Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds are online communities that enable users to interact with each other through the web, as well as to create objects. 

There are two common ways of uses for virtual worlds. One is to provide a community for online communication only; and the other one is game based. Yet the virtual worlds we mostly seen today are online games based, which have some business purposes on it. "In most virtual worlds, memberships are free, but players trade real money for virtual currencies, used to buy products, save up in an account or eventually redeem for real money. " stated on a article No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You.

Depends on the background for the virtual worlds creation,they can bring many positive effects such as recreate a world in the past days for memorial purpose.According to Mr.Bard,a user of Second Life, says “The old mailboxes are still here...firmly installed behind his desk.” Also, they serve as some places for relaxation and entertainment. However, virtual worlds are not real after all. We can see how many teenagers has found online games as way to escape the various pressure, not to mention there's is a possibility that ones' privacy may be violated.

Instead of saying foster creativity, it would be better to use the term interest while using virtual worlds. Virtual world can help people gain interests on computer technology, so that they have the motion to learn more.

It's not hard to predict how virtual worlds will look like in the future. Some movies and cartoon shows are already give us a sense of how it might be. Soon people can enter the virtual world and touch everything inside with their own hands, and maybe fighting monsters also.   

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--Laferla, Rufh.No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You. NewYork Times.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/fashion/22Avatar.html>

--Knafo, Saki. In Room 100, It's Sid and Nancy All Over Again. The New York Times.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/thecity/03virt.html>

Blog about Twitter

Twitter discussion allows users to post their thoughts in words with 140 bytes limit. Because of this limitation, it requires multiple tweets to express one's ideas.

Blackboard discussion don't have words limit, students can express their ideas more clearly. Yet Blackboard is used in certain purposes or tasks; moreover, there's an issue of time matter. Response may be delayed sometimes.

In class discussion occurs only when students and teachers speak to each other. Twitter discussion cannot be in class discussion, but class participation. Also, answering common questions is not considered in class discussion. Debate and group meeting are more likely to be class discussion.

Social Network Sites

Facebook

When log in to Facebook, the homepage first appears on the screen, where you and your friends' posts are displayed at the center. Then you can switch to your personal homepage and check posts that belong to you only. On the left pane of the homepage, you will find many application tags. On the right, you will find a list of your friends, which you can click open and close.

MySpace

I do have my account registered last year, but I forgot the user ID and password. The reason I wanted to sign up for a account is its music playing feature, which differentiate it from other social network sites.

Twitter

Though the content and page format is varied from Facebook, but their main functions are pretty similar. Friends are now called followers in Twitter. You can still post and reply messages like Facebook, but Twitter provides a easier way to search for users' posts, such as using the "@" and "#".

PengYou

It's a Chinese word, which means "Friends" in English. I use this site very often for keeping contact with my Chinese friends, since Facebook is not available in mainland China. Yet I would say most of its functions are similar to Facebook, including its contents and page format.(Actually I think they are absolutely the same except for the page/banner color and languages.)

Social Networking

Social networking serves two purposes: first is to provide users a place for global communication; second is for business use. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish which one is the primary purpose because many social network providers have multiple business other than the social network service. 

Social networking also benefits the society in two ways. First, it improves global communication. Unlike email that require users to click-open or click-submit a message each time, social network users can have the messages displayed on the screen right away. There's distance and time limitation. Users can share their favorites at anytime. Moreover, it compromises those who have little intentional to speak. Secondly, social network helps business growth. Facebook for example, earns millions of dollars each year only from advertising; yet they still have their own developed tools that can help them generate profits such as games. 

Still, two opposites arise against the benefits that social network provides. Although it has the intention to improve communication, we live in a community and still need to face other people around us. We can't bring a little device and typing words while the two people are sitting on the same table. Speaking skill is important, no matter how unwanted one would speak. The other biggest issue about social networking is the privacy. This topic is till under debating nowadays because of the ethical issues involved. While users posting things on these websites, "few of these users realize that the information they post, when combined with new technologies for gathering and compiling data, can create a fingerprint-like pattern of behavior." according to a article called Leaving "Fingerprint":How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security. Many users do not have the skill to check whether their personal information is being gathered for other purpose uses, even though some researches shows that "the majority of young adult users of Facebook are engaged with managing their privacy settings on the site at least to some extent", says Danah Boyd and Eszter Hargittai. 

Excluding all of these matters, we do see how social network has been evolved in recent years. For example, users can have the option to speak on these websites, which means you don't need to dial others' phone number anymore as long as you as you have a microphone.

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-Leaving "Fingerprint":How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security
<<http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2262>>

-Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do

<<http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/who-cares-about-facebook-privacy-students-do/25877>>

 
 

Blog v Wiki

The only thing that blog and wiki have in common is their purposes—to share information. However, blogs are closely to journalism, while wiki is more like a collection of content pages. Blog is usually managed by one user. Only the blog owner has the right to edit the blog page contents, such as posting new articles and deleting others comments. Moreover,stories and articles on a blog webpage are usually closed to daily life.Like James W. Garey said it is "our day book, our collective diary, which records our common life." Wiki on the other hand, is completely opened to everyone. In the last few seconds a new content may be inserted into a wiki page, a moment later the content may be gone. Therefore, it's hard to find the consistency in some wiki pages.Usually information displayed on a wiki page is knowledge based. One important concept have to be mentioned is the business purpose of wiki. In the article How to Use Wiki for Business, it states that wiki has existed for decades, but not for business uses until the past couple years. To conclude that, blog is a place to find life experience, where wiki is more relevant for learning.

The reason for convergence becoming important is the development of advance IT technology nowadays. In the past people can only share their knowledge through  physical texts. Such redundant way of communication seems a little bit out of date in today's society. People tend to look for a faster way to learn and acquire information. That's why wiki becomes popular.

I don't think collaboration for blog is a good idea because it's not what a blog does. Today we already have pages like wiki,forum and some other community websites, making blog become collaborative also making it become something else.

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---How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? 

http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf

--How to Use Wiki for Business

http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331

Project Description: Is Social Networking Good or Bad?

Social Networking is a common way of communication among internet users. People can talk and share their experience with others throgh different social network providers such as Facebook and MySpace. The issue is wheather it is good or bad. With the functionality of these websites, internet users can easily post everything that is relevent to them at anytime. Also, better than sending emails, users can talk with their friends in different continents. However, are these convenience enough to make social networking become a positive way of communication? The answer is definitely not. As we go deeper in this topic, in comparison to face-to-face communication, we should have a better judgment of Social Networking.