So, I was sitting here being a productive student and needed a good resource to prove how goldfarming can be disruptive on a virtual gaming world’s economy. And it’s not like there are few examples to pick from! So I thought I’d have a little look through this blog to see if I had collected any decent links on the way.
What a disappointment!! I thought I had so much data collected in here, which I suppose I do, but not what I’m looking for! And so few posts! It’s bizarre how much I’ve changed! How reliant I am on this blog now and how unreliant I was earlier!
Hmmm…I’m wondering if I could just write footnotes in my thesis relating to some of my blogposts and the discussions there…you think that’s allowed? So I don’t have to copy the whole thing?
Not that I’ve had a whole lot of discussions here…which I suppose is another disappointment! Who would have thought that a one year old could be this depressed on her birthday?!!
I was however filled with fond memories of a time when my dear friend Joachim bothered commenting on my blog. And when I was first introduced to the Infomedia blogs. Also some interesting thoughts on the whole TSO experience that I had completely forgotten. And I suppose it was a novelty finding posts expressing my pure joy of finding Wonderland, Clickable Culture a.s.o. – things that have just become an essential part of my life now!
I really should have started this blog long, long ago!!
But now! I think I need to go home!! I just freaked out because I couldn’t find any reference to gold farming and virtual economy! Which is just too bizarre and stupid! I’ve got Castronova right infront of me, after all!!!
Remember What The Dormouse Said 
And what a fine and healthy one year old it is! Congratulations.About the lack of discussion – unless one is an A- or B-list blogger, or writes about controversial topics, or attracts/builds upon a friend-like community (there’s often a sort of “gift economy of comments and links” evolving), response will be scarce. Which is regrettable, cause we all love comments, espescially those that connect with what we try to say, or those that gives us new insight somehow, helps us drive forward. After all, the blogging motivation isn’t just about sharing (or showing off…) knowledge and ideas, it’s also about testing them. That’s why it’s good to have alternative response/conversation arenas (“backchannels”) such as the good old msn convo…
Thanks for the congrats! Yeah…I’ve often thought about writing something provocative to see if I could lure some comments and my words wouldn’t have to suffer in silence, but that would just be too attention seeking, I guess! I’m not a brilliant commenter myself, so I really shouldn’t complain! I guess I just still feel a bit nervous each time I press publish always expecting people to ‘call me out’ on my foolishness and misunderstandings. The silence just makes me uneasy sometimes – maybe insecure is the word. Just like when other bloggers discuss stuff I’ve sent them but fail to acknowledge me by even a mere link, I start to wonder “Is it because my blog, my ideas, my thoughts are sooo bad?”. But then I remind myself that this blog is here for me to vent out! It’s not here to attract attention or as you say ‘showing off’. And the ‘backchannels’ are lovely! Many ideas have come from them! I’m wondering, however, about your ‘gift economy of comments and links’. And I’m actually finding myself wondering the same things as when I have your comments window open “Hmmm…do I actually understand what this brilliant insightful man is saying, ’cause I don’t want to make a fool of myself here, of all places! Hmm..better to comment on the MSN so he can correct me!”. Which I thought was kinda funny!
I guess I owe a better explanation of my “gift economy of linking”-theory: It has to do with the basic mechanisms behind the blog interlinking system. Marcel Mauss speaks of the economy of gifts, where acts of giving or recieving are not isolated phenomena, but part of a reciprocal process. As bloggers we might not be the exhibitionists that some people will have us be, but we do want an audience for what we have to say. And on a web of a billion websites, audiences are a scarce resource. So what happens is that Blogger A and blogger B (who writes on fairly related topics) acknowledge that they are pretty much in the same situation, and then make a silent “I’ll read yours and then you’ll read mine”-agreement in the form of linking to eachother. So what we “give” or “recieve” is attention. This way small blog networks or clusters evolve.