QotW: Second Life is cool!

This is me. I have ropey brown hair and silver clipped wings. I wear a spider suit and purple pants. So unlike me! Only the dark eye rings are like me.

This is the first place I went to. It's called Jade Jazz Place. Saw a lot of people dancing and simple love the songs. Also there shoutouts like "Love SL!", "Songs are cool here!"

Then I realise I lost the little guiding window on the left. So I went to search for 'Orientation Island' under 'Places'. I learn stuff smoothly on this pseudo Orientation Island. A lady named Magda told me politely I would not be able to get back to the one I came from. She also helped me to put my skull back.

I met someone who looked like me before. If you can see which is me. OK im the purple pants and the red hair was me before.

And then I went to another dance place, they played hip hop or R&B, and they let me dance, free! (said it the Singaporean style)

Obviously i haven't had enough of dancing, so i thought the poor status had stood still for years and danced infront of him.

I went to Help Island. And I played hangman. I won! The word is 'hanging'!

Then I went to sit on a bench, just to feel how it feels like to sit on a bench in a second life. Turns out that I sit too stiffly. So unlike me in real life....

In the end I decided I still like Jade Jazz Lounge the best.

Bonus Mission #2: Why is it not just a game?

• Because you can make money out of it.
  

A millionaire in Second Life.

Anshe Chung is now a famous U.S. millionaire. Not just any millionaire. She is the millionaire who makes her fortune by buying and selling property in the virtual game Second Life using Linden dollars.

Her creator, Ailin Graef started with an initial investment of $9.95 second-life account and bought large-scale lands which she then divides and builds buildings to rent out or sell. More than 2 years later, the fortune she commands is several million dollars in real U.S. money. Asked what is her motivation for building such a large mass of fortune in a virtual land, she replied that it is her vision of community in the virtual worlds and work spaces that is driving her. “It is her philosophy that Second Life is above all a social space...”

And while relationships are formed through the game as social space – business deals made, new friendships formed, even resulting in marriages in real life, they can also be determined through your avatar. It’s “kinda scary”, especially when these things “[avatar appearance] is changeable with a click” (Linden, 2006)

• Because your avatar represents your race and your social identity.
  

Racist biasness appears in Second Life

Well, Chip Midnight had always wanted to create a black skin in second life to show the true proportionality of races in first life, that is, real life. He asked his usual model Erika Thereian, normally a blond and white skin, to test-drive his skin. Immediately, she got racist remarks from a couple of people.

"One said, 'Look at the n***** b****.'" (Linden, 2006)

"Another said 'Great, they are gonna invade SL now.'" (Linden, 2006)

In the three months she was black, some of her friends avoided her and she stopped fitting in with her good friends whom chatted easily with her. Her social dynamics have changed along with her skin color. Some friends asked her, “when you going back being you?” (Linden, 2006) This shows their bias towards blacks. As much as this is a virtual world, as good as a second chance in life, in a whole world newly created, people brings their stereotypes and biasness into it.

Conclusion

That pretty much summarizes why Second Life is not just a game; why Warcraft is not just a game and why games should be treated seriously, as part of the society. Not just some silly teenage boy’s pastime that not only wastes parents’ money and does not benefit the child like education does. It is a good opportunity to learn about the real world through second life because it is modeled after real life. The issues and problems concerning real world are still appearing and happening in Second Life and soon we might see racial protests or environment non-profit groups appearing. The ways to get rich are also modeled after real life. Ailin Graef is not one of the first millionaires to realize that investing in property is one of the quickest and best ways to get rich. Before her, billionaires like Donald Trump and Li Ka-shing have already done it in the real world. Second Life might be a good "try-out" place for fantasies. As Arianna Huffington discusses her thoughts of saving her marriage if "her husband had fulfilled her gay fantasies virtually" (Poprocks, 2007), I say, "why not?"


