This Ain't No Disco - or - What Second Life Can Learn From the iPad

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/rdennis/ 

This morning when I woke up, I cranked up a Sheryl Crow mix and started catching up on the last week or two of my Instapaper reads. About half way down my eye caught Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox "iPad Usability: First Findings from User Testing". (Full report here. Go on, read the whole thing and make Nicholas Carr proud).

For more than a decade, when we ask users for their first impression of (desktop) websites, the most frequently-used word has been "busy." In contrast, the first impression of many iPad apps is "beautiful." The change to a more soothing user experience is certainly welcome, especially for a device that may turn out to be more of a leisure computer than a business computer. Still, beauty shouldn't come at the cost of being able to actually use the apps to derive real benefits from their features and content.

Get the Wacky Out

Jakob outlines that there are three main issues with iPad application user interfaces: low discoverability of control, accidental navigation, and low memorability (due to inconsistency).  In other words it violates the usability golden triangle - it's just wacky!

Jakob is the king of website usability so no one should be shocked by his prescriptions for solving the iPad usability conundrum. They are (his words but my emphasis):

• Add dimensionality and better define individual interactive areas to increase discoverability through perceived affordances of what users can do where. 
• To achieve these interactive benefits, loosen up the etched-glass aesthetic. Going beyond the flatland of iPad's first-generation apps might create slightly less attractive screens, but designers can retain most of the good looks by making the GUI cues more subtle than the heavy-handed visuals used in the Macintosh-to-Windows-7 progression of GUI styles. 
• Abandon the hope of value-add through weirdness. Better to use consistent interaction techniques that empower users to focus on your content instead of wondering how to get it. 
• Support standard navigation, including a Back feature, search, clickable headlines, and a homepage for most apps. 

Or, in my words:

• Don't be so wacky with the controls! Wacky makes baby Jesus cry. 
• Aesthetic? We don't need no stinking aesthethics! 
• No one loves weirdos. Stop it now. No, really. 
• For the love of all that's usable, adopt our beloved web standards for interface and interaction design. 

Okay, maybe I'm being a little too harsh on dear Jakob.  After all, he admits it is an early review but he doesn't really seem willing to relent on those web standards.

Goodness and Light, Or Darkness and Night?

My puny engineering brain loves standards. I've read every word of DOD-STD-2167A and MIL-STD-2168 and waved them evangelically at non-believers. Standards save lives! Standards save money! Those were our halcyon days, were they not?

Standards work well in factory situations, where you have to create or manage a large number of the same or similar things or processes, where you want to constructively share or collaborate across boundaries, or where you want to constrain options. Standards can be all goodness and light.

On the flip side, standards can also stifle innovation and creative thought, especially when misapplied. (I'm using the broadest application of the term standard here to mean formalized standards like DOD-STD-2167A to more informal standards like the "standard way of thinking".) Standards can also make people lazy, dull their thinking, and give them a false sense of completion and success. It met the standard - it must be right! Standards can be all darkness and night.

The bottom line: standards used effectively are happy times, and standards when misapplied - not so much.

Standardize or Euthanize?

As I'm reading Jakob's report, I notice that one thing he ignores is that iPad applications are not web pages. Applying Web standards to iPad applications may in fact wring the last bit of life, differentiation, and delight from this new form of experience. Web standards help people navigate the web predictably, but when you are "in" an application, you aren't stumbling about the disintegrated web - with any luck you are wandering around a constructed experience that is either entirely leisurely in intent or with a specific task at hand. Let's face it, the iPad itself is nothing short of a casual media consumption device with which you can also get a few things done - or as Jakob says, it's a leisure computer and not a business computer.

As for standards, Apple has released their own standards for iPad applications that are in some cases amusingly contradictory to Jakob's suggestions. For example, regarding discoverability and perceived affordances (from the iPad Human Interface Guidelines):

De-emphasize User Interface Controls:  Help people focus on the content by designing your application UI as a subtle frame for the information they’re interested in. Downplay application controls by minimizing their number and prominence. .. Consider creating custom controls that subtly integrate with your application’s graphical style. In this way, controls are discoverable, without being conspicuous.

Second Life Viewer 3.X - This Ain't No Disco

The entire iPad Human Interface Guideline is a good read (if you are into that kind of thing) and it got me thinking about the next revision of the Second Life® Viewer. If you want to design for immersive applications (leisurely or otherwise), the Apple iPad guidelines are much more constructive than web navigation standards because they make a clear distinction between the User Interface (UI) and the User Experience (UX).

