I was still in elementary school. It was near the end of the school year and a couple weeks before the school’s Jazz band had to give a concert. I played the tenor saxophone and was really good friends with these two girls (Ella and Kathy) that were also in the band. Here is how my story plays out: Two girls like the same guy; He only likes one of them, and in the end makes other really upset. I’m sure everyone has heard this kind of story. What makes the story interesting and relates it to my Internet past is the fact that all of the drama occurred through AOL’s Instant Message program. It was a fight every night to commandeer the phone line for hours at a time to talk to my classmates after school. This especially got nasty when my brother discovered the joys of instant messaging a couple years after I did. During 6th grade AOL IM was my alter ego if not my second life. I would spend multiple hours each night free from the restrictions of communicating face to face. I was really shy and had some trouble talking to girls. It was easy for me to be someone else on AOL. I had more confidence in the safety of my own home. Conversation boxes would fill the entire screen on my computer monitor. How did I keep so many concurrent conversations fails me to this day. Every night I talked to these two girls in my jazz band. Our discussions ranged from the simple, “wats up?” to in-depth discourses on the meaning of life (Yes, I seriously talked about the point of my existence in 6th grade). I eventually started to have feelings for Kathy, and one night, while chatting online, I decided to exclaim my feelings for her and ask her to be my Girlfriend. Ella got really angry, because it turned out that she had feelings for me, too. After a few intensely emotional messages from Ella, she signed off without warning. Soon after, I ripped my own modem cord out of the wall. Guilt hit me in the side of the face. I had never made anyone that upset through instant messaging.
For the blogging evaluation, I went to Vox. After doing some random tag searching, I came across Colbalt_Blue's Blog. The author of the blog is James Naismith. Other than his name, general location, and interests, James does not list any vulnerable, personal information. I found this information on his About Me page:
Currently living in SF. He likes it quite a bit, he enjoys the sense of anonomimity, the feeling of being an outsider yet, an insider at the same time. Sometimes though, he wishes he could leave almost all of it behind in a cloud of dust trailing behind the beat to shit jeep painted powder blue. From there he would travel most of the country, but never forgetting his true love - the american west. All the way from the Rocky Mountains and back to the Nevada Desert. He would take pictures. Lots.On black and white film. He would count miles on backroads by how many beers could be consumed between point A. and point B.Occasionally stopping along the way to blast a wild hog or two with an antiquated bolt action rifle that has the bluing rubbed off in all the appropriate places. He would visit the smallest towns, the ones that don't even have schools and count dogs as members of the population as posted on the highway sign. He'd listen to people talk, and follow them about on their daily lives, have potluck dinner with near strangers at the trailer outside of town surrounded with early november snow. Laughter and cheap whiskey would run quite freely. He'd get to know the cowboy in west Texas, the one that kicked out his headlights in a drunken fight with his girlfriend and drove home by flashlight. The young waitress at the Waffle House in Amarillo. The anarchist who travels through the west coast by train hopping. All the while photographing it. Perhaps he'd learn something important about life that way. He would stop and camp in the evenings watching the trillions of stars make their way across the sky. Of course he would eventually tire of this life that had little structure and move back to SF. Downtown this time, and hopefully in an apartment that has a good view of the bay and chinatown. A suitable 2 bedroom of course, with plenty of room for darkroom and enlarger. In the late evenings he would sit in the big leather chair that his grandfather witnessed the Kennedy assasination in, which faced the bay window that overlooked the bay and chinatown and spent hours staring into the fog. Just staring.
James's posts range from small one liners to analysis's on news videos that he embedded from Youtube. He posts pictures from places that he has been to. One of the more interesting black and white photos was from a protest that took place in San Fransisco just as war in Iraq broke out in 2003. He caught this image of two gangster looking guys that seemed indifferent to the protest that was going on around them. James was arrested shortly after by the police.
