RSS

I have used RSS without even realizing what I was using. I have seen the RSS logo on different webpages but I did not know what exactly what it was for. At first I did not want to deal with this assignment. I was trying to ignor it and wait until it went away meaning the deadline. I did not even know where to start. I read the Wikipedia and I felt I was jusr rambling words in my mind. It could be that my brain cells are all burnt out since we are at the end of the semester . Well I started reading more about RSS and started understanding what it was about. Then came the real challenge so I thought. I was supposed to creat my own reader. It wasn't until I started reading some of the blogs that my fellow classmates posted that I became clear with what I had to do. I then chose to stay with google since I already have an account with them and since I started this class I have a whole lot more web accounts that I would have never signed up for prior to this class and so I would not go insane with another password I figured it would just be more convinient for me to stay with google since I do not have to log in when I go to google from my computer.



I first went to the wrong area I signed up for alerts and then I figured it was to easy to be true I just put in words and that was it I will get news alerts. But then I remembered about what I have researched and it said I had to just plug in the url's I wanted to get alerts from.



I still haven't figured out how to use it with blackboard but since I plan to begin writing articles this summer on a calling to get the Hispanic Community unified and immigration issues, I chose url's related to Hispanic issues and immigration and Politics. However, I have found a new passion that has left me uneasy. I want to research more on Second Life. As a future Psychologist I want to propose to Dr. Lewis from the West Campus to maybe do a research on behavior, what kind of people are spending money in a virtal world, addiction, I just have a lot of questions and curiosity. I want to explore the financial aspect, the psychological aspect, and more on the culture of the Virtual World, so I set some url's to get hot off the press information on Second life or any other virtual world.

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it (http://www.whatisrss.com/). Furthermore, RSS is an XML-based format that allows the syndication of lists of hyperlinks, along with other information, or metadata, that helps viewers decide whether they want to follow the link. This allows peoples’ computers to retrieve and understand the information, so that all of the lists they’re interested in can be tracked and personalized for them. It is a format that’s intended for use by computers on behalf of people, rather than being directly presented to them (like HTML).

RSS has gone through many changes since its inception. The first RSS was .09 which is now obsolete, then .91 came about and this has become a migration path to 2.0. RSS .92, .93, and .94 have also become obsolete. 2.0 is what is currently being used however, it is an easy migration path from the previous forms of RSS (http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/).

RSS are aware programs called news aggregators and are popular in the blogging community. News aggregators can be very helpful with a persons favorite web blogs. Furthermore, RSS is not just for news but for anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS. Pilgrim mentioned that since there are seven different formats called RSS the public needs to be liberal enough to handle allthe variations (Pilgirm).

Aggregators are the most common use of feeds, and there are several types. Web aggregators (sometimes called portals) make this view available in a Web page; Aggregators have also been integrated into e-mail clients, users’ desktops, or standalone, dedicated software.
Aggregators have many special features, that combine several related feeds into one view, hiding entries that the viewer has already seen, and putting feeds and entries into categories.
Other uses of feeds include site tracking by search engines and other software; because the feed is machine-readable, the search software doesn’t have to figure out which parts of the site are important and which parts are just the navigation and presentation (http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/).
There are many reasons to use RSS . RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter (www.whatisrss.com).

References

Webmaster. RSS Tutorial. Retrieved on 4/13/2008 from http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/

Pilgrim, M. (2002). Dive Into XML: What Is RSS. Retrieved 4/13/2008 from: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html

What Is RSS? RSS Expalined. Retreived 4/13/2008 from: www.whatisrss.com

Second Life

Wow! When I first went into Second Life and created my avatar Kat Bomze I was not too impressed with the whole deal. I had lots of technical difficulties because the program kept crashing. I had lost of difficulty navigating around the virtual world. I did however, enjoy modifying my avatar character. I made it look like what I wanted to really look like such as to have a knock out body. I went into several different places but since I did not know how to control the arrows I kept getting lost in space. I would have to log out and log back in to find myself. I did meet one person that gave me some tips on how to navigate. Where I felt I got most interested in Second Life was when I began my research. I was amazed with all the information that I gathered. I have to be honest I am not the type that likes to do too much research but this time I just could not stop researching I had to literately stop myself from researching. It interested me so much. I did not realize how much money is being made in virtual real estate. As a Realtor and with the current market condition this is a great opportunity for Realtors. Imagine selling property and not having the liability. I wonder if The Virtual World will ever regulate the real estate sales? I never felt scared I just got frustrated with my computer. One spooky thing was that I was being watched as I modified my avatar and I was not aware of it. What I did do was call my brother and told him about the Virtual Real Estate Boom. I told him we need to jump on the band wagon before virtual real estate sales becomes more popular and the competition increases.

