Week 3 - Reflection

This week has been very hectic for myself and havent been feeling to good this week, however, its a new week ahead and im feeling alot better! :)

Week 3 was good, it was a chance to learn some more about the internet and the concept of 'virtual communities and worlds' and we also worked on our group work.

Gift Economy

We looked into the concept of Gift Economy. This looks at how websites, such as Google, Hotmail My Space, Yahoo, Facebook, Hi5, Bebo etc, give something for people to use for free and what they get in return. Its like taking something but not giving ... a 'Gift Economy'. When you think about it, it does feel like one would be selfish to use something for free and not offer anything in return for using these websites for free, but this is understood to be the concept of Gify Economy.


Second Life

We looked at Second Life too, some information about Second Life:

• Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents.
• Opened to the public in 2003
• Inhabited by millions of Residents from around the world
• You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow Residents.
• Because Residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents.
• The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.

http://secondlife.com/


Group Work

At the moment we are looking at virtual communities and all researching into different ideas. I am looking into:

• The concept of virtual communities
• Theroies / understanding behine virtual online communities

My Motivational thought for week 3 :

'You are successful the moment you start moving towards a worthwhile goal'
- Charles Carlson


Further Reading / Research:

• UNIX
• Stallman