Virtua Spiritus Mundi

Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden) and COO / CTO Bob Komin (BK Linden) addressed crowds of Second Life Residents yesterday at a town hall meeting. 

Philip shared his perspective on the next phase of development and focus for the Lab, and the take away meme was three words that as he described, were what the user experience should be and would be easy for everyone to remember. No, not those three words - these three words : Fast, Easy, Fun.  

Philip talked about several of the most obvious pain points for Residents today - lag, crashing, search, the new viewer, communication, the marketplace and the economy - and over time we'll have evidence of whether those words turn into tangible results. 

I'm sure there will be great recaps, parsing and parodies of Philip's talk around the SLogosphere but if you would prefer to do your own thinking, I posted the audio of the talk here or you can watch the video replay, courtesy of Treet.tv.

I started to do my own deconstruction, but honestly my mind kept coming back to this part of Philip's opening remarks.

"The fundamental belief that I have is that Second Life and virtual worlds are going to profoundly affect the human experience, profoundly, and in a positive way. That is the mission of the company to make that happen and it's my personal inspiration and dream to see that happen. 

And I think the very fact that although we face many challenges as a company, as a community, and we're here today to talk about a lot of them, I'd just like to start by saying that nothing that I've seen in these last few years has done anything but strengthen the certainty that I have that that fundamental vision is correct. 

That virtual worlds are going to have a huge impact on humanity. And, if I can be part of that in any way I want to."

That's not a vision about newbs per fortnight.

That is a vision that has diverse and widespread interpretations and applicability - from the global to the intimate. Whether you want to raise awareness about global issues, find new ways for colliding cultures to come together, meet people you would never otherwise meet, learn a new skill, fall in love or just earn  enough extra income to send your kids to private school - affecting the human condition is a solid goal.

I know it's going to take a herculean effort for Fast, Easy, Fun to materialize. I'm pretty convinced that the things that are truly broken will take longer to fix than it took to break them in the first place or than some have the patience to wait. I know I cannot bring myself to use Viewer 2.X regularly in the current state unless I'm medicated. I realize that our collective shades of gray will not quickly resolve to a pristine image that satisfies us all.

Despite all of that - maybe we can make profoundly positive changes - in ourselves and in each other.

If I can be a part of that in any way, I want to.

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This Week's Top 5 Second Life Questions

I have a few questions lingering in my mind this week.


#5. Who or what group is now leading the replacement for Burning Life, BURN 2.0?

I have a couple of answers to question #5, from various but largely unconfirmed sources but illustrative. 

Burning Life - as it was known in Second Life - will no longer be an officially sanctioned Linden Lab / Second Life event.

Instead, the Burning Life concept as a virtual extension of Burning Man is being reclaimed and privately managed under the name "BURN 2.0" by former Linden employee Dusty Udal and partner m2DangerRanger. I am assuming that m2DangerRanger is Burning Man staff member Danger Ranger, Director of Genetic Programming, and one of the original Burning Man founders.

More details should follow, likely on the other side of the line.

#4. Who was awarded a Golden Ticket for Friday's in-world meeting with Philip Rosedale and Bob Komin?

Congratulations go to @bevanwhitfield, a confirmed random Golden Ticket recipient!

#3. What is this mysterious "back to basics"?

I think just maybe something related to today's message.

#2. Is double-C BK Linden a redshirt?

And my number one lingering question is ...

#1. Has anyone deciphered this riddle buried in the latest Linden Search post Search Release, It's An Event ? 

Search performance depends, in part, on Viewer performance and every Viewer release improves Search performance.

Do you have the answers?
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Get a Golden Ticket for the Second Life Event of the Summer

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/witheyes

Residents from around the Second Life virtual globe have until precisely 1700 hours SLT/PST on Wednesday, July 28th to enter a completely random drawing for one golden ticket of admission to the first in-world meeting with founder and interim CEO Philip Rosedale along side the elusive double-C BK - COO and CTO Bob Komin - to talk about the future of the candy factory.

