Ramblings

I just finished adding everyone to my blogroll and gawd did that take forever -_-.

I would like to apologize right off the bat to anyone whose name I misspelled. If you fall under that category, feel free to point it out and I'll get right on fixing it.

I'm going to try not to complain about how much this site sucks compaired to LiveJournal too much, but it's going to be really hard T_T.

I also need to learn how to communicate without using emoticons.

Maybe I should get that project up as a post now, but all I really want to do is take a nap....

You guys can read this if you want, but I'll sum it up for you in a sentence:

"All of the internet habits I have today derive from playing Neopets too much in my youth."

But here's the long version:

I am a member of a generation deeply and fundamentally impacted by the internet. It was a part of my childhood, and arguably, it was a part of my growth as a person. It affected my friendships and my ability to relate to people. Still, to this day I’ll check my email a dozen times and instant message for hours, but having a conversation over the phone is difficult. My future is doubtless online as well. Indisputably, my life—past, present, and future—is inseparably linked with the internet. It is a vital resource, not only for information but also for communication, and my world would be completely different without it.
The first thing I really ever used a computer for was playing videogames. The internet became an invaluable resource. How else was I to look up cheat codes for my GameShark? I certainly didn’t figure out the secrets of Mario Kart all on my own. The walkthroughs and strategy guides online helped me along through the puzzles and challenges I couldn’t overcome by myself. But why face these challenges alone? At a young age, I learned that the internet was an invaluable tool to access information easily and quickly, much easier than going out and finding a book. But of course, looking up some cheats and tricks didn’t get me completely immersed in the internet. I could simply print out what I needed and rejoin my friends at the console, and with the hard copy, I would never need to return ever again (until I lost the papers and required a new copy, and as soon as I printed a new one I would find the old one again). Then, somewhere around sixth grade, I made an amazing discovery. There were other people on the internet. And I could talk to them.
Neopets.com was the beginning of my new revelation. After several months of puttering around the site on my own, having relatively nothing to do with my fellow players, I discovered the forums. I met other users, and even started talking to them outside of Neopets through instant messaging. Suddenly I had online friends, people I had never and would never see in person chatting with me regularly. At that point in time, I probably spent more time interacting with people online than I did in real life. Neopets also encouraged my love for writing with its weekly “newspaper.” It had creative stories written by other users, which inspired me to start writing stories of my own, though I never had the nerve to submit any, or the conviction to actually finish them for that matter.
Unfortunately, Neopets was not an entirely positive experience. My account was hacked. I was sad to have lost my pets, and all the time and energy I’d put into them, but the lesson has stayed with me and kept me wary. After all, if people have nothing better to do with their time than steal Neopets accounts from children, any of my online information could be at risk. This friendly little children’s site also taught me how the internet masked my real life identity. It was easy to lie about my age, just to get a full-access account. Neopets also encouraged users to sign up with their sponsors to get free items. I must have done at least a dozen fake accounts on various websites, using gibberish for all of the personal information, and even the email address—this was back before confirmation emails. The ease with which I would lie online is startling, especially since it was done not even for free things, but for free virtual rewards. I have always been an abysmal liar in real life, and I seldom ever try. I can barely even lie over a telephone, but the internet gave me a shield that allowed me to hide if any of that phony information ever tried to come back and find me.
By high school I’d grown out of Neopets, though I still visit from time to time for nostalgia’s sake. I fell out of contact with my online friends. My love of writing found new life in fanfiction.net. I became engrossed in internet-based fandoms where I found a wealth of people who were all interested in the same things that I was. Before I even knew what a lurker was, I mastered the practice. Perhaps shyness kept me from becoming involved in the fan communities I frequented, but they were fascinating to read through and inhabited by people I felt I could relate to, even if I never got up the nerve to contact them. My brief stint with fanfiction ended the moment I realized that I had to eliminate all traces of copyrightable characters from my writing in order to truly own my work. I left fanfiction.net and joined the online picture sharing website deviantART.com, where I once again began making online friendships. At the same time, my real life friendships began to take on an online element. My small knot of friends and I all linked ourselves together in the virtual world as well. We all joined LiveJournal.com, a less popular alternative to MySpace that allowed us to communicate and coordinate. Making a single post on LiveJournal that we could all see was much easier than making all the phone calls.
The effects of cavorting around the internet in my youth stay with me in my present. I recoil at the thought of picking up a telephone, but I continue to stay connected to my friends through email, LiveJournal, and instant messaging. My desk is my base of operations in my room. I spend so much time at it that I needed to purchase a more comfortable chair to spare my back. In order to get feedback and opinions, I upload my writing and art on deviantART where my real life and online friends, or even complete strangers can give me commentary and critique. Browsing art online helps inspire me creatively, and commenting on other people’s work not only makes me new friends, but also brings more traffic to my gallery. For me, the internet is a social experience. Sitting in front of my computer, I don’t mind that I’m the only one in the room, but I feel lonely if none of my friends are online and I don’t have any email. Fortunately, even if no one I know is online, there are always people out there who are easy to find and talk to, and when I’m feeling antisocial, I simply sign off or close the browser.
Email is a vital form of communication, even with people I see every day. It allows my professors to send reminders and helps me ask them questions even outside of their office hours. Email and ANGEL are essential class resources, but they are also venues for club announcements. Online I can manage my bank account, shop, research, and talk to my friends all at the same time. Still I remain wary of internet security. I have never uploaded a picture of myself online, and I am cautious about posting my name, the names of my friends, and specific locations that would make it easy to find me. I refuse to give out my address in public places, even for my friends to be able to see, and when signing up for user accounts I rarely include my last name or address. If these fields are required, I’ve had enough practice to be able to make up something fake. This is why I don’t have a facebook. I still need that shield of anonymity when I interact with strangers online.
In my future, this dependence will only increase. Should I pursue further education and attend graduate school, I will need the internet to research schools and scholarships, both of which frequently feature online applications. If I choose to enter into the workforce, the internet will still provide a research tool, and it will also help me network people in my chosen profession. Email can help me contact or stay in contact with people I find online, or those I meet here at Penn State who can eventually contribute to the career I eventually choose. In the likely event that this career requires me to travel frequently, I will doubtless turn to the internet to make most, if not all of my travel plans. In unknown places, I can use the internet to find familiar stores in the area, or, failing that, order the products I need online. Travelling all the time will make staying in contact with my friends and a potential significant other if I don’t utilize the internet to stay connected with them. By this time, part of being friends with anyone will involve reading their blog and trading emails or instant messages, simply as a typical part of a normal friendship.
From an early age, I learned that the internet was an invaluable resource of knowledge. My encounters with several multi-member online communities—Neopets, LiveJournal, and deviantART—taught me that the internet could be used not only to make new friends, but also to network the friends I had in real life, manage them, even when we were close together, and stay in contact when we were spread apart. The internet has also instilled in me a great sense of paranoia and a fear of allowing my personal information to be available online. All of these experiences in my past accumulate into my internet usage in the present, with the added element of a significant amount of my schoolwork occurring in an online setting. I have every bit of faith that this trend will continue: as I get older, more and more of my life will be intertwined with my online activities, and my prior experiences online will shape how I use the internet in the future.

