Some terminology must be discussed in this ongoing conversation.

• Persistent: A world that continues to operate even when users are not logged in.
• Immersive: A synthetic world that makes the user feel a part of it by a number of means, including realistic video graphics, collaborative tasks, and liminal time.
• Sociable: The ability to meet people, make friendships, collaborate, create.
• MMO: A massively multiplayer online game, usually 3D immersive synthetic world and persistent.
• MMORPG: A Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.
• MUD: Multiplayer dungeon, usually text-based and persistent
• Dungeon or Instance: A specific quest inside a synthetic world that might have contained better awards, armor, or treasure.
• Video game: A game that is played using technology and video.
• Console game: A video game played on various popular TV console. Popular consoles include the Sony playstation, Nintinedo DS, Wii, etc.
• PC game: A video game that is played on a computer. Sometimes these games are ported to consoles sometimes not.
• Network console game: A game that is played across the internet with other gamers.
• WOW: World of Warcraft – one of the most populated synthetic game worlds.
• Liminal time: the time it takes for users to traverse the real world to the synthetic world. this time/space is the demarcation between worlds and continues to remind the users of the difference between the worlds – Baudrillard 1981
• Simulation: A reflection or a mimic of the real world in some salient ways.
• Synthetic world: Any world that is a simulation of the real world the creates an immersive, persistent user experience.
• Infinite games: a synthetic world that creates its own space and time (vs a finite world that occurs within a world that has specific games). Carse 1987.
• Simulation type: Natural, productive, and purely simulated (Baudrillard 2000). The real world is a natural world.

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Ok, so I am off to a running start. I have plans upon plans in place. A reading plan, a writing plan, a plan to plan. This is where I plan to collect my thoughts about readings and other information. Not notes per se, but thoughts.
The reading plan is to read at least 3 articles and 1 thesis (or book chapter) per week and pull all the relevant references, and so on and so on. I read somewhere, you know you are ready to start the literature review, when you no longer find articles you have not read. Amazingly enough, I am seeing about 40% of repeat references all ready. And if not the same article, then certainly repeat authors.
It seems that MMORPG research space is not very well populated. Most researchers have been interested in the negative effects of gaming. Few have examined other outcomes. The other day, I started a book that made a specific distinction between games and gaming. Where games were the object of study, perhaps looking at the design, the aesthetic, or other matters. And gaming was examining the humanity wrapped up in the games; the why, the how, the draw.
I guess then I am looking gaming and by extension the gamer.
From that respect there have been a lot of statistics bandied about regarding gamers. Who is gaming seems to be a big conversation, with odd undertones. Apparently (according to S. Ross’s thesis), there were a bunch of assumptions made about the MMO space. She explained that the video game space (the console space) had been examined extensively and found that male teens were the most populus demographic. Thus by drawing the "obvious" conclusion the MMO space must then necessarily have the same population. To add to the confusion the distinction between video game taxonomy was never considered in the first studies, I think. Researchers  just simply looked i the window and saw a console and that was it. So regardless of the game content, it was all lumped in together.
I know from personal experience that console games are very different (as are MMOs). And certain games draw a certain demographic, very much in the same way certain movies draw specific crowds. And since I dont want to make this post too long, let me conclude by listing the taxonomies, I am aware of. And of course, there are more, but generally, video games have the following distinctions:
Game type, content type, player locus,  group play type

Game type: we have computer games, console games, and hand-held games
Content type: first person shooter, strategy, adventure, action, reconstituted board game, sports, puzzles, combat (war)
Player locus;  multiple player network single player network, single player local, multi player local
group_play type: cooperative group, combative group

I am sure there are more.
MMOs or massively multiplayer games have distinctions that console network games do not have; persistence, minimal limity space, sociability at the least. MMOs share the space with MUD (multi usre dungeons) which are apparently persistent but are text based. Therefore they lack the "immersive" quality that sets MMOs apart and groups them later with console games.
To recap:

