Could World of Warcraft be the world's biggest corporation?

WoW, Inc.Apr 11, 2008 by Mike Smith
http://us.i1.yimg.com/videogames.yahoo.com/feature/wow-inc-/1203104

Ten million players. However you look at it, that's a lot. World of Warcraft not only dwarfs all other massively-multiplayer games, it dwarfs a good number of countries -- not silly countries like Monaco and Greenland, either, but perfectly sensible ones. Like Sweden, say, or Israel. But how do the holdings of this legion of players compare to the corporate giants of the world?

Determining what actually is the world's largest company is far from an exact science. Do you measure it by annual revenue, in which case it's ExxonMobil, which pulled in about $400 billion in 2007? Perhaps counting number of employees makes more sense, in which case it's Wal-Mart, which has 1.7 million blue-vested souls on its books. Maybe market capitalization, a measure of the public opinion of the value of a company, is what matters most, in which case it's probably ExxonMobil again.

No matter how you slice it, most of the same names come up time and again -- a cabal of the world's most powerful private economic entities. They include petroleum giants like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil and manufacturing powerhouses like Toyota and General Electric. Some, like HSBC and Citifinancial, are fiscal giants; others, like Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, have fingers in all kinds of pies. One thing's true of them all, however: none have very much in common with World of Warcraft, or its creator, Blizzard Entertainment.

Or do they? You may not be able to buy shares in your Warcraft server, but you can certainly invest in its future. Even continuing to play on a particular server is in a sense an expression of confidence. Unsuccessful online games, like floundering companies, are bound to have the plug pulled on them at some point. As you play, your character accumulates value via experience points, equipment, currency and commodities. What do you get if you total that value across the game's whole population?

Screenshots from World of Warcraft

You don't really get a corporation, of course. Neither, though it's fun to play the relative-population game, do you get a nation. Here, Warcraft's users pay a monthly fee to Blizzard to be part of the world, like some kind of exclusive gated community, rather than being citizens, employees or shareholders. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the trading going on across Warcraft's hundreds of realms certainly qualifies it as an economic force in its own right.

If you're part of the ever-shrinking majority who's never taken a step in Warcraft's world, you probably aren't prepared for the richness of the ebb and flow of supply and demand that's taking place every day in Azeroth. On each of the game's many servers, a system of auction houses lets between 15 and 30 thousand players trade goods they've acquired from killing monsters or manufactured from raw ingredients harvested from the world, all for the game's glibly-named currency, "gold." A casual network of barter and exchange thrives, filling players' screens with rapidly-scrolling want ads whenever they step into a major city. Player organizations, equipped with collective resources and shared goals, set up elaborate supply chains to funnel materials to experienced crafters for processing into ever more valuable items.

All this economic richness creates opportunities aplenty for the canny player. Commodities trading is a great place to start; the auction houses offer the perfect opportunity for wannabe day traders to play, away from the gaze of regulators and, of course, away from the risk of losing anything more than your virtual shirt. Assisted by custom-created, specialized user interfaces, the Warcraft trader pores over auction listings, watching price trends, studying supply levels and analyzing upcoming game tweaks in an attempt to be the first to spot a new opening.

Don't think that this has escaped the attention of the game's creators. Although Blizzard doesn't release much demographic or economic data about its server populations, they keep a very close eye on the stability of each server's micro-economy. After all, if one slips out of a cozy equilibrium -- inflation gets out of control, for example, or a wealthy player monopolizes a particular commodity -- someone has to tweak the game's knobs to restore normality and ensure the rest of the server's players a smooth experience devoid of the lumps and bumps of unfettered economics.

Interest from the academic community is coming, too. Back in 2001, economics researcher and author Edward Castronova (who's now a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University, Bloomington) published an oft-cited paper that ranked the economy of Everquest, then the most popular online RPG around, as having a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita close to that of Russia, and a currency valued higher than the Yen.

