The term "crowdsourcing" was something completely new to me. After reading the Brabham article, I was really intrigued. The idea of having the websites users actually be the main source of problem solving and be a part of the site is brilliant. They get thousands of different point of views and opinions to help their company out. If only we could do that in real life. It's like employees thousands of workers to help out without having them on a pay roll. I'm sure some of the crowd sourcers want something out of it, but getting the satisfaction of helping a company succeed should be a bit of an incentive.
I checked out the popular threadless.com to see what it was all about. Immediatly I was overwhelmed at the amount of apparell they sold. After narrowing my search to women, size small, I looked through pages and pages of shirts designed not by the site's creaters, but by people like me, customers. I got so many ideas from all the shirts I saw, I wanted to create my own. Unfortunatly, I didn't have the correct adobe program, and didn't really have time to download it, so I scrapped that idea. But, the idea of the website is genuis! Winning t-shirt designers can win upwords of $2000. That is alot of money for one design! Having the option of "I'd buy it"gives the customers the chance to vote on what shirts they like the best, and gives new designers an idea of what shirts are in and what kind are not.
More and more sites are using the idea of crowdsourcing that I go to. Even sites life facebook and myspace gives you the option of making your own applications and having other users download it to their pages. It give the sense that everyone is putting in their share to the site they belong to. People get motivated when they feel they have added to something big like all of these popular websites. It gives a feeling of authority and power as well.
As far as crowdsourcing relating to interpersonal relations, I think it helps in many ways. Not only are users contributing their own thoughts and idea, they are working with these companies to produce these ideas. Of course it is all online, but it can lead to big things. The site creaters could like the customers idea so much, that they want to meet inperson to discuss an actual career with the company. Or, it can get people together by creating different teams to help the certian website. It is really easy to get to wrapped up in technology that people forget how to deal with others. Allowing users to help and contribute sites makes working together and communicating more easy. Although it is online, working for a purpose seems alright to communicate virtually.
All in all, I believe the internet is severely hurting our societys ability to communicate and keep relationships face to face. The internet is convienent and anonymous in a way the users don't have to be exactly who they really are. As in the reading says, "Everybody knows something", everybody contributes and thus works together. Crowdsourcing could be the answer to online interpersonal relationships where it doesn't actually hurt face to face relationships. The more people work together and communicate, the easier it is.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Second What?
After listening to a discussion in class last week about Second Life, I decided to try it out. Now, I am an avid facebook/ internet guru, but Second Life to me sounded very bizarre and much too time consuming. The thought of creating an avatar and actually putting myself into the very real virtual world, I started thinking about what my friends would think if i went ahead and joined the second life team. Once I got over the fact of what they would think, I decided to try it out.
When I got home from work, I couldn't procrastinate enough so I went ahead to check out what this second life is after all. From hearing Annie talking about it in class, I really was intrigued that people would rather live their avatar lives than that of their own. After a grueling installation process, I finally had downloaded the program. Once I entered the second life world, I was in a completely different place. Not only was I confused on what to do, I didn't know how to make an avatar. After reading the fine print, I figured out how to create who I wanted to be. I'm not going to lie, creating a new person was too much fun. I got to customize my character down to the size of the nose to the width of her hips. The only trouble I had was clothing her, so my character went out into the world of second life, semi naked on my behalf.
Once I finished customizing my avatar Zoey, I took a stroll in second life world. I could walk in all directions, run into other avatars and even fly. Flying was pretty cool, although I didn't understand the purpose. I used my chat box to get help from other avatars to tell me what exactly I was supposed to do. I didn't understand the purpose of this so called second life. After initiating a conversation with a male avatar, I told him that I was new here and looking for something to do. After he repeated second life jargon to me, I decided to move on to a different friend. Once I went around the town I was in, I got bored. Still didn't figure out the point or what exactly I was doing here. So I said my good byes and left second life.
Not only did this program slow down my computer and take up a ridiculous amount of space, It made me someone who I was not. Well, in fact I made me someone I was not. It was amazing to see how much time I spent on customizing my character to be someone I wasn't in real life. When conversing with other second life avatars, it was hard to tell if there was any truth to our conversations. I know I made everything up that I said, because I didn't want to give out personal information, and for that matter have someone find out that I was actually on second life.
