Entering the building that time you walked into an environment full of high tech machines. One of them was the Senster, a cybernetic sculpture made by Edward Ihnatowicz. It was the, so it’s claimed, first computer controlled piece of Art. The machine responded to people’s movement, their voice by radar and by a microphone. A bit like the SAM, we MoM theories students talked about in class last week.

The Senster, as can be said for the Evoluon as a technology museum, has been dismantled for many years now. You can read about the machine on the Senster website. If you’re not a tekkie, the little videos on Youtube about the Senster and the exhibitions in Eindhoven’s silicons are at least fun.

The Senster in the Evoluon:

First part of a promtional film about the museum, probably made by Bert Haanstra:

Second part:

The SAM:

A. ‘No opinions’ are important too for surveys

B. People don’t take pollmaking serious

C. No opinion

Definition
According tot danah boyd*  and Nicole Ellison in Social networksites: My definition,  a social network site is ‘category of websites with profiles, semi-persistent public commentary on the profile, and a traversable publicly articulated social network displayed in relation to the profile.’ She clarifies:

Profile. A profile includes an identifiable handle (either the person’s name or nick), information about that person (e.g. age, sex, location, interests, etc.). Most profiles also include a photograph and information about last login. Profiles have unique URLs that can be visited directly.
Traversable, publicly articulated social network. Participants have the ability to list other profiles as “friends” or “contacts” or some equivalent. This generates a social network graph which may be directed (”attention network” type of social network where friendship does not have to be confirmed) or undirected (where the other person must accept friendship). This articulated social network is displayed on an individual’s profile for all other users to view. Each node contains a link to the profile of the other person so that individuals can traverse the network through friends of friends of friends….
Semi-persistent public comments. Participants can leave comments (or testimonials, guestbook messages, etc.) on others’ profiles for everyone to see. These comments are semi-persistent in that they are not ephemeral but they may disappear over some period of time or upon removal. These comments are typically reverse-chronological in display. Because of these comments, profiles are a combination of an individuals’ self-expression and what others say about that individual.

Does Hyves meet this definition? A person or an organisation can make a profile that’s either public or private. Persons can publish their profile and can add information just basically (for example only nickname, sex, age) or much extended. The profile has its own url. There’s a list of friends on the profile, a pallet of images that are clickable. You can’t see this if the person’s profile is private or only visible for friends and you’re not one of them. You’re only someone’s friend if both you and you’re wannabe-friend agree. It’s possible to leave comments on a profile, it’s called ‘krabbelen’. Also, you can ‘tik’ someone, you can leave a little personal message. On the profile persons can blog and drop a ‘wie wat waar’, a Twitter-ish whereabouts-message. This all makes that Hyves meets to the definition of social networksites (often just called SNS). It’s not an attention network, both (wannabe) friends have to agree to the digital relationship.

Groups
There’s an important feature of Hyves boyd doesn’t speak about in her analyzes of social network sites. Hyvers can start or join a group that’s related to a theme, a celebrity, a company, a brand or whatsoever. These groups can be set up by anyone who has a Hyves-profile. A group, called a Hyve, looks similar to a personal profile, but there’s no real personal profile-function as mentioned above. Here also, a group can be private and even non-visible. Members of the group are able to discuss on a forum.

At least interesting are the Hyves that are related to a brand. In fact, one of the H&M Hyves, groups linked to this shop, is one of biggest Hyves with more than 200.000 members. About forty groups are linked to Jamba, a provider of ring tones etcetera. Most of them are anti-Hyves: groups whereon members complain about, or worse, curse on Jamba. In this context, a social network site is used for letting know and share the hate on that particular brand. Remarkable is it to see, you don’t have to be the owners of the brand to start a Hyve about it.

Goldmembers
Using Hyves is free. Everybody can set up a profile. But if you like to have more rights, you can become a Goldmember. It will cost you some money, but as a Goldmember you don’t have to deal with advertisement on your profile and more traffic (who, when?) on your profile is visible for you.

How to study?
Social Network Sites don’t have a century long history and they exist only a few years. In 2006, Hanneke Vos researched the motivation of Hyvers. Why do people use Hyves? In her conclusion Vos says that the main reasons for ‘Hyving’ are escaping and relaxing, communication with friends and fun. She did a qualitative survey and I think that’s a proper way to study phenomena like Hyves. Quantitative surveys are just a freeze of one moment, while social network sites change, grow or decline all the time. Personally, I think the outcome of such a survey is interesting for marketing purposes, but not that significant for humanities research.

Danah boyd says that there’s a lack of experimental or longitudinal studies. Scholars, according to boyd, still have little understanding of who is and who is not using. There’s a discussion going on the importance of social network sites, she says. I think that’s not the discussion. It’s 2008 and many people – the half of the Dutch citizens, for example, have a Hyves profile -  are is some way digital networking, at least in the United States and Europe. That proves the importance of social network sites. They can’t be ignored.

* It’s danah boyd, not Danah Boyd…

Later on, I’ll try to create an other hoax. This time, I’ll make sure I use (fake) sources and there will be something about it to be found on Google. I have to use an other computer, Wikipedia files your IP-address.

Here is the hoax text (in Dutch, the links I embedded are removed):

Schafter Scheerder

De Schafter Scheerder was een in het begin van de twintigste in de natuur rond het dorp Schaft levende man. Tot de dag van vandaag is het echter onbekend of de Schafter Scheerder echt bestaan heeft of een verzinsel was van lokale herders.

De naam heeft de man te danken aan de geruchten dat hij schapen die graasden op de heide rond het dorp voor de helft zou scheren. Herders zouden ’s ochtends bij het tellen van de schapen diverse keren schapen aantreffen die alleen aan de linkerkant van hun wol ontdaan waren.

In een dagboek dat na de Tweede Wereldoorlog door Amerikanen in het Belgische Neerpelt gevonden is, wordt bericht over een ‘wilde, ongeschoren en stinkende man die soms op de Malpie opduikt’. Het dagboek is bijgehouden door een jonge vrouw uit Schaft. Ze schreef dat het figuur ‘eng’ was, maar toch iets aantrekkelijks had.

In 1909 is een afgeslacht schaap gevonden vlakbij de gemeentegrens van Borkel en Schaft, toen een aparte gemeente. Dorpelingen durfden enkele dagen hun huis niet uit. Later deden de geruchten de ronde dat de Schafter Scheerder nooit bestaan heeft en een verzinsel was van de schapenhouders om meer sympathie te kweken bij de dorpelingen. Foto’s of andere bewijzen zijn nooit gevonden.