Casual observers of the massively-multiplayer world could be forgiven for thinking this is all rather silly. It's just a game, after all. For all the assets your red-suspendered day-trader elf accumulates, he's still just a fictional entity, and his wealth is just a set of ones and zeroes in some hulking database somewhere, subject to change at any time.

Watch "Wrath of the Lich King" Trailer

But how is that different from any of the more familiar financial holdings we know and love? Our bank accounts, investments and holdings have no more intrinsic value than the pile of gold coins in your Warcraft character's backpack. They're only worth anything as long as we trust the entity that's underwriting them, be that Blizzard or Bank of America. Even the loose change in your pocket only has worth because the Feds says it does, and it's just as much at the mercy of the ebb and flow of the country's economy as Warcraft's gold is to Blizzard's twiddling.
Setting a real-world value on this ten-million-strong enterprise is not easy. Compared to the largest companies on Earth, which have market capitalizations of appreciable fractions of a trillion dollars, it's eclipsed into utter insignificance. But, all the same, assume the average value of each player's virtual goods is $30 (less than the original face price of the game itself, for reference), and you're easily up into the ranks of companies like SCi, beleaguered owner of games publisher Eidos (and the Tomb Raider and Hitman licenses to boot). Assume more like $100, and our theoretical Warcraft, Inc. beats out high fliers like US Airways and gamer favorite Domino's Pizza.

Try using your virtual holdings to back up a loan, of course, and you'll discover that this back-of-the-envelope stuff is just for fun. When you decide to monetize your Warcraft gear, you'll face some major logistical challenges, not the least of which is that the game's terms of service expressly forbids such activity. Moreover, to whatever extent your virtual loot has real value, Blizzard claims it owns it.

All the same, it's one thing to say it, and another to actually make it stick. Top-specced Warcraft accounts have certainly changed hands for real-life four-figure sums in the past. There's money to be made out there, imaginary or not. Watching a bustling Warcraft auction house in action, it's tempting to wonder if the next Warren Buffet is already cutting his or her teeth selling copper futures in Azeroth.

Mike Smith holds shares of none of the companies mentioned in this article. His gnome alter-ego does have a holding of Essence of Air, however, which he's stockpiling in anticipation of the release of Warcraft's next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Consult an independent financial advisor before making any investments, the value of your Frostmourne may go down as well as up, and don't give your money to any unlicensed goblins.

How We Tweet: The Definitive List of the Top Twitter Clients

This is an interesting article on Twitter.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_twitter_clients_definitive_list.php

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterific or Facebook.

Enjoy!

Jen

More Articles...

Online communication and adolescent well-being: Testing the stimulation versus the displacement hypothesis.
P.M. Valkenburg & J. Peter (2007) Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12; 4, 1169-1182

This study was to contrast the validity of two opposing explanatory hypotheses about the effect of online communication on adolescents’ well being. The two opposing hypotheses are the displacement hypothesis, which predicts that online communication reduces adolescents’ well-being because it takes time away from existing friends, which reduces the quality of these friendships. The stimulation hypothesis states that online communication does stimulate well-being via its positive effect on time spent with existing friend and the quality of those friendships. An online survey was conducted among 1210 Dutch adolescents between 10 and 17 years of age, 54% girls, 47% boys. Several measures where used; IM use, chat use, time spent with friends, quality of friendships, and well-being. The results of this study where more inline with stimulation hypothesis rather than the displacement hypothesis. They found that time spent with IM was positively related to the time spent with existing friends. In addition, the quality of friendships positively predicted well-being and acted as a first mediator between time spent with IM and well-being. They also found that time spent with friends mediated the effect of time spent with IM on the quality of friendships. Over the study suggests that the Internet communication is positively related to the time spent with friends and the quality of existing adolescent friendships, and , via this route, to their well-being.