Programs like second life, and other virtual reality online programs makes interpersonal relations almost exstint. With everything handed to us on the internet, We don't even have to leave our beds to meet someone new. Now, we can find friends, lovers , even animals online at the convience of a click of a mouse. It is ruining our abilities to interact face to face. It is one thing to chat online, you don't have to look them in the eye, you can think for a long time what you are going to say, and you can even get embarrassed without showing the pink flush in your cheeks. I think meeting people online is a fine thing to do, especially for those who are more shy, awkward or even have disabilities that prevent them from being about to socially interact. But, what are we learning from this? There is a huge difference between chatting online and chatting face to face. There are emotions, mannuerisms, and gestures that you get from interacting face to face. When you're online, you lose that ability to use your emotions as words. Things get misconstrued often online, and problems arise.
After I left second life, I decided to uninstall the program, because honestly I would never go on it again. It was a good experience, and I'm glad I saw what all the hype was about, but it definitely was not for me. I can totally see why people join it though, everyone one the site was very friendly and welcoming. There was no judging like there is in the real world, at least I didn't see any. Users lose themselves in this virtual reality until it becomes hard for them to distinguish between the two. The internet is a very powerful and influencial system, and through it many opportunites arise. I just don't want to see the internet take over our society and until we actually become robots and reliant on technology.
When I got home from work, I couldn't procrastinate enough so I went ahead to check out what this second life is after all. From hearing Annie talking about it in class, I really was intrigued that people would rather live their avatar lives than that of their own. After a grueling installation process, I finally had downloaded the program. Once I entered the second life world, I was in a completely different place. Not only was I confused on what to do, I didn't know how to make an avatar. After reading the fine print, I figured out how to create who I wanted to be. I'm not going to lie, creating a new person was too much fun. I got to customize my character down to the size of the nose to the width of her hips. The only trouble I had was clothing her, so my character went out into the world of second life, semi naked on my behalf.
Once I finished customizing my avatar Zoey, I took a stroll in second life world. I could walk in all directions, run into other avatars and even fly. Flying was pretty cool, although I didn't understand the purpose. I used my chat box to get help from other avatars to tell me what exactly I was supposed to do. I didn't understand the purpose of this so called second life. After initiating a conversation with a male avatar, I told him that I was new here and looking for something to do. After he repeated second life jargon to me, I decided to move on to a different friend. Once I went around the town I was in, I got bored. Still didn't figure out the point or what exactly I was doing here. So I said my good byes and left second life.
Not only did this program slow down my computer and take up a ridiculous amount of space, It made me someone who I was not. Well, in fact I made me someone I was not. It was amazing to see how much time I spent on customizing my character to be someone I wasn't in real life. When conversing with other second life avatars, it was hard to tell if there was any truth to our conversations. I know I made everything up that I said, because I didn't want to give out personal information, and for that matter have someone find out that I was actually on second life.
Programs like second life, and other virtual reality online programs makes interpersonal relations almost exstint. With everything handed to us on the internet, We don't even have to leave our beds to meet someone new. Now, we can find friends, lovers , even animals online at the convience of a click of a mouse. It is ruining our abilities to interact face to face. It is one thing to chat online, you don't have to look them in the eye, you can think for a long time what you are going to say, and you can even get embarrassed without showing the pink flush in your cheeks. I think meeting people online is a fine thing to do, especially for those who are more shy, awkward or even have disabilities that prevent them from being about to socially interact. But, what are we learning from this? There is a huge difference between chatting online and chatting face to face. There are emotions, mannuerisms, and gestures that you get from interacting face to face. When you're online, you lose that ability to use your emotions as words. Things get misconstrued often online, and problems arise.
After I left second life, I decided to uninstall the program, because honestly I would never go on it again. It was a good experience, and I'm glad I saw what all the hype was about, but it definitely was not for me. I can totally see why people join it though, everyone one the site was very friendly and welcoming. There was no judging like there is in the real world, at least I didn't see any. Users lose themselves in this virtual reality until it becomes hard for them to distinguish between the two. The internet is a very powerful and influencial system, and through it many opportunites arise. I just don't want to see the internet take over our society and until we actually become robots and reliant on technology.
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