Unfriending is Unprofessional and Unnecessary

According to a recent Australian regulatory decision, unfriending a coworker on Facebook can add up to workplace bullying. There were other actions leading up to this, but unfriending was key (see CNET for details).

Just recently, and without provocation, I was similarly bullied!

I noticed this when a friend posted something to Facebook and tagged another person. When I went to go to my "friend's" page, I couldn't access it. I checked my friend list and sure enough I had been unfriended!

I probably have been unfriended by others before. In the early days of social media I, like most people, wantonly sent friend requests to people I barely knew or knew from long, long ago in a galaxy far away.  I did end up interacting rather regularly via social media with some of those people, but by and large these very weak ties were not maintained. Of my 200+ friends on Facebook, I probably only interact with less than 30 in a given month. So if people unfriended me over the years, I really didn't notice.

I did notice this person unfriending me, however, as we have had a continual workplace relationship and collegial ties that have persisted for years. I thought we got along really well both offline and online and we never had any incidents. Possibly, this person just accidentally unfriended me or went through some massive friend purge in which I was engulfed. Or maybe I'm just a creep and I don't belong there.

Either way, considering that I must have continual business dealings (albeit limited) with this coworker her action is therefore quite unprofessional.

I wouldn't call it bullying - but it definitely seems mean-spirited, and more importantly it is unnecessary!

I'm going to give this person the benefit of the doubt and assume the unfriending wasn't personal and was possibly an accident. Otherwise unfriending someone is sending a direct and unequivocal message that you refuse to have further interactions with this person. This is not appropriate workplace behaviour. This is only acceptable if it has based on some sort of horrible dealings, which would be better dealt with by talking to your Human Resources department.

Facebook is a dominant form of social interaction (and likely THE dominant form) among friends, family, and coworkers, so closing this off is sending a very strong message of hostility. I don't believe most people realize how powerful a message it is (including digital media experts, as this case may be). I have often heard people talk about unfriending people very casually. We may not like how Facebook and other social networking sites have pervaded the workplace and so many spheres of our life, but we have to find ways to deal with this reality.

Some people choose to avoid social networking sites altogether. This is an effective tactic, but it is a blunt option that blocks one from lots of interactions that could be beneficial to one personally and professionally. Others choose to have multiple accounts or use pseudonyms to keep their lives and people apart - but this becomes unwieldy and too much effort to maintain.

Instead, there is a solution that achieves the same ends, but in a low-key and diplomatic fashion. People just need to take a few minutes to make use of the excellent privacy and group settings that Facebook and similar sites offer. Consequently, there is no point nowadays to unfriending someone (barring heinous acts) ever again.

First, set up various "list" of Facebook friends. I suggest having different lists for close friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances at the very least. Facebook even has preset lists for some of these. You can then designate what members of a list have access to - as little or as much of your stuff as you decide.  You can then target content to list by by type of content (e.g. all photos) or a specific piece of content (e.g. okay, even acquaintances can see this picture of me meeting this big shot). Facebook has a preset list called "Restricted" which only receives access to content you make public.

Then when you post status updates, photos, anything to Facebook it can be easily and quickly targetted to lists. Facebook even remembers your preference and makes that a default.

You can thereby easily and regularly segment portions of your life. Coworkers don't need to see family photos and your close friends don't need to hear about that interesting new article of interest to only those in your esoteric profession.

There is no need therefore to unfriend someone!  Instead you can send someone down to restricted purgatory where they receive and can view little or no social media content from you.

And if you don't want to hear from them, you can remove them from your news feed via Facebook's "Unfollow" feature. You still remain "friends" but they are now dead to you in your social media stream. The great thing is that the person will likely not notice any of this and a working (or family) relationship can be peacefully maintained without the person ever knowing any differently.

To successfully pull this off, I recommend posting some stuff for all groups to see. There are many types of posts that you can benefit from more people seeing - such as promotional posts about an event, accomplishment, or company. For this reason, I also recommend making some Facebook posts public.

I am a little shocked that a digital media expert has behaved this way to me and didn't know enough about her field to make astute use of the website. It will be hard for me to not think much less of her personally and professionally as a result.

So learn from her mistake!

And if I am a creep, don't let me know that I don't belong - just make me "Restricted" and I'll never be the wiser.

The Hardest Thing About Social Media

One might say that the hardest thing about social media is figuring out the privacy settings to make sure anything embarrsing isn't made public. But I don't buy that argument anymore - as social media sites have made it quite easy and given multiple ways to configure privacy settings. There have been enough high-profile cases of grandiose online humilations with resultingly horrible repercussions from posting inappropriate things for people to know the importance of not making one's online life entirely public.

But to be fair not all social media gaffes arise from people making their account public, some inappropriate material is posted or leaked by people within one's closed social network. As in "friends" posting pix of their friends in compromising situations without permission. So one could say the hardest thing about social media is knowing who to trust.

I do think this is a legitimate concern, but social media sites have made it easier to have offending material untagged with one's name or removed. Norms are starting to change (at least among older users - likely not amongst teens) that posting dubious material about a friend is not funny. Admittedly, there is a long way for both companies and users to improve in this regard.

I think the hardest thing about social media is not posting something you direly want to, but that may return to haunt you.

Case in point, over the years I have been treated unprofessionally by some companies and people and there is no viable way to get justice through official channels. Social media and user-generated content sites can be an excellent source of retribution (and maybe even dishing out deserved revenge). A hotel I once stayed at added lot of charges to my credit card and would not reverse them. It was only because I posted a scathing review about this on TripAdvisor that I got a refund. Similarly, I had the worst customer service experience if my life with Bell Canada trying to get their Fine service installed - official complaints got me nowhere, but it pleases me to no end that my blog post on their lousy service gets thousands of views regularly.

But in these cases the opportunity for the companies to strike out against me was minimal (or at least I hope so). So although  a desire to post something can be profound and the motivation just, there are cases where doing so may cause you more harm than good.

People might think they are protected by sites that allow anonymous posting. But here's another hard thing - the Internet is never anonymous.

First, it is possible to discern an identity by the nature, style, and date of what someone wrote. Secondly, via IP tracking and other means it is possible to uncover people.
So even when you are seething with righteous injustice and no official channels are open to you, consider carefully - and give yourself at least a week's worth of reflection time - whether it is ultimately best for you to post something. Assume that what you are considering posting was read by the person (e.g. a boss a friend) or the worst person you can think of to read it (future boss, CEO) and that it was known to be by you. Because this can and does happen.

Revenge may be a tasty dish, but it may cause indigestion that repeats on you in unpleasant ways. So the hardest thing about social media is not posting something that really needs to be posted.

It's better to seeth privately with injustice of my treatment, than to let a few minutes of venting (however blissful they may be) result in long term damage to you. Instead repress your rage by watching cat videos or filling out online personality quizes until the seething passes.

Closing the Facebook

A few days ago, I signed back into Facebook after a month long self-imposed exile. In an effort to improve my work-from-home efficiency, I had my wife change my password and not give it to me. I did the same with my email and Twitter accounts (I still haven't signed back onto Twitter, but I couldn't live without email beyond a couple days.)

In terms of improving efficiency, the effect was negligible - an expert procrastinator can always find pressing distractions. But the Facebook vacation did offer a personal experiment. I haven't gone more than a week without accessing Facebook since I became a member years ago. My usage has grown exponentially over the years, particularly when I got a smartphone and also when I started working from home. Pre-exile, I was visiting Facebook several times a day to read posts and comments and I would post at least once a day.

Over the years, I've read a lot of criticism and thought they were ignoring the positive aspects. For people geographically or socially isolated (e.g. moving away from friends or suffering from social phobia), Facebook can serve a vital social function.

It can also be a great way to share information from people who share similar interests and viewpoints (although such homophily can also limit the depth and diversity of information one gets exposed to - see this article for more). It can also provide entertainment and information for the many otherwise idle moments of life.

Considering these and other benefits and also considering my prior addiction-level usage, I thought I would go into heavy Facebook withdrawal. Much to my surprise, however, I didn't miss Facebook.

Not Missing Facebook
Other than a slight desire a few times to share a particularly great photo of my kid doing something novel, I never missed Facebook once.

It's not like my life during the Facebook break was busier or more fullfilling than before. During that time I also didn't interact any more or less with my friends face-to-face than normal, as some Facebook quitters insist will happen.

Even before my Facebook exile, I had started to feel that Facebook was becoming less interesting and meaningful. Most of the people I knew had reduced posting their quality and volume of posts and comments.  With a few notable exceptions, the bulk of posts in my feed (aside from ads) were pictures of people's food, trip photos, with the occasional cartoon, George Takei post, or cat meme thrown in. Don't get my wrong, I love cat videos, cute baby pictures, and George Takei.

