Y! Interns Discuss: Social Networking -- Transcript

DOREEN BLOCH:  Welcome to the intern discussion on social networking for Yahoo!’s Corporate Blog.  One of the story ideas that was being thrown around during brainstorming a few weeks ago was commentary from Yahoos about social networking.  Since teens and young adults constitute the largest demographic of social networking users, we thought, who better to discuss social networking products than interns?  So, I brought together an eclectic group of seven interns.  Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves.  My name is Doreen Bloch.  I’ve been interning at Yahoo! for the past couple of weeks now.

PAUL STAMATIOU:  Hi, I’m Paul Stamatiou.  I’m 20-years-old and I go to Georgia Tech.  And I’m also working on the Corporate Blog with Doreen.

PHIL FREO:  Hi, my name is Phil FREO. I’m 19-years-old, I go to the University of Florida and I’m currently working on front-end engineering. 

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  My name is Brianna Satinoff.  I’m 20-years-old. I go to the University of Michigan, and I’m currently an engineering intern in the web map team.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  My name is Richard Crowley, I’m 21-year-old, I go to Washington University in St. Louis and I’m an automation programmer in Yahoo Ops.

CHEN YANG:  My name is Chen Yang, I’m 26-years-old.  I’m from New York University.  I’m a grad student.

WILL URICH:  My name is Will Urich, I’m 18-years-old and I go to Serra High School and I’m working in the search and marketing department.

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DOREEN BLOCH:  So, just to start off, if somebody wants to talk about how they use social media.  Maybe what products they are using and how it kind of has changed how they interact with their peers.  Anyone want to go first?  [Laughter]  It looks like Richard has something he wants to say.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  I am a Facebook user among several other things and I think it’s hilarious how often some people check Facebook.  They want to get on there and find the latest gossip or scoop about everybody they sort of know.  But to me it has always been a giant phonebook.  And that has been one of the most useful things to have while I’m at college, is being able to track down any person I need to from any class for any reason, very, very quickly.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  They also have things that really could be juicy to some people, such as whether a person is single and what their interested in a relationship.  [Laughter]

DOREEN BLOCH: Facebook I thought was really unique in the fact that it only lets college people or college alumni join.  And I think that’s a huge distinction from MySpace.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  Well, MySpace is all about personalization and I’ve seen some people that can do magic with them almost, with making things look good, and be almost to the point of good web design.  And then there are some that it makes me want to leave the page real quickly.  So, the customization thing both helps and hurts MySpace, I think.

PHIL FREO:  What I do think MySpace is doing right is tailoring to the musical industry.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  A friend of mine that is a designer made a MySpace for an up and coming and probably not even that good yet, rap group.  And they started using it like very much like people use Upcoming.org.  To say, hey look here’s our show, we’ve got all these people that say they are coming that are our friends.

DOREEN BLOCH: Yeah, that’s an interesting point especially in terms of bands.  I think MySpace has definitely led to the creation of these kind of MySpace celebrities so to speak.  And you have I mean, apparently the June 2006 issue of Playboy, they had the “Women of MySpace” or something.  And it’s interesting to see how all of the sudden these nobodies are able to really kind of make a life for themselves, so to speak on social networking services.  I don’t know if anybody has had any experience with that.  Yeah, go ahead.

WILL URICH:  Like there’s this girl Forbidden and everyone knows her on MySpace she’s like one of the number one users and then no one would have known about her if it wasn’t for MySpace.  And all the - - a lot of the music I find these days, you can’t find it anywhere else.

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Doreen Bloch: MySpace was banned at my school

WILL UREIC:  It was banned at my school too.  It’s ridiculous to see how much time people waste on it.  So, like you go in, lunch is an hour or hour and half.  They spend their entire time on MySpace.  Like, oh, they refresh the home page like every five seconds and see if they’ve got a new comment.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  Even though I can’t imagine any colleges actually banning MySpace or Facebook, one problem with Facebook that happened at my college is a little scandal happened a few months ago where people found out that employers were using Facebook profiles to scan potential applicants.  So, for example, one girl didn’t get the job because an employer saw pictures of her drunk and half naked on Facebook. 

RICHARD CROWLEY:  That same problem has taken away a lot of would be RA’s dreams at my school.

