Online Communities – Paradise Cove

Internet Lifestyle illustrated with people doing activity in futuristic virtual world.

An online community is a community that forms on the internet. An online community is a group of people interacting, sharing, and working toward a common goal and members interact via social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. They also share in forums, e-mail groups, and even in the comments sections of blog posts and news articles. An online community can also expand out into online community games like Call of Duty or Paradise Cove. Social Media Today have a very informative article on what an online community is. Its described as many things and Elliot Volkman, co-founder and writer for Social Media Today gives a very technical description online communities. He breaks it down into roles and how people participate in online community functions. I suppose from reading the article I used to be a free member on Paradise Cove and I swiftly moved to an active lurker the a contributor and eventually a paid member!

As a longstanding member of Paradise Cove, I talk to people about the same things I would in real life and as I would on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram but its more around a specific topic, product, to offer tips, or sometimes I act as a mentor for newer players. I believe people join online communities because people at home in the offline world don’t share similar passions. So they come online to talk at length with people similar to them who “get it.”

Some people see online communities as seedy internet forums. However they are no longer primitive or explicit forums where hobbyists discuss their crafts or strange interests. Marketing teams now target online communities on Facebook, YouTube and even the game I play, Paradise Cove.  Online communities are ideal for word-of-mouth marketing campaigns and we frequently discuss products and you feel the feedback and reviews you get from your friends on the online community are valid… and of course after you buy or try it… you still have to come back and continue playing online with these people. You can connect with Facebook friends on Paradise Cove also.

The game Paradise cove has been available on the iTunes store since 2012 and I started playing the game then. The objective of the game is to design, construct, upgrade and enhance the Island. For fast development in the game, you really are required to buy ‘rubies’ to upgrade your ships and pass special quests. It has taken me until this year to get to level I am on, without bowing to the pressure of buying rubies and I am now on lv 44.

The pressure to buy started in February 2015 when I had not played on Paradise Cove for about a month. I returned to my island to find that ‘Sweetstrawberryred’, ‘Gamer189’, ‘Dndos12’ etc had attacked my cove, looted the land, and scuttled my ships. I was devastated. It sparked an anger in me that led me to enter in my iTunes password and I bought a sack of rubies worth 10.99 in real money. It meant in my online community that I could instantly repair my ships, complete a few ‘special quests’, and get this, BUILD back up on my LEVELS. I was heartbroken.

The hardest thing by far to stop doing, was paying for rubies & they constantly have these ruby sales which gets you easily addicted!!I progressed so far in my group challenges with my paradise cove friends, an I enjoyed the rush of being leagues ahead. I was bumped down to level 37 while I had a month solstice from the game. Without buying rubies or items for quests, It would have taken me a few months to level back up. I leveled back up to lv 44 in a week.

The second hardest thing for me after my month away to work back, was the respect of my craft guild buddies and my quest friends along with my Island allies. I posted a post on one of my guild pages and asked a question about one of our tasks, and no one replied to me. I felt it was because of my level and my lack of contribution. I found myself writing an apology post to my Paradise Cove community buddies for being offline so much.

Screen Shots of my Island on Paradise Cove

Overall, as much as I complained about the cost of the game, I do believe when you are in full swing, playing the game, that there is great engagement and team work involved. I really enjoy playing Paradise CoveYouTuber Rosianna Halse Rojas, gave a TED talk in Brighton about engagement and involvement on online communities and  her argument though the course of the TED talk, is that while the internet is seen as a distraction, it also gives a chance for people who would be quite introverted or even how certain people who would have just different interests can engage in an online environment and communicate through the online community or game.

Target Marketing, Can be used for the greater good in the Cyber World.

To give you a little crash course is target marketing, il start with what its all about. Target Marketing is where a specific businesses, company or cooperation targets specific marketing material to a person to appeal to a persons likes or interests. My thoughts on target marketing are if they can target specific material at you in terms of your movie likes, food likes, general interests, then they can certainly use this means of target marketing to target our needs. By needs I mean what we require, what we need and what we want. For example, if someone was sick with a form of cancer and was receiving treatment, the targeted marketing they could receive could be remedies to reduce chemotherapy after effects of the treatment. If targeted marketing picked these factors up from your personal online profile and your digital footprint online, we could re vamp the way marketing worked for the greater good.

Targeted marketing currently seeks people by answering these questions as found on Bplans. Beside from a persons general health point of view, I looked at these target marketing questions and give them a slight twist.

