...How will customer relationships be different in a virtual world? Customer relationships in a virtual world are a delicate matter. The design of a web site is very important for presenting a favorable face to the customer. Similarly, the design of a business in SL is of chief importance. In a world where anything-goes design-wise, how do you want your customer service representatives to appear? The business must present something fantastic, that it could not present in the real world, if it wants to draw visitors into it. Anything you can do in the real world (RW) you can do in virtual worlds (VWs), only more. Numerous separate and independent VWs exist where consumer and business-to-business marketing opportunities lie dormant and underdeveloped. But marketers can now establish a dynamic presence in VWs that can position them for the new and future internet (Web 2.0 and beyond) made up of parallel and eventually integrated social networks and virtual worlds. Marketing within social networks and VWs is becoming a viable means for reaching and influencing the attitudes and behavior of consumers in ways that was never before believed possible. 2. How will supporting Second Life customers differ from supporting traditional customers? Second Life provides a medium for simulating real world interactions online. It has the same benefits as teleconferencing or videoconferences, the ability to assemble many people from all around the world into a real-time interactions. NPR’s Science Friday...
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...A Virtual World Wirt Brumfield December 19, 2011 INF/103 Lambert Fooks A Virtual World A man turns to find a Tyrannosaurus chasing him. Is it a dream or is it actually occurring? To the individual, it is actually occurring because he has entered the world of virtual reality. The world of virtual reality has endless possibilities to allow individuals to experience a new world. From its earliest uses to enhance gaming to its more developed use of training military personnel, the world of virtually continues to fascinate those who develop, use, and seek acceptance for it. The world of virtual reality is limited only by the imaginations of those who choose to enter its world. Understanding Virtual Reality Virtual reality (VR) involves an artificially generated environment created using software and hardware that allows the user to suspend belief and accept the environment around him or her as real. Virtual reality exists in two forms. The first involves the use of the virtual reality environment for educational and training simulations. The second involves the use of virtual reality in the interactive gaming and entertainment environments. If using a computer, the individual experiences virtual reality primarily through two senses: sound and sight. When an individual uses his or her personal computer, he or she is experiencing the simplest form of virtual reality known as 3-D imaging (Steuer, 1993). The user manipulates the keys or mouse to move the content of the image...
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...– tech world, virtual jobs are very popular and sought after. Whether you are taking classes online, ordering pizza, making a reservation, etc., many times you will be speaking to someone working from the comfort of their home. While it may seem like the ideal job to work from your home, in your pajamas if you wanted to, however as with any job there are benefits as well as disadvantages. One of the biggest disadvantages that are encountered is communication, or lack thereof (http://www.seanet.com/~daveg/ltv.htm). In an environment where you cannot speak with someone face to face, communication is very important. Sending an email, or leaving a voicemail and not receiving an answer in a timely manner can be very frustrating. When you are trying to do your job and the information is not there, it can be quite a challenge. Another big concern is the virtual chat room, unfortunately what someone types may not always be perceived how they intended it to sound. It is also important for agents to be able to receive feedback on how they are performing. However, this is something that almost does not seem to exist within virtual environments. It is hard to understand as to why since call monitoring is done on a constant basis. If the evaluator scores the call under 100% you will receive feedback, but not if the call was scored at 100%. Interesting enough in an article composed by J. Lodge (http://www.jlodge.com/advantages-of-a-virtual-employee/) it actually states that virtual agents are...
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...The Effect of Virtual Worlds Virtual Worlds have become a trend and it affects the people in several ways. They become less social, they hide behind their fake characters and waste their money on virtual items. Being attached to unreal life is making people relay on being unknown and instead of living the real world, they tend to make the Internet an essential element in their life. Staying unhidden makes people unsocial; they lie, cheat and live an unrealistic life. They start to make the virtual world as their place to live, they make new characters that are called avatars, and these characters usually resemble the person who made it. Most of the people, or “users” as they are supposed to be called, since this world is a game and not an actual place, have a habit of making their avatars look how they really want to look in real life, they show how they actually want to be instead of their own looks and personality. This may reveal how most people dislike their features in the real world and this may be the most reason why people prefer virtual worlds instead of the real world. Nowadays, computer-generated worlds, which are not real, have become the most used worlds between people. They gave people the ability to be who ever they wanted to be, thus making each and every user’s life a lie. Virtual Worlds have affected the lives of many people in the most negative way; they lead to obesity and loss of concentration. “In one experiment conducted at Cornell University, for example...