Jame's uses his blog to post images, videos, and comments about his life. He tags all of his entries and archives all of his posts that range back to 2006. He has posted more than 300 times. His interests include skiing, film production, photography, fine art, cooking, hiking, hunting, etc. James has posted everyday for the past year.
The type of information presented by Pallimed is knowledge that would be beneficial to surgeons written by surgeons who know their profession. There are discussions about different techniques, medicines available, treatments available and general surgical procedures focused on cancer. The terminology used by the surgeons is in a professional tone intended for fellow professionals to understand. There is no personal information included, however the tone is the writing is casual, as if to suggest nothing is out of the day-to-day routine for the author. The style of the blog is professional, but easy to comprehend and informational. The tags that are included link to similar articles within the website itself that deal with with similar topics.
The cosmetic surgery blog on Blogspot.com is written by a cosmetic surgeon, but is not a professional blog. It is more of a commentary type blog that focuses on plastic surgery. There are many links included to in depth articles written by authors (not plastic surgeons), and usually after each link listed, Dr. Sali comments on the subject. Popular topics for discussion are pop culture figures, well-known people and celebrities. The tone is very casual, but an attempt is made to make it seem as credible as possible. The implication suggests that the readers can read about topics within the field of cosmetic surgery written by a credible professional within the field.
The intended audiences of the blogs vary, Pallimed is written for professionals and Cosmetic Surgery (blog) is written for the average person. Pallimed's language is rich in medical terms and Dr. Sali's is rich in celebrity gossip and descriptions. The intentions of their blogs vary greatly as do their professions.
Corporate Blogging Policy: IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft
After doing a little bit of searching, I found IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft's employee blogging policy. All three of the companies had similar guidelines. Employee's are required to identify themselves and their position in their company. They cannot break the news on any events or release confidential information about partners, suppliers, or third-party entities. IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft require employees to respect others and most importantly speak for yourself. Yahoo and IBM enforce disclaimer rules. Employees must include a disclaimer in all of their posts stating that their individual views do not represent the companies.
Yahoo specifically has a portion in their blogging guidelines about the press and media.
Press Inquiries
1. Blog postings may generate media coverage. If a member of the media contacts you about a Yahoo!-related blog posting or requests Yahoo! information of any kind, contact PR (pr-corp@yahoo-inc.com or 415-318-4120) You should also reach out for PR for clarification on whether specific information has been publicly disclosed before you blog about it.
IBM doesn't want their employee's bickering with other bloggers.
Don’t pick fights. When you see misrepresentations made about IBM in the media, by analysts or by other bloggers, you may certainly use your blog -- or join someone else's -- to point that out. Always do so with respect and with the facts. Also, if you speak about a competitor, you must make sure that what you say is factual and that it does not disparage the competitor. You should avoid arguments. Brawls may earn traffic, but nobody wins in the end. Don’t try to settle scores or goad competitors or others into inflammatory debates. Here and in other areas of public discussion, make sure that what you are saying is factually correct.
I found all three of these guidelines were posted on employee blogs. After digging more into the Microsoft blogging policy, I found out that for quite awhile Microsoft didn't really have any set rules or guidelines for blogging. It wasn't until 2005 that Microsoft created a semi-informal policy. On the blog that I found the IBM policy, some other bloggers commented and made some recommendations to make the policy better. Blogger security was one of the reoccurring issues.
One thing I might suggest improving is the emphasis on avoiding personal, especially family, details. Identity theft, phishing, stalking, pervert predators, etc. make the revelation of private data more risky than it's portrayed here.
Posted by vasper on May 17 2005, 06:55:00 PM EDT
From what I have gathered, here is my own version of blogging policies for the corporate world.
