Brief assignment 4: Browse Match.com, Gay.com’s personals, Spring Street Network (via Nervc.com or TheOnion.com or http://www.springstreetnetworks.com/) or another dating or friendship service and analyze: How do these services support/fail to support dating and/or friendship?Analyze the service with particular attention to the analysis of ‘profiles’ using Goffman’s concept of the presentation of self. How well does this analysis derived from face-to-face encounters apply to online encounters? Can it be modified, or are these fundamentally different kinds of encounters?
Analyze the service considering the issue of deception and identity.
I spent a lot of time exploring Match.com’s services before my two giant misconceptions about these services came to light. Each foolish misconception involved limits to my self-presentation through these services.
The First Misconception: I can express myself freely on Match.com through a photo
Photos are probably the best way to transcend the awkward stilted boxes of information that dominate personal profiles on most dating and social networking Web sites. (Do you drink three times a week, or socially? Are you here to find friends or “activity partners?” Etc. Have the words “activity partner” ever left your lips, other than times when you were making fun of online social services?) The photo on Match.com is like the tie on the standard-issue 1950s grey corporate suit: it’s the only “color” allowed and it’s pretty much the only place where you can really make yourself stand apart.
But Match.com strictly polices and censors its members’ photos. Match.com doesn’t just cut out lewd or offensive photos, they apparently block photos whose style or fashion don’t match their corporate tastes. Like this one:
This photo is far too raunchy. Match.com won’t let me publish it in my profile.
This is the default mug shot that I use to represent myself nowadays on many social networking Web sites. It’s not a particularly well thought-out photo, it’s not particularly sharp or attractive. But it’s hard to see how it could be considered obscene or offensive. Here’s how I chose this photo: at some point I wanted a mug shot for some service (Friendster I think), so I browsed through the photos on my hard drive. Of the three contenders, that was the best thing I came up with. I cropped out the head shot and that was that. Now I just post it wherever a photo is needed.
So I submitted it to Match.com and waited. And waited. A few days later I got a form letter saying that Match.com won’t let me use that photo, that in photos they don’t allow any obscene content or images blurred beyond recognition, that they won’t accept illustrations or photos obviously doctored using image-editing software. (Of course all that was swaddled in smarmy propaganda about how Match.com is committed to serving its customers and keeping this a safe place and so on.)
But none of the prohibitions in the form letter, or in the on-site photo instructions, seem to apply to this photo by any stretch of the imagination. (I mean, “obscene” is notoriously subjective, but I doubt even the most tightly-wound tightass would find anything in my poor little mug shot obscene?) I followed up and got back a couple more worthless form letters, then finally I got a response from what seemed to be a human being. First the human paraphrased the form letter, then when I pressed for specific reasons why –my- photo was rejected, I was told that it might be too small. But it was larger than many of the photos I could see in other people’s profiles! I was told that perhaps my sunglasses obscured my face too much and made me unrecognizable. I gave up. My Match.com profile lies dormant and photoless.
If Match.com forces its members to post photos that look like they came from old high school yearbooks, is it any wonder that so many Match.com profiles come across as boring and dorky?
The Second Misconception: Match.com Mobile will notify me when I'm near other matches
I was jazzed to hear about the new Match.com Mobile service because I assumed it was something that it definitely isn’t. I thought this would be essentially a glorified Lovegety, I thought someone in the online dating and social networking business had finally made that obvious leap and built a modest little bridge between online and offline social worlds. I thought that finally I could play with the special search and match and notification benefits that come with online social services, that I could supplement my cramped and unrealistic online profile with my infinitely more subtle and flexible and human face-to-face self presentation, and that I could supplement my "given off" face-to-face signals with more "given" signals, from pieces of a profile constructed and presented via computer mediation. I was wrong.
I thought that Match.com Mobile would allow me to publicize parts of my Match.com profile in the real world with other members through our mobile devices. I thought it might let me set search criteria and to notify me when my phone comes within bluetooth range of a Match.com member whose profile meets those search criteria. I would love to play with a service that notifies me when people who share my interests are nearby. Such a service would not be very difficult to implement.