Yeah....

Well, the wiki article was interesting enough I suppose. It was informational to say the least, though it kind of made me wonder "what would my blog count as?" And then it made me wonder "why does the world force me into categories all the time"? And then that made me wonder "when did I get that emo?"

Not that I have anything against emo people, but that's not my thing. And "don't lable me" is so tired. I mean, seriously, if you're going to have teenage angst, at least have some original teenage angst.

Anyway, I liked this list of blog types better. It's longer and more entertaining.

Also, that link reminded me about memes. Gah, they're like the chain mail (not chainemaile) of the blogosphere (THAT WASN'T JUST A CHEAP EXCUSE TO USE THE WORD BLOGOSPHERE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT). Anyway, it is my personal opinion that memes and tagging are the spawn of the devil, and I try to avoid contact with them whenever possible.

But oh man... that second article.... Whatever flaming Gorman got he deserved wholesale. Do you ever read something and when you put it down, no matter how compelling the argument was, all you can think is "man, that author was a total jackass." The human being who wrote that article was simply too concieted for words. Reading that short article made ME want to flame him--I can only imagine what an entire book must have been like.

Just so that this isn't completely unjustified ranting, let me explain myself. The nature of the language Gorman used was maddeningly condescending, and his basic argument against bloggers boiled down to "they're stupid so people shouldn't pay attention to what they think." Here, here's what I'm talking about:

It is obvious that the Blog People read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them and judge me to be wrong on the basis of what they think rather than what I actually wrote. Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs. In that case, their rejection of my view is quite understandable.

I'm acutally having a hard time expressing how angry this makes me without using swear words. It's quite a challenge. But he just undermines these people, basically calling their opinions worthless. What makes his opinion so special? Just because it's published in a book instead of on the internet? People can post whatever they want about whatever they want in their blogs and it's his problem if he goes and reads it. Honestly.

I guess I'll round out this link dump with that article from Pew I did for my presentation. It was actually pretty interesting if you want to check it out.

