007: Week 14 Interactive Information Visualization Active Research Assignment: MyMaps

View Rebekah's Map (for DAI 227) in a larger map

Googlemaps was surprisingly much simpler to use than I would’ve imagined. Though of course, I wasn’t sure what to expect that might have made it anymore complex. I was fairly impressed with just how much liberties you were given with the place markers, putting them anywhere you want and writing about it however you like (presumably). I decided to make a map of my walking route to City College from home as I was surprised to see upon reflecting, how nicely condensed the neighborhoods were of many kind of businesses from restaurants to libraries.

This may just be my computer/connection, but it might have been nicer to have gotten a form-style way to input all my descriptions/images/etc. because websites heavy in javascript tend to lag a bit for me and thus MyMaps took me a little longer than I had anticipated. Otherwise, I felt it was very straightforward, simple, and as the tutorial said, even the non-tech savvy can do it.

Potential uses for personalized GoogleMaps (though I’m sure this may already be used this way) can act as perfect tour guides for specific people. And no doubt we’re more likely to trust a tour of a city made by a peer/friend. It can also serve as a great advertisement for especially local businesses that can’t afford those hundreds of dollars worth of advertisements so helping people locate them would be great for the economy as well. It will help well-deserved places get the recognition it deserves.

Comparing a map with a timeline might be a little tricky because it ultimately depends on what kind of information one may be looking for. If they wanted to know places specifically in the vicinity, a map would naturally, be the perfect choice but if anything goes, a timeline may be more appropriate. For personal adventures, a map would be most ideal but for research, I would turn to a timeline.

006: Week 13 Interactive Information Visualization Active Research Assignment: Dipity

Rebekah L. on Dipity.

Note: Please click hyperlink, less events seemed to be featured in the widget.

I found my experience with dipity to be very similar with that of uploading images in facebook. Not the mention the color schemes are completely similar, with the navy blue bar on the top followed with lighter schemes for other links. It seemed to be a combination of Facebook’s “status updates” with “uploading images”, with the only difference being you can likely go with just doing one or the other. What I really liked about it was seeing an overview of events in a timeline form, one after another even when it was as little of a thing as “I got this!” followed by “I baked this!”. It felt oddly accomplishing. The only thing I found a bit jarring about dipity was it didn’t reflect paragraph breaks, even when I made them in my update so it makes longer entries appear less organized.

The first thing that came to my mind as a potential use for Dipity was as a study aid. I feel it’d be very helpful for those wanting to learn to history of anything to be able to flip through it one by one in an interesting, and what I personally find fun way with how you can toggle back and forth between events which may have pictures and/or links if you wanted to learn more about said event. It can be great for sharing a log of research or can even act as an art blog of sorts, so one can see how they improved day or week by week. I felt it would also be a perfect logbook for reviews for anything be it restaurants, movies, stores, etc. It may even serve as a great resume for employers needing a quick scan and can see view the timeline of one’s educational and professional accomplishments.

005: Week 11 Exercise - Active Research Assignment: Social Networking Exercise Pt.3

The Future of Digital Social Networking Services

Given my experience with social network and knowledge of the history of computer, internet, and interface design, I believe that in the future, what awaits us are even more details of our lives being shared on the internet. Before you know it, we may have pedometer devices that can record how many miles we’ve walked/driven/bicycled and share it on the net. Soon your credit cards might even have a device that will collectively gather all the kinds of food and materials you buy and see who else amongst your peers and others who share your favorite kind of store or type of food.

Advertisements may soon need not to create/write anymore aside from sending out daily spam of coupons and notifications of sales like I’m getting right now. You’ve got an unlimited array of people out there willing to share why you should buy this type of product or not and statistics have shown that people are more likely to listen to their peers’ pitch than a professionally paid one.

Essentially, I think, especially given the success of the micro-blogging sites such as twitter, we’ll just have a more range and need to share more of ourselves in a socially exhibitionist manner. We already can tweet by phone and on the computer; maybe soon we can do it on our cameras (which may already be the case with high tech camera phones nowadays), our television sets, videogames (actually I believe the PS3/X-BOX 360 already allows you to share accomplishments/feed it to your facebook), or even electronic kitchen appliances. Maybe we won’t even need to type anymore and a recording device can recognize words can help us blog/tweet orally or even post the recording itself (livejournal and possibly many more already have a “phonepost” option after all). Just imagine how much more prevalent netspeak will become than it already is now. I can already hear people consciously shouting “LOL!”

