Sorin Adam Matei
Analysis, research, maps, and essays from Sorin Adam Matei.
Social Media News
Image via Wikipedia Gene Weingarten wrote a tongue in cheek article for WP about Facebook’s uselessness and the way in which it can become a gigantic time suck, especially for those of us that have other, better things to do. He used…
Image via CrunchBase Sept 23, 4 PM, EST: Facebook appears to be down. I have tried to access it several times in the last hour and it is beyond reach. The current message is that not even the DNS request can be…
In two highly readable books, Bob Woodward first embraced in Bush at War then trounced in State of Denial George Bush’s conduct of the war on terror. In a possible attempt to appear as an equal opportunity offender he got access to…
Image via Wikipedia Search Takes a Social Turn By JENNA WORTHAM Sites are trying to make search more helpful by showing what your friends – or other people like you – like. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/technology/13search.html?th&emc=th ……………… F.C.C. Likely to Open Airwaves to Wireless By…
Goolge instant search Image by ursonate via Flickr Although the ruler of search, Google seems to lose ground in terms of “stickiness”, amount of time people spend on the site. An interesting question is how will the new Google instant search feature,…
Image via CrunchBase The first historiography of a Wikipedia entry…. James Bridle founded a Web site called Booktwo in September 2006 to “investigate, analyze, catalog and debate the future of literature and the publishing industry.” Over the years the site has been…
Academic researchers have deployed in the last decade several innovative approaches to studying social networking and via graph and complexity analysis. Here is a sampler of most intriguing papers: 1. Critical mass and willingness to pay for social networks 2.NodeXL: Network Overview,…
Does the old fashioned newsroom still matter? Image via Wikipedia This is a learning module for the class Contemporary Social / Mass Media Theory taught at Purdue University by Sorin Adam Matei Agenda setting theory was proposed in the early 1970s by Maxwell McCombs and…
Image via Wikipedia What is formula for calculating critical mass in social groups of smaller scales? The problem of collective action is that each member of a group wants other members to make necessary sacrifices while he or she “free rides,” reaping…
This piece, which is available online, has become an instant classic… Billions of people participate in online social activities. Most users participate as readers of discussion boards, searchers of blog posts, or viewers of photos. A fraction of users become contributors of…
Of Interest… 6th International Digital Curation Conference “Participation and Practice: Growing the Curation Community through the Data Decade” 6 December, 2010 – 8 December, 2010 Chicago Mart Plaza, Chicago Overview Digital curation manages, maintains, preserves, and adds value to digital data throughout…
Image via Wikipedia The Dataverse Network is an open-source web application supported by Harvard University, which offers a free and flexible framework for dataset citation, curation, and management. It allows researchers to deposit their datasets and to share them with persistent, unique…
Cell phones may seem like a distraction when reading, but our latest project, Ubimark books, can now be paired with novels to link readers to digital resources to create ubitour books. Books open our minds, and now we can use technology to…
Over the last few days my project, Ubimark, which turns print books such as Around the Word in 80 Days into user interfaces for the web through the magic of 2d or QR codes, has been covered by a number of very…
A while back I talked about “no password” website login systems where websites can use sites like Facebook or Twitter to authenticate their users. Since then, Facebook’s login system “Facebook Connect” has been deprecated and replaced by OAuth, an open login system…
Justified debates in Europe about dogmatic interpretation of net neutrality. BERLIN — With the majority of Internet traffic expected to shift to congestion-prone mobile networks, there is growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about whether operators of the networks should…
While I doubt that passwords would have been one of the top things that John Lennon would have liked to see the world without, I am sure that he wouldn’t mind the effort to eradicate this new menace of the internet. As…
In a recent article by Mashable.com, writer Jamie O’Dell discusses ways in which social media has the ability to help others. O’Dell highlights 9 specific websites that contribute to good causes, some of which are free for users to participate in. Some examples of…
China tightens control over social media, promotes “clean” sites, including official party newspaper site. Chinese officials consider tools like social networking, microblogging and video-sharing sites a major vulnerability. In the past year, they have been forced to block access in China of…
An Irish judge asks legal systems everywhere to implement intellectual laws and to reject online piracy. He reprimands those who believe that cyberspace is an autonomous territory with its own copyright laws. “The Internet is only a means of communication,” he wrote.…
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Those with a focus on design now have a social networking site geared to their interests. Dribbble, a site by and for designers, came out of its private beta mode this past weekend. The service allowed members (or “players” as the site…
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski (R) te… Image by Getty Images via Daylife The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down a recent FCC regulation that would’ve forced Internet providers to treat all Internet traffic, including…
The ongoing social media revolution has given us many new ways to communicate with each other. I would like to highlight one of these new avenues of discourse, Twitter, and talk about how its extensibility is it’s greatest feature. This property of…
AwayFind announced it is offering a new 2.0 form of its service, which allows users to get away from the computer and not worry about missing an important e-mail or message. In its original, 1.0 service, users were given an AwayFind page…
Yesterday, a new site launched a beta version with the aim of helping users plan informal gatherings. Go Tribal allows users to sign up, identify what days they are free and what they might like to do with friends, and then create plans…
