exploring social and pysche in cyberspace
trending
buzzwords
A small collection of the most common terms used in cyberspace. Learn them and talk like a pro in social media.
hashtag
LMAO
A hashtag is used on Twitter as a way to annotate a message—a word or phrase preceded by a “#.” It can be used to show that a message is related to a certain topic when that keyword is not in the tweet itself.
short for laughing my ass off
Used to describe people meeting offline, face to face. While social reduces the need to meet, direct contact gives far more clues, quickly, about a person than you can get online.
A post is an item on a web blog or forum.
A site updated frequently by an individual or group to record opinions or information.
A podcast, or non-streamed ries of digital media files, ei eo, that are released episo downloaded through an RSS
threads
f2f post
podcast
blog
meme A means of taking viral concepts and making them everyday lingo.
LOL
Threads are strands of conversation. On an email list or web forum they are defined by messages that use the use the same subject. On blogs they are less clearly defined, but emerge through comments and trackbacks.
short for laugh
By the numbers A quick look at the evolution of social media through facts and numbersv
Top 7 uses of social media
How many of us are there? the evolution of social media 700m
600m
500m
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 Find potential romantic partners
Read comments from celebrities, athletes or politicians 5%
Make new friends
Connect with people who share similar interests
Reconnect with old friendS
Stay in touch with family
Stay in touch with friends
400m
300m
200m
100m
2005
factoid
2006
2007
2008
A full 25% of the users on these sites are aged 35 to 44, which in other words is the age group that d
The average internet user spends 32 hrs U.s users averagE 2 billion hrs on soc online every month factoid
Are you spending more time on social media sites these days? You’re not alone. According to the Los Angeles equivalent of 2 billion hours on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. That’s an increase of 36 percent
bLOG 1o1 all about blogging
In the dark ages of the early 1990s, internet users sought to make their stamp on internet history by forging a new type of voyeurism and narcissism. In 1994 the blog was born, and since then, human interaction has never been the same. There is a plethora of blogging platforms available on the web, some free, some not so free. We’ve listed our top three picks for simple, free and user friendly blogging.
8 benefits of blogging Blogging gives you the pportunity to refine your writing skills You have to chance to meet others who have similar interests It can increase your knowledge base and act as a learning tool The nature of blogging has far reaching effects and influences Blogging gives voice to your own thoughts and ideas It provides and outlet for your creativity and imagination Blogging is sustainable long term It can be an excellent tool for research and development
explore more If you’re interested in learning more about blogging check out some of the best resources below! www.problogger.com www.mumsnet.com www.learnhowtoblog.com www.bloggingbasics101.com www.learnhowtoblogsite.com
trending
BECO ME A
d webcast, is a seither audio or vidodically and often S feed.
lurker
A lurker online is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup or social network, but rarely or never participates in the discussion.
TTYL short for talk to you later
wiki
LOL!
h-out-loud
vlog
troll
Vlog simply means video blog—a blog that contains video entries. Some people call it video podcasting or vodcasting.
A hurtful but possibly valuable loser who, for whatever reason, is both constantly obsessed and annoyed with you, and offended by everything you write on your blog. You may be able to stop them commenting on your blog, but you can’t ban them from commenting on their own or other sites and pointing back to your blog.
factoid
A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of connected web pages via a web browser, allowing for collaboration between users.
Who uses social media? (by age)
62% of Adults worldwide use social media factoid
00-17
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
A full 25% of the users on these sites are aged 35 to 44, which in other words is the age group that dominates the social media sphere. Only 3% are aged 65 or older.
heartbreak by numbers
There are more than 173 billion internet users cial media sites per year worldwide TWITTER
2009
2010
2011
1 in 5 divorces now cite facebook or another social media website as the main cause. In these instances, individuals have used the websites to prove infidelity in their partner.
dominates the social media sphere. Only 3% are aged 65 or older.
s Times, a Nielsen report shows that in July 2012, U.S. users spent the t from the same month in 2011.
Do you want to blog but you don’t know where to start? Or maybe you’re already a blogger and you’d like to check out other platforms and their offerings? Take a look at this collection of the top three blogging platforms and decide which one suits you best! They each have a lot to offer, with various characteristics that set them apart. Choose the platform the suits your lifestyle and needs.
what is wordpress? WordPress is one of the most popular content management and blog publishing applications available on the today. First released in 2003 by developer Matt Mullenweg as a basic blog engine, WordPress is now a full-featured, fully customizable website creation tool used by millions of individuals, businesses and organizations.
romance by numbers
1 in 5 couples meet online through online dating websites. For more information See the article on cyberdating on the next page.
what is blogger? Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multiuser blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Blogger allows its users to choose from various templates available,and fully customize them.
what is tumblr? Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. ”If it’s too big to tweet and too short for a substantial blog post, I’ll post it to my Tumblr blog.”
relationships
Dating without the Awkward Dinner Ten psychological insights into the world of online dating.
author Jeremy Dean
Not always losers
01
Contrary to the stereotype, there’s little evidence that internet dating is the last resort of social misfits or weirdos. In fact, it’s quite the reverse. Internet daters are more likely to be sociable, have high self-esteem and be low in dating anxiety. Studies have found no evidence that people use online dating because they can’t hack it face-to-face. It’s just one more way to meet new people. Motivations to start online dating are various, typically involving a triggering event like a break-up, but overall studies have found that people’s motivations are less individual and more social. People aren’t using online dating because they are shy but because they have moved to a new city, are working long hours or don’t have time to meet anyone new.
