Icarus’s Weblog

Subject

I chose my subject because she is owner of both the area I am studying as well as another large island.  She seems like show knows a lot about the goings on in SL and obviously her land.  She is involved in several intellectual groups such as groups that support theater, art and live music.  This leads me to believe she is an intelligent human being and would have a lot of meaningful things to say, so hopefully this practice interview goes well. 

Draft Interview Questions

General questions -  regular at this area:

What attracted you to second life?

Tell me about your involvement in SL?

 Tell me about how you became more involved?

 How long have you been an active participant?

Who are the most active participants of this area?

What are the busiest times here at this area?

 Do the avatars who visit here have a common look?

  describe.

 How does the time of day change the activities?

what kind of activities do you see people engaging in here?

What does it cost to rent land from this area?

 How many people are there renting currently?

Is owning this land profitable?

Community of Practice

When I was going around second life I found all kinds of islands that have clothes that you can buy in world that other people are selling.  This intrigued me so I’ve decided I would like to observe makers of clothing, but because this is such a gigantic realm I’ve decided to narrow it down to a single island and try to catch the dynamic of renting a spot to sell from and the act of selling plots.  So I’d like to ask a couple questions during my research — how difficult is it for a person to rent a space, is it mostly regulars?  How much do spaces cost?  Is it on a rent base or commission?  Is there a binding contract or is it a verbal agreement?  is there even any money to be made?  I’m sure that for most people this is a hobby and not a career, but people always find unique ways to make money, like playing online poker for a living instead of a hobby.  Making crafts to sell at art shows, again not for supplemental income but for the whole part.  

Privacy Protection

My name is Icarus MacCaw/Michael Lindahl.
I am an undergraduate student enrolled in an introduction to research methods class (Multimedia 333:Introcution to Field Research In Virtual Worlds) at Bradley University in Peoria Il, USA, that is being conducted in Second Life fall term, 2007.

We are learning to do field research/ethnography and will not complete projects this term. But next semester, if we decide to do a project, our projects feature observation of a “community of practice,” that is, a group of people doing similar things in a cultural setting. I am observing this area at this time as I consider what work I might do next term.

My observations are merely descriptive: I’ll take notes about what I see and I may summarize those notes in my paper, in class presentations to my classmates, or on my web-blog about this research. The blog is found at: http://ica7us.wordpress.com/.

I will not record or publish either the SL or RL name of any avatar/person. Any observations about avatars or recording of their talk transcripts would take place only after having obtained the explicit permission of that avatar/person and would only happen after the name of the avatar had been changed via secret coding scheme. I will ask you if I can have your permission to observe you in general. Any pictures taken in SL, that serve as explanatory data and which might include avatars, will be modified so that avatar names and identifying characteristics are blurred/blocked.

We will also interview informants about the communities of practice that we are studying.
These conversations are, again, voluntary and only with the informed permission of the avatar/person/informant. I may copy out the chat transcript from our conversations/interviews. When we do, we will change/code your name so that there is no recorded connection between you/your avatar and the data. You may choose to withdraw at any time without penalty by simply telling me you wish to stop.

You may follow the progress of all of the studies in the class, including this one at my above wordpress page. Presentation of the findings from the study serve as our gift to the communities of practice who share time and knowledge with us; perhaps our perspectives will help residents to more fully understand and appreciate their activities.

If you have questions regarding the study, you can contact me, in world or our of world via email at Mlindahl@bradley.edu, or my teacher, Professor Beliveau in world or out of world as Ed Lamoureux at ell@bradley.edu, 309-677-2378.

Do you read English clearly enough to understand this form and to respond?
Do you have any questions?
May I observe your behavior in this setting and make notes about it?
May I transcribe of copy of our interview for use in class presentations and published to the blog after removing your identity.?
Thank you for your time and consideration of my requests.

Agree to the informed consent in general?

SL Commerce

When I first got into second life I was amazed at the amount of commerce that takes place every day.  While it is apparently very difficult for a person to make any actual money, it certainly seems like there are a lot of people who invest an extraordinary amount of time and effort trying to do exactly that.  It seems to me that the only way one could make any money would be to own an island in the top ten of whatever field it is you are making money in, and then not really make money from selling shirts, but make money by collecting rent.  This is a common real world strategy, McDonald’s largest source of income is actually rent from all of the stores.  Selling 99 cent hamburgers (or L5 for a shirt) is not a way to make a living.  The next step would be to find the Second Life version of Mr. McDonald and talk to him about how he finds people to rent from him and ect ect.  

Initial Second Life Discoveries

While exploring Second Life I have had some trouble finding some interesting groups to research, but I have still been able to find some groups of interest.  It certainly seems that about 95% of the content in second life is for enterprise purposes — everybody wants to turn a buck from their Second Life experience, and I certainly do not blame them, buying land can be a big investment and it only makes sense to try and get some of that back if you have the skills to be a designer. 

The first group I have found is a group of people is a lot set of people who dress up like pirates.  It is an aspect section of second life called sims.  When I asked the pirate what they did, he responded with “we battle with other people, through sea and air.”  This idea was completely foreign to me because I didn’t see second life as a place where you could ‘die’, and if you can’t die battle seems to lose the purpose.  He also had a 100% in green above his head, next to his name so I imagine that was his life meter.

I belong to a social fraternity on Bradley’s campus so it seemed only natural that I peaked my curiosity and put my letters into the search box.  Imagine my suprise when I found other people in second life who belonged to the same Fraternity.  Now the idea of hanging out and dancing in SL is still too strange for me to really understand a need for a digital Frat house, but the concept that it is possible to meet other people who are members of the same national organization as myself through second life is a use I certainly had never considered before. 

The next place I found was the first place I could ever see myself maybe getting into as a subculture — there were games that you could play and skydiving and a lot of other things that if nothing else could be fun to use visually.  While I was there late Sunday night there was nobody walking around, but I could imagine a lot of work went into creating this small carnival of sorts and work is usually rewarded.  That being said I’m sure that there is quite the number of other plots exactly like the one I witnessed all around second life. 

Overall I have found a lot of places that are either large malls or big dance clubs, and not a whole lot in between. I found a place that had boats and those were new, Perhaps if the owner is around they can move but I certainly couldn’t.

Second Life: MM333

This blog will record my time through my MM333 class and track my progress.