"Social Networks" & "Social Networking Tools"
Know the difference - what's your level of intimacy/enthusiasm?
This week we talked about the difference and how unforums.com and the despoiler.org are the primary locations for the ARG player social network (right now) We listened to an episode of Anything You Ever Wanted to Know… from KERA because it is a perfect example of group information sharing in real time.
This week's HW:
Read the “Chaotic Fiction," "CF/ARG Debate" and "Social Networking" articles, and blog about it here. Also, pick a new and ongoing ARG from ARGN or UF - and start playing - be sure to contribute to unforums.com & despoiler.com – meta threads are OK too!
Next Week: "Real World Elements"
Next Month's Presentations:
ARG ------ STUDENT ------ PRES DATE
Majestic ------- Leslie ------- WK7 (10-2)
The Beast ------- Nitin ------- WK7 (10-2)
I Love Bees ------- Sherri ------- WK8 (10-9)
HEX 168 ------- Robert ------- WK8 (10-9)
CtW ------- Mary Ann ------- WK9 (10-16)
Urban Hunt ------- Jason ------- WK9 (10-16)
Year Zero ------- Adam ------- WK10 (10-23)
Ocular Effect ------- Perry ------- WK10 (10-23)
Lost / Find 815 ------- Candace ------- WK10 (10-23)
Heroes 360 ------- Zen ------- WK10 (10-23)
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@Leslie, @Nitin, and @Sherri - if you guys haven't started "This is Not a Game" yet, you might want to skim the chapter headings. It uses "I Love Bees," "The Beast," and "Majestic" as case studies and has some interesting (and some not so interesting) information on them.
It seems that SpaceBass is taking a broad approach to undefining ARGs while Rachel wants to put them into an extremely narrow alley. But haven't the discussions evolved since 2007? From what we've seen and read in this class so far, Rachel is more defining the components that go into most ARGs than she is defining the genre itself. But then again, SpaceBass seems to be throwing ARGs into a subcategory of chaotic fiction, which doesn't give them much room to grow.
ARGs contain many (if not all) of Rachel's categories while qualifying as chaotic fiction. The genre has continued to grow, so are we still going to break it down into binary arguments? Is there really no way to decide on a flexible definition that lists what it may have rather than what it must have? If we are going to be so limited in our views, we fall into a camp where we will kill the genre because anyone who isn't an original Cloudmaker isn't an ARG player. I didn't learn to drive on the first car produced, does that mean I don't actually drive a car? Of course not. So to say that since I wasn't an original Cloudmaker and didn't play the beast I can't play an ARG seems to say that the genre died in the first game.
Any growing genre needs adaptable parameters and in this most modern of genres, we must be flexible enough in our definitions to allow for innovation within whatever we decided to accept as an ARG.
candiluu, thanks for the tip on "This is Not a Game." I'm still waiting for my books to arrive from Amazon.
I too am wondering if there are more recent discussions since 2007-but I also recall that's a goal for this class, to prod those discussions...add to them? Great analogy with the car. Cloudmakers, schmoudmakers. (okay I would never post that somewhere else, but I happen to think upity attitides die of their own silliness if ignored long enough.)
Okay, for my question...Am I reading too much into it, or is there a connection among the three reading selections? I understand the two articles defining (or undefining) ARGs being together. But the one about the small world problem makes me wonder why we are reading this particular article? (Interesting though.) I get it that when we play commercial ARGs we are providing marketing data. Rachel's article mentioned emails getting harvested...sort of scary. I realize that community forming is one of the defining characteristics of ARGs and that creating an alias could be important for identity protection. But is this small world problem a hint that even our alias is within six degrees of...of...what.
As for the six degrees and alias thing two things
1 from personal experience and a cocky former collegue it is possible to trace back an alias after a while if you're not careful which for as long as I've had mine it starts to work its way in to your persona.
2 the other based on the first even if you're careful even the best operative that is trained to take on an alias always has personality and human mannerisms that will manifest into their alias.
As far as the newer discussions it seems to me that this is still a field that still has a lot of infighting in the name of progress
I enjoyed the Six Degrees of separation article, it is an amazing notion that we can hook up to anyone in the world in six or less steps.
It was also interesting to note that there is a loop back element involved in all the new Social Networking sites, where you can become part of a persons network sometimes just by secondary association.
Interesting comments and yes, thanks Candace for the head's up on the book!
Some thoughts I had while reading the articles- in Rachel's "Chaotic Fiction" article, I found it interesting when she said that "puzzles attract more than the core target audience of a brand"- with all the implications that brings to the marketing professionals which must be considered-and under her Extended Reality paragraph- that this is morphing and being used more and more as an advertising medium, which I personally find fascinating to use these applications in more mainstream advertising and marketing disciplines and to see how successful they can become in reaching a company's advertising base by engaging the customer in this manner.
In reading "The Small World Problem", I immediately thought about how I network for business intuitively using this model- to sell products and services (or acquire information I need to know)- by contacting someone who knows someone, etc., who knows the person I am wanting to get in front of to pitch my idea or sales presentation-that is always my first step when I tackle a new project- and being lucky enough to know a "chain closer" directly, or to be one yourself, can assist you in being quite effective in accomplishing any of your tasks at hand. In my opinion, social networking sites have not been able to replicate the success I have doing it the "old fashioned way" as of yet, but time will tell if we can shift to a different platform- and if we can, if social networking sites the way they are set up now, will be how that succeeds.
Here are some articles I found pertinent to social networking-enjoy- (is there a way I can make these hotlinks for you? Let me know and I will repost)
-2 on Twitter applications for business purposes- (let me know if the tiny url doesn’t work)
http://tinyurl.com/3ow59o
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/
-an article on social networking and gaming
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26208260/
-Here are some interesting new and/or up and coming social networks
Creating a Facebook for spies
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10034509-93.html
Personalizing and organizing your online network persona and info
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10034627-2.html
One for individual businesses or organizations
http://www.yammer.com/company/tour
Word on the street is there is a social network here to push an agenda, but I haven’t looked into it-
http://www.pickensplan.com/act/?c=Google&a=Pickens-Keywords&k=wind+energy
-And a list of the 10 weirdest social networks according to Fast Company
http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=9615069>1=40000
Social media:
Anyone on Twitter, if you've not already seen this, here are some UTF8 keys to conserve characters. (Although, understanding them is another story)
http://thenextweb.org/2008/09/16/twitterkeys-enhance-your-twitter-conversations/
Forgot to post on this Blog. :) As it turns out I think this is where I messed up the most during the semester. I didnt post enough on the Unforums and other sites. I think it will seriously hurt my grade.
So there are all of these social networking tools but what do they truly contribute?
Think in terms of the Chinese Guanxi: can you actually call upon the people met through these tools? And what exactly is the benefit of keeping in touch vicariously? Twitter et al are simply shouts in the dark. It's talking AT people instead of WITH people.
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