Google working within the realm of social networks is not a foreign concept. Google has attempted to purchase its way into the space with Orkut, attempted to redefine the space with services like Google Wave and Google Buzz & even provide support for connecting user between the different social network and the rest of the web with their support of the OpenID Inititave. However, this week Google attempted to carve their space within the online social network world with their introduction of Google Plus.

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Was 2009 really the year of Twitter? Certainly many social media trend watchers thought so. The Global Language Monitor announced that it was the most popular word in English-language media in 2009, and Mashable.com boldly stated, “It’s hard to argue that 2009 wasn’t the year of Twitter.” Well, I would, in fact, like to argue that just a little bit.

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Recently, me and other colleagues have been studying how the way people appropriate technologies shape the values these technologies will have for certain social groups. In a recently research conducted by myself, with Gabriela Zago and Jandré Batista at Universidade Católica de Pelotas, about Twitter and Plurk social appropriations by Brazilian users, we found out many interesting points about this subject.  Although both systems are part of what is frequently called “microblogging” or “micromessaging” system, it is interesting how the social networks are creating new meanings and new values through these tools.

This research has been conducted since 2008. We already made a survey with almost 1000 answers, conducted 30 interviews and mapped 10 social networks within 2 degrees of separation. In this post, I’m going to share some ideas we are working on and some perceptions we already have.

Twitter Appropriation

Twitter seems to be used as a tool to gather information rather than a tool for conversation. For most researched users, receiving qualified information is the key value Twitter holds. In fact, social values such as reputation, number of followers and number of retweets are regarded by users as ways to measure the impact they have in their social networks. Many of them actively engage in trying to increase these numbers, by either publishing new information or retweeting information they think their social network didn’t have access to.

Conversation, on the other hand, also happens, but it is not regarded with the same value. While users constantly exchange information, most of conversations observed had less than three turns and engage very few people. Users argue that it is difficult to follow conversations in Twitter and the context is usually lost because of the non-synchronous nature of the tool.

Plurk Appropriation

Plurk is a very less used micromessaging tool. However, holds a completely different appropriation. Social networks observed there tend to focus on conversation rather than information. Users like to talk, to share thoughts, to maintain social ties.  Although information also appears, it is rather rare to find the same usage Twitter holds.

Users argue that Plurk system is much more capable of maintaining the context for conversations to emerge. Even if  used asynchronously, Plurk holds a better system to follow social interaction and to keep contexts for each conversation. Thus, the value associated is social. Users argue that while Twitter keep them informed, Plurk allows them to keep in touch with their social networks,  to make plans and to talk to friends.

While both services seem to present similar tools for social networks to congregate among them and to create and share values, it is interesting to see that their mechanisms and interface can also shape the values these networks create. Because Twitter is rather difficult to be used as a non-synchronous place for conversations, Plurk holds this place for the studied social networks. 

The ability to communicate. This is one of the features of the Internet that draws us as a society in, allows us to create communities and maintains our relationship across long distances of space and time. For the Internet to continue to grow as the central backbone of communication & community in the world, there must be an increase of trust online that businesses will not sell out their customers and that people aren't simply salespeople for anybody willing to pay them. Both of the points have come into question over the last couple of weeks.

As more and more people are feeling comfortable with online shopping and e-commerce, some businesses have taken advantage of this comfort level and added a new system to generate revenue. This system is the web loyalty program. To the best of my knowledge, the web loyalty program simply provides the person signing up for the program a coupon and sometimes the person will receive new offers from the program. But for the most part, the people were not aware that they were signing up for a monthly service. No credit-card information is being inputed during the time they click on the ad for the web loyalty program. The user just types in their email address and that's it. The problem occurs that the ad appears after the user has completed a purchase with a company and have previously inputed their name, address and their credit card information. According to the service and the advertisement the user clicks on, by input their email address the person agrees to sign up for the service and pay the monthly service fee of $9 to $12. This “fine-print” loophole breaks one of the basic protections of online retail, “you won't get charged if you don't put in your credit card number.” By online retailers giving customer's credit card numbers and demographic data to their partners, they are failing to protect the best interest of their customers.

The second issue comes in the form of advertising in media streams like Twitter. Users are crossing a fine line between offering recommendations to their followers because they enjoy the products they're mentioning and becoming pitchmen for the businesses that sponsors their content. Normally, by adding a hashtag like #ad, the user could inform their audience that the following tweet was paid for by the sponsor. The ethical standards of those putting content online are definitively more varied and can be lower than their traditional media counterparts. For being a free service, people are entitled to say what they want and I can chose to not follow them. But, I'm afraid that this could lead to the Internet becoming a realm of product placements and neon signs flashing “Buy Me Now!”

This is the first time that I've attend NAB/BEA, as oppose to the BEA (Broadcast Education Association) by itself. So, that means I'll been here in Las Vegas for ten days when I finally leave on Sunday. During my time here, I did manage to gather some really helpful hints. Most of them were posted on Twitter, however I figured that I could try to summarize and provide context to the conference.

1.) Broadcasters are storytellers with really cool tools and toys. It seems that the first couple of days that the sessions were focused on breaking down the key elements of the story and how the story should be framed in camera and enhanced with natural sounds and good B-roll. Broadcasters and other producers of content must also get their subject(s) to tell their stories so those stories are compelling to others.

2.) Everyone is dealing with the issues regarding new & social media. The majority of my third day at the conference dealt with strategies in the field of new & social media. Some where focusing social media as a way of finding new business leads. Some where focusing of repurposing old information to new media streams. I got to believe that these approaches will have problems. I'm still reminded of the lessons I'm learning from the "Clue Train Manifesto" (which is a great book). If we approach the audience as nothing more than revenue stream, your business will not survive. There must be a great effort in attempting to speak to an audience with a very human voice.

Well, that's a brief analysis of everything that I got out of NAB this year. However, there's no rest for me. Tomorrow starts BEA. So, good night everyone.