The Search for A Second Life Culture - Part 0

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/xerones

"Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of tradition (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; cultural systems may on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action." [1]

In 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn [1] compiled a list of no less than 164 definitions of culture; it's not surprising that the question "If Second Life® has a culture, what is it?" becomes as unwieldy as a broadsword.

Kluckhohn suggested that "culture is to society what memory is to individuals" which leads me to believe that culture is not absolute but rather like a collective hunch, or a recollection based on certain characteristics. Culture is then, as Eric Champion explains, "impossible to clearly demarcate" and is not a single thing but a "connection and rejection of threads over space and time". [2]

I really liked Tateru Nino's perspective: "Culture is an aggregate appearance of many entities, just as your skin is an aggregate of many types of cells." To which I'd add: And therefore, there are no right or wrong answers, just shared insights.

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Linden Lab Leaping the Chasm?

cc photo courtesy: globevisions

This last week I read the Harvard Business School case study entitled: Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm Rev. August 3, 2009.  If you'd like to follow along, the pdf will cost you $6.95 USD and if you have anything more than a passing fancy about the virtual world of Second Life and/or start ups in this space it's almost worth it.  I say almost because despite the report page count of 26, there are 14 pages of endnotes and poorly formed exhibits of incomplete data extracted from sources such as blog posts. That leaves you with about 6 pages of historical stage setting and 6 pages of useful information and insights into the new Linden leadership and their dilemma.

M is for Marketing

The phrase "crossing the chasm" in the HBS case study is in reference to the marketing strategy set forth by Geoffrey Moore in his book "Crossing the Chasm" published in 1991. Moore's strategy is closely tied to a technology adoption model wherein a chasm appears as a discontinuity in adoption between the early adopters (visionaries) and the early majority (pragmatists) on the way to mainstream.  

This is the same chasm that Mitch Kapor described in his 2006 SLCC address when he said:

“In particular, in the short term, right now there’s still a chasm between the power users and the clueless newbies. Those are slightly provcative terms, they’re not the best, it is just a fact, there’s still a significant number of people who come in, try it and leave. It’s not ready for prime time. I don’t believe it’s going to change overnight. It’s going to change in stages. It’s hard to know how long it’s going to take, and how long before it’s mainstream. It’s not tomorrow, it’s not next year, but it’s coming.”

This chasm as described by Mitch is the point of departure for the case study.  I decided to see if I could use it to develop a better understanding of what Linden Lab might be doing under the leadership of a long standing member of the digital marketing industry Mark Kingdon, aka M Linden.

M is for Markets
Let's go back to Moore for a minute and his marketing strategy. Moore lays out a prescribed formula for crossing the chasm that is relatively straightforward:

1. Target a specific niche market within the early majority
2. Develop a whole-product solution that addresses that market segment's specific needs 
3. Flood the market segment with an intensive marketing campaign. 

So the challenge for the Lab was/is to find that target market and hit them with everything, or they could at most hit two markets if they managed resources and priorities religiously. According to the HBS case study, the markets available to Linden Lab are: enterprise customers, educators, adult consumers or teens.

The release of Second Life Viewer 2.0 seems to fit the Moore model - it's being sold as an entirely new solution and we are certainly in the midst of a wholesale marketing campaign.  The question is, which niche target market(s) have they selected?

In mid 2009, Kingdon sounded convinced that Second Life was the killer app for business meetings, and in May the Lab rolled out Second Life Enterprise Beta, a full service behind the firewall solution for enterprise customers.  As a market segment, it's clear that a hand full of large companies have sufficient discretionary funding (solutions start at $55,000 USD) to at least sample, but I don't have details on the success of the SL Enterprise Beta to date.  The initial release was undoubtedly crippled by the lack of Shared Media recently introduced in Viewer 2.0. As an "embedded practitioner" I know first hand how difficult it is to get people to download and install simple plugins for WebEx or AdobeConnect, much less go through the standard Second Life download and orientation so it's really hard for me to imagine that this is the "beachhead" Moore suggested.

I ruled out the educators, even after the VWPBE conference and the collective "hooray" about Shared Media. I'm convinced the education market is saturated (a @fleep tweet indicated there were currently over 600 institutions in world), and the introduction of land pricing model changes combined the recent departure of John Lester / Pathfinder Linden seem to indicate that the Lab's past love affair with the edurati is in that "old married couple" stage - safe, secure, not really growing wildly and with a lot less sex.

Speaking of sex, the Lab has bent over backwards (so to speak) to isolate, cordon off and squelch any inferences that Second Life is "all about the sex" so I'm confident that the "adult -adult" niche market is out of the question.

That leaves the non- adult adult market, and teens.  I think, for now, we can rule out teens.  When asked about merging the teen grid at the VWBPE conference M Linden confirmed that a combined adult/teen was a distant future dream, but would emerge slowly through "thoughtful evolution".

We've ruled out three of the four, leaving us this ill-formed "adult market" at which Viewer 2.0 is aimed. Who, then, is that?  I like the process of elimination, so let's go there again.

The new viewer does not appear optimized for anyone wanting to host, perform or attend events of any kind.  Part of this is tied to the delay(s) of improving the overall Search experience, but that aside there is nothing in the shape of Viewer 2.0 that lends itself to finding or promoting things to do.

Viewer 2.0 brings nothing to the revenue support base, land owners and the new Linden Homes are a shot in the arm to the rental owners. Currently, land sales and ownership contributes 79% of the LL revenue - which is enormously unbalanced, ripe with risk and likely the largest motivation to find new markets.

An opportunity for growth might be the $L conversion which means new content but the new viewer does not appear to be for content creators, arguably the second most important Second Life resident behind land owners. Content creators are feeling particularly unloved these days due to continuing challenges with copyright and content theft.  Perhaps that's why we saw the heavy promotion of the SL Pro conference, with backing from Linden Lab that far exceeded any previously expressed interest in SLCC.

Is 3D Chat and Shopping Our Future?
So if Viewer 2.0 is not for finding things to do and it's not for content creators or land owners, then what's left?  Maybe I'm using the Moore model too rigidly, but is there a niche adult market out there that would serve as a suitable beachhead and give the Lab a leg up for the next wave?

My best guess is what a friend of mine likes to call "playing house with paper dolls".

This is the 3D chat or IMVU model of virtual worlds (at this moment, IMVU has 83,819 people online).  IMVU is nothing to scoff at - according to a Virtual World News post IMVU has over 35 million registered users and 100,000 registered developers - so about twice the size of Second Life and a comparable concurrency.  I even noticed the strange similarities between the IMVU and Second Life landing pages, and oddly enough the viewers.

Could "3D chat with super easy shopping" be the new beachhead to serve adult and teen markets?  If you've tried Viewer 2.0, what's your guess?

If so, it's a far cry from “connect everyone to an online world that advances the human condition.”
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Happy Holidays from this Virtual World Musician

For this holiday, I hope you find peace in your virtual world, in your corporeal world and in the world of your imagination.
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MMOX and Social Architecture

This week I subscribed to the MMOX listserve. MMOX is a proposed IETF working group that is an effort to collect best practices and develop consensus based standards for virtual world and MMOG interoperability. The mailing list is intended to host technical discussions related to the MMOX objectives.