Like iPad apps, Second Life is not a website. However, Viewer 2.0 feels a little like a well-schooled Jakobian artifact. Some simple navigation metaphors hold up (such as the "back" button) but a web-like search standard is a death knell.  People are not searching for web pages in Second Life, they are searching for things in context of the world - people, groups, events, etc.  Web search standards here don't apply.

Content and interactivity are paramount to the experience, both on the iPad and Second Life.  The best iPad applications downplay the UI so that the focus is on the content that people want or need. In other words, it's best to design the experience and adhere to the interface. 

Of course in order to design the experience, you have to understand the experience. Let me rephrase that, you need to live the experience, as in grok it. This may have been where Viewer 2.0 has fallen the most dreadfully short - too much UI and not enough UX. It's not clear that adequate experience, mental models, use cases or scenarios drove the development of Viewer 2.X.

This might also explain why Third Party Viewers like Emerald, Kristin and Imprudence are so widely adopted by the community. Each TPV has struck its own balance between the UI (control) and UX (experience) in ways that resonate with Residents.

Most builders I know swear by Emerald and have become so attached to it they cannot imagine using another viewer.

Most people I know simply love their iPad despite initial misgivings or suspicions because it truly delivers a great experience.

I'd like to feel that way about Viewer 3.X too.

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Philip Needs a Number One if He Wants a Second Life

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SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Linden Lab®, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life®, announced today that company founder Philip Rosedale has been named interim CEO, and CFO Bob Komin has assumed the additional role of COO.  Linden Lab also announced that Mark Kingdon is stepping down as CEO.  

I've been sort of staring into the swirl of bits the last day or so about the announcement of Philip Rosedale as interim CEO and the only thing that's stuck squarely in my mind is this:

Captain Philip, please get a Number One.

Make no mistake, I respect and admire Philip. He's brimming with idealism and passion, he's technically savvy, he's charismatic and flamboyant without the sequens. He's the kind of person that you can talk to for hours, wandering in and out of short and long alley ways of many types, but eventually you will end up back at the heart of his vision of how things could be. 

In short, Philip brings the magic of WHY back for Second Life in a big way. 

After the tumultuous release of Viewer 2.0 including the decimation of Search and the Events system and a score of "killer app" safaris that would break the back of Marlin Perkins, the Second Life Resident base needs a dose of that good old fashion Rosedale alchemy.

But drugs wear off, and unless you want to live out your days in the hazy shade of Rosedale's summer, someone has to start doing the hard work. Someone has to carry out that grand vision - someone has to "make it so" - and that takes a different kind of person than Philip.

We already know this; we lived through the first regime and frankly the most fundamental flaws within the world as we know it are still with us.  Let's review a few of my personal favorites:

• Groups - still limited to 25 in total and undoubtedly the most archaic group system on the web.
• Event System - barely qualifies as a system, barely meets even the most basic needs of event planners, hosts, performers or attendees.
• Search - this deserves an entire post but I haven't the patience. 
• Any and all means of mass communication including chat, IM and voice - see above.

The truth is, Mark Kingdon inherited these problems - he and his new red shirts didn't fix them but he certainly didn't create them.

What the world needs now

Maybe what we need now is a Joe Linden 2.0. Joe Miller aka Joe Linden is a remarkable individual, capable, communicative and thoughtful. I watched him handle the Third Party Viewer explosion with grace and competence. He took what was seemingly an unraveling situation and righted it admirably.

But for the sake of stability and all things technical, let's hope Joe stays in his current role but I'd double down for a Number One that is zen-like mix of: a sprinkle of Philip, a heaping tablespoon of Robin Harper, a handful of Tom Kelley and a meaningful dash Joe Linden.

Management is doing things right, Leadership is doing the right things

It could be that those few key services are beyond repair given the existing architecture of Second Life. If that's the case, then the phrase "interim CEO" takes on an entirely new meaning. If not, then Philip is going to have to find his Tonto, pronto.

Despite what you think of Mark Kingdon, he accomplished a large amount of work in a short period of time. It may have been the wrong things, but that's sort of the nature of where we are. The reality is, he was able to execute on more than one thing at a time. And I hope when Philip says he plans to "do a lot less a lot better" he means "do the right things, and get them done".

