Questions for Paper

--At what point of your involvement did you begin to put money into SL?
--Why did you decide to invest money into the game?
--How do you spend your money?
--Are you satisfied with what you spent your money on?
--Did you feel pressure to spend money in SL?
--Do you recommend that others spend money in SL, why?
--What are the benefits to having money in SL?
--Do you think it should be required to put money into SL to join?
--Do you have a paying job in SL?
--What is the weirdest thing you've seen another avatar spend money on?
--Do you think that SL has a strong economic system?
--Do you think that spending money in SL is a bad habit?
--What do you think about the value of the Linden dollars changing? Do you think that will help or hurt the game?
--Do you own property in SL, if so, how much did you spend & do you believe that it was worth it?

Interview Answers

How did they decided what to wear today?
1) The weather was nice so she decided to wear something with less layers.
2) One girl said she always goes for comfort above all so her spandex and long shirt she said she could move in
3) I wear whatever I feel like wearing, or whatever is clean.

How did they choose the major they're in?
1) Speech Communication--because it's broad and I can do anything with it.
2) Business--because she felt like it's a good major to do in the real world.
3) Exploratory

If you could do anything over in their life to guarantee they get the future they want, would you do it? Why or why not?
1) She said she guessed she would re-do something that made her happy and that would make her have a happy life, but didn't know what specific thing to re-do.
2) She said that she is assuming that once she gets into the real world, she is going to wish that she could do college over.
3) She didn't really understand that question, and she thought about it and said that she probably doesn't want to re-do anything in her life yet.

Discussing Paper and Interviews In Class Assignment

What will be the most difficult part of interviewing in SL?
--It will be hard to find people willing to talk to us. We also want people who will take this seriously, and give us good answers about the topic. People can lie to us, because we are not able to see who they are. It will also be hard to find people who actually put a good deal of money into the game and use their money in an interesting way.

What are the differences interviews in RL and SL?
--There is no face to face interaction between us, so we can not see the nonverbals or hear their voices, to be able to go off of their answers and be able to tell how interested they are in the subject. People in Real Life cant really walk away in the middle of the interview, however, in SL people can just teleport away if they are bored.

Questions for Economics in SL
--At what point of your involvement did you begin to put money into SL?
--Why did you decide to invest money into the game?
--How do you spend your money?
--Are you satisfied with what you spent your money on?
--Did you feel pressure to spend money in SL?
--Do you recommend that others spend money in SL, why?
--What are the benefits to having money in SL?

These questions are good, because it will make the user think as well as give us detailed long answers instead of one word answers

Interviews and Events

I traveld to an Event for Newbies and thought that it would be all about information about owning, buying, building land, and getting money. However the instructor Rox was very rude, and didn't teach anything to the class. We all just had to ask questions that we had about the program. At first, the class of about seven people didn't say anything. Somone asked a question about building a womans dressing room, because she designs clothes and didn't know how to. I asked a question about getting jobs in SL, because when I was interviewing and talking to people they recommend that I get a job in SL. The class was pretty pointless, and didn't really come out learning anything about it. It was neat that people came there for the class and wanted to learn about second life. There were side conversations going on in the background, and the instructor got mad that people were talking so it was obvious that people were taking this very seriously.

I went and talked and interviewed a few more poeple at the welcome center. I typed the question is anyone new and lost like me? and all these people started talking to me and aksing me questions and I answered some and I started to talk to this one male. He said that he just joined a few weeks ago, because his friend told him that it was like the Sims and he likes that game. He said he didn't have any money, and didn't plan on putting any money into the game so we talked about how you make money in the game. I told him I saw that a lot of people are able to dance for money. After that, I went back to New Citizen's Plaza and just tried to listen and see what people were doing. Some people were talking about what they had just bought a woman was saying that she just bought sunglasses and the other woman was wondering how she got them, so they discussed on how they loved to keep changing their avatar, because it's like in real life when you change your clothes. I passed another male who seemed to be trying to win this woman over in some weird way. He was saying that he could take her to this beach he found and show her all these cool things at the island. I found that strange. At this point it was almost time for class and I went and sat down, and saw that Yael from class was there also to view the class and we talked a bit about our experiences in SL.

Interviewing

WELCOME ISLAND:
I talked to a man in italian. He said that he likes playing the game, and plays it for fun. He said that he works a lot with communications, and that he's only been playing for a few months. He likes meeting people that speak italian because he doesn't know any english.
I then was approached by a man named Umbra Lunardi, because he heard me typing that I was semi-new to the game. He owns a private island in the game and hopes to build another one in six months. He has been playing for only 6 months and plays everyday. He said for starters go to casinos and clubs for fun, and a good starting out job is being a dancer or stripper. He explained that for that I need new skin, which is very important. He told me that he paid 2000 Linden for his. He was tall and muscular and was wearing jeans and a white tank top. He seemed to be very friendly with al the people at the site.