Bibliography

Levy, S. (2007). World of Warcraft: Is It a Game? Newsweek. Retrieved April 06, 2007 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/page/3/print/1/displaymode/1098/

Clarren, R. (2006, 16 Sept) Virtually dead in Iraq. Salon arts & Entertainment. Retrieved April 06, 2007 from http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2006/09/16/americasarmy/

Lydon, C. (2006, 27 Mar) Living in Game Space. Open Source with Christopher Lydon. Retrieved April 06, 2007 from http://www.radioopensource.org/living-in-game-space/

Dibbel, J. (2003, Jan) The Unreal Estate Boom. Wired News. Retrieved April 06, 2007, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/gaming_pr.html

Plush City @ Second Life, Wuhan, China @ Real Life. (2006, 26 Nov) Anshe Chung Becomes First Virtual World Millionaire. Retrieved April 06, 2007, from the World Wide Web: http://www.anshechung.com/include/press/press_release251106.html

Linden, H. (2006, 23 Feb) The Skin You’re In. New World Notes archive. Retrieved April 06, 2007, from http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2006/02/the_skin_youre_.html

Poprocks, (2007, 25 Jan) Can Second Life save your marriage? nowpublic: crowd powered media. Retrieved April 06, 2007, from http://www.nowpublic.com/can_second_life_save_your_marriage

QotW9: Citizens' STOMP-ing Ground

Is STOMP an ideal form of Citizen Journalism for Singapore?

Citizens writing the news, editors investigating, whoever heard of such a combination a few years ago? Well, STOMP has done it, averaging more than 14,000 visits a day and more than 45% increase in traffic in the last 3 months (Alexa Web Search). Technorati also reports 1,653 links to the website.

Why all the buzz? A lively forums of news and discussions, STOMP has served as an avenue for citizens to make their own news. Outing, says “No longer is news up there, un-reachable. Like the Big Media—large and arrogant institutions… we told you what the news was, you buy it or you don’t.” For once, citizens can be amateur journalists. Actually, the public has always been doing that on their personal blogs. STOMP has merely provided a central platform and easier access for content to reach more people.

A “two-way conversation is an imperative characteristic of most citizen journalism.” (Outing, 2005) By allowing comments to be made and feedbacked on citizen news, an ongoing conversation is achieved. Gillmore predicts that “Tomorrow’s news reporting and production will be more of a conversation, or a seminar.” Readers bring up comments that was missed by the writer, or add new information that the reporter did not know, very much like the purpose of a blog editor where “the editor with some expertise in a field might demonstrate the accuracy or inaccuracy of a highlighted article or certain facts therein; provide additional facts he feels are pertinent to the issue at hand; or simply add an opinion or differing viewpoint” (Rebecca Blood, 2000) Actually STOMP is more like a group discussion. Some of the news brought by citizens was actually investigated for validity and details by STOMP editors. Reported news from a citizen, and allowing comments, and having resident journalists “watch” over it actually made Singapore a little livelier!

When I looked through STOMP.com.sg (Straits Times Online Mobile Print) I found the topics surprisingly “homey”. They were the kinds of light, interesting topics that should appear on tabloids, not murders and robbery. After reading “We The Media”, my opinion is that citizen journalism has a different meaning for us, Singaporeans. STOMP is a form of citizen journalism for us but at the same time, it allows us to feel closer to the news. Events covered are close to their heart. Reading so makes one feel there is warmth amidst the city of concrete jungle. A video submitted by an Indonesian maid, Audrie, warning an unwatched boy playing at his window without grilles lets us know that we are genuinely concerned for the welfare of the homelanders.

Others see it as an outlet of frustration, such as the STOMPer who reports that he “cannot stand” his neighbour placing his belongings all over the common corridor in a “karang-guni style”. And the complaint on Band practices creating noise pollution everyday to another STOMPer’s flat were met with rebuttals from the band members themselves. This is journalism in its own right. Instead of having a reporter to acquire both points of views and then publish it, the citizens have done this for themselves by stepping out to publish their point of view. This makes a “full” news.

A “full and updated” news wouldn’t be possible without the medium. Outing said, “technology has given us a communications toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost and, in theory, with global reach.” Indeed, STOMP is the necessary medium brought by existing technology.


How I would improve STOMP

I can see that STOMP, less than a year old (launched on the 14 June 2006), has made huge efforts to include sections that homelanders would be interested in, such as “EPL Stomping Ground”, “Love-In” and English As It Broken”. Even though topics naturally concerned with Singaporeans are brought up, problems naturally occurring to a society also appear.

