Visualising interconnectedness through social network streams
"Tech City Map, created by developers at Trampoline Systems and designed by Playgen, pulls in streams of social network data for all of the businesses in the area to help analyse their influence. The Tech City Map follows in the footsteps of Matt Biddulph's original Silicon Roundabout map as well as Wired's very own version, produced in 2009."
(Olivia Solon and Nate Lanxon, 10 November 2011, Wired UK)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
New Myspace: better all-in-one for social music playing and discovery
"Facebook may have won the social networking war, but Myspace is moving to a different battlefield under its new owner Specific Media, which acquired the site from News Corporation in June 2011.
After a period spent rebuilding Myspace from the ground up, the company published a teaser video on Vimeo in September - unveiled via tweet by co-investor Justin Timberlake - showing off a radically different design and an emphasis on music. ...
'The promise of discovery and sharing new, good music was never really fulfilled by other services out there,' says Tim. 'It's an unfulfilled promise that nobody ever really executed on.'
The new Myspace continues to compete with Facebook in some respects: artists create profiles on the site and post updates and content for their fans to watch, listen and share. But actually, its real competition is streaming music services like Spotify and Deezer."
(Stuart Dredge, 16 November 2012, The Guardian)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Joanna Shields leaves Facebook to join UK's Tech City
"Facebook's European boss Joanna Shields is to leave the social network to lead the UK government's investment group for technology start-ups.
The Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO) supports firms based near the Silicon Roundabout area of east London.
Ms Shields will replace current head Eric Van Der Kleij in January 2013.
'Joanna's experience will be hugely valuable in supporting Tech City as it goes from strength to strength,' Prime Minister David Cameron said.
'The success of Tech City shows just what can happen when we back some of our most innovative and aspiring companies to grow, helping the UK compete and thrive in the global race.'
Ms Shields has been Facebook's vice-president and managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa since 2010.
Prior to that she worked at Google and teenage-focused social network Bebo."
(Dave Lee, 22 October 2012, BBC News)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Simple Guide to Interest based Networks
"As Facebook and Twitter are reaching a saturation point, a new form of social network has begun to capture the people's attention recently. Interest based networks connect you with people whom you share interests/hobbies with. Though interest based networks are not completely new – forums and communities on specific topics have existed for a while – they are building a critical mass just now.
Pinterest, Instagram, Spotfiy, Goodreads, Quora and other interest based networks have grown significantly during the past 18 months. Each of these has built up a few million strong active userbase and provides a more fine grained marketing strategy for businesses. Small businesses and marketers must pay attention to these networks and utilize them in their marketing strategy."
(Merc Strategy Group, LLC)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Student experiences of disability social networks, in and around higher education
"For many young people social networks such as Facebook are an essential part of their student experience. Other web-based, interactive services like Wikipedia and YouTube are also an important facet of everyday student life. New technologies have always been scrutinized for their capacity to support education and, as social technologies become more pervasive, universities are under increasing pressure to appropriate them for teaching and learning. However, the educational impact of applying these Web 2.0 technologies is uncertain.
Using a Foucauldian perspective, my qualitative study explores the networked experiences of disabled students to examine how dis/ability difference is ascribed and negotiated within social networks. Data comprises 34 internet-enabled interviews with 18 participants from three English universities. Interviews incorporate the internet to expand opportunities for discussion, observation and analysis. Mobile broadband, a remote desktop viewer and screen capture have been flexibly applied together to ensure an accessible interview situation and recognise students' preferences and circumstances. Data is analysed using discourse analysis, with an attention to context framed by activity theory.
Disabled students' networked experiences are found to be complex and diverse. For a proportion, the network shifts the boundaries of disability, creating non-disabled subjectivities. For these students, the network represents the opportunity to mobilise new ways of being, building social capital and mitigating impairment.
Other participants experience the network as punitive and disabling. Disability is socio-technically ascribed by the social networking site and the networked public. Each inducts norms that constitute disability as a visible, deviant and deficit identity. In the highly normative conditions of the network, where every action is open to scrutiny, impairment is subjected to an unequal gaze that produces disabled subjectivities. For some students with unseen impairments, a social experience of disability is inducted for the first time.
As a result, students deploy diverse strategies to retain control and resist deviant status. Self-surveillance, self-discipline and self-advocacy are evoked, each involving numerous social, cognitive and technological tactics for self-determination, including disconnection. I conclude that networks function both as Technologies of the Self and as Technologies of Power. For some disabled students, the network supports 'normal' status. For others, it must be resisted as a form of social domination.
Importantly, in each instance, the network propels students towards disciplinary techniques that mask diversity, rendering disability and the possibility of disability invisible. Consequently, disability is both produced and suppressed by the network."
(Sarah Lewthwaite, Slewth Press)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
