sinéad's lifestream

I’d never known anyone to keep chickens out their back garden, until a good friend of mine did just that. She’s now the proud owner of 6 gorgeous little characters who don’t seem to want to lay any eggs. I had suggested to her that she should blog her experience, a challenge that she quickly undertook.

The first few blog posts came faster than I expected and even included photos of the girls. Though she has always been slightly more technical than most, she did manage to bork the blog as soon as I took my eye of it. For some reason she went and turned all of her blog posts into pages, in the process breaking the theme she was using, as it could only handle 3 short page names/links in the navigation.

The next time I visited I offered to show her how to fix the blog (let’s just say she’s still in the process of fixing it). I asked her about changing the posts to pages and she explained “My blog posts we’re appearing in the menu” and when I explained to her about the linear nature of blogging she asked “How would anyone know that my other blog posts were there?” It was then my task to explain how categories and tagging worked, but this surprised me because I knew that she was an avid blog reader and internet user.

It was then that I began truly questioning the usability of blog navigation. We assume that readers are using tags and categories as navigational tools, but what if they’re really stumbling through the content, using the awkward archives and calendar tools? Or simply reading from finish to start? If a user enters a blog via a google search can they successfully navigate back to the home page? If every blog has its own list of different categories, how do users know where to look? Is your blog taxonomy even understood?

I recently read, on the iQcontent blog, about how visually impaired users must listen to every piece of navigation on a webpage with their screen-readers. This immediately made me wonder about the persistent nature of blogrolls, how they feature on the majority of blogs and on every single page. Are they successful at getting hits for other members of your blogosphere? Or are they just social badges, worn to show off your affiliations?

Blogs make it easier for everyone to publish to the net, but does this, in turn, make navigating the web harder for everyone else? This is something that requires further investigation, especially considering that there is a shift occurring online where entire websites are being replaced by blogs. But are they in fact borking the entire web?

Journal of CyberPsychology & Behavior, Vol 11, No.4: The current issue of this bimonthly journal offers access to research studies on topics such as public and private self-consciousness on social networking sites, online consumer trust, adolescent behaviour online, interactive movies, product placement in gaming, and cyberbullying.

Psychological Aspects of Cyberspace: Theory, Research, Applications: This blog contains each individual chapter from the newly published book of the same name. Readers are invited to read each chapter and comment or ask questions of the individual writers. Topics covered include privacy and trust online, internet abuse, flow states, cybertheraputic theory and techniques and sexual activities online. It’s wonderful to see an entire book on the topic of Cyberpsychology readily available online and open to discussion. Very much looking forward to reading all of these chapters.

For your eyes only: Custom interfaces make computer clicking faster, easier: University of Washington engineers discuss a new approach to software design. They propose that instead of standard off the shelf user interface designs, that by putting the user through a brief skills test a mathematically-based version of the user interface could be generated that is optimized for the user’s vision and motor abilities. This research is especially important for the disabled, elderly or anyone that has difficulty using a computer mouse.

The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children: This research study found that background television, disrupts very young children’s play behavior even when they pay little overt attention to it and even when tuned to adult themed shows. Background television was found to cause short play episode lengths, which are a marker for poor developmental outcome. These findings are important because play is directly related to healthy cognitive and social development. Related Article: TV Really Might Cause Autism

Internet users refuse to put up with intrusive ads: From 1000+ internet users sampled 59% indicated that they had stopped visiting a website because of irrelevant, annoying and intrusive online ads (including pop-ups that cover web content, loud noises and ads that were difficult to close, minimise or click away from). This study relates back to my own undergraduate research on pop-up advertisements, where I found that the more experienced a user the more likely they are to actively attempt to remove pop-ups from their online experience. Web designers need to start paying attention to research and surveys such as these, or as demonstrated, users will stop visiting certain websites completely.

If anyone has anything they’d like to contribute to the next digest, or related articles for this volume, feel free to drop me a comment or an e-mail – Sinéad.