On the 16th March, the STOMP team posted an announcement titled “Why we remove posts and ban accounts” to warn users to be sensitive to what they say. They specifically state that posts which are racist or offend religions will not be tolerated, as well as trolling and advertising. To catch remarks that violate these conditions quickly enough, STOMP can consider Outing’s suggestion of installing a “Report Misconduct” button in Layer 7 of Citizen Journalism. This service can be modeled after ‘Spam’ buttons in our Inbox. If users feels the message is offensive and should be removed, he or she can just mark is as “Offensive” which would notify the editor immediately.

To encourage wider readership, not just from those already plugged-in online and not just from those already following Singapore news, a weekly condensed print version can be circulated to different neighbourhoods of Singapore. This idea is taken from Outing’s Layer 8. To make this movement more effective, the print version can be circulated to that neighbourhood especially when there is news from there. If Outing sees a print version as a “retrograde”, a different perspective towards this move is needed. The aim, in my opinion, is to get more people concerned about what is happening around them and get them to participate in local news, therefore targeted neighbourhoods with familiar news. Also, by showing them examples of citizen journalism, they are inspired by role models and get a feel of the possibilities of citizen journalism.

Improvements that would make life easier for users would be to allow setting up of keywords and notifications. Let’s say you are VERY interested in news of “car accidents”. Set a keyword alarm with STOMP to send you an email whenever anyone posts an article that has “car accidents” in its titles or description. This should prevent readers from forgetting all about STOMP. It is now the Widget era. Let the news come to the readers at their desktop and/or inbox.

Lastly, STOMP can definitely work towards integrating its stories with news in ST Interactive. Taken from Layer 10 of “The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism”, Outing proposes forming a “full” story—the objective news, the insider stories, the variety of additional links and the public opinion on the outcome. This is definitely a step towards “when news is a conversation” (Laird, 2007). However, with ST Interactive not accessible free, is this still possible?

One final word, STOMP can probably do up their Wikipedia page a little.



References

1. Singapore Press Holdings. Office of Editorial Projects. (2006). The Straits Times extends its reach with bold new platform STOMP. Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from the World Wide Web: http://www.sph.com.sg/news/latest/press_060614_001.html

2. Gillmor, D. (2004, July). We the Media, Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Retrieved March 31, 2007 from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html#chap3

3. Outing, S. (2005, 13 June) The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=83126

4. Delzer, G. (2007, 30 March) News is a conversation. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/conversation/

5. Blood, R. (2000, 7 September) Weblogs: A History and Perspective. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

6. Audrie. (29 March). Young boy plays at window with no safety grilles. The Straits Times STOMP: Caught In The Act. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/viewPost2420.aspx

7. STOMP Team. (16 March). Why we remove posts and ban accounts. The Straits Times STOMP: This Urban Jungle. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/viewPost2305.aspx

8. Anonymous. (29 March). Help! Flat owner's junk spills into common corridor. The Straits Times STOMP: What Bugs Me. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/viewPost2422.aspx

9. STOMP (online portal). (2007, February 14). In: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 31, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOMP_%28online_portal%29

Other Sources

10. STOMP, About Us: http://www.stomp.com.sg/about/about.html

11. Alexa Web Search: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=stomp.com.sg

12. Technorati: http://technorati.com/search/stomp.com.sg

QotW8: Yawning Bread

A true mix-cultured Singaporean, Au Waipang was brought up in an English-educated environment, with Chinese culture embedded. He is one of today’s baby-boomer, having born in the 1950s. He could be my dad, for they are almost the same age. He runs his own “little” business, mainly in marketing, business development and corporate affairs, for practical reasons like feeding the family, but his passion is still in writing on politics. Even as in most people’s views, business clashes with activism, he pounces on the opportunity to explain that there is a political reason for business to exist. “Work and goals give people meaning and satisfaction in life. Families are fed and children schooled … The competitive effort to make better products, give better service… inventing new things entirely, is what creates wealth. [Wealth] on an individual level for some, but … wealth for whole societies too.” Business, to him, is necessary more for running a society than making the most profits.

