QotW10: We All Deserve a Second Life

If you don’t already know what Second Life is, I think its time that you crawl out that ‘rock’ you live under, and check whether it is a real or virtual one.

Second Life (SL) is an Internet based virtual world developed by Linden Lab. ‘Residents’ can interact with each other in a virtual world with the use of avatars, which one can customize to suit their fancy. What makes SL revolutionary and different from other virtual communities is that SL has a virtual currency, the Linden Dollar (L$), which is exchangeable for US Dollars. The exchange rate is approximately L$250 for USD$1.

Although SL is usually compared to World of Warcraft (WOW), both virtual worlds are actually different dimensions of the play. Resembling the popular game ‘Sim City’, SL has a grow-your-own quality that appeals to its ‘residents’ (‘If Second Life isn’t a Game, what is it?’, 2007). WOW, on the other hand, offers objectives. Players have the ability to build up its characters. Once the characters reach the ultimate level (60), players can join with other players to raid dungeons or engage in massive rumbles against other guilds (‘World of Warcraft: Is it a game?’, 2007).

Still need a tell tale sign that SL is not a game? I just told you: users of WOW are called players, users of SL are known as ‘residents’.

So if SL is not a game, then what exactly is it? It is, quite literally, a second life. An intricate social network that, amazingly, is build upon two ingredients that, in another circumstance, would not go together: anonymity and trust. Using the Internet as a platform, ‘residents’ are allowed to do almost everything in the virtual world. Lessons are thought in virtual classrooms. Even concerts were held. Avatars of the members of the popular band, U2, were created and they rocked the stage in SL.

In actual fact, the only thing Linden Lab gives to its ‘residents’ is the land that the avatars walk upon or fly over. Unlike most of the other games that SL is compared to, the edge that SL has is that the contents in the game are build by the users. Need a house? You can actually build one yourself. Feel like carrying a piece while exploring? You can even make yourself a gun. ‘Residents’ spend a total of nearly 23,000 hours a day creating things (‘The Phony Economics of Second Life’, 2007).

The boundaries are pushed even further when ‘residents’ are allowed to purchase the items that are manufactured by other users. This means that SL has its own virtual economy. Anshe Chung, the main avatar of Ailin Graef, became the first millionaire on SL. She built an online business that engages in development, brokerage, and arbitrage of virtual land, items, and currencies to support an orphaned boy in a developing country in the real world (‘Anshe Chung’, 2007).

One would be mistaken if they saw SL as a game. One would argue that it is not a game because there are objectives involved. But more importantly, it is not a game because it is a reflection of our real lives. With SL, not only are the boundaries pushed, it might even be blurred. Give it a few years, I dare say it might be diminished.

Reference:

‘If Second Life isn’t a game, then what is it?’, K. Kalning, 2007

Retrieved on 5/04/07

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17538999/

‘World of Warcraft: Is it a game?’, S. Levy, n.d.

Retrieved on 5/04/07

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/page/3/print/1/displaymode/1098/

‘The Phony Economics of Second Life’, S. Raulph, 2007

Retrieved on 6/04/07

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/second_life_analysis/

‘Anshe Chung’, Wikipedia, 2007

Retrieved on 6/04/07

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anshe_Chung

QotW9: STOMP

Straits Times Online Mobile Print (STOMP) is an extension of Singapore’s main English-language newspaper, The Straits Times. It is a website setup by Singapore Press Holdings to attempt to deliver current affairs to the youth.

What makes Stomp different from The Straits Times is that the news that is featured on STOMP is not the work of professional journalist. Instead, STOMP promotes citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is the act of citizens ‘playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information (‘Citizen journalism’, 2007). Any layman, with a digital camera and a good enough command of grammar, can now be a journalist contributing to the good of many others. Moreover with the integration of cameras in everyday ‘essentials’ like the mobile phone, quite literally everyone can be a journalist. What this means is that wherever and whenever a newsworthy incident occurs, a ‘journalist’ is there. All the ‘journalist’ has to do to publish his or her article is to get on the Internet, log on to STOMP and information is ready to be shared.

On the other hand, there is a downside to this. Due to the liberal nature of the website and the entire idea of ‘citizen journalism’, a good amount of news that are published in STOMP can be deemed somewhat trivial. Ask yourself honestly; does an article of the indecent exposure of some random person’s butt cheeks take precedence over Sing Power’s $17 billion dollar buyout of an Australian firm?

Do not get me wrong. Personally, I do feel that citizen journalism is revolutionary and STOMP is a valiant attempt. But it could be a brilliant way to deliver citizen journalism that will interest the masses, not just for the youth.

We all know that the Singapore’s government, the People’s Action Party (PAP), has shares in Singapore Press Holdings. And we all have notions that the government practices the priming of information. But in the case for STOMP, I think that a kind of filter will actually do some good to achieve mass customization, disintermediation and media convergence ('We the Media', 2004).