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...The Advancements over Social Media Rachel Hammer INF103: Computer Literacy (ACD1246B) Instructor: Livia Muse-Johnson December 13, 2012 Social Media In today’s society, social media has become a part of our everyday lives. People of all ages and professions utilize social media in some form on a regular basis. Some common forms of social media are social networking, blogs, voice over IP, collaborative projects, content communities, virtual game worlds, and online shopping. These types of social media offer communication, sharing and shopping capabilities. People from all around the world are able to be connected with a click of a mouse. Social media also allows for creativity and expression. Social networking includes websites like Facebook. Over one billion people worldwide are active members of this online community. It is estimated that every user on Facebook has approximately 130 friends on their profile pages. This website is very easy to join, and the best part is that it is free. Members are able to upload and post pictures and videos to share with their friends and family. Privacy settings are available so the member can choose who is allowed to access their page or view their pictures. This is especially convenient for parents who monitor their teenager’s computer usage. Facebook originally created for peer-to-peer connections of classmates in college; however, it quickly expanded into a worldwide, multidimensional, phenomenon. Blogs, by definition...
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...Life We have been deluged recently with stories about the amazing virtual world of Second Life and the brave opportunities it creates for brands. It is hard to believe, but it has been little more than a year since the first major brand, US retailer American Apparel, opened its doors for virtual business on the site. The store sold virtual American Apparel clothing designed to be worn by the avatars that users create to populate Second Life. American Apparel was soon joined by other brands. In October 2006, Starwood, the owner of hotel brands such as Westin and Sheraton, premiered its Aloft hotel brand on Second Life. Starwood saw its virtual hotel as a way of generating early customer insights about its venture long before any of the hotels opened. A month later, Pontiac, the US car-maker, launched Motorati Island. According to Mark-Hans Richer, marketing director at Pontiac, it was designed to 'empower the car community in Second Life and develop with them in a unique and meaningful manner'. From April, Second Life boasted the ultimate marketing patronage when Coke launched a 'virtual thirst pavilion', where visitors could compete to create a virtual vending machine selling not Coke, but, according to the firm's website, 'the essence of Coca-Cola: refreshment, joy, unity, experience'. It all sounds pretty amazing, until you visit Second Life. Having spent last weekend walking around its virtual universe, I have to report that the whole thing is pretty crap - a bit...
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...knowledge one would expect to find in an encyclopaedia, such as an etymology of the entry and a hint of its sociolinguistic use. For example: newbie A newcomer to a chatgroup or virtual-world environment, especially one who has not yet learned the way to behave when participating in the dialogue. >>chatgroup; netiquette; virtual world (Crystal, 2004: 79) The coinage of the neologism Slexipedia compounds the acronym SL with lexipedia to provide a term to describe the Second Life-specific lexis in my corpus. In addition to providing a SL glossary according to Crystal's method (Appendix X), this chapter investigates the creative and innovative word-formation processes of SL English and Arabic vocabulary by its residents. Since use of vocabulary reflects identity (Crystal, 2001; Benwell and Stokoe, 2006; Boellstorff, 2008), the final concern of this chapter is the manner in which these SL terms are used in conversational interaction inworld, to reflect the social purposes and circumstances in which these words are utilized. Forming a coherent slexipedia will provide more insight for forming an account of SL identity, or Slidentity. It is argued by myself that communication in SL shares many attributes with internet chat, as they are both forms of CMC. However, with the influence of the virtual surroundings having graphic qualities, and the capability of communicating using both verbal and non-verbal...
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...Living in a World Of Warcraft: The Complex Sociality of Virtual Worlds Through the convergence of gaming, the internet and Web 2.0 technologies, the virtual worlds of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) have emerged: complex new social and cultural environments that bring with them tremendous opportunities for learning. This convergence of contexts, a defining feature of new media, combines the potential sociality of the internet with the fun and challenge of gaming, blurring the lines between entertainment, play, information and socialisation (de Freitas & Griffiths, 2008, p.11). Through fantasy-styled role-playing MMOG (MMORPG) World of Warcraft (WoW), I will explore evidence of the benefits and drawbacks of these new forms of sociality, and examine ways in which of MMORPGs show potential to develop new social practices and ways of learning, both from a player/learner perspective (Jenkins, 2006; Shaffer, Squire, Halverson & Gee, 2005, p.106), and in terms of studying and understanding social dynamics of human groups on a larger scale (Szell & Thurner, 2010, p.314). WoW's enormous success exemplifies the massive social phenomenon of online gaming and virtual worlds (Shaffer, Squire, Halverson & Gee, 2005, p.106). Released in 2004, Steinkuehler & Williams describe WoW as “the latest step in a progression of social games” (2006, p.887), referring to the many evolutions in this style of game since its early origins in Dungeons and Dragons-style pencil and paper games...
