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Blogs, Microblogs and Sharing Society
CS 445/656 Computer & New Media
Recap
Social media describes the online
technologies and practices that people use
to share opinions, insights, experiences,
perspectives and engage with each other.
Examples:
Wikis, Facebook, …., Blogs, Micro-blogs…
Blogs and Microblogs
• Are often for opinions, reports
on activity, humor
• Personally authored
• Although can become linked
– Microblogs can become
discussions
– And links between blogs
can become
claim/counterclaim
structures
What is a blog?
• Originally slang for web log, the word
brought the two words together and
dropped the “we” according to the Oxford
English Dictionary
• Multitudes of platforms today. The most
popular are free and globally reaching.
• Examples of platforms include Wordpress,
Blogger.
Blog – Primary types
• (70%) Individually authored personal
journals
• Filters
– select and provide commentary on
information from other websites)
• Knowledge blogs
• Blogs are like radio shows than they are
like diaries
Why do people blog?
• Updating others of
activities
• Express opinion to
Influencing others
• Seeks others opinion and
feedback
• Thinking through writing
• Release of emotional
tension (catharsis)
Communication
Broadcast Communication (do not select/know your audience)
Different
Time
Same
Time
Different
Place
Discussion Forums, Blogs,
Podcasts, Wikis
Traditional and new
broadcast forms
Same
Place
Bulletin Boards
Public speaking, meeting
room support
• Blogging as a broadcast medium of limited
interactivity
• Desired readers, but wanted controlled
interaction
Limited Interactivity
• Asymmetrical relationship between blogger and
reader
– Less responsive with blogging than in email,
phone or face to face communication
• Feedbacks are less intense because time has
passed and immediacy of interactions is reduced
• No interruptions to the flow of writing
• Free of conversational partners reactions though
the audience is still listening
• Comments are infrequent and say very little
Posting Diaries on the Internet
• Common response was indifference
• Bloggers fairly unconcerned about privacy
– Occasional email from a stranger who respond to
blog often satisfying and motivating
– Less unwelcome attentions from unknown readers
• Sense of openness was common, and some
chose to reveal very personal information
– Diaries “no interaction”, “it wont change the life”, but
with a blog, it is possible of life altering exchanges
with others and potential for a wider audience
Blogosphere
• Blogosphere is the collective
term encompassing all blogs
as a community or social
network.
• Many weblogs are densely
inter-connected;
– bloggers read others'
blogs, link to them,
reference them in their
own writing, and post
comments on each others'
blogs.
• Because of this, the
interconnected blogs have
grown their own culture
(Alltop, Blogorama)
Micro-blogging
What is a micro-blog?
• A new emerging form of communication,
powered by online CMC tools (e.g., Twitter,
Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce)
• Allow individuals to broadcast information
through brief updates
• With their audience/subscribers (e.g.,
friends, colleagues, other interested
observers).
Micro-blogging
Micro-blog allows users to share information
that they probably won’t through other
communication media, such as small little
things happen in people’s daily life.
Emotionally, people achieve greater
cyberspace presence, “out there”, and feel
one more layer of connection with others
and the world.
Micro-blogging in work settings
• Micro-blog might potential become an
important informal communication medium
at work, with consequent mediating
impacts on collaborative work.
• impromptu conversations plays an
important role for collaborative work
among knowledge co-workers and
enhancing creativity and innovation for
organizations that rely on knowledge
economy.
Micro-blogging in work settings Problems
• Informal communication is critical to
collaborative work and organization success
– opportunistic valuable information sharing,
common ground, connectedness
• Less informal communication opportunities, as
communication patterns shifts from primarily
FTF communication to more online mediated
communication
– more work done remotely, time famine, and
concerns of interruptions
Micro-blog at Work
The popular behaviors of sharing whereabouts
and status updates in micro-blogs shows microblog’s potentials to support mediated informal
communication and keeping in touch among
co-workers
Two classes of anticipated impacts of
micrblogging:
• Informational effects: improved opportunistic
valuable information sharing and expertise
seeking, building and maintaining common
ground
• Social and emotional effects: enhancing the
feeling of connectedness among co-workers.
Consequences of Twitter use
• Opportunistic valuable information sharing: a segment marketing
manager once posted about his bad luck of setting demos in a
marketing event, others respond similar experiences, and one of the
guys organized an further meeting to exchange and learn from each
other’s experiences.
• Work-related info/articles sharing: marketing people often post work
related news, product managers post about new features of
competitors or other relevant products.
• Common ground building : people replying to a co-worker’s
updates/opinions sometimes are just for alerting him/her that they
read it, or agree with the opinions.
• Perceptions of others’ work: a product manager needs to collaborate
with a marketing guy in a new project. By reading their work-related
updates in Twitter, he gains insights into how their teams work.
Technological affordances
Broadcasting and voluntary reading
- Makes it easier for users to share information that
they probably would not do otherwise
- Fulfill people’s needs of checking others’ status,
reading and responding is not demanded, subscribe
based on interests, reply if they find topics interesting
or have sth to share
Simple, easy, and pervasive access
- Reduce threshold (low cost) to share
- Update as things happening and thoughts crossing
minds
- Check whenever they get a moment (e.g., in-between
meetings)
Issues and problems
• Privacy: broadcasting social or work status to
everyone on their follower list
• Security: Users post more client and task sensitive
information to an internal micro-blog, and would
want to see similar posts from others.
• Integration: people would like to have a more
integrated way to stay in touch with people inside
and outside organization
– e.g., co-workers, clients and sales partners, other
friends in the same industry
• Value: people sometimes not sure what might be
interesting to update for subscribers, especially at
start
Outlook on Micro-Blogging
• Status message is now public
– Ambient intimacy
– Information sharing
• Thoughts on new applications
– Users can play different roles in different communities
– Number of updates received can be quite
overwhelming
– New tools and services would benefit from allowing
greater personalization based on user-intentions
e.g. Separating work and friend social network
Ambient Intimacy
“Ambient intimacy is about being able to
keep in touch with people with a level of
regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t
usually have access to, because time and
space conspire to make it impossible. “
Leisa Reichelt
Head of Service Design
Digital Transformation Office (DTO), Australian Government