December 2011
12 posts
THREE A’s this semester .. Waiting for the other 2. So nervous
IMPLICATIONS AND POLICIES
Ok, I know it is 2 and half hours from when this is due, but I am going to write any way. I agree with Castronova when he says that people do need to care about the large things, not the details. (so much) Online living is becoming a reality, although it may not be the world of SL. It is becoming apparent that getting by without the internet (in some form) is becoming increasingly difficult. ...
Interactive media
I absolutely agree with how Interactive Media is a step towards harmonizing human imagination with scientific technology. Even though today’s media still seems to be boxed in, ‘Its like a Monologue’, the Nike campaign as discussed in the article ‘The three dimensions of Iculture’ seemed a very intelligent step towards mass interactivity and consumerism, allowing...
A not so different world
I don’t believe virtual worlds create a false environment that doesn’t equal, the “real world”. In Baym’s conclusion she mentions how quickly people have adapted to new technology such as the internet that weren’t meant to be used socially, but have turned into tool we use to interact with others. She also states “I am optimistic that we will navigate...
World 2.0
“Synthetic worlds […] provide a forum of interaction that is potentially beyond the reach of any Earthbound power” (254). Well you got that right Castranova.
Although not even completed yet, our group project for Second Life has already proved this to me. Our group is setting up a charity event for the Project Jason foundation. We have been advertising for the past few days and...
AI closer to our bodies
After reading Castronova’s article about synthetic worlds, I really agreed with some of the points about immersing oneself in virtual worlds. It was a great way to start off the article to make the point about how we should not have to care about the ogres and elves in cyberspace rather we should care about their existence in these games and that we should consider virtual world on a...
is this real life?
This weeks reading on Synthetic Worlds by Castranova was very eye-opening from the very beginning. He begins off saying his goal was to persuade an intelligent, skeptical reader that this vision of virtual worlds was worth thinking about. Throughout the course I have been probably one of the biggest skeptics you could find in terms of just about everything involving Second Life. What Castranova...
Synthetic Worlds... to care or not to care?
Within reading the first three pages of the Castronova article, I immediately come up with my discussion question: Will the existence of “normal” professions become minimal in comparison to the growing careers in professional gaming, development of games, and careers that solely involve playing these games? And does learning how to develop things in a synthetic world serve as a...
Ahhh. This can't be living!
In Edward Castronova’s text Synthetic Worlds he discusses how “play only serves its purposes when it is play, and therefore not serious, we have an entirely natural predisposition not to care”. This immediately drew me into the article and forced me to be attentive. It reminded me of last week’s lesson on Gold Farmers. It’s supposed to just be a game, but that game becomes someone’s obsession and...
Do the Monster Mashhhh
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Today’s Internet Use
Maybe I’m a bit biased about the mash-up music industry because I love well executed mash-ups so much, but I don’t believe that an artist who combines multiple musical compositions must give a portion of their earnings towards the original artist. I do believe that they may however need to ask for permission before doing so,...
Real Life Sucks
Castranova’s article on synthetic worlds brings up a lot of different ideas and possibilities that I myself have thought about before. The idea of synthetic worlds being “realms that will one day be preferred to Earth” is quite a terrifying idea. In fact, I have read a science fiction book before that addresses this issue in quite some detail.
The Pendragon Adventure is a...
slave to the man.. errr computer...
The value of money is only what you perceive it to be. For some cash is more important than having money in bank account. Whereas others believe that money invested in online environments is money well spent. For some reason people are becoming more willing to dish out the cash to fulfill their online needs. Large corporations are taking full advantage of this as described in the Castranova...
The Virtual Economy
The articles from this week does not surprise to me. The idea that people make money on games like WoW, SL, or any other game for that matter seems to be old news from out discussion in class. We have seen the movie Life 2.0 and how people can live within this games and make a carrier out of it does not seem so strange now. The article “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer” outlines a capitalist...
Golden
I found the Chinese gold farming article to be interesting because I still find acquiring currency in an online game to be unheard of. I guess its because I am not a huge gamer, but it is really cool how people can pretty much make a living off of playing a game… This article highlighted the craziness of this online ecommerce exchange via gamers. My group actually is doing our...
eCommerce.
This is honestly what I pictured when I heard of the gold farmers online…gold coins from the Mario games.
I think using virtual worlds, such as Second Life, is a great way for global companies to hold meetings and do business. Since there is a Second Life Time, you can easily make sure everyone is there at the same time. As a woman my group is interviewing said to us, “Second Life...
Look at me now, I'm gettin paper!
