Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are the epitome of the double-edged; it can give a new feeling of unboundedness to the disabled but restrain those who are afraid of everyday interaction bringing comfort where it is not needed.
The argument of the pros and cons of virtual worlds was nearly produced in real by the movie "Surrogates" produced by Bruce Willis, a movie that depicted the world being taken over by robots that are designed to take the place of people, "let them live the life" they always wanted, sans fear sans "real" danger. By the end of the movie however, Bruce Willis the leading actor in the film, shows humanity what it has in turn become, a humanity fearful of the real world, one that has forgotten the sensation of a real touch or the pleasure of seeing a friend or family member's face wrinkle as they bend over laughing. Though my depiction of "Virtual Worlds" is hardly as dramatic as the movie, my fear is that instead of bringing unbounded freedom, as advertisements promote, it would simply comfort people into their own demise. If a person is angry for example, consoling the person's anger over the long term will simply exacerbate it further, by comforting the person you are legitimizing their anger and making them more prone to going through the tyrade yet again. In the same manner, in the case of an anti-social person, instead of a friend or family member coming along and coaxing them, teaching them the joys and benefits of interactions with friends and family, something like Second Life would instantly rid themselves of the "perceived danger" in interacting with other people, it would serve as the "quick fix' or the instant "hit". Though some may argue Second Life can serve as a stepping stone to the real world, one can imagine how impossibly difficult it would be to remove themselves from a fantasy world that they "finally" fit into, or a world that cannot "possibly" harm them. Such a step-wise approach wold only serve to further entrench the problem turning a viscous liquid into an immovable object.
However, I do believe that in some cases, Second Life can be seen as a relatively permanent solution. For example, in the case of the disabled, programs like Second Life can restore part of the life they once lived, an maintain social relationships that otherwise, because of logistical difficulties, would dissolve. In terms of creativity I see little advantage in Second Life. In the case of your common consumer, one can say their creativity does increase, if only because they have a more sophisticated toy to play with. However, if “creativity” speaks in regard to humanity itself, as in pushing technology farther or creating new solutions to socioeconomic problems for example, I see Second Life as the constriction as opposed to reality.
In the end, Second Life is sure to succeed. However, Second Life in general carries more cons than does pros mainly on the point that those who are anti-social or afraid of social engagement will find themselves in a world that makes them comfortable, and in their comfort they starve themselves of the true benefits of real person to person interaction.

