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The Archives
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01.01.11The Predictive Power of Virtual WorldsVirtual worlds didn't so much predict the future as provide a giant sandbox in which to explore the different ways that the future could unfold. In presentations, I often say that I could have learned about social media from Facebook, or user-generated content from youTube, but I ended up in Second Life instead - and by ending up there, was able to see that the future isn't necessarily what the conventional wisdom says it will be. I can't imagine having any particular interest in things like on-line governance, privacy, identity, virtual commerce, law, economics, or 3D content development if it ...
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08.18.10It’s All in a Name: Display Names in Second LifeLinden Lab announced the addition of display names to Second Life, permitting residents to have a name which, well, displays in addition to the account name chosen on sign-up (gone is the requirement to pick a last name from a pre-generated list). Back in the days of M when everything was done in secret and every third person on the Grid had signed an NDA for some reason or other - they were in the mesh beta, or the Viewer Beta...I was asked to contribute to an NDA'd display name messaging roundtable or something. It wasn't a roundtable on the feature ...
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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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04.22.10Virtual Worlds, Hackers, Innovation and Enhancing the Human ConditionIf I spent the time I'm sure I'd be the mayor of the deli next door by now, FourSquaring my way to Twitter fame because, well, you know, it's really important that all my friends know how much smoked meat I eat and that I frickin OWN that deli. If I spent the time, I'd probably have a beautiful farm in Farmville, or a well-run cafe in Cafe World, or I'd be um the Consiglieri in Mafia Wars by now. Because the ability to recognize patterns and click little crops like a chicken pecking at the pellet switch is a ...
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04.20.10The Computer Interface is Becoming YouTwo distinct lives; the ubiquity of an online presence; the decreased attention paid to our physical self. Our physical bodies are becoming our avatars. These are the key talking points in a think-piece written by Mark Rolston, the Chief Creative Officer at San Fransisco's Frog Design, published at Forbes as part of its "Life in 2020" series. Rolston makes the case that "what's profound is that this new self can take on an outsized importance and fidelity," a marked change from when our 'second lives' outside of physical reality consisted, historically, mostly of writing: Most of us know people in these digital ...
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02.18.10Take Your Social Media and SLove It: Virtual Worlds and the Evolution of the WebThis blog is an ad. If you don't like advertising then you might want to go elsewhere. This blog is an ad for - well, for me actually. I'm not a journalist and I never claimed to be one. I don't particularly have any answers and, further, I very rarely claim to have any. Sometimes someone will spoon feed me information ahead of other people, or I'll luck out and notice some little blip of news that seems relevant and I'll post it because I also find it interesting. This makes me a flak. Someone "spins me" and if I buy ...
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01.25.10Linking Second Life to Real Life NamesFollowing was my response to Wallace Linden and his post about how nifty neat and cool it would be if Second Life could take advantage of all those super-awesome social networks out there. If my voice seems like it's dripping with sarcasm, um, it is. Read on: First, let me start by applauding the following (and the more general attempt at a conversation): And as Web and mobile services continue to work their way into all corners of our lives, these aspects will continue to proliferate -- and as they do, we'll start facing important questions about how we handle these collections ...
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10.14.09Creative Destruction: Deleting Avatar Accounts in Virtual WorldsAre virtual worlds like company towns you cannot leave? What's the price of just deleting your account and starting over? Have we become so interconnected that we can't just pull the plug and start over? There's nothing wrong with being part of a culture, or even a support group, which is often what it feels like Second Life actually is: a bunch of people with this sense that all of this MEANS something and is GOING somewhere but we're all king of wavering between absolute faith and certainty and dark despair and a suspicion that maybe we're living some kind of ...
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09.09.09False Dichotomies and the Limits to VirtualityAt this week's Metanomics Community Forum we'll be talking about "Limits to Virtuality". Following are a few thoughts ahead of the discussion. What kinds of limits would you place on virtual worlds? Would you let your 4 year old play around in Warcraft? Would you let your 6 year old have an avatar? Should virtual worlds be rated like movies with gatekeepers at the door but otherwise letting the parents decide? I mean, maybe Bambi is too violent for some kids...it's all up to the family or community, right? I got to thinking about these things watching my nephew last week. He's ...
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