On many occasions, I've had to stress to people that Facebook really is not a virtual world. Even Farmville is just barely in the virtual world category for me. Still, the latest uproar over new interface changes reminds me a lot of the uproar over, well, just about every VW patch. It seems to me we're dealing with similar, though not identical, concerns about social contracts and investment-backed expectations. So, e.g., read these comments and try to connect the dots to your favorite virtual world. As online "homes" and interpersonal networks grow richer in their media, it seems that the past of virtual worlds might have something to offer the future of social software. They aren't the same, but they're certainly related.
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Oct 28, 2009
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The universal rule is: Users (players) hate change. But, they hate things not changing even more.
Posted by: Brian 'Psychochild' Green | Oct 28, 2009 at 15:44
teşekkürler
Posted by: web tasarımı | Oct 29, 2009 at 15:51
Oh my goodness.. MY EYES! MY EYES! What is this orange menace :P.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Oct 31, 2009 at 05:39
Sorry, my bad.
Posted by: greglas | Oct 31, 2009 at 11:51
just curious: why do you think Facebook is not a virtual world?
Posted by: ben | Nov 01, 2009 at 10:37
Facebook is a virtual world. Now it depends on what your definition of virtual world is. To me in one way, it is a place where people stay connected through social interactive networks.
Posted by: Annuity | Nov 02, 2009 at 06:41
I agree with what Ben said. You say they are not the same but how do make that distinction?
Posted by: Jonas Miller | Nov 02, 2009 at 06:43
Well, we've talked about this a few times here, so I'm sorry if I assumed too much. So generally, people that study virtual worlds are interested in how we define the term, and the "specialist" definitions U have seen tend to exclude things like Facebook, which would be called "social software" perhaps.
A short pointer might be this:
http://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/283/237
And here's a past post from Richard Bartle:
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/first_principle.html
Now, I realize that "virtual world" is a word that can mean anything you want it to mean, so what I'm really saying, I suppose, is that the set of things that have the particular characteristics that I'm associating with "virtual world" are different than Facebook in ways that justify some kind of categorical distinction. That's all I'm saying.
Posted by: greglas | Nov 02, 2009 at 22:34
@ Greglas, thanks for clearing that up!
Posted by: Jonas Miller | Nov 04, 2009 at 13:33