ASIAN CYBER-CULTURE

Final Group Project

Lecturer: Patrick Sharbaugh

Students:
Pham Thuy Vy –s3220643
Do Minh Hoang – s3220645
Tran Thanh Quang – s3230283
Deadline: 20/9/2010 – 9am
Contents
I. Introduction:........................................................................................................................................2
II. Description (Content and Interface):....................................................................................................3
1. Home page: (Figure 1).....................................................................................................................3
a. General description:.....................................................................................................................3
b. Detail description:........................................................................................................................3
2. Place page (Figure 2):......................................................................................................................5
3. Personal page (Figure 3):.................................................................................................................6
III. Implication:.....................................................................................................................................7
1. Homosexual Community (B’) Map and Identity:............................................................................7
2. Homosexual Community (B’) Map and Privacy..............................................................................9
3. Homosexual Community (B’) Map and Mass Collaboration.........................................................11
4. Homosexual Community (B’) Map as a mashup...........................................................................13
IV. Limitation:.....................................................................................................................................15
V. Reference:.....................................................................................................................................16
VI. Appendices....................................................................................................................................17

I. Introduction:
B’ map is an application mashup which creates a network page for homosexual group to

communicate and share experienced locations about how to enjoy and improve their life among

Vietnamese society where homosexuality is still a taboo. B’ stands for ‘Bêđê’ which mean

homosexual in Vietnamese. Even though B’ map is designed especially for homosexual

community, it’s still available for everyone who wants to access and sign up an account for using

this mash-up application. B’ map is funded by the Vietnamese homosexual communities outside

Vietnam.

II. Description (Content and Interface):

This application is designed to use on mobile phone, but it still works on computer. In order to

secure private information of users, B’ site has privacy setting both on computer and mobile

using.

Users only see themselves and available friends on the map.

1. Home page: (Figure 1)

a. General description:

The main interface of B’ map homepage is divided into three parts:

Part one (on the top of the page): logo and tool bar with functions including My profile, Top

favorite places, Tag of locations and Top posts.

Part two (the main session of B’ map homepage): Ho Chi Minh City map with specific locations

which are uploaded and updated by the admin or users. On the top right corner of the map, there

is a tool bar provides different ways to view the map including show street map, show satellite
imagery and show 3D imagery and a search tool which allows users to search particular

locations, directions and Friends. On the left side inside the map, a zoom tool allows users to see

bigger and clearer detail locations or directions that they want to find.

Part three (on the right hand side of the homepage): a column includes three sessions – Tag of

Locations, Top Post and Top visited places.

b. Detail description:

Part 1: logo and tool bar

o Logo: the logo is designed in yellow color with the slogan “Better Gay than Crumpy”

stuck directly on the logo. Through the word ‘gay’ in the slogan which does not only

represents for homosexual community but also mean bright and happy, B’ map wants to

motivate homosexual that whoever you are, be yourself, trust yourself and live well. The

full name of the map called B’ Location guide also put next to the logo.

o The tool bar with functions: including Top favorite places, Tag of locations, Top posts

(These three broads are on the right hand side of the map – part 3) and my profile allows

users to connect directly to their profile and move immediately to the three sessions on

the right hand side of the homepage.

- Tag of locations is the broad on the right hand side of the map (Part 3): Broad

displays key words that are mentioned the most on search tool. When clicking on

these words, for example when clicking on the “coffee shop” word, it’ll link to the

location information of coffee shops which has been updated by other members on

the place page.

 - Top posts: Broad presents nickname of users who contribute the most by posting

locations/ information on the B’ map. When clicking on a specific nickname on this

broad, it’ll show the personal information of that nickname on their personal page.

The amount of personal information showed will depend on the privacy setting of

owner.

- Top favorite places: provides list of favorite places/ locations that are liked the most

by members of the B’ map and moderated by admin. When clicking on a particular

place or location, it’ll show the voted rate number and comments of users about the

place on the place page.

- My profile: the link to connect directly to the personal page.

Part 2: Ho Chi Minh City Map

The interface of B’ map looks like a map to give direction for users. B’ map work like Google

map. There is no setting or available locations on this map until users or administrators upload

them on B’ map.