Upon my return to Facebook rather than feel like I had missed out on great stuff and connection with friends, I questioned why was I had been using Facebook in the first place?

But I was still surprised why I didn't miss Facebook considering how much I loved it before. So I googled quitting Facebook for others' thoughts on this.

Why Quit Facebook?
It turns out that lots of people have quit Facebook and found it similarly relieving. So I gathered some of their points below to help explain why giving up or reducing Facebook can be beneficial. I don't share all these points, but they present some keen insight into the effects of using and not using Facebook:

[Quitting Facebook meant that] I've sequestered myself from the content that moves me to compare my haves/have nots to others' and overanalyze my life and my choices.

Jordan K. Turgeon Huffington Post

In getting rid of my account I had no option but to send personal e-mails, texts, cards, letters, and make phone calls, and have the quality and substantive contact that is impossible to achieve through Facebook. While the amount of contact I make with individuals on a daily basis has, of course, decreased, the quality of that contact has been greatly improved and I have started to re-establish meaningful friendships with those whom, despite social networking, I had lost touch.

Abigail O'Reilly, Little Red Ranting Hood

After posting [on Facebook or Twitter], I would just move on, like a junkie moving from score to score, always looking for the next high and rarely enjoying or examining the one I was having. Posting on Facebook or Twitter just lets me flit my nails across the surface of my writing itch. Then I'd move to the next mini-moment, without ever letting whatever I was experiencing resonate within me.

Maile Keone, Huffington Post

What we want when others view us [on Facebook, per a study] they learned, is praise. It's gratifying when people "Like" and/or comment on your new profile photo. The problem is that, when they don't grace you with "Likes" or comments, it makes you feel less valuable.

Araceli Cruz, Fusion.net

[One of the main things I don't miss about Facebook is] the wasting of time. True story, I finish work about a half hour early each day, thanks to my not having Facebook. In between writing posts, I'd always log in, see what was up, and then I'd inevitably wind up going down some rabbit hole into someone's life I haven't physically seen in 15 years.

Nicole Fabian-Weber, The Stir

All this social sharing has too often ruined my ability to be present and live in the moment. It’s easy to start viewing the world in terms of what will make a great status update. Or taking photos only for the sake of letting other people share in a moment. We soon find ourselves viewing every thing we do in life through the lens of our smartphone. Constantly reporting our lives rather than living them. Only valuing activities to the extent that they can be captured and shared online.

Mathew Warner, The Radical Life

One writer, just swore off using the Like button on Facebook but found meaningful results:

I had been suffering a sense of disconnection within my online communities prior to swearing off Facebook likes. It seemed that there were fewer conversations, more empty platitudes and praise, and a slew of political and religious pageantry. It was tiring and depressing. After swearing off the Facebook Like, though, all of this changed. I became more present and more engaged, because I had to use my words rather than an unnuanced Like function. I took the time to tell people what I thought and felt, to acknowledge friend’s lives, to share both joys and pains with other human beings.

Elan Morgan, Medium.com

The points raised by these writers and myself are consistent with a study ran by Pew. It turns out many people take a Facebook break - and many go back to it. Beyond the people who reported being too busy to use Facebook (21%), other people noted that they had lost interest in Facebook (10%), found that the quality of content was not compelling (10%), found the site was too full of gossip and drama (9%), or that they were spending too much time on Facebook (8%).

Although my Facebook break did not have the desired effect of improve my work efficiency, it did allow me some time to reflect on my usage and consider the effects Facebook was having on me. I strongly recommend other Facebook addicts consider a similar break.

In the end, I can't imagine quitting Facebook completely as it is a dominant communication channel and cultural outlet. But I do intend to limit my use to once every two or three days - and go from there.

Hashtag Hell!

I have nothing against hashtags in theory - they are a great way to distinguish tags. And I love tagging - in fact I have tagged 1000 articles with my tag "net news" for bookmarking on Delicious and to share the stories I find particularly interesting and useful about Internet and digital media. These items are then displayed on the left of this blog (----> check them out ---->).

The thousandth article tagged was a story highlighting Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Falon's parody of insane tagging practices on social media. Their video really describes one of many reasons why I dislike Twitter.

Mental Map of Online Participation

I was going through my files and came across a mental map I did a few months ago about factors involved in online participation and social media, particularly related to participation in politics and government.

Digital Media Summit ReView

Yesterday was the second and final day of the Digital Media Summit conference in Toronto. I recapped my highlights from the first day of the conference on Webslinger and the Twitter feed has useful highlights as well.

Some speakers on the second day overlapped with material covered on the first day. But this helped drive home key themes raised in various sessions. Overall, however, it was an excellent conference. Here are my favourite take-aways:

1. Consider mobile first
2. Create social objects
3. Context is crucial 
4. Recruit your customers to work for you
5. Identity matters

1) Consider mobile first
With the exponential global adoption of smartphones, more people are accessing digital content predominantly through mobiles and this is expected to increase.  There will be a role for desktop computers (as one speaker noted "who has ever created, let alone used, a spreadsheet on their mobile?" - no one had). But more people are using their mobiles to access company's content - several properties represented at the conference are already receiving more traffic from mobiles than PCs.

Yet accessing content via mobiles is often difficult, messy, or impossible to access via mobiles. Several speakers advised that instead of trying to retrofit all web content to mobiles, which is what most companies do, consider building for mobiles first.

To do this effectively, Erik Qualman, pointed out the 80/20 rule applies to mobile - so 80% of a company's value will come from 20% of their online content, so "scale down your offerings to the essentials" to optimize the mobile experience (and likely the web too)/

2) Create brand awareness and engagement with social objects
Although no one used the term "social objects" the concept came up several times. Social objects are pieces of online content - videos, articles, photos, games - upon which people are drawn to, organically share and discuss. Think of the latest kitten video featured on YouTube's homepage and you got a social object.

Mark McKay presented Ford's Zombie Escape commercial, which is an excellent example of this. Of course zombie videos are going to go viral like well a zombie epidemic, but what I liked about this campaign is it actually tied into the product features it was promoting. As McKay urged it's important with such campaigns to be "relevant and differentiated" in addition to "shareable".

3) Context is crucial
As the ability to customize digital media continues to become easier and cheaper to produce, it's crucial to consider the context of your audience and deliver content and experiences relevant to their habits and motivations.

As Nicola Smith advises, "context should drive execution" and to demonstrate this Smith used the example of a German pet food company that placed poster dispensers by parks where people walked their dogs with instructions to check-in via Foursquare. They then got a free sample of a new pet food. I find this campaigns works on a few levels - obviously, it's a fun and memorable campaign. But more importantly, it delivers the brand engagement and sampling where and when it is most relevant to people.

Context is also important not only in content but in media form - whether tablet, PCs, mobile, etc. Katrina Klier urged that it is crucial to get "the right modality and the right time".

4) Recruit your customers to work for you
I'm not sure if blogger relations and "brand ambassadors" campaigns are the topic-du-jour for marketers but this came up a lot at the conference. This isn't something particularly relevant to my work, but I did find one tip on this particularly interesting.

For companies wanting to reach a global audience, tapping into people's social networks offers an opportunity.  Katrina Klier noted that most people have at least one of a few international friends on social networks sites, so whether people know it or not they have a global footprint.  She also mentioned that the average Facebook user has 359 friends - so tapping into this extends one's reach incredibly. (But is that statistic true? If so, I'm clearly a real loner.)

5) Identity matters - know your audience and help them know themselves
Although I only heard the issue of identity raised once, by Alfredo Tan of Facebook, I think it is a vital issue.

First, there's the aspect of knowing the true identities of your online audience. Tan raised the famous comic of the dog at a computer saying to another dog "on the Internet no one knows your a dog". Well, not true anymore says Tan due to Facebook - as they have the true identity of 1 billion people. This is a significant marketing opportunity.

Tan also talked about how social objects give people the opportunity to shape their identity around digital content. They like products/things to project an image of themselves to their friends. So learn about your customers and consider "why they care and why they share".

Final review
I mentioned yesterday how much I appreciated how well run the conference was and the choice of venue.  I forgot to mention that I really liked the staging of the conference.  The main conference room, which housed the keynotes, had the best stage and audio-visual set-up I have ever encountered.  The use of multi-screens allowed for the speakers and their slides to be displayed, which is great for big conference - but rarely done.

The set and lighting also looked great!  It's great to to not always have Toronto tech conferences seeming low rent - which I think projects poorly on the vitality and maturity of our industry.

Power of Online Social Mapping

I attended a talk yesterday that presented an inspirational model for the power of online mapping, social media, and mobile communications (much of the stuff I'm researching!).