Castronova
When reading that nearly 1/3 of Norrath’s visitors (approximately 93,000/400,000) spend more time in Norrath than they do working for pay in a typical week, I don’t know yet whether this should sicken me or intrigue me. It scares me that so many individuals spend their time in a virtual world and not in the real world yet at the same time just the fact that Norrath’s GNP exceeds...
You win again THIS time, Mr. Gold Farmer...
I will never forget the contents of the Life 2.0 documentary we watched in class months ago, and here I am still referencing it to this day. Among the many shocking subjects, Asri Falcone remains at the top of my list. I am in awe of her unbelievable building skills, shocked that she has made 6 figure salaries in SL, and completely envious that she achieves all of this at home, in her...
Economics & Ethics
Economics and ethics. When most people think of video gaming, these are probably not the first two things that come to mind. Granted, selling the actual game brings profit to the company who created it, but there are more economic implications than that. Video games, primarily MMO’s, have the ability for people to save, as well as make money within the contents of the game. ...
the future of ecommerce ?
After reading this week’s articles, it raises questions in my head on where the future of ecommerce is heading. “The Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer” article discussed the merging of work and play with with the MMO World of Warcraft. Workers made their living from traveling through this virtual world 12 hours a day, for 7 days a week. At the end of it all, they only recieved 30...
farming for real gold?!
I knew that M.M.O players could make virtual currency and transfer it over to real life money as I’ve learned from Second Life, but I’ve never heard of anything like “gold farming,” “power-leveling,” and “the end game,” until I read Julian Dibbel’s article, “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer.” When I first read the title, I didn’t understand what it was going to be about; honestly, I thought...
November 2011
92 posts
Making money
I think it’s amazing how people actually say that they live in the virtual worlds. It’s very important to learn the economics of them as well. I enjoyed reading the first article. The person who wrote it did a great job with making his journal entries intriguing, but he also seemed like a complete noob when it came to making money. Because the article also touched on supply and...
All work and no play makes the internet super...
After reading through the Case Study How Meeting in Second Life Transformed IBM’s Technology Elite into Virtual World Believers I was far from being made a believer. This Case Study only covered the positive aspects of meeting in Second Life. Through my personal experiences, I know that Second Life crashes every hour that you’re on. Also, if you have too much running on your computer system Second...
virtual economy
One article this week that really stuck out to me was, “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer”. The article discussed the economics behind the growing and expanding jobs inside “game workshops”. In massive multiplayer online games, such as World of Warcraft, it is very common for there to be upgrades in the game that cost real currency. These in-game additional upgrades, along with the obsessive...
Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer and Second Life
The article in The New York Times titled, “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer” was was really an eye opener for me with the idea that, once again, you can make a living while participating in a virtual world. So many of these workers hours are 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week. Now I understand that, for the most part, virtual worlds and games are used for a leisure activity. But...
I prefer to play my own games.....I am not that...
The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer by Julian Dibbell
This is the story of the ultimate in service jobs, someone who will play your game for you. I never really imagined there are people who will do this for you, but I should have known, in this service oriented economy, you can find someone who will do just about anything for money. This is more than the story of the Chinese workers...
Now I Ain't Sayin' She A Gold Digger..
“While the Internet has produced some strange new job descriptions over the years, it is hard to think of any more surreal than that of the Chinese gold farmer.”
For our readings this week, the article that I found to be most interesting was “The Life Of The Chinese Gold Farmer” from The New York Times. This immediately stood out as a questionable practice of labor,...
IBM and Second Life
After reading the IBM and Linden Labs collaboration for a case study, I have many questions left unanswered. I find it a bit misleading that the study, done by Linden on their own product they love dearly, takes quotes and opinions from IBM. Throughout the article, there are no negative words said about Second Life. The only part that has any negative connotation is a part on how some people were...
Gold farming
I was struck by a few of the class reading this week. I found the article ‘ Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer’ to be really interesting. It made me really realize how important/ obsessive people are with these online games. Of course, I might think the right word to use so obsessive but to these people it is their lives and to some a living. There are some cafes in China that hire online gamers that...
Virtual Economics
I found these article very interesting, one I have read before this “life of a Chinese gold farmer”. First however, I want to talk about the article “Virtual Worlds: A first hand account of Market and Society on the Cyberian frontier” although I found it has some good points I also had some problems with this article. It is true a lot of money is spent on virtual worlds but...
In the article, “Transformed IBM’s Technology Elite Into Virtual World Believers” discussed how IMB successfully held their business meeting on Second Life and it was 1/5 of the cost of a real world event. People realized that SL wasn’t just a game or social networking site, but rather it had the potential to change the way business is done globally and might be worthwhile exploring. The way...
It was very interesting to learn how real money is traded in the ‘hood’ of the online gaming worlds such as World of Warcraft. I was fascinated with how there are cafes in China that hire online gamers working 8-12 hour shifts that generate real time money trading online game gears, acquiring objects from warrior monks and similar stuff. To a user like me this deepened my understanding of these...