I've written in the past briefly about interoperability and most people know I am passionate about this topic, but most don't know why so I thought I'd share. I was asked why I oppose interoperability so allow me to clear that point first.

I do not oppose interoperability, quite the contrary. However, I have particular sensitivities - not oppositions - about interoperability standards based on my background and experience. Those are my biases based on what I've done in the past, and we all have them.

Be an informed participant
I'm encouraged that the technical conversations about interoperability will take place within a formal and established framework, but before you run off and join the list be sure that you understand and appreciate at least two important points:

1. This working group is wholly focused on developing technical specifications toward a common goal.

2. The IETF is a respected and long standing institution largely based on common engineering practices with rules that you should take time to read and educate yourself before diving into the deep end. This is not about exclusion, but it is informed inclusion that leads to the most productive discussions. For example, if you don't know what NOTEWELL means, you are not adequately informing yourself, and in some cases that can lead to distracting and detrimental contributions.

Embrace Diverse Perspectives
I'm writing this post mostly to get my biases from my head to bits, since unfortunately I haven't nearly the time or professional directive to dive into MMOX in detail everyday, but hopefully this will be a helpful contribution.

I trust that the MMOX community will draw in resources from a diverse base disciplines so as not to be trapped in an echo chamber. Most notably, the modeling and simulation community has made significant strides toward understanding the technical implications of interoperability. If you are interested, please refer to the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization, or SISO.

I am not a MMOG or virtual world developer, my experience is drawn from developing large scale real time simulations to support development, training, test and evaluation and from being an active VW resident and researcher. I am passionate about the future of virtual worlds and this is my contribution toward that end, which starts with some background.

Interoperability Lessons
In 1996 , the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office developed the High Level Architecture (HLA) to address the need for interoperability among new and existing DoD simulations. At the inception of the HLA, there were already working interoperability standards such as the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) and Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol (ALSP), but by the power of DMSO, HLA was the anointed standard, compliance was mandatory and most importantly it is still a living and internationally adopted architecture.

HLA is defined under IEEE standard 1516-2000 and is defined by three components: the Object Model Template (OMT), an Interface Specification, and the HLA rules. A federation of interoperating simulations consists of: federates (all participants and object representations), a distributed OS called the run time infrastructure (RTI) and a common set of six primary RTI services.

1. Federation Management: Creation, dynamic control, modification, and deletion of federation execution
2. Declaration Management: Generation and subscription for object attributes and interactions
3. Object Management: Creation, dynamic control, modification, and deletion of objects and interactions (note: this is the network traffic driver)
4. Ownership Management: Allows federates to transfer ownership of object attributes to other participants in the simulation
5. Time Management: Time services for setting, synchronizing and modifying clocks. This is tightly couple with Object Management so that state is managed appropriately
6. Data Distribution Management: Provisions for efficient data routing between federates

Start at the right place
Note that the HLA RTI services look strikingly like those that might be applicable to MMOX. Also note that since these are services and not protocols, and implicitly federations must be designed toward a particular purpose.

I think we can all agree that we are but on the fringe of truly understanding the implications of virtual world interoperability but we can imagine future scenarios of purpose. That set of scenarios will help highlight misconceptions, presumptions, etc. about what interoperability might mean.

Lesson #1: Develop a set of working scenarios for interoperability that covers what you might imagine - you won't get it all, but at least start somewhere. This will also help set the consideration set.

HLA was designed as an open architecture with a set of rules to be future proof; it's impossible to anticipate every use case toward interoperability and intended use, therefore modularity and extensibility were important architectural factors to allow for growth. It was based on a set of rules that govern specific execution and implementation.

Lesson #2: Outline a set of questions that will lead to rules that must be addressed toward interoperability. Here's my very short list:

• Identity Management: How does an avatar's identity originate and translate across worlds? Could there be federate for identity creation that resides outside all worlds?
  
• Object Management: How do object properties including permissions as well as behavioral traits such as animation or movement get set and interpreted?
• Time Management: Under what scenarios is time critical?
  
• Data Distribution: What scenarios require routing spaces?

For those people who were successfully executing interoperable simulations under the DIS protocol, HLA was like choking on a chicken bone. HLA provided a standardized set of services that required active agreements among participants, whereas with DIS all one had to do was adhere to the protocol and - poof - you were interoperable. However, there were real limitations with the DIS protocol that include lack of scalability, lack of causality, latency and inflexibility.

MMOX conversations must start at a much higher level than LLSD and OGP if it is to be a useful exercise. Specific implementations and protocols, while they exist today, serve to limit thinking about what might be done over what could or should be done. Context is already king here, not the incumbent working draft of a prince.

Lesson #3: Start with architecture and requirements, then follow with protocols. Protocols are often optimized toward a particular end such as ease of use, which may have long term implications and limitations and without context, are deadly.

This is getting quite long winded, and most of you have gone to tl;dr but I wanted to make one last and possibly most important set of points.

Technical - and - Social Architecture = Interoperability
I mentioned at the top of this post that MMOX is for developing technical standards, which are a necessary but not sufficient part of shaping the future of VW interoperability. What's missing is the really hard part, the people - residents - users - content creators - business owners - and the implications of what interoperability might mean to them, personally.

Paired with the "Technical Architecture for Interoperability of Virtual Worlds" should be a "Social Architecture for Understanding Interoperability of Virtual Worlds". The former will move ahead but the latter is really difficult because of the legal, social and cultural complexities and even the lack of an IETF-like entity for the Social Web.

However, it's imperative that the complementary dialogue about Social Architecture occur, and I would argue that it is in MMOX's best interest to consider a means by which social architecture be considered. A technical standard without a basis of use and context is pointless.

Consider on-going examples such as Facebook's Beacon project, or the reversal on the Facebook Terms of Use. These are examples of perfectly legitimate and well formed technical statements that were met with a backlash of social outcry, despite their technical correctness and legitimacy within the Facebook architecture.

Furthermore, Social Architecture highlights the important elements of interoperability from the point of view of a person. What kinds of things might be important to someone traversing virtual worlds?

• How is my privacy protected?
• Who am I when I go from one place to another?
• Can I be in two places at once?
• Can I control my identifier AND my identity?
• What guarantees do I have that my IP is protected when it moves from place to place?
• What are the legal implications of going from one set of servers, hosted in one country, to another?
• How will my personal data be protected?
• What if I don't want my avatar, belongings, creations, etc to be exposed to other federates?
• Can I control visibility and/or interaction?
• Are there provisions for "border control"?
• Will my status and state be preserved across boundaries?
• What types of transactions can cross boundaries? How are those mediated?
  

This is but a short list of non-trivial considerations that require more than merely technical specification.

I can participate in this discussion but I can't actively lead due to other time constraints. But now that Robin Harper (formerly known as Robin Linden) has some time on her hands, perhaps she could lead this part of the discussion...

... one can dream.

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Weblin to Second Life: Meaningful Interoperability

Weblin's recent announcement that you can transform your Second Life avatar into a weblin for travels along the web is a fantastic example of meaningful and relevant interoperability between virtual worlds.

Early adopter Second Lifers have already adopted weblins as a means by which to chat and socialize outside of the virtual world of Second Life, whether it's attending Malburns and Tara's brilliant Metaverse Week in Review show, or just catching up while the grid is down.

