If you are thinking about buying a plot of land in Second Life or creating a presence on Myspace.com, you may want to ponder your approach and consider what value doing so might have.
Okay, so a Myspace account is free, not much too lose. But there are always issues endemic to every new communication channel to be mindful of when making forays.
Via Artsjournal.com comes this article about the growing resentment against corporate presence in Second Life. Stores have been vandalized and destroyed and avatars of people shopping in the virtual versions of some corporations have been shot.
Granted, this type of thing happens all over–sans the bombings and shootings–whenever something goes from having niche to widespread appeal. Quoth the article:
“It’s a path well-worn by SL’s online ancestors, from The Well, a proto-online bulletin board community founded in the ’80s through chatrooms, message boards and networking sites Friendster and MySpace. Early adopters shape the community as they wish, then have no choice but to stand by and watch it endlessly reshaped by the chaotic deluge of new users – some troublemakers, some commercial exploiters – that flood in as it gains popularity…
“That’s how it’s always been with these spaces,” Walsh says. “The new come in, the old get disgruntled and move on.”
This is something of a similar sentiment echoed by a 17 year old, (who started a blog at 12. She is an old hand at online interactions), in a New York Magazine article about the fluidity and openness of the younger generation’s identity online. (An interesting read if you want to gain insight into the emerging rules.)
I ask if she has a MySpace page, and she laughs and gives me an amused, pixellated grimace. “Unfortunately I do! I was so against MySpace, but I wanted to look at people’s pictures. I just really don’t like MySpace. ‘Cause I think it’s just so