Please get a Number One, Philip. (and please stop talking about live music until you do something)

Mark, thanks for trying.

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BBBC Day 6 Less Pie, More Berries

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/73207064@N00

This is the last of the Big Bad Blogger Challenge 2010 (BBBC) posts.  A kind thank you goes out to Alicia Chenaux for her helpful prodding and generous spirit.

Today's topic for the BBBC virgins: What did you get out of your experience? Do you think it will change the way you blog in the future?


I have this achingly long blog post in my head, and normally when I get stuck on a thought train it's a long time between stations and my blog just stagnates waiting for the arrival. I think, and mull, and rethink until when I finally do get something out it's a bit of a let down because I bake out all the details that inspired me in the first place.

This week has been so crazy, there was no way I was going to crank out the other post and still stay on BBBC track and that's been a great lesson - because that big hairy blog post should probably be just a few posts that are more raw ingredients, less baked goods.

So here's to less pie and more berries.

I hate to bake anyway.
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BBBC Day 5 Art Linden in da house

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/thomashawk

NOTE:  Today's topic is anything I want it to be so we're talking about Art Linden.

Somewhere in the excitement of the Linden exchange fluctuation, instability, panic, I mean normal market cycle I missed the blog post on the Linden Endowment for the Arts. I bet you did too.

Linden Lab announced that it was establishing the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) program to help "support, encourage and highlight" Second Life® artists and their work in February and it's been pretty quiet since then. Big announcements followed by lengthy gaps of silence are fertile ground for speculation.

There was scant detail on the initial blog post about the Endowment, but in May by CEO Mark Kingdon (M Linden) speaking at the Metameets conference talked about his perception of myths (his word) he was tracking in the blogosphere.

MetaMeets 2010 Mark Kingdon Keynote from Metaverse TV on Vimeo

The first of these myths, as Mark described, was the perception that the Lab was focusing on new users versus existing users and that the Lab had an undue focus on social tools versus tools for the creative class (his words). Mark acknowledged that he helped create that myth and wanted to debunk it.

70 chickens in every pot
During his Metameets talk Mark ackowledged "the creative class is a powerful force" and pointed to shared media, the (future) mesh import capability and the Linden Endowment for the Arts were all indications that the Lab was supporting the current creator class of Residents.

Mark outlined that the LEA was a division of labor model; the Linden contribution overall was going to be land "maybe 70 sims, or something" for a new arts center, the selected LEA committee would curate works and the creative class would of course, create. I think it's fair to say all a lot of people heard out of that conversation was "70 sims", but then again there wasn't a lot of other details.

Oceans 11

Other than a sneak peek of the initial meeting, the make up of the LEA committee has been largely a tinfoil hat game, but as of today the mystery players have been revealed. 

The current LEA consists of a band of eleven made up of: a former arts blogger, art gallery and installment managers, a variety of artists, and a music composer/producer. The list and bios of the LEA committee members can be found here.

Gooooooal (sorry, too much #WorldCup)
Yesterday's blog post from Niko Linden shed more light the goals of the LEA:

1. Provide a starting point for artists in Second Life and for those interested in art to make connections and display their work
2. Encourage and cultivate art and artists within Second Life
3. Foster community, creativity, and innovation among artists and all residents interested in art.
4. Provide a way for artists to not only sell and promote their art but also to choose to donate it for linden preservation (optional)
5. Collaborate with existing art regions, galleries, exhibits and performance spaces to help nuture their valuable participation in SL arts

I like the starting point for artists goal. This was the kind of thing I imagined when I talked about world views and developing resonant experiences for new users. It makes a real connection between a new comers "Hey I'm an artist, where's the art?" and Second Life as a means of artistic expression with communities of artists and art lovers.

I really like # 3 and # 5 as goals, but they are a bit tricky to measure and is likely going to be a contentious matter to the larger Resident population if it's not completely transparent.  In the past, things like closed groups, exclusive memberships, embargoes, lack of breadth or coverage, and half measures have served as anti-patterns, but I trust the LEA will sort that out right from the beginning.

As for # 4, don't artists already have a way to sell and promote their art?  Why isn't that in world, via classifieds and storefronts or via XStreetSL, as it is for all Residents?  What's unique to "art" that doesn't apply to every other virtual good? This has me befuddled.