The blog that I have chosen belongs to LittleKuriboh, the creator of Yi-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. For those of you who are not familiar with this particular internet phenomenon, YGO Abridged is a series that originated on YouTube which features condensed parodies of Yu-Gi-Oh episodes. More information is available here, and at the YGO Abridged website. I’ve been following this blog since March 2007, mostly for news and updates on when a new episode is posted, but also to keep up with official news in the YGO Abridged fandom, and to learn more about the creator. Although some silly YouTube videos may seem frivolous and inconsequential, YGO Abridged has created no little bit of controversy, mainly over copyright issues.
Mostly, this blog acts as a site where fans of the Abridged Series can receive news and interact with its creator. LittleKuriboh will post updates and links to new episodes in his blog, as well as other related goodies, such as fanart. Before LittleKuriboh was banned from YouTube, his blog was always a much more reliable source of information and updates on the Abridged Series than the information box on his YouTube profile, and once the Abridged Series was taken down from YouTube, his blog made new episodes much easier to find.
Interestingly, a controversy came out of YGO Abridged when several YouTube users flagged some of the episodes for copyright infringement. This drove the Abridged series to several other video sharing sites, and eventually lead to its own website. However, during the controversy, many YouTube users rallied together in support of LittleKuriboh, noting that his use of footage from the Yu-Gi-Oh animé was protected because it was parody. LittleKuriboh’s YouTube account was deactivated, and then reactivated due to a large outcry from his fan base. This incident is actually what originally made me interested in the use of copyrighted material on the internet, and the distinctions that make certain uses legal and others not. Ironically, 4Kids itself has not sited YGO Abridged for copyright violations.
Of course, LittleKuriboh’s blog is firstly and foremost a personal online journal. His posts about himself reveal a shy, reserved individual that one would not expect to become an internet celebrity anymore than he himself did. The name of his journal is in fact “Little Kuriboh’s Hidey-Hole,” and even the name “LittleKuriboh” suggests a somewhat low self-esteem. Kuriboh is one of the creatures in the Yu-Gi-Oh series, but it is a particularly weak monster, thought at times it has won battles for the main character. He even comments that having so many people paying attention to him, and especially reading his journal, makes him feel slightly self-conscious, but he graciously allows his fans an insight on his life. Posts that aren’t about the Abridged Series often talk about videogames he’s been playing, movies he’s seen, or what he’s been up to. Recently he proposed to his girlfriend via YouTube (which is what lead to his account being removed again).
The style of LittleKuriboh’s journal is very simple. LiveJournal is a highly customizable site, and LittleKuriboh even has a paid account (a gift from a fan), which allows even further customizability. Still, the color patterns are simple, not even changed from the default of the style theme, and although he as a custom mood theme (pictures associated with moods that can be added to an entry), it was made by someone else. LittleKuriboh doesn’t use tags, though LiveJournal does offer them, but he does post links and pictures on occasions. My favorite part of his blog are his icons, which are usually very funny screen caps of characters making awkward facial expressions with some kind of witty caption.

His blog can be found here for anyone who wants to read it, and I would strongly encourage watching the Abridged Series, because it is full of lolz, and it rocks out loud.

So I randomly selected a blog to read for this project, right? Our profession is secretary, and the blog I found was crazy!

Confessions of a London Secretary was more than I expected. Like, we all have the stereotype view of the trashy female secretary having relations with her boss. It's real! It happens! From what I've read, the author of this blog is not involved with her boss, but she's certainly known other secretaries who were, and she's had her fair share of late night adventures.

For the most part, she doesn't discuss being a secretary, except for how it relates to her relationships and office romances. Honestly, I only read a few entries, but I was stunned. I almost can't believe this is real it's so outrageous.

Okay, first of all, this, because it’s definitely worth the minute or two to read through, especially after we’ve been reading all of these corporate blogging policies. Honestly though, even if this was made in jest, it isn’t so far off of the real thing.

Anyway, now on to the actual assignment….

All three companies I picked, Yahoo, the BBC, and Thomas Nelson (a publishing company) had certain policies they all agreed on.

• Employees should not break the law in the context of their blogs, and if they do, they will be held individually accountable as opposed to the company itself
• Bloggers should avoid attacking others, especially colleagues
• Do not write about confidential company information
• If in doubt, ask a manager before posting it in a blog
In some cases, two of the policies would be the same.
• Consult a manager if approached by the media about something in your blog before making any statements (Yahoo and BBC)
• Inform a manager if you have a blog that contains work-related content (Yahoo and BBC)
• Blogging on company time is acceptable within reason (BBC and Thomas Nelson)
• Include a disclaimer (BBC and Thomas Nelson)
Interestingly, each set of guidelines had its own unique parts as well.
• Correct representation of facts (Yahoo)
• Supporting facts in an argument (Yahoo)
• Allowing private feedback (Yahoo)
• Avoid promoting either side in current affairs to maintain impartiality (BBC)
• Use your real name to establish credibility (Thomas Nelson)
• Try to update frequently, or at least consistently (Thomas Nelson)

The common policies seem to represent good blogging practices in general, especially since the three companies I chose were all very different from each other. Mostly common sense stuff: don’t break the law, if you do the company is not responsible, don’t write inflammatory things about other people or divulge company secrets. These kinds of things are normal blogger etiquette and should be paid special attention to in the workplace, since the contents of a blog is associated not only with the individual, but also the company. Even despite a disclaimer statement that can protect the company from legal ramifications, people will still associate the blog with its company, which can harm their reputation.

The unique policies reflect the purpose of blogging in each company. Yahoo is more concerned with correctly representing facts and seeming credible, reflected by its unique guidelines that encourage research before posting and making well thought-out posts that give insight and explanation. BBC on the other hand seems more concerned with maintaining the fact that it is an impartial source of news. Requiring a disclaimer and instructing employees to consult a manager before dealing with a media source indicates their concern for how blogs associated with their company may affect their credibility as a neutral corporation. Their policy also has a specific section discouraging employees from siding on issues in their blogs. Thomas Nelson wants its employees to blog, and has links to employee blogs in order to give customers a better idea of what goes on in their company. This is why their policy encourages frequent and regular updating, as well as using an actual name.\

My “Best Practices” list

• Use your common sense
• Don’t break the law
• Be polite. If you absolutely have to criticize something or someone, be civil about it, and try to justify yourself with research that backs up your opinion
• Include a disclaimer, and remember that you’re responsible for what you write
• Don’t divulge sensitive company information
• If in doubt, don’t post it, or at least consult a manager

Resources

Yahoo!
BBC
Thomas Nelson

I totally meant to post this yesterday...

