Hello Folks,Mobile gaming has gradually become, and will continually grow as a valuable feature of mobile devices. As I have previously discussed in my first blog, “Mobile Gaming Strikes! Beware Handheld Gaming!”, is the fact that games are increasingly appealing and sold to more mobile users, and the ability for games to be played and downloaded anywhere, at any time, are essentially the dominant selling points. As Polak (2007) states “A phone is already plugged in to a distribution system that makes the delivery of content to the consumer easy for them and profitable for the companies publishing mobile phone games”. As the mobile market grows, more game-development companies emerge to target this casual-gamer market, and by doing so, we are seeing an increasing amount of “wow” innovations of mobile games that we never thought would be possible. As Polak (2007) explains “Mobile phones can now present complex 3D visuals, storing lots of game data and delivering experiences that would have been considered cutting edge a mere five years ago on "proper" games consoles”. One “cutting edge experience” which I believe is an innovation worth discussing, is that anyone can become a mobile game creator and freely distribute their games amongst online communities for others to play, provide important feedback about, and possibly use them to draw their own original and creative ideas from.
It’s true, we can all become game creators for mobile devices and fulfil are long-awaited desires, if given the adequate software and ideas, not to mention being computer savvy. There are various game-designer softwares (some free and some at a price) that provide this opportunity, one being Game Editor, the game design software allows a participant to create a 2D game with ease for a mobile device and share (or sell) it free of charge (Game Editor 2008). If the creator isn’t stingy, he or she will most likely upload the game in a shared-collaborative website based for mobile gaming. Playyoo is one example, it’s a mobile-games global community website that boasts “both mobile game players and creators are able to freely exchange mobile games they created. Everyone are able to upload, download, create, rank, comment, participate in prized contests, create play groups, exchange ideas and socialise with people around the world who share a passion for mobile gaming” (Playyoo 2008). Sony Ericsson however, doesn’t like having their games shared for exploitation. Even though users must pay a fee to download the games, they must abide to a “terms of service” where they allegedly check off that they will not modify, alter or distribute the content throughout the web (Sony Ericsson 2008).
As Flew (2007, 226) states “Copyright law is derived from the principle that neither the creator of a new work nor the general public should be able to appropriate all of the benefits that flow from the creation of a new, original work of authorship”. This basically means that there is a fine balance that copyright law aims to maintain between the access of knowledge and protection of knowledge of intellectual property. The Access of knowledge refers to the population’s rights to use existing knowledge and creativity to create original ideas and works of their own. As knowledge is shared more openly, it essentially benefits society (Bruns 2008). We can identify this concept vividly at Playyoo, the shared-collaborative environment is suitable for others to gain and construct ideas due to free distribution. On the other side of the balance is the protection of knowledge, which basically means that if the owners of knowledge profit of their own work (due to private ownership) they commit further knowledge. As Flew (2007, 232) states “The economic argument for copyright protection has revolved around the rights of content creators to receive remuneration for the expression of their ideas and concepts in so far as they are of appeal in the commercial market, and the need for such returns in order to provide incentives for future developments of ideas”. This concept can be identified in Sony Ericsson’s distribution of their games. The corporation will surely only continue to sell their games, if they are making money due to their exclusive ownership. We can’t ignore the fact that a Sony Ericsson mobile game compared to an amateur’s creation will always succeed in terms of quality and credibility.
There you have it, one community against one corporation, both committed to distributing mobile games to the public. Due to Playyoo’s decision to not strengthen copyright laws of intellectual property, the community is built upon the minds of hundreds of participants all engaging within a shared-collaborative online environment. This means that the community and its knowledge are continually growing at a large rate, which therefore is benefiting society as a whole. Sony Ericsson, on the other hand, are only seeking economic profits and have strengthened copyright laws of their content. Their exclusive ownership of their games allows for capital gain, to which they will use to contribute more good-quality content for their customers.
Playyoo’s ability to benefit society verses Sony Ericsson’s good quality games
The question is which side do you support?
Bruns, A. 2008. Legal Frameworks for the Internet (KCB202). Podcast. http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/legal-frameworks-for-the-internet-k... (accessed October 23, 2008).
Flew, T. 2008. New Media: An Introduction. 3rd ed. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University PressGame Editor. 2008. Game Editor. http://game-editor.com (accessed October 23, 2008).
Playyoo. 2008. About us. http://www.playyoo.com/about_us.html (accessed October 23, 2008).Polak, S. 2007. The big money in mobile gaming. http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/the-big-money-in-mobile-gaming/2... (accessed October 23, 2008).
Sony Ericsson. 2008. Terms and Conditions. http://www.sonyericsson.com/fun/wxhtml/genereltermsandconditions?cc... (accessed October 23, 2008).
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Location-Based Gaming: A potential Global and Healthy Experience
Yo Folks,
Back in 1999, when I was the innocent age of ten years old, I used to play a hell of a lot of my Nintendo 64. I played it so much that it actually affected my health. Everyday I would spend less time moving around and more time pushing buttons. I inevitably did gain more weight, which caused my parents to believe that ‘playing video games are generally bad for children’. From then on for a couple of years, I was limited to playing a certain amount of time during a week, sometimes none at all.
It’s not suprising that even today a majority of parents (like mine) claim video games can drain a child’s past time and cause them to gain weight. Many sites such as Child Development Institute and What They Play are supporting and spreading the belief that playing video games can deteriorate health. I’m not implying that this is untrue, but parents are failing to realise that the times have changed. The year 2008 offers many technical advancements and innovations of video games that allow players to move around instead of sitting on the couch. Some examples include Wii-Fit, an exercise game that uses a Wii balance board peripheral; and eye toy, a digital camera device that allows players to use their motion to play. But a significant amount of parents are ignorant of these innovations, simply because the belief ‘video games are bad for children’ overshadows their judgement. Thus, parents will be reluctant to purchase video games for their children, even though they are beneficial to the child’s health.
Discussed by Danny Quinn (our Mobile Gaming’s news writer) in an intriguing article ‘Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games’ is one emerging form of gaming that, unlike it’s competitors (Wii-fit, eye toy), uses mobile technology that aims to encourage children to physically step outside, manoeuvre on an open field and play with other players (McAndrews 2008). This concept is known as location-based gaming, which relies on a player’s position to progress in a location-based game using GPS-enabled mobile phones. Games such as Fruit Farmer operate with a group of friends playing outside in a field or park, each player’s position is mapped on their mobile phone’s screen where they have to collect fruit as quickly as possible while avoiding killer wasps (Locomatrix 2007). Essentially, to play location-based games, players have to move and interact at a much more deeper level than wii-Fit, and this seems to be the answer for what parents are seeking: healthy and outdoor activities that appeal to their children.
On the sidetrack, location-based gaming isn’t limited to a park or open field, try visualising the whole world as your virtual playground. This concept can be identified in the location-based game, geocaching, where over 800,000 real treasures are hidden all over the world and can only be found using a GPS and the right co-ordinates via the geocaching website. Once the treasures are found, you can share your experiences in the global online community (Geocaching 2008). As this game operates with players collaborating, sharing, communicating and playing with one another using the Internet, this concept could be described as a form of globalisation of social information. As described by Flew (2008, 194), globalisation derives from the international communications flow from new media such as the Internet, and embodies of the global circulation of ideas, ideologies and digital goods (images, text, ect). Flew (2008, 10) states “new media are central to globalisation because they constitute the technological and service delivery platforms through which international flows of images, information … and all other digitally based forms are transacted”. We can also identify that concept of Geocaching utilises the circulation of user-generated content to operate (check out my previous blog), as users must both contribute their information and use information from other participants to play in the game. As Humphreys (cited in Flew 2008, 36) explains “massive multiplayer online games for instance, derive their particular dynamism as media forms from the productivity of the players themselves, and the investments they make in the evolution of the game itself. Thus, as Bruns (cited in Flew 2008, 36) states the users of the content are also contributors themselves, a term used to define this concept is ‘prod-user’.
