Recently I wrote/published a bunch of articles on conceptualization of identity in Secondlife space – and am back doing further immersive ethnographies in various virtual worlds in relation to building monetary value for social identities and in relation trans-nations, inter-nations and the local and global. Some of what I write next will both contest and extend what I have written and published in the previous phase of immersive online and offline (and offline trans- rural as well as trans- urban “deep hanging out”) ethnographies.

As usual – some of this will be co-authored and other essays will be single-authored with a clear acknowledgement of its collaborative nature. Am working in bits and pieces with multiple groups of people both within and outside the Western academy as well as both within and outside virtual worlds.

Let the layered investigations resume (continue – actually they never stopped – but now that I have my first draft of the book manuscript on Technocultural Agency finally done – I am calling it phase two as I move this work into my next two book projects being developed)!

Blogging from my iPhone not wanting it to be status update on facebook Twitter or myspace.

Not really thinking of anything clever or otherwise to write.

Writing to get the feel of typing in my blog from my iPhone as I wait for the dinner order at a restaurant.

From my post to Radha ki Betiyaan pvt blog:

Okay – even though everyone [on RkB] almost is on facebook and some are on twitter – and several of you may have individual blogs. And we have once again started mass emailing each other.

This is still a different way of being, communication in this “space” we call Radha ki Betiyaan.

I am returning to posting and getting a sense of how I feel as I post in each of my many blogs – or some.

So I blogged some research notes on my livejournal – that only a. has an account on amongst all of you – and has access to when I set it to a certain type of private post setting.

I will go blog again on my cyberdiva.org blog and other spaces (all semester my students and I have been on tumblr.com because we are class blogging there).

Facebook allows different kinds of interactions – scattered and sudden and on impulse even. Twitter allows me to be very very scattered with no dialogue until I or someone else on my twitter list chooses to (similar to facebook status responses – but not with such a potentially large audience – so its not that kind of theater).

I’ve noticed that many many in P’s generation and S’s generation have a custom of keeping public blogs. The public theatricality of bloggling, facebook and twitter (and I am not even getting into youtube here because I speak only of written text) subconsciously shaping their way of being…

Add to this mix the act of posting and typing via Iphone interface.

thinking aloud and ending abruptly as always with my thoughts in-progress (and this is part of the website culture that I started out in since 1990s and that continues now in blogger culture)…

hmmm

All I can say is the same thing I said on air-l list when class and SNS topic came up (some things are self-evident if you start with looking at online life in relation to what teens do in the everyday…. as Lois Ann and among others also elaborated on on the air-l list a while ago…)

Of course both dana and frank have already detailed their analysis and viewpoints on this… I always appreciate how they blog about the most recent practices and journal their viewpoint and analysis – this becomes useful to me and my advisees as we continue our cyberethnographic explorations.

I have been gifting like crazy – sorta – and have to admit that I am a sucker for one dollar cheapies (besides it’s for a cause as well). To me this is another way in which e-commerce is functioning – perhaps getting what us academics dont always understand that clearly – that online practices are a part of our everyday life. They ARE daily practices – just look at the amount of work and conversation I got through being at home snowed in today – just the same amount (or more) as – if I had driven to my office and gotten back onto the computer…

anyway – here’s to gifting:)

Of course the fact that we had a snow day off made us all feel that being “in class” cheated us out of a holiday so we did not have “class” – but several of us met.

Does that mean I am going to say that my life is enriched by the Internet – hmmm – if you dont know me – you’d probably think that with all my blogging today…

and of COURSE I did not really talk about what I think about the gifting practices – I dont know yet…