One of the most fascinating concepts I’ve encountered in the social media space is object-centered sociality. Jyri Engestrom, a serial social media entrepreneur, invoked this concept in a blog post contrasting the levels of fun that users might experience on LinkedIn versus Flickr [ 4]. The main difference, he contended (back in 2005, when LinkedIn didn’t even allow user photos), was that Flickr photos constituted social objects—entities that served as anchors for conversations—whereas LinkedIn was, at the time, mostly about people and links. While gossiping about people is a common social practice, the professional orientation of LinkedIn was not conducive to gossip… or to much socializing at all.

Social media has evolved to encompass many other types of social objects—videos, music, events, television shows, restaurants, wines, and even credit card transactions. LinkedIn has also evolved, and now supports several types of social objects, including slide presentations, events, tweets, and links (which, in turn, support a broad variety of other social-object types).

Object-centered sociality, as
initially outlined by sociologist
Karin Knorr-Cetina, has two basic
manifestations [ 5]. One is the idea
of socializing about objects, which
is the aspect elaborated and popu-
larized by Engestrom and others.
The other, which has received far
less attention in the social media
space, is socializing with objects,
i.e., establishing a social relationship
with an object.

media platforms are now supporting users’ associations with places, e.g., Facebook, Twitter and Yelp.

Recent announcements and
speculation regarding the increasing
incorporation of near-field commu-
nications (NFC) support in mobile
phones suggests there will be more
mechanisms and modes for making
connections between the physical
and digital worlds [ 6]. However, these
technological connections may come
at the cost of interpersonal connec-
tions. Comedian Stephen Colbert
recently observed that “nothing
brings people together like ignoring
each other to stare at their phones.”
Hybrid social media holds the
promise of connecting people more
easily and/or effectively with the
people, places, and things around
them in physical spaces. Of course,
building bridges from the online to
the offline may also leave people
more physically vulnerable to
unfriendly advances.

 

Hybrid Social Media Foursquare, mentioned above, is one of the more popular social media applications that bridge the gap between online and offline. Users check in with their GPS-enabled phones when they are in or near a point of interest in the physical world, such as a coffee shop or pub. There are a number of other place-based social media applications—Gowalla, Whrrl, and Loopt—and many existing social

Privacy-Benefit Trade-offs Privacy has been a significant concern for many researchers and practitioners in the HCI community, and a mounting concern for some who are active in the social media space. In the past, many HCI studies have elicited responses to proposed software features and settings that involve privacy by prompting users with hypothetical scenarios. Given the scale and scope—especially when network effects are considered—of many social media applications— especially when their publicly available application programming interfaces

March + April 2011