Why Is It When I Have A Cold I Feel Like Crying

David Jackson - Reports social metadata as social networking

! 80325 The 2010 was very interesting from the standpoint of social media.
Social networks have strengthened their position, the integration with the mobile is almost complete, the use of content by app for iPhone and iPad shows that a new editorial format is possible (with all due respect to those who sanctioned the death of the internet).

A legitimate question: what are the consequences for the way we interact with others?

I think the 2011 may be headed with the slogan, social relations are the metadata of the future.

I try to explain my point of view.

The creation, management, and - even - the maintenance of social relations has been deeply changed by the daily use of social networking. Trivial statement that is visible to everyone.

What is even more interesting - a sociologist - is that social relations in these environments take the form of a media object (or digital content). Expressing its proximity to a person through a video, to emphasize the desire to maintain a link (weak) with a hashtag (the famous # FF Friday on Twitter), expressing its disappointment with an image, to suggest a link to a colleague interesting: they are all forms of media attention that contributed to the relationship with others. In this way, the form it takes relationality in social media is a sequence of media content. It is no accident that video as The Digital Story of the Nativity or A Life on Facebook, tell stories using topoi communication to which we have used the services of Web 2.0.

But at this point in our relationship with others, we will use not only the circle of our knowledge to bring a person in our network of contacts, but we will also build cultural universe that this person shares with us. If a service suggests that we become a contact person from the number of "friends" who agree with it, continuously as books, movies, favorite quotes, political and sexual orientation will become instruments through which to create digital relationships.
Similia cum similibus , remember the old proverb.
The interesting thing is that the basis on which to build a social contact - of whatever nature it is (colleague, friend, lover, friend) - will be more symbolic and less relational. This is a paradox because we have always been accustomed to the contrary, the earlier you start a general conversation with a stranger on a train, then you notice things in common and only after you trade contacts to maintain a relationship. In social networks could be just the opposite: first you notice the similarities - readings, passions, interests - and then you decide to build a relationship.

If this trend were to increase, the traces that people leave through social networks, become the real meta-information. If I read the books of Wu Ming, listening and Elio le Storie Tese, are interested in environmental issues and share videos critical of the Chinese government, I will say about me more than I could do in a conversation. This is nothing new, it's the same experience that you feel when someone known to visitors and we do little idea of \u200b\u200bthe owner from its DVD collection. What changes is the amount of information you can gather, a number that it becomes easier for software - or someone - Detailed insight of the individual / consumer content.

The next step of this strategy, could become the social tagging of our contacts. Namely, a space reserved for the social network where you can enter additional information about our contacts, which are an addition to consumer behavior that can be inferred from wall of our friends. In fact, information of the kind in that occasion we met the person, who was to present, what we have discussed, that impression has given us, could become meta-information as the basis for building a social network reputation, or a network in which ties are defined by metrics related to empathy and emotion, but no less significant. A space reserved for us, but transparent to the platform so that could also decide to add these information already available, such as consumption and interests, to segment in a much more effective profiles on the web.

is not far off the platform when we ask for rating of characteristics such as friendliness, reliability, curiosity, the sex appeal of a person through a system of stars or smiley or like or whatever . In this way, but give immense power to the platform: knowing the social and relational characteristics of a person through processes of collective intelligence.

The question is: do we really want the software that we know all this to us?

must think well to give that answer because, to paraphrase, we could say that anyone who injures tag, tag perish.

David Jackson teaches Sociology of Digital Media at the University of Catania. His research interests are related to the use of relational social media and consumption of digital content. Also on these issues is Director of Research at the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi of Rome. It 'also the author of the blog tecnoetica .