Rebecca Chiao co-founder of HarassMap, an online sexual harassment service started in Egypt in 2010, spoke at University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. I was struck how Rebecca provided a case for how average people can use existing, free online services to improve people's quality of life and provoke social change.

Rebecca provided the background for the origins and need for HarassMap. Over the past ten years approximately, sexual assaults and harassment of women have been growing in Egypt and social norms have become more tolerant of this.

The project is crowd-sourced and uses the open-source software Ushahidi. Here is how it works:

1. If a person is harassed or witnesses one they can submit a report to HarassMap via their website, email, text message, or Twitter.
2. A staff member reviews reports for veracity and specificity (i.e., a specific incident with a date and location details). People can include photos or names, although most do not.
3. The names and identifying details of reporters and victims are removed and the report is published anonymously on the web.
4. An online map pinpoints areas where reports have been received.

The next step is where I think the project is extraordinarily inspirational.

Using the reports collected and organized by neighbourhood, the staff of HarassMap mobilizes volunteers (men and women) to go to the worst areas and talk to the community. The map and reports provide proof of the problem. Rebecca noted that many people would previously dissmiss the problem as either not occurring in their neighbourhood or happening to only women who were not "properly" dressed. The reports and maps provide concrete evidence to community members that it is indeed happening.

For instance, the reports and another study Rebecca conducted show that most of the harassment happens to women who are veiled, despite common perceptions otherwise. Volunteers work to dispel the myths and work with people to not only change their attitudes but also provide advice on how to stop it. They are also working with vendors to launch a network of stores that are safe and will not tolerate harassment.

Since starting the project, 19 other countries have contacted the Egyptian office to start a similar service. Several countries have already launched their services and one for Canada is in the works.

I asked Rebecca about the possibility of a smartphone app using this data and whether people could use such data to learn and avoid the problem areas. Rebecca mentioned that smartphone adoption has been growing very rapidly recently in Egypt and that they are pursuing a smartphone app.

However, Rebecca cautioned that they don't want people to use their service to avoid areas (as their reports are not representative of all harassment that happens in an area ) but instead should be used to show people where safer zones and partner vendors are.

Originally funded entirely by volunteers, the project recently received funding from Canada’s International Development Research Centre.

IDRC also spoke about how projects like this can not only aid and empower people, but provide a useful research mechanism (as indicated in intro for the talk):

Such empowering technologies could overcome many of the barriers to data collection in certain countries: the reluctance of women to report or discuss such crimes; a lack of resources for data collection; and bureaucratic procedures for conducting large-scale and/or sensitive research.

Although I hadn't considered such social media and participatory mapping projects as a means of social research,  Rebecca mentioned how they have uncovered information that would not otherwise be possible considering Egypt's political climate and sensitivity of the topic. She mentioned, for example, how they were surprised at the extent of incidents of harassment against boys and men that came in anonymously.

For more information on this innovative and inspirational work, check out the project's coverage in Vancouver's Straight.com.

Prince Edward Island Gets Social Media

Yesterday, I participated in a Facebook event that was so effective and enjoyable that I thought I should share the details, as I think more organizations can benefit from hosting these types of events.

It was a 3-hour group chat, via Facebook's comments feature, with Prince Edward Island (PEI) representatives and tourists. I've participated in chats with organizations before, but this one was different as it offered a range of expert opinions and had a real conversational and personal style.

The organization organizing the event was PEI Tourism, but there were other host organizations from across PEI, such as tour operators, hotels, a heritage association, as well as locals in-the-know.

What I particularly liked about it was that it was a great big conversation about PEI with a bunch of different voices and perspectives. Many of the people writing had a genuine appreciation of PEI and an individual style that came through in their responses.

There is a ton of travel info available nowadays. I still love guidebooks and online resources are equally useful. If anything, there is often too much travel info available - but it's often generic in advice and bland in style. So attempting to get specific or non-mainstream information can be difficult.

This chat offered a chance to get the info I needed. I posted two questions and quickly got great answers. The responses included my name in their replies. This not only alerted me of the reply, but populated my Facebook feed with this.

It would be great if companies, regularly offered Q&A services. I understand this can be expensive to offer, so most companies don't even attempt this and instead rely on FAQ pages or a user base to field questions. These methods sometimes work, but I've seen lots of instances of questions posted that receive no replies, spam, flaming, or useless info. I noticed Tourism PEI always offers the ability to get answers online from a real staff member - but this is really rare nowadays.

But getting answers to my questions wasn't the only reason I thought the PEI Facebook chat was so effective. I also benefited from others' questions and answers and I enjoyed reading other people's fond memories of past PEI visits. This serendipitous discovery of info not only helped me learn more about my future travel destination but also get a sense of the personality and history of the island.

I also liked how the PEI hosts included links to further info or pictures. For example, PEI Museum and Heritage shared a link to their Flickr collection of scanned PEI postcards and asked if we ever received any. As a deltiologist I love looking at retro and kitsch postcards, and I went and checked my collection (some great old ones but so far no matches).

Finally, another useful element was the format of the chat. As it was online, I (or others) can read the chat and investigate further at any time (unlike other "chat" formats such as conferences or some Internet Relay Chats).

From a business perspective, there are numerous benefits to hosting this type of event.

First in terms of finances, such events can directly increase sales. For example, I received recommendations for restaurants that I will definitely be going to (instead of just cooking in our cottage rental). Indirectly, it helps foster a pleasant attitude to the brand, that will likely have future financial benefits.

In terms of promotion, by using Facebook the event uses Facebook's existing user base and social features that easily, and often automatically, extends the reach of such an event.

The conversational quality and earnest responses of this event were essential to this event not coming across as one big shill. This in turn makes the recommendations received more credible and (at least for me) more actionable.

I was really impressed with this event, not only for the serving my needs so well but for representing the ideal of what social media can achieve.

Good Things Grow in Ontario

In a act of self-promotion (or rather, for my daughter) I'm going to blog about a social media campaign and urge you to vote for my daughter. But it is a great campaign and rather novel for Ontario.

Recently at the Canada Day celebrations at Queen's Park, Toronto the Ontario government agency, Foodland Ontario, had a booth set up. We were drawn to them as they were offering free samples. It is a truism that free food will always draw a crowd. I'd previously encountered Foodland Ontario for their TV commercials and there useful awhile Twitter account (great recipes using local produce).

So once we had our cucumbers and dip, we noticed they had a video setup for a song contest. The contest is "Sing and Win". Contestants sing the Foodland jingle and compete in an online voting contest for the chance to win free groceries. They had a mini-studio set up with a video camera, lights, and audio mixer. Videos are them uploaded to Facebook (via YouTube) where people can vote daily for their favourite. As the recordings were done so professionally, the final videos are refreshingly good technical quality.

Considering my tone deafness, I didn't feel anyone deserved having to hear me caterwaul. But my young daughter jumped at the chance to perform (I think she's the reincarnation of Ethel Merman).  Participating in the contest was a lot of fun, as was watching other people sing. But any campaign that builds upon people's narcisstic joy at seeing and sharing stuff about themselves or their kids is guaranteed to succeed.
So within a couple days of the event the video was uploaded, we eagerly watched it and voted. This campaign has such incredible viral potential - of course, everyone would want to share their videos and get their friends to vote for them. But here's the problem - it is way too difficult to direct friends to a specific video for them to vote.

The process is cumbersome and vague. I think using Facebook is great as really almost everyone who is online on Canada is on it. But to participate in this campaign one has to friend the Foodland Ontario Facebook page, then one has to select the venue (Queen's Park) then scroll through pages of videos to find the specific one. I would have liked to be able to send friends directly to the video to watch and vote.

One shouldn't have to friend a company to participate. I think if this restriction was gone it might be possible to pass on a link directly to the video and the participation levels would be much higher.  This is essential both from a contestant and company perspective. As a contestant, I want as many of my friends to vote as possible. From a marketing perspective, the more people that are aware of Foodland Ontario and engage with their brand the greater the campaign success.

To be fair, it seems like this problem is on Facebook's end, as I'm not sure one can interact with a company on Facebook unless one friends them. People may be reluctant to do this as not only is it another step (each obstacle thrown at people will entail a certain level of drop-out) but also people might be concerned that friending a company entails being spammed with their messages (as has happened to me).

Even if this barrier was removed, it would still not be possible to link directly to the video.  I'm not sure why this is the case as YouTube assigns each video a unique identifier. 

In the end though, Foodland Ontario's "Sing and Win" campaign makes excellent use of social media - but some technical obstacles really prevented it from being much more viral and effective than it could be.

