Since we could nto teleport over to Cappenhagen for AoIR Sarah and I presented remotely.
Here is a link to my presentation.
Here is the link to my presentation at slideshare.
Thanks to Radika and Anthony!
Exploring Virtual Worlds Research
Mark W. Bell’s Blog
October 19th, 2008 at 9:10 am
AoIR 2008 Presentation
August 1st, 2008 at 8:34 am
The Virtual Data Collection Interface
One of the things I have been lucky enough to be working on the last few months is a new data collection method in Second Life with Ted Castronova and Gert Wagner. This allows a survey researcher to gather survey results totally in the world of Second Life. On Terranova, Ted Castrnova sums it quite nicely:
In collaboration with the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) in the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the SWI at Indiana University has developed a tool for collecting survey data within Second Life. The usual protocol with such surveys is to attract respondents in-world and then send them to a web page to complete the survey. This is a poor protocol because it causes attrition and breaks immersion. It is usually necessary, however, because objects in SL usually cannot serve questions quickly and clearly enough. The Virtual Data Collection Interface (VDCI) is an SL object that optimizes question delivery and data retention so that the respondent experience is very close to the typical experience with web surveys. It allows respondents to quickly complete surveys while remaining in-world. We think it is the only tool in SL with this feature, but maybe one is out there and we just haven’t heard of it.
The VDCI draws on existing formal survey protocols developed by scholarly survey-creation experts. It extends these protocols into the virtual realm, creating a new protocol that can be termed Virtual Assisted Self-Interviewing (VASI). VASI represents an early step into the future of rigorous in-world data collection from users of virtual worlds.
It is a great pleasure to work with Castronova and Wagner. They both have taught me so much.
We have a working paper on SSRN and will be doing survey work very soon and publishing the results.
Please email me at typewritermark@gmail.com or in Second Life (Typewriter Tackleberry) for a demo.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
BoSG: Second Life Is Not Empty
Best Of Storygeek.com
My last blog, storygeek.com, died a horrible death. I could only salvage a few entries and they are presented here. Enjoy!
The Wired article has a lonely avatar surrounded by empty billboards as tumble weeds roll by. Apparently, the art department at Wired has a gift for hyperbole.
We have all heard about how Wired and the L.A. Times have deemed Second Life (SL) a failure because of it being empty. Wired goes as far to say it is “an empty digital world.”
SL is no savior of business or the next Holy Grail but it is a new business environment and like any new environment ignorance of the mechanics leads to rash judgments.
Second Life currently (8:01 EST) has 21,441 residents in world. The highest rates these days are around 45,000. These are not empty accounts but actual people in world. This is not one or two million but it is not 5 either. Also in the last 24 hours over a million USD has been spent in SL. Microtransactions add up.
So there are people there but on a surface level it could appear empty to someone who glances at the world. This is the problem. A high level glance at Second Life (or any synthetic world in my opinion) is going to misinform the observer. In this blog entry, I will cover some of the mechanics that makes this so and assert SL is not empty but in fact teeming in its own way.
24/7 World
First, SL is persistent and therefore runs 24/7. Think of your local 24 hour grocery store. Certainly at 9 am you would find many people buying their weekly groceries and even 9 pm but what about 3:12 am? The grocery store may be open for 24 hours but not busy those times. Is the store a failure because it is not filled to capacity at 3:12 am? Also since SL is accessible internationally there may be peak times in different cultures that a casual observer might not see. I know German goth clubs are hopping at 6 am EST. Is your business dead because your office is empty 16 hours a day?
Gas, Food, Lodging
Think about how much around you is transportation related. The cars out on the street. Planes, trains and automobiles. How much commerce is based on that the consumption of food. Finally how much of what surrounds you is based on providing shelter or lodging. Now image all of that gone and all the people related to that gone. All the buildings related to them gone. Food, transportation and shelter are irrelevant in SL. You don’t need to eat, can teleport anywhere instantly and do not need a house for your things (in fact you can carry many houses on you with no ill effect.) Would your world start to feel empty if you took all those things away?