He writes under the pseudonym “Yawning Bread” and owns and maintains the website yawningbread.org for the past 11 years, since 1996. Because that is not a blog, I cannot find the ranking in Technorati. His Google page rank is 5/10. My blog only gets 2/10. Newyorktimes gets about 9/10. Guess he is halfway there in popularity. He generally writes about gay news: real people and real events, mostly from a political point of view. He is self-confident in his writing and tackles contradictions head-on. In his About-me, one would think being sexually-oriented towards his own sex would make him an underdog, but he defies that altogether, “I have never been "confused", nor ridden with guilt and conflict.”

His posts, although controversial and liberating in some point of time, does not really create democracy. Quoting theonlinecitizen, when mrbrown got really popular with his article in TODAY, he was sacked. But he was allowed to continue his criticisms towards the government in his blog, “which has a much narrower and more limited audience.” Like mrbrown, Yawning Bread has a limited audience too. Most of these posts goes to mailing lists or feeds subscribed by homosexuals. He is “preaching to the converted.” There is no awareness unless from the ones already aware of the problem. Rheingold said “virtual communities could help citizens revitalise democracy, or they could be luring us into an attractively packaged substitute for democratic discourse” (Rheingold, 1993: 276). To me, I think Yawning Bread is the latter. For God’s sake, his website is not even in the Review of The politics of Singapore’s new media in 2006. He must not have controversy enough. Or not gotten sacked because of his website before. Or the government has not found out about his website yet, because the circulation is too low.


References:

Au, W. P. (2003, July). About me. Yawning Bread. Retrieved March 23 from http://www.yawningbread.org/aboutme.htm

Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc

Giam, G. (December, 2006), Review - The politics of Singapore’s new media in 2006. theonlinecitizen: a community of Singaporeans. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/

QotW7: Twitter Action!

At first I have my doubts that Twitter can be a community. Because it is just too fragmented… I guess it does not enforce existing communities because you cannot surf profiles and search for friends like Friendster allows. And the emphasis is not so much on the profile than the posts. If I wish to view a stranger’s profile, I could only click on their nicks that comes up at random at the Public Timeline.

From my observation, Twitter can be an online community, however, like how we, the UB-SIM students are using—by updating their random moves or updating news or information only which we know for sure that we share; like when we have completed COM125 assignment, or the presence of events in SIM like the EA games.

Twitter has a very strong concept; it asks people to do a specific action. The focus is on what people are specifically doing right now. This topic is relative to everyday lives and easy to understand. How many of you have always thought you’re doing something really special and wants to share it with anyone, anyone at all that would listen. It could be sky-diving, killing your first pest, or finding the perfect note for that part of the music score that you always thought sounded a little out of tune. Or perhaps, finally getting down to clearing that stack of old textbooks left on the shelf since the year 1997. Unlike other social network sites, people are asked to set up profiles to personalize themselves, to give a branding to themselves. After decorating their profiles with smiley photos of themselves and their affiliations with organizations as well as hobbies and pet-peeves, users often wonder, ‘what now?’ But with Twitter, the focus is on actions, almost on the grindings of the daily life. Although it is intended to report actions, the emotions attached to situations comes naturally from humans. Therefore, humans will speak of their emotions almost as if it a natural thing to “do”. The worry that Fox (1995) has that “all this razzle-dazzle connects us electronically [but] it disconnects us from each other, having us 'interfacing' more with computers and TV screens than looking in the face of our fellow human beings" might not be a cause for worry.

The simple urge for people to communicate and share encourages them to log on and post each time they are doing something of interest or importance to them. Twitter can be interpreted with what Sennett (1977) hopes to put across: that men can act together, without the compulsion to be the same. The very act of writing about your acts links us all up together as we all act on in our daily lives. The very act of telling about your acts brings us together as a community, according to Fernback & Thompson, who says that the structural process that is associated with community is communication.

On scouring the Public Timeline, I have seen non-personalized nicks. Mainly nicks are publicly recognized as a brand, existing communities such as freshpodcasts, BBCnewsworld, googlenews, technorati, wordpress, flickr and Giovy. Also, their avatars are the logos of brands. Good news. Icons of community interests are already starting to ignite. When “followers” of these icons have round up to a number large enough that qualifies as a community, that is be when the advertisers will come in. quoting Benjamin Koe, “If you have a community, you have a business”.