When users log in to the B’ map, on the homepage, B’ map will displays blue smile icons which

represent for users who are available on the map at the time when someone access on B’s

application. When users move mouse or point on the icons, the small frame will appear with the

icon’s nickname and location where the icon is standing. When clicking on the specific location

that the icon is standing, it’ll show the description about available information about this place

on place page.

The search tool allows users to find location of friends, location of place and direction from one

place to other places on the map.

 2. Place page (Figure 2):

B’ Map gives a free and online place, called Place’s Page, in order to share and discuss about

locations among users. The Place’s Page provides seven sections - my sharing place, my favorite

place, description, comments of members, set location and invites friends to set location (Figure

2).

o My sharing place: This section contains the number of places that is posted by the user.

o My favorite place: The users can list places that they feel interested in this section.

Therefore, they can find them on the B’ Map easily.

o Description: This section shows detail descriptions about a specific place such as the

address and functions (entertainment, education or shopping).

Every user can contribute by giving more information about the place in this section.

Then, the information will be checked and confirmed by administrators before being

published.

The special function of this section is ranking point. There are two types of ranking

point. Administrators evaluate the first point and users evaluate the second point.

Especially, the number next to the second point, which stands for the number of users

who vote for the place, is showed in order to present credibility of the second point.

o Comments of members: Users are allowed to express their thoughts as well as telling

previous activities that they did about the place that is posted on the description section.

Moreover, they can share video clips that are relevant to the place as well as uploading

photos of the place on this section.

 o Set location: This section can quickly show detail information about where the user

current is. The place is determined by the GPS application of users’ mobile phone or

other applications of users’ PC.

o Invite friends to set location: Users can invite friends or their network’s member to this

place at this moment by a tool with functions in this section.

3. Personal page (Figure 3):

B’ Map not only provides a Place’s Page in order to let users share as well as discussing about

locations, but also gives a Personal Page for users in order to express feelings and thoughts about

their activities of daily living.The Personal Page contains four main sections – Friends, Instant

message, Profile information and Privacy Settings.

o Friends: This is where users can add friends or confirm invitations to be friends on B’

Map. This section presents a list of friends’ avatars and nicknames that help users can

easily identify as well as moving to the personal page of their friends with just a simple

click.

o Instants messages: This is a place for users to post their feelings and thoughts about their

every life’s experiences.

o Profile information: This section shows basic information of users such as gender,

birthday, current location, education, work, likes and interests.

o Privacy Settings: This section can help users to manage their personal page as well as

their place’s page. Users can set to be available or invisible about their current locations

to their friends on the map. Moreover, users can set who can see their information with a
 function with four different settings – everyone, friends of friends, friends only or only

me.

III. Implication:

1. Homosexual Community (B’) Map and Identity:

Due to severe ideologies of Vietnamese society, homosexual people don’t have a real chance to

express their real identity in their real life. True self is determined by the characteristics and the

gender (Smith, 2008). Homosexual people cannot have a full real identity when their gender is

not accepted. As a result, homosexual people try to adapt the society by stealing other’s

identities or making fake identifies to be appropriate to the society that they are belonging. B’

map is established with the purpose to help homosexual community in Vietnam to discover their

identity, to raise their voice and to confidently assert them in the society. B’ map create a

positive conditions for homosexual people to firstly express their own real identity in the

cyberspace then in the real life. According to Chandler (1998), “The Web is a medium which

represents a radical departure from previous modes for the presentation of self in everyday life”.

In other words, B’ map can be seen as a supporters who help homosexual people to prepare for

their official real identity in the real life when Vietnamese ideologies become more liberal.

Furthermore, According to Suler (2004), there are six basic factors including dissociative

anonymity (you don’t know me), Authority (We’re equal) and invisibility (You can’t see me)

that could make/help people easily express themselves differently and comfortably on the

internet compared to face to face situations. Hence, B’ map established carefully privacy setting

and invisible option to protect private information of users and make sure that users can feel safe
on their own channel, on their own community. Invisible decay will be set automatically when

users log in to B’ map on computer or mobiles to ensure that users’ houses are not detected. On

mobiles, privacy setting will depend on users. If they want to share or invite their friend to their

current location, they could set available to everyone or particular person/group. Otherwise,

users could keep their place and their state invisible.

