UPDATED – April 28, 2011 Groupon and other similar group coupon sites are currently a huge online trend. Consider that Groupon recently turned down a buyout offer from Google for $6 billion, prompting Google to start their own version, Google Offers. For the uninitiated, these sites offer huge discounts at local businesses if a certain […]
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Annotated Bibliography: social network sites, privacy and surveillance
academic annotated bibliography facebook privacy selfsurveillance sns social media surveillance thesisI was invited to write the annotated bibliography on social network sites, privacy and surveillance for the upcoming Cybersurveillance and Everyday Life workshop at the University of Toronto, and they’ve kindly allowed me to share it here. I’ve also included, below, some other resources I’ve found useful for general social network research. [download full annotated […]
Ethnography, ideology & internet research
academic ethnography facebook internet research methodology privacy thesis[This is another brain dump of a core piece of my PhD research on Facebook and privacy. Huge thanks to Phil Moore, one of my advisors and an ethnographic guru, for helping me think this all out and make the connections.] While it may seem that they are one and the same, there is an important distinction […]
The Philosophy of Facebook (or, the real reason Facebook doesn’t care about privacy)
academic californian ideology cybernetics facebook philosophy of facebook thesisUpdate: This is an early brain dump of some of the core concepts in my PhD thesis, which I’ve now completed. For a more fleshed out version of this, please see my dissertation, which can be downloaded here. To say that Facebook does not care about privacy is really only half the story. Maybe even […]
Privacy, safety & MMOs for girls
academic children kids mmos privacy social media youthI took a short break from my PhD thesis to spend part of the summer researching autonomy, privacy and social media for kids with Jason Nolan at Ryerson’s EDGE Lab. I had the honour of presenting our findings at the recent DIY Citizenship conference in Toronto. If you weren’t able to check it out, my talk […]
Facebook vs Facebook: The Movie
academic academic facebook sns socialtechnology socialweb thefacebook thesisI just came back from seeing The Social Network on opening night, in a packed theatre complete with a Tweetup filling the first two rows. I was impressed (especially after reading the rather disappointing ‘The Accidental Billionaires,’ the book the film was based on). But you can go read another much more excellent blog post about […]
TEDWomen. What’s Next, TEDAfricanAmerican? TEDGay?
conference gender rant ted tedwomenTED recently announced a new conference: TEDWomen. TPUTH‘s snarky headline said it all: “Sexist TED finally allows women on stage.” TED’s rational for the gender segregation: “Over the past several years, our ideas on women have changed. A new lens reveals women and girls as powerful change agents in the area of economic growth, public […]
Foursquare’s unprivacy Twitter ‘feature’ (or Foursquare, privacy and gender)
feminism foursquare geek feminism gender internets privacy thesis twitterI love Foursquare and any one of my friends will tell you how obsessed I am (complete with an eye roll). I’m a level 1 super user and religiously check in where ever I go. I’ve added a lot of new locations and will fix location information or duplicates when I see a mistake. I’m […]
Why data roaming will cost you way too much (even when you don’t use it)
UncategorizedIn October I took a trip to the US Midwest for Internet Research 10. I had heard horror stories from friends and the internets about surprise $3000+ roaming bills. So, of course, checked to make sure my data roaming on my iPhone was set to off (you know, that setting where it clearly says “turn […]
Facebook Angst vs. LiveJournal Drama
academic angst drama facebook livejournal thesisA few years ago Fono and I wrote a paper that was basically about LJ drama, even though we gussied it up with a fancy academic title and invoked Baudrillard. The main thing we found was that people had all these different ideas about what being Friends on LiveJournal meant. The main reasons people Friended […]