The E-Slambook Experiment

By: Laureen Toiba

Computers and Creativity

10/6/09

Concept

• A slambook is a fad that occurred in the late 90’s. It was basically a notebook filled with questions that was passed around by one person to see how his or her (usually her) friends would respond. It was an opportunity for people to get to know eachother better.

• I created an online version of a slambook to see if it could eventually turn into a new form of social networking. I posted new questions every few days. My goal was for people to make connections based on their answers.

Precedents…Other projects and works that are similar to mine include:

• The Slambook

• Facebook, MySpace, etc.

• Online quizzes

Methodology…

• To complete this experiment I created the “slambook” in a blog format so that participants could comment and view other people’s comments.

• www.e-slambook.blogspot.com• To get the word out, I mainly used

facebook. I sent out messages to many of my friends and posted the link publicly so that it would show up on news feeds.

Results…

• As much as I would have loved to make connections and learn about new people, unfortunately many people don’t share my interests.

• My e-slambook project was not as popular as I would have liked for it to be. Most questions only had 1 or 2 replies, while some had none.

Conclusion…

• I would very much like to continue with this experiment despite the lack of response thus far.

• I feel that if I find more ways to promote this experiment, the idea will catch on and more people will be interesting.

• My personal next step will be to use different social technologies to spread the word.

• If you’re interested in meeting people based on common answers to interesting questions feel free to check out the blog and share your answers!