References:

Social Network. (2007, March 13). In: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 16, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking

Wellman, B. & Gulia, M. (1996). "Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities." Retrieved March 16, 2007 from http://www.acm.org/%7Eccp/references/wellman/wellman.html

Fernback, J. & Thompson, B. (1995). "Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?" Retrieved March 16, 2007 from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Koe, Benjamin. "Public Relations and Online Communities". Singapore Institute of Management, Singapore. 13 Mar. 2007.

Bonus Mission #1: Malay teenager hitting Chinese old uncle

This video is not from me. The citizen who posted this up reports that there was already a trifle before he got to the scene at the bustop outside Sim Lim Square, 10 Feb 2007. “There was an exchange of vulgarities and hand gestures before the Malay teenager got off the bus. The Chinese old man then continued taunting him. The bus driver (Bus 23) closed the back door after the Malay teenager got off, but he pressed the emergency button located outside the door to open it.”(Revised for language) And the scene continues in the video.

This is an example of a personal sousveillance from a third party that is going to create uproar between Singaporeans Malays and Chinese and Singaporeans teenagers and the elders. Posted in YouTube, this video has already met its peril and received numerous comments about how disrespectful and cowardy (hit-and-run) the teenager is and how egoistic the old uncle is.

References

Rosen, J. (19th July, 2004). "The Naked Crowd". Retrieved on 10th March, 2007 from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

QotW6: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

My personal blog has been with me for 4 years and going. These years as a young adult had been the hardest years of my life, the most confusing, most changeable, most complicated times of my life, and I guess anybody else’s. because I view a blog as an online diary, I often find myself negotiating more exposure for more self-revelation and more self-revelation for less privacy. Although Jeffrey Rosen states that “it’s impossible to know someone on the basis of snippets of information”, I still have the nagging fear that one day I would be found out, caught and condemned by the “many who is watching the many”. Vulnerability is often the theme of my entries in those years, if anyone diss at my thoughts, I would be so embarrassed, wouldn’t have anywhere to hide, not even on the Net, hence my worry.

“But people say one thing and do another.” (Bob Sullivan) My blog has been with me for 4 years and it hasn’t gotten any less explicit then when I first started out. Perhaps this is quite like a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude. Since you can’t prevent pirvacy loss, you might as well reveal it all. Or you could tell a lie. Just make sure you remember it after telling. When role models and pioneers have reaped the benefits of disclosure, I and many others involuntarily follow suit. When Xiaxue’s earlier archives of her sad love life (which she had locked it away after she became famous, but I manage to find it) invited mockery from many others which lead her into fame eventually, one can’t help but be amazed by the irony of it. And look at Donald Trump, he certainly values exposure more than anything else. He loves having his stories all over the news page. He calls it ‘publicity’. If not why would he write book after book detailing every hour of his work and private life with his family?

Overtime I have learnt to overcome my surprise when an acquaintance come up to me and ask about my sick cat, which I don’t remember telling anyone about. I have learnt to be consistent with my online personality, by hiding my surprise, replying to her concern and assuming he or she read it from my blog but prefers not to leave comments. In this way, blogging has become my voice and a broadcasting tool for a continuous period of time despite the time when I first wrote the entry. In other words, I have created a set of “recording or monitoring (tools) of real or apparent authority figures (for) others” which is termed as sousveillance (Steve Mann).

This personal sousveillance has brought new meaning to my connectivity to social groups. Perhaps it is true that “we belong only when exposed”(Jeffrey Rosen). Without asking about my sick cat, I would never have told my friend how it passed away and found out he or she works at a local animal hospital and that we share our love for animals. Gradually, intimacy is built. Not an illusory one.

References

Rosen, J. (19th July, 2004). "The Naked Crowd". Retrieved on 10th March, 2007 from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

Sullivan, B. (17th October, 2006). "Privacy Lost: Does Anyone Care?". Retrieved on 10th March, 2007 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/

Privacy. (2007). Privacy. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved 03, 07 , 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy