Interview with Jai

Facebook:
What is our impression of sites like Myspace and Facebook? What about their policies?

Jai: one reason I wont use them is because of the ease of hacking, and you don't even need to hack to be able to access information that is labeled as friends only

Jai: this means your "private" information is not private

Jai: I don't know the policies in particular so can't comment on them. It's the format and nature of the site that keeps me away.

How do you think this social site will affect us in how we communicate?

Jai: by reducing the amount of direct communication and increasing indirect communication, for example instead of telling your friend on the phone what happened to you the night before where you have a two way conversation of question and answer, the friend will read the whole thing with many other people and post a comment which wont be responded to until much later, and in the process limiting their scope of learning the full details of the events

Ja‧: now for performers like bands, artists, actors, and even companies this is not bad, they are able to be more descriptive and less formal while still attracting a wide audience and gains them more exposure

Jai: but what most people post on facebook is just junk, things that to be honest few if anyone cares much about. And this information can come back to harm the person or other people

Jai: so I'd say it opens and exposes more people and this openness is not just common but is becoming expected and will probably become required for some jobs and fields, where if the boss or potential partner can not find the dirt on your facebook or myspace page may question your integrity

Jai: I don't do facebook or myspace not because of a lame reason but because at the root of it I believe it's morally right to have your privacy and respect other peoples, there is a point where you simply do not share and a point where you just do not want to hear

Jai: also it pisses me off because people automatically assume you're on their social sites, hell I been yelled at by my boss for "forcing" my underlings to friend me on facebook when I don;t have an account and took him a long time to realize I'm not lying.

Jai: so yea, these sites are a sore spot for me, when I get in trouble because of them and I'm not even on them XD

Jai: if someone has something they want to tell me I have messenger, phone and email, plus in person. If they can't use one of those than obviously whatever it was was not important enough

Using this site as a model for all social media websites, what do you think it will tell about our future in technology and how we use it?

Jai: well as much as I dislike facebook and myspace and twitter (twitter I truly think is pointless) it is what the majority of the public is using and so like it or not need to accept it

Jai: I think social sites like it will become required to reach out to the masses and allow them to respond back quickly with their own thoughts and feelings. This is very helpful for performers but also politicians and numerous other fields

Jai: I feel that in the future the vast majority of people will use a site like facebook or myspace but the content on it will be more professional driven than personal. That is not saying it wont be used for personal purposes but as someone grows older and enters the professional world and their job takes over so to will it affect their facebook pages

Jai: Also facebook I am noticing more families are using it to be connected. Especially when families are spread wide apart, or even more so with high divorce rates and remarriages families can loose track as to who they are related to and how and so some families use facebook as a way to establish connections without having to directly inquire and risk embarrassment or confusion

Jai: these reasons I do find use for the sites and hope they lean more in those directions, they don't include notes about how you got wasted the night before and slept with a prostitute, or telling off your boss, or that you have a nipple ring, but information that people can post and not just don't mind other people reading but want to be public

Jai: not sure if that makes sense

I think it does. Your basically referring the whole "don't post anything you don't want to be seen cause it can be used against you."

Jai: in short people are opening up and it is becoming expected and required, but I think the content people post will be more closely monitored by the poster to only include content they will not regret later and truly want exposed widely

Jai: BINGO

Jai: so you could even refer that back to my take on those sites as more I dislike them because it's filled with garbage rather than there is an actual problem with the site

What would you suggest to new users who are just venturing into the world of social sites like Facebook? Any warnings?

Jai: DO NOT POST ANYTHING YOU WOULDN'T WANT YOUR MOM TO SEE

Jai: OR your employer or future employer

Jai: NOW there is a way around this

There is?

Jai: yes

Jai: do not use your real name, address, phone number, or photos

Jai: I have seen people who use their SL avatars name and photos taken in sl and only discuss matters in SL on their facebook page

Jai: this allows they to speak freely and whatever random crap they want like "I fucked Jim today it was hawwwt" without fear of mom, boss, boyfriend reading unless they know BillyBobJoe Skank is actually Jon Smith

Jai: so there is a way around it, but if you are going that far chances are you wont be using facebook for personal uses as much as to promote or trash something

Second Life:
What is your impression of Second Life?

Jai: Second Life is interesting because people like to describe it as a MMORPG (massively multi player online game) however due to the nature of the product it is not an actual game although it is an MMO

Jai: RPG would require that there is an actual objective or purpose to the product for an entertainment gain. This can be argued but to those who study games in general SL is more of a social network than an actual game such as WoW or Guild Wars or Final Fantasy XIII or other MMORPGs

Jai: SL is in short a graphic chat (although a very fancy complex one)

MMO stands for?

