New World Notes

Inception App Reaches 3M Downloads; Co-Developer Robert "Dizzy Banjo" Thomas Talks About the Future of Reactive Music In Virtual Worlds & Beyond

Inception, the quintessentially cool "augmented sound" iPhone app based on the Oscar-nominated movie and soundtrack of the same name, just reached 3 million total downloads. That's an impressive milestone for such an esoteric app, which merges the sounds of the world around you with hypnotically throbbing samples from Hans Zimmer's soundtrack. (Or as the co-developer puts it: "The app induces 'dreams' which are essentially a context aware augmented sound layer over reality. They are unlockable with events and activities in your life.") Even more impressive for New World Notes readers: That developer is Robert Thomas, known in Second Life as Dizzy Banjo, a UK musician whose innovative SL projects helped connect him to RjDj, the app's maker.

"It was really amazing to work on this project," Dizzy tells me. "The story and general tone of Inception, as well as Hans' great music, is perhaps the perfect setting for an augmented sound project. All of the people involved in this project have been really great to work with on it. Obviously it was a great honor to work with Chris Nolan and Hans Zimmer, and working with RjDj's Michael Breidenbrücker is always great. I'm very proud to be part of such a great team at RjDj."

Dizzy tells me he sees parallels to his work on this project, and in creating audio projects for virtual worlds. Get Dizzy Banjo's duly fascinating thoughts on the future of reactive, augmented/virtual world music after the break:

Second Life & Facebook Were Once Considered Social Network Equals (Or, a Case Study in Mistaken Assumptions)

It may seem strange to say so now, but there was a time not long ago when Second Life was considered as viable a social network as Facebook itself. This is a video from 2006 at the prestigious Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, featuring Robin Harper (then Linden Lab's Community VP) on the same panel with Mark Zuckerberg -- who at the time, was all of 21. (Joined by heads of LinkedIn and MySpace.) Notably, Robin is introduced first, way before that Zuckerberg kid, and the moderator's first question, along with the talk's general framing, assumes that it will be virtual worlds which will define the future social network experience. (The panelists are asked who they'd like to be in a virtual world; Zuckerberg hesitates to answer, and then gamely agrees that being Cher might be fun.)

Weekly Recap: Ten Must-Read Posts From Last Week

Second Life

• Egyptians Worldwide Gather in Second Life to Share Resources, Information, Support for Uprising
• Why Does Linden Lab Want Facebook Sharing? Probably Because So Many SL Users Already Use Facebook to Share
• SimBall, a New Gravity-Defying Second Life Hoverboard Game Which Auto-Posts Scores to the Web
• The Future Look of Second Life (Now If It Could Only Scale)
• In Virtual Animal Copyright Suit, Judge Grants Injunction Against Ozimals' DMCA Notices (But Horse Breeders Still Not Immune From Protest)
• The Virtual World is Flat: In 2010, Second Life User Activity is Flat to Negative (But for E-Commerce)

New World Tech

• Second Life Co-Creator Cory Ondrejka Co-Creates Game Dev Platform for HTML5 -- Can It Help Save Second Life?

New World Etiquette

• Miss Ophelia's Metaverse Manners: Finding Friends, Mitigating Masters, and Tempting Trolls

New World Gaming

• 3 Big Mistakes MMOs Make That Alienate Female Gamers

Minecraft

• Zero Punctuation on Minecraft: The Delight in Creation Comes From Earning Resources to Create With First

Egyptians Worldwide Gather in Second Life to Share Resources, Information, Support for Uprising

February 2: Update here.

Click here to visit the Second Life island called Egypt, which right now is crowded with Egyptians from around the world, waving flags of their nation and sharing information and resources in support of the uprising in Egypt that now seems destined to overthrow the autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Owned by Ammroty Aedipo, an Egyptian who lives in the United Arab Emirates, the Egypt sim is also quite popular with Egyptians actually in Egypt -- but as everyone knows, Mubarak's government has all but taken the nation's Internet connections offline. However, this hasn't stopped Egyptians worlwide from converging on Egypt in SL.

When I visited today, there were Egyptian Residents logging in from Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Arab world; also the UK, and Bosnia, and surely many places beyond. One of them was sending out in chat instructions on how to covertly communicate with Egyptians in the country, others were waving their flags and cheering at the latest news from Egypt, all while raucous Arab pop blasted from the audio stream, and occasional bursts of Arabic from Residents using VOIP erupted across the sim. While the main channels for supporting the uprising in Egypt online are Facebook and Twitter, this community in Second Life is definitely the most immersive, very closely simulating what it must be like to share a town square or a living room with Egyptians on the edge of suspense and hope as they anticipate a new era for their country. Standing there as an avatar, you can feel and share their mounting jubilation through the pixels themselves. Once again, you can join them by clicking here.