Online daters do lie (a bit)
02
Although 94% deny their internet dating profiles contain any fibs, psychologists are a still suspicious. For a study, a psychologist measured the heights and weights of 80 internet daters, as well as checking their driving licences for their real age. When this data was compared with their profiles, it showed that 9 out of 10 had lied on at least one of the attributes, but the lies were only small ones. The most frequent offender was weight, with daters either adding or shaving off an average of 5%. Daters were more truthful about their age (1.5% deviation) and height (1.1% deviation). As expected women tended to shave off the pounds, while men gave themselves a boost in height. These lies make little difference in the real world because the vast majority of fibbing would have been difficult to detect in person. Most people want to meet up eventually so they know big lies are going to be caught.
PHOTO FALICIES
03
The saying ‘the camera never lies’ is bunk. Even without Photoshop to iron out the wrinkles, camera angles and lighting can easily change perceived attractiveness. People instinctively understand this when choosing their profile photo so psychologists took photographs of internet daters, then judges compared them to the real profile photos. Although less physically attractive people were the most likely to choose a self-enhancing photo. The lab photos were only a little less attractive than those chosen for online dating profiles (about 5% for women and 4% for men).
PUT FORWARD YOUR BEST FACE
04
Clues to which types of profile photos work best come from one online dating site which has analysed over 7,000 photographs in its database (oktrends, 2010). Overall, women had higher response-rates when they made eye-contact with the camera and looked flirty. Conversely the least successful pictures for women were looking away with a flirty face. Men’s best look was away from the camera, not smiling. But guys should avoid a flirty face, which was associated with a drastic reduction in messages.
SOMEONE LIKE YOU
05
Even amongst a diverse population of online daters, people still prefer someone who is similar to themselves. When a team of scientists examined data from 65,000 online daters, they found that people were choosing based on similarity to themselves. In this respect online dating is no different from offline dating. On average people are looking for someone similar to themselves. There are now many dating sites aimed at narrower demographics such as sports fans, Jewish people or those with particular medical conditions.
SOMEONE NOT LIKE YOU
06
To examine internet dating diversity, a study surveyed 2,670 married couples in the UK, Australia and Spain. In this sample internet daters were more likely to have a greater disparity in age and educational background compared with those who had met in more traditional ways. Although opposites don’t tend to attract, by its nature internet dating does encourage diverse matches. The authors argue that it is changing the face of marriage by bring together types of people who previously never would have met.
KEEPING IT SIMPLE
07
Getting a response online can be a hit-and-miss affair. An online dating site has gauged the response rate by analysing more than 500,000 initial contacts sent by their members (oktrends, 2009). Recipients answered only 30% of men’s messages to women and 45% of women’s messages to men. The percentage that lead to conversations is even lower (around 20% and 30% respectively).
“[Online dating] is changing the face of marriage by bringing together types of people who previously never would have met” SHOW YOUR EMOTIONS
08
In a study of online dating, Rosen et al., (2008) found evidence that more intense emotionality, e.g. using words like ‘excited’ and ‘wonderful’, made a better impression on both men and women. This study also looked at the impact of self-disclosure. While the results were more variable, overall people preferred relatively low-levels of self-disclosure.
FACE-TO-FACE IS INEVITABLE
09
For many, but not all internet daters, the aim is to meet someone new in the flesh. In a survey of 759 internet daters, the study found 51% of people had made a face-to-face date within one week and one month of receiving replies to their online initiation. This first meeting is often treated by internet daters as the final part of the screening process. Is this person really who they say they are? And, if so, is there any chemistry? It’s only after this stage is complete that people can get to know each other. Despite all the positive things the research has to say about internet
There are 2 sides to everything
09
dating, there’s no doubt that it can be unsatisfying and aversive. 132 online daters surveyed by Frost et al. (2008) reported that they spent 7 times as long screening other people’s profiles and sending emails than they did interacting face-to-face on real dates. Part of the problem is that people are encouraged by online dating to think in consumerist terms (Heino et al., 2010). Users are ‘relationshopping’: looking at other people’s features, weighing them up, then choosing potential partners, as though from a catalogue; it’s human relationships reduced to check-boxes. This is more of a criticism of the technology currently available than it is of the general idea of internet dating. Frost et al. (2008) argue that this will change as online dating services move towards more experiential methods, such as virtual dates (see: why internet dating is aversive). The research, however, suggests that most internet daters are relatively honest and, for some at least, it can be successful.
5 tips for success Determine what kind of service will work best for you Make sure to research your options before you commit to a site. There are a number of specialty/ themed dating websites. Be memorable If online dating is the way to go, build a memorable profile Stay active in your pursuits Make sure you keep up to date with your dating profile and connections. Lack of activity can discourage people from your profile. Be honest Stick to the truth about yourself and how you’re feeling, try not to get caught up in bending the truth Be open Online love isn’t meant to suppliment real relationships. Keep things open towards meeting in person in the future. your profile photo Profiles with personal photos get over twice as many responses as profiles without. According to economists at MIT and the University of Chicago, you are twice as likely to make a connection online if your dating site profile has a picture of your face. Some people hold back on posting a picture for fear that they are overweight, unattractive, or will be judged by their friends for having an online profile. However, profiles without a picture are often a red flag for a spammer, dead account, or person who might be hiding their identity for some reason (for example, someone who is cheating on their spouse). top dating websites Match.com One of the largest online singles meeting website. eHarmony Dating site based upon prescreening using personality tests Zoosk Known for there large international userbase and their connection to Facebook PerfectMatch Focuses on long term, committed relationships. They fully support same-sex couples trUe Known for running background checks on its users to ensure they are not felons or married.
