Check this out

I think this will have an effect on second LIfe and its members http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/24/web.surf.ap/index.html/

Interviews, Observation, or Content Analysis?

All of the methods that we have used have their merits and their ups and downs, if you will. Interviewing clearly gets the most specific response with plenty of room for questions. Observation gives you the opportunity to see people in their natural habitat. Content analysis, gives the opportunity for deep study and many different views. However, when it comes to which one I prefer to do, then it’s a easy choice.

Although interviews may get the best responses and give you the most flexibility, they also have several down points. The first being that you actually have to find some one who will let you interview them, and in Second Life especially I have found this to be very difficult. On top of this interviews can often be awkward and time consuming, neither of which I particularly enjoy.

Observations aren’t as awkward as interviews, but they too have some problems. Unlike with some other forms observation can be seriously effected by the time when you conduct your observation. At different times areas will be more or less populated and by different groups, to effectively observe you have to go at the right time. Also observation is entirely based on your own observations, thus if you miss something, then it is gone forever.

Then there is content analysis. Although this method is by no means perfect (it involves a lot of reading, and looking for content) it is the least awkward and most convenient of the methods. Your sources will neither ignore you, nor will they restrict you to a specific time. Thus, for me, I find content analysis to be the most comfortable method. Naturally this is only my opinion, others may differ.

data collection technique

i personally feel most comfortable with observing.

interviewing is ok, but sometimes while talking to people i don't know, i can tend to get uncomfortable and nervous. and if the person you're interviewing knows you're nervous, it could affect the way they react to you.

observing is out of the way... and i personally like reading people's body language. so it's really easy for me.

Which data collection technique do you feel most comfortable with - interviews, observations, or content analysis? Why?

I'd have to say that I feel most comfortable observing. This is not to say that I get all clamy and nervous before I conduct an interview or that I hate reading blogs and posts. Quite simply, I would liken recording my observations to writing a journal entry. I enjoy being attentive to all the action, dialogue, and occurences that happen around me. With observations, I get to interpret how the "world" appears to me. Any thought that comes to mind could be important and so I just write as if I were capturing my stream of consciousness.

With observations, there is very little for me to concern myself with. I just have to write down everything that I see, hear, feel, and think. When interviewing, I have to pay attention to the other person (sometimes offering feedback or words of encouragement). With content analysis, I have to consider the parameters of my study (perhaps my focus is too specific, or maybe it's too general).

Sidenote: I think that I might prefer to interview people in person. As classmates of mine have mentioned, sometimes the other person takes forever to respond (or they could just stop answering my questions without any explanation). We discussed the benefits to interviewing on SL (no real-time travel required, no need to be self-conscience, if the other person is weird you can just teleport, etc...), but I would probably feel more comfortable (maybe even less self-conscience) interviewing in person.

Mikedgo Fluffy on a vacation

Mikedgo Fluffy is on an all expense paid vaction thanks to Linden labs he will be there for a week till May 3rd, 2006. However, Mikedgo Hicks is in the house making friends and completing 5 interviews tonight and making 5 friends so go Mikedgo Hicks.

Interested in music in SL? Turns out there's a record label in the game - and Eric Rice owns it. Remember him - he wrote the article about understanding hte game. Turns out he's a designer and is helping groups get online (groups including microsoft)

here's a post from his blog about the music - http://blog.ericrice.com/blog/_archives/2006/4/20/1899927.html

and here's a link to a blog post about the microsoft island, including a SLURL to it - 
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/microsoft_quietly_creeps_into_second_life/

check it out - Business Week has a cover story on SecondLife and its economy - http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm?chan=tc?campaign_id=rss_tech

Here's a story kind of related to what we've been talking about in class - here are people who brought real life into the game World of Warcraft

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/04/serene.html#more


there's a video too

comfort with interviewing

I don't think it should bother us that we can't see them. i think it's an issue that will effect our results because we don't know what is going on behind the avatar and behind the screen, but i don't think it should effect how comfortable we are interviewing people. I perosnally would be more comfortable interviewing people over the internet than in person. you don't really have to worry about being uncomfortable in front of someone you don't know and you have the time to word things the way you really want them to come out. however, not being able to see the interviewee a) doesn't let you study their body language b) doesn't guarentee that you're getting the real identity's answers c) they can hesitate because there's no pressure from a person in front of them to produce an answer. so i guess what i'm trying to say is that maybe bother isn't the right word.... but worry.

