Tag Archives: Facebook Connect

Profils et web social

J’écrivais ce message à un ami, à propos de mon expérience sur le site xkcd.com.

 

What? Oh, no, the 'Enchanted' soundtrack was just playing because Pandora's algorithms are terrible. [silence] ... (quietly) That's how you knooooooow ...
BD de xkcd
C’est sur xkcd, mais ça pourrait être ailleurs. C’est rien de très spécial, mais ça me donne à penser à ce qu’est le vrai web social, en ce moment. Surtout si on sort de la niche geek.

Donc…

  • Je vois le dernier xkcd.
  • Ça me fait réagir.
  • Je veux répondre.
  • Je sais qu’il y a des forums pour accompagner ces bande dessinées.
  • Je vais sur le forum lié à celui-ci (déjà quelques clics et il fallait que je connaisse l’existence de tout ça).
  • J’appuie sur Post Reply
  • Ça me demande de m’identifier.
  • Comme je crois avoir déjà envoyé quelque-chose là, je me branche avec mon username habituel.
  • Ah, mauvais mdp.
  • Je fais “forget pw”.
  • Oups! J’avais pas de compte avec mon adresse gmail (faut que ça soit la bonne combinaison donc, si je me rappelle pas de mon username, ça marche pas).
  • Je me crée un nouveau profil.
  • Le captcha est illisible, ça me prend plusieurs tentatives.
  • Faut que j’aille sur mon compte gmail activer mon compte sur les forums xkcd.
  • Une fois que c’est fait, je me retrouve à la page d’accueil des forums (pas à la page où j’essaie d’envoyer ma réponse).
  • Je retrouve la page que je voulais.
  • J’appuie sur Post Reply.
  • J’écris ma réponse et je l’envoie.
  • Évidemment, mon profil est vierge.
  • Je vais modifier ça.
  • Ça commence par mon numéro ICQ?? Eh bé!
  • Plus bas, je vois des champs pour Website et Interests. Je remplis ça rapidement, en pensant au plus générique.
  • Il y a aussi ma date de fête. Pas moyen de contrôler qui la voit, etc. Je l’ajoute pas.
  • J’enregistre les autres modifications.
  • Et j’essaie de changer mon avatar.
  • Il y a pas de bouton pour uploader.
  • Ça passe par une Gallery, mais il y a rien dedans.
  • Je laisse tomber, même si je sais bien que les geeks de xkcd sont du genre à rire de toi si t’as un profil générique.
  • Je quitte le site un peu frustré, sans vraiment avoir l’impression que je vais pouvoir commencer une conversation là-dessus.

Deuxième scénario.

J’arrive sur un site qui supporte Disqus (par exemple Mashable).

  • Je peux envoyer un commentaire en tant que guest.

You are commenting as a Guest. Optional: Login below.

Donc, si je veux seulement laisser un commentaire anonyme, c’est tout ce que j’ai à faire. «Merci, bonsoir!»

Même sans me brancher, je peux faire des choses avec les commentaires déjà présents (Like, Reply).

Mais je peux aussi me brancher avec mes profils Disqus, Facebook (avec Facebook Connect), ou Twitter (avec OAuth). Dans chaque cas, si je suis déjà branché sur ce compte dans mon browser, j’ai juste à cliquer pour autoriser l’accès. Même si je suis pas déjà branché, je peux m’identifier directement sur chaque site.

Après l’identification, je reviens tout de suite à la page où j’étais. Mon avatar s’affiche mais je peux le changer. Je peux aussi changer mon username, mais il est déjà inscrit. Mon avatar et mon nom sont liés à un profil assez complet, qui inclut mes derniers commentaires sur des sites qui supportent Disqus.

Sur le site où je commente, il y a une petite boîte avec un résumé de mon profil qui inclut un décompte des commentaires, le nombre de commentaires que j’ai indiqué comme “likes” et des points que j’ai acquis.

