Switching from nouns to verbs make so much sense. New technology "things" tend to have multiple impact in varying ways.

We are still in a beginning time when there will be rapid changes. I don't know if things will ever stabilize, and perhaps they won't. Instead of thinking specifically about social media the bigger question is what does constant change mean for us, and the question is framed very well by your post, Chris. I do not find the rapid changes disconcerting. I generally view them as a net positive, because so far the stuff keeps getting better - at least in their usefulness. The wider ramifications for these things actually being more useful could be debated. Is there security in systems being less useful? Yes, in the same way that less changes can be more secure and comforting.

Facebook is a virtual place for people to gather, talk, and be seen. There are many commerical and non-commerical places like this in the physical world. There are commericial and non-commerical places in the virtual world. I am not too worried. Yet.

Is it really an issue of privacy as much of one of trust? We have conversations over telephone, send letters via post, make purchases with credit cards. All this data is out there already. We might have some level of trust with the companies that are stewarding all this data. Legistation is applicable, but the web world is still moving too fast to keep up. And yes, none of us knows where it will go in the end.

I really like the idea of staying in the mindset of extended pilots. Like imply above, it is too easy to get paralyzed looking for tools that can meet everyone's requirements, give us the modern features users expect, and be supported at a large university scale. I think part of the equation is cultural. How do we accept, prepare for, and come to expect change.

This is a test comment. Just seeing if everything is hooked up correctly.

test

Is the ad issue a theoretical question, or are there actually ads on intensedebate? Perhaps I have gone so online ad blind I can not even see them.

whoomp, there it is.

We need to get a decent thread going here so we can try the voting feature in action and observe.

Bart,

you can use intense debate to add comments to any page with an embed code. All I did here was paste a snippet.

As to students not commenting. I hear that comments don't get graded because it would be too hard for instructors to follow all the comment threads. In a horizontal model, it would be easier (at least in theory) to see all the contributions a student made whether they be posts or comments.

This also gives students some stake in ownership of their own comments. The comments become more readily attached to their digital identity.

http://www.seesmic.com/video/N7cWEYptCw

This is a nice comment.