What to Expect
What to Expect is like one-stop shopping for wannabe parents, expecting parents and parents. The site may be used as an educational site or a combination of educational and SNS. I focused on items related to pregnancy and found that there is everything from Nursery decorating to medical information about specific complications. Part of the registration process is adding the expectant mother’s due date. Upon sign-in is information related to the mother’s specific stage of pregnancy as well as a graphic of baby inside of mother, and links to more information and symptoms occurring at the stage. There are message boards, blogs, photo contests, your own inbox, etc. The blogs seen to be people telling stories, whereas the boards are used for Q&A with an emphasis on people helping and comforting each other.
Several factors encourage trust of the site. Users can select from three privacy settings: public, available to all; friends, available to friends only; private, completely hidden, even from friends. Users most likely think that other users are just them, going through similar life-changing moments, eager to learn and help. Another major factor is that the site accompanies the What to Expect line of books: What to Expect When Your Expecting, What to Expect the First Year, What to Expect the Toddler Years, and What to Expect Baby-Sitter’s Handbook. Author, and mother, Heidi Murkoff is automatically your first “friend” upon registering for the site. The books have been very successful and, so far, every pregnant or recent mother I’ve spoken to knows exactly what they are.
My experience included one that could raise questions about who other users are. The first person who offered to be my “friend” was PetalFromAlaska. I followed links to her profile and under “About Me” found a push for Vaseline Clinical Therapy Lotion saying that she means to help by passing on the word.
What to Expect is like one-stop shopping for wannabe parents, expecting parents and parents. The site may be used as an educational site or a combination of educational and SNS. I focused on items related to pregnancy and found that there is everything from Nursery decorating to medical information about specific complications. Part of the registration process is adding the expectant mother’s due date. Upon sign-in is information related to the mother’s specific stage of pregnancy as well as a graphic of baby inside of mother, and links to more information and symptoms occurring at the stage. There are message boards, blogs, photo contests, your own inbox, etc. The blogs seen to be people telling stories, whereas the boards are used for Q&A with an emphasis on people helping and comforting each other.
Several factors encourage trust of the site. Users can select from three privacy settings: public, available to all; friends, available to friends only; private, completely hidden, even from friends. Users most likely think that other users are just them, going through similar life-changing moments, eager to learn and help. Another major factor is that the site accompanies the What to Expect line of books: What to Expect When Your Expecting, What to Expect the First Year, What to Expect the Toddler Years, and What to Expect Baby-Sitter’s Handbook. Author, and mother, Heidi Murkoff is automatically your first “friend” upon registering for the site. The books have been very successful and, so far, every pregnant or recent mother I’ve spoken to knows exactly what they are.
My experience included one that could raise questions about who other users are. The first person who offered to be my “friend” was PetalFromAlaska. I followed links to her profile and under “About Me” found a push for Vaseline Clinical Therapy Lotion saying that she means to help by passing on the word.
To me this says, “I work for Vaseline” which I found humorous because pregnant women really are a good demographic to sell a variety of products to. Plus her recent activity stated that she was adding new “friends” every few minutes.
Something very frustrating about the site is that links to pages seem to alternate between live and dead links, even those to pages you’ve just seen. Big impediment.
Flixter
Flixter is a social networking site for movies but didn’t seem too focused on the social aspect. As part of registration I had to rate 53 movies (called a “test”) which I guess could build trust among users in a “willingness to participate” kind of way, but I found irritating. Somehow 8 Mile got listed in my profile as the last movie I saw—not ture and not even the last movie they made me rate. I found a blog listing of something I thought I might want to participate in but it turned out to be an article with no opportunity to reply, and there was a listing of “Other Recent Articles” next to it.
Something very frustrating about the site is that links to pages seem to alternate between live and dead links, even those to pages you’ve just seen. Big impediment.
Flixter
Flixter is a social networking site for movies but didn’t seem too focused on the social aspect. As part of registration I had to rate 53 movies (called a “test”) which I guess could build trust among users in a “willingness to participate” kind of way, but I found irritating. Somehow 8 Mile got listed in my profile as the last movie I saw—not ture and not even the last movie they made me rate. I found a blog listing of something I thought I might want to participate in but it turned out to be an article with no opportunity to reply, and there was a listing of “Other Recent Articles” next to it.
