For a couple of weeks now I’ve been testing the online microblog-service called Twitter. It is a site where you put little messages with a maximum of 140 characters, for your followers to see. Or as the site claims: “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

Socio Networking site or not?
According to danah boyd’s definition of what a socio-network is, twitter is just another socio-network site.
1) It has profiles; you must create a profile with identifiable handle to work with twitter.
2) The network is, once you’re in, publicly articulated, and traversable; you can make friends or contacts with other profiles.
3) Semi-persistent public comments. Well, this is the core business of twitter; leave comments, directly addressed at followers or “friends”, or just “out there” for the twitter community to see.

This immediately poses some interesting questions on how the private and the public spaces are arranged within (or outside) social-networking sites.

Private, Public & Controlled
Danah Boyd, a PhD candidate in the School of Information at University of California, Berkeley and is a fellow at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg Center for Communications, thinks that hanging out has moved online.
In her article “Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace” she writes that MySpace is the environment where the ‘American youth’ (age 14-24) simply ‘hangs out’ and get’s socialized into peer groups. The reason these kids hangout on MySpace, according to Boyd, is because this is the place to escape the control of ‘adult-culture’, which thinks hanging out is a waste of time. Lack of mobility and access to youth space where they can hang out un-interrupted is the main reason why youth spends its time online. In this context, Boyd sees three main classes of space: public, private and controlled.

For adults, the home is the private sphere where they relax amidst family and close friends. The public sphere is the world amongst strangers and people of all statuses where one must put forward one’s best face. For most adults, work is a controlled space where bosses dictate the norms and acceptable behavior. Teenager’s space segmentation is slightly different. Most of their space is controlled space. Adults with authority control the home, the school, and most activity spaces. Teens are told where to be, what to do and how to do it. Because teens feel a lack of control at home, many don’t see it as their private space.

[Boyd, danah, 2006: http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html]

This, coupled with the facts that outside locations to hangout are considered dangerous by most parents, and after school activities (sports, jobs etc) also take place in a very controlled environment make the youth take their refuge to cyberspace to create their own ‘youth space’. Free from adult control, according to Boyd.

Fred Scharmen, a US student, opposes Boyd’s opinion. In his article “You must be logged in to do that! MySpace and Control” Scharmen argues that “[...] it is exactly control in the Deleuzian sense that these teenagers and other users of MySpace are submitting to”. First of all, you only have access to MySpace if you have a password, a code. Without a password you cannot work within the MySpace area; if you want to be included you have to work with the MySpace protocol. Next to that Scharmen thinks that online ‘spaces’ like MySpace are highly controlled environments not only because of the nature of online environments, (communication is only possible within the above written protocols, which ‘open’ and controlled), but he also builds his argument by looking at the Terms of Service (TOS) that MySpace has. When reading the TOS it becomes quite clear what kind of information of the users (the ‘youth’) is being harvested and in what manner MySpace has the ‘right’ to do with this valuable information as it pleases. (Not to mention the fact that all uploaded content becomes MySpace’s property!).

Twitter
So how are these spaces, public, private, and controlled, defined within twitter?

On the one hand it is a highly controlled environments: you must be logged in to read most of the posts, and certainly if you want to see them in context. You can read posts by an individual without logging in (check for instants my twitter account), but if you want to react, or see who I’m following, or who is following me, you must login into your account with a code. Sharmen’s thoughts apply here quite well.

But how about boyd’s distinction of the public, private, and controlled spaces? As you can read above, for the adults Twitter would be a highly public environment, a place where you put forward one’s best face and behavior. In this sense it is not a controlled space because there is no one to stop you from writing or saying what you want…well…that is; When you look at the TOS of twitter, point 4 states that “You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Twitter users”, and further down the tos “Violation of any of these agreements will result in the termination of your Twitter.com account.”

So there is a “boss” watching?