Je peux envoyer mon commentaire sur Twitter et sur Facebook en même temps. Je peux décider de recevoir des notices par courriel ou de m’abonner au RSS. Je vois tout de suite quel compte j’utilise (Post as…) et je peux changer de compte si je veux (personnel et pro, par exemple). Une fois que j’envoie mon commentaire, les autres visiteurs du site peuvent voir plus d’infos sur moi en passant avec la souris au-dessus de mon avatar et ils peuvent cliquer et avoir un dialogue modal avec un résumé de mon compte. Ce résumé mène évidemment sur le profil complet. Depuis le profil complet, les gens peuvent suivre mes commentaires ou explorer divers aspects de ma vie en-ligne.

Suite à mon commentaire, les gens peuvent aussi me répondre directement, de façon anonyme ou identifiée.

J’ai donc un profil riche en deux clics, avec beaucoup de flexibilité. Il y a donc un contexte personnel à mon commentaire.

L’aspect social est intéressant. Mon commentaire est identifié par mon profil et je suis identifié par mes commentaires. D’ailleurs, la plupart des avatars sur Mashable sont des vraies photos (ou des avatars génériques) alors que sur le forum xkcd, c’est surtout des avatars «conceptuels».

Ce que xkcd propose est plus proche du “in-group”. Les initiés ont déjà leurs comptes. Ils sont “in the know”. Ils ont certaines habitudes. Leurs signatures sont reconnaissables. L’auteur de la bd connaît probablement leurs profils de ses «vrais fans». Ces gens peuvent citer à peu près tout ce qui a été envoyé sur le site. D’ailleurs, ils comprennent toutes les blagues de la bd, ils ont les références nécessaires pour savoir de quoi l’auteur parle, que ça soit de mathématiques ou de science-fiction. Ils sont les premiers à envoyer des commentaires parce qu’ils savent à quel moment une nouvelle bd est envoyée. En fait, aller regarder une bd xkcd, ça fait partie de leur routine. Ils sont morts de rire à l’idée que certains ne savent pas encore que les vraies blagues xkcd sont dans les alt-text. Ils se font des inside-jokes en tout genre et se connaissent entre eux.

En ce sens, ils forment une «communauté». C’est un groupe ouvert mais il y a plusieurs processus d’exclusion qui sont en action à tout moment. Pour être accepté dans ce genre de groupe, faut faire sa place.

 

Les sites qui utilisent Disqus ont une toute autre structure. N’importe qui peut commenter n’importe quoi, même de façon anonyme. Ceux qui ne sont pas anonymes utilisent un profil consolidé, qui dit «voici ma persona de web social» (s’ils en ont plusieurs, ils présentent le masque qu’ils veulent présenter). En envoyant un commentaire sur Mashable, par exemple, ils ne s’impliquent pas vraiment. Ils construisent surtout leurs identités, regroupent leurs idées sur divers sujets. Ça se rapproche malgré tout de la notion de self-branding qui préoccupe tant des gens comme Isabelle Lopez, même si les réactions sont fortes contre l’idée de “branding”, dans la sphère du web social montréalaisn (la YulMob). Les conversations entre utilisateurs peuvent avoir lieu à travers divers sites. «Ah oui, je me rappelle d’elle sur tel autre blogue, je la suis déjà sur Twitter…». Il n’y a pas d’allégeance spécifique au site.

Bien sûr, il peut bien y avoir des initiées sur un site particulier. Surtout si les gens commencent à se connaître et qu’ils répondent aux commentaires de l’un et de l’autre. En fait, il peut même y avoir une petite «cabale» qui décide de prendre possession des commentaires sur certains sites. Mais, contrairement à xkcd (ou 4chan!), ça se passe en plein jour, mis en évidence. C’est plus “mainstream”.

Ok, je divague peut-être un peu. Mais ça me remet dans le bain, avant de faire mes présentations Yul– et IdentityCamp.

