Saturday, June 27, 2026 Strategy, technology, media, and social systems

I Think

Sorin Adam Matei

Analysis, research, maps, and essays from Sorin Adam Matei.

Author: Sorin Adam Matei

Assistant Vice President for Partnerships in Strategic Defense Innnovation and Professor of Communication at Purdue University, Director of the FORCES initiative leads research teams that study the relationship between technological and social systems using big data, simulation, and mapping approaches. He published papers and articles in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Information Society, National Interest, and Foreign Policy. He is the author or co-editor of several books. The most recent is Structural differentation in social media. He also co-edited Ethical Reasoning in Big Data,Transparency in social media and Roles, Trust, and Reputation in Social Media Knowledge Markets: Theory and Methods (Computational Social Sciences) , all three the product of the NSF funded KredibleNet project. Dr. Matei's teaching portfolio includes technology and strategy, online interaction, and digital media analytics classes. A former BBC World Service journalist, his contributions have been published in Esquire and several leading Romanian newspapers. In Romania, he is known for his books Boierii Mintii (The Mind Boyars), Idolii forului (Idols of the forum), and Idei de schimb (Spare ideas).

Digital Nation – Life On The Virtual Frontier | FRONTLINE | PBS

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies A TV/Web report on the digital revolution and how it’s changing our lives, with video stories, interviews, and user-generated video on relationships, information overload, education, the military, parenting, brain development, and more. See on…

Social media brings us closer than ever to Olympic athletes. | Social Media Today

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies Want to know what Tom Daley’s bedroom looks like? Or how Matthew Mitcham amuses himself in the Olympic Park between training sessions? Or where 5,000 can sit down to dinner? See on socialmediatoday.com

Eating from the Social Media ROI Cookbook | Social Media Today

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies ROI eludes many folks in the social media space. Not because social marketeers aren’t able to, it’s just damn difficult to assign cause and effect to a very organic and often nebulous activity. See…

The Location Aware Services Daily

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies A newspaper by Pekka Puhakka – updated daily with a curated selection of articles, blog posts, videos and photos. (The Location Aware Services Daily is out! See on paper.li

Which Social Platform Really Drives the Most Traffic? | Social Media Today

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies In preparing for our morning show we were doing some research and came across an old story that showed that StumbleUpon was actually driving more traffic than FaceBook in January of 2011 and we wondered…

Keyword Research! – Why You Should Use “Quotation Marks”

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies This really is for anyone who is new to this exciting business! Using quotation marks is something that confuses many online. People usually ask “why (Keyword Research! See on www.warriorforum.com

Path 2.5 Inches Closer To Human-Centered Social-Networking

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies At launch, Path seemed like the ultimate social network for mobiles. It was as addictive to scroll as Instagram, but richer in actions like Facebook. See on www.fastcodesign.com

BioSpace Spotlights the growing Midwest Life Science Community – Today’s Market News (MARKCOMM) News – InvestorPoint.com

See on Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies BioSpace Spotlights the growing Midwest Life Science Community [February 7, July – 2:01 AM PST]: (RT @investorpoint: BioSpace Spotlights the growing Midwest Life Science Community http://t.co/Ax38fd8z...)… See on www.investorpoint.com

Greenland ice cap melting episode not as dramatic as it sounds, yet heat dome that produced it is real

Although Greenland, just like most of the northern hemisphere has been under a succession of record breaking head domes, the recently reported news that most of the Greenland ice sheet is melting needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The NASA data…

Spain headed to bankruptcy? Possible and the reason is simple…

The news from Spain is dire: its local governments are bankrupt and we can expect a domino effect. The cause? Overspending: Spain’s debt hangover follows an era of cheap credit that the birth of a common currency helped create. When the eurozone…

Narrative Theory: A reading list

Our colleague, H. Porter Abbott, at UCSB teaches a great course on Narrative theory, which includes this awesome reading list… Enjoy:   Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of…

