Businesses and CMC

After reading and discussing online about businesses using the internet and how it had positive effects, I decided to look more into the issue. I came across a website entitled “Building a Successful Business Using the Internet.” I quickly came to realize that it is not really an article but it is an advertisement for SiteSell education. It is a program that is offered at different institutions around wherever it is you may live. According to this website, “you can learn and do everything to graduate with a new online business or an improved existing one” in just 10 weeks.

This reminds me of the class I had last semester of Web Communication and how we each had different businesses that either needed help with their current website or did not have one at all. Although it seemed as though we aided them in some way or another by publicizing their businesses out to the community, I wonder if they took our advice in making a website or making their current website better.

I commented on someone’s response to the online question we had for Friday about old businesses and new businesses. Usually when new businesses start off, they have trouble getting off their feet to soar, however, I believe that CMC might just change this trend. I think that old businesses who do not convert over to using the internet as great source of communications with their customers is going to plummet. And the new ones who are already up-to-date with technology are going to skyrocket. However, my opinion only is a vision and the older businesses have survived other ways of communications, so maybe they will stay strong, but for how long?

This week we experienced Second Life and I did not like it at all! It was too confusing and my computer could not keep up with all of the animations and the conversations. I felt lost and did not know what to do. After experiencing this, I googled Second Life to find articles on this topic and I came across a news story on youtube about filing cases in real life over Second Life crimes. And surprisingly, it is over sex beds.

Apparently, one avatar has sued another for stealing his property – a sex bed. “By some estimates, sex accounts for 30% of the Second Life economy” as is said in this youtube video. Second Life makes a killing on selling sex toys, lingerie, and virtual reality genitalia. Success in these sales and sex shops has lead cases to the court room and one of its most successful products, the sex bed, is what is focused in this news report. The inventor of these sex beds claims that another avatar has stolen his bed design and is selling counterfeit copies. He describes it has someone in an alley way trying to sell fake Rolexes. Evidently, they could not determine that his activities were crime related during an investigation in Second Life, so they had to build a case against him in real life.

I’m not too sure how I feel about this situation or what to think of it. I try to understand how Second Life works and how people can become so involved but if people join virtual worlds to get away from the real world, then why do they bring their problems back into the real world? They try to explain at the end of this video that the avatars, virtual property, and virtual things cost real money but it just all seems so fake to me no matter how much money is involved. I guess I will never completely understand until I am in one of their shoes.

As we are talking about Second Life more and more each day in class, I am starting to get a feel for this virtual world thing. Not that I am going to jump right in and join one but every time I google something about it, things pop up like “how to overcome obstacles in Second Life” or “how to cheat and get more money.” Is it really that popular? Are we not “in” on the new trend? I always felt as though I was never completely on top of the game when it came to new trends but I was never completely lost either. I have never even heard of these so called virtual worlds, other than the computer games I used to play as a child.

I came across this article “Are Virtual Worlds Good for the Soul?” It was very touching in the way that this particular virtual world names WoW helped certain students in different aspects of their life. “It [WoW] has proven to be beneficial to the students socially, academically, and therapeutically.” In general, these particular students lack social skills but have made social connections through being involved in this virtual world. Granted these relationships are not deep however the fact they are making relationships with others at all is noteworthy.

Not only has this virtual world proven to help with social skills, but it has aided in academics as well. A student, who has a learning disability, has all of a sudden shown an interest in reading because of the text used in WoW. The teacher has also noticed his emails have gotten much easier to read.

After reading this article, I have a completely different outlook on virtual worlds. Even though most of them are used for pleasure, this particular story was very moving. I am glad that children are finding ways to learn and help with social skills in a fun and effective way!

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/10/are_virtual_wor.html

After watching “MTV’s True Life I live another life on the web” again and watching the girls exploit their bodies to lure in boys on the internet I started thinking about how many women do that, and not just women but girls too. I remember when I first heard of myspace and when I created an account, I found a girl that I knew from my high school and her profile picture as her standing in her bra and underwear posing in front of a mirror. She was only 14! What in the world causes these girls to think that the only way to talk to boys is through displaying their bodies on the web? I found an article titled “Babes on the Web. Sex, Identity and the Home Page” by Marj Kibby.

In her article, she talks about a site called Babes on the Web that was created by – no surprise here – a guy names Robert Toups. “It featured a list of women who had Web pages that included a personal photograph. Toups rated them on a scale of one to four on the basis of the appeal their image had for him.” Toups knew that several controversies would start to boil and of course, as he predicted, the National Organization for Women (NOW) complained along with the creation of a quite a few anti-Babes on the Web sites. One was actually called Babes on the Web II and it featured men instead of women “in an apparent spirit of the gender equity.”

I am not concerned about equality between men and women; I have already accepted the fact that men (and not all men) are always going to view women as inferior to themselves when in reality they need us and could not live without us. What I am disturbed by is the women and girls who are putting themselves out there to be gawked at and rated. Kibby states in her article that our physical bodies create a placement for our sense of self – our identity. The reason for their actions is that “most of the women choose to separate their sexual identity from their personal identity.” Therefore, most of these women do not accept their personal identity so they take advantage of their sexual identity. But why do girls feel the need to exploit their bodies on the internet; girls who have not yet come into their full development of becoming a women? It still remains a mystery to me and the internet is just full of these little girls.