Social Networking

Fundamentally, what social networking does for Corporate America is make companies appear more shoulder to shoulder with their customers. Long have companies attempted to influence and exploit the most effective marketing technique in existence, mouth to mouth. The positive review of a friend or family member is by any measure far more effective than multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and the like. With Social
Networking companies are quite nearly allowed into the social circle of people, acting as a "Corporate" Buddy that may provide them advice and information about their products. By aligning themselves shoulder to shoulder with their current and potential customers, companies get more voice, and more power over tweaking their products to their customers needs and zooming in on potential markets they have yet to establish themselves in. In return to the consumer, companies have to become more honest and transparent, as the vitriolic rant of someone in California, through twitter or Facebook now can be painfully heard by a New Yorker or a Bostonian. The barriers to true and reliable information about products have been lifted, and like a sprawling city that booms after its
transportation systems are modernized, the democratization and increased fluidity of information are both to bolster profits for Corporate America, and increase the general satisfaction with the products customers choose to purchase.
In regards to a potential "Dark Side" as far as I'm concerned there is no dark side. The decreased viscosity of information is to benefit everyone universally. Though it does not exist already, there is one potential dark side however anything like it has yet to become a serious threat. One can reckon it to the fears of the Federal Government during the dawning of the United States. The Age old Argument, the States vs. the Federal Govt. Wildly fearful of a central govt turning itself into a monarchy like our British brethren across the sea the founding fathers created the Articles of Confederation, but they quickly realized it created a Federal Govt. too weak to do anything. In the vast sea of information available to each one of us now lies a threat very similar to the age old States vs. Federal Govt powers. Though the democratization of information is good, social networking cannot be manipulated. One central entity cannot reign control over twitter and Facebook, or exploit information such as our GPS locations, the names of close families and relatives and our addresses. By posting our information freely, we also increase our vulnerability to "Central Entities" that may "watch us" and invade our privacy, though actions are rarely seen with "watching" (I'm referring to Google for example, knowing your schedule your contacts, your emails, even Buzz, social networking) the idea that someone may be watching all of our activities on Twitter and Facebook is discomforting. However, despite this ominous possibility, people will always voice their opinions, and if one day the possibility that the Govt. or other entities may seek to seriously exploit social networking, the public backlash would be severe enough to tame the threat.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Of all three sites, I find Facebook the winner in nearly all categories, general cleanliness, ease of use, and functionality. Coming in dead last is MySpace. Perhaps I'm a little bias because long standing opinion of the site, but visiting the site again has done little to change my previously entrenched opinion. What mySpace reminds me of is Sconex, a site that is still in existence, but has well passed maturity. What struck me first was the list of possible friends that mySpace gave me, what became immediately obvious was nearly every single one of the "shown possible friends" were female, with only 1 or 2 of a number count of 500 being male. Now I don't particular mind this, especially because I'm male, but it does well to show the blatant bias in what mySpace chooses to display. Another issue is the sites otherwise lack of professionalism, I’m not saying that all sites have to be a Linkedin but rather, all sites should still possess some form of professionalism, bare minimum in the names of subscribers. Seeing constant names that were more $$$ MONEY aka DA JIGGY $$$, than actual names was a major turn off, Facebook, Twitter and Friendster to my knowledge almost never allow names of that sort. I found Friendster and Google Buzz (the fourth social networking site I picked) rather bland, sporting interfaces like twitter, and in some respects very scaled down versions of Facebook, if Friendster is a scaled down Facebook, with a far smaller subscriber number, is there much incentive to sign up for Friendster? Not really.
I'd have to trove extra deep to find uniqueness to Friendster or Google Buzz. Buzz additionally allowed me to Buzz through Twitter, which threw the chances that I'd actually visit the Buzz site into oblivion. Controlling Buzz through twitter is a far simpler approach. Lastly, though Facebook on occasion tends to provide you with TOO much information, the information importance on the whole was far higher than other sites, especially MySpace. Facebook strikes me as a highly flexible site, one that can both bend forwards for Social Networking interactions and just as easily bend backwards for Professional Networking such as groups and fan pages. At the end of the day, a hybrid strikes me as the best way to go, especially when in this day and age your options are nearly endless, and Facebook helps sort it all out for you.

Blog vs. Wiki

The essence of the Blog vs. Wiki is the Community vs. the Individual. A Blog has one sole controller, or in some cases, several, but fundamentally the day to day operations of the blog and the collective conscious of the blog revolves around just one or several individuals. A Wiki on the other hand is exposed to the world at large, with a collective conscious that spans the world and has no borders. The Wiki is the example of the ultimate community collaboration, a community that excludes none and welcomes all (in most cases). The knowledge pool of a Wiki is much larger than a Blog, and some would argue superior. To go on a slight tangent, Wikipedia boasts an astonishing accuracy of 90%, (citing my Professor)but breakthrough research in the field of Behavioral Economics and Psychology have revealed why pooling knowledge from a massive base, with individuals that vary so widely, can synthesized into one create a Wiki so accurate and informative. Called "The Wisdom of Crowds" (James Surowiecki, 2004)the argument revolves around the belief massive crowds, regardless of their knowledge base, make vastly superior decisions than an elite few; the success of Wikipedia is it's poster boy.
Though Wiki's post many advantages, there are some areas where blogs inevitably reign supreme. What Wikis lack on the whole, is precision. A Blog provides the knowledge base of one specific individual, if the individual is an expert in their respective field, the author can provide more specific and research based evidence than a Wiki. (Though this is not true in all cases) Additionally, a blog is largely the opinion of one individual, such as a celebrity and politician, and if one seeks the opinion of a select few, blogs are the way to go.
Blogs like wikis can be used for collaboration, except the number of contributors is limited. For instance, if one specific story comes out, a select group of Journalists each with a blog apiece can collaborate in obtaining evidence and information. By this method they can increase the informational integrity of each of their blogs.

