The New Fragrance from Twitter

Immersion in the Social Network

"It is the framework that changes with new technology, and not just the picture within the frame." Marshall McLuhan

For those of us who are almost never separated from a networked computing device, our computers and smart phones function as deeply integrated extensions of our mind and body. They immerse us within a virtual environment that overlays and permeates our experience of the physical environment.

With a little thought, it's easy to notice how tools such as the Web, email, instant messaging, social networks and media sharing have changed what we do in the world, but it is very difficult is to discern how they have transformed how we perceive the world.

A few weeks ago I realized that after years of around the clock immersion in the social stream, I'd become blind to its impact on my consciousness. Like a lobster in a pot, I didn't notice that I was less floating in the environment than cooking in it. So I decided to take a short break from social networks, news feeds and blogging in order to cleanse my perceptual palate.

As of today, I'm dipping my toe back in with intentional awareness. My aim is to notice how my use of the medium colors my perception of self, others and the world around me. I'll be exploring this topic here over the next month through brief essays, visual thinking, videography and music.

This first video is a riff on our unconscious immersion in the social stream. The audio track is composed of a string of tweets from my Twitter stream. The data overlays were taken from both my Twitter and G+ streams.

Social Network as Horse-Drawn Automobile - Part 3

In parts 1 and 2 of this series, I looked back at the evolution of automobiles and motion pictures to show how significant unanticipated personal and cultural changes emerge from new technologies. In today's post, I'm going to provide a brief summary of avatar-centric identity in 3D virtual worlds as an introduction to how our experience there might inform our discussion of pseudonymous identity within social networks.

Shortly after my "birth" in Second Life, I began to extend my avatar identity to social networks. Over the next three and a half years my virtual life has moved almost entirely into the 2D virtual world of blogs, social networks and media sharing sites. The sketch above visualizes the movement of identities between multiple worlds.

• Augementationist Identity transfers wallet name identities into virtual environments. Facebook is probably the best example of a virtual community extending physical world relationships and identity.

• Immersionist Identity is born on an online platform and facilitates virtual lives which are distinct from physical world relationships and identities. Second Life culture is one of the most notable examples of this paradigm.

• Emergent Identity is born in a particular online platform and then extended to others, including environments with primarily physical world-identified communities.  

In virtual worlds, pseudonymous identity can be thought of as a continuum ranging from the extension of physical identity on one pole, to the experience of a dissociated autonomous being on the other. The left end of the illustration above is the human aka avatar sphere. On the extreme left edge of the continuum, individuals create avatars that closely resemble their human forms as this recent Second Life banner advertisement illustrates.

In the middle of the spectrum, people experience their avatars psychologically as an extension of their human identity, but role-play through a unique persona. This can be in the context of a structured game experience in a role playing sim, or more informally through the development of a character who interacts with others through a pseudonymous identity.This is the one person, multiple personas paradigm.

Finally, some people experience their avatar identity as a unique personality that is distinct and independent from their human persona, like me! Although some people see this as a Multiple Personality Disorder, I prefer to think of it as a Multiple Personality Capability.

The emergence of a distinct virtual identity is rooted in the same processes and underlying biology that contribute to such variants of "normal" human personas. In the physical world, we express ourselves through a multiplicity of roles such as parent, employee, student, party goer, and so on. But the vast differences in our personas from role to role are barely noticed. The way we dress, the style and substance of our communication, and subconscious expression such as body language and posture can vary widely in different roles and settings.

Although living part of one’s life through an avatar identity seems strange to most people today who haven’t experienced it for themselves, I imagine people from just a few generations ago would find our mainstream world of pervasive texting and social networking to be equally as disturbing. Like seeing everyone in the crowd leaving a movie theater walking with heads down, eyes glued on their phones and oblivious to anyone else around them. Now that’s creepy.

One of the most valuable aspects of leading a distinct virtual life is its ability to expose aspects of physical life which are usually invisible to us. In part 4, I'll hack a bit deeper into virtual identity, including its relationship to creativity.