relationships
Are you feeling down? author Stephen J. Betchen
Many claim that online dating reduces the odds of being humiliated. Makes sense; it’s easier to endure rejection from afar rather than have someone laugh directly in your face. FYI: my female clients claim that it‘s a must for a woman to have a terrific picture to get online attention but it’s not as important for a man to have one. This makes sense because men tend to be more visual. I have a friend who refuses to post a picture for professional reasons and he rarely gets any reponses. One woman admonished him for not posting a picture: “If I have to put one up there you should to,” she said. Online dating is also convenient, or I should say as convenient as you’d like it to be. A female friend of mine would only date men who lived a minimum of one hour away—she liked the anonymity. Call me a wimp, but I get exhausted just visualizing a two-hour drive home in the wee hours of the morning following a date. Neverthless, most people tend to date someone within a few miles of their home. Another convenience of online dating is that you don’t have to leave your house to get a date. No need to drop a pound or two and drag yourself to a Happy Hour or a meet-up group. Nope; just a couple of taps on your keyboard and Janine appears on your screen to tell you that she loves to laugh, isn’t needy, loves her children more than life, and can find time to fit you into her busy schedule. Online dating is also faster than waiting for your best friend to fix you up with her cousin, or someone from her yoga class. Heck, you don’t even have to grieve a death or divorce; just jump right back in and sort them out as you go along; sounds like take-out doesn’t it? And therein lies the problem from my perspective. Like anything else in life online dating has its pros and cons, but it’s too damn fast, and when something comes too fast we don’t trust it—it can’t be truly authentic. Relationships should be less predictable and worth waiting for. We have too much control over a romantic process and in turn, we’re killing the romance.
hello making a good first impression
Often the hardest part of finding a date online is that awkward initial message. What do you say to not sound like a creep? How do you say it to not sound boring? The folks OkCupid analyzed half a million first contacts on their dating site to see what works.The biggest finding was to avoid netspeak. Bad grammar and abbreviations like ur, u, wat, wont were the single biggest turnoffs
for message recipients. The only exceptions were haha and lol, which turned out to be quite good for the sender.Avoid physical compliments right off the bat. Just like in real life, if you start out immediately calling someone you have never met sexy, it’s a turn-off. More general compliments that don’t focus on her appearance - like cool, fascinating and awesome work
much better.Avoid generic greetings like hi and hello. That signals immediately that you have no imagination. Greetings like how’s it going work better.Don’t try to take it outside. Offer to chat or giving your email address at first contact is a definite turn off. One of the things online dating has going for it is its relative anonymity, so don’t push things too soon.
personality
personality
A Virtual World with real-life effects the dangers of living virtually Are you feeling down? author Vito Pilieci
In a speech delivered to the American Psychological Association in August, Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, outlined the results of some recent research, which also points to the darker side of social media. He found: Teens using Facebook have more narcissistic tendencies while young adults who have a strong Facebook presence show more signs of other psychological disorders, including anti-social behaviours. Daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, preteens and teenagers by making them more prone to anxiety, depression and other psychological disorders. Facebook can be distracting and can negatively impact learning. Studies found that middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period achieved lower grades. Rosen suggested that parents monitor their children’s use of social media but warned against trying to police their activity. He said policing a child’s online activity will only push the child to conduct that activity in a place or at a time when a parent can’t watch them. Rosen suggested open communication about the benefits and dangers of social media and the importance of setting limits on the amount of time spent on social media websites. Rosen’s warnings about monitoring the time spent on services like Facebook are timely given the steady increase in what some psychologists are calling Facebook Addiction Disorder — when people are afraid to disconnect from social media services because they think they’re going to missing something important. The disorder, which is not a clinical diagnosis and is not yet recognized by the broader medical community, is attracting a lot of attention. In a paper that will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science, a team of researchers from Chicago University’s Booth Business School, led by Wilhelm Hofmann, has found that Facebook and social media websites may be as addictive as alcohol or cigarettes. See sidebar for more information on what is now being called Facebook Addiction Syndrome.
F. A . D diagnosing facebook addiction disorder
The world is in a digital age with the internet covering almost everybody’s life. Some have grabbed it as a super opportunity of a lifetime to reach greater heights. On the flip side, some have allowed the internet to take over their lives to an extent that they just cannot have enough of it. This malady has now reached alarming proportions and is now being called a disorder - Facebook addiction disorder.
