MIS 373: Social Networking

With the end of the semester upon us, I can easily reflect back on my semester of blogging. It was definitely a new experience for me, and I feel much more comfortable now that I did at first. I think class blogs can be effective, but I don’t think our class blogging was all it could have been.

I think our blogs didn’t quite work out as planned for a few reasons. We didn’t have many benchmarks. First, although it was fun to write about whatever we wanted, I was a bit worried that my blogposts weren’t relevant, and some of my peer’s posts were at times a bit over my head with all the lingo. The blogs were definitely an expression of the different personalities in the class. Second, only once during the semester did instructors give us feedback about our writing and how far along we should be. As part of the generation of immediate gratification, I need direct feedback, right now.

I think class blogging can be a really constructive and successful assignment. I don’t suggest strict prompts or deadlines, as that would destroy the goal of an organic blogging experience and would instead make the students’ blogposts very forced. I think it is a delicate balance, coupled with a lot of potential.

A class blogging assignment should in theory be successful. For instance, we are very comfortable with the technology. After all, we’re avid social networking site users, and those in our age group were some of the first to use sites like Live Journal. Additionally, I think sometimes it can take a little time for someone to reflect and look at a situation from another angle. Writing about a lecture an hour or a day after the fact can bring out a lot of new insights. Blogging can also provide another outlet to express opinion for students who are not as outspoken during class time.

I’m glad I got to explore this aspect of the web 2.0 world and I’m interested to see if I keep up with it come Fall.

First, let me congratulate all the graduating seniors. I have had a really great time learning with and from all of you this semester, and I can’t wait to read about you in Business Week when you become rich and famous.

Now on to the post:

As an MIS major, I got the usual end-of-semester email detailing the future plans of all the graduating seniors. Of the 35 MIS graduates who have accepted job offers, 27 of them are staying in Texas, and only one each are heading off to Redmond, WA and San Francisco. I guess this just goes to show we really don’t need to go to far to find companies in the technology industry any more. After all, Austin is the home of the SXSW conference and a psuedo Silicon Valley of the South. Also, although Andrew McCollum of Facebook attributes some of the company’s success to its location among all the other tech giants, I think this effect may be waning. Additionally, just last month, Forbes named Austin the best big city in the nation for jobs during this recession, with Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Dallas taking the next four spots on the list. Sure, an MIS degree from McCombs can take you far, but I don’t think you need to go too far from Austin to find what you’re looking for.

Since my sophomore year, I have been a Peer Advisor in the Business Honors Program office. Although I generally spend most of my time acting as the BHP receptionist (imagine me saying this is a very cheerful voice: “Thanks for calling the Business Honors Office. This is Christina. How can I help you?”), I’ve been spending the latter part of the semester working on a project in preparation for BHP’s 50th Anniversary next year. For months now, I have been looking up each of BHP’s 2100+ graduates individually on LinkedIn and Facebook to see if they have accounts. The Assistant Director of the BHP and the Alumni Association plan to use the two social networking sites to help publicize the event. As part of a second project, I’ve been emailing alumni to ask what their preferred contact method is between phone and email. Every single response has been email.

As they would say on NBC’s Nightline, it’s a sign of the times. If this weekend-long event were taking place 5 or 10 years ago, sure it would have been publicized on the BHP website; however, a paper invitation and registration packet would have been the first line of attack for communicating with guests. Even older alumni seem to have LinkedIn and Facebook accounts, which fits with the trends we have discussed this semester relating to this demographic. I guess that after I join this group of alumni next May I should anticipate e-communication with the program going forward. And maybe even and e-diploma.

My group’s Facebook application Color Commentary launched just a little over a week ago, and I am nothing short of a proud parent. With 67 users now, I am very pleased. Our simple little application is starting to gain its bit of steam. Sure, I wasn’t responsible for any coding of the actual application, but I feel the application is mine all the same. As Tom has said a number of times this semester, strong technical skills may not be the most valuable skill for someone entering the IT world. Being able to understand the needs of a client and communicating those to a technical team is most of what we may be doing after we enter the real world. I think this speaks to the very definition of an MIS student, distinct from as CS student. I don’t think our focus on business rather than proficiency in coding languages is a fault. It is simply a difference.