• network console games are immersive, non-persistent, ’some what’ sociable
• MMOs are immersive, persistent, and sociable
• MUDs are text-based (non immersive), persistent, sociable

I think next I should post a terminology page that might be useful to be able to refer to.
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Well it looks like I finally got Wordpress and iWeb to work together in some form or fashion. Lets hope this is the start of a beautiful relationship.
Right now Wordpress is running a theme that is complementary of iWeb but not the same. More time an effort than I currently possess is needed for a matching look. I can be happy with a little diversity in the site, and I hope my readers can as well.
So, for now we are up and running.

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Well last night I got word our panel discussion did not get approved. We (GM, KS and I) had all submitted for a panel at the NCA conference. The topic was about facebook and african americans. We would be doing some primary research across 3 areas with 3 separate study groups. i haven’t seen the email, so I don’t understand the rationale for the rejection. Also, since it was primary research with human subjects I had to get approval from IRB, which is pending. What a dilemma! I guess I let the research stay in the approval queue and then write a paper. Which is fine. I assume lots of Comm journals would be interested in such findings as Facebook technology adoption by AA.

But the blow is a bit disappointing. Perhaps it’s preparing me for a rejection at UIC as well. Beth did not get accepted to their English dept. She already got her rejection letter. I haven’t seen anything from them, yet. And then what do I do if I get accepted. I will have a challenge on my hands of decisions.

Well the next conference proposal is due end of March. I will see if I can submit to that one. But it is a visual conference. I am not sure how even to fit into that one. But its in Chi, so easy to attend. I guess its time to brush up on visual theories and semiotics.

Actually, I had done a study not so long ago about the semiotics of yahoo messenger avatars. I could revisit that in facebook. Taking a look at just how many of a certain network, displays photos of themselves, or other things. To some degree I already have the IRB proposal in place. I could add a blurb to widen the base of examination. Right now I am only looking at some facebook users in specific groups. I could broaden that to be a study in comparison to other groups. Or just across networks. Yesterday we were wrapping up the presentation for NSBE convention next Saturday and I made this chart:

Perhaps, this bears some investigation. Be interesting to report on the reality of these suggestions. At least to the broad network.

The proposal might read something like:
Privacy a well known issue in social networking and web2.0 media systems. What is not known is just how many in a given network share broadly their images. One might expect that some constraints might exist in larger networks, but the data is not available to articulate. This study proposes 2 things, to ascertain just how many facebook members of a network display “representative” or other photos of themselves. Subsequently, how many tagged photos are available for the person, even when they have declined to show a representative photo. We’d have to say choose only the IIT network, and maybe broaden it later.

Im sure I have written his before. Welcome. This blog will be my attempt at retaining some of the insight and comments I seem to impress my clients and colleagues with as I strive to be a better researcher and student. So while I start this off with a welcome statement, I will still attempt to fulfill the goal as mentioned above. A few weeks ago, while doing research for an upcoming presentation at a convention, I ran across and article about Facebook. Big shock there, I am always looking around for those. But anyway, this person, who I can not recall at this juncture, made some very interesting points. To which I would like to recap here, as it seems more than appropriate. And yes, Im sure I had read similar thoughts before, but being the hoarding unorganized person that I am, who knows what folder or arcitle that was from. This one though, if someone wants it, I can find. (Aside, I wonder if goodreads can be configured to capture articles..hmmm)This article from this professor talked about SNS and social networking in particular as being a stage. Where we all strut our stuff and perform our routines for the audience. In fact,the article talked a lot about the performance aspects of Facebook. How we are ever performing for the crowd (large or small) that we amass there. That said, here is my debut into a virtual presence that will hopefully bring about all of my other virtual presences. (Well most And at least, for those of you who are my audience, you can see my performance from a single portal. I endeavor at the least to keep it informative, if not interesting, as I strut my virtual self for your viewing pleasure.