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4

As part of the Darklight Festival over the weekend a number of symposiums were held to discuss and debate various popular topics related to the online world. I was invited to be a member of the audience by the organisers and found the experience to be rather… interesting.

Privacy vs. Publicity in the Virtual World

Daniel Solove, author of “The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet” (available for free here) opened this discussion with various anecdotes pertaining to the negative effects of personal details being shared online, either on purpose i.e. through your personal blog, or without the person’s consent e.g. the Star Wars Kid. Coming from a background in law, Solove suggests that the only way to curtail personal details being posted online without your consent is by the threat of legal action being more heavily employed.

“Be responsible”

Solove suggests that allowing anonymity online is irresponsible as it removes any control we have over our personal data (e.g. intimate personal details being posted online without consent) and that the law can only do so much to provide protection. For example, while it may be possible for a photographer to have an unapproved photo removed from an unlicensed website, the individual in the photo has no legal standing. This is because copyright law is much more powerful than privacy law.

“Intertwined with the lives of others”

Solove described how we all have expectations of privacy and anonymity in public, despite always being exposed and how this notion of privacy is mistakenly expected online. Claiming that 50% of bloggers were under the age of 19, he described these Internet users as “Generation Google” – individuals that have had their lives chronicled online, leaving behind fragments of their past that are pervasive and destructive to their future.

Opinion

I disagree with Solove’s judgment that anonymity is irresponsible on the part of ISP’s and websites that encourage and allow it. Anonymity online has always provided Internet users with a constructive means for liberal expression and play, without the risk of social impairment. Though anonymity provides users the facility to post lies online without any apparent risk (except in a serious case where your IP address might be used against you), the power of an anonymous message is certainly not as strong as a message coming from a reputable source.

“Generation Google” is something that I myself am a part of, but it is a heavily constructed and thought out self, which is something anyone reading a blog or a social networking profile needs to consider. Using google search results as a basis for a decision on a job or college applicant is something that I would consider irresponsible, and lazy. Nothing we post online is a 100% true reflection of ourselves, imagine a youthful, boastful comment left on a friend’s social networking profile that might actually be sarcastic or part of an in-joke. It’s all about context, and if the context is unknown then the information is invalid. It is lazy to think otherwise.

Panel Discussion

Following this keynote address was a panel discussion chaired by Caroline Campbell, featuring Jim Carroll, Cormac Callanan, Niall Larkin (read his thoughts on this symposium here) and Damien “almost blogs for a living” Mulley. Daithí Mac Sithigh was also in the audience and has written up a great summary of the panel discussion.

“Whatever goes on the Internet stays on the Internet”

The most prevalent message from this one-sided discussion was that everything you do online is being used to build behavioural profiles for marketing and advertising. On Facebook (and probably other social networking websites) your actions are logged and combined with your profile information for contextual marketing and advertising. Sophisticated data mining tools are used in Gmail and other free online services. Law enforcement in the US use these data mining techniques to track down possible terrorists and it was suggested that all of these combined could lead to surveillance and stalking by commercial and non-commercial companies for negative reasons, debt-collection is an example used by a member of the audience.

Privacy in this instance is not about the actual collection of the data, it’s what happens to it afterwards. Suggestions were made that it would be preferable to have access to this profile and to be notified when your data is being accessed and by whom. However, when Mulley asked the audience “Who actually cares?” a minority raised their hands.

Opinion

In my opinion, many of the members of the panel seemed to be scaremongering the audience. It would have been a more interesting discussion if even one of the members of the panel was under 30 (correct me if I’m wrong). All of them seemed quite outraged by the idea that their personal details and behaviour online could be used to help companies make more money. I would argue that there are many positive things about this type of data mining, for example, attempts (unsuccessful so far) at contextualising advertising on websites such as Facebook.

