via Harold Jarche

Des chiffres qui en tout cas posent quelques questions si on les compare à ceux que publiait le Pew Internet l’année dernière montrant que 35 % des internautes américains publiaient des contenus en ligne (de quelque nature que ce soit). Faut-il entendre que l’intervention des internautes, les contenus qu’ils génèrent, sont plus forts sur des sites moins “influents” ou importants que ceux qui composent la crème du web 2.0 ?

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

1% de participation active… Et sur pointblog, aujourd’hui, on lit:

Selon Hitwise, seulement 0,16 % des visiteurs de You Tube viendraient y déposer des vidéos, et 0,2 % des visiteurs de Flickr viendraient y déposer des photos.

Ce que la technique peut, l’homme le veut-il? Oui, pour un infime pourcentage d’entre-eux, moins d’1% des utilisateurs, c’est-à-dire vraiment pas grand chose par rapport à l’ensemble des citoyens du monde développé, ceux qui pourraient facilement accéder à tous ces sites web2.0 (je ne tiens évidemment pas compte des autres), et qui les ignorent. Le discours web2.0 n’est -il alors qu’une vaste supercherie, une rêverie technologique mâtinée d’un zeste de métaphysique hacker sans réels lendemains? A voir.

la page de PEW / Internet (avec lien vers le .pdf du rapport)

via apophenia

[…]
C’est pour moi toute la limite des outils que nous utilisons aujourd’hui, tout “web 2.0″ qu’ils s’affirment, qui favorisent la somme ou la moyenne des regards plutôt que leur pertinence… Mais comment faire sens ? Comment aider le regard à se déporter, quand la plupart de nos outils favorisent le sens commun ? Comment favoriser, mettre en valeur, mieux analyser la dissémination plutôt que la concentration ? La qualité ou la pertinence, plutôt que la quantité ? Trop d’outils mettent en avant le plus lié, le plus vu, le plus écouté, le plus lu. Qui est souvent aussi le plus apprécié, car on vote pour ce qu’on voit, lit, écoute, connaît et reconnaît. Le succès va au succès, fort bien, mais a-t-on besoin d’une telle débauche d’innovation pour un résultat si pauvre ?

Où sont les outils qui nous aideront à prendre les chemins de traverse ?

Anne, ma soeur Anne…

For me, the question is: “are teenagers tiring of the highly-visible social network sites?” and the answer is both yes and no. The level of emotional enthusiasm i hear has dramatically faded over the last six months. It’s taken for granted that it’s the way to reach people, but folks have seen the pros and cons and are no longer slurping it up without thinking. The perceived presence of people who hold power over teens (parents, teachers, etc.) and those who want to prey on them (marketers, pedophiles, etc.) has done unbelievable damage in general teen perception. I’m astounded by how many teens i’m running into who are “scared” to go on MySpace because they’ve been told horror stories by everyone. It doesn’t matter that the stories they repeat back to me are inaccurate - it’s clear that mainstream news coverage had a huge role in shaping social network sites in 2006. I want to scream every time a teen tells me the story of the two alexes or about how Dateline “proved” that predators are going to stalk them. (Instead, i listen patiently and politely.)

More significantly, MySpace has turned into a massive zit full of marketing puss. Most teens don’t mind advertising but when things look more like spam than advertising, you’re in deep shit. Every PR organization and marketing arm is leeching onto MySpace like a blood thirsty vampire. Problem is that vampires kill their prey. Teens who wanna hang with friends are mostly protecting themselves by privatizing their profile (more cuz of the marketing predators than the sexual ones) but this quickly loses the luster, particularly when it’s fundamentally hard to do what you want to communicate with your friends. (Simple things like friend management and better messaging tools would go a long way.) I’m very worried about how, unregulated, spamming and over-advertising will kill even the coolest social
hangouts. I keep wondering what the regulation solution will have to be. (Is it law or code cuz it ain’t gonna be market or social norms?).

Un article de Danah Boyd sur la dernière enquête du PEW à propos de l’usage des sites sociaux par les adolescents. Ses commentaires sont très intéressants (méthode de l’enquête, participants aux sites, sexe etc) :

PEW has just released the overview of their latest study on teens’ usage of social network sites. Most of the data is not surprising, but it sure is interesting. Here are some of the key findings:

• 55% of online teens (ages 12-17) have created a personal
  profile online, and 55% have used social networking sites like MySpace
  or Facebook.
• 66% of teens who have created a profile say that their
  profile is not visible to all internet users. They limit access to
  their profiles.
• 48% of teens visit social networking websites daily or more often; 26% visit once a day, 22% visit several times a day.
• Older girls ages 15-17 are more likely to have used social
  networking sites and created online profiles; 70% of older girls have
  used an online social network compared with 54% of older boys, and 70%
  of older girls have created an online profile, while only 57% of older
  boys have done so.