From Venture Beat: Normally, you’d create your own Weblin avatar. But now Weblin has a “photo booth” within the Weblin House space within Second Life. Users enter the photo booth with their avatars. The avatars are then captured using Weblin’s software and recreated in the Weblin universe.

It’s essentially like exporting a character from one game to another. The Weblin characters are smaller than actual Second Life characters. They walk around at the bottom of a screen so they don’t obscure the user’s view of the web page. Linden Lab actively supports the teleportation application. The service is free.


[Cross posted from graceified]

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Another Look at Open Spaces

"The engine imbalance is what caused the worm-hole in the first place. It'll happen again if we don't fix it." -- Scotty

I've been reading as much as I can about the Open Space crisis, and unlike Jack Linden I have not "read all the comments" but enough that I have a reasonable sense of the trends. One post that stuck out from the crowd was a Dale Innis post outlining his "I’m guessing that what happened" perspective.

I listen to Dale, although we are likely Meyer's Briggs polar opposites, he's technically very savvy and he has the luxury of the insider's advantage when it comes to Linden Lab. Dale tells a story about what might have happened to provide an opposing view to the Linden Lab conspiracy theories and other rampant speculation. I've worked in enough walled garden development groups to know that Dale's tale, while disheartening, is perfectly reasonable.

It's the conservation of possibilities theory: Groups intent on doing great things have equal chance of doing great harm as great good. Okay, I made that up, but the essence is that one person can make a locally bad decision, two people can make stupid community decisions, but an unbridled group can actually unintentionally do far more damage globally.

Dale's story weaves through a set of probable circumstances regarding how the Open Space problem circulated around the Lab and ends here:

Someone suggests actually thinking for five minutes about how to break this to the users, but everyone’s hungry so they go to lunch instead and just announce it baldly in a blog posting, because everyone in the company who understands anything about customer relations is either out on sick leave to recover from the last crisis, or has been assigned to the “boring corporate people in suits” desk and isn’t allowed to talk to retail customers.

An interesting tale, a horrifically sad (and I hope untrue) ending but it gave me pause to think. Don't get me wrong, I still think Linden Lab is emulating a modern day John Sutter, but as to the root of the problem, I'm guessing Dale has some good inside information if not, at least a hunch based on his technical skills.

So I kept reading and I ran across a few bits of information that implied that the real root of the Open Space crisis may actually a deep seeded set of technical issues, the sum of which is colluding to create the most recent decline of our Second Life experience. Open Spaces are not the root cause, but merely a catalyst by which the true problem has been illuminated.

You may have noticed the first problem yourself, textures seem unnaturally slow to load. Residents have been accustomed to standing around when landing in a new place and while everyone is greeting them, returning the greeting with a simple yet well understood "Hi everyone, waiting for rez". We've been trained to embrace our inner gray.

A few dedicated residents have worked hard to track down a report of a problem we've learned to brush off as just "part of the deal" in this JIRA report. This JIRA report was filed on August 5, 2008 shortly after the 1.21 Release Candidate uprade. It's a worthy read, but lexo Bethune summarized it nicely here:

Wow, seems we've wandered really far down the rabbit hole on this one, considering it just started with "slow textures".
So, in summary, we've got a texture loading bottleneck, misdetection of video card memory, and rapid flushing of the cache requiring textures to be redownloaded from the asset server, which causes avatars to hit the asset server much more than they should, slowing down the asset server and causing even more requests, descending into a loop that causes a DDOS attack on the asset servers, causing massive instability, and rendering all tests of sim load on all regions unreliable (and removing justification for price hikes on Openspaces, since the load on the OS sims is due to an internal error, and not overuse).
What we have here is a pile of bugs that have come together, in a chain reaction, to ultimately cause massive problems and actually effect the pricing policy decisions of LL.
Wow. Excellent detective work, guys. Combined, this tree of bugs is probably the biggest issue in SL, and it looks like the ball's rolling. Thanks bunches to all of you. :3

In my opinion, if this in fact is the true root of the Open Space debacle, it is not all bad. Yes, lousy architecture and short sighted work-arounds are bad in the long term.

However, the good news here is that we get to see the power of a transparent issue tracking system combined with the passionate furor of residents that are a) capable and willing to help and b) infinitely resilient.


Paying, passionate and prolific content consumers and creators live here. Linden Lab, you are in fact, sitting on a gold mine.

Share Some Grace:

Virtual World Business Licenses - We Need Them

The latest thing phasing Grace is the virtual marketplace.

I've maintained that a successfully managed virtual world engenders essentially three elements:

1) Socialization - adequate means by which people socialize, form and maintain affinity groups, communities and even develop whole new societies.

2) An Immersive and Participatory Environment and/or a likewise Culture - an environment (and culture) that encourages creative participation but in a way such that there is equal part to play in the consumption of other's works. Mediated or otherwise, creation and consumption is not one-way, but rather it embraces both the immersiveness and synchronicity of the platform.

3) A Vibrant Marketplace - the ability for people to define value and to transact on items of value on many levels, RMT being one of them, but not the only. This includes instances where there were two forms of virtual currency - one that is only usable in world, and the other that can be traded in RMT.

As I have spent considerable time traveling about the myriad of virtual worlds, I've been focusing some attention on #3, the marketplace. I am active participant in the Second Life economy. I still own my first land from Linden Lab and own parcels on private estates that are maintained by someone to whom I pay a monthly tier. I have the right to resell my parcels, but the only true land owner is the estate owner, I am more like a time share owner.

I shop routinely around the grid and I pay for overhead items such as streaming services. I've had several occasions of which goods I purchased were not delivered due to grid instabilities, outages or random glitches. I'm happy to report that on every account, the business owner replied to my request, was courteous and made the transaction whole. I've heard accounts of the opposite, but rarely and they are sometimes confounded with some added factor such as a language barrier.

As a large scale event planner and live musician, I've been on the receiving end of two shaky business agreements with well known organizations within the virtual world of Second Life. The first was a complete loss. This was an agreement with an organization priding itself on grokking business and virtual worlds, but a few weeks before our agreement was to be executed informed me that they were leaving Second Life and would not uphold their obligations. Unfortunately, we had no "legal" agreement. We had chat logs, note cards and email, most of which I presume would hold up in court as evidence but alas we had no master service agreement, or other recognizable business agreement. The second is on-going agreement dispute that I hope to have resolved soon. I have chat logs and a note card outlining the terms of the agreement, however in this case the party with which I am dealing seems intent to make amends. This is based on my simple request, not at the behest of any legal entity.

I also am a supporter of not for profit organizations operating in Second Life. I have given large portions of my personal time, resources as well as funds to a variety of non-profits from the well-known American Cancer Society's Relay for Life to smaller international organizations. I have had my share of curious transactions with these groups as well, and while I can verify that the organization that they claim to represent is actually registered, I cannot confirm that the avatars and organizations within Second Life are indeed affiliated - unless the real world entity verifies it for me.

All of these transactions are being conducted between entities who for the most part maintain a virtual and anonymous identity. I have no access to them from real world legal action, except in cases of DMCA violations and serious harassment claims that are mediated through Linden Lab. The virtual economy has become such a natural extension of my experience, that it was not until recently that I even stopped to think it odd that I would surrender monies to people, charities, or businesses that were not verifiable in some way.