So far the socializing was hard to come by so I tried to “Meet People,” BUT the site only allows that after uploading a picture.
The “socializes” happens in the “Flixter Forums” and to some extent in the “Flixter Wiki.”
The site tries to promote trust among users by posting stats by your avatar/picture; for example, number of friends, ratings, and reviews. It goes further by posting 4 “Top User Charts” which are by ratings, by reviews, by profile views, or by forum posts. Also, in the movie reviews, some users have gained the status of “SUPER REVIEWER” which is a label appearing under their picture. I believe many of these stats refer more to social capital according to Ellison as the “resources accumulated through the relationships among people.” The contributors are piling up their stats white the consumers are benefiting. Judging from Ellison, I suggest that this is “bridging social capital” when she sites Putnam’s (2000) definition as "’weak ties,’ which are loose connections between individuals who may provide useful information or new perspectives for one another but typically not emotional support.”
What to Expect seemed to have an interpersonal emphasis through using the provided information and information from experience. Flixter’s emphasis seemed to be on the product with the social aspects as the sidebar. It would be incorrect to judge one as better or worse or right or wrong. Rather, they are operating by the accepted social norms which vary according to each site (Gleave).
Final Project
How are museums and archives using SNS? What SNS are they using? How? Why?
If I have a hard time finding museums and archives I will include libraries in general.
I will search the Web sites of institutions to find reference of SNS they are using.
At this point, I believe the readings under session 3 “Motivation for participation” will be relevant in that it is likely that institutions find the reasons people use SNS as motivation in incorporating such sites.
The site tries to promote trust among users by posting stats by your avatar/picture; for example, number of friends, ratings, and reviews. It goes further by posting 4 “Top User Charts” which are by ratings, by reviews, by profile views, or by forum posts. Also, in the movie reviews, some users have gained the status of “SUPER REVIEWER” which is a label appearing under their picture. I believe many of these stats refer more to social capital according to Ellison as the “resources accumulated through the relationships among people.” The contributors are piling up their stats white the consumers are benefiting. Judging from Ellison, I suggest that this is “bridging social capital” when she sites Putnam’s (2000) definition as "’weak ties,’ which are loose connections between individuals who may provide useful information or new perspectives for one another but typically not emotional support.”
What to Expect seemed to have an interpersonal emphasis through using the provided information and information from experience. Flixter’s emphasis seemed to be on the product with the social aspects as the sidebar. It would be incorrect to judge one as better or worse or right or wrong. Rather, they are operating by the accepted social norms which vary according to each site (Gleave).
Final Project
How are museums and archives using SNS? What SNS are they using? How? Why?
If I have a hard time finding museums and archives I will include libraries in general.
I will search the Web sites of institutions to find reference of SNS they are using.
At this point, I believe the readings under session 3 “Motivation for participation” will be relevant in that it is likely that institutions find the reasons people use SNS as motivation in incorporating such sites.
What a great idea to use the author, Heidi Markoff, as an integral part of the "What to Expect" site! In our readings, Erylizmaz suggested that one of the most important elements of developing trust is the presence of "authority." I don't know any pregnant women or mother who has not heard of (and loved) these books! What an excellent marketing tool to use both "celebrity" support as well as the possible draw from women searching these books. I can't imagine a better use of authority in a social network.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of your final project, you may want to browse through the archives of the Library Stream Blog (http://librarystream.wordpress.com/). This is written by a librarian who promotes information/web literacy as well as the integration of social networks with modern libraries. It might offer you some insight into social networks libraries are starting to use. Also, wikipedia usually has lists of websites for all sorts of topics. The following links has some libraries that are connected to social networks: http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Social_Networking_Software
Food for thought. What junie12e mentions in her blog (para#7; http://junie12e.wordpress.com/) might be relevant to your final project, although it concerns the Library of Congress. Check this out:
ReplyDelete“. . . an innovative way the Library of Congress has used Flickr is by uploading several sets of its photos on the site and inviting the public to provide more information about the photos by tags or comments.”