1. Identity your name and your position in the company.
2. Pay dues to discloser agreements.
3. Protect the interests of your suppliers, customers, partners and most importantly employer.
4. Don't put any personal information on blogs.
5. Use company disclaimers to avoid misrepresentation and PR issues.
6. Don't allow blogging to interfere with commitments at work.
WebbAlert: Great Personality Delivers Daily Tech News
I've been getting RSS feeds from WebbAlert for about two weeks now. WebbAlert is Morgan Webb's website and daily videocast, covering the day's developments in tech news, video gaming, gadgetry, and digital culture. It's engineered to keep tech-interested people current on the news and trends that move the industry with a small investment of just a few minutes per day. She does a great job of delivering tech news in a small, highly entertaining videocast. Here is one of her funny episodes.This particular episode doesn't represent what she covers in a normal day. Morgan produces these, "viral videos," once a week, and they are often more laid back and full of hilarious clips of the week than here daily videocasts.
Take note of the Facebook Off trailer by CollegeHumor.
This article concerning mostly Facebook covers a recent development in security and privacy in the Facebook community. The New York Attorney General has subpoenaed documents related to Facebook's sercurity and privacy over complaints of sexual solicitations.
Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said the company will work closely with all the state attorneys general to "maintain a trusted environment for Facebook users and to demonstrate the efficacy of these efforts."
"We strive to uphold our high standards for privacy on Facebook and are constantly working on processes and technologies that will further improve safety and user control on the site," she said.
After setting up fake accounts of young females, the NY Attorney General's office found that appropriate action from Facebook is slow if not non-existent. The subpoena also requires Facebook to submit their policies on user safety and claims made to consumers about the safety of the site.
Social network traffic up 11.5 percent; MySpace still dominates
A report from Hitwise, the US market share of internet traffic to social networking websites is on the rise (11.5% from last yea). Facebook is still the "Heavyweght" with 80% market share. Facebook has only 10%. While it may seem that MySpace has no chance of losing its crown, don't forget Friendster a social site that was very dominate before MySpace came out. The market can change very rapidly over a quick period of time.
These two articles show the comparison between user growth and the activity of theUS legal system. In the WSJ article we can see the American legal system in action as they gain traction in the grey-shaded area of information security law. MySpace has been in the spotlight because of online predator cases and been the main focus in the media. Now that other social networking sites has grown, such as Facebook (doubled in users in the past year), they are coming closer scrutiny.
It is certain that the law and social network policy will surely meet many times in the future. The spike in user growth of these sites only increases the amount of attention that they will receive.
Meeting People on Social Networking Sites: Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo
I have decided to look at the three social network sites that our IST 110 class has been following. They also happen to be the three largest in terms of market share. Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo must be doing something to keep a grip on their share of users in the social networking market.
Although Facebook does not have nearly as large a base as MySpace, the format and functionality of their interface is gaining a lot of users and notice among the media. Facebook sorts users into different networks. These networks can be high schools, colleges, employers, cities, and countries. Users in the same network can usually see more information about other users, events, and groups in the same network. Users profiles on Facebook are designed to be easily modified. Sections can be dragged and dropped to suit aesthetics of the individual user. The profile displays information about the user’s tastes that includes but is not restricted to music, movies, books, TV shows, and quotes. Photos can be uploaded to be used as an avatar or put in photo albums to be displayed on the profile. Members can “tag” other members in the same photo. This tagged photo is then automatically loaded onto to the tagged user’s profile. Every user’s profile has a “Wall.” On the wall, friends of the users (depending on the level of privacy) can post comments. This is the method of public communication between members. Users can also message each other. Messages are private. Walls and Photo tagging are the main source of engagement between members.
Facebook users can also create and join groups and events. Events are planned activities by members that can be used to notify and inform people of parties, dinners, dances, or any other imaginable gathering that people can do together. Groups are made to bring users with similar interests together. Along with these basic functions of Facebook, there are others applications such as iLike (music interests), Video (video upload), etc. Third-parties continue to make this widgets and Facebook only becomes denser in data. Some users of Facebook have so many applications installed on their profiles to the point where one can become confused just by scrolling down their profile page.