I would not surrender the equivalent of $100USD to an online retail storefront without ensuring that I had a way to contact them. More often than not, I whois before I purchase from an unknown online entity. (yes, I just made whois a verb) However, I have handed over the equivalent of that to purchase a parcel in a virtual world. I am not alone. In Aug2008 alone, there were 10,406 transactions valued at over $50USD between two (or more) largely anonymous entities just in Second Life. What happens if you hand over a sizable chunk of your virtual currency to an entity and don't receive in return what you thought you were purchasing?

I don't know, and I hope I don't have to find out. But just thinking about this led me to a simple conclusion:

We need virtual world business licenses.

I want people to be able to maintain their privacy, and manage their online identities in ways that best suit them, but with provisions for equal access to the virtual marketplace. I don't know if this was the intent of the infamous "identity verification" movement, but if it was, I may have to rethink my position in that context.

I want to know that there is some way for me to whois a virtual business entity, and better yet I want the equivalent of a Better Business Bureau, but on an scale that covers the virtual world space.

I want there to be governance over the execution of transactions for real and virtual currrencies.

South Korea took proactive steps toward business licensing in 2007. The Korea National Tax Service(NTS), equivalent to IRS in the US, announced they would impose VAT (value added tax) on RMT from 1 July2007.

• Sellers who do between 6 and 12 million won/half year in business will have VAT auto applied by transaction's middle-man
• Sellers who do more than 12 million won/half year in business will need a business license and will pay the tax by themselves
  

An official from NTS, Mr Choi is quoted,

NTS would be able to track all transactions for taxation of virtual items – RMT. This is not about defining RMT legal/illegal; we don’t see any contradictory facts to Amendment for Game Industry Promoting Law - we are not about to judge if RMT is legal or not.

Should we wait until every country enacts its own set of policies? I know, it's complicated. The thought of how one might even start the discussion makes my head hurt, but we need to start that dialogue.

We have seen but the tip of the virtual goods marketplace. It is pre-embryonic, yet growing quickly and it will become an enormously profitable space for many bright, entrepreneurial people and if it continues in the manner in which it is headed may in fact be a giant disaster.

What do you think?

Where are the pitfalls?

Where are the upsides?

How might it work?

Share Some Grace:

Stanford Prison Experiment and our Second Life®

In August of 1971, an advertisement appeared in the Palo Alto Times:

Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks ...

What followed in response to this modest classified ad became a controversial and influential psychological experiment known as the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), led by Philip Zimbardo.

Over seventy men responded to the ad placed by the Stanford team intent on studying the effects of prison life; candidates were screened with diagnostic and personality tests to eliminate those with psychological disorders, medical disabilities or a history of criminal activity or drug abuse and 24 were selected.

By all accounts and diagnostic measures, those selected were an average group of "healthy, intelligent, middle-class males". Immersed inside a mock prison, candidates were randomly assigned roles of either guard or prisoner, dressed in clothing specific to their role. Prisoners were assigned numbers for identity and guards were allowed to play out the scenario with very high level guidelines for behavior. What followed in the short course of merely six days was astonishing.

• The illusion became the reality.
• The boundary between the role each person played and their personal identity was erased. This was true even for P. Zimbardo.
• Nice men became brutal guards; healthy men fell ill and emotionally disturbed.
• No one ever quit the experiment but five prisoners were released because of extreme emotional disturbance. These were replaced by stand-by candidates.

Prisoner #416 was added as a stand-by prisoner toward the end of the experiment and it was his individual actions to resist that split the fabric of the experiment, bringing it to a close after six days.

What did it feel like to be dropped into this situation mid-course and find yourself at odds? Prisoner #416 says the following:

...I began to feel that that identity, the person that I was - that had decided to go to prison - was distant from me, was remote until finally I wasn't that, I was 416. I was really my number, and 416 was going to have to decide what to do.

I have read numerous criticisms of SPE and the findings, but what has struck me most is the parallel we can draw to our Second Life® experiences - not by the power equation, although some may argue that Linden Lab is walking a fine line in that regard - but by our ability to distinguish and effectively respond to situational influences.

What happened in the SPE illustrates the very power of an immersive platform when combined with willingness to participate, to embrace a role so completely that we are #416, and to accept our surroundings as real.

The effect demonstrated by the SPE is the power of Second Life, the enormity of what we can become, good or bad, when we allow ourselves to be fully consumed - visually and audibly immersed - in the environment.

Have you ever noticed how often the words drama and Second Life appear together? This should be no surprise given the SPE results, but more importantly, must be a lesson to us as we find our way through the evolution of these virtual spaces.

We are at a new cross roads. We have found a place in which we can embrace the positive and powerful nature of a platform from which we can expand our personal influence, explore the many dimensions our identity, and discover the power of our most basic human interactions. However, we must do so responsibly, consciously and deliberately and when the situation should arise, I trust we all can find our own Prisoner #416.

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Upholding Social Norms - Part 2

I didn't intend for Upholding Social Norms to be a multi-part post, but the conversation has become compelling and widespread. It's a subject that has reached a certain resonance around the Second Life resident blogs, and the comments on this blog alone have been thought provoking and highlight the complexity of the topic.

Here are a few other perspectives from the personal blogs of fellow Second Life residents:

• Chestnut Rau's "TOS - privacy and RL"
• Prokofy Neva's "Invalid Interlocutors"
• Otenth Paderborn's "Social norms, privacy, and community"
• Zha Ewry's "Congruence -- Words and Actions"
• Mera Pixel's "The Decline of Society in Second Life"
• Crap Mariner's "Erosion"

There may be more, if so please let us know in the comments.

Coincidentally, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society launched the Publius Project today. From the announcement :

Publius brings together a distinguished collection of Internet observers, scholars, innovators, entrepreneurs, activists, technologists, and still other experts to write short essays, foster a public dialogue, and create a durable record of how the rules of cyberspace are being formed -- with a view to affecting their future incarnations.

The first essays are now live:

• John Palfrey, Preface
• David Weinberger, Tacit Governance
• Esther Dyson, Governance - Tacit or Explicit?
• Kevin Werbach, Steering to the Edge of Trust

We take our inspiration and mode from the Federalist Papers, but our goal is to highlight a variety of perspectives on the evolutionary process of rule-making in cyberspace. The early American context and perspective is supplanted by our modern, global, and diverse experience. The notion of a singular constitutional moment is replaced by a vision of multiple forces shaping the structures that both open and constrict online spaces. Participants will reflect on the various elements of this loosely-joined architecture and consider how traditional understandings of regulation, control, and governance are manifested and constructed anew in cyberspace.

Berkman can tap industry leaders across a wide display of disciplines. The first three articles are worthy reads, but I noticed the one important element. They are touching on the same points as the rest of us "non subject matter experts".

John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society sets the context for the discussion:

The ability to govern activities online is not the exclusive province of the state, and the line between public and private action is getting blurrier, not clearer, as more of life moves into the networked public sphere.

Lines are indeed blurring, but how those lines blur do matter and I believe that without conscious and deliberate discourse, things will merely evolve to a point of the lowest common denominator. How else can we positively shape social norms in spaces in which there is a permeable membrane between the real and the virtual?

Some (removed ref to Chestnut Rau based on clarification in comments) argue that the Second Life Terms of Service are necessary and sufficient means by which we can regulate, but Prokofy Neva argues strongly that the Terms of Service are arbitrary, abusive and over broad and in turn residents cede too much power to the private corporations that sponsor them.

