Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

There are numerous ways to use virtual worlds, either for professional reasons or just for fun. In the article Avatar II: The Hospital moderators use Second Life as a training ground to prepare their nurses for the worst case scenario. Other professional uses include developing virtual worlds on private databases where employees can use their avatars go to meetings. Some people turn to virtual worlds just to enjoy themselves and reinvent themselves in a virtual world where anything they want they can have. In the article No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You Eric Spangenberg, a consumer psychologist, mentioned that a virtual world is "the newest manifestation of how people live vicariously: if I can't afford a Bentley, my avatar can."

A big pro of virtual worlds is that it allows people who are shy or have a certain medical condition to express themselves in a way they normally wouldn't. Meeting can be held in virtual worlds where employees from around the world enter and participate. Another pro of virtual worlds is that it allows people to make virtual prototypes thus reducing the cost of making physical models. For example when you have a meeting about a new building you want built in a certain neighborhood; you can actually construct it there and see how it would look.

Although virtual worlds can be a good thing they can also be used for bad. Since it's located on the internet anyone can basically do anything. When this happens, children might be exposed to material that they shouldn't be seeing. Since virtual worlds are on the internet everything is anonymous which may also pose a problem. People can pretend to be someone they're not and pull off scams without getting caught.

I think virtual worlds foster creativity because services like Second Life allows people to recreate places they've been or want to be. It allows people to recreate situations that they could get into in real life and allows them to find solutions to these problems. Virtual worlds allows people to express themselves and dress their avatars in a way they see fit and lets their avatars go to places they like just to meet people and have a good time.

I think the future of virtual worlds might be something more realistic, where the individual themselves can be involved. This would be practical for training people especially for military like task. I feel that virtual worlds now are more like a video game on a computer because you do everything from a keyboard and a mouse. In the future I think you would be able to go into a room of some sort and you'll be surrounded with holograms and stuff where you can carry out whatever you want to do.

Twitter: Discussion

The main difference between Blackboard discussion board and an in-class discussion is the limited space.  For both BB and twitter your form of communication is through typing while in-class discussions are oral.  One more thing about twitter is that it doesn't have spell check (good thing firefox provides this feature in its browser.)  Going to a business school, I feel that twitter is both helpful and harmful.  I feel in our society we are all short on time so we use abbreviations and slang.  Twitter reinforces this.  However, schools try and correct this, focusing more on the structure and grammar of English.  This is so students are ready and capable of writing professional memos and letters when they go into the workforce.

Posting a tweet wasn't complicated at all.  Since all our classmates are followers of each other it's simple to see each others tweets, kind of like a chatroom.  Since this was my first time using twitter and I don't follow a lot of people it wasn't necessary to search for tweets made by classmates.  It was all on the homepage.

Social Networking

Like Evan Williams said in David Pogue's article in the New York Times Twitter? It's What You Make It "Twitter, in other words, is precisely what you want it to be. It can be a business tool, a teenage time-killer, a research assistant, a news source - whatever. There are no rule, or at least none that apply equally well to everyone." With 140 characters to use one can tell the world s/he had eggs and bacon for breakfast or tell the world they opened a business and the first 100 customers eat for free. This technology can be used for more than just chats or updates as well. You can use it for research or send a link and direct another person to some files, videos, pictures etc.

There are so many benefits of having Twitter, in the New York Times article Putting Twitter's World to Use, Claire mentioned "companies like Starbucks, Whole Foods and Dell can see what their customers are thinking as they use a product, and companies can adapt their marketing accordingly." AT&T used Twitter for similar reasons, when some vandals cut one of their fiber-optic cables they used Twitter to update their customers on what happened and what's being done. Another advantage to society mentioned by Claire is Twitter allows people to constantly update their status thus, giving a basic news feed to anyone who want to read it.  Lastly I want to mention that even machines can send out "tweets" which can be good and bad.

The good thing is that the technology can be adapted to send out messages to you for thing like the security of your home. On the other hand, when you follow a lot of people you could get bombarded with messages. The type of personality you have can make this even worse. I'm talking about those people who can't go a few minutes without checking for updates or one of those who has to read every post someone puts up. (I know way too many people like this.) This will end up consuming your life making it harder for you yo take care of your daily tasks like studying or going out and enjoying the day. At the very least this will reduce the time you have to enjoy yourself.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

My first impression of myspace is that its content is targeted for teens.  On their homepage it has links to things like television shows, music artists, movies, games etc. Looking closer into myspace you can browse through other public profiles without logging in. The atmosphere seems casual, people taking pictures of anything and everything. You can even find random people throughout the myspace community. Myspace allows their users to be creative and almost anything they want to include in their page is possible.

Facebook on the other hand is a step up in professionalism. Facebook looks plain and the homepage is a basic profile with all your updates. Also on your homepage are the links to various places like photos, videos etc. Facebook increases privacy as well. In order to look at any profiles you have to be a member first. After you become a member you are still limited to what you can view by the owners of their specific page.

Being a first time visitor to friendster I thought it was like a merger between facebook and myspace.  The homepage is like facebook showing you updates but the other content is like myspace. Like facebook access to the website is limited to members only. Some unique aspects of friendster is that it allows to create a blog or join a forum.

Finally we look at linkedin; they are a professional network that allows members to get in-touch with professionals and more importantly stay connected. The basic idea of linkedin is for people to create a professional profile so people who want to find you can. When you upload your address book to linkedin your contacts will continue to update even when people move between jobs and change their emails. Linkedin provides a place for professionals in the same industry to discuss things related to their work as well. One last remark about linkedin is that you can search for a professional you met the other day right on the homepage even if you don't have a membership.