Redes sociales: ¿De quién es la cuenta de Twitter?

¿Quién es el dueño de una cuenta de Twitter?

Noah Writz trabajó en Phonedog , una compañía de comercio electrónico que vende celulares, por cuatro años hasta que renunció en octubre de 2010. Mientras trabajaba allí Writz creó una cuenta de twitter @phonedog_noah . El problema fue cuando renunció. De acuerdo a Writz, el y Phonedog acordaron, de palabra, que Writz podría seguir usando esa cuenta de Twitter siempre que, de vez en cuando,  ”tuitiara” a favor de la empresa.  Phonedog, por su lado, acababa de demandarlo  y exige daños de U$S2,50 por mes y por cada seguidor del Sr. Writz, lo que totaliza la suma de U$S340.000 (la cuenta tenía unos 17.000 seguidores). Para la empresa, el Sr. Writz se apropió de información confidencial, de un listado de clientes (los seguidores de la cuenta) y violó sus derechos marcarios y de propiedad intelectual. Hoy la cuenta @phonedog_noah  está cerrada y el Sr. Writz “tuitea” desde @noahkravitz , a donde transfirió los 17.000 seguidores de la primera cuenta. Lo curioso es que al Sr. Writz hoy no lo siguen 17.000 usuarios sino 24.000, seguramente debido a la atención mediática que recibió el juicio.

Pero este no es el único caso.  También en EEUU, un joven, menor de edad, llamado Adorian Deck creó hace un tiempo una cuenta de Twitter  @OMGFacts , dedicada a la divulgación de información de famosos y otros datos de la cultura popular. La cuenta se hizo tan popular que Adorian fue contactado por una firma, Sparks Inc, con la que firmó un contrato para la explotación de esa cuenta de Twitter, y de un canal de Youtube. Por medio de este acuerdo (que puede leerse aquí ), Adorian cedió todos sus derechos de propiedad intelectual existentes al momento del acuerdo y futuros a cambio de un porcentaje de los ingresos de la explotación del canal de Youtube, más adicionales no monetarios. Adorian dice haber ganado solo 100 dólares gracias a este acuerdo. La cuenta de Twitter tiene hoy más de tres millones de seguidores. Su madre -el era menor- inició una demanda  contra Spark, para rescindir el contrato y reclamar los daños y perjuicios.

El valor de las redes sociales

Tener seguidores, en cualquier red social, puede ser un muy buen negocio. Por ejemplo, Juan Pablo Varsky factura alrededor de $50.000 mensuales  a través de su cuenta @VarskySports , que tiene más de 150.000 seguidores. Y hoy ya es común en Argentina que las empresas busquen “tuiteros” influyentes para ayudarles a promocionar sus productos y servicios. Es claro que la cuenta de una persona como Jorge Rial , que tiene casi 1.2 millones de seguidores, tiene un alto valor económico. La pregunta es ¿Quién es el dueño de una cuenta de Twitter y de sus seguidores? Esto es ¿La cuenta y los seguidores son de la empresa o del tercero, empleado o no, contratado para “tuitear?  No es un tema menor, por ejemplo, en Inglaterra la periodista de la BBC, Laura Kuenssberg (tuiteaba desde la cuenta @BBCLauraK) se mudó  a ITV News y se llevó también su cuenta que pasó a llamarse @ITVLauraK . Con ella se fueron casi 60.000 seguidores.

De todos modos, la pregunta de quien es el dueño de una cuenta de Twitter y de sus seguidores no tiene una respuesta fácil en Argentina. En los dos casos citados al comienzo, los abogados quisieron encuadrar la cuestión en un reclamo por infracción de la ley de propiedad intelectual  y del deber de confidencialidad . Me parece que ninguna de las dos leyes que versan sobre estos temas en Argentina, aplican a una disputa por un listado de seguidores. No aplica la ley de propiedad intelectual, porque un listado de seguidores carece de originalidad. Pero tampoco aplica el deber de confidencialidad porque los listados de seguidores son información pública, a la que cualquiera puede acceder. En el caso del nombre de la cuenta en sí, puede aplicar, a favor del “tuitero”, la ley del nombre  si la cuenta está identificada con su nombre y, a favor de la empresa, la ley de marcas , si la cuenta utiliza alguna de su propiedad.

Recomendaciones

Por supuesto, la solución está en un contrato. Si dos o más personas se asocian para explotar una cuenta de Twitter o una contrata a otra para ello (aunque sea solo parte de sus labores), tiene que haber un contrato que dilucide quien es el dueño de la cuenta, su clave y sus seguidores. Lo de la clave viene  a cuento porque si por contrato se acordó que está fuera calificada de información confidencial puede que si aplique la ley que regula está materia (N° 24.766).