One might argue that *any* rules in the form of a Terms of Service or otherwise could be interpreted as too stringent and therefore stifle social interaction and the subsequent norms that emerge out of it. Quoting from David Weinberger's article:

The fuzziness of norms is their strength. We need the looseness of norms to enable us to be with one another in surprising ways. The narrower, more explicit, and less ambiguous the norms, often the deader the social interaction: “Come now, Marjorie, you know that we raise our hands before speaking.” Norms are not rules that have yet to mature. Rules are norms that have failed.

If you believe Weinberger, then the Terms of Service will fail us, just as Prokofy claims. However, that does mean that there must exist some tacit governance to keep the community healthy and alive. How then, does tacit governance evolve, thrive and be effective in a large, growing, and diverse community like that of Second Life?

Esther Dyson provides an interesting perspective on that issue as she provides the following illustration of her experience at a seminar with a group of Russians.

In Russia, there’s a proliferation of laws, but the overall system of governance is mostly tacit in practice. (That’s not to say that there is not a lot of excruciatingly explicit paperwork, but most of it is irrelevant.) This tacit system – of connections, unspoken rules, shadowy powers - leads to all kinds of maladies. Those in power can act as they like almost with impunity. Those without power but with an understanding of the rules can mostly stay out of trouble.

But those who don’t understand the rules, or who question them, can lose their freedom or even their lives. (As Russian politician Boris Nemtsov once pointed out [in paraphrase], “Yes, there is freedom of speech. But that does not necessarily mean freedom after speech.”

Tacit laws are difficult to understand, to share with newcomers and to spread across a large population. Tacit laws are also more prone to unfair balances in power and influence, which serve as particularly bad influences on new and emerging markets as those afforded by virtual worlds.

Now I don't know about you, but I feel stuck. Outright written rules fail us, and tacit governance is nearly impossible if not unbalanced at scale. Where does that leave us?

I think it leaves us at the root, the elephant in the room, with that which is so ill defined that while we write laws around it, socially we embrace a tacit governance that allow us to rationalize our circumvention of legality in a case by case way.

That root, is trust.

I thought Kevin Werbach may have nailed it with his article entitled "Steering to the Edge of Trust", but sadly he presents a largely technocentric "Abundance trumps governance" argument which is a necessary part of the discussion but leaves me cold. I personally keep coming back to simple human trust which is often mediated (at least partially) by well designed technology.

Like many fellow residents, I don't have answers. I have still more questions.

Do the Second Life Community Standards and Terms of Service establish some baseline for defining the expectations of a "trusted" environment in the world of Second Life?

What makes the Terms of Service, as Prokofy suggests, over broad?

The Terms of Service and Community Standards are written rules to which we all agreed to abide; are they failing us?

Are there more powerful tacit governance structures within Second Life?

If so, what are they and how are they adopted, reinforced, spread, and modified?

What else am I missing in this discussion?

Share Some Grace:

Upholding Social Norms

Recently, I've been observing what I consider to be an erosion of social norms within the growing resident population within the virtual world of Second Life (SL). I think to some extent, this was to be expected simply due to the explosive growth but I do think there is something a little more "meta" going on and I wanted to share a few observations. Before I go much further, I should say that the following represents my personal world view and is not intended to extrapolate to the general populous. It may simply speak volumes about the Second Life residents I encounter, and have little to do with the average population but at the least, it may provide food for thought and discussion in a larger context.

When Grace entered Second Life in Feb. 2006 the feel of the community was akin to Mayberry, USA. By that I mean, the population was less than 150,000 and residents were generally neighborly, helpful and glad to see you. I was fortunate enough to stumble into the tranquil community of Mill Pond as a home base but I spent most of my time traversing the grid, trying to get my head around the world as it were. Nearly every day of my first few months in world I heard "Welcome to Second Life" as I met new people and visited new places. There were leagues of well organized groups and individuals whose focus was to help acclimate new comers, from NCI to the Shelter and educational groups that taught basic skills. Inherent in these exchanges, beyond just building skills, were simple reinforcements of social norms and acceptable behaviors. It wasn't overt, it was kind and gentle and in the spirit of keeping the world of Second Life a place of community and collaboration.

Beyond the new resident centers, object lessons in de facto social norms were consistently reinforced by my fellow residents. This included simple things such as: greet and welcome people, be kind to newbies, excuse yourself when you left a group conversation, etc. It also included more subtle practices, such as waiting until you've established a bit of a relationship before you offered friendship - at that time calling cards were helpful without the implied social contract of a friendship. This was reinforced somewhat by the feature set because then your friends could not only see if you were online, they could also map you by default. This single point, beyond common courtesy, was a good deterrent to quick friends.

I realize I sound like some old geezer sipping a glass of sweet tea and reminiscing about "the good old days", but really I do have a point beyond simple nostalgia.

Reflecting upon my early Second Life social experiences and those today I see dramatic changes, especially related to social privacy. For example, part of the subtle but consistent reinforcement from the early community was that the separation between one's Second Life (SL) and real life (RL) was assumed, and the merger of those two was the decision of each individual to be exposed, discussed, etc. at their discretion and without prompting and if shared, certainly held in the utmost of confidence. I am not talking about the philosophical arguments related to immersion versus augmentation here, I am referring to simple courtesy and what was then a seemingly set of shared values and social contract terms that embraced the construct and consequences of what it meant to have social privacy.

Social privacy wasn't cast as "hiding behind your avatar" nor were the Second Life Terms of Service waved about by town criers, it was woven into the culture of the early era community and it was reinforced accordingly. Sharing someone's real life information and private chat logs with a third party was not only frowned upon, there was almost a scarlet, maybe crimson, letter cast upon those residents that were careless in that regard. Social privacy was considered paramount, and unfortunately I see that particular aspect of the Second Life culture eroding every day without obvious consequence.

In the material world there are forces that shape our social behavior such as fear of legal and social consequences and attendant regulation, which are largely choreographed by immediate and appropriate feedback. Often in the real world the law often becomes the lowest common denominator to constraint and social decorum.

However without feedback methods, those same consequences in online communities including Second Life are often missing, especially with a Laissiez-faire approach to oversight even in light of the Big Six. The "law" here in Second Life boils down to the Terms of Service, which clearly most people don't read or are otherwise immune simply due to the lack of obvious consequence. Without the means of consequence we know humans will push until there is some edge, and we are left with an eroding and destructive community.

Real world law is not the answer. Real world law doesn't solve destructive social behavior in communities and just to be clear, anonymity is not the problem. The arguments about identity verification and trust, while tuned to the real world, are inherently flawed in a space where new ways of thinking availed because of anonymity and the constraints it imposes. Additionally, no legal system is going to dirty itself by trying to moderate "Don't be a dick".

So what is the answer, or maybe what are the questions?

Are there different moral codes and norms that we are willing to adopt in online spaces to accommodate this new medium? If so, does self-moderation work in large and diverse social spaces to reinforce social norms? For example, are *you* willing to ...

