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 gets increasingly more social and changes the way we interact as humans.
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. The article is well worth a read, but I quoted his conclusion and the comment I left:
“What enabled this “moment of change” was the in-world creation tools, that enabled co-creation and a new form of collaboration. Chatting in a 3D environment may be good, but extending that chat with 3D forms of expression gives us a whole new way of communicating. “
I definitely agree with the first part [of the original post], virtual environments are about more than ‘chatting in 3D’ but remember ‘not everyone wants to be a designer’. Only a small percentage of Flickr users, youTube users, blog readers etc actually participates in content creation. The other 95%+ just enjoys browsing the content for either entertainment, information or application.
I don’t particularly like Rosedales ‘anecdote’ for a collaborative model because lets face it, if Second Life was build for 3D collaboration they could have done a lot better, and furthermore, the actual use of Second Life as a digital ‘canvas’ is fairly limited. Its not about creating things together, its about the ability to provide diverse, niche context. Niche enough to become a topic of conversation. You can’t create that in a development team, its impossible to create content that interests every single niche (and the more niche, the more passionate people are about the topic because it starts to define them). However, when the creation of this content is placed in the hands of the users themselves to express these niche interests they are passionate about, it becomes possible to provide this niche content, effectively filling the ‘long tail’ of social context.
So the free content creation, even by a small percentage of total users, provides the platform with the ’social object’ for others to use - like clips on youTube and pictures on flickr. It’s the topic of conversation - the icebreaker to approach a stranger and just start talking about a shared interest. Lively and other chatrelated worlds lack this incentive because largely they are still being developed by a small group of developers. They develop for the masses - missing out on the long tail of social context that feeds 99% of social interactions on social networks.
PS - Lively is about to provide these tools, though the advantage of Second Life is it provides these tools inside the application itself, stimulating the creation and thereby social interaction tremendously.
(Image by Wagner James Au of New World Notes)
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 in life. The following video is the entire presentation of the “Last Lecture”, nearly one and a half hour of inspiration, lessons, anecdotes, and over all a moving speech well worth watching.
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 started there, and has since then build up a long list of virtual world ventures, including the two most recent additions vMTV and MTV house.
Of course MTV is well known for their experiements with reality, and have, as of 2007, seriously increased their attention towards the (social) internet. As the most dominant, worldwide television platform they were amongst the first to see their television usage drop (this year for the fourth year in a row). On the other hand, in July 2007 the music portal site of MTV had 8.5 million visitors, versus 23 million on Yahoo!’s music service, and roughly 21 million on the mySpace social network.
On losing so much ground as ‘the source for music’, executive vice president of entertainment for the media-buying firm Starcom MediaVest Laura Caraccioli-Davis said: “They [MTV] were the innovators, and now they’re kind of a step behind, … The brands that are talking to this audience are forced to innovate every day. MTV stayed still for a second too long.”
So are it just these metaphorical seconds that have pushed MTV into the rigorous adoption of Virtual Worlds? Some will argue virtual worlds with their ‘new internet promise’ were simply an opportunity MTV couldn’t afford to miss out on. However, looking at the brand MTV, I think their interest in virtual worlds is more than that:
- The demographics fit - The audience MTV wants to attract is online, and ‘understands’ virtual worlds with little effort. The 18 to 24 market is well represented in virtual world communities and a segment which is increasingly hard to reach through traditional media.
- MTV is a cross media brand - MTV started out on television, but has long since moved to print, events, sponsoring, music production (MTV unplugged series for instance) and of course the internet. This means any virtual world venture is never isolated, and has huge reach into their target audience through cross-media channels.
- MTV knows what it wants from virtual worlds - Though undoubtedly they are still experimenting with their various monetizing models, MTV has a clear goal for their presence. They want to (re-) connect with the segment they lost on TV, and conquer market share in online music distribution. Virtual Worlds provide that opportunity as a ‘remarkable’ way to connect to users through profile and brand visualisation, and get them to sign up for the ‘MTV Flux’ social network for instance. Furthermore the virtual teen worlds provide an opportunity to introduce the MTV brand to a new generation, less likely to find MTV naturally through television.
- The social context of music provides content - The community worlds such as Second Life, There.com and Lively are usually accused of being ‘goalless’ - aimlessly wandering through virtual landscapes without a clear goal. MTV’s vLES solved this problem by offering clear content from the beginning: performing bands, or music rooms people can visit for a specific ’style’ of music while socializing through avatars.
- The message fits the sender (and product) - MTV is a dynamic, innovative brand. You’d expect to find them in virtual worlds. Some brands have a virtual presence and it just doesn’t fit their corporate message, or the product they are selling creating what marketing guru Seth Godin refers to as the ‘Meatball Sundae‘ - a mismatch between brand and medium/message.
MTV’s quest to reach out and create a deeper engagement with their users, and more importantly, monetize the process has rapidly made them one of the most persistent, and most represented companies inside virtual environments. And it seems like they are at least somewhat optimistic about results. With a presence in Habbo, Gaia online, Second Life, There.com (and some others) and no less than 4 virtual worlds of their own MTV is an interesting case on its own for the virtual world industry.
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 up requires a tedious process of filling in the information over and over again, then making sure you remember the world/network and the login as one of many, and then having all these ‘walled garden’ networks throughout these worlds. Different friendslists, different representations, different environments, different inventories etc. This problem is far from unique to virtual worlds, social networks such as mySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook are already dealing with these issues, and are struggling with he solution as provided by ‘OpenSocial‘ for instance, centralizing the login for many Google services and social networks such as Hi5 and MySpace.
