From the summary: "As of February 2012, some 15% of online
adults use Twitter, and 8% do so on a typical day. Overall Twitter adoption
reamins steady, as the 15% of online adults who use Twitter is similar to the
13% of such adults who did so in May 2011. At the same time, the proportion of
online adults who use Twitter on a typical day has doubled since May 2011 and
has quadrupled since late 2010—at that point just 2% of online adults used
Twitter on a typical day. The rise of smartphones might account for some of the
uptick in usage because smartphone users are particularly likely to be using
Twitter." Read more
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Twitter Use 2012
Smith, Aaron and Joanna Brenner. "Twitter Use 2012. Pew Internet, Pew Research Center, May 31, 2012.
Labels:
social media,
stats,
trends
Unpacking Privacy's Price
From the abstract: "This
article introduces a transaction cost economic framework for interpreting the
roles consumers play in social networking services (“SNSs”). It explains why
the exchange between consumers and SNSs is not simple and discrete, but rather
a continuous transaction with atypical attributes. These exchanges are
difficult for consumers to understand and come with costs that are significant
and unanticipated. Under current structures of governance, there is no exit for
consumers who wish to leave an SNS. In other contexts, similar transactions are
bounded by tailored consumer protections. This article explains the need for
tailored consumer protection in the SNS context. Specifically, we argue that a
consumer right to rescind enrollment in an SNS, triggering a deletion of and
ability to export information shared with the service, is appropriate given the
skewed aspects of personal information transactions." Read
Labels:
privacy,
reports,
social media
How Facebook Captured Capitalist 'Kumbaya'
From the opinion: "Human beings love sharing. We swap, collaborate,
care, support, donate, volunteer and generally work for each other. We tend to
admire sharing when it's done for free but frown upon it—or consider it a
necessary evil—when it's done for profit. Some think that online, we're at the
dawn of a golden age of free sharing, the wiki world, in which commerce will be
replaced by mass communal sharing—what the futurist John Perry Barlow called
"dot communism."… But as the float of Facebook shows, commerce still
seems alive online. The law professor and economist Thomas Hazlett of George
Mason University jokes, "There sure are a lot of billionaires in this new
wiki economy."" Read more
Thai Message Board Manager Is Given Suspended Prison Sentence
Fuller, Thomas and Kevin Drew. "Thai Message Board Manager Is Given Suspended Prison Sentence." The New York Times, May 30, 2012.
From the article: "A Thai court sentenced the manager of an
Internet message board to a one-year suspended prison term on Wednesday for
comments posted by users that insulted the Thai royal family. The sentence was
immediately condemned by Google and human rights groups. The manager of the
site, Prachatai, a popular
forum for discussions about politics and culture, was convicted of
lèse-majesté, as royal insults are known, under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act. Courts in Thailand
have jailed people convicted of lèse-majesté with increasing frequency in
recent years, but the verdict on Wednesday was unusual in that the defendant,
Chiranuch Premchaiporn, was not the author of the offending comments; she was
just the Web master of the site that hosted them." Read more
Labels:
civil liberties,
internet governance
Privacy Group Wants to Put the Brakes on Google's Driverless Cars
Petrou, Andrea. "Privacy Group Wants to Put the Brakes on Google's Driverless Cars." TechEye, May 31, 2012.
The Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group, is demanding that the technology
is incorporated into a bill, SB 1289, which would see proper legislation around this technology, put into place to protect people.
It said without this legislation, Google's vehicles would be able to gather "unprecedented amounts of information about the use of those vehicles" with no documentation on how this would be used in the future." Read more
Labels:
civil liberties,
internet governance,
privacy
Here’s What Our Web Addiction Looks Like in 2016
From the article: "We’re on pace to generate 1.3 zettabytes of data in 2016,
about four times more than we create today, according to the latest data out from Cisco.
To put that in perspective, Cisco helpfully tells us that’s more than 38
million DVDs streamed in an hour. Or, you can think of it as a 1 followed by 21
zeros…. Around the world last year people generated 30.7 exabytes of data per
month from a total of 10.3 billion connections. That’s a lot until you compare
it to Cisco’s projections of the world generating roughly 110 exabytes per
month from 18.9 billion connections. That’s a ton of growth, so what do the
stats really tell us?" Read more
See also
Visual Networking Index (VNI). Cisco website.
U.S. Tech Companies Warn of Threat to Internet from Foreign Governments
Kang, Cecilia. "U.S. Tech Companies Warn of Threat to Internet from Foreign Governments." The Washington Post, May 30, 2012.
From the article : "U.S. officials and high-tech business giants have
launched an assault against what they view as a massive threat to the Internet
and to Silicon Valley’s bottom lines: foreign governments.
In a congressional hearing Thursday, they will warn lawmakers of a growing movement led by China,
Russia and some Arab states to hand more control of the Web to the
United Nations and place rules on the Internet that the U.S.
companies say would empower governments to clamp down on civil rights and free
speech.
That could mean the Web might look drastically different in other countries
than it does in the United States, opponents of the proposals say. An Internet user
in Uzbekistan could be more easily tracked by government officials and might
get access to only a portion of the Google search results seen in the United
States, for example.
In a rare coordinated effort to knock down the proposals, Google, Microsoft,
Verizon and Cisco also warn of financial risks to their businesses if new rules
are adopted. They say some nations may push forlaws on Internet firms that
could lead to tariffs on Internet service providers such as Verizon, or even
Web firms such as Facebook that enable people to communicate over the Internet." Read more
Labels:
civil liberties,
internet governance,
privacy