And there you have it, location-based gaming, an activity to satisfy a growing market of parents who seek healthy fitness games that appeal to their children. It dissolves the distinctions between physical exercise and gaming, and manages to have the potential to use globalisation to share experiences with others around the world with user-led generated content. I strongly believe parents will like the idea of their children playing with location based games, if it means running around in the outside. Location-based gaming definitely has potential to expand and become more popular, however, there are still some drawbacks. One prominent challenge is that people may find it hard to find other players that have GPS technology to play with. As Dredge (2008) questions “what use is a location-based mobile game if there's nobody near you to play against? All too many of the cool GPS game ideas from developers fall down against this simple question.” That being said, I’m sure in time we will definitely be seeing more of location-based gaming in the future towards targeting children’s fitness.
Bruns, A. 2008. Global Economic Drivers (KCB202). Podcast. http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/global-economic-drivers-kcb202-pres... (accessed October 19, 2008).
Child Development Institute. 2008. Video Games and Children.http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/health_safety/video_games_and_children.shtml (accessed October 19, 2008).
Dredge, S. 2008. Opinion: The problem with location-based mobile games. http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/feature.asp?c=9042 (accessed October 19, 2008)
Flew, T. 2008. New Media: An Introduction. 3rd ed. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press
Geocaching. 2008. Welcome to Geocaching.http://www.geocaching.com/ (accessed October 19, 2008).Locomatrix. 2007. Fruit Farmer.http://www.locomatrix.com/index.php/locomatrix-games/3-games/14-fruit-farmer (accessed October 19, 2008).
McAndrews, B. 2008. Location-based games lure kids off the couch. http://www.springwise.com/gaming/locationbased_games_lure_kids/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Quinn. D. 2008. Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games.http://mobile-media.ning.com/group/mobilegaming/forum/topic/show?id=2255903%3ATopic%3A1088 (accessed October 19, 2008).
What They Play. 2008. Parents more concerned about Video Games than Alchohol and Pornography.http://www.whattheyplay.com/blog/2008/08/11/parents-more-concerned-about-video-games-than-alco/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Back in 1999, when I was the innocent age of ten years old, I used to play a hell of a lot of my Nintendo 64. I played it so much that it actually affected my health. Everyday I would spend less time moving around and more time pushing buttons. I inevitably did gain more weight, which caused my parents to believe that ‘playing video games are generally bad for children’. From then on for a couple of years, I was limited to playing a certain amount of time during a week, sometimes none at all.
It’s not suprising that even today a majority of parents (like mine) claim video games can drain a child’s past time and cause them to gain weight. Many sites such as Child Development Institute and What They Play are supporting and spreading the belief that playing video games can deteriorate health. I’m not implying that this is untrue, but parents are failing to realise that the times have changed. The year 2008 offers many technical advancements and innovations of video games that allow players to move around instead of sitting on the couch. Some examples include Wii-Fit, an exercise game that uses a Wii balance board peripheral; and eye toy, a digital camera device that allows players to use their motion to play. But a significant amount of parents are ignorant of these innovations, simply because the belief ‘video games are bad for children’ overshadows their judgement. Thus, parents will be reluctant to purchase video games for their children, even though they are beneficial to the child’s health.
Discussed by Danny Quinn (our Mobile Gaming’s news writer) in an intriguing article ‘Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games’ is one emerging form of gaming that, unlike it’s competitors (Wii-fit, eye toy), uses mobile technology that aims to encourage children to physically step outside, manoeuvre on an open field and play with other players (McAndrews 2008). This concept is known as location-based gaming, which relies on a player’s position to progress in a location-based game using GPS-enabled mobile phones. Games such as Fruit Farmer operate with a group of friends playing outside in a field or park, each player’s position is mapped on their mobile phone’s screen where they have to collect fruit as quickly as possible while avoiding killer wasps (Locomatrix 2007). Essentially, to play location-based games, players have to move and interact at a much more deeper level than wii-Fit, and this seems to be the answer for what parents are seeking: healthy and outdoor activities that appeal to their children.
On the sidetrack, location-based gaming isn’t limited to a park or open field, try visualising the whole world as your virtual playground. This concept can be identified in the location-based game, geocaching, where over 800,000 real treasures are hidden all over the world and can only be found using a GPS and the right co-ordinates via the geocaching website. Once the treasures are found, you can share your experiences in the global online community (Geocaching 2008). As this game operates with players collaborating, sharing, communicating and playing with one another using the Internet, this concept could be described as a form of globalisation of social information. As described by Flew (2008, 194), globalisation derives from the international communications flow from new media such as the Internet, and embodies of the global circulation of ideas, ideologies and digital goods (images, text, ect). Flew (2008, 10) states “new media are central to globalisation because they constitute the technological and service delivery platforms through which international flows of images, information … and all other digitally based forms are transacted”. We can also identify that concept of Geocaching utilises the circulation of user-generated content to operate (check out my previous blog), as users must both contribute their information and use information from other participants to play in the game. As Humphreys (cited in Flew 2008, 36) explains “massive multiplayer online games for instance, derive their particular dynamism as media forms from the productivity of the players themselves, and the investments they make in the evolution of the game itself. Thus, as Bruns (cited in Flew 2008, 36) states the users of the content are also contributors themselves, a term used to define this concept is ‘prod-user’.
And there you have it, location-based gaming, an activity to satisfy a growing market of parents who seek healthy fitness games that appeal to their children. It dissolves the distinctions between physical exercise and gaming, and manages to have the potential to use globalisation to share experiences with others around the world with user-led generated content. I strongly believe parents will like the idea of their children playing with location based games, if it means running around in the outside. Location-based gaming definitely has potential to expand and become more popular, however, there are still some drawbacks. One prominent challenge is that people may find it hard to find other players that have GPS technology to play with. As Dredge (2008) questions “what use is a location-based mobile game if there's nobody near you to play against? All too many of the cool GPS game ideas from developers fall down against this simple question.” That being said, I’m sure in time we will definitely be seeing more of location-based gaming in the future towards targeting children’s fitness.
Bruns, A. 2008. Global Economic Drivers (KCB202). Podcast. http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/global-economic-drivers-kcb202-pres... (accessed October 19, 2008).
Child Development Institute. 2008. Video Games and Children.http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/health_safety/video_games_and_children.shtml (accessed October 19, 2008).
Dredge, S. 2008. Opinion: The problem with location-based mobile games. http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/feature.asp?c=9042 (accessed October 19, 2008)
Flew, T. 2008. New Media: An Introduction. 3rd ed. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press
Geocaching. 2008. Welcome to Geocaching.http://www.geocaching.com/ (accessed October 19, 2008).Locomatrix. 2007. Fruit Farmer.http://www.locomatrix.com/index.php/locomatrix-games/3-games/14-fruit-farmer (accessed October 19, 2008).
