From the creator of ‘The machine is us/ing us‘ comes ‘An anthropological introduction to YouTube’. A very interesting look into online communities, and what creates this online ‘bonding’. In a very visual presentation Dr. Michael Wesch explains the Library of Congress the need to rethink some of our fundamental aspects of life as the web [...]

Posted on: July 31, 2008 | 5 Comments »

 
I came across an excellent post by Jonas Karlsson cleverly titled “I’m in ur browser, chatting in 3D” (A pun on the internet-famous LOLcats). The topic of the post is the recent flood of 3D virtual worlds running inside the browser (Lively/WebFlock), providing very little besides the option to ‘interact’ with other users through chat. [...]

Posted on: July 28, 2008 | No Comments »

On the 25th of July Virtual Reality specialist Dr. Randy Pausch passed away. The remarkable story of his life ended with knowing he was about to die while in otherwise ‘perfect’ health. With his”Last Lecture” tour,  Dr. Pausch inspired me and millions of others in ways of experience design, and a number of valuable lessons [...]

Posted on: July 26, 2008 | No Comments »

MTV and virtual worlds have a ‘thing going on’. Ever since 2006 their name frequently pops up in the media in connection to persistent online worlds. In 2006, the infamous ‘Laguna Beach‘ world was launched as a virtual world based on the Laguna Beach MTV series. But the MTV involvement with virtual environments just [...]

Posted on: July 25, 2008 | No Comments »

While interoperability of virtual worlds, social networks and the 2D web in general continues to improve, the confusion and clutter surrounding these various worlds with different identities increases. Many virtual worlds and networks still have their own unique features behind mandatory sign up processes, each world requiring a new identity (avatar).
Of course each new sign [...]

Posted on: July 20, 2008 | 2 Comments »

As you might know I’m one of the panelists in the ‘Interface Debate’ to be held on Juli the 22nd. The discussion organised by Dusan Writer and will be on the topics of usability, design and the role of the client in the adoption of Second Life. Afterwards the expert jury will also declare the [...]

Posted on: July 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Following Google’s’ Lively, it is now the Electric Sheep Company’s (ESC) turn to reveal their browser-based virtual world: WebFlock. WebFlock is completely Flash Based unlike Lively, and their business model is very different as well.
“WebFlock is an application for private-labeled Web-based virtual experiences. It provides a visually immersive environment for social interaction, media consumption [...]

Posted on: July 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »

What started as a promotional and educational project for Birmingham became a visionary application of Second Life. by using data streams and Seconds Life’s open scripting and translational properties (it is quite easy to tell a script to build display a three-dimensional object based on received data in Second Life) Daden Limited created one of [...]

Posted on: July 16, 2008 | No Comments »