Jyri Engeström...I Guess He Knows What He's Talking About?

Ok, so there's no denying the fact that Jyri Eneström is a social media genius. However, as I watched his speech in Friday's class, I couldn't help but be confused because a lot of it went over my head. Was I the only one? I hope not, but I think I made a breakthrough. Earlier today, I re-watched the video and did some research on Eneström, which I think made me grasp the concept better.

Jyri Eneström three main points of his talk are social objects, social peripheral vision, and nodal points. Most importantly concerning our Communications class is the topic of social objects. He has some interesting things to say about it. Eneström says that if you go on a social website and can;t find the social object (object that connects people through social networking, the shared interest) within seconds, then the website is a failure. I totally get his point here. Each social website needs to have an object, basically the thing that connects people. The more personal value an object has, the more successful the website will be. Flickr's social object are photos, Deli.icio.us's are bookmarks, YouTube's are video clips, Twitter's are status updates, etc. All these sites are successful because they have a conspicuous social object, as well as a social object that allows people to exchange meaningful information.

But what really struck me was what he said about texting, something we all do. Firstly, he says that whenever we get a new species of social objects that emerge, there is usually a huge opportunity to buils a social service around it. So the technology of the cell phone, and in-turn texting, inspired microblogging, from which we get the social objects of updates and statuses. I never thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense. A text is a short dialogue on a one-on-one level, but microblogging expanded this into a dialogue available to all members of the social media site.

From social objects, forms verbs. The verbs are the what the user does to perform upon an object and leaves traces on the web. Commenting, updating, posting, tagging, etc. Lastly is social peripheral vision, which I'm not sure is as important as Jyri says it is. He says we have to have the ability to detect what's happening in the peripheral of our vision, meaning being aware of others' intentions so we can make plans. I don't feel like this is a necessity, just a perk. I mean it's nice to know that my friend is going to a party tonight or my cousin is going to the Phillies' tailgate, but is it necessary? I really don't think so. Even though it could affect me, it kind of makes me feel nosey to an extent, like why do I know all these things about a persons' life?

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that Jyri does know what he is talking about. All social websites should follow this model if they want to be successful. I'll leave you with something I found of relevance, a list of the ten principles for social object design.