• gently remind that new friend that just said something like "obtw ABC XYZ is rly a dude irl" that sharing or even discussing another person's real life is not acceptable?
• delete the notecard someone just dropped on you that contains a private conversation and kindly remind them not to do it again?
• even if you think you've "fallen in love" with another resident upon first sight, are you willing to give that resident the social privacy they rightly deserve?
• speak up in a public forum when a resident is being mistreated?
• defend a fellow resident's right to anonymity?
• remind the resident that disrupts an event with repeated transmissions of advertisements, sounds or even chat spam, that they might find a better outlet?
• write a blog post reinforcing your view of social norms?

Well, are you?

Share Some Grace:

What about Linden Lab's new CEO?

Several people have asked me to comment on Linden Lab's new CEO, Mark Kingdon but the fact is, I don't have a lengthy analysis or random speculation based on Mark's background or experience. Rather I will spend my time, just like I do with any Second Life resident less than six months old, and watch his actions as a leader for a few months. One of the first things I noticed is that he called Philip and asked for the job, that to me is a very positive sign (and apparently the phone is still more reliable than twitter).

It's been my experience that the best leaders utilize their past as a way to become more aware, flexible and adaptable to the next new leadership challenge. Despite what HBR might desire, there are no magic recipes, sidebars or otherwise that prove effective in every situation. Each challenge is unique, and while we residents see a certain face of Second Life based on our own experience and level of participation, Mark will likely see things differently from his vantage. Watching his actions often provide some insight into what that might be, and how he can turn his past experience lessons toward the new job. It's likely that at least we all agree that the problem is complex and infinitely fascinating.

Given the change of leadership, what type of leadership model might emerge?

There is a model I was taught long ago called "Mister Inside and Mister Outside" (sorry, I didn't pick the term Mister, but we are still living in the day where that is 98% accurate in the largest organizations.) The concept is simple, Mister Outside is the outward facing leader shaping the thoughts, behaviors and actions of those "outside" the organization. Mister Outside may take many forms such as a visionary, a spin master, a business developer, or a lobbyist; they can be someone that keeps the wolves at bay or someone that shapes the face of the company to make it attractive to others.

It's Mister Inside, however, that runs the day to day of the business. Let's call him the redshirt; the one that is spending inordinate hours in the details - sometimes in sync with Mister Outside, and sometimes in spite of him and likely to meet a tragic end over time. Looking back, the Philip-Corey pairing leaned toward this model although I suspect Philip had a heavier hand in the day to day operations than a classic Mister Outside.

Organizations that exist under this model with a weak Mister Inside, or one that is not well aligned with Mister Outside are often fraught with a personality or identity disorder. You will often find them choosing "sides" or developing factions of thought and progress is haphazard. This is the downside of the model, but there is an upside if a) there are positive benefits to having strong external partnerships for growth and b) there is significant upheaval on the inside that Mister Outside acts as a shield until order can be restored.

Without jumping to conclusions, will someone let me know if they see M Linden wearing a red shirt?

Share Some Grace:

Virtual Worlds 2008 Absent Interoperability

I have been reviewing the structure of the upcoming Virtual Worlds 2008 Conference to be held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York on April 3rd-4th. The conference is broken down into five tracks: Kids and Teens, Marketing and Entertainment, Virtual Law Conference, Enterprise Round Tables and Technology and Results. I zeroed in on the Technology track, anxious to see what progress has been made in the interoperability arena.

At the Virtual Worlds Fall conference in October, interoperability was the darling buzz word. IBM, Cisco, Linden Lab and many other technology organizations held hands at an invitation only "interoperability summit" born on the back of an IBM- Linden Lab announcement that had "intent to develop new technologies and methodologies based on open standards that will help advance the future of 3D virtual worlds."

At the conference itself, Cisco's Christian Renaud waxed about ubiquity, common identities, common denominators such as Nick Wilson and Robert Bloomfield's Metaverse Market Index, common platforms and the promise of integration across worlds and told us to "Take a deep breath, find your happy place..".

Like Raph Koster, I was immediately skeptical about the vision of interoperability as it was evangelized by the technoluminaries. However, the VW conference provides the next logical check in point to find out about things such as the progress of the MMI. I dove into the conference schedule to see how interoperability was transforming virtual worlds.

The Technical Track seemed like a logical place to stuff interoperability. The "Technology and Results" track starts with keynotes by a General Manager/SVP and a Senior Brand Manager, that must be an ice breaker. The rest of the schedule is as follows:

Stardoll: The Next Level of Engagement
Virtual worlds have quickly evolved into one of the most engaging marketing platforms on the Web. Index Ventures- and Sequoia Capital-backed Stardoll has emerged as a leader in the space, presenting brands with a unique opportunity to develop deep and seamlessly integrated campaigns in a vibrant community of more than 15 million members across more than 200 countries. This session explores how Stardoll has effectively partnered with the likes of DKNY, Sephora, Disney, Fox Walden, Heidi Klum, Faith Hill and Dualstar Entertainment Group to deliver creative, compelling and engaging marketing programs.

Introducing Electrotank® Universe Platform
Electrotank Universe Platform™ (EUP) is a flexible platform used to create unique virtual worlds. In this session you will be introduced to EUP and will get a glimpse into how it can be used to shave months off of development time while providing unprecedented flexibility and performance.

MTV Networks: Case Study Featuring Ford Models and Elizabeth Arden
For the ultimate case study in how to bring a brand to life in-world, MTV Networks, Ford Models and Elizabeth Arden present a panel discussion that demonstrates what happens when three iconic brands team up to create a deeply immersive experience for virtual world users. Representatives will discuss the first-ever M by Mariah Carey's "Virtual Ford Model Search," which helped crown the new face of MTV's Virtual Hills. In this interactive session, hear directly from marketers and media execs who can offer first-hand tips about how to create meaningful and engaging in-world initiatives and how to extend that campaign to 2D environments and to the television screen, generating even further exposure for the brands.

Winning Strategies to Optimize Online Revenues - Leading initiatives in MMOGs/Virtual Worlds
Listen to leading MMOG/virtual worlds thinkers present winning strategies regarding business models, user experience, worldwide reach, billing solutions, lessons learned, current issues and fraud prevention. Hosted by Paynova.

Real Results from Virtual Advertising:
A New Generation Advertises in the Virtual World
With traditional advertising in turmoil over ever-diminishing returns, how far-reaching will advertising in virtual worlds be? Immerse yourself in this fascinating discussion on the new way that products and brands will deliver their messages in the virtual world and how that translates into real- world brand awareness and sales. The discussion will focus on “push vs pull” advertising methodologies, “Empowered Engagement,” and effective marketing strategies that mutually benefit both advertiser and user. Additional coverage includes the use of true metrics and visitation analytics and how they can effectively measure Returns on both Investment and Objectives as well as open new doors for sales only viable in a virtual world. An open discussion with the panelists follows a brief presentation.

Is it just me or do the above all look like strategic marketing topics, and not so "technical"? I see several forms of the word "engage" sprinkled throughout and not a single mention of "interoperate". Am I looking in the wrong place?

Scanning the other four tracks, and I see that interoperability, or any sort of follow up from the most resounding parts of the Fall conference is missing. Search the show blog Virtual World News and you will see the most recent post containing "interoperability" was February 4th on the IBM-HiHiPi parternership annoucement.

If I look over the rest of the conference schedule, I see that most is dedicated to branding, marketing, advertising and interestingly enough, case studies highlighting walled gardens. What does this tell us about the prospects of virtual world development and evolution? Where is Miss Interoperability - our virtual worlds debutante, the belle of the ball? If someone knows where I can find Cinderella, please let me know.

