Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo 2007

I'm at the Virtual Worlds Conference this week and I'll be focusing my attention in two primary areas: the use of virtual worlds as a transmedia platform and new business models afforded by the attendant emerging markets and technologies.

If you have a question or want me to try to track down some information, drop me a comment.

Selected Updates
I usually skip keynotes unless I know the speaker and they often feel like eating dry toast, but I am really glad I did not miss Anthony Zuiker. In addition to being the perfect personification of "tram tour guide makes it good", Anthony is the consummate showman. None of this distracted from his unveiling of the upcoming CSI episode on October 24th as a significant step toward transmedia story telling in conjunction with The Electric Sheep Company.

Unlike the Law and Order debacle, Anthony is using Second Life to extend the story and the viewer's experience not just that night, but in an on going unfolding arc that will wrap on February 6th. I had the chance to talk to Anthony last night at an after-party, and he really does get it. I encouraged him to talk to Henry Jenkins which I hope he does, he has the energy and resources to take this concept far beyond Henry's musings.

The Electric Sheep have been busy bees, in conjunction with the CSI release, they unveiled their new Second Life viewer, touted as the first commercially licensed viewer since the client was open sourced by Linden Lab. I think this deserves it's own post which I'll write later.


In an interesting partnership, IBM and Linden Lab are teaming up to create a new set of standards to increase interoperability between worlds. From the IBM press release:

IBM and Linden Labs today announced they will work with a broad community of partners to drive open standards and interoperability to enable avatars -- the online persona of visitors to these online worlds -- to move from one virtual world to another with ease, much like you can move from one website to another on the Internet today. The companies see many applications of virtual world technology for business and society in commerce, collaboration, education, training and more.

This is definitely something I will blog more about later.

More Updates:
Thursday was mostly a meet and greet day for me. As for the Day-2 keynote, Christian Renaud is a finely tuned speaker, but his powers of ten introduction and a near-forensic analysis of how we get to the future via standards, committees, and councils (oh my) left me a bit cold. I'm not arguing for rah-rah and pom-poms, just a bit more insight into what's actually working in virtual worlds before we dive head first into a morass of standards.

Suffice it to say that "interoperability" was the buzz word of day 2, and I was surprised not to hear more buzz about the InDuality multi-platform viewer developed by Clive Jackson, CEO and Founder of Pelican Crossing. You may recall, Clive helped me escape the prison of defining "virtual world" with a great paper entitled The Metaverse 2.0 in this previous post. I completely missed meeting Clive and the InDuality demo so if anyone was lucky enough to see it, drop in a comment with your impressions.

I was lucky enough to spend some quality time with Raph Koster and Jason Hable from Areae to get an under the hood tour of Metaplace. On a side note, if you've not had a chance to hear Raph speak, you want to put that on your life list and in the mean time, you can find a lot of what he thinks out loud on his blog. Metaplace is still in a closed alpha, but by the grace of the virtual goddesses, I will get a chance to kick the tires before year end and the only thing I will tell you is you might want to tune up your Lua skillz. (No, I don't know where the auto references came from; perhaps I'm traveling too much).
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BlogHer07 Live Notes Friday AM

Well, unfortunately the video didn't work out but I'm going to try to give you a few snippets as we go. I'm a horrific "live blogger" but it's worth a shot.

OPENING REMARKS
The BlogHer co-founders are describing BlogHer ACT! The initiative will harness the power of the blogging community to focus on health care as a burning issue. There is also a new spin off in Canada - BlogHer ACT will focus on the environment.

Notable sponsors include Google who is on site at Chicago with a staff of Google experts. AOL has provided video blogging kiosks. Yahoo is doing something I missed because the stream hiccuped.

The rules overview. SL conference organizers, please take note:

"Everyone here is press."

How novel, a recognition of new media standards and the rules that apply.

