Co-authored paper by: Carolin Gerlitz (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Anne Helmond (University of Amsterdam). Paper presented at the DMI mini-conference, 24-25 January 2011 at the University of Amsterdam.

Introduction
Different types of social buttons have diffused across blogs, news websites, social media platforms and other types of websites. These buttons allow users to share, bookmark or recommend the webpage or blogpost across different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Stumbleupon, etc. The buttons often show a counter of how many times the page/post has been shared or recommended: x likes, x shares, x tweets. These likes, shares and tweets may be approached from a new media studies perspective as new types of hyperlinks and from an economic sociology perspective open up questions about the increasing interrelation between the social, technicity and value online. Within new media studies the hyperlink has previously been studied as a form of currency of the web establishing an economy of links (Walker 2002 & Jarvis 2009) and as an indicator of a discursive relationship (Rogers 2002).

The economy of links describes the link as a currency of the informational web in which search engines use hyperlinks to look at the relations between websites in order to establish a ranking. The term informational web is often used to describe the world wide web as a publication medium for publishing content (Ross 2009) and is characterized by the linking of information (Wesh 2007).2 In this web search engines act as main actors to be able to navigate through all the information by recommending pages based on authority measures.

According to social networking site Facebook “the informational Web is being eclipsed by the social Web” (Claburn 2009). In contrast to the informational web where search engines focus on links between websites, the social web “is a set of relationships that link together people over the Web” and “the applications and innovations that can be built on top of these relationships” (Halpin & Tuffield 2010) and is characterized by the linking of people (Wesh 2007).3 Within the social web search engines and social media platforms look at the connections between people and their relations to other web users or web objects. Facebook popularized the term Social Graph “to describe how Facebook maps out people’s connections” (Zuckerberg 2009). As Facebook considers its services inherently social and its plugins and buttons are called ‘Social plugins’ we summarize the activities they generate as so-called “social activities.”

Where Google can be seen as the main agent of the informational web and the regulator of the link economy, Facebook is currently seen as the emerging agent of the social web. Especially the company’s recent efforts to make the entire web experience more social mark the advent of a different type of economy which is based on social indexing of the web: the Like economy. Key elements of this economy are the social buttons, the activities they generate and the way they connect Facebook with the entire web.

According to Facebook, liking and sharing are valuable for users and the company because they enable to experience the web more socially. A similar connection between the social and economic value has been developed by Adam Arvidsson (2009) with his idea of an ethical economy in which value creation is based on collective negotiation and in which economic value creation is related to the quality of social bonds that are generated. Within this paper we want to question the centrality of social dynamics and social relations as key driver for platform engagement and the Like economy. Through merging a new media with an economic sociology perspective, we will shift attention away from the users and the social to the impact of issues on social activities, as well as their interrelation with technicity and the fabric of the web. Based on an extensive empirical study of button presence and engagement within a sample of 592 URLs, we ask how issues, technicity and the social create a productive assemblage of value creation in an emerging Like economy.

In what follows, this paper aims to address these questions by first looking at the history of different types of web economies over time. How do these ‘new’ social activities central within the social web relate to the hit and link economy of the informational web? What creates engagement and how does this engagement organize the fabric of the web and sociality? And finally, what are the perspectives of a Like economy?

Download full paper as PDF: GerlitzHelmond-HitLinkLikeShare.pdf

We’d be happy to receive any comments and feedback!

Abstract interpretation of the Dutch blogosphere 2001 #1

I am currently working on analyzing the Dutch blogosphere with my colleague Esther Weltevrede with help of colleague Erik Borra from the Digital Methods Initiative. In an early exploratory phase Esther and I started to learn how to use Gephi to visualize our data and networks. In one of my early attempts I created this beautifully abstract interpretation of the Dutch blogosphere. Gephi creates design by research!

Abstract interpretation of the Dutch blogosphere 2001 #2

Actual findings and paper will follow in a few weeks!

