Julianna Yau’s blog

A few days ago, a friend pointed me to Social Innovation Generation (SiG) and its first event, Studio|Earth. I, of course, signed up for the event and somewhat precariously selected the Social Technology/#waterskool workshop. I was a bit concerned it would be tedious for someone who is already engaged in social media, but Joseph Dee, Sam Ladner, Lisa Torjman, Billie Mintz and Susanna Kislenko did a fantastic job with making the workshop closer to a Barcamp and having the participants actually work on a problem.

They talked about needing to think about an actionable step following the use of social technology, not just a click-to-join or click-to-donate model. I was very happy to hear that I was not the only person struggling to bridge click-activism with “real”/offline activism. This is something which has bothered me since the explosion of consumer advocates using e-petitions during the release of the last copyright bills.

What’s difficult is actually working on the issue, rather than preachers of the anti—social-technology and pro—social-technology groups yelling at each other.

In telling people about #hohoto, many were blown away by how the organizers were able to raise $25,000 for Food Banks Toronto in two weeks. A few (and one in particular) lashed out at me about how exclusive and un-social the event was because only people on Twitter knew about it. I’ve learnt that, in these situations, I should just let these people rant because they are mostly angry and not interested in an open dialogue.

This opinion of social technology being exclusive and un-social was again mentioned at the Social Technology/#waterskool session at Studio|Earth (and kudos to Lisa handling the criticism so well!). Here, coupled with the #hohoto complaint, it felt like people are angry and feeling left out and left behind because they choose not to participate in social technology. Its frustrating to me that they are simply disengaging, rather than changing how social technology relates to those who don’t have access to it or choose not to access it.

The (in)accessibility of social technology isn’t something noticed only by people who don’t use it. Amrita Chandra reflected on this on Twitter exactly a week ago today, which triggered an interesting conversation between her and Duarte Da Silva

The presenters at the Social Technology/#waterskool workshop recast this as a goal to use awareness to change behaviour, and to use social technology to enrichen, not replace, current methods of advocacy and action. Through the work of the breakout sessions, we found that some of the things we need to work on now are:

• connecting the different people who are involved with the same issue (e.g. the water crisis)
• reducing the noise and focusing the activity; avoiding multiple, simultaneous, converging stresses
• getting the attention of the natural leaders, online and offline

Eli Singer had a great presentation on How is the web transforming the arts?

Here are my notes (Flickr images here):

-memes
-diy culture, share culture
-democracy
-blogs – self publishing
-web breaking down hierarchies
-screen real estate equal for all publishers
-graffiti research lab
-public art and the web
-how to take graffiti to the digital life?
-companies taking grassroots graffiti art and using it for ads
-library of congress
–no histories behind images; put them all on Flickr, and through crowdsourcing, piece together history of the photos
–taking images out of libraries and putting them on the web for everyone
–tags an images
-how to weave yourself into a community or conversation on the web?
–not the same for corporations and arts institutions
–reputation within community
–bringing legitimacy to others by inviting participation
-The Power of the 2×2 Matrix
-casecamp.org –>!!!!!
-focus on the social, not the tool
-how can people connect with each other?
-”the network is the hub”; network can be anything
-strategic use of tools to create experiences for individuals, communities, and brands
-Broadcast model – source: cymfony
-peer to peer model – source: cymfony
-platform ==> community ==> content
-integrate into existing community vs building your own
-when integrating in an existing community, plugging into existing numbers
-who do you want to reach out to and who do
–”head” –> everyone; broadcast
–”tail” –> very specific number of people
–”shoulder” (Eli’s target) –> the mid-ground; not just about broadcast, but dealing with “meaty issues”
-which community are they in?
-word of mouth happening more online (blogs, social networking)
-whippersnapper
-curotatoral podcasting
-whippersnapper also on FB (group)
–art is for dead people show
–whippersnapper also has videos to explain how to participate (feels like Drupal instructional vids)
–uploading photos and tag with gallery name!
-SickKids hospital –> radiothon –> social media
–web is built for storytelling
–radiothon videodiary –> daily video; shot on-site; co-branded; rleased online; drive donations
–content –> how to maximize use of small size of screen and closeness to screen
–syndication!
–SickKids hospital widget; share button, donate button; allows websites to customize look of widget and add their own logo
-MoMA –> everyone else taking photos an videos and posting online… where was MoMA? they joined in when question was posed to them

Questions from audience

-permissions forms for people who were interviewed (esp when children involved)
–with SickKids, they already had an existing process and agreement form; added internet to form; contained location for filming