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Woo! Second Lifers get a shout out!
We're getting ready to start "Avatar Hunt" led by Mygdala March. Back after the hunt.
Avatar Huntress Vint Falken takes the prize, despite some "guessing".

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Session #1: Combining blogging and Second Life
More and more bloggers are entering this virtual world to connect with community, chronicle their second life, and gain more readers. Residents are leaping out of their comments and into avatars to have full blown discussions on their blog topics in real time. How does blogging and second life interact and what's next? Discussion moderated by BlogHer in Second Life hostess Erin Kotecki Vest (aka Queen Tureaud) who has used Second Life as an extension of Queen of Spain Blog, with panelists Vint Falken - who blogs about Second Life, Second Life podcaster and blogger TheDiva Rockin and Koz Farina,the creator of the second life blogHUD, which allows you to blog FROM Second Life.

SCLN broadcasting this session LIVE.

The session is off to a great start, with the requisite newb streaker. That's why we love SL, I'm sure it will help fuel the negative press.

Q: Do you combine RL and SL in your blogs?
Vint : Focuses on SL on vintfalken.com since there is plenty to write about in SL.
TheDiva: Combines RL and SL since, SL is integral to RL activities.
Koz: Hasn't had time to do much RL blogging these days. Reuters is partnering with blogHUD to get the SL news combines with their news.

Q: How are you combining podcasting and blogging:
TheDiva: Was a podcaster first, then started blogging in January for personal blog, then in February for the Second Life Fashion Police
Koz: Starting blogging first, and was introduced to podcasting via the blogging community. BlogHUD upgrades will include tagging and Twitter integration. There is a twitterHUD available now.

Q: How are you getting traffic?
Vint: 50% of traffic comes from Google.
TheDive: Traffic mostly from Twitter
Koz: Traffic from Twitter, but increasing traffic from Google. Pro version of blogHUD will look more like a real blog.

Q: How do you recommend starting a blog about SL?
Vint: Note that SL is not the easiest program to learn. So ask questions to get started.

Q: Are there blogs in native language or English?
Vint: There are native language blogs about SL, but Vint has written the blog in English since several people speak English as a second language.

Q: How do you integrate RL and SL posts? Do you split your blog? Does SL allow you to be more creative?
TheDiva: Tags her posts so that readers can distinguish between SL and RL. Not sure that SL lets her be more creative, she blogs emotionally so when the emotion hits her, she blogs.
Koz: I just mash them all together.
Vint: Yes, the virtual world provides a place to create your own story.

(Temporary black out as I got distracted...)

Q: Will blogging become obsolete as people spend more time in world?
Vint: No. There is no in world browser, so there is not an easy way to communicate with large number of people.
Koz: We could aggregate RSS feeds in world, or create our own Google in world. Finds the in world newspapers and magazines interesting, and thinks that eventually the note cards will become much richer in the future with the addition of Mono. Mentions that you can't save snapshots in your inventory ( I don't think this is entirely true - save texture as allows you to take textures and photos from inventory to your hard drive)

Q: How do newbs get real-world readers? Is this a niche audience?
TheDiva: It's hard to pull in people because SL is so obscure and it's difficult for people to get it. There aren't any blogs (that I know of) that are newbie focused.
Koz: Sites like Flickr help dispell the myth that SL is a game, and can generate interest. Use blogHUD to generate interest around events such as live music.
Queen: Has friends now in SL that have found that the real time and synchronous nature of SL has helped build her blogging community versus just commenting on each other's blog.
Vint: Uses the SL Blogger group to meet other bloggers and share ideas and help each other.

Q: Some people say that blogging an excuse to stay home and not meet people. How do you respond?
Koz: The relationships are very real, and offers new ways of meeting people. Met his fiance on Twitter! Television is actually the killer.
TheDiva: Media has actually helped to grow her social network; met more people that way than she would have in RL. Now forums like SLCC are more comfortable because you already have a bond with someone from meeting and interacting in world and via networks.

