It’s my first time at SXSW. Any advice on making the most of it, panels to catch, people to meet (you?), etc, most appreciated!

Isn’t it pretty? I’ll let you know when it’s available for pre-order.

Facebook has also introduced a new form of suggestion — they are prodding us to “reconnect” with people, write on others’ walls, suggest profile pictures for those without them, and other forms of what can only be described as social meddling.This is causing much mockery amongst my peers as well as some horror — one friend reports that her friends have been urged to “reconnect” with a friend who passed away last summer.

At the core of the newsfeed and the suggestions problem is the same mistaken belief, one that I think all of these sites share (I’ve seen it so often on Last.fm) — the men who run these sites are so enamored of their algorithms that they trust them far more than they trust us to make decisions about what we want to see. People know what they want but Facebook is sure that it knows better. It’s one thing when Amazon or Netflix suggests a book or film I may not know about. It’s quite another when Facebook suggests a person with whom I already have a relationship.

If I were in charge of the site’s social engineering we would have checklists that allowed us to indicate whether or not we want to see who has friended whom, who has joined which group, applications, photos, notes, etc. We would have sliders to allow us to determine how much or which kinds of information we saw about which friends. The algorithms could learn from this, and adjust accordingly to make suggestions, but the end users would always have the power to override the algorithms’ suggestions.

Facebook’s new suggestions also make the mistake of thinking that the world of Facebook is the only world there is, so that if people haven’t communicated on site, they haven’t communicated at all. Thus I am being urged to reconnect with a colleague I see several times a week, a friend is being urged to reconnect with her boyfriend, and I am supposed to reconnect with someone with whom I am working on a grant proposal right now. My own research shows that on average friend pairs on Last.fm use at least 2 other means of interacting. I would assume that number is higher for Facebook relationships.

I recognize (I’ve seen the data) that there is very little one-on-one communication that takes place through Facebook (or any other social network site), but there are good reasons for that, and it isn’t that we haven’t been reminded to do so. It’s that either we are communicating just fine off site, or we don’t want to communicate more than we already do. Thus the suggestions feel like either ignorant or invasive intrusions into our ability to manage our own social lives without their computer-generated wisdom guiding us.

I am just waiting for the sidebar suggestion: “Nancy, call your mother! She worries!” Because I’d never think of such a thing without them.

Nancy suggests that there are six types of friends: people who met on last.fm, divided into linkers, music explorers, and last.fm socialisers; people who met online, but not on last.fm (online socialisers); and local socialisers and local music socialisers.

Linkers have a static connection, very little communication, feel that it would have been rude not to friend, have the most recent friendships, and a low relational development; music explorers connect only because of the music, and have moderate last.fm and little off-site communication, they share musical tastes and histories, as well as other similarities, have the oldest friendship partners and low relational development; last.fm socialisers enjoy the site as a social space, do the most communication through it, met somewhere on the site, are interested but may not share one another’s musical taste, talk about music as well as other things, appreciate their differences, tend to be international and same-sex; online socialisers already knew one another from somewhere else online, and may also have met face-to-face, communicate a lot online but not through the site; local socialisers with high levels of face-to-face, phone, and online communication, but not through the site, observing one another’s listening and appreciate the sense of connection but don’t talk much about music, they have a moderately high relational development; and local music socialisers, who have the highest relational development, with high communication through all media,even moderately through the site, with music as a motivation for friending and an observation of each other’s listening patterns.

You can download my PowerPoints from the talk here.

I’ll also add that Axel blogged many other talks given at the conference, and point you to his complete event liveblog.

It’s not dead.

I swear!

It’s hibernating while I finish my book. Personal Connections in the Digital Age is now less than THREE WEEKS from going to press and it is sucking up all the writing energy I have (though mostly it’s tedious microediting at this point).

Cheers.

p.s. if you want to see what was sucking up my time all summer, here are pictures from my adventures in Australia.

Sneak preview:

Update: Ok, the book is done and I’m still a very inactive blogger. Sorry about that.

Artists and musicians spend a lot of time communicating with their fan community, whether it be social networks, email, or just the music itself. With some much thought and energy going into fan communication, it funny how little time is actually spend considering the fan’s perspective. In this episodes, we hear from Nancy Baym, an Associate Professor in Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. She is an award-winning teacher on topics including the use of new communication technologies in creating identities, relationships and communities, interpersonal communication, and qualitative research methods. She has spent years studying online fandom to understand what communities like music fans a re really looking for. It might not be exactly what you think.

Sorry I’ve been back to being a slow blogger. Don’t expect any upticks soon as I’m desperately trying to finish a book draft before leaving for summer travels and I’ll be spending the summer bouncing from Europe where I’ll be doing some talks and a PhD course in Denmark to Australia where I’ll be mentoring at the Oxford Internet Institute’s Summer Doctoral Program in Brisbane followed by driving up the eastern coast in a campervan with my two excellent sons. Blogging’s not likely to be on my mind much.

So now the verdict is in, at least in phase one, and they’ve been found guilty with jail time and massive fines to pay if the verdict is upheld.

As someone who’s spent much of the last few years paying way too much attention to the independent music scene in Sweden, and who chanced to meet @brokep when I was going to meet some independent label guys for lunch in Malmö last fall, my feelings are very mixed. He had a sweet smile and was instantly likable. More importantly though, he was hanging out in an office with people running two of my favorite Swedish music labels: Songs I Wish I Had Written and Hybris. Both labels are associated with The Swedish Model, a collective seeking to foster a new future-oriented dialogue about the music industry.

When I interviewed independent Swedish label heads and musicians, every single one of them spoke of downloading as a good thing. They viewed it as an opportunity to reach broader and more international audiences, to increase the number of people into their kind of music, as a chance to build a whole new culture around music. Martin Thörnkvist, head of Songs I Wish, most vocal spokesperson for The Swedish Model (and guy who introduced me to Peter from Pirate Bay), told me he uploads their whole catalogue to Pirate Bay so he can have control over the quality of the recordings people download of their songs. Each spring Labrador Records uploads a sampler full of their singles to Pirate Bay.

It isn’t that these people don’t want to make any money from the music, it’s that they recognize that file sharing is not a choice, but a given. The question is how to use it, not how to stop it.

On the Digital Renaissance blog, Thörnkvist wrote:

Today’s ruling has only one positive aspect. I look forward to the music business investment in new services that were promised when the “copyright issue” is resolved. Up to evidence, out with you on the dance floor and show what you can do. Release control of your catalouges and let the service developers that are the best test their wings, instead of the one that currently can give you the biggest advance.

Of course this is not the end of the juridical process. The appeal will come as fast as it takes to download a torrent. But in my dream world the record, film and computer games companies withdrew their claims and instead spend all their money and creative energy to develop what they are actually best in the world at. Until then, Peter, Fredrik and Gottfrid have my full support in their dreams of a free internet.

Thank you, The Pirate Bay for putting a blowtorch in the ass of those who own 80% of all music ever released. Your work will ultimately lead to the re-recognize value of its core business and the will to sanction better services to restore music as the best provider of emotions.

It hurts when old business models to burst, but in this case the grass is really greener on the other side – not least for musicians and music lovers.

Or as Mike Masnick put it:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t think that most file sharing is legal or right (and I don’t participate in any of it). But, millions of people who know that it’s illegal have absolutely no problem taking part in it, and no “education” campaign or shutting down of a particular site or service is going to stop that. Continuing to pretend it will doesn’t help the industry at all. What helps the industry is to stop denying that this is something that can be stopped legally, and finally moving on to experimenting with business models that work

I don’t think all music should be uploaded and downloaded freely. I am all for investment in music and return on investment in music, and I realize that money is inevitably part of that equation. I also think, though, that the pursuit of money, and sometimes very large amounts of it, has colored the music business in some weird ways so that money is too often taken to be the only kind of investment or reward that can motivate good music. Ultimately, I want the music business to survive, but, like Martin, Mike, and the people I’ve interviewed, that’s only going to happen when everyone accepts that whether they like it or not, whether it’s morally and legally right or not, file sharing is not going to stop.

I love the idea of embracing it. Of seeding the music yourself. I have heard the arguments, but I am not at all convinced that in the end it means fewer copies will sell.

I want more ways for us to pay artists in addition to buying the CD or the downloads. I want scarce goods like fabulous packaging and great bags, shirts, posters, and so on. I want a way to pay every artist what we think their music is worth directly (let them work out the payback for songwriters, producers, financers and other behind-the-scenes people).

Some past posts about Swedish labels and file sharing:

Indie Labels on Sharing, Streaming, and Giving It Away

The Trap of the File Sharing Debate

Music Is All About Money