• What is their gender?  – Gender is important because yes, even today we are defined by what we do if we are a man or a woman. Talking from a person in a heath perspective, there are a number of sicknesses that can be diagnosed to only men and not women or visa versa.
• How old are they? – The more specific your age the more you can be targeted. For example, you and your mother might both share an interest in shoes but your interests lie more in what boohoo.com can offer, not whats in Marks and Spencer’s. Your age is an important factor in determining treatments for sicknesses. For example, certain medications or treatments are not recommended under or over a certain age.
• What are their interests or hobbies? Finding out what people are into will help you connect with them. Engagement is important when your trying to appeal to someones specific needs. If a person for example shares a particular interest in ceramics because they find it therapeutic to alleviate the stress of their lives and anxiety of their jobs, they could have targeted marketing around specific engaging topics on there hobby or interest rather than pushing items for sale.
• Where do they live? Is what your promoting suited to a more selected geographical style of marketing?Geography is sort of a limiting factor for items or products that the cyber world advertises to us? Are they able to get to you easily? Is there plenty of parking? Public transportation? Can you deliver? Is it available to buy for the market I am targeting? These are very important aspects and questions to consider when targeting an audience for specified marketing.
• How do they make a living? Knowing what your primary target markets employment status can help you adjust your marketing hours to fit their needs, or help you devise special offers in line with their work patterns.
• How much money do they make? Depending on what your market can afford, you can push treatments, medication and services that they need that meet their budget.
• Do they own their own homes or do they rent? Depending on the answer and what you sell, you may need to tweak your messaging to resonate with your audience.

I can see targeted marketing being so much more specific to a persons needs in 20 years time. I would love to see a world where if a person was struggling in pain from a condition, with little or no money or time to seek treatment, had a facility online where targeted marketing would aid and help.

“Brand is what others say about you when you leave the room.” – Daryl D’Souza at Tedx

Daryl talks about his own personal experience with his brands creation and the importance of marketing via social media. From a PR perspective, using target marketing effectivly to the point where you can alter and improve a persons health would benefit both the customer and the company. It all roots back to the old phrase: One person will tell another person about a good experience and one person will tell many about a bad experience. If someone was able to gain a better incite to their own personal health, and find ways to help or make better, a situation (health or other) that their in through targeted marketing via online mediums, why are we not doing it already?? Target marketing is already used to enhance companies product sales, why not use it to help people with out a personal monetary value on its head? We have the marketing tools already there to be able to help people.

Hackers and Crackers

Hackers…..

Hackers modify & add code – so when the code they edit changes, it does something entirely different than what it did before. Many people ‘hack’ their own systems to alter or change how their systems work, or hire hackers to do if for them.

Anonymous are a group of hackers you may know already. Most recently, Anonymous released a video and a statement via twitter condemning the attack on Charlie Hebdo, where 12 people including 8 journalists, were murdered.

The video messages they posted had a powerful announcement from Anonymous:

“We, Anonymous around the world, have decided to declare war on you, the terrorists” and promises to avenge the killings by shutting down your accounts on all social networks.”

On January 12, they brought down one of the Jihadists’ websites. However, critics of the action warned that taking down extremists’ websites would make them harder to monitor.

Wednesday the 5th of March, technology giants Apple and Google announced that a ‘Freak Attack’ left millions of users vulnerable to hackers, which they are working hard at the moment to fix. Software makers use US software makers to use weaker security in encryption programs sold overseas due to the USA’s national security concerns. Read the article on The Guardian website for more information about this potentially massive problem. Site’s like Groupon, Khol and American Express were affected and vulnerable since Tuesday the 4th of March 2015.

Dan Goodin, security editor at Ars Technica writes about the dangers of this ‘Freak Attack‘ and what it means for us and our privacy.

Crackers….. 

A cracker is seen as the more malicious of the two. Crackers break into someone else’s computer system or network. They intentionally bypass passwords, licences and computers and breach security. Obviously, the activities of most Crackers are considered illegal. This website gives an informative account of crackers and what they do that s illegal if you want to know more about Crackers. Fear not, you can protect yourself against being cracked or being hacked by following a few simple steps. It may not protect you fully, but it will at least make it hard for them!!!

 

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

What is this all about?

Digital natives are the people who were born into a generation of technology and were born roughly from the mid 1990’s on. This generation is also referred to as the ‘Net Generation’. People born before this time would be known as Digital Immigrants.

Since time has begun, we have labeled each generation.

• The people who fought in WW1 are known as The Lost Generation.
  

• People born from 1916 – 1920 are known as The Greatest or The GI Generation as this generation fought in WW2 & the survivors that live to this day are honored veterans.

