p2pnet - rss feed: Facebook: a power in the online universe
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “Each day about 1,700 juniors at an East Coast college log on to Facebook.com to accumulate ‘friends,’ compare movie preferences, share videos and exchange cybercocktails and kisses. Unwittingly, these students have become the subjects of academic research.”
Is that another kind of Facebook privacy invasion?
Probably not, even considering “unwittingly”.
“To study how personal tastes, habits and values affect the formation of social relationships (and how social relationships affect tastes, habits and values), a team of researchers from Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles, are monitoring the Facebook profiles of an entire class of students at one college, which they declined to name because it could compromise the integrity of their research,” says the New York Times.
In short, “Facebook - where users rate one another as ‘hot or not,’ play games like ‘Pirates vs. Ninjas’ and throw virtual sheep at one another - is helping scholars explore fundamental social science questions,” says the story.
As the sixth-most-trafficked Web site in the US, it’s irresistible as a target for all kinds of academic research, it says, going on:
“Scholars at Carnegie Mellon used the site to look at privacy issues. Researchers at the University of Colorado analyzed how Facebook instantly disseminated details about the Virginia Tech shootings in April.”
Another scholar, Canadian law professor Dr Michael Geist, in the front ranks of people leading the fight against attempts by the country’s conservative government to bow to entertainment cartel copyright demands, also praises on the site.
“If 2006 was the year of YouTube, 2007 has been Facebook’s year,” he says in his weekly column, going on:
There is no shortage of hyperbole associated with Facebook, social media, and the emergence of “Web 2.0,” yet consider the experience of the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group, which I launched on December 1st with limited expectations. With the federal government expected to introduce new copyright reform within a matter of days, a Facebook group seemed like a good way to educate the public about an important issue. I sent invitations to a hundred or so Facebook friends and seeded the group with links to a few relevant websites.
What happened next was truly remarkable - within hours, the group started to grow - first 50 members, then 100, and then 1000 members. One week later, there were 10,000 members. Two weeks later, there were over 25,000 members with another Canadian joining the group every 30 seconds.
The big numbers tell only part of the story. The group is home to over 500 wall posts, links to 150 articles of interest, over 50 discussion threads, dozens of photos, and nine videos. Nine days ago, it helped spur on an offline protest when Kempton Lam, a Calgary technologist, organized 50 group members who descended on Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s local open house to express their views on copyright.
And social networking sites have other uses in “the digital dating mix,” says CNN.
For example, “Grayson Currin, 24, of Durham, North Carolina, who describes himself as a ‘big, burly guy,’ posted his band’s photograph on his MySpace account and started getting messages from a girl in Canada who had a thing for large, hairy guys,” says the story.
But, “It felt a little unnatural to me,” says Currin. “I don’t send messages to random girls. I think that’s creepy.”
However, “Jennifer Kelton, a Los Angeles-based writer and creator of the social networking and dating site BadOnlineDates.com maintains that social networking sites offer an attractive alternative to more established online dating sites like Match.com or eHarmony,” says CNN.
There’s no doubt Facebook, MySpace and all the other sites coming up behind them are powers in the online universe and wiil no doubt provide priceless fodder for all kinds of studies
Meanwhile, two big questions are: who’s in charge - the people who run the sites or the people who use them? And whose needs come first?
Also See:
New York Times - On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data, December 17, 2007
weekly column - Copyright Delay Demonstrates the Power of Facebook, December 17, 2007
CNN - Some digital neighborhoods better for dating, December 19, 2007
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