Danny's photo blog - week 8

Today I tried five translators other than Ferd’s Free which I already used before. In today’s exploration, “AF Translator Basic” is the ONLY ONE that worked. It is a paid translator which has better functions than Ferd’s Free. On the other hand, the links to “X-Lang” and “Q-translator”, retrieved from the blog I reviewed, are not working any more. Next time I may try to search Google for some new links to the two translators. Besides, I tried “MH translator” and “Imprudence 1.4.2 viewer” translator (different from 1.3 viewer given by Darryl), but they did not work for some unknown reasons. I suppose one possible reason is incompatibility of different HUDs.

Anyway, next week I will either try to figure out and solve these problems, or try some other translators available. If anyone of you, including Darryl, is interested, please try some of these translators. Your experience may help me out of the dilemma.

Moreover, I changed my male avatar into a female avatar named “Jennifer Wong”. I did this to attract more SL residents, mostly male, to talk to me so that I would have a better chance to test my translators on different linguistic groups. Sarraline helped me to set up my avatar and gave my avatar a gesture to make it walk in a feminine manner. Also, she gave a necklace to protect my avatar from being bitten by vampires. It is said that my avatar will die and all stuff will be gone once it is bitten by one of these vampires haunting in SL. How odd it is!

MH translator costs about 370 Lindens.

Before buying MH translator, you can have a try on MH translator DEMO, which costs 1 Linden and can be only used in MH shop.

Finally, AF translator, 180 Lindens, was the only one that worked today. And it worked well!

I changed my male avatar into a female avatar whose name is “Jennifer Wong”. It sounds like a name of a cute oriental beauty in real world, right? Hope more guys will chat up with me. Ha ha!

Six Article review and summaries -xin(Eve) zheng

Six article review and summary. From Eve Zheng

The attractiveness of advertising in Second Life

Article review (Eve)xin zheng

The article Avatar-based advertising in second life: The role of presence and attractiveness of virtual spokespersons by Seung-A Annie Jin and Justin Bolebruch (2010) from the Journal of Interactive Advertising demonstrates some ideas about advertising in Second Life. At the beginning of the article the author highlights the fact that Second Life has had some economic impact through in-world currency (the Linden dollar), advergaming and marketing communication, and is a growing area for interactive advertising. The article not only describes the impact of spokes-avatars providing valuable information to researchers, advertisers and marketers, but also uses descriptive statistics and t- test results to identify consumer`s evaluation of avatar physical attractiveness and the value of any advertisement message, revealing a mediating role of spokes-avatars level of attractiveness (Jin & Bolebruch, 2010).

The article discusses three forms of advertising in Second Life (No avatar, Human avatar, and Non-Human avatar). The researcher carefully provides descriptive statistics, t-test explanations and clear tables within the text. A Path Diagram of Mediation Analysis, figure 1, shows the impacts of attractiveness to consumers` valuation of the information value of the advertising message (Jin, Bolebruch, 2010).

The discussion section identifies the key finding of the whole research, that “avatar based advertising in Second Life can contribute to increase product involvement and positive attitudes towards a product” (Jin & Bolebruch, 2010, p.56). From this discussion section the reader will have a general understanding of different potentials for avatar-based advertising. Finally, the limitations and further research part listed a shortage of current research.

Above all, this article is full of inspiration on the attractiveness of avatar use for advertising and this could be very influential to people who have the desire to be involved in this research or to use Second Life for advertising purposes. Personally I do want to see advertising in Second Life because it is a media building a bridge between the virtual and real world, and people not very socially active in the real world might find it hard to be exposed to new products in the real world, so the virtual world can help them negotiate the real world. However, previous readings have taught me that it is not a very successful place to advertise, so this article is a bit more positive.

Reference:

Jin, S., & Bolebruch, J. (2009). Avatar – Based advertising in Second Life: The Role of presence and attractiveness of virtual spokespersons. Journal of interactive advertising, Vol. 10(1), pp51-60.

New Media`s Influential Power in our World

Article review (Eve)xin zheng

The article Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media by Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein (2010) from Business Horizons is a very brief, simplified, clear summary of recent popular internet technology based on Web 2.0 and tries to define what ‘Social Media’ means. Six different types of social media are classified: blogs, collaborative projects, social networking sites, content communities, virtual social worlds and virtual game worlds. The article aims to advise companies on how they can use social media to their benefit.

For me, I have no real trouble with defining social media and thinking about what that is. So this article was not so useful to me in its description of the different categories of social media, but was very interesting towards the end of the article when it discusses how different businesses could use different social media categories to advertise for commercial benefit. So it is interesting that different categories of social media have their own potential, such as those that target the right market in terms of participants, that use businesses’ time well, are wide reaching if necessary, easily accessible, easy to use, interactive and interesting. It is interesting for my research topic of advertising in virtual worlds as it says this type of advertising is full or opportunities and potential. Participants in virtual worlds live quite similarly there to how they live in the real world (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) so this makes them easy to observe and see whether they are part of the target market for advertisers. Some challenges to using social media for commercial gain include really being very familiar with social media and interacting in appropriate ways on social media sites. The right type of social media must be chosen for successful outcomes, and it must be used correctly.

