Digital ethnography

‘Send us all the invite on Facebook’.

‘I’m going into withdrawal. I haven’t looked at the camera blogs in over a week.’

‘This is a Blackberry office. Just Ping him.’

‘I so don’t want to friend her. I guess I’ll accept but I’ll just switch on all the privacy settings.’

Society has been digitized – that’s no surprise to anyone. The sky is blue, and the internet has changed our lives. But what people don’t realize as often, what hasn’t sunk into our collective consciousness, is how the rules of online communities differ from those of physical communities – and exactly how extensive and deep-rooted the cultural framework of each community is.

Many of today’s people spend six, eight, ten, twelve hours per day, sometimes over half their day, interacting in online communities. That’s not even taking into account the multi-taskers who spend their waking minutes living in the ‘real’ world while simultaneously existing, conversing, participating in a handful of digital cultures. If you add up a multi-tasker’s daily hours in online communities, it might be more than 24 hours per day – more time than spent in the ‘real’ world.

Each online community – from a group of friends on a social network, to a circle of professionals who inhabit their own specialized region of the blogosphere, to the citizens of an industry forum – possesses their own customs, their own rules, their own politics, their own communication methods and etiquette.

First, just think about cultural essence that comes to mind when you envision different kinds of communities. The narcissism of Myspace. The reciprocal altruism of a programmers forum. The not-so-subtle courting rituals of Adult Friend Finder versus the soulful outreaches on eHarmony.

But then go deeper. How does the narcissism manifest itself? Why? To whom? When? Certainly you don’t find shirtless men flexing in towels at every reflective surface on a city street. Nor do you find women walking at such an awkward angle that every onlooker can see down their shirt. Not many people want to have 2,387 friends in real life. And ghetto blasters are a blip in the past – do two-thirds of the people you see in daily life force you to listen to their personal taste in music at every encounter?

The reasons why behaviour of an online community manifests itself the way it does are just as substantial as the underpinnings of behaviour for an offline community. Because of this depth of cultural development and organization within online communities, the implications of digital ethnography for commerce stand tremendous. We’ve all heard about some of the grand marketing failures of the past when companies branch into a new culture. Just as much care and background research and localization strategy needs to take place when you branch into an online community. You can’t throw your print ads onto Facebook, just as you can’t throw your Hong Kong marketing strategy onto a French market.

The emergence of digital ethnographers such as Michael Wesch and danah boyd (yes, she writes her name uncapitalized as some kind of digi-political statement) shows how seriously academics are now taking digital culture. In fact, some of them already have a decade of specialization in the subject under their belt. And now, technology companies are also piling onto the train and incorporating ethnographic research as a vital component of their working process. For just a few brief examples, see this cnn.com article that touches on the efforts of Microsoft and Nokia.

The tech companies may be early adopters, but online communities affect every product. If other industries don’t follow suite, they may soon find themselves with a Chevy No Va on their hands.

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