Abstract A theoretically-grounded learning feedback tool suite, the Visible Effort (VE) Mediawiki extension, is proposed for optimizing online group learning activities by measuring the amount of equality and the emergence of social structure in groups that participate in Computer-Mediated Collaboration (CMC). Building…
In a larger lecture classroom, it can be impossible to facilitate participation with even a few students – and infinitely more impossible to get an entire class of a couple hundred to chime in as well. And if you have students who may be…
One clip shows a girl interpreting math terms as dance moves. Another features a guy flying a small remote-controlled elephant helicopter that he made around his backyard. Are these just random YouTube videos? Not quite. These videos are actually submissions students made…
Earlier this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Facebook announced a new version of its web site for mobile media users that will be available in coming weeks. Unlike its Internet counterparts, Facebook and Facebook Lite, the new “Facebook Zero”…
Google’s announced plans to build 1 Gigabyte broadband networks seem to play the same role as Google‘s threats of yesteryear to bid for WiMax frequencies. The FCC is planning to propose a new national broadband plan, which would make accessible to most…
The FTC Logo, Image via Wikipedia Facebook is on the hook. Privacy advocates complained to the FTC that Facebook’s decision to make most of your actions public by default is a form of deceptive practices. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a…
After being overtaken by Google in the later part of 2008, Yahoo now is passed by Facebook. During the last year Facebook doubled its traffic, while Yahoo remained largely stationary. 133 million unique visitors in Jan 2010. From Mashable: Facebook is now…
Tired of having to stay logged into Facebook to utilize the chat function with your friends list on the site? Ever forgotten the need to be logged in to the site and signed out while you were chatting with someone? Well, Facebook…
Android phone users are now offered a free downloadable application available in the Android Market. Similar to an application already available for the iPhone, this new (and official) WordPress app for Android allows users to write and edit posts for their blog. Once downloading…
Gang Signs on the Web creative commons image by JL! via Flickr Gang members use social media to organize payback missions or to snuff out snitches. A Washington Post article cited by Gawker and dugg 172 times reports that gangs regularly use…
iPad Apple Tablet Will Ship 10 Million in 2010 WOOOOOW! Ambitious….
LinkedIn is a Web 2.0/social networking site that many are familiar with. The site centers around finding and organizing one’s connections and getting better connected in the professional realm. The site recently announced it will be enhancing its social networking experience. It…
Image via Wikipedia Lifehacker picks this little tid-bit of insight from Inc: You might think that involving a bunch of people in every company meeting and email keeps everyone on the same page. In reality, it's a productivity killer that hinders rather…
The Uniqueness of Humans We are not unique? Is organized crime the only differentiator for humans? Or figuring out how to get the banana when the boss is around? This presentation, featured by TED, makes you wonder what is to be human…
Cover via Amazon Sequel to two successful media epics, “Googled” delivers some major insights–the search giant might not be as strong as it seems–yet it does not raise above “competently executed.” Overall tastes like a reasonably well cooked dish following a well…
Image by pamhule via Flickr Google claims, albeit in a rather veiled way, that a hacking attack on its servers that originated in China was inspired or supported by the Chinese authorities. A pointed paragraph in the Google announcement sends the readers…
All links below will bring up a floating You Tube clip, courtesy Apture… NY Times reviews the e book explosion at CES 2010, including the Lenovo detachable screen e-100 notebook and plasticlogic’s que (649), ultralight reading device. Bokeen, at 249, is highlighted…
Image via Wikipedia The inside view of how Wikipedia works This article presents an interview with Angela Beesley, Elisabeth Bauer, and Kizu Naoko. All three are leading Wikipedia practitioners in the English, German, and Japanese Wikipedias and related projects. The interview focuses…
Augmented reality replaces virtual reality as new tech shibboleth. Since mid 2009 augmented reality has become a favorite search term on Google. The advent of touchscreen mobile phones with GPS and cameras such as the iPhone and Android phones is giving rise…
On Wisconsin My down the hall colleague, Glenn Sparks, is not just a great scholar, but also a theramin builder and performer….
Chosen by MSNBC, the best 2009 YouTube videos include Susan Boyle at Britain got talent, whose Amazon.com CD was an absolute bestseller Dentist doped kid – David at the dentist Funny JK wedding dance YouTube’s 2009 star was Susan Boyle, the frumpy…
Image via Wikipedia Wikipedia articles that are controlled by a small group of editors that coordinate their work closely seem to be of higher quality. This is one of the main suggestions made by Kraut an Kittur, whose work was previously featured…
A list of influential books on designing successful social media strategies. Gillin – Social Media Marketing and New Influencers Safko – Social Media Bible Weinberg – Community Rules Brogan – Trust Agents Connor – 18 rules for community engagement Qualman – Socialnomics…
Janet Napolitano, the Secretary for Homeland Security, explains the failure. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy The explanation might or might not stand scrutiny. Many have pointed to the fact that the recent terrorist attempted attack…
Image via Wikipedia Chris Lake, at econsultancy, culled from the web several excellent examples of how big corporations train their empolyees to deal sith social media interactions. Here are just three examples: IBM Don’t pick fights, be the first to correct your…
Multitouch is out, near touch is in…. The BiDi Screen is an example of a new type of I/O device that possesses the ability to both capture images and display them. This thin, bidirectional screen extends the latest trend in LCD devices,…
What is Google Chrome OS? A little on the simple site, but it’s official… Google OS to come next year. The word of the day is “stateless”… The OS is the web browser… The question is if services like Google Docs will…