STOMP is an online community of citizen journalist. One of the rules of how we should behave on the Internet is that we should respect each other people's time and bandwidth ('Netiquette', 1994). In saying that, some of the news articles that make it on STOMP may not be worthy. But who are we to say that which happenings are not important?
Ideally, the party who runs STOMP should be impartial, that is not prone to the influence of the government. Only then can we be assured that the news that is published is not messages that the government is feeding us.

To tackle the problem of what is deemed newsworthy, we should allow the public to decide. Categorizing the news published gives the reader options to what he or her wants to read.

It is amazing how information technology has evolved the passive reader to now have an active role. We can only hope that we can take advantage and thus, making us more informed.

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Reference:

Citizen Journalism
Retrieved on 30/3/2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

We the Media, Dan Gilmor, 2004
Retrieved on 29/3/2007
http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Netiquette, V.Shea, 1994
Retrieved on 29/3/2007
http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/internet/netiquet.htm

Technorati Profile

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QotW8: "Democracy"

We are all familiar with the blogger ‘mrbrown’. On the 30^th of June, 2006, mrbrown wrote an article criticising the government for its price increases following the Elections in his column of TODAY. The government was sore that ‘his opinions were circulated in a mainstream newspaper rather than on his blog, which has a much narrower and more limited audience’ (G,Giam 2006).

Tempted to pick a more popular and entertaining blog (www.mrbrown.com or www.talkingcock.com), I have decided instead, to write on Singapore Politics (http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/). The author goes by the pseudonym Thrasymachus, whose occupation is, as expected, undisclosed. He merely states ‘thinker’. The first post is recorded on the 27^th of June, 2005 and is ranked 139,820 on Technorati.

It is easy to see that the author of Singapore Politics is pro government. In the post ‘The Argumentative Singaporean (Part 1) – PAP-Bashing with Reasoning’ dated December 14^th, 2006, Thrasymachus urges his readers to ‘engage in a thought process to see if regular qualms and criticism of PAP are justified.’ He goes on to say that the way the Singapore government reacted to the split decision of the people to go ahead with the IR, ‘is precisely how a democratic government should and would function’. He adds, “this is the true democracy at work, and in this aspect, PAP is democratic” (G,Giam 2006).

But can we truly claim that our beloved country is governed democratically?

Singapore has a land area of 697.2 square kilometers and a population of 4.5 million people (‘Singapore’, 2007). Needless to say, we are a small, and still very young, country. Our main, and only, television and radio broadcaster is owned by Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government's wholly owned investment arm (‘MediaCorp’, 2007).

It seems that the only outlet for one to set his or her own agenda, to be publicly heard, is the Internet. Even then, we still see traces of the government’s attempt to appeal to the democratic-hungry public. In June of 2006, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), of which Temasek Holdings has share in, launched a new web portal, Straits Times Online Mobile Print, or STOMP. Local celebrities such as musician Maia Lee, blogger-turn-celebrities Dawn Yeo and XiaXue, and TV and radio presenters Jamie Yeo and Joe Agustine have been recruited to set up a blog in the government’s attempt to reach the youth of Singapore who spend most of the time on the Internet.

Interesting how the government has decided to set up a blog too. Some might call it reaching out to the entire mass. Some might deem it ‘insecurity’.

Be it television, radio, the newspaper, or the Internet, the information that we receive about what is going on within our country, is through government owned mediums. Singapore Politics is just an extension of the arm that embraces us. It is an illusion that we are involved in the politics of the country.

Before there can be full participation in democracy, individual citizens must see themselves as an important part of political life (A. Thornton 2002). To a certain extent, we do live in a democratic country. The democracy is controlled; a fake ‘democracy’.

Imagine if we lived in a truly democratic country; a small country, divided by our beliefs. Would National Service still be compulsory? Would we still be that small, but powerful country? Would the 1964 racial riots be repeated?

So for the Elections, I rather the ‘devil’ we already know, than the ‘devil’ that we do not know.

________________________________________________________

Reference:

'Review - The Politics of Singapore's New Media' by Gerald Giam 2006
Retrieved on 22/03/07
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/

MediaCorp
Retrieved on 23/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaCorp_Singapore

Singapore
Retrieved on 23/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Demographics

“Does the Internet create Democracy?” by Alinta Thornton (2002)
Retrieved on 22/03/07
http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/

QotW7: Twitter.com

www.twitter.com is the newest craze on the Internet. It is a social networking site that allows you to update it using different kinds of media. You deliver updates through its website, www.twitter.com, over instant messaging or by Short Messaging Service (SMS) from your mobile phone.

By making it more accessible, Twitter.com allows users to update their profiles at the point of time when he or she is experiencing it. For example, I could be out shopping and I can update my Twitter profile, describing what I am about to buy, while standing in line to pay for it.

Imagine Friendster, blogging and instant messaging all in one website.

Now the question of the week: is Twitter.com an online community? I believe it is. Wikipedia states that an online community is a group of people that may or may not primarily or initially communicate or interact via the Internet (‘Virtual Community’, 2007). Containing the following elements: social interaction, a shared value system and a shared symbol system, Twitter.com belongs to one of the four realms of community, the social realm. It encompasses social interaction, solidarity and both individual and institutional interaction (Fernback and Thompson, 1995).

