After today’s class, write at least 250 words summarizing your reading and our lecture on Anil Dash’s “The Lost Infrastructure of Social Media.” You can include your own experiences with some of the lost infrastructure that Dash laments in his essay.
Also, I wanted to remind everyone to do a personal, self-assessment of your progress in the class. If you need help with this, please see me during class’ studio time or during my office hours.
First, you can check how many After Class Writing Assignments you have completed by going to the Dashboard > Comments > search for your username. Compare those you’ve completed with the reading schedule on the syllabus. If you’ve missed any, complete them as soon as possible and send an email to Prof. Ellis explaining which assignments you have completed late. Of course, use only your own writing unless properly citing outside sources using APA Style.
Second, if you didn’t receive a full score on your research project proposal, please revise it and give a copy to Prof. Ellis to confirm the revisions (refer to the notes written on your original draft).
Third, you should be reading, taking notes, and beginning your initial writing of your language and technology research project. I would suggest writing an outline similar to the one discussed in class and available on the Project 2 page linked above. You can add to or subtract from your outline as you conduct your research, and you can use the outline to begin your essay–essentially, filling in the blanks. You can improve the style and flow of your essay later. The important thing now is to begin putting words on the page and citing your sources.
Dash’s “The lost infrastructure of social media” essay helps people understand the use of social media and how people now are able to comment and reply on their post. This starts to evolve over time because people now around the world are able to look through your profile to see if they like the things you are putting on your profile which gives them access to either like or comment on that post. But these social media are able to help you catch up on things you have missed or want to see but not able to go there. This also gives you the ability to follow or add them as friends. When adding or following these people you have given them access to see what you are doing during the day and see the events you’re going to with the photos and videos you have posted on your profile. This tides back to web 2.0 because with all these new updates to the media people know are able to do more on their social media than before which also makes languages becomes shorter and easy to understand.
Dash’s “The lost infrastructure of social media” discussed some problems and influences that Web 2.0 created with its developments and improvements which harmed previous medias in a sense that technology and communications are past decades now. As we know there used to be more apps and websites that allowed us to communicate but with involvement of new media, old media died away; due to the fact that companies with bigger reputations and names destroyed them because of people’s attachment to them than older media and that allowed new companies to raise and survive. It was mentioned in the essay as “Then and Now”. This structured the essay into several aspects which I will be discussing. First, Publishing—which has become easy for us to publish online. Because back then not all websites had a search column but now it became easier to search. For example if you want to search for a video you might not use google but you will use Youtube; although Google owns YouTube. Second, Comments— which makes us feel like our opinions should be equally treated due to our easy access and ability to write online. Another aspect is Responses— which is connected to comments because it allows people to express themselves online. Also Likes and Favorites— which is also associated to comments and responses because previously we were not allowed to give feedbacks but now we easily could by liking something for example or disliking it. In addition to these aspects Identify was a major one because it has been debatable since it has been seen as problematic because we use different emails and usernames to login to different websites and apps, which could be a problem because people would use this to perhaps bully others. Unlike with the term API— where we can use FaceBook email for instance to open a Twitter account with the same identity and information. Although we are aware that there are certain things we do not want our followers such as parents for instance to see. Last but not least, New media is just an improvement of the media before it as I mentioned before. Most people like to think that old technology is useless when I personally think it just became less fashionable and that proves why old websites and apps faded away.
After reading the class reading Dash’s “The lost infrastructure of social media” the writers lament defiantly brought somethings to perspective. For one being that I am not of much computer literacy I was unaware of the actions taken by bugger companies in order to minimize or even eliminate lower companies so they themselves can excel. I can see that with this pattern just like our soda industry many things will be monopolized between a very few in the near future eliminating the likes of different taps and their various services. With that taking away from the social media attractiveness experience in a whole he also speaks on things that can and simultaneously can’t be beneficial to our social mediated future like the “likes or favorite” perspective. This thought process of liking or disliking media has come between how we engage on certain platforms whether we have interest in the topic or not hitting the like button generates a difference response based upon the content. No, I do not “like” that my friends “cat died” yet how I get to express the emotion needed with this limited option. For me, in particular, I do not engage at all which them in returns takes away from the experience in which this platform intended to offer. We have to be mindful of how and how we do not use our media before we lose its substance.
Anil Dash has stated in his article “The lost infrastructure of social media”, that the so-called new technology that is being announced as new may not be as new as we think. There are many reasons why new technology has existed for a while but never saw the sun. Some of the reasons that might have played a part in the suppression of new technology are the strategic planning on profits and on their extensive research estimate on how many years a company wants to spend their resources on a specific technology. It could also be that big companies are taking over smaller companies in order to end further development on a technology that endangers their own profit with their current technology. With these factors playing in the background it is difficult to actually know if a technology that’s being announced as new is really new or not. For example, virtual reality is currently the new technology for the last 5 years or so however the technology has already existed for at least 20 years ago. Due to the greed of bigger companies and also people who have been sitting on new technology, our field of options has gotten smaller with the players of the game controlling behind the scene. We are marketed by how they want us to see them! Dash is hoping that ideas that are thought out first people who have thought of them will have the voice of others to help with open-ended conversations and not as controlled for the corporate world to make their power play.