FACTS & FIGURES 61% of people under age 25 have to check facebook at least once a day 48% of people check Facebook after they go to bed 48% of people aged 18-34 check Facebook as soon as they wake up 48% of young people get their daily news from Facebook
symptoms Sleep deprivation due to spending the night on Facebook and this subsequently affecting the next day activities Spending more than one hour average time on any site Trying to reestablish contact with past friends on Facebook Work getting affected by overuse of the internet Stress and feelings of anxiety taking over when missing a day on Facebook
personality
personality
feature profile
over 800 million users worldwide
In July, 2012 Facebook confirmed it had over 750 million monthly active users. In other words, the company added some 50 million monthly active users over the last two months
58%
of them are girls
42%
of them are boys
the facebooK author Sarah Phillips
Mark Zuckerberg, 23, founded Facebook while studying psychology at Harvard University. A keen computer programmer, Mr Zuckerberg had already developed a number of social-networking websites for fellow students, including Coursematch, which allowed users to view people taking their degree, and Facemash, where you could rate people’s attractiveness. In February 2004 Mr Zuckerberg launched “The facebook”, as it was originally known; the name taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshmen, profiling students and staff. Within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard students had signed up, and after one month, over half of the undergraduate population had a profile. The network was promptly extended to other Boston universities, the Ivy League and eventually all US universities. It became Facebook.com in August 2005 after the address was purchased for $200,000. US high schools could sign up from September 2005, then it began to spread worldwide, reaching UK universities the following month. As of September 2006, the network was extended beyond educational institutions to anyone with a registered email address. The site remains free to join, and makes a profit through advertising revenue. Yahoo and Google are among companies which have expressed interest in a buy-out, with rumoured figures of around $2bn (£975m) being discussed. Mr Zuckerberg has so far refused to sell.
The site’s features have continued to develop during 2007. Users can now give gifts to friends, post free classified advertisements and even develop their own applications - graffiti and Scrabble are particularly popular. This month the company announced that the number of registered users had reached 30 million, making it the largest social-networking site with an education focus. Earlier in the year there were rumours that Prince William had registered, but it was later revealed to be a mere impostor. The MP David Miliband, the radio DJ Jo Whiley, the actor Orlando Bloom, the artist Tracey Emin and the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, are among confirmed high-profile members. This month officials banned a flash-mobstyle water fight in Hyde Park, organised through Facebook, due to public safety fears. And there was further controversy at Oxford as students became aware that university authorities were checking their Facebook profiles. The legal case against Facebook dates back to September 2004, when Divya Narendra, and the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who founded the social-networking site ConnectU, accused Mr Zuckerberg of copying their ideas and coding. Mr Zuckerberg had worked as a computer programmer for them when they were all at Harvard before Facebook was created. The case was dismissed due to a technicality in March 2007 but without a ruling.
3.2 billion likes and comments per day facebook gaming In 2011, people loved playing hidden object, simulation, and casino-related games with their friends on Facebook. The average game player on Facebook played more than three different gaming titles each month and played more than half the days they visited the site. The top games are: Gardens of Time
is 35 to 39 years old likes 80 pages per day
130 friends
spends
over
700 minutes
on facebook
per month
Mark Zuckerberg was the Harvard computer science student who along with a few friends launched the world’s most popular social networking website called Facebook in February 2004. Mark Zuckerberg also has the distinction of being the world’s youngest billionaire, which he achieved in 2008. He was named “Man of the Year” by Time magazine in 2010.
“Understanding people is not a waste of time” - Mark Zuckerberg
(Playdom & Disney)
The Sims Social (Electronic arts)
Cityville (Zynga)
DoubleDown Casino
(DoubleDown Entertainment)
Adventure World (Zynga)
Words With Friends (Zynga)
Blingo Blitz
(Buffalo Studios)
Empires & Allies Zynga
the average user
creates 90 peices of content per month
Mark zuckerberg
Sannual 69,9income 00
did you know? He’s a fan of Taylor Swift:
Yep. Says so on his Facebook profile.
He’s spent a year trying to only eat meat that he kills:
Zuckerberg sets annual challenges for himself, and the challenge for 2011 was to move toward vegetarianism and only eat meat that he killed himself.
He personally designed his wife’s wedding ring: Zuckerberg was the one who designed wife Priscilla Chan’s wedding ring, which is a ruby flanked on either side by diamonds.
He once wore a tie every day for a whole year: That’s likely a surprise to anyone who knows that he normally wears a hoodie, jeans and sneakers — even when others think he shouldn’t.
As of 2012, his personal wealth is $17.5 billion
and that makes him the world’s youngest billionaire.
Facebook is blue because Zuckerberg is color-blind:
According to a the New Yorker, Facebook’s main color is blue because Zuckerberg has a red-green color blindness.
feature profile
over 100 million users worldwide Breaking its long-time silence on sharing numbers, Twitter has announce a huge milestone today: they have 100 million active users sending tweets, retweeting, following, unfollowing and reading content on their network.
54% of them are girls
56%
of them are boys
140 characters LATER
400 million tweets are sent per day #twitterspeak Social media is nothing if not self-referential, and the growing lexicon of the Twitterverse is no exception. Consider these TwitterTerms: Twillionaire user with over a million followers Twilebrities people who are famous as a result of Tweeting Twitition a Twitter-distributed petition Twitticide a person who deletes his or her Twitter account Dweet a tweet that is sent by someone who is drunk Tweetaholic term used to describe someone who has a problematic addiction to Twitter Twitterific used to describe something that is terrific that was found on Twitter Tweeple used to describe people who use Twitter TMB short for tweet me back TFTF short for thanks for the follow TweetUp a gathering of Twitter users arranged through Twitter
author Steven Johnson
The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your “followers,” and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It’s not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, “If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal.” I, too, was skeptical at first. I had met Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-creator, a couple of times in the dotcom ‘90s when he was launching Blogger.com. Back then, what people worried about was the threat that blogging posed to our attention span, with telegraphic, two-paragraph blog posts replacing long-format articles and books. With Twitter, Williams was launching a communications platform that limited you to a couple of sentences at most. What was next? Software that let you send a single punctuation mark to describe your mood? (See the top 10 ways Twitter will change American business.) And yet as millions of devotees have discovered, Twitter turns out to have
jack dorsey unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds. The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this “ambient awareness”: by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines. We don’t think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask. The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn’t be taken lightly. But I think there is something even more profound in what has happened to Twitter over the past two years, something that says more about the culture that has embraced and expanded Twitter at such extraordinary speed. Yes, the breakfast-status updates turned out to be more interesting than we thought. But the key development with Twitter is how we’ve jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of. In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it’s doing to us. It’s what we’re doing to it.