-what about getting off the internet? (dying communities) how to shut down a FB page?
–data owned by FB/YouTube/etc, not you
–control issues with own vs other community
–recognized of an issue; islands and walled communities are issues; OpenSocial
–whippersnapper –> difference between their own website and their presence on others
–own website is official voice; limited community
–most of the community lives on FB

-how to build a list of bloggers?
–technorati?
–local blog indexes
–flickr –> look for photoblogers in city
–follow linkbacks/trackbacks
–build human relationship first

-street teams for independent music community —> are there incentive-driven activities for online community? offering fans incentive to help? is it happening?
–can happen, but more for companies sending free stuff for reviews
–backstage access for blogging
–TIFF –> blogger for them; site listed on TIFF; on both TIFF website and own
—incentive was the affiliation
—real-time feedback
—connection with related ppl
—community, not volunteers
-incentive without alienation

-performance art; unions; limit of how much can be shared–how to address?
–Andy Warhol show –> no photos allowed; had Cronenberg talk about Warhol
–Shakespeare Theatre, Washington –> backstage access; interiews; gave bloggers access to their own images rather than bloggers’ images
–Stratord’s blog

-authenticity — how to achieve?
–err on the side of community
–flat hierarchy
–don’t just start broadcasting
–PARTICIPATE
–connect with leaders of community

-online prescence overshadowing brick-and-mortar gallery? (whippersnapper)
–their events are always packed
–made it about participation in the real space too

-engagement process, not just advertising
-people helping each other and having conversations with each other
-supporting social networking with staff –> resource intensive –> start small
-change in cultural experience

-some people don’t want to be involved because they don’t want to give away their story; ho to create more content?
–culture of secrecy
–Apple
–mystique
–Steve Job’s product launches!

Yesterday, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada wrote about Facebook’s laxness on privacy and third-party applications. I was a bit surprised by the quality of the post, because their blog typically provides a good amount of relevant information. However, even after following the links in the post, I found it difficult to piece together (a) how the applications can “steal” your information, or (b) what the applications can steal.

It wasn’t until I followed a link from one of the BBC articles to Click’s advice for worried Facebook users that I understood what the concern is. Applications can have access to your name, networks and lists of friends, plus your selection of the following:

• Profile Picture
• Basic Info
• Personal info (activities, interests, etc.)
• Current location (what city you’re in)
• Education history
• Work history
• Profile status
• Wall
• Notes
• Groups you belong to
• Events you’re invited to
• Photos taken by you
• Photos taken of you
• Relationship status
• Online presence
• What type of relationship you’re looking for
• What sex you’re interested in
• Who you’re in a relationship with
• Religious views

This was certainly not news to me (particularly after I wrote a Primer on Privacy & Facebook, available as a PDF or OpenDocument download. Although I agree that it would be good for Facebook to more actively promote usage of their privacy settings (someone suggested that they include a privacy setting walkthrough in the post-setup activities), I more strongly believe that users need to start taking accountability for learning to use the privacy controls at their disposal.

Last week, I was reflecting on the fact that my cynicism actually protects me from quite a bit of frustration. This reflection came just in time for me to be aware that because I don’t expect anything to be done for the right reasons, I am not shocked to find capitalists behind the bubbly front of social networking sites. I do, however, still experience quite a bit of frustration because I maintain that things should still be done properly, and am often called an idealist for that reason…but that’s a whole other discussion.

Tom Hodgkinson’s article on the “shady” inner workings of Facebook sound, to me, like the lamentations of someone who is more naive than insightful.

I totally respect the fact that there are many people out there who choose not to participate on websites like Facebook (even though I give some of them a hard time, just for fun). Like phones, email, post mail, VOIP, instant messaging and “the rest”, a social networking site is merely a tool, and doesn’t work for everyone.

Personally, I like maintaining regular contact with friends and colleagues through Facebook because it allows me to do it on my own time. Of course, it’s no substitute for in-person interaction but I find it very handy for keeping abreast of my friends’ more mundane events. By doing so, I’ve noticed that when I have lunch with a friend, we can have more [frequent and valuable] meaningful conversations without having to play catch-up firstly.

If someone else wants to use it as a make-shift dating site or homage to themselves, do I really care? Not so long as I continue to be able to ignore their requests to be my friend. Like in a high school or any other social space, cliques form naturally and most people gravitate towards others who are there for similar purposes. I’m sure the people who are merely on Facebook to boost their self-image think that people like me are taking the fun out of Facebook by using it to network professionally, but don’t really care because there’s enough space for us all.

