Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

There several ways that virtual worlds can be used nowadays. For example, according to Mark Tutton, virtual world technologies are being applying by many businesses that use it for virtual meetings. "IBM sells its own virtual meeting tool, Sametime 3D, which allows businesses to share ideas and collaborate in a 3D world, and the company is currently testing a more advanced version of the product", says Mark. Such collaboration saves the company a lot of time and money. 

Other ways, in which virtual technologies are use, are file sharing and storage using "Dropbox" and project work via "Basecamp" that allows its users to collaborate online and finish their projects faster. 

But along with all the advantages such as saving of time and money, ability to work with long-distance partners, easy accessibility, there some cons to virtual worlds as well. No matter how advanced the technologies are, virtual worlds still lack real face-to-face communication which can lead to complete isolation. Mark Tutton in his article Going To The Virtual Office in Second Life says that another problem of the technology is that "virtual teams can't take advantage of the kind of impromptu "water cooler" conversations that occur in a real workplace, where colleagues can share information they may have forgotten to communicate in meetings". Indeed such closeness can be accomplished only in the real world.

Virtual worlds almost have no boundaries and require no budget. One can create his/her own character the way he wants him to look, dress him in a way he/she would never dress in reality. Very often we cannot express ourselves wearing our favorite styles, especially working in an office where a dress code is a must. But in virtual worlds you can free your creativity. It takes some sense of fashion, art, and experience in photography to create a virtual world. Dave Itzkoff in his article I've been in that club just not in Real Life says that "To fill these knowingly grungy environs VLES’s creators turned to Judi Rosen, the fashion designer and proprietor of the downtown boutique the Good, the Bad & the Ugly, to photograph real-life denizens of the Lower East Side. Then they created a variety of avatars using her photographs for fashion reference. “You can’t just have generic skater boys,” Ms. Rosen said, “because there’s punk skaters, there’s hippie skaters, there’s graffiti skaters, there’s square skaters. All those little nuances mean a lot.”

The future of virtual worlds still is not clear. It might become an even bigger hit or its popularity because it lacks some features of the real world that ca not be replaced by any advanced technologies. It is hard and impossible to substitute real communication and the bonding that we experience while interacting with the others. 

References:
1. Tutton, M. Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life, CNN.com: Nov 5, 2009http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html
2."I've Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life" by Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times, January 6, 2008, available athttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/arts/television/06itzk.html*

Blog About Twitter

Twitter is famous for its "limitless". The number of characters that can be used to create a twit is 140. That makes Twitter users deliver their messages as clear as possible. Sometimes it is very difficult to express an idea in a single phrase but that is what makes Twitter so appealing; it is less time consuming,  very mobile, and concrete.
BlackBoard discussions require more thinking and details. Twits are mostly used to catch somebodies attention but on Blackboard any topic has to be expended in order to let readers know what the idea of the discussion is, your opinion on it.   BlackBoard discussions are more dynamic but engage a limited number of participants - students and professors. It also takes much longer to view posts on the Board , which are bigger than twits. Twitter, on the other hand, is available to anybody and discussions can be supported by different people with a large variety of interests.
An in-class discussion is completely opposite to those on Twitter. People do not twit in reality, we do not speak short sentences, we don not just throw a phrase out there and wait for it to be followed. An in-class discussion is a constant interaction of students and professors. In order to deliver an idea a student or a professor has to introduce a topic, engage his/her listeners, explain the main concepts of it. Such discussions are always followed by feedbacks of the others, which creates an on-going conversation.

Social Networking Sites

I have looked at the following social networking sites:

• Facebook 
• Twitter
• Myspace
• Instagram

I used to have an account on Facebook. Or, to be more precise, i still have it but it is deactivated. Those who have or used to have an account with the social network are, probably, aware of the fact that it is impossible to completely delete "yourself"from Facebook. 

The network serves different purposes for its users; professional and personal. Some pages of it look quite official. Many companies and start-up businesses place their advertisements on Facebook. The others use the network solely for fun to stay connected with their friends or find a new relationship. 