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...B Broadway Cafe | Networks, Telecommunications, and Wireless Computing/ Customer Relationship Management/ Systems Development | | The following report provides a comprehensive analysis of Networks, Telecommunications, and Wireless Computing/ Customer Relationship Management/ Systems Development regarding the Broadway Café. | | | | Contents: 1. Introduction – p3 2. E-coupons vs. Paper coupons – p4 3. Risks involved with m-coupons – p5 4. Privacy Issues – p6 5. Benefit of tracking response rates of m-coupons and forwarding by customers – p7 6. Virtual world business in the real world – p9 7. Customer relationships in a virtual world – p10 8. Virtual Customer Service Strategy – p10 9. Difference in Supporting Second Life Customers vs. Real and Web Customers – p11 10. Security and Ethical Issues Regarding Second Life – p12 11. Pros and Cons of Using an Employee to Build you a Custom System – p13 12. Pros and cons of using of purchasing a COTS – p14 13. A Smooth Transition with Older Employees and the New System – p15 14. Conclusion – p16 15. References – p17 1. Introduction: Recently I have inherited a coffee shop from my late grandfather, the Broadway Café. The café is located in downtown Charleston, WV and offers many different kinds of specialized coffees, teas, a full service bakery, and homemade sandwiches, soups, and salads. Opened in 1952, the Broadway Café has enjoyed the benefit...
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...What is actually virtual meeting on business? Recent years, advanced technology brought a lot of new opportunities in our life and on our businesses meanwhile these technological improvements get inside our life day by day. Virtual meeting is one of these opportunities which many businesses are using it and many of them will use in the future. Virtual meeting is having a meeting by using internet connection virtually with the other branches or other related companies that you work with. “Virtual meetings will never eradicate the need for traditional face-to-face meetings, but they often provide the least expensive means of bringing people together” (2011, Mittleman). As long as companies remain, people who work within these companies will travel to other countries or cities to have meetings but virtual meeting which is videoconferencing and telepresence will decrease these travels. What are the advantages of the virtual meetings on an organization? Maybe 15 years ago, if we talked about a virtual meeting, it would be so weird but now this is very common way to have a meeting and will be more than now. There are a lot of advantages of the virtual meetings first and important one for a business is saving time. The other important advantage is saving money. These two important things are actually main factors to consider for many businesses anytime. These virtual meetings will reduce your employees to travel for a meeting sometimes these meetings can last 1 week or...
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...dilemma as your family does not want to be relocated. The project has a six-month deadline. What factors should you consider in order to make this virtual assignment effective? Answer: First of all, virtual assignments is where the employees and managers are located in different areas as in this case, the Project Manager’s office is in London whereas the other six team members are in Munich. Thus, the Project Manager has to rely heavily on communication technologies such as telephone, email or video conference. In my opinion, the factors that has to be taken into consideration include effective use of technology, invest time in building relationships and trust, provide specific intercultural training and arrange face-to-face meeting occasionally. To bring a success to virtual assignments, I will need to be aware of the full range of technology tools available to us and become practices and proficient in their use. Without familiarizing the technology, it is difficult for managers to keep in touch with the team and it might end up slowing down the team performance. For instance, it will be a waste of time discovering the function of Skype tools during the virtual meeting. Besides that, as a newly-appointed Project Manager, trust and a comfortable level of social or personal interaction are enormously important for effective virtual assignments. It is crucial for me to find ways to engage with my members and create an appropriate and effective dynamic within the team. Initially...