After reading the article ‘Say Everything’, it sounded very futuristic at some level- and at the same pace glimpsed Post-modernism or probably an ‘ism’ of its own choice(the Internet’s) considering the protruding generation gap. I think it was quite sensible to the fact that online activities, social networking, practically anything everything we do on the Internet...
Facebook Fame...or any other online site
“Just keep walking through those flames until you find a way to take them as a compliment.”
When reading ‘Kids, the Internet and the End of Privacy’ by Nussbaum I was shocked at how many of the interviewees felt the same about their so called bad press with what they post on the internet. I feel like a lot of my posts have to do with my disagreement with the things...
Privacy = Jealous Really!!! What R U Smoking?
We live in an age of information and with this comes a great responsibility on what we post and do on public spaces such as Facebook. Social networking is just another buzz word to perpetuate hegemony, because all your friends are doing it you should too. This is the message you hear all the time. Here is a quote from an executive from Google “Don’t worry about what you post, tweet,...
"the future belongs to the uninhibited"
This weeks article by Emily Nussbaum “Say Everything” really captured the essence of what this generation does online. Privacy has been murdered years ago with the development of technology and the usage of social sites. The article first grasped my attention with the quote “the future belongs to the uninhibited”. The article tells us that the idea of privacy is...
Online Spoilers
I found the Jenkins’ article of Interactive Audiences to be very interesting this week. I related with this article because I know how much of a fan that I could be. Jenkins brings up in her the points that computers and online communities changed fandom .”Online fan discussion lists often bring together groups who functioned more or less autonomously offline and have radically...
Kids these days...
Seriously, kids these days. As someone who fits in the age bracket described by Nussbaum in the New Yorker article, I find it very satisfying to hear an elders perspective. Call me old-fashioned, but there were parts of the the article that I just could not relate to, even though I am in agreement with a majority of what the kids stand up. What struck me the most was the bit on posting sexual...
I Wanna Be Famous (on Twitter)
Alice Marwick and Danah Boyd’s “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter” was right up my alley. I’ve been addicted to Twitter for the past year, and this article touched on a lot of the key points as to why I find myself coming back to Twitter.
It really is the most narcissistic tool on the internet. You’re just constantly updating it with your thoughts,...
Promoting Publicity, Preventing Privacy
“Kids today. They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little loons who post their diaries, their phone numbers, their stupid poetry for God’s sake, their dirty photos online. They have virtual friends instead of real ones. They talk in illiterate instant messages. They are interested only in attention and yet they have zero...
i am what i share...
I really enjoyed reading Nussbaum’s article, “Say Everything,” because it definitely defines our generation and says basically everything about what goes on in our not-so-private world. It mentions that people who are over 30 can feel this gap between the young and the old who define kids today to have “no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs,...
Privacy
The end of privacy
In Emily Nussbaum’s article, “Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generational Gap Since Rock and Roll”, she discusses how the role of social media and social networking sites on the Internet are changing our current culture.
“Kids today. They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little...
'Like me'!
In to see or be seen Boyd states, “Tweets can be posted and read from the web, SMS, or third-part clients for desktop computers, smartphones, and other devices. This integration allows for the instant postings of photo, on the-ground reports, and quick replies to other users.” Social media is everywhere. It’s dominant not only in the online realm but also in our reality. It’s sort of as if we care...
Privacy... It's your choice to act like it still...
Even though I am in the age range that is comprised of this certain generation that doesn’t know a life out of FaceBook, I remember a time before the constant use of the internet. I remember what it was like to not have a cell phone because I didn’t until freshman year of high school and, quite frankly, I liked it. I liked checking in with my parents by calling them from a...
A little privacy, please?
The Nussbaum article had an interesting quote. Shirky stated that older generations are always eager to believe that the behaviors of younger generations are a matter of morality, not chronology. “You didn’t behave like that because nobody gave you the option.” My parents did not put photos of themselves on the WWW because there was no WWW. To them now, it seems only harmful to share so much...
Privacy? What's That?
“Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.” Right on, Nussbaum, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Privacy is dead, and there’s no chance of resuscitation. Each click is accounted for, every page view is tracked, and all typed words are archived for, well, as long as the Internet exists. Even in the offline world, data collection, surveillance cameras,...
NAKED ON THE INTERNET
The New Yorker article caught my eye, as the author really describes my genereation really well. Archiving ones life, can be a really good thing, especially that the tools are available and you do not need to be a great writer to do so. It is really interesting how the teenagers of today and the 20 somethings have no fear. People of my generation fear a lot of things, we were kind of brought up...