Q: What are your favorite places in SL?
Vint: Paradise Lost will always be a favorite. Left SL initially for 3 months, but came back and found Paradise Lost. Svarga is a beautiful sim, and also the Greenies sim is a new favorite.
TheDiva: The Ben and Jerry's sim is the happiest place in SL. Podcaster island is a good place to meet newbies.
Koz: Live music venues are most interesting. Used to fly around but it was much less laggy then.

*-*-*
More in the next post, and after the rolling restarts.

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BlogHer Underway

Houston, we have life off! The BlogHer conference is getting underway, and some brilliant participant is capturing it live on ustream. When I find out who it is I'll be sure to tell you. For now, enjoy!


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BlogHer '07 in Second Life Starts Today



Honestly, I do wish I was physically on my way to Chicago for the BlogHer conference although thanks to the hard work of Queen Tureaud many will have the chance to attend virtually.

Queen has done a heroic job pulling together the in world portion of the conference, you can find the schedule here. (Note that the times listed are local Chicago time CST. The SL times are 2 hours earlier). The festivities kick off tonight at 4PM SL with a mixer and a chance to meet people in world and listen to some live music from Dalien Talbot, Montian Gilruth and me - Grace McDunnough. There are over 120 SL Residents in the BlogHer group and I hope to get the chance to meet everyone over the next 2 days.

The conference starts on Friday AM on Hyperstring Islands and is packed with great speakers, exhibitors and live music from Takamura Keiko (aka "Keiko" ) and Slim Warrior.
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Virtual Trust in Your Second Life

In my early discussions about the power of the Second Life platform, I discussed what I called "unmediated conversation". Unmediated, in this case, by the real life factors that influence our face to face human interactions. I argued that in a medium where you could be anything, the infamous three second "first impression" rule had to be violated in some way, allowing for a richer, more meaningful initial engagement that transcended appearance and therefore led to deeper relationships.

After all, in a place where one could be any shape, thing, sex, species, etc. why would we allow ourselves to draw conclusions about the person behind the pixels in a mere three seconds simply based on their virtual manifestation? Did I mention that I *assumed* all of this?

This week my good friend DrFran Babcock started to dispel some of the myths I'd formed in my own mind in her Mental Health Missives podcast. DrFran highlights a study by Kristine L. Nowak and Christian Rauh published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication entitled "Choose your ‘buddy icon’ carefully: The influence of avatar androgyny, anthropomorphism and credibility in online interactions". The study hypothesis calls my "unmediated conversation" assertion to task:

The fact that we can separate the avatar from the behavior allows an exploration of the extent to which this reliance on visible information in the perception process is due to the lack of conscious control and the relative stability of the body. Perceivers know that the avatar is consciously chosen, easy to change, and not stable. Therefore, if people rely more on a person’s behavior than on the visual information (avatar) when online, it is likely that people rely on characteristics of the offline body due to its stability and the fact that it is beyond conscious control. However, if the characteristics of the avatar have a stronger effect on the online person perception process than behavior, this implies that people rely on visual characteristics for some other reason.

I know, read it again .. it will make sense. Where do academics learn to write? We digress.

The researchers conducted a survey and an experiment. The survey was used to determine how people perceive a group of 30 avatars in static context created from 3D models using Poser 5 for human and 3D Studio Max for the non-human avatars; those results were used to base the selection of a stimulus for the experiment. The participants evaluated the avatars in terms of their androgyny, anthropomorphism, credibility, homophily, attraction, and the likelihood they would choose them during an interaction. Here are the avatar mug shots.

As you can see there is a variety of human male and female as well as non-human avatars. It's not quite as diverse as that which we encounter in Second Life, but it representative set.

The results from the report Conclusion:

Avatars that were more anthropomorphic were perceived to be more attractive and credible, and people were more likely to choose to be represented by them. The strongest predictor of these variables, however, was the degree of masculinity or femininity (lack of androgyny) of an avatar. Further, those images with strong gender indications (either more masculine or more feminine) were perceived as more anthropomorphic than images (whether human or not) without strong indications of gender. These results also support the claim that people anthropomorphize anything they encounter (Reeves & Nass, 1996), even bottles and hammers, to some degree.