I’ll have to look elsewhere. Match.com Mobile is a crippled version of the same old Match.com. It fails to take advantage of any of the real benefits that mobile devices bring to the table, and it fails miserably to work with (or even work around) the constraints tied to mobile devices and the people who use them. It’s essentially the desktop Match.com hastily crammed onto a tiny screen without a keyboard; the old features haven’t been properly redesigned for the new platform and the obvious features you’d expect to see in a mobile version are missing. Hint to Match.com: “write once, run anywhere” doesn’t really work even on the back end; in interface design, that philosophy will destroy you.
This isn’t at all clear from the Match Mobile marketing hype. Phrases like these cover the Web site: “Flirt anytime, anywhere with Match Mobile,” “Connect anonymously with singles near you on your mobile,” “Search other local singles” and “Flirt on your phone.” All of this seems to imply that members can discover and “connect with” and flirt with other members whom they pass near by as they wander the offline "real" world with their phones. So the first three times that I got notifications on my phone that Match Mobile “found” other members and when these people started sending me chat requests on my phone, I started looking around wherever I was at the moment, trying to spot the person who wanted to chat. Then I realized that these people might be on the other side of the country at the moment; the service wasn’t taking into account our current locations or our proximities to one another. Apparently, Match Mobile just notifies you when another member registers for the services and reports a home city vaguely close to your own. Talk about missed opportunities!
Wrapping it up
To answer the other assignment questions:
(Sorry Match.com; I don't mean to beat up on you. But hey, it’s an assignment.)
Weblog assignment 3: Analyze one or more sites such as Orkut or Tribe.net. This analysis should focus on how the software shapes/limits your definition of self, but bring in elements from the previous assignment about cultural, dramaturgical, organizational or information theory dimensions as they bear upon how a sense of identity and place is constructed.
Most of my investigation involved the Orkut social networking service, but I touched on other services. Discussion here applies to Orkut except where otherwise indicated.
Dramaturgical considerations in Orkut
Brenda Laurel argues that we should design for action, but Orkut and Friendster both seem designed first for “characters” and configuration and exploration, with action as a secondary concern. I’ve spent probably 98 percent of my time on each service figuring out the interface elements and the site structure and exploring other people’s profiles and relations between people; I spend a very tiny portion of my time there doing "active" things such as posting information on my profile and on others’ profiles, messaging people, arranging offline meetings, and so on.
But this isn't a bad thing. Laurel goes too far in suggesting that "action" is the one and only worthy goal in interface design – in many cases playing with and figuring out a tool and its interface can be a worthy goal in itself. For instance, video game designers often intentionally introduce arbitrary difficulties into the game interface that make the game more challenging and enjoyable. Consider
Jane McGonigal reacts to interface design philosophies that emphasize building for action and transparency by demanding “opaque” interfaces that encourage more exploration and play in her manifesto "The Curious Interface." McGonigal has valuable points but I think her manifesto went wrong in the same way that Laurel went wrong: both take their philosophies to the extreme. They both imply that most interface design problems should be approached using a single philosophy, but there’s a need for both approaches. Games like Dance Dance Revolution obviously call for the playful/exploratory/opaque philosophy. Designers of a fire alarm should follow the clarity/transparency/action approach, making the alarm as simple as possible to operate during an emergency (while making it difficult to mistakenly activate). Context is key. The approach to designing an interface needs to consider the context of the interface and no single philosophy applies in all cases.
In Orkut's case, the designers might have enjoyed more success had they veered farther towards McGonath's side of the spectrum. People tend to actively tinker with and redefine and reinvent their definitions and presentations of self in countless subtle ways; a less compartmentalized and clearly-defined design approach might enable more of the flexibility and variability that are needed here.
