Command & Control of Twitter: Users Shape Technology
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The document discusses Twitter as a socially constructed technology where users determine how it is used rather than designers. It argues that Twitter represents a shift in command and control with users deciding tools, practices, and goals for the platform. Users have also innovated features like hashtags and replies that were later adopted by developers. The conclusion states that Twitter allows users to shape their computing environment based on individual needs and that different data philosophies on the platform can spark creativity when they interact.
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Command & Control of Twitter: Users Shape Technology
- 1. #c3t The Command & Control of Twitter: on a Socially Constructed Twitter & Applications of the Philosophy of Data By Brian Ballsun-Stanton & Kate Carruthers #ICCIT_10 and #c3t
- 2. t Before we start … Discuss this talk right now on twitter! Use #c3t as the hashtag. Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 2 Source: Marcus Angerhier @ aperto.de
- 3. t What is Twitter? • A social question: “What’s happening?” – “Tweets” update a timeline with short text messages • People can choose to follow your updates • A social network reinterpreted by its users for their own purposes! B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers Source: http://www.yiyinglu.com Dec 2010 3
- 4. t #c3t - Command, Control, and Communication in Twitter • Major shift in locus of command & control – Users decide on: Tools, Practice, & Goals • Different to Facebook: the user is genuinely in control • Users communicate innovations to their followers through action Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 4 Source: War Games (1983)
- 5. Creation of Social Practices • Minimalist interface enables user constructed practices • Users evolved their own signifiers – @replies – #hashtags • The developers responded to the pressure of user’s innovations Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 5 Source: Wiki Commons
- 6. Social Construction of Twitter • A socially constructed technology is: • A tool that has its uses determined and evolved by its users, rather than traditional controlling entities. • Traditional technology has uses determined by designer fiat. • Each user constructs Twitter for their own uses. Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 6 Source: Hackers (1995)
- 7. Philosophy of Data & Twitter • Different understandings of data change understanding and use • “What’s happening” means different things based on philosophy: – Tweets are communications between people – Subjective sense-impressions of environment – Temporal records of action Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 7 Source: Kryptos by Jim Sanborn
- 8. Conclusion • Twitter is an example of a socially constructed technology • Users influence their computing environment. – shape it around their own needs, wants, and missions • When different philosophies of data interact: – spark creativity – generate new affordances – new perceptions of embodied technique Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 8 Source: Riku @ f.ollow.me
- 9. Contact the authors Brian Ballsun-Stanton Twitter: @DenubisX brian@ballsun.com Kate Carruthers Twitter: @kcarruthers kate@katecarruthers.com Dec 2010 9B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers
Editor's Notes
- Ask questions at any time
- Before we start Join my co-author and the rest of the audience on twitter Discuss the talk live
- A social network People produce tweets Status updates Conversation Anything they can think of People may follow No need for recirprocation No fake concept of “friends” Continually reconstructed by various communities to suit their own needs
- Command: The technology which enables a leader to set objectives Control: Decide on ways to accomplish objectives Communication: Transmit orders through the hierarchy Twitter represents a shift in C3 The users are no longer following designer orders Users form their own C3 networks No single vision of what to do Facebook - The old model Authoritarian and hierarchical They decide what you do and how you use Users communicate their new understandings of twitter through use Other users copy good ideas because they’re useful to them
- Twitter offers the web and API protocols Other developers, as users, can invent their own techniques of use Few constraints on the interface Pliable affordances @replies, a construction indicating a username created by users embraced by developers Developers embraced ideas Adding infrastructure to support use after users adopted practice Tool grows and changes with its users Users set objectives, adapt or create practices to accomplish them
- Socially constructed technology: A tool that has its uses determined and evolved by its users, rather than traditional controlling entities. Engineers take note Twitter's initial intent as a microblogging service clearly demonstrates the designers' intent to have it compete as a one-to-many blogging service in direct competition with the traditional blog engines Success in despite of its goals Developers listened to its users Users are in control: a system which allows its users’ control can be very successful Many eyes have many ideas, some ideas will be better than initial developer vision. Ideas come from different ways of thinking Forcing users into the developer’s mold only worked with no significant competition Now users can find a tool to do what they want, even if it isn’t yours User-discovered usage techniques will happen Continuing blithe disregard for the original concept. Lessons learned Don’t try to hold onto the traditional control model The internet will find its own uses for things Embrace their ideas and profit An increase in chaos (no centralized control) results in order emerging from the system, organically.
- Twitter founded on exchanges of messages Users interpret question of “what’s happening” according their own philosophy of data Not the developer’s Data as electronically stored communications Tweets are communications between people The service is useful as it enables communication @replies are vital, as they provide context to communication Data as subjective recorded observations Tweets are recorded sense-impressions of environment #tags provide relationships between tweets Allow people to filter based on their interests and knowledge Data as objective and hard numbers Tweets are temporal records of action Recordings of the world, rather than of the impressions of the world Most tweets uninteresting
- Change in the locus of #c3t from developer to user represents a new socially constructed technology through the social construction of technology, users influence their computing environment and shape it around their own needs, wants, and missions different philosophies of data, error sparks creativity which in turn generates new affordances, new perceptions of embodied technique.