Second Life & Google Earth

After I made my avatar, I was almost overwhelmed by all of the things I could do on Second Life. It's funny how addictive these kinds of things can be, and how I wanted to explore every aspect of it. I spent so much time just fixing my avatar herself, which was fascinating, to see all the different things they think of to include about a person - facial features, body features, etc. Going through the different areas, I was really unsure of how to go about everything, interact with the others, see what they were doing, where I could go, etc. - a feeling I get in real life too! It was cool to be able to make my character do different things, especially fly, since that's not something we can really do.

I thought that the overall interface of Second Life was also part of its appeal - it has a futuristic look, and everything in it is so accessible assuming we know what we want - as Dr. Lombardi mentioned in his lecture. I teleported to different places such as New York City (since I'm from there, I wanted to see how it compared of course!), and went around through Times Square, which was cool. Met a few wackos, which is just like back home, haha! I also went to a few clubs in Las Vegas - good party scene! I got kind of confused at times because the scene would have to build up as I went along it, so I would get kind of lost in where I was, but I think using it more and exploring different areas will help to become more familiar with what to do, where to go, etc.

Google Earth is one of the coolest things I think we have been able to generate. The ability to see any spot on Earth is crazy. We actually used it today in one of my classes when discussing different cities around the world, and to see them all there back to back(without having to travel!) was impressive. This global Metaverse allows people everywhere to see what other places are like around the world without having to go there. If Second Life and Google Earth were to combine it would allow interaction between users from everywhere not only in a virtual space, but to actually see what it is like elsewhere and explore.

Wikipedia

I edited the twin page on Wikipedia (I figured it was relevant to me, since I am one, so I could put in my two-cents). It was interesting to see some myths about twins that I edited out, and I also better organized the different kinds of twins there are and how they are "created" - there was a lot more "biology" about twins on the page that I didn't know about, so clearly I can't say if that was true or false.

Wikipedia - Twins

Web 3.0

I wasn't in class on Tuesday to hear Paolo Mangiofico, so I might have missed a little, but reading these two articles about the new 3.0 internet was kind of a follow-up to what I was researching last week. One of the interesting things I read in the articles was how Web 3.0 has changed from 2.0 and 1.0 - from "read only" to "read-write" to "read-write-execute" (Wikipedia), and therefore becoming more user generated. Two other things I think that are cool to think about as future "prospects" of Web 3.0 are 3-D spaces, and how the internet is predicting the future with all of this information, which at the same time may not all be true, but nonetheless guides the creators on what people are looking for to enhance the internet. 

The first article that discussed the economic aspects of the web were interesting, because I always wonder how all of these sites such as Google and Facebook etc. can make so much money, when they are putting so much information and connections out there, but no one is paying. So even though these networks are the most popular things in the world, advertising and marketing still comes heavily into play. It's interesting that some of the companies don't even have business plans for their networks, they just execute the idea first and see how it goes and expands, and then figure out how to take it. It's almost as if we know anything we generate online now can make money, we just have to figure out how to cater it to what people want and then get the money from there.

The Future of Social Media

"Tim O'Reilly on the Future of Social Media"

Tim O'Reilly discussed technology's future as it will be in terms of social networks. He established "Web 2.0," a reflection of the idea that everyone thought the web was dead after the dot com bust, but is actually back (thus 2.0, the return of the internet, the second version, even thugh it never really left/died). The companies that survived the bust and were created after it understood how to network, which is now essentially the platform for the computer industry. Social networking brings not only the information to the web, but has the power of connecting people, and as O'Reilly says, is the "design of systems that get better the more people use them." 

So does that mean the internet as we knew it before social networking was so big will disappear? On one hand social media is not just how users explicitly share information about themselves, but also how the company's collect, input, use and interpret data about peoples implicit behavior. There are social networks like Google and Wikipedia that we wouldn't automatically consider social networks in comparison to the new "set standard" of social networks like Facebook and YouTube. However, these are just as effective social networks because they link people for better searches based on the users' collective preferences, and the information is often (and always in the case of Wikipedia) information brought in by the users. These sites are therefore based on what the users implicitly want. As a result, the user generated content is used to build large databases that allow new things to be done with the internet. So while new applications are driven by socially created databases, they are not necessarily explicitly social.

The obsession with having to know what people we care about are doing, curiousity of instigating the lives of people we are not close with, etc. is always combined with the question of how much information is too much for everyone to see and always know. Why do we always care about every detail of somone's life - if they're showering, eating, partying, etc.? And why is everyone so anxious and willing to give out this information that we don't really need to know? In a sense it creates better personal connections and we always know the most up-to-date information. There is also the issue of social media as a disctration, taking over and taking away from more important, necessary things, because we are too caught up in continuing to be updated on minor details. 

Social media is not just exploding through Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc., but it is also spreading in use by the government for polls, surveys, etc., and coming to the end of the personal computer era and able to come with us everywhere (i.e. iPhone, Blackberry, etc.). However, this increases the fear that everyone's knowledge is out in the open and able to find things out that used to be secret, or are potentially bad and we do not want in the public. At the same time, it makes us have to adapt our behavior and get used to new standards of visability, seeing things for the first time, but eventually having them repeat and becoming the norm.

I Saw The Future of Social Networking The Other Day

The Future of Social Networks: Social Networks Will Be Like Air

Articles for 1/13

The two articles I found most interesting and relevant were "How Your Creepy Ex-Coworkers Will Kill Facebook" and "The Autumn of Multitaskers." I think it's true that the trend in the expansion of social networking through the internet has altered the way friendships/relationships work in the "real world." I hadn't really thought about why it is we jump from service to service, I kind of just figured it was because there was a new and "improved" way to be even more connected with even more people that we switched. But in a way I guess eventually Facebook will have to die out and be replaced by a new service; not just because it's more "superior" to the former service, but also because, as the article explains, being connected to people that you normally wouldn't be in the real world can create awkward and unneccessary situations. At the same time however, it can put people back in contact and has a lot of positives to it. Although Facebook itself won't necessarily "take over the internet," now that social networking sites online have been established, they will only get upgraded and improved, so they will never go away. Aside from these social networks, as a big fan of multitasking myself, I understand the concerns over the negative affects it has, but I think everyone is prone to it in one way or another, and it can at the same time be very effective. With the expansion of the use of the internet and technology, it seems fit that one of the definitions given for multitasking is a way for people to act like computers, often using computers. The term still existed before computers were around, but now its been changed to fit how we interact with new information and technology.

About Me

Hi everyone! I never really know what to say for these things but here are a few things about me. I'm from New York City and I'm a freshman. I don't really know what I'm going to major in yet, but since I don't really think I want to do computer science, but because I'm still interested in the field, I think ISIS is the perfect alternative. I'm a pretty creative person and since I love to be online and dealing with new information and technology it's cool to put it all together. I also love sports (all the New York teams of course!), and I played basketball and softball for 10 years. Now I work in the Duke Sports Information office which is fun. 

P.S. I have a twin sister who also goes to Duke, so you might get us confused!