Based on bits of insider information, I mean rigorous investigative blog work replete with innuendo and speculation, reports are emerging that there are plenty of surprises planned for the event including a few clues to the back to basics mystery. Reported to be among the major announcements are:

The introduction of the Linden Endowment for Vermicious Knids (LEVK) dedicated to filling large voids of space with egg-shaped non-mega prims.

A revamped Linden Prize of $25,000L for the most non-tearful and productive use of the latest Everlasting Newbstopper (aka Viewer 2.X).

A dedication of new mainland territory called Loompaland; wherein land is designated as strictly Residential only and tier is paid in cacao beans, or magic beans if the cacao bean market fails. (Note: it is still uncertain if musicians will be forced to reside in Loompaland until they have perfected Goldie Pinklesweet in the original key.)

The colocation of the Lab to a single main factory consisting of transparent glass-walled Invention Rooms dedicated to the development of fewer but better confectionary delights such as:

• Laffy Search & Seizure Taffy
• Invisible Chocolate Community Linden Bears
• Emerald-colored Bi-focals
• Sophmore Sweet and Sour Spots
• Mushy Modal Mesh-mallows
• Red Hot Burning Bots 2.0
• Fizzy JIRA JuJubes
• Marketplace Never Melt in Your Mouth, Just in Your Hand Mints

And finally, the MOST SECRET announcement rumored to be released on Friday.. [drum roll].. 

Lag-reducing Spotty Powder! 

What is this intriguing concoction you ask? Sorry, that's embargoed until Friday!

Is it raining? Is it snowing?

Is a hurricane a-blowing?

Not a speck of light is showing,

So the danger must be growing.

Are the fires of Hell a-glowing?

Is the grisly reaper mowing?

Yes, the danger must be growing,

For the rowers keep on rowing,

And they're certainly not showing,

Any signs that they are slowing!
                                                  
Willy Wonka

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GoJiyo, Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

I was hopping around the Metaverse today and found myself in GoJiyo, a Unity3d-based virtual world from the Godrej group based in India. The Godrej group is a diverse company, selling everything from soaps, appliances to warehouses and is now apparently venturing into branded virtual worlds to target the Indian youth market.

Like every other new virtual world, GoJiyo has been compared to Second Life. In a blog post dated April 10 2010, Nikki Gomez outlines the primary differences between Second Life and GoJiyo as she sees them, providing some interesting observations. Some of her points are arguable (or perhaps we could just refudiate them) but I think they are cast in the light of some common virtual world memes.

a. Access

1. Second Life needs to be downloaded once (approx 50 MB) and then you run that 'viewer' software to enter the world each time. It is not accessible through your browser.

GoJiyo is accessible directly through a browser, where it loads. Most other virtual worlds involve a software download. GoJiyo is designed for an Indian broadband bandwidth- to work on an actual download rate of 60 kbps. This means each time you go to Gojiyo.com the world downloads, but it has cached the first time, so subsequent downloads are quicker. Our research tells us that Indians wouldn't want to download a large piece of software. Which is perhaps why Second Life and other virtual worlds haven't really taken off in India.

GoJiyo works on Unity. This gaming engine has been adapted by our Dev team to a multiplayer virtual world environment (it’s usually used for uniplayer gaming environments like EA’s Tiger Woods game). It means the graphics can be great, there is some level of physics, and also it’s quite small to download! The Unity plugin is also slim at only 3MB.

2. The graphical user interface of the Second Life Viewer has, up to now, been pretty difficult to use, to quote one of the team, “we are Linden Lab after all” and most Second Life users have had to be quite tech savvy to be able to use it to its full potential. (We’ll see how the new Viewer changes their user demographic).

GoJiyo was designed to be very easy to use in its interface and with simple and fun functionality for less tech savvy users. Aimed at those new to virtual worlds (a step up from Farmville in immersive environments).

b. Features  

Second Life is much bigger than GoJiyo- it's absolutely huge with loads of regions built by users, there's sophisticated location-based sound and lipsynching of avatars to their voice etc. Avatar customization is much more developed than GoJiyo's too, because it’s user generated, so the team of developers is much larger. You can be a non-human character for instance!