Sharing Tool Wishlist

The following is an edited version of a wishlist I had been keeping on the side. The main idea is to define what would be, in my mind, the “ultimate social bookmarking system.” Which, obviously, goes way beyond social bookmarking. In a way, I even conceive of it as the ultimate tool for sharing online content. Yes, it’s that ambitious. Will it ever exist? Probably not. Should it exist? I personally think so. But I may be alone in this. Surely, you’ll tell me that I am indeed alone, which is fine. As long as you share your own wishlist items.

The trigger for my posting this is that someone contacted me, asking for what I’d like in a social bookmarking system. I find this person’s move quite remarkable, as a thoughtful strategy. Not only because this person contacted me directly (almost flattering), but because such a request reveals an approach to listening and responding to people’s needs that I find lacking in some software development circles.

This person’s message served as a prompt for my blogging this, but I’ve been meaning to blog this for a while. In fact, my guess is that I created a first version of this wishlist in 2007 after having it on my mind for a while before that. As such, it represents a type of “diachronic” or “longitudinal” view of social bookmarking and the way it works in the broader scheme of social media.

Which also means that I wrote this before I heard about Google Wave. In fact, I’m still unclear about Google Wave and I’ll need to blog about that. Not that I expect Wave to fulfill all the needs I set up for a sharing tool, but I get the impression that Google is finally putting some cards on the table.

The main part of this post is in outline form. I often think through outlines, especially with such a type of notes. I fully realize that it may not be that clear, as a structure, for other people to understand. Some of these bullet points cover a much broader issue than what they look like. But the overall idea might be fairly obvious to grasp, even if it may sound crazy to other people.

I’m posting this to the benefit of anyone who may wish to build the killer app for social media. Of course, it’s just one man’s opinion. But it’s my entitled opinion.

Concepts

What do we share online?

  • “Link”
  • “Page”
  • Identified content
  • Text
    • Narrative
    • Contact information
    • Event description
  • Contact information
  • Event invitation
  • Image
  • Recording
  • Structured content
  • Snippet
  • Access to semi-private content
  • Site’s entry point

Selective sharing

Private
  • Archiving
  • Cloud access
Individually shared
  • “Check this out”
  • Access to address book
  • Password protection
  • Specialization/expertise
  • Friendship
Group shared
  • Shared interests (SIG)
  • Collaboration (task-based)
Shared through network
  • Define identity in network
  • Semi-public
Public
  • Publishing
  • Processed
  • Reading lists

Notetaking

  • Active reading
  • Anchoring text
  • Ad hoc list of bookmarks
  • “Empty URL”
    • Create container/page
    • Personal notes

Todos

  • To read
  • To blog
  • To share
  • To update
  • Projects
    • GTD
    • Contexts
  • Add to calendar (recognized as event)

Outlining/Mindmapping

  • Manage lists of links
  • Prioritize
  • Easily group

Social aspects of sharing

  • Gift economy
  • Personal interaction
  • Trust
  • Hype
  • Value
  • Customized

Cloud computing

  • Webware
  • “Online disk”
  • Without download
  • Touch devices
  • Edit online

Personal streaming

  • Activities through pages
  • Logging
  • Flesh out personal profile

Tagging

  • “Folksonomy”
  • Enables non-hierarchical structure
  • Semantic fields
  • Related tags
  • Can include hierarchy
  • Tagclouds define concept map

Required Features

Crossplatform, crossbrowser

  • Browser-specific tools
  • Bookmarklets
  • Complete access through cloud
Keyboard shortcuts
  • Quick add (to account)
  • Vote
  • Bookmark all tabs (à la Flock)
  • Quick tags

Related pages

Recommended
  • Based on social graph
  • Based on tags
  • Based on content
  • Based on popularity
  • Pointing to this page

Quickly enter links

  • Add in place (while editing)
  • Similar to “spell as you type”
  • Incremental search
  • Add full link (title, URL, text, metadata)

Archiving

  • Prevent linkrot
  • Prepare for post-processing (offline reading, blogging…)
  • Enable bulk processing
  • Maintain version history
  • Internet Archive

Automatic processing

  • Tags
  • Summary
  • Wordcount
  • Reading time
  • Language(s)
  • Page structure analysis
  • Geotagging
  • Vote

