Social Networking Exercise: Part 3 & 4

Part 3:

Social Networking Site: Gaia

Gaia is a social networking service for anime (japanese cartoon animation) enthusiasts. Gaia is similar to yoville in that you have an avatar, and it is a game-like environment, but more social.

The goals in Gaia are to get gold, and to buy clothing and accessories for your avatar. The more gold you have, the more things you can buy for your avatar... and the more rare the items are that you have, the more that people will talk to you in the avatar world. Your membership is either through email or through facebook.

The way to earn gold is by doing lots of various things. Gold revenue activities include posting on a forum, starting a popular thread, just surfing around the forums, playing games like pinball, or an assortment of other mini-games.

The system keeps people engaged and encourages social interaction. The forum topics are about anything and everything... from fashion to art, technology chatter to in-game tips. They get people to visit on a regular basis by giving maximum gold rewards for activity on a new day.. basically.. if you do a lot of interacting on one day, you'll probably get less gold than doing a little interaction over a few days.

Communicating with other people can be either through the forum, or in the avatar world with word bubbles above their cartoon heads.

Gaia is obviously more of a game-oriented site than other social-networking sites, but much like the popularity of farmville, it attracts users for more than just the social interaction.

Part 4:

I think that social networks will eventually include GPS positioning, letting your network of friends/contact know where you are at all times. A lot of new phones already include GPS capabilities, and the ability to tie your current position to approved software.

I also think that it is likely that social networking will be more automatic. For example: say I am shopping in target. My phone will be able to tell that I am in target based on my GPS location, and will be able to update my profile with a message on the profile page like "Kevin is shopping at target in San Francisco." As much as I would be weary to give out such information for privacy reasons, I think that it would become very popular especially with the upcoming generation of teenagers.

New marketing strategies may also be formed by mobile social networking. Listing off favorite restaurants on your profile may link you to promotions that are tailored to bringing people nearby the business into the business.

Another possibility is to have new recommended friends by who you are geographically near on a regular basis. This would mean that coworkers and classmates would show up on your recommended contacts list based in your proximity to them.

Social Networking Exercise: Part 1

The first social networking site that i joined was Myspace in 2004. I was a very active user for about 4 years, usually checking my profile multiple times per day. I now rarely use Myspace, I check it periodically, but most people i know have "graduated" onto Facebook where there isn't an overwhelming amount of flashy html coding. I use Facebook a lot more now, probably checking it a couple times per day. Facebook is simplified and more to the point. The communication is all that i need it to be without it trying to do everything. The only aspect of Myspace that i think has better features is music and photos. Though the music on Myspace could be annoying by playing as soon as you go to someone's profile, it was still a nice feature to be able to check out new bands and listen to music. Myspace also allows .png and .tiff images to be uploaded, so the resolution restrictions (that both myspace and Facebook has) is not as detrimental to photo quality because a .png or .tiff looks better than .jpegs... tenfold.

Virtual Worlds

Part 2:

A: YoVille

B: Everett

C: Everett is an outgoing and very social guy. He likes to push people's buttons just to get a rise out of them, but does so in an obviously joking way. He dresses sloppily, but takes pride in his home and spends his extra money on new contemporary furniture and home accessories. Everett comes from a poor background, but has worked his way out of the slum to be a network administrator. He hates the IRS for taking such a large portion of his earned success. Though he works in corporate America now, he aspires to be a successful hairstylist one day. Everett's only obvious fault is that he eats a lot of junk food and rarely exercises. He luckily has the genes to be a skinny guy, but will likely have health issues later in life.

D:

Part 3:

A:

B: The event was supposed to resemble something of a dance club/elaborate house party.

Part 4:

1: Objectives, (some) tasks, and explanations of progression in the game (like gifts, levels, and suggested actions.

2: Most of the environment displays non-text based info. The navigation between areas (picture of a house to go home), the interactive items like keys and easter eggs, and the interaction images like boxing gloves to fight someone.

3: The world is very color saturated, and comic-like. The sounds are very repetitive and simple. The motion is a smooth movement of the head, with the body motion trailing wherever the smooth motion of the head goes.

4: The game starts with a lot of annoying pop-ups telling you what you should do, and which of your friends you should bug to join the game. The game encourages you to get "new neighbors" by getting your friends to join YoVille. It also encourages you to visit your friends apartments in order to become better friends with them and gain experience points.

5: The only immersive features are at the social events. There are a lot of people walking around and talking, but still... the way that people interact is very cheap and represents what someone that is bored would do. The game is very limited as far as the boundaries that you can travel, and what employment you can have, so it's overall not a game that i can feel like "i'm there."

6: Most other avatars exist in the social room for about 2 minutes max. Interacting with them is usually as much as "hi!", a cheesy one-liner, or a game of tic-tac-toe, or at little as no response followed by leaving the current room.

7: The economy is partially based on doing simple tasks like going to work and visiting your friends. That earns you YoVille coins, but to earn cash, it seems as though you have to spend actual US Dollars on the game. Both coins and cash buy you items for your apartment, or accessories and clothing for your avatar to wear.

8: My favorite in-world activity is fighting with my friends. It earns me money, experience points, and i can also earn more money by taking photos while fighting with them.

9: A lot of objects have popups once you click on them, giving an RPG/turn-based-like feel to interaction. Some of the environments have an arrow pointing to what the objective is.

10: The HOH-Agency article relates to the limited space in YoVille. The navigation is not that pleasurable because after 5 minutes of exploring, there is nothing more to explore, and some of the places explored seem like a waste of time and aren't that interesting in the first place. Virtual worlds with an infinitely expandable space to discover is a lot more interesting and pleasurable.