Research Section

We often let out a sigh of dissatisfaction of our current appearance. We are not able to afford that dream vacation to Hawaii or Europe and most of all many of us complain about not having enough money to pay the bills. Well Second Life gives us the opportunity to fulfill our fantasies, take our dream vacations, we can be unfaithful to our spouses without feeling guilty about it and or running the risk of getting some STD, but most of all we can make real money selling intangible items in a virtual world! Items such as virtual real estate is being sold, there are large corporations holding trainings in cyber space, and there even a stock market. However as in real life Second Life is no crime free. In the near future the virtual world may be what get this country out of recession.

We are not able to afford a dream vacation but through Second Chance we can travel the world for free, we can create our own vacation and buy our own dream home for as little as $20.00. We can create an avatar which is a an on screen character that we can customize to our liking. We can go into night clubs and have affairs with one two or three different people and fulfill our fantasies and nobody will judge you. We can be free to express ourselves.

However, greater than those frivolous things mentioned there is a greater opportunity in Second Life, there is money to be made. Second Life gets 10 million members that pay $15.00 a month to play and another 20 million members login occasionally. There is an online currency exchange (Hof, Robert).

Although in the real world the real estate market is going from bad to worse and we do not for see it getting better, in the virtual world real estate is booming. People are selling and renting land for others to create. Coldwell Banker is one of the biggest real estate companies in the world and they have opened a virtual office in Second chance. Coldwell Banker bought a great amount of property then subdivided it into 520 individual homes that half will be sold and half will be to rent. Their virtual offices are staffed by real people where they are not only selling the virtual land but they are also answering real life real estate transactions to the consumers. With the real estate market crash many consumers have been left with a bittersweet attitude towards Realtors because they feel they were not represented properly by their agents and have lost the trust of the Realtor. By Coldwell Banker being out in cyberspace they are not only getting the exposure worldwide but when the market picks up again chances are they may be the first company many consumers will go to for their real estate needs (Kirkpatrick, David).

Many large companies such as, American Express, Intel, Wal-Mart, and many other large corporations are holding trainings and investments in Second Life (Hof, Robert). Furthermore, Second Life has its own World Stock Exchange. The virtual stock exchange opened in real life simulated stock exchange on March 5 2007. The trading volume surpasses 23 million virtual dollars which is the equivalent to $90,000 US dollars. At that time the exchange rate was 290 to 1 (Crosman, Penny).

Like the real world the virtual world is not crime free. Greed prevails everywhere, There was a banking meltdown in which many consumers lost a great amount of real money through fraudulent banks. As a result Linden Lab had to abruptly close down all the banks and evict them from the cyber world. The only banks that can operate in Second Life are banks that can show proof of an applicable government regulation statement or a financial institution charter (Talbot, David). Moreover, the World Stock Exchange suffered a loss of L$32 million, ($12,300 dollars) on July 25 of 2007. A former employee of Linden Lab took advantage of the classified information that he or she had access to and broke into the ATM network (Reuters, Adam).

It is interesting that people do not have money to pay their bills in the real world and they have money to spend in a virtual world. For this reason precisely that the virtual world may be the solution to stabilize the nations economy. Second Life does not only get people from the United States investing but from all over the world. If the person wants to chance their linden dollars for real US Dollars they are subject to taxation from the IRS (Wond).

References

Crosman, Penny. (2007). Stock Exchange Opens In Second Life: retrieved 4/6/2008 from http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/blog/archives/2007/03/virtual_stock_e.html

Hof, Robert. (2006). My Virtual Life: retrieved 4/6/2008 from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982001.htm

Krikpatrick, David. (2007). Coldwell Bankers Second Life: retrieved 4/6/2008 from http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/22/technology/fastforward_secondlife.fortune/index.htm

Reuters, Adam. (2007). World Stock Exchange Hit By L$32 Million In Theft: retrieved 4/6/20008 from http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/07/25/world-stock-exchange-hit-by-l32-million-theft/

Talbot, David. (2008). Second Life Closes Banks: retrieved 4/6/2008 from http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20037/

Wong, Grace. (2007). Second Life's Looming tax Threat: retrieved 4/6/2007 from http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/02/technology/sl_taxes/index.htm