Reference:

Kaplan, AM., & Haenlein, M.(2010).Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53, 59—68, doi: 0.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003

How to make Advertising Succeed in Second Life

Article review (Eve)xin zheng

The article Advertising Age, How to succeed in Second Life, Coke, Others Plunge in, but If they `re not careful, Their Virtual plays Will Result in Real-World Headaches identifies varieties of products and companies, such as electrical products by Sony BMG, clothes by Adidas and Reebok, and soft drinks by Coca-cola, using virtual world marketing in Second Life. This article covers Coca-cola`s whole advertising process in Second Life: the way they prepared before starting to advertise, advertising costs and the challenges the marketers face. Also, through the article, Second Life advertising has been compared to advertising in reality, especially regarding costs. The article shows the two forms of advertising benefitting the company.  

At the end of this article, varieties of experienced people have made thoughtful, direct, and also quite recent ‘DOs and DON`Ts’ comments or recommendation for people who still want to advertise successfully in Second life. 

Reference:

Capps, B. (2009) How to Succeed in Second Life. Advertising age. Online available. http://adage.com/print?article_id=116913

Advertising in Virtual Worlds

Article review (Eve)xin zheng

The article Virtual Worlds as a Medium for Advertising describes the virtual worlds as a potential media for marketers and advertisers, especially Second Life, as this particular game orientated virtual world, among hundreds of virtual worlds, has the largest amount of users. Many different advertisers are shown to have made contributions on v-commerce or e-commerce through virtual e-worlds. The populations of v-users or e-users still grow rapidly. This article summarizes the art of advertising in virtual worlds, and also made some suggestions for further research in the field. To gain more researchers interested in and involved in this particular field is one of the purposes of the article.

In the article, growing relevant literatures are shown to have examined the way marketers use online avatars in marketing to have a positive potential to influence gamer `s trust and buyer`s shopping intentions. There are hundreds of different brands of products already having virtual world marketing experience.

 Reference:

Barnes, S. (2007)Virtual Worlds as a Medium for Advertising. The Data base for Advances in Information Systems, 38(4).

Rule Regulation issue in the Virtual world

Article review (Eve)xin zheng

This article is about Rule regulation issues in the virtual world. It is generally argued that the activities I the virtual world also need to be regulated and certain activities will even have to be restricted in a similar way in the real world. The basic principles behind this argument is that people in the virtual world can do things to effect the people in the real world, such as the psychological aspects of the people in the real world. This is applicable to my proposed Chinese restaurant advertisement in the virtual world. If someone wants to destroy my business in the virtual world with illegitimate manner, the business in the real world might also be impacted as well. The author of this article proposed several means to establish a virtual world regulation system: 1) to regulate virtual world provider; 2) to constrain regulatory dynamics; 3) to use defensive posture to restrict permeability; 4) to seek real world assistant to help the virtual world self governance. As for the item #1, the virtual provider should be the front line to ensure a properly regulated virtual culture since they are the creators of the virtual world and regulatory rules will be much easier for them to implement and execute. As for the item #2, it is important to ensure that most virtual world communities will share the common ground in terms of regulatory issues, such as ethical standard, etc. This is very similar to that in the real world that it is important to avoid culture conflicts when different cultures encounters. The item #3 actually means it is important to ensure that the real world regulation is dominating the virtual world regulation. The item #4 emphasized that it is still up to each individual to carry an appropriate ethic standard in the virtual world.

Reference:

HeinOnline (2006) Napster's Second Life. Real World or Virtual World, (1818-1825) available online: https://www.copyright.com/ccc/basicSearch.do? &operation=go&searchType=0 &lastSearch=simple&all=on&titleOrStdNo=0029-3571

Avatar based marketing exploration

Article review (Eve)xin zheng

This article (Hemp, 2012) introduces one of the most important aspects of virtual world: business development. One major form of advertising, avatar based advertising is heavily discussed. It is a general truth that even in the real world, market advertising can take different forms and avatar based marketing can also be found quite often as well, such as having the experience tour of a new model of automobile or sitting in a tightly sealed cage to tour a wild place full of dangerous animals. In the virtual world, avatar based experience can be much easier than the real world, and thus it can give business a new option to promote their products and services. This article categorizes avatar based marketing into two different types: combat focused and social interaction focused. The combat focused avatar based marketing is actually focused in virtual world whose sole purpose is gaming such as World of Warcraft. In these types of virtual world people are actually looking for simulated experience of combat. In the social interaction focused virtual world, the people are generally looking forward to experience a versatile and different life than in the real world. As for my proposed Chinese restaurant advertisement, I should be able to find opportunities to make advertisements in both type of virtual world. In the combat focused virtual world, maybe I can put my advertisement in a supply store to remind the customer that if they really need food at that moment, they will know our number and to make orders. For the customers in the virtual world, I can put interesting signs to let them know what is going on the real world about my Chinese restaurant, so that they can have obtain a sense of connection with the real world while wondering in the virtual world.