Hodgkinson’s profiles on the brains and finances behind Facebook were actually a very interesting read. I’m sure he had intended for the information to show how that Facebook is really being operated by “The Man”, but I found their histories to be quite cool. I had not known about Peter Thiel prior to reading Hodgkinson’s article, but found his work to be extremely exciting. I know my affinity towards Thiel is mostly due to “The Diversity Myth”, which he co-wrote, because it seems to be a more expansive version of the same realization I reached in high school during one of our many assemblies to “celebrate multiculturalism”.

Although I don’t think Facebook is perfect (far from it; I agree with Hodgkinson’s, and most other people’s, dislike for the recent fiasco over the opt-out/opt-in problem with Beacon), many of the problems Hodgkinson has with Facebook are not unique to Facebook.

1 Everyone will advertise at you

Facebook doesn’t charge for membership, and instead uses advertisement as its main source of revenue. Even newspapers like The Guardian, in which Hodgkinson’s article was published, use advertisement. Not only do many other businesses use ads, and targeted ads, as part of their revenue source, not all of them are transparent about their ad targeting practices.

2 Nothing ever gets deleted on the internet

Maybe not nothing ever gets deleted, but data retention is a huge issue which is not limited to Facebook. You’ve got to be very new to the internet if you aren’t aware that anything you put online will probably exist until the end of time (or at least the end of the internet), either online, on a backup, or on someone’s personal computer.

3 Privacy isn’t guaranteed anywhere anymore

Social networking sites may make private detectives a thing of the past, only to be relived in Film Noir, and are certainly making people realize that privacy is an illusion. While I don’t agree that privacy should be allowed to be an illusion, I also realize that anyone who really wants to know about my most intimate confessions will find a way to do so, whether I’m on Facebook or not. Luckily, I don’t think anyone really cares to do so.

4 Facebook only knows what you tell it

Most of the information you give Facebook for it to build a profile on you is optional. Users need to take responsibility for how they share their information. If you’re going to do it through Facebook, of course they’re going to use that data. Duh. Many of the fields, like your gender and marital status, are optional. So are the bajillion applications which harvest more information about users. Just because you’re presented with a field doesn’t mean you need to complete it. Social networking sites need to be responsible for how they use the data they have, but the users who provide that data share that responsibility and need to start owning up to it.

5 Opting out doesn’t mean closed communication…ever

If Hodgkinson ever read any other privacy policy (like the one for a financial institution or utilities company), he’s probably likely to find that they also indicate that opting out of notifications will not cease all communications. I assume those clauses exist so that the company with which you’re doing business can still contact you if there’s a problem with your account—whether they abuse that is a whole other issue, and I have yet to be spammed by Facebook. They actually deliver fewer direct mailings (via email) to me than my credit card companies, opting instead to broadcast updates on their blog.

6 The CIA would probably look at your stuff anyway, if they really needed to

Does anyone really think that the CIA, or any other homeland security organization, would not be able to access your information on a social networking site just because that site’s TOS didn’t say that they could? I don’t.

Yesterday, Facebook issued an apology for the poor product launch of Facebook Beacon and added the option for users to block all Beacon updates in the “Privacy Settings for External Websites” portion of their privacy settings page.

I’m sorry that Beacon was so poorly launched. I enjoy sharing my activities with my friends (to their amusement or annoyance), sending updates on the movies I’ve watched, blog postings I’ve written, books I’m reading and websites I’ve visited, and creating about a bajillion status updates. Being extremely concerned about privacy,  I also enjoy having full control over exactly what is shared with my friends. It seems Beacon could have been much better received if they were more transparent about how it works, and more proactive about giving users control over the updates from day 1.

Facebook finally decides to make Beacon an opt-in program rather than an opt-out program.

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner blog points to a report from the Information Commissioner’s Office in Great Britain on youth, privacy and the internet.

Although the report focuses on British youth aged 14-21, I doubt the results would be drastically different for a different demographic.

There has been so much whining recently about Facebook Beacon invading everyone’s privacy that I would like to pose this open question to the world: How does Facebook Beacon technically work?

Yes, yes. I know that Beacon is supposed to steal your information from non-Facebook websites and broadcast it to your friends via the Facebook news feed. But how does it actually do this?