The MySpace Generation
Jessi Hempel, with Paula Lehman in New York. Business Week. New York: Dec 12, 2005. , Iss. 3963; pg. 86

Abstract Summary from Article
Being online is a way of life for millions of young Americans across the country. And increasingly, social networks are their medium. As the first cohort to grow up fully wired and technologically fluent, today's teens and twentysomethings are flocking to Web sites like Buzz-Oven as a way to establish their social identities. It's where you go when you need a friend to nurse you through a breakup, a mentor to tutor you on your calculus homework, an address for the party everyone is going to. Preeminent among these virtual hangouts is MySpace.com, whose membership has nearly quadrupled since January alone, to 40 million members. Millions also hang out at other up-and-coming networks such as Facebook.com, which connects college students, and Xanga.com, an agglomeration of shared blogs. A second tier of some 300 smaller sites, such as Buzz-Oven, Classface.com, and Photobucket.com, operate under--and often inside or next to--the larger ones. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of these exploding networks has companies clamoring to be a part of the new social landscape. News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has spent $1.3 billion on Web acquisitions so far to better reach this coveted demographic. Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as Accel Partners and Redpoint Ventures are pouring millions into Facebook and other social networks.

Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents’ well-being and social self-esteem
P.M. Valkenburg, J. Peter & A.P. Schouten (2006) CyberPsychology & Behavior 9:5, 584-590

The goal of this study was to investigate the consequences of friend networking sites for adolescents’ social self-esteem and well-being. They indicate that there is little research at the time of this study that specifically focuses on the uses and consequences of such sites. Social self-esteem is defined as adolescents’ evaluation of their self-worth or satisfaction with three dimensions of their selves: physical appearance, romantic attractiveness, and the ability to form and maintain close friendships. Well-being is referred to as a judgment of one’s satisfaction with life as a whole. The study was conducted in the Netherlands with 881 adolescents between the ages of 10-19 years old who at the time were members of a networking site names CU2, 45% were boys and 55% were girls. Several hypotheses are tested; H: Social self-esteem will predict well-being, and by doing so, it may act as a mediator between the use of friend networking sites and well-being. H: The use of friend networking sites will increase the chance that adolescents; form relationships on those sites and receive reactions on the profiles. H: The more reactions adolescents receive to their profiles, the more positive these reactions will become. H: The more reactions adolescents receive the more relationships they will form. H: Most adolescents who use the friend networking sites will be positively related to their social self-esteem. H: A positive tone of reactions will positively predict social self-esteem, whereas a negative tone will negatively predict social self-esteem. Several measures were used in the study; use of friend networking sites, frequency of reactions to profiles, tone of reactions to profiles, relationships established through CU2, social self-esteem and well-being. The results showed that adolescents’ self-esteem was affected solely by the tone of the feedback that adolescents received on their profiles: Positive feedback enhanced adolescents’ self-esteem and negative feedback decreased their self-esteem. However, the number of friendships and romantic relationships formed via the site did not affect adolescents’ social self-esteem.

Additional Articles for Paper

The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites.
N.B. Ellison, C. Steinfiled & C. Lampe. (2007) Journal of Computer-Meidated Communication. 1143-1168

This study examines the relationship between use of Facebook, and the formation and maintenance of social capital. It explores a dimension of social capital that assesses one’s ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community; maintained social capital.

Social capital is seen as a positive effect of interaction among participants in social networks. This allows individuals to draw on resources from other members of the networks to which they belong. The concept of maintained social capital explores whether online network tools enable individuals to keep in touch with a social network after physically disconnecting from it, for example staying in touch with high school friends if you go away to college.

The method was a random sample of 800 Michigan State University undergraduate students. All 800 students were sent an email with a short description of the study, information about confidentiality and incentives, and a link to the survey. A total of 286 students completed the online survey and female, younger, in-state, and on-campus students were slightly overrepresented in the sample.

In the sample, 94% of the undergraduate students that were surveyed were Facebook members. These members report spending between ten and thirty minutes on average using Facebook each day and report having between 150 and 200 friends listed on their profiles. The data suggested that students’ primary audiences for their profiles are people whom they share an offline connection with. The data also showed that students reporting low satisfaction and low self-esteem appeared to gain in bridging social capital if they used Facebook, suggesting that the affordances of the social networking systems might be especially helpful for these students. Facebook appears to play an important role in the process by which students form and maintain social capital and suggested how social networking sites maintain relations as people move from one offline community to another.


