Skype Journal: Print This

Skype Journal: Efimova: From blogs to Skyping, escalating conversations

October 23, 2006 11:44 AM

How does Skype fit into the mix of other social media? If you recall, Lilia Lilia Efimova Efimova started using the ULRTMT - Universal Language Real-Time Message Translator this summer. Lilia and her online friend Andrea Ben Lassoued wrote "Weblog-mediated relationship: a co-constructed narrative" and it's being included as a chapter in a new textbook.

Their essay documents their professional relationship's evolution. The chart, at left, has three columns: Lilia's blog on the left, Andrea's blog on the right, and mutual territory in middle. The top of the chart is 2003 and the bottom is April 2006. They discovered each other in the blogosphere, reading each others' posts. After a while, they commented on each others' blogs, bookmarked each others' posts on del.icio.us, and swapped the occasional email. After a few months of more intense intercourse, they escalated to Skype conversations.

It is a solid ethnographic case study by professional social scientists. It spans a long time and covers multiple media channels (how we really interact with each other online). In this case, discovery and low level interaction earned (banked) a small amount of trust.

Enabling factors:

Reciprocity of potential benefits from communicating to each other
Vulnerable writing
An ability to go beyond blogging in our choice of communication media

Lilia Efimova
Mathemagenic

They build on that trust until they were ready for more direct communication, with more substance, vulnerability, and immediacy (Skype).

I'd love to see this analysis of online relationship-building extended to other groups and situations. How do entrepreneurs find each other? How do job seekers discover potential employers and choose media during job search? How do new project teams negotiate the fit of modes to communication tasks? How long do some patterns persist, and do people repeat them across different relationships? How effective is shifting into work/task mode before fully establishing lower levels of trust?

I'd also like to see the end of a relationship. Can you salvage a fading relationship by experimenting with other communication channels? What are the textual or other early warnings indicators that a person is fading from "friend" to "former friend" or "contact"? How much asymetric communication can most people tollerate?

Which behaviors affecting user adoption and migration: What factors affect the success rate in dragging your (family, friends, work colleagues) into new channels? Are social network hubs more able to migrate their networks? Or do hubs who switch lose their power and start from scratch?

The ability to create great experiences comes from deep understanding of human nature. If you'd like to fund a more exhaustive study, let me know. I'm organizing research proposals.

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