Lurking Quotes

“Librarians are what the internet is aching for—people on task to care about the past, with respect to the past and also to what it shall bequeath to the future.”
― Joanne McNeil, Lurking: How a Person Became a User

“By 2009, Pew blogged about another study, under the title, “Blasé about Blogs.” It was death by fatigue and assimilation. “Sorry I Haven’t Posted” became the most common blog-post subject.”
― Joanne McNeil, Lurking: How a Person Became a User

“Then again, Jared Kushner once ordered The New York Observer to create a ranking website called “Socialite Slapdown,” after he bought the newspaper at the age of twenty-five, so perhaps this is the inclination of status-obsessed youth, rather than fodder for the debate over old media versus new.”
― Joanne McNeil, Lurking: How a Person Became a User

“Spyspace was a Myspace tracker that recorded the profiles of people who clicked on your page. All a user had to do was add simple JavaScript code to their profile. There was no indication to the viewers that it was active. The log included the time of visit, IP address, and Myspace avatar of each viewer.”
― Joanne McNeil, Lurking: How a Person Became a User

“Friendster wasn’t direct about how the service facilitated dating, as were websites that were specifically called “dating sites,” like Nerve or Match, but from the jump, people were using it as that, and offline dates continued the ambiguity. Like the ironic way we joined these networks, the dates were abstracted from an agenda. At face value, an offline meetup was hanging out with a potential new friend. But new “friends” tended to be attractive, and the interface further blurred the lines.”
― Joanne McNeil, Lurking: How a Person Became a User

“Community on the internet once seemed like the future, and now there is a past.”
― Joanne McNeil, Lurking: How a Person Became a User