You might also be able to find online profiles of museums and archives (and libraries) like the LC one by exploring popular social networking sites (i.e. Flickr, Facebook, MySpace).
As an ex-childbirth educator, I was interested in learning about the What to Expect site. Preparing for and experiencing childbirth is such a life changing event, I'm glad to hear that this site is available - and all of the options on it. I agree with you and Carrie about the trust inherent in the site, just by the association of the name and having the author of the What to Expect books as your friend. I think that everyone who had had a child within the last 20 years or so is familiar with the books!
ReplyDeleteRegarding your topic, I was so interested in it that i just popped into Facebook and spent about half an hour searching for different groups - your idea about museums started me off and I was able to find people who work for museums (like the Smithsonian, which I typed in first)but on that particular site, not the museum itself. I'll be very interested to see how your project moves forward and what you find out.
I will definitely check out that "expecting" site. It sounds like there might be those that form close relationships during their pregnancy. I wonder if, once the baby is born, those relationships remain as close? Are temporary strong ties really "weak" ties?
ReplyDeleteYour final project sounds interesting. I remember seeing something on one of the listservs about a library on facebook. (also about folks using library computers to facebook)
That woman who seemed to be promoting Vaseline reminded me of this story where a cruise ship company was paying people to go around and make positive commentary over the Internet. (On a side note - Vaseline has terrible lotion. It's beeswax and oil or nothing for me.) I think people when they find out about it don't appreciate this sort of thing, and hopefully soon companies will figure out it's a bad idea. It really, again, centers on trust and the power of the Internet to mask anyone's identity.
ReplyDeleteAnd Flixter - making you upload a picture before you can post? Ouch! Talk about inhibiting trust. A lot of people on the Internet do post their pictures, or have avatars, but I can't think of any site I've been involved with that forces you to upload a picture.
As to your project...interesting, I didn't even think of relating social computing to libraries. D'oh. I might rethink my own project topic now. You might also want to search the professional literature about previous studies related to the use of SNSs for libraries/museums/archives - I'm sure there are some, and it'll be helpful to see whether the librarians/archivists that started the SNSs feel as if they are successful for their needs. SNSs seem particularly big among public libraries, since their young users are MySpace/Facebook addicts. My parents' library has a MySpace for the YA set.
I agree that the recognizability and popularity of the What to Expect books help build trust, if not in the individual members, in the site itself and information available on it. j_mastin also mentioned another community for mothers, Hawaii.momslikeme.com, though it's not just for expectant/new mothers.
ReplyDeleteAbout the Vaseline incident, that reminds me of my recent experiences on Twitter. Since I joined a few weeks ago, I've been accumulating followers despite having never sent out a tweet. I thought this was strange, until I found out a number of them were promoting something.
Your topic sounds interesting. I think a lot of museums and libraries are using SNS's as a way to generate interest and enhance connectivity. Here are a few articles on museums and social networking that might interest you: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7902323.stm, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/arts/design/05moma.html. I also noticed on the Smithsonian Institution website, http://www.si.edu/, there's a little section on Smithsonian Web 2.0 (bottom right corner). They even have a Twitter feed!
I think it's funny that when I read about your using the What to Expect site, my initial reaction was, wow, here is a community that must have a lot of trust, but where you can rest assured that other members have gone through it all, or are in the same process you are. And the common bond being pregnancy, it's all centered around a very special event. Then suddenly, the books and Vaseline are introduced and I realize there's commercialization and marketing even here! Not that I don't think those books aren't useful, but the site has a different context for me now that I realize it's centered around a best selling author. It makes me want to know if there is more trust, because of the expertise of the author, or less, because it is still marketing a commercial product.
ReplyDeleteWhat made you think of museums for your final project? I think it's a good idea, but do you have something you can jump start the project with? Not in the field, I don't know if there is a lot / a little / zero information about museum SNS's. Being such a niche community, I would imagine there must be people who can be very helpful in participating... if you can find the communities!