Usage of Twitter
The manner in which people use twitter says, I think, a lot about their notion of public & private. In the case of some of the people I follow, twitter is mainly used as a advertisement board for their own person. This group of people post links to their own blogs when they have written a new post, or show links to their portfolio, or other work they can show off online. These people are most of the time very aware of what they write and how they present themselves, as if a (future) boss is watching them. Again, public and controlled really overlap her.

But there are also people who seem to put up anything that pops up in their heads. Great example is [naam plaatsen?]. This guy posts from the moment he gets up to the moment he goes to bed, and everything in between. Which soccer club he likes, what he makes for dinner, comments on the news (sometimes quite harsh and always very straight forward), the fact that he is unemployed and the interviews he gives with potential new work…all very private stuff.

In this case boyd’s “separation” of the public, private and controlled are not so clear as at first may seem.

Last week I made a Wikipedia entry. Two actually… I added some (vital) information to an article on the English Wikipedia, and translated an article from English into dutch. They’re both still there, and I must say; this is exciting!

In the first article, on Steps Ahead, a fusion-music group from the late seventies/early eighties, I added the second paragraph. It was checked almost a week later, on the 5th of October and some minor edits were made.

The second article, which is in Dutch, is an explanation of the rudiments, the basic building blocks, of our modern drumming. Being a drummer myself, I thought it was vital that this information is available in my mother-language so kids can get easy access to it and learn their chops. This article immediately got noticed by peers, and within a matter of hours three people had checked it and made minor edits.

The whole experiece was quite fun, and certainly tastes like more…;-)

Analysis of Ning.com

Founders:
Marc Andreessen – chairman (built Netscape)
Gina Bianchini – company’s HQ in Palo Alto

Marc Andreesen is what you call a man with a vison: he built netscape and sold it to AOL in 1999 for $4.2 billion. Then, last year, he sold his second company Opsware, an automated network and server company, to HP for $1.6 billion. He is an investor in social news website Digg and several other early-stage technology startups, like Plazes, Netvibes and Twitter. In the mean while serves on the board of Facebook, and now runs Ning, together with co-founder Gina Bianchini (CEO) who holds a MBA from Stanford Business School.

Ning
Launched a while ago in October 2005, Ning.com is an online platform for users to create their own social websites and social networks. It is free and easy to use even if you don’t have programming skills. The idea behind Ning was, and I quote their ‘about’ page, they

“…wanted to see what would happen if everyone had the freedom to create their own social network for anything. We thought the results would be amazing, but hey have truly surpassed our expectations. From artists to musicians, athletes, bloggers, video channels, journalists, students, educators, parents, craft hobbyists, alumni, and interest groups, the range and dicersity of the social networks on Ning are profound.” http://about.ning.com/index.php

So it’s like ‘myspace for the masses’; start your own facebook today! No programming skills needed, just sign up, login and start building your own social network, for free!

Well…not entirely: in it’s effort to compete with myspace and facebook (check them on alexa, they’re not doing so well traffic wise) they are making money by the use of two business models. The first one is free for it’s users but comes with ‘price’; they can create a network without charge but with links and ads that Ning puts on the user pages. These ads can be removed but, and this is the second model, cost the users a monthly fee depending on the level of freedom/control they want over ‘their’ pages (yes, freedom can be bought, also at ning’s). These ‘premium services’ vary starting from $7,95 a month for removing Ning’s promotional links, to $42,80 for the total package which includes (next to the removal of the Ning Promotion Links) control over the ads, the usage of your own domain name, and more storage and bandwidth (latter is per unit). This seems expensive, but if you have quite a populair network set up, and you control the ads it will pay for itself actually. Maybe you can even make some money out of it.

Building my network

So how does this work for Ning.com?

….