Imagino que el contrato de una empresa que contrata a alguien para “tuitiar” debería 1) Aclarar que el nombre, la clave y el listado de seguidores pertenecen a  la empresa 2) Que la empresa tendrá siempre acceso a la clave y que está no podrá ser usada o divulgada sin autorización de la empresa 3) Que en caso de resolución del contrato, cualquiera sea la causa, el empleado dejará de tuitear y se abstendrá de usar la cuenta de cualquier manera.

El empleado, o contratado, generalmente tiene una posición más débil pero debería negociar, por lo menos, que en caso de resolución la empresa deje de asociar su nombre a la cuenta. De hecho, una empresa bien haría en prever ella misma esto en el contrato para evitar conflictos. Tampoco usaría solo el nombre del empleado o contratado (es común en Twitter usar una combinación del nombre del “tuitero” y de la empresa en estos casos).

Entremedios.org

Redes sociales: La importancia del trato personal

Why In-Person Socializing Is A Mandatory To-Do Item

BY KEVIN PURDYSun Dec 11, 2011

We are genetically oriented toward learning from others, an easy thing to forget these days. Here's why in-person socializing is so important, and efficient.

I’m a 30-year-old writer who works from home and thrives on the neat things you can do with technology. I’ve written books about smartphones and online social networks, and I’m reading things all day. But perhaps the most idea-generating part of my workweek is attending a knitting circle. I’m pretty sure at least a half-dozen other web professionals feel the same way, and you might as well.

Not a traditional knitting circle , mind you, but it’s the same kind of idea. Every week, I carve time out of a weekday morning to meet up with a semi-regular crew of guys about my age. Three are programmers, two (including me) are writers, two are entrepreneurs with hard-to-explain revenue streams, and one is a designer. We show up with links and articles we’ve found interesting, projects and ideas we’re turning over and trying out, and stories our wives are sick of hearing about. We have a Google Group, a Skype chat room, and we all use Twitter, but those morning sessions are what we’re really about.

Left to our base instincts, we'd all probably spend that scheduled time, like most of our time, in front of a screen. But by forcing ourselves to meet up and talk, even if there’s no particular label or mission statement to it, we get vital exposure to the kinds of benefits that salespeople, network-savvy executives, and other people we usually try to avoid are seeking out. I’ve picked up paying work, traded contacts, sparked story ideas, and solved tech problems at those get-togethers. And I get much-needed practice at hearing others out, arguing my beliefs, and plain old face-to-face socializing.

That’s just dandy for me. But why should you start making regular, dedicated socializing a part of your schedule, and even tell the boss (possibly yourself) that it’s worth it? Here’s why you should get a group together, or just make it a point to walk around the office.

You need a real Third Place

The Third Place  is a concept of Ray Oldenburg, urban sociologist and author of The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community . The First Place is your home, and the Second Place is your office. You have assigned roles and tasks at each place, and you know nearly all the people in each. The Third Place is where you meet with people you don’t know that well, or maybe at all, and you exchange ideas, learn about other people, and, as Oldenburg sees it, enrich society and yourself.

Oldenburg published his major books on the Third Place in 1999 and 2002. Since then, the Second Place has changed quite a bit for some workers, so that it blends over into their home space, and even follows them through their phones into the traditional public interaction spaces. Your challenge, then, is to find a way to block out time where you’re not at home, you’re not at a screen, and you’re not seeing your family or best friends. You’re very consciously being social just to be social, and probably arriving back at your First or Second places a good bit happier.

You need to argue your ideas more

As much fun as 10-person, 20-message email roundtables about the proper name for the new project can be, there’s a lot of context, personality, and creativity lost when you don’t argue things out in person--respectfully, but with an audience, however small, to persuade. Just ask the guy who helps design software hosting giant GitHub. In a post on product design, Kyle Neath makes the case for arguing (and designing) in person .

… It’s not personal--it’s about making our product better. If you’re not forced to rationalize your product choices, who’s to say you’re making good decisions? Arguing with your co-workers isn’t a bad thing. It’s not creating a negative work environment--it’s a tool to help you make good decisions. Being an empty cheerleader and telling everyone that their idea is great is harmful and short-sighted. Argue and make good decisions.

Neath is talking about coworkers, but he’s also an advocate for hosting as many in-person meetups for GitHub customers as possible. And arguing out your case for a good idea (or shooting down a bad one) with your social group can be a great proving ground for doing it at the office.

