Social Media and Games

Reflect here on Clay Shirky.

Cognitive Surplus talks about the reflection on how people are making games out of work. It deals with making things come into play even though it is serious. These things take time and people have to take their time by using their minds on cetain things that they want to get done. The users have an idea of greating something stronger to show the public. It can be humor or it can be folk art but, it represents something that is worth the weight. People in different situations are motivated to always win in any situation because that is the normal way to think from time to time. They can do this by focusing on completing scenario's successful in order to achieve great items at the end. The book also talks about how other things involve building as well. When we build things like buildings or virtual things such as games, logical thinking comes into play. You can use logical thinking in order to make a program happen. After you make that program, you will successfully achieve knowledge and power. The knowledge is the logical thinking behind making the product and the power is the physical source which is the program itself. All of this plays into building, manipulating, and creating things.

That goes to show me that I should work on a game for my final project. I wanted to make a social game that engages all users of course. I also wanted the game to be an education game that was some what similar to the game space I created with my group. This would be better for me to do because it incorporates all of the elements that are required to use for the final project. The final project is probably going to be difficult if I am doing something that is way beyond control. With that being said, I am going to stick to making a social game.  I think that this will be a better way for me to pass the final because it will help me to get comfortable with all of the tools and I can create a narrative that will be related to the class material for this course. The story would be good for everyone to understand and interpret to themselves. It is important for me to stick to the project by providing great game ideas. I have an idea of incorporating a role playing game where people talk about forming a foundation and helping others with their own problems. This is my main game idea that I want to share with other people as well. If anyone wants to work with me further on this idea then, we can form a group and start making a game out of it.

I think it would be better for me to use a different game space to create my social intention to the public. I was thinking about building a game on gameful because of how much options they give you. I would also use more plugins so that people will have a better understanding of how the game works. It will benefit me and other students in the class because of what gameful can give to me. The story would be more invovled for everyone to read. This means that I might add my original comic strip to the game space for fun. It will really make the narrative look better in the game and users can do certain things that relate to the story. I also have another idea which is having people join a certain quest that users can go through and accomplish an objective. This is much more better than just putting messages up on a board some where. The Cognitive Surplus Book deals with what is expected in terms of a value for gamification. Gamification revolves around improving something to make it better in a certain program. That is what I am trying to do for the final project. It will also help me to explain the process of making a serious game interesting for everyone to enjoy. I can do that by using the process of elimination. I can use process of elimination by writing down the things I want and need in the game space. After that, I can cross out the things I don't need for the game space which will make the game plan even. This is also going to set me on the right track as far as using a game plan. I will also be able to work on the design and make it better so that everyone would enjoy looking at the graphics on the particular site. I can add more folk art to it and make sure that it looks profitable to anybody who views it. This is also important to me because it definitely draws attention to anybody who views it. They may have a good reaction to it and give good feedback. That is what I am looking for in the game space when I am working on it.

Clay Shirkey had some important things to put in the put as far as making a valid point to readers. One important thing was improving the computer experience and the systems behind it. It has been said that the computer industry has vastly been improving over the years. Now that there are networking social sites, people have been working on communicating with others to the point when people feel satisfied with their lives. The book also mention something about youtube because youtube has been changing the way people actually live. People are bind to sharing videos with people all over the world and they even can get paid for it. So, it goes both ways when technology and knowledge combine together. People are now becoming successful for social environments they interact with. This goes to show you that things are getting better and people want to invest into better software that they can use over time. They want to be happy in anything that they do. Clay Shirkey wants to prove that computer age is much more faster and people are getting the hang of electric attachements that are used on the internet. People are always coming up with new ideas and they can make designers feel happy about them as well. For each opportunity, people are given rewards for their hard work on the internet. Sometimes this work can help others to create humor that hasn't been done in the 19th century. We live in an age where social life is evolving as a virtual tool over time. It won't be long before everybody will be able to sell their products and services online because most MMO's are doing the same thing I am talking about right now. They are literally making a living and selling their products on the internet so that they can survive in the real world. This is fascinating to me because of how fast it has grown over the last years. Right now it is not that good because people get ripped off from expensive accounts that they have. Each social service has grown to perfection and people are loving the fact that they are making money off of it. Just about everybody knows how to get messages accross to millions of fans, friends, and family out there. Millions of people are online and the broadcasting system has given people the opportunity to talk about breaking news online. Even controversy has grown over the years dealing from the fact that people aren't tolerating for imature comments on the internet. They simply don't agree with people like that and they can accuse them of true statements that they have made on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Speaking of Twitter, comments have been popular for almost everybody out there. It has made them become competitors to see who has high klout online. You can go on the internet and check out a celebrities klout and see that they have beaten ordinary citizens at their own game. This is one thing I like about Twitter which makes it easier to become popular among a wide range of fans. Also, other sites allow people to have big mailing lists such as yahoo and myspace. You can now subscribe to millions of viewers and get feedback on everybody's post. Overall, people can adapt to a more fun evironment because they can edit, create, and write about different issues online that they couldn't implement in the real world.

