Gawker: valleywag, danah boyd

Microsoft hires social network wonk, lets her keep her Mac

Melissa Gira Grant — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:40:00 EDT

The 2.0 crowd's favorite social media academic, Danah Boyd — she types it as "danah boyd" because it looks prettier — is going over to Microsoft's newest research team in Boston (read: Harvard and MIT.) She's already done research at both Yahoo and Google, so the move makes sense. Even though Boyd once likened Microsoft to Germany:

They did some pretty evil things a while back but you don't remember the details, you just know that you really hate them.

Boyd, who links to that old line in her 1,700-word announcement of her new gig with Microsoft, seems preemptively defensive about her new employer. But it's charmingly honest, like Microsoft's other notorious Web celeb hire, Robert Scoble, who kept up his superprolific rep by being first to congratulate her.

(Photo by Joi Ito)

SXSW rhymes with sex

Melissa Gira Grant — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:00:59 EST

By happy coincidence, I landed Valleywag's sex reporting gig just before my first-ever trip to the hormone-fueled SXSW ("South by Southwest") Web, music and video festival in Austin. It's still three weeks away, but I'm trying to get a leg up by decoding all the parties I've been told I shouldn't miss. Which ones will really get interactive? Can I get some kind of mobile map mashup of which naughty bloggers will be stumbling distance between Austin's Sixth Street — the after-dark party block — and my hotel suite? How many inhibitions will be wiped out by Red Bull and vodka open bars? Or will my girl-on-girl action be limited to fondling Danah Boyd's hat? Suggestions and solicitations can be mailed to melissa@valleywag.com.

Holy crap, the kids have their own lives on the Internet

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:30:04 EST

Looking for worried tones and ominous music? Then check out Frontline's "Growing Up Online." The premise of the PBS special: Kids rule the Internet. And they're totally out of control! "It's really hard to control what our kids are doing online. What we have here is the new Wild West. Nobody's really in charge," fulminates author Anne Collier. But then, whew, good old Danah Boyd straightens them out: "This is a generation that sees online not as a separate place that you go, but a continuation of their existence. It's socialization. It's learning about life." Which, online or off, is what always brings an end to childhood.

Facebook only the latest in long line of social sites

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:31:26 EST

Academics Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison published a paper titled "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship." Onekey point they make is that Facebook is only the latest in a long line of social networks stretching back 10 years. Which means we only have another 90 years to go before the next media revolution. After the jump, Boyd and Ellison's timeline.

Remainders: Ask a ninja about Net Neutrality

Nick Douglas — Thu, 11 May 2006 22:37:57 EDT

As predicted, someone's trying to crush social networks, and danah boyd is righteously pissed. [Zephoria.org]
While other moguls do boring things like running their companies, Oracle founder Larry Ellison pilots a yacht in the America's Cup. [BYM News]
And now, a ninja explains Net Neutrality. (Why are all the vloggers — e.g. these Halo actors too — filming Net Neutrality PSAs? Because if the telcos get to break the Internet, amateur vloggers are the first to go.) [Ask a Ninja]

And in Kotaku's E3 coverage:

ETech talk roundup

ndouglas — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:33:55 EST

Deep into the quest to make actually attending the ETech conference unnecessary, attendees recap everything for the rest of us:

AOL exec Jason Calacanis and VC Fred Wilson recommend spending a homeless year or two. [Calacanis.com]
Technorati engineer Kevin Marks goes manic for microformats. [Epeus' epigone]
Dan Hon coredumps a hefty set of conference notes. [DanHon.com]
He also publishes meticulous notes on danah boyd's "G/localization" talk. Gold star, Dan. [DanHon.com]
JR's brain is full, and the sun glinting off the skin of a thousand geeks has blinded him. [Noded]
All these and more, linked from the Planet ETech multifeed. [Plagger.org]

Photo by Scott Beale [Flickr]

7 names to spell right (and 1 to ignore)

ndouglas — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 20:26:59 EST

Right. Valleywag's been called "ValleyWag" too much to ignore. A quick guide to Valley capitalization, spacing, and punctuation:

del.icio.us
digg
Valleywag
Measure Map
CNET
danah boyd (for typographic beauty)
BoingBoing (or Boing Boing or boing boing, they're too hip to care)

And one not worth getting right, because using it at the end of a sentence sounds stupid:

Yahoo!

No need to thank me for the service journalism. Post your own anal-retentive spelling specs in the comment salon.