Contextual ads make advertisements entertaining and informative. Personally, I’d rather this than being bombarded with irrelevant ads (like when I watch television). However, this does not mean that the advertising is more successful because of this. Despite the fear of behavioural profiles being sold to marketing and advertising executives, these sets of data are in no way accurate at predicting human behaviour. Behaviour changes on a daily basis and can’t be actualised using selective pieces of information we ourselves post into the likes of social networking websites. Our reactions to advertising and products can change based on far too many variables for a behavioural profile to predict.

Websites like Facebook and Google give us a service and our payment to them is our content. Without our content these websites are completely useless and no-one would be willing to pay for them. It’s naive for anyone to think that you can get something for nothing online and if you’ve nothing to hide, why be so afraid of a little data mining? How does this even affect your every day life? I would argue that it doesn’t. It’s a pity the panel were so strongly of the opinion that it was 100% negative. I do however agree that users signing up to these services might need to be informed more readily of the fact that their data might be used in this manner.

The question is – Do you care? (Take a second to Take the poll or leave a comment below).

Becs has “tagged” me… so I am required to describe myself in 6 words (either 6 individual words or a 6 word sentence) and then “pass it on” to other people (Liam, Darragh, David – you’ve been tagged!). This is my 6 word sentence:

“Wants to know something about everything.”

In a bold move (inspired by my wonderful foe – procrastination) I’ve begun using Twitter – it’s like mini-blogging. So, if anyone is interested in finding out what I’ve been up to between blog posts, you can find out here. Although, I will warn you – if you’re a certain lecturer expecting a certain topic for a certain research proposal on Friday – do NOT click that link. Recently I started using Linkedin too – for social networking in professional circles.

It’s really interesting how different the web is to the Internet I first started using as a teen. Today there are so many incredible communications and social networking tools available online, but it has always seemed like everyone in the States have been consistently 100’s of steps ahead of us (the Irish) with regard to embracing these as valid methods of communication and expression. Although, 10 years ago I could barely manage to find a synchronous online conversation with anyone – because everyone was asleep after that faithful 6pm-the-dial-up-charges-are-cheaper hour. At least times are starting to change and there are a few (definitely not comparable to the Americans) Irish people using the likes of LinkedIN and Twitter.

When I really got thinking about it though, I realised how many different communication and social networking tools I had embraced in the past. It goes a little something like below…

E-mail address @ hotmail > Newsgroups > Chat Rooms @ Yahoo! > mIRC chat > American Message Boards > Home Page with Guestbook @ Geocities > E-mail address @ Yahoo! > Yahoo! Messenger > Own Group with Message Boards and Chat @ Yahoo! > MSN Messenger > Irish Message Boards > Livejournal > MySpace > Blog @ own hosting site > Youtube > Bebo > E-mail address @ Gmail > Gtalk > Facebook > Second Life > Flickr > LinkedIN > Twitter

It’s a strange progression as you move from one online communications technology to the next, thriving on the newness of each new site. But like all things, boredom soon sets in or your motivation for interacting with it diminishes and you move on. Even the Irish Bebo explosion, at least in my own social circles, has become recently very subdued. Which is surprising as I had assumed the new features (facebook like applications) would bring everyone back into the fold.

What causes so many of these once “revolutionary” websites to fall to the wayside? How is it that something new can come along and steal all your users/customers? Why aren’t interfaces upgraded and features added and removed? Why weren’t they tracking trends online to keep up with change? When there are existing social networks in place, wouldn’t it just be easier for us all to stay in one place, rather than moving to the next “big thing”.

I’ve only just caught up with everyone else online and have upgraded to the newest version of WordPress. In the upgrade I lost all of my tags and all of the customisation of my theme. Unfortunately, I’ll be stuck with the current blog design (which I’m not happy with at all) until I have more free time – currently trying to finish up a consumer psychology essay and write my thesis research proposal for the purposes of gaining ethical approval from the college.