Twit-tastic robots scan twitter a few times a day to determine who’s the biggest twit.
j. bieber
katy perry
“The most surprising thing is that people adopted the technology and made it their own.” - Jack Dorsey
did you know?
THE MOST FOLLOWED ON TWITTER
lady gaga
Innovator and commuter programmer, Jack Dorsey, is best known as the creator of Twitter, a social media tool that uses short messages to share personal expression. In the beginning, the service was deemed shallow and ego-driven by many a naysayer, but it gained respect as major organizations and movements used it as a powerful platform for political, social, and personal campaigns.
Rihanna
b. obama
He originally named twitter, twttr Jack Dorsey created his first successful ‘idea’ when he was 15: He wrote dispatch software that is still used by some taxicab companies today.
He only has 3 apps on his phone: Twitter, I use Pay with Square to buy cappuccinos every morning, UberCab in San Francisco when it rains. That’s it.
31,667,281 followers
30,818,774 followers
29,507,409 followers
26,951,678 followers
23,932,711 followers
136,979 following
122,461 following
117 following
889 following
669,867 following
2,457 tweets
19,769 tweets
4,466 tweets
7,056 tweets
8,032 tweets
His favourite guilty pleasure is cheez-its: When he was young he preferred reading books to watching tv:
feature profile
over 150 million users worldwide
LinkedIn‘s growth metrics are up: The professional social network now has over 150 million members and more than a million groups, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner told listeners on an earnings call.
37%
of them are girls
63%
of them are boys
professional headquarters author Dave Briggs
LinkedIn is a professional networking site - so if you see Facebook as being about your social life, LinkedIn is the equivalent for work. As well as being a handy place for career development and networking, LinkedIn is a thriving community of entrepreneurs and business folk. You sign up at linkedin.com and fill out your profile with as much information as you can - jobs you have had in the past, details of your qualifications, skills, interests and knowledge, links to your website, blog and other online profiles. You can search LinkedIn for people to connect with by name or organisation, or you can let LinkedIn scan your email account for people you are likely to know. LinkedIn differs from other online networks in that it is a bit stricter about how you connect with people - you need to state how you know the person you are connecting to. It could be that you worked together on a project, or contracted that person’s company to do some work. There is still a default option, ‘Friend’, which most people end up using because it’s easiest. When you request a connection, you can edit the text the recipient gets - it’s a good idea to personalise it a bit to help them remember you, and to
stop your request looking like spam. LinkedIn also allows you to add updates about what you are doing - effectively a bit like Twitter. It’s pretty easy to set things up so that your tweets get posted to LinkedIn as well, which makes life a bit simpler and reduces the need to duplicate content. One of the most useful elements of LinkedIn are the groups. There are groups based on subjects and issues, or on a geographical basis. The latter can be particularly handy especially if you would like to find out what business people locally think about an issue. Just request to join the group and post your question. You can also add apps to your LinkedIn profile, helping you bring content in from other sites you maintain. For example, if you have a WordPress blog, you can automatically bring your posts into LinkedIn through the WordPress application. Similar apps exist for other blogging platforms. If you are super super keen on LinkedIn, you might want to pay for their premium membership option. This gives you access to lots of statistics about you has been looking at your profile and therefore is handy for working out whether you need to take out that injunction or not.
2 new members join every second tips for success LinkedIn is a powerful tool for making business connections. Here are some ways to kick up your LinkedIn presence: Think about your goals Why are you on LinkedIn? Post a picture, please. Of your face You should have a professional looking headshot as your LinkedIn photo so people can put a name to a face. Use LinkedIn to remember names LinkedIn can help you with offline networking too—simply checking out someone’s profile after meeting them at a networking event, even if you don’t connect, can help you remember their name and what they do. Make the most of your headline Keep it concise, but make sure it communicates what you do and what your skills are.
linkedin and your dream job author Dave Briggs
LinkedIn is where companies want to be when they are hiring. Hundreds of companies are using LinkedIn’s Corporate Solutions and many more hiring managers and recruiters are using LinkedIn to post jobs and source candidates for employment. That’s good news for job seekers, because you can use your LinkedIn connections to help find a job. How can you ensure that you’re using the full power of LinkedIn to assist with your search for a new job? It’s important to take the time to build your LinkedIn profile, to add to your connections, and to effectively use your
connections to help with your job search. It’s also important to help your connections, too, when you can - it works both ways. The more complete your LinkedIn profile, the more chances you will have to be found and to be contacted. Use your LinkedIn profile like a resume and provide prospective employers with detailed information on your skills and experience. The more connections you have, the better your chances of having a connection who can help with your job search. When you’re applying for jobs, be sure to use the connections you have. Someone who is employed
at the company or has connections there, will be able to help your candidacy for employment. On the flip side, be willing to help your connections when they need your advice and referrals. Some employers prefer that candidates have LinkedIn recommendations (LinkedIn will show you the number of recommendations you have below the requirements). Employers may also prefer referrals through the LinkedIn network. Follow the instructions in the job posting to optimize your chances of securing an interview.
reid hoffman Reid Hoffman is co-founder and chief executive of LinkedIn, the “facebook of work”. Reid Hoffman was born and raised in California. In 1990, he graduated from Stanford University in cognitive science. In 1993 he earned an MA in philosophy from Oxford University. He first aimed to become a teacher. But understanding that intellectuals have a limited impact on society, he decided to pursue a career in business and entrepreneurship.