Now here's my plug to vote for my daughter:

1. Visit Foodland Ontario on Facebook and "Like" them
2. Go to the "Sing and Win" contest page via the icon on the right
3. Select the venue "Queen's Park Canada" on the right
4. Go to page 6 of the videos (via the arrow on the right)
5. Watch the "Nora F" video and click the vote button
6. Visit every day to vote again

See what I mean?  Anyway, thanks for any votes!

Libraries and the Mobile Web 2.0

Earlier this year, I looked at the convergence of social media and mobile library applications. I found this was an area that could have a lot of potential to augment information services, but found little innovation in this area. The intersection of increasing user involvement in creating, finding, and sharing their own information, combined with the direct and ubiquitous access of mobiles has prompted discussion in library literature, but it appears little action - yet.

It appears that initial usage of social media by libraries focused on promotion and communication between librarians and patrons. For example, social networking sites, podcasts, and blogs were used to share library information and news (e.g., location, hours, new collections, events, etc.).

Libraries are also using social media to build a sense of community around the library through such means as book blogs and online forums (for example, a book club). Rather than focus on specific technologies, Rutherford attempted to examine the role of social media by libraries (2008). She interviewed public librarians and found social media used for four main purposes: 1) community development, 2) patron outreach and acquisition, 3) communication expansion, and 4) power distribution.

Rutherford found on the whole, that social media was not often used by libraries, and when it was, that it was used predominantly in a limited way. For example, libraries are allowing patrons to comment on library information or submit questions in new ways, but are not offering users the functionality to create content. This may be due to the profession wishing to maintain expertise and information authority and accuracy standards (Rutherford, 2008).

My review of the literature revealed the following types of social media usage by libraries:

1. collaborative information filtering and recommendation via user-generated ratings and reviews and collective usage data)
2. enhanced information retrieval via user-generated metadata and social search
3. content and annotation creation by users individually and collectively (e.g., via wikis, blogs)
   
4. information sharing via social networking sites and syndication.

I found no examples of mobile libraries social media functions other than the viewing of user-generated content (please let me know of any). There are signs, however, that social media for m-libraries have emerged this year.

In January 2010, Library Thing released their Library Anywhere mobile application that connects a library's online public access catalog (OPAC with Library Thing’s user-supplied rating and review data.

Similarly, SirsiDynix upgraded their BookMyne mobile application in November 2010 to add social recommendation data provided by the book social network Goodreads. Such user-generated metadata has been added as an information overlay of OPAC displays before. This functionality allows users to see how others have tagged a book and browse resources tagged similarly.

In addition to social metadata, researchers have found that mobile users want to annotate information resources for individual organization and/or social sharing. Amazon has demonstrated the potential of harnessing collective annotations Their e-Reader, Kindle, has a highlights feature that allows users to upload their e-book highlights. Amazon aggregates these highlights to display the collective sense of a work’s key passages.

The importance for libraries to offer similarly innovative functionality is highlighted by Lippincott who wonders,

Will libraries move quickly to implement strategies for mobile devices, moving beyond pilot projects, such as SMS text message in reference, that address only one segment of user needs? Will the library be perceived as less and less central to the academy’s content needs? (p. 212)

What a Non-Librarian Learned from a Librarian Conference

The Ontario Library Association (OLA) conference wrapped up today. As I mentioned in my prior post, it was somewhat odd to find myself at this conference. My interests do not pertain strictly to libraries so much as information in whatever form or repository it may take. There is overlap, with my interests and the conference program. but, as I learned, the conference is decidedly for professional librarians with a constant focus on how to implement best practices and innovation into public and school libraries (I heard no mention of corporate libraries, BTW). Still, I did get a lot out of attending.

Inspiring keynotes
As a large conference they could afford stellar keynote speakers. Atom Egoyan, Jian Ghomeshi, and Michael Wesch were insightful and inspirational. There weren't a lot of take-aways points from their addresses, but they did powerfully highlight the importance for our schools, libraries, media, governments, and culture of collaboration, access, diversity, and an egalitarian treatment of new and popular culture.

Conference gripes
If an army marches on its stomach, then conference delegates survive on their coffees. Yet not only was there no coffee provided there wasn't even attainable access to coffee! There was only a sole Timothy's with untenable lines. The lunch breaks were way too long (2 hours) yet the session breaks were only 10-15 minutes. Not long enough to get a coffee let alone visit the bathroom. I did have the an advantage of being a male in a crowd where women outnumber men about 1 to 20 and women's bathroom lines were long and winding. These gripes seem trivial but they greatly affect attendees experience and they are puzzling and perturbing when they occur at large and established events.

I wanted to live blog this conference but the organizers cheaped out on providing wifi. I've heard that the Metro Toronto Convention Centre charges exorbitant rates for delegates to have wifi. Still what does it say about the OLA and libraries in general when they apparently do not think Internet access is important?

It's not just the lack of wifi that was rather luddite of the OLA, but their conference website and online offerings were paltry. It would have been great to have some social networking and/or attendee profiles posted pre-conference (and not just a link to a Facebook page that was used as another channel to post messages). I only encountered one speaker who mentioned they would be posting their presentation online. The location for this was never specified and it doesn't seem like there is one yet. It is so simple and free to post links to presentations to sites such as SlideShare. There was mention of a companion "virtual conference" with live and archived webcasting, but details on this, such as a URL, are still lacking.

Sessions
If the technical sophistication of the conference itself was lacking, it was not reflected in the speakers - as I found the speakers to be among the most insightful, topical, and understandable of any conference I have been to.

Unfortunately, my own tech savy was lacking. I signed out a netbook from my school to test drive it (and the plan was to live blog, as mentioned). I still haven't decided whether I want to buy a tablet or a netbook, so this was a good chance to put it to a field trial. BTW, I talked to a major academic publisher on their plans for smartphones and tablets and they indicated that they officially have zero intention of supporting BlackBerry - just Apple and Android. So I won't wait for RIM PlayBook to come to Canada after all. I took copious notes of the presentations (as it didn't seem like they were going to be shared afterward, also as mentioned). When transferring my files from the netbook to a USB stick (as I couldn't upload or email them due to the lack of wifi) most of my notes mysteriously disappeared.

Luckily, I was able to gather the key points of a couple sessions from the conference tweets. It was painful going through all the crap tagged as relevant to the conference (why do so many people pollute a collective feed with their narcissist posts or insane retweets of someone else's narcissist posts?). But I gathered the salient points. One speaker who was particularly incredible and whose session notes I lost is Fiacre O'Duinn. I hope to get his presentation somehow as it merits a post of its own.

Great Web 2.0 Face-off
This was a fun and action-packed panel panel where speakers went through an amazing amount of new web technology and how it can be used in education and libraries. Luckily, they posted a website with their list so I was able to get some - yes some - of their recommendations. Here is my simplified description of my favs (all appear to be free):

• Bitstrips - online comic creation
• Diigo - online bookmarking & annotating, collaborating info sharing
• Evernote - annotation & notes service
• FreeRealms- kid-friendly virtual world
• Glogster - seems like MySpace but have education version
• Google Apps - rough equivalent of MS Office
  
• Google Apps Marketplace - free or cheap biz software integrated with Google
• Kaywa - QR Code generator
• MyStoryMaker - online picture book creator
• Piclets - image poetry facilitator
• Popplet - social, information visualization
• Quora - collaborative Q&A
• SpringNote - wiki-based notebook
• Voicethread - collaborative multimedia presentations & commenting
• Voki - speaking & embeddable avatar creation
• Wallwisher - public or private webpages with commenting
• Worldlet - word cloud generator
• Zotero - reference & citation manager

I have never seen so much stuff covered so quickly and - for the most part - quite clearly. They really should get an award for this.

Top Tech Trends
The speakers at this panel were also incredible and delved into more detailed consideration of the issues resulting from new and emerging technology. There was significant discussion on the familiar topics of the digital divide, net neutrality, and privacy - which I won't recap.

There was an interesting debate on the need for libraries to experiment and innovate. Dorothea Salo advised that through experiments is how we innovate even if projects are a failure, but Roger Nevin cautioned on the problems of failed technology decreasing partner buy-in.

Salo raised the growing role of personal data management and preservation. She cited Yahoo's announced closure of Delicious (something that has worried me greatly) and how would people react if they similarly shut down Flickr? As she alerted "We are now investing our digital content into the cloud, but... where's the backup for the cloud?"

Aaron Schmidt noted that in general "library interfaces are too hard to use. Why does this matter? Because easy trumps free". People will pay for applications that make it easy to fulfill their needs rather than invest in the learning curve of free, library apps. He suggested that library interfaces should be optimized for the demands of a mobile device as this will help us strip out extraneous features that can also be removed on the main web interfaces to improve usability. Schmidt noted libraries need more user testing to discover and rectify these problems.