Gojiyo has 6 Regions only, which will refresh continually- Solaria- a beach city; Mauryaavaas - a recreation of the ancient Mauryan Empire, Noom- moon colony; Rejanm - where you can be reborn; an underwater world and an arcticland. Some are very Indian concepts. There is voice chat but GoJiyo is 25 days old compared to 7 years old ad so its features are continually developing. Like with any good software product, features will keep being added continually.

2. One of Second Life’s core tenets is giving creativity to the user though allowing them to create their own content (UGC). Users can create their own regions by buying land and building on it. The tools to build are out there to create everything from avatar clothes to gestures and more.

There are no gaming elements to Second Life really.

GoJiyo on the other hand, has many mini-games, to name a few: you can go bunjee jumping, surfing, skydiving, fight asteroids falling on the Moon and soon speed date in 3rd Century BCE Mauryavaas. Users can also engage in longer quests like finding who’s stolen all the artworks from the city and restoring them; planting algae to save the moon from running out of oxygen. GoJiyo has a points and currency system- Mios and Jios which earns the user rewards online and in the real world and there’ll be more links with Godrej and other products. For instance you can win a real trip to climb Kilimanjaro with some of your GoJiyo friends.

3. In GoJiyo there’s a friendship engine that tracks your behaviour in GoJiyo, say you like doing adrenalin type activities, it will suggest similar new friends for you to meet, from the GoJiyo Tribe. Second Life doesn't have a feature like that. In fact you can't import friends from other networks, it is your world apart from the rest of your online life.

Yes in both worlds you can party at clubs. And in both your avatar can fly and teleport.

c. Audience

Second Life’s audience is more Western-centric- the majority of Residents are Americans and Europeans, with 7% from Japan and Brazil. Indian user figures are negligable. But 12.1m Residents over the 7 years of operations. A virtual world is, after all, simply an architecture until filled with people. GoJiyo is aimed at young Indians, who are populating it (at time of writing 72,000 avatars in India had been created in 25 days).

d. Business Model & Reason For Doing It 

Second Life’s mission is “To connect everyone to an online world that advances the human condition.” It seems Linden Lab are focusing much more towards UGC and customization of the world- you make what kind of fantasy world you want to inhabit. Virtual meetings between people, including companies, through their Enterprise Grid is another growing area. The exchange rate, Linden dollar to USD also mean Linden have a strong business model for this product.

GoJiyo is a branded environment- Godrej and other brands will be present; but it is not a business Godrej is entering, simply a communication platform for the brand. The aim is to build a conversation with a younger target group than it currently has. And give to them some new, hopefully unique, experiences online.

I'm leaving. It's not you, it's the interface.

One thing I noticed straight away is how curiously close the GoJiyo interface is to Second Life's infamous Viewer 2.0 (minus the SL menus to access all the things that GoJiyo doesn't feature such as land, build, etc.). Have a look for yourself.

The green buttons at the top right allow you to access: My Wardrobe, My Friends, Voice Chat, Help, Key Controls and Activities. Pressing them loads the panel along the right hand rail.

The gray buttons along the bottom of the window include Fly, Local Chat, [ the chat window ], Gesture, Snapshot, Universe, and Map. Pressing them does precisely what they do in Second Life (except I can't find my snapshots) with the exception of Universe.  The Universe seems to open up a list of parallel worlds, or shards.

When music is available on the land parcel, the Music buttons appears and you can press Play to play the stream or Stop to stop.  When you play music, a local chat bubble opens that tells you what is currently playing. I am not fond of the lack of volume control in these browser based worlds.

Along the bottom is a pink bar for system notifications. Right now it says: Note: In an endeavor to improve, this site is constantly being developed and enhanced, so keep sending your suggestions. This might be a helpful consideration for the next iteration of the SL viewer.