In fact, it’s obvious that Internet application can make things become easier for many people,

especially homosexual people in case of B’ Map. However, everything always has both negative

and positive aspects and the internet either. The convenient factors that the internet brings us

would lead to many problems and these problems do not only happen/exist on B’ map but also

on almost websites and online forums. First of all, there are too many people take advantage of

anonymity option to speak randomly and that could lead to serious problems in relation to

someone’s honor, relationships or even national politics. For example, recently there is a rumor

on the internet that the Long Bien Bridge in Hanoi capital will collapse on the Tenth October, the

1000th Thang Long- Ha Noi anniversary day. The rumor created tumult many people, especially

Vietnamese politician and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. However, the authorities could not

do anything to find out instigators because they are anonymous. In addition, due to the thought

that “we’re equal”, many internet users forget their ethical behavior and lose value of self by

posting impolite and vulgar words. Of course, they cannot realize its consequences immediately

but a bad habit will take form gradually and someday it’ll influence unintentionally on their

words and their behaviors in real life. It’s no doubt that the internet somehow alters habits and

social behaviors of people which could result in various identities. However, people have no

choice when they accept the internet when they let the world of Word Wide Web and virtual

space penetrates deeply into their life.

Considering the negative impacts of the internet on identity in case of homosexual community

(B’) map, it could be a positive sign for homosexual people because when people living on their

community, it could be easy for them to have a chance to discover their real identity including

gender identity. However, it will be able to seriously influence on habits and behaviors of other

people who join B’ map but not belong to the third gender. It creates a worry is that B’ map users

will have various identities on the internet but they cannot even realize which one is actually

their ‘real identity’ in their real life.

2. Homosexual Community (B’) Map and Privacy

Thanks to the development of the Internet, the communication industry is raised to a new level.

Therefore, the way that people communicate with each other becomes easier. However, it also

brings out a lot of negative impacts on our personal lives and privacy is the issue that is

concerned the most. As a result, B’ Map tries to provide some ways in order to help users to

protect their privacy as well as controlling their identities.

Firstly, according to Rosen (2010), the Internet contains and saves all information, thus, it is

difficult to hide and remove embarrassing information of people in previous time. Hence, in the

Privacy Settings section of the Personal Page, users can see a brief paragraph showing threats

that they might have to confront with if they post any their personal information, photos or video

clips online. This will help users to consider carefully before uploading anything on the B’ Map.

Secondly, users’ embarrassing information can be exposed on the Internet forever (Jones 2002).

This information can be seen by users’ employers, friends even families (Jones 2002). Therefore,

it can harm or destroy users’ important relationships. Gay people do not tend to disclose their

real identity because of the discrimination and prejudice of society. They can lose their job or be
isolated by their friends, even their families if their real identity is uncovered. Therefore, it is

necessary to establish Privacy Settings on the Internet in order to protect their information. As a

result, B’ Map provides a function in Privacy Settings, which helps users to control who can

view contents of their personal page including profile information, avatar, friends as well as

instant message.

Thirdly, some users do not like everyone does see their current location when they use mobile

phones or computers to log in B’ Map due to their privacy. As a result, B’ Map also allows users

to control who can see their current location on the B’ Map.

Fourthly, Safier (2000) states that the Internet sometimes is not as a private place as we believe

despite there are a lot of privacy settings. For example, users can set that only friends can see

their photos. However, their friends can download these photos and publish again on the Internet

for everyone to see. Therefore, you might have troubles. As a result, B’ Map gives a technology,

called expiration dates, which will remove instant messages, links and photos that are posted six

months ago on the Personal Page. Therefore, if your friends post your photos, which you do not

want everybody to see, they will be disappeared after six month.

Finally, users also can delete any information, photo or video clip that they post on the B’ Map

as well as being able to remove information that their friends post on their Personal Page and

Place’s Page. This setting can give users a chance to erase information that they think can harm

their identity as well as protecting their privacy.

3. Homosexual Community (B’) Map and Mass Collaboration

The purpose of B’ Map is to provide the place for only homosexual people, its users, to

communicate and share their experiences’ advantages each other. It allows the users to raise their
voice to speak up what they think and also support them the places which are specifically for the

homosexual community. B’ map also helps its users to make sense of the homosexual

community, for the most homosexual people who feel easy in adapting to the society, yet those

who are too sensitive and shy in their real life because of the imposing of society’s ideology.