McAndrews, B. 2008. Location-based games lure kids off the couch. http://www.springwise.com/gaming/locationbased_games_lure_kids/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Quinn. D. 2008. Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games.http://mobile-media.ning.com/group/mobilegaming/forum/topic/show?id=2255903%3ATopic%3A1088 (accessed October 19, 2008).
What They Play. 2008. Parents more concerned about Video Games than Alchohol and Pornography.http://www.whattheyplay.com/blog/2008/08/11/parents-more-concerned-about-video-games-than-alco/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Monday, September 22, 2008
Handheld Gaming: “I’m Better than you!”
Hello Folks,
Within the broad scope of online social environments that the Internet has to offer, millions of participants are competing amongst each other to gain the sweet social capital that they yearn to earn. To gain social capital, participants will focus much of their time towards the quality of their content, which will be contributed online to achieve their wanted superiority. Participants contribute art, written literature, open source software and much much more, and gaming content is definitely no exception.
Before you start thinking I’m about to splurge on of online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft or Runescape, hear me out. I’m actually referring to Handheld Gaming (lightweight portable gaming consoles). That’s right, the sensational Nintendo DS and PSP have spawned many online communities for users to contribute to.
The contributions of gamers in online communities are their achieved scores. A dedicated gamer will spend many hours playing his or her portable device to attain a competitive high score to which thereby it will be listed on a community scoreboard against other player’s scores via the Internet. Cyberscore’s Mario Kart DS Scoreboard is a direct example of this concept; this website publicly showcases a list of the top players of Mario Kart DS (a Nintendo DS game), the top player of the list obviously being the best player with the highest score (Cyberscore 2008).
Bruns (2008a) has discussed that that to be an important and credible participant member of an online social community site, one must commit quality, strength and consistency throughout his or her contributions. That the visibility of one’s contributions will ultimately depend on high they are rated. As you can see from what I have discussed so far, all these theories are correct.
But it doesn’t stop there, rather than heading to the computer to contribute scores, you’re able to do so by creating a social status on the portable device itself, as you play within the online social environment that is provided by Wi-Fi technology. Wi-fi technology enables players of handheld gaming to compete with each other locally or globally around the world. As Bruns (2008, 319) states “The tools for social networking reside no longer in online communities but in mobile devices”.
Referring back to Mario Kart DS, if you play against others via the Wi-fi with your Nintendo DS, you will be able to see the opponent’s victories, losses, play time and their designed avatar as well as allowing the opponent to see your profile. However, every time you compete with other players, they are sought out randomly each time you play, despite their social status.
There is definitely more room for improvement in the area of online social networks based on hand held gaming. Certain limitations such as not being able to freely chat to random players or creating complete online social identities for all to see are definitely some prominent flaws.
What I want to be possible in the near future, is to play a highly social interactive handheld game such as World of Warcraft while sitting on the toilet. Oh the possibilities!
Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond : from production to produsage.
New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A. 2008a. KCB203 Consumer Cultures: Week Podcast: Developing Social Environments. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (accessed September 26, 2008).
Podcast: Week 9.Cyberscore. 2008. Mario kart ds scoreboard. http://www.cyberscore.net/scoreboard-mkds.php (accessed September 25, 2008).
Within the broad scope of online social environments that the Internet has to offer, millions of participants are competing amongst each other to gain the sweet social capital that they yearn to earn. To gain social capital, participants will focus much of their time towards the quality of their content, which will be contributed online to achieve their wanted superiority. Participants contribute art, written literature, open source software and much much more, and gaming content is definitely no exception.
Before you start thinking I’m about to splurge on of online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft or Runescape, hear me out. I’m actually referring to Handheld Gaming (lightweight portable gaming consoles). That’s right, the sensational Nintendo DS and PSP have spawned many online communities for users to contribute to.
The contributions of gamers in online communities are their achieved scores. A dedicated gamer will spend many hours playing his or her portable device to attain a competitive high score to which thereby it will be listed on a community scoreboard against other player’s scores via the Internet. Cyberscore’s Mario Kart DS Scoreboard is a direct example of this concept; this website publicly showcases a list of the top players of Mario Kart DS (a Nintendo DS game), the top player of the list obviously being the best player with the highest score (Cyberscore 2008).
Bruns (2008a) has discussed that that to be an important and credible participant member of an online social community site, one must commit quality, strength and consistency throughout his or her contributions. That the visibility of one’s contributions will ultimately depend on high they are rated. As you can see from what I have discussed so far, all these theories are correct.
But it doesn’t stop there, rather than heading to the computer to contribute scores, you’re able to do so by creating a social status on the portable device itself, as you play within the online social environment that is provided by Wi-Fi technology. Wi-fi technology enables players of handheld gaming to compete with each other locally or globally around the world. As Bruns (2008, 319) states “The tools for social networking reside no longer in online communities but in mobile devices”.
Referring back to Mario Kart DS, if you play against others via the Wi-fi with your Nintendo DS, you will be able to see the opponent’s victories, losses, play time and their designed avatar as well as allowing the opponent to see your profile. However, every time you compete with other players, they are sought out randomly each time you play, despite their social status.
There is definitely more room for improvement in the area of online social networks based on hand held gaming. Certain limitations such as not being able to freely chat to random players or creating complete online social identities for all to see are definitely some prominent flaws.
What I want to be possible in the near future, is to play a highly social interactive handheld game such as World of Warcraft while sitting on the toilet. Oh the possibilities!
Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond : from production to produsage.
New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A. 2008a. KCB203 Consumer Cultures: Week Podcast: Developing Social Environments. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (accessed September 26, 2008).
Podcast: Week 9.Cyberscore. 2008. Mario kart ds scoreboard. http://www.cyberscore.net/scoreboard-mkds.php (accessed September 25, 2008).
Friday, September 12, 2008
Mobile Gaming Strikes! Beware Handheld Gaming!
Hello folks,
Gaming is both a fascination and my obsession. I will spend countless hours on end, shooting zombies’ heads off or frantically attempting to pull off a radical 360-backflip on a motorbike in fantasy-like virtual worlds. I own seven gaming consoles and three portable gaming devices. Simply put, gaming is my forte. My name is Adam Wright, and I will be Mobile Media Future’s blogger discussing Mobile Gaming for the next three weeks.
The global interactive games industry is large and growing, and is at the forefront of many of the most significant innovations in new media (Flew and Humphreys 2008, 127). We stand in awe of how fast gaming’s innovation and interactivity is progressively evolving; the Nintendo Wii has motion-sensoring whilst online multiplayer gaming connects players to interact with each other globally. Mobile gaming too, is developing further and making more advances in wireless communications to satisfy a significant market that has portable gaming needs.
For those who may not know, a video game for a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA or handheld computer falls under the category of mobile gaming. However this does not include portable video game systems such as PSP or Nintendo DS (Wikipedia 2008). The fact is a mobile game has evolved from being just an "extra" application on a portable device to being a valued commodity itself. To this day, it’s quite possible that games themselves are selling the mobile devices! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the N-Gage. That’s basically Nokia’s attempt towards selling mobile devices specifically based on their gaming capabilities (Wikipedia 2008a). As Flew and Humpherys (2008, 128) state "…the games industry itself identifies direct spin-offs for technological innovation… [such as] mobile telecommunications…"
However, mobile Gaming is infamous for its noticeable flaws. Essentially consumers will most often complain that gaming on mobile devices are often too shabby, disappointing to play and difficult to install (Apocalypso 2005). Yet gaming industries have attempted to tackle the problem by employing 3D graphics, improved multiplayer activity and better use of downloading problems via the Internet.