In considering the new tech services libraries could provide, Schmidt cautioned that too often libraries try to provide the same offerings as commercial organizations (such as Amazon) or become a "book mausoleum". Libraries, he added, should facilitate experiences and help people to gather around content. Building upon this Salo noted that libraries could solicit and record local information, so that a library can become a commuty's "ambassador to the world".

This later points is acutely relevant to my research interests and an area that I hope is ripe for future discussion and exploration.

Finding My Way at a Library Conference

From grade 5 to grade 9 I was a "student librarian" (in grade 5 and 6 the term was "Bookie Monster"). In grade 7 and 8, I even won the award for top student librarian. This is particularly odd as I never really liked reading anything other than comic books and Choose Your Own Adventures. I guess I was drawn to allure of systemic organization. But as I became involved in the school newspaper, drama club, and the debate team (don't say anything), I became enamored of communications and media and left behind my librarianship.

So finding myself first at a program to train librarians last year and now at the Ontario Library Association Conference, is perhaps not such a strange life twist as a culmination.

I decided to attend the OLA "Super" conference as there were sessions covering areas related to my research interests, specifically how people can use mobile devices to access information and the social creation of information (particular info related to place). The conference earns its super moniker in that it is huge. It has occupied most of the north building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and the Intercontinental Hotel's conference rooms. With up twelve concurrent sessions and a trade expo occupying all of the exhibition space of the Centre, it is likely the largest librarian conference in Canada (hence the national scope of topics, speakers and participants). It is not super, however, in its hospitality: no wifi, no snacks, no swag, no lunch, and no COFFEE!

This conference is decidedly for practitioners. It focuses on applied presentations of novel and significant issues, more so than fine-tuned examinations of topics or underlying theoretical findings. Judging from the first day and program, the conference offers case studies and best practices track sessions combined with motivational plenaries. I also found that to accommodate the range of background knowledge of attendees, speakers spend a lot of time covering the basics. In addition, speakers focus on the program implementation, change management, and funding issues.

My first session was on geoauthentication, that is facilitating access to secure sites through automatic detection of a visitor's geographic location through their IP address. This process eliminates the hassle and memory burden of having to remember logins and passwords. Knowledge Ontario is using geoauthentication to open their databases of copyrighted content to anyone in or from Ontario. The speaker noted that using IP identification, automatic authentication could also be done at a city or carrier level. If one is outside the region, authentication must then be done through more traditional means (i.e. a user enters their login id and password.) It is possible that people could hack access via a proxy server, but the speaker advises that it is possible to block this.

The final session of the day dealt with an project to aid Ontario communities to digitize and publish online historical objects and documents. There were a few points I found particularly interesting. For one, a process of determining what objects are a priority to add to the online collection. The project team developed a checklist of criteria for this that also allows them to catalogue lower priority items. I was also interested in a feature they built that allows people to comment on digitized, online objects by adding comments. I think this becomes a fascinating way to capture collective memory and encourage discussion.

In between these two track sessions was a plenary by Michael Wesch. I encountered him from his YouTube videos, including the popular A Vision of Students Today. His speech was a call to arms for librarians and educators to redefine what learning is and how we facilitate this. He notes that currently schools and library are structured under the assumptions that information is scare, to learn is to acquire information, information comes from an authority figure, trust authority figures, and follow along - they are not structured to facilitate collaborative learning. He argues that we can help learners to use social media to make a better world. Although he did acknowledge that digital media can and has been used for nefarious purposes. It is those with a passion who figure out how to use tools effectively (such as social media) to propagate their message. Thus by helping students harness their passion, it can lead to positive social change. To demonstrate his message, he shared examples of how others have used social and/or mobile effectively and walked attendees through creating a video mashup in a few minutes to show how "ridiculously easy" to use these tools. I found Wesch's assertion that we can move from focusing on discussions of information literacy and technological familiarity to fostering digital citizenship. This seems like a lofty goal for the librarian profession and researchers alike.

Thinking of Studying Mobile Social Media for Libraries

Okay, I'm in my second year of PhD studies and I still haven't settled on my exact research area let alone the research question.

So I need your - anybody's really - help in finding a good research area. So I'm wondering if anyone can provide me an example of mobile social media apps/sites. I'll get into the specifics...

Part of my problem is I have a lot of research interests, many of which fit well within the auspices of an Information program. The overall themes of my interests are user experience (including usability and accessibility), user participation (i.e. social media), and mobile media (specifically either a mobile website or mobile app.).

Within these areas I'm starting to look for a research problem. One domain that I think needs research is the user experience of mobile social media for libraries.

At this point, I'm defining my terms fairly broadly.

Mobile - I'm using it to indicate a device with Internet connection and input functionality. This includes smartphones (BlackBerry, iPhones, Androids, Nokia, etc.) and tablets (iPad, Blackberry's tablet.) I do not include e-Readers (eg.Kindle) as they have limited input functionality. I am not planning to include netbooks or laptops as although they can be quite small and portable they do not yet have the easy and quick access that mobile devices allow.

Social media - I'm defining this problem as any online content that allows users to add, edit, or share collectively. I'm not including tools that allow for individual customization.

Library - due to the newness of this area, I'm opening up my initial exploration from the now-common digital library to any bounded body of information on resources. Resources can be books, movies, journals, magazines, tv shows, bookmarks, etc.

So I would love to hear of any examples - and your opinions and experiences - with any mobile social media apps/sites for "libraries". (BTW, I'm not looking for libraries that have mobile apps/sites unless they have a social media component.)

I'm aware of (and love) some web library examples - such as LibraryThing, Zotero, Delicious, IMDB, Google Books, etc. But haven't encountered great examples in the mobile space. Any help in hastening my PhD studies would be greatly appreciated!

Reasons to Check Into Foursquare

Yesterday, after about two months of using the mobile app Foursquare I became a Super Mayor. While this affords me a special badge, it does not entail any superpowers. I will use my meager powers I do have for good and discuss what I like about Foursquare (what I don't like will come next). While I can claim that my usage was driven by scientific curiosity for my research paper, I did find the application enjoyable and rewarding. The main benefits for me to using it are: novelty, communication, game, social connection, information seeking, and distraction.

Novelty
Early on my usage was largely driven by novelty. I was curious to learn more about the application and eager to put it to use. It was a completely new experience to be able to demarcate and share my physical whereabouts virtually in real-time. Similarly, it was interesting to see at-a-glance via the application where friends were at a given moment.

So I played with the app by checking in all the time, including some pretty banal locations (buses, variety stores, fastfood). I checked out friends postings and their badges - until I started seeing patterns and their banal checkins.

Communication
I also enjoy announcing my physical location with commentary to friends on the application or occassionally to my Facebook network or on Twitter. It is fun to share with friends when one is at a cool new location or special event or has something new to say associated with a location. For example, I posted my checkin to 7-Eleven where I bought my daughter her first ever Slushie. Some friends chimed in that they share that appreciation for one of the rites of summer.

Game
Foursquare is essentially structured as a game. Checkins earn points that allow one to "win" by amassing the highest weekly total (not that winning affords any special prizes or honours). Various types and numbers of checkins earn badges and mayorships that are prominently displayed on one's profiles. Even the tips on a location are framed as a goal that others should accomplish (ie. go there and do this). Foursquare allows people to collect such "to dos" and then mark them off. Most recent tips aren't written this way, however, and are more traditional mini-reviews (the ones that are coherent, that is).

These game elements might not be fully developed, but they do add a degree of fun and an urge to continuing using the app. Of these elements the badges are the best enticement. They are fun to collect and to share with one's friends (I set mine up to automatically stream into my Facebook feed). Some of the badges are comical (Crunked, Bender & School Night for frequent or late-night checkins) or bizarre (Photogenic for checking into locations with photo booths or "I'm on a Boat" for well, being on a boat m.f.).

The problem with the badges are that there aren't that many (particularly if you don't live in New York City that has a whole slew of local ones). So it is really easy within a few weeks to earn them all. A never-ending game only works when there is a continued object of play. There can't be too many badges or they become meaningless, but Foursquare better start creating at least one or two new ones every month to sustain interest in this integral element of their game.

Although, badges don't confer any rewards, mayorships are supposed to encourage vendors to reward their frequent, loyal customers although other than Starbucks this appears to have NEVER happened in Toronto. Still, I must admit to feeling competitive about earning a mayorship or two for locations. I guess it is official recognition that one is indeed a most frequent - and thus most expert - patron. I was delighted when I usurped someone to become the mayor of my faculty.

Social connection
As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy seeing friends locations with thoughts. As I, like many others, can get overwhelmingly busy to lose track of one's friends. Foursquare prevents friends from getting lost in time and space.

But Foursquare also helps me connect with strangers.

