The End Of An ERA..

OK...so I have to re-write my post because as I was trying to insert an image... I accidently cut my text...and then damn autosave saved it. SO Let me try start again.

Firstly, I want to comment on how well I think the AlterEgos group have done, we have come so far and I am really proud of what we have produced. I think our hard work has paid off, as we have taken so much away from it and together put our research and skills into practice! way to go girls!!

This course has opened up my mind to identity online and social networking sites, although I had known about the issues surround online identity I feel that having finished this project my mind has thought about it in so much depth. I even got some hands on experience of Second Life, I remember in one of the first few lessons watching a video about it, and going home and looking at online articles on it. Wow did they make it sound crazy, something totally insane... I remember thinking - don't these people have first lives? However when I signed up for an account although I did not take part in the acts of SL consumerism; buying land, property, vehicles, clothes, I really didn't see the difference between this and a chat room...the only thing different was that I had a walking avatar that can do funny gestures. Ok so I do realise the whole spending money in a world where you can't physically touch anything, is rather OTT... but to me it was more like a video game! It was all part of entertainment, and meeting people during. I find the whole getting a job thing facinating... I have actually made a friend in SL, and she told me she got a job as a pole dancer in the gentlemans club in SL, I was so amazed.. that is something I want to do not for the linden dollars but because I know I would never be able to do it in reality! So I am basically living for free... so prehaps I am not living it to the fullest, but from what I have seen so far its like a virtual chat room/video gaming!...so not as scary and weird as the articles made out! Although... I do not agree with spending crazy amounts or an amount equivalent to reality on clothes I can never physically wear, thats just crazy!

Facebook has made my life more convenient and saved me money. I remember having to send text messages or call friends who I hadn't spoken to for a week or so to see how they are... now all I have to do is log on to their facebook profile and i will get an idea of what they've been up to for the past few days by looking at their status, pictures and wall. I'l leave a comment, they will reply when they can, simple as! It doesn't mean that I am living life online and not in reality but rather that the online has helped me organise my reality.

So what is identity online and does it differ to identity reality? Well I don't really think they differ much. The net is surrounded by stories on online deception, but to me anyone can lie, cheat, pretend to be someone they are not, and deceive in reality just as much as they can online. But many people feel scared at the fact that you can't see who your communicating with. But isn't it all about the mind anyway? How much does our body have to do with deception... On the net the body is passive as the mind enters cyberspace! I also feel that some people feel more comfortable online being themselves rather than in reality.

SO...in my previous post which I accidently cut... I wrote how much I enjoyed blogging! Until the damn blog didnt undo my action. Ok, I am going to stop being bitter. Blogging was fun, and to be honest I am going to continue it as much as I can, It feels good knowing that you can put your views out on the web so easily. Thanks for introducing me to it Nigel! But really, blogging has been like a online diary, (obviously without the juicy, personal details!) however one that we want read... or not neccesarily read but just the small possibility that someone can actually find my blog (probably by accident!) is a cool thing! I feel like my writing has a purpose! Apart from this project ofcourse! hah!

The AlterEgos project, touched on interesting subjects. We looked at the topics of gender bending online and the ambiguous issues surrounding Myspace. We have made our project an interesting and informative read by adding case studies. I really think we have made our mark on the web ;)

Almost Done!

Time is flying and the progress we've made is amazing! I think our final product will really demonstrate just how hard we've worked and how much thought has gone into our work. In todays lesson, we sorted out some of the technical difficulties that we've faced and put most of our content up on the wiki, ofcourse this still needs to be edited, but it was a nice feeling seeing what we have, and the content of it all. It was the first time I had worked in a group with Arabella, Beatrice, Hannah and Aneeka, and I must comment on how lovely they have been to work with!

Blogging hasn't been so bad! I feel that since I've started blogging, I've been thinking about ideas more...as I am constantly thinking about issues I could raise in my blog or that I have raised in it, and as I am writing it more ideas come to my head. So it really helps getting information down, in a informal way, because your not having to worry about backing up your points which means i feel more free. The course has helped me think outside the box a bit, I mean I always have identified the issues around the internet, but never have I really gone into studying it in detail. Now I seem to judge my own actions on facebook... and even question my friends'! This whole obsession with social networking sites, images, virtual worlds and multiple identities has been an interesting topic to investigate, as it is current and ongoing. I would love to re-visit my blog in 10 years and see exactly how much has changed :)

Designing the wiki and group work!

