Last week, I talked about socialmaterialism and the new (emerging) social media. \u00a0I’m interested today in how companies are going to start exploiting that data.<\/p>\n
First, though, what do YOU think of when you think of social media? \u00a0A couple of years ago, I gave a talk to the Carolina Girl Geeks<\/a>\u00a0Dinner group on social media. \u00a0Imagine my surprise when we had somewhat different definitions of social media or even web 2.0. \u00a0Actually, I was not surprised at all. \u00a0Much of my research has started with an explicit definition of what technology I’m talking about so that the reader can figure out where to place it in his or her own conceptualizations (e.g., what is a virtual community and what is not).<\/p>\n So I do NOT include blogs or YouTube in my definitions of social media. \u00a0For me, the definition of social media includes an\u00a0explicit<\/strong> connection between users of the technology. \u00a0Facebook friends, twitter followers, and Google+ circles all have explicit connections between users that one can objectively see. \u00a0(I love that these media make explicit the social connections\/social networks that we’ve all had forever on FACE-TO-FACE interactions). \u00a0Some people may have groups that interact on blogs and\/or YouTube, but they are not social media per my definition. \u00a0Your definition may include them, which is why you should always state what it is.<\/p>\n ANYWHO, companies are starting to exploit those connections and one interesting (disturbing?) company ranks you on your “influence” on twitter and Facebook. \u00a0Actually, there are three companies doing it, apparently: \u00a0Klout<\/a>, PeerIndex<\/a>, and Twitter Grader<\/a>. \u00a0What is bizarre is that according to this NY Times article<\/a>, people who have a high klout index can get perks at hotels. \u00a0According to the developers, this makes our society more level because we are no longer depending on the amount of wealth or beauty someone has to make them more influential. \u00a0I would have imagined that “leveling the playing field” means everyone gets the upgrade, but that’s just me, apparently!<\/p>\n I honestly cannot imagine that these technologies are going to create a social media caste system (as the article claims) of people who get perks (a la Paris Hilton, currently) and those who don’t (like me, the vast majority of the time). \u00a0But I make no claim to predicting the future of technology: \u00a0I was the one who said that no one would ever use the World Wide Web because we already had FTP and Gopher. \u00a0Use Gopher much these days? \u00a0Yeah, me either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, I talked about socialmaterialism and the new (emerging) social media. \u00a0I’m interested today in how companies are going to start exploiting that data. First, though, what do YOU think of when you think of social media? \u00a0A couple of years ago, I gave a talk to the Carolina Girl Geeks\u00a0Dinner group on social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-technology-social-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67nDP-2e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":130,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2011\/08\/09\/sociomaterialism-and-emergent-social-media\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":0},"title":"Sociomaterialism and Emergent Social Media","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"August 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In the past week, danah boyd has written a couple of very interesting posts about Google + and their policy of not allowing people to post using pseudonyms. \u00a0In my research, it's rare to find people who want to be anonymous in their ongoing online interactions. \u00a0But many people do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/01\/23\/dooce-and-divorce\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":1},"title":"Dooce and Divorce","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"January 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, I was pretty shocked to hear that Dooce (aka Heather Armstrong) and her husband, Jon, have decided to to separate. \u00a0No, I'm not accidentally posting on my professional blog a topic that belongs on my personal blog (or maybe I am, but I'm choosing to do it anyway).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":253,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2014\/02\/12\/new-and-old-media\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":2},"title":"New and Old Media","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"February 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, we're waiting for the Winter Storm of the Decade to arrive. The kids are still asleep. \u00a0The husband is not yet driving nurses all over the county in scary weather. \u00a0And I'm not prepping for class because i'm pretty sure the University is going to be closed tomorrow. \u00a0Sounds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":364,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2019\/09\/18\/an-entitativity-measure-and-why\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":3},"title":"An Entitativity Measure and Why","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"September 18, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"For all you folks out there google searching for Entitativity (and there may be a few) and, in particular, for those of you looking for a validated measure of entitativity, I'd like to direct you to our published peer-reviewed paper in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. For the moment, though,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/DSC_0028.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/DSC_0028.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/DSC_0028.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/DSC_0028.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/DSC_0028.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/DSC_0028.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":172,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/02\/14\/dooce-sensemaking-and-community\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":4},"title":"Dooce, Sensemaking, and Community","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"February 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, that has been an interesting ride since my last post. \u00a0 First, who knew how many people would be searching the web to try to find out why Dooce is getting divorced? According to my site stats, about 700 have stopped by this site after conducting a web search\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":405,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2020\/07\/13\/the-difficulty-of-social-distancing\/","url_meta":{"origin":138,"position":5},"title":"The Difficulty of Social Distancing","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"My research focuses on\u00a0entitativity: a person's cognitive assessment that they are in a group.\u00a0 The classic example compares a \"group\" of people waiting for a bus stop compared to the same group of people at a cafe sharing coffee and conversations (pre-COVID, of course). The cafe is \"groupier\" than the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/07\/Friends.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/07\/Friends.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/07\/Friends.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}