Monthly Archives: September 2009

Twitter and its networking (in)capabilities

Nowadays, many of the popular social network sites are advanced platforms that more or less evolved from simple community platforms or fora. Where Myspace, Friendster and The WELL (later the Dutch De Digitale Stad popped up as a similar landmark) took off during the 90’s,…


Social Network Sites – friend/Friend/defriend

Social Network Sites (SNSs), like Facebook and Hyves, are focused on ‘Friendship’. As SNSs get more mainstream and infiltrate in our everyday lives the use of the term ‘Friendship’ becomes more problematic within the SNSs discourse. Using the labels of friend, Friend or defriend is not as obvious as it seems.


Merging Social Media into the field of Online Dating

Personally on-line dating is not my cup of tea, and my boyfriend would kill me if I would consider it, but for some reason the phenomena itself keeps grabbing my attention. The basic concept of dating sites has not really changed a lot through the years, apart from the matchmaking algorithms that can differ from one site to another. On…


Fakebook on Facebook

Fake is not necessarily referring to anything bad here. Basically they are real people with a fake or virtual identity. They are like actors on the Internet instead of movies or TV episodes. They have certain characters with their stories and lives. She or he is on Facebook with everything we have: name, information, friends, status update, photos, videos… However, very possibly, their profiles are accessed and controlled by a PR guy or a creative team from advertising agencies.


Are We Addicted to Social Networking Sites?

Social Networking sites  such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Hyves have exploded in the past five years and have caused a societal shift in the way we communicate and connect with others. In 2009, time spent on social networking sites tripled compared to the previous year and we now spend 17% percent…


Is open always better than closed?

I went to an exhibition in the Tropenmuseum called Dono’s code, by the contemporary artist Heri Dono (1960). The first of his many politically charged works was Fermentation of Mind. I sneakily took a picture of it because it was quite impressive. It displayed a classroom filled with heads mounted on mechanical arms. The heads were plugged into a electronic book-like contraption in


What Social Network?

Perhaps I’m jaded. Perhaps I’m a nostalgist. Perhaps Facebook isn’t the most sinister CIA operation yet. But somehow, I cannot stop from thinking that the “Web 2.0″ as we know it today is an accident of history, an effect of a US legal decision in 2001 that irrevocably changed the course of the Internet.


Chinese Cyber World: A World in Itself

Let’s start with an interesting conversation between a Chinese (C) and a westerner (W):

W: Oh, it is so nice to meet you! Do you have facebook?

C: no. I am sorry.

W: Do you have MSN?

C: yea, but I seldom use that, so sorry.

W: So maybe email is the best way to contact you?

C: ….yup!

How…


Photos from the first New Media MA Graduation Day

Tuesday the 22nd of September was a big day for both graduating New Media MA students and New Media studies itself. The first official graduation ceremony (which were previously held together with Film and Television studies in Mediastudies) marked the beginning of a new era for New Media within Mediastudies. New Media has grown in both quality and quantity…


Pecking in the Picnic

picnic09_small
Yesterday was the last day of the PICNIC event, and even though the “main course” was only acessible to conference ticket owners, there were still plenty of activities to be involved in, people to meet and games to try out.