The solution to the problem of these dispersed identities that can’t communicate seems to be a centralized, single online identity as proposed by OpenSocial - the problem being the value of these networks is in its users and the data they provide. Turning that data over to a centralized organization does not only increase the risk of tribal migration (entire groups leaving your social network/virtual world for the next best thing) but also deflates the value of your network as the information will no longer be hosted inside these walled gardens.
Furthermore, holding the ‘key’ to managing these centralized identities is a prize worth fighting over - and it only makes sense a Microsofts ‘evangelist’ by the name of Zain Naboulsi sees a place for the Software giant here.
“No one’s really sure yet how avatar identities will be managed in a chaotic world filled with thousands of interoperable OpenSim grids. But Microsoft believes it has a solution: its own Windows Live ID.”
In a recent Reuters interview Zain expresses the interest in integrating three key Microsoft services into the OpenSim project (OpenSim is now able to communicate with the Second Life beta grid - transporting avatars, but not their friendslists or inventories for example). Zain proposes the following solutions:
- C Sharp Express - A coding platform to make OpenSim compatible with other applications.Right now SeconLife and OpenSim can communicate with the web and in-world through Linden Scripting Language, a language written specifically for Second Life scripts. This makes the compatibility with desktop or web applications fairly limited. C Sharp could create a better data exchange between Desktop applications and virtual worlds for instance.
- SQL server express - Microsoft’s database platform to handle external inventory ‘calls’. Right now the issue of being able to transfer items from Second Life (controlled environment) to OpenSim (uncontrolled environment) is a major issue due to the rights Second Life enforces on these items, such as the restrictions to not copy them freely, or distribute them freely. Obviously in external environments such as OpenSim - who have no obligation to follow these protocols, this could lead to problems for the economy in virtual property.
- Windows Live ID - A Microsoft service that allows you to store all data connected to your online identity such as profile information, pictures, friendslists, interests etcetera in one place - through one login. Microsoft already uses this identity for a various number of their own applications, Livemail (hotmail) and Live Messenger (MSN messenger) being the most commonly used applications.
To me the whole ‘one online identity’ thing sounds logical from a consumer perspective, but realistically I think we’ll still be some time away from such an ‘agreement’. All parties involved have to turn over a significant part of their ‘value’ and stickiness of their network to possibly one of their competitors (Do you see Google outsourcing their Lively identities to Windows Live?). The ongoing efforts in the 2D social networks are encouraging none the less - as is the thought of having such a major player as Microsoft ‘involved’ in solving the problems for a truly interoperable grid.
Source: Reuters - Microsoft eyes integration between OpenSim and Windows live ID
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 winners of the competition. The event would be closely followed by some developers as an open letter to the residents of Second Life by it’s CEO indicated:
We also launched a new initiative to completely redesign the viewer from top to bottom – recognizing that new users don’t need such a dizzying array of features, and experienced users, land and business owners and content creators need better tools that are more thoughtfully designed and organized for their needs. Everyone needs better inventory management and search is due for an overhaul. We hear you. We’re on it.
The event starts at 2:00 PM SL time at Remedy Island (SLurl). See the entries of the competition, panelists and jury here, or see Dusan’s blog for more information. Hope to see you there!
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 and game play.”
Much like Active Worlds does, companies can host their own virtual worlds on the WebFlock platform, and customize their environment with chat, games, economies, keep track of registration etc. So instead of creating a single world for users to visit, the ESC instead rents the platform itself to its customers, charging them by ‘concurrent users’ inside their ‘worlds’. Other features of the WebFlock word include:
- Adobe Flash-based user interface; no downloads or custom plug-ins
- Highly scalable to 1,000’s of concurrent users with automated space-mirroring and load balancing
- Monthly subscription package includes software, maintenance, technical support, and hosting
The ESC earlier announced they had abandoned Second Life content development as their primary business model. Instead they focussed on the ‘sweet spot‘ in 2.5D virtual worlds - virtual environments in a combination of 2D and 3D visuals, running inside the browser instead of separate applications. With WebFlock they’ve put their money where their mouths are, back-up by their client Showtime with the television series ‘The L-Word’, the first to open their virtual environment in the WebFlock platform.
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 the most interesting Mash Ups I’ve seen in Second Life so far.
By combining the CNN (or BBC) newsfeed, Google Earth and Google Maps’ geographical data, NewsGlobe for the search function and Second Life’s ability to combine these streams into interactive, visual data, they created the ‘Virtual Briefing Hub’. A ’station’ able to combine and display data in a Google Earth styled manner, but adding panoramic views and other information in the same visualisation. I was also very impressed by Google’s amazing data inter-operability.
“There are a wide variety of ways in which the hub can now be used, For instance iCentrum (another Digital Birmingham partner) is providing us with datasets of medical facilities across the city. We also see applications around planning, infrastructure management and inward investment.”
To illustrate these future plans and applications further, Daden Limited provided a very interesting paper on the application of virtual world for cities. The main applications listed and explained in the paper are:
- Governance and Public Meetings
- Planning
- Inward Investment
- Tourism
- Community Development
- Infrastructure Management
- Public Order
- Service Delivery
- Cultural Development
- Education
- Health
- Commerce
- Social Exclusion
- Employment
I can tourist information and travel agencies really benefit from the visualisation of various data sources, think what the addition of weather forecasts, tourist attractions in the area, combined with panoramic shots and three-dimension ‘teaser’ overviews of various cities or even comments/recommendations to these area’s would do in the purchase process of potential customers…
Get the ‘Towards a Virtual Birmingham’ white paper here, or visit the Virtual Briefing Hub in Second Life here. Source and further information on the ‘Virtual Briefing HUB’ project can be found here.
Posted on: July 16, 2008 | No Comments » |
Abhishek Saxena on 
Sophie on 