Face To Face
In SL it is possible to have a dozen meaningful, intense interpersonal conversations with different people all from one remote spot. You don’t even need to be in the same area to have a group conversation. So if I can see a producers products in a search window, IM her and ask if she has male clothes and find out what she has without ever stepping foot into her store, why would I go there? Congregation does not imply consumption or community in SL. Also when was the last time you went to a sport event and were told the stadium had reached its capacity of 55 people, so you can’t come in? Huge crowds mobbing retail outlets do not make sense in SL. I could enter a region with one person in it and think nothing was going on but what if that person was doing business with twelve others via IM. Also retail outlets do not need clerks in SL so business can happen by yourself.
Not B2B but A2A
Instead of a business to business model in SL there is an Avatar to avatar model. Most transactions go one between individuals. These transactions sometime never have any outward appearance of taking place but goods and/or services are being exchanged. Paying a company like a utility has no model in SL.
Outside World Commerce
When you are reading the Sunday paper and looking at the Best Buy ad you are part of that consumer process. You may never go to the store but you are indeed shopping. With it’s centralized search SL cuts down on browsing. If I want some new lederhosen I search for lederhosen stores, teleport there, buy the product and teleport out. Instantly.
Also using things like SL Exchange you don’t even need to be in world to be doing transactions. An avatars presence at a particular location is not essential for business transactions.
Land is not Proportional to Population
Canada has roughly 32 million people in it and a land area of 3,854,085 sq mi giving a population density of 8.3 /sq mi. Basically, it is a country of emptiness. I am from there, so I know. It is the 218th most populated country in the world but could you convince IBM to stop trading with one of the US’s leading trading partners? SL’s land area is growing quickly and the density is affected. There are lots of islands (I manage one) that are only accessible by one person. Scanning the world, gives a casual observer the impression of a vast emptiness. Maybe all businesses should pull out of Canada also.
First Life Is Full of Empty Spaces
Finally, I live in a busy, midsized midwest city. I do not live down town but I live in an urban neighborhood. There are times in the day I am surrounded by people and other times I am completely alone. Not a person for sometimes hundreds of yards. If I drive five minutes away I can get even further from all civilization. People forget first life can be a pretty empty space also.
Conclusion
Again I am not saying SL is perfect for every business or the key to a chest of gold. I am saying by understanding the mechanics of the world you get a clearer picture of how the residents exist, inter-relate and consume. By learning the environments, like they had to with the web, some companies will excel and others will fail. IT all comes down to knowledge of where you are selling and who you a re selling to.
My SL is full of wonderful people, products and amazing objects. I took the time to explore things and so should anyone trying to understand the world for business reasons.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:42 am
BoSG: Mywiistory.com: Absence of game in Alpha Mom Advertising
Best Of Storygeek.com
My last blog, storygeek.com, died a horrible death. I could only salvage a few entries and they are presented here. Enjoy!
While I was preparing for a presentation this week on women, food and magazine ads, I picked up a few women’s magazines like Good house Keeping, Ladies Home Journal and Redbook. I was pleased to see another round of Wii ads in them again targeting alpha moms. The print ad feature a woman named Linda Perry who is pictured with the wiimote and nunchuk in the boxing position. To me this is saying the most violent game in Wii Sports is still ok for “Mom” to play.
The ad pushes you to new site called mywiistory.com, where other Wii users (specifically alpha moms) can submit stories about how great the wii is. The stories are not posted automatically or anything close to real prosumer input but it is a start. The two existing stories, Linda Perry and Nancy Ponthier fit the Alpha Mom profile to a tee.
Again we also see the same ideas of non-violent, easy to use, communal and active being pushed. Nintendo knows exactly what it is doing with these ads and I am expecting to see this fall more Wii TV ads and coverage in the afternoon talkshow time slot.