The current craze of Apple’s iPhone has managed to achieve all these goals, as well as becoming prominent competitive gaming devices to the Nintendo DS and PSP in the market. According to Hartley (2007), Apple’s devices main lead advantage is digital distribution of their games, meaning consumers have the pleasure of convenience of grasping any game anywhere at the push of a button (or the touch of a screen). The games are also claimed to be "sophisticated", popular titles such as Super Monkey Ball are just a click away.
I don’t know about you, but my mobile phone games aren’t exactly "sophisticated". Super Mario on the DS seems the better alternative to my phone’s "Bulky Bill". But things can change, perhaps in the time to come, Mobile devices will be superior to the beloved handheld gaming thanks to convenience and connectivity.
Apocalypso. 2005. Making it easy to enjoy rich 3D and connected gaming with Nokia smartphones. http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/0505/nextgeneration.htm
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Flew, T. and S. Humpreys. 2008. Games: technology, industry, culture. In New Media: an introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
Hartley. M. 2008. Next on Apple's agenda: video game supremacy. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080910.RAPPLE10/TPStory/Business
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008. Mobile Gaming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_gaming (accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008a. N-Gage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gage (accessed September 11, 2008)
Gaming is both a fascination and my obsession. I will spend countless hours on end, shooting zombies’ heads off or frantically attempting to pull off a radical 360-backflip on a motorbike in fantasy-like virtual worlds. I own seven gaming consoles and three portable gaming devices. Simply put, gaming is my forte. My name is Adam Wright, and I will be Mobile Media Future’s blogger discussing Mobile Gaming for the next three weeks.
The global interactive games industry is large and growing, and is at the forefront of many of the most significant innovations in new media (Flew and Humphreys 2008, 127). We stand in awe of how fast gaming’s innovation and interactivity is progressively evolving; the Nintendo Wii has motion-sensoring whilst online multiplayer gaming connects players to interact with each other globally. Mobile gaming too, is developing further and making more advances in wireless communications to satisfy a significant market that has portable gaming needs.
For those who may not know, a video game for a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA or handheld computer falls under the category of mobile gaming. However this does not include portable video game systems such as PSP or Nintendo DS (Wikipedia 2008). The fact is a mobile game has evolved from being just an "extra" application on a portable device to being a valued commodity itself. To this day, it’s quite possible that games themselves are selling the mobile devices! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the N-Gage. That’s basically Nokia’s attempt towards selling mobile devices specifically based on their gaming capabilities (Wikipedia 2008a). As Flew and Humpherys (2008, 128) state "…the games industry itself identifies direct spin-offs for technological innovation… [such as] mobile telecommunications…"
However, mobile Gaming is infamous for its noticeable flaws. Essentially consumers will most often complain that gaming on mobile devices are often too shabby, disappointing to play and difficult to install (Apocalypso 2005). Yet gaming industries have attempted to tackle the problem by employing 3D graphics, improved multiplayer activity and better use of downloading problems via the Internet.
The current craze of Apple’s iPhone has managed to achieve all these goals, as well as becoming prominent competitive gaming devices to the Nintendo DS and PSP in the market. According to Hartley (2007), Apple’s devices main lead advantage is digital distribution of their games, meaning consumers have the pleasure of convenience of grasping any game anywhere at the push of a button (or the touch of a screen). The games are also claimed to be "sophisticated", popular titles such as Super Monkey Ball are just a click away.
I don’t know about you, but my mobile phone games aren’t exactly "sophisticated". Super Mario on the DS seems the better alternative to my phone’s "Bulky Bill". But things can change, perhaps in the time to come, Mobile devices will be superior to the beloved handheld gaming thanks to convenience and connectivity.
Apocalypso. 2005. Making it easy to enjoy rich 3D and connected gaming with Nokia smartphones. http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/0505/nextgeneration.htm
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Flew, T. and S. Humpreys. 2008. Games: technology, industry, culture. In New Media: an introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
Hartley. M. 2008. Next on Apple's agenda: video game supremacy. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080910.RAPPLE10/TPStory/Business
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008. Mobile Gaming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_gaming (accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008a. N-Gage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gage (accessed September 11, 2008)
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Comment #6: Produsage-based Citizen Journalism
My last comment goes to Elyse's Produsage-based Citizen Journalism!
and here is my comment:
Hey Elsye, I had a great time reading your blog as how you briefly described what Citizen Journalism is and its connection to open source software. Incidentally, I have been curious as to what exercises popularity for participatory users of the Produsage age (basically because I am quite unpopular with my blogs myself), and it seems you have suggested an idea that members that engage within a shared-collaborative environment must gain their social capital by ‘creating an idea that interests them and that will interest their peers which starts to develop, which soon leads to a wider community then evaluating and adding more information and views). So what you are basically stating is that users must distribute content that is relevant or of interest to a wide community – I definitely agree to what you propose. I also would like to draw out from There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere, that basically a vast majority of blogs have zero views, meaning that as user-led contributors, we must focus more on the relevance, quality, usability of our user-led content (phew!).
and here is my comment:
Hey Elsye, I had a great time reading your blog as how you briefly described what Citizen Journalism is and its connection to open source software. Incidentally, I have been curious as to what exercises popularity for participatory users of the Produsage age (basically because I am quite unpopular with my blogs myself), and it seems you have suggested an idea that members that engage within a shared-collaborative environment must gain their social capital by ‘creating an idea that interests them and that will interest their peers which starts to develop, which soon leads to a wider community then evaluating and adding more information and views). So what you are basically stating is that users must distribute content that is relevant or of interest to a wide community – I definitely agree to what you propose. I also would like to draw out from There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere, that basically a vast majority of blogs have zero views, meaning that as user-led contributors, we must focus more on the relevance, quality, usability of our user-led content (phew!).
The Measure of Renown for a Produsage Participatory User
In regards to the previous five blogs I have written, I couldn’t help but notice that no one has actually commented on my blogs. Keep in mind that I am not completely depressed or anything, but I am curious and perhaps doubtful that my user-led content is not good enough. I questioned as to how can I become important (like Axel Bruns maybe?) by distributing my own content. After all, blogging is based on the Produsage concept; and I would like to provide my personal assumptions as how to become a well-renowned Produsage participatory user.
Let me just lightly address that in my prior blogs I have explained that Produsage ranges in various key domains including social networking, citizen journalism, knowledge bases and my personal favourite, online gaming.
So how come I have not been commented on? I would like to point out that in my previous blogs, only a couple have been carefully tagged. In order for my blogs to be ‘googled’, they must be tagged to be locatable in an online environment. Secondly, I as well generally believe that Produsage isn’t entirely well-known to a large amount of people just yet, it will be eventually, but it adds to the odds in which people will read and locate my blogs. Therefore, two goals must be achieved for content to be more excessively engaged with participatory users, firstly, they must be carefully tagged and that the subject must appeal to a significant amount of users. Written in a article I read earlier concerning long tail material is There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere which explains a vast amount of blogs have few readers with no traffic at all.. Another point I would like to address draws from Brun’s book “Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage” in which he states (2008, 75) that given a sufficiently large and diverse group of contributors within the online community, only then will user-led content be actively engaged continually.