Further, while all images have some level of anthropomorphism, not all images are either feminine or masculine. Some images are both masculine and feminine and others are neither. All things being equal, more anthropomorphic or less androgynous avatars are more attractive, credible, and homophilous, perhaps because androgyny and low anthropomorphism increase uncertainty. These results are consistent with the suggestion that people have higher expectations of anthropomorphic avatars and that there will be consequences for violating these expectations (Garau et al., 2003; Slater & Steed, 2002). The results suggest that less androgynous (more masculine or feminine) avatars may also carry higher expectations.

Finally, it seems that the characteristics of an avatar may at times provide useful, and relatively accurate, information about the person it represents. Although a small percentage of subjects reported a preference for androgynous avatars, a majority reported a preference for avatars that were 'like' them, at least in terms of gender. This suggests that users may also want to match other characteristics such as hair color and race, perhaps sexual orientation, or even hobbies. This means that designers should continue to provide a wide variety of choices. This would not only increase user satisfaction, but could also provide useful information about people in online interactions. Finally, providing minorities, such as Hispanic and African Americans, choices of avatars that match their ethnicity or race may make them feel more comfortable and may also help to prevent marginalizing minorities and other traditionally disenfranchized groups in online environments by making them obvious, visible participants.

I know what you are thinking "So much for your unmediated conversation, Grace." Not so fast, notice that this study was conducted statically. In other words, there was little context nor was there interaction.

I strongly maintain that the three second first impression is largely influenced by the context of the interaction. For example, suppose you are wandering around Second Life and out of the blue you get an instant message from someone you don't know. "Hi Grace". (Yes, I know you aren't Grace, please play along.) What do you do? Do you respond quickly and openly? Do you check the avatar's profile, quickly scanning for hints? Do you just ignore it?

Now consider the next scenario. You teleport into a crowded live music venue where you know no one. Out of the morass, someone says "Hi Grace". Now what do you do? Do you react differently?

Finally, consider the following; you are wandering through the SL Botanical Gardens and you stumble upon an infinitely peaceful setting that is empty, minus a brightly colored dwarf dangling his feet in the water and whispering to the fish. He looks up and says "Hi Grace". Well?

This goes to the argument of whether virtual worlds have to be 3D. The answer is of course no, unless you want to capitalize on the immersive and contextual experience.

What do you think?
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Leading Brands Summit on the Impact of Emerging Media in Second Life

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) hosts "Leading Brands Summit on the Impact of Emerging Media" on Friday June 29th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Resort conference center in Second Life. According to the press release, the motivation for the summit addresses the a topic much broader than *just* virtual worlds:

"As the media landscape expands to include social communities, consumer generated media and virtual reality, so must sales and marketing evolve to speak to and engage today's consumer. Top executives and thought-leaders reveal their new media mix, what's working for them and what they're anticipating next."

Steve McGookin of Forbes.com will moderate the diverse panel of speakers including:
* Henry Jenkins, Head of the Comparative Media Studies Department, MIT
* Del Ross, Vice President, Distribution Marketing, InterContinental Hotels Group
* Cory van Arsdale, CEO, Massive Inc.
* Andrew Markowitz, Director, Digital Marketing & Media, Kraft Foods
* Michael Donnelly, Director Worldwide Interactive Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company

The Crowne Plaza's Place To Meet island is not open yet, but you can register on their site to reserve each of the three meeting they offer: the Executive Conference Room, the Theater Room and the Lounge Room. I love this idea and I plan to give it a test run as soon as I find the time. I'll let you know how it goes.

