The end of an era...

This will be my final post.

As an IT person, I was already familiar with the concept of a weblog. In fact, as previously mentioned, I already have an active weblog at LiveJournal. However that is a completely personal weblog, not an academic/professional one such as I have had here. I found the use of weblogs quite interesting here, because, despite the protests of my some of my classmates, I think they are an extremely effective way of communicating. I think some of my classmates were expecting to instantly generate readership simply by existing, whereas I know that it takes time, and a commitment to entertainment and education, to really build up a strong readership, something which we didn’t really have time to build over the course of six weeks. When I first started my journal, I had about ten people reading it (people listed as “friends”), all of whom were friends in real life, and it was they that had convinced me to get a journal in the first place. Now, that list is expanded out to over seventy people, which may not sound like much, but then, the Internet being what it is, its not a good idea to just add any person as a friend. :>

Once again, my academic journal was very different to my personal journal. I use my personal journal to communicate to friends, both ones who I met in real life and who subsequently got journals, and those that I met through journaling, up to date with what I am doing. I don’t describe everyday mundane stuff, although a lot of people do, but rather I tell stories which I think would interest people, for various reasons.

Once again, this varies from a personal journal, which some people use to record their innermost thoughts and feelings, recording facts and details which they don’t want anyone to see. Some people use their online journal for this, but I have never found a need for this in real life, so I don’t use my electronic journals in this way either.

I found the use of blogging a useful exercise in terms of the assessment of the unit, and it definitely fits in well with the ideas and themes of the unit. Unfortunately I probably didn’t dedicate as much time to my journal as I could have, or maybe even should have. But I definitely think it should be continued to be used in this way as an assessment item.

YIRN!

This weeks lecture was on the digital divide, and how providing infrastructure and services to rural areas can allow people access to creative media which they didnt have before. The specific program in question was the Youth Internet Radio Network, which allowed students from around Queensland to create audio and visual content, and tell unique stories from their points of view, which can be very different to people from urban areas. One of the assumptions with these sorts of programs is that urban and suburban people already have access to this infrastructure, which is often not the case, however this is neither here nor there. Obviously the concept of the network is not to get access to EVERYONE :>

This is an interesting concept, and one which we are going to look into for our community presentation, for which we have decided to create a short film based community, where people can look at short films and rate them and discuss them. One of the aspects of this community will be to push the community to all corners of Queensland, and attempt to, similarly, give people access to services they didnt have before.

I have added links to YIRN, as well as to the journals of some of my team members...

Creative Commons

This weeks lecture was about Creative Commons, and the idea of the walled garden.

As a creative content producer myself, both in terms of my university material, and also my hobby of being a short film producer, I find the concept intriguing. The idea that any content which is created (and, in particular, uploaded to the Creative Commons and sticky.net website) is free material, and any other person can then take it and use it to create different kinds of content, is very interesting, although it also implies a certain level of trust which is not always present on the Internet. If i upload an idea or concept, and someone takes that idea and makes a commercial product with it, I have to be able to prove that I "came up with it first" so to speak, and that they stole it from me, before I would have any redress against them. This is a similar quandry which faces people doing Open Source programming, which consists of programs and applications where the source code is directly available, and free to download, so that if I wish to take a piece of code and include it in a program which I am writing, I can.

I suppose it all comes down to a mindset when it comes down to creative concepts. Is a concept, or piece of creative content, ownable? I believe yes it is, that if I create something it is mine, and, assuming certain circumstances and quality of work, I should be able to charge in order for people to access it, especially if it is a fruit of quite hard labour. Some people do not believe that creative content works in that way, that anything created should be shared openly with everyone in society for the betterment (is that even a word?) of society, but I'm afraid I dont feel that way. This is one of the reasons I am against music downloading in general, and do not download any music myself, unless the band or record company specifically makes it available.

Added links to Creative Commons.org and also sticky.net, two such creative sites where people publish and make available free creative content for download. Sticky.net is not yet fully launched, but will be completed soon, and focusses on Australian content.

Online gaming

Online gaming was the subject of this weeks lecture, and as an IT person myself, even though I dont play a lot of these sorts of games, a lot of my friends do.

One of the main criticisms levelled at computer games, the Internet et.al is that it reduces social activities and the ability to develop social skills and abilities. Although this is occasionally true (the stereotypical "nerd" with his/her lack of social skills, and fumbling awkwardness in social situations, is actually pretty factual, and I could introduce you to any number of them), I see these social changes being brought about as a result of the Internet being a revolution rather than a reduction. That is, the social elements still exist, and just because more of them take place online rather than in any face to face real life sense, doesnt make them any less valid, or any less "real"

For example, a lot of my friends at my new job (both the ones that knew me before I started working there (and got me the job), and ones that I met on the job), play what is currently the biggest selling, and most popular, online game, World Of Warcraft. Many game companies rated it as one of the best games of last year, and it is based on the popular Warcraft series of games. Set in a Tolkien-esque universe, players can create characters of a particular race, and then do quests, and attempt to increase their personal level through acquiring certain skills and weapons. All of the guys at work talk about their characters, particular skills they have gained, and discuss certain experiences theyve had with their characters. The levels of their characters is also a source of pride, indicating time spent in the game, and effort applied to reach a certain level.