PROblogger: Secrets for Blogging your way to a six-figure income [REVIEW]

INTRODUCION
For some time now I’ve been interested in the eBooks phenomenon for a couple of reasons: the business model that lies beneath it (how to make money by selling information…internet marketing is a fascinating hobby), and the information that is being shared by the rapidly growing number of writers. Especially the “selling dreams” books (or “self help” if you will) have caught my attention, from the useful “how to quit smoking in seven days“, the always good around the holidays “lose x pounds in x weeks“, to the wishful “make 1000 dollars a day: 99% automated!“-guides. The first two, examples of the “health” or “fitness” category, can be useful, healthy (although losing 40 pounds in 6 weeks can’t be good for your body) and at the very least pleasant to skim, but the latter, well, … it just makes your heart pump faster and you definitely want to read the rest of the story. After all, who doesn’t want to sit back, relax and see his income automatically increase with $30k a month? (This should be your first clue that it’s probably a scam…or is it?;-) So, naturally, when my eye caught the title PROblogger: secrets for blogging your way to a six-figure income, my hopes were up, expectations high; I had to read it.

Now, if you think (like I did) this is another fantastic “get rich quick” plan, think again. Already in the introduction this dream get’s shattered when Darran Rowse explains that it took him three years from the first time he pushed ‘publish’ in 2002 to become a professional blogger in 2005. During those years he worked tree part-time jobs, finished off a theology degree, and started his blogging career in his spare time, working hard and long hours often deep into the night.
Now this compared to the get rich quick guides, sounds definitely more plausible. And the prospects of the six-figure income by working at home (or anywhere you want, provided you’re connected to the web), escaping bullying bosses, makes you want to read on. Because you can make money from your blog, and apparently a lot of it too! That’s one thing Darran Rowse and Chris Garrett are, among others, living proof of and they’re telling you: so can you!

THE BOOK, THE MESSAGE
Written in blog-style with lots of bullet points and screenshots makes it easy to read the book and reread it when you need the info working on your own blog. The first chapter of the book is an overview of what blogging is, how to make money with it, and what to expect in the rest of the book. Again, here is the message that you can make money by blogging, but it doesn’t come easy. “What many new bloggers find is that at first the enthusiasm and ideas come easily, but after the first flush of energy has passed it becomes harder and harder to write every day, let alone keep up with all the other factors of maintaining a blog.” So you really have to ask yourself, is blogging the right job for me?

CONTENT
The topic that you’re going to write about must therefore interest you and excite you so you are passionate to write about it and share you’re knowledge with your readers. This way you will not run out of steam and can maintain your blog for many years to come, and regular updates and posts to your blog are of the essence to grow a solid group of readers! Though, Rowse and Garrett advice, don’t overdo it; too much posting can give an overload to your readers and less posting gives you time to really craft your writing. Another important thing to keep in mind is to write about one topic on your blog. Don’t write about anything that you’re interested in, but stick to one niche, very much like a magazine. This way readers will come back and a community around your blog will (hopefully) arise.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY THEN
So the content of your blog is most important; it will get you an audience and an audience can be sold to advertisers. Next to very useful tips about how to grow your audience and market your blog, Rowse and Garrett explain in detail how to make money out of your blog. Most people think of only one blog strategy:
- set up your blog
- make it popular
- earn from advertising
This is indeed one way to do it, but Rowse and Garrett explain that there are more ways to make a living with blogging. For instance, why stick to only one blog? Multiple blogs with a small income can add up to a good living. Or freelance blogging: get paid to blog on other one’s blog, or hire people to blog for you which will save you time, or can get you credibility when you hire a well known blogger. It will give you the opportunity to network and to get to know other people, as well as the chance (blogging on other blogs) to promote your own blog. But you can also build a blog, get it noticed, and then sell it on http://www.sitepoint.com or http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ among others.

