[Air-l] social network migration

[Conor Schaefer]

I think that data portability would lead to aggregation and 
homogenization in the sense Gail was talking about. The mere fact that 
each site demands that a user reenter fundamental facts when signing up 
gives the opportunity--and perhaps even increases the likelihood--of the 
user designing different personae for each site. It's this diverse part 
of SNS that is so appealing to a lot of researchers, I think.

For some reason, this aspect seems "new" and unique to technology to a 
lot of researchers; like this doesn't happen in face-to-face 
interactions, for instance. On this subject, can anyone point me to 
research which does draw parallels between the two paradigms?

-Conor

Michael Zimmer wrote:
> That's why I'd argue for data portability, not aggregation. Allow my  
> to choose my own context for which to share my personal information.  
> If I tire of the culture at Facebook, I should be able to easily port  
> my profile to another site.
>
> No?
>
> On Jul 2, 2007, at 4:23 PM, 'Gail Taylor wrote:
>
>   
>> I am hesitant to say 'yes' to the suggestion there should be a way  
>> to aggregate social networking sites. I think it would lead to  
>> homogenization of practices for the user, who is currently having a  
>> 'multi-cultural' experience interacting with others in various  
>> online spaces. For example, the culture of Facebook is similar, but  
>> also different, than what one might expect hanging out in MySpace  
>> or other product that enables networking with others. This approach  
>> to aggregating processes is also one that decontextualizes  
>> information that is extracted from other souces, as opposed to  
>> allowing the user to interact in an environment where the  
>> information would be contextualized. There would be advantages and  
>> drawbacks to this approach. Depending on the knowledge and  
>> expertise of the people developing the aggregator, the program  
>> could be great or not so great for the end user.
>>
>> /Gail
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------
>> Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed.
>> University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
>> Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student
>> Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant
>> Library & Information Science Research Assistant
>>
>> "Technology enables man to gain control
>> over everything except technology." --
>> Unknown
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