Social Web 2.0 Class Week 3: Identity, Online Matchmaking

Social Web 2.0Implications of Social Technologies for Digital Media

Shelly Farnham, Ph.D.Com 597 Winter 2007

Week 3 Identity and Online Match Making

Identity

Material, social, mental aspects of self sustained over time

The embodied selfOne body, one identityOne place at a timeMultiple roles, but one at a time usually

determined by social context

Social Identity and Social Context

Social Identity (identity in social context)Roles

Friend, daughter, secretary, judgeGroup membership

Male/female, race

Situational effects on behavior, depending on social identity activatedParty, school, knitting club

Impression Management

Self-presentation Any behavior intended to create, modify, maintain impression in

minds of others Why?

Define nature of social interaction gain material or social rewards self-construction self-enhancement

Trade off between desire to present best impression to achieve social goods

Ingratiation, self-promotion, intimidation, exemplification, supplication

Need to be accurate, accountable

Classic Self-presentation Behavior

Public claims of ability on a future task is a function ofPersonal expectation

of successAudience will learn

how well they did

Schlenker 1975 JPSP, 32 1030-1037.

Disadvantages of Online Identity

No centralized, physical presence Limited awareness of, or control over who is your

audience Interacting with multiple social contexts at same time Identity asynchronous

persists in your absence, so potential access by wrong audience Online role/situational conflict

difficulty keeping role identities separate Stress of having incompatible roles

Distrust of anonymous/minimally identified others Fraud, cheat, impersonation Trolling

Advantages of Online Identity

Anonymity/Pseudonymity Expose sensitive issues in way can’t do offline

Health Alternative life style/sexuality Interpersonal stories

Broadcast profile enables access to others Without having to go to bars, job agencies Use sophisticated matchmaking systems

Identity play Fraud, cheat, impersonation Trolling

Self-presentation Online Constraints in presentation medium

FtF: Dress, body language, paraverbal cues, car, home Online: Profiles, home pages, blogs, text, music, avatars Conventional signal vs. assessment signal

Unknown audience Self-presentation

Often insufficient information about audience for effective self-presentation Teenager presenting self as cool by drinking beer to friend vs. parent Fetishist presenting self to fellow fetishists vs. work environment

Role/situational interaction expectations People somewhat uncomfortable without knowledge of age, sex, location, race, SES Situational expectations (party vs. school)

Harrassment concerns – don’t want to reveal I am fifteen year old girl Identity theft – don’t want to expose my credit car number Question of authority

Does the person have sufficient expertise to be making knowledge claims? Accountability

If person is not help accountable by being anonymous, tend to distrust --- with reason.

Profiles

a/s/l

Profiles – what matters?

Profiles – what matters?

Unique identifies Name, birthday, email, home address, phone, web address

Social identities Sex, age, race, SES, citizenship/nationality, language

Roles and memberships School/employmnet, social roles, voluntary membership groups

Interest and activities Hobbies, interests, activities, sports

Preferences/tastes Musical, movie, books, food, dislikes, likes

Personal characteristics Intelligence, interpersonal style (e.g. introverted), affective style (e.g. cheerful)

Values and beliefs Religion, political beliefs, ethics, spirituality

Social standing/reputation Liked, respected, leader

Profiles – what matters?Importance Ratings

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Davis et al. unpublished paper

Profile features – What matters?

Text Fields Open-ended personal statement Blog entries

Pictures Video Audio Links

Friend lists Groups

In dating sites, what is important?

Fiore & Donath, 2005)

Xbox Matchmaking Study

Who do you want to play with, based on type of profile.

(riegelsberg et al. 2006)

Xbox MatchMaking Study

Identity Crisis in Web 2.0

Digital identity: “….a person or thing represented or existing in the digital realm which is being described or dealt with”. (Kim Cameron)

Patchwork of identity one-offs Susceptible to criminalization

Phishing, Pharming Need unifying identity metasystem

Reliable way to establish who is connecting with what Hard to create standardized identity layer

Web sites want control of identity, prevent spillover to other web sites

Laws of Identity (Kim Cameron)

1. User control and consent2. Minimal disclosure for a constrained use3. Justifiable parties4. Directed Identity

Omnidirectional Unidirectional

5. Pluralism of operators and technologies6. Human integration (ceremony)7. Consistent experience across contexts

Fraud -- Phishing

Identity Fraud -- Phishing

Identity in an Age of Web 2.0

OpenID (Http://openid.net/) -- opensourceAuthenticationAuthorization

ACL (Access control list) RBAC (Role based access control)