Place to Meet is strategically placed next to Holiday Inn Island. I wonder how long it will be until we hear "I don't know much about virtual worlds, but I did stay at the Holiday Inn last night"? My guess is at the next Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference in October.
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BlogHer Second Life '07

Queen Tureaud (blogger Erin Koteki) is busy preparing her castle to be stormed for the third annual BlogHer conference which will be simultaneously hosted in Chicago, Illinois and in Second Life on July 27-29th. This is a much anticipated event; Queen noted that registrations have already started piling in for Second Lifers without any advertisement.

Find out more about the BlogHer conference here and go directly here to register for the Second Life festivities. Make sure you follow the instructions, including emailing Queen to get added to the group.

I'll see you there!



posted by Grace McDunnough on Isle of Eden using a blogHUD : [permalink]

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Virtual Collaboration, Real Results

The Mill Pond Folk Fest wrapped on Saturday and I believe our main goal of "have a damn good time" was met and it some cases, including mine, was certainly exceeded. I learned more about the culture of Second Life and virtualized collaboration and as you know, I am all about the learning so let's dissect the event.

On the numbers
We hosted 15 hours of art and live music on 3 stages across 2 sims, with 43 musical acts. One stage was on Stone Hill and two stages were on Mill Pond - the Pond and the Tavern. The Tavern was wholly dedicated to musicians from Montreal, Canada *never heard in Second Life* and the talented Montian Gilruth hosted the mixed reality event.

I put unique visitor counters at each of the three stage parcels which gave us daily and overall totals. We had 1553 unique visitors in total (average 103 per hour) with a break down as follows: Stone Hill = 550, Pond Stage = 553, and the Tavern Stage = 450. Average resident concurrency for Friday and Saturday (thank you Tateru) was 31,526 which means in total we drew an average of 0.03% of the on line SL Residents to the event per hour, or 0.4% of the total residents logged in the last 7 days. [Trivia challenge: If you drew 0.4% of the Internet traffic to your site, who would you be?]

On engagement
Of course, we *all* know that the true power of this platform is engagement and not just numbers, so let's look at that aspect just a little. The Stone Hill and Pond stages hosted Second Life musicians while the Tavern stage introduced new, never heard before, possibly never to be heard again, musicians from Montreal. Note that the numbers for Stone Hill and the Pond are 20% higher than the Tavern.

This is representative of the Second Life fan culture, or the fandom phenomenon. In the era of new media networks and convergence, this is critically important to understand. Henry Jenkins is the expert here, take a read through his blog and books. Fandom is a powerful phenomena, and harnessing it is one way to drive traffic and increase engagement - a point that is not lost on many of the more successful Second Life performers or the more successful commercial locations such as the L Word sims.

On collaboration
Executing an event of this size requires a good deal of collaboration and cooperation and often this is where you make or break it. There were four main co-conspirators doing the heavy lifting for a few months leading up to the event: Montian Gilruth, Micala Lumiere, Montrealer Moody and me. As the fantastic four, we depended on two primary forms of communication - conference calls and a wiki. I don't think Second Life voice would have helped here, primarily because we needed a secure (i.e. not publicly available) line that the four of us could access. As a side note, I think the introduction of voice at this event would have been disastrous; Gwyn might agree or disagree.

The real essence of an event like this is the community contributions of every single person in their own way - every one of the artists and vendors, the musicians, Edward Lowell of The Stream Team and Reslez Steeplechase of First Call Musician's Co-op who donated streaming services, Bree Birke who graciously volunteered to greet and be bouncer for the entire 15 hour event, DrFran Babcock who made a delightful May Pole (it was initially a May event), and Slip Stringfellow who donated his time and soon to be "must have" security system, and each of the Second Life blogging outlets that helped promote the event including SLNN, Rik Riel on Rik's Picks for New World Notes, The Avastar, and Amalthea Blanc on Second Life Art News.

