Community: Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

By no surprise, a 'virtual world' represents on one of the 5Cs said to be essential i.e. when it comes to new media technology "community" ... By definition, it's an online-based computer simulated environment that can allow individuals from various remote locations to interacts with one another. We may also refer to as "virtual reality" because essentially, what it does is to make users have this sense of being present in an environment other than the one they're actually in. Reading about this topic, I often tend to get cut-off with this idea of scientific fictions especially when make mentioned of avatar; however didn't take too long to realize that avatar is a term referred to as a "three-dimensional graphical model" in virtual world. To be really concise about this topic, I would like to discuss two areas that I believe are directly connected to me. There are actually two types of virtual world, entertainment-based and social interaction-based; both provides human interaction; in other words, it's a platform built for multi-user and collaborative virtual environments.

From social perspective, entertainment-based provides more advanced interactive virtual world where multi-users like gamers can play games through their "avatars". Also for social interaction-based, it focus mainly on users' interaction, education, and training. A good example would be the new Sony innovation "playstationVue"; it allows all Sony fans and subscribers to play all kinds of PS3/PS4 games virtually without having to have the real console unit. This is typically what we could consider a virtual world because it gives gamers the sense of playing games as if it's real world. Another cool thing about this is that users from all over the world can virtually play with each other regardless your location. Talking about another aspect is business perspective. The goal of every company is to ensure that they empower their staff .i.e. by giving them adequate and good training; however, cost and location sometimes becomes huge factor. It happens that I have really benefited from this whole idea of "virtual world" as related to what I do at my job because virtually twice in two months, I have to attend virtual training. Being an IT person, I can't really give counts of numbers of training I'd attended just this year alone. Funny enough, most of these trainings were not even situated in New York where I live however held somewhere in California, Texas etc. So hands-on virtual labs here and there; this is my own personal experience with "virtual world". According to CNN interview with Professor Surinder Kahai  "Many companies are using virtual worlds, and these can give a sense of place".

Well, thinking about the downside, as Surinder Kahai, an associate Professor at Binghamton University School of Management..he said "I've seen people mess up completely because they think that what works in a face-to-face environment also works in a virtual environment." he also believes that "virtual teams may not share national and organizational cultures, and that virtual workers should make a conscious effort to see things from their colleagues' point of view".  Finally, his overall conclusion about "virtual world" is that..even though second life may bring about "lack of human contact, can also lead to feelings of isolation, but adds that virtual worlds such as Second Life can help by recreating the water-cooler experience".