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 of the proposed project, was hoping to report that the city was moving into […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · SecondLife · city · 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, we are offering two courses at Emerson College with the goal of guiding students […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · SecondLife · city · play · hub2 · gene_koo

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 GPS enabled phones designed to appeal to kids under 12. They think […]

Categories: placeofmedia · privcy · surveillance · phones

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 the following claim:
“A game is a semibounded and socially legitimate domain of contrived […]

Categories: placeofmedia · play · games

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 are enabled/bolstered/fortified by social web media.  Many community groups and neighborhood organizations are using digital networking […]

Categories: placeofmedia · citygovernment · city · privcy · populism · iDC

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 created in this space? How does national identity play into virtual presence? […]

Categories: placeofmedia · SecondLife · city