Old vs. New

Though the differentiator between New and Old Media varies across different disciplines, the most common differentiator is digital content. Two representative examples of Old Media include books, which are text, or radio which is radio waves. In both instances, they are replaced by their 0 and 1 equivalents, i.e., eBooks and Podcasts. In addition, Second Life, a fantasy life lived online, is digital while it's Old Media equivalent, your "real" life is not compose of 0's and 1's. Another method is to rank the content's manipulability, Old Media has the tendency to be strict and unmalleable by the consumer, while New Media content tends to have the ability to be changed, doubled over and bent backwards by the consumer. In one simple example, CD's are Old Media, yet the ability to Burn them to your computer's hard-drive and convert them into Ringtones represents New Media. Lastly, the third method available is availability itself.
Old Media methods required far more exertion when attempting to obtain the equivalents in information, for example, Twitter allows us to see what's on the mind of millions of people with just a couple of clicks. It's Old Media version would have been the telephone, and calling up thousands, or even hundreds of people is quite the tedious task. To sum up, if one is posed with the challenge of deciding whether something is Old or New Media, identifying whether its digital, manipulable, and easy to obtain is more thank likely to give you the correct answer.

New Media: Revolutionizing the Political Campaign

As you may have assumed by the title, my project will center around how new media is in the process of revolutionizing how political campaigns are run. My project will seek to explain three main principles, the first of which is what result will the massive increase in information to the American Public alter political campaigning? In former campaigns, the spread of information was by comparison tightly controlled, you heard a candidate speaking on TV or the radio or you might have watched news covering the candidate. But with the introduction of Blogs on the mass scale, each and every person's opinion can be heard, and the reliance on "Standard" news sources is broken. Some may say that blogs will open up the reputation of political candidates to rumors and speculation, but in my project I will explain that in the long-term it can democratize the spreading of information. One can now log onto their favorite political blogs, or check facebook and twitter to see what is being said about the candidate, so the average American will gain a higher proportion of information from people with similar traits to himself i.e friends and acquaintances. Expanding upon this, I will also look into how New Media is increasing the amount of people involved in politics. As the barriers to information are torn down, demographic groups will expand and increase in variety, forcing a more complex and centrist approach to political campaigning. The next and last issue is Political Financing, in your standard campaign a political candidate accepts public financing by the government, which then puts strict controls and how he/she can use the money to run the campaign. In the 2008 Presidential Election John McCain was burdened by the controls Public Financing set as he was unable to spend anywhere near as much money on advertisements as he liked. While Barack Obama, through a New Media powered grassroots campaign was able to forgo Public Financing and use more money in any way he desired. New Media will shift the power of the purse to the people, and reduce, at least during the campaign, the influence of lobbyists and special interests.

What is New Media?

New Media is a vast and new expanse of informational awareness, the new ways in which information is circulated is nearly countless. But to narrow them down, they include sites like Twitter, Linkedin, Delicious, and Facebook. Devices that have brought in the new age include the iPod and most smartphones. With the introduction of the iPod en masse, came new markets to distribute information to, and thus was born the Podcast, and the 99 cent song available for purchase in the iTunes Store. With the introduction of the iPhone and its App Store, came a new adaptability to any environment; if you happen to be constructing something in your house, there was a beam app available to straighten your lines, if you needed to carry important Documents, the Memory Stick is no longer vital because there is Docs To Go™ and if your lost, no need to call 311 or bring a tourist map with you, your iPhone can lead you anywhere.

The Internet can be thought as the father of new media, for like the common expression, If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?...well in the case of Internet and new Media, the Internet gave ears to the world. Regardless of the importance of a discovery in Malaysia for example, if there is no medium in which to transfer it through, World-Wide, it is of no importance at all. What the Internet allows new media to do is let your common Texas man, if he so desires, log on to the Internet and read about someone blogging of how great a discovery a researcher in Malaysia made.

The rapid influx of new media can be explained in two words, speed and convenience. The grand majority of new media is both faster and more convenient that it's old media predecessors. If I have Google Maps on my iPhone telling me exactly which trains to take where and what time, why would I hassle myself with bringing a bulky train map and having to declare to everyone upon opening the map, "I have no idea where I'm going". If I happen to be a Political News addict, I can satisfy my lack of patience with notifications via my smartphone, with no need to sit down in front of my TV, find the control, and flip to CNN for my daily update. Another main reason why old media is being replaced is simply financial. Because the Internet is the new medium, one can reach an audience of millions through a few clicks, as I am -theoretically can...for unfortunately, I am not- distributors are no longer limited by location, or country or technical difficulties, the comparative ease with which an audience can be gained is a boon to advertisers. With a grand and overarching influx of advertisers comes the revenue [to the distributor] and finally, with advertisers comes free content, and we all know the temptation of FREE.