Assignment #6: Attending a Virtual Event

I would say my attempt at attending a virtual event was pretty much a failure. I logged onto second life in hopes that I would be able to easily attend an event, but instead it took me a good 20min to log on because it made me download the newest version. Once I finally logged in I had a difficult time finding other people who were also on at that time. After flying around for a little I realized that most of the people would be at the information center of second life. There I began to chat with someone and our entire conversation went as followed: me: "hi" them: "hello". It felt too weird talking with a complete stranger so that was the end of our conversation, but it was interesting to finally communicate with someone virtually.

Assignment #4: Playing Well With Others

1. Only one out of the three comments I have left were the only comments on a particular post, the other two were in response to previous comments.

2. I only commented on two other blogs besides my own, however I found it fun to post on other people's blogs so I think I will have more posts in the future.

3. I responded to both people I knew outside of the class as well as people I only knew from inside the class. I found that by responding to both I became more connected with the people I had only knew from my CMC class.

4. Although I found this assignment interesting, I do not believe it is an effective way to communicate outside a class setting. The reason for this being that so many people have blogs, and it is often difficult to identify the certain blog with a person, especially if they do not have a picture. Also people do not always check their blogs as often as other people so the communication is delayed.

5. The advantages of this way of communication is that it is quick and easy, and I found it to be quite interesting. Some of the disadvantages though, however are some of what I posted in #4 in that not everyone checks their blogs as frequently as others. So for this it is harder to communicate with someone than just speaking with them face to face.

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Development in Technology

Mass collaboration can either be beneficial or harmful to a company looking to develop. On one end the expansion of knowledge can be valuable for advancements, but on the other end it can be risky in that a sense of privacy is lost. As discussed in both Wikinomics and Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide the issue of confidentiality and money come into play when a company is thinking about making their information known to the public. Rob McEwen, a CEO of Goldcorp Inc. ran into this exact problem when he was debating on whether or not to place geological data on the web. He wanted to find a good place to mine by sharing the information of his company by placing it on the Web. He knew that if geologists got a hold of the company’s information they would be able to figure out where the best source of gold was. The only risk in doing this was losing the identity of his company by making the information public. McEwen was definitely taking a risk, but his company had no choice but to chance it.

Goldcorp was a company from Canada that essentially made its money off mining gold, finding its value, then reselling it for a certain price. The business had problems in that the cost of production became exceedingly high, workers went on strike, and the company was lingering in debt. (P.8 Wikinomics). On top of this the gold in the Ontario mine was running low, and McEwen was not aware of any new place the company could start drilling. Many people believed that Goldcorp would go under in that their ongoing problems did not have a set solution. McEwen was eager to find a resolution and was able to when he attended a conference at MIT and developed an idea of Crowdsourcing. “Crowdsourcing or crowdcatching is a problem-solving and idea generated process in which a company throws out a well-specified problem to a selected crowd or group of people for a solution (p. 137 Web 2.0). In the case of Goldcorp, the idea was to create a contest for geologists around the world to find the best place to mine millions of ounces of gold, and the prize was hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company was able to do this by making all of its geological data public online to allow geologists to turn Goldcorp’s raw data into a key of where to mine gold. McEwen’s idea became a huge success, and thousands of geologists responded as to where they anticipated the gold would be. Goldcorp was able to take this information and make a complete turn around in its company. The collaboration of geologists and the company, as well as the competitive aspect to the contest by having a cash prize involved, is what sparked Goldcorp into success.

Advancements in technology have allowed us to create efficient connections with one another that we never would have been able to ten years ago. In the Goldcorp example geologists all over the world were able to find where the best places to mine without leaving their desks. In the past it would’ve taken years of hard labor to find the exact spots to mine that the geologist found in only a few days. This is due to the ability to share information over with web with millions of people in the matter of seconds. The more geologists that found out about the contest and the data of Goldcorp, the greater chance McEwen and his team had of finding a good place to mine. He realized “if he could speed up the ‘knowledge production’ process-to find new ideas about where to dig for high grade ore on his property faster-he could turn around his falling company (p 137 Web 2.0)”. McEwen was able to share information about his company, but still maintain privacy rights by having all the information the geologists found go straight to him. He was able to do this by creating a cash prize for the person that found the best spot to mine. With incentives involved he was able to collaborate with the geologists to improve his company.

Rob McEwen was not the only person to come up with “collaborative innovation” virtually every Web 2.0 has some sort of file sharing or crowds of users. Google makes its money from other companies sharing information, the larger amount of links to a certain website, the higher the website will be when there is a Google search. Blogging became quite useful for Google in that bloggers were able to attach links to their site, and in a sense became a business. Flickr also makes its money in a similar way by allowing people to tag certain words or phrases to a particular picture. Often with Web 2.0 we find that with the more users, the more successful the company will be. For every one user the Web 2.0 brings in, it brings in another “consumer” as well. For example on Facebook’s homepage there are advertisements placed on the right and left side of the page. The more users Facebook has the more companies will want to place their advertisement on its page. This creates competitive advantage for Facebook because they are able to decide which advertisements to place on its page, and how much it will charge for them. The more users on Facebook the higher value of the page, and it becomes more expensive for marketers to place their advertisements. MySpace works in this same way with the more users essentially the more successful the website will become.

Although companies are taking a risk by making information public on the web, it often turns out to be a successful investment. In the case of Goldcorp they were able to turn a million dollar company into a billion dollar company within a matter of months. Goldcorp is clear example of how collaboration can be extremely powerful. The more people share with one another the greater the “knowledge production” will be.

Last class was interesting in that we actually went onto a wikipedia page and changed certain aspects of the page. I found this interesting because I had never seen first hand how a wikipedia page could be changed. I always assumed someone had to "own" the page or have some authority in order to change it, however I soon realized that essentially anyone could change a page.

In class we were introduced to a 3D environment called Second Life. After we made an account and played around with it for awhile our professor asked us to respond to a series of questions about the environment. Below are my responses to his questions:

Avatar Assignment

Below is my comm 170 assignment

Assignment 2: Creating an Avatar

1.) My Avatar's name is Monique Ronwood

2.)The most difficult thing about setting up Second Life was figuring out all the different things you could do with it. What was specifically difficult about setting up second life was figuring out how to change the appearance on my account.

3.)This technology is good for communication. It could also be useful for spreading a new idea to a variety of different people. If enough people have a second life account it is possible for an idea to be spread.

4.) I found that the opportunities I had for social interaction were a bit confusing. Although it was easy to set up a chat it was difficult to find people to chat with and begin a conversation with them.

5.)Some of the drawbacks to this technology are that not everyone has an Avatar so it is difficult to communicate with people. I also think another reason not everyone has it is that it is virtual and it is not your true identity. People prefer a facebook account over an avatar because it allows people to see people to communicate with each other, but also see pictures of one another as well.

6.) Given my experience with this technology I do not think I will use it after this class is over. The reason for this is that I do not see much purpose for it in my life. I think it is interesting to play around with, however I do not see myself using it after this class.

my first blog ever. i had to create one for a class in college, and i am not too sure how to work everything yet. hopefully it won't be too complicated