Task Force on Social Networking Software

In a previous post we discussed privacy issues with Facebook’s Beacon service.  This week Google has been criticized for opening up Google Reader.  Google Reader has allowed users to ’share’ items in their reading list for awhile now.  Recently Google tweaked the product so that shared items are shared with everyone in a users Google Talk list.  As a CNET article states:

But, as anyone who uses instant messaging knows, not all of your IM contacts are friends. Many are acquaintances or people you barely know and with whom you may not want to share a reading list.

This is an interesting dilemma for developers of social networking products.  I’m sure that Google is only trying to open the system up to allow for more interaction between users.  Yet at the same time users are saying,  “Whoa, not so fast, I want to choose my interactions”.   In the grand scheme of things this doesn’t represent a huge problem in privacy and in fact Google has posted directions to limit the user one shares with.  However libraries should watch these issues closely.  As OPACs, citation management software, and other services open up for library users we will all be faced with similar concerns over privacy.

The lesson here, open is good, but only as far as the user wants it to be.

Bart

This is a post to follow up on a comment from December 17th while I was out of town.   I’m creating a new post for those readers who do not subscribe to the comments via RSS. Thanks Lisa in Australia for letting us know!

The survey similar to one administered by the Social Networking Task Force in the fall.  As in the TF survey, I see results I expect as well as some that are surprising.

Check out the  results from down under.

Bart

Google has announced a new platform named “Knol” which is wiki like in nature.

From what we know so far, Knol is a wiki-like platform. Authors can create topics, and there are tools to interlink articles and content, but as Manber says, an article, or “knol,” is “just a Web page.” Where it differs from a wiki is its focus on the author. All knols will highlight who wrote them.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9834175-7.html?tag=nefd.only

Interesting concept here with more focus on the author there is less ‘openness’.  Is Google challenging wikipedia or the wiki as a publishing environment?

Bart

Here are just a few blog posts that came across my inbox this week that I thought might be of interest.

First concerns a  Zotero - Internet Archive (IA) alliance.  Zotero is a web-based research tool that allows one to  collect, manage, and cite information from your Web browser.  The partnership with IA will allow researchers to share digitized and digitally born material.

Second, Nielsen came out with a “Top Ten Social Network” rankings. Note the growth of Facebook in the last year.  Also while MySpace grew it was at a much slower rate.

Bart

The current issue of JAMA has an interesting Research Letter examining the content of YouTube videos for information about immunizations. They identified 153 videos. Seventy-three (48%) of the videos were positive, 49 (32%) were negative and 31 (20%) were ambiguous. Compared with positive videos, negative videos were more likely to receive a rating, had a higher mean star rating and had more views. Of the negative videos, 22 (45%) conveyed content that contradicted 2006 Canadian Immunization Guide. Take home message: YouTube is a another source for health information. Not all of it is accurate. But more importantly, health professionals need to consider the potential use of YouTube as an effective way to communicate good health information.

Recently online privacy and social networking worked out some growing pains as Facebook tried out a new revenue stream.

Basically the service, called Beacon, connects an advertiser to ones facebook ‘friends”.

David Weinberger, from the HuffingtonPost.com describes it well in his post Facebook’s Privacy Default.

The new ad infrastructure enables Facebook to extend their reach onto other companies’ sites. For example, if you rent a copy of “Biodome” from Blockbuster.com, Blockbuster will look for a Facebook cookie on your computer. If it finds one, it will send a ping to Facebook. The Blockbuster site will pop up a “toast” (= popup) asking if you want to let your friends at Facebook know that you rented “Biodome.” If you say yes, next time you log into Facebook, Facebook will ask you to confirm that you want to let your friends know of your recent rental. If you say yes, that becomes an event that’s propagated in the news feed going to your friends.

You can understand Facebook’s perspective here, now that they have created this great service, how do they make money?I think Facebook would argue that they don’t send personal information to the companies so they are protecting user privacy. On the other hand, users might argue that just because they buy something from Overstock.com this does not represent an endorsement of the website.

Faced with an online user protest, Facebook has changed the controversial service (see Privacy concerns prompt U-turn at Facebook). Now users have to opt ‘in’ instead of opting ‘out’. This brings up some challenging questions that I think speaks to the trepidation that many librarians feel about public social networking sites. After all, if you signup for a ‘free’ service can you really blame the company for trying to make money off of you? Or should sites like Facebook been seen as a hybrid public service (akin to Google) and if so how are they supposed to know what acceptable business behavior is?

PS - Looking for MLA groups on Facebook try:

Medical Library Association’s Technology Trends
http://uva.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2464357736

Leadership and Management Section of the Medical Library Associationhttp://uva.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2523367558

MLA Social Networking Software Task Force
Medical Library Association (unofficial)http://uva.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2224177377

Educational Media & Technologies Section of Medical Library Association
http://uva.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2810070861