A modest proposal for solving global warming: nuclear war

We finally have a solution for global warming. A discussion on the board The Straight Dope about the likely effect of a nuclear war brought up the hypothesis that a nuclear war on a large scale could produce a mini-nuclear winter. Why?…

China Coup Rumors in the Wake of Bo Xilai’s Sacking Suggest High Level Power Struggle over Future of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”

  Chinese cyberspace and social media are rife with rumors about a lingering or barely averted coup. The rumors are associated with the recent sacking of an important provincial Party secretary, the Congqing boss Bo Xilai (see details). The scion of a…

Chinese Party Secretary of Congqing, Scion of Mao Era Communist Boss, Bo Xilai Purging Heralds High Level Beijing Infigthing

One of the most powerful Chinese regional Party bosses and scion of an old Communist family has been dismissed and his political fate remains unknown. A report published on an unofficial Chinese site reveal much of the current debates and infighting at…

Security company Imperva disects Anonymous hack attack on Vatican in Case Study to Be Presented at Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco on March 1st (paper, pdf, YouTube video)

In a an extremely detailed report to be delivered to the computer security conference, Imperva, an IT  security consulting company describes how the hacker Anonymous group launched Operation Pharisee to bring down the Vatican web site. The report is to be presented…

Intrade, HSX predict Oscar for Best Film to Go to the Artist

Prediction market Intrade evaluates The Artist’s chances to win the Oscar for best movie at over 90% and Dujardin’s chance to be awarded best actor at 70%. In the meanwhile, HSX indicates strong bets in the same direction. Sources Traders aim to…

Obama administration proposes a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights

privacy (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee) The Obama Administration proposed on February 24 a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights that would regulate how private corporations and business entities handle private data. The announcement includes: A Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights The Consumer Privacy…

Complex social systems, New directions of research

Filicudi e Lipari (Photo credit: CyboRoZ) Lipari School on Computational Complex Systems announces its 2012 annual session. Novel data mining research and modeling of complex techno-socio-economic systems will be presented. According to the call: Two kinds of participants are welcome. Students: Participants…

Pakistan dissipates in internecine violence

Miriad internal conflicts throw Pakistan into an never ending cycle of mini-civil wars: families killing their women for “illicit affairs”, human right activists beaten to death for testifying against abusive police practices, politicians assassinated without any retribution. The Economist draws the line…

A list of Twitter Sentiment Analysis Tools

A wonderful list of Twitter Sentiment Analysis Tools collated by Twittersentiment.appspot.com… Twitter Analysis Tools look at the meaning of the tweets and divides them into negative and positive communication items. Since the original list missed some sites, feel free to add yours…

Pakistan actively helpsTaliban, funds a good part of its 150 million dollar a year war effort

A BBC correspondent laid eyes on a very insightful report on the continued strong relationship between Pakistan and Taliban leaders. The conclusion remains the same: we seem to be at war with Pakistan without being able to acknowledge it. The BBC’s Quentin…

NYTimes: Sampling the Future of Gadgetry

Titanic Wreck Exact Location on Google Earth Map of North Atlantic (KMZ)

April 15 is the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic on its maiden voyage in 1912. The wreck of the ship was found in two pieces, the bow and the stern, by Ballard in 1985, who released the precise coordinates of…

Google Search Trends in New Hampshire Indicate Strong Interest in Ron Paul, Santorum

Following the successful social media exercise of predicting the outcomes of the nomination race in Iowa using Google Searches and Tweets, here is a preview of what could be in store for the candidates in New Hampshire. Google search trends in the…

What Do The Latest Google Search Trends Tell Us About The Republican Nomination Race

This self-updating chart provides the latest trends in Google searches for candidate names. According to this post, search frequency seemed to be related to candidate “pull.” Santorum was not a surprise at all for those that followed the social media buzz closely.  What…

Social Media Monitoring Predicts Close Romney – Santorum Race in Iowa Caucus

Mashable hints that Twitter might have caught a whiff of Santorum’s possible dash in the last straight line before the finish in the Iowa caucus. There is something to say about it. Romney lost the lead not only on Twitter but also in…