Identity informationSingle sign (SSO) on across multiple

properties

Plaxo

Online address book People essentially subscribe to each

other’s contact infoSyncs with common email systemsUpdates automatically distributed

MyBlogLog

Profile for conversation in blogosphereso readers are as discoverable as authorsFoster awareness around audience, and

conversation

Match Making 11% internet users gone to dating sites 37% of single internet users 17% of those who have used dating services entered long-term

relationship with someone met therePew:http://www.pewinternet.org/report_display.asp?r=177

Personals web site drew 40 million unique visitors in U.S. – ½ # of single adults. Mulrine 2003

The top five online dating sites in Dec. 2005, were Yahoo Personals, Match.com, Spark Networks, True.com, and Mate1.com, according to comScore.

Yahoo's was far and away the most popular, with 24.04 million visitors, compared with 3.6 million for second-place Match.

Determinants of Attraction

Proximity Repeated exposure “mere exposure effect”

Physical attractiveness Similarity

Birds of a feather…not opposites attract

Reciprocation Matching hypothesis – pair off similar in physical

attractiveness

Social Matching Online Matching goals

Dating, expertise, gaming partner

Types of systems Search/sort/match systems

Mainstream (match.com, yahoo) Subpopulation (Jdate.com, manhunt.net)

Personality matching Semi-automatic matching

Social networks Features

Profiles Search Matchmaking algorithms Graduated privacy and communication

Xbox MatchMaking Study

What you care about depends on kind of player you are.

Impact of Attributes by Player Type

-0.4

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-0.2

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0.2

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Q1) Socially-Oriented

Player

Skill-OrientedPlayer

Likebility Friendli-ness

CommitedGamer

Skill Intell. Socio-Economic

Status

Xbox MatchMaking Study

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Skill-Oriented Player

Text Profile

PhotoProfile

Voice Profile

Impact of Age by Player Type and Condition

Reputation information study

Explored what reputation information in a profile people cared about the most in selecting a chat partner.

Found they cared the most about ratings by friends, then about similarity to self. Cared less about overall measures of rank/ratings.

Importance of Information in selecting chat partner

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Rank

Rating

Similarity

Interacts with friends

Ratings by friends

(jensen et al. 2000?))

Yahoo.com

Match.com

Myspace

MySpace

eHarmony

Team projects (3 or 4)

The term project allows you to apply what we discuss in class to a real-life situation or issue that you want to explore.

Assume your team (of 2 or 3 people) is hired as a consultant for another

company that wishes to explore how to use social technologies to enhance user’s experience of some form of digital media (e.g. text, pictures, music, video). First, you will review related technologies, discussing advantages and disadvantages of each in terms of theory underlying design of social technology systems. Then, you will identify your client’s target users and their particular social and informational goals. Finally, you will storyboard and wireframe a social software system incorporating your understanding of underlying theory, your target users, and current trends in the field. Your system may either newly design or redesign your client’s current system.

You will be expected to present your project as a power point presentation, and in part as a written spec, with the assumption that your client company is the audience of both your presentation and your written spec.

Week 3: Teams formed Week 4: Submit a 250 word abstract of client’s problem Week 5: Provide written draft of literature review Week 6: Provide written draft of technology review Week 7: Provide written draft of assessment of target users Week 8: Provide powerpoint draft of storyboard & wireframe Week 9: Provide powerpoint draft of intro, lit & tech review, and assessment of target users Week 10: Provide final draft of written spec, and present project in

class. I will provide feedback at each stage, so for week 10 you are

expected to update the final draft of your powerpoint presentation and written spec incorporating the feedback provided. The written spec should include the bibliography.

Schedule (3 or 4)

Developing Client Problem Specifying the client problem to be solved, 250 words max. Due next week. Example:

VJ Central is a web site where VJs go to share knowledge, resources and collaborate. They approached our team because they believe that while VJs are posting some videos, they are not using the site to collaborate by building on each other’s content. They are interested in improving how their users share video clips that they created through the site, potentially using creative commons licensing. Our task is to explore issues of sharing videos clips that are specific to VJs, and storyboard a tool that a) allows users to find relevant content from others based on similarity in style and musical interests with a social rating system b) download and modify it, and then c) repost it, such that for any piece of media they can trace how its use has evolved.