Another valid point I would like to address in regards to become renowned of your user-led content is to primarily focus on the quality you provide. How relevant and useable could it be for other people? Drawn once again from another of Brun’s in Produsage: Key Principles is the underlying fact that in order to gain social capital, it depends primarily on the freely accessible content you distribute.
Truth be told, there are various other ways to have your own content become actively engaged with a large amount of users. Social networking websites such as myspace or facebook gain popularity on profiles by the possible amount of friends you may have, or by how good looking you are in your personal photos (quality of user-led content). What ever the reason, please be aware that it is a possibility for anyone to become a ‘celebrity’ or ‘expert’, just keep trying and use my teachings wisely.
Let me just lightly address that in my prior blogs I have explained that Produsage ranges in various key domains including social networking, citizen journalism, knowledge bases and my personal favourite, online gaming.
So how come I have not been commented on? I would like to point out that in my previous blogs, only a couple have been carefully tagged. In order for my blogs to be ‘googled’, they must be tagged to be locatable in an online environment. Secondly, I as well generally believe that Produsage isn’t entirely well-known to a large amount of people just yet, it will be eventually, but it adds to the odds in which people will read and locate my blogs. Therefore, two goals must be achieved for content to be more excessively engaged with participatory users, firstly, they must be carefully tagged and that the subject must appeal to a significant amount of users. Written in a article I read earlier concerning long tail material is There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere which explains a vast amount of blogs have few readers with no traffic at all.. Another point I would like to address draws from Brun’s book “Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage” in which he states (2008, 75) that given a sufficiently large and diverse group of contributors within the online community, only then will user-led content be actively engaged continually.
Another valid point I would like to address in regards to become renowned of your user-led content is to primarily focus on the quality you provide. How relevant and useable could it be for other people? Drawn once again from another of Brun’s in Produsage: Key Principles is the underlying fact that in order to gain social capital, it depends primarily on the freely accessible content you distribute.
Truth be told, there are various other ways to have your own content become actively engaged with a large amount of users. Social networking websites such as myspace or facebook gain popularity on profiles by the possible amount of friends you may have, or by how good looking you are in your personal photos (quality of user-led content). What ever the reason, please be aware that it is a possibility for anyone to become a ‘celebrity’ or ‘expert’, just keep trying and use my teachings wisely.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Comment #5: Aligning Citizen Journalism and Traditional Journalism
This is my comment to Aligning Citizen Journalism and Traditional Journalism,
and here is my comment:
Hey iZiviso, I was highly interested towards your summary on citizen journalism; how it is beneficial towards bringing a larger range of diverse opinions and that it is a completely different turn towards how journalism now operates. There is one statement that I do want to focus in your blog, which you implied that news content that is generated through citizen journalism has eroded in terms of credibility and truth due to the lack of filtering of accuracy. Know that you are right as to what you have explained; only be aware that citizen journalism is one of the key domains of produsage. Meaning, that all news articles are freely accessible in shared-collaborative environments which are able to edited, commented, reviewed and critiqued by a high potential of participatory users. Therefore, no matter how unpredictable or pointless the participatory user-led content is, please acknowledge that users all around the world are able to manipulate the content for the good of the online communities.
and here is my comment:
Hey iZiviso, I was highly interested towards your summary on citizen journalism; how it is beneficial towards bringing a larger range of diverse opinions and that it is a completely different turn towards how journalism now operates. There is one statement that I do want to focus in your blog, which you implied that news content that is generated through citizen journalism has eroded in terms of credibility and truth due to the lack of filtering of accuracy. Know that you are right as to what you have explained; only be aware that citizen journalism is one of the key domains of produsage. Meaning, that all news articles are freely accessible in shared-collaborative environments which are able to edited, commented, reviewed and critiqued by a high potential of participatory users. Therefore, no matter how unpredictable or pointless the participatory user-led content is, please acknowledge that users all around the world are able to manipulate the content for the good of the online communities.
Produsage and Citizen Journalism are Brothers
In my blog ‘I do not want to hear ‘Production’’, I briefly introduced that produsage is relevant to a vast array of key domains; some of which include knowledge management bases, social networking and the theme of this blog, citizen journalism. In this passage I will briefly outline how citizen journalism employs the produsage concept.
In my preceding blog I stated that open source content works through the produsage model that users collaborate together for improving and updating software. As Bruns explains in News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News is that citizen journalism operates in the same way as open source software, that they are both open, community based, hierarchical and challenge its corporate counterpart as opinion (and innovation) leader.
Citizen journalism compared to its counterpart ‘the traditional news production’ is a collaborative, shared free-for-all environment for participatory users to consume, share, update, edit and construct user-led DIY collaborative content. The content processed through citizen journalism is no longer generated by news professionals, but by anyone, people with credibility or no credibility, distributing through sites such as OhMyNews to become ‘experts’ based on their own content. All these particular attributes of citizen journalism are based rules that belong to the produsage concept. Brun’s explains that there are also four primary reasons as to why citizen journalism is of produsage. One of them being, open participation, if the communities within citizen journalism are sufficiently large enough, they can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however qualified. As well as unfinished artifacts, a continuing process of user-led content that is continually under development and is therefore always unfinished (but the development does follow evolutionary paths)
But let’s not forget that within collaborative online communities of news content, there is the significant problem that content can possibly be non-credible, non-accurate, biased or simply false. Outlined in Aligning Citizen Journalism and Traditional Journalism is the cold hard truth that journalists of the produsage will not 100% abide to the journalism code of conduct (An example is an obnoxious blog that is ‘news content’: Australian Stereotype Proven, Australians are Stupid). But is that seriously so bad? People can surely generate bad user-led content, but because citizen journalism is of the produsage, participants of the community are able to update, fix, edit and critique any content that is significantly not news worthy. And that is why produsage is surely the most innovative thing out there in the world; because all news content of citizen journalism is openly accessible to be improved or reviewed.
Traditional journalism is gathered only by staff journalists and is edited only by the editorial hierarchy. It may be more ‘news worthy’ and creditable, but citizen journalism provides on-going current, shared information from a diverse range of views rather than a media mogul.
In my preceding blog I stated that open source content works through the produsage model that users collaborate together for improving and updating software. As Bruns explains in News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News is that citizen journalism operates in the same way as open source software, that they are both open, community based, hierarchical and challenge its corporate counterpart as opinion (and innovation) leader.
Citizen journalism compared to its counterpart ‘the traditional news production’ is a collaborative, shared free-for-all environment for participatory users to consume, share, update, edit and construct user-led DIY collaborative content. The content processed through citizen journalism is no longer generated by news professionals, but by anyone, people with credibility or no credibility, distributing through sites such as OhMyNews to become ‘experts’ based on their own content. All these particular attributes of citizen journalism are based rules that belong to the produsage concept. Brun’s explains that there are also four primary reasons as to why citizen journalism is of produsage. One of them being, open participation, if the communities within citizen journalism are sufficiently large enough, they can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however qualified. As well as unfinished artifacts, a continuing process of user-led content that is continually under development and is therefore always unfinished (but the development does follow evolutionary paths)
But let’s not forget that within collaborative online communities of news content, there is the significant problem that content can possibly be non-credible, non-accurate, biased or simply false. Outlined in Aligning Citizen Journalism and Traditional Journalism is the cold hard truth that journalists of the produsage will not 100% abide to the journalism code of conduct (An example is an obnoxious blog that is ‘news content’: Australian Stereotype Proven, Australians are Stupid). But is that seriously so bad? People can surely generate bad user-led content, but because citizen journalism is of the produsage, participants of the community are able to update, fix, edit and critique any content that is significantly not news worthy. And that is why produsage is surely the most innovative thing out there in the world; because all news content of citizen journalism is openly accessible to be improved or reviewed.
