Archives for March 2008

Telstra in Second Life: one year on

It’s actually just past a year since Telstra launched its Second Life presence. The reason we haven’t covered the anniversary until now is due to having a request for a comment in to Telstra on the first anniversary. There’s been no response, so I’ll reply on my observations and hopefully your comments on Telstra in Second Life.

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The first theme that comes to mind is expansion – the initial eleven sims was significant but there are now sixteen in total plus the two Telstra Experience sims. Aside from geographical expansion, evolution in what’s offered on those sims has also changed, with the opening of rentals for individuals one landmark event. The SydSim virtual Sydney CBD expansion was also launched with some fanfare but is yet to be completed.

The second theme is learning – mostly on the part of Telstra. In the initial couple of weeks after its launch, The Pond sims were inundated with new and excited Australian Second Life users – the trouble was they weren’t getting any guidance. Not long after that, volunteer and paid staff started giving support in-world and that support is still pretty much in place. Another key learning was around what an effective social space was. The Pond sims have numerous activities and spaces – clubs, pubs, sport activities and sandboxes. And what’s the most popular? A bunch of wooden boxes out the front of the Billabong Bar. There’s nothing fancy – just the boxes to sit on and a campfire. And no matter what time of day or night it is, you’ll usually find a handful of people there chatting whilst the nearby club is deserted.

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There’s no doubt Telstra have succeeded in Second Life – their traffic is considered one of the best for a corporate presence. They’ve been responsive to feedback and have had the resources to implement changes where needed. Whether they’ve succeeded in engaging the wider Second Life community is something to be judged by you. If you’re a regular Pond frequenter, what is it that keeps you coming back?

The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

Note: Philip Rosedale stepping down from the CEO position at Linden Lab is a dominant story in the news at present, which we’ve covered here.

1. BBC News – Virtual world for virtually Irish. “The world likes to drown the shamrock at this time of year, and for the first time plastic paddies can really get in on the act. Tourism Ireland is hosting a virtual St Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday in the internet world of Second Life (SL).”

2. Al Bawaba – eGames Targets Tourism & Education. “With e-Learning on the rise, the search is still very much on for the most effective way of delivering online courses, and encouraging interaction between participants at a distance. Second Life (www.secondlife.com), is the newest, hottest thing in the online teaching world suggests David Wortley, Director, Serious Games Institute, Coventry University and presenter at Knowledge Oasis Muscat’s (KOM) annual eGames Conference (31 March – 1 April, Muscat Hall, KOM). Wortley will deliver two presentations at the eGames Conference that will consider the opportunities offered by Second Life to education, tourism, heritage and culture.”

3. The Daily Telegraph (UK) – Virtual vogue: Second Life wardrobes. “Who pays real money for unreal clothes? Enough people to make digital dressing-up big business. But is virtual fashion just another teenage craze or is it the end of clothes shopping as we know it?”

4. The Times Online (UK) – Has the internet killed jobs fairs? “THE recruitment fair seems to have gone the way of the dodo, the zeppelin and the space hopper. Its moment seems to have passed. Caroline Weeks, head of delivery recruitment at BT Global Services, rather misses the old recruitment fairs where companies used their collective power to lure candidates to meet them face-to-face.”

5. Science Daily – Real And Virtual Pendulums Swing As One In Mixed Reality State. “Using a virtual pendulum and its real-world counterpart, scientists at the University of Illinois have created the first mixed reality state in a physical system. Through bidirectional instantaneous coupling, each pendulum “sensed” the other, their motions became correlated, and the two began swinging as one.”

6. The Brown Daily Herald – Donahue ’11 cashes in as virtual arms dealer. “Before setting foot on Brown’s campus, Evan Donahue ’11 made thousands of dollars creating weapons to summon damned souls and create rifts in space-time fabric to suck in adversaries. The weapons systems were for the virtual world of Second Life, a popular online role-playing game. But the money – more than $20,000 – was very real.”

7. The Bangkok Post – Socializing goes big in 2008. “Enhanced collaboration and Web 2.0 tools, such as social networking, will continue to be integral components across Asian businesses in 2008, say industry analysts. Claus Mortensen, principal for emerging technology research, digital marketplace and new media at IDC, predicts that more companies in Asia will create and maintain corporate profiles on social network sites.”

8. The Huffington Post – All Politics is Virtual. “Will the next election season’s big caucus battle look like a videogame? Web strategist Michael Whitney recently revealed the contents of a Hilary Clinton campaign survey on the Huffington Post, and among the usual questions about political leanings and election contributions was this seemingly odd query: Which of the following have you visited or played online?”

9. Wired – AI-Based Virtual Child Plays in Second Life. “This is how it always begins in the movies. Some well-meaning scientist-geeks create an artificial intelligence, and set it loose to see how it learns and behaves. Next thing we know, he’s taken over the nuke launchers and threatens humanity unless someone brings him an ice cream cone. In this case, the AI was built at Rensselaer Polytechnic, and gets to play in the Second Life MMORPG.”

10. The Australian Financial Review (subscription only) – Aussies lose interest in Second Life. “Australian usage of much-hyped free virtual world Second Life has not returned to highs experienced in mid-2007, according to data released by the system’s US-based publisher Linden Lab.”

Reader poll is live

We’ve created a poll widget on The Metaverse Journal website – it’s just below our machinima of the week section.

We’re after your thoughts on what you’d like to see more of on TMJ. We’re particularly testing the idea of whether there’s interest in a TMJ podcast. If you could take the time to vote it’d be appreciated.