Social interaction is a dynamic, changing sequence of social actions between individuals, or groups, who modify their actions and reactions according to the actions by their interaction partners (‘Social Interaction, 2007). By posting a question or a comment open for discussion on your profile on Twitter.com, it allows social interaction take place. One might want to add their two cents worth by replying your question or by disagreeing strongly with it. For whatever reason, the ability to give feedback can allow social interaction to develop from an accidental one to a regulated interaction.

Signing up for Twitter was part of my assignment for my COM125 class. Along with me, about fifty others had to do it. Inevitably, all my friends on my Twitter profile are my classmates. So naturally, work from school would be our primary interest. This is a form of solidarity as this is a community of responsibilities and interest.

Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is a revolutionary way for humans to communicate with each other. One of the characteristics of CMC is that communication can be effected one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-many. This allows me to communicate with one classmate individually, or have a discussion on a certain topic with many classmates simultaneously on Twitter.

While online or virtual communities claim to be free, fun and open to anyone, there is a certain degree of privacy about it. Who we are, as private individuals, constitutes our membership to certain communities (Fernback and Thompson, 1995). Take the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) for example. One would have to be a homosexual if he or she wanted a sense of belonging in a homosexual channel, as they need to contribute in order for that particular ‘gay’ channel to thrive. A person who is not homosexual will, naturally, not enter that channel.

Twitter is no exception. Unlike Friendster, you are not allowed to see the list of friends on your friend’s profile. You are secluded to the people you are close enough to know their email address. In other words, Twitter.com is not a ‘making more friends’ network. It is a ‘make better friends’ network.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Reference:

Virtual Community
Retrieved on 16/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community

'Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?', Fernback and Thompson, 1995
Retrieved on 16/03/07
http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Social Interaction
Retrieved on 16/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_interaction

QotW6: It ain't easy being Britney

Like it or not, we are being watched. Every move, every phone call, every online interaction or transaction we make, you can be sure that someone is paying a certain amount of attention to it. If you recall, there was a case in Singapore where a man was charged with indecent exposure for walking around naked in the privacy of his own home. Which leads to my next question: how much detail of our personal lives can we expose?

So how would you deem a person who makes a living, and enjoys, invading someone else’s privacy? Despicable? The paparazzi are photographers who take candid photographs of celebrities. This means that the paparazzi usually shadow the celebrity in public, while they are doing their private activities (‘Paparazzi’, 2007).

Imagine a swarm of cameras going off when you accidentally expose a little of your bum-crack while bending over to comfort your child after she a fall. And the next thing you know, a private moment between parent and child is plastered all over newspaper and magazine tabloids. To make it worse, there are tabloid websites to reach interested parties where the magazines and newspapers cannot. www.perezhilton.com is an example of such a website. On February 19, 2007, www.perezhilton.com served over 4.75 million visitors in a 24-hour period. This was credited to the article of pop icon Britney Spears shaving her head and admitting herself in to rehab (‘Perez Hilton’, 2007). The author of the blog, Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., posts gossip items on a variety of celebrities. His posts are usually delivered with an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek and sometimes even cruel slant (‘Perez Hilton’, 2007).

A picture of Britney Spears shaving her head found on www.perezhilton.com.

On the other end of the spectrum, the pursuit of the paparazzi may be fatal. Paparazzi photographers had pursued Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed after leaving the Ritz Hotel for Fayed's apartment (“Diana: Princes ‘disgusted’ with paparazzi”, 2006). Moreover, the driver, Henri Paul, was drunk at the time of the accident, as blood test later verified. Henri Paul driving at a high speed, and recklessly, in order to evade the cameras of the paparazzi. This led to the fatal accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris. Even as the paramedics were trying to revive her, the paparazzi took pictures of the Princess slumped in the back seat while a paramedic attempts to fit an oxygen mask over her face (‘Diana, Princess of Wales’, 2007).

Why have celebrities been the targets for such invasion of privacy? According to Daniel Boorstin, celebrities are ‘neither good nor bad’ (Rosen, 2004), regardless whether they were caught on camera having done good or otherwise. This ‘human pseudo-event’ of being ‘morally neutral’ has been ‘fabricated on purpose to satisfy our exaggerated expectations of human greatness’ (Rosen, 2004). It is inevitable that the rest of the human race will be interested to see human greatness fall. If and when these celebrities they slip off their pedestal by getting arrested for drug abuse or picking their nose in public, be sure that the paparazzi will be there, fingers ready to snap.

______________________________________________________________

Reference:

Paparazzi
Retrieved on 09/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paparazzi

Perez Hilton
Retrieved on 09/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perez_Hilton#.22Outing.22_celebrities

Diana: Princes ‘Disgusted’ With Paparazzi, 2006
Retrieved on 10/03/07
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/14/diana.report.princes/index.html

Diana, Princess of Wales
Retrieved on 10/03/07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Diana#Death

The Naked Crowd, J. Rosen, 2004
Retrieved on 10/03/07
http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm