assignment |
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1. Read the papers. Camerer looks at how
personal gifts function as signals about relationship
status; Glazer and Konrad look at public gifts as
signals of status; Bergquist and Ljungberg look at the
function of "gifts" in open source
communities.
2. Answer the following questions:
- Using Camerer's writing as a foundation, describe
the possible effects of public wish-lists on the
signaling function of gifts.
- Some of the problems in online dating sites
include: people not knowing how others perceive them, not
being able to sense "status" within the
group (and thus not knowing who would be a reasonably
likely match), deceptive self-presentation and lack of
courtesy. Would instituting a culture of gift giving
within the site help any of these problems (or
others)?
If so, how and why would gifts help? How would you implement it? What would the
disadvatages be?
- Facebook has a "gift" feature. What is the function of these
gifts? Is their cost important? The first month that
gifts were implemented the money went to charity;
since then, it has gone to Facebook. What is the
significance of where the money goes in terms of
gifting? (you may want
to read the blog entries by Fred Stutzman and danah boyd in addition to looking at the site itself).
- Gifts often have a special
presentation - the prototypical gift is wrapped and
be-ribboned. What purpose does the wrapping serve?
Is there a virtual equivalent? The "gifts"
that Bergquist and Ljungberg describes are not
specially demarcated as gifts - do you think that they
are, indeed, gifts? Would clearly designating them as
gifts change their function? How? How would you go
about doing that?
Please link
your essays by Monday midday.
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