MixedRealities

“Social Engineering Goes Massively Multiplayer – Are You The Next Target?”

Please join us for a discussion every Tuesday at 12PM noon SL (US Pacific Time)

This Tuesday, Dec 1st, we will be at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

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This Week’s Topic

Social Engineering Goes Massively Multiplayer – Are You The Next Target?

The explosion of social networks has enabled a new level of study in human behavior. Never before have large social networks been readily available easily for interactive engagement. Social media “gurus” proclaim that they know how to generate results with social networks, yet we are really at the beginning of understanding both how networked societies work and how to harness them (or change them) to achieve results.

A week or so ago I noticed this post Social Wargaming – Triangles 2.0, announcing the start of a social network enabled serious game to determine whether “quantitative methods and social network analysis allow us to consciously and precisely craft the shape of social systems online?”

The advent of quantitative research applied to the development and manipulation of social media and social networks may be the start of a new generation of ability for marketers to reach audiences, and a potential dark side, or statistically driven, highly effective social manipulation on a large scale. Public references to various academic work in process in this arena suggest that the site above is not a fluke, that this arena is an area of emerging serious study, no doubt for more than just purely academic reasons. What will this mean for to us as civilians in a socially networked world?

How will MMOSE (Massively Multiplayer Online Social Engineering – yes, a new acronym) change the world as we know it? Where are the practical applications for this developing technology? Is it visible?  Is it preventable? Is every social interaction social engineering anyway, in one form or another? (Ok, I couldn’t resist tossing that one in to the ring!)

More stuff on Joel’s site (reading lists etc). Could also be interesting as a preparation for the Metanomics session about Gaming the Workplace – which is maybe such an application of social engineering. Maybe bringing together gaming and work, gaming and marketing and gaming and media also has some dark sides.

Immersion in circles of virtual worlds people is almost invariably being considered as “good”, but maybe there are contexts where immersion prevents taking some distance, being critical. Just a thought!

Roland Legrand