Sorin Adam Matei
Analysis, research, maps, and essays from Sorin Adam Matei.
This is an introduction to a set of core concepts related to Internet communication for the Course COM 251 Information, Technology, Society which I teach at Purdue University. One of Aesop’s fables gives a clever answer to the question: “what is the…
This is a tutorial on a set of core concepts related to Internet communication for my courses at Purdue University. For technical details, take a look at the PowerPoint presentation The Internet is not one net. It is more versatile than that. The…
The more data we generate about a target population, the harder to protect the privacy of the individuals surveyed. Sensitive information can be inferred most of the time if we have multiple data points or collection procedures for the same individual. For…
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…
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…
Taking a cue from and fearing the competition of the the recent Wolfram Alpha – Bing – Yahoo alliance Google has probably paid World Bank an arm and a leg to plug their search engine in the newly released WB data API.…
An Obama campaign promise regarding net neutrality will become reality. The FCC is expected to rule that the largest Internet providers cannot deploy enhanced real time content if these services would meanprioritizing or delaying delivery of some content, such as that of…
In May, the Obama administration wrapped up its first major digital democracy initiative. The Citizen’s Briefing Book was produced by collecting data from anyone who cared, had the time, smarts, and technical training to share their policy ideas with the Obama initiative…
Tools, software and a taxonomy of available research and visualization tools made available by The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis. Measurement Taxonomy AutoFocus Beluga cflowd CoralReef iffinder Mantra NeTraMet RTG scamper skitter . Anonymization Tools Topology Tools Workload Tools Performance Tools…
The Obama administration will govern supported by a strong infrastructure of Web 2.0 applications. One of them will be the new Change.gov site. This is a mega blog, powered by the millions of supporters and one can imagine at times enemies of…
Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference 2009 tags: no_tag Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century According to a recent study from the Pew Internet & American Life project (Lenhardt & Madden, 2005), more than one-half of…
Submitted by "Adrienne Hall" on October 22, 2008 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2008, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog. Abstract This essay attempts to begin explaining how participation in online social interactions impacts…
Notre Dames de Reims – Google Search tags: no_tag Cathédrale Notre Dame de Reims by kevin51340 – Google 3D Warehouse tags: no_tag World Heritage Centre – World Heritage Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what…
One meme at a time
[youtube]nLu-Yb4EIsQ[/youtube] Norman, the psychologist of POET fame (Psychology of Everyday Things) who gave the world the concept of device affordance, shot one of its last shells across the bow in his “Invisible: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So…
Following a story on the Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus Blog I’ve run into YouNoodle.com a social networking site for entrepreneurs and educators. Lots of mashups and some interesting applications. The site still needs some improvement and the communication tools improved,…
J. Markoff, of NYT, tells the story: Theodore Holm Nelson, the sociologist and philosopher who coined the term “hypertext” and who is something of an Internet Don Quixote, has had a tremendous influence on the computing world. However, until last night it…
I wonder how does this theory of reflexivity apply to Internet supported meta engines of all sorts? I must state at the outset that I am in fundamental disagreement with the prevailing wisdom. The generally accepted theory is that financial markets tend…
Submitted by Colleen E. Brown on November 26 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) Introduction The need for group membership, social support, and information gathering are part…
Submitted on November 26, 2007, to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) Abstract: The widespread expansion of communication technology over the past century has resulted in a marked…
Submitted by Pamela Morris on November 26, 2007 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink). “An (online) host is like a host at a party. You don’t automatically…
Amazon.com’s eInk technology is here. It is a wireless (piggybacking the phone network) device that can store or access remote content (books, blogs, etc.). The device costs something as well as the service, but is a valliant leap forward after the several…
Submitted by Robert N. Yale on October 15, 2007 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink). Abstract This essay posits that virtual communities are successful to the degree…
Submitted by Colleen E. Brown on October 15, 2006 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) The growth of computer mediated communication (CMC) has sparked much debate across…
Submitted by Pamela Morris on October 14, 2007 to the On-line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2007, Purdue University, Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink). Glimpses of Community on the Web The term “community” has been appropriated to…
One of the most interesting resources for virtual reality modeling and research in archeology. Specific link to archeology About Intute: Arts and Humanities What is Intute: Arts and Humanities? Artifact and Humbul, two of the hubs of the Resource Discovery Network RDN,…
How can we conceptualise the relationship between technological and social change at the local level? More specifically, what conceptual tools have we got at our disposal to study the emergence of new Internet-related forms of local sociality?