Ok - a little fun activity - Some folks would like to have an IC version of Family Feud. They need to gather up the data for the questions.

They have a short survey online - it's an example of another kind of research - quantitative. Just like the appointment tv survey.

Here's the URL:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=591502025808

Want to help someone else with their research? This SL person is working on their Ph.D. at a college in Britain about social networks int he game. Here's the URL for a survey they're doing. A survey is usually for quantitative data - statistics, numbers. SO this is a chance for you to see some other kinds of research - worth checking out.

http://www.psy.surrey.ac.uk/survey21/

Hey - there' going to be an inworld concert sponsored by Coke on April 22 on a stage in the waters around the island of Menorca

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/04/yes_logo.html

Legal use of the Coke logos

The Money Maker...

Jerry Fluffy here once more, with a word to the wise--If you want to leave objects laying around, go to a sandbox...or at least put it on your own land.

On Tuesday of this week, I was saw a peculiar object spinning around. It said "Make easy money!" and that caught my attention immediately, since I'm still looking for an inexpensive way to increase my Linden count. Anyways, I continue reading and it says to pay L$100 to get started. So, I paid the object, and received a copy of the object, and thought to myself "how am I going to use this to make some money?" Stupidly, I went around to some locations in SL to see where I could leave it. Unfortunately, I forgot to take into account that even though these parcels were not marked "no build zones", I didn't own these patches of land. But, whatever the case was, I had one of those dollar signs spinning on a daily basis.

The next day, I found out that I had made L$90. Someone had bought the object hoping to get rich quick, like I was hoping to do. I told Kim about this object, and what I was doing with it--at that time [Thursday], I had left it in a casino that I go to alot [to check out my ATM balance], because...after looking around the area, there were a lot of objects just lying around with no one to claim them. [For example, squeaky sounds, rubber "parts", billboard advertising a club, a new car...] Eventually, I empty my Linden total [to my ATM] to see if this thing really works. While partying at Cirque Mystique, I noticed that a person bought the money maker [and I paid the creator his 10%]. So I was making money off of this thing at a rate of L$90/daily--pretty good for a newbie. So, after making L$348 [combination of dwelling, raving, and the money maker sales], I called it a nite, and fell asleep.

So Friday in Qualitative class, we're in game going to locations and practicing out interviewing skills. I first get an IM from the creator of the Magic Money machine, advising me to discontinue use of the dancing dollar sign. [I had placed one out in a classroom to see if someone would take that bait, and like "magic", someone sure did, and I became L$90 richer] I asked him why, and he told me that he has been receiving complaints about how people are just leaving them all over the place. [Again, people own land in this game] I'm not the mischevious one, and my experiment was coming to an abrupt end anyways, so I agreed to taking it down [as soon as I got back to my room].

Sure enough, I logged into SL again in my room...and I recieve an IM from an angry person. Yes, he used "fucking" in the conversation--turns out that there has been discussion like this going on in the SL forumns, not positive discussion just so you know, and he's pissed that there was still a money sign in the casino. [What I found odd was that this was not his land, yet he was so protective over it] Anyways, when I got to the casino, I didn't see the spinning dollar sign, nor did I see this angry guy. Turns out that he was already at the casino [earlier] and got linden to ban the creator of the Magic Money object. Now, I think that's taking it a bit too far. I'm sure the creator never intended for this to be blown way out of proportion...but this "friend" of the casino owner got the object creator banned by Linden. And he was happy about that.

Well, with all of that behind me, here's what I have to say about the Magic Money object--people did not sure it correctly! They placed it all over the game, so that they could make the most amount of money possible, without taking into consideration that the land wasn't theirs. What pissed me off the most about what this guy said to me was that he generalized the whole situation, and placed the blame on me, when I know that I wasn't the only one with this object. Still, this guy was totally convinced that I was the cause of this entire problem, and threatened to get Linden on me so they could ban me as well. As a word of warning, he told me to never do this again, and left me alone.

So...if you see a spinning dollar sign anywhere, be careful. Better yet, if you have one, make sure you put it on your own land.

Is Second Life a Game?

This is about the third time I've responded to this question, and I don't suspect it will be the last. So in an effort to liven up my answer, I will introduce a few remarks that I recently read on forum posts from SecondLife users.