• The Silent Generation label was given to those born from 1926-1938 & they are known as the children of the great depression.

• The next generation from 1945-1960 was named The Baby Boom Generation.

• We called the next generation, Generation X which was people born from 1960 – 1982. This was a really nasty generation as families experienced lots of divorces and suicide and murder figures skyrocketed. However, this was the first generation to experience personal computing, gender equality and started more businesses.

• Generation Y came next which was people born from 1982-the mid 1990’s. My generation actually. We were the fortunate ones to be born during the big economic boom which was emerging through large developments in technology. They started ‘planning’ families with having deliberate children. Health care and education improved a bit, not by much depending on which country you were in. The USA & Europe would have had a similar change and advancement and some countries developed quicker.

• Digital Natives are the generation from the mid 1990’s and on to this day in 2015. They are the tech savvy’ist of us all. My kid cousin was born in 2008 and he is able to beat me by 204 levels in Candy Crush on his iPad & also fix the reason by iMessages aren’t sending? The Kid is 7 years of age and I just think he is wonderful. FYI he has been fixing my IT issues since he was 4 years old.

Digital immigrants include all those generations before generation Y and even some people in generation Y. Can the digital natives teach us? Will they take over from us? To be honest, to think about what way technology will be in 10 years time is interesting isn’t it? But is also a little scary. Just think, if my four year old cousin in 2012, fixed my iCloud back up & sorted the settings on my iPhone, with a limited verbal capacity & knowledge of the world, what will he be doing 10 years from then? Breaking firewalls, hacking Washington DC, controlling his own android robotic army?!?! these thoughts just cross my mind sometimes. Its really going to be based on his education that he gets now though isn’t it? The great Sir Ken Robinson gave a great TED talk into how schools kill creativity. Its really worth a watch.

The below video will bring you to youtube:

The link below will bring you to the TED website:

My only hope is that little Cian isn’t told to change and become a normal high achieving creature of the education system here in Ireland, that ends up with high points and does law, medicine or teaching. I hope he will be encouraged and led to a path of success by his teachers through life. Maybe a lot has changed now though. It might not be as unbalanced as what it was when I went through primary or secondary, where if you were good at art, and you exceeded all expectations in it, your maths grade decided if you made it to college or not. I hope that they will re address the system so he has a fighting chance of becoming the next Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Bill gates, Marissa Ann Mayer, Joseph M. Tucci or even the next Mark Zuckerberg.

The digital native himself the other day, skyped me to inform me that he has to scroll down through his game for a while in candy crush before he finds me….. on the level ladder & added that his mom is still getting texts from me from my iCloud email.

I don’t understand it at all, and this smug 7 year old is just itching to fix it. He fixed an issue I was having with internet connectivity on his last visit when he was 6 on the cusp of turning 7. The type of age that a person in born into, moulds the person for the future. With the right guidance, education & support, they can be who ever they wish to be. Although it is intimidating, knowing that the digital native is gaining more knowledge and is going to lead the way to future advancements is exciting.

Jeff De Graff, author for the Huffington post wrote a great article on his point of view between the digital native and the digital immigrant. Lastly see this great quote by Rupert Murdoch as he talks about himself as a digital immigrant. 

Cybercultures, An Introduction.

The need to know…

Cybercultures is becoming a very talk about topic today. Cybercultures is a culture about the new or emerging developments from the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment and business.

It is also the study of various social phenomena associated with the internet and other new forms of the network communication, such as online communities. I used an online community before called imvu, it was enjoyable as it reminded me of the sims which has now become an online community too with the launch of sims 3.

Barry O Halloran, a writer on the website Whatculture, gives a run down of his top 7 online gaming communities. I was a bit surprised that World Of War Craft or Second Life did not appear in the list, but in comparison to the new online communities developed now, that O Halloran has listed, I can see there is much more choice and each community is more tailored to every persons personality, likes and dislikes.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be a big online gamer and I couldn’t say I have much experience in this area, but what I found next on the website upset me a bit!! He also has compiled a list of the 7 Worst online gaming communities and I will admit, that I chuckeled at a few, but was surprised that Call of Duty, Black Ops was the raining champion of the Worst!!

Cybercultures is also the study of other types of various network communications, wearable computing, social gaming, social media, mobile apps, augmented reality, and texting, and includes issues related to identity, privacy, and network formation.

This link to a TED TALK by Kevin Kelly, gives an interesting insight into the world of cybercultures. Its called The Next 5000 days of The Web.