One important innovation in information and communication technology developed over the past decade was organizational rather than merely technological. Open source production is remarkable because it converts a private commodity (typically software) into a public good. A number of studies examine the…
Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in the Global Age Edited By: Kirk St.Amant, Texas Tech University, USA Chapter X: Cultural Cognitive Style and the Web: Toward a Theory and Practice of Web Design for International Users / Anthony Faiola and Sorin…
Expert: Wikipedia wont go away, so learn how to use it WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The popularity of Wikipedia makes it important that users learn to use the online collaborative encyclopedia as a starting point for their research rather than as the…
Google’s been strongly opposed to the whole pay-as-you-go revamping of the Internet (the equivalent of introducing toll-lanes ofn the Internet). You know, the whole net neutrality debate. At the same time, Google seems to suggest that its opposition is only pro forma.…
All 13 root servers, which act as the Internet’s ubergatekeeprs and traffic routing cops, have been attacked simultaneously yesterday. The news does not make any major newspaper frontpage today, at least not New York Times’, which regales us with a story about…
A very interesting “blog of blogs” demonstrating the power of the Internet to decentralize and recreate the flows of information. A blog that centralizes the known source of local information from Iraq and the middle east. Mostly in English. Why the quotation…
The report is one of the most comprehensive to date, including information about ranking over time… Abstract and link There is an immense information and communication technology (ICT) gap, a “digital divideâ€, between developed and developing countries. A person in a high-income…
A very good reference work on the social aspects of Information Technology. The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies Danny Quah, Roger Silverstone, Robin Mansell and Chrisanthi Avgerou ISBN13: 9780199266234 ISBN10: 0199266239 Hardback, 752 pages Apr 2007, Not Yet Published due…
Front Porches and Public Spaces: Planned Communities Online Susan Huelsing Sarapin Comm. 632: Online Interaction Professor: Dr. Sorin Matei November 19, 2006 Introduction Where else today but in the cost-effective frontier of cyberspace can the average person construct a community?1 With widespread…
Saturday, November 18, 2006 I’m going to say something controversial. I know, I know. The internet is for free speech. It is the last remnant of the American sixties counterculture. It’s about self-expression and information sharing. So why do I think it’s…
Usability is often evaluated in terms of ease of use – an important area of study highlighted by people like Krug (2006) and Jakob Nielson; however Preece (2000) provides a solid argument for the need to evaluate websites systematically from three vantage…
The readings for this week mentioned the use of IP addresses as a usual component of online communities for such things as being a means to spot or discourage grifters (and to help with moderation. A trail is left by someone when…
We’ve mentioned a Stephen Colbert and his clashes with Wikipedia a few times in class. As a result of repeated mentions on his show several articles on Wikipedia have been restricted to editing as a result of references on his show (for…
By Susan Huelsing Sarapin Submitted on October 22, 2006 to the On-Line Interaction and Facilitation Seminar, Fall 2006, Purdue University Dr. Sorin A. Matei via the I Think Blog (http://www.matei.org/ithink) Introduction Today, people all over the world are connected, or “tethered†(Turkle,…
In reading the pieces on Wikipedia I was struck by a paradox that I call Darwinian Equality. It seems that one of the fundamental assumptions of Wikipedia is that the best will rise to the top – in a survival of the…
Web logs, or rather blogs, are all over the internet as a means of doing something that was once thought lost; ordinary people publicly discussing various topics. A site called Change This was created in 2004 that supports open communication among regular…
Blogs are about having a voice – whether it be a political or civic voice (Wolf, 2004; Korblum, 2003) or a personal voice. We want to be heard in the political arena, in the news arena, and in the personal area. Why…
In class, Soren began to comment on 3 to 4 themes from the 60s counterculture that influenced (some might say underpinned) contemporary online interaction. We only got two of them out: Self Expression and Self Discovery Refusal to Be Part of the…
It seems, we need (or at least greatly benefit) from the tension between community and individual as manifested on the Web, at least according to Weinberger’s chapter on “Togetherness” in Small Pieces Loosely Joined (2002). If one extrapolates from his argument, one…
Is the Internet, as we’ve seen it described in our readings, and perhaps also as we’ve experienced it, a liminal state itself? Namely is the Internet a component or vehicle by which the process of liminality is being accomplished. As Turner (1995)…
A thought on our discourse on television. Many people felt that TV was not an interactive medium – rather it was a passive medium that broadcasts messages. It made me think about the history of education. Traditionally, modern education has been broadcast…
Thinking about the concept of group-mind in class today, made me think about Wikipedia – which is founded in part on the idea that one can gather knowledge from the many rather than being limited to a few individuals as sources of…
Robert Kraut and colleagues of “Internet loneliness” fame have been hacking at a research agenda focusing on stable and self-maintaining communities for some time. I ran into them looking for literature on how knowing more about your electronic environments can help you…
Wikipedia gets the bridal suited at The New Yorker. Full feature article sometime smarmy, sometime fliratious-congratulatory about Wikipedia’s so-so reliability and great potential.” The article touches the ideas, so close to my heart, that although Wikipedia in essence is an exercise in…
[posted by Lorraine] Joe Walther’s visit to Purdue University introduced us to a wide variety of theoretical approaches to relationships in online environments. The focus of his lectures was how people relate in online environments, or “how does communication behavior affect how…
New media and emerging technologies continue to change not only our communication (Gunn, 2006; Jones, 2006), but also our relationships, our work, and our communities (Contractor, 2006; Walther, 2006). At the same time, our societies and organizations – i.e. the bodies within…