PHIL FREO:  I think people do need to be careful when they put pictures on - - of themselves on Facebook.  You know with alcohol or other types of questionable behavior.  Because I mean, people do need to realize that you’re going to get searched by your employers and it’s just a fact.  So either you go under a hidden name or you - - or the biggest thing people can do right now is set their profiles to private, so that only their friends can view it.  So, if you’re worried about something like that, that’s really what needs to happen.

CHEN YANG:  Yeah, if you block your profile or anything like that so other people can not see your profile then that’s not the point of MySpace or Facebook.  That’s totally opposite.  So, I think that could be a problem. 

DOREEN BLOCH: I think your point about the privacy restrictions kind of going against what the whole point is.  That’s an interesting kind of devil’s advocate sort of stance to take.

CHEN YANG:  Yeah.

DOREEN BLOCK: And I think that there are - - it’s going to be interesting to see how social networking develops.  And I don’t know what’s kind of your opinion on if there’s going to be more restrictions in the future or less, or how that’s going to manifest itself.

PHIL FREO:  I think it’s all about customization.  I mean, personally the - - I think the default with Facebook is that everyone in your school or in your network can see your profile.  And I kind of like that because if someone for some reason hears about me and wants to see what I’m like.  Then they can see my Facebook profile, but only if they are at my school. 

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DOREEN BLOCH: So another very interesting point about social networking is life before and after having contact with this really now, very popular form of expression and connecting with other people all over the globe.  Yeah, go ahead Chen.

CHEN YANG:  So I think the life changes because you can really talk to friends or just check out status right away.  I’m from Taiwan and from where I am, MSN Messenger is very popular so we use Spaces from MSN very often.  So, in that case I can check out the blog, I can check out what they are doing.  Say they are still students or they become the employee of some other company.  So, I think that really helps people to communicate especially when you are not - - you don’t live really close or you don’t really get a chance to talk to them every day.  I think that’s a very, very large difference before and after that social networking came out.

PHIL FREO:  I think it’s really changing the way people connect with each other just in the fact that if I meet somebody, it wouldn’t be at all strange to hear them say, before I leave for them to say, hey why don’t you Facebook me or hey find me on MySpace.

DOREEN BLOCH: Yeah, that’s so true.

PHIL FREO:  And then the other thing is say you’re out at a party or just hanging out or whatever.  And before you would have to take your own pictures and store your own pictures and maybe you put them online.  But now somebody takes a picture of you and they tag you with your name on it and then now on my profiles it shows all the pictures of myself that were taken by other people. 

DOREEN BLOCH:  That’s a great point.  Yeah, Brianna?

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  As far as dating, I think that Facebook can be a good tool to find out about people you’re interested in dating.  For example, one piece of information that’s on Facebook is someone’s sexual orientation.  And now that I have Facebook once I’m Facebook friends with a guy, I can make sure he’s not gay before trying to meet him.

DOREEN BLOCH: Okay, valid use I have to say.  Go ahead.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  It’s a way to keep track of a much broader array of people that could be real benefits to you down the line.  I can’t imagine going into this almost professional state of my life without the list of literally hundreds of people I’ve come across and now keep track of.  Where I still have a way to get in touch with all of these people I know should I need to talk to them for some important reason.

DOREEN BLOCH: Yeah that’s a great point and that why I think we’re also seeing services like LinkedIn is trying to serve kind of a professional population as well. I have kind of two stories too about social networking and how it’s definitely transformed things for me.  I know I went to this journalism convention in San Francisco earlier this year, and there were these people that I met and I think before, it was - - when you would say bye to these people and they were going across to the East Coast, it would be almost this bittersweet feeling of like, I’m never going to see these people again.  And suddenly, I discovered Facebook and I discovered social networking and all of the sudden these people that you thought you were never going to see again, you’re talking to.  You’re able to engage with them and have conversations and check on what’s been going on in their lives.  And that’s something that we could have never done before.  And I think another thing is that you hear about people before meeting them and you’re able to discover so many things about their lives.  I know, this is particularly - - Paul reminded me of this as I was looking over at him.  When I was interviewing at Yahoo!, Havi, our hiring manager, told us that there’s this other guy that’s interviewing for this position.  And so I was kind of like, hmm, there’s this other guy interviewing for the position, huh.  So, I found his name and I could go and do background research about him.  And I soon learned that he’s a Georgia Tech student, junior, et cetera and I could find out so many things about him that were useful for me before meeting him.

