But now, we’re bearing down on September, and that means that SocialCamp 2 is right around the corner. In fact, it’s on Saturday, Sept. 19. That’s only about two weeks away. If you’re already sure you’re coming, there’s no reason for you not to take advantage of one of the best deals you’ll find this fall.

If  you register for SocialCamp before Sept. 8th, you’ll get in the door for a lot less money than you will if you hesitate.

Here’s the deal.

If you’re coming as an individual, for your own benefit, your registration fee is $44.50. Unless you register now. Early Bird registration for individuals is only $39.50.

Save yourself  a few bucks, or go out for coffee on your way in on the 19th – you’ll still come out ahead with Early Bird registration.

And we’re not leaving out our corporate friends, either. If you’re attending as a representative of a company, your Early Bird Corporate Admission is only $49.50 for the full day.  If you hesitate, however, the registration fee is $74.50.

But please, don’t wait. Early registration ends on Sept. 8th. That’s only a week from now. Visit SocialCampMemphis.com to register.

Sometimes we need to step back and deliberately change our point of view when we’re talking about certain social media services, especially ones that announce where you are, like Loopt or Google Latitude.

There are clear and easily understood privacy concerns involved: What if someone you don’t want to know where you are finds your information? What if law enforcement personnel want to know where you are? Why would you want to give Google that kind of information, anyway?

The only answers that come easily to mind are ones concerning that last question – and those don’t offer much solace. Targeted advertising is nice – and if it can get to the point where we see ads for places we’re interested and are nearby, then the value of that advertising – to advertisers and consumers – is drastically increased. But that doesn’t answer any of our questions about privacy.

This is where we need to step back and do a little research, in order to get a better picture of how these systems work.

According to internet freedom and privacy watchdogs, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, both Google Latitude and Loopt adhere to strict privacy guidelines, which limit the circumstances under which law enforcement can access the information given by users. Their policies, again according to the EFF, both sum up to “come back when you have a warrant.”

Moreover, neither Google Latitude nor Loopt keep a history of users’ locations. Each time you post where you are, the services will overwrite your previous location with your current location.

It’s less of a real-time tracking service than a twitter-like quick blast of information, which may not have been updated even in a week or two. Which is why you shouldn’t be surprised if one of your Latitude friends has been at Walgreens for a month.

Both services make sure that they stay permission-based. If you want or need to turn it off at any time, it’s easy enough to do that. They won’t post your information unless you give permission.

That permission goes pretty far. Much like Facebook’s privacy settings, Loopt and Latitude both allow you to decide who gets to see what information, and to which extent – if you want to limit it to the city, so other users can’t see the address, you can.

Ultimately, much like any social network, it’s important for you as a user to decide which information you’re comfortable sharing. Google Latitude and Loopt give more specific information about where you are than do other networks, but remember, they only give it out when you offer it up.

Neither Google Latitude nor Loopt seem wont to use your information for evil. Still, the best advice for retaining your privacy while using location services is not dissimilar from advice your mother may have given you: Don’t tell them anything you don’t want them to know.

Being a gathering without an agenda, June’s Twilight Camp provided a great opportunity to learn of more regularly-scheduled agenda-free gatherings.  A couple that were mentioned include the weekly Mercury Tech Coffee meeting, which happens Mondays at 7:30 am at Republic Coffee on Walnut Grove; and the First Thursdays meeting of the Sierra Club, which takes place each month at Otherlands Coffee Bar on Cooper Street in Midtown, from 5-7:30 pm.

We also talked about how consumers are gaining more and more social equity with service providers. Though businesses like Google and Facebook keep adding features to their social networks, they aren’t forcing anyone to use the new features.

It’s increasingly all about choice now. With growing frequency, when new features are added to a service, it’s up to the user whether or not they get used. The user’s power is so great that networks would rather wait for the right customer to begin using a new tool than risk turning anyone off.

This is one of the reasons why our discussion also found itself mentioning the idea of an Early Adopter tax credit – the people who jump into new services, tools, and devices frequently pay a premium for the opportunity to figure out how best to use things (like the new iPhone, the Palm Pre, or even netbooks).

One interesting point we drug up while talking about that is whether early adopters are being productive, or whether they’re really being progressive.

Both “productive” and “progressive” seem like – and are – positive adjectives, but there are subtleties there that have really nothing to do with anyone’s political views. “Progressive,” in this case, can be equated with “experimental.” If early adopters are being progressive, they’re experimenting with a new device or new software, trying to figure out how to be productive with them.

Those who wish to be “productive” will eye these technological progressives for new ideas, techniques, and uses. Without the progressives, we would likely not know how to be productive. It seems that the proper term for those of us who wait for those instructions would be “pragmatic.”

There was also interesting discussion of Google Latitude and social currency. There’s more room in those topics than it would be fruitful to discuss here, so keep your eyes peeled for a couple posts here later this week.

Again, a hearty thanks to Arts Memphis for their magnificent hospitality.

It’s always great to see who all will gather together, early on a Wednesday morning, and make their way to the Social Media Expedition Breakfast.

Wednesday morning, April 1st, found the breakfast at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis. After some opening remarks from Social Media Expedition’s Dave Barger, The mic was handed over to Kris Markman, Ph.D., from the University of Memphis, for her presentation, "A Species Driven to Connect."

Dr. Markman’s presentation focused on how society functions with technology. She kicked off her discussion with the idea that social technologies are nothing new. Though they use new tools to cover greater distances faster, essentially, it all sums up to basic communication – Facebook, even as it nears ubiquity, is just a fancy version of cave painting.

Humans, she continued, simply need other humans for survival.

So we communicate as we always have, and we find brand new ways to do it. One pattern Dr. Markman has noticed is that society is beginning to stratify based on those who can more readily adapt to new modes of communication.

This doesn’t say anything about skills or age, necessarily – Markman noted some Pew Internet and American Life numbers that show that economic and social conditions also affect how quickly people adopt new technologies.

Interestingly, these new divisions don’t necessarily fall along the same (age-based) lines we might expect.

For example, podcasting is more common among the Generation X set, even though they aren’t as involved with things like Facebook or Massively Multiplayer Games, that you might find to be common in younger demographics.

Essentially, what Markman seems to be saying is that what makes online communications so interesting is that it’s so difficult to pin down the demographics of it in a general sense, because the information skews from example to example.

After the presentation, we broke into smaller group discussions, including topics such as blogging, Facebook for business, and Twitter. There was even some demand for information about Yahoo! Pipes – if you’ve got an interest in or knowledge of Yahoo! Pipes, please, by all means, join us for the next Social Media Expedition Breakfast, the first Wednesday of May.

.

The post "A Species, Connecting" by lunaweb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.