Children and CMC

While writing my response to one of the discussion questions online I started thinking about when I was a child and had no CMC. Back when I played outside all day, hated being called in for dinner, and had to be in before the street lights turned on. When jumping on the bed and pillow fights was the highlight of my evening. So I looked up an article that talks about children using CMC and the impact that these children have on our future.

The article starts off by giving statistics, much like our first class. However, the article was written in 2004, so the statistics are not that current. A very interesting part of the article was about texting and reasons cell phone companies introduced texting. “The companies who provide these messaging services are more than happy to exploit kids' text habits. Vendors make the most of their money in the space from advertising displayed on the messaging program's interface. But premium services like custom wallpaper, decorative themes and online games are also taking off. By the end of 2004, total worldwide revenues in the IM market, which include enterprise and consumer segments, will be about $131 million, according to the Radicati Group. By 2008, that total should reach $413 million.” Obviously we see that texting is not going anywhere considering all the cash the companies are reeling in.

The article goes on and talks about how children and teenagers are often the first consumers to test out new advance messaging systems; so much, in fact, that they are teaching their parents how to use them. As a result, the parents, wanting to stay in touch with their children, are slowly picking up on these new techniques of communication. A perfect example would be my mother who did not start texting until I was in college. If she wanted to stay in touch with me, texting was the key.

Another interesting part of this article was how kids are suppressing the use of email with Instant Messaging and texts. “As these kids get older, we're going to see IM really take over as the preferred method of communication over e-mail," says Frazier Miller, director of product management for Yahoo Messenger. "E-mail is really seen as skewed towards older demographics. Kids will use e-mail to communicate with their parents, but it's seen as very stodgy.” I very rarely use email and when I do, it is usually for school purposes only. I can understand where this is all coming from and where we are headed because in a way I am still in this generation of teenagers who are constantly using IM and texting as the main source of my communication.

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/12/14/online_communication_and_collaboration_teenagers.htm

Today I read an article titled “Don’t Dismiss Online Relationships as Fantasy” by Regina Lynn. This article caught my attention because I do view online relationships as surreal. In some of my past blogs I wrote about how we need to have face-to-face and physical contact and that online relationships are bizarre. So to acquire some information from the other side of the story, I stuck with this editorial.

It starts off with this freaky story about a man and a woman who both lie about their age but find each other online. He becomes jealous because she was also seeing his co-worker online and shot the guy dead in a parking lot. Well that story right away caught my attention. Lynn then goes into discussion about how he had a real relationship that was based on power and manipulation (trying to keep other men off his woman) and ended in a real life tragedy. I can understand her point of view – makes sense.

Another part of the article that caught my eye was the common thread that Lynn observed in these real life online stories and it was “that people get deeply involved in online relationships.” This is definitely true; going back to class when we discussed about that girl who killed herself because a boy (or so she thought) was making fun of her and calling her terrible names online. I hear about it more and more that people are becoming very attached to their computers and online relationships.

My favorite quote from this article is from Cory Silverberg, a sex educator. He notes on his blog that “maybe we want to pretend that what happens online stays online because so often, we want it to.” A lot of individuals who have had or are having online relationships really want to keep it hush-hush because of the fact that online dating or online relationships still are not in the norm. However, it is rapidly making its way up the ladder.

This article absolutely made me change my mind on how I view online relationships. If you, like me, believed that online relationships are fantasy, read this article real quick. It makes you think.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2007/09/sexdrive_0907

Iphone

All this week, I have been thinking on what I am going to blog about. When we watched “You Got Mail” it made me feel all romantic and sappy afterwards, but it was funny to see the old AOL screen and hear the connecting noises. I kind of missed it in a way. During the movie, I saw someone pull out their iphone and I immediately giggled because of this skit I saw on MADTV.

It is about a talk show host who introduces the maker of the iphone and the audience starts going insane. As soon as he steps on stage, the audience falls silent and he starts talking about the new iphone and all of its new features. He speaks to it and says “iphone, on.” The audience once again goes crazy. Then after every feature he says that the iphone has, the audience continues to scream and one of the audience members actually stands up and says “I am so happy I didn’t kill myself yesterday!” The iphone guy continues saying that it is an MP3 player, a wide screen ipod, a break through internet device and has scrolling capabilities. Then the audience takes a sudden turn, starts screaming that it is too much, and calling the iphone guy an i-witch. He then answers back with “no need to be afraid – its just new technology.” The crowd grows wild and he screams “SILENCE!” while a big bash of thunder and lighting hit the stage; he then shouts out that he was going to offer them eternal life. A woman stands up and cries out “that was on the iphone?” And he replies with “yes but you didn’t let me get that far down! But it’s too late now! You made a powerful enemy today….iphone! Disappear me!” And he is gone in cloud of smoke and the audience is shocked and doesn’t know what to do.

This is comical for a variety and obvious reasons. It is amazing how we, as a society, put technology on a pedestal. As soon as a new gadget comes out we rave about and have to have it. But if something goes wrong with it, we are quick to point out its flaws and tell all our friends what is wrong with it. In reality, look how far we have come in just phones – look back to when cell phones we not even heard of. Now we get frustrated if the screen or keys are frozen or stuck even though we probably dropped the phone a million times.

Even though this skit was meant to be hilarious and it was, it did open my eyes to how we take technology for granted.