The group work is really starting to come along, this week we defeated some of our technical difficulties out of the way and have started to bring our ideas together as a group.

So... on monday we met up 2 hours before the lesson and set ourselves research and reading to do, so that we could bring up any questions we came across to eachother. I have been looking at this idea of multiple identities on social networking sites, and decided to explore this on Myspace by searching for random politicians, religious figures and celebrities that have been made foney accounts. I was expecting to fine many but I wasn't expecting is for people to believe them! In particular we picked out Jesus, George Bush, and Britney Spears and on all these profiles there was some sense of belief from people posting comments to them, convinced they are the real thing. This can nicely be linked to hyperreality - blurring the border between real and unreal. Simulations simulations simulations! Certain accounts on myspace are a simulacrum of the real thing!

We have sorted out a theme for our group wiki! And finally worked out how to make it look good with all the limitations! We have gone for a simple but affective look, with the use of our gender bending image and Jesus myspace image on the front page. This will symbolise both parts of our project. We have also designed headings for each of our pages, linked on each page so that it is unnecessary to keep going back to the home page to access the other sections. Our design is user friendly and looks good! We finally understand how to use tables and insert images into them although we are have a problem sometimes with adjusting the size of the image accordingly to the table.

Facebook, Myspace And Marketing

Facebook.... is taking over my life! Ok no thats an exageration, but why are so many people addicted to it? What is it drives us to keep clicking to check which of our friends have recently updated their profiles? Or who is online now? Or who wrote on whose wall? Facebook is like big brother with consent! Its constantly telling others what we have been up to, how we are feeling exactly on the hour and who we are now friends with and at what time. Yet We Love it! It is a online diary.

I recently logged on to my myspace, which I havent actually checked for awhile... and I was surprised at how many friend requests I had from people I had never heard of in my life. Many of which had probably used some sort of friend generator to send out random friend requests from them to add to their popularity or prehaps promotion use. I must admit that these social networking sites are extremely good for getting yourself out there, with myspace you can do much more as in show music and products and create a whole profile for what you want to market. But even Facebook to me has been a good use of marketing. An example... My brother has started his own business (car audio) , so I create a group on facebook about his products, plugging his website etc. I add everyone on my friends list to it. And once they join, ofcourse they get that weird big brother thingy that says '.... joined group..... at 12.15pm' everyone on their friends lisr sees what they join, checks it out for themselves... and the cycle continues. And its worked, a very good response has come from it - without the cost of advertising! SO yep social networking is used for multiple purposes, and sometimes it is possible to do more online and reach goals than it is in reality.

AS for our project.. again going well, we are going to come together next week with everything we have, giving us 2 weeks to write it us. I found an interesting foney Britney Spears account on myspace, where people are actually posting messages... how do i know its foney? Well the pics are obviously ones they have found on google images and Britney already has her official myspace account called 'the official britney spears myspace'... not so hard to figure out, surely if you know how to use myspace and the internet you can figure that one out!

good and bad web design

Here are examples of what i think is a bad website and a good website in regards to navigation and design -

Bad Web Design - Mess With Msn Messenger site : http://www.mess.be/
-It certainly is messy, busy, the colours hurt my eyes and the writing is all over the place and in different fonts, colours and sizes ( I feel like i need a magnifying glass to read most of it!) . I feel like there is so much going on on the page with all the links that I don't know where to look!

Good Web Design - River Island Clothing site : http://xml.riverisland.com/flash/content.php
-Simple yet stylish design, easy to navigate and find what you are looking for. Clear bold text, easy to use scroll down categories. Good colours.

Week 5...Lets get started!

Today was the lesson where as a group we tied up our ideas and chucked out the bit and bobs we thought did not fit well in our project! Today also gave us an idea of roughly how much we need to produce and the style in which we will write.

