Enter World: exploring mediated cultures

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

The sorry state of Juneau

Even though I knew we were getting ripped off in Juneau, I wasn’t aware of the scale until I started pricing internet options in Oregon. Here’s a shocker ... I read recently that Korea does not even offer Internet service as slow as Verizon’s lowest DSL option. That plans is $14.99/month for 768kbps/128kbps. ACS Alaska’s basic DSL option for the home is $49.99/month for 320kbps/240kbps. Less than half of the download speed that’s too slow to even be considered in Korea.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

More corporate changes

MySpace is deleting sex offender accounts too, 7000 so far, but even when MySpace makes an error it isn’t admitting it. Interestingly, there does not seem to be a backlash. One of the banned users is actually so desperate to have a MySpace account that he’s tried lying about who he is to create a new one and settled on borrowing his girlfriend’s account to access the site.

There are so many other options out there. My first assumption is that his dependency on the service must be due to lack of exploration/understanding of the web. Sure MySpace is a place to find music, people, etc but you can find MySpace pages through search engines in the same way you could find a Virb.com page (which not only also has music, videos, photos, and blogs but also LOOKS NICE and FUNCTIONS), facebook (which I hear looks nicer than MySpace and functions better), or even a personal web site that is not dependent upon conglomerate media dictating whether you are allowed access.

My MySpace response [update: account closed]—which includes the quote below:

In 1976, Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Friday, June 01, 2007

First Friday

Enough SL First Friday art walk and online research. I’m off to explore Juneau’s RL First Friday.

brief list of current corporate screw ups re online communities

It seems online communities bought out by companies are messing up severely these days. I would chalk it up to the companies operating them not really understanding the existing community and having different sensibilities. That doesn’t mean they can’t learn, on the contrary they seem willing to learn albeit only after mistakes.

• LiveJournal deletes accounts in an attempt to rid the site of child pornography but goes way overboard and lands in the news.
• The flickr debacle where the person who had photographs stolen for commercial use and was posting about it had the post deleted by Flickr, which later apologized.
• And, though there is no sign of learning here, the JPG Mag take over that led to a member response of account deletions. This is truly a shame, because the approach to publishing is brilliant.

Corporate screw ups are probably to be expected, though still disheartening. Community action against it is not only a positive side, but perhaps needed to iron out the way corporations interact with the communities that grew up around social networking tools before the tools were purchased.

Avatar Evolution

Actually, my avatar started as a default and slowly worked its way up to customized hair and clothing. These are the latest three outfits in use. Don’t seem to have broken that gender barrier yet, or the species barrier either. I briefly tried on a white wolf avatar, but just didn’t quite get the hang of it. No doubt, this will continue to morph.

Spring Dragon

Griefing in SL

A few participants in Fielding’s Second Life course have mentioned being “attacked” in SL. I know of griefing in PvP MMOs as a way of messing up a mission or asserting tribe dominance ... but I was wondering what the end result was for griefing in Second Life.

SL avatars don’t die (unless you go to a specific place where you expect to use weapons and participate in battles), I don’t think you can be “robbed” of your $L or inventory, and I haven’t heard of any viruses or other destructive methods of crashing SL or someone’s computer through SL. So I decided to look into it ...

The top Google result was a discussion from 2004 on why griefers grief, and the answers were broad. I also found a commentary on the link between those PvP MMOs where griefing is part of the action and how it is carried over into places like SL where it is not acceptable. So far things look like attacks on newbies for fun.

But then I came across a post about a calculated attack on Anshe Chung, SL real estate tycoon. I find it intriguing that this political/social dissent (reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party 3 years ago, but aimed at an individual rather than the system) is described with the same word as attacks on newbies that are done “just because.”

Since most griefing is aimed at newbies who don’t know how to respond, here are some useful tips from SL on defending your avatar:

Sit Down (you can’t be pushed)
Mute the other avatar
File that abuse report