I wanted to comment on their findings because, frankly, i’m terrified of how this is going to be taken up by the press.

Il sera peut-être toujours possible de retrouver quelques traces -
vieilles insultes entre blogueurs ou vieilles photos de vous en train
de cuver votre vin dans une fête. Si cela était le cas, je pense tout
de même profondément qu’elles n’auront pas la même valeur que celles
qu’on pourrait leur accorder aujourd’hui, parce que toute une
génération aura déjà vu ce type de propos ou d’images sur l’internet.
Une photo d’un type qui montre ses fesses choque encore parfois. Mais
retrouver dans 20 ans ce type de photos alors que toute une génération
le fait sur Skyblog ou MySpace aujourd’hui, n’aura pas la même portée,
non seulement pour ceux qui seront devenus nos pairs, mais tout autant
pour des relations plus formelles que ce soit des employeurs ou des
électeurs devant lesquels on se présenterait… J’espère que ce sera
plutôt un facteur de sympathie et d’empathie qu’autre chose, comme un
souvenir en commun. Ces reliquats numériques ne serviront qu’à faire
bruire la machine médiatique d’une secousse supplémentaire, d’un
hoquet, comme elle en connaît tant. Et qui finissent par s’oublier, le
plus souvent, quelques heures plus tard. La conversation continue.

“Meribeth looked at me with a puzzled expression, “she’s not my friend — she’s just my Friendster.”

Qu’est-ce que l’amitié dans “la vraie vie”, et cette forme nouvelle, autre, d’amitié virtuelle dans les réseaux sociaux?

When “my friend” is used to describe a person, it has performative
qualities. It is meant to signal a certain kind of relationship,
regardless of the speaker’s actual feelings. It can be used to save
face when concerning someone who is not particularly liked but it can
also indicate a more powerful relationship than exists because that
might make the speaker look important (e.g., “my friend Bill Clinton”).
While the term can be used deceptively, this is not always the case. It
can also be used to convey a meaningful relationship for the listener’s
attention. For example, the speaker may want to make certain that the
listener understands key relationships so as to properly adjust
whatever might be said about a third party (e.g., “His friend Alex…” so as to prevent, “Do you know Alex? He’s such a slimeball.”).
The speaker may also be providing an opening for the listener to ask a
favor, subtly hinting that there is a tie there that can be leveraged
if only the listener will ask (e.g., “My friend Pat works at Google…” so as to prompt, “Oh, could you ask Pat…”). Because this expression has multiple meanings, it leaves room for a variety of different interpretations.

When people articulate their relations on social network sites, they
are not simply projecting their internal model of tie strength. The

public nature of these sites requires participants to perform their
relationship to others, not unlike the examples given above. Based on
an internal understanding of the audience, participants override the
term “Friend” to make room for a variety of different relationships so
that they may properly show face. Their choice in how to do
this is deeply influenced by the technological affordances of a given
system and their perception of who might be looking.

The article argues that it is necessary to move e-learning beyond learning management systems and engage students in an active use of the web as a resource for their self-governed, problem-based and collaborative activities. The purpose of the article is to discuss the potential of social software to move e-learning beyond learning management systems. An approach to use of social software in support of a social constructivist approach to e-learning is presented, and it is argued that learning management systems do not support a social constructivist approach which emphasizes self-governed learning activities of students. The article suggests a limitation of the use of learning management systems to cover only administrative issues. Further, it is argued that students’ self-governed learning processes are supported by providing students with personal tools and engaging them in different kinds of social networks.

S’adapter au web, trouver les applications qui nous conviennent et créer notre propre environnement adapté à notre manière de travailler et de collaborer, ou comme déjà dit ailleurs, à notre représentation de la connaissance, c’est s’affranchir des limites et contraintes inhérentes aux applications généralistes à prétention universelle.

This article will discuss the use of centralized and integrated LMS and argue that they, within a framework of a social constructivist pedagogy, should play only a minor role within organization of e-learning. It is argued that social software tools can support a social constructivist approach to e-learning by providing students with personal tools and engaging them in social networks. Using social software in this way requires that organization of e-learning moves beyond centralized and integrated LMS and towards a variety of separate tools which are used and managed by the students in relation to their self-governed work […]

Collaborative tools could be wikis, discussion forums, file sharing, and, to a certain extent, weblogs.

Lire l’article.

Via Distance-Educator.com