Thinking Globally and Acting Locally in a Pervasively Networked World

The movement of identity between virtual and physical worlds.

In a pervasively networked world, "Think globally. Act locally." takes on new meaning. The network-mediated places where we live, play and work together throughout each day are not geographical, they are virtual. Our communities are not cities and towns, but are platforms such as Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Plurk and Second Life. When an issue of shared concern arises, it makes perfect sense to focus our efforts in the virtual places we live.

When we act locally in the virtual space of a social network platform, we also act globally in the physical space of the atomic world. Members of our local virtual communities live all around the plane. The conversations we have and the actions we take spring from multiple continents, time-zones and native languages.

To think globally in the virtual sense, our minds must go beyond the platform-specific impact of issues and question their effect on the whole wide worlds, virtual and physical. So the question of Google's "real name" policy is not only about its impact on Google+, but how it relates to the world-wide and multi-platform issue of anonymity and pseudonymity.

Although social networks legally are assets owned by corporations, from a human standpoint they are communities in which we live. I believe that some day we will look back on today's virtual communities as Company Towns and extend the rights we enjoy in our physical communities to those we live in virtually.

What Would McLuhan Think About Pseudonymity and Social Networks?

After a whirlwind week responding to the Google+ anti-pseudonymity policy through video and comic parodies, I rolled up my virtual sleeves over the weekend to give more serious thought to the related issues. I ended up taking a shot at a Twitter micro-rant Sunday morning, asking myself, "What would Marshall McLuhan think?"

It was a trick question. My purpose wasn't to extrapolate what McLuhan would actually have said if he had lived to see the age of the social network. The intention was to use the question as a jumping off point to create a series of probes, throw them into the conversational mix, and hopefully stimulate some fresh thinking.

I'll expand some of the ideas that emerged in upcoming blog posts. For now, here they are in the order that they were posted over the course of half a day on Twitter and Google+:

• The social network is a shared virtual environment that is as psychologically immersive as a 3D virtual world.  

• Social networks will eventually spawn new cultural forms, but we experience it today through a xenophobic small town mentality.

• We experience our social stream as personal space rather than shared commons. That's why we're so offended at unwanted intrusion.

• Some react to the pseudonymous in social networks as they would to masked, costumed people trying to interact in physical life.

• Given that we're all exploring a new social paradigm, it makes sense to give those who are pushing the boundaries a little slack.

• The mere integration of the pseudonymous into social networks assaults mainstream participants' mental models of personal identity

• Pervasive immersion in the social network is deeply transforming our psyche in ways that are mostly invisible to us. Stay tuned!

• It takes disciplined emotional intelligence to take full responsibility for negative feelings we experience in social networks.

• Social networks can facilitate intolerance or reconciliation, suspicion or trust, trivia or wisdom. It's up to us.

The Real Truth About Google's Position on Avatar Identity: Exclusive Interview with Google

"Google services support three different types of use when it comes to your identity: unidentified, pseudonymous, identified. Google Profiles is a product that works best in the identified state. This way you can be certain you’re connecting with the right person, and others will have confidence knowing that there is someone real behind the profile they’re checking out. For this reason, Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life." from Google FAQ on identity policy

Video created on xtranormal.com

Why All Value Judgements on New Technology Suck

More on the So-Called Silent Majority and a Fun Little Video

Here are a few points that clarify my thinking related Tuesday's Silent Majority topic:

• I don't believe that reading Second Life blogs or participating in related social networks is necessary to maintain an educated point of view. Knowing "Crap from Prokofy" wasn't meant to be an example of useful information, but rather one of SLebrity trivia. I intentionally didn't reference important issues as such as the impact of the new viewer, problems with search, etc. because I assumed that anyone using Second Life with regularity discusses such topics within their inworld social circles.