Thread following

  • Blog comments
  • Forum comments
  • Trackbacks
  • Pings

Exporting

All
  • Archiving
  • Prepare for import
  • Maintain hierarchy
Selected
  • Tag
  • Category
  • Recently used
  • Shared
  • Site homepage
  • Blogroll
  • Blogs
Formats
  • Other services
  • HTML
  • RSS
  • OPML
  • Widget
Features
  • Comments
  • Tags
  • Statistics
  • Content

Offline processing

  • Browser-based
  • Device based
  • Offline archiving
  • Include content
  • Synchronization

Microblogging support

  • Laconi.ca/Identi.ca
  • Twitter
  • Ping.fm
  • Jaiku

Fixed/Static URL

  • Prevent linkrot
  • Maintain list for same page
  • Short URLs
  • Automatically generated
  • Expansion on mouseover
  • Statistics

Authentication

  • Use of resources
  • Identify
  • Privacy
  • Unnecessary for basic processing
  • Sticks (no need to login frequently)
  • Access to contacts and social graph
  • Multiple accounts
    • Personal/professional
    • Contexts
    • Group accounts
  • Premium accounts
    • Server space
    • Usage statistics
    • Promotion
  • Support
    • OpenID
      • As group login
    • Google Accounts
    • Facebook Connect
    • OAuth

Integration

  • Web history
  • Notebook
  • Blogging platform
  • Blog editor
  • Microblogging platform
  • Logbook
  • General purpose content editor
  • Toolbar
  • URL shortening
  • Address book
  • Social graph
  • Personal profile
  • Browser
    • Bookmarks
    • History
    • Autocomplete
  • Analytics
  • Email
  • Search
    • Online
    • Offline

Related Tools

  • Diigo
  • WebCitation
  • Ping.fm
  • BackType
  • Facebook share
  • Blog This
  • Link This
  • Share this
  • Digg
  • Plum
  • Spurl
  • CoComments
  • MyBlogLog
  • TwtVite
  • Twistory
  • Windows Live Writer
  • Magnolia
  • Stumble Upon
  • Delicious
  • Google Reader
  • Yahoo Pipes
  • Google Notebook
  • Zoho Notebook
  • Google Browser Sync
  • YouTube
  • Flock
  • Zotero

Relevant Blogposts

Gender and Culture

A friend sent me a link to the following video:

JC Penney: Beware of the Doghouse | Creativity Online.

In that video, a man is “sent to the doghouse” (a kind of prison for insensitive men) because he offered a vacuum cleaner to his wife. It’s part of a marketing campaign through which men are expected to buy diamonds to their wives and girlfriends.

The campaign is quite elaborate and the main website for the campaign makes interesting uses of social media.

For instance, that site makes use of Facebook Connect as a way to tap viewers’ online social network. FC is a relatively new feature (the general release was last week) and few sites have been putting it to the test. In this campaign’s case, a woman can use her Facebook account to connect to her husband or boyfriend and either send him a warning about his insensitivity to her needs (of diamonds) or “put him in the doghouse.” From a social media perspective, it can accurately be described as “neat.”

The site also uses Share This to facilitate the video‘s diffusion  through various social media services, from WordPress.com to Diigo. This tends to be an effective strategy to encourage “viral marketing.” (And, yes, I fully realize that I actively contribute to this campaign’s “viral spread.”)

The campaign could be a case study in social marketing.

But, this time, I’m mostly thinking about gender.

Simply put, I think that this campaign would fare rather badly in Quebec because of its use of culturally inappropriate gender stereotypes.

As I write this post, I receive feedback from Swedish ethnomusicologist Maria Ljungdahl who shares some insight about gender stereotypes. As Maria says, the stereotypes in this ad are “global.” But my sense is that these “global stereotypes” are not that compatible with local culture, at least among Québécois (French-speaking Quebeckers).

See, as a Québécois born and raised as a (male) feminist, I tend to be quite gender-conscious. I might even say that my gender awareness may be somewhat above the Québécois average and gender relationships are frequently used in definitions of Québécois identity.

