So during our intermission (which means me being on the road again) a bit of promotion. Well, not promotion but useful links to things of deep interest to you, dear reader.
We have a report out today highlighting the past season on Metanomics. It acts as a bit of a “State of the Union” on virtual worlds. The report extrapolates from the guests on the “fall season” and highlights the following:
Virtual worlds are achieving much wider adoption
“Virtual worlds to date, in particular for enterprise, have been a testing ground, with significant prototyping and exploration. Consumer adoption of virtual worlds, once restricted to game environments like World of Warcraft, has increasingly been reaching a mass scale, particularly among younger audiences and as components of social media (e.g., Facebook).
In recent times we have seen a major shift in adoption rates and a widening variety of uses. Large-scale growth has occurred in the virtual goods industry, with one estimate by Virtual Worlds Market predicting a value of $15 billion by 2015. There is a wider field of application providers and hardware platforms than ever before and in the business models that link these activities to the real-world metric of profitability.”
The Nature of Our Lives is Evolving Because of Our Lives Online (Duh! But seriously…)
“Virtual worlds play an important part in the wider growth of on-line communities and the changing nature of work. The digital world/Web 2.0 is the far broader context within which virtual worlds exist.
This points to opportunities that overlap and support each other – the integration of virtual worlds with social media and enterprise systems and the integrated strategic approach of the forward-looking enterprise will be a key continuing trend in the years to come. ”
Policy Issues Are Deep
“Virtual worlds provide a clear example of the policy issues ahead, which are part of the broader governance frameworks for life on-line. Challenges for government regulation, the impact on our sense of self, issues related to identity, privacy, and safety continue to be puzzling and important challenges of our times.”
Read the full report for quotes, case studies and analysis of the above topics.
So with another season of Metanomics under our belt, it’s time to kick off a new one. And I have to say the opening is a stunner, or I think so anyways. Robert Bloomfield interviews Douglas Rushkoff, correspondent and writer of Frontline’s Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier – a PBS documentary that explores how our lives have changed due to our digital world.
From the announcement (and such an appropriate topic considering my last post):
Can a love affair blossom in a virtual world? Are we seeing the end of attending a classroom in person? What happens when you wage war from thousands of miles away? As Digital Nation asks: “Is technology moving faster than we can adapt to it?”
The film is a collaboration with individuals who have participated in the Life, Inc., noted as one of the best business books of 2009. Life, Inc. takes aim at the flaws in the “operating system” of corporatism which reaches into all aspects of our economic and personal lives.
Rushkoff argues for more direct interactions between people, unmediated by artificial corporate structures. Join us to hear about the role of virtual worlds and digital technology in the peer-to-peer relationships Rushkoff sees as the right way forward…
So mark your calendars: Wednesday, January 27 at 12 pm SLT/PST.
A trailer for Rushkoff’s show follows:
[...] are people saying? -Virtual Worlds and the State of the Union: Metanomics Report by @DusanWriter http://bit.ly/80xD0J #dig_nat #virtualworlds #secondlifeVirtual Worlds and the State of the Union: Metanomics Report by [...]
interesting trailer…
but are we not alone anymore? seems were really just alone with a machine.
its gets unplugged. and youre not connected to anyone.
simple. eh.
We aren’t alone anymore. Not when we have the latest advertising schemes launched at us 24/7 with VR.
VR is their conduit straight to our id. VRs break down inhibitions and open the path to our subconscious with absolutely no barriers. The military wanted to do this once with drugs.
But now they won’t have to resort to that and neither will the advertisers.
Wow! That show is right on time. American youth is now spending more than half their waking hours in front of a screen – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html – and it looks like that’s what the future holds for modern culture.
The ultimate ramifications of the rapid, widespread and radical shift from physical to the virtual are anyone’s guess. Singularity or meltdown? Beats me. Although individuals can certainly make personal choices, I think that for humanity as a whole, for better and/or for worse, there’s no turning back.
I posted just a few days ago on this topic in “Social Networks, Fast Food and Evolution”: http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2010/01/social-networks-fast-food-and-evolution.html
I do not know any balanced individual who has been harmed by digital socialization. I would like to source the first idiot that suggested that too much computer face time was a negative thing. Says who?
With friends throughout the world, I am learning more online than ever before through this social media. I also find myself to be more confident in face to face interactions as a result of my social experiences in virtual worlds.
I smell a rat. Marketing spindoctoring to get people offline, and back on the couch blinking at the pretty picture show of flashing lights and Pepsi ads. No thanks. Days go by without me watching tv now and I do not miss it one bit. I’m linked in with the world
And I love it.
xo ~ Skylar Smythe
My virtual life has done nothing but make my real life better. Absolutely!
Uh, reality check: Gaming has absolutely *nothing* to do with Virtual Worlds.
It’s the amateur “journos” like Dusan who tries to link casual gaming with RosedaleLindenBoardKingdon Life.
Publicity stunts like this are not going to fix the Second Life concurrency problem, as the issue solely lies with Linden Research, and Linden Research only. Board-appointed CEO Kingdon’s 19 months’ of force-feeding destructive, unwanted policies and changes as well as failing to fix server-side issues, joining hands with griefer groups etc.
Mis-management is the *key* issue.
Net – I suppose it depends on your definition of virtual worlds. By most standard definitions a virtual world is persistent, provides you with a sense of presence (an avatar), and has a sense of location.
Unless you’d like to argue with Raph and all the egg heads at Terra Nova, I’m not creating some new definition here. Not all games are virtual worlds nor are all virtual worlds games, and each may be neither.
While I may be an amateur ‘journo’ or whatever the put-down is supposed to be, I’m merely adhering to the definition of most of the literature and consensus on the topic arrived at since the days of MOOs and MUDSs.
It seems to me like you’re misdirecting your anger at Linden Lab towards me. Happy to oblige, I suppose, but I don’t take kindly to being asked to take a ‘reality check’.
> “It seems to me like you’re misdirecting your anger at Linden Lab towards me.”
Not quite. Hardly anyone on the SL blogosphere have covered (in detail) the unwanted moves/changes Linden Research have made since Mark Kingdon stepped in as CEO. Quite disturbing, that people want to keep Linden Research’s unwanted activities to themselves rather than publicize at least some of them.
A few bloggers have (lightly) touched on some of the issues, with a few mentions here and there…
Then there’s biased** Linden Research orientated presentations and ads to boost concurrency numbers – which, of course, ignores the main problems Linden Research have caused (to it’s customers, especially the *paying* ones).
* Biased, since these reports never seem to cover the critical, concurrency-dropping issues at hand.