Steven Bell notes an article in the NY Times, The Professor as an Open Book. This article highlights one of the issues I have struggled with the most as an instructor at a small college that caters to traditional age students. My facebook profile, for example is not invisible but you have to be specifically searching for it to find it. Of course, since my students are facebook-addicted, it was inevitable that it was eventually found, but I told all my students that my policy was that I would not “friend” them until they graduate. I see them in a classroom several times a week, so it’s not like we need to develop rapport. It’s not an issue of being hip or accessible–there are just not enough levels of access in facebook. Someone is your “friend” or they are not, and although I don’t do anything of interest in facebook, I am actually linked to people I know. I know, I know, that’s SO old school. Even worse, many of my “friends” in facebook are family. Those are the people I have to worry about putting up suspect content that will reflect poorly on me, a la Doctorow’s analysis.

Actually facebook bores me these days, and there are plenty of other venues where I broadcast (this blog, another blog, twitter). They don’t require “friending” me to have access to my thoughts and interactions. I treat these as public representations of myself, but I have majorly cut down on how much of myself I put out there because of a new sense that I have a private identity to protect. Which is pretty funny if you think about it…I’m willing to say whatever if I know no one cares, but suddenly I am aware of a potential audience and I want to preserve my credibility with them…so I blog less.

But what is the responsibility of a teacher in this time of collapsed private versus public identity? How do other people navigate their online versus face-to-face identity with students?

As it may be obvious, the Quechup incident really got to me. Whenever I get really upset about something, I like to understand why.

First, it was the circumstances. I received an invite from someone who is reputable in social networking circles. I don’t blame her personally, but I do think her perspective that this is not a big deal is a little off. It is a big deal because before I could trust references from her, and now I can’t. Sure, we’re not close buddies in RL, but I trusted her judgment. But obviously, due to the manner in which companies feel compelled to operate, I never should have. All of us are operating electronically on borrowed networks, of which we will not always have control.
Second, I have taken the social networking thing for granted. Social networking, for lazy people, would consist of facebook, myspace, ning, friendster–whatever sites allow you to access all your contacts via a simple log-in. Why do I say lazy? Because, of course, one could socially network via blogs or wikis or whatever, and have more local control, but you don’t get access to a larger community. But let’s face it people, we’ve all been had. When companies like rapleaf and upscoop come along, and I will add to that spock, a very clear objective of these sites becomes apparent. As ZDnet notes, a lot of personal information is being traded, and the process is not transparent for users. So is social networking really about cultivating relationships online or is at all a big scam to follow my spending habits and market shit to me.

Maybe I was overreacting yesterday, but I’m thinking pretty clearly today about where I want to stand in relationship to these companies.

Post subtitle: The end of unsolicited invites

Do I now have a personal vendetta against Quechup? Yes.

The question is why?

All they did was ask to see who else from my contact list was in Quechup. So I obliged. I’ve done it with facebook and had no problem. I did it with Linked in and was pleasantly surprised. Instead Quechup does something different.

They spam your entire contact list without telling you they are doing so.

I thought that was SO CUTE, that I would post about how sad that is, that a social networking site would engage in such a practice to build their network. I even went through the steps that I had gone through a second time in order to see if I might have inadvertently check off: SURE EMAIL MY ENTIRE CONTACT LIST. I didn’t do that at all. But I suppose now my entire contact list will be invited again.

Why does it make me so irate? I don’t know. I only checked out Quechup because I was invited, no doubt through the same duplicitous practice. I am angry because I like to know who I have agreed to email. I don’t email forwards to people, I don’t mass invite people. And then this fecockt social networking site goes in and violates my principles to advance their aims. It sent emails to people’s cell phones, it sent emails to companies that I had reported errors or problems to, it sent emails to people I haven’t talked to in years. And I intend to show my gratitude as best as I can by alerting anyone I can, to avoid this site–because it is just a front for a spam operation, as far as I am concerned.

And guess what: Other people had the same problem: here, here, here, here, and here…

Ok, I have a new respect for how viral they are, and I wonder what other sneaky stuff they are up to. Gone forever is good will toward invites for me. Seriously. Keep that in mind other would-be-community-developers. New policy: I no longer accept unsolicited invites and will educate others accordingly.

This post can be subtitled: Myspace vs Facebook. I know I’ve probably complained about it before, but it begs repeating over and over and over and over. Myspace is an incredibly clever social networking tool, and the most heinous excuse for bad, bad, bad, unforgivably bad webdesign. EVERY principle of usability can and/or is VIOLATED within the myspace realm!

We have:

• cluttered layout
• distracting background images and unreadable color combinations
  
• loud music starting up upon page opening
• layout that encourages people to post results of personality quizzes
• unreadable blog format

Actually any of that list could pretty much apply to any of the spaces on myspace, not just the ones I have linked. I really wasn’t trying to pick on any one “space” and in fact there are some clean templates out there, and some cool friends to be had. It’s not really user’s faults though. The point is that Myspace as a phenomena is a slap in the face to effective message design and graphic design principles, and it has been purposefully created in this manner.

I never thought I’d even go here, but Facebook, as a comparable social networking site has a much better design model and interface. Admittedly, I don’t think you can customize your profile graphically beyond photos AND THAT’S A GOOD THING! It allows a far greater level of privacy, customizable by the user. Also, the ways in which you can begin to link to others via groups is much more dynamic than Myspace allows because as soon as you start listing schools and graduation years, you can click on those links to find others in your network with the same affiliations.

Dean asks, “Is a blog a blog if there are no comments?” I find this ties in with my questions in the past few posts—is a blog a blog if it does not have a global audience? Is a blog a blog without trackbacks? One thing I can say with certainty, x is not a blog without RSS. Now that I’ve said it with certainty, I’m sure there will be someone to tell me I’m wrong.

Trying to understand what makes a blog a blog may seem irrelevant. However, the very essence of what blogs and wikis can provide—social collaboration, lateral spread of control over content, venue for discourse—is no longer radical if a blogging platform or wiki is simply appropriated so that students can make a website without knowing html.