Digital relationships in the ‘MySpace’ Generation: Results from a qualitative study.
C. Dwyer (2007) Proceedings of the 40th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 1-10

The main objective of the research was to undertake a qualitative study of how individuals use technology to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships.

Social networking sites encourage social interaction by emphasizing connections through shared interests or causes. Facebook, intended for college students and MySpace, a large site with an emphasis on popular culture and music.

The research method used was the semi-structured interview. The interview was conducted primarily by undergraduate students as part of a class project for a required course within their degree program. The student researchers had to recruit subjects and complete a single interview and post transcripts for review. Then they each recruited two more subjected and completed two more interviews for a total of three each. Seventeen of the Eighteen student researcher interviews were used in the study, plus two additional interviews from a training session were added to the data set, for a total of 19 participants. They consisted of six females and thirteen males, two were graduate students and seventeen were undergraduate students.

Sixteen out of nineteen reported using social networking sites, they reported that their heavy use was motivated by convenience, easy access to friends and overall enjoyment when using these systems. One issues mentioned was that use of these sites is “addictive”. The data showed that 79% of the participants reported accessing these sites at least once a week, and 21% reported doing so several times a day, this demonstrates there is a regular use of these sites among the participants interviewed.

The study has found that convenience, easy access, low cost and enjoyment are the main drivers when using electronic communications media to maintain social connections.

Why Youth (heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.
D. Boyd (2008) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media 119-142

Danah Boyd conducted a two year study of U.S.-based youth engagement with MySpace. She examined the practices of "teenagers" on social network sites, primarily focusing on MySpace. By early 20o6, many considered participation on the key social network site, MySpace, essential to being seen as cool at school. Danah's study questions why teenagers flock to these sites? What are they expressing on them? How do these sites fit into their lives? What are they learning from their participation? Are these online activities like face-to-face friendships or are they different, or complementary? The goal is to address these questions and explore their implications for youth identities. While particular systems may come and go, how youth engage through social network sites today provides long-lasting insights into identity formation, status negotiation, and peer-to-peer sociality.

The method employed was defined as “participant observation” and “deep hanging out” alongside qualitative interviews. Danah moved systematically observing, documenting and talking to young people about their practice and attitudes.

Teenagers use social network sites like MySpace as an avenue to hang out, jockey for social status, work through how to present themselves, and take risks that will help them to assess the boundaries of the social world. They do this because they seek access to adult society.

Continuation of Thesis Statement

Updated Thesis Statement: Through social website use, such as myspace and facebook, individuals have effective interpersonal relationships.


MULTIPLE DETERMINANTS OF LIFE QUALITY: THE ROLSE OF INTERNET ACTIVITIES, USE OF NEW MEDIA, SOCIAL SUPPORT AND LEISURE ACTIVITIES.
(Select Volume 22, Issue 3)
Louis Leung, Paul S.N. Lee
School of Journalism & Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong, Hong Kong

The quest for quality of life (QoL) is a growing concern for individuals and communities seeking to find sustainable life satisfaction in a technologically changing world. Industry, consumer groups, academics, and policy makers have sought to better understand how the Internet contributes to or detracts from society. This study examined the effects of Internet activities, new media use, social support, and leisure activities on perceived quality of life. Correlational results showed that Internet activities, such as using the Internet for sociability, fun seeking and information seeking, and new media use, correlate positively with various dimensions of social support. However, use of the Internet, especially for sociability, and computer use were inversely linked to QoL. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis revealed that affectionate, positive social interaction, and emotional and informational social support, received from either online or offline sources, are the strongest determinants of quality of life. More important, QoL can also be enhanced if suitable amounts of time are spent on media-related activities, namely, less time on using the Internet for intimate selfdisclosure and in playing computer games, and more time on listening to music on CD/MD/MP3. Finally, participating in community or religious activities for leisure was also a significant predictor of QoL. Implications regarding policy formulation to improve life quality are discussed.