Anyway, anyone who's still stuck up on the project for this week, I'm going to recommend checking out LiveJournal. This is a site full of blogs on any topic you can possibly imagine. There are tons of communities, which you can search through, and these communities will have links to all of their members' blogs, which already has you on a second teir. The member blogs might not necessarily be about your chosen topic, but communities will also link to other related communities, and it's just a very accessable, navigable network.

Hope that helps some of you out if you're finishing this up at the last minute.

I don't know. I guess there have to be minimum requirements for an assignment, but being forced to talk about things and post links and stuff is still obnoixous. It sort of kills the spirit of a blog.

I'm also kind of confused now too. So posts we have to make for class don't count... what about links in those posts? It's just all weird. These requirements seem conducive to linkdumps, which I feel awkward doing, but at the same time it seems necessary.

This probably isn't the best place to complain about this though. Heh. Oh well. And it's not like whining is going to change anything either.

I don't know, maybe it's for the best that we have to post things that aren't just classwork. I mean, no offense guys, but these essays are pretty dry. I don't want to have to read them and then--God forbid--make intelligent commentary!

Well anyway, I guess it's time for me to refelct on the blogging unit. Actually, I'm going to cheat and make that a separate post.

Well, I had a deep and insightful post here, but the stupid thing timed me out, so now it's gone.

Yet another reason LiveJournal is superior to this blogging service: autorecovery, my one true love. Seriously though, I feel like a total jerk typing it over again. I know it never saw the light of day, but I have this issue with repeating myself. Also, I felt very emotionally charged about my reaction to the one reading, and now that's dead. Alas. Well anyway, I'll try to recreate some of it, even though the magic's gone...

This article reminded me why I find human beings so frustrating. Really though, people on Facebook need to deal with the fact that putting picutres of yourself being a moron/doing something illegal online is a BAD IDEA. Not only is there absolutely no reason it needs to be done, there are also plenty of stories about the bad things that have happened when people have done it! And then they're SURPRISED when doing something stupid has consequences. Let me tell you people, that's LIFE. Honestly...

The issue in this article was actually legitimate though. Obviously students want their freedom of speech, but you can't publicly attack someone online. It's really just bad form. I know that "James Knowles is a Twat" is a pretty benign attack, and the words used could have been much harsher, but it could have been said more tastefully too. This really is a direct personal assault.

Hopefully that code of conduct the school is working on for social networking will be fair and clear some things up.

So yesterday instead of a normal English class, we learned how to make ePortfolios using this nifty site called Weebly, which is probably the best free website making tool I have ever used.

It's all drag and drop, fairly customizable, no html skills required (though there is the option of simply force-feeding it the code if you want). Apparently it was made by a couple of former IST students, which really shows, because it's incredibly user-friendly. And when I say that, I mean user-friendly in such a way that it seems like they sat down and said "what will the people using this want to be able to do, and how can we make easy, self-explanitory functions that allow them to do that."

You can make regular webpages, or add a blog, or two. The navigation is created automatically. The blogging function is a bit less annoying than this one too, though you still can't comment on comments, which still drives me crazy.

To be perfectly honest though, a lot of what I really liked about Weeble was that it looked good. That's important. Like this blogging site? Sure it's functional, and it's got mostly everything you might want to use if you can bother to find it, but it isn't... pretty. The fonts are small, the layout is kind of cluttered, the colors are okay, but they're not vibrant and attractive.

It was a pretty cool site. I strongly advise checking it out.

The two articles I chose were about online gaming, specifically MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games). This is a topic that has only somewhat touched my life. I love RPGs; they’re my favorite type of videogame. I love solving puzzles and becoming involved in a storyline, and ever since Pokémon, I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for devoting hours upon hours to tedious leveling up.

However, MMORPGs are a beast I have yet to conquer. World of Warcraft was fun and everything, but not worth paying for a monthly subscription, and the social aspect of it doesn’t appeal to me either. Playing a multiplayer game with people who are right next to me is fun, but trying to play with someone on the other side of the internet quickly frustrates me. Somehow, I always manage to find the jerks who walk away from the game when they start losing, and even when I can manage to find someone reliable, then there’s waiting for them to come online, and trying to coordinate being on together, and then after that, you can’t walk away without disappointing the other person, even though realistically you’re both exhausted because it’s 3am and you’ve been playing for 6 hours straight.

This doesn’t appeal to me, but millions of others have made it a way of life.

The first article, Game Censorship, had three key sections: Virtual Economies—Money & Property, Virtual Gambling, and Deviant behavior. The first section addressed the issue of property in online games. Most online games have their own money system by which items earned in the game can be bought or sold, but some players will sell their rare or powerful items (usually on eBay) for real world currency. This matter has sparked a controversy, as well as laws about the ownership of virtual property. The article questions how and if laws should be applied to owning virtual items or even virtual land (such as in the game Second Life). Obviously, these matters are rather clear-cut in the real world, but courts have been hesitant to set new precedents in the case of online incidents, and there are no laws as of yet that clarify the situation.

The second section notes that actions may soon be taken against gambling in MMORPGs, even though it is done in the currency of the virtual world, not actual, real life money.

Finally, the third section dealt with deviant behavior specifically in MMORPGs and how laws should transcend real life into the virtual world. I. e.: does raping a virtual character “count,” should someone acting as a virtual character have freedom of speech as that character, and can the concept of libel be applied to someone’s avatar (game persona)? The conclusions the article came to were that there aren’t any real answers to these questions yet, but the approaching legal battles that will determine those answers are probably unavoidable. MMORPGs are too big a part of too many peoples’ lives to leave all of this in legal ambiguity.

