Social groups and social networking sites

There's been an interesting discussion going on on the AIR-L (Internet researchers) mailing list over the last couple of days, triggered by a posting by Barry Wellman, about social networking sites and their varying demographics. For example, one contributor suggested that some social groups see facebook as being middle-class, even elitist, compared with sites like myspace and bebo.

If there is evidence to support this (and to be fair, the comments were only tentative) this would would have potentially important implications for those of us thinking these tools in social action settings, or in education more widely. Arguably, these social differences may be rather more significant factors in choosing online environments than relatively minor functional or presentational differences between the services.

Steve

Future of the Internet for the Voluntary & Community Sector - Wakefield

Earlier on this week I gave a talk at an event 'The Future of the Internet for the Voluntary and Community Sector', organised by Voluntary Action Wakefield and District (VAWD), on Web 2.0.
Paul Webster at of the ICTHub, and based in Sheffield blogged the event and has posted a copy of the slides I used, at
http://watfordgap.wordpress.com/2007/05/22/live-web-in-wakefield/ as well as some photos of the event on flickr.com ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_walker/tags/vawd/.

Below are some notes I produced as a handout, for people new to the ideas of Web 2.0 to start their explorations. I've put other links which I used in my presentation but which are not included below at: http://del.icio.us/steve_walker/vawd

A very brief introduction to Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has emerged as something of a buzzword over the last eighteen months. While use of the term varies, common characteristics are: user-generated content, participation, and, at more technical level, bringing together data and services from different sources to create new applications.

Blogs (short for web logs) are probably the most widely known example of a web 2.0 application, though they have been around for longer than the term web 2.0. Other examples include ‘wikis’ – web sites that allow anyone to edit a page, video sharing sites like youtube.com, and ‘social networking’ web sites, of which the best known is myspace.com, which allow people to link up with others with similar interests.

Since doing is often the best route to learning, a good way to get a feel for web 2.0 in general, and its potential uses in the voluntary sector, is to have a look. Below there is a list of web 2.0 sites below and examples of their use by voluntary and community organisations, that you can explore at your convenience. I will be presenting and discussing some of these in my presentation. These examples are intended to act as a starting point and to give some ideas for how these technologies might be used. They are certainly not in any way exhaustive or definitive!

While web 2.0 offers obvious possibilities it is important also to bear in mind that it is evolving, and brings with it some challenges and risks as well as opportunities. Some of the risks might include the emergence of websites of unclear origin which undermine activities of established voluntary organisations, data protection, co-ordination of activities ‘cyberbullying’ and a permanent, highly public record of individuals and organisations, including indiscretions which might best be forgotten.. It is important, then, that we try to evaluate and share experiences, both good and bad, in this area.

Steve Walker, May 2007

Site/application with description/examples

• 3rdsectorpedia.net - http://www.3rdsectorpedia.net/ is an embryonic encyclopaedia for the 3rd sector using wiki technology: that is, anybody can edit a page. You might want, for example, to add a page in an appropriate place about your own organisation.

• Blogs Derived from ‘web log’, or online journal sites like www.blogger.com (owned by Google) make publishing on the web particularly easy. Other variants include audioblogs and videoblogs. Google has a Some of the very many blogs with might be of interest in the voluntary sector are:

• Kevin Harris’ Neighbourhoods - http://neighbourhoods.typepad.com/neighbourhoods/

• David Wilcox’s Designing for Civil Society - http://partnerships.typepad.com/civic/index.html

• Candoexchange - http://www.candoexchange.org/ Established by the Scarman Trust, the site aims to allow the exchange of skills and resources between those who have them and those who need them, to support community development. It’s well worth creating an account and having a look at some of the groups here.

• Del.icio.us - Allows sharing and tagging (classification) of bookmarks. These can also be assembled into a ‘roll’ and included in another web page, such as a blog as at the side of this article.
  

• Flickr.com - Photo sharing site owned by Yahoo!. Photos can be uploaded for sharing publicly or with a limited audience. While some photos are highly professional, high production values are not necessary. Photos can be assembled into slide shows, as in the two examples below.