Jai: MMO stands for massively multiplayer online

Thanks for clearing that up. I do agree on that. Feels like IMVU messenger program meets match.com

Jai: exactly

Jai: I couldn't describe it better

Jai: various people have entered SL blindly and find very quickly that the "purpose" of sl is one of three things, the vain hope of making money, to find a partner, and virtual sex

Jai: sex runs rampant in SL and is promoted without shame everywhere

That being said, how do you view that this will change our future?

Jai: like facebook how SL is being used I have problems with but why I use it but not facebook I'll explain later

Jai: actually SL will not be with us much longer as LL dug it's own grave by not making it open source, and a new MMO is coming out called OS aka Open Sim, which runs just like SL but is Open Source

Jai: that said how SL itself or it's counter parts will change the future is debatable, on one hand it allows people to exist in a virtual environment that allows them to have homes, shops and avatars that resemble them or whatever they wish to look like and interact in a manner similar to how they would in the real world

Jai: myself and others in the gaming industry feel that the future lies with open source and people providing their own servers and people traveling to each others computers, making an massive network that resembles SL but is free to use as you provide your own space

Jai: this is more of a sign how it differs from games because the point would be a complete graphic chat between clients and users through their own machine, while a game is restricted to one pre-established network

Jai: however in this new open source chat a player could import and interact with a character used in a game, for example the blood elf you made in WoW could be your avatar for this Open source network

Jai: think I am getting to technical now...

Technical is fine.

Jai: or sum it up as SL is a gateway that opens up to an even more complex and personalized open source version that will connect users more directly and be more expressive than just about any other network out there.

Jai: also for an extreme take but kinda a view of it would be like Neil Gaiman's Snow Crash

What about the business side? How do you feel about doing business in-world?

Jai: I do not, but I know many who do.

Can anyone just use any computer to use Second Life or does it have to be a more modern machine?

Jai: lol it has to be a more modern machine, in fact probably the only MMO that requires more from the machine than SL is Conan.

Jai: people can play WoW loong before they can play SL

Jai: the reason why is because more content is saved on the server side (LL) and not on your own machine, this requires more power being used to load all the content

Jai: if it was like Maple Story or WoW where all the content exsists on your machine the load time would be much faster

If you could change anything about Second Life, what would you change?

Jai: lol simple, make it open source like it should have been

Jai: do you know what I mean by open source?

Might want to explain.

Jai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

Jai: Open Source is when the code and content is accessible for anyone to use anyway they wish, is SL was open source you could for free make all the SLs you want, now all the builds, and clothes and what not would not be transfered over but the base platform

Jai: if it was Open Source people could do more with the product than they are able to at this time, they could host their own sims for little to no money, be free to upload and only purchase products directly from other users

Jai: THIS would make the product more accessible to other users as well as to companies who could, like originally attempted, invest in SL and try to break into a virtual/RL industry aka sell RL items in SL like product without the large restrictions and payments to LL

Jai: thus making it more profitable and interest to them

Jai: it also would allow poorer users to break onto the seen and thus allowing for more users, more money being exchanged and make the community SL tried to be but be more accessible and worth while

Jai : by the way OS does exist and slowly people are transferring from SL to OS now

Are you planning on transferring over soon to OS?

Jai: Nah, OS is still to primitive, although you can have 45k prims on a sim and if you provide your own server be free or pay 75$ for the company to be the server a month it's still in it's infancy, maybe in a year I'll transfer

What would you suggest to new users who are just venturing into the world of virtual communities like Second Life? Any warnings?

Jai: virtual communities are little more than date programs, if that is what you are looking for that is great, if it's not you will have to filter through the smut to find what you are looking for. There is very useful and resourceful things on products like SL, Facebook, and Myspace but be prepared to do a lot of weeding to find them

Jai: also do not be put off if not everyone instantly likes you, you need to find your own place in the virtual world. It may take some time but there is a place for everyone.

What kinds of useful and resourceful things can you find on these communities?

Jai: on Facebook and MySpace businesses, performers, politicians ect can post important business information, where their shows are going to be demos, their points of view and allow fan or followers to respond. It works much like a website but can be easier to accesses through these product searches, this also can be applied for families

Jai: on products like SL and OS and others it allows people to more directly communicate through chat and voice that normally would not and allow them to express themselves in creative ways, There are also locations that real schools will set aside to teach different game and simulation elements (for art and gaming schools)

Jai: also can make people aware of things such as the environment, WWII and the nazis and other traumatic events, but also teach about good things

Jai: it's a new more interactive and fun way to teach, and is being employed by colleges around the country and even high schools are looking into it to see if they can create or use something like SL to help improve their own educational system

Jai: video games are already entering the class room to be used as a teaching aid for grade students and have proven to be effective, it would not be surprising if they choose to expand to wider networks that resemble pre-existing social virtual networks

Jai: I should know, I create games for these students to be used in the class room and have seen first hand their benefits