I thought this article was really interesting. It posed a lot of really thought-provoking questions, though it didn’t really offer many solutions. I especially thought the topic of ownership in a virtual world would be fascinating to explore. Obviously, the things you, as a character, “own” in an MMORPG aren’t real, but they do represent an amount of effort, and certainly a time commitment. Losing an item, especially a rare or valuable one would be very upsetting, but it still wasn’t an actual piece of property, it was just some code in a game. I can imagine being very upset, maybe for a little while, but it certainly doesn’t seem life-shattering to me. On the other hand, I’m not a devoted gamer with countless hours invested in a character in an online world.

As tempting as it may seem to start making laws about property on the internet, and as cool as it would be to have an office in government devoted specifically to managing online gaming laws, I don’t really think it’s the government’s place. These games were created by companies who should have complete control over what goes on in their servers. If anyone should be handling these issues, it’s those companies, not the government. This eliminates the problem of different laws applying to gamers from different countries: if the companies make the rules, they apply to all of its players, no matter where they’re from.

The second article was more concerned about addiction to online gaming. It compared MMORPGs to gambling or even alcohol addiction. The argument presented in this article outlined a serious problem. Although many of the millions of MMORPG players have perfectly normal and healthy gaming habits, there are some who do have a serious problem.

[In] an online survey of more than 40,000 MMO players, the average player is 26 years old; most hold full-time jobs. Seventy percent have played for 10 hours straight at some point, and about 45 percent would describe themselves as "addicted."

This kind of gaming behavior led to the creation of Online Gamers Anonymous, which uses a process similar to Alcoholics Anonymous to help players overcome an addiction to online gaming.

Okay, given, there are some troubled people out there who use MMORPGs to escape their problems. This idea was represented in the article (compared to watching television or reading a book, neither of which we would label “addictions,” even if done frequently or obsessively). Still, the concept of online gaming as being harmful and addictive was pushed much more heavily, and some of the content even suggested that this obsessive playing was a direct result of something intentional made by the creators of the game. This made me angry. Given, the layout of the article was aggravating to begin with (crammed into a tiny, constrained column, most of which was taken up by obnoxious adds), but don’t gamers have any personal responsibility?

Yes, there may be pressure to continue playing even if you’re tired or hungry, but if you’re too stupid to get up and feed yourself because you’re in the middle of a game, how is that the game’s fault? Do we really want these people in the gene pool? If leaving the game is such a big issue, grab something to snack on before you sit down. Is that so hard? And these help groups—not to knock them, because it’s a great idea. I’m sure there are a lot of people who need help dealing with gaming addiction, but I don’t think the game itself is the problem. Obviously, if you’d rather be playing Everquest than eating or sleeping, and you spend more time in a virtual world as some made up character than you do in real life, you’ve got personal issues that need resolving. If not videogames, these people would find some other way to escape reality, and that is real problem, not that the game is too much fun or whatever other nonsense anyone wants to use to explain a gaming addiction.

Even though these two articles dealt with very different social impacts of MMORPGs, they both made the same overall point. Online gaming is a huge part of our culture today, and its growing. We can’t just ignore it. Whether that means that countries need to start making laws to control in-game conduct, or that we need to start forming support groups to remind people that there’s a real world beyond their computer screens, this is a factor that touches our lives.

Okay, so I don't think I communicated my point in class today, which is why I'm going to to attempt to elaborate on it here.

People sort themselves, and other people into categories. We like to associate with people who we share things in common with. That's one of the beauties of social networking--it's a tool that makes that easier. Instead of having to find people, break through the awkward barrier of small talk, and invest the time to get to know them, they're conveniently categorized and searchable for you.

However, when a group of people with similar characteristics gets together, people notice that they all of similar characteristics, and they start to associate those traits with that group. This is logical, isn't it? Well it's also stereotyping, but of course it sounds bad when you say it like that.

So, given all of that, of course different social groups will pervail over others. If one social networking site appealed to everyone, there'd be no competition in the market, and no incentive to create anything new in the field. True, a network is only as strong as the number of people it reaches, but why should it reach to people we don't really want or need to reach? People should be allowed to pick where they want their internet presence to be. Some people's online identities are important to them, and given the amount of stereotyping that goes on with social networking sites, which site you choose to have a presence on is significant.

But it's still a personal choice. Nothing is stopping people from getting a MySpace or a Facebook no matter what social group/class/strata they belong to. There is no physical barrier there.

There's a mental one. I'm a prime example of that. I resisted Facebook and MySpace because neither of them particularly appeals to me, but being on Facebook isn't the end of the world. I didn't burst into flames when I created an account. It was completely painless, and if I can do it, MySpace users can too.

Not that they would want to, or that anyone should make them.

I guess that was my other problem really. Like, even if MySpace and Facebook are segregated by class... what would we even do about it? Tell MySpace users they have to get Facebooks? Force the CIA to recruit out of MySpace? As far as I can tell, things are how people want them to be, and even though it's interesting to point out, I really don't see the issue here.

