that software can assist them in using metadata to enable sorting, processing or otherwise dealing with that data” (Allen, n.d.).
In reading an old discussion about meta data by Thomas & Griffin’s (1998) it was interesting to view their assessment of meta data use within the Internet. It was forecast that there would be an urgent need for better applications to attach meta data to information (Thomas & Griffin, 1998). Thomas & Griffin (1998) believed that there are issues which could lead to chaos and recognise the inefficiencies in storage and retrieval systems. Moreover, they advised there should be national adoption of guidelines in the form of policies to ensure that there are uniform systems in place to apply meta data so that many departments and libraries make best use of the technologies before large volumes of data hit the Internet (Thomas & Griffin, 1998). However, ultimately the bulk of the responsibility resides with web developers/designers like myself who develop systems for small or large corporations. In addition, there is growing demand from consumers who want to retrieve better search results and be able add their own meta data to information they find. Then they want to store it appropriately.
Allen (n.d.) points out there is a lack of software and applications, in particular, web browsers that are able to deal with attaching meta data to information found on the Internet. However, in response to earlier concerns surrounding the lack of meta data attachment many applications have been developed since and now dubbed Web 2.0 developments. Social bookmarking such as Del.icio.us is the main example that sprang to mind when reading Concept 11. As Del.icio.us is a virtual bookmarking service that allows users to save the URL of a web page they want to bookmark. But it has the added advantage that it allows users to ‘tag’ the page with useful keywords and notes about that web page so that it may be retrieved at a later stage from any Internet device around the world that is connected to the Internet. The other aspect of social bookmarking which propels itself past previous meta data methods is the ability to share bookmarks with others or search for other people’s bookmarks based on the tags people have used (leelefever. 2007).
In fact, many Web 2.0 applications make use of tags, and categories which allow for better retrieval results using search functions. Moreover, the idea of searches and the best results derive from applying and managing meta data. So much so that Internet searches have become cultural in that if someone wants to know about something then a popular response is given “well Google it!”. In fact, in 2006, the Oxford English Dictionary added the verb ‘google’ to its word list (Makri, Blanford, & Cox, n.d.). Google has been the top ranked Search engine because its search algorithms yield the most and more accurate results (Mostafa, 2005). In fact, the main goal of owners of web sites is to rank highly in Google search results. In so achieving such a result, web developers/designers actively use meta data both in coding and in the content to assist in this process.
Thus, while Concept 11 holds true in that advanced users think about how to go about attaching meta data to information for retrievals and storage, the Internet has seen a plethora of applications and plugins to help address these earlier concerns.
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Visualising Social Bookmarks
Klerkx, J., & Duval, E. (2009). Visualising Social Bookmarks: Journal of Digital Information. Retrieved May 11th. 2009, from http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/view/445/282
Klerkx and Duval, from the Catholic University of Leuven, (Belgium) have studied in great depth the nature of social bookmarking using one of the most popular web 2.0 applications ‘Delicious’. Their hope was to understand how people use “social retrieval tools”, more specifically how people use meta data in the form of tags to categorise information retrieved from the web. Results consisted of detailed visual histograms and graphs. I use Delicious, nearly exclusively for bookmarking my pages and look to what others have found for the day. I often attached tags to categorise my found information on the web in contrast to Allen’s (n.d.) thoughts back then.
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Twitter Search to Become Real Search
Schroeder, S. (2009). Twitter Search to Become Real Search. Retrieved May 8th. 2009, from http://mashable.com/2009/05/07/twitter-search-real/
Schroeder writes for Mashable, the online Social Media Guide (Posts by Stan Schroeder, n.d.). The ability for Twitter to generate searches based on its real time posts sets to rival that of Google’s search algorithms. What seems most poignant is the fact people are not just wanting data that is relevant but they are also wanting it to be current. If you know how long Google’s time frame is for acknowledging changes to web pages then you see the benefits of fast data in the form of up-to-date search results. However, Google’s new Search options are going to make more up-to-date searches it would seem (Shiels, 2009).