B’ Map is the representation of mass collaboration. It has two main functions that the first one is

personal page and the second one is the “places.” The aim of creating “places” is to build not

only an imagined community, but also an actual community among those homosexual people

which are the user of B’ Map. Anderson (1991) noted that the “imagined community” was

described as the sense of something which people thought they belonged to; B’ Maps would be

trying to create that “imagined community” for the homosexual people. At the beginning time,

B’ Map will initiate the sense of homosexual community among its new users, and later those

users will share and spread their senses based on the last sense of homosexual community on the

B’ Map. However, the B’ Map does not want to create only imagined community of homosexual

people, it also wants to create the actual community for its users. If the members of imagined

community keep their sense of homosexual community in their mind, the B’ Map makes it

become real.

With its special function of the “places,” B’ Map provides the places for only homosexual

people, and at these places, people could interact each other face two face and also post those

activities on B’ Map, including instant messages reflecting what they think, photos or video clips

about those activities. Moreover, if notions of Anderson (1991) about the “imagined community”

got limitation of geography, the B’ Map, as a mass collaboration tool, helps its users pass over

the physical location barriers to become a part of community. Non-stopping at this, with its new

function called “inviting” that B’ Map allows its users to invite their friends or their network’s
members to come their place, B’ Map is blurring the different distance between the imagined

community and actual community. Therefore, this function also helps B’ Map re-fix the

limitation of Anderson’s notion that people can share their senses face two face despite the

physical location barriers, and this is also out of what Rheingold (1993) imaged about the virtual

community.

Generally, B’ Map is the representation of mass collaboration. Although it is created to serve for

the homosexual community and the biggest essence of it is that B’ Map is opened to publish.

However, not all things could be published because mass collaboration not only includes the

transparent, but also the self-selection. B’ Map users have rights to choose how their data or

information could be available to publish, because it still belongs to the privacy issue. Therefore,

B’ Map also have the open participants for its users and guests because the a main function of B’

Map called “places” is always opened to public despite the participants are its users or not, and

“places” is also the place for all users of B’ Map to share their sense of homosexual community

on the map although they could share it on their personal page, another function of B’ Map but it

is more private that “places.”

In addition, B’ map avoids mass collaboration association with hierarchy’s death. Although most

web 2.0 and applications supporting for web 2.0 seem as the representation of mass collaboration

because their essence is two way communication, the hierarchy still exist in the way that it keep

allowing people communicate and interact two ways, but when something new is created, they

will be censored. However, it does not happen on B’ Map, because the purpose of B’ Map is to

serve the community of homosexual people, the rights to decide everything happening on the

map belong to the user. Each B’ Map users have equal rights to speak up, share sense and judge

the others, and those things will help to build up the community among those users, who are
called “prosumer.” However, the role of administrators will not disappear, because B’ Map needs

to keep its users avoiding violating the privacy policy if the map.

As a consequence, B’ Map will create the innovation in the way people interact and share their

sense of homosexual community which makes them become a part of the contribution to the

creating the homosexual community, virtual will be real and vice versa.

4. Homosexual Community (B’) Map as a mashup

The purpose of B’ Map (‘s places) is to create the concern of interaction and relationship among

homosexual community and help its users to be sustainable and enjoyable to the online social

reaction by providing them the places where are just for them, the third gender people.

At the begging time, B’ Map (‘s place) was just a simple map with some places’ pages which are

decoded by the administrators as the first original works. Later, based on those works, the B’

Map’s users will keep contributing to the Map places’ pages, including writing description for

the places, posting photos, giving the rates and overview for those places. On B’ Map, the role of

the users is defined as “prosumer,” they have the rights to use and creating things including their

sense or places’ pages to serve for the community, the administrators are just the initiators for the

decoding map, and the supervisors to help and prevent activities which could make the users

violate the privacy policy and negatively affect on the community. Moreover, because B’ is a

community which is not sustained by the society, the privacy policy of B’ Map is created to help

the homosexual community become sustaining by establishing three characteristics pointed by

Goodman (2006) among its users which are control of self-representation, persistence and

stability.
Generally, B’ Map is a mashup product with the creators who are its users because they are the

person who contribute most to the growth of the map. They collect information, photo or video

by themselves or from the other source, and share the advantages of their experiences on the map

with the aim to create world and a real community which could help and serve for homosexual

people based on the fundamental functions of B’ Map. B’ Map seems as a blank page at first

time with some starting points and because the essence “opened” of blank page, it allows the

users to interact each other to create and decode for this blank page with the supervising of

administrators, an interaction and communication two ways because mashup is the representation

of web 2.0 and the applications supporting for the web 2.0

Actually, B’ Map in Vietnam has inherited a lot from its “parents” which are Facebook, Twitter,