Many of the groups listed our lack of coding experience as a barrier to success when presenting their Facebook applications to the class. Although the miscommunication about how talented the 18 of us were in this realm made development a little more drawn out, I think we are still very capable of creating and marketing Facebook applications. I think Color Commentary is proof of that.

Here’s a quote I found rather interesting last week:

“Bottom line: If you were one of the Web’s biggest properties a decade ago, chances are high that you remain in business in some form in 2009…but you probably aren’t still a giant.”

(http://technologizer.com/2009/04/23/whatever-happened-to-the-top-15-properties-of-april-1999/)

So, is fame in the tech space fleeting? I think so. There are parallels between the online world and the offline world: snail mail and email, diaries and blogs, television episodes and webisodes, short films and YouTube videos, and the list goes on. However, although user-generated content can be extremely valuable (Remember Shirky’s analogy of your family singing you Happy Birthday vs. playing a professional recording of Happy Birthday? Even though your family is not very good at singing, it is more valuable that they sing you Happy Birthday rather than playing a recording of a professional singer singing Happy Birthday.), I don’t know if this content has the staying power of its offline counterparts. For instane, while a small circle of friends might occasionally quote their favorite YouTube video, I don’t think even the most watched YouTube video is as well-recognized as, ”…Bond. James Bond.” 

What everyone’s watching on YouTube today, they probably won’t be watching a week from now, and social networking sites seem to follow a pattern of getting really big and subsequently meeting their ultimate demise (example: Friendster). Also, companies like Moximity and Social Agency rely heavily upon Facebook and iPhone application developer freedom remaining the same. It seems everyone is in a precarious position. However, as Prof Lang said in class recently, this interdependence is just a characteristic of the Web 2.0 environment in general. I agree and am a little bit more weary now of getting into the game. (But I’d still be up for my 15 minutes of fame.)

In January 2008, I was part of the first student group from UT to tour the Googleplex. For the entirety of our guided walk through the offices, we were bombarded by the Google culture- toys, snack stations, and animals galore. Web 2.0 companies pride themselves on their distinctive company culture. So, I find it strange that the entire class giggled at the questions I asked Andrew McCollum about group dynamics during the early days at Facebook. 

I think understanding the journey of successful web comanpies comes in part from understanding how the major players interacted early on and created the vision for their company. And from my own experience, I know that interactions with coworkers can greatly impact how an employee approaches his/her work. Although I did try to bring a lighthearted feel to the discussion by asking if any one of the three Facebook founders “got all the ladies,” what I was trying to get at was whether Andrew’s leaving Facebook had anything to do with a lack of collaboration, or one of the other two cofounders taking an inordinate amount of control over the project. I think that rough patches in group work can be manifested in different ways, such as jealousy or petty arguments over silly topics. I was just interested in understanding Andrew’s departure from one of the most successful (relative) Web 2.0 companies of our time.

(The title is a play on the Beatles song Help!, but with a social networking twist. Just FYI.)

After seeing pictures of me from over the weekend, I realized I needed a haircut. I mean, I really needed one. So, I employed my sorority sisters to give me suggestions about where to go. I assumed they were experts, as they always seem coifed. Unfortunately, although these ladies adorned subtle highlights, no salon they suggested was in walking distance, a requirement for me (one of only two girls at the house without a car).  

My search then shifted online. I used Yelp to find salons in my neighborhood and the first in the list of search results was a name of a salon I’d seen on one of my morning walks. I clicked on the name for further investigation. When I saw the 5 out of 5 stars average rating, I was skeptical. I thought this couldn’t be accurate and must be based on just a single review. But surprisingly, the average rating was pretty accurate for this salon that has only been open six months. After reading all nine reviews, all but one of which gave 5 stars, I was pleased to see customers commented on the talent of five different stylists. Yelp truly gave me a holistic view of this salon. 

