Michael Dieter gave a guest lecture in Networked Media this week on Social Networking. These are my notes and perspective. He was quick to point out how the concept of “networked individualism …hyper-individualism” seems to become the precedent - a centric, narcissitic approach that contradicts the community potential of social software. His image of a friends wheel off Facebook was a good visual example of this concept. The MySpace celebrity sites Tila Tequila and Jeremy Jackson also provided prime examples. It was intriguing to hear that MySpace paid Tila to come across from Friendster and bring here 40,000 odd network. Overall, a concept that filtered through from Manuel Castells trilogy of books on ‘Network Societies’.

Also, he debunked the idea that websites like Facebook and MySpace actually provide young people with a free space to engage with peers without an authoritative figure in the background. Instead these spaces become places that he described as being governed by “corporate surveillance”, where a key economic objective is the monitoring of users personal information and purchasing habits for marketing purposes. This is the selling and distribution of this information to third party operatives. Facebook Beacon is an example that uses specific documentation in UGC content as a means to promote ‘Behavioural Forward Advertising’- Behavioural targeting (wikipedia). A confronting interview by 60 minutes with the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on this development. The distribution of private content in this context to friends networks is used for economic gain.

He also touched on the historical development of Social Network Sites based on the article danah boyd and Nicole Ellison, ‘Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship’.

Aesthetics in terms of design where also covered with the ironic note of PCWorld voting MySpace as the worst design on the Internet in 2006. MySpace in comparison to the early Friendster website opened up the HTML and CSS for users to customise which caused a proliferation of competing and fashionable design responses amongst users. A notion he demonstrated in the MySpace celebrity examples above.

A current key figure in terms of research on the social networking field is Danah Boyd who is in the process of completing her PhD at Berkeley. Note, Boyd also acts as a commercial consultant to Yahoo.

Fred Scharman a MA post-graduate produced a critique on Boyd’s perspective in the essay, You Must be Logged in to Do That!: MySpace and Control. I could not help noting that key figures researching and providing valid critique on social networking are post-graduate students.

Dieter finished the presentation with a reference to the Greg Elmer book Profiling Machines: Mapping the Personal Information Economy which critically examines for example, the mythical notion that contributing UCG is a voluntary process that is not constantly being monitored.

A Comedy Central video (February 15, 2006) ‘Trendspotting, Social networking sites are loaded with sexual predators; more importantly they’re loaded with sexual prey’, by Demetri Martin provides an amusing perspective.