Thoughts on the definition and presentation of self in Orkut
Online we lose a lot of the “given off” subtleties that enrich our face-to-face communications. This might be a stretch, but one could consider Orkut’s “crush list” scheme a crude form of online “given off” communication. Here’s how it works: if I come across any other Orkut members who strike me as particularly attractive I can add them to my crush list. This list of people is visible only to me, but if anyone on my crush list adds me to their own crush list, Orkut notifies both of us that we share this mutual interest. If this happens it’s not full-on “given off” communication like an offline blush, because I don’t have to specifically turn on my blushing capability before I will blush. But it’s not a completely “given” form of communication either because the communication is not fully under my control and for all I know it will never take place.
A crush list sidenote: The crush list scheme might be subverted by someone who crush-lists everyone she knows and announces this to all her friends. Such a person would learn which friends have crush-listed her after having shirked the personal risk that usually applies in the crush-list transaction. Such activities might tremendously devalue the crush list scheme. But as it stands interface difficulties make adding many people to a crush list very tedious and time-consuming so this might not be likely to happen unless someone writes software to automatically do this dirty work.
Another crush list sidenote: On Orkut you can't add anyone to your crush list who hasn't filled out the "personal" portion of his or her profile. So in effect, it's impossible to have a crush on someone in Orkut-land unless they allow it by taking an arbitrary action, and most members are probably unaware of this obscure connection between this action and crushes. Orkut invented an arbitrary and artificial constraint on crushes that differs the way such dynamics operate in the outside world. Why did they do this? I can't imagine why; perhaps it's the same bizarre reason why Orkut prevents people from declaring themselves fans of anyone but their friends, when in the real world most fans don't personally know the people of whom they are fans.
A couple of points about play that we haven't covered:
As we consider potential social and cultural explanations for the brusque, short-tempered, and overly sensitive behavior that we observe in use of e-mail, it's worth considering possible deeper causes too.
What if computer media activates radically different parts of the brain from those parts engaged by more traditional media? In Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, neurology professor and neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak, M.D. points out research suggesting that "expressing one's opinion on a computer screen engages a different part of the brain than when writing or typing the same sentiment on a piece of paper." He theorizes that certain critical faculties arising from the left prefrontal lobe might grow weaker when we use a word processor than they become when we write with pen and paper. He says a computer's bright backlit screen, and its mosaics of images changing at high speeds, measurably excite the visual and emotional portions of the brain, while printed media engage different bits of your mind. This, Restak says, can explain the lapses in discretion and excesses of emotion that often emerge in workplace e-mails.
I get all jazzed up imagining the upcoming bounty of high-resolution, deep-color reflective computer displays. I admit the main reason for my excitement is that once we have screens that look like paper, I can sit out in the sunshine and get my work done; such displays can be just as visible in sunlight as books. No more peering at these monstrous glowing CRTs please; we evolved to spend all day looking at reflected sunlight, not at the glare of cold screens.
But if Restak's right, such advances in displays might have farther-reaching effects; they might dramatically change people's behavior online.
(Disclaimer: some critics say Restak is something short of a fruit loop and that his pronouncements veer too far from experimental foundations. He believes that our new technologies profoundly rewire our brains, deeply changing the way we think and operate in the world. I'm a sucker for this stuff, but I avoided repeating his more outlandish claims here. If anyone reading this has a neurology or cognitive science background, please dive in and let me know what you think of Restak's theories in the comments below.)
More fun of this flavor here.
"There is no there there."
Weblog assignment 2: Use key concepts from the readings to analyze the information model, cultural dynamics and/or dramaturgy of an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) such as SIMS, Counterstrike, Evequest, There!, etc. If you are not familiar with any MMORPG, please explore one. There! has a free trial from http://www.there.com (requires a Windows box).
I'm fine with calling there.com a “game” because it’s something that people do for fun that’s not necessary for survival or procreation. Some of our game readings mostly concerned games that have winners and losers and stated formal objectives. Nonetheless we can use these readings to learn a few things about there.com and its players and designers.
I think Salen, Zimmerman and Laurel might have clever things to say about there.com so let's pay them a visit. Sit back, pour yourself a scotch on the rocks and remember to fasten your seat belt.
