Produsage Communities

Copenhagen.
Next at COST298 is Mijke Slot, whose interest is in user motivations in the online entertaiment domain in general. This is based on previous work surveying the possible roles users may take online, across a large number of Web 2.0 sites. Mijke begins by taking us through some of the perceived pros and cons of Web 2.0 first - the negative and positive side effects of user empowerment. But what does an actual observation of user roles tell us?

Mijke's research surveyed some 600 mainly Dutch Internet users, and examined their (self-reported) online roles - key terms here include consuming and communicating, but also creating and facilitating. Consumption, not unexpectedly, still dominates, though, and less active roles are carried out more often than more active forms of participation. However, there are also substantial generational differences here - younger users are online for longer, and engage in more activities; they engage in more novel activities, and are more active on social network sites; but they don't classify themselves as more skilled than the average (what they perceive as 'average' may differ from older age groups, though!).

Copenhagen.
I've made the trip to Ballerup again for the second day of COST298 (my last - tomorrow I've got to travel back to Germany). We begin with Ike Picone, whose interest is in user motivations for participation in produsing the news. Ike begins by extending the produsage model to a two-dimensional structure (from production to usage, and from passive to active; 'old media' are therefore largely passive and comsumptive, while many Web media forms also remain consumptive, but are more active (passive and active could also be translated here into 'lean back' and 'lean forward', then).

Copenhagen.
The final speaker at COST298 is Peter Mechant, who draws our attention to the different modes of participation in social networking, and begins by showing a number of existing approaches to understanding these different participatory modes. Interactivity can also be divided in user-to-user, user-to-document, and user-to-system interaction, and each of these forms of interaction can be further subcategorised (e.g. can documents only be accessed, or can users add information; indeed, can document creators specify the range of interactions which they wish to allow).

Copenhagen.
Lene Sørensen is up next at COST298, presenting on user demands for the next generation of social networking sites. Social networking is a very widespread activity now, and takes place across a large number of sites; it is no longer the domain of young users or a space for private activities only. Social network users engage in creative activities, and in self-management in relation to activities.

A number of further developments (towards Web 3.0 and Web 4.0) have already been foreshadowed by various authors - but what is it that actual users are interested in? To establish answers to such questions is non-trivial; for the most part, user expectations are limited by their knowledge of what is possible using existing information technology. Developers, too, operate mainly on their best guess of what additional features users may want.

Copenhagen.
The next speaker at COST298 is Brian Simpson, who also focusses on social networking, in this case in the context of the family. This relates especially to children's rights in cyberspace, to new parenting ideologies stressing surveillance and safety, and to the boundaries of childhood. Concern and overconcern regarding child safety have led to the development of new approaches to regulating family life through increased official guidance for parents - this may change what families are, in fundamental and unexpected ways. A related problem here is the overemphasis on child safety in relation to the Internet - and this also fails to consider its effect on family relationships through the externalisation of fantasies.

Copenhagen.
The final session at COST298 today starts with Romina Cachia, and she shifts our attention to social networking. How do such sites differ from other applications? They are built around the presentation of oneself, though a public display of information, and around this users socialise and form communities. Active users are thus integrated into the production process and into bottom-up activities. This reorganises Internet geography - and what's more, these sites are mostly free and easy to use, contrary to conventional homepages.

Copenhagen.
The next presentation at COST298 is by An Jacobs and Jo Pierson. Their interest is in the role of users in innovation - an increasingly prominent perception, but which 'user' are we talking about here, and where are they taking us? Their ability to innovate also depends on contextual factors, of course, some of which may not be entirely known to them.

In the digital environment, there are two key conceptions of innovation: innovation as dominated by technology, and disruptive (rather than incremental) innovation. Users themselves are placed along a continuum from everyday users to productive users to users who are even mainly producers (and there are also non-users, of course); innovation at the lower, everyday end can be described more from a dominant, incremental sociotechnological innovation perspective, while innovation at the production end is more often seen from a breakthrough technology innovation perspective. These forms of participation also spread across content creation, technological innovation, and more general forms of innovation.

Hamburg.
Only two more sessions to go at next09... The next one brings together a number of the major professional networking sites, with Kevin Eyres from LinkedIn, Stefan Groß-Selbeck from its German competitor Xing, and Markus Berger-de León from German student networking site StudiVZ (which has also launched a post-studies site, MeinVZ, and a site for schoolkids, SchülerVZ).

Stefan begins by stating that social networking has been the key development in online media over the past few years. In Germany, Xing is a leader of this development, especially in the professional networking context; its business network is moving through the current financial crisis very in a very stable fashion. The current crisis is an opportunity - and the company is confidently planning for its future. Kevin adds that for LinkedIn as a global platform the main challenge is to service the global business community. And he agrees that the crisis has raised the awareness of networking as a crucial element of professional life. By contrast, Markus describes StudiVZ with its strongly German focus as the most truly local networking site of the three. So far, the sites has not yet experienced any impact from the financial crisis - members are as active as they have been previously.

Hamburg.
The next next09 panel is with Jeremy Allaire from Brightcove and Axel Schmiegelow from Sevenload - online video hosting companies in the US and Germany. Brightcove licences its video platform to a variety of partners; it now operates online video for some hundreds of media companies. Increasingly, this is used for syndicating and distributing content through a variety of social media Websites. Sevenload, by contrast, brings together communities and the content they are interested in, significantly also including user-generated content. They monetise for the content providers by running advertising on the site. (And the two companies have just entered a commercial partnership.)

Hamburg.
We continue at next09 with a panel expanding on the question of brand-consumer relations in the social media age. Chris Heuer from the Social Media Club promotes a holistic, whole-of-business approach here - it's about more than marketing. Great products aren't sold, he says - they're bought; this has been the case for the iPhone, for example. The brand needs to convene the conversation around their products, and act like the host of the party - this means returning to basics, and letting go of the illusion of control.