After supporting Ashton Kutcher's Twitter quest, he came up on the app's friend finder, so I added him. He eats out a lot, and habitually posts his location, which all comes up on my homepage. I've joked to others that I know where Ashton is at any given moment, and when called on this I've been able to back it up. It feels weird, but it is connecting to have such information about someone who's location and life are so foreign to me (now if Lucy Lawless just did this).

But I only got this sense with people I added as a friend in the app. A turning point appears to be when the earthquake hit Ontario. Someone created Earthquake as a location and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) as the location. It was fun to checkin (and earn a Super Swarm badge) to be part of a large number of people simultaneously saying, yeah I felt that too. Prior to this, all checkins that I noticed only relate to a permanent location and not to a event. Subsequently, I've noticed more events coming up as top checkin locales.

Although Foursquare offers the functionality to display other people recently checked into the same location as a user, it has rarely happened that anywhere I was had others checking in. The first time it did happen was at Canada Day. About 20 -30 people had gathered at marina to watch fireworks over the lake. When I checked in there, I saw about five other people had recently checked in. Seeing their names and profile pix made the crowd seem less anonymous and gave me a sense of shared connection.

I appreciate that Foursquare is tied to geography, so events can be so numerous and
ephemeral that they aren't ideal for the app. But ultimately it is meaningful to connect with others and an excited event often facilitates this better than concrete structures do.

Information seeking
On a few occasions, I wanted to find information about a specific location, like where a good place to eat is, any neighbourhood news, or anything cool to see in the area. Sometimes I'm looking with a specific goal in mind and other times I'm just curious to see what's there. The tips features of Foursquare has provided helpful information for this. It helped me find a good new restaurant that I'd never heard of or an emergency bathroom. So far the tips (when coherent) seem largely genuine, so I hop this continues.

Distraction
During my regular transit commute or during the any number of forced waits and downtime of my day, I can really use a brief distraction. I don't always feel like grabbing my book, and it's nice to do something interactive. Foursquare is an ideal distraction - quick, interesting, communicative, and fun.

So I'm sure that even if my usage starts to decline, I'll still continue to check into Foursquare at least occassionally.

Foursquare - Answering My Own Usage Questions

I am conducting research on the mobile application foursquare (I still need participants). I have been conducting email interviews to better understand how and why people use Foursquare. As I have been chronicling my own usage as part of the research process, I thought I would include my own answers to some of my questions.

If you're interested in helping me out with these please let me know.

foursquare Q&A
1) Please list 4-5 words to encapsulate your impressions of your usage of foursquare?

Fun, novelty, distraction, potential.

2) Please describe your usage of foursquare.

I check in to most locations I go to. As I work from home, I only use it maybe 3-4 days a week. I check in off the grid a lot as I don't like the idea of bugging all my friends with endless pings from me.

3) What motivates you to check into a location?

I have to admit I am a bit motivated by the stupid badges and mayorships. The points and leader-board don't mean anything to me. In the long term as novelty wears thin for me (it's starting for me already) though I'm not sure what would motivate me beyond either deals from vendors or a more vibrant critical mass amongst my friends.

It was fun, however, when the earthquake happened to have so many people in the city checking into that and sharing that moment (not to mention getting the super swarm badge).

4) What, if any, information do you view/read via foursquare?
I find it interesting to see at a glance where people are and what their shouts are. It does make me feel more connected to them. But I am starting to get really bored of people checking into the same location every day.

Early on, I was really interested in what badges and mayorships they had. I have enjoyed tips when they actually exist for a location or venue - for example I now found out where a secret bathroom is at my local subway station is (invaluable knowledge!).

5) What is your experience of foursquare's "Tips" feature?

I write a few tips, but not that very many as I often don't have anything that useful to offer others. I would love it if when I went to venue my friends had been to and left a tip that this would come up prominently. This would be useful and fun! I also think it would be fun if I could leave tips or messages over the city for games like a scavenger hunt or history quest.

I hate when tips are useless ramblings, indecipherable comments to oneself or their friends, or statements of the obvious. Scrolling through too many of these devalues the entire feature. The mobile screen only has room to present about 4-5 tips without clicking through. Clicking through on my mobile is a pain as it takes so long for the next page to load, so getting on the first page is crucial for me. Eventually, there will be so much garbage or just tips not up my alley, that filter mechanisms will be necessary for me to use them at all.

Filters could help me only see tips I want, e.g. related to food, culture, history, politics, etc. That would be excellent! But not sure if users would have to designate this or if it could be done automatically.

6) Please discuss any factors, such as design or network coverage, that affect your usage.

I often cannot check into a location due to what seems like a Bell network coverage issue. It seems like they don't work about 1/5 of the times I attempt to check-in. Sometimes I will check in a little later while still in the vicinity - but this seems like cheating. Often though I'm not able to check in at all as a result of poor coverage. I also really hate it when I'm at a location and it doesn't come up on the list, particularly if I have been there before. It's annoying to have to do a search.

Overall, the interface is really quite easy to use. I do wonder if I'm using up a lot of my data plan data - hope my next bill isn't killer.

7) How do you see yourself using foursquare in the future?

I am not sure I will be using foursquare that often in a few months from now let alone much in the future. For one, I just don't have enough friends using it and also the pattern of checking into work and lunch restaurants starts to get really boring. I think it would be invaluable if exploring a new area or city though. I think there is a lot of potential for tips. For me, that is the only feature that would sustain my interest on a daily basis.

Privacy Myths and Concerns with Foursquare

Since starting my Foursquare research project, I found a few people using it but a lot of people with an opinion of it. People are either avid users, or avoiding it altogether.

The privacy concerns appear to center on the check-in functionality. A check-in is when users indicate via their mobile device that they are currently at a specific location/venue. Users can elect to have these check-in automatically streamed to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Here are some of the privacy concerns I heard from friends:

"I used to use foursquare/gowalla but stopped. The main reason is because I didn't want people to know when I wasn't home and where I was most times. I may be overreacting but I have a little girl and must think of her first."

and

on why she won't use it as she's "too paranoid! The Man is already tracking my every move, and I barely leave the house"

Others suggested that my Foursquare posts made me an ideal candidate for robbers (missing that if robbers removed most of our cheap Ikea furniture, semi-broken electronics, mountains of toys, Zellers-clothes, they'd be doing us a favour). There was a website set up (now closed) that gathered user data to show how easy it was for people to see who was away from their host. This discussion has already played out on the blogosphere.

There were good points against this belief, as robbers are much more likely to stake out a house to see if anyone is there or telephone the house then they are apt to constantly monitor an online feed to see when houses are vacant. There was also an assumption with a lot of this debate that people lived alone, as just because one person is out doesn't mean all of a house's occupants are.

There were also false assumptions about how much data Foursquare makes public. Unless one has been friended by another Foursquare user, they cannot ever see their check-in history. There isn't even an option to make this public. If one does a search for someone on Foursquare's website, you see their profile picture (users are encouraged to upload a picture, but a real photograph is not required), first name and last initial, city, their friends, badges, tips they wrote, usage stats, and their "to dos" (i.e. items from others users that they want to do at a speficic venue).

Foursquare let's users decide whether or not to: "Let friends see my phone number and email address; Let people see the links to my Facebook / Twitter profiles; Show my name in the 'Who's here' list when I'm checked in; Let local businesses see that I've checked-in at their venue". Many users don't change the privacy settings, but in that case I blame the users not the applications.

If one links their Twitter or Facebook accounts, then there are options to have Foursquare automatically post one's check-ins or earned badges and mayorships. I did link my Twitter and Facebook accounts. My Facebook account is closed (only friends can see anything) but my Twitter account is open. I therefore decided to not allow Foursquare to automatically tweet, but I was fine with updates going to Facebook. I realize not everyone has set up their Facebook or Twitter privacy settings, but they should!

In addition, with each individual check-in a user does, the user is given the choice of whether or not to announce their check-in to either their friends, Twitter, or Facebook. If one decides to check in but not tell their friends (called "off-the-grid") still allow the check-in to count toward mayorships and badges. I like off-the-grid check-ins when I'm checking in a lot and don't want to constantly bug my friends (people can elect to receive a pop-up on their mobile device announcing a friends' check in).

I was concerned about mayorships - as they are essentially announcing that one is frequently at that location (or else they wouldn't have been able to become mayor). If one searches for a location, they can see the name of the mayor or who authored the associated tips. I emailed Foursquare about this concern - AND THEY REPLIED. Mayorships can be declined on one's profile page of their website, by clicking the X next to the location. I understand that the value of Foursquare lies in having mayorships be publicly available so that vendors can identify frequent customers and users can identify whom they have to work against to steal the mayorship.

Foursquare does, however, need to do more to allow users to specifically target what information they want to be public. There should be settings to control what one wants to display in one's public profile, such as friends list and location. Users should also have the choice of their profile not being public but still being able to use the system.