Hat tip: Melissa Yeuxdoux.

Last Chance to Nominate Your Favorite SL Musicians!

These are New World Notes readers' favorite Second Life musicians so far: The Black Stripes, Chouchou, Cosmic Haystack, Juel Resistance, Komuso Tokugawa, Skye Galaxy, and Von Johin. Are they any other musicians that deserve to be in the final selection? Go here to nominate your favorite artists in SL.

What Does Have a Second Life Partner Mean to You?

After listing a Second Life partner in her SL profile for quite some time, Chestnut Rau removed any name from the slot where a partner would be. Why? As she explains:

There has been no change in my relationship, but I no longer need/want Linden Lab to sanction it or feel the need to publicize who is important in my life. If you know me, then you know. If you don't then its not material to you.

As it happens, her real life husband doesn't wear a wedding ring (initially for practical reasons, as a man who worked on tall ships.) Which may explain why Chestnut can maintain and SL partner with her husband's full knowledge:

He is well aware of who I talk to and who I spend my time with in world. He knows who has my cell phone number and who texts me. When I am online I sit in the living room so he is free to see whatever I am doing. I know there are people who would love to reinforce the "SL causes marital discord and divorce" theory but you won't be able to use me as proof.

Her post raises at least two interesting posts: How often in Second Life are people partners (even just casually in-world) without feeling a need to get that relationship listed? And if you maintain that relationship, how do you do it when you also have a real relation offline?

Why Does Linden Lab Want Facebook Sharing? Probably Because So Many SL Users Already Use Facebook to Share

SL Resident Cieran Laval doesn't like Facebook, so he doesn't like that Linden Lab is creating a "Share This" widget for Second Life users to share SL content on Facebook. Leaving aside how this specific widget is being implemented (seems like it could be improved), Cieran also makes an interesting claim that I read often:

Facebook is the complete opposite of the experience many Second Life users want to experience, Linden Lab can offer that alternative experience, there’s no need to be swallowed by the Facebook Borg.

This is a highly questionable claim for several reasons, chief among them this: The very largest Second Life group online is on Facebook. Linden Lab's official Second Life Facebook page has nearly 110,000 members. Assuming that nearly all of them are active SL users, that's a significant percentage of the total user base; in terms of very active Second Life users, probably a lot more. (Users who log in more than 4 hours a month are only about 340K in number.)  So the Facebook membership is probably a significant percentage of that highly engaged cohort. Whatever the number, the Facebook Second Life group membership is not only large, but aggregated in a way that makes group communication extremely easy -- far more than any other social media channel -- including Second Life itself. Given Facebook's incredible size, the proven market for social games and virtual world-type entertainment launched from within FB, it would be foolhardy for Linden Lab's executives not to emphasize Zuckerberg's social network as a key channel for its world.

In any case, much of the concern over Facebook integration is misguided, if the chief worry is that real Facebook profiles will somehow be linked to SL avatars:

Tutorial & Plugin for Making Seamless Second Life Clothes

This is a Second Life-oriented tutorial by Claire Harford for using Multi Chan Hax, a plug-in for Photoshop that looks like it does wonders for making seamless SL clothes. Nalates Urriah has a long and detailed tutorial for installing and using it, and Ms. Harford herself has an introduction on the SL blogs. If you use it, please reports your results (good and bad) here!

Yearly Oscars in Second Life Fashion Photo Contest is On!

The Oscars are coming quite soon, and Harper Ganesvoort has a photo contest for Second Life fashion inspired by the yearly bombastic celebrity fest:

If you became one of the lucky ones to make the walk up the red carpet into the Kodak Theater in about a month, with your name up there as a nominee, what would you wear?

All the details here. And before you even think of it, someone already did a tribute to Bjork's bizarre swan dress in SL. Also check out Iris Ophelia's Oscar fashion tribute for inspiration.

SimBall, a New Gravity-Defying Second Life Hoverboard Game Which Auto-Posts Scores to the Web

This looks like a cool new game: SimBall, developed in part by a gentleman named RobsterRawb Jaxxon, sort of like Rollerball, but on hoverboards, with frenetic gravity-defying action. (When Second Life's servers are cooperative, that is.) Just as cool, the results of each match are automatically posted to the game's website. Clever way of keeping score, and encouraging players to jump into a match (since the SLurl for a particular game is also posted too.) "The data (score, players, location) is sent to an email that is filtered, forwarded and automaticly posted to the Wordpress site," Jaxxon tells me. To start playing in-world, you can visit the main SimBall area: Direct SLurl at this link.

Update, 8:40PM: Corrected the credit on SimBall's creation. Jaxxon is a developer on the team; the game was created by Vetox, lead developed by Sean Martin.