Michael Jones, (Dept. of Communications, Cornell University)
There are over 28 million users of the free e-mail service HotMail. I was six of them. One version of me was created to facilitate mobility (HotMail allows a user to check e-mail from any Web-capable computer), three mes were created test out the system (I forgot the passwords and had to start again), and two of me facilitate anonymous communication in situations where I would rather not immediately divulge my real identity and location (e.g., on-line auctions, chat rooms, bulletin boards). Today, I am proud to announce a new arrival -- the seventh iteration of myself, mult_personality@hotmail.com. Version 7.0 was created as an academic construct designed to ask questions that Microsoft would prefer to remain unasked.
On December 31, 1997, Microsoft purchased HotMail for $400 million. Given Microsoft's track record in the information technology industry, one can safely assume that this substantial sum was not designed as a donation to keep this intriguing progenitor of virtual identities afloat. Microsoft was interested in catching an audience for potential advertisers - both on the HotMail site and Microsoft's own MSN.com portal, where HotMail users are transported when they log off. Microsoft advertising rates are $15-$30 per 1000 impressions, a range dependent on advertisers' willingness to target particular age groups, countries and/or genders.
This rate scale is similar in kind to that in other advertising markets. However, HotMail is not your average advertising market. If a potential advertiser is convinced to purchase ad space based on a potential audience of 28 million users, it may not matter much if I am seven of those 28 million -- but it may make a great deal of difference if I am not alone in my affinity to collect on-line persona. If a firm is interested in targeting American women aged 18-25, it might interest that firm to know that I am not only that, but a 59 year old male from France. Similarly, it would be quite relevant if many of those 28 million are, like two of me, virtually locked out due to losing our password keys. This project raises these questions in an effort to find out how many of us are really out there, how well our virtual persona correlate to our actual person, and whether discrepancies between real money and virtual persona have any real influence on the economics of sustainable on-line communities.
Tarleton Gillespie, (Dept. of Communications, University of California at San Diego)
I have been studying some of the popular consumer grade HTML editors, examining them as cultural artifacts that facilitate and organize our interaction with digital media. The question of identity has been crucial, although in somewhat different terms than in the literature about on-line communication. These new digital tools contain an array of presumptions about the identity of their users that shape the possible interactions with the software. These discursive and cultural artifacts, situated at the boundary of old and new discourses about technology and communication, negotiate old and new notions of identity.
Of particular interest is the play of metaphors embedded within these interfaces -- metaphors that attempt to narrate use of the software, characterizing web design in ways that intend to facilitate that activity, but also mapping out the identities available in digital media. Notions of identity and authorship are contested symbolically in the interface design and the supporting materials. The recent generations of HTML editors also demonstrate the tendency of commercial interests to organize and contain identity, so as to bind it to consumer interests.
This set of research questions tempers a misguided enthusiasm about the seemingly unfettered exploration of identity on-line, where technology is characterized as some holy grail of egalitarianism and transcendence. But it does so without dismissing the possibility that something is afoot here. This set of digital artifacts allows consideration of the way technological discourses, and discourses surrounding technologies, articulate competing notions of identity and handles conflicting concerns for innovation and tradition.
Julian Kilker, (Dept. of Communications, Cornell University)
While "user-centered" design encourages technology developers to gather empirical data from actual users, this goal is difficult to meet during the crucial early stages of a technology because of proprietary concerns, representative users not being available, or prototypes being too sketchy or too innovative to adequately evaluate. In these cases, I argue that developers initially resort to vague notions of themselves as the ideal users of the technology; alternately opening and closing the technology's black box as they shift between developer and user identities.
The development of the ARPANET electronic mail is an excellent example of identity shifting; not only was negotiating among heterogeneous technological and social networks the major challenge in its development, but a wide range of identity labels had already been established by experiences with earlier computing technologies; these identities described varieties of developers (implementers, hackers, and wizards) and users, including naive users, real users, future users, and lusers (a "user who is a loser"). The ARPANET case suggests that when developers realize their own user identities are not representative, they use information seeking strategies to extend their repertoire of identities. During this process, developers create hybrid user/developer identities which result in iterative perceptions of the technology. The concept of social identity shifting is particularly useful for examining representation of users due to porous boundaries between developer and user identities, user stereotypes and social identity hierarchies, and changing notions of the technology as user identities are reconstructed during the technology's early development.
Go back to Technology & Identity Conference
Last Update: February 1, 1999
"mult_personality@hotmail.com: The Strange Confluence of Virtual Identity and Real Money"
"Cognition, Metaphor, and Authorship in the Interface"
"Users, 'Lusers,' and Wizards: Shifting Social Identities in the Development of Networked E-Mail"