004: Week 11 Exercise - Active Research Assignment: Social Networking Exercise Pt.2

Design Analysis of “Tumblr”

Through the suggestion of a friend, I decided to get myself a tumblr for my new social network experience. I never really did much of micro-blogging before (aside from ‘status updates’ on facebook). The type of community it serves would be most likely those who don’t have the time or don’t prefer writing and would rather summarize what they would like to share with the world/their friends through a simple post containing either one image/quote/chat recording/etc. Like any new sort of social network site, it took a little while before warming up to its use but it was a little simpler as they actually walk you through your first post and customization. Refreshingly, it was very straightforward as I’m used to trying to get used to the multiple featured blog/social networks.

I noticed so far there seems to be limited to no interaction, especially according to Crawford’s definition. What I noticed is that after posting an image, people can comment (“note”) on it, “like it”, and/or re-blog what you posted onto their tumblr. If they re-blog, you can in turn leave a note of your own which makes this limited interaction and are more series of reactions. Given the nature of the site, this wasn’t too off-putting though I do wish you could make your comment on the site itself rather than doing it all on the dashboard. The main goal is more or less to share whatever nifty picture/quote/etc you’ve come across/like and you do this repeatedly to have a collective of it all in one convenient spot. You may even like something your friends or someone else has posted and want to add it to your own and thus,‘re-blog’. You see what kind of other wacky or beautiful things your friends or others would share as well.

The Social Objects are of course whatever the topic of the post is and the Social Verbs from what I was able to catch are “notes” (comments received), “followers” (people watching your tumblr for updates), and “like” (if someone likes what have to share, they will click on an icon or linked text to express their affinity for it). The numbers of followers you have are marks of socially successful individuals as of course, as it insinuates, you have a large number of people eager to see whatever cool thing you’ll share next! As the tumblr community of “Pretty Foods and Pretty Drink” proudly mention, they have OVER 30000+ FOLLOWERS !

003: Week 11 Exercise - Active Research Assignment: Social Networking Exercise Pt.1

History With and Use of Social Networking

I first started using social media about 7 years ago; the new online trend was xanga amongst my classmates and even siblings so I decided to give it a shot. I barely used it back then, finding the loading times atrocious especially when browsing fellow friends’ xanga as they would post multiple full size photos and have mp3/MIDI files playing as background music that would load incredibly slowly on our 56k speed internet at the time.

I also signed up for a livejournal account shortly after which I used a lot more compared to xanga as I found the layout for posting much more concise and they actually have a “respond to (other users)” versus commenting on others’ xanga to respond to what they said or on yours. They also have an “lj-cut” feature which involves putting large-sized images in a separate link within a post so you wouldn’t have to wait 10-20 minutes to actually read a post. I still use my livejournal to this day but mostly to read whatever news/tabloids/friends post than post myself as I’ve been finding less and less time to do so.

There was also the orthodox myspace that everyone had. I was a lot more reluctant to signing up for one since I was pretty happy with livejournal then but I had a lot more friends on the former so I signed up on whim and found it even more confusing than xanga. Aside from accepting friends requests and making at the most, 5 comments, I barely touched it.

As of November of last year, I got myself a last.fm. I really enjoy seeing the trend of music I listen to for self-analytical purposes along with comparing it with my friends while also seeing the pattern of music they enjoy listening to and what we have in common.

And of course, there was facebook I was told about by my friends that was limited only to college students at the time. It was a lot more organized than myspace and less chaotic too. On top of that, you wouldn't have to worry about music that may freeze your computer or humongous photos as they resized every one loaded onto it. There was a period when facebook finally opened to the public that I stopped using it as it was also when everyone was allowed to customize their profile in which many used this liberally to the point where it was almost a second take of myspace in the sense of erratic blinking images, music, multiple applications, and even what seemed like different walls to write on. After a while though, when all of that calmed down, I started using it again and still am as a method of communication and sharing images.