I causally mentioned having the next festival in the Fall at my Sunday gig, although the thoughts of how much time and effort it took to pull this one off is looming dauntingly in my mind - which leads me to a couple of closing points:
1) You can never have "too much help"
2) People - not technology - are the foundation of Second Life, and
3) You can not truly appreciate the power, inspiration and transformative nature of this platform unless you spend some time here actually *doing* something, anything.

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Intel Launches New Second Life Initiative

The Intel sim is packing nicely with over 50 avis anxious to hear about Intel's new initiative. Updates coming once we get underway.

There are no updates as I crashed like a runaway train and subsequently was not motivated to relog and try again. I'm sure 57 Miles will have the complete scoop - assuming he didn't take a nose dive as well.

posted by Grace McDunnough on Intel Software Network using a blogHUD : [permalink]

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A Bonfire in Second Life

Colorado Technical University and the House of Flames are hosting BONFIRE 2007 to celebrate the grand opening of CTU's island in Second Life.


BONFIRE 2007 will be twenty-four hours of live music in Second Life and it promises to be a great event. The festivities start on Friday, June 1st at 12:00 PM PDT/SLT and run through Saturday, June 2nd at 12:00 PM PDT/SLT. The BONFIRE 07 Lineup (all times PDT/SLT):

Friday June 1st
12PM - Kurt Jano (www.myspace.com/kurtbestormusic)
1PM - Linder Paine (www.billwagnermusic.com)
2PM - Tone Uriza/Speelo Snook (www.tonystorpedoes.com)
3PM - CyberPiper (www.cyberpiper.com)
4PM - Grace McDunnough (grace.weebly.com)
5PM - Ricardo Sprocket (www.myspace.com/richpetko)
6PM - Cylindrian Rutabaga (www.myspace.com/gracefolk)
7PM - Niko Donburi (www.nikodonburi.com)
8PM - Wendy Curtiss (www.wendy-lee.com)
9PM - Louis Volare (www.louislandon.com)
10PM - Juel Resistance (www.myspace.com/7juel)
11PM - Luigi DiPrima

Saturday June 2nd
12 AM - Tone Uriza (www.myspace.com/tonyandthetorpedoes)
1AM - Konny Kembla
2AM - Jaynine Scarborough (www.myspace.com/julianegabriel)
3AM - DWditty Delweg (www.myspace.com/dwditty)
4AM - Paisley Beebe (www.myspace.com/leoniesmith)
5AM - Andy Glasgow (www.myspace.com/jem777guitarist)
6AM - Spaceman Opus
7AM - Picker Apogee (www.myspace.com/robvanniel)
8AM - Cesar Pakula (www.myspace.com/cesaracho)
9AM - Jellyjellyjelly Benelli
10AM - Virtual Live Band (www.virtualliveband.com)
11AM - Shiger Seattle (www.myspace.com/shiger)

About CTU
Colorado Technical University (CTU) is an accredited institution of higher learning with campuses in three states, as well as an online division. CTU offers degree programs from the Associate level to the Doctorate in a number of disciplines such as: IT, Software Engineering, Systems Security, Computer Science, Management, Business Administration, and Healthcare. Classes can be taken in a number of delivery formats and now can even be held in the virtual world of Second Life. To find out more about the programs at CTU, visit the Colorado Technical University Island at Colorado Tech (200, 126, 22)

About HoF
The House of Flames is a small showcase venue that features live performances from some of the most popular singers, songwriters and musicians in Second Life. We invite you to join the group to receive the latest concert updates and information. You will find the House of Flames Group in Second Life under groups/House of Flames.

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Virtual Worlds Fair Coming To Second Life

I don't normally report on things *about* to happen, but this was too compelling to wait.

My friend Frank Koolhaas (aka Mario Gerosa in RL) is planning what he calls the "First World Fair of the Virtual Worlds" in Second Life. From his blog post:

This project is the First World Fair of the Virtual Worlds, which will be held in SL and will host tens of stands with representatives of all the main virtual worlds (for example, a dragon will be in the World of Warcraft stand, while there will be an astronaut in the Entropia Universe stand), which will show the marvels of the place they come from by means of posters and videos.

