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The Archives
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08.07.09Enterprise, Virtual Worlds and Transparency of IdentityErica Driver, who is doing wonderful work at ThinkBalm in assessing and advocating for the use of virtual worlds, posted a policy and invited comment on the use of actual identities in order to participate in the idea-sharing, brainstorming, and general advocacy of the group. Now, this issue has come up before, and I've blogged about it frequently. My main touch point is the connection of my own virtual identity with my actual one. When I was asked to appear on Metanomics there was a subtle pressure to use my real name - it wasn't forced, it wasn't required, but at ...
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07.25.09Virtual Worlds, Calling Cards, and Identity InteroperabilityI was talking last night with someone about cell phones, which led to a discussion of the Google Android operating system for mobile, which led to me giving one of my pointless rants about how Google is sucking up information when we browse, when we e-mail, and who knows, maybe with Google voice they're going to AdWord my phone calls. He gave me the usual response, the one I just don't understand: "It's too late, we'll never close that door, get used to it....everything that can be known about you will be known" and he gave me a sort of ...
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02.17.09Identities Constructed: Virtual Worlds and Anonymity (A Reader Comments)I recently posted some thoughts about avatar and actual identity, which generated excellent discussion. But I thought I'd highlight the following comment, posted by Debs Regent of the SLLondon virtual community: Social Construction Anyone who has studied Social Psychology will be familiar with the extensive work of Kenneth Gergen about the constructed identity and its variants in different social groups and situations. Also group work done by Zimbardo and others underpins these significant findings. We are arguing here about a phenomena that has been well researched and well proven for many years now. Its findings and conclusions are well established, even in ...
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02.11.09Mormon Avatars, the Super Bowl, and Second LifeAvatars are heating up. The recent Super Bowl featured an avatar-focused commercial for Coca-Cola which proved that avatars are approaching mainstream consciousness. (And also implies that it's only when you log off and stop living in an aimless fantasy that you'll meet the cute guy or gal "behind the avatar" - It's the Real Thing, no?) One angle to the role of the avatar as identity is how religion fits into the avatar practice. The Mormon Times recently took a look at this angle by asking the hard question: "Can an avatar be Mormom?" The answer seems self-evident: yes! Of course ...
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01.29.09Philosophers Fire Up AvatarsThe latest group - or in this case, just one person, but most likely the beginnings of a group - to hit Second Life is philosophers. Professor Luciano Floridi, a philosophy prof at the University of Hertfordshire just north of London, UK, will lead a philosophical study that will be based in SL, according to Red Orbit. The two-year research project will study how people present themselves in virtual environments. Although many worthy studies have already been done on this topic, the research - under the academy-friendly title of "The Construction of Personal Identities Online" - may be unique in ...
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10.23.08First Avatar Arrest for Virtual World Murder? The Hack JobIn what might be the first arrest for the murder of an avatar, Associated Press reports that a woman in Japan killed off her virtual husband when he divorced her. The police threw her in jail for 'hacking' because the murder was accomplished by using her 'ex husband's' log-in information to perform the act of revenge: " "I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations. The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said. She has not yet been formally charged, ...
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08.19.08I’m Sick and Tired Too: VD for Virtual WorldsI don't want to remember 100 passcodes. And I recently blogged on this....and blogged...and blogged.....and 4,000 words later came to the same conclusion as Edutechy who also had a nice simple diagram and a name (Virtual World VD) to explain the whole thing: Edutechy also bypassed a lengthy sidebar on interoperability, identity, reality and all that obscure stuff and put it rather simply: "I’m just sick and tired of entering all of the same data, and building the same types of avatars on each system. If these systems and concepts are to grow, then we need standards governing them…" I propose the same, ...
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08.15.08The Avatar AfterlifeThe Long Now Foundation posts speculation that our avatars will soon be programmed with our online preferences, leading to an afterlife for our digital personas: The software used to track the online behavior of users, within in particular system (virtual worlds or social networks) could be modified to track the entirety of their online behavior, over a longer space of time – say thirty years. At the end of this period the data could be used to program an avatar. This avatar would inhabit a virtual world or worlds and be programmed with all the users personal data, preferences and potential ...
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05.25.08Killing Sacred Cows II: Improve OrientationIt seems like there's a collective sense of standing up, shaking off the dust and cobwebs, taking a pause and reorganizing our thoughts. Sure, there's that meme thing and maybe this stuff is all being twittered away, but I don't twitter, or tweet, or whatever it is and I don't follow them, too much data I guess, but maybe there's a hive mind (topic for another day) and suddenly there's a few people have the same general idea and they all start start talking at once. Or maybe it's that in the absence of anything new from the Lab lately we're ...
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04.13.08My Avatar is Portable (and itsy bitsy)Thanks to Digado for pointing out a few advances related to the development of avatars. I was particularly stunned by the animation demo coming out of RealXtend, which is increasingly pushing the boundaries of what a "grid" can do (try hosting 80+ avatars and 100,000 prims on a sim! There's still glitches but they're onto something over there). I've talked before about how the metaverse is already here, it's just hidden off in little corners. Now Weblin let's you carry the avatar concept of the metaverse with you - primitive, sure, and it's really just a "flat" chat client that is ...
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