Foursquare indicated they are revamping some of the features to improve privacy. Still, from the discussions I had with non-users it wasn't the actual privacy options of Foursquare that were that concerns, it was a misconeption of how much information was made public. I remember similar concerns that kept some people from joining LinkedIn or Facebook, so perhaps this will dissipate as people learn more about Foursquare and more will join as they'll beceome increasingly pressured to join once it (presumably) hits critical mass.

Foursquare - Familiarity, Frustration, Fun, & Future

This is a continuing entry in my series of user diaries as I begin using Foursquare for a research project.

It day was the first day since installing Foursquare that I was about town and could really check in at a few locations.

The day started off fine using Foursquare, but got increasingly problematic. I checked in at bus (what's the point, I don't know). I had to create a record for one of the venues I don't mind but it does take up some time. I was able to check in seamlessly at my next couple stops. I then went to a street festival there and again thought it would be fun to check into that event specifically, but I included the event details in my "shout".

I finally, figured out the difference between a shout and tip - it took me embarrassingly long to to get that. Shouts are attached just to your check-ins so only one's existing friends can see it, whereas tips are public and permanently attached to a venue.

I tried to check in at park and this is where I started a string of problems. First, a very similar venue came up on the list, but not the actual venue. So checked in the default venue. But the check in didn't work the app said. But when I checked my history, it had checked me in twice. I wanted to delete the duplicate entry but this functionality doesn't exist on the mobile app (it does on their website).

I decided to try the proper name for the venue and found out it did have an existing entry on Foursquare. But then why didn't it come up when I called up the venues in my vicinity? Only a couple venues were returned my first time, so there was space to show more. This has happened a few times. I subsequently learned there was yet another entry for that location. If these venues don't appear on users' screens, it not only makes it more difficult to use but also increases the likelihood of inaccurate check-ins.

I tried to check in to a restaurant and while it would appear in the list of nearby venues, I was not able to actually able to check into it. I don't think it was a network coverage issue, as I was able to call up other live data on the application. In the end, I had to check into the location after I was gone - and then it checked in as a generic location. Not sure the point of checking into this generic-type entries as they don't really seem to exist on the site beyond that individual check-in.

These check-ins did help me earn two new badges today. Rather exciting. And I got two new friends.

I noticed a friend was travelling abroad and checking in. I thought that would be fun and great way to share vacation highlights with friends in real-time. But I did wonder how pricing for such connectivity would go (guess if you connected to a free Internet wireless signal it would be fine, but roaming cell network would be expensive.)

The next day, I was also around town at a conference.

As usual I checked into the bus, but this feels pretty pointless. I keep such mundane check-ins private so as not to bug my friends with such useless information, but then my status is constantly listed as "off the grid". Wish there was a way to not broadcast one's check-ins, but also not be listed as off the grid.

As I was trying to check into the bus, I experienced another problem. I got a pop-up that said there were issues checking me in. Same problem as yesterday. I checked and sure enough not only had I indeed checked in but there were duplicate entries.

The bus check-in did earn me another badge - "Local" - for checking in over 3 times in a week at the same locale. Yeah tell me about it - my life is spent on these god-forsaken buses!

The conference was a dull, so was I dying for a diversion. I was seriously wishing I could check in somewhere so I could check out! I checked it every hour or so hoping for something. Did notice some friends posting their brunch destinations and got a new friend. But not significantly more exciting than the droning presenters.

During a break in the conference, I went outside for a walk to get fresh air. I turned on Foursquare and to my surprise it was filled with useful hyperlocal tips from strangers. Not sure how that came up, I must have accidentally hit the "tips" button. I'd hit tips before but never got anything. Checked out the tips and they were really useful. Seriously impressed!

On my way home, my en route check ins earn my another badge (will I eventually cap out on getting badges?). This did not offsets problems I had.

Somehow I got logged out (okay, maybe it is my klutzy fingers but I don't remember this). This wouldn't have been a big deal, except that it took a long time to check back in again. (This may due to my dubious Bell network coverage - but still, damn annoying.)

I then took the subway miles away from my past locales, yet Foursquare was still showing old venues. Even hitting "refresh" doesn't help nor does hitting the check-in button again as the same old locations would reload.

To make my bad worst, I check in at a location and see the specials nearby button. I almost never click it anymore as they inevitably are for Starbucks and only for their mayors. Even though I do frequent Starbucks I will never be there enough to be mayor, so I don't want to see these offer as they will forever be useless to me.

Miraculously Starbucks didn't appear, but it was from my local Business Improvement Area association (BIA). Their offer is a free newsletter to anyone that stops in. I'm glad to see the BIA trying to use new media, but this is no doubt the same newsletter they just delivered to the entire neighborhood. Leaving aside the newsletter's dubious quality, this is an abuse of the feature and my attention. Not only do such useless offers devalue the feature for all current and future advertisers, they devalue the entire service for all app users.

If I wasn't working on a project for this application, these problems would probably make me give up and and not open the app again for awhile or perhaps ever again. Still, the application is quite new and these issues might eventually be addressed so that future usage was more fun than frustrating.

Discovering Foursquares' Perimeters

This is the second of my Foursquare user diary entries chronicling my initial usage of it for my research project.

I've been using Foursquare application for a few days now. I've gotten quite familiar with how to use the mobile application.

Adding a venue
Eager to check-in at more than one location as most of my days consist of working at home and picking my kid up from school, so I decide to see if my kid's school is there. I'm worried that using the mobile app will use all my data plan limits so I decide to do this on the website. It's not there, so I decide to add it.

Adding a venue was simple, they asked for the name, address, major cross streets, address, and phone (most of which are optional). I see they have a private venue option - "This is a private venue that should only be viewable to me and my friends. (coming soon! but feel free to mark as "private" until we go live with this)". This is a good idea as already some dorky neighbours have added their own house as a venue (what kind of "Specials nearby" will they ever offer? I don't want to know.)

Yearning to be 'your worship'
Wonder if creating a venue automatically will make one the mayor? Mayorship is supposedly meant to encourage vendors to offer these frequent visitors special deals (as Starbucks does) and earns a higher profile on this site. Not that I care about these things, but dammit I want a mayorship. I was corresponding with a professor friend on his earning the mayorship of his university - it sure is easier to attain than dean or chancellor and certainly less political!

No tips on tips
After a check-in at the school I decide to add my first tip. I wrote something banal about the enclosed playground being great for toddlers. I really wanted to say a spectrum of things that I greatly dislike about this school. It's not that I don't want to go on record with my criticism of this school, Foursquare just doesn't seem the venue for it. So already I'm censoring myself.

After writing the tip, I see a "To Dos" tab. I can't figure out the difference, as when one goes to add a "To Do" the resulting webpage is "Add a Tip".

I continued to check-in at my kid's school and after a few of them, I finally got my first mayorship!

Badge of honour
I also got my first two badges. Everyone gets an initial "Newbie" badge, which reminds me of getting Tom as a friend on MySpace. So omnipresent that it's meaningless. (Gee, I haven't heard from Tom lately, hope he's not mad.)

My other badge was earned on a day when I actually was about town (well, I went to class). My public transit commute and coffee pitstop allowed me to unlock my first real badge: "Crunked". It is an image of drunken person and is earned for having checked in at four or more locations in one evening.

This reminded me of a posting of a friend on Facebook that he had earned a "School Night" badge for checking in somewhere after 3am on a school night. It was 5:55am and he was en route to work. The crunked one also reveals that this application is targeted to a younger crowd. I noticed another friend earned a "Player Please!" badge for multiple check-ins with the opposite sex (not sure how one checks in with a person?). Clearly this is a special accomplishment for a certain type of person (player). All this makes me certain I'm way beyond their target audience.

I've also been earning some points with every check-in and when adding a venue. Getting the points seemed impressive, I figured it was for some sort of leaderboard (which they have but I haven't figured it out completely yet). Turns out the points are pointless (see FAQ item).

How long can novelty appeal last?
After using Foursquare for a few days, I can see that there is definitely a novelty factor driving my desire to try out new features, get more check-ins, etc.

But as I was trying to check into Blockbuster as I was returning videos, it struck me that the fun of this would quickly wear out. The location seemed to be their only one not listed and after only using Foursquare for few days I already did not feel inspired enough to add an entry for mundane Blockbuster. I felt similarly uninspired when checking into Shoppers on my way home to get groceries. Though it did feel good the other night to have a way to get back at Shoppers for repeatedly selling rancid bagels - as there really was no other way to do this before.