On the social networking site, MySpace, many of the same features in Facebook are present. The same profile of information about users is posted along with an avatar and pictures. There is no method of “tagging” users in photos on MySpace. A big social attraction on MySpace is the popular music artists, celebrities, athletes, and other people of interest. Regular MySpace users can become friends with these famous members and follow their lives more intimately. Music artists can also post some of their songs for promotion. MySpace services also include a blogging pages, were members can post blog entries. MySpace users can subscribe to these blogs. MySpace also does its own version of groups and events.
Bebo is the third largest social network site in terms of traffic. It also the very same basic functions as Facebook and MySpace. Bebo’s profile page for its users allows them to add their own widgets, add videos, pictures, quizzes, and polls. Similar to MySpace’s blogging portion, Bebo incorporates blogging right on their members profile pages. Bebo also includes a white board where users can draw images using paint. Members can do searches for each other pretty easily. Bebo has music artist’s profiles, but most of them are small and unheard of.
Right now, I have that feeling little kids get on Christmas morning. I just bought Team Fortress 2 on Steam for $30. Yes, I know that I could gotten a better deal if I bought the Orange box before the official release of TF2, but I didn't have enough money at the time. Yes, I could have still bought the Orange box for an additional $20 that would include the Half-Life 2 bundle. It would not be worth it to me. I would never have found the time to play Half-Life 2 and I could better use that $20 to go towards coffee.
For those of you that are confused right now and don't know what Team Fortress 2 is:
I pull up my Steam window. 67% downloaded @ 2.2 MB/s.
I love the IST building's network where I can be free from Rescom's bandwidth restrictions.
It's now 80% completed @ 2.5MB/s.
Anticipation and excitement are seriously starting to build up. I really hope the game meets my high expectations. Team Fortress Classic was one of my favorites when Valve released Half-Life. TF2 has been in development for such a long time now. I'm just happy that it is finally here.
Done.
Here is a video of my favorite character (Valve really did a great job with his personality):
Freeskier, a popular independant skiing magazine, has recently "2.0ed" their website.
The site already featured articles written by Freeskier staff or personal entries by Pros. Registered users on their site can post their own videos and photos and have their own profiles. There is are two new section for reviews of all things related to skiing and daily podcasts. Freeskier's website interface makes it easy to find popular and recently added videos and photos for visitors to look at. Member profiles are cited in the picture or video so it is easy to backtrack and find out more information about the author. There are four kind of memberships: Companies, Pros, Resorts, and Members. By giving members labels, Freeskier has effectively categorized its members into classifications. Pros (and Freeskier employees) are the most active member of the site. They create most of the content on the site. Resorts and Companies can get a lot of publicity by utilizing their membership profiles to promote their brand. Regular site members still have all of the same features as the Pros, Resorts, and Companies, but just not status advantage of the label.
The Freeskier website has some of the same characteristics as a blog and social network, but doesn't neatly fit in under either of the two:
Tagging
User Profiles
Comments
Posting
Avatars
RSS feeds
Communication between members on their profiles; however, is somewhat limited. The interface for viewing posts lacks in functionality as well. Freeskier places high emphasis on the featured articles by their staff writers and high-profile members. The only way to view a complete list of member posts is on the Stories page. The Featured articles and posts take up about three-quarters of the page. Freeskier doesn't all of the other posts in any system beyond tagging and chronological order on the Stories page.
For the video sharing site analysis assignment I chose three sites that I visited weekly and had a long history of using. I picked the classic political parody JibJab and the adult humor sites Break.com and CollogeHumor.com. All three of these sites are meant to bring entertainment and humor to the viewers. Break.com has especially been targeted to employees of companies. CollegeHumor.com is marketed towards college and high school students. JibJab originally started out as a strictly politically themed sharing site, but has since broadened its categories.