What is missing here though is screen shots of the games themselves. All the pictures are from the point of view of TV itself. We see the characteristic movements of Wii players but we never see the screen or if we do it is very small. I wonder if the ads are trying to minimize the presence of TV to increase the idea the Wii is active or they want to minimize the whole idea of video game. The console itself is also rarely shown. Just smiling active families with the wiimotes in their hands.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:37 am
BoSG: Flip the Switch – Gender Mechanics in Second Life
Best Of Storygeek.com
My last blog, storygeek.com, died a horrible death. I could only salvage a few entries and they are presented here. Enjoy!
One of the fundamental differences between SL and MMORPGs like WoW and LOTRO is the fluidity of gender. There is a mechanical difference that has effects that change the social economic implications of gender in these virtual worlds. This single mechanical difference emphasizes that the knowledge of the virtual world is imperative to accurate research of that world.
The Mechanics of Gender
Before the effects of the mechanics have on a virtual space can be described, they must be fully described and then compared to other mechanics. When I create an avatar in SL or WoW, I select a gender for my avatar. Currently, most virtual worlds limit this to the male/female binary. In the past, at least one MUD (I can’t find a reference for this) had several genders to choose from. This gender choice in all the MMOs I looked at was static except for Second Life. In Wow if you choose a female elf, youa re a female elf for good. In Second Life, gender is a radio button in your Appearance window. One click of the mouse and you move from male to female or vice versa. There may be other social worlds like Entropia and There.com that have the ability to switch. Even if there are other worlds that allow gender switching, there still remains a dichotomy between static gender worlds and fluid gender worlds. Also, in all of these virtual worlds there is no game or world mechanic that sees gender as a limiting factor. A female hunter in LOTRO is as strong and fast as a male one. In Second Life, a male avatar builds exactly the same way a female avatar builds. Also in Second Life, male and female is defined by the system by some physical characteristics (chest size, hips, height) but it all can be changed. You can look like a man but be gendered as a female. Gender does not even appear on someone’s profile. In most MMO’s the bodies of the avatars appear different (though my female engineer in Hellgate has so much armor on it is difficult to tell her gender). So, I have isolated a difference in gender mechanics between worlds but what does it actually effect?
Bodies For Sale
In Castronova’s paper, “The Price of Bodies: A Hedonic Pricing Model of Avatar Attributes in a Synthetic World” (2004) he talks about how there is a thriving economy of character on sites like ebay and playerauctions.com for both male and female avatars. This does not exist for Second Life. Usually in a MMORPG, like WoW, reputation is built on level that is shown by abilities and armor. In Second Life, a newbie can have the “look” of a more seasoned resident in a few minutes. Castranova found gender labels less important to the economic value of an avatar and I would extend that to the avatars in SL. The value of an avatar in SL is hard to assess since there is no regular trade in them but objects that avatar use or wear do have an economic trade. For instance, in Second life you can buy an avatar outfit that makes you look like a dinosaur. This trade tends not to be in human type avatars. Also in SL, women’s clothing, skins, and hair are more prevalent and generally more expensive than men’s. In a world like WoW or LOTRO there is no gender-cost difference in armor or weaponry.
Gender Behind The Gender
A practice that has also been documented is the switching of genders between player (the person using the computer) and avatar (the in-world instance of that person’s identity) . In any of these virtual worlds, assuming the player gender based on gender selection in world is faulty at best. Generally, most men play men and most women play women but it cannot be depended on. In a fluid gender space like SL even less so since the gender of an avatar can change at any moment during the experience.
So What?
Well economically, the fluidity of gender certainly changes the economic value of an avatar and changes the economy of clothing and other objects. How exactly that happens, needs further research. Also the social effects of a fluid gender system need to be studied and described. The most import thing here is awareness of the mechanics of virtual worlds is essential to understanding how they work and assessing causation.
References
Castronova, E.. “The Price of Bodies: A Hedonic Pricing Model of Avatar Attributes in a Synthetic World” in Kyklos, 2004
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