I think ratings and reviews can be incredibly helpful in making purchasing decisions. They aggregate information from the experiences of many and yet provide insight about unique experiences. I even discussed with my stylist how the recommendations of many online can give you more information than the biased opinions of a few friends.  I think my decision to trust someone recommended online by strangers to come at my head with scissors shows how accurate I find online ratings and reviews. Plus, now my hair looks great!

To keep with my theme of pop culture references, the title of today’s post is a line from a Maroon 5 song Sunday Morning. Coincidentally, Sunday Morning is also the title of a television news magazine that airs- you guessed it- on Sunday mornings on CBS. In an opinion piece just over a week ago, Nancy Giles gave Twitter a pretty bad review and at the end of her editorial even asked, “If you use Twitter, are you considered a twit?”

It seems Twitter is getting some harsh assessments from the less tech savvy side of the population. These critics don’t want people to know what they’re doing (Twitter’s tag line is “What’re you doing?”). To that I say, “Why not?” Twitter can be a great way to keep in touch, and you aren’t required to reveal your deepest, darkest secrets to all of the web to have an account. Also, it’s not like purely strangers are on Twitter, stalking you and reading your tweets. User generated content is often interesting because it is about people we have relationships with offline. This is clearly stated in the Twitter instructional video. Apparently Giles needs to watch it again. 

With the way the media is integrating into Twitter, posting headlines on the site before they go to print, I think it’s foolish not to join.

For those of you unfamiliar with the television show Friends, it is a sitcom that aired on NBC for 10 seasons and one of the most watched shows of its time. Every episode is entitled “The One with (insert topic here).” If you already knew this fact about Friends, I am currently looking for teammates to compete in VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture. Now on the post:

After he spoke to our class, I started following Jeff Dachis on twitter. Dachis mentioned the Twitter Analyzer in a tweet and I checked it out. I am only a moderately active tweet-er, so I thought my metrics would be pretty skewed. Although I think they would become more accurate with more tweeting, I was surprised how accurately my online relationships reflected my offline relationships. One pie chart was meant to be, “a representation of the closest top 10 cbuss_duh’s friends, meaning the friends cbuss_duh is most in contact with.” Sure enough, the top 5 included my roommate, my little brother, and three of my best friends offline. After wasting a considerable amount of time on the site viewing charts that only confirmed my late night procrastination habits, I threw off my initial criticism of the metrics and got really excited that the twitter analyzer projected I would double my follower count by August. I’m so popular (another Friends reference). 

If Facebook’s goal was to map the offline social graph online, maybe they should try a little harder to acquire twitter next time around. Whoopsie.

I’m going to use this post to enlighten all the men in the class unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is Gossip Girl. 

For those of you who don’t know, Gossip Girl is a television show on the WB that is hugely popular among my demographic. The show follows the lives of teenage socialites in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The show’s narrator is the voice of an anonymous blogger named Gossip Girl who posts on a popular blog with the same name. She signs off all of her posts with “xoxo -gossip girl,” hence the post title. 

Apart from the addicting dramatic encounters between the impeccably dressed characters, there are two reasons I find Gossip Girl so interesting. The first is that five or ten years ago, when I was about the age of the show’s youngest followers, this show would have seemed more like Star Trek than Beverly Hills 90210. The blog is updated multiple times per day, and the readers get notices on their handheld personal devices when the blog is updated. This show would never have been feasible when I was a 14-year-old entering high school. 

The other aspect of the show that’s so interesting is something Shirky talks about in Here Comes Everyone- the relationship between social media and traditional media. This television show (old media) is helping to increase the popularity of blogging and personal handheld devices like blackberrys (social media). I’m sure teeny boppers are more inclined to engage in this technology- buy an iPhone and start a blog- after seeing beautiful people do it. Although social media is beginning to limit the revenue of traditional media, they need each other. In order to make television shows that reflect our current point in history, traditional media needs to include social media, and social media needs traditional media to increase its user base. 

I don’t think traditional media will ever go away completely, and although social media may want to win the battle, I think social media hopes traditional media never goes away too. The two have a conflicted relationship of dependence and competition.