Some more thoughts on the “Facebook/Reunion” Question
Posted: March 30, 2009 Filed under: Department of Digital, motivation Leave a comment »Since yesterday morning when an article on the topic was posted on Bits, I’ve been thinking about how Facebook may change the dynamic of college reunions. The author makes the following justification for skipping out on her upcoming 5-year reunion:
A few weeks ago I received an invite to my five-year college reunion. My reply was swift, unhesitating and final: No, thank you.
I have no desire to join the rest of my fellow University of Virginia graduates in sipping mint juleps on the sun-dappled Lawn and taking tours of the Rotunda. Why would I?
I already know which of my former classmates spent their post-graduate years planting gardens in the Dominican Republic for the Peace Corps, which took off for the West Coast. I’ve seen photographs documenting medical missions to South Africa, vacations to Ecuador and endless albums of wedding receptions and gurgling babies.
Blame Facebook.
The tone of the commenters was interesting because there was a divide in opinion, and thanks to Alumni Futures for summarizing the conversation. I left one myself, but I’m still thinking about this dilemma this morning. It’s an interesting debate, but I fundamentally disagree with the author – I have all intention in the world of attending my 5 year. The thing is, I’d actually argue that Facebook makes reunions have a more lasting impact.
Take a moment I had earlier this weekend. I was sitting next to one of my bosses while we were teaching a workshop at James Madison University (pretty perfect setting for this debate, if you ask me), and he turns to me and exclaims, “Wow, my old high school forensics coach just friended me on Facebook.” Now, after the necessary commentary on speech and debate, Monte accepted the request and we moved on. While it’s great to reconnect, that person is probably no more than an occasional status message to him.
That’s how Facebook changes the game at reunions.
Trust me, you would have been searching for many exits to that conversation with a long lost friend from a club you hardly remember being in. And, fundamentally, while there’s always the “look how I’m doing” motivation for going to reunions, that really can’t be all.
By staying plugged in to Facebook, we’re actually skipping that step. Yeah, so there’s a few people in my friend list who I may or may not have been really close with. But that’s not the folks I’m going to reunion to see. I mentioned to a friend yesterday in a face-the-facts moment: why fake interest? Go to reunion to be back on campus with the close friends you met there. Actually – use the social network for the savings in social capital at the five year.
I can’t wait to rejoin my classmates – there’ll be a few faces who I probably have missed out on, regardless of our Facebook connections. The online participation will *never completely replace* the offline activity. And I say that with a swift, unhesitating and final certainty.
The Irony of Social Media and Intellectual Property
Posted: March 11, 2009 Filed under: legal department, social media | Tags: copyright, intellectual property, social media 1 Comment »Every now and then in this space, I love to play lawyer. It started with the AP/Shepard Fairey spat, and then I had some fun boiling down the Facebook ToS. There’s something about intellectual property that really turns my geek buttons, for some reason. Partially, I think it’s because I think the entire concept is hard to apply universally to online media. When it comes to the things I’ve studied/read about regarding traditional IP, it all just seems a little anachronistic.
Which brings me to an interesting post that I just stumbled across on ReadWriteWeb (and also posted on the Creative Commons blog).
I really like the idea of Creative Commons. When I see a blog with a CC license, what it says to me is, “What I’m writing isn’t necessarily for me to make money; but, hey, I put some time into it, let people know where you got the idea from.”
Why do I write here? I guess I write to throw some ideas out into the blogosphere and see what anyone else has to say. Generally, that’s the motive of most people (although not exclusively by any means) who write in a forum like this and would ever be concerned about where their content ends up.
Hell, if people can’t take what they want out of my content and then continue the conversation, how is it social media?
CC gives people the head’s up on a creator wants their content used, and I think that’s a great idea. I keep thinking about this in terms of Facebook’s gaffe a few weeks ago. The rally cries against Facebook started with the “content producers” who were worried that they couldn’t control it any longer. It wasn’t the run-of-the-mill user who was concerned – until they started hearing about it. When things are clear and communicated up front, it’s better.
I love the concept of CC’s new offering: CC Zero makes the process of waiving all pre-existing copyright guidelines easy. I’d go as far to even call it “Open Source Publishing.” Let’s see a newspaper do *that.*
All “beating a dead-tree-media when it’s down” aside, I think CC helps set the rules for social media. The irony is that I feel that “playing nice” should be the lay of the land. The reason that something in this vein is even required is because copyright law doesn’t have the right applications to online, crowd-generated content. For example, who has the right to the comment on my blog – the user or the facilitator? Someone else entirely?
The big assumption in all of this is that people write things online to be public (just like when you post something to Facebook, you assume that it is actually going out to your social connections). That’s a contradiction to most copywritten content since, in a traditional model, the person you pay for the service is involved in the process. You aren’t paying Google to read this. You’re paying (or someone is) a provider to access the series of tubes to access this site.
Communication law can’t adapt fast enough to changing technology, so, I don’t know when I’ll get my answer. The point is, though, it’s worth thinking about one point: when you create content online, you aren’t expecting it to be simply read. You’re expecting it to be passed along in any of what seems countless ways.
Creative Commons lets that be covered, for the time being. Maybe there will be a precedent that will require more or less of CC’s service. For now? I just want to let you know that I would be delighted for you to use my writing and my ideas. At some point, that’s what this is simply about.
