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 who get paid nothing to play World of Warcraft for 12 hours a day. The unwritten part of the story is about the people who pay for this service. I have to admit that given the choice between work and play, I would take play 95 times out of 100. The people that pay for this are not even playing. They are not even taking the time to build their own money; they are buying it and the prestige that they get from the game. The social capital that they must receive from this game must be more important than any fun they might have getting to that point in the game. Society has come down to paying people to play games for you. Even I am not that lazy…….
The Chinese people who play for pay (if you can call the money they get pay) are exploited by the system that would allow this to happen. 30 cents an hour? These people must be absolute experts at Warcraft and are only out getting gold coins for doing the most monotonous jobs…..Like an assembly line….pretty much the same routine and for 12 hours at a time. Even in my younger days, when I played video games, I would have a hard time doing that for 6 hours, let alone 12. I know people who play video games very fanatically, and I would say that 12 hours every other day….well that could be possible for some of them, but 7 days a week….
How Meeting in Second Life Transformed IBM’s Technology Elite Into Virtual World Believers……Linden Lab
Teleconferencing, no matter what type it may be is not a new thing. Meetings, are still boring, even though you might hold them in Los Vegas or Hawaii. Second Life offers a new way to conduct meetings and has some major advantages. The new way is through the use of avatars in a very modern (virtual) setting. It has the advantage of being cheaper. There are no travel costs, just what ever Linden Lab charges you to do something like this. The first and second times these meeting are held like is likely to hold the attention of the participants, and will encourage participation in many areas by more people that regular meetings. Eventually, this newness will wear out and virtual meetings will become old hat. Face to Face meeting will become a thing of the past, because of costs, travel, and time. IBM included how much money they saved in the article because people would be able to get right back to work. This stood out to me because this seems to be one of the real reasons for not having a face to face meeting. This is more than the cost of the event, this almost accounts for the time wasting that inevitably occurs upon the breakup of a meeting, where everyone says goodbye and then walks back to their office, often stopping for a coffee or something to eat. Often going to a meeting in the Navy meant that people would be gone all day, for a one hour meeting. A major loss of man-hours. IBM had a successful experience…..once……Can they do it again? What will be the trend? Will ALL meetings become virtual? Can virtual meetings really take the place of the face to face meeting? The future will tell.