Traditional journalism is gathered only by staff journalists and is edited only by the editorial hierarchy. It may be more ‘news worthy’ and creditable, but citizen journalism provides on-going current, shared information from a diverse range of views rather than a media mogul.
Comment #4: How is open source work (as an example of community produsage) different from commercial production?
I read the blog How is open source work (as an example of community produsage) different from commercial production? and felt it needed some more beef. Here is the link to the blog I commented on:
and here is my comment:
I have read through your blog and it seems you have addressed some reasons as to why people engage in produsage software. I would like to elaborate further into the rationale of participants of a produsage culture, specifically open source software. What are the motivations? From previous research, users that engage in the development of open source softwares such as Linux, find satisfaction by simply correcting necessary source code, developing and show casing skills (that may relate to work-related needs and career concerns) or generally perhaps towards contributing to the greater good of the community. Unlike closed source software, where the non-disclosure agreements and other IP protections cause the software to confidential, priced and core intellectual properties (keep in mind that I am not being negative about closed source software; only addressing that it does not have the same shared, collaborative concept that open source software has). Whatever the reason is, know that that open source software cannot be sold as a commercial product (because it’s free!), but that does not mean open source software can not bring in the moo-lah. By providing services based on the free software, users can become consultants, significant developers, Et.
and here is my comment:
I have read through your blog and it seems you have addressed some reasons as to why people engage in produsage software. I would like to elaborate further into the rationale of participants of a produsage culture, specifically open source software. What are the motivations? From previous research, users that engage in the development of open source softwares such as Linux, find satisfaction by simply correcting necessary source code, developing and show casing skills (that may relate to work-related needs and career concerns) or generally perhaps towards contributing to the greater good of the community. Unlike closed source software, where the non-disclosure agreements and other IP protections cause the software to confidential, priced and core intellectual properties (keep in mind that I am not being negative about closed source software; only addressing that it does not have the same shared, collaborative concept that open source software has). Whatever the reason is, know that that open source software cannot be sold as a commercial product (because it’s free!), but that does not mean open source software can not bring in the moo-lah. By providing services based on the free software, users can become consultants, significant developers, Et.
Open Source Software: Gaming and Free Alternatives
In my previous blogs I have been discussing the concept of produsage, how it applies to various key domains and the significant benefits and disadvantages. In today’s blog I will open up on open source software, what it is and how it is related to gaming.
While I was sipping my coffee away and listening to Brun’s week 9 podcast on ‘Open Source Software’, I started to ask myself maybe I should be engaging more into open source software rather than having to fork large sums of money for over-priced closed source software such as PhotoShop or Office. So I did some searching around the net and discovered that there are many, many cheaper alternatives to the usual expensive closed source software that most people need. In a blog I read earlier: Free, Open Source Alternatives to Expensive Programs it provides links to download assorted programs that are free alternatives to opposing expensive ‘traditional’ ones. For example, a link in the blog directs you to download a free program called ‘GIMP’. This program to me seems very alike to PhotoShop, of course PhotoShop is going to be better, but the main difference is the fact that I would have to pay around $200 for PhotoShop but now I have downloaded a similar program free of charge. I would also like to address that this site provides links to two gaming open source softwares (because I am a gamer after all), Sauerbraten and Frets on Fire, the free choices compared to halo 2 and guitar hero.
These fine examples of open source software are what Brun’s addresses in Open Source Software Development: Probabilistic Eyeballs, that they are freely useable, edited and can be seen by everyone. That large communities will gather together online, decide what the software should be like and what goals it should have. Apart that open source software is free, it is also frequently updated in today’s changing world.
In Open Source Gaming: The Apricot Interview, the team who created Apricot, an open source 3D game which was built on itself by open source software such as Crystal Space explains why they created it on a open source model. According to Ton of the Apricot team, he states that though the giants of the billion dollar global market of video games may provide high quality products but their accessibility of their systems for developers or students is very limited. This is why they decided to fill the gap to allow for millions of people to access the quality tools and software to be able to make distributable 3D gaming content.
This game exemplifies that open source software attracts people by the many, due to the individual awards that can be gained. That social capital will be increased of distributors with significant content in shared, collaborative environment.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Comment #3: Produsage, user-lead creations and gaming.
Comment number 3 goes to a blogger that seeks out the produsage concept of games in Produsage, user-lead creations and gaming. and here is my comment:
Hey Obsession101, as a video gamer myself I can understand why the success of games that employ the produsage concept encourages more participatory users to actively collaborative with one-another. As you previously discussed in regards to game ‘The Movies’, is that gamers are more willing to contribute their user-led content because they want to ‘show off their work’ along with other numerous reasons.
That is probably the most significant and prime reasons as to why users will distribute their work, as I outlined in my blog entry: Benefits of Produsage Communities, is that the contributors seek to be recognised and gain or increase their social capital as contributors. Contribution that can help gain social capital for users is the quality or usefulness of the contribution.
The particular individual reward as Bruns explains, is that it will prolong a further strong motivation for participation in produsage communities and projects.What you have outlined in your blog is a perfect example of how industries are utilising the produsage concept to gain capital. I find this article highly relevant for those seeking how produsage can apply in varied key domains – rather than social networking sites (myspace) and knowledge bases (Wikipedia).
Hey Obsession101, as a video gamer myself I can understand why the success of games that employ the produsage concept encourages more participatory users to actively collaborative with one-another. As you previously discussed in regards to game ‘The Movies’, is that gamers are more willing to contribute their user-led content because they want to ‘show off their work’ along with other numerous reasons.
That is probably the most significant and prime reasons as to why users will distribute their work, as I outlined in my blog entry: Benefits of Produsage Communities, is that the contributors seek to be recognised and gain or increase their social capital as contributors. Contribution that can help gain social capital for users is the quality or usefulness of the contribution.
The particular individual reward as Bruns explains, is that it will prolong a further strong motivation for participation in produsage communities and projects.What you have outlined in your blog is a perfect example of how industries are utilising the produsage concept to gain capital. I find this article highly relevant for those seeking how produsage can apply in varied key domains – rather than social networking sites (myspace) and knowledge bases (Wikipedia).
Benefits of Produsage Communities
In the previous blog, I briefly discussed the definition of Produsage and the how the concept is illustrated in collaborative-shared online communities (eg. Wikipedia). But let’s take a quick look back to the definition of produsage as outlined by Bruns: produsage is based on the collaborative engagement of ideally large communities of participants in a shared project, where product + usage = production. In today’s blog, I would like to outline the factors of produsage, the benefits and disadvantages.
Benefits
Outlined in Produsage, user-led creations and gaming, is an argument that discusses how the produsage concept works well with gaming to benefit both the gaming industry and users worldwide. It explains in games such as The Sims and The Movies, there is a sharing community of ideas that are continually being improved – such as user-led content of created characters and items. These games encourage users to come together to share and upgrade each other’s content and ideas amongst each other. This is a prime example of how produsage is used, and illustrates why games that employ the community produsage concept are successful by utilising collaborative communities of active participants.