As soon as college is wrapped up I think I might just build my own theme from the bottom up – it’s been a long time since I’ve had any web or graphic design projects, so it’ll be a nice challenge. If anyone has any experience in designing their own WordPress theme I would love to hear from you, or if anyone can steal Sabrina Dent‘s beautiful theme for me, that would be even better!

Not only are music fans beginning to prefer Wikipedia over Myspace for finding out information about musicians, other fans are using the Myspace forums and blogs to post links to their illegally uploaded mp3s. There are numerous threads within the music forums on Myspace that contain active and unbroken links to full album downloads.

This is rather interesting, especially considering that just recently Universal Music, Sony-BMG and Warner Music signed a deal with Myspace to create “Myspace Music” where fans can listen to free streaming music (of their choice, of course), whilst being bombarded with advertisements. All this, in an attempt to retrieve revenue lost, from… illegal mp3 file sharing.

I found these forums searching for information on the upcoming Breeders album, Mountain Battles, set for release on the 7th of April, only to find a leaked copy fully available to download.

The question is – was the temptation to download it too much? Or did I simply click the “report abuse” button and quickly move on.

What do you think?

I just spotted this rather interesting advertisement on Facebook. I wonder if my own face will be appearing along side the products and services that I am a fan of. I wonder what Tim thinks of his endorsement.

Tim is in my network of friends, so I assume this is why this ad has been targeted towards me. I must admit, it got my attention pretty quick and I’m very impressed. It is neither intrusive nor annoying because I actually care what my friends online might be a fan of, though, for those on FB with 100′s of friends they don’t actually know, this might be a tad annoying, especially if they are incompatible taste wise. Not like Timmy and I!

It’s a pity the ad wasn’t targeted enough to know that I’m already a fan of Phantom.

Loving the B3TA Star Trek image challenge. These are the ones that have made me laugh my ass off – USB Data, Cyberspace the final frontier, Star Trek the Blome Generation and 2 Girls 1 Cup. Hating that the site’s questionable content (the “occasional” badly drawn cock) means that I can’t access it from work.

Loving the work of Maria Schneider (staff writer at the Onion), her web-comic strips over at Pathetic Geek Stories are inspired by user submitted geeky childhood/teen confessionals that she illustrates, quite brilliantly. Setting up a dialogue with the individuals who submit their stories enables her to bring extra realism to each comic, thus making them hard not to identify with. Hating that I’m terrified to submit my own, as I do have some terribly embarrassing (thus humorous!) stories locked deep inside.

Loving Play.com, especially their fast delivery. Admittedly this site could use some work, especially in regards to the structure of it’s categorisation system, I actually use Amazon to browse but Play to purchase. The reason for this is because Play offer such good value for money and complete transparency, meaning that you known exactly how much you’re going to pay for an item before you’ve even added it to your shopping basket (as postage is included in each item price, rather than added on at the end). Being able to view the site in Euro is also a huge benefit, I hate trying to shop online and converting currency as I go along, it’s too messy. Hating Playtrade, half of the items I have tried to purchase from these “Playtraders” have turned out as being out of stock because they don’t update their inventories often enough.

Loving that the IFI is finally showing Grindhouse – the Planet Terror and Death Proof double-feature, including all the fake and fantastic movie trailers in the middle. Hating that it’s a Saturday and Sunday matinée showing only. Walking out into the light of day after these will not be pleasant.

A relatively inexpensive wireless technology that has been developed by Intel, with underdeveloped countries in mind, could work for rural Ireland.

The new technology can extend a wi-fi signal between two antennas up to a maximum of 96 miles. Considering Ireland is only about 190 miles wide, why not implement this kind of system? Rather than forcing Irish rural and island internet users to connect via ridiculously expensive satellite systems or leaving them lagging behind on dial-up.

Will someone please let the Department of “Communications” know about this, because according to Silicon Republic (and everyone else in the country) Ireland is below the EU Broadband average, and it’s all down to the rural “deficit”.