Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

What are different ways these virtual worlds can be used? What are the pros and cons? Be specific. How do virtual worlds foster creativity? What do you think the future of virtual worlds will look like?

There are many different ways where virtual worlds can be used. Some could be for work and others for leisure. One of the pros is membership is free as stated in Ruth La Ferla's NY Times article, "No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You." When membership is free it brings more people to try. An example would be if someone that enjoys playing fps gaming and has a free membership, it would bring more people into this game. This brings to a second pro which builds a special bond with the online community. With this special bond, it relieves stress from the persons daily life. A con would be online bullying which could lead to depression and other mental illnesses. Another con would be some free memberships virtual worlds have in game currencies. This leads a person to use real world funding to the virtual world.

Many virtual worlds do foster creativity. It is shown in games like Second Life, Spores, Minecraft and others. It gives a person creativity to personalize their avatar in Second Life. Spores let people and children create monsters and they run around in a virtual world. This is also the same concept of Minecraft. Many has favored Minecraft and created virtual worlds that are like the real world as a challenge.

The future of virtual world will have more people coming into the virtual world. As in Mark Tutton's article "Going to the virtual office in Second Life," states that many companies are using the virtual world in the work place. This gives a place where people can be in the virtual world to have business meetings and collaborate on work. It doesn't matter where the person is but still be in the same place. Many companies let families that have young children work at home. There is many requirements for working at home which include a specific location which has access to equipment and internet connection.

An example of a virtual world would be when I play Combat Arms. I'm a fan of FPS gaming and it does relieve stress after a long day after work. I am not a person that would want to use real world funding to the virtual work. I come back most nights for the game because of the special bond i have with people in the online community. I was in a clan in the game and had a group of over 10 people. Sometimes all of us would come online and we would pack the room since its only 8 people can come into a room. While in game, everyone has their own character and can be anything you want it to look like which gives me a way to be creative.

Social Networking Sites

Currently Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn is the four major social networking sites. Either for friends, family or work. Each has their own differences. Facebook was started for only a selected few until it became popular. I remember it took me forever to get registration since i was at a two year college which was't accepted. Membership was for specific four year colleges. Twitter was known for its short quick responses to a wider group of people with the use of hashtags (#). Google+ was somewhat of a different between Facebook and Twitter. I felt that it was more of a catch up game for Google to enter into the social networking market. There was a little aspect of Facebook because of the way you can post items and then see it as somewhat of a feed. LinkedIn as a social networking site was geared toward more of a professional work network to communicate with business. I have seen LinkedIn posts from other users stating that its a professional place and shouldn't be used a dating site. This keeps the website's brand to professionalism rather than a social local hangout.

There is actually a couple others that i wanted to speak upon which are AsianAvenue, Friendster, MySpsace and Xanga. As an Asian American growing up in the United States, its hard to find specific people the same interests. I found that AsianAvenue even through its early stages had many people as registered users. It gave a chance to find more information on Asian culture than American culture on the website. Friendster and MySpace was somewhat an early version of Facebook because people would just add their friends or at least that is what i did. Xanga was a big part of my social networking until everyone started to use Facebook. Xanga was different from others because it was more of a weblog compares to others where its more of direct contact with friends and keeping things short. AsianAvenue, Friendster, MySpace and Xanga has all declined to a point where people just remember that they have accounts and no much more. The sites itself has either went under renovation or has change their contents to mimic the current social networking sites.

Blog about Twitter

A Twitter discussion can be in real time compared to a BlackBoard discussion. When using Twitter, there is a notification which will lead to a quicker reply. BlackBoard discussion is when the person has time to log in and then reply the topic. This will lead to late replies to the discussion on BlackBoard if multiple people are currently in a heated discussion.These two compared to an in-class discussion in my opinion will have more benefit. Many take online classes to have the benefit of work and home. If there was an in-class discussion, everything will be in real time and could take longer than expected if the discussion becomes heated. We can each each person reactions and have less of a misunderstand. When discussions are online, it is up to the reader to have their own specific idea of what the writer is saying compared to a face to face discussion. The speaker can correct themselves if a specific word is said in the wrong context. 

