Marketers need Sociologists. Actually, marketers should be Sociologists (or Sociologists should be marketers). When I was getting my Masters in Sociology and Anthropology in the late 1990s, we took on some interesting studies regarding interactions between people in online forums. Online forums were in their infancy, but that was at the time the social networking activity of […]
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The Sociology of the Internet Consumer (part 1)
For those of you who followed the SOPA / PIPA saga, know that, at least for now, the Internet has defeated the Congressional Hollywood lobbyists and the “public servants” they have in their deep pockets. It’s a good thing and we should all be proud. As a Sociologist I am well aware of the flaws […]
Why My Mother Loves the Internet
A few years back I did something that had serious ramifications for my family. There were unexpected consequences, some serendipitous, others just scary. It started as simple fun but then became increasingly intense. There were moments I thought we would lose control. But then things plateaued and leveled out. But for a minute there… What […]
5 Top Ways to Piss Off your Website Programmer
If you’ve ever contracted a programmer, whether it be through a company or a freelancer, you’ve likely encountered some rather frustrating responses to your requests. Programmers aren’t always right, but for the most part, the ones I know are honest and have the goals of the client in mind. In general, you don’t want to […]
The Sociology of the Forum and How to Prevent Freedom of Speech Tragedies
Long ago, about 252,288,000 seconds ago in programming time, Clay Shirky gave a speech called A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy. In it, among other things, he talks about how group members’ (users’) behaviour can wreak havoc on an open social entity of any kind (open being the key term here). He talks about the need […]
Your Really Long Password is Your Friend
I know that people have been writing about passwords, password management, password memory techniques, and password encryption forever, but I’m not done. Let me start with a few facts: 1) Our memories are limited. 2) Passwords are hard to remember. 3) Long passwords drive most people nuts. 4) Hackers want your password. It seems the […]
The Most Important Question When Creating Your Website
I have created or been involved in scores of websites in my 15 years as a web programmer, and one of the hardest tasks is convincing clients that they’re missing the point. By the point, I mean the point of having a web site at all. What usually happens is that I ask them one […]
How Blogging Improves Social Media
When I created this website, I really wasn’t going to start a blog here. I swear. But then I read a friend’s Facebook update, or should I say updates. It started with one sentence about a morning on the beach. Ten individual entries later and three screens on my TweetDeck and I felt like I […]
Moral Panics and Facebook
When I wrote TranceNational AlienNation, my thesis that researches Trance Music culture in Israel and discusses the moral panic that ensues and targets the global trance community, I was surprised to find how easily people are whipped into a frenzy of panic by seemingly innocent events. Raves, drugs, youth culture in general, have all been targets […]
How Yahoo! is Losing One of Its Biggest Fans
I am a Yahoo! holdout. I have been using MyYahoo as a source of news feeds (RSS) for years — over a decade, I believe. It was easy, comfortable, and their news site was (and still is) extremely user friendly. I often preferred Yahoo Sports to ESPN or SI. It was even my home page […]