There are numerous reasons as to why participatory users will engage in these sorts of produsage communities. Firstly, produsage communities provide fast and frequent updates to content that already exists; there are as well fewer delays caused by approval processes. All this updated user-led content is freely accessible to all, which leads to great involvement of the community – which therefore means users of produsage communities will be able to locate problems and keep improving their shared content.
There are also individual rewards to be gained by participatory users in regards to their quality and usefulness of their contribution. In Produsage: Key Principles, Status gain (also known as social capital) is one common reward, where popularity and credibility of users will sore based on the level of contributor’s user-led content. In the produsage on gaming industries, people will strive to gain some renown in the virtual communities. There are often cases of tangible rewards as well, usually on employment outcomes of producers with a positive track record of contribution.
Disadvantages
It is not surprising that Produsage communities also bring forth many potential disadvantages, generally because community knowledge may be limited in its diverse opinion. As Bruns explains, produsage communities need to avoid the ‘group-think’ situation, where all members think alike and do not recognise their own faults due to lack of individuality. A very direct example could be a KKK community website which shares a same particular fault - (well, it shouldn’t even exist!), Or here’s a more subtle example: where 10-year old students of the same math class post blogs on a collaborative website based on what they’ve learned from a teacher’s flunked understanding of trigonometry – who will be there to correct them in this community if all members are the students of the same class?
Benefits
Outlined in Produsage, user-led creations and gaming, is an argument that discusses how the produsage concept works well with gaming to benefit both the gaming industry and users worldwide. It explains in games such as The Sims and The Movies, there is a sharing community of ideas that are continually being improved – such as user-led content of created characters and items. These games encourage users to come together to share and upgrade each other’s content and ideas amongst each other. This is a prime example of how produsage is used, and illustrates why games that employ the community produsage concept are successful by utilising collaborative communities of active participants.
There are numerous reasons as to why participatory users will engage in these sorts of produsage communities. Firstly, produsage communities provide fast and frequent updates to content that already exists; there are as well fewer delays caused by approval processes. All this updated user-led content is freely accessible to all, which leads to great involvement of the community – which therefore means users of produsage communities will be able to locate problems and keep improving their shared content.
There are also individual rewards to be gained by participatory users in regards to their quality and usefulness of their contribution. In Produsage: Key Principles, Status gain (also known as social capital) is one common reward, where popularity and credibility of users will sore based on the level of contributor’s user-led content. In the produsage on gaming industries, people will strive to gain some renown in the virtual communities. There are often cases of tangible rewards as well, usually on employment outcomes of producers with a positive track record of contribution.
Disadvantages
It is not surprising that Produsage communities also bring forth many potential disadvantages, generally because community knowledge may be limited in its diverse opinion. As Bruns explains, produsage communities need to avoid the ‘group-think’ situation, where all members think alike and do not recognise their own faults due to lack of individuality. A very direct example could be a KKK community website which shares a same particular fault - (well, it shouldn’t even exist!), Or here’s a more subtle example: where 10-year old students of the same math class post blogs on a collaborative website based on what they’ve learned from a teacher’s flunked understanding of trigonometry – who will be there to correct them in this community if all members are the students of the same class?
Friday, April 25, 2008
Comment #2: Those Who Can Teach, Those Who Teach Do
This is my comment to Exploding Breaker's blog, check the user's blog at Those Who Can Teach, Those Who Teach Do and here is my comment:
Hey, I found your blog to be particularly interesting, asking what constitues 'knowledge'. This is my overall view on how 'experts' are identified.Burns explains that in the collaborative online communities, ‘experts’ or roles as ‘leaders’ are ultimately decided by the quality of active content from participants, regardless of their role in the academic hierarchy. The ability regarding online users to be assessed of importance based on their personal user-led content is I think the most appropriate way of discovering an ‘expert’ in a certain field of knowledge. Isn’t this how ‘experts’ are identified? Not by their qualifications or level in the academic hierarchy; but their skills, knowledge and ideas that are exemplified in their user-led content. The produsage community is becoming more increasingly popular and relevant towards academic research. Researchers seeking proper knowledge for a subject no longer search by looking up experts, but by users whose academic profession and credentials are frequently never shown. And as part of the online collaborative community, the content that could possibly be faulty can always be judged, edited and commented on by other users (much like what I am doing to your blog). As Axel Burn refers to in one of his readings, that outcomes of users will always remain unfinished and continually under development-that this is sharing of knowledge and ideas. However that does not mean that users who provide quality user-led content on the web2.0 may be creditable, I am just saying in the collaborative online community, we all have the ability to set what is right.
Hey, I found your blog to be particularly interesting, asking what constitues 'knowledge'. This is my overall view on how 'experts' are identified.Burns explains that in the collaborative online communities, ‘experts’ or roles as ‘leaders’ are ultimately decided by the quality of active content from participants, regardless of their role in the academic hierarchy. The ability regarding online users to be assessed of importance based on their personal user-led content is I think the most appropriate way of discovering an ‘expert’ in a certain field of knowledge. Isn’t this how ‘experts’ are identified? Not by their qualifications or level in the academic hierarchy; but their skills, knowledge and ideas that are exemplified in their user-led content. The produsage community is becoming more increasingly popular and relevant towards academic research. Researchers seeking proper knowledge for a subject no longer search by looking up experts, but by users whose academic profession and credentials are frequently never shown. And as part of the online collaborative community, the content that could possibly be faulty can always be judged, edited and commented on by other users (much like what I am doing to your blog). As Axel Burn refers to in one of his readings, that outcomes of users will always remain unfinished and continually under development-that this is sharing of knowledge and ideas. However that does not mean that users who provide quality user-led content on the web2.0 may be creditable, I am just saying in the collaborative online community, we all have the ability to set what is right.
I do not want to hear 'Production'
As Burns explains, the term ‘production’ is no longer accurate to be the definitive word based on the creation of collaborative content of user-led spaces in the World Wide Web. ‘Production’ is no longer suitable, terms such as ‘customer-made’ or ‘user-led production’ would seem to be the superior choices. This is due to the fact that collaborative user-led spaces such as Wikipedia do not follow simple content production methodology. As Burn explains, User-led content ‘production’ is instead built on iterative, evolutionary development models in which often very large communities of anticipants make a number of usually very small, incremental changes to the established knowledge base, thereby enabling a gradual improvement in quality which under the right conditions can outpace the speed of product development n the conventional and industrial model. The description of this new form of simultaneous production and usage of user-led content can be known as produsage, a model describing today’s emerging user-led content creation environments and the significant removal of a role between a consumer and producer of user-led content.
Burns states that user-led content creation takes place in a variety of environments- ranging from the widely distributed networks (such as the blogosphere) to more centralised sites (such as wikipedia). Coincidentally, the produsage concepts exists within technological and technosocial frameworks of social, technological and economic environments. For Produsage to work, the need for software with functionality beyond what is offered is needed: open source software. Open source software as Burns explains, is built on the principle of the free and open availability code which enables users to switch from the roles of content creators to coordinators. The software ultimately removes the physical limitations that are based on social behaviour such as language, geography, background, etc. The software also allows for environments of distributed tool-sets that pull ends results out of human social and collaborative behaviour, meaning that significant filtering and evaluating of collaborative processes and content will provide harnessing the most successful teams and content contributions.