Visit Penn State Security and Risk Analysis Students

Yeah, so this is the SRA Social network that I spent my life's blood designing the theme for -__-. Ning is cool and everything, but using it makes my soul cry. In my professional opinion, the different features and the felxiblity of the colors and background pictures only creates the illusion of customizablity. Sure, you can change the colors around and everything, but in the end, the sample layouts are all the same design with different colors plugged in, you can only arrange the features so many different ways, and the only things that really distinguish these networks from one another visually would be if the creators incorperated uncommon widgets. Even then, widgets were difficult because the column sizes were completely ridged. You couldn't even deviate from the three column design.

Overall, it ranks better than this blogging site, but under LiveJournal and WAY under Weeble. It's good for what it is, but there's way better stuff out there. Sites definitely can be made highly customizable without an extensive knowledge of HTML, though from what I saw on Ning, not even HTML could really help.

So since we have to describe Digital Ethnography, first things first: go to Wikipedia for a definition of the big word

Ethnography (ἔθνος ethnos = people and γράφειν graphein = writing) is the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. Ethnography presents the results of a holistic research method founded on the idea that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other. The genre has both formal and historical connections to travel writing and colonial office reports. Several academic traditions, in particular the constructivist and relativist paradigms, employ ethnographic research as a crucial research method. Many cultural anthropologists consider ethnography the essence of the discipline.

So obviously, on this site, the human social phenomena that is being studied is YouTube. By having the students make a presence on YouTube, they immerse themselves in the culture of the site in order to get a better idea of its community and implications.

The sites I chose were Dailymotion, Veoh, and Newgrounds, all sites I frequent and was interested in learning more about.

Business Model

The three I picked are actually radically different in this area. Dailymotion is by far the most professional in this regard. It has a specific page in its information section devoted to its corporate information, and this page details the type of company, publications director, telephone number, and even share capital and trade companies register, whatever that is. A lot of this information seems useless to the average user, but it certainly looks impressive—like they really know what they’re doing and can be trusted. It reassures users that it isn’t just running out of someone’s garage. Newgrounds, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, did run out of its creator’s basement for more than ten years. Since then, it has moved into an office and owns some servers hosted in a facility in Philadelphia. The people running and maintaining Newgrounds are primarily the creator’s friends, and there are less than a dozen of them listed on the staff page. Also, I feel it is important to note that the Newgrounds staff page is formatted like a fighting videogame’s character selection menu. Not unlike Dailymotion’s straight-forward, just the facts corporate information page, this sends a message to users, and that message is: Newgrounds is fun and awesome, just like a videogame. Since Newgrounds features a lot of flash-based games, this actually makes a lot of sense. They might not be taken as seriously, but they are targeting their audience very efficiently. Veoh on the other hand is a privately held company with investors such as Spark Capital, Michael Eisner's Tornante Company, Time Warner Inc. and Shelter Capital Partners. Their mission statement is to

Give viewers a limitless marketplace of compelling or informative television programming for wherever and whenever they choose to watch.

Similarly to Dailymotion, Veoh has a clean, pristine page that displays this information, though they’re much wordier about it than Dailymotion. The page gives a professional feel that “leading technology and media investors” would be more inclined to invest money in.

Advertisements

None of the three sites requires a fee for joining, and all three feature advertising. On all three sites, the advertising is generally negligible, as it rarely fills a significant portion of the screen. Veoh keeps it off to the side in a separate, narrow column. Dailymotion features an ad prominently in the top right corner of its contents box, and smaller text ads above it, but only on the main page and during video browsing. Both Veoh and Dailymotion label their ads as advertising. Newgrounds has an ad at the top and bottom of every page, and an extra ad in a separate column on the pages that feature the most popular games and cartoons.

Both Veoh and Newgrounds both partner with DoubleClick for advertising, and both offer an opt-out option. This feature does not remove the advertisements, but it does remove the accompanying cookies. Dailymotion does not transmit personal data to third companies, but does collect and process it in order to create website statistics. Veoh does not disclose personal information except as necessary for certain services. Newgrounds gives information about users’ activities on the site to third companies, but no personal information.

Intellectual Property Rights

Both Newgrounds and Dailymotion explicitly state that the ownership of all content uploaded to their sites belongs to the user who uploaded it; however both sites retain the rights to reproduce and display user-generated works throughout the site. Veoh does mention that users have ownership of their uploaded works, though it’s hidden in a lot of technical jargon. All three sites restrict the reuse of uploaded user content without the consent of the user who uploaded it. They also all make express points of pointing out that user content is the sole responsibility of the user, and any consequences of those submissions are the responsibility of the user as well. Also, each site specifically states that uploading content risks that it may be stolen, and denies responsibility if this happens.

These intellectual property right policies seem to indicate that video sharing sites all have the same interests to protect when it comes to these issues. They all cover the majority of the same points, which all are all focused on protecting the site from copyright infringement issues.

Hal900’s Flickr gallery is located here. For this project, the division of our team’s workload was:

Jocelyn – took pictures, titled, tagged, and wrote descriptions for said pictures
Jamilah – took pictures, titled, tagged, and wrote descriptions for said pictures, provided her Flickr account for the team’s use
Abby – wrote the paper

We chose these roles because Jamilah already had a Flickr account, so it made sense to just use hers instead of all creating our own accounts. Jocelyn and Jamilah both had digital cameras already, which made it follow naturally that they would take the pictures and Abby, who sadly has no digital camera, would write the paper. Since photography is an art form that sometimes requires a context unavailable to the viewer, the duty falls on the photographer to accurately describe and title his pictures in such a way that helps the viewer to understand what he is seeing. This is why the photographers (Jocelyn and Jamilah) were also responsible for the picture titles, descriptions, and tags.