Facebook’s own page about Beacon is very vague about how it works—just some of techno-/pr-jargon boasting how cool it is. A Google search for “facebook beacon” is not much more help…mostly just links to the people complaining about Beacon invading their privacy and articles regurgitating the complaints. Others, such as Om Malik, have also tried to get more information about Beacon, but with little more than a hyped response from Facebook.

After some digging, I was able to find MoveOn.org’s “demo” of how Facebook Beacon works. This so-called demo is a low-tech slide show moving at a speed almost as fast as Beacon’s notification reportedly disappears. Essentially, it was a “chain of events” presentation with some commentary and some missing links (and not much technical information). Dave McClure’s walk-through of Beacon was more useful, providing not only clear screenshots but also (gasp!) links to how people can change their privacy settings. However, it still did not provide any information to remove the smoke and mirrors of Beacon.

Although I’m very concerned about my privacy being breached, I also like to know the facts (or at least try something for myself) before I start waging war. Trying Beacon for myself was, surprisingly, as daunting as trying to find some information online about its inner workings.

After repeated attempts, I couldn’t get Facebook Beacon to invade my privacy.

After reading a few articles and press releases, I chose my targets: eBay, Amazon and Livejournal. These are all companies with which I have accounts, but I worried a bit because I use different email addresses on all of them (and Facebook) to reduce the chance of the accounts all being compromised. I assumed, from what I know about website and computer settings, that a common email address for all accounts could be a possible way for the accounts to be linked due to the information stored on cookies (I was neither able to prove or disprove this assumption).

I started with Livejournal, because it was the only site which had any help documentation on Beacon. It even uses an opt-in option for users to activate the service (kudos to LJ!). After several attempts (including: different login chronology for Facebook and Livejournal; using and not using the Facebook Toolbar; and even changing my Livejournal email address to match the one used for Facebook) I was unable to trigger a news event to my Facebook page. I tried this in Firefox in Linux, and both Firefox and IE in Windows—nada.

Frazzled, I tried adding an item to my Amazon wish list and watching an item on eBay…still nothing in Firefox or IE. Of course, I could have purchased something from Amazon or eBay to really test it but, as curious as I am, I refused to purposely spend money to possibly have my privacy invaded.

So, for now, I am not only unable to determine how Beacon works, but I’m unable to get the damned thing to work!

A little while ago, a friend of mine sent me a call for conference and art project submissions for the Futuresonic international conference and the Social Technologies Summit.  If you look past all of the typical techno-innovation type jargon, the conference is essentially focused on social networking with some interest in how art/artists relate to it.

The conference takes place in Manchester, and although entry to the conference is affordable for me, travel and accommodation is not. Even with their submission allowance, I don’t think I would have time to follow through with a conference topic with everything I have going on right now. I’ll just have to sit this one out. Besides, I should probably try to make it to one of the ISC’s conferences first!

Last week, Facebook (seemingly quietly) launched Facebook Pages. I say seemingly quietly because I learned of it not through the tech blogs I read or from my Ma.gnolia contacts or groups, but from MAKE blog’s announcement of their Facebook Page.

According to their help section, Facebook Pages “are distinct presences, separate from users’ profiles, and optimized for these entities’ needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fans’ recommendations to their friends.”

My take? This is Facebook taking on MySpace’s music section. The big difference is that Facebook is targeting all creators and businesses, not just musicians, comedians and filmmakers.

The creation of a Facebook Page is scarily easy. You go to their page for creating a Page, and if you are an “Artist, Band, or Public Figure”, you enter your name and the page is created. There are also options for local businesses and brand/products, which I’m guessing are a bit more involved. Because, as a sculptor, I don’t fall into those categories, I didn’t give them a try.

Once an artist’s page is created, it includes a few basic applications:

• Fans (like Friends or Group members)
• Photos
• Videos
• Events
• Mini Feed
• Information
• Reviews
• Discussion Board

Like applications for a Facebook profile, these can be disabled or moved, although they can’t be moved from one column to another. Facebook has also created a Pages category for applications. Although these applications are meant to be specifically for Facebook Pages, a quick survey of them seems to indicate that they are currently mostly bling for your Page.

If you have removed an application, it can be re-added in the Page admin area (which is separate from the Page Edit area, similar to applications for your profile). Other features in the Page admin area includes making the Page public or private, and setting age limits (13+, 18+ and 21+).

When editing your Page info, you can upload a photo, add “basic” information (address and hours of operation) and “detailed” information (website, parking details and public transit information).

Curious? Take a look at my Facebook Page.