New World Notes

From Katrina to