CONCLUSION
As said the book is written in an easy readable blog-style. This is a plus because you can get very easily access to the information you need while building your own blog. Also the website (http://www.problogger.net/) that ‘comes with’ the book is an extra help in getting you all the tips and tricks for successful blogging. Whether you’re a novice or have been blogging for some time now, it will give you insights on how to run a blog, handle technical issues, and create a potential 6-figure income by blogging. The writers emphasize that their book isn’t a ‘get rich quick’ guide, which I think is an enormous plus and very important: Blogging for a living is hard work, and requires discipline, dedication and devotion, as do most self-employment jobs. The way to escape this workload of course, is to outsource. But for that you need another book. (4 hour work week, timothy ferris) ☺

I’ve had my macbook pro for approximately 1,5 years now. So far my hd crashed, my screen got replaced due to a lot of dead pixels, and my battery has died a not so slow death (only 12% health after 86 cycles…but apple refused to replace it). This seems to me as a good excuse to look for a new toy, and I recently discovered the new and shiny netbooks made by several companies. The Acer Aspire One has caught my eye, even though the MSI Wind has better specs, but the blue one simply looks fantastic. In October/November the new One’s are being shipped with 6cell batteries, giving it an estimate working time of 7 hours (!).

Since it’s introduction earlier this week, google chrome has had lots of attention in the media. Praises here and there, but mostly critiques were heard with ‘the privacy issue’ being the most talked about ‘problem’. Not a really new problem, that is…

Internet is the most highly controlled environment there is while at the same time a very open and free space. This weird split between control and lack of it can be best described in a debate between two scholars; Danah Boyd and Fred Scharmen. Danah Boyd holding a PhD at Berkeley and doing research on socio-networking sites and youth culture, writes in her article “Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace” that MySpace is the environment where the ‘American youth’ (age 14-24) simply ‘hangs out’ and get’s socialized into peer groups.19 The reason these kids hangout on MySpace, according to Boyd, is because this is the place to escape the control of ‘adult-culture’, which thinks hanging out is a waste of time. Lack of mobility and access to youth space where they can hang out interrupted is the main reason why youth spends its time online. In this context, Boyd sees three main classes of space: public, private and controlled.
“For adults, the home is the private sphere where they relax amidst family and
close friends. The public sphere is the world amongst strangers and people of all
statuses where one must put forward one’s best face. For most adults, work is a
controlled space where bosses dictate the norms and acceptable behavior.
Teenager’s space segmentation is slightly different. Most of their space is
controlled space. Adults with authority control the home, the school, and most
activity spaces. Teens are told where to be, what to do and how to do it. Because
teens feel a lack of control at home, many don’t see it as their private space.” [Boyd, 2006]

This, coupled with the facts that outside locations to hangout are considered dangerous by most parents, and after school activities (sports, jobs etc) also take place in a very controlled environment make the youth take their refuge to cyberspace to create their own ‘youth space’. Free from adult control, according to Boyd.

Fred Scharmen, a US student, opposes Boyd’s opinion. In his article “You must be logged in to do that! MySpace and Control” Scharmen argues that “[...] it is exactly control in the Deleuzian sense that these teenagers and other users of MySpace are submitting to”. First of all, you only have access to MySpace if you have a password, a code. Without a password you cannot work within the MySpace area; if you want to be included you have to work with the MySpace protocol. Next to that Scharmen thinks that online ‘spaces’ like MySpace are highly controlled environments not only because of the nature of online environments, (communication is only possible within the above written protocols, which ‘open’ and controlled), but he also builds his argument by looking at the Terms of Service (TOS) that MySpace has. When reading the TOS it becomes quite clear what kind of information of the users (the ‘youth’) is being harvested and in what manner MySpace has the ‘right’ to do with this valuable information as it pleases. (Not to mention the fact that all uploaded content becomes MySpace’s property!).

And again with Google’s Chrome this seems to be the issue. But as Chris Messina writes:

“[...] our fundamental notions and expectations of privacy on the web have to change or will be changed for us. Either we do without tools that augment our cognitive faculties or we embrace them, and in so doing, shim open a window on our behaviors and our habits so that computers, computing environments and web service agents can become more predictive and responsive to them, and in so doing, serve us better. So it goes.”