Writing for the Algorithm:

Digital Labor and Mobile Work

Laura Forlano, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate
Human Computer Interaction Lab
Cornell University

lef45@columbia.edu
http://lauraforlano.org

November 14, 2009

The Internet as Playground and Factory

The New School
New York, New York
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 Defining Mobile Work
• Labor mobility (internationally, culturally, socio-
economic)
• Remote work, telecommuting
• Decentralized, virtual, digital work
– Analyzing digital labor from the perspective of the individual’s
lived everyday experience rather than that of the firm or
organization
– Articulating the role of hybrid structures that allow for new
groupings of people and technology in face-to-face settings

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 Methodology
• Network Ethnography (Howard)
• Ethnographic observation (hundreds of hours of
observation over 4 years)
• Online survey (over 1300 responses from New York,
Budapest and Montreal)
• Qualitative interviews (over 50 1-hour open interviews)
• Photography (over 500 photos)
• Social network analysis, log data analysis, spectrum
analysis

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 Statistics
• 10% of United States economy was freelance in 2001
(US Department of Labor)
• 68% “mobile workforce” in 2008; 75% by 2011 (IDC)
• WiFi Survey (New York)
– 57% full-time employees;
– 16% are self-employed, freelance workers or
independent contractors;
– 5% are entrepreneurs, owners or partners in a small
business, professional practice or farm;

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 Themes
• Mobile work practices
• New environments for work
• Emergent occupational categories

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 Themes
• Social construction of technology
• Role of place
• Sociality and community
• Emergent forms of organizing

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“I work here once every two weeks.
I like the noise if that makes sense.”

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 Shift of Responsibility
• Full-time position to short-term freelance
projects
• Corporate office to home, café or coworking
space
• Corporate tech and telecom infrastructure to
personal mobile phones and Internet services
• Water cooler conversations to Facebook status
updates and Tweets

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 Generation Mesh
• Over 30 interviews conducted users of WiFi hotspots in
New York
• Interviews conducted on site in the the locations where
WiFi hotspots are used
• Informants range from highly skilled “mobile
professionals” working remotely for high-tech
companies to freelance writers, illustrators and Web
designers to less skilled technicians, and even a
homeless blogger

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 Search Engine Optimizer
• Daniel, a freelance and comedy writer
from Boston
• Emergence of a new occupation that did
not exist prior to Google and other
search engines
• Project-based and requires little face-to-
face interaction with companies or clients

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 Types of SEO
• Paid advertising
• Natural, organic listings
• Increasing visibility on search engine results
pages (SERPS)

“Keep in mind that the Google search results page includes organic
search results and often paid advertisement (denoted by the
heading "Sponsored Links") as well. Advertising with Google
won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search
results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in
our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic
search results.” (Google Webmasters/Site Owners Help)
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Source: http://seo-dns.com/en/sem/seo/
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 Article Spinning
• Writing unique articles for Web-sites that
have not yet launched in order to
increase the ranking of the site
• Using keywords repeatedly
• Cannot be done by an automatic
program because Google ‘knows’ the
difference between original and copied
text
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 Grey Listing
• Google algorithm discriminates against
sites that are merely copied and demotes
them to sub-par status
• Writer must create unique text for the
web-site despite that fact that it will never
be read by anyone at all
• Sites contain a mixture of fact and fiction,
research and imagination
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 Questions
• What does it mean to write content for an
algorithm rather than for an audience?
• While writers often feel “unread,” they still write
for an audience. How does it change when
one is aware of the futility of their writing?
• How do mobile work settings enhance or
diminish the feeling of isolation among
emergent professions?

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 Contact
Laura Forlano, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Human Computer Interaction Lab
Cornell University
lef45@columbia.edu
http://lauraforlano.org

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