This is the first project from Lifelog Studios, a new venture for Mario and friends. I haven't had a chance to catch up with Mario for comment yet, but this appears to be another fantastic project from the author of "Second Life" (Meltemi, 2007).
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Virtual Worlds, Mixed Reality Make HOTLIST

The folks over at Innovation Lab have published their HOTLIST 2006 which "comprises the prevailing tendencies permeating research, product development and service design within the field of information technology."

You can find the hotlist detailed posting here, but I spent some time thinking about how many of these are, can and will be applied within Second Life.

1. Customermade

When customers and users "infiltrate" the product-development work of companies or organisations and begin to design and create their own products and services.

This could be a hot topic for debate within Second Life, but on the surface, I'd say that the underlying premise of Second Life defines Customermade. I am sure some would argue to the contrary. What do you think?

2. Geo-Awareness

The filling station knows you're on your way, and – via the navigating system in your car or your mobile – it will send you an offer on the petrol, and at the same time it will advertise the dish of the day in the station's cafeteria.

This is a tough one, arguably depending upon some real life location based needs. Although, one could easily conceive of a SLURL based integration for a services model, something like a AAA for Second Life.

3. Thing Connection

Thing Connection is the keystone of the 4A concept – Anytime connection, Anywhere connection, Anything connection – by Anyone. Otherwise known as ”An internet of things” – in other words: when things communicate with each other.

Largely missing from Second Life is easy and transparent communication vehicle through the virtual membrane. Some attempts are underway, but this is still largely uptapped.

4. Virtual Worlds - I think we can skip this one.

5. Web Applications The Next Generation

The Web, and not the PC, constitutes the new centre of the universe. This entails a shift from software to web-based applications where the overt and the social will come to play an increasingly substantial part.

Depending on how well Linden labs does with Customerade, largely untapped capabilities for the platform may be uncovered. Notice that NING (referenced in the detailed post) is a service I use here on this blog - it is powering the Second Life photos block in the sidebar.

6. Digitial Product Placement

Digital and virtual advertisement pillars. The digital billboard of the future will be blank space – to be filled in with messages directed at specific target groups. Thus, a major sports event attracting different viewer groups will, simultaneously, be showing ads for the local bakers as well as for an international online bank – and on two different TV stations.

Let them eat soup from the green screen. Can this be the root of the immersionist versus augmentationist debate? Perhaps not, but centainly a central theme in the burgeoning Second Life space.

7. Web Video - YouTube? I'm bored with this one, let's move on.

8. Mixed Reality

The fusion of digital, virtual and physical products is near. The remote control of tomorrow will juggle the programmes; and, at the smallest flick of your wrist, your new telephone will scroll through the menu – and then it can also be used in a virtual game of table tennis .

Some say that active SL Residents have moved too far out of the real world and into Second Life, what if you moved more of Second Life *into* the real world? Ingenious second lifers have already started to investigate haptics technology to extend your Second Life experience. What if you could interact with the world of Second Life in an entirely new way?

9. Expanded Search

Search engines are becoming more than just a match of words and numbers in a colossal database. More "intelligent", meaningful and automatic searches are starting to gain foothold.

For me, this is the largest black hole in the Second Life galaxy. I really like the second411 HUD, but a robust and innovative search model (note, not just engine) will be absolutely required if the world continues to grow.

10. Humanitarian Technology

Profit-generating technologies and humanitarian aid in one! Too good to be true? Probably - but it's nevertheless reality. A perspicacious neo-philanthropy is immanent.

Once you catch your breath, consider the *good* that is being accomplished within Second Life - Dreams Shockproof, Brigadoon, and Support for Healing, to name a few. But clearly, this are mssing the *profit* part of the equation. If you have a good example of profit, philantropy, and Second Life in the same sentence, let me know. While not as much of a black hole as Search, this is still a fertile field.
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