The ABC in Second Life: one year on

The 19th March brings up the one-year anniversary of the ABC’s launch of ABC Island. Launch night coincided with the screening of You Only Live Twice on Four Corners. Since that time, there’s been a steady stream of events, including a great number organised by the Australian community of Second Life residents who frequent the island.

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ABC Island’s presence is a modest one when compared to the Telstra build, but it packs a lot of variety in the area it does inhabit. The Sandbox remains the most popular area, but themed areas like Melbourne Laneways provide a lot of ongoing interest as well.

There are also rumours of further expansion via another island. I caught up with Lisa Romano (SL: Lise Robbiani), the ABC’s Project Manager, Strategic Development for its Innovation unit, who wouldn’t confirm the rumours. We also asked her to confirm the original intent of the presence in Second Life. “The ABC created a presence in Second Life to learn more about virtual worlds so that it could understand how to create and present content and build a community in this rapidly growing three-dimensional environment. One of the ABC’s core principles is to reach audiences wherever they are and to pursue opportunities for innovation, so a new platform of this kind which shows strong audience growth and interest is worth exploring,” Romano said.

So after a year of effort in Second Life, has it been worth it for the ABC? Romano certainly thinks so. “We are thrilled with the response from audiences over the past year. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and we feel like the Island really offers a sense of Australian community based around content, creativity and innovation for both Australian and international visitors, mainly due to the dedication and enthusiasm of the ABC Friends Group.”

That same ABC Friends Group (of which I’m a minimally contributing member) is organising some anniversary events this week. There’ll be plenty of information in-world or watch this space for details.

What are your thoughts on ABC Island’s first year? Has it been a success? How do you see it evolving in the coming year?

Linden Lab’s CEO steps aside

According to a Reuters story, Philip Rosedale (SL: Philip Linden) is standing down from his role as Linden Lab CEO. From what I can see it’s a Bill Gates-like decision of getting away from the day-to-day burdens of running a company to focus on wider issues.

If anything, this is likely to help the company and the initial response seems to be positive. I can’t see any fundamental shift in Linden Lab’s approach beyond getting some more discipline in its business operations. If the new CEO can achieve that discipline whilst maintaining Linden Lab’s relatively good transparency, there may be promising times ahead.

What do you think? How’s this likely to change Linden Lab and Second Life?

Other coverage:

Massively

GigaOM

Second Life Herald

Terra Nova

Virtual Worlds News

Sydney Morning Herald

Weekend Whimsy

1. PlantPet Shamrock (time lapse)

2. Proginoskes

3. false belief in second life

Linden Lab offers lottery for free land parcels

All the details here. Essentially, both lotteries are for fairly well frequented shopping areas that Linden Lab are offering to new tenants for 6-months. The first is Luna Oaks Galleria, the second is Busy Ben’s Vehicle Lot.

Whether you’re an established or new Second Life entrepreneur, this is well worth entering. What have you got to lose?

The Telstra Experience Centre in Second Life

You may or may not be aware, but early to mid March marks two significant Australian anniversaries in Second Life: a year since the Telstra BigPond and ABC presences in Second Life launched.

We’ll be writing more on both in coming days, but today I stumbled across another Telstra presence in Second Life. Two islands, Telstra Experience and Telstra Innovation aren’t part of the BigPond islands but they do come up in Second Life’s search functionality.

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The Innovation island isn’t publicly accessible but I had a wander around the Experience island, and as the notecard offered on arrival says, it’s a replica of real-llfe Telstra Experience centres, one of which is nearing completion in George St Sydney. It’s very much an enterprise and government focus versus the BigPond end-user focus of the larger presence.

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Because the build is a replica of a real-world one, it’s far from an immersive, creative experience, with standard corporate office-space containing multiple video viewing areas. My guess is it’s also being used as a prototyping tool for the real-life builds in Sydney and Melbourne. There’s nothing wrong with any of that and it does demonstrate the growing awareness by the corporate world of the utility of virtual worlds in non-consumer, non-brand awareness applications. I doubt we’ll see the islands launched with much fanfare, if at all. And that’s the way it should be.

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The full text of the in-world notecard:

“The Telstra Experience Centre (TEC) is a new state-of-the-art facility built for our customers, now replicated in Second Life.

The TEC has been designed to provide business and government customers with hands-on experience with Telstra’s world-class technology, service and media capabilities. Customers will be able to see, touch, feel and use Telstra’s products and services. Most importantly, this centre allows customers to explore solutions using Telstra’s Next IP™ Virtual Private Network and Next G™ high-speed wireless broadband network.

This Telstra Experience Centre in Second Life is designed to give visitors a taste of what to expect from the RL centre. It also allows us to experiment with the use of Second Life for RL collaboration and projects across business and government applications.”

Check it out in-world.

‘Amazing Worlds’ release pictures and video

I received a media release from Amazing Worlds (formerly Mirror Worlds), to announce some pictures and video of their offering, which is still under development.

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The photos are located here or check out the video on You Tube :

The new information shows that Amazing Worlds is well underway and it certainly has a Second Life feel about it. Because it’s touted as a 3D tourist world, the standout issue for me is people. Like Second Life, it appears that there’s lots of non-populated space, which gives an extremely different impression than real life. In Second Life that dissonance isn’t a major issue but for a world wanting to give people an immersive example of its real life alternative I believe that’ll be a big challenge. What do you think?

The psychographics of avatars

The group ‘Business Communicators in Second Life’ have a fascinating transcript up on their site. It involves market research firm ‘Market Truths’ who have done some research on avatars and have divided them into six psychographic groups: Team Players, Entrepreneurs, Competitors, Connectors, Chameleons, and Apprehensives.

It’ll cost you $200US to buy the full report but interview transcript is worth a read. What do you think – do you fit into one of those six categories?

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