Monthly Archives: July 2007

Civic Engagement and Second Life

As city governments explore their role in burgeoning virtual environments, they should see the creation of engaged and active civic groups as primary to their mission. We recently spoke to a reporter from the Boston Globe, who, after getting wind … Continue reading

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Hub2

Despite the fact that the Boston Globe has declared that the city has plans for a full virtual conversion in Second Life, the truth of the matter is its goals are much more modest. Together with my colleage Gene Koo, … Continue reading

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Tracking Kids

Appealing to kids is big business. This NPR story covers the various technologies meant to appeal to children – but more importantly, meant to give parents new ways of keeping track of them. Most interestingly, it introduces the concept of … Continue reading

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Beyond Play

I just finished reading Thomas Malaby’s essay, “Beyond Play: a New Approach to Games” from Games and Culture  (vol. 2, no. 2, April 2007).  It’s a very insightful essay about the relationship between game, play and everyday life. He makes … Continue reading

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City as Social Network

I recently posted this series of prompts to the iDC discussion list. Following Google’s acquisition of Feedburner, I want to consider how the threats to privacy that became apparent in that context extend to physical communities (neighborhood, organization, city) that … Continue reading

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OurVirtualHolland

OurVirtualHolland (OVH) is one model of civic presence in SL. Sponsored by the financial firm ING, the space is designed to bring together entrepreneurs under the guise of business created community. The question is: what kind of community is actually … Continue reading

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