JibJab.com
The JibJab offers four main channels: Sendables, Starring You, Originals, and JokeBox. Sendables has a variety of multimedia, usually animated videos, which users can edit and add content to. JibJab allows users to upload pictures of themselves or people or change the content of the sendable to personalize it in some way. After users create the sendable, they can send by email to a friend. JibJab sendables are supposed to be more hip than eCards. To use this service of the site, users must be registered and have a certain enough of JibJab’s online currency to purchase the sendable. The Starring You channel includes more multimedia that users can customize and personalize. Most of the time, users can upload photos to put in the videos. Afterwards, they can post and share their videos on the site. The Originals channel features the classic political animations that JibJab become so popular to back in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. The JokeBox is the part of the website where members of JibJab can upload and comment on videos. JibJab also offers a blog that keeps members posted on what the JibJab team is up too. All of JibJab’s videos are run on a Flash player. JibJab makes it very easy to post these videos to other platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, and many other booking marking services. It even offers the embedded code for its videos. There are no advertisements on the site ; however, there is box on the main page that states CNN as JibJab’s partner. This is how I assume they keep a steady income. The social networking aspect of the site is limited to an avatar, brief description, and statistics on uploading and commenting. There is only one type of membership. This lack of a networking functionality probably keeps the relationship between users distanced. Comments on particular videos are the closest you get to communicating with other members. There is a very detailed privacy policy protects the users from information disclosure by JibJab. JibJab has also copyrighted all of its own content, and anything that is uploaded to the site becomes the property of JibJab Media Inc.
Break.com
Break.com has three main categories: Videos, Games, and Pictures. The Videos main page is broken down into even smaller sections: Latest Video Pick, Daily Buzz, Just Submitted, and Most Viewed. The differences between these videos is popularity or chronological. The Games section has many online games for the user’s pleasure. The Pictures main page has the latest funny pictures. Its sections break down into: All Photos, Girls, Not Safe For Work (NSFW). The category names are pretty much self explanatory. Break.com uses the Adobe Flash player for its videos Break.com have advertisements on every page. This is how they keep their operation going. Break.com have more of a social network like profile page. On their profiles, Members can upload avatars, post information about themselves, post bulletins, and of see the videos and pictures that they have uploaded. Other members of break can also post comments on this profile page. There is also a blogging feature. Members profile s on Break.com encourages networking and communication inside of the Break.com community. There is only one type of members. Members are responsible for any uploaded material. That means members are liable for copyrighted material.
CollegeHumor.com
CollegeHumor offers videos, pictures, articles, CHTV, and of course girls. The Video page is all of the user uploaded content. It is broken down into Recent, Popular, and Hall of Fame. Pictures follow the same format. Articles are contributed by staff members of CollegeHumor or other members from the site. CHTV (CollegeHumor TV) are CollegeHumor’s original videos. CollegeHumor also offers a “Girls” section where cute “college girl’s of the day” are displayed. CollegeHumor.com uses Adobe Flash Player for its videos. There are advertisements on the top banner of the site and also embedded in the site. Along with these advertisements, CollegeHumor has many partners. Registered members can have profile pages, but they only display a brief description, uploaded videos and pictures, posted articles, and statistics about comments. There are three types of members: regular members, staff members, and contributors. All material on CollegeHumor.com is the sole property of their owners (Connected Ventures Technology). All user added content remains under their possession.
Here is a clip from their video section:
All three of the sites have some type of user created or edited video content. Break.com and CollegeHumor.com also have pictures. JibJab focuses more on animated videoed. Of all three, Break.com has the most in-depth and closest functionality to a social network. Intellectual Property rights are pretty much the same across the board on long the lines of posting copy –rights material, but CollegeHumor.com is the only one of the three that allows users to keep ownership rights over posted content. Break.com is the only sharing site that has games that visitors can play. All three of these sites depend on the user community to continuously add new content to the site. This is what makes them so popular.
A group of hookers/escorts invaded Istania today in search of business. They created objects in the sandbox and engaged in X-rated activities. Even when Istania admins where notified of the situation, the Hookers attacked with a C4 bomb which blew everyone in the sandbox across the map in different directions. The Hookers then continued to evade the authorities for the next couple of hours, while a single Berk's admin bravely pursued them. A a heated battle took place in the late afternoon. The Berk's admin harnessed the power of a black hole to "black" them into voluntary exile. The Hookers rallied and counter-attacked by filling the entire sandlot, top to bottom, with SL porno ads in the shape of giant triangles. Theses triangles cannot be removed by the Istania admins...the Hookers were really good scripters. We must wait for the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-mighty Tarkus Octagon to lay the smack down on these Hookers and protect the citizens of Istania.