Entertain me

The one thing about programmed worlds is that in order to stay interesting, a lot of work has to go into developing new content to entertain the residents. There are "things to do" in GoJiyo including games and quests, but it will take an ongoing effort to keep the world vibrant and interesting - especially with the limited number of places to go.

I haven't spent a lot of time in GoJiyo yet, although I'm convinced it will be a burgeoning success since I was hit on by a demanding chap named Napolean on my initial landing in the welcome area. That could be because I was the only female avatar there at the time.

My second journey to the welcome area a chap apologized for his comments noting "oops, gal here  i thought this was a bachelor party  please accept my apologies". Apology accepted, but not before the Unity3d plugin crashed.

Oh well.

Bring your real friends or we'll harvest you some new ones!

GoJiyo has integrated the popular Facebook connect feature so that you can harvest your social graph and bring your real friends along for the ride. (I love the medical metaphor here, don't you?). Built into this is also a "friendship engine" that tracks your activities and suggests new friends for you to meet from the GoJiyo Tribe, and voice and text chat elements that allow you to interact with them which I find simultaneously intriguing and creepy.

It seems a bit like Amazon's recommendation engine for people which seems limiting to me, but then again one of most precious things about virtual worlds for me is meeting people you would otherwise not meet, talk to, or have anything in common with, etc.

I think we should focus on extending our social graph, not harvesting them, but connecting the real and virtual worlds is becoming a meme du jour. I'm going to post about this soon so I won't go into it much here.

If for nothing else than the interface and ease of use comparisons, GoJiyo is worth a look.  Have a go of it yourself, good luck on your journey and please let me know what you think.
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Indiana Rosedale Triumphantly Returns (cracking whip)

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/rhinoneal

Virtual world renowned pioneer and archeologist Philip Indiana Rosedale has reportedly returned triumphantly from a three week excursion through the Lost Gardens of M to the world / platform he left behind over two years ago.

Although reports of sightings have not been corroborated (see update at end of post), Rosedale touted his return and treasured findings in a telegram to the forgotten civilization.

Cryptography experts have been hard at work trying to decipher the telegram and the accompanying long form post but so far there are no breakthroughs.

Calls to the open source code cracking channels have been dispatched, but it seems even the infamous Love Machine is having trouble recruiting enough talent to unlock the sekrets of this curious message.

Various collectivist working groups are attempting to decipher the message as well, scribbling their findings in unreadable jargon on wikis and randomly updated pastebin postings. There is no official word yet from the outlying factionistas, although interpreters are likely hard at work chiseling away at the sectarian discourse.

In the mean time, droves of hobos, oldbies, lost souls and malcontents are filling the run down Linden sims and once vibrant welcome areas, setting up shanty towns in preparation for what they are calling the great Second Coming. Merchants are taking advantage of the recent influx of weary travelers, selling various novelties and memorabilia in advance of the big event.

Crowds affiliated with the notoriously underground group known as the SL community are lagging about anxiously, awaiting more information about the mysterious thing called basics. Most are expressing a mix of interest and concern over the impending event and what a return to basics will mean to their beleaguered businesses and shared experiences.

So far, no other artifacts of Indiana's epic return have been revealed. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Papparatzi Paddy has sent in a photo that he claims is a recent shot of Indiana Phil, fresh from the field.  You decide.

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The Virtual Wave Particle Duality of Second Life

“To live in the world of creation – to get into it and stay in it – to frequent it and haunt it – to think intensely and fruitfully – to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation – this is the only thing.”  - att. Henry James (via Jyri Engeström)

When I was in school, one of my secrets was to read one chapter ahead of the lectures. I'm not crazy about surprises and this gave me the advantage of knowing when to listen more closely and what questions to ask when hearing something for a second time in class. Somehow it also made class more interesting. Normally my read-ahead was a bit like an Evelyn Wood inspired exercise. That is, until that night.

... so matter exhibits both wave-like and particle-like properties.

