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Fake your space with fake friends February 28, 2007

Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in Arto, Fakers, Friendship, MySpace, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Youth Culture.
5 comments

Last year I read a post on Michael Zimmer’s blog about a new social networking service called Fake Your Space that offers purchase of fake and hot friends for MySpace profiles in order to seem popular. Yesterday the Danish online magazine Computerworld.dk spotted the website and wrote an article about it. Today I was interviewed by the Danish radio P3 (P3 Nyheder) and the newspaper dato about what I think of the service and why friends are so important on social networking sites.fakeyourspace.com

First of all, I think that the profiles the site offers are so clearly fake and model like that other users would probably be sceptical of the users who have bought the fakers and listed them as friends. Also, other people’s friend lists are often used to find new friends. What happens when someone tries to add one of the fakers to their own profile? (more…)

Social Networking Fatigue February 20, 2007

Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in MySpace, Social Networking, Web 2.0.
11 comments

Day by day more and more social networking sites are emerging and it can be really difficult to keep up with them all, not least to keep your different profiles and networks up-to-date. Recently, I stumbled across the term “social networking fatigue” which signifies the:

Mental exhaustion and stress caused by creating and maintaining an excessive number of accounts on social networking sites.

Read more about that term here.

However, it seems that there is now a solution to that problem. Yesterday my colleague Thomas Ryberg told me about a new kind of social networking service, Explode, that makes it possible to connect to all your friends without signing up to the many different sites that they use. Thomas writes about the service:

I guess one could call it a meta-social networking site – as it is not as such a social networking site itself, but can aggregate your friends across different sites and have them displayed anywhere you want […] – no more see my Myspace contacts here, see my bloglogcommunity here, see my 100 other networks here …I think that’s quite clever…

Read more about this at Thomas’ blog and explore Explode here.

Human Centered Informatics at AAU February 15, 2007

Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in Aalborg University, Academic.
5 comments

My colleagues at e-Learning Lab have just launched a new website for the education “Informationsvidenskab” (Human Centered Informatics) at Aalborg University. The site explains really well what the education is all about and there are testimonials from former and current students, teachers and researchers.

Right now the site is in Danish only, but will eventually be translated into English as well.
See the website and read more about Human Centered Informatics at AAU here.

New article on the fight against ‘fakers’ February 9, 2007

Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in Arto, Fakers, Internet Safety, Moral panic, Social Networking.
12 comments

Recently, I wrote an article for the Danish magazine Månedsmagasinet Skolen about how to see through fake profiles on social networking sites like Arto . The article was part of a special theme issue on internet safety published on Safer Internet Day 2007. The whole magazine is available for download here.

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This is a massage in a faker’s guest book on Arto. It says: “We piss on fakers”. As the picture and the statement show the fight aganist fakers is really strong on Arto.

Blogathon 2007: Keep in mind your online identity February 6, 2007

Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in Arto, Internet Safety, News media, Social Networking.
4 comments

As part of Safer Internet Day 2007 which was celebrated all over Europe today I participated in a ‘Blogathon‘. I wrote a blog post about being private online which I will post here as well:

Keep in mind your online identity

Have you ever thought about the fact that what you put online about yourself could stay there forever or the way in which you portray yourself today might affect the way people see you in ten years?

Social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster have become extremely popular – especially among young people. In Denmark there is one particular site that has won the heart of almost every Danish teenager. The website is called Arto and it has more than half a million users (out of a 5,4 million population). It is estimated that 80 % of all Danes between the age of 12 and 18 years old have a profile on the website. (more…)

Questionnaires online February 6, 2007

Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in Academic, Research.
1 comment so far

Today my two online questionnaries were launched at Safer Internet Day 2007. The purpose of the questionnaires is to investigate the relationship between parents and their children when it comes to online social networking. The target group is Danish parents, children and young people who use social networking sites.

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Are you a Danish parent with children between the age of 12 and 18?
Fill out the questionnaire here.

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Are you a Danish child between the age of 12 and 18?
Fill out the questionnaire here.

Lots of other exciting things happened today at Safer Internet Day. I will blog on that later…

By the way, the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende wrote an article today about the survey. Read the article here.