I have been really busy these past couple of months, not even had time to update my blog :O!
I got myself some ongoing work experience at the end of January with a new online magazine company called Mersey Magazine. My job was to redesign there website, maintain it and create any graphics that I think are suitable for the homepage, which I have done and is now live. Everyone is really happy with the redesign so I am glad! I decided to apply for this work experience as I thought it would be interesting to see how a digital magazine company worked. I am really enjoying working with them and hopefully this will be a good thing to add to my CV!
For my Virtual Environment essay, I am interested in what makes users keep going back and 'playing' that virtual environment? So in other words, How do companies build an audience in a Virtual Environment? I am also interested in Identity - Avatars and Real life - Virtual life. So am going to try to look at all of these in my essay.
I have got some books to help me with my essay and there are 3 books that have alot of information relevant to what I want to talk about. These are:
Alone Together - Sherry Turkle
Life On The Screen - Sherry Turkle
Futuretainment - Mike Walsh
Also here's some links that are useful for my essay:
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2011-02-10-Advertising_Gets_Social.html
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2011-01-04_Habbo_virtual_goods_sales_hit_all-time_high_in_December.html
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2011-01-04_Habbo_Hotels_Record_Year_2010_in_numbers.html
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2010-09-09-2010-Will_virtual_goods_and_micro-transactions_save_media_contentx.html
http://lindenlab.com/
http://virtual-economy.org/files/Lehdonvirta%20et%20al%202009%20Virtual%20Consumerism.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.108.3757&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1351772
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/HICSS.2001.927041
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VCJ-4TGGCKR-1&_user=10&_coverDate=01/31/2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=4f3c84a0e70f06cf5cd9b569a311e900&searchtype=a
I got myself some ongoing work experience at the end of January with a new online magazine company called Mersey Magazine. My job was to redesign there website, maintain it and create any graphics that I think are suitable for the homepage, which I have done and is now live. Everyone is really happy with the redesign so I am glad! I decided to apply for this work experience as I thought it would be interesting to see how a digital magazine company worked. I am really enjoying working with them and hopefully this will be a good thing to add to my CV!
For my Virtual Environment essay, I am interested in what makes users keep going back and 'playing' that virtual environment? So in other words, How do companies build an audience in a Virtual Environment? I am also interested in Identity - Avatars and Real life - Virtual life. So am going to try to look at all of these in my essay.
I have got some books to help me with my essay and there are 3 books that have alot of information relevant to what I want to talk about. These are:
Alone Together - Sherry Turkle
Life On The Screen - Sherry Turkle
Futuretainment - Mike Walsh
Also here's some links that are useful for my essay:
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2011-02-10-Advertising_Gets_Social.html
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2011-01-04_Habbo_virtual_goods_sales_hit_all-time_high_in_December.html
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2011-01-04_Habbo_Hotels_Record_Year_2010_in_numbers.html
http://sulake.com/blog/entries/2010-09-09-2010-Will_virtual_goods_and_micro-transactions_save_media_contentx.html
http://lindenlab.com/
http://virtual-economy.org/files/Lehdonvirta%20et%20al%202009%20Virtual%20Consumerism.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.108.3757&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1351772
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/HICSS.2001.927041
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VCJ-4TGGCKR-1&_user=10&_coverDate=01/31/2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=4f3c84a0e70f06cf5cd9b569a311e900&searchtype=a
The image I decided to use was of me and my friends from 
Coke Studios was made by the same company called Sulake, that made Habbo Hotel. It was created for Coca-Cola and was primarily used to target US consumers. However, anyone in the world could join the virtual world. Coke Studios was similar to Habbo Hotel, you created your own charactercalled 'V-ego', you created rooms, and could chat and trade with other people. The differences were that the gamewas free to play. The Currency in the game was dB which stands for decibels. You earned decibels by Receiving 'Thumbs Up' votes from other users whilst performing music, Drinking Virtual Coca-Colas found in crates, vending machines, and refrigerators, Playing other games on the Coke Studios website and Filling out surveys. Coke studios was also based around music. Once you created your own virtual character the first piece of furniture you receive are DJ Decks, and you could mix a tune, save it and then go to a public place and play your music and if other people liked it you would get a thumbs up and earn more decibels. Coke studios was very popular, but because it was free it contained alot of bugs and loading issues and very rarely got updated. Coke Studios is no longer 'live' and their is very little information out their about it. If you search for Coke Studios now all you will find is information about 'a Pakistani television series featuring live music performances'.
