Ethnography: Week 2 Results

Goal:

The goal for week 2 was to enter different communities and observe people's method of interaction and behavior. We wanted to study the general environment of different places. We wanted to observe if people would notice that we were new members and if they wanted to approach us and talk with us.

Methods of Study:

• Teleport to different locations - college campuses, libraries, coffee shops, clubs, beaches etc.
• Observe people and their actions.
• Try to initiate conversation with people and judge their tone.
• Notice what music and visuals are playing at different places and what relation it has with the environment of that particular place.

Locations and Communities:

First, we started with the Texas A&M Campus. We visited different places like the Bonfire memorial, Cushing Library, the MSC flagroom and some classrooms. However, we couldn't anyone on the campus. So, we thought of discovering new places.

Screenshot:

Next, we decide to go to a public library, but it was also empty, so we decided to go to the Standford Campus, Palo Alto. However, the Standford campus was also empty on this Friday night.

Screenshot - Stanford Library:

After finding no one at the Stanford and the Texas A&M Campus, we went to one of the featured places - The Help Island. Here we met many people who were all there to help newbies like us! I think that was pretty exciting. No one approached to us first, but once we asked for help, one of the guys invited us to his Cedar Park, Newbie University.

Screenshot - The Help Island

Lastly, we teleported to the newbie university and got lessons about Second Life. One of the guys from the help island who invited us to the newbie university accompanied us to this university and instructed us about finding the lesson and places to seek help.

Screenshot - Cedar Park Newbie University.

Experience:

The overall experience was very exciting. This was our very first exploration of the second life communities. This was the first time that we had interaction with people. Even though no one approached us and talked to us, but when we seeked help, people were more than willing to help. There were situations where some people tried to ignore or avoid us. These experiences will help us to tweak our behavior in order to gather more data starting next week.