3D sites resemble adult entertainment

Social networking on the Web becomes more like reality than simulation

By Fritz Klug
Western Herald

Everyday Western Michigan University student Melissa “Missy” Terrace checks her Facebook account. Most of them are 10 or 15 minute sessions, but sometimes they can go for two, three or even four hours.

“If I’m not busy, I’m on it,” Terrace said.

Social networking Web sites have become more prominent on computer monitors in the past five years. According to an Oct. 23 report from Nielsen Online, social networking Web sites have increased from 100 to 300 percent over last year.

MySpace has the largest number of registered users at 59.4 million, with Facebook following with 39 million. An April 2008 Harvard University’s Institute of Politics study found that 86 percent of college students use Facebook.

Social networks began as a supplement to social life. Sites like Xanga and Livejournal, both founded in 1999, allow users to post their thoughts in a constructed entry.

“Its purpose is intellectual more than social,” said Robert Wait\, professor of sociology at WMU.

Facebook and MySpace are different. They are like advanced digital white pages that allow users to create profiles with photos and any other information they wish to share about themselves.

Terrace uses Facebook as a way to stay in contact with high school friends.

“We chit-chat on threads. We are on our sixth one,” Terrace said.

The adult entertainment industry has always led the way making use of new Web technology: many of the earliest Web sites were adult oriented. The first profile based Web sites were for adult entertainment or dating.

Match.com was founded in 1994, eHarmony in 2000 and Adult Friend Finder (originally Friend Finder) in 1996. Facebook and MySpace, in comparison, were founded in 2004 and 2003.

Red Light Centre (RLC) is a 3D social network based on Amsterdam. Users can download a 400-megabyte application and create a digital avatar; after which they are able to go to digital bars, chat, share photos and videos, flirt, make new friends, form relationships, buy digital drinks and smoke digital cigarettes, discuss politics, drop digital ecstasy and even have digital sex.

If the Adult Entertainment Industry has been the flag bearers of new technologies, is a 3D world like RLC a sign of things to come? Shuster believes so. In fact he is banking on it.

“The Internet as we know it will become the library of a digital world,” said Brian Shuster, founder and CEO of the RLC.

On the left hand side of the screen users control their avatar’s noises and on the right side “physical” actions; there are as many kinks and scenarios as imaginable.

“It is surprisingly compelling when you’ve interacted with someone on Red Light Centre, to know that they are a real person also sharing the experience,” Shuster said.

These features of a fully digital and interactive world have allured many users. Red Light Center has grown over 500 percent in the last 12 months. There are 2.5 million registered users, 10,000 logged on at any given time.

“Next year, we project to have statistics to compete with Facebook,” Shuster said.

“Once people experience a 3D Web they will not want to go back,” Shuster said.

There are many alternative digital worlds to RLC.  Take the social network of Azeroth in the online multiplayer game World of Warcraft (WoW). Like Red Light Center, users create a profile, design a character and interact with one another. Currently, WoW has more than 11 million registered monthly subscribers. Instead of sex and drugs, the feature of WoW is questing. Other 3D social networks include Second Life, RipLounge and ExitReality.

But who would use a 3D Facebook?

“I would probably use it,” sophomore Steven Pyne said.

To Pyne, Facebook is a self admitted addiction used when he is bored. A 3D world would provide more ways to waste time.

Features have been added to social networking Web sites over the years. In 2006 Facebook released the
Newsfeed, which displayed a digest of friends’ activity: who they talk to and what they are doing.

At first this feature was met with protest by many users, many citing that it was a “stalkerfeed.” As they became accustomed to it, though, Newsfeed became an integral part of Facebook.

A chat feature was introduced in April 2008 and the “new” Facebook design, released in July, has more features, like the Live Feed, that bring the network to life. The most noticeable addition was the Applications feature in May 2007, which allows third party developers to imbed coded programs into profiles.

Now users can grow digital gardens together with “Lil’ Green Patch,” create an organized crime unit using “Mob Wars” or be a social critic with “Compare People.”

“I got annoyed with the little messages about vampire points and pirate points,” said Casey Knott, a Latin, Greek and History major, referring to the applications feature. Knott joined Facebook on Dec. 7, 2004 and was initially skeptical. “I didn’t like how people I really did not know would add me and say ‘he’s my friend.’”

At first, Knott used Facebook as a way to stay in touch with high school friends and people he met while studying abroad at Oxford University.

Knott then realized that he could telephone or write the people he considers friends. In the fall of 2006 he deactivated his account and has not looked back since.

Social networking is not for everyone, but the Facebook Knott grew discontent with may not be the same Facebook in five or 10 years. The Internet is always in an endless cycle of change.

Web 2.0 is a term, which describes the next generation of Internet applications which aim to be more creative, increase communication, and functionality.

Andy Wass, an electrical engineering major and member of the WMU Computer Club, said he could see how social networking Web sites could morph into a 3D world, but said they don’t need to.

“Personally, I am not comfortable installing a social networking program onto my computer,” Wass said.
New technologies have always met criticism. Shuster said that so many years ago, no one had envisioned sitting down and typing out a text message on their phone.

A 3D Facebook would continue to allow Terrace and her high school friends to stay in contact and Pyne to occupy his boredom more congruently and in real time. Knott already sees Facebook as a game-playing device without the 3D graphics.

“People use their profile to define themselves in a few pixels or a line of code,” he said.

3D social networks become a platform for socializing, a digital superficial shell to conduct many real world interactions in the comfort of home.

“You forget you are in a digital world,” Schuler said.

But this increasing digital world worries some.

“As a sociologist, I would hate to see the networking sites up-graded to the extent that they contain more of the features of real interactions. Then you might see people relying more on computer networking, to the detriment of ‘real’ relationships,” Wait said.  “Humans have inborn needs for commitment, touching, trust, and face-to-face conversations.”

Whatever the future of social networking may hold, its current use is widespread.

The Facebook and MySpace of today are reliant on real world socializing. But as social networks become even more a part of daily interaction, the future of them are as vague as the amount of detail a profile page really discloses about who a person really is. The future does not phase many users of today.

“I plan to use Facebook until I am old and have a real life,” Terrace said.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Dec 1 2008. Filed under Nation, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com