[Web4lib] The end of MySpace, SecondLife, and Twitter

[Thomas Rutter]

> Dvorak argues that we would be very excited to discover conversations

> between ordinary, everyday people from the past (his example is of
teenage 
> girls chatting in 1907). 

The technology exists to archive everything on Twitter, though it has
interesting privacy implications.  While in 100 years the participants
in the conversations will be gone and virtually none of their
conversations could be seen as containing sensitive information, during
the time in between they would encounter the same sorts of problems as
MySpace users who find their employers surfing their MySpace profiles:
the records of private interactions with their friends would be open for
the world to see.  In real life (! yes I know I just used that term to
refer to non-cyberspace) people can have a loud conversation in a public
place, but it is still illegal to record their voices due to privacy
laws.  So even though the conversation is public and everyone around can
hear it, archiving it has privacy implications. 
With public figures (people we see in the media all the time) it is
different - there are no restrictions on recording what they say in
public in a public context, and thus their speeches are easily (and
widely) archived.
Should users of online services be informed if their public
conversations may be archived, even if they appear to be ephemeral?

Ulanoff's article is an entertaining read, but some details are amiss -
for example, people do make real money from Second Life
(http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2006/02/70153,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/25/AR2006122500635.html,
http://secondlife.com/whatis/marketplace.php,
http://www.forbes.com/careers/2006/08/07/virtual-world-jobs_cx_de_0807virtualjobs.html)
whether they are using it as a marketplace to trade items (virtual items
- don't ask me) or real estate in the game.

His point about MySpace ghost pages is also a little odd.  The web has
vast numbers of ghost pages too, and the web hasn't died.  Unused web
sites simply don't turn up in searches much.  They're like the 'dark
matter' of the web - or of MySpace.  Same with Flickr and Google Groups
and everything else which enables someone to sign up, create an account,
then abandon it.

Just aside, I think Ulanoff would get some personal satisfaction seeing
the likes of MySpace or Second Life fail, so he's tossed everything he
doesn't like about them into an article and is telling us they are the
reasons they'll fail.  They aren't really; they're wishful thinking.  It
is indeed scary that MySpace users feel free to discuss all manner of
private and personal things on a site so well indexed and 'Googleable'
by future employers.  However MySpace users will continue to do so and
employers will continue to Google new recruits.  It is becoming more
commonplace to share your private life on the web.

Perhaps, then, I am out of date.  Perhaps society is going to gradually
change its views on the personal and private space such that people's
interactions on websites (private made public) is more commonly
accepted, and people become more comfortable with others being able to
do a Google search on them.  Google is routinely criticised for its
privacy practices, yet the masses seem to keep storing their personal
information with Google.  Is our desire for privacy going out of style?

Thomas


-- 

 
Thomas Rutter
Library Web Coordinator, Information Resources
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne VIC Australia
Email: trutter at swin.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 9214 4885


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