SOCIABILITY, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND THE INTERNET: RECONCILING CONFLICTING FINDINGS
Norman H. Nie, Stanford University
The American Behavioral Scientist; Nov 2001; 45, 3, 420-435 (2001)

During the course of the past year, at least four different academic surveys have been conducted, each focusing to some extent on the impact of Internet use on the quantity and quality of interpersonal communication and sociability. Remarkably, these studies arrive at starkly different conclusions regarding the social repercussions of Internet use. At the heart of this debate is whether Internet use can be a potentially isolating activity or one that leads to substantially greater communication among people and thus enhances human connectivity and sociability. Based on an analysis of these studies' key findings and methodological approaches, this article attempts to understand the role of the Internet in shaping our interpersonal relations. The key findings suggest that Internet users do not become more sociable; rather, they already display a higher degree of social connectivity and participation, due to the fact that they are better educated, better off financially, and less likely to be among the elderly. And simply because of the inelasticity of time, Internet use may actually reduce interpersonal interaction and communication.

My Thesis Statement

Internet use promotes increased positive social affects in individuals through interpersonal communication, open sources of information, and commercialization of cyberspace.

Theme for Digital Convergence Paper

Discuss the idea of digital convergence in regards to media ownership/content, open sources of information, commercialization of cyberspace, the entertainment industry, and the impact of digital convergence on society.

Digital Convergence...

is the latest step in the evolution of communication. This communication process is motivated by the communication of technology, social change, culture and media ownership. People - both as consumers and producers - drive convergence to meet their social and cultural needs.

Listen to your iPod Powered by your Shirt?!?!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080213/ap_on_hi_te/power_clothes;_ylt=ApcuNVvf94iuGsv4fF6mFvk8MZA5

Toshiba quits HD DVD business

Toshiba quits HD DVD business By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer
2 hours, 32 minutes ago (retrieved from Yahoo News)

Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

"We concluded that a swift decision would be best," Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company's Tokyo offices.

The move would make Blu-ray — backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios — the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formatting that began several years ago.

Nishida said last month's decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable.

"That had tremendous impact," he said. "If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win."

Warner joined Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox in that move.

Nishida said his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology and tried to assure the estimated 1 million people, including some 600,000 people in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines by promising that Toshiba will continue to provide product support for the technology.

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. But both formats play on high-definition TVs.

HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasted bigger recording capacity.

Only one video format has been expected to emerge as the victor, much like VHS trumped Sony's Betamax in the video format battle of the 1980s.

Nishida said it was still uncertain what will happen with the Hollywood studios that signed to produce HD DVD movies, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation.

Toshiba's pulling the plug on the technology is expected to reduce the number of new high-definition movies that people will be able to watch on HD DVD machines. Toshiba Corp. said shipments of HD DVD machines to retailers will be reduced and will stop by end of March.

Sales in Blu-ray gadgets are now likely to pick up as consumers had held off in investing in the latest recorders and players because they didn't know which format would emerge dominant.

Despite being a possible blow to Toshiba's pride, the exit will probably lessen the potential damage in losses in HD DVD operations. Goldman Sachs has said pulling out would improve Toshiba's profitability between 40 billion yen and 50 billion yen ($370 million-$460 million) a year.

The reasons behind Blu-ray's triumph over HD DVD are complex, as marketing, management maneuvers and other factors are believed to have played into the shift to Blu-ray's favor that became more decisive during the critical holiday shopping season.

Once the balance starts tilting in favor of one in a format battle, then the domination tends to grow and become final, said Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo.

"The trend became decisive I think this year," he said. "When Warner made its decision, it was basically over."

With movie studios increasingly lining up behind Blu-ray, retailers also began to stock more Blu-ray products.

Friday's decision by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. retailer, to sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware appeared to deal a final blow to the Toshiba format. Just five days earlier, Netflix Inc. said it will cease carrying rentals in HD DVD.

Several major American retailers had already made similar decisions, including Target Corp. and Blockbuster Inc.

