Second Life

I know we have spoken or at least mentioned the huge hit, Second Life, in class at some point this quarter. I just wanted to speak on it a little bit more. I recently remember talking to a friend of mine who had friends who were married that used Second Life. The reasons for using this site was because they could create anyone and do anything they wanted in their own virtual realm. What caught me off guard was that the people involved in the Second Life scene were caught up more in the virtual world than in the real world. One went as far as having an affair with a person they had met in Second Life.

I guess my question is how are we to stop this virtual world from taking over our physical, tangible world? It seems like it is taking over our daily lives with email, social-networking sites, news, etc. When something along the lines of an affair happens, is this virtual world damaging to us?

The Future of the Long Tail

Will the long tail hold up in the future? Ralph Simon is a host of a show called Future Talks series on the Media Conversations channel. Ralph discussed the future of the long tail with Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard on a episode ironically called The Future of the Long Tail . After a short ten minutes of deliberation there wasn't a decision if there the long tail would survive but will change. Here are some of the theories of what will happen to the long tail in the future.
+ Expansion of whole planet will cause the long tail to not get longer but fatter
+ Long Tail companies
+ Pieces of the "tail" will separate into other realms/ forms

Under Age Social Networking

Recently there have been several articles and videos on cnn.com about under age social networking. Technically you are supposed to be 13 years of age to sign up for social networking sites such as facebook and myspace. But recently these sites have seen and explosion of younger kids bypassing these limitations by lying about their age. Here is a video with several skype guests discussing the problem, and here is an article that came out right before the video.
I feel the moral issue on this is very hard to solve because every one grows up with different rules and boundaries. Some adults may do well in teaching their kids how to be mature and safe while others might shelter their kids so much that the kid actually ends up acting out. It is hard to draw a line on whether one is mature enough to be on these social networking sites, but then again we see immaturity everyday with people 20+ like what is mentioned in the video. I am also not sure where I stand on this issue because I have a younger brother who is 12 but has a facebook. From what I can tell he acts maturely on the social site but there could be many things I cannot see that he's doing.

Visual Complexity: Connect the World though the Internet

i found a website, called Visual Complexity, where people have created computer programs to measure all different kinds of social networking sites. There are many different categories such as art, biology, computer systems, music, and much more. They use the internet data base to help connect other entities to one another. It is a website to show maps of connection between individuals and its society. I personally really like the Ecotonoha example, which discusses environment to cope with global warming. But there are hundred more examples and categories of these common connections.

Convergence Culture 4, 6 discussion questions

We're going to back up and discuss the reading from Convergence Culture you were assigned to read last week. Here are some questions to consider.


Ch 4
1. What is the difference between interactivity and participation?

2. Is the mixing of folk and commercial culture a new thing? What are some historic and contemporary examples?

3. What is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?

4.Why is the Web important to digital filmmakers?

Ch 6

1. What is the key to viral marketing, according to Garrett LoPorto?

2. What does it mean to say that the transformation taking place is from "culture jamming to blogging.

3. What is the the cultural significance of The Daily Show?

4. What are monitorial citizens and how does The Daily Show cater to them?

5. Why are online communities that are created around popular culture important politically?

Wednesday links and questions

Here are links to the reading/viewing for Wednesday

The Long Tail
Quarterlife
I like to watch

Also please watch an episode here.

I challenge you to find better WebTV (not a huge challenge). The ones mentioned in the Salon piece are a good place to start.

Longtail

What does Anderson mean when he says "For too long we've been suffering from the tyranny of the lowest-common-denominator?"

What are the limitations the physical world imposed on our entertainment?

What are hit driven economics?

What's a "power law" curve?

What are the new rules of the entertainment economy?

What are the cultural benefits of all of this?

Web TV

What are the benefits to creators of Web TV?

What do you think of Quarterlife? How is it an example of convergence?

What are some other Web shows you like or dislike?

Project Web Bot – Predicting the Future?

In relation to the class discussion of analyzing how people use the internet, and in what ways they do it, I remembered hearing about this program – Web bot -- that was developed anonymously in the early 90’s. After doing a brief online research, this is what I discovered:

The Web Bot Project was developed in or around 1995, anonymously, to predict the up and downs of the stock market. Similar to how Google search engine works by “indexing” the web, Web Bot crawls through the web looking for trends for keywords that people type into the internet world. Based off of these trends it is said that Web Bot can predict major events – such as 9/11. I know instantly this sounds ridiculous, however, Professor Dick Bierman ran an experiment, with volunteers, showing them a series of pictures. Surprisingly, the volunteers tended to react seconds before the picture was shown. Is it possible that the bigger the event the more time reaction people have before the event? Is it possible that people’s words or moods are directly related to possible future events? And is it possible for the Web Bot to detect these trends and ultimately predict the future? Many say no, but some fully believe it’s possible…

If you’re interested in doing your own research here are some links:

Professor Dick Bierman’s Experiment – HERE

Web Bot Project - HERE

~ Tisha B.