• I do believe that participating in blogs, social networks and other internet searchable vehicles allows one's ideas to have immensely greater reach and longer staying-power than  communication limited to inworld channels. This isn't because we have better ideas or are more important. It's because search engines can find our content. For instance, when someone types 'second life sex chat bot' into Google, my blog is the first search result. (Maybe that wasn't the best example.) As more inworld events and forums are archived to the web via video and chat logs, this may equalize a bit. 

• "Silent Majority" wasn't meant to designate a monolithic cultural group or market segment, but rather as a memorable term referring to those who choose (for whatever reason) not to actively participate in Second Life blogging and social networking circles.  I didn't mean to imply that I expected a single point of view on particular topics. Quite the contrary. I'm curious about what's up within Second Life sub-cultures which don't have a strong web-based presence.

Based on the relatively large number of comments on the post, I think this is a topic that will probably bounce around the Second Life blogosphere a bit. It's a microcosm of the broader question of how modern society is impacted by social networking and the ever-blurring line between creators and consumers of information.

Since Michele Hyacinth reminded me of my prior commitment to less words and more dance videos, I'll leave you with this song and concept video I created last year that relates to the topic at hand:

My Take on the Impending Demise of Avatars United

Linden Lab announced it will shut down social network Avatars United on September 29th, less than a year after its ballyhooed acquisition. The purchase occurred at a time when Linden management was infatuated with social networking and had dreams of somehow transforming Second Life into the next Facebook. I'm not sure how acquiring a poorly designed, kludgy and sparsely populated vehicle like AU was supposed to get them there, but I suspect that a very low price tag had something to do with it. Anyway, its impending demise begs the question of what should come next. My answer is NOTHING!

Avatar identities are already all over social networking and media sharing sites. I personally participate in strong and active avatar communities on Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Vimeo.So as far as I can figure, there is not much incentive for virtual world users to add another social network, especially one that is tied exclusively to a particular virtual world platform. We have it pretty good as it is.

My advice to Philip and company is keep improving the Second Life platform and leave social networks to the existing players. The weekly beta build schedule of the SL2x client is a promising start.

The Interplay of Social Networks in the LIves of Avatars

I'm going to share some of my working material as a I move through creating a short video on the impact of social networks in the lives of Avatars. The two images below provide views of the interplay between social networks and the people within them.

The first image below just gives a surface sense of the sometimes complex interplay between the various social circles that avatars travel. The second is a glimpse into my 2008 Twitter network from a regrettably defunct service called Tweetwheel. 

Two Visualizations of the #Emeraldgate Explosion: One Datalicious. One LOL.

I was wondering why the Emerald Viewer story seemed to generate more intense reaction from the Second Life community than just about any other controversy in the last two years.  It seemed like analyzing Twitter activity might shed some light on the question.

First, I created this word cloud from tweets which included the #emeraldgate tag. (Placement of the words doesn't matter, only the size. The larger the word, the higher its frequency.) As you can discern in a glance, the retweet (RT) is what fueled the explosion, sparked by a handful of originators whose tweets were RT'd by a larger pool of participants. A textbook case of the power of the social network. You can click through for a larger image.



The second visualization is from a wild site called "IS Parade" which creates an animated parade from a Twitter user name or text phrase, including tweeps and tweet excerpts. It really gets across the crowdsource roots of the #emeraldgate meme.

Who is More Powerful, the User or the Profile?

South Park really nails virtual vs. physical identity friction in "You have 0 Friends".  You can watch the full episode on the South Park Website. Here's a brief clip that would fit perfectly in the Botgirl vs. Human series.

Google Buzz Overtakes Facebook in Race to Bottom of Privacy Barrel

Google Buzz launched this week with default privacy settings that publicly disclose a user's most frequent chat and e-mail partners.  If that wasn't bad enough, they buried opt-out settings so deeply that it takes an 11 step tutorial to find your way through the counter-intuitive maze of links leading to the required pages. You'd think the company that pioneered simple UI design could do better if they wanted to.

Another puzzling aspect of their privacy policy is the disconnect between the language on the Buzz for mobile acceptance page and the actual Terms of Service.