“If you are not embarrased by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late” - Reid Hoffman
did you know? He has 2,307 connections on LinkedIn: He says that a well-networkd professional should have between 1,000 and 3,000. He likes to play boardgames: Hoffman likes to relax by playing the 1994 modern classic, Settlers of Catan. He’s an apple guy: After finishing university, Hoffman took a job with Apple. He’s dipped his toes into the online dating world: The first company he owned was an online dating website called SocialNet. His worst job: Gutting and cutting fish when he was 17.
feature profile
over 10 million users worldwide
In March 2010, the pinboard-styled social photo-sharing website Pinterest was launched by Ben Silbermann. Nine months later the site had a commendable 10,000 users. By January 2012, the site reached 10 million users, the fastest website in history to do so.
90% of them are girls
10%
of them are boys
pinner’s interest
1.3 million unique visitors per day code of ethics The guidelines below are based on collective input from people using Pinterest. These are suggestions to help keep our community positive and to ensure that every pin is useful to other people. Be Respectful Pinterest is a community of people. We know that individual tastes are personal, but please be respectful in your comments and conversations. Be Authentic Pinterest is an expression of who you are. We think being authentic to who you are is more important than getting lots of followers. Credit Your Sources Pins are the most useful when they have links back to the original source. If you notice that a pin is not sourced correctly, leave a comment so the original pinner can update the source. Report Objectionable Content We do not allow nudity, hateful content, or content that encourages people to hurt themselves. If you find content that violates our Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policy please submit it for review. Tell Us How to Make Pinterest Better We’re just getting started, so there are going to be bumps here and there. Let us know what’s working, what’s not.
Author
Ellen Downing
It’s not a typo; “Pinterest” is a social network. It’s a “virtual pin board” that lets people share anything and any topic on the web that they find interesting. Expanding on our last blog about the ever-growing use of social media marketing and social networks, Pinterest is a case in point. Pinterest has been around since March 2010, but its popularity has recently exploded reaching nearly 5 million U.S. unique visitors in November 2011, according to metrics firm ComScore. Pinterest’s mission is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting – e.g., pictures, quotes, recipes and other web content – to reveal a common link between two people. You must request an in-
vitation to get started with Pinterest. Once you’re signed up, you can “pin” an image to your “board” by simply snagging it via a plugin and adding it to your online profile. Your followers can browse and comment on your pin boards and add to them if they have permission. Although there is specific “Pin Etiquette” for using Pinterest, small businesses can use it to create communities around the ideas or lifestyle of their brand. For example, a design company specializing in home properties in Westchester County could create a series of boards showcasing a portfolio of stunning home renovations to pique people’s interest.
5 minutes with ben Author Sarah Wilson
There was a long period of time from when you launched the site to when you actually started to see a critical mass of visitors, right? Yeah, we launched in March [2010]. By June we had a few thousand users. These days, expectations are very high. Instagram hit 1 million users in three weeks. Some games hit 2 million users in two months. So the growth felt really slow by comparison. What was the moment you knew the site was catching on with users? There were two moments. One was when I realized that people really seemed to enjoy the site and the content. They really used it. The second was, we had a meet-up in San Francisco. A lot of real users came, and it was clear they had a genuine connection with each other, even if they didn’t know one another. The process of sharing the things they were proud of connected them -- when people make a pinboard, it’s how they literally see the world -- so that was very cool. I use Pinterest for everything. Book collections, trips, hobbies. It’s all there. I planned my wedding on it. When I had a kid, I planned all his stuff on it. So it was nice to discover that I wasn’t the only one.
Wait, you planned and organized your wedding on Pinterest? Yeah! I found my wedding photographer on it! Once the site started to take off, what aspect was most nerve-wracking? I used to wake up and look at our analytics and think, “What if yesterday was the last day anyone used Pinterest?” Like, everyone collectively decided, “We’re done!” Over time I got more confidence. But I still feel tons of urgency to make it better, to hurry up and fix all the problems. What’s been the most unfair criticism of the site? People say, “Oh, Pinterest is only about decadent desserts or cupcakes that look like hydrangeas.” But I think there are actually a lot of people who use the service in a lot of different ways. Obviously there are trends, but I don’t think the service is about the trends; the trends are a byproduct of people looking at things that they really love. And there’s a big difference. I think as we get better and the site continues to diversify, we’ll try to more and more quickly get you to things that you care about versus what everyone else cares about.