Reference

Hemp, P. 2012. Avatar-Based Marketing. Harvard Business Review. Accessed from http://hbr.org/2006/06/avatar-based-marketing/ar/1

Sunya: Week 8

Dear Darryl

This may answer your question last week about how to get speech gesture?

Sunya: Week 8

Need comment about this

Sunya: Sunya: Sunya:

I found second life video basic demonstrating about how to zoom and pan

photoblog week 5 - wendy

In the virtual world, there are four types of nonverbal cues: User-Defined, Predefined, Blended and Missing cues. This time I explore only one 

gesture defined by the computer--sitting, at different places and scenario. First, I walk into a two-floor house and try every place that allows people to sit. 

From the picture we can see, this is a lounge. You have eight choices to sit down. The sitting gestures do not have gendered difference and all of them 

are set in relaxed states, such as curling the knees and half lying on the couch.

The next one is like a reception room. I believe sitting in a softly lit room and 

looking at a cluster of glowing candles makes us feel peaceful and cozy. There is 

only one sitting gesture here, which is elegant and suits for both male and female 

avatars.

Then I go up to the second floor and find a bedroom. Beside the bed, there is a 

sling chair. Once inside, I think sitting there will have a great view of the 

beautiful scenery out of the window. After I click the button, my avatar sits down 

and really turns to watch the outside. The designers do well in the details!

In front of the house, there is a wide area placing two beds. Three choices for 

women and three choices for men. The women's sitting gestures look lovely and sexy, 

while the men's are casual and handsome.

The second place, I move back to our AUT place. Only two chairs here and then I ask

Sunya to do me a favor. Therefore, I find there is no difference between male and 

female sitting here. The gesture is very normal and stiff.

At last, let's have a funny comparison. In the first picture, I can't believe a 

girl can sit like that on the ground, especially wearing a skirt, so rude~ the 

second pic is the right posture in life. Actually, we shouldn't expect too much 

in a place for studying, lol~ 

By the way, I find another function for SL during the process of screenshot. 

It's a perfect game to practise the techniques for photography. We need to select 

backgrounds and adjust the angle to take beautiful snapshots.

photoblog week 4 - wendy

This is a trip to discover Japan. I had ever learnt Japanese language for two years when 

I was in the university of China, which made me have a lot of interest in Japan. 

Moreover, its culture is similar to Chinese, so I have a feeling of familiarity 

and can get a better understanding on it. The first place I go is "zero style" 

where you can find the most popular hair styles in today's Japan.

Walking up the stairs, turning around, I see the beautiful scenery surrounding me. 

The colourful scene gives people a warm feeling, just like what home gives us. 

Although it is not a typical Japanese style and the the season seems to be autumn, 

it indeed reminds me of sakura in Japan.

Besides the door, there is an very interesting place--photographs where people canget quick snaps with their favourite settings. 

From this,we can see the designer's careful consideration. This is a place selling hair styles, 

so people who have made some changes must want to take pictures. 3 for $0.5 is so 

cheap, but I am sure it is just an ornament and doesn't work.

In the shop, there displays plenty of fashionable hair styles. The biggest 

feature of Japanese hair styles is cute, here I mean girls', looking like 

cartoon characters. I spend L$2 to buy two of them, but I find it seems not 

very suitable for my avatar's foreign face...

The second place I choose to go to Kansai. Everything is normal, only one thing 

arouses my interest. It looks like a mini house with a door that can be open and 

closed, set by the roadside. At first I think it should be a shrine which I 

frequently see in Japanese cartoons, but the top part looks wired for a shrine. 

After checking the instructions, I'm surprised to find that it is a palanquin...

Driver: touch or carry front beam; co-driver: touch or carry rear beam; 

Passenger: touch or sit cushion palanquin, use arrows to drive the palanquin

Unfortunately, there is only one of me, so I have no chance to have a try. The 

scene must be wired if I sat in a traditional Japanese palanquin wearing modern 

evening dress~





Week 6 - Yulia (photoblog)

Week 6 exploration of SL began with visiting Moscow Island again, but this time together with other classmates and the lecturer. For me, it was an interesting experience for a few reasons. The first one is that it was a great opportunity to show my country to others. Although I’m not an owner of that site, but it felt like I was the host and it was sort of my duty to ensure everyone was happy and comfortable as if I invited people to my house. Another reason is that I had a chance to see whether I would enjoy working as a tour guide. Having visited this site before definitely helped me direct people to various places of interest, as well as the experience of visiting Moscow on multiple occasions in the real life. Potentially, this could be one of the tasks that I would be giving my students, and expect that it might cause similar degree of pride and enthusiasm among them, which will naturally motivate students to communicate and practice a TL (be it English or Russian).