The new maths:  70 sims - 100 employees = 4-5 sims
The last bit of today's announcement is a note that the arts center will open with a central hub joined to 4-5 sims with room to grow. I don't know if Mark heard the Resident rumblings about the initial size of the commitment of "maybe 70 sims, or something", or if it seemed exorbitant in light if the recent Linden Lab layoffs, or if it's just easier to start small and scale as you go.

No matter the reason, it seems the LEA is off and running and I am looking forward to the first TBA bi-annual art show.

Free Financing *for those that qualify
I'm not really sure how I feel about the LEA conceptually. I love the arts and creativity of Second Life - it's what keeps me here - but I despise artificial classifications. How does one qualify as "an artist"? Are artists good curators? What makes a good curator?

I don't think the Lab can host every bit of "art" from everyone that wants to apply - so that's where the LEA committee comes in. I am admittedly wary of curation by committee as a model of success, but how would you measure the committee's success?  How will people react when their art application is denied, or how will the LEA interpret the curation guidelines? I cannot imagine that this is going to be an easy job for the eleven members of the LEA.

About that Endowment idea
Many towns, cities, countries, etc spend money to preserve, protect and promote local art. It's a symbol of the culture and can be an economic driver via tourism. But I still have a few unanswered questions about the endowment idea in general. Will there be a Linden Endowment for the Humanities? What about one for Education? Will role-play communities follow? I can't see why you would stop at the "Arts" when the landscape of Second Life is so rich.

My inclination at the moment is to lobby for an Endowment for Preservation of Resources Unique to Second Life. (Hint: I think that would be Residents ;-) .)


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BBBC Day 4 Never Ask A Woman Her Age

cc image courtesy en.wikipedia.org/

I'm starting to think Alicia (the mistress of the BBBC) has a bit of a feisty streak. This week's challenge: Is your avatar more or less your current biological age? Do you portray a younger avatar, or older? Why is this?

I have to admit I've never thought about avatar age. I've considered body shape, style, skin, hair, boots, more boots, and of yeah, boots.  But age? Not so much.

I do remember the delightful sound of a modem.

Someone told me the other day I was ageless. Let's go with that.
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BBBC Day 3 Relationships

Today's BBBC topic is about "relationships".  (insert long pause here)

How hard do you think it is to find a relationship in SL? If you have an SL relationship, have you met in the physical world? Would you meet them? Do you think it would change your SL relationship if you met?

Possibly everything I want to say in response is captured in this video better than any words I might muster. Enjoy.

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BBBC Day 2 - Dream More

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Today's BBBC topic: Write about three positive things going on in your Second Life.

Storytelling
Last week Himon Brown died at the age of 99. Himon became one of the most influential people in radio storytelling by mastering the art of sound to create imaginary worlds. In 1974, he resurrected his famous creaking door for the ghoulish tales of "CBS Radio Mystery Theater," which aired seven nights a week for nine years and won a prestigious Peabody Award.

Have a listen from the Inner Sanctum "Beyond the Grave", courtesy of the Internet Archive project.

I think about Second Life® the way I imagine Himon thought about radio - as a powerful storytelling model that allows the "listener" to sketch out their own personal narratives. While Himon Brown unleashed our imaginations with the most basic elements of sound, we have so much at our disposal - the construction of place, built through personal relationships, toward immersive shared experiences that can transform individual thinking.

The beauty of Second Life is that we can be both storyteller and listener in a gigantic arc, in fact you can change the story just by logging in. The presence of the world and unscripted perturbations are nothing short of remarkable when you think about it - it's a storyteller's dream. I like to write stories about the places I've encountered. I fancy myself a storyteller every time I perform in world; I try to capture the story of a song and tell it my way. So far Musimmersion has been my most ambitious storytelling project, but really it just scratched the surface of what I hope to do in the future.

Dreaming
I think the word dream gets a bad rap sometimes as if it meant simply an idle mind and wasted time.  To me it's one of the most liberating words (noun, a verb and an adjective!)  in the English language.

Letting myself dream has been one of the most positive parts of my Second Life experience. And by dream I don't merely to fantasize without recourse, I mean to consider outrageous ideas and then move them to action. Dreaming has allowed me to express myself as a musician, and it's opened a thousand doors to other worlds and other people.

Sometimes exploring Second Life feels like walking around in other people's dreams; I love that.

