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How can businesses profit from social media? How does social media challenge what is regarded as "value" in the business world? Anthropologist Lene Pettersen discusses these and other questions in her paper "The impact of social media for business". L… more »

How has Free Software transformed not only software, but also music, film, science, and education? Anthropologist and Savage Minds blogger Christopher M. Kelty explores this question in his new book "Two bits" that now is "available for purchase, for do… more »

It all started when anthropologist Andreas Lloyd (University of Copenhagen) was browsing on the Internet looking for a new laptop computer and ended up installing the free Windows alternative Linux. Two years later, he finished his master thesis "A syst… more »

(via anthronaut) Cyberanthropologist Alexander Knorr has written a brilliant comment on "social sciences software licence madness". Provoked by an entry at ethno::log about a text analysis software for social scientists with an extremly restrictive licen… more »

Anthropologist Dina Mehta Today, I believe that no crisis on this scale or magnitude will ever be handled again without sms, blogs, and wikis. That social tools will become a natural extension of rapid adaptation to chaotic conditions. While tradition… more »

Cultures of Exchange and Gift economies are traditional anthropological topics. Famous are the Kula exchange in Melanesia, the Potlatch in Northwestern America, the Moka and often cited books are among others Marcel Mauss: The Gift and Karl Polanyi, The… more »

Jill Walker (University of Bergen, Norway) reports from a seminar I've missed to attend: Lars Risan is the first speaker at the network seminar I’m at in Oslo. Don’t you love the idea of code as sacrament? Lars is an anthropologist, and he starts his… more »

David Zeitlyn, University of Kent at Canterbury Building on Eric Raymond’s work this article discusses the motivation and rewards that lead some software engineers to participate in the open source movement. It is suggested that software engineers in… more »

New Scientist Every year, the people of the Trobriand Islands in the Solomon Sea off Papua New Guinea exchange ornamental seashell armbands and necklaces. It is a social ritual that according to Malinowski cements social bonds between fishing communit… more »

Steven Shaviro, professor in English at Wayne State University David Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology is filled with interesting and provocative ideas. Graeber wants to ally the discipline of anthropology with the anarchist currents th… more »

The Daily Telegraph Millions of pounds are wasted each year because few understand the secret language of giving Christmas gifts. Why do we go through with it? Because the Christmas present is about kinship and power; taste and insight; symbolism and… more »

The Feature People often confuse what they want with what they need when it comes to consumer products. Manufacturers try to collect this information through interviews, but observing users’ behavior in their natural environment can provide better ins… more »