Ben Silbermann Prior to Pinterest, Silbermann worked at Google in the sales organiz ation. Following a short time with the company he left and started designing his own iPhone apps with college friend, Paul Sciarra. After many app failures, Pinterest was born. However, Pinterest saw a low user base and little engagement in its early stages. Silbermann said the prospect of telling people he failed was too embarrassing so he and Sciarra continued to tinker and improve the site. Today, Pinterest claims over 20 million users
“It’s exciting that people care a lot but then you also feel this weight of responsibility. You brought this little thing into the world, you want to see it get better.” - Ben Silbermann
did you know? He collected things when he was a young kid: Yup. Stamps, insects, you name it. He studied multiple subjects at school: He studied medical and political science at Yale. He worked a lot of tech jobs: Including the megacorporation, Google..
identity
Designing ourselves in a virtual world.
your online identity Today, if you don’t show up in a Google search, you don’t exist. Whether you are applying for a new job, being considered for a board position or trying to get a date, you can count on being Googled. So knowing what Google says about you and proactively managing your personal brand online is critical to success. Various online calculators are available to help you make sense of your Google results and give you advice on how to build a stellar online identity thats properly protected again identity theft. FEATURE BOOK Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet is a book by psychologist and professor, Sherry Turkle. It addresses how people interact with computers, and consequences of that interaction. Turkle explains how peoples’ opinion of computers have evolved through time and some of the implications for new users.
do you feel safer online? author Sarah Phillips
According to A study done in 2007, the self is the most researched topic in psychology. “Our sense of self organizes our thoughts, feelings and actions.” When you complete the sentence, “I am ________” you are essentially defining or describing your identity, how you see yourself. You could fill in the blank to describe an element of your personal identity, for example, “I am sarcastic” or “I am athletic” or you could use terms to describe your social identity, such as, “I am Jewish” or “I am Gay.” Psychologists, Junglas, Johnson, Steel, Abraham, & Loughlin suggest that identity formation includes two processes, exploration and commitment. Exploration is the time period where someone questions or searches for their beliefs, and goals, and commitment is when they decide, and invest in the beliefs and goals. More research on where and how individuals explore their identities is beginning to surface, with the focus turning from real world to virtual worlds. In a study done by Cabiria in 2008, he compared participants’ real world experiences to their virtual world experiences, as a gay or lesbian individual. Part of his findings suggest that, “The structure and design of virtual worlds allows its users to freely explore many facets of their personalities in ways that are not easily available to them in real life.” One reason for this freedom of exploration can be attributed to the anonymity that virtual worlds provide. It gives the individual the ability to be free from social norms, family pressures or expectations they may face in their personal real world lives. However with this anonymity, other consequences come into play when you look at the commitment aspect of identity forma-
tion. For example, if an individual creates a virtual identity that is different from their real life identity, it can take a lot of psychological effort to maintain the false identity. In addition, one of the two options will occur, the identities may converge into one, making the virtual and real identities more true, or the individual may simply toss out the virtual identity, and start over with a new one. According to Junglas they determined that: “In regards to the formation of an individual’s identity in virtual worlds, we have inferred that exploration, which motivates such formation, may play a more dominant role than it does in the real world.” (Junglas et. al, 2007. p. 94) Adrian (2008) has referred to virtual worlds as “domains of liquid identity” because you never really know “who” the individual is and the virtual identities can be quickly “self-defined rather than pre-ordained.” Theorists Boon and Sinclair, go on to say that, in regards to virtual worlds like Second Life, it is almost impossible to tell the real identity of a user. In fact, Second Life does not allow the user to use their real name when they set up their account. As a result, “It provides a very real disconnect from the real.” The element of anonymity within virtual worlds, may provide individuals with a safe and private arena to explore their identity. However, anonymity also presents a problem for others who engage in virtual worlds, and that problem is trust. Anonymity can leave you scratching your head wondering how much, if any, of an individual’s virtual identity, is really - real.
identity
FULL NAME Eduardo Sorin
username Angel_Pie22
username motherf*ckerJOE
FULL NAME Braden Bunch
FULL NAME Ila Gem
username SUCKEZ_349
username BeatboxGem
FULL NAME Colby Samson
username SxyRain
Positive or negative?
FULL NAME Gary Stern
FULL NAME Rachel Brown
username RainbowDreams
The different components of who we are can be categorized as either positive or negative. There are some universal criteria that can help us distinguish the two. Most of the time we will criticize a person’s need to hurt other people and applaud compassion. But it’s not necessary to present universal truisms about good and bad. Subjectively, a person can feel shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, or hatred about some aspect of their identity, while accepting and appreciating other aspects. People also strive to attain new, idealized ways of being. Those who act out in cyberspace - who are in some way hurting or violating the rights of others, or hurting themselves - are usually discharging some negatively charged aspect of their psyche. This purely cathartic act often goes no where. An insecure, passive-aggressive person gets stuck in an endless stream of online arguments. Others may use cyberspace as a opportunity to exercise their positive characteristics, or to develop new ones in a process of “self-actualization.” Online romances, even those involving a clearly recognized element of fantasy, can be growth-promoting. In some cases people may express a negative trait in an attempt to work through it. They are trying to transform the negative feature of their identity into a positive one. A gay person who learns to accept his homosexuality as a result of participation in an online support group has changed the valence from negative to positive. Whether we view something about ourselves as positive or negative can become a complex issue. Is it good or bad that a person tends to be quiet? Sometimes we have mixed feelings. The various environments of communication on the internet serve as a flexible testing ground for exploring those intertwining pluses and minuses. In back-channel e-mail, a fellow lurker in a listserv for professionals may help the quiet person learn the value of being silent in some situations. In a chat room, that same quiet person comes to realize the freedom and delight of spontaneously opening up, and how that leads to friendships.
