New World Notes

Janine's Top Ten Favorite Articles of 2014

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

As 2014 draws to a close, bloggers and writers everywhere are looking back at their year and trying to remember anything that happened before June that might be worth including in a wrap-up post. 'Tis the season for recaps, and we're certainly not immune from that here at NWN. 

While my upcoming Game of the Year post didn't require much digging at all (it's been a very good year for my Steam Library if nothing else) I did have to roll up my sleeves and dive into the archives to find my favorite articles from 2014. I'm entirely too quick to dismiss my own work, which makes these kinds of lists quite hard for me to write... But also makes this an easy choice for a low-traffic Monday.

Wagner James Au's Favorite Ten Posts for 2013: On Virtual Reality, Second Life, China, Bitcoin, and Beyond

As we wind down the year, I wanted to share my personal favorite pieces of writing from 2013, most for New World Notes, some for GigaOM and Internet Evolution:

• Second Life turns 10: what it did wrong, and why it may have its own second life (for GigaOM)
• How to Understand Technology Trends -- Ignore Personal Preference, Focus on Sales & Usage Data
• Woman with Parkinson's Reports Significant Physical Recovery After Using Second Life - Academics Researching
• BioShock Infinite's Racist Arcade Games Based on Real Games from America's Dark Past That Echo in Its Present
• Architect Using Oculus Rift as Real World Tool Reports Dramatic Improvements to Design Visualization

Five more below:

8 Essential SL Posts from 8 Years of New World Notes

Here's 8 posts I've written over the last 8 years, which in my opinion capture the essence of what I want New World Notes to be at its best: Stories and insights that illustrate how the virtual has transformed our culture and what it means to be human -- and how our culture changes the virtual:

• 2003: "War of the Jessie Wall": Political and cultural clashes break out in the metaverse in the shadow of the Iraq war.
• 2004: "A Lever to Move the Mind": Still among the best examples of Second Life's potential (as yet unrealized) as a transformative resource for real world use.
• 2005: "Watching the Detectives": Trust, infidelity, and desire online.
• 2006: "The Skin You're In": Avatars contend with identity and racism.
• 2006: "Guarding Darfur": Real world activism meets online griefing -- and avatar superheroes.
• 2007: "Fighting the Front": Real world politics come to the virtual world -- explosively!
• 2008: "The Husband that Eshi Made": Real love and loss as expressed through avatars.
• 2010: "What Went Wrong With Linden Lab? The Dwight Schrute Echo Chamber": The limitations of virtuality reach a tragic apex.