Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well, we've managed to make it to the end of another semester. Just a few more assignments and exams and we'll be home free for a few weeks.

As I look back over the semester and all of the interactivity that we've experienced I am reminded that while much of it is fascinating, even magical at times, there are certain things that cannot be replaced by interaction in cyberspace. Poking a friend, writing on someone's wall, linking to a funny video on YouTube, even battling with cyberpals in your favorite online videogame...none of it stacks up with spending time with family and friends at this very special time of year. The real world, or "meatspace" as Barlow likes to call it, may have its limitations, but there are certain things that we do in real life that still do not have a viable alternative in cyberspace.

For example, an AP news story in today's Pueblo Chieftain talks about the phenomenon of giving virtual gifts. Apparently you can give virtual gifts to residents of SecondLife, or to your friends in Facebook, or your nieces who frequent Stardoll. Accordinng to the AP article, Michael Bugeja, the director of Iowa State University’s journalism school is,

challenging people to give money they planned to spend on virtual gifts to a charity instead. ‘‘That would send a message appropriate for the season that is far more humanitarian than a new avatar outfit or Facebook icon.’’

As you celebrate the Christmas season this year I hope that you will find a few minutes away from the computer, cell phone and videogame console to spend with friends and family...people with whom you can laugh and love in the real world.

all the best-
prof. e.

Facebook to backtrack on Beacon?

I've posted earlier about the new social advertising feature on Facebook called Beacon and how it was ruffling a few feathers. Turns out that it is more than just a few. According to an article in Business Week, 45,000 people have signed a petition started by MoveOn.org asking Facebook to turn face on this initiative. Bloggers at MediaShift have offered up a Web Privacy Manifesto for your consideration. Personal privacy is a sensitive issue and as Shelly Palmer points out on his blog, there is potential for Beacon to cause trouble for Facebook users.

For example, if you purchase a movie ticket on Fandango.com, your news feed (and the feeds of all your friends) will report the time of your purchase, the name of the movie ticket purchased (with a link to it) and the site where it was purchased (with a link). Sounds great! Doesn’t it? This is just the kind of information Jeff R., a freshman at NYU, wanted his girlfriend to see. She showed up at the theater expecting that the two tickets he purchased online were for the two of them. Sadly, Jeff was taking his other girlfriend, Kim W. to see American Gangster. You can imagine how unfortunately this particular evening turned out.

This anecdote, if true, is an example of what can go horribly wrong when we surrender our privacy to software algorithms designed to maximize connectivity and interactivity. Sometimes less is more.

Privacy and interactivity: Choose one

A wise professor once told me that the world of video production has a tried and true maxim; "Time, Money, Quality...You Get to Choose Two." In other words, you can have it fast and cheap, but it will be low quality. Or you can have it done quickly, with high quality, but it will cost you $$$. So it is with privacy and interactive media. You can have high quality interactivity, but it will cost you some personal information. Just as in a real-life relationship, the quality of the relationship depends on transparency and disclosure on the part of both participants. Research suggests that Millennials understand this and are willing to disclose information for the sake of a richer online experience. But in the process they sometimes become lackadaisical about granting permission to their online partners. How many of you have read the privacy clause before clicking the "proceed" button? Facebook's privacy policy is quite lengthy, but begins with these two core principles:

1. You should have control over your personal information.
Facebook helps you share information with your friends and people around you. You choose what information you put in your profile, including contact and personal information, pictures, interests and groups you join. And you control the users with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on the My Privacy page.

2. You should have access to the information others want to share.
There is an increasing amount of information available out there, and you may want to know what relates to you, your friends, and people around you. We want to help you easily get that information.

Of course privacy policies are only as good as the companies behind them. Does the company's reputation for business ethics suggest that they will be a trustworthy partner? If you're not sure, you really ought to reconsider jumping into a relationship with them.

Facebook's "Social Advertising"

Innovative Marketing Scheme, or Threat to Personal Privacy...