In retrospect, it might have made more sense to have a team account with a generic password so that Jocelyn could have uploaded her pictures directly to the site instead of having to email them along with their titles, tags and descriptions to Jamilah. Overall, it probably would have been less work. Also, if everyone on the team had access to the account, we could have all added tags to the different pictures so that different perspectives could have filled out the list of tags.

The IST-related pictures that our group chose were technological points of interest, selected for their photogenic qualities. Subjects ranged from air conditioning vents in the IST classrooms to keyboards, to the jumbled mess of wires behind all of the computers in the IST building. Certain objects were photographed at dramatic angles, and certain effects, such as blurring, black and white, and color inversion, were used to add interest and depth to the pictures. These effects made a picture of something as mundane as a keyboard, which IST students probably look at every day, seem interesting and different. Titles for some pictures are generally direct. The picture of a remote is titled simply “remote,” and the left hand side of a Dell keyboard is titled “Dell Left Hand Keys.” However, other pictures have less direct titles that still capture the essence of the picture, such as the picture entitled “Num Lock” which shows the number keys on a Dell Keyboard, or the picture “Time Passes,” which compares two different clocks found in a room, one on a microwave and one that’s an alarm clock. Descriptions elaborate on what the picture shows, adding more context for the image, and explaining some of the effects used (inverted, blur, etc.).

We tried to use as many tags as possible to make the pictures easy to find. As mentioned above, if other group members had had access to the account, we might have had more, but the ones that are there do cover a broad spectrum of possible tags. Flickr allows users to label their photos with as many tags as they like, and they can be changed, added to, and deleted from at any time. While viewing a picture, users can click on tags to see pictures that the same user has submitted with the same tags. Also, users can see every picture the public has submitted with the same tag. For interest, I clicked on the picture “Num Lock” and selected the first tag, “keys.” The rest of the pictures of keyboards came up in our gallery. The public pictures were an entirely different story. Not surprisingly, the first picture was of a piano. Pianos have keys; that makes sense. Interestingly, the next few were of pictures that came up were of crocodiles. After the initial shock, one realizes that these pictures were taken in the Florida Keys, but this just goes to show how very broad tags can be, and how homonyms can very quickly become tricky. A computer keyboard does not show up until the second page of pictures labeled with the tag “keys.”

This tagging structure gives users a broader base to search through pictures instead of just in titles, and a more specific method than searching through descriptions. Still, as with the “keys” example, it is an imperfect system. “Keyboard” returned more accurate results, but there were still piano keyboards as well as computer keyboards. The tagging structure does bring in a community element—being able to look at the public pictures relating to given keywords allows users to see where there are other people taking pictures of the same things. Because the tags are links instead of just words associated with the pictures, this encourages browsing around others’ galleries, bringing the community closer together than tags without links would.

So I think this video project is what's going to officially drive me crazy. Seriously, headdesk doesn't cover this one. I'm ready to slam my face through a wall, and though I don't think my face would be very happy about it, I'm pretty sure the wall would still lose.

Realistically, the only good thing that has come out of this experience, is that it will make a fabulous linkdump SO I'M GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE LIKE THE WIND, BABY!

Right, so this has been my day:

Woke up at one. W00t. Then again, I'd been up until 4:30 this morning writing my NaNo. Not so w00t. Roommate and her boyfriend were already out. Very awesome. Opened Sims 2. Took a shower while waiting for it to open. It wasn't finished when I got back -___-.

When I finally got Sims going, I then proceeded to devote the next 5 hours to taking video. It was actually pretty fun, in the way that wrestling with sims and forcing them into submission is fun. For my efforts, I managed to collect all the video we needed for our project and then some. Unfortunately, the "high" quality video setting is a rather misleading lable, but you get the idea of what's going on, especially if you've played Sims 2 a lot. Sim videos are much funnier when you know all the different actions the characters are doing. You know, funny in the way that your soul is dying from the knowledge that those brain cells could be devoted to something else.

So I've got my video. Now, a less paranoid person might have just sent it over to the person responsible for putting the video together in Movie Maker and gotten on with her life. However, instead, I opened up Movie Maker and made sure that the files I'd just created were compatable with the program. Go to import files. They show up; all seems well. I click on one, just for fun. A black screen appears in the movie preveiw screen. I try hitting play. Nothing happens. I add the movie to the timeline. It adds as an AUDIO FILE.

This was still around when "headdesk" was appropriate. However, after searching through offical help sites, unoffical help sites, downloading codecs (that didn't help), searching for other codecs (that also did not help), and most likely exceeding my bandwidth limit, I was no closer to having useable files, and I was frustrated on top of that.

Finally, a friend pointed me to download.com, where I was able to find a converter, that allows me to convert my useless files into useable ones. Of course, since I'm not buying the software, it only lets me convert one at a time, and asks me "would you like to buy it now?" between every conversion, but I am still satisfied with my victory.

Unfortunately, due to this agrivation, I'm not going through hell and back AGAIN to find something that will convert Flash files into something useable in Movie Maker. We'll see if anything in the way of animations made by Abby makes its way into this movie, but as of now, I'm converting the files, and recovering for a while.

It's our video!