I want to advance our understanding of the interplay between social and technical architectures and as such, understand the efforts and ideologies of those influencing interoperability on a larger scale. We must raise the level of dialog to that of the interested community, out from behind the closed doors of large technology organizations and conferences.

For now, I am off to watch the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Hearing on Online Virtual Worlds.

Share Some Grace:

The Cost of Passionate Consumers

I am not a pile on blogger. I write what strikes me when it strikes me, although many of my friends and colleagues know that I spend a lot of time studying and then regurgitating my opinions and findings about the implications of social media and virtual worlds. Which, today is about the hidden but real cost of passionate consumers.

To that end, I am not going to waste my words reporting on the new Second Life Brand Center announcement except as background:

1. On March 24th, Catherine Linden announced the Brand Center on the official Second Life blog.
2. There is a new affiliation trademark and license entitled "inSL Logo Progam".
3. There was a new Terms of Service update on log in to call attention to the recent changes and weighty legalese buried in: "4.4 Without a written license agreement, Linden Lab does not authorize you to make any use of its trademarks" which points to the numerous sub pages within the Guidelines for Using Linden Lab's Trademarks.

As a result of the above, there was and still is a resounding uproar and panic across the Second Life resident community that embraces many new media forms (blogs, podcasts, fan sites, etc) about the implications of the changes including the equivalent of "arm bands and berets" protest symbol. This afternoon, a twitter-rama of discussions about a boycott:

"Boycott"
"flickr is a good idea for a strike. we should have buttons too"
"Just adding a blog entry: "this blog is closed until LL clarifies how fansites are allowed to use their trademarks"
"yes, Blogger's Strike. No more links to Second Life® until we know we can use the trademark without fear of getting sued! "
"Beside SL blogger's strike... how about mentors going silent as well?"

So what's going on?

Do die-hard Second Life residents begrudge Linden Lab for moving to protect the strength of the brand? No. In fact many of them are the most vocal when it comes to otherwise inaccurate or marginalized press coverage that may damage the brand.

Are they simply uninformed when it comes to the importance of trademarks and brand management? No. Some are IP lawyers, several are marketers/brand managers and some have even registered their own personal trademarks.

So what is it?

It's simple. The product Second Life and the company Linden Lab have benefited greatly from the explosion of creativity and passion of its growing community and the recent changes combined with the way (once again) the changes were communicated is not congruent with what this community expects, and they are outraged at the implication that they have not in some tangible way contributed to the heretofore success of the Second Life brand recognition.

From Jennyfur Peregrin's blog:

For now, I view this action as a slap in the face to all of the enterprising individuals who helped to build Second Life into what it is today. Linden Lab developed the product and platform, but without the countless enterprising residents engaged in forging the vision for virtual worlds far and wide since late 2002… Second Life never have grown to its current size and popularity.

From Gwyneth Lleweyn's blog:

We’ve been the ones ultimately promoting that vision, spreading it around, and making sure that the world noticed your product and your brand. We were very successful — thanks to your gentle and encouraging former policies.

And for four years, you have been thankful enough to allow us to do that promotion, by establishing very reasonable and clear guidelines of the terms of usage of your trademarks.

And Gwyn's personal request for clarification and implied call to action:

We consider that an appropriate response should be forthcoming in the next few days, or we will be forced to shut down our own blogs, websites, forums, community portals, and other 3rd party sites to avoid litigation — and thus deprieving (sic) Linden Lab® from the traffic generated by millions of direct links and millions of viewers that learn first about Second Life® through all those sites.

Personal note: This blog will enter on strike on April 15th, 2008, for a period of 3 days, if no clarification by Linden Lab is published before that date.

As androids dream of electric sheep, so do most companies dream of passionate consumers. The discipline of embracing your passionate consumers, coined recently as "net promoter economics" can raise the value of your company to new heights. The nightmare, of course, is when you alienate them they can resist and revolt with equal fervor and become detractors. Detractors are costly in several quantifiable ways including retention, margins, annual spend, cost to serve and negative Word of Mouth. If you want more information, go read The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth by Fred Reichheld.

So you have a large base of passionate consumers (how many blogs do you think there are about Second Life?), that's a great thing, right? Well, sure it's great but there are a few costs.

1) Learn to communicate and do it really well
In this new age, we talk about dialog as if it were merely the institution of two-way communication such as opening comments to the floor. It is, however, more about understanding each other and developing norms for communicating that are consistent with a shared set of values and community norms. This means you have to work at communicating, constantly adapt and improve.

2) Spend time knowing what the Passionates are doing to help you
You cannot sit idly back and let the minions come to you. You have to actively seek out your passionates, engage them, and learn from them. They often know far more about your product than you do. The value of this is directly proportional to your willingness, your time and your creativity to engage. The key is to be pro-active, not passive or re-active. For example, office hours are a passive. The Second Life Views program is moderately pro-active. Seemingly arbitrary institutional changes in policy so long after the establishment of wide spread adoption is reactive.

3) Allow Passionates to have some influence over your policies
This sounds terrifying, but if you've done #1 and #2 correctly, the terror resolves itself. If you've made a mistake and need to make a policy change that is distasteful to your passionates, admit you were wrong, explain the change using #1 and #2 and move on.

These are just three points, but each carries a cost. It can be manageable, but it cannot be avoided. You can pay me now, or pay me later.

Share Some Grace:

Second Life Copyright Conundrum

The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it.
- Kevin Kelly

If you read just one blog post today, skip this one and go read Kevin Kelly's pseudo blog post at The Technium entitled "Better Than Free"; then please come back for some context. [Kudos and hat tip to Malburns for the link]

A friend recently sent me a tweet inquiring as to my opinion about this post by Tateru Nino regarding the on-going allegations, outrage and uproar about content "theft" in Second Life. I was loathe to get into the debate, but was subsequently motivated by Ziggy Quirk who makes a lengthy YouTube plea:

"Why would anyone walk into a store and spend 400 or 500 Linden on a dress, if they can get a dress of similar quality for free or very cheap from a reseller?"

According to the laws of the United States under title 17, of the U.S. Code, copyright affords the creator protection from gainful reproduction of their creations. Apparently there are creators in Second Life that believe Linden Lab is responsible for enforcing that protection whether it be through technical Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions, or through intervention and police action. I find this ironic and humorous but regardless of my personal opinion, there are larger issues at hand in this world of digital emergence where every 1 and 0 can be, and is copied.

Today's bits have no inherent value. Like the pennies you leave at the cafe, they take up space and are not worth the price of transport. Yes, I mean Ziggy Quirk's teddy bear is intrinsically worth nothing and it does not matter how many hours she spent crafting it, in the space of time approaching zero, it can and will be copied. Copyright does not protect you from copying. The second half of the copyright is the gainful part; technically you are protected from gainful reproduction but that protection occurs if *you* decide to take action to uphold your own rights. This is where the mysteries of the DMCA and attendant legal proceedings get murky, and generate urban myth. You must file a DCMA infringement notice to the letter of the law. Note in the Linden Lab policy it states very clearly:

When a valid DMCA notification is received, the service provider responds under this process by taking down the offending content.