Also adding to Blu-ray's momentum was the gradual increase in sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 home video-game console, which also works as a Blu-ray player. Sony has sold 10.5 million PS3 machines worldwide since the machine went on sale late 2006.

HD DVD supporters included Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp. and Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 game machine can play HD DVD movies, but the drive had to be bought separately, and Nishida said about 300,000 people have those.

Worldwide sales of personal computers with HD DVD drives total about 300,000 worldwide, including 140,000 in North America and 130,000 in Europe, he said.

Recently, the Blu-ray disc format has been gaining market share, especially in Japan. A study on fourth quarter sales last year by market researcher BCN Inc. found that by unit volume, Blu-ray made up 96 percent of Japanese sales.

Sony said it did not have numbers on how many Blu-ray players had been sold globally.

Toshiba's stock slipped 0.6 percent Tuesday to 824 yen after jumping 5.7 percent Monday amid reports that a decision was imminent. Sony shares climbed 2.2 percent to 5,010 yen after rising 1 percent Monday.

Also Tuesday, Toshiba said it plans to spend more than 1.7 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) for two plants in Japan to produce sophisticated chips called NAND flash memory, which are used in portable music players and cell phones. Production there will start in 2010.

The Evolution of Technology and its Future...

I would like to suggest the topic focus on the evolution of technology and its future. In addition, how you keep up with these constant changes.

In the article “Prototypes and Ideation, Computer Networks, by B. Winston, we read how the internet was originally started by the military to work on the problem of military communications systems, it then made its way to academia and then it became the World Wide Web. Technology has continued to evolve, it would be good to research the progress it has made, and what factors played a part.

DVD technology may be going over to Blu-Ray technology, video games are moving over to new technology such as the Wii, where you use body movements to play games. The Wii has become so popular; it is used in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, and surgery, cell phones are becoming avenues to listen to music. Using blogs to discuss televisions shows, how did this come about? Today I stumbled across Twitter, this is similar to myspace or facebook, but it seems to have much more capabilities than just goofing around with your friends. It has reminder services, live updates of various events, such as Super Tuesday or the Super Bowl and mobile updates.

It is evident through digital convergence, technology is going to keep advancing, how did we get here and how do we keep up with continued advances?

In addition, it would be beneficial to create a “guidance” type piece on keeping up or learning about new technologies, which would also include our own experiences (through this class or on our own). The “guidance” would not focus on specifics but might help give a baseline of how to learn and where to go for information. It could provide links to various websites that provide comparisons and reviews of new things.

Thinking of you...

Don't send a lame Thinking of You eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

January 29th Class Thoughts...

Hi,

Last weeks class was informative & fun! Just the way I like a class to be :0)

For years I always thought I was technology savvy, keeping current with new things, but I've noticed over the last few years that it is passing me by fast! I just got into the whole myspace thing, with some resistance, mainly because who has time to sit and put all that together & search to post witty things everyday... But it's the only way I can communicate with my older brother these days so I jumped in. It took me 3 hours to put together my lamo page, but I did it!

Anyway, during class last week I realized that the reason I'm finding technology is passing me by isn't because I am not open to it, but more so because I haven't been exposed to it enough or exposed to it at an earlier age. Now children are learning how to use computers in kindergarten, while I only just got on board about 15 years ago. Having the knowledge at a younger age gives them an advantage to understanding and keeping up with technology. I can learn how to use anything I need to, but it is just a matter of keeping up and having the time, while I believe it is second nature to the younger generation.Growing up I wasn't exposed to media convergence as it is today.

Social and face-to-face interaction was my primary source. Ok yeah we had the telephone...but today kids are connected digitally in so many other ways. The internet has opened the doors to many outlets for communication, as we have discussed, texting, instant messaging, email, blogs, chat rooms, playing games with people all over the world, etc...

I look forward to learning more about the possibilities that are out there & ways that I can bring myself up to speed, not just in my personal life, but also in my workplace. I feel that my company is very behind in technology and working in a global department there are ways we can and should improve.

Thanks!

Jen

Welcome to my Blog!

I look forward to sharing with you!

Jen