identity
FULL NAME Darcy Wyeth
identity
username Dark_Shadows
personality
Let’s Play Pretend why individuals feel compelled to lie online
is it really wrong? author Michael J. Formica
Social relationships, by their very nature, are transactional. They are richly imbued with nuance, color and tone. Relationships engaged in the various theaters of social media - even when those relationships exist in a coincident social milieu - lack these characteristics. This is due in part because social media introduces two parallel and paradoxical elements - false intimacy and social distance. These elements contribute to the fostering of relationships that, in their lack of authenticity, can be at best awkward -- and at other times tragic -- in their consequences. There is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card called Ender’s Game in which children are taught to be fighter pilots in an intergalactic war by playing a video game that simulates combat. The tragedy of the story is that Ender, the hero and victim of the tale, eventually puzzles out that it’s not a game at all, and that he and his playmates are actually controlling drones pitted against an unseen and unknown enemy in full scale battle. This is a perfect example of social distance as fostered by our experience of social media - it’s on a screen, so it can’t be real or, more properly, it (whatever “it” is) doesn’t carry the same weight or social valence as it would were it occurring right in front of our eyes. We are, within these contexts, once removed and, as such, can - especially in our current environment of moral relativism - potentially step away from any immediate social responsibility. This sort of characterization can be seen at the core of the emotional infidelity that has become so
salient as our electronic and media connections have become more and more dense, as well as the sort of cyber-bullying and social expose that has recently captured our attention.
“Social media introduces two parallel and paradoxical elements - false intimacy and social distance” By contrast, social media also offers a sense of false intimacy. Somehow it is important for you to know that your “friend” Ally, whom you haven’t actually seen in 30 years, just went for a walk and somehow it is important that she tell you - and 234 other folks. But now you “know” about her day and that somehow fosters a sense of connection - for both of you. That connection, however, is considerably more tenuous - and less real -- than when your spouse asks you where you are so s/he can get a visual of you in the kitchen or at the grocery or headed for the gym, is it not? It is that same false sense of connection that can prompt even those of us with the most rigid of boundaries to get pretty bendy with those boundaries within contexts like E-Harmony or Match.com. Fling. com, by the way, gets about 40% more traffic than Match - go figure...or not.
The real misfortune here is not that social distance has us saying or doing stupid things, or that false intimacy has us falling in love with a fantasy. The misfortune is that these elements, both independently and in combination, and indeed the entire fabric of what makes up the tapestry of media-informed social interaction, are apparently contributing to a fairly significant deficit and declination in social and emotional intelligence all the way around. To whit, “I’m not having an affair, if I’m not having sex.” or “I won’t talk to my roommate about my discomfort with his or her sexual preferences; I’ll simply broadcast it anonymously.” or “I won’t exercise the social decorum about my (frankly, rather nominally promiscuous) sexual escapades one would presume, I’ll make a flier!” Does any of this strike anyone else as more than marginally absurd? And, more to the point, without the venue of a socially distant and falsely intimate media forum, would we even be making these choices? These are some important questions and, yes, I’m being a bit more preachy than usual here, but there’s a reason for it. My own doctoral thesis - penned long before the advent of the Internet or anything else - considered the influence of media on social perspective and its consequences. It is simply astonishing to me that something I dreamed up as an ivory tower reflection on socialization and social educational theory more than 25 years ago could become such a powerfully evident construct within our post-modern media society. More to the point, it saddens me that it would be the case at all.
3 types of online lies Jeff Hancock is a professor at Cornell University who lectures on how the Internet affects communication and he introduces three types of lies in his deception keynote: Butler Lie a lie, which is used as a buffer to get someone off one’s back for the time being. Sock Puppet when an individual takes on a second identity, for example, a writer taking on a second identity to write a book review for himself. Chinese Water Army refers to the thousands of people that are hired by governmental agencies to write online product or hotel reviews. FEATURE BOOK Patricia Wallace’s novel, The Psychology of the Internet, explores the psychological aspects of cyberspace, a virtual world in which people from around the globe are interacting in new, unusual, and occasionally alarming ways. Drawing on research in the social sciences, communications, business, and other fields, Patricia Wallace examines how the online environment can influence the way we behave, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
personality
Liar, Liar Human beings lie. It is almost second nature that at some point during the day we will lie. White lie or otherwise it doesn’t matter we all lie but interestingly enough when it comes to our online lives the majority of lies happen in emails. This is the findings of a new study that was conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst title humorously enough “Liar, Liar, Hard Drive on Fire: How Media Context Affects Lying Behavior”. The study looked at 110 same-sex pairs of college students and their conversations that were held either face-to-face, using email, or instant messaging and analyzed their interactions for inaccuracies. What they found was that while you could find some sort of deception across all three mediums lying was present more in instant messaging and emails; with emails coming out ahead with the number of lies told. This boiled down to the confirmation that lying was much more common, and easier, with both how far away the respondents were from each other and in the case of email the asynchronous nature of the communication. “Ultimately, the findings show how easy it is to lie when online, and that we are more likely to be the recipient of deceptive statements in online communication than when interacting with others faceto-face,” says Feldman. “In exploring the practical implications of this research, the results indicate that the Internet allows people to feel more free, psychologically speaking, to use deception, at least when meeting new people,” Feldman and Zimbler say. “Given the public attention to incidents of Internet predation, this research suggests that the deindividualization created by communicating from behind a computer screen may facilitate the process of portraying a disingenuous self
“Social media is not the answer to every problem, but it is undoubtedly a useful and powerful advance in learning.� - Anonymous