Communities at Play

And finally, this should be the complete list of Communities at Play case Studies...

John McClaren

John's look at the MMORPG Project Entropia.


Thomas Larsen

Thomas chooses the First-Person shooter community of Medal of Honour: Allied Assault to ask the question Geek Factory or Virtual Community?


Mike Price

Mike takes us back to his experiences in the primordial ooze of Aardwolf MUD.

Shaun Choo

Shaun is one of a few people who chose to examine Blizzards highly successful MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

Sharn Anderson

An examination, of the Anime themed role-playing game, Gaia.

Sam Field

Sam discusses the gaming nature of the Halfbakery, a community "which uses words to plays with ideas."

Gerald Sim

Gerald takes a broader look at the MMORPG phenomena, particularly at the way online actions spill into the real world.

Farhana

Farhana leaps into the virtually violent world of Counterstrike: Counter-Terrorism Action!

...and finally, two more World of Warcraft case studies from Steve Perriman and Bryce Wojtowicz.

There are a few studies missing from this list which don't appear to have gone online yet, but this is pretty much everything. On the whole the case studies have been a pleasure to read through, especially given the diverse topics!
This will probably be my last post to this blog so I'd like to take the opportunity to thanks those who have contributed their time to keeping this 'experimental' format going - you will have your opportunity to give your views in the self-reflection so don't hold back! :-)

In the meantime,

have fun,
Stew

The Halfbakery: A Case Study

Hey All, my Case Study on The Halfbakery is up at

http://users.tpg.com.au/archflip/Net Studies 214

Post comments (please!) on this post.

Thanks,

I hope you get something out of it.

The Last of the Social Studies...

OK folks - my apologies for being a little behind the ball over the last few weeks, I can only offer the cries of a demanding infant as my excuse. Here are the last of the social community online presentation along with (hopefully all) of the Communities at Play studies. I am sure that you are all busy with your final assignments but if you can comment please do - in many cases interesting reactions have already begun to appear on the blogs.

Social Communities

Elizabeth MacLintock

Liz immerses herself in the (slightly murky) waters of online introduction sites.

Kym Badger

"This research presents information on two general Community systems created by the Microsoft Network. MSN Groups and MSN Spaces."

Claudia Valenzuela

Claudia looks at the Couch Surfing Project, "a social network designed to assist travelers worldwide who are seeking inexpensive accommodation".

Shabana Aishath

Shabz has been hanging out at Habbo Hotel, a social/play community for young people built on the Macromedia (or should I say Adobe?) shockwave technology.

Mamiko Aiko

Mamiko evaluates Meetup.com, a software tool designed to facilitate offline community.

Ying Tan

Ying examines yet another portal site, Hi5, concluding that trust is still a critical issue.

Syahrani Rahim

Yahoo 360 appears to be Yahoo's answer to the 'personalised services war' that brought up the EPIC 2014 link. Will it knock the competitors for six? Syahrani thinks so.

Belinda Wilkinson

Belinda offers another perspective on tribe.net.

Trevor Allison

Trevor takes another peek at social network analysis via Friendster.

As far as I can tell, that's all of the Social Community studies. If I've missed yours please email me and I'll correct that error! Next post is Communities at Play...

EPIC 2014

In the Year 2014, the New York Times has gone offline.

The Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned.

What happened to the news?

And what is EPIC?

While discussing in last weeks tute the rise of social software and the ongoing merger of individualised tools and services on the web, this animation came up and I promised to post it to the blogs. It's a 'future history' of personalised services - not precisely relevant to VC's - but entertaining nonetheless. (Kudos to Syahrani Rahim for finding this earlier in the semester)

Meanwhile, I'll post on Monday with the last of the social community case studies...have a good weekend,

Stew

multiple sclerosis victim finds intellectual stimulation in internet

Just a brief post about something interesting I heard today. My parent's real estate agents daughter (sounds as likely as the second uncle of my next door neighbours dog doesn't it?) has had multiple sclerosis for 25 years. She is incredibly bright, but can now only move her fingers on one hand, and as such she has found all her social and intellectual fulfillment through the internet. It must certainly be a vital social outlet for people with these kinds of disabilities, where people don't judge by looks etc.

Social Communities? More case studies...

Greetings all!

For those on campus it's week 1 of our look at social communities, whilst for OUA students, it's already week two (fewer breaks!) So, I thought I'd let everyone know what is already out there:




Stanley Carter



Stan uses his blog to take a critical look at social networking tools. As always, comments welcome..



Mai Kato



Mai takes on Friendster, including some interesting background on the beginnings of social networking software.



Seik Kun Chia



'J' claims it is the individual perspective which determines whether MSN Messenger constitutes a genuine community.



Desloehal Djumrianti (yanti)



Yanti looks at tribe.net, an online ad-driven portal which seems to want to be everything to everybody.



Muhamad Akbar



Muhamad uses an interactive slideshow to discuss Kaskus.com, a localised Indonesian discussion board.



Also, a couple of 'community of interest' projects that didn't make the last post:



Igor Palmer



Igor looks at AOK, (The Association of Knowledgework)



and...



Michael Bennet



Michael discusses the emotional investment that music brings to a community on his WebCT student homepage - Net 24 students won't be able to view this :-(



Finally, for those still working on thier 'communities at play' project, Trevor has started up a blog that looks at online gaming (with a clear explanation of what all those gaming acronyms mean)




Please take the time to comment on these projects as it is this feedback which drives the learning in this course. Also, keep an eye on the other blogs to see new projects as they are published...they are coming thick and fast!



This guy walks into a bar - Ouch!