Google Map and Thodia.com. However, inheriting does not mean B’ Map has to compete with

its “parents” because those site are created to serve for the general society, but B’ Map is

designed to sever specifically for the homosexual community. Moreover, with the essence of

mashup, B’ Map is successful in encourage its users to think and create the new thing based on

previous works, which not only contribute for the B’ Map, but also for the whole homosexual

community. The thing which B’ Map’s users can do is not only belong to virtual world, but also

belong to the real world, based on what existed on B’ Map, the users can create the new places

for the homosexual community in real life. Therefore, B’ Map could be the precondition for the

appearance of web 3.0 which could totally is mashup because it not only allows its users to

interact each other on the virtual world, but also create the interaction between the real life and

the virtual world with some basic functions. B’ Maps helps its users identify their real time

location and also allow other people to see their locations each other (this based on the privacy

setting of each users). B’ Map users can reflect the thing in real world onto the map with two
way interaction and they also reflect the virtual thing on map into the real world, with the same

two way interactions.

IV. Limitation:

The first limitation is that when B’ Map is launched, it has to encounter the social prejudices

toward homosexuality that it is an illness. Rationally, society has those prejudices because of the

unhealthy lifestyle of most ‘gays’. Some studies proved that the rate of sexually-transmitted

diseases among homosexual people is higher than heterosexual people many times and the drug

abuse’s rate is also the same, seven times higher, according to Tingle (2004). However, the

purpose of establishing B’ Map is to create a healthy environment for those homosexual in

Vietnam, help, support and orient them to have a healthy lifestyle, and encourage them to

contribute to the development of society and also nation. Therefore, by the time, B’ Map will

help to blur the prejudices of society toward homosexuality.

The second limitation is that B’ Map cannot avoid privacy and censorship issues although at the

beginning time, it was oriented to be free-censorship and high privacy protection. Although B’

Map administrators’ roles are the initiator and observer, in some case, they have to force directly

to the contents which are posted on the site. The purpose of these actions is to ensure B’ Map

will not go on wrong ways and to protect for the rights, information and reputations of B’ Map

users.
V. Reference:

1. Anderson, B., 1991, “Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of

nationalism,” Verso, USA: New York, 2nd Ed., chap. 2, pg. 9-36

2. Chandler, D, 1998, ‘Personal Home Pages and the Construction of Identities on the

Web’, Perspectives in theory and practice, viewed 15/9/2010 <

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/webident.html>

3. Goodman, E., & Moed, A., 2006, “Community in Mashups: The Case of Personal

Geodata”, Mashworks, viewed 15/9/2010

<http://mashworks.net/images/5/59/Goodman_Moed_2006.pdf>

4. Smith, M., 2008, ‘True self in daily life’, trc.virginia.edu, viewed 14/9/2010

<http://trc.virginia.edu/Publications/Diversity/I_Characteristics.htm>

5. Rheingold, H., 1993, ‘the virtual community: homesteading on the electronic frontier’,

Addison Wesley, USA, chap. 1, pg. 1-24

6. Jones, G S 2002, Virtual Culture – Identity & Communication in Cybersociety, 1st edn,

SAGE Publications, London.

7. Rosen, J 2010, ‘The Web Means the End of Forgetting’, The New York Times, viewed

10th September 2010, <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-

t2.html>.
8. Safier, S 2000, ‘Between Big Brother and the Bottom Line: Privacy in Cyberspace’,

Virginia Journal of Law and Technology Association, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 1522-1687.

9. Tingle, R., 2004, “The Ideology of the Gay Liberation Movement: a Critique,” European

Leadership Forum, viewed 16/9/2010

<http://www.euroleadershipresources.org/resource.php?ID=113>

10. Suler, J, 2004, ‘The Online Disinhibition Effect’, Usr.rider, viewed 16/9/2010, <

http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/disinhibit.html>
VI. Appendices
Figure 1: Homepage
Figure 2: Place Page
Figure 3: Personal Page