Lecture 5

WHO OWNS THE CONTENT YOU PUT ON THE INTERNET AT VARIOUS SITES??
The lecture this week raised questions that were quite scary. In the tutorial Daniel asked this in a different way. He said "if Facebook was to make a coffee table book with your pictures would that be all right? Would you get any of the profits? This made me think! So I started looking at the terms and conditions or the TOS (Terms of Service) on several social networking sites. Most of the sites said that the 'materials' you put on the web remain yours but they are allowed to use it for certain things. In Bebo's TOS they stated that by putting 'materials' onto your Bebo account they have a limited licence to use, modify etc. This is quite scary! They claim that Bebo wouldn't be able to perform without this kind of use of 'materials.' I'm not sure if this is right or wrong? Maybe a little bit of sharing of ones material is needed to have a good social networking site. But I would definitely think about reading the TOS if I would be unhappy for websites to use my 'materials.' But me personally.. I don't really mind. My stuffs not to important anyway. But if there were profits involved then maybe I would care...

As for the 'Are we Consumers or Creators' Question...
I think we are both now. The Internet has enabled us to create what we consume. We have become the ones who choose what advertisements we take notice of. To a point. Where as on TV we had no choice, now we do. But the Internet is still choosing what ads we see. But they are more catered to what we are searching for. If you search for information about gym equipment on Google, up the top and down the side there will be numerous of websites advertising their 'sales' and 'special deals' on gym equipment.

3D Worlds Vs IM

There are a few qualitative differences between the normal chat services, like IM and Facebook Chat, and the various 3D Worlds that are now on offer. The list of services that Active Worlds provide is quite amazing. And it is somewhat odd that on the web page at the bottom of the list is that you can create an avatar and chat with others. This shows that just chatting between people, who can be on the other side of the world, just isn't enough anymore. There has to be a sense of being there. Which is one of the qualitative differences. Rather then chatting to a photo, or nothing at all in some cases, there is a much better experience talking to a 3D avatar. It gives the person you are talking to an identity. This makes it more realistic.

The more realistic aspect of the 3D worlds is what makes them more qualitative. The avatar that you create, while in these worlds, can have different features which can show personality. They can often show emotion, to an extent, by showing different facial expressions, moving the head around and body language. These emotions are usually activated by clicking the mouse on something. This is evident in Secondlife. I suppose that these are the more advanced version of smileys. They are used to show different emotions without having to show them in text form. The 3D worlds add a face to that emotion which makes them more qualitative.