Man that thing was more trouble than it was worth -_-. I suppose it gave me new respect for people who make music videos. I didn't have to put the thing together, but still, I don't think I'll be quite as harsh on the people who don't have their images matched up with the music.

Also, I have gained new respect for people who voice act, and people who actually take the time to match up thier AMVs (animated music videos) so that it looks like the characters are singing the song.

So... I went to IBM's Business Center in Second Life. It was pretty cool. There was information, and a coffee machine, and stuff like that... And then I got lost on a nature trail and was trapped in some ruins.

Second Life is WEIRD

The two organizations I picked for this project were IBM and Amazon.

IBM has a massive Second Life Presence. When you search for it in the map, a dozen things come up, including IBM Japan, IBM China, and IBM Italia. I chose the IBM Business Center, which seemed like it would be a fairly neutral ground where I would be able to read the language things were written in.

The Good: It was in English! And man was it HUGE. I could have explored that place for hours if Second Life weren’t so frustrating. The architecture was really cool—very futuristic. Also, it was actually day there, unlike most of the other places I’ve been in Second Life where it’s either night or sunset. The navigation was also well done. They had maps, which only required visitors to click a button in order to transport to the desired area. There were also maps which had clickable locations, and for those who preferred to walk (or fly) there were arrow signs pointing to the locations and most of the locations had signs on them to tell what they were. Also, many of the objects were clickable and led to links relevant to what the object was displaying.

The Bad: it was SO big, and most of the different islands did not have descriptive names, so it was hard to tell what exactly might be on them. There were many places and interesting buildings to explore, but many of them were annoying to navigate due to the complexity of the design, and some of them had no content. They were just cool-looking buildings that were there for the hell of it, which was okay to look at, but frustrating to get through and realize that there was no reason to explore them. This made me wonder why IBM needs so much space, since there really wasn’t that much content in the place that I visited. It seems like the whole thing could have been consolidated much more efficiently.
I would recommend a friend to have a look around at the cool buildings, but unless they were looking for something specific, I would not suggest hunting down the content, since it wasn’t interesting enough to be worth the effort.

Amazon had a really neat map, though there was absolutely nobody there, which made it a little desolate. Also, there weren’t really any interactive objects—just a whole lot of things to sit on.

The Good: this place looked awesome. It was themed like a jungle/rain forest kind of thing, which was funny (haha, pun). There was an awesome looking map of the place right when you got there, and little transportation disks that took you all over the map. The descriptions of the different places made it very clear what you were going to.

The Bad: the Amazon forest thing was cute, but kind of theme inappropriate. When I first got there, I thought I was in the wrong place. The map was difficult to use and rather uninformative. I quickly became fed-up with it. Also, it was hard to tell what the teleportation disks were right away. And nothing was clickable! Nothing! There were hosts of computers with a website displayed on screens, but they didn’t take you to actual websites. The few things that did take you to a website, the sites were incredibly specific. Like in the bookstore, there were a handful of books displayed, and you could go to pages for those books, and there was nothing that took you to a page for all books. It was somewhat maddening trying to find things to interact with.

I wouldn’t recommend a friend go here. It’s cool to look at, but there’s absolutely nothing worth doing. It’s easier to just go directly to Amazon’s website.

IBM’s space was by far my favorite between the two. There weren’t many things to do, but there were enough to keep me occupied for a little while, and there were even a few non-business related things, like a soda and coffee machine. Amazon’s space was just frustrating. They both looked good, but IBM’s space actually had some relevance to the service it offers, where as Amazon’s was a pun gone rogue. And IBM’s site actually seemed to serve an informative and business related function, while Amazon’s was just kind of… there.

Today has been very... productive. Actually the last week has been productive, and today really capped it off. I FINALLY got in to see the doctor (took me damn long enough, I've been sick for the last three weeks). Actually, the doctor thing was pretty funny. I definitely woke up early today to go to my appointment, and it turns out that my doctor had called in sick -_-. Figures. I think this is a lesson that means Abby should check her cell phone messages, even when her cell phone's annoying noises wake her up half an hour early.

Breaking news: turns out the antibiotic I was given DESTROYS my stomach. Yeah. I'm pretty thrilled about that. So visit to the doctor goes under the mild success category. I'm going back to Ritenour tomorrow and getting different drugs.

Anyway... I actually ate breakfast today, which is something new and different. And since I went to the IST building early to pick up some more I-Connect magazines and rescedule my appointment with my advisor (which I brilliantly missed on Monday *faceplam*). By the way, I suggest checking out I-Connect, since it has an article on Second Life including spiffy quote from our teacher.

Class was a bit hectic, what with my LOSING OUR PROJECT TO ANOTHER CLASS'S HAND IN CHEST... THINGER. But it worked out. And I got the scarf to work too ^^. Also, HAL 9000 was not converted into World War III, which was not the least of outcomes I had forseen for today's class -___-. Oh well. If nothing else, this class has forced group work upon me in all of it's glorious glory.

I'm sure I should be doing work on the paper and the dance party, but that can definitely wait until tonight. Definitely.

Or maybe I'll just go right to sleep. That would be a good idea too XD.

But, for those of us who actually are working on the paper, some good sources I found to day are here and here. The first is the info island page that lists a lot of libraries and where to find them, and the second one is an argument (well... I comment war really) about the pros and cons of a library moving into SL.