002: Week 10 Exercise - Active Research Assignment: Virtual Worlds

Virtual World: Yoville

Name of avatar: Luffyko

Who she is: Luffyko was inspired from a ‘what if’ design drawn by Oda Eiichiro, the author of the manga series “One Piece” where he draws the main protagonists as the opposite sex. Modeled after this character, my avatar is easily amused, amazed, and is constantly hungry for salads. It would be almost impossible to see her say anything without the use of 3 or more exclamation marks or in all caps. She lacks a lot of common sense and is striving to be the king of the pirates. She excels in fighting (will constantly challenge you or accept any challenges to a hardcore game of tic tac toe) but is unable to swim so she strays far from the beach as possible.

When socializing with others, or to be more precise, when she’s around any number of people in the public, she will announce she will be king of the pirates and demand to know where the salads are. If someone looks promising or strange enough, she will ask them to join her pirate crew. In fact, she’s thinks you qualify, would you like to join the Luffyko Pirate Crew?

Social Events

The social event that sounded fun was entitled "my party come come!!!!" After all, why would Luffyko turn down such a welcoming statement like that complete with four exclamation marks! Along with her comrades, Usoppko and Hanmock (friends I made join the game with me) they headed off towards this exciting party.

Upon entering, Luffyko asked about salad and announce her life goal of becoming the pirate king. Unfortunately, no one paid her any mind except for one "Hanmock" (who within the "One Piece" universe is someone romantically interested in Luffyko) lets it be known that Luffyko will like you if you make her a salad!

After three or four inquires for for salad, Luffyko was kicked out. However it looked like Usoppko was also kicked out. One "lil lala white" notes that she thinks the owner of "my party come come!!!!" was kicking out the girls in particular. This was largely supported by the fact that Hanmock, a male was not not kicked who was just as talkative as his two friends. Luffyko is not so easily discouraged and carries on with her life, power jumping her way.

Design

Three ways to get TEXT-based information:

1. Yoville has a "Help" section that comprises of separate links to a F.A.Q (a site comprised of Frequently Asked Questions), a forum where anyone who signs up can actively post each other questions, invites or any other form of discussion, and support, where you can post a question that will go directly to an employer.

2. Pop-ups like this appear if you try to enter an area that is restricted and can only be entered upon reaching a certain "level" in the game from being active or as the pop-up suggests, inviting more neighbors, facebook friends of yours that aren't Yoville players.

3. NPCs. Blurbs of text will hover over them, telling you what purpose the area you're in serves be it at "work" or at the "store". In this case, you're at the factory and every 5 hours or so you can click you yellow helmet donning employer for money instantly.

Three ways to get NON-TEXT-based information:

1. Hovering the mouse over non-animated objects will "glow" and emit bright colors, opting you to click them and depending on the object, your avatar will perform a specific action. Such as shown here, this couch will have Luffyko sit down.

2. Arrows. In every area, there will be arrows indicating how to go from one area to the next. This arrow here is telling me how I can enter "Vinny's Diner". If I click on the arrow itself or beyond it, I will go to the indicated designation.

3. Icons. On the bottom left of the main frame of the game are little pictures that quick shortcuts that indicate (from left to right): go home, explore, attend an event, decorate your home, or change your look. You can access each one by simply clicking them.

How the world functions through sight and sound:

1. Music. Certain music plays in specific areas such as a playful, upbeat melody when exploring outside your home, giving the feeling that there is peace in the air.

2. Color. The world of Yoville comprises mostly of bright colors that give it a much more positive ambiance. The town map is dominated by green, sending off the feeling of being close to nature and peace.

3. Shape. The avatar and ways to personalize it are very simplistic and cartoon-like, with the oversized head complete with big eyes and simple outfits such as the "50s" style shown here with cel-shading. The options are seemingly limitless so you can always layer some of these on top of each other if you wish or add as much as you can such as having your avatar wear every accessory possible, even fairy wings.

Tasks and goals:

At the start of the game, you first establish your avatar's gender and proceed to customize his/her look, warming you up to the idea of customization and then start you at "work", letting you know that this is one way to make a living in the game and earn "Yopoints", almost any sort of action that will increase your Yoville experience and "level up" once you accrue a certain number.

You are encouraged through the promise of unlocking certain actions, such as dancing and poses. As shown above, the 'I'm hot' pose here gained at level 12. More actions give you a better range to express yourself to other players to enhance your social life within the game.

