Week 9 Board Discussions Pt3

Author: Sky Croeser
Date: Sunday, October 25, 2009 9:01:18 PM WST
Subject: Official ‘Introduction – Your Internet Footprint’ Thread

This part of the unit encourages you to think about how the online medium affects our communication with others. It will also encourage you think more deeply about how we present ourselves online, and the ways in which information about us accumulates online.

There are plenty of issues that could come out of the lecture, and the topic more generally. Here are a few to start you off, but don’t feel like you have to answer them all. Answer whichever questions are interesting to you, and feel free to raise other issues and ask other questions:

* How important is ‘netiquette’ in our presentation of self online? Why do you think this?
* What does your own Internet footprint look like at the moment?
* Did you try out the MIT personas installation? Were you surprised by the results? What does this tell you about the efficacy of data-mining?
* Do you think carefully about what identity you want to present
online?
* Do you use an avatar online? If you do, why did you pick that avatar?
* Do you agree that the presentation of identity has become technologised? What effects do you think this is having on us as individuals and as a society (or societies)?
* Are there cues or keys that you consistently look for in dealing with people online. What are they? Why are they important? Why are they important online?
* Do you agree that social media is a fundamental shift in how we communicate?
* How actively do you ‘read’ others’ profiles online? Do you look for clues as to who other Internet users are in their online content?

Netiquette is very important, the number of times you get an email and its all caps, you just know that the person behind the text does not care. It is very impolite not to exercise netiquette and I believe it can tell you about a person just by their type. Just like in real life you are rude, abuse and yell you will not get very far, whereas if you are polite and show respect you will get a lot more out of people.

Currently I do not have much of an Internet footprint; I use Facebook and was using MySpace for wahile before leaving that. I just did a quick Google search and found my Net11 Blog and my Facebook page, that’s about it. On the other hand my company name has 100’s of listings in Google. (what I am after, so thats good)

I did try the MIT personas installation, took quite awhile, I cannot say I was suppressed by the results, it knows me so well with the large percentage in fashion. From this data-mining has a long way to go and I am sure that the algorithm behind the script would require a great deal of tweaking.

I am very careful of what I post online or send in an email. With my use of social networking sites I have to be aware of what I post online, since I run an online business I do not want to get involved in a colliding network.

I have never used an avatar, however, I do use a nickname for MSN and ICQ, strangely after meeting some people after communicating online with instant messaging they still call me by my nickname.