• Save our NHS demonstration, London - http://www.flickr.com/photos/james_2005/sets/72157594355642165/show/

• Greenpeace demonstration, Didcot power station - http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenpeaceuk/sets/72157594365013224/

• Google Docs & Spreadsheets http://docs.google.com/ allows you create documents and spreadsheets online and share them with colleagues – for example if multiple people need to edit the same document.

• Meetup.com A site to arrange face to face meetings with like-minded people living locally. Some examples local to Wakefield include:

• Pro Choice - http://prochoice.meetup.com/cities/gb/wakefield/

• Single Parents - http://singleparents.meetup.com/cities/gb/wakefield/

• Multiple Sclerosis - http://ms.meetup.com/cities/gb/wakefield/

• Myspace.com - the best known of the ‘social networking’ web sites which allow users to establish a profile and link to friends. Some campaigns have a presence in ‘MySpace’, particularly those with a particular orientation to young people:

• Anti-bullying - http://www.myspace.com/stopbullyingnow

• Children with AIDS Charity -http://www.myspace.com/childrenwithaidscharity

• Pledgebank.com - this site lets you make pledges, conditional on others doing the same: ‘I will if you will’. Example pledges include:

• Setting up a residents’ association - http://www.pledgebank.com/southchingford

• Donate to a local charity -http://www.pledgebank.com/Hallswood

• Organise a ‘Love Music, Hate racism’ event - http://www.pledgebank.com/rawfeat

• RealityCharity.com Reality Charity at http://www.realitycharity.com/ claims to be the ‘ebay of giving’ linking donor and recipient directly, cutting out the ‘middle man’. For my personal views see my blog entry below.

• Skype - http://www.skype.com/ is the best known internet telephony company, supporting free audio and video calls across the Internet, free audio conferencing (which can be a very useful tool for distributed project work) and reduced costs for international calls.

• Technology and Social Action The http://www.technologyandsocialaction.org/ is used to co-ordinate and develop links between researchers and practitioners working on the ue of ICT in ‘social action’ settings.

• Upcoming.com A way of announcing forthcoming events. One interesting use of this site is to share information about events at which BSL interpretation is available for deaf people.

• Forthcoming events with BSL English interpretation - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/tag/bslenglishinterpreter/

• Wayfaring.com A site for sharing locations on maps: for example, I created the map below to show parents where all of the cricket grounds are of sites in our local junior cricket league.

• Wetherby League Cricket Grounds - http://www.wayfaring.com/maps/show/35312

• Wikipedia.org By far the best known example of a ‘wiki’ web site that anyone (sort of) can edit. Check out the page on the voluntary sector: if you disagree or think something’s missing, you can always change it… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_sector

• YouTube.com Video sharing site owned by Google. As the examples below show, while some videos are professionally produced, lower production value videos can also have significant impact. Examples:

• Age Concern - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw-Z0xa_pIk

• Save Longridge Wood, Teeside - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-kViCjAbE

• Kick Out Homophobic Bullying in Schools - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N2BEdyUQQo

• Kings Clipstone Community Road and Traffic Safety Campaign - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_ZtmfMXsS4

There are many more examples. If you want to explore further, you might find directories like http://www.go2web20.net/ or http://www.listio.com/apps/ interesting places to start, but beware – there are a lot and this can eat up the hours!

Reality Charity

I've just come across a web site realitycharity.com which aims to become the 'eBay of philanthropy', disintermediating the process of donating to charity and voluntary organisations. Itaims to match recipients of funding directly with donors. The overheads of running a charitable organisation are thus circumvented. On the face of it , this sounds a rather laudable aim, but a quick tour around the site certainly left me feeling uneasy, for several reasons.

Firstly, while there have undoubtedly been some rogue 'charities', and there is always a danger of becoming self-serving, the organisations do provide opportunities to accumlate expertise and learning. They are not, generally, simply siphoning off donors' money for their own benefit. This can be particularly important, for example, in areas such as development where the manner of using resources can be as important as their mere availability. The premise supports a general view that professionals working in non-profit and public organisations are self-serving bureaucrats. Secondly, it turns the recipient effectively into a beggar in a 'boutique' of worthy causes. My 10-minute scan seemed to support this concern, with a rather high number of photographs of younger women. I would be very surprised if this demographic coincided with need in the US or globally. Thirdly, there seem no obvious safeguards of whether the recipients' needs are actually as presented. Fourthly, the web site is, interestingly a .com, and a not-for-profit company under US law. They charge a 'small fee' to cover the costs of the electronic transaction. THeir FAQ, at least, seems rather evasive on exactly how they are financed and organised.