Content Analysis Class Notes

CONTENT ANALYSIS REVIEW

- Looking for patterns
- Come up with categories
- As you add categories, sometimes need to look back through previous media to reevaluate
- Categories to answer questions - not just categories for categories sake
- Unobstrusive research method
- Writing: you have to get your thought process out so others can evaluate your categories.
- Be specific - use your examples
- Be general - categories need to apply to more than just your small number of photos.

Qual Notes

STUDY TEXTS:

- Our=Avatars from the game photos, movies from the game, articles about the games, forum posts

- INTERPRET MESSAGE:

- Can't be totally objective - researcher experience and biases
- What does content say about the society that produced it?
- Informed, supported story.

CONTENT ANALYSIS:

- Qualitative guys look at relationship between the text and the meaning the audience may give it.
- Realize that texts are open to different meanings.
- Different people with different experiences may interpret text differently.
- What I like about it - it thinks about the likely meaning the audience will give it.
- That's more than just how many adjectives used or how big the picture is
- Also, doesn't affect the people who created it - they don't always know you're examing their texts.
- Semiotics - signs have meanings
- Literal - road signs, the red slash for "now allowed"
- Kind of like a stereotype in media - short hand to help tell a story quicker
- Picture of a man with a baby - fatherhood, parenthood, love, protection, caring, fun
- Look for typical examples
- Look for disconfirming examples
- Look for exceptional examples
- This will give you good results
- We don't randomly sample in qualitative research (we want depth, broad understanding)

In Class Notes

I liked the small group discussion rather than the large group discussion, because the large one was too hard to follow. Everyone was talking and having side conversations that I couldn't keep track of who was talking. In the small group discussion we were all able to talk equally and listen to each other, and we could also comment back to us. We all just talked about our papers and what we've seen in SL, and just bounced back ideas for our papers. I found it helpful to talk to them, because it was so easy to listen and chat with them.

I don't think I would really like to have class in SL just because it'd be too easy to get distracted and do other things, and to sit there and read all the notes that the teacher types would just be too difficult. Especially, if I put my head down or something and I miss an important statement. In a regular classroom, if I didn't hear something I can ask for someone to repeat it. I think it would be just too chaotic to have us all together. The pros of having class in SL would be that I actually don't have to come to class. I could literally go to class in my PJ's, and I would really enjoy doing that. I think this exercise helped with interviewing skills and what we are going to be doing for the next section.

Interviewing in Second Life

After reading the article about interviewing I have a better understanding about how to go about interviewing people in Second LIfe. When that time comes to interview people I'll ask talk to them politely & if they don't want to participate in it then I will have to accept that and move on. If they do agree I will let them know what I am doing, which is I am college student doing a paper/project about this topic and wondering they could answer some questions on the topic. I will have my questions ready, and I will keep the conversation saved so when I need to come back to it, it's there to reference back to it. I should try to get many different people's opinions, views, etc. about the topic I am doing.

The article can be applied in all areas of Second Life, even if the person can't see us physically listening to them we have to show them the respect that we are listening and that them answering the questions really does matter. I also have to be prepared when I'm asking the questions, because I need to be able to do follow up questions if I want to discuss more on the topic or if they didn't clearly answer the question like I had hoped. I feel that I am better prepared for interviews in SL & once I have a topic to discuss with other avatars, it will be interesting to see other people's views and opinions about it.

More Observations For Paper

Ohmo-In the Flesh (PG)
The ground is covered in snow. There's a lot of open buildings to go into. There are around 20 people here and only a few are having conversations. In one building the walls are covered with real pictures of real people. It doesn't say who they are, or what they do. THey might be people who have helped build this site or maybe they are people that the builder knows, or people that have visited the site. There is a woman naked. There are two huge green balls, and there around 5 people in them not talking but sitting there getting paid for money. This has been a pattern in a lot of sites i have been to offer people to do this. The people all sitting down are characters: there is one that is in a fox body, one looks like hulk cogan, and another has these dread type braids and weird makeup on her face. On the bottom of this building, it almost like a casino..there are few stations for black jack and another for carps i think.

Heaton-Heaton Village Shopping Center
I met these two people Malgosia and Pontes Vuckovic who I mistaken them both for one woman, but it was a man. They were both wearing black hats that looked like dog ears, and black long jackets and long pants...kinda like the matrix. We got to talked and they had a gun and sword, they wouldnt tell me where they had gotten them from. He then said that he had a friend laurie who was doing scientific research for the game, and i asked what was scientifc about second life and he said he didnt know. i was gonig to tell him that i was doing research myself, but i didnt want to give too much away since he thought i was a man. but then they all the sudden teleported and didnt say goodbye.