In Anil Dashs’, “The Lost Infrastructure of Social Media” explains social networking and the various different platforms that are beneficial to the way we interact with others in social media. In these features we tend to use some features such as publishing, doing searches for blogs, as well as, comments that may be used within these platforms. Dashs’ interpretation of the loss of infrastructure in social media from the likes to favorites, and from the constant updates that we must do in upgrading software to see what is the next best thing within these platforms. Technologies from services like Twitter tend to send us notifications when some post are being published or updated so that we have the ability to view it. Anil has lamented the approach to the way the social media realm has been over the past decade. He gives us a consolidation of online communication over the past decades. He also incorporates that there are many affordances in social media today that gives a wide range of a discussion within all the technologies. Anil focuses on the following eleven criteria’s in our social media platforms.
1. Publishing: Creating and the making of the content available online through the images of art, writing and pictures.
2. Search: Search engines typically generate when you are going through content; searching has been built into many different platforms such as webcrawler for example. Through searches many times in webcrawler it would give you what you ask for and later on helped developed an advertising platform
3. Comments: We have the ability for written interaction in response to content on the same platform where it may have a positive or negative effect.
4. Responses: Track what people are saying through a social media platform and they express their concern or feeling for a situation.
5. Like or Favorites: Social signal of approval or content.
6. Updates: Get some sort of notification through a RSS feed for example.
7. Identity: Through these platforms you have the ability to have some kind of persistent platform. The creation of persistent identity that would be satisfied in different platform.
8. Friend Lists: Tracking other people online, and other people and other people that follow you. Complexity of our privacy controls.
9. Following: The ability for content of others to follow you or follow others.
10. API: The application program interface are the ways that people enable or allow other people to go in with other different platforms. Similarly, the (OS) the operation system is different from the API program as it can be used to simplify the process.
11. Advertising networks: These advertising networks allow you to look at new promotions that may be for something that you want to view and perhaps buy.
Through corporate acquisitions and planned obsolesces where some of the software that has been generated over time, many of the ideas within these programs are influenced by the certain technologies that have reached substantial profitability. This is part of the way software developers may continue to use their own approach in how we may use technology in the near future.
When you think about anti-competitive practices, you link those mostly to companies in terms of money, and businesses monopolizing a certain product or doing something that would allow just your product to thrive in the market. Well, Anil Dash observes that the same practices go on in the world of technology. While in this case we aren’t talking about an anti-competitive move, big companies buy off a smaller company who own a certain technology, in order to obtain said technology patents, and from there on, that technology won’t be used anymore. It is more of an absorbing tactic. This is one of the points Anil Dash talks about in his article “The Lost Infrastructure of Social Media”. He laments the fact that so many technologies have never been used, or the release of certain technologies have taken so long to be released because of this absorption tactic. The example discussed in class was virtual reality. While VR has been an existence for 20 years, it hasn’t been until now that the technology has been deployed as a commercial medium. This is where the idea of Dash’s article links with language and technology. For all we know there might be new media out there in the form of a new technology, that hasn’t been released due to a company dominating the timetables for their release, or lack thereof. The key to note is that the “new” technologies out there could’ve been in development for years, whether that be due to improvement for release or for the simple fact that the company with the patents doesn’t want to build upon a tech.
Anil Dash is an American blogger, entrepreneur, and technologist. He that technology is being advanced and “new” things are being created, however he believes that it is now as new as we think they are. Anil Dash published an article, “The lost infrastructure of social media”, stating that technology is not as new as it seems to be, and can also be misinterpreted if not considering the pros and cons. We can learn from the past in order to learn better ways to improve our technology. Improving these so called innovation and technologies are not necessarily new; they are based on stuff from the past. Many affordances in social media today find their beginning in disused technologies. Some agree that the reason why some of these old technological ideas are considered “new” is all thanks to big named companies who help distribute the name of certain innovation and both parties get fame and fortune off of it. A con is that cooperates and franchises use old ideas and revamp it up in order for it to sound appealing and make a fortune out of it. Dash urges the importance of preserving original ideas and spreading the knowledge in order to help others have the ability to create open-ended conversations instead of being exploited by the corporate world to make business. Another very important topic, and pro of technology discussed by Dash is that social media websites and platforms help create opportunities for people to create ideas and proudly present it, be critiqued, explore new concepts to add on, share and receive feedback, and most importantly expand their mind. Even if it can be considered to be seen problematic in society for many apparent reasons, social media can also be used to learn more and broaden our minds/creativity.
