mokki is a guy from Lisbon, Portugal.

Likes 1,461 pages, 16 videos, 151 photos • 74 fans • Received 14 reviews

Member since Jan 03, 2008

I like independent / alternative news and the blogosphere. I try to process the mainstream media information through critical thinking. I don’t want to be merely a consumer of spectacular distractions. Visit my personal blog mokkikunta. I’m editor of the lusofinnish community site Lusofin and of the group blog Regions. I am also one of the Ovimagazine team members.

What caused you to join StumbleUpon and how long have you been Stumbling?

Stumbleupon is a social networking service, which provides the users with a toolbar having various functions. We can explore the web, add pages to favorites (or dislike them), tag the visited pages, share them with our friends and write reviews.

At the same time, we can select our preferred channels (images , videos, selected sites, favorites’ friends, queries, news) and we can also navigate through selected topics.Based on preferences previously defined by the user and selected toolbar options, StumbleUpon takes each of us to both an individual and a collective discovery. We are able to directly view interesting pages’ content on our monitors. We can also make posts on our blog page, another interesting StumbleUpon’ service.

I’m a member of StumbleUpon since January. I find this service very collaborative, making it possible to share information in a pleasant way. StumbleUpon members can also browse people, send and receive mail, utilize a chat room, and join various groups for discussions and interaction.

Many of these features, of which I had only superficial knowledge before, influenced my decision to join and stay with the network.

What do you like best about the StumbleUpon experience?

One of the best things, including the interaction between members, is the direct interaction with the content and the fact we don’t need any kind of previous descriptions to visualize it. We can assess it immediately and if we liked, we can review it and publish it in our StumbleUpon blog. Another great feature is the freedom of choice to select the language of the pages.

What are your favorite StumbleUpon topics, and why?

Due to my profession (I am an engineer) I’m obviously very interested in topics like the environment , transportation, engineering, urbanism and economics.

In addition to these professionally oriented topics, I’m interested in geographic locations like Finland and Portugal, and in local, decentralized, green and alternative perspectives on society.

This is because I have strong relations with Finland. I visit often the 1000 Lakes Region often and I very much like the interaction of the Finnish people with nature For this reason, I created a blog about the Finnish Model, in the perspective of decentralization and municipalism (Finland and Portugal: two distant territories, two decentralization forms).

I’m also a collaborator of the Ovi Magazine. Ovi Magazine is a daily English Online Magazine from Finland on culture, society, art, cartoons, politics and contemporary news from around Europe and the world.

In addition, I’m one of the editors of the lusofinnish community site Lusofin and of the Portuguese group blog Regioes.

Is there any feature that you think SU is missing?

First, I think that there are two decisive factors which can change the model of global internet traffic by eliminating technological divisions at the global level. One is the development of a worldwide communications infrastructure, and the other one is the proliferation of cheap technological products.

The transformation of Russia, China and India into technological powers can also modify the linguistic aspect of the Internet. The irrelevancy of the distances, as well the instant access of companies and persons to the world market, could then become a reality.

It seems to me, then, that the software used in social networking sites such as StumbleUpon should adapt to the linguistic realities – it’s obvious they don’t want to lose substantial market shares - by implementing sophisticated translation software and other related tools.

Do you belong to any other social networking sites?

Yes. I belong to the following social networking sites:

Digg
My Digg Page

del.icio.us
My del.icio.us page

Flickr
My flickr Page

Socialnews Central

If you could say one thing to the rest of the Stumbling universe, what would it be?

I would appeal to the Stumbling universe to contribute to a more open and collaborative social media network where information could be universally shared in freedom; to contribute to a democratic , transparent and autonomous network, built by its users, who are both the producers and the consumers of information.

The exponential grow of some social networking sites raises new issues in their communities. The impact of growth must be considered both in terms of service efficiency and in terms of the quality of the online democracy. The growing distances between site administration and users at some sites could be an indicator of democratic deficiencies in these communities.

The new information technologies facilitate cooperation among people on a larger scale than ever before. Although the growing volume of data could lead to a dehumanized management of information, it must not necessarily be so. The social networks users should be attentive to these issues, which affect the opportunities for the true participation of all citizens in the online world.