Feeling lonesome
One reason, why my interest is already waning is that critical mass is necessary. I need friends on it. I sent out over ten friend requests and only heard back from two :(

I have only one local friend (and one in Alberta). The application is set up to get updates on check-ins from locals. Even though my one local friend doesn't check in that much, she does post them to her network, so I get a pop-up on my mobile for her every check-ins. Might turn this feature off soon. Can't imagine how annoying it would be with 20 or more friends!

Finding the limits
I have been trying to figure out if there is a way to check in to events. For the upcoming Hypertext conference I'm going to, I thought it would be a great way to see who else is at the conference (but I guess Twitter will have to do). Foursquare appears to be structured around permanent physical locations.

Disambiguation has already emerged as a problem in my usage - in that Foursquare doesn't do it. I first found this out when I checked into my school, "iSchool". There was an entry already, so I wondered why I was the first person to actually check in there. I figured out that others were calling it "UofT - Faculty of Information". There are no prompts or checks to try to avoid users entering new venues for existing locations. And when a user checks in the order that Foursquare presents venues does not necessarily group venues with the exact same address together (as you'd think would be logical as the sort order seems to be based on the distance from your mobile device).

I am also thinking how uncomfortable I am publicly announcing my physical presence at a location - and leaving a written record of this. Seems like this application is a psycho stalker's playground!

Overall, however the application works quite well and reliably. It seems like it would be more fun if I was younger and had more of a life.

Your help needed
I need some help with my research. Please share any things you love or hate about Foursquare, problems you encountered, what you think it's strengths or future potential is, any thoughts or experiences.

I would also love to interview users via email (5-7 questions) or observe usage at a cafe (just for about 40 minutes in total - maybe a Starbucks so I can work towards getting the mayoral discount). Let me know if you'd like to know more about my research or my credentials. Here's my profile on my Faculty website.

Earning My Newbie Badge on Foursquare

For my research project on Foursquare, I decided to keep a user diary. I was determined to do the project on Foursquare for a few weeks, but resisted starting until I could coincide my own usage with the start of the overall research project.

I am not a digital native, so some of this is rather embarrassing to report.

How I checked in to Foursquare
I learned about Foursquare early in May 2010 after posting a request on my Facebook network for any mobile applications or sites that facilitated people participating and adding their own content. I also asked that it be an indigenous app and not one transferred largely from a website (so that ruled out FB and Twitter). My reasoning for the latter is that I wanted to be able to examine activity that was happening via mobile devices and the hybrid apps make distinguishing the source of user postings difficult or impossible.

Upon learning of Foursquare, I reviewed their website and googled it. I didn't want to learn too much about it in case it biased me, but I did see enough that it seemed like a suitable candidate for this project. I also liked how it supported both iPhones and Blackberry's as I didn't want this project to be about the device rather the behaviour. Also, it needed to support BlackBerry as that's all I have access to.

In the weeks following this, I did not make an effort to learn more about Foursquare but it kept appearing in tech news and it was discussed a few times at Mesh conference. I also started noticing friends' Facebook updates would indicate that they had "checked in" at a location via Foursquare.

Download application downers
I was sitting at my computer previously surfing the Internet, so perhaps that is why I went to Foursquare's website to begin the app download. There is a prominent link for BlackBerry, but turns out that I can't download from here straight to my device. To be honest, I can't remember how I downloaded any mobile apps although I have, such as WeatherEye, CBCs News Alert, Viigo, etc. Went to BlackBerry App World instead. Scanned their reviews and like the descriptions of it: "Think of Foursquare as an 'urban mix tape'" and "Think beyond your standard review - we're looking less for 'The food here is top notch' and more for 'Go to Dumont Burger and try the most amazing Mac and Cheese ever'."

Cool - I love this stuff, having already been an avid participant of similar websites such as OurFaves and Yahoo City Guides. Excited but also anxious as I probably don't know enough people to make it work. I only know of one person using this in Toronto. Just got sense that this app can make you seem like a loser, but that could also be the said of any social network service. Still, with social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter I made an effort to recruit friends as I knew they had the access to join if they wanted to. I don't know any other friends with smartphones. More feeling like a lonely loser.

Decided to click on the reviews: seems vague, non-English or unhelpful so click back. No more putting this off - will download this.

BlackBerry App World makes downloading the app easy as it will email the download link to my device. Already, I hear the moan of the vibrations of my BlackBerry.

Clicked on link. Download took about 3 minutes. Once it downloaded though nothing happened (ie. app didn't auto load as it might on PC). Tried to open the app but I couldn't recognize its icon as so subtle.

First roadblock
"The application Foursquare requested access to your GPS location information. Do you wish to grant access." Okay, little creeped out at privacy implications of this and very concerned that I didn't pay for GPS services in my smartphone plan. Don't want to rack up huge charges. No way to get answer to this, so must call Bell. Bell affirms the application can't start racking up charges without my permission.

Creeped out feeling heightened by a message that now appears: "The application Foursquare is attempting to access radio information that may identify your location".

Second roadblock
I click allow and nothing happens - repeat 4 times. There is a link for "Vendor modules" whatever that means. Decide to click on it but nothing happens. Attempt to leave application through device buttons but while it closes the app the pop-op still appears and won't close now. What a crappy experience this is so far - no help but lots of questions.

Click "Deny" now for fist time and get error pop-up "Uncaught exception: app Foursquare (1822) is not responding: process terminated". Click ok; it closes.

Finally checking in
Now click on Foursquare icon again on my device homepage and it opens fine.

Get welcome message. Must register to create account. Nothing special here. Gives me the option of either checking in or finding friends. Will quick check in, so click the button for "check in nearby". Okay it somehow knows where I am (even though I thought that didn't work) as it displays locations very close to me, including where my daughter plays (Wondering if I'm I sure I want to do this when out with my kid = extra creepy?).

I click to check into Shoppers as I am there almost every day and was just there a couple hours ago to return rancid bagels and buy stuff. It let's me check in - so it obviously relies on honour system. I decide to leave a message (I feel bad it's negative but I'm really sick of their bad bagels): "Watch out for the Bagel World poppyseed bagels here as 4 times in last few weeks the seeds on the bagels were rancid". Tried to unclick the option to "tell my friends" and wasn't able to. Seems to be updating.

A pop-up appears congratulating me. I get a badge (a picture of a trophy cup) for being a "newbie". I find out that Ryan W. is the mayor of this location.

Click close. I see a map with Shoppers' location, which seems pointless at this point after having already checked-in. I also see a button for "Specials nearby" and excitedly click that. It's a deal for Starbucks' mayors - cool, but I don't go there often enough to ever qualify.

Locating friends
Go back to add friends. Try finding friends by address book = zero. Trying now by my Twitter account. It finds some people I know including some I had no idea were using Foursquare. It also finds Ashton Kutcher. Only gives me first name and last initial and can't figure out many of these. So I'm going to Twitter to figure out who these people are. Twitter doesn't help much as gives account names not real names. So back to Foursquare where I click on "info"; it gives their Foursquare profile not their real name.

Wondering now if the people I add will be alerted that I've added them, as this happens with most social network services. Decide to add people I know even slightly, as having friends here seems essential. Better to do it now when I don't know if they're notified. As if I were to find out they were notified, I'd be too mortified to do it. Decide to add Ashton Kutcher too.

Decide to change my notifications settings so that I am notified any time any of my friends check in (which so far is only Ashton as he went directly to my "Following" list). This seems like it would be annoying if one had lots of friends (hypothetically), but it says that one can turn it off based on person or day.

Decide to log in to their website as it's seems like it'll be easier to set up my profile there. I upload my standard photo (the self-portrait where I look mysteriously pondering or pondering mysteries). It won't accept it though as the image is over 200k; it must be under. So I resize it and upload again.

Definitely want to set up my privacy options. I agree to:

• Let friends see my phone number and email address" (but I'm not providing my phone #)
• Let people see the links to my Facebook / Twitter profiles
• Show my name in the 'Who's here' list when
• Let local businesses see that I've checked-in at their venue (maybe it'll lead to deals)
  

It just occurred to me that for Foursquare to have value:

1. you really have to be out physically going places (ie. have a life)
2. network effects - to be any fun you really have to have a bunch of friends using it
3. these friends have to be near you as the service seems hyperlocal focused
   

Looking forward to this app, but already I'm having social network site fatigue. Wish that I didn't have to rebuild my networks over and over again with each new site or application. Also, I have done some reviews I really like for OurFaves - wish they could be imported here.

Switched over to Facebook to post a request for Foursquare friends. Within moments I got a message from a friend in Alberta that he just signed up today. Back to Foursquare mobile app. to see if I can find him. Before I can find him, I get a notice that I have a friend request from him. How did he figure that out so quickly?

I accepted and now I officially have a friend on Foursquare!

... If you're interested in helping out with my Foursquare study, please let me know below.