Modeling Reality: Virtual Worlds

A virtual world is an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface. Virtual worlds are used by many people for different purposes, including personal and professional use. Gaming is one way that virtual worlds are used; the gaming world being strongly influenced by fantasy and science fiction occupy most of the large virtual worlds that exists today. Virtual worlds are also used in education; some examples are museums and gallery spaces. Some other ways that virtual world are used include military training, political expression, rehabilitation and of course for socializing and building online communities.

Ed Frauenheim in IBM Learning Programs Get a ‘Second Life’ outlines how IBM can benefit from virtual worlds, he states that “The idea is to expedite orientation, as well as improve mentoring relationships. IBM has found a way to make their training process more appealing to employees and stay updated with new technology at the same time. A virtual world encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods. Individuals who have problems interacting with others face to face are able to meet people in these environments under less pressure. People with disabilities are also able to take advantage of virtual worlds. One individual with autism says that “The graphical representations of real people create a "comfort zone" that can coax users out of their shells and get them communicating with others” in 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction by Nicole Saidi.

One problem that might occur as a result of a virtual world is the fact that more and more people are going to limit themselves to socializing on the internet. There might no longer be a need to meet friends face to face since people will be confined to a computer. I can see virtual worlds being used for online classes in the future, which would be interesting.

Social Networking

Social Networking has been one of the major developments in what is considered ‘new media’ today. There are a number of services involved that focuses on creating online communities where individuals can meet others who have the same interests and even find new things to do. Social Networking has been used by companies in order to network with potential and even existing clients, also to have ongoing interactions between employees. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn gives young professional the opportunity to meet others, possibly in the same field of work, and even find jobs that they are looking for. In Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting, Frank Langfitt states that “such sites also help job hunters market themselves online by setting up profiles, listing work history and specific skills”

On the other hand, social networking is also for personal use. Facebook allows users to stay connected to their friends around the world, to plan and share upcoming events, share photos and even re-unite with old buddies. Social networking is also used for games and even medical/health purposes; people usually have accounts on different networking sites. One major benefit of social networking is the access you have to resources and information with the help of others. For example on twitter you can post question and get instant response with links to the information you were looking for, be sure to have people following you though. Another benefit is being able to market yourself to others without meeting them face to face.

The dark side of social networking is usually brought to light often as a result of occurring issues. Issues dealing with privacy breach, not everyone using a social networking site protect their information from possible internet predators. Also recruiters are now checking applicants’ profiles in order to find out who they are hiring, so what was just for personal use could cross over into your professional life. The rate at which things are going now makes me wonder what’s next, but I can see social networking more integrated into our lives and people having less of their life as private.

My New Media class - So far

So far in this class I have learned a lot about New Media and the characteristics of the technologies involved. Technologies that are considered New Media have Communication, Collaboration, Community, Creativity and Convergence (The 5 C’s) as unique characteristics. Second life, social networking, wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, VOIP are few of the web 2.0 technologies that are changing the rules concerning how things get done.

The Internet has helped to foster some of the newly generated technologies available, so I would say that it is very important. Most of web 2.0 applications and technologies are used over the internet; I doubt that people would be blogging in the newspapers. The internet is very necessary for these applications to work and it allows for this second phase of architecture and application development for the Web and new media possible.

New Media is replacing and or enhancing the old media because of the high rate of technological advancement. Almost anything and everything in today’s world can be accessed on the internet. As a result, the major influences in today’s New Media such as commerce, telephony, military, computers and even the media, find ways to keep users engaged in their services. Kathy Gill in how can we measure the influence of blogosphere? outlines that “we now have new expectations about both the right to express an opinion and access to information upon which to base that opinion”People are expecting these changes; no one expects to be using the same services and products from ten years ago. We can now choose to read newspapers online instead of going out to buy one, we can now communicate instantly with people on the other side of the world. Also because of the extent to which information has been digitizes and compressed we converge the old media into new

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs and wikis are both current aspects of Web 2.0 and what is considered as new media today. They are both similar in certain technological functions but different in their own way. Both blogs and wikis are used to make communication easier in terms of getting information to internet users, they also create communities where people with similar interests can share information and also get feedback.

Ezra Goodnoe in How to Use Wikis for Business defined a wiki as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”. Wikis are updated constantly as new information becomes available, and this gives users access to current and relevant data. Wiki users not only have access, but are able to edit the information as well, all because of the collaboration involved as well as the level of control involved (decentralized control). Since anyone can contribute this enables idea generation. Blogs on the other hand allows users to have more control over what gets published and there is limited collaboration. Blogs are usually focused on specific issues or topics of interest and shows a lot more passion and voice than a wiki would.

In today’s networked world convergence is important because almost everything has been digitized. Convergence makes it more convenient for users to make the transition from old media to new media without any added confusion. In Consumption Convergence by Deirdre Hynes it states that “A major cause for the convergence of technologies is the digitization of all forms of information, the development of compression techniques, and the convergence of transmission platforms enabling the growing convergence of previously separate media and information technologies.” To me, convergence makes it easier to be creative, to have access and to keep up with the changing technology.

CHECKING OUT SOME SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

I was able to look at a few social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and Hi5, these sites are purely social and are usually not related to work. Facebook appears to be the site used by most college students in the United States today and I can see why. Face book is much easier to use, easier to navigate (friend list and photos) and it is also easy to find and connect with others on the site. I personally think that the other networking sites I looked at fall short in those areas.

I’ve noticed recently that Hi5 has adopted a few of the techniques that I saw on Facebook , techniques such as posting your friend’s status on your home page, and even showing who have been added to people’s friend list. I must say that all the sites have the communication tools as a similarity; they all allow their users to connect with old friends, make new friends, share photos and even e-mail each other. Facebook is the only one that I have used for instant messaging; I didn’t see that in the others.

MySpace and Friendster both appear to be very commercial; it’s almost as if there is more selling going on than social networking. All of these networking sites find ways to keep their members to be engaged, I think that face book is very innovative in that way. What is great about these sites is that they all allow members to create communities within a community. This is done by having members create groups based on specific interests and invite friends who might be interested to join.

The major problem with social networking sites is the issue of privacy, which has been affecting a lot of people lately. Also people usually end up having a large number of friends with whom they do not even communicate. On a good note, the characteristics of new media are definitely easy to identify on these sites.