Remember When Sharing Was Simple?

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

Call me slow. Or call me old. But I just can’t figure out the new Facebook feed, lists, and real-time ticker. Don’t get me wrong: I understand how it works in theory. What I don’t have, though, is an instinctive feel for the new interface. Now I am never quite sure who is getting what [...]

Show Me, Just Don’t Friend Me

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

I’m a little behind on the news, but this Wall Street Journal article caught my eye last week. Missouri is poised to become the first state to ban “friending” between teachers and students. The law (called the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act), which takes effect later this month, restricts private online communication between a teacher [...]

Facebook Fatigue Setting In

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Let’s face it: when it comes to social networking, Facebook is the only game in town. MySpace and other early networks are a speck in its rear view mirror. Everyone is on Facebook: your friends, your ex-girlfriend, your mom and dad, the people you went to high school with and never want to see again, [...]

Is Google Facebook Making Us Stupid?

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

We all know that Facebook is everywhere. And most of us know that the company has been challenged on its privacy policies and it use of personal information. But sometimes I have a slightly broader concern with the popularity of the social networking giant: I think it may be dumbing down the web–and the web [...]

Smackdown: What You Know Vs. Who You Know

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

In case you missed it, yesterday marked the beginning of a historic partnership between Microsoft and Facebook. Microsoft launched a new service called Docs.com (still in beta) that aims to compete with Google Docs as an online productivity suite. The site looks very sleek–much sleeker than Google Docs–but this is not the big deal. The [...]

How Facebook Almost Wrecked High School–But Didn’t

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

I had my 20-year high school reunion last night. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, though now I am immensely glad that I did. Had I decided to sit it out, I would have blamed Facebook. Since joining Facebook in March 2005, I have reconnected with all kinds of high school [...]

Interesting Conversation with Facebook

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Yesterday, my co-author Allen Webb and I talked to Julie Prescott from Facebook. Julie is fairly new to the company (recent grad) and is working on researching academic uses of Facebook. As these things sometimes go, Julie’s mom knows Allen and his work, so our names were recommended. In any case, it was really enjoyable [...]

Faculty on Facebook

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

For the last few weeks, I’ve been neglecting this blog in order to work on a short video entitled “Faculty on Facebook: Social Networking, Ethics, and the Academy.” The video is part of my presentation for an upcoming conference at GVSU. I’ve been working with a slew of programs (see below) but having a ton [...]