Ok so heres the idea... we are looking at identity online, and shall do this by analysing case studies. Why case studies? Well I personally think that this will provide a more interesting read, as we will be looking at real cases that can directly relate to the issues we want to address. So the first case study we are looking at is gender bending online - Beatrice has a friend who earns his living by pretending to be a sexy female online and on the phone!! We shall not only be focusing on this case but use it as an example and look at queer theories to analyse this aspect of gender identity online. Our second issue we want to look at is Myspace and the fake celebrity accounts on the site that people create to pose as someone they are not, some people fall for it and write messages thinking it is their fav star, some are unable to tell however this has brought into light postmodernist theorist Baudrillard's theory on the hyperreal - have we actually got to the stage where we can no longer distinguish what is and is not real? Is there a breakdown of the border between the real and the hyperreal? Again whilst looking at this we shall refer to a particular foney celebrity account to make it more fun!...thats if we can spot the foney one ofcourse or prehaps we will be fooled by simulacrums! (ha ha)
We were going to address the issue of online deception with a darker issue of paedophilia, which Hannah in particular was interested in researching, however looking at the way our project was heading we decided not to include it, as it would mainly be getting stuff out of newspapers and it would seem gloomy compared to the rest of the issues we want to look at which are more light hearted. The feedback after we reported to the class about what we set out to do in our project was that we were covering too much... I personally didn't agree with this, I think that we are being very specific at what we are going to look at and this in turn will give us a good, concise direction to follow without going off topic.

I was really shocked at the facebook book stats... I thought there were more students on there than professionals as it was open to only students first, however i guess that also makes sense seeing as there are now company networks, soon it may be as widely used as e-mail! I already find myself checking it more than my email!

I am enjoying the project, I just wish we didn't have as much work to do on the other modules so I could really spend more time on it, as it is really interesting to explore the virtual world. But either way our project is heading in a fun yet informative direction and it will be interesting to see how it turns out!

Week 4....A better day :)

Ok! So today was a lot better, I feel really confident with the group I'm working with and we have some good ideas already! Well.. we were a bit rusty with editing our group wiki at first but hey we got the hang of things at the end, and we are finally on a roll! Well... what I'm trying to say is we think we are on the right track now, we just need to do the research!

I started to think about whether I am apart of a community... well i dont really feel fully part of any community! My mum and dad being different religions (muslim and sikh.. pretty opposing!) has meant that I am lucky enough experience both although I find that when I am around a community of either I hardly feel fully a part of it. So is it possible to be in 2 communities... ok I guess this example is a bit of a difficult one to apply. But I agree with the fact that we are more individualistic and the variety and amount of online communities has meant that you can meet people with common interests and network with others without having to worry about ethnic, or racial prejudice and you can also be a part of many! I think that when you feel like you have a common interest with a group of people and you can engage with them and are happy to share ideas it makes you believe you are a part of a community.

I signed up to Second Life to experience it for myself, and I found it really interesting! The amount of places you can visit, and people you can meet made it a lot easier to engage with people than in real life. I call it 'real life' because although Second Life allows you to do what you can do in reality and more, it is still a virtual world. And to me no different from any other chat room on the internet. I do feel that the buying land, property and vehicles is a lot more to do with the entertainment side of it and to me using real money to buy something you can not physically use is rather OTT. However weirdly I could see the appeal in it, and prehaps if i looked back on my thoughts after 6 months of being a user I may understand how one can fully engage in it as if it were reality.. The only worry I have on it, is whether we are taking the easy way out, of living our physical life, meeting people physically and actually travelling... I am unsure as to whether there are users out there that live their Second Life more than their first but if this is the case I think this is a worry!

So last night... after having watched the repeat of panorama at 2am I decided to stay up and watch 'watch Dog'... and suprisingly they were speaking about online deception regarding social networking site Facebook. They had created a fake account on facebook called Amber (a bit like our group idea) and added 100 random people to be her friend, an interesting point is that people had actually accepted her friend request because they thought that they may know her, because on facebook people usually add only people they know..or so it seems. 35 accepted. Once they had accepted the request Amber the foney person was able to see their profile page and gain access to information such as their date of birth, hometown, phone numbers. Watch Dog exemplified just how easy it is for identity theft to occur on Facebook; just by the display of this personal information on your personal profile one can apply for credit cards and loans in your name. This came as a big shock to me! As I have this information on my facebook, so I imediately changed my settings ;) Here is the watch dog summary of it online. http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/reports/internet/internet_20071024.shtml

Oh and I finally uploaded the pics onto the group wiki using html which i'm really proud about :D