In Québécois media, advertising campaigns portraying men as naïve and subservient have frequently been discussed. Ten or so years ago, these portrayals were a hot topic (searches for Brault & Martineau, Tim Hortons, and Un gars, une fille should eventually lead to appropriate evidence). Current advertising campaigns seem to me more subtle in terms of male figures, but careful analysis would be warranted as discussions of those portrayals are more infrequent than they have been in the past.

That video and campaign are, to me, very US-specific. Because I spent a significant amount of time in Indiana, Massachusetts, and Texas, my initial reaction while watching the video had more to do with being glad that it wasn’t the typical macrobrewery-style sexist ad. This reaction also has to do with the context for my watching that video as I was unclear as to the gender perspective of the friend who sent me the link (a male homebrewer from the MidWest currently living in Texas).

By the end of the video, however, I reverted to my Québécois sensibility. I also reacted to the obvious commercialism, partly because one of my students has been working on engagement rings in our material culture course.

But my main issue was with the presumed insensitivity of men.

Granted, part of this is personal. I define myself as a “sweet and tendre man” and I’m quite happy about my degree of sensitivity, which may in fact be slightly higher than average, even among Québécois. But my hunch is that this presumption of male insensitivity may not have very positive effects on the perception of such a campaign. Québécois watching this video may not groan but they may not find it that funny either.

There’s a generational component involved and, partly because of a discussion of writing styles in a generational perspective, I have been thinking about “generations” as a useful model for explaining cultural diversity to non-ethnographers.

See, such perceived generational groups as “Baby Boomers” and “Generation X” need not be defined as monolithic, monadic, bounded entities and they have none of the problems associated with notions of “ethnicity” in the general public. “Generations” aren’t “faraway tribes” nor do they imply complete isolation. Some people may tend to use “generational” labels in such terms that they appear clearly defined (“Baby Boomers are those individuals born between such and such years”). And there is some confusion between this use of “historical generations” and what the concept of “generation” means in, say, the study of kinship systems. But it’s still relatively easy to get people to think about generations in cultural terms: they’re not “different cultures” but they still seem to be “culturally different.”

Going back to gender… The JC Penney marketing campaign visibly lumps together people of different ages. The notion seems to be that doghouse-worthy male insensitivity isn’t age-specific or related to inexperience. The one man who was able to leave the doghouse based on his purchase of diamonds is relatively “age-neutral” as he doesn’t really seem to represent a given age. Because this attempt at crossing age divisions seems so obvious, I would assume that it came in the context of perceived differences in gender relationships. Using the logic of those who perceive the second part of the 20th Century as a period of social emancipation, one might presume that younger men are less insensitive than older men (who were “brought up” in a cultural context which was “still sexist”). If there are wide differences in the degree of sensitivity of men of different ages, a campaign aiming at a broad age range needs to diminish the importance of these differences. “The joke needs to be funny to men of all ages.”

The Quebec context is, I think, different. While we do perceive the second part of the 20th Century (and, especially, the 1970s) as a period of social emancipation (known as the “Quiet Revolution” or «Révolution Tranquille»), the degree of sensitivity to gender issues appears to be relatively level, across the population. At a certain point in time, one might have argued that older men were still insensitive (at the same time as divorcées in their forties might have been regarded as very assertive) but it seems difficult to make such a distinction in the current context.

All this to say that the JC Penney commercial is culturally inappropriate for Québécois society? Not quite. Though the example I used was this JC Penney campaign, I’m thinking about broader contexts for Québécois identity (for a variety of personal reasons, including the fact that I have been back in Québec for several months, now).

My claim is…

Ethnographic field research would go a long way to unearth culturally appropriate categories which might eventually help marketers cater to Québécois.

Of course, the agency which produced that JC Penney ad (Saatchi & Saatchi) was targeting the US market (JC Penney doesn’t have locations in Quebec) and I received the link through a friend in the US. But it was an interesting opportunity for me to think and write about a few issues related to the cultural specificity of gender stereotypes.