Shirky says that technologies that seemed to offer improvement are now rapidly eroding our society instead (the paradox of revolutuion). But isn't it arguable that this degredation will then in turn produce the need and the motive to reform the world again into a better place? Isn't it possible that "evolution" isn't a constant upward trend but a cycle of destruction and rebirth?

I found Shirky's list of things to keep in mind when desinging a social product to be rather interesting and enlightening: It is something I will definitely try to keep in mind when I'm working on my final project.

With the conclusion of Shirky's book and his assertation that "As much chaos as we can stand" is the best way to go, I see now that Shirky's view of social advances with technology may not be so different from my own, and that there will eventually be a settlement based on how the people of the era want to live.

Though I think our idea might need a bit of refining so that it better follows the model presented by Shirky's ideas about social products, I think what my group started for the midterm might be an interesting idea to expand upon for the final. I'm still not sure myself whether I want to continue with it, but it is certainly an idea I'm willing to consider. If anyone else wants to help (I'd have to approve this with my other group memebers of course) let me know. Our team was the My Avatar / Darkmoon one.

Lastly, I truthfully wonder about the interactions we've all had within this site. Shirky says that "Users will only take advantage of opportunities they understand and that seem interesting or valuable." During the midterm raid, this site was like a graveyard. So now I ask you all to reflect on this if you do not immediately know the answer: is the reason we mingle and take advantage of this site because we feel that the site itself has something significant to offer us, or is it that we know we'd fail the class if we didn't use the site and that the opportunity and value of getting a good grade is what motivates us?

As I reach the final chapter of "Cognitive Surplus", "Looking for the Mouse", I realize the impact that both culture and the availability of content or means brings to society, in terms of providing outlet to the masses for very much anything. What I have noticed was that it is not the content or what what is being expressed that is the point, but rather that the point of view can be expressed so easily, quickly, and largely. The reality is that anybody can do something with the internet, but it is when several people united for a specific purpose that the world takes notice.

In his closing chapter of the book, Clay Shirky states a very important point that as older social means fall apart, it is new social tool that have taken over, but not in the way that many expect. One would not initial think that Facebook could become the official communication for everything ranging from school events to career opportunities. The formulation for such activities is from the element of having a platform that is so open and so widely used that is could allow for so much different tasks and purposes that were not purposely intend for the platform like social networking sites and even fan sites.

Free time itself is an element that still is not complete understood, but the fact of the matter is that people are increasingly realizing that there is free time to be used for whatever purposes. Ironically is that a lot of the long time free time using activities are on the decline, meaning that there is a combination of a general increase in free time, increase of free time at work, and free time created from not doing former activities like bowling, picnics, and group activities. At the current moment, it seems that individual hobbies are using some of the free time, but the question still remains what will come of the hobbies or what will take over the bulk of the free time. Moving forward it seems that it will be tasks that are experiments in themselves, but could prosper with the fact that are huge base of people with free time connected on social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

The open source model, along with the fact that it is difficult to get society to work as one constant unit, provides for a interest paradox or opportunity for somebody to actually bring people together to properly use open source technology. I found that the issue is not the matter of the existence of certain technology or resources, but the issue is how does people use the resources and how does the people learn to handle the technology. Anybody can play with the different open source technology, but it takes focus to get people to actually come together to complete something. I think that there is a serious future in the current technology, but society needs to gain a purpose or an energy that drives the next movement toward getting the message out, if the message be maybe what to do with free time, existing platforms, or even the great open internet.

There is a major paradox of revolution that I believe is about to upon the current day in terms of how the world is still not sure what to make of the availability of factors like the internet or evolving technology that powers computers. The reality is that the combination of technology being available almost everywhere and nobody being 100% sure of the change it will bring. Ultimately, that means world leaders will not want to jump conclusions that it may help promote their beliefs or what they want place in people's mind, especially since events so far have shown that those with unique opinions are the ones with the most use of the technology. Nevertheless, there is a huge pouring of opportunity for anybody to have a voice, but I believe that when more people get their voice heard, that the initial loud voice with radical opinions will lose a lot of their audience and influence. Once a medium has had the chance to mature or a technology has the chance to adopted by a majority, it is than that its influence or impact on society becomes reality. 

Clay Shirkey looks at technology from a different stand point than other people do. He tells readers that it can bring the future to the young kids in america. Young kids are fascinated by this and they can invent things from the media and the internet. It makes them feel satisfied when they have free time. There are times when peopel use their own minds to come up with new things. I also find that the book relates to motivation in a serious way. People are built for controversy and success. The media and the internet go in both ways when it comes down to creating things. Creation is enhanced today and others would do a lot to become successful for the media. There are competitions that people enter just to prove that new games and inventions can be done today.There are social gatherings that help people move into different societies. These different societies have to adapt to what is going on and make sure they don't fail. It seems that everyone uses the means to find a new term of knowledge to what they have to do in society because of their personality traits. Some of the personality traits make them feel intelligent to the point when they are teaching people how to do things on youtube videos. These videos make it easier to promote yourself and I can see that people having been doing heavy advertising on sites like bing and yahoo video. This is what new technology does for you because it can be a new meaning to the media that controls most of the entertainment out here. This is also the way people function in a growing society today.