Feeling immersed (or not):

One of the features that really makes me feel as if I'm "there" are naturally the customization and chat features. To get so much control over a comfort zone, such as decorating your "home" and getting to socialize with others in a similar way you would in real life by sitting down on a table in the diner or coffee shop. You can especially gauge a feeling of mutually having a good time when you're saying all kinds of crazy stuff (especially when attempting to stay in "virtual identity" character) and making your avatar act in certain ways or with exaggerated emoticons.

What breaks the

immersive

feeling are the loading times. Even two whole seconds is enough to remind you you're playing a computer game and especially this case, an application of a social network site. Another way the illusion is broken is if you're online the chat feature of facebook, a friend may suddenly IM you while you're browsing through the latest hairstyles and then you have to "leave" the world to talk about what you did at school or work today.

Socializing:

The avatars I conversed the most with (that were willing) were my friends who I also made recently join the game with me. Since I was going with a "One Piece" character, they joined me with other characters of the same series. One of them being Luffyko's comrade, Usoppko and the other an ally, Hancock (Hanmock here as "Hancock" was originally censored by the game to "Hanyada").

Staying in character, Luffyko is one easily surprised and her friend, Usoppko is a compulsive liar. Here, Luffyko witnessed Usoppko flying and had to ask out of excitement And apparently, Usoppko has mastered the art of flying at a young age! Impressive! We continued that night with more excitable shenanigans involving wild stories of flying and defeating warriors and throwing snowballs at each other.

I tried socializing with strangers outside my home which is where people tend to gather the most outside an event and sometimes I would be able to strike up small talk or straight up demand them to join my crew but the limitations I faced were how willing the other party was to talk and how much they would talk about. Sometimes you would come across rather...lonely people asking you to PM your age and if you would like to see their private parts. Rather unsettling given the endearing charm of the game itself.

Economy:

The basic economy of this particular world are "coins". Coins are earned through "work", which is clicking your employer every 5 hours in real world time, through taking snapshots during a "friend mission" (you would get a pop-up every now and then opting you to visit a friend's home to fight/dance/cheer up/etc), and through games like "Tic Tac Toe", "Rock, Paper Scissors", and "Racing".

People can also buy 'YoCash,' which help you buy more things (or certain items only attainable with Yocash), with a credit card or paypal, but it can cost anywhere from $5 to $100.

My favorite activity:

Tic tac toe. It is simple and an easy, quick five coins unless I somehow lose. Strangely enough its not very easy to find a stranger to be as willing to participate as much as yourself. Makes me wonder if people have no troubles earning money in this game at all or already have an array of limitless friends to play tic tac toe with...

In-world objects:

As mentioned earlier, in-world objects operate by hovering the mouse over them and the object would then "glow" with a bright, yellow outline around it. As shown here, hovering the mouse over the "chair" and then clicking would have my avatar sit and if I wanted her to get off, I would hover over the chair again that would this time, also have Luffyko "glow" to indicate I can have her get off the chair.

Yoville and HOH:

One aspect of Yoville that relates directly to a HOH-Agency Chapter would be Transformation through customization of appearance. In this world, I was able to completely set up myself to act and appear (to an extent) just like a female version of Luffy. I would act completely oblivious to disturbing offers and questions and only trace it back to asking about food (and you guessed it, salads). I would only go around asking people to join my pirate crew (only to get constant "lol no"s) and say things in a clear cut and straightforward manner that no one should do in the real world if you wanted to make friends. Such as straight up asking "Are you an idiot?"

At one point, a friend of mine changed herself from Usoppko to Sanjiko, another crewmember of the Luffko Pirate Crew that is a cook and boy crazy. She persistently chased after Hanmock (much to his chagrin) while Luffyko pestered Sanjiko for salads and laughed at their game of "tag". The ability to change our appearances on the spot within minutes to represent a different personality goes hand in hand with Murray's mention of the Kushtov effect to create juxtapositions. We already have "morphed the story environment" by having Sanjiko/Usoppko meet Hanmock, who within the canon of the actual story hasn't yet. Not to mention, we're all the opposite sex of the canon counterparts. And just as Murray mentioned, there is refused closure. The "world" we engage in can end and last for as long as two people want with no dramatic end and roll credits.