Snurb explains that the enabling of easily made contribution and usage of the user-led content allows for a great sharing of content, contributions and tasks throughout the networked community, which develops towards the process of collaboration. In which therefore the produsage concept can be seen in a number of key domains that drive the development of user-led online environments. Where the produsage concept is illustrated in the world of social networking, which uses open source software to employ networking tools such as book-marking or publishing blogs. More importantly in my view, knowledge management is another key domain that identifies the produsage concept. Wikipedia, for example, a knowledge management domain, allows for users to act as both consumers and producers of shared knowledge bases; and at the same time, a shared user-led content creation environment is constantly being developed.
Burns states that user-led content creation takes place in a variety of environments- ranging from the widely distributed networks (such as the blogosphere) to more centralised sites (such as wikipedia). Coincidentally, the produsage concepts exists within technological and technosocial frameworks of social, technological and economic environments. For Produsage to work, the need for software with functionality beyond what is offered is needed: open source software. Open source software as Burns explains, is built on the principle of the free and open availability code which enables users to switch from the roles of content creators to coordinators. The software ultimately removes the physical limitations that are based on social behaviour such as language, geography, background, etc. The software also allows for environments of distributed tool-sets that pull ends results out of human social and collaborative behaviour, meaning that significant filtering and evaluating of collaborative processes and content will provide harnessing the most successful teams and content contributions.
Snurb explains that the enabling of easily made contribution and usage of the user-led content allows for a great sharing of content, contributions and tasks throughout the networked community, which develops towards the process of collaboration. In which therefore the produsage concept can be seen in a number of key domains that drive the development of user-led online environments. Where the produsage concept is illustrated in the world of social networking, which uses open source software to employ networking tools such as book-marking or publishing blogs. More importantly in my view, knowledge management is another key domain that identifies the produsage concept. Wikipedia, for example, a knowledge management domain, allows for users to act as both consumers and producers of shared knowledge bases; and at the same time, a shared user-led content creation environment is constantly being developed.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Comment #1: Social Communities will not Fail
I've just commeneted on Spike's Blog, 'Why Social Communities will Fail'. Here is the URL:
http://brainsonfire.com/blog/2008/04/15/why-social-communities-will-fail/#comment-160243
and this is my comment:
Hey Spike, you prove an interesting point about that the whole offline vs. online community theory, suggesting that ‘community’ is surely based on physical interactivity between individuals. I do agree that the whole face-to-face and shaking hands concept has much more of a social feeling rather than communicating to people behind a computer screen. Offline communities are more traditional and are definitely more active (due to physical interactivity). However, why is it that people will continue to actively engage in connecting in the online community? The answer is simple Spike, humans can overcome physical challenges in the online world. The online community does not have any physical challenges, people can actively engage with one-another despite the long range of distance or the significant difference in demographics. For example, people can easily discuss reviews of movies in the comfort zone of their own chair, rather than having to deal with driving to a certain place, interacting with people that may find them social unacceptable and having to deal with basic human needs (e.g. food). And what does this mean in the long run? More users of who participate in online communities will surely increase the accumulated knowledge of certain topics thanks to more shared understandings.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Introduction to Online Communities: The Impacts
Recently in our KCB201 tutorial class, we discussed and researched towards the concept of online communities. It was discovered that online communities have significant potential towards providing benefits for community identities and power. Most importantly, Flew outlines that ‘virtual communities’ of niche particular interests are constantly developing thanks to online networks; which means that for us, we are colleting information and developing more shared understandings of numerous topics. Flew suggests that within offline networks, to gather communities, we are bound and restrained due to people’s physical factors. These include demographic (age and gender), distance, cost, human needs, etc. Coincidentally, forming new friendships and relationships can be perceived as difficult for people wanting to join a community. Online communities however are entirely different, due to the power of masking each user’s identity and destroying the problem of physical restraints such as distance or age/gender difference. This means that the barriers between cultural and social participation of communities through online networks have been significantly lowered. Flew also suggests that one of the main reasons why users engage in online networks is because of the ability for those who are marginalised or persecuted by society to express views and disseminate opinions. Hence, more communities are continually being developed and increased with more participatory users engaging ultimately resulting in collaborating, building and organising more and more various knowledge bases.
I myself engage more towards online communities rather than the offline. I believe that I am more comfortable learning and engaging in information whilst sitting down in my own comfort zone. For example, I am a member of www.deviantart.com, a social networking website for uploading your own art and observing other user’s art. I do engage in this rather than attending art communities such as clubs, galleries and lessons because of the easy useability to engage in art, the ability to not have to converse with other people and eliminating problems such as cost of travel/ attending community events. I also am not comfortable of engaging with other people about my particular methods of art. These are all examples of problematic issues that may arise of offline communities, particularly with people of niche interests.
It is also important to realise that online community power does not only impact the knowledge bases. For media industries as well is highly effected, this includes citizen journalism providing a connective to mainstream news or setting up alternative distribution frameworks for music and movies. Also economic factors, certain communities that gather online provide valuable information of user criticism of new products; this information influences the success or failure of these new products for marketers. There is also political involvement impact, where users of certain political communities can possibly plan for protests, strikes, etc.
I myself engage more towards online communities rather than the offline. I believe that I am more comfortable learning and engaging in information whilst sitting down in my own comfort zone. For example, I am a member of www.deviantart.com, a social networking website for uploading your own art and observing other user’s art. I do engage in this rather than attending art communities such as clubs, galleries and lessons because of the easy useability to engage in art, the ability to not have to converse with other people and eliminating problems such as cost of travel/ attending community events. I also am not comfortable of engaging with other people about my particular methods of art. These are all examples of problematic issues that may arise of offline communities, particularly with people of niche interests.
It is also important to realise that online community power does not only impact the knowledge bases. For media industries as well is highly effected, this includes citizen journalism providing a connective to mainstream news or setting up alternative distribution frameworks for music and movies. Also economic factors, certain communities that gather online provide valuable information of user criticism of new products; this information influences the success or failure of these new products for marketers. There is also political involvement impact, where users of certain political communities can possibly plan for protests, strikes, etc.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Yeah that's sexy
Yeah like, how sexy is this blog man,
"I'd rather read Adam's blogs that read those playboy magazines" people would say. And then I would reply: "wait dear fellows! I have a confession" they paused for the alerting annoucement... I stood up and took a deep breath "This blog unfortuantly is the core location of all neccessary information"
The audience seemed confused. "what the hell ye ole fool!" "what's thet sipossed to mean!" they cried with anger.
I could tell they were just looking for that FHM, playboish sort of material. But I had to make my stand.
"I AM THE student of KCB201!" and then they egged me. But I will still continue to strive for exellence in all my work! "You will all see!"
"I'd rather read Adam's blogs that read those playboy magazines" people would say. And then I would reply: "wait dear fellows! I have a confession" they paused for the alerting annoucement... I stood up and took a deep breath "This blog unfortuantly is the core location of all neccessary information"
The audience seemed confused. "what the hell ye ole fool!" "what's thet sipossed to mean!" they cried with anger.
I could tell they were just looking for that FHM, playboish sort of material. But I had to make my stand.
"I AM THE student of KCB201!" and then they egged me. But I will still continue to strive for exellence in all my work! "You will all see!"
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