Second Life's Thriving Prostitution and Escorting Industry
In light of yesterday's events (Hookers in Istania), I have decided to look into SL's prostitution and escorting economy. I find that the demand for VR prostitution and escorting in Second Life are very interesting issues from the perspective of an economist. How does the industry make money? What marketing techniques do they use? How does Second Life's interface affect the business cycle. Before the hooker's where expelled yesterday from Istania I had a chance to talk to them about their business associates and employers.
Exotic dancers Rachel and Zimmy work for a SL company called Club XTC Elite. According to Rachel, "I can make around 2000 Lindens a day on average." I asked Zimmy more about her SL employer and she told me, "XTC has about 25 dancers working for them, and their own island." That is 50,000 Lindens per day (estimated).
I'm sure people wonder who is really behind the mask. For all we know, one of these dancers could very well be a man. Rachel and Zimmy both claim to be college students and girls. Zimmy goes to UCLA, and Rachel goes to Texas A&M. Marketing and Business Supply Chain majors respectivley. These stories (if they are true) make sense. Two intellegent college students in business majors trying to bring the Lindens on SL. Rachel even calimed to have a boyfriend in RL. If these two SL hookers are telling the truth, it is great insight into what kind of people get into this business into SL. These people are not necessarily in a lower socio-economic group like their counter-parts in RL. "I do this job just to get Lindens for clothes in SL," says Rachel, "It saves me a lot of money from shopping in real life."
Second Life's features allow XTC to have virtual ads almost anywhere. And a query for XTC retrieved multiple XTC affiliated locations. XTC is one of many producers in this particular market as well.It would be interesting to see a report on the economy in general of Second Life.
"There is a very high demand for our business in Second Life."
---Rachel
Sun Microsystems has multiple locations in Second Life. The general location for visitors interested in Sun Microsystems is the Pavilion. The first thing I did was take a guided tour of the island in hopes of learning a little about what they had to offer. The tour guide was this silver rocket chair that flew me around to various places on the island. It told me a lot about the history of the company and various features in the Pavilion parcel.
Sun opened their presence on SL in 2006, and they have the title of being the first Fortune 500 company to hold a conference on SL. From perspective of their guided tour, I found the Pavilion to be very well designed and visually appealing. The textures where detailed, and there weren't really dull areas anywhere. Sun Microsystems doesn't have any dedicated website for their SL presence, but there are many press releases on their main page.
In the center of the parcel there is a media center with a lot of seats and large video display screens. There was an information booth that told me Sun used this to display new products. Other Sun affiliated locations offer a tour of their new supercomputer which they showed at the 2007 conference in Reno, Nevada. Inside the visitor center there are also rooms for SL meetings and conferences. A recruitment center and press briefing lounge are located here as well.
Sun showcases their products in one of the building in the Pavilion. All of their servers are set up. You can actually open them up and see what they look like inside.
One thing that I really liked was a nifty little marketing ploy. Sun gives away free SL clothing that has the Sun Microsystems logo on it. The shirts are pretty cool, and it promotes their company as well.
I was a little disappointed in the amount of Sun employees on the site. During the time that I was touring the site I saw only one person there. The map revealed that there were only three people on the entire island. To improve their SL presence, Sun needs to get more people actively involved during the day to roam there island and talk to visitors. Without people there, Sun's island appears very desolate and empty. I would only really recommend this island to a friend who is interested in buying products or services or looking for a job with Sun Microsystems.