My swift reading slowed to a crawl. I didn't sleep all that night. I doodled diffraction patterns. I practiced Plank's constant. I scribbled wave forms. I was, in a chapter, completely enchanted with this notion of duality.

Virtual world or platform?

One thing that was resoundingly obviously from the reaction, commentary and on-going discussion about whether there was "a Second Life® culture" is that there was a distinct cleave in the way people expressed their concept of Second Life itself. At the risk of over-generalizing, the expressed ideologies fall into two camps:

Second Life is a world
Second Life is a platform.

The first embraces the complexities of human behavior and experience - including culture - implicitly; the second focuses on human considerations only as prescribed by law or business/technical advantage.

These ideologies seem widely divergent, often presented as diametrically opposing forces. They lend themselves to interesting legal questions and long winded exposé. They are our own Scylla and Charybdis, challenging the way forward and stopping growth at the headwaters.

But what if neither of these perspectives were strictly or uniquely true? How would we see things if we considered not one, but both?

A beautiful duality

I was trying to find my way into Holly Golightly's Cafe when I got a message from my friend Radio Signals telling me that her new art installation was done. She offered an early look if I was interested but at the time I only had access via the iPad. I am a huge fan of Radio's work and I was anxious to see what she'd come up with this time so I logged in early this morning and found my way to "It was a blur" on Mirror.

I'm becoming more agitated by the "stand around and wait for rez" part of the Second Life experience. As you wait expectantly, the platform resolves itself from vague outlines of gray shadows until finally you are greeted by a world of distinct colors and shapes - except on Mirror.

Here the world resolves into shades of gray bathed in buckets of bright white. I actually felt myself squint a bit as delightful patterns started to emerge. Walking around is at first disorienting, but soon you find your way by navigating little bits of story intermingled with intriguing works of art and ... clothing, tattoos, skins, and masks.

Wait, is this an art installation or a store?

It was a blur is a unique immersive narrative of art and commerce demonstrating both the vision of a world and the power of a platform.

The blur is a collaboration of several creators, each lending their distinct voice to this choral installation. It's intriguing and unassuming. It is what I imagine we might see if we crammed all the best parts of Second Life into a plastic container and asked "Will it blend?".

It is a limited run from July 16th until August 16th.

Go there. Be inspired. Buy something. Let me know what you think.

End note: You can find more art by Radio Signals on Etsy.
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Pruning Our Virtual Gardens of Good and Evil

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/23269969@N00/

People say I make strange choices, but they're not strange for me. My sickness is that I'm fascinated by human behavior, by what's underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people.  - Johnny Depp

My final 12th grade AP English assignment was to craft a position paper about any one of the ideas or issues that we discussed during the year. I had no idea that the issue I selected would fundamentally stay with me throughout my life, much less highlight interesting points about human behavior, games and Blizzard's Real ID.

The assignment read something like "You must write about just one issue. This is a position paper, not a recap of what we've discussed." I struggled for a couple of days to pick just one thing and finally sought guidance from our teacher Mrs. Jones.

Mrs. Jones was dynamic and outspoken. She wore huge round black rimmed glasses and she had this fiery red hair that stood six inches above her head and poured down over her shoulders like a volcanic eruption. She was somehow intimidating and yet approachable at the same time. When I asked for her advice she suggested that perhaps I should just take my favorite book and go from there; I'm pretty sure she knew what I would select. Mrs. Jones had some crazy psychic powers to go along with that red lava mane.

We read the normal course of AP literature - Bronte, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Lee, etc. - but my personal favorite was Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (with Wuthering Heights a close second). Mrs. Jones was right, settling on Heart of Darkness made finding just one issue much easier.

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I Am One of The Searchers

I don't even know how I found my way to that particular site today. My mind was drifting and I was tumbling about the web aimlessly. I almost clicked away in haste and then my eye fell upon words near the bottom.

I've read them over and over.

I am adopting them as my personal Second Life ®  WHY story.

Maybe they speak to you as well.

With warm thanks to James Kavanaugh and There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves.


Here are the words, without the background image.

"I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves."
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