Shared Experiences - presence, place, people
I wrote this in an earlier post, but it bears repeating. For me, the most compelling attribute of Second Life  is the synchronicity of presence, place, and people that allows you to have this compelling shared experience.

One might argue that shared experiences are the underlying human engine that powers much of the Social Web - online shared experiences allow us to feel deeply connected despite whatever boundaries like geography, ideology, etc. the physical world might present. For me, Second Life makes those experiences more meaningful, somehow being immersed in the same space and dealing with the same things, changes the equation.

I often wonder of all the people I've come to know in world if we had met on the street, would we even say hello? Would we give each other the benefit of the doubt? Some I would just never, ever have the privilege of knowing at all. That serendipity, that collision of human connectedness, cannot be easily replaced.
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BBBC Day 1 Like a Virgin

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I'm a Big Bad Blogger Challenge (BBBC) virgin so I'll do my best to act like I know what I'm doing, but really I'll just be watching people like Botgirl and Lalo and doing my best to stay in line. (This is pretty much how I got through marching band - but don't ask me how that worked out).

Alicia Chenaux started BBBC in 2008 as a way "to give SL bloggers a little kickstart, and give people something to read. But it turned into a great sharing opportunity!". This year's challenge starts today and runs through June 18th. I think it's a brilliant idea (even though it's probably one of the worst weeks ever for me to try blog every day) so I'm going to give it a shot.

Fortunately, Alicia is kind enough to draft a topic for the day. And today's topic is:

Why did you become a blogger? How has it enriched your life?

I had to check my archive to see when I started this blog - which was in October 2006, about eight months after my Rez Day - but I do remember distinctly why I started to post and that was the most notable "Augmentation versus Immersion" discussion started by Henrik Bennetsen. Yes, I was intrigued by culture from the beginning.

My first post was brief, but I think answers the question best.

A few months ago I was wondering how I would find the time to do the things I wanted to do - write, philosophize, explore, and meet new people. Somewhere between the cracks of daylight I found enough time to immerse myself in the virtual world of Second Life and suddenly I had a platform that allowed those things and more. 

This blog will be "late to the game" in the midst of the recent media frenzy surrounding Second Life, but I hope to add some new dimension to the conversation - to highlight what I have experienced in my exploration of Immersionist to Augmentationist in this emerging state of virtuality. 

I am Grace McDunnough, and this is the state of phasing grace.

It wasn't long before I became completely fascinated with the possibilities in Second Life and this is why I was (and still am) so drawn to the world view that Philip shared - as a means to "improve the human condition". Phasing Grace was a play on the idea that with broad adoption, virtual worlds might stimulate some kind of phase shift in individuals and society as a whole. I guess we still have a way to go.

I never really thought about people reading this blog in the beginning - it really was more like a digital satchel, a place to capture the things I was thinking about or things that struck me as interesting. I never thought about it "enriching my life" either but it has in subtle ways I probably cannot even articulate.

It's a challenge to put your thoughts out there and have someone say "Yeah, that's bullshit Grace". But if someone takes the time to really read what I wrote and respond, and if I can accept that they aren't attacking me personally (ok, some are) then I believe that every time I grow as a person. The diversity of thought, shared experiences and ideas, for me, are the riches.
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Observations from the Linden Lab Layoffs

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This week another chapter in the evolution of Second Life® unfolded as Linden Lab® (creator and operator of the virtual world) announced and executed a significant organizational restructuring resulting in a 30% staff reduction (approximately 100 people). According to a press release, a blog post by CEO Mark Kingdon (aka M Linden) and an email to Residents, the restructuring was designed to strategically align Linden Lab with longer-term goals.

Quoted from Kingdon via the press release, these longer term goals are:

First, the company aims to create a browser-based virtual world experience, eliminating the need to download software. Secondly, Linden Lab will look to extend the Second Life experience into popular social networks. "Ultimately, we want to make Second Life more accessible and relevant to a wider population," he said.

And from the M Linden blog post, the restructuring plan has three main goals:

• to improve our focus as a company on the projects that matter most to Residents
• to simplify our organizational structure and operate more efficiently
• to achieve cost savings so that we can invest in platform improvements, new products, and new lines of business.

Finally, the restructure was described in more detail in M's email to residents:

Our decision to restructure the company was based on our feeling that we were moving too slowly on important strategic initiatives, so we have decided to consolidate software development in the US and combine our product and technology organizations into one. We have also streamlined customer support so that it can scale economically as we add users. These decisions resulted in significant job eliminations and this tends to be what press and bloggers focus on because of the human dimension. It is indeed difficult for us to see our colleagues leaving.

