Last practicum post!

After participating on JDate for a semester and looking around at other sites aimed towards Jewish people, I definitely have a greater understanding of why distinct groups of Internet users come together on community web sites. Making up only 0.2% of the world’s population, it is easy to see why there is such a strong emphasis on outreach and connecting with other Jews online. JDate's stated mission is "to strengthen the Jewish community and ensure that Jewish traditions are sustained for generations to come." I think it accomplishes this by providing a global network of hundreds of thousands of Jews where they can easily find friends and/or romance within their faith.

I have to say that my time on JDate has been very successful in that I have spoken to many different people that I would not have gotten the chance to otherwise. I have instant messaged with 22 people, been “flirted” with 10 times, favorited 11 times, emailed 8 times, messaged 46 times, and have 143 profile views!

While I wouldn’t say that I am ready to meet up in person with any of the people I have chatted with, I do appreciate the conversations we have had and enjoyed getting to know different Jews from all over the US and world.

Practicum Post 6

When I first started using JDate, I thought that talking to random people I had never met before would be really awkward and was hesitant about signing up for an account. While I still find some aspects to be pretty creepy (like guys old enough to be my dad consistently instant messaging and emailing me), I do think that the website has some pretty cool features. One of my favorites is the “Kibitz Corner,” where members answer silly questions like “What was your favorite sitcom growing up?” and “What game show have you always wanted to be on?” When you respond to a question, your answer gets posted to your profile and they can spark a conversation or serve as an icebreaker when talking to someone. I have had in depth conversations with a few people about the merits of my favorite sitcom, Friends, and how I always wanted to be a contestant on The Price is Right so I could hang with Bob Barker. I find these little trivia questions to be a fun change of pace from the typical “what are you studying” and “what’s your favorite sports team” questions that I get all the time.

I also like that every time I go to my homepage on JDate, a list of my matches pops up. The people I’m matched with tend to be from Wisconsin or New Jersey (my home state) and in their 20’s so we definitely do have some things in common. I have even seen a bunch of people from Madison who are right around my age but I’ve been too nervous to initiate a conversation with them and don’t exactly want people to know that I’m a registered JDate user (ha shhh).

After using JDate for a few months, I can’t get past how superficial it all feels. Even though I know people are looking for good conversation and maybe even a potential date, I know that the first thing they look at are your pictures. I can’t help but feel that people place more importance on what you look like rather than the information you list about yourself. I have found that people are not shy about complimenting your appearance right off the bat. While this is flattering at times, it can also be pretty uncomfortable when it’s the first thing said.

I’ll admit that I can be pretty shallow right back. A huge pet peeve of mine is when people misspell words on purpose or use terrible grammar. A 30 year old guy who spells cool as “kool” is immediately not cool in my mind and it brings me back to my middle school days of talking on AOL Instant Messenger for hours at a time.

Practicum Post 5

Since the last time I posted about JDate, I have instant messaged with many more people and I’ve realized a few things. The first thing I’ve noticed is that guys always revert to talking about sports. Now don’t get me wrong, I can talk about Badger sports no problem but hearing about the game they’re watching at that moment is not all that interesting to me and I will be much more inclined to make up some excuse about why I have to go in order to cut the conversation short. The next thing I noticed is that guys often bring up music and movies and I find this to be a much more neutral and interesting topic. The conversation always seem to go smoothly when talking about favorite movies and bands and then easily flows into movies and concerts that we have seen recently. Even if we have very different tastes, it’s still fun to talk about. A third thing I’ve found is that people are not just looking to talk to people who live in their area. Although I have spoken to people who are from Wisconsin, I have also spoken to people all over the country. It seems like people don’t just use JDate to meet people and go on dates, they are also using the site to simply get to know people and have someone to talk to.

Practicum Presentation (post 4)

Hey everyone,

I’m presenting today with Jared and Liz on how different groups use the Internet in different ways. Rather than just looking at one online community, I’ve explored a few and am now actively participating on two. This is a new experience for me, as I’ve never been a part of an online community before, but it is really interesting to play both the role of observer and participant to get a feel for how Jews are using the Internet to connect with other Jews. Although the Jewish community uses the Internet just like any other person or group, I am definitely noticing a trend towards outreach and connection.

Here’s a question to think about in the meantime:

Do you think it’s particularly important for minority groups to place emphasis on connecting with others within that group?

Practicum Post 3

I did something that I never thought I would ever do – I joined an online dating service. I figure if I am going to perform ethnographic research on Jewish internet users, JDate would be the place to go. JDate was started in 1997, is aimed at Jewish singles, and now has more than 450,000 members. When signing up, along with the typical questions about age and location, they ask you a bunch of questions geared towards Judaism such as how often you attend synagogue, what form of Judaism you affiliate with, whether you adhere to dietary laws, etc. If a member is not Jewish, they ask whether or not they would consider converting to Judaism.

I quickly found out that there are two types of service: free and premium. The premium subscription is about $20 a month so I obviously opted for the free version. I can have a profile, search for members, reply to instant messages, and send “flirts” but I can’t email or start a chat.

Similarly to Facebook, JDate has notifications that let you know when someone has viewed your profile, IM’d you, or sent you a flirt.

Something that is really frustrating is the lack of email capability on the free version. I have gotten multiple alerts from JDate letting me know that “NittanyLion,” “CatchNJ,” “MD_Miami” and more have sent me a message but I cannot read them or send any back. I guess I will have to resort to Instant Messaging in order to participate more.

(Sorry for the backlog in posts!)

Practicum Post 2

I continued my search and found a really interesting website called Shabbat.com with the tagline “Helping people find their Challah.” The idea behind this site is to give people the chance to either experience their first Shabbat or celebrate with a host family when they don’t have anywhere to celebrate.

Families who want to host set up a profile page with their basic information, family pictures, and a description of what it’s like to spend Shabbat with their family. Guests also fill out a profile page so that the host can get acquainted with the potential guest. I filled out a page so that I could get a better feel for the site and how it works. At first I was a little surprised that hosts let random people into their homes and that guests willingly go to random homes but each page has a guest book, which allows people to leave feedback on their experiences. Also, guests have to fill out two references so that the host will feel more comfortable inviting people into their home.

The site is actually really cool.. I can search pages by country, state, and city and find hosts within the area who I can participate with:

I can also connect with other Jewish friends who have made a profile on Shabbat.com and see where they are in relation to me. Here is a map of my friends in the Madison area who are also on the site:

Hopefully by the end of the semester I'll have more than 6 friends on here...

For my practicum, I was assigned minority groups and I decided that the group I would explore is the Jewish community. To start off, I simply typed “Jewish online community” into Google and had over 8 million hits. It seems like every city has some sort of website that provides information about Jewish events in the area, holidays coming up, and a way to get into contact with other Jews nearby. I narrowed down my search by adding Madison and the Jewish Federation of Madison (http://www.jewishmadison.org/) immediately popped up. After clicking through the website, I found that the Madison chapter of the Jewish Federations of North America helps support more than 20 local programs, including the UW-Madison Hillel. The site provides a lot of Madison Jewish news and ways to get involved with upcoming programs and events. Although there is a lot of interesting content here, I can’t see myself spending 15 hours observing a site that has little room to participate.

The next site I explored was http://www.jvibe.com/, a “magazine for Jewish teens and an online Jewish teen community.” At first glance, JVibe seemed more promising as it has blog posts and discussion boards. Unfortunately, neither has been updated in more than a year so it seems pointless to observe and participate on a site that does not keep things up to date.

I will definitely need to continue my search to find more appropriate community Web sites.