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 Life will crash. That would keep attendees from staying in the meeting and would cause them to miss a lot of what has happened while their avatar was ‘asleep’. The system crashing is not the same thing as taking a bathroom break. It takes much longer to reload. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s amazing that technology makes meetings like these possible. For instance, it was insanely impressive that so much money is saved by meeting virtually and that they could make 3-D models appear within SL to show workers how to use and service a machine. However, this case study should have covered something (anything) that went wrong so I would believe that it was more of a success. I believe this is an inevitable transition with the economy that we’ve gotten ourselves stuck in however, I’m a promoter of face-to-face business etiquette.
Speaking of the economy we’ve gotten ourselves stuck in; the things that we spend our money on are beyond ridiculous! According to The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer Americans buy gold coins and raw materials for video games on Ebay. I have never played WOW nor will I ever play WOW and now I just despise the game even more deeply for putting these people in the positions that they’re in. The Case Study describes the abilities that the online world has as remarkably positive and productive, however, comparing this to Li and his 30 cents an hour job strengths my position on what I was discussing previously.
The online world can be seen two ways because, “There’s a big difference between work and play”. The Gold Farmers play for work. People design Second Life regions as work. The online world creates a way for people to make money. The line between work and play is dominant and after reading these articles I see that now. It makes me believe that money will make online play all about online work.
