There are so many cool things in Fred Stutzman’s recent post, but this point rang the bell for me just as I was considering the differences between World of Warcraft and Second Life. More on those games in a moment, first let’s get Stutzman’s description of ego vs. object networks:

An ego-centric social network places the individual as the core of the network experience (Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster) while the object-centric network places a non-ego element at the center of the network. Examples of object-centric networks include Flickr (social object: photograph), Dopplr (social object: travel instance), del.icio.us (social object: hyperlink) and Digg (social object: news item).

But how are they really different?

the problem with ego-centric networks lies in the fact network-reestablishment is the main chore. Talk to individuals joining Facebook today – what are they doing? They’re using inbox importers and searching to find their friends/ex-classmates/etc. It’s a game, it’s fun for a bit, but then (say it with me readers) “What’s next?” Yes, the what’s next moment occurs. This is not to say the network becomes useless: no, it’s very useful rolodex, and the newsfeeds introduce concepts of peripheral participation (or social surveillance), but the game is in essence over.

All of this relates to World of Warcraft (WoW) and Second Life (SL) in that WoW offers the framework of a game, with new items to be found and new quests to be explored. WoW is a social experience, to be sure, but it centers on those quests. SL, on the other hand, is “a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents.” Thing is, who can argue with this statement: “MySpace is a 2-D virtual world entirely created by its residents.”

I’m technically amused and interested in the affordances SL offers for remixing the experience, and some users have demonstrated that it could become object based, as Stutzman uses the term. But, for now, I’d argue that it’s a far more ego-centric experience. People pay to participate in SL, so it’s unlikely that people make a mass exodus as MySpace users have, but what’s driving outsiders to join?

I’ll admit that I’m the guy who long ago praised the description of IM as “all the interruptions of a phone call with all the frustrations of typing,” (though I can’t remember where I read the quote), and now I describe it as an essential business tool. As a realtime distance ed environment SL can’t be beat, and I can imagine something like a chemistry lecture where the instructor brings in 3-D models of various compounds, highlighting elements during a short lecture, then students highlighting other elements (or bringing in other compounds) during their questions. I just can’t imagine another reason for me spend time there, though, as always, I reserve the right to change my opinion.

MySpace, Second Life, and Twitter Are Doomed.

myspace, second life, twitter, social software

There it is in The Guardian:

Internet giant Google has drawn up plans to compile psychological profiles of millions of web users by covertly monitoring the way they play online games.

Yep, “do no evil” Google has filed a patent on the process of building psychological profiles of its users for sale to advertisers.

Details such as whether a person is more likely to be aggressive, hostile or dishonest could be obtained and stored for future use, it says… Players who spend a lot of time exploring “may be interested in vacations, so the system may show ads for vacations”. And those who spend more time talking to other characters will see adverts for mobile phones.

Google claims it has no immediate plans to to use the technology, but the company did spend $23M to acquire AdScape, an in-game advertising company.

Adscape Media offers dynamic delivery of advertising with plot and storyline integration — making its solutions a truly interactive marketing platform. Adscape Media supports sophisticated demographic and geographic targeting and also provides a robust reporting interface for marketers.

And The Guardian also reports the patent application goes beyond psychological profiling:

Not all the inferences made by monitoring user activity rely on subtle psychological clues, however. “In a car racing game, after a user crashes his Honda Civic, an announcer could be used to advertise by saying ‘if he had a Hummer, he would have gotten the better of that altercation’, etc,” the patent says. And: “If the user has been playing for over two hours continuously, the system may display ads for Pizza Hut, Coke, coffee.”

Siva Vaidyanathan quips:

While it is violating gamer privacy on behalf of advertisers, will Google collect and disclose data about gamer sexism? And would this convince the folks at Linden Labs to integrate into their product dependable, remunerative employment opportunities for Second Life players who don’t want to do sex work?

(Via Discourse.net.)

Also interesting, but not from Google: METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING REVENUE FROM THE DISTRIBUTION OF HYPER-RELEVANT ADVERTISING THROUGH PERMISSIVE MIND READING, PROXIMITY ENCOUNTERS, AND DATABASE AGGREGATION. Permissive mind reading!

profiling, psychological profile, google, evil, advertising, online gaming, world of warcraft, second life

Rebecca Nesson, speaking via Skype and appearing before us as her avatar in Second Life, offered her experiences as a co-instructor of Harvard Law School’s CyberOne, a course being held jointly in a meatspace classroom and in Second Life, and open to students via Harvard Law, the Harvard Extension School, and to the public that shows up in Second Life.

Nesson has an interesting blog post about how it all works, but she also answered questions from the audience about why it works:

As a distance learning environment it’s head and shoulders above anything else because of levels and types of interactions possible versus any previous tool.

It’s a poor format for lectures, but a great format for discussions, so it really encourages conversation and discourse.

It’s a community that exists independent of the class meeting. In here we have much more of those liminal times when people are just hanging out. …We have more opportunities for interaction.

academia, cyberone, distance learning, gaming, harvard law, nercomp, online courseware, rebecca nesson, second life, social software, sstl2006

My first reaction to the notion of librarians running reading groups in Second Life was a question of whether this was akin to putting a reference desk in a bar.

My second reaction was a question of how our systems will support these extra-library interactions. Can people quickly and easily trade URLs to access the library materials they’re talking about? Will library systems ever be as easy to use as the game/social environments we’re trying to use them in?

My third reaction is a question of politics. The movement of people online doesn’t respect geographical borders, nor those of gerrymandered political districts. Libraries may serve online users, and some of them will be successful, but our funding models are for local libraries that serve geographically constrained communities.

future libraries, libraries, library, library 2.0, online gaming, online libraries, second life, social gaming, social libraries