Category: Internet

Un-Social Networks

I just realized that I’m a member of (I think) hundreds of online communities, not counting all the ones I tried and left, and still I have hardly any friends. The sad thing is, few as they are, my online friends are in the majority. In real life, I have even fewer.

Why is that? Am I the world’s most boring person? Is the internet a hopeless place to go, looking for friends? Come to think of it, is this common? Do most other people experience the same thing?

I’d really, really like to have a boyfriend and a few good friends. Is that too much to ask? Where do I go? How can I search efficiently? In real life and online. Because the places I’ve looked so far, are obviously no good. Too bad. I actually like many of my communities, but social they’re not.

Second Life – a Language School?

It’s kind of funny. I’ve been a member of a number of different language sites and I still use one regularly. Many different people contact me, wanting to ‘learn’ Swedish, without taking any classes. Some just want to practice their English. No one stays in touch for long. I can’t say I’ve had much use for the exchange.

Strangely enough, in the relatively short time I’ve been in Second Life, I’ve already felt that I can express myself more freely, especially in French and Spanish. Not as much in Italian and German, but at least there’s some improvement.

I don’t have that many close friends in SL, but that doesn’t really matter. The constantly new people who want advice or help or – in some cases- who want to help me, will ask or tell me things in their languages. I need to find the right words or expressions quickly, almost as if I was in France or Spain or wherever it is.

Sure I need to let go of my demands for perfection. My sentences tend to be simple and basic, as I used to express myself in the years before I first went to school (when it comes to Swedish) or the first years of learning English (roughly ten to thirteen).

That’s not really a problem. I can make myself understood and my brief acquaintances appreciate the fact that I respond in their languages. It might be hard to believe, but there are some ‘residents’ of SL who aren’t fluent in English.

This even made me want to learn Portuguese too. Several times I’ve been unable to chat with the Brazilians who get in touch, hoping I’m a Portuguese speaker too. Who knows, some of those people might be really nice.

So, now I can add another advantage to being in SL. In a way, it’s a pretty good language school. If this is making you a bit curious, why don’t you drop in? There’s just one thing – you’ll need a quite modern and strong computer. Other than that, it’s not difficult. Besides, if you’re not that good at for instance English, there will most likely be people from your country in world already. Search for groups for people from your country or people speaking your language and join them. From the start, you’ll have some people to talk to.

Homepage or dodo?

Soon it won’t be any use, having a homepage. No one visits homepages anymore.

First WebRing started charging for their services. If you didn’t pay you could only have something like five rings – I had over eighty, and I still didn’t get that many hits. You also wouldn’t be able to manage more than three rings – I used to have about ten or so.

There are a couple of other places that provide rings, but that doesn’t help much. Top lists are something else you can join to, presumably, get mor hits. Guess what – no visitors from there either.

My sister and I have made our own personal web pages, and some other, larger sites. One of the latter gets a few more hits, but not even that adds up to a whole lot. We even pay for web hotels and domain names. Ok, we’re doing all this because we think it’s fun and we still think it’s fun, even without any visitors. Of course, we might as well play with our little homepages on our own little computers, without paying anything extra to keep them online for no one to visit.

Some of you might say ‘so update more often’ – but I do, especially my blog, which is a part of my homepage. Besides, I see no reason to add metatags like sex, girls etc. There’s nothing about that sort of thing on my homepage. I also don’t provide files for illegal download. Not legal downloads either.

But what do I expect? People don’t even know the difference between homepage, blog and profile page. My sister teaches high school students and some of them think that the little symbol that says Internet on the computer desktop actually means the Internet, not the WEB BROWSER Microsoft Internet Explorer. Hello? These are almost grown up students who are taking computer related subjects in school.

Here is my own little mini computer school:

Homepage:- personal page that you design – either with a WYSIWIG editor or if you know html programming (web design) a text editor. You can put your homepage on some free web space – like the one that you get with your internet connection (not everyone gets that) or a free web space provider. Or you could pay to keep your site on a web hotel. Ours costs about 10 dollars per year and for that you get quite a lot of space. The domain names cost a bit more, say 20 to 30 dollars per year.

Blog – a sort of online diary or something more creative. Usually updated more often than a web page.

Profile page: a brief presentation you can fill in when you join an online community. You can upload a photo of yourself and fill in some info about yourself. The page is made up of pre-written modules with a space for your own input. You can usually pick a couple of background themes, but all the profiles look roughly the same.

In my experience some guys know all kinds of programming languages, including flash for animations that slow a web page down, but they have no idea what to put on a homepage. Those of them who do have a home page, usually just put their CV there. These guys clearly have no hobbies or interests. Others, along with quite a few girls, have things to say, but don’t know that much about web design.

Not that it matters. Whatever you know or don’t know, no one will visit your site or leave a message in your guestbook. No one knows what a homepage is anyway..

My Second Report from 3D Land

At the moment, I’m trying to make enough money to upgrade. That means I’m not doing anything but camp. I chase around all of Second Life, looking for good camping places. Sometimes you need to watch your avatar all the time, so it won’t become inactive and get logged out. Of course, I have managed to ear quite a bit of money in a relatively short time.