Kingdon is right, the loss of 100 people is significant and ultimately human. That is my first observation.

We are human, above all.

I've lived through several layoffs in my life and while most people in the technology industry understand the nature of the business, the feeling never changes. It's too often the first time we start to think of ourselves as human on the job.  Suddenly, the person you have been working with for years looks different to you - they have a family, they have needs, they are vulnerable - and so are you.

Soon after the announcement was official, as Mark indicates, a lot of focus was on the loss of so many jobs in an economy that is still largely unforgiving. But that focus was largely not so much about how many but who. Who had gone missing?  

Speculative lists started to emerge and be widely shared via pastebin. Memorial sites were built around the grid and blog posts included the names of those that were let go. Never before have I seen such an outpouring of concern for individual employees of a company in the midst of a restructuring, even in the throes of the current economy. Pleas were made to respect people's privacy and protect them from future hiring discrimination, but were overwhelmed by individual needs or wants to humanize the situation.

Linden Lab and the Human Web

Humanization (as opposed to avatarization) is a powerful cross-over essence of Second Life. In other words, while we can respect the intrinsic value (and attendant privacy) of the avatar as an extension of our identity, we do not deny that behind every avatar there is a human. That's the part of the announcement that resonated with the Second Life Residents. The employees of Linden Lab are people, they are our friends, acquaintances; they are just like us.

The connectedness afforded to us in ever increasing amounts by the Human or Social Web is powerful; we know this as individuals.  We find love, we find friends, we find ourselves, we live lives that we may not otherwise live. This humanization is starting to emerge for businesses as well. Slowly, the brick and mortar fronts of "the business" are getting replaced with the faces of people we feel like we know. The wall over which the Public Relations, Marketing and Communications teams tossed their broadcast messages is coming down. Mark Kingdon knows this and maybe his proposal to extend Second Life and make it more accessible via the Social Web may serve to increase humanization, not decrease it.

Maybe what Kingdon means when he says he wants to "extend the Second Life experience into popular social networks" is a recognition that Second Life is the ultimate social network, as has been since the inception despite the design emanating from what Malaby calls the "technoliberal". Maybe this extension will allow us to extend and explore our virtual and real worlds, empathically, as Jeremy Rifkin explains.

Maybe what Kingdon means is that the Lab itself will start to embrace the practices and principles of the Social Web like other businesses are doing. If so, what will that look like? Does "streamlined customer support" mean we will see accounts like @lindenlabcares, or @secondlifehelp?

There are endless possibilities, and it will likely be something vastly different than this.

It's like a SLURL, but it's a VURL - a Viewable URL. That's my #1 wish

There's a bit of speculation about this quote from the press release "the company aims to create a browser-based virtual world experience, eliminating the need to download software." but I am holding fast to my #1 wish that I expressed in an interview last year about Musimmersion.

You can find the entire Musimmersion interview here, but the part I'm referring to is this:

Q: What things do you most wish you could do in SL that are not yet possible?

A: I have a rather long wish list, but you qualified it with "most" so here's a big one and it's one I've never shared. NOTE: This assumes that all of the poorly performing group, communication and event services within SL are working tip top.

I wish you could "see" any public place on the grid, at any time. I don't mean a map view with green dots, I mean actually see (and hear) what was going on (in 3D) at any given moment, like a little sneak peek portal.

This sneak peek is something you can share, and send everywhere, to everyone, at any time so that they could see a place or an event before deciding to go there. And by anywhere, I mean ANYWHERE. You don't have to have the SL client to view it, it's built on something like a streaming video service that allows you to peek into the world, anytime and anywhere (in world and on the web) and then, go right there.

It's like a SLURL, but it's a VURL - a Viewable URL. That's my #1 wish.

I don't know if my VURL is what Mark Kingdon means by a "browser based virtual world experience" but I sure hope it is.  A VURL can help move Second LIfe from behind the curtain to center stage.  Musicians can extend their fan bases from SL onto the web and back.  The possibilites when combined with Shared Media are profound.

I wish the best for the members of the Lab that have to start a new journey. I hope they will take with them the best lessons they learned, pack up the best wishes expressed by so many Residents, and ignore the rest.

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