Social_Software: June 2007 Archive Page

Investigators are looking into who altered pro wrestler Chris Benoit's Wikipedia entry to mention his wife's death hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their 7-year-old son. --Dead wrestler's Web page was altered (Yahoo! | AP (will expire))

I wasn't particularly following this story, but this is an interesting wrinkle. When I first started teaching journalism at Seton Hill in 2003, it was common for mainstream publications to publish information that a quick Google search would reaveal as a hoax (or at least very suspicious). Now we see journalists making routine references to the nuts and bolts of the new information economy.

Update, 29 June: "The anonymous individual responsible for suggesting, 14 hours before police discovered the body, that WWE wrestler Chris Benoit's wife was dead is confessing, saying his/her comment was a 'terrible coincidence.'" -WikiNews

Is that the end of the story?

Doctors backed away on Sunday from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more. --Experts oppose video game addiction designation (Reuters | C|Net)

The division is cleanest in communities where the predator panic hit before MySpace became popular. In much of the midwest, teens heard about Facebook and MySpace at the same time. They were told that MySpace was bad while Facebook was key for college students seeking to make friends at college. I go into schools where the school is split between the Facebook users and the MySpace users. On the coasts and in big cities, things are more murky than elsewhere. MySpace became popular through the bands and fans dynamic before the predator panic kicked in. Its popularity on the coasts and in the cities predated Facebook's launch in high schools. Many hegemonic teens are still using MySpace because of their connections to participants who joined in the early days, yet they too are switching and tend to maintain accounts on both. For the hegemonic teens in the midwest, there wasn't a MySpace to switch from so the "switch" is happening much faster. None of the teens are really switching from Facebook to MySpace, although there are some hegemonic teens who choose to check out MySpace to see what happens there even though their friends are mostly on Facebook. --danah boyd --Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace (danah.org)

I personally find boyd's use of a lowercase logo for a name to be be right up there with Prince's use of an unpronounceable symbol and the star in "Wal*Mart," but I gather it makes her seem more approachable to the young people whose online habits she observes so carefully (and analyzes so well).

At a packed session for academic librarians attending the annual meeting of the American Library Association, in Washington, the topic was how to help students who have learned many of their information gathering and analysis skills from video games apply that knowledge in the library. Speakers said that gaming skills are in many ways representative of a broader cultural divide between today?s college students and the librarians who hope to teach them. --Scott Jaschik --When ''Digital Natives'' Go to the Library (Inside Higher Ed)

I'd love to learn more about how libraries are modding themselves in order to take advantage of the considerable digital literacies that our students bring with them when the arrive on campus.

WATCH out YouTube lovers - the online video service are trialling new technology to prevent people posting unauthorised material they don't have the copyright for.

YouTube will trial the new technology with two of the world's largest media companies, Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co. --YouTube no longer yours (Sunday Telegraph)

The Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday announced plans to pursue improvements to the city's 911 system, saying callers in the future will be able to use text messages, photos and even video from cellphones to seek emergency assistance. --Richard Winton --LAPD plans to accept 911 text messages (LA Times)

Will future dispatchers have to be screened for the ability to understand txt-spk?

I graduated from SHU this may and I took your American Literature course in Spring 2004. I just wanted to write you an e-mail because I came across my own blog while doing a search on the internet and I starting reading through them. I must admit, I HATED doing them during class because it was a lot of work, but what a final product. I was so impressed that I could have created something so technical and computer literate. I was astounded to see that people are still commenting on my entries, three years after the fact! How cool! I hope you are continuing to use blogs because it obviously gets out there and lets our thoughts at SHU be heard. I also would like to comment on my grade in the class and it being 1 of 2 Bs that I received throughout my college career. I still am confused about the grade, considering I had all As on my papers. I was unaware at the time it could have been a mistake and I did not want to challenge you. I just thought I must have failed the final miserably. O well. I enjoyed your class, even though I got a B! lol Keep up the good work!blogs [e-mail from a former student] (Jerz's LIteracy Weblog)

I got this note from a recent graduate, and have posted it here with permission. It's always a great feeling when a student says he or she worked hard, learned a lot, and enjoyed the class.

And this student is right -- entries that my students wrote as homework are still attracting attention, especially at the end of the semester as students are working on term papers. Sometimes the comments are simply requests like "This story is boring, will someone e-mail me what it's supposed to mean," but often a visitor will post a thoughtful comment that attempts to extend the discussion.

We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations. While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy. This is in part due to the diversity and specificity of Google's product range and the ability of the company to share extracted data between these tools, and in part it is due to Google's market dominance and the sheer size of its user base. Google's status in the ranking is also due to its aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies and techniques.

The view that Google "opens up" information through a range of attractive and advanced tools does not exempt the company from demonstrating responsible leadership in privacy. Google's increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user's life and lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook. Neither of these elements has been demonstrated. Rather, we have witnessed an attitude to privacy within Google that at its most blatant is hostile, and at its most benign is ambivalent. These dynamics do not pervade other major players such as Microsoft or eBay, both of which have made notable improvements to the corporate ethos on privacy issues. --A Race to the Bottom: Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies (Privacy International)

Cutler has spent much of her time fending off a lawsuit by ex- boyfriend and fellow DeWine staffer Robert Steinbuch, who claims Cutler's blog publicly humiliated him. He is seeking more than $20 million in damages.

[...]

The lawsuit is being closely watched by online privacy groups and bloggers because the case could help establish whether people who keep online diaries are obligated to protect the privacy of the people they interact with offline. --Sex Blogger Files for Bankruptcy (Breitbart | AP)

You may or may not be familiar with V-Tech Rampage, a flash game created by Ryan Lambourn. True to its title, the game allows the player to take on the role of Cho Seung-Hui and re-enact the fateful school shooting of April 16th. The game drew hatred from the mainstream media and gamers alike; many feel the game to have no ultimate purpose other than allowing players to kill simply for the sake of killing.

Similar complaints have been lodged against Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, created by Danny Ledonne. Like V-Tech Rampage, SCMRPG allows the player to take the roles of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold on the day they massacred twelve of their peers.

In an effort to get Lambourn's side of the story and answer some nagging questions I had for Ledonne, I interviewed these two frequently despised, often applauded game creators about the possible importance of their games. --Virtual school shooings: interviewing two of the most hated game creators alive (Destructoid)

Ryan Lambourn, the creator of V-Tech Rampage, sounds defensive and juvenile. I haven't played his game yet, so I'm just filing this for later.

Same with I'm O.K. - A Murder Simulator