IBM has a very similar island layout. Like Sun, IBM focuses on using SL as a communications and marketing platform. They have a plethora of confrence rooms and media centers, they even have a large theater. Unlike Sun, IBM seemed to have more employees on the island, and people specifically working there to help visitors out. They even had their own sandbox that had various projects under construction. Based on my tour of Sun Microsystem's Pavilion, and a brief stint in IBM. It seemed to me that IBM had a better and more complex island.
My Family’s old computer was retired in late October and replaced with HP. This four year old Dell XPS didn’t run for more than five minutes before freezing. This was most likely due to the massive about of malicious software and zounds of applications that had been installed on it throughout the years. On top of that, the ATI video card didn’t work have the time and eventually burnt out in the end. The sound card was shot as well. I found this to be a very opportunity to learn more about computer hardware. I had been planning for a while to start playing around with Linux. The Dell XPS would be the perfect computer to learn it on. All I needed to do was clean it up and replace a couple of parts.
I started out by getting a new video card so I could have a working display. A cheap ATI Radeon HD 256 Mb sufficed. I then reformatted the hard drive. I deleted the C partition and created a new one. I used an old Windows XP installation disk to install an operating system. Throughout the next couple of days I downloaded and installed updates. I used CDs to install the drivers for the ATI video card (Windows didn’t recognize the card until I got the SP2 update. I installed AVG Internet Security suite and updated it as well.
This is how far I have gotten over a period of three days. A big obstacle that I face while doing this stuff at home is my Satellite Internet service provider. It is very unreliable, sluggish, and has a 128 Mb daily bandwidth limit. I reached this in a couple of hours, my ISP then kicked me down to sub-56k levels.
I plan on buying a TV-tuner card , 320 Gb hard drive, sound card, and 2Gb of memory. I will install this hardware when I am back up in State College next week. My Linux ambitions have lead me to Ubuntu. I will continue resurrection of the Blue Beast in the near future.
So I am back up at school right now, and I have set up the Blue Beast. I ordered some parts for it before I left home. I got a Hitachi 500GB SATA HD. I had to look up some information about my motherboard because it was so old. It can only have serial ATA hard drives. I also bought more RAM memory. 2 GB of Kingston DDR will double the current amount of memory in the Blue Beast. I will also replace the sound card with a basic Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy card. I placed the order for these parts last Thursday. Hopefully they should be here in a couple days so that I can install them. The owner’s manual to the Dell XPS was my guide for the most part when I bought these parts. While the motherboard and CPU are still good, they have already been outdated. Once I get these parts installed I will partition the 500 GB HD, and put two more operating systems on (Linux and Mac).
In order to run a business on Second Life, one needs to have a general understanding of the SL economy. The currency in Second Life is referred to as Linden Dollars. Linden Labs makes the economy independent of pricing by freezing the exchange rate on a market-based currency exchange with US dollars and other international monetary currencies. Linden Labs reports that the Second Life economy generated about 3.6 million dollars in the month of September 2005. The 2006 Second Life gross domestic product (GDP) was 64 million US dollars. Estimates of the 2007 GDP are between 500 million and 600 million US dollars. If you would consider Second Life a country of its own, that would rank it at 166 just below Grenada. Second Life has a larger GDP that 20 other countries. The Second Life economy is no joke. The estimated economic activity in 2007 will create about 550 million US dollars. Money can definitely be made on Second Life.
Linden Labs has a very intersting exchange system set up. They call it LindenX. To control LindenX Linden Labs has set up “circuit breakers.” They are market mechanisms that basically freeze the exchange levels if market acts in certain ways. If the average exchange rate in any given day increases or decreases more that 10% the Exchange market freezes for one hour. 20% for two hours. 30% until noon of the next day. These circuit breakers help keep the exchange rate stable. One thing to look out for is Linden Labs handling of monetary policy in Second Life. Linden Labs maintains a currency peg of about L$270 for $1. This is similar to what the Chinese do with Yuan. This practice could be argued to inhibit change in value. Currently, the exchange rate is US$1.00 US dollar for L$267. L$51 million changed hands today.