Anil Dash speaks in the article “The Loss Infrastructure of Social Media” as a way to show a growing social network. As its popularity grew, so did the influence in which was being given to early bloggers. In the early wake of blogging, this allowed content to be openly viewed no matter what site it was on. Dash used consolidation as a form of allowing people to communicate with one another via online. Technology over the past decade has become a revolutionary movement for those to speak their minds. For most bloggers, they do find affordances in the realm of social media in which has found its beginning in technology.
Summary of Anil Dash’s “The lost infrastructure of social media”
Anil is a technology innovator and author. In this article he addresses his concern that the past ten years there has been a consolidation of new media tech companies. These companies have focused on consolidating technologies to their profit. By technology being such an integral part of society, this influence has shaped the way society behaves. In this article he discusses topics on:
Publishing – creating and making content available online
Search – search engines trawling through websites and pull results
Comments – written interaction by different users on the same webpage
Responses – track responses to content
Like or Favorites – social signal of approval of content
Updates – web 2.0 tech now provides content that has changed
Identity – through these platforms we can create a consistent identity
Friend lists – being able to track other profiles
Following – ability to follow content of others (RSS)
API (application programming interfaces) – the way engineers allow users to plugin to their application / cause “lock-ins”
Advertising – privacy
Analytics – ways to view the metadata of who our audience is and the right content gets to them
The discourse he drives at is how online innovations and current online communication are not necessarily new, just that the field of options which has been contracted for a variety of reasons profitability, planned obsolescence, corporate acquisitions and finally we can learn from the past to find better ways to use technology of today.
Dash’s, “The lost infrastructure of social media” is a very interesting read. It opens the readers eyes on social media and how people are able to use many of its options to with communicate with people, and to keep in contact with people all over. Consolidation of online communication technologies over the past decade. I learned that many affordances in social media today find their beginning in disused technologies. We learned about 12 different options that we are able to do with social media. We spoke about publishing which is creating and making content available online. Search and how we are able to use google or YouTube to search for different things. We are able to comment on people pictures or posts. Commenting is a written interaction on the same platform. We have likes or favorites in which is a social sign of approval. We have identity through platforms we can create persistent identity. We have friend lists, which is a way of tracking who’s online and who follows you. We have API which is application programming interface, advertising and analytics. So called innovations are not necessarily new. We’ve learned from the past in order to know better ways of using or improving technology.
Anil Dash’s blog on Medium.com titled “The lost infrastructure of social media” discusses interesting concepts about the changes in social media infrastructure. The changes in things like commenting, identity, analytics and advertising caused great differences in the infrastructure of social media. Before a user could visit websites and comment on posts without having an account or registered credentials. This made the web a more anonymous place but because of increased security and authentication it is difficult to find a social media platform where you do not need an account to participate. Even YouTube wants users to have some kind of account so when comments and content are published someone is held accountable. Online identities are not entirely made up from accounts and comments. Online identities are also made up of things like internet protocol addresses, media access control addresses and other device and network specific things which with the help of analytics give the user tailored content such as ads, suggested friends, and content. Social media has become more dynamic and secure. The sacrifice for this optimized social media is corporate control. A corporation like Google can have a huge stake in the market giving them huge control over who gets to “participate” and who doesn’t. Competing with these corporations is difficult for someone without the financial resources so acquisitions are the unfortunate optimal path for smaller companies. Luckily for the larger corporations acquisitions saves a lot time and potential money because they can just buy whatever they want and either use it or throw it way. It is a win-win for them because they have the resources and control. This raises an interesting question, as the corporate entity why waste money on research and development when you can just buy whatever you want?
Anil Dash is a blogger and she wrote “The Lost Infrastructure of Social Media”.
The following terms were discussed in class from Dash’s writing. He mentions publishing as creating something online. Search engine as trolling contents that are thrown in the platform. Comments are written interactions to written content. Likes and favorites meaning social signals of approval of content. Updates were also analyzed. Moreover, identity which is persistent identity across platforms. Friends that are in your platform that connect with you, then you followers who keep up to date of sharing of others. She argues that there was a commence of the consolidation of media over the last decade. He focuses on technology such as publishing, search, comment, responses, liking or favoring, updating, following, syndication, application program inter facing, content about context, meta-data-layers of data, analytics, discovery, advertising, aggregation. We may think that social media and any new social technologies are new, but the truth is it’s not new. We’ve seen it before only now there are new features being presented which make it feel new and advanced.
Anil Dash, “ The lost infrastructure of social media”, focuses on the consolidation of online communication technologies over the past decade. He pinpoints technologies including publishing, creating, and making content available online, search, search engine, trawling content, search built into platforms, comments, written interaction and response to content on the same platform, etc. The field of options has contracted a variety of reasons including, profitability, planned obsolescence, corporate acquisitions, etc. Dash suggests that we can learn from the past and imagine better ways to use technology.