Twitter is more limited, i would say. Starting with a certain amount of characters you can use for a twitt (140) and ending with specific tools you will have to apply in order to complete your search successfully. Twitter is all about following or being followed by somebody. The network is very popular among celebrities. It helps fans to follow their favorites and keep updated on the latest news. For them Twitter is a direct sources where they find out about celebrities not via the news but directly from the stars.

Myspace looks more like Facebook. But if you look closer it you may notice that one of the main differences between the two networks is the design selection you can have for you own page. Facebook pages look the same. When i created an account on Myspace, i was surprised how many options i had to make my page unique. Another feature about Myspace is the user type. If Facebook is mostly for business people, Myspace attracts users with creative tendencies: artists, singers, designers. 

Instagram is another networking site that started out as a photo-shareing app and now it is merging with Facebook. It has a number of filters that allow you to alter the original picture.

Social Networking

Social Networking

What are some ways (corporate and otherwise) that these technologies can be used? 

It is well known today that many social network web sites are not used for entertainment purposes only. Facebook became a huge virtual market place where people promote their "new-born" businesses. Social network called Linkedin is one of the highly used websites by millions of employers representing not only small businesses but many world wide companies which shows how reliable the network has become with years. Frank Langfitt in his article called Social Networking Technologies Boosts Job Recruiting says that "Linkedin says users include executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies. Typing keywords into a search engine, Crawford can scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality candidates that she can't find elsewhere... Professional recruiters have started hunting for job candidates using social networking technology — like the kind found on the popular sites MySpace and Facebook... Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting — ever."

Chick Hamillton, the author of the article called What's next? Your Future in Social Networking, names these technologies "key tools for business innovation." He says that "Social networks allow businesses to collaborate with all kind of people, with diverse backgrounds and different levels of expertise, from locations from all over the world." Many companies taking their new designs and put them on the Internet allowing their potential clients to get familiar with it. 

It is needless to say that social networks are widely used by the corporate world. But most of them started as small Intranets, for example, Facebook was created within the walls of Harvard with a limited access. Now Facebook is used all over the world as a mean of communication. People create not only friendships but romantic relationships as well. They use it as a hobby or take it as serious as their carriers.

What are the benefits of these technologies to society?

The benefits of networks are countless. As was mentioned before, social networks bring millions of people together. It could gather groups of people sharing the same ideas or professionals exchanging different experiences, teaching it to the others and learning something new at the same time. It made much cheaper for companies to do businesses; advertising became more affordable and a much greater amount of customers is reached in no time with the help of these technologies.

And how about those who could never make a single friend and now he/she has a 150 on Facebook. The network puts its users in whole communities that would be almost impossible to create in reality. But of course there is a dark side to it. No matter how advanced those networks are nowadays, their privacy is still too far from being perfect. It is good when a top-ten-company employer notices a qualified professional on Facebook. But what if he digs deeper and sees the pictures that are ok to be seen by his/her friends but are not appropriate for the potential employer. Cyber bullying is becoming one of the most serious concerns of social networks. "Students have more ways than ever to post anonymous attacks on classmates, thanks (or rather, no thanks) to new and expanded online forums promising to be bigger and juicier than the infamous JuicyCampus, which drew fierce protests from harassed students before it shut down earlier this year."- Jeffry R. Young writes in his article They Are Back and They are Bad: Campus-Gossip Websites. 

Social Networks continue growing and developing. They take businesses processes to the next level faster while making it much easier and, I believe, with the new technologies development and the Internet  users applying their social network knowledge and skills, the future of these technologies would look even more promising. 

References:

1.Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available fromhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf.

2.Social Networking at IBM: Maclean's Feb 4, 2008 "What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking" vol 121, p. 42.http://ibm.rogersconsumerpublishing.com/macleans/downloads/social.pdf

3."They're Back, and They're Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites," by Jeffrey R. Young, The Chronicle for Higher Education, Sept 4, 2009, p. A20+. Available at:http://chronicle.com/article/Theyre-BackTheyre-B/48220/