Paper Proposal, Continued

Below are a few things I’ve been thinking about as I begin my research.  Please add comments and ideas on additional questions to ask about such a new social networking site.

Creating an Identity on Dandelife
Dandelife.com allows users to easily create their identities, simply through signing up and writing a story. The program can be used either to detail an entire life story, or simply to share certain events (i.e. Pictures from a trip) with the world.

Gaining Trust and Reputation
Reputation is established in the meat of the stories. Those with neat stories and interesting lives get clicked on by more people, and receive repeat visits. Those that are generally boring and do not post stories may still get unique visits because of the way Dandelife can randomly suggest stories for you to click on, but overall, I would say they see fewer visits than those with plenty of life ingredients in their timeline.  Ditto would go for people that try to post personal advertisements  on their dandelife timeline.

It is truly up to the user how much they want to reveal about themselves, whether they want to tell sad or happy stories, or whether they just want to sell stories to corporations.

One of the questions I have in beginning the research, as I have not read a great sample dandelife.com timelines, is “Do people really care if users are telling genuinely honest stories or not?”

People read the news and are touched by stories hundreds of miles away that they cannot verify except on the reputation of the source for honest reporting, so why not feel some sort of emotional connection to a happy/sad story?

Another question I have is, “If some people are dishonest, does this hurt the community?” So far, my answer is yes and no. Yes, because if someone is willing to lie on their dandelife timeline, they may very well be lying about other things, giving me a reason to distrust their character and possibly a disincentive to be interested in their thoughts. The reason I say possibly is for the no part, and that is the reason that the community at this point in time seems to designed for the enjoyment of people to identify with other people’s struggles and successes with corporations gleaning off the best ones to make the next Budweiser commercial or something.

Why Dandelife is a Cool Project
This is an interesting concept because, unlike a blog, this is a way of easily telling your history.  It details a life that is not a second one, but a real-world history made up of people, thoughts, and feelings, not avatars and money that one is too lazy to get off the couch and make in the real world.

I think this will be a great new way to get the elderly, who make up an increasing share of both internet users and retirees with time on their hands, to preserve a history in ways that we have never seen before. Imaging reading a story like Anne Frank’s, only with a timeline and pictures you can click on, complete with links to other resources and similar stories.

This is one of the ways that dandelife will become a strong community. It will catch on among different crowds of friends of neighbors, who are able to share their memories without pulling out photo albums or going through mountains of microfilm.

Why Dandelife won’t be your second life
The links to the physical world are too strong for a community like this to replace someone’s real life. In short, the cooler life you have and the more things you do, the better dandelife you can create.

 

Some Neat Info
CEO of Dandelife.com, Kelly Abbot, is a member of LinkedIn, another social networking site, and subject of Ross’ research project.

Here’s an example of a Dandelife timeline, complete with photos and stories: http://dandelife.com/ianus