There.com: The Information Model
Salen & Zimmerman [reading notes here] describe the concept of balance between “noise” and redundancy in games: a successful game poses enough uncertainty to keep things interesting, to prevent the game from becoming overly confining or predictable, but it avoids making the information transmission so uncertain and inefficient that play seems arbitrary and pointless. Veer too far towards either end of the spectrum and the game becomes a drag.
There.com strikes me as clearly situated somewhere on the the noisy/uncertain side of things. Consider the game’s lack of a formal objective. Even within the smaller games that I saw within there.com that include objectives (the hoverboard racing game, for instance), pursuit of the objective is not strictly enforced or encouraged and players can use bits of the game for other purposes. For instance, when I got bored with the hoverboard race I just jumped one of the racetrack ramps a few times repeatedly for fun, then raced off the game track and took the hoverboard with me for the rest of my stay in the there.com universe, riding it when I wanted fast medium-distance transportation, carrying it around the rest of the time.
Of course there are clear constraints too; I couldn’t eat the hoverboard and I couldn’t sit down with a few other players to bet on a cockfight or smoke a crackpipe. At least not in the gameworld. I couldn’t teleport to the places that banned teleportation, I (apparently) couldn’t walk into the paintball arena without a gun, and so on. But the constraints were a lot fewer and less severe than in more formal games. This was clear from the beginning. The game is about exploring and socializing more than it is about racking up high scores or vanquishing enemies.
Regarding games as being either “perfect information” games in which all information is known to everyone (like in chess) vs. “imperfect information” games (like poker) wherein some information is hidden, I suppose there.com should be considered clearly an imperfect information game because so much of the game involves social interaction and nobody knows what other players will say or (within certain limits) do from moment to moment. But in the case of an exploratory social game like this, the perfect vs. imperfect information classification doesn’t seem like a very useful or meaningful one.
Salen & Zimmerman could write entire books about how there.com embodies the concept of game as cultural rhetoric. Players must choose from very specific forms of interaction. In particular, the body types and clothing styles and the gestures and other available conversational devices all fit a particular style. You might call this style "wealthy young Western urban hipster as portrayed by turn-of-the-century Hollywood." To some extent this is unavoidable - as Salen & Zimmerman write, “beliefs, ideologies, and values present within culture will always be a part of a game, intended or not.” To accommodate every conceivable human style of appearance in a game like this would be impossible, but I tried making my male character put on a skimpy woman’s top that Janet Jackson would be proud of, and sure enough, this wasn’t allowed.
There.com as Theater?
At first glance there.com seems a fine embodiment of Brenda Laurel’s view [reading notes here] of computers as theater and of her ideal computer design as one that supports action and drama. After all, users take on avatars, actors who undertake action and interaction with one another on a beautiful fictional backdrop. Users can and (I thought) do use gesture effectively to reinforce their verbal messages as well as to convey messages on their own. I think that Laurel would praise this as the sort of “close coupling” of multiple interface modalities that she encourages (even if those modalities take place between multiple human players and are never translated between human and machine).
But I think there.com misses the boat by trying to staple a clunky, standard Windows drop-down (or drop up, in this case) menu bar onto this immersive world. It doesn’t fit. Rather than mapping most input actions directly to the people and objects they involve, there.com makes the classic Windows-and-Mac mistake that Laurel hints at when she writes that coders mistakenly view the computer “as a tool and not a medium.” (A sidenote: I don’t think Laurel chose the best terminology because for many tasks people –do- use computers as tools and that –is- an effective way of looking at them, and tools don’t necessarily reduce drama or stifle action. Tools don’t kill drama, people kill drama. More specifically: designers who shove tools into our faces inappropriately kill drama. But don’t get me started.)
The there.com user has to keep redirecting her locus of attention from the important things (the objects and people in the game) to care and feeding of the tools (sifting through the drop-up menus to figure out how to trigger the most basic action, for instance; navigating between game window and game Web pages; configuration of tools). Rather than just hammering the nail into the board, the user has to break her focus from the nail and spend five minutes configuring and checking the status of the hammer before anything can happen. Then one of the hammer configuration screens spawns an error message and by then our player has lost interest or, more tragically, has lost a priceless piece of serendipity in motivation.