One poster wrote "The economy is such a fascinating part of this game." However, seven minutes later, she adamently rephrased her statement: "Ack! I said game! I meant platform! I meant platform!"

A few posts later, someone addressed her slip "f you want to get techincal about it, it's not even really a game. It's a 3D interactive chat, and platform allowing RT creation of 3D content to the users."

However, another poster disagreed with that assessment. He wrote, "Actually it is a game... some just use it as a platform. But then, I agree to disagree. Call it what you will."

Personally, I would have to agree with the user who described SL as a 3D interactive chat, allowing for the creation of 3D content. In one of our readings a while back, I remember someone claiming that SL was a "tool and a toy." I think that those two descriptions are also appropriate.

Listening to Philip Linden discuss SL, it seemed pretty clear that even he had never envisioned SL as a game; but rather, he viewed it as a "world" in which users could interact, buy, sell, and create.

In my opinion, for something to qualify as a game, there must be a clear objective and pre-established rules. Second Life has neither. There must also be an element of danger/risk. Aside from the mythical corn field prison, I have not heard of any punishments or losses that one might endure. Also, one of the scholars we've read, said that in a game, goods might be exchanged, but nothing is produced. Obviously SL doesn't fall within that scholars frame of what makes a game, since guns/houses/vehicles are created and sold.

A Place For Newbies...

Jerry Fluffy here once again, this time with a tidbit for all of you SLers out there. As you may or may not know, it is a hard to go around the town of SL as a newbie. There's nowhere really to go outside of the Welcome Area (unless you're curious like myself), and it's hard to part with the L$250 everyone starts with, to get better clothes for yourself [that doesn't look newbie-made]. So what do you do you ask? Well, let me tell a little story first.

So after getting bored the day before, I ended my game by teleporting back to the welcome area, since I haven't been there in a long time. When I logged back into SL the next day, I was approached by a female av who asked me if I liked techno music. Going along with the questionaire, for I knew she was going to take me to some club, she offered me and another male av who was in the scene a teleport to the island of Plush Epsilon. Once there, the lady went on to show us two stores: The first had free tattoos for your av, but I didn't want any; the second had clothes of all kinds, but she showed us a section with free outfits. Taking a closer look for myself, I decided that this would be the perfect time to update my wardrobe...so I took all of the free items (she said we could), and tried on some of them. They are amazing; I'll post the pictures later.

After that, the lady took us to the club [like I expected], and the next thing you know, I'm dancing on the dance floor. The people in this club are all newbies; some of them were "born" three days ago. [Pretend today is March 29] So they're all there in this rave club, dancing, having a good time [and a good chat] when I notice that my Linden total went up. Turns out that one of the piggies floating around pays L$20 to a random person when activated. I made about L$100 that nite [which was great because...well...I was broke], and the other clubbers were happy that the piggy loved me so.

Then again, I was so happy that the piggy loved me so. Anyways, it was getting late, and one of my friends told me about this other new club that he found. [This one's not just for newbies] But I did earn some more Lindens from the Raffle Ball and the L$100,000 giveaway that was going on. I made L$28 more before going to sleep for the nite, but it sure was fun. If you'd like to go to these places, send me a message in game...or search for "Cirque Mystique" or "The Edge"--those are the two clubs I went to, and you could go there too. They have good music that you'll probably dance all nite too.

Thanks for listening again, and remember, this is Jerry Fluffy telling you to stay away from escorts--they're too expensive...

Here's a very different online game. They claim to have 600k players. How come they have so many more players than second life?

Dofus is the name of hte game. They're free
http://www.dofus.com/en/

Late Notice of an Event in SL

I just got an email about this...

Philip will be holding a Town Hall today (April 6) at 4pm PDT.

The Town Hall will be broadcast in Second Life with residents asking
questions via SKYPE and Philip responding using voice. Johnny Ming,
whom some of you may know from SecondCast, will be providing his
assistance and expertise in hosting.

You can listen to the audio stream by going here:
http://66.221.51.119:9008/listen.pls That station is currently
playing music, and will be switched over to the Town Hall feed when
the meeting begins.

If you'd like more information on attending the meeting in Second Life
or how to call in with Skype and ask a question, please see this
Announcement for details:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=98557