My presentation at #unlikeus in Cyprus

Robert W. Gehl
UPDATE: Here’s a video of my talk:

Unlike Us #1 Real (software) abstractions:on the rise of Facebook and the fall of Myspace – Robert Gehl from network cultures on Vimeo.

On November 23, I will present some of my research at the 1st Unlike Us conference at the Cyprus University of Technology. I’m very excited about this, particularly because many of the proposed presentations look fascinating. For example, I look forward to Vasilis Kostakis’s discussion of proprietary versus commons-based production and Marc Stumpel’s discussion of FB Resistance project. More projects are being posted to the site – something tells me they will be compelling, as well.

My talk will be “Real (software) abstractions: on the rise of Facebook and the fall of MySpace.”[PDF] This paper will appear some time next year in Social Text. Here’s the abstract:

How did Facebook become the social media monopoly it is? Although there are many factors determining Facebook’s dominance of social networking, one answer to this question lies in the ways in which Facebook overcame its former rival MySpace. This paper argues that the failure of MySpace and the rise of Facebook in the social networking site market is due in part to the degrees in which either site associates users, technology, and marketers into a successful “real software abstraction.” Real software abstraction is a synthesis of the software engineering concept of abstraction and the Marxian political economic concept of the real abstraction. This concept is used to examine MySpace and Facebook at the levels of aesthetics, code, culture, and appeal to marketers. I argue that instead of creating an architecture of abstraction in which users’ affect and content were easily reduced to marketer-friendly data sets, MySpace allowed users to create a cacophony of “pimped” profiles that undermined efforts to monetize user-generated content. In contrast, Facebook has proven to be extremely efficient at reducing users to commodifiable data sets within a muted, bland interface that does not detract from marketing efforts. In sum, Facebook’s architecture and culture is one that (from the perspective of new media capitalism) properly disciplines the user-laborers who contribute content, even while it allows users just enough autonomy to keep coming back.