The Second Life market is a free market or laissez-faire economy. There are two types of costs to to be taken into account when doing business in Second Life: Membership plans and Virtual Land Use Fees (Tier Fee). In order to own land in Second Life, a Premium membership is required. A Premium account comes with advanced technical support and a 512m2 parcel (if you donate 512m2 to a group). These issues are really insignificant compared to the amount of space. If the Penn State Library were to move onto Second Life they would need at least a 1/4 Region or more. An entire region costs $1675 US dollars and an additional $195 per month in Tier fees.
From this brief economic analysis of Second Life, one can assume that the Second Life economy is growing at a stable rate, and under the eyes of Linden labs, the exchange rate between Linden dollars and US dollars has stayed the same over the past few years. This makes it a safe environment for businesses. The facts about increasing annual GDP also prove that profits and revenues are possible.
Next semester I will participating in the Google Online Marketing Challenge in an independent study with Dr. Jim Jansen. This is the first year that Google will be running this challenge. The challenge is targeted at university students in online marketing related fields (such as IST). Students must first find a business to do a campaign for. They must has less than 100 employees. Over a period of three weeks students will run a marketing campaign on Google Adword to drive potential customers to their clients website. Google limits each teams budget to $200. Teams of students throughout the world at different universities will be competing against each other for regional and global prizes. There are still a few spots left in this independent study. If anyone is interested, get in contact in Jim Jansen.
Here is a link to Gomcha, a social networking site for students involved in the challenge.
I've been teleporting throughout the various islands of SL, and I have been looking for a romantic island to take a special someone out on a date. So far, I have been very disappointed. Most of the "romantic" islands that I have found turn out to be tacky, virtual, soft-porn orgies. I am looking for a quiet peaceful island where my date and I can get a bite to eat in an upscale restaurant, and then go take a walk on the beach, be out in nature, or chill in some sort of karma inducing location where my date and I can cuddle. I want detail to be put in this island, and don't mind spend a couple hundred lindens. I did a little research online through sltree.com. This pointed me to a couple of romantic getaways. Midnight Reflection, Aphrodite's Waterfall & Caverns, and The Lost Gardens of Apollo all caught my eye. When I searched the three of these in SL, I found out that they were all credible places that didn't allow mature content. The Lost Gardens of Apollo was overcrowded, and I couldn't teleport to the island. The other two seemed to be very nice places to go on a date. I think that I have a better idea now of where I want to go.
I have learned more about Adwords over the past few weeks in preparation for the competition next semester. I am finding it to a very good tool to get publicity and drive web traffic to organizations websites. An Adword campaign usually takes place over a set period of time. A campaign manager chooses certain keywords, and sets bid prices for each these words. A bid price is the amount of money the manager is willing to pay Google when someone clicks on their ad after a search using those keywords. The goal for the Adword campaign manager is to get his or organization to appear at the top of the sponsored list on the search result page. There are a couple factors that determine the position of each ad. The quality of the landing site (the web page the ad takes the user to), clickthrough rate (how many times do users click on the ad), and also the amount of money (bid) that is placed on certain keywords. These variables are ultimately used to determine the position of the ad on the search results and also how much money that it costs to the Adword campaign when a user clicks on the ad. Sometime campaigns with ads in higher positions pay less money than those in lower positions depending on their quality.
William Kamkwamba has a dream: to power up his country one windmill at a time.
-Wall Street Journal
Kamkwamba is a 20 year-old resident of Malawi a relatively small country in Africa. In the past couple of years he has devised a couple of windmills that power his family's house: three light bulbs, one radio, and one television. At first, his family thought he was crazy with his idea of using a windmill to create electricity, but after studying a windmill in a magazine, he was able to build a 39 foot windmill out of blue-gum trees and used bicycle parts. With no prior education, Kamwamba electrified literally and metaphorically his neighborhood, and now with the publicity that African bloggers have gotten it, nation. What amazes me with this story is that it was because of African bloggers that this story was pushed throw the pipeline. After this news hit the blogosphere, a group of independent investors decided to fund Kamkwamba's education.
