[OLR] Exercise 5.2: Social architects and online games

[OLR] Exercise 5.2: Social architects and online games
Define what is meant by a social architect?

Social architects are developers or designers of user-engaging online community interfaces. They focus on social media functionality; i.e. social architects are people whose role is about attracting users to build a community and create a center of gravity that people on the Internet will converge to, creating sites that will become collectors of relationships - Facebook is a good example of this: look at my profile and you'll get links to all the people that I know and that I can interact with. Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo are all examples of sites that would make use of social architects. If we think of the Internet as a place that is becoming increasingly social (a place to visit) and communal (meet with other people), then social architects are the people that are helping to create the necessary groundswell of people that will click, click, click on all of those adverts to pay for all of this social engagement. I'm sure social architects have a sound sociological knowledge about how large groups of people interact (and what they seek in these interactions).

Investigate and compare ANY two of the following online communities and become a member

Try to find out who is behind the organisation and management of each online community. Are they true social architects?

Whyville has a range of sponsors but it comes out of Numedeon Inc which was founded by Dr. James M. Bower his students and collaborators at the California Institute of Technology interested in ways in which the Internet and simulation-based serious gaming could change education (thanks wikipedia!). Yes, these people really are true social architects in the sense that they focus on social media functionality and drawing in users. Whyville seems like quite a decent sort of site - clear educational outcomes are apparent and their virtual world makes sense. I could image a child becoming quite immersed in it. A 'shortcoming' of the site is that it doesn't allow for an ongoing avatar that will 'travel on' as it were with its users as they grow up and move on.

Honestly, I found Shuffle Brain a little bit creepy and more than a little pointless (to me anyway). The site talks about brain games and that's all good and well. However the founder of the site is, to quote the site:

Amy Jo Kim ... an internationally recognized expert in online social architecture. She has designed social architecture for Electronic Arts/Maxis/Origin, Digital Chocolate, MTV/Harmonix, eBay, There.com, Yahoo!, and others. Her influential book Community Building on the Web (published 2000), translated into 7 languages, is required reading in universities and game companies around the world. She has a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from University of Washington, and a BA in Experimental Psychology from UCSD.

Nothing personal against her - at all - but for me the first game that I tried (a picture matching game) seemed to be designed to be easy to engage with and designed to suck me in (it promised me updates / solutions tomorrow). Yep, this site is a true product of social architecture, I think. It uses the trust that I've got with Facebook (I use my facebook ID to get started immediately with their games) and it's active about getting me to play with others and suck my friends in too. This is great leverage of Facebook-as-a-social-collector: suddenly I'm looking at all these people that I don't even 'know' as a friend of a fried. Bah! Humbug to that! Given the creators background - I can only assume that this is being done to ultimately earn the founders money in some sort of buy out / take over. Nothing wrong with that but it does raise the question - who is paying for all this internet that we're using. Advertisers today and companies that are speculating that 10-20 years from now the Internet will be different and people will be able to earn $$'s in a much freer manner than they can today.

I liked Whyville because it offered something - educational games that a teacher could make use of. I disliked Shuffle Brain because it offers trivial games designed to make me suck other people into playing trivial games. Sorry, what's the point? Shuffle brain gives me a real "we're hoping that you're going to have to pay one day feel". I'd rather play 'trivial' games in a rewarding social context. Like with my wife or friends. Face to face over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. As an educator I recognise the validity of Shuffle Brain as a product that demonstrates the strengths of social networking but as an educator I'd be keeping it away from kids. End Rant!