Social Networking

Corporations and consumers use social networking in diverse ways but for the same reasons. Corporations use social networking to find the right candidates to become their employees. While consumers use social networking to keep in touch with family and friends. In a special case, we can see that it change change opinions and rally support for a president. David Carr's article How Obama Tapped Into Social Network' Power, he states how the Obama campaign used social networking applications under one specific movement to create an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally and fight smear campaigns. With these in place, they sent out the message to vote which helped them topple the Clinton campaign then John McCain and then the Republicans.

Some benefits for consumers is that they can voice their opinions on websites about specific products and services. For students, there are websites that rate professors on their teaching therefore a student can learn fully since they know their professors have the same goal. A benefit to corporations is that they can see if the future applicant is qualified for the position. This could also be a disadvantage because it can step the boundary of discrimination. Another disadvantage is the decrease of face to face social interaction. As in Hilary Stouts article Antisocial Networking, it discusses how the technology has changed relationships from offline to online. This also changes the quality of the interaction like experiences to develop empathy, understanding emotional nuances and reading social cues likes facial expressions and body languages. What we can see through technology would be through emoji's which can not replicate what is seen through face to face interaction.

Blog v Wiki

Blogs are known as a website that one writer writes about in posts that are in a diary type style. While wikis are known to be a website that has multiple writers that write on one page about the same concept or idea. Blogs and wiki's have their own advantages but also have their own disadvantages.

When I was first introduced to blogs was in high school, it was known that everyone had a xanga weblog. It was more about writing about your daily life and if something interesting happened then you would receive eProps from your friends. Now when people associate with blogs, it’s more of a fuller and richer content rather than nonsense about a person to do list. There are homemakers that have blogs that help other new parents with tip and trips of parenting. Some bloggers write about food and others about travel. These users generated content gives today's networked world more enrichment and innovation.

Blog’s can be used for collaboration but it would be difficult to have a final deliverable. The reason for this is because blogs are usually written with one account holder rather than from multiple accounts. As stated in "How to Use Wikis for Business," by Ezra Goodnoe, when working on a team project it could be a nightmare for the document management because of “Spreadsheets and Word documents get passed around, and nobody’s quite sure who has the most recent version.” From personal experience in a work environment, it is hard to keep track of updated documents when there are multiple users that need to edit one document. If I knew how easy it would be to use wikis, then I would have suggested it. In “An Internal Wiki That’s Not Classified” by Noam Cohen, has given an example of Diplopedia which is being used within a business. It states how many are registered users, the contributions to the page and who views the pages.

Wikis are currently used as a place to share information about any given topic. It can be a knowledge base, documentation center, managing specific projects, and a local communication center for people. The idea I have in mind for a new use would be since it’s a centralized location that a fair playing ground for people to discuss about specific topics currently plaguing society. An example of a topic would be about human rights, sexuality, religion, racism, and even about our freedoms. I watched a video today that was called Shocking DNA results show our real backgrounds, and the first thing I thought after watching is that everyone is single minded and only thinks race is better than everyone else but once you see where you as a person is really made up of from which backgrounds is when you see things in a different light. If a new use of wiki can open up someones eyes to see that things are not only in a single context then maybe it would be a bigger and better thing in the future.

New Media Effects on Hong Kong Society

The Hong Kong society has gone through many changes. Many of the recent generations remember government rule under the British from 1841 to 1997. Once Hong Kong was handed back over to the People's Republic of China on July 1, 1997, there was still a rule of One Country, Two System. This would mean Hong Kong's previous capitalist system and its way of life would not change for a period of 50 years. With new changes, things won't be the same for long.

New media will play a huge role in this change, showing both positives and negatives to their daily life and in the political unrest of the country.