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DOREEN BLOCH:  Is it bizarre or is it different to live life so openly?

RICHARD CROWLEY:  Flickr is the one odd one to me that’s seemed dramatically more open in that respect.  And that’s just because the information out there on Facebook on - - I don’t use MySpace, but any of the others, is text and that somehow seems more boring and alien then actually seeing there’s me, there’s my friend, there’s my pictures.  These are out in the open.  And that’s something to get used to.

WILL URICH:  I totally agree.  I think with the text thing.  People act differently online than they would do in person.  Like a lot differently.  You can’t necessarily tell a person’s entire life story before you meet them.  But when you see a picture of him and you see an album or of him or her.  You kind of catalog their whole life.  You understand from a visual perspective instead of a textual perspective of who they are.

PHIL FREO:  I think the fact that everyone is allowing so much information to be put online is - - it’s opening a lot of doors for people.  But I think it’s going to be interesting in 10 or 15 years or 20 years when the next president has a Facebook or a MySpace that’s archived.  You know, you can go back and see any website 10 years ago and see what that looks like.  I think it’s going to be very interesting and maybe a lot of people that could have been president might not be able to now and that kind of thing.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  The Internet doesn’t forget does it?

PAUL STAMATIOU:  That’s right.

DOREEN BLOCH: No, it doesn’t.  Go ahead.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  One reason I think Americans are embracing the whole, being so open thing is because we have always had a preoccupation with celebrity and being on Facebook and MySpace and just having our life stories just open to the world makes us a little bit like celebrities.  Everyone knows about us.

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DOREEN BLOCH: Yes.  So, by being able to see people’s profiles and kind of their life stories as we’ve said, does that make you more open to who they are or maybe even conversely does that - - has that ever made you make a decision not to befriend somebody or not to kind of try to pursue a relationship with that person?

CHEN YANG:  I think it’s just easier for you to break the ice in the first place.  After that, you’re still on your own, because that’s still your social life, that’s not online social life anyway.

WILL URICH:  I think we are now on MySpace there’s a lot of stereotypes and not necessarily makes you intolerant, but when you see someone’s profile or surveys they’ve taken and blogs, you start to realize - - you don’t know really who they are, but you might be a little bit more hesitant to approach them or talk to them.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  I sort of disagree with what everyone else has said.  Even though information on FaceBook can give you insight into what a person is like, it’s very black and white.  For example, a person’s profile might say they are in College Republicans.  And a liberal person who looks at that profile might think okay, I don’t want to be friends with this person because she’s probably some right-wing nut.  But at the same time, like there’s lots of different people, there’s lots of different types of people, who are in say an organization like College Republicans and so, if they’d actually met that person, they would gotten know them.  Do you see what I’m - -.

DOREEN BLOCH: No that makes sense, but I think that you’re saying it’s a very black and white thing - -

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  Yes.

DOREEN BLOCH: But at the same time I think it helps inspire discussions.  So, I almost think it’s not necessarily a black white thing, it’s what helps people talk about things and it puts things more out in the open.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  Yeah, I guess that’s true.  I guess then they don’t have to hide it.

CHEN YANG:  So, I think it’s more a mice game for me.  Because when you put things out there, you put things on for certain purpose.  So when you say you’re like you said, you’re a republican or you’re a liberal or whatsoever.  That means you want people to see you in a certain way.  So, in that case you’re insinuating something that you want people to perceive you.  So, in that case, it would be easier for people to treat you in a certain way.

WILL URICH:  I agree with Chen on that point.  Because you put this stuff up on MySpace or Facebook that you want other people to see.  You put up a picture; I don’t know like if you look good one night or if you’re dancing with a whole bunch of girls or something.  Or you’re landing a sweet back flip off a ski jump, you show people what you want to see and they don’t really see the depth, they don’t see the bad points of you.  They don’t see - - what other people think of you, they just see what you want them to see, really.

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DOREEN BLOCH: So along those lines of kind of what social networking does for us.  How do you think we can judge if a site is a success?  Is it just the numbers, or is there something else that kind of consumer or users can judge success by?