001: Week 2 Exercise - Being Digital: Your Digital Media Life

Digital media/communications technologies I use on a daily basis:

- computer
- internet (google chrome, gmail, facebook)
- itunes/vlc player
- AOL instant messenger
- paint shop pro and photoshop (minimal experimental purposes)

- cell phone

- mp3 player -> ipod shuffle




An inventory of my media life:
- computer
- internet (google chrome, gmail, facebook)
- itunes/vlc player
- AOL instant messenger
- paint shop pro and photoshop (minimal experimental purposes)

- printer, scanner, external speakers, external hard drive, flash drive, tablet

- cell phone

- digital camera 5.1 megapixels

- mp3 player -> ipod shuffle

- Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable, wii, Playstation 3 40 gig

- TV


Specific tasks I manage with media technology:
I use the computer for socializing with friends via facebook and AOL instant messenger and occasionally for enjoying entertainment such as movies and television shows. Many texts and even comics are now online so I can expose myself to both "hot/cool" and "high/low definition" of mediums which require varying levels of conscious participation.

Also used as a creative outlet through minimal experimenting in Paintshop Pro and Photoshop and tablet. And of course many times for schoolwork in many ways such as required readings, research, occasionally exams/quizes/interactive problem solving (i.e chemistry course), and writing term papers. I also like to do a bit of online shopping as well.

Cell phone of course used solely for communication, I don't use the new fangled high tech-phones with a built-in keyboard (yet) or internet access. I do like to take pictures I see of things to send to friends if I don't have my camera on me at the time such as a giant sandwich or cucumber dressed in women's clothing. I do text for social purposes as well or for business if I need to contact my supervisor in advance and am unable to reach them through a call.

I use my mp3 player to pass time and help me stay focused on a single activity, especially when its a repetitive one or during travel be it during a walk to and from school or on the bus on my way to work.

Digital camera to take pictures whenever I want to. As we tend to store our pictures more and more into harddrives as pixels, we tend to value these bits just as much and be very useful if we have a back up in case we lost a physical print, we can always get another one from the ones we saved into our computers.

I have been mostly on handheld gaming consoles as of recent as I've been (regrettably) lacking enough time to dedicate some time to larger consoles. I play for leisure and in place of my mp3 player during a bus ride or wait if I'm not in the mood to just stand/sit around and listen to music.

Barely watch broadcast shows nowadays and only really use the TV for large console gaming.

How are you digital in comparison to my grandmother/father analog:
I am a digital type of person as I tend to be more reliant on computers for many things, such as research, information, socializing, and for leisure. This is especially true when compared to my father, who reads the newspapers and books for his information. When he needs a definition, he will look in the dictionary. I, however, would type in dictionary.com and then be on my way.

My parents and grandparents spent most of their educational years researching through books and libraries and little on computers while for me, it's the other way around. I only spent time looking through physical encyclopedias up to my middle school years until the internet became more readily available and affordable.

In terms of socializing, I, like many others, are much more reliant on social networks such as facebook and instant messenger applications to communicate with peers/friends.While I still send letters occassionally, I do rely much more on e-mails. They take less than a minute to arrive, while letters can take 3 to 5 days to get to someone. It's also easier for me to chat by e-mail, where I can gather my thoughts ahead of time, than by phone and be flustered.

Better yet, I can talk to more than one person at a time though instant messengers as well. There are also forums or the ability to leave 'comments' to interact with posted material made by anyone: friends, scholars, anonymous people on the internet. You can make friends from all over the country or even globe.

I also own a cell phone which my grandparents and father do not have. They rely much more on the traditional phones that travel through wires rather than signals.

Another way I am a bit more digital than my parents and grandparents is the use of an mp3 player to pass time as I travel by foot of public transportation. They would simply just wait and absorb whatever surrounding sounds are there.

What I and many others, who are more digital, do is multi-task, as it is easier for us. It is very easy to surf the web, type a paper, and talk to friends than taking the time to do one at a time. The downside to this is that we of the digital generation have become more impatient. Thanks to computers, we expect things at an instant rather than wait for it. My father and grandparents have a greater amount of patience because they didn't rely on machines.