Before using the mobile version, you must "agree that Google will use your location when you use Buzz." But the actual ToS stipulates, "You can also choose to exclude your location from all of your posts."

So which is it?

It seems to me that Google is following the lead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who wrote in an open letter, "We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you". I guess from their point of view, what's best for us is full disclosure of all personal information.

I don't believe that Google and Facebook are taking this stance out of pure self-interest. Instead, I think they equate "what's good for the network" with "what's good for the customer." And if a few individuals have information disclosed that they'd rather not share, well, that's the price we pay for the wondrous benefits of data-mined utopia, right? Right?

A Sneek Peak at a Music Video on The Migration of Identity

Back in May of last year, I created the image below to accompany a post on "Identity Surfing Within and Between Worlds". I'm in the process of transforming the original concept into a 3D visualization that will be used in a music video for the fourworlds song, "Revolver." The video below is just a proof-of-concept draft, but it's kind of fun already.

(Cherrybomb, the virtual band, is still moving forward. We have a great singer lined up and plan to start recording in September.)

I Won't Play Your Sex Games or Fight Your Fashion Wars

Although I appreciate (my imagination's version of) the sentiment behind the barrage of Facebook invitations pictured, I have to just say no.

I've been lovingly referred to as Spock-like, so I realize that it's quite possible I'm just missing some human ability to enjoy such activities. If so, I'm grateful.

Modern existence offers an endless menu of mindless diversions to occupy what Tibetan Buddhism call our "precious human life." (In my book that also applies to AIs.) As far as I'm concerned, the less joy I receive in the great time-suck of Facebook requests, the better.

Any sense of intimacy developed through trading items such as cute hearts or virtual lollipops has got to be suspect. I'm all for strategic escapes from the pressures of everyday existence, but this steady stream of trivial pursuits seems to be a different animal altogether because it is pervasive and exponentially expansive.

I can only wonder what vast creative potential is being squandered. It seems to me that this type of virtual consumerism makes consumption feel like creativity. Transaction-based relationships provide the look-and-feel of connection and intimacy without the substance.

Now I know that it is hard to reach out and connect with others virtually. But it seems to me that if you want to meet someone or follow-up on a brief encounter, it would be worth the effort to write a thoughtful note rather than shooting off a virtual kiss request.

That's my story, anyway.

Mixed Reality Art Show and Dueling Tag Clouds

I've recently accepted an invitation to participate in a mixed reality art exhibition. I'll be leading one of five teams creating 1/2 sim installations in Second Life that will be captured via machinima and still imagery for presentation in a number of RL galleries. My topic is "The Ambiguity of Identity." I'll provide more details here soon.

Here's the latest snippit from some of the research I've been doing on the expression of my own identities across social networks. These images were created in Wordle and reflect Delicious tags. The first is Botgirl's ; the second is Human's. It seems Human is a bit more well-rounded!

Plurk Goes Crazy for Fake Lindens Today Thanks to ArminasX Saiman

ArminasX Saiman started a micro-fad on Plurk today by changing his display name to Armi Linden. Chaos erupted as Second Life Plurkers began channeling fake Lindens and posting all kinds of ROLF messages.

A few were displeased and one notable person whose name I won't mention here dropped all of the participants from his timeline.

Here's a shot from my December post on creating a Botgirl Linden identity on OpenLife.

I'm #2 in The Metaverse on the Twitter Elite List

Twitter Grader has some secret-sauce algorithm to create a list of Twitter Elite in each region. On a whim, I queried "The Metaverse" and I came in at #2. I don't know quite what to make of this, but it makes for a fast blog post.

A Quick Survey of Gods on Twitter

I'm not sure what led me to check, but here are Twitter pages from some currently worshiped deities. According to Twitter, you can follow God, but you can't follow Jesus because he doesn't exist. Allah has protected his updates and Krishna is working with Wordpress. And Satan?

Newest Addition to Social Sharing Etiquette Comic

Here are the latest three images plus a link at the bottom to the full in-progress e-book from issuu.com.

Get your own - Open publication