RICHARD CROWLEY:  Well, I think - - I’ve heard the term viral thrown around a lot with a lot of different social networks.  And I think that’s a good way to judge it.  If the content available, whether it be stuff about people that you know or don’t know or sort of know or information professionally, like on LinkedIn or links on the internet like Del.icio.us or photos like Flickr.  What ever the case, if something is getting so much traction that you can’t not use it or that you’re missing out by not using it, that’s a success.

CHEN YANG:  From my point of view because I’m from Taiwan; I think the success is to - - you don’t need drag people into that network they are just there, you just need to put their names or their email or phone number on and then you can find the people instantly.  I think that’s huge success.

PHIL FREO:  I think the success of these different social networking tools are like he said based on whether or not most of your friends are already on it.  I know in the United States Facebook and MySpace are the big ones and then I think in other countries 360 and - -

DOREEN BLOCH: MSN as well.

PHIL FREO:  MSN spaces are a lot more popular and I think the real success is, in the future is going to be which services help add on to your lives and enrich your lives, helping you to connect people.

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DOREEN BLOCH:  Another question that I had is some people believe that social networking is polluting the internet.  And I know all of use social networking, so maybe this is going to be a biased response. But, what’s kind of your opinion on that?  Is it polluting content on the internet that you have people that are posting photos and text and then reposting it then maybe on other sites?  Yeah, Richard?

RICHARD CROWLEY:  It is polluting in that there’s way more stuff going onto the internet onto servers somewhere.  But at the same time, it’s helping to filter out the good stuff.  Specifically sites like Del.icio.us or Yahoo! MyWeb or whatever other kind of book marking service.  Or what’s the one the firebox toolbar, StumbleUpon or something?  Okay, StumbleUpon gives you sites that other people have thought are cool.  All these things are making it much easier to find cool stuff and leaving all the stuff that’s lame buried somewhere.  So, yeah, there’s a lot more pollution but we don’t trip over it.

DOREEN BLOCH:  Great way to put it.

PHIL FREO:  I think we’re going to see a lot more integration of different services.  Right now you have one tool to search the web, one tool to search for your friends on each of the different networking tools.  I think we’re going to see a lot more integration to bring all of the different content on the web together. 

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DOREEN BLOCH: Should there be an age limit for when you can start using social networking?

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  Do you mean an age minimum?

DOREEN BLOCH: Age minimum, yes.  [Laughter]

RICHARD CROWLEY:  No senior citizens.  [Laughter]

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  That’s what it sounded like. 

DOREEN BLOCH: Age limit as in bottom limit any comments?  Yeah, Will?

WILL URICH:  There’s a - - I think you need a legal limit especially for MySpace because there’s a lot of weird sickos out there and you don’t want little kids getting involved abductions and stuff and at that same time their opinion matters too.

PAUL STAMATIOU:  One thing that MySpace has had a problem with is they’ve gotten into some legal trouble recently.  And they don’t know how to accurately verify how old someone is.  So, there’s a lot of contention there. 

DOREEN BLOCH:  Definitely.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  I’m pretty sure there already is a legal limit where in order to do any sort of service where you give out your email address you have to be 13.  But the problem is all they ask you to do is enter your date of birth, so if you’re like 10 and you want to do, you could just say I was born in 1985.

DOREEN BLOCH: Right.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  And there’s no one verifying it.

DOREEN BLOCH: I think actually, I don’t know this isn’t too much of a plug for Yahoo!, I don’t think, but I think Yahoo! 360 is the first service that I’ve come across that has done the whole mature content thing, which I thought was great.  In terms of you can tag particular photos or particular blogs as being mature content so that as an outsider it will pop-up – - a screen will pop-up saying like, are you sure you want to go here.  And that’s how they kind of go about ensuring that content is actually what you want to see.  Yeah, Richard?

RICHARD CROWLEY:  In middle school and high school, we didn’t do much internet stuff in Kentucky when I was in elementary school.  There was some education, here is how you responsibly use just a web browser was really it at the time. There probably should be the same kind of education for the social networking stuff as far as what kind of information is appropriate to be displayed about yourself and what the consequences are for whatever you choose to display.

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WILL URICH:  I don’t know about your parents, but my mom made a MySpace and [laughter].  And she’s like a stalker, honestly.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  That sounds so cool.

RICHARD CRAWLEY:  Oh my god.