Digital Scholarship in Humanities and Social Sciences Course – 63200 Graduate Seminar at Purdue University Taught by Sorin Adam Matei

Description The course is a guide to the emerging field of educational and scholarly theories and practices that use networked computational resources and platforms to promote learning and research. It will investigate how technologies and the practices associated with them might generate…

Ex Yale professor William Deresiewicz rejects bureaucratic education and thinking in American Scholar Essay “Solitude and Leadership”

Current college students are called “digital natives.” They are heralded as a new type of intellectual foragers, who can multitask better, gather information faster,  and spread it with more efficiency than their adult peers. Nothing less true, affirms Deresiewicz in this scathing…

Why the Russian elections are in fact a very, very, very bad thing

Via Scoop.it – Foreign AffairsRussians replaced half of their corrupt parliament with 30% old style communists and 20% brown-red nationalists… And some call this progress… This excellent The Economist analysis say it as it is: Russia is stuck between the past and…

US’ China dreams may now be a chimera

The first 10 years of Chinese membership in WTO and of trade with the US at almost no import/export tarrifs: Chinese rural poverty rate declined from 10 to 3% US families could spend an extra $600 a year on cheaper goods US…

Read Write Web Legal Analysis of SOPA / PROTECT-IP concludes this is not censorship

Via Scoop.it – Foreign AffairsThe Stop Online Privacy Act would block traffic from sites that stream and disseminate on a mass scale pirated content. Many say that this an attempt to censor what people see and share online. Others say, however, that…

The knowledge based economy

What is the entropy level of this team? (Apud Paulo Coelho and many other internet peddlers of humor)

A KML Historic and Literary Map of Pearl Harbor on the Morning of December 7, 1941 (7:55 am) According to Walter Lord’s Day of Infamy

 Digital Humanities Showcase: Walter Lord’s Day of Infamy mapped Walter Lord’s meticulously documented book “Day of Infamy” recounts the trivia of every day life at Pearl Harbor on that last morning of peace, December 7, 1941, when the Japanese planes attacked the…

Earth-like planet discovered in ‘habitable’ zone

Via Scoop.it – Foreign AffairsAstronomers report the discovery of an Earth-like planet about 600 light years from our solar system. It is probably several times greater than earth. Its year is 290 days long and it could be a balmy 72 degrees.Via…

Fortress at Sea? The Carrier Invulnerability Myth | U.S. Naval Institute

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societies7 billion worth of vulnerability. Aircraft carriers are weighing just as heavy on the US amerd forces, as battleships did before Pearl Harbor. In this day and age of deficits, reconsidering the role of he aircarrier…

Pakistani artist Quayyum Anila Agha brings the tears of Pakistan floods and Japanese tsunami to Purdue University Gallery

On my way to lunch I pass by the extraordinary gem that is the Purdue Art Gallery. An unpretentious room, painted white, with no outside windows, the gallery exhibits on a regular basis the highest quality art, from all corners of the…

[December 5] The Fate of Civic Education in a Connected World | Berkman Center

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societiesDoes social media lead to rich, networked lives and increased social capital? Or not? A Berkman center seminar featuring Professor Charles Nesson as Provocateur and Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (Bard College), Peter Levine (Tufts University), Harry Lewis…

Xbox Live Challenges the Cable Box

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societiesSubscribers of Microsoft’s Xbox Live, rejoice. Starting on Tuesday, Dec. 6, you will be able to watch television programming from the Xbox 360 console. You will also be able to search Hulu and Netflix via voice.…

What is NodeXL and how can it be used. A review of the NodeXL book by Hansen, Shneiderman, Smith

INTL. JOURNAL OF HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION, 27(4), 405–408, 2011 http://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2011.544971 Book Review Derek Hansen, Ben Shneiderman, and Marc A. Smith. Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kauffman, 2011. 284 pages. ISBN: 978-0-12-382229-1 Reviewed by Sorin…

Too Big to Know:

