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Thursday, June 28, 2007
2:20:00 PM EDT
Hearing Belly, Stay

AIM Pages Newsletter Changes; Plus Risk, Freaks, Preps, Bullies and More

Heya buddies -- this here's going to be my last entry... that I do soley so the AIM Pages Newsletter has something to point to, that is.

With today's edition, the AIM Pages Newsletter is going on permanent vacation. It'll be combined with the AIM Newsletter (which will continue to cover AIM and AIM Pages topics), so you'll get that instead.

But don't worry, we'll keep blogging. In fact, I'm working with the AIM Pages product folks to get some more help blogging, so we'll be able to blog more frequently, and talk more about profiles and what's going on in the social profiles world.

We'll be moving to a new blog within the next few weeks. I know I haven't been doing a super good job in posting frequently, so I'm hoping the new setup will make things more useful.

Some things that have been going on:

* The teams have been looking at the connections between Member Directory and AIM Pages profiles, and in particular, why many folks still can't get back to a Member Directory page after they delete their AIM Pages profile. It's been a sticky and ongoing problem, and I'm sorry we still haven't been able to lock this problem down.

* The team is also working on some pretty significant changes for later in the summer to how profiles work, and making them easier to work with. I suspect we'll be talking about it a lot more in the new blog.

In the meantime, here are a few interesting stories (well, they're interesting to me) about different things going on in the social networking and social profiles world (which is the world that products like AIM Pages, MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, etc. live in):

* Social Network Risk: Tech gossip blog Valleywag has a neat graphic that shows the popularity of different social networks, mapped to the board from the game Risk.

Among other things, it shows that MySpace and Facebook divide up North America; Orkut is pretty strong in Latin America and India, and Cyworld is strong in Asia.

(When I played Risk, a winning strategy among our group was to take Australia and its two bonus armies, spoil the Asia bonus, bunker down, build up, then break out. That really doesn't have anything to do with this, I just wanted to say that.)

* Preps vs. Freaks: Sociologist danah boyd, who's made a (lowercased) name for herself studying teens and social networks, theorizes that we're seeing a split in the US, where the college-bound middle- and upper-class kids (jocks, cheerleaders and preppies) gather on Facebook, and the immigrants, goths, drama-types, emos, and other folks on the fringes ("freaks, geeks or queers") tend to go on MySpace.

It's more of an essay than an actual study; Valleywag takes a contrarian view and tries to dig up some data to help prove or disprove her theory.

* Unfaithfulness and Social Networks: This is a study featured in the UK's TimesOnline, which restates something we kind of know -- most people hop around on different social networks, and don't limit themselves to just one social network. And this isn't a bad thing.

* Facebook, Privacy and Yearbooks: The Washington Post talks about a Bethesda, Maryland high school's yearbook staff, which under a time crunch and needing photos, grabbed pictures from people's Facebook albums and included them in the yearbook, without permission or giving credit. That wasn't such a hot idea.

* Cyber-Bullying on the Rise in the US: Today's BBC News reports that a Pew Internet & American Life Study says one-third of online teens in the US have been victims of cyber-bullying: People using online methods, like profiles, e-mails, IMs, message boards and blogs, to taunt, spread rumors, post personal info, and otherwise harass other people.

It's important to not lose sight of the fact, though, that "...teenagers still think that the majority of bullying happens offline."

There's a lot of stuff going on in the social networks and social profiles world, and you're a part of it (even if you don't realize it -- or even care).

Thanks -- Joe




Written by aimpagesteam Blog about this entry
This entry has 8 comments: (Add your own)
  • #8 Comment from reginalew
    7/16/07 1:28 PM | Permalink
    What a helpful blog.  Thanks for aggregating some of the most relevant news stories.  Will check back in often.

    - R
    www.reginalewis.com
  • #7 Comment from cste609371
    7/15/07 11:06 PM | Permalink
    How do you get picked???     http://www.aimpages.com/cste609371/profile.html
  • #6 Comment from raspberrysheep99
    7/13/07 9:10 PM | Permalink
    hi this is raspberrysheep99
  • #5 Comment from lcoolcat8
    7/13/07 6:02 PM | Permalink
    Hey i need help with this. Im new and i don't know what the heck im suspose to do with this so if anyone can help me please do. CAUSZE I LOOK LIKE A MAJOR IDIOT NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO ON AN AIM PAGE. PLZ HELP ME.
  • #4 Comment from volleyballxlove6
    7/11/07 1:10 PM | Permalink
    hey. i dont know if you'll be able to respond to this, but when i put the comment module on my page it won't work. a little box pops up saying there is a error and it's undefined or something, and i've deleted it and re-added it a few times, but the same thing happens. so i don't know if it's something with the aim pages site or my computer.
    --- volleyballxlove6
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