We talked about how SL gives its users opportunities are not always available in the real life, and this was a good example. No one visited Russia before and the chances of visiting it in the real life are very low – quite expensive, too far and maybe language barrier, because Russian is known to be very difficult to learn and not everybody speaks English over there.

Visiting St Basil Cathedral with other students and the lecturer

While I was showing the Red Square, I saw someone by the name of Kolya (diminutive of the Russian male name Nikolai). The guy turned out to be an American born Russian who lives in California and plans to visit his grandmother who still lives in Russia. His L1 is English, and based on the conversations we had, I would assess his level of Russian as late beginner–lower intermediate. He visits Moscow Island to find people with whom he can practice his Russian. I gave him the link to our site – Kowhai – hoping that he would come by and I could talk to him about why he chose to practice Russian in SL, whether his teacher recommended him, and if SL meets his expectations.

A few days later I decided to visit another site called Lesbian Paradise, which I had actually visited before, sometime in week 1. Since I was new to SL, I didn’t feel confident to explore that site then and left it. However, I thought it would be good to come back and give it another chance J

On the dance floor… Trying to see who is who and with whom.

Being familiar and knowing quite a few members of the LGBT (stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender) community in person, I know how most of them dress and how to identify who is who, especially in the Lesbian community. Although this identification is often contested, there is no other alternative to ‘butch’, ‘dyke’ and ‘femme’ denotations. The name of the island suggests that it was created mainly for the Lesbian community.  When I teleported there, I saw a bunch of people on the dance floor. The way people looked was the same as in that Romantic Garden Island – a bunch of women wearing what one would usually see on straight people. And also there were a bunch of guys there. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that the way we appear on SL is usually dictated by what is available and acceptable. Perhaps, those people (if they were indeed lesbians) could not find other hairstyles, manicure, clothes and even bodies. It is easier for femmes, quite challenging to find stuff. In my 1^st week, I visited a bunch of shops and didn’t really see anything that would be suitable for that group of lesbians. Again, I don’t want to sound too categorizing, but I guess for the sake of making it a bit easier, it’s ok.

This time I decided to explore other parts of the island, and as you can see, it was empty.

Another dance floor – at the DJ station

I tried to do some spinning, but these objects didn’t have that option, which is a shame really.

 Dancing in my lonesome

Sitting at their bar 

Flying around 

Saw this slide and decided to give it go

Sliding on my belly

That was fun as!!!

Enjoying spa

Saw some butterflies 

I think those who built this site were quite creative and quite liked nature. As you see, there are plenty of trees, flowers and little garden patches.

By the grand piano

I love this instrument! I wish someone were there so we could play it together.

Playing the grand piano

There was something with the sound, so I couldn’t hear what my avatar was playing and I couldn’t see the notes either. Anyway, it was cool to see my avatar doing things I would be doing in my RL. My place isn’t big enough to have a grand piano, but one day I’ll buy a big house and make sure there is enough space for it.

Dance floor #3, still no one

I thought this was a cool dance floor. It was made as if you’re in the space surrounded by the skies and stars. The creators of this place could’ve made it all look like it was a space or galaxy instead of having only one such element. 

Lying on a hammock

If you can see my pose, it’s like I’m lying next to someone and trying to hug that person/avatar. It’s pretty cool how they thought of such movements. I’ve seen quite a few options around this island, for example, you could stand by a tree and kiss someone, etc. 

Pole dancing

I’ve never done pole dancing in my RL and probably won’t do it. But it’s I guess it’s fine to be doing things like that in SL and at least imagine how it would look to someone else.

Not an empty dance floor J 

My exploration of Lesbian Island has come to an end. So now that I’ve seen all the corners of it, I decided to mingle on this dance floor. It took me a while to figure out how to dance here and what to press on. In Romantic Garden there were hearts hanging all over and in other dance floors on this island, the objects were obvious. I tried to ask a female avatar for help, but she didn’t appear to be online and active. A few minutes later, I decided to ask for help someone else and got it from some friendly chap. So as you can see, my avatar was doing well on this dance floor. The music was a bit weird, for the first 30-40 mins it was all rock stuff and no ‘traditional’ P!NK, Lady Gaga (she's known to be gay friendly), Kylie Minogue (I was told that she's one of gays all favourite) or happy gay stuff like Village People, etc. But then it changed to just normal dance pop.