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The Archives
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08.07.10Avatars as Diaspora: Identity and Content Wallets for the New Age of PrivacyThere's power in your avatar. In my recent post about MyWorld, a new mirror world social gaming platform, Metacam Oh commented that without avatars it isn't a game changer for the metaverse. Now, I'd argue that the metaverse is more broadly defined - it includes mirror worlds, augmented reality, and life logging. And so while MyWorld may not rattle the cages of World of Warcraft or Second Life, it will be a game-changer for "places" online in which users interact with each other. But Metacam is right that there is something significant about participating in a virtual space with an avatar. ...
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05.30.10The Ultimate Emptiness of Dusan: Identity and VirtualitySomehow I missed the post earlier, but BotGirl has continued a conversation that has flipped back and forth across the blogs since, well, since I've been paying attention: what constitutes an avatar identity. In this case, Botgirl parses the different impressions we might have when we think of someone using their real or avatar names: "As I was thinking earlier today about a post in Phasing Grace on Second Life culture, it occurred to me that the same sort of semiotic questions I had in the quest to identify and name a distinct virtual Second Life culture also applied to personal ...
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11.13.09Philip Rosedale’s Artificial Intelligence (3): Avatar Agents?Philip Rosedale wants to move us closer to the Singularity, at least according to an interview with the New Scientist, in which he says that his new company will "takes the concept of virtual life a lot further. I'm looking at what else we can digitise. How can we evolve human experience?" Which is to say: how can we kick start the ability of computers to contain digital versions of ourselves or, if not of ourselves exactly then all the information that floats around us. This also lifts off of a comment he made to Time Magazine in which he said: "We're ...
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05.10.09Mapping Home: Virtual Worlds and the Geography of DesireLinden Lab's decision to create a continent in Second Life for explicit adult content had me picturing wagon trains loaded up with dance poles and avatar, um, attachments. We had been told the frontier days were over, after all, and with new management it was time for a bit of geographic relocation, a partitioning of the States, newly articulated geographies and a bunch of self-governed cities behind the firewall, or on private regions at least, the days of "one world" had ended back when they allowed direct teleports, I suppose. After my initial reaction it felt like things had settled down ...
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02.12.09Free Your Avatar: X-Box Live Lets LooseX-Box Live is allowing you to free your avatar in time for Valentines Day. The simple application lets you port your avatar off the X-Box platform and send photos of it to friends. "The updated ‘Free Your Avatar’ tool will provide brand new backgrounds and props for every occasion including birthday backgrounds, party hats and balloons. Additionally, people will be able to upload their very own backgrounds: Place your avatar in front of famous landmarks you’ve always wanted to visit, or insert your avatars into your favorite movie scene. " I've often wondered why you can't do the same in Second Life. ...
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07.25.08Am I Me? Virtual Worlds, Avatars Rights, and InteroperabilityOK, so there is a FIC, and Prok is part of it. Well, not really, but you see, there's a group of metaversites (metaversians?) who Plurk each other or something and then get together to meet in a secret room in some shady part of New York City "uncomfortably unsticking one buttock and then the other from the plastic office chairs, and staring at our seat mates". And maybe it's not smoke-filled, but with the humidity lately and with no air conditioning, I'm sure it felt smoky, or with all the coding talk and debates over platforms and permissions ...
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07.03.08IMVU Founder Cary Rosenzweig on Avatar-CentricityIMVU recently opened itself up to the general public after registering 20 million users to its 3D virtual platform. Worlds in Motion had a chance to interview founder Cary Rosenzweig about the public launch, and he throws around some pretty impressive figures: 20 million users, 2 million items created, and over 100,000 content creators, of whom "dozens have quit their day jobs by developing items for sale in the IMVU catalog." He speaks to the idea that within IMVU, users are the main content makers and as with SL, are the ones that drive the experience. But what gives IMVU its competitive ...
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06.25.08IMVU Hits 20M User MarkIMVU, which is still in public Beta (hmm, when do you come OUT of Beta, by many definitions, Second Life would still be IN Beta if that means the period in which you work out the glitches and bugs), has reached 20M users and a user-generated content base of 2,000,000 objects. According to Venture Beat: Chief executive Cary Rosenzweig says the company has built the equivalent of the eBay of virtual goods. Sales of such goods are generating $1 million in revenue a month for IMVU, which thrives on a so-called “micro-payment economy.” Continue Reading...
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05.23.08My Avatar is Not Me, or, Why Virtual Worlds Will Not Become AppliancesMaybe the Grid has been more stable lately, or less stable, or maybe there's one of those collective deep breaths as the community waits for, well, whatever it waits for - the next CSI build? The next Burning Man? The first pronouncement from Governor M. Or Agent M. Or Organic M. Smoke puffed from the upper windows of the Lab, black and filled with morning, and then the white smoke told us that He Had Been Anointed and now we're all waiting for his appearance on the balcony. And in the idle time we wonder whether M will play Medvedev ...
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05.16.08Dating Avatars: Preparing for Face-to-Face ContactThe next step in online dating appears to be virtual dating, according to the Toronto Star. Virtual daters at Omnidate create avatars from six male or female choices and then go on virtual dates in bars, at the beach or at a museum, all the while listening to favorite music. The goal is to eventually meet an avatar in the flesh, while hoping that the screening process of a virtual date, which is much more involved and telling than traditional online dating, with its e-mails, chats, and profile viewing, will lead to a more positive outcome. "It was like I already had ...
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