Heres the interesting part. There are certain quests in the game which require multiple characters, with different skill sets. The guys at work often do these quests together, even though they are at different levels, and if they are not able to complete a quest together, or dont have the required skills, they will sometimes put each other in touch with friends they have made within the game to help each other out. For example, Michael needed to team with a mage of a certain level to do a quest, but didnt know anyone of that level, so Sam, who had completed that quest previously, put him in touch with the mage who had done the quest with him, and that person agreed to repeat the quest, in return for a small in-game fee. Neither Sam nor Michael have ever met the person behind the mage character in real life, as he is from another country. So I ask you, is this sort of interaction reducing the social skills, or introducing a new social sphere, one where geographical conditions are no boundary to social interaction? This idea of new kinds of social relationships is also touched upon in the readings.

We also touched on online gaming in last weeks chat session. John described the situation where Neverwinter Nights, a similar online game, had released a development kit, so that fans could generate their own content, (see my entry from week 6, april 13), however people who downloaded the kit had (often unknowingly) agree to let the company take whatever content was produced and use it for their own benefit. In the chatroom, we agreed this behaviour was unacceptable, especially as most people were not even aware they had agreed to let the company do this.

Added links to World of Warcraft website, and also to Everquest website, which was discussed in the lecture.

Community and commerce, part 2.

Yesterday was the second John Banks lecture about Commerce and Community, this time focussing on the idea of self-governance, and "enlisting the virtual audience".

The reading talks about two focusses of managing communities; one is the idea of knowing your audience, and managing the community to provide the best experience possible for its members, the other focus being the drive to generate more membership, which can then be sold on to advertisers, who place their banners etc on the site, and because there is a large readership, the advertisers pay more money for the space, thus generating more income for the community owners.

This may seem like a fairly cold and capitalist approach to communities, but of course if a community is generating more income for its owners, its owners will pay more attention to the community, and provide more services, thus increasing the appeal of the community, and in turn, increasing more membership. Of course, if a community owner takes the pure capitalist stance and keeps the money without increasing the services or details of the community, the community will stagnate, and not attract any more membership, and possibly lose its current members if it is too static.

The lecture focussed on the idea of recruiting community members to manage and moderate the communities, as well as retouching on the idea of fans generating content and selling it, instead of providing it for free to other members. In our second chat session, we covered similar topics to last week, but at the start we had a quick go around, and everyone agreed that if they were playing the game and being involved, and had generated some new content, they would provide it for free. However it was also agreed that if we weren't really involved with the game, and had just generated some content, we would expect payment, although it seems unlikely that someone would just randomly generate content for a game they didnt play, especially a game as niche-specific as Trainz.

We ran the chat sessions from home or wherever this week, which was okay, because whats not to like about chatting at home, but I had to shut down a few things to remain focussed :> Also, it was our last computer lab tutorial, our seminar / community creation tutes start next week.

Community and Commerce

Todays lecture was from John Banks, about the idea of Commerce and Communities, and also Participatory Culture in the New Media Environment.

In simple terms? :> It was about fan created content in online communities, and how companies can then ask to include that content in their updates for the games. The company which John works for, Auran, had some problems with their fan produced content when the game first became available.

These problems were largely because, as John states in the readings, there were some problems between fans who wanted to be able to sell the content they were creating, as an add-on or similar, and those fans who were working "for the good of the game", and making their content available for free. I tend to side with the fans who wanted to make the content for free. This is simply because these fans had not been contracted by Auran to make Trainz content, and also because by reducing that commercial element, it ensures a quality of content, and a purity of sorts, since only people who are truly interested in the game/programme will make content, not just people looking to make money.

We also discussed this issue in our first online chat, which was pretty interesting. We discussed the issue of moderators and self moderation too, but I will discuss that next week, as next weeks lecture is on this subject.

Added links to Auran and Trainz.

The American President...

Hey everyone,

Thought I'd start my six weeks of entries here, as I had a thought about this weeks lecture (online political activism, from Christina), while I was in the shower :> This may have been brought on more by the fact that I've been watching a lot of The West Wing lately. Best show ever.

Anyway, I had a thought. I predict that, sometime in the next twenty to thirty years, we will see an elected ruler, in America, who does not belong to a major party (Democrat or Republican).

Why only in America? Because their voting system isnt dependant on parties. Here in Australia, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party which wins the most seats, but in America, they vote for local politicians AND for who should be the leader of the country.

So, in theory, anyone could be president. Why hasnt it happened yet? Because it takes millions and millions of dollars to run for president, and big business only back candidates from major parties. However, what is that money for? Primarily its for travelling shows, AND for purchasing time on media such as radio and television.

But, the future of media is not radio or television. Its the Internet. And on the Internet, anyone can buy time, broadcast messages, communicate with the people. America, without compulsory voting, has a low voter turnout, but what if, in the future, someone ran for president, broadcasting messages on the Internet, communicating with common people, encouraging those that had not voted before due to apathy to now register their vote for him, or even her? I believe that person could become president. And it's something I'd like to see.

Of course, online political activism isnt quite at that stage yet. Meikle states "...Lacking an institutional centre, and operating on diverse, often hard-to-measure scales, the impacts of media activism are difficult to establish" and quotes Coudry in saying that "alternative media practise is 'messy' ". However he also points out Tactical Media and Intercreativity as methods which online activists currently use, and could continue to expand such in the future...

Anyway, added links to the West Wing site, and also to the Boat People site discussed in the lecture, everyone should check it out, its a fascinating read. Also added a link to Michelle Manners because she said Hello, and I like rewarding politeness :>