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...many virtual worlds for young people and it is hard to know which world and game is for each age group. Here we have tried to split the virtual worlds into categories with descriptions for you. Best Virtual Worlds for Kids: 1. Neopets: This is a very popular virtual world for kids and some tweens. 2. Lulilab: This used to be called Playdo, Lulilab lets players travel, chat and build their own worlds. Lulilab has won some awards for its graphics. 3. Nicktropolis: Nicktropolis boasts over 8.6 million citizens, who actively surf, skateboard, snowboard, play games, create avatars and meet friends. It’s sponsored by Nickelodeon, so you know it’s kid friendly. 4. Club Penguin This is a virtual world for kids with penguin avatars where they can chat, play games and hang out. Club Penguin seems to be very addictive for those who play. I like this virtual world, but doesn’t seem to stick for those about 11. 5. Build-a-Bearville I might be a bit biased because I LOVE Build-a-Bear and this is the perfect continuation of the Build-a-Bear workshops into the online world. Best Virtual Worlds for Tweens: 6. Toon Town Toon Town USA is a website for kids from the Walt Disney Company. It uses familiar characters from Disney to interact with users. I think this is great because it lets kids do more with Disney Characters than just watch them on TV or see them at Disneyland. 7. Wizard 101 If your kids love Harry Potter, they are going to love this. I like that this virtual world is more...
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...Why Off-Sites Should Go Virtual: the Virt-Site By Keith Ferrazzi Organizations are all trying to do more with less. As the economic downturn drags on, companies have tightened their belts even further. Businesses continue to lay off thousands of workers; holiday parties are being drastically downscaled; executive perks like corporate jets have become history; and the list goes on. As part of that belt-tightening, some companies have begun to rethink their strategic off-sites. Instead of flying executives from around the world to an expensive three-day offsite location, why not just conduct everything virtually? The problem, though, has been that many companies have been trying to use videoconferencing, virtual reality technologies, and other tools to try to replicate physical off-sites. One idea was to encourage spontaneous conversations by simulating a “virtual cocktail hour. ” Wrong! The use of virtual technologies to replicate traditional physical off-sites misses a huge opportunity. Doing so results in a “poor man’s” version of the real thing, like online training courses that consist of nothing more than a video recording of an instructor followed by a test. Instead, companies need to be much smarter about how they conduct virtual off-sites. They need to leverage online’s unique characteristics to push beyond what’s possible in a physical setting and truly transform the process. Interviews with dozens of experts resulted in the following methodology, dubbed the virt-site...
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... The only way to end up there is to teleport, and one would only teleport there for a reason, not by coincidence. Also, when visiting the corporate islands, many times no one is present. In a 2009 study on Second Life, Tikkanen, Hietanen, Henttonen, & Rokka suggested that “a company representative could, for example, welcome visitors and help customers to familiarize themselves with the company location to increase interaction and user involvement” (p. 1368). There is little to no engagement without someone there to interact with visitors. Tikkanen et al. (2009) also found in a survey of 200 Second Life users that “72 % of respondents were disappointed with the marketing activities in Second Life and only 7% considered current virtual world marketing activities to be having a positive influence on brand image and on their buying behavior" (p. 1364). Another study of Second Life by Mackenzie, Buckby & Irvine (2009) surveyed 20 businesses on Second Life and found there was an “apparent inability to attract, engage, or sustain engagement of Second Life lead user avatars” (p. 198). A few weeks ago we discussed how blogs were effective because of the engagement factor. In Second Life, the engagement is in real-time, so immediate reactions and responses are most effective. Also, the potential engagement is more limited. Second Life can...
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...Virtual Reality Close your eyes and imagine yourself to be on another planet fighting aliens or imagine flying over your favourite city on your personal tour. These situations might never materialise in your real life. But virtual reality provides you with an option to experience the thrill and excitement of something like this happening. While currently only in its infant state, virtual reality could exceedingly alter the future of the human race. Virtual reality can be defined as, “a technology that enables users to enter computer generated worlds and interface with them three dimensionally through sight, sound and touch.” (Nequist, Virtual Reality, 1993). Earlier popular only in video games and entertainment fields, virtual reality has now excelled in many other important fields like medicine, surgery, space programs, military, etc. This technology once properly developed and mastered will do wonders in these fields. Virtual reality helps people in breaking the boundations of their routine life and enters them into a 3-D version of the life they dream about. It is very aptly said “virtual reality is the first step in a grand adventure into the landscape of imagination.” (Biocca, Kim & Levy, Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality). This technology also provides us with interface for trials and errors in hypothetical yet possible in real life situations. For example, the military uses virtual training grounds for training their soldiers, virtual flight simulators...
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