The 'disintermediation' argument is often attractive, but also often misleading: real skills and resources may be involved in mediation (it is, for example, why many rely primarily on professional journalists despite the 'blogosphere'). In any case, it is usually more accurately described as re-intermediation, though it's often unclear quite who the new intermediaries are and what the governance arrangements are.


Steve

Pledge generates support

I received the following in my email this morning:

"The pledge, created by J Christie, read: 'I will arrange for
my MP to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' book "The God
Delusion" but only if 645 other people (one per UK
constituency) will do the same for other MPs.' The 646th person
has signed the pledge, just moments ago."

I signed this pledge a couple of months ago at pledgebank.com another of Tom Steinberg's web sites aimed at promoting citizens' action. I must admit to being impressed but slightly surprised that some has committed to doing this for every MP in the country. I'm in some pretty esteemed company, too, if the list of signatories is to be believed: as well as Dawkins himself, there's Sir Bernard Crick. Humanist organisations in N. Ireland also seem particularly active.

It will be interesting to see how much (if any) mainstream press coverage is generated by this, compared with that generated by the petition on road pricing generated by another of his ideas. There are plenty of other successful pledges (you can see them via the site). Most are pretty modest: the God Delusion pledge was perhaps the most ambitious yet (in terms of the number and distribution of people required, if not the ambition of the objective). It'll be interesting to see if and how this develops as a form of social and political action.

Off to the bookshop tomorrow, then.

Steve

Uniting Humanity

For the last 3 days I’ve been at a workshop in Dublin as part of a Scarman Trust project Uniting Humanity. The workshop brought together activist/adult educators working on a range of perspectives and issues (including anti-slavery, climate change and labour rights) to develop ideas of advocacy and global citizenship. The workshop was organised around ‘micro-teaching’ activities prepared by workshop participants, to share both content and practices. Discussions around these activities were always stimulating.

I picked up the URLs of some useful web sites which I've just tagged with del.icio.us (see right, for the time being). The project tried to use Moodle to support working between the workshops, without a great deal of success and are now moving to Blackboard at the University of Gavle in Sweden.

Among other things I’ve learned is that flickr, in Dutch, is (or at least is a homophone for) an derogatory term for a gay…

Design in Technology and Social Action

At the beginning of the week, a PRADSA project meeting started to scope out the fieldwork element of the project, including an initial literature review. We're interested in both formally published academic works, but also relevant practitioner and 'grey' literatures. If you know of resources that you think would be useful to us, please feel free to let us know (e.g. by commenting this blog).

Thanks,
Steve

Email from Tony

I received my email from Tony last week, having signed the anti-road pricing petition. There were several irritations in it, but of most relevance here is the tone and implicit attitude to debate of the email. It offered a number of opportunities to read what the government and others have said, but only a very restricted opportunity to continue the debate, or to try to find out why people might object to the proposed solution, even while accepting the premise that there is a problem. [For the record, and having seen some of the pro-car crazies associated with petition, my objection is to the market mechanism. This will have the effect of clearing lower income people off the roads in order to make driving a more pleasant experience for the better off. Some form of rationing would at least be equitable (unused miles could even be auctioned on something like ebay). At the moment the payment by time is at least equitable: there are only 24 hours in a day, whatever your income.] Of course, there's no way to express this sort of variation of opinion in the model of e-democracy envisaged by the Cabinet Office - which is absolutely no criticism of Tom Steinberg's work in designing e-petitions, which has had the effect of opening up this debate. The options for responding are below.

Further information

Both the 10 Downing Street and Department for Transport websites offer much more information about road pricing.

This includes a range of independent viewpoints, both for and against.

You can also read the Eddington Report in full.

You can reply to this email by posting a question to Roads Minister Dr. Stephen Ladyman in a webchat on the No 10 website this Thursday.

There will be further opportunities in the coming months to get involved in the debate. You will receive one final e-mail from Downing Street to update you in due course.

If you would like to opt out of receiving further mail on this or any other petitions you signed, please email optout@petitions.pm.gov.uk