See the word "valid"? This is the first gate, invalid requests do not even require a response. If you file an invalid DCMA notice, you aren't going to get a red-lined copy back like you did in the 3rd grade. I am sure there must be some poor schmuck with the job title "DCMA Infringement Allegation Validator", sitting in a dimly lit room next to a gigantic shredder with In-A-Gadda-Da-Vita playing softly in the background. If you want to shine a little light in his day, go get a template to follow and follow the technicalities precisely but modify it to your specification situation; this is no time to be careless.

From the Linden Lab policy, the notification must:

1. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon (i.e., describe the work that you own).
2. Identify the in-world item that you claim is infringing on your copyright, and provide information reasonably sufficient to locate the item in-world. For example "The allegedly infringing work I am referring to is located on the map area labeled 'Freelon, 104,30,56'."
3. Provide a reasonably sufficient method of contacting you; phone number and email address would be preferred.
4. (Optional) Provide information, if possible, sufficient to permit us to notify the user(s) who posted the content that allegedly contains infringing material. You may also provide screenshots or other materials that are helpful to identify the works in question. (This is for identification only, not to "prove" substantive claims.)
5. Include the following statement: "I have good faith belief that the use of the copyrighted materials described above and contained on the service is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or by protection of law."
6. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
7. Sign the paper (sic) [You have to include a real or digital signature.]

If your notice has all of those elements, then it should be valid. If it misses any of those elements, it will very likely be rejected, forcing you to refile your notice and causing a delay in getting resolution. A good overview of how to write an effective DMCA notice is here. Note that it costs nothing to file a DMCA. However, you are liable for damages for false claims, so be careful if you try to allege an infringement unless you are certain. There are plenty of resources available to individuals that have the wherewithal to pursue them. If you want to walk through specific details and examples, head over to Chilling Effects; it is primarily focused on web sites, but it has very helpful information.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not a lawyer and nothing in this post is to be taken as legal advice, counsel or otherwise . This it is based upon my personal research into copyright law and the DMCA, it is not to be taken as legal truth. If you have a question about these issues, please consult an attorney.

So filing a DMCA notification just the first step, it's easy to stumble and therefore equally easy to understand why there are so many claims from the Second Life community that "I filed a DMCA notice and Linden Lab never responded!". There is no requirement to respond to an invalid allegation, and it is not in the interest of Linden Lab or the community for valid notifications to be ignored.

That is the DMCA story, which doesn't really address Ziggy's question about copyright infringement. But realistically, her question isn't *about* copyright, it's about the dynamics of an emerging marketplace. I would argue that even if if all copyright violators were stopped (a certain impossibility) that her question would still exist because 1s and 0s have no value outside the context of the experience. The fact that anyone pays anything for virtual goods is not about tangible value, it's about the intangible human elements that we so often forget, or have failed to truly recognize.

Ziggy's bear is worthless, however, bear experience and culture has value, real value that can be translated to the marketplace so that people will actually pay potentially more and more often for her bear than for a copy. There are many other components that make up a valuable offering that can and will thrive in a virtual marketplace, and Kevin Kelly lays out a few in his article that resonate well within the Second Life culture. I'm assuming you followed the directions and have read Kevin's post, so I'm going to just dash in starting from "What is it that can't be copied?" Perhaps the most convincing example, trust.

There are a number of qualities that can't be copied. Consider "trust." Trust cannot be copied. You can't purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you'll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.

I've blogged before about trust in the context of Identity Verification, but in this case trust means the very essence that powers an on line interaction. I would argue that trust is the very thing that drives every social network and certainly every successful transaction. In Second Life, we have very few externally visible trust indicators such as e-Bay rankings, so we ultimately rely on word of mouth, recommendations by friends and previous encounters. The problem with trust is that it's so .. esoteric. It requires a significant up front investment which is why many of the brick and mortar companies fail in Second Life, but trust alone will not answer Ziggy's question.

There is an air of "do it or else" about Ziggy's plea. Do something, Linden Lab, or else Second Life will become a deserted digital content wasteland. There are accounts of individuals leaving the Second Life platform "because" of this situation, and in the short term there may be some disruptions to the economy but I don't believe that any sort of short term fix will actually stabilize the situation. If these virtual economies are to remain vibrant, then the forces that make the human transactions so compelling must take more of a center stage. To answer the questions, one must tap into the essence of human to human exchange which requires some new thinking about "sales".

The answer to Ziggy's question is a conundrum, and a powerful one at that.

People will buy from true content creators that create experiences and give away single elements of their creations ..for free.

I am not suggesting creators "give away the store", but rather rethink what constitutes their creation beyond a logically linked set of bits. We are in an experience economy, whereby people will expect products to extend beyond the shrink wrap and encompass a multi-dimensional existence - striking emotion, connection, meaning - and thereby attendant loyalty. I am not talking mere brand loyalty, but loyalty to the ideal, the atmosphere, the energy that surrounds the mere bits. To build this type of offering, creators must build on the intangibles, earn trust, build community, raise the bar and stretch the canvas in new ways.

Fortunately Kevin lays out "eight generatives, better than free".

1. Immediacy
2. Personalization
3. Interpretation
4. Authenticity
5. Accessibility
6. Embodiment
7. Patronage
8. Findability

Take a look at each in the context of Second Life's marketplace, and you will find some creators that are already embracing this framework, and doing so very well. A personal favorite is Kriss Lehmann and his Straylight Botanical Gardens. Let's look at what Kriss does within Kevin's framework; I think he hits on at least six, and probably seven of the eight points.

Kriss ...

• uses subscribe-o-matic instead of a group for updates, which provides a sense of immediacy on new product offerings. [Side note - subscribe-o-matic is an extraordinary product, if you are a business owner I urge you to check it out. This is not a paid advertisement, just good advice]
• offers products with permissions that allow people to modify (personalize) his content within suitable constraints. He fairly sets a price differentiation fo this allowance.
• offers products are uniquely authentic and innovative within a market (landscape and plants) that was largely dominated by a couple of big players, most notably the Heart Garden Centre . You might find sculpties running rampant around the grid, but you can differentiate a Straylight product without much difficulty.
  
• creates an experience and rich atmosphere at Straylight that emphasizes his products in context, rather than just a storefront. People go to Straylight, just for a walk and may ultimately stumble upon a "must have" resulting from the experience.
  
• leverages the enormous Second Life flickr community to make his products not only findable, but desireable and an important element to a community of photographers hungry for rich, colorful open spaces and seductive nooks. How many flickr images do you see of fairies lounging around the Heart Garden Centre?

I don't think Kriss offers any "tangible" product for free (yet). If he does, please let me know. But what he does offer is a rich product offering, the experience is free, the community is free the access to relevant information on product releases, all free. There is no doubt that Kriss' landscaping products are powerfully creative, but put them side by side the fantasy plants at Heart Centre instead of in Straylight, and I'm not sure the product differentiation would be that great. It's the entire package that makes Straylight Botanical more compelling.

So my answer to Ziggy, is ..

Without intangibles, there is no reason someone would spend more money to buy a original over a reproduction. The intangibles are not out of reach, but may require that content creators reach beyond their individual craft, collaborate and develop community. And, if all the current content creators leave Second Life, there will be another wave standing by to take their place. The motivations for content creation are as diverse as the opportunity to fundamentally change the ways we asses value in the digital landscape .. it's an interesting time indeed but we are no where near the wasteland.
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