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societiesHow the new dimensions of information are transforming business — and life (David Weinberger speaks that the Berkeley School of Information)Via www.ischool.berkeley.edu

Iran shoots down US drone

Via Scoop.it – Mapping current eventsUS drone downed and captured almost intact by Iranian air force… Not the first incident of this kind.Via www.guardian.co.uk

Know What You’re Protesting – Economic View

Via Scoop.it – Mapping current events N. Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor, has a message for students who walked out of his class at Harvard last month: The study of economics should be viewed as a method, not a doctrine.Via www.nytimes.com

How the Internet Is Ruining Everything and Why This is A Great Thing, Too

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societiesA good example of having the cake and eating it too… Weinberg both decries the Internet’s unleasing of personal knowledge and cheers for it…   “One of the authors of “The Cluetrain Manifesto” says the hyperlinked…

100 Notable Books of 2011

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societiesThe Book Review’s annual list…. A selection of titles..     FICTION   THE ANGEL ESMERALDA: Nine Stories. By Don DeLillo. (Scribner, $24.)    THE ART OF FIELDING. By Chad Harbach. (Little, Brown, $25.99.)    THE…

Smashwords needs to improve Meatgrinder if it wants to beat CreateSpace

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societiesDude, get a life… If you want Smashwords to beat CreateSpace, make sure that chikenshit does not get in the way of your success…. Give your authors a hand, do not make them do loop-de-loops around…

Facebook Friend Request From Your Future Son is in fact condom ad campaign

Via Scoop.it – Foreign AffairsIs this the smartest ad campagin ever, or what? via Mashable   “Olla Condoms’ campaign, which sends unsolicited friend requests from their yet-to-be-born sons, is a violation of Facebook policy.”Via mashable.com

Andrew Wilson, “Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship” (Yale UP, 2011)

Via Scoop.it – Foreign AffairsOf note….   “Andrew Wilson‘s book, Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship (Yale University Press, 2011), is timely. Some are predicting that Lukashenka’s time is finally coming to an end, and eyes in Minsk and Brest are nervously following…

Ponzi Scheme Unleashed: Euro Central Banks May Provide $270B Through IMF

Via Scoop.it – Foreign AffairsIt goes like this: private banks borrow from governments, governments borrow from FMI, FMI gets its money from governments, banks buy tresasury bonds… In a more truthful world, this would be called a Ponzi scheme (rough translation of…

World Blog – Myanmar’s new capital: a vast, empty city

Via Scoop.it – Foreign AffairsMyanmar’s spooky capital.     “NAYPYITAW, Myanmar – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be forgiven for believing she’s visiting two different countries – one called Naypyitaw, the other Myanmar.”Via worldblog.msnbc.msn.com

Designing Books in the Digital Age (Craig Mod) | Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto

Via Scoop.it – Media convergenceLet us reinvent the ebook by imagining a continuous horizontally scrolling canvass… (From one of the godfathers of http://pressbooks.com ). More details:   “In printed books, the two-page spread was our canvas. It’s easy to think similarly about…

Pakistan – “The Ally From Hell” – moves nuclear warheads in unmarked vans, exposes them to jihadi highjack (Atlantic Monthly article)

The Altantic Monthly publishes a terrifyingly insightful article about Pakistan’s nuclear shell game. According to it,  what keeps the Pakistani leaders up at night  is a highly unlikely US air strike, not a predictable (by past incidents) Jihadi suicide rush on the…

Is open, non anonymous peer review better at producing accurate reviewes?

What if we allowed the authors and the reviewers of academic papers to interact with each other and, horribile dictu, to know each other’s identies. This PLOS paper believes that we would get better reviews and better papers. Citation: Leek JT, Taub…

Steve Jobs’s Real Genius

Via Scoop.it – Virtual community and societiesMalcolm Gladwell (of Tipping Point and Blink fame) puts the dot on the i regarding Steve Jobs’ real genius: to combine things that he found in semi finished state. “Jobs’s sensibility was editorial, not inventive. His…