I am no gamer...

The challenge this week was to find a game that I could:
A) understand how to play AND
B) find an opponent to play with AND
C) screencast as I played

That proved to be like teaching an elephant to ride a tricycle! I finally gave up on grown-up games and found myself on Webkinz.com in my 6 year old daughter's account. So, to be fair, everytime I go to the library I see kids on the computers playing Webkinz... I decided that if you werent a parent you might never have seen how Webkinz works. With my limited gaming skills I found that ones designed for the under 10 set were just about my speed! So here is a screen cast of Webkinz bowling....

bowling

Best practices for screencasting

Here is an outline of my best practices and a screencast - not sure which you were looking for and was too lazy to ask!!

1. prepare your environment - turn off the stereo, open the programs you will need to show, close unneeded programs so as to minimize potential distractions
2. have a general outline of what you want to say and do, try it once so you have all required info at your fingertips
3. briefly explain any moves/mouseclicks you do if you are making a step-by-step instruction screencast

here is a screencast of "best practices"- after I did it I realized I must not play my music that loud as you can barely hear it in the background! So I guess I can keep my tunes on!

best practices

xboxes, playstations, and wii's - oh my!

You're in charge of getting a gaming system for your library or a local organization...

• How would you research?
• What would your criteria be?
• Which do you think you would get?

Okay - sounds like an easy enough question right? Boy was I wrong! I spent several hours reading reviews and trying to understand all the techno-gamer language to try and start forming an opinion. So here is my answer to the question...

Research --> first you need to decide who the gaming audience is - all library patrons or 18-24 year old boys - because the answer of which console to buy is heavily dependent on who is going to be playing. You can read reviews on any number of websites but I was actually able to follow most of the jargon on this site --> digital trends.

Once you have figured out your target audience then you can worry about building your criteria list on things like price, backwards compatibility, size of the unit, graphics quality, number and type of games available, type of screen it will be played on, etc.

My bottom line.... if I had to buy a console for a library first I would go home and cry....then I think I would settle on the Nintendo Wii, basing the decision on its relatively decent price ($300 to start vs. ps3 at $600), its appeal to users of all ages (vs. xbox 360 where most games seem to be for older teens), its compact size for storage (vs. the ps3), its backwards compatibility with GameCube games (both xbox and ps3 appear to have some backward compat. issues), and its generally more "fun" gameplay. Now having said this... I think that if your target audience is serious gamers who want the more mature games, then Wii isnt the answer. But if I ran a library and could only buy one I would try to appeal to the masses with the Wii.

boyd readings

Based on the readings by danah boyd (does anyone know why she does not capitalize her name?), libraries need to understand that if they want to connect with young users they need to have a presence on multiple SNS networks. There is an apparent socio-economic divergence between MySpace and Facebook users, so each system needs to include accounts in order to reach all of the target audience. There are other smaller niche markets which can be assessed, but primarily teens and young adults are using one or the other of these SNS in order to keep in touch with people. Understanding the different audiences and building a profile to enhance that knowledge would be very important research that a librarian or staffer would need to conduct prior to launching their "presence."

Ning seems interesting!

I can see Ning as a more compelling use of SNS...building a social network of specific people for a specific purpose makes some sense to me.I could see using it to prepare and promote a conference that would showcase events and the people involved or to gather feedback on an idea from a specific user group, etc. In the library world I could see creating a Ning based on shared interests...bookclubs, online gaming clubs, etc. Having the ability to appeal to the social networking principles but with a more selected and purposeful group...yeah I see that.

I am sure that the limitations of "upkeep" are more difficult than with MySpace or Facebook exposure - you would have to explain more and justify why you weren't just using a mainstream SNS. But I think the overriding usefulness would be compelling enough if the ning was well thought out and designed.

Sticky = voyeurism

So I have decided that voyeurism is a huge part of why MySpace and FaceBook are "sticky" sites! As a brand new SNS user I found that I could have spent quite a bit of time strolling down memory lane to see what old classmates (that I havent communicated with in over 25 years) are doing. But really do I need to? Or is it some crazy desire to peek into their windows without just knocking on the door? Same goes for old co-workers...I worked in the Silicon Valley during the crazy internet years - there were alot of shared experiences that are not easily repeated and you develop oddly intense relationships at work at 3 AM. But I left that world and the people behind, until I started peeking at them too! So I guess I am just a voyeur at heart - didnt want to actually communicate but had a great time poking around! I think that is a large part of what makes these sites "sticky" - you can see what many people are doing with little personal committment.

Then there are the other users, who use the sites to truly live their life in a digital world. I think I am too old to get on that bandwagon!

Deleting friends in MySpace

Screencast of how to delete a friend on MySpace. Since my account is getting deleted every night I have now mastered the deletion of "Tom" the random MySpace friend - so thought I would share it with any other new to MySpace users.

http://screencast.com/t/nIC1eAwn