Since I don’t have that much else to do right now, I might as well keep at it. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Second Life – SL – perhaps I should explain that the money in there – Linden dollars – are actually transferrable to a PayPal account. In some countries you can also transfer the money to your bank account. That might be possible here too, before long.

Something else – a Linden dollar isn’t worth much more than a cent or two. It takes a long time to save up for something in real life. I donated my savings to an animal shelter a while back. Since I know the two people who run it, I know that the money goes to a worthy cause. Many other animal shelters worldwide, will accept PayPal. You could donate to other causes as well. In any case, it’s been hard to buy something, like books.

Either way I like the idea of being able to donate money, even though I’m unemployed and can’t really donate ‘real’ money. That’s why I’ll probably keep doing this, as soon as I manage to save up a reasonable sum of money. Even though I would love to buy more books.

Another thing – sometimes I wonder if I’m not going around in circies. I want to make money so I can upgrade – so I can make more money. Isn’t that a bit weird? What little else I do inside SL I can easily do using a free, basic account. Here I am running the rat race, so I can run some more rat race. Something is a bit off in this reasoning, but like I said before, I don’t have anything better to do, so for the time being, I’m going to keep doing it.

Excuse, now I need to go and keep an eye on my avatar, so she won’t get up and stops making money, or maybe, worst of all, will be logged out.

Adventures in 3D land

Ok. I’ll admit it. That title – I just made it up because it looks cool. So far I haven’t had any adventures of any kind in 3D land. Not that I want to. That kind of adventure.

Let’s start at the beginning. Last summer I let myself be talked into joining Second Life. My sister was already hooked and she thought I’d like it too. In a way, I did. It’s a fantastic 3D environment. Better than any other attempt I’ve seen in the nine years I’ve been online. What’s missing is some content.

I’m not Bob the Builder. I’m not there to look for sexual contacts either. What else is there? Well, according to my sister, who is the only one I know in there, you can chat. Socialize. Like in any other social networking community. There are even groups, for people with all kinds of interests.

So I joined them. There were actually groups for most of the things I’m interested in. Unfortunately, that didn’t help at all. They seem too haphazard and vague for me. Or maybe it’s just that it’s hard to fit in. The people in those groups are presumably already friends. Maybe it’s my shy Scandinavian temperament. Who knows? In any case it didn’t help.

Supposedly, there are also all kinds of ‘real life’ events too. Concerts. Pub performances. Even online courses or lectures arranged by respectable universities. Lately, Sweden, yeah, that’s right, my country, has started a cultural embassy inside the virtual community.

So far though, I haven’t found my place in there.

What I have done, which I’ve enjoyed enormously, is create my avatar. It’s more fun than you might think. Certainly more fun than I expected. In real life I’m nobody’s fashion freak. In Second Life makeovers are a breeze. You just go shopping for new hair, new clothes, even new skins and shapes.

Shopping… Well, as you know there are women who love shopping then there are others who don’t. I belong in the latter category. Unless you let me loose in a bookstore with lots of spending money, shopping simply doesn’t appeal to me. I guess I’m too much of a tomboy at heart. Tech stuff is nice too, if even more expensive. Other than that, I just can’t stand shopping sprees.

In Second Life it’s just so much easier and practical. Unfortunately, it’s just as expensive and being the cheap weirdo that I am, I absolutely refuse to ‘buy’ Lindens – the currency, not the founders… Not sure if those are for sale… LOL.

That brings me to the most typical aspect of Second Life. Money. Business. People actually run businessed in there. Make believe businesses, selling make believe stuff. Believe it or not, someone’s actually become a real life millionaire selling (or rather speculating in) land.

I’ve been forced to learn new ways of making money. Being who I am, I absolutely refuse to join the sex industry. When it comes to sex, I’d rather buy than sell. Just kidding. About the buying part, not about the selling part. That’s my final word. Fortunately, there are a few more ways of making money.

So now I’ve become a professional dancer. LOL. No, not quite, but I do ‘camp’ for Lindens. Most addicts (did I say addicts? Slip of the tongue). Most residents frown on that, but camping is available and so I camp to make money. I sit in a chair or I dance. As simple as that. Of course you don’t make much and there are many pitfalls and hangups. You can get logged out. Some camping providers (is that the word, SL:ers?) kick you out on purpose so you have to pay a little fee to start over again. If you’re not careful you end up losing money instead of making it.

Anyway, let’s say I have a little hard earned cash. I head for the luxurious stores. In Second Life shopping really is a pleasure. You can walk around those endless halls, gazing at the merchandise hanging on the walls. Once you’ve found what you’re looking for (and being me, I’m extremely picky) you click on the item you’ve chosen and voilà ! You’ve bought it.

One of the worst aspects of Second Life is that it can be extremely sexist. I’m not going to get into the more ‘adult’ examples of this. Suffice it to say that the female apparel is slutty. There’s no other word for it. You’re expected parade your poor avatar around half-naked. Not me. Not this girl.

There. Enough for now. This is the end of my (possibly first) report from 3D land.