WILL URICH:  So, what she does is she made it specifically to track me so on her MySpace it’s like do you ever want kids and she’s like, never.  [Laughter]  And so then she hunts me down sometimes and it’s really annoying, but at the same time, it’s not like, - - it’s not as annoying as she going up and asking me, oh what did you put on MySpace today or what did you and your friends upload a picture of last night.  And I’m like, oh mom you can just check out on your own MySpace.  [Laughter]

DOREEN BLOCH:  Well, does that make you a lot more self-conscious about.

WILL URICH:  No, it doesn’t make me more self-conscious, it actually kind of makes me - - I feel at ease, knowing that she can go on if she wants and I don’t have to check in with her.  She realizes I’m a big kid and I have my own rights and my privileges

DOREEN BLOCH: Takes away the façade.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  I have a question for Will.  Like don’t you ever post things on your MySpace that you’re embarrassed for your mom to see?

WILL URICH:  No.  Maybe it’s just the relationship my mom and all my parents have.  I don’t really hide anything from them; they don’t really hide anything from me.  I think that openness is something good about MySpace has created.  Parents know more about their kids which is pretty cool.  I mean, I encourage a lot of parents to make a MySpace.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  No.

CHEN YANG: No way.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  No way.

WILL URICH:  No, I mean just to learn about their kids.  I mean, would you tell your parent everything that you put on your MySpace?

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  No way.

WILL URICH:  But that way they can find out more about you without actually you know having like intruding.

DOREEN BLOCH:  It’s an interesting proposal.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  But I mean even things like, I mean it depends on who the parents are.  Like your parents may not mind swearing, but I can just imagine my mom like, gasping if she heard me swear.

CHEN YANG:   So the thing is my mom checks my MSN Spaces constantly and that’s really annoying because she called me once she saw something.  Like right away.  Sometimes, you know and we have time difference you know.  Like 10 or no 8 hour difference, so she like hey, what’s wrong with your - - say I was sick or whatsoever, that was good, right?  But sometimes say I was really tired because I got home from work.  And she told me are you tired or whatsoever, that was real annoying.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  I remember one time, very long ago, some friends of mine and I at school had just all gotten AOL instant messenger, I’m sorry Yahoo!.  [Laughter]  And my parents thought they caught me doing something real nasty, and I was like talking to my friend down the street.  But they came over and they were interested in what was going on.  It was like what are you doing, what is this.  I haven’t seen this did you install this, what is it, explain to me how it works.  And them being interested to the point of asking me how it worked, because they didn’t know, allowed them to be a little more comfortable with what I was doing.  They were like, oh yeah, he’s talking to his friends that he knows, and he’s not talking to somebody somewhere else that he doesn’t know that he’s going to get in trouble with.  So my parents learned enough that they were satisfied that I was still safe in what I was doing.  But when us, the digital natives, are parents, that problem becomes a little less of a problem.  When we already know what’s going on and we’re, I don’t want to say teaching our kids - - I don’t want to be that cocky but when we understand what’s up the safety thing will hopefully get a lot better.  And we’ll have kind of the street sense of what’s going on and what’s looking a little fishy.

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DOREEN BLOCH:  Even though, wait, Brianna you’ve used Orkut before, right?

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  Yes, yes.

DOREEN BLOCH:  I’m kind of interested in hearing about that, I hear it’s like invitation only.  So, I guess I’m not cool enough.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  Yeah it is.  In order to join Orkut you have to be invited by someone whose already a member of Orkut.  So, I guess it’s a viral marketing at its best. 

DOREEN BLOCK:  Okay.

BRIANNA SATINOFF:  But, once I actually joined I wasn’t too impressed by it.  I thought it was just like 360 and MySpace and just basically like no - - it didn’t really have anything like innovative.

RICHARD CROWLEY:  Orkut started as a 20% project at Google, so it’s never been like a real focus of theirs.  But I hear, and I hope I’m not just making this up, that it’s got a very robust user base in India.

PHIL FREO:  Yeah, I think in the other countries it’s more popular.  Like you use the ones here that are popular here but in other countries the ones - - they aren’t the same ones that are popular here.

DOREEN BLOCH: Okay, so once again my name is Doreen Bloch and so thank you very much for the six of you guys joining me to talk about social networking.  Again, we are all interns at Yahoo! and so it’s great to hear the insight.  Thank you very much.