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Concept 29. The challenge of ‘fast’ data
“Advanced Internet users monitor, reflexively, the way they think about information, adapting to new opportunities, recognising the changing rules of the games of research, analysis, information use; but they do not uncritically accept that ‘fast’ information is better than ‘static’ information” (Allen, n.d.).
Australian society has come to embrace the Internet with 79.4% participation in 2008 (South Pacific and Oceania - Internet Statistics and Population, 2008). Australian’s demand for higher speed Internet has been a political election promise. Faster Internet speeds are a challenge of Australian politicians in an effort to equalise Internet speed rates with those of other countries (Colley, 2009). Demand for higher speed Internet access stems from Internet users wanting to have equal access to Internet and wanting to participate in activities like that of the ‘rest’ of the world or for us in rural situations, to have Internet speeds like that of metropolitan areas.
The idea of Internet related communication technologies are like a ‘means of transport’ as described by Burgelman (2000). Information transport is further reinforced by Virilio’s (1995) argument that the velocity of such information dispersal via the Internet is problematic leading to chaos. This is further compounded by the fact that such an availability of information could lead to a “disturbance to one’s perceptions” (Virilio, 1995). In addition, Burgelman (2000) believes that one of the problems of fast data dispersal via the Internet is that mistakes are multiplied.
To illustrate, a college student, Shane Fitzgerald was able to add content to a Wikipedia page of a recently deceased, famous musician, Maurice Jarre (Pogatchnik, 2009). He added a hoax quote claiming to have been said by the musician. This quote was quickly used and placed in obituaries about Jarre. News companies and blogs around the world had redistributed the hoax without substantiation (Pogatchnik, 2009).
The fact that any sensitive information has the potential to be circulated with the prospect of personal devastation is, in a sense, the power of information distribution that both Virilio and Burgelman feared. The power of distributing information quickly lies not only in its potential to harm but also in its power to bring about change for the better. In 2005, bloggers were instrumental in stimulating action by the U.S. Government by circulating ‘real’ images of disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, whereas images by the media had been suppressed by Government (Leaver, 2006).
Therefore, as outlined above, the challenge of ‘fast data’ is still a relevant issue to the way in which information is distributed and received. The growth in the participatory nature of the Internet has given rise to decentralised distribution of information which both adds to the volume of ‘misinformation’ and ‘information’. However, the rise in volume and frequency of ‘user-generated’ content highlights a shift in the discourse that static information is better. We do want to know now, or what is going on in other areas of the world. We subscribe to RSS feeds so that we may be advised promptly that ‘new’ information is available as soon as it comes to hand. Not all of us want to wait for a letter in the mail. The popularity in mobile communication technologies is perhaps the extension of wanting to be kept up-to-date when located away from the computer.
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Traveling with communication technologies in space, time and everyday life: An exploration of their impact
Burgelman, J. C. (2006). Traveling with communication technologies in space, time and everyday life: An exploration of their impact: First Monday. Retrieved May 13th. 2009, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/733/642
Professor Jean Claude Burgelman teaches at the Free University of Brussels. Burgelman first outlines a history of the methods of delivering information. It was an insightful look noting that our use of the Internet is just another step along the evolution of information dispersal methods. This paper by Burgelman also focuses on the negative side of information dispersal and its potential impacts upon society. Believing that some of the adventure of life is taken away with the ability to access information before experiencing it. Burgelman also discusses Virilio’s concept of velocity and ‘a single global time’ as it suggests that information is able to transcend distance to become immediately available.
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The Dynamics of Viral Marketing
Leskovec, J., Adamic, L. A., & Huberman, B. A. (2007). The Dynamics of Viral Marketing . Retrieved May 11th. 2009, from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ladamic/papers/viral/viralTWeb.pdf
The interesting point of this article is how social networks are being studied by corporations to determine the effectiveness of information dissemination and the speed it travels at. Interesting to note that Huberman was involved with this study. He has also conducted studies of Twitter use. Huberman is employed by HP working in the Social Computing Lab. So it figures that Huberman and colleagues would be very interested in the nature of social networks and how marketing can exploit these markets in the hope of financial gain. So, the velocity of information is obviously beneficial for corporations who look to social networks as a prospective market.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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