The document discusses Twitter as a socially constructed technology where users determine how it is used rather than designers. It argues that Twitter represents a shift in command and control with users deciding tools, practices, and goals for the platform. Users have also innovated features like hashtags and replies that were later adopted by developers. The conclusion states that Twitter allows users to shape their computing environment based on individual needs and that different data philosophies on the platform can spark creativity when they interact.
Value Proposition canvas- Customer needs and pains
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#C3t The Command & Control of Twitter
1. #c3t The Command & Control of Twitter:
on a Socially Constructed Twitter & Applications of
the Philosophy of Data
By Brian Ballsun-Stanton & Kate Carruthers
#ICCIT_10 and #c3t
2. t
Before we start âŚ
Discuss this talk right now on twitter!
Use #c3t as the hashtag.
Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 2
Source: Marcus Angerhier @ aperto.de
3. t
What is Twitter?
⢠A social question: âWhatâs happening?â
â âTweetsâ update a timeline with short text
messages
⢠People can choose to follow your updates
⢠A social network reinterpreted by its users for
their own purposes!
B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers
Source: http://www.yiyinglu.com
Dec 2010 3
4. t
#c3t - Command, Control, and
Communication in Twitter
⢠Major shift in locus of command & control
â Users decide on: Tools, Practice, & Goals
⢠Different to Facebook: the user is genuinely in
control
⢠Users communicate innovations to their
followers through action
Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 4
Source: War Games (1983)
5. Creation of Social Practices
⢠Minimalist interface enables user constructed
practices
⢠Users evolved their own signifiers
â @replies
â #hashtags
⢠The developers responded to the pressure of
userâs innovations
Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 5
Source: Wiki Commons
6. Social Construction of Twitter
⢠A socially constructed technology is:
⢠A tool that has its uses determined and evolved by
its users, rather than traditional controlling
entities.
⢠Traditional technology has uses determined by
designer fiat.
⢠Each user constructs Twitter for their own
uses.
Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 6
Source: Hackers (1995)
7. Philosophy of Data & Twitter
⢠Different understandings of data change
understanding and use
⢠âWhatâs happeningâ means different things
based on philosophy:
â Tweets are communications between people
â Subjective sense-impressions of environment
â Temporal records of action
Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 7
Source: Kryptos by Jim Sanborn
8. Conclusion
⢠Twitter is an example of a socially constructed
technology
⢠Users influence their computing environment.
â shape it around their own needs, wants, and
missions
⢠When different philosophies of data interact:
â spark creativity
â generate new affordances
â new perceptions of embodied technique
Dec 2010 B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers 8
Source: Riku @ f.ollow.me
9. Contact the authors
Brian Ballsun-Stanton
Twitter: @DenubisX
brian@ballsun.com
Kate Carruthers
Twitter: @kcarruthers
kate@katecarruthers.com
Dec 2010 9B. Ballsun-Stanton & K. Carruthers
Hinweis der Redaktion
Ask questions at any time
Before we start
Join my co-author and the rest of the audience on twitter
Discuss the talk live
A social network
People produce tweets
Status updates
Conversation
Anything they can think of
People may follow
No need for recirprocation
No fake concept of âfriendsâ
Continually reconstructed by various communities to suit their own needs
Command: The technology which enables a leader to set objectives
Control: Decide on ways to accomplish objectives
Communication: Transmit orders through the hierarchy
Twitter represents a shift in C3
The users are no longer following designer orders
Users form their own C3 networks
No single vision of what to do
Facebook - The old model
Authoritarian and hierarchical
They decide what you do and how you use
Users communicate their new understandings of twitter through use
Other users copy good ideas because theyâre useful to them
Twitter offers the web and API protocols
Other developers, as users, can invent their own techniques of use
Few constraints on the interface
Pliable affordances
@replies, a construction indicating a username
created by users
embraced by developers
Developers embraced ideas
Adding infrastructure to support use after users adopted practice
Tool grows and changes with its users
Users set objectives, adapt or create practices to accomplish them
Socially constructed technology: A tool that has its uses determined and evolved by its users, rather than traditional controlling entities.
Engineers take note
Twitter's initial intent as a microblogging service clearly demonstrates the designers' intent to have it compete as a one-to-many blogging service in direct competition with the traditional blog engines
Success in despite of its goals
Developers listened to its users
Users are in control: a system which allows its usersâ control can be very successful
Many eyes have many ideas, some ideas will be better than initial developer vision. Ideas come from different ways of thinking
Forcing users into the developerâs mold only worked with no significant competition
Now users can find a tool to do what they want, even if it isnât yours
User-discovered usage techniques will happen
Continuing blithe disregard for the original concept.
Lessons learned
Donât try to hold onto the traditional control model
The internet will find its own uses for things
Embrace their ideas and profit
An increase in chaos (no centralized control) results in order emerging from the system, organically.
Twitter founded on exchanges of messages
Users interpret question of âwhatâs happeningâ according their own philosophy of data
Not the developerâs
Data as electronically stored communications
Tweets are communications between people
The service is useful as it enables communication
@replies are vital, as they provide context to communication
Data as subjective recorded observations
Tweets are recorded sense-impressions of environment
#tags provide relationships between tweets
Allow people to filter based on their interests and knowledge
Data as objective and hard numbers
Tweets are temporal records of action
Recordings of the world, rather than of the impressions of the world
Most tweets uninteresting
Change in the locus of #c3t from developer to user represents a new socially constructed technology
through the social construction of technology, users influence their computing environment and shape it around their own needs, wants, and missions
different philosophies of data, error sparks creativity which in turn generates new affordances, new perceptions of embodied technique.