You’ll do better work

Isaac Kohane, a Harvard Medical School researcher, studied over 35,000 peer-reviewed papers and mapped the locations of all their authors. The best studies, those that attracted the most citations from other published papers, were done by those who worked within 30 feet of one another. Jonah Lehrer wrote in the Wall Street Journal (and at Wired ) about the Kohane study, and other research showing that, despite the regular assumption that online social networks would replace in-person experiences, business travel, conference attendance, and downtown city office space rentals have gone nowhere--in fact, they’ve mostly increased.

For years now, we’ve been searching for a technological cure for the inefficiencies of offline interaction. It would be so convenient, after all, if we didn’t have to travel to conferences or commute to the office or meet up with friends. But those inefficiencies are necessary. We can’t fix them because they aren’t broken.

In other words, humans have evolved over many, many years to be very efficient at working with, arguing with, and talking over ideas and pursuits with people, face-to-face. Social networking tools and remote technology is nowhere near as efficient (yet). So grab your calendar and add "Talk to humans" to this week's task list.

[Image: Flickr user hellobo ]

Fast Company

Las redes sociales afectan poco a los gustos

Harvard Study: Social Networks Do Little To Influence Taste And Interests

DEVINCOLDEWEY

Here’s a bit of science that’s contrary to what a heavy utilizer of social networks might expect.Researchers at Harvard  tracked the Facebook activity of hundreds of college students for four years, and came away with the rather unexpected result that the interests of friends don’t, in fact, tend to influence one another. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen at all, of course, but it’s clear that propagation and virality are subtler and more complex than some people (marketers and, I suspect, researchers) tend to think they are.

But the study is also clearly flawed in ways that those versed in social graphs are likely to easily perceive. Pulling useful data from social networks is like catching lightning in a bottle, and I wonder whether the findings may in fact be, as the study attempts to avoid, “a spurious consequence of alternative social processes.”

The central source of data for the study, in fact, doesn’t strike me as solid. Tracking the interests of college kids is a sketchy endeavor in and of itself, but tracking it via their Facebook favorites (i.e. what shows on your profile, not what you post about or share) seems unreliable.

After all, not only does everyone use the network in their own way, but the network itself has changed. Putting Wilco in your favorites is a different act from liking Wilco’s Facebook page, their official band site, or posting their latest video. Gauging someone’s interest in a movie or band by the favorites factor alone is inadequate. Their findings are essentially that taste doesn’t diffuse the way you might expect. But while the data support this, nothing supports the data.

Flattening huge sets of data and removing potentially conflative or distracting connections (“disentangling,” to use the researchers’ well-chosen word) is the bane of social research, and with a limited window on a huge field of data, like that these researchers had, it’s especially hard.

Who among these people was a supernode? What were their Twitter counts? What was the most common unit of interest? How many total posts, how many total favorite changes, how many total friends? The process of disentanglement only gets harder and harder, and the amount of indispensable data grows. The researchers have used advanced statistical techniques, but the data they were interpreting doesn’t seem to be at all complete.

The study does establish something that I think we perhaps understand is true already: you befriend people because of your overlaps in taste, but it’s rare that your existing friends change the tastes you already have. This is as much true out in the “real” world as it is online.

It seems to me that taste doesn’t propagate because taste is rarely propagated to begin with. And on Facebook, the focus is not on the laying up of collections (increasingly all anyone even sees is news, not favorites), the collaborative appreciation of any item or media in particular (for the most part, your “likes” disappear into a vast ocean of other likes), or the influencing of others (there are supernodes and influencers, but Facebook isn’t the proper tool for the job).

What propagates is individual items, events, songs, virals, and so on. To even collect, categorize, and weigh these collected items would not be to guarantee a meaningful result, since, as has been observed of the river, you never step into the same social stream twice. The status updates and comments of years past don’t strike me as a window into the soul of the user today. I have no doubt that some clever data divers and social archaeologists will find a way to make this data useful and powerful, but I don’t envy their task.

The Harvard study does indicate another thing, which is that social networks are, for now, “light” social interaction. Breaking into a new genre of music, discovering a new favorite director, getting book recommendations, these things don’t occur nearly as much on social networks as their proponents and heavy users would like to think. That’s changing, but Facebook doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to make the change to “serious” social interaction: the kind of trusted exchanges you have with friends in conversation or in repeated encounters over years that slowly convert you into a fan of David Lynch, or Scarlatti, or David Foster Wallace. Those are still the province of real life, it seems, even among the Facebook generation. But for how long?

TechCrunch