I was invited to present tools from the Digital Methods Initiative at the Hacking Journalism event organized by SETUP Utrecht. In 12 minutes I presented our approach, tools, possible user case scenarios and an example of the operationalization of a research question. Here are the slides and video registration from my – very dense – presentation in Dutch.

Thank you SETUP for a great evening! SETUP also compiled all photos, videos and some tweets of the event in the Storify stream embedded below.

Florian Cramer

Florian Cramer reflects on the new online movie genre of bokeh porn referring to the shallow depth of field cinema aesthetic now seen in “amateur” movies created with DSLR cameras. It comes from “the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “blur” or “haze”, or boke-aji (ボケ味), the “blur quality”.” (Wikipedia)

The bokeh is no longer an aesthetic quality of the image but in this new genre the bokeh becomes the central aspect of the whole film. The camera often appears in the film as its own image, a real Narcissus and can be interpreted as the perfect example of the medium is the message. In that sense it is even more radical than Vertov’s Kino Eye where the human eye and the video eye melt because in the bokeh it is purely the medium, the video eye is melted with the video’s medium eye.

The title of Cramer’s talk comes from a provocative blogpost titled ‘bokeh porn’ in which the author critically adresses the new owner of a DSLR camera with video function shooting nothing but shallow depth of test movies:

Let me ask you something. When was the last freakin’ time you watched a film at the cinema when every shot, and I mean EVERY SHOT had extremely shallow depth of field? Never, that’s when. In fact many 35mm filmmakers aim for DEEP depth of field.

In bokeh videos, the shots are the narrative. The bokeh film makers do not aim to be experimental filmmakers like Michael Snow, but instead they aim to create the new Departed. Bokeh is a form of visual fetishism, it is not avant-garde but porn.

Looking back at Andy Warhol’s screen-test we see that now the camera has become the superstar and gets its 15 minutes of fame. If the filmmaking becomes a demo, the process of production becomes central, with a focus on the sociality of technicality in the exchange of tips and trucs in online fora. In this sociality the main topic of discussion is the camera gear being used. The camera is the main actor of the film and is often visible in several frames. In the example shown by Cramer (see below) the name of the camera is mirrored back and by doing so putting even more focus on the camera as author. We could then argue that bokeh does have a narrative as it tells the process of the filmmaking in its most abstract form. The process is depicting itself.

The classic hollywood narrative style is continuity editing. Bokeh porn follows the same style but it is pure continuity, it does not connect things, it connects continuity with continuity with nothing in-between.

Bokeh is part of a revival of analog aesthetics which can also be seen in iPhone photo applications such as Hipstamatic. It is a living image that has an organic quality to it.

by pilpop… the bathroom / GH2 & Nokton f0.95 from pilpop on Vimeo.

Photos made for the Institute of Network Cultures for the Video Vortex event. View the whole Video Vortex photo set on Flickr.

I went to the gym and I could hardly park my bike which made me wonder if there was a special event going on. As I entered the gym it was incredibly busy and the first thing that came to mind was “Oh no, not Groupon” which was immediately confirmed with a sign at the reception desk stating “We currently cannot process any more Groupon members.” There were more signs stating “Because classes are too full we are handing out entry tickets 15 minutes before the classes start. Full is full” and “We have placed extra lockers for your convenience in the hallway.” When I entered the dressingroom it was hard to find a spot to get changed and I started wondering how full the gym would be and if it would mean waiting in line for gym equipment.

The place was packed. I talked to my instructor who sighed and said that they accepted 600 new members through a Groupon deal. I previously had a discussion with friends about Groupon where one friend ordered a deal and then the company was so overwhelmed they didn’t even pick up the phone anymore (Groupon refunded the deal quickly, thumbs up). Another friend was skeptical about the concept because how can you keep up the quality if you offer the same deal for 1/2 price. My gym experience shed a new light on Groupon and how it affects both businesses and their existing loyal customers. The Groupon invasion created a different gym experience for me, one of waiting and not being able to relax due to the crowdedness of the place. While it is also up to the business to be able to deliver what they advertise, “The Groupon effect” should not be underestimated.