This week we've been looking at the social and ethical issues around interactive media and next week we'll examine marketing and eCommerce. This blog post will deal with an issue that falls into both categories. The issue in the news is Facebook's decision to engage in advertising that involves enlisting members as evangelists for brands. Facebook's Beacon feature allows members of Facebook to receive ads that contain the names and photos of their friends who have signed up as fans of the advertiser. According to Facebook,

Engaging with businesses and buying things are part of your everyday life. Advertising doesn't have to be about interrupting what you're doing, but getting the right information about the purchases you make when you want it. We believe we've created a system where ads are more relevant and actually enhance Facebook.

That, of course, is the beauty of targeted ads. When it works, you see ads about things that you care about...and little else. Based on people's online "behavior" advertisers are able to "target" those most likely to be interested in, or in the market for, specific products. The trade-out, of course, is personal privacy.

What Facebook is doing is combining behavioral targeting with Word-of-Mouth marketing. For instance, when a Facebook member named "Sam" declares that he is "friends" with, say, the brand known as Apple, Sam's human friends are notified and Apple gets a "bump" from the implied endorsement. But do Facebook members really want to become public promoters of products that they use? We'll have to wait to see.

Interactivity at a price!

This week we'll explore some of the social and ethical issues surrounding interactive media. Despite all the benefits that we enjoy, there are plenty of causes for concern when we spend substantial time and resources interacting with media content and other users.

One of the most obvious issues is the potential loss of personal privacy. Interactive media websites frequently collect personal data from you as you browse and most of the time their use of this data is simply to provide a more satisfying user experience. However, there are plenty of instances where the line is crossed and where users become unwitting participants. Users want to wield control over their "marketing profile" the way that they control what parts of their personal profiles are available to other users of social networking sites. The YouTube clip below takes a somewhat humorous look at personal data being used unethically.



As the clip amply demonstrates, vigilance on the part of the user is a necessary--though not always adequate--first line of defense. For another angle on the privacy issue, check out this article from the NYTimes.

The video game called Life

In a recent Wired magazine article, Rex Sorgatz raises some interesting questions about the effect that decades of game play has had on our collective psyche. The article, When Reality Feels Like Playing a Game, a New Era Has Begun, cites several examples of real life taking on videogame-like characteristics. For example, Sorgatz claims that,

the gaming mindset has now become pervasive. We use game models to motivate ourselves, to answer questions, to find creative solutions. For many, life itself has turned into a game.

I recently was talking to a friend who was having trouble tracking his finances. He wasn't a fan of the personal finance software Quicken but he had an idea. "What if," he asked me, "someone invented a videogame that was a simulation of a home budget?" His solution was to take an onerous task and move it into the world of game play. Who knows, someone may someday make a lot of money by letting people have fun while they balance their check book!

You can probably find some area of your life that would be a lot more fun if it was more like Halo 3, and less like homework. But if you're thinking household chores, you're too late. According to Sorgatz, "Chorewars.com lets you turn the grind of household tasks into a quest for experience points." Where was this website when I was sharing a house with four other grad students?!

Leopard about to pounce!

The latest (and greatest?) of Apple's OSX upgrades is just about a week away (10.26) and it looks like a winner. Apple says they've added 300+ new features and from the look of the guided tour, it may be worth the $129 upgrade. Some of the notable features include; Finder that now has Cover Flow (one of the views available on the iPod that allows you to browse cover art), Quick Look (allows you to browse through your files without opening them), Time Machine (an automatic backup feature with a cool restore feature), Spaces (a way to divide your screen real estate into partitions that you can switch between) and some cool new features in Mail and iChat. Take a look at the video and you'll notice some similarities to the Bump Top, Multi-touch, and Surface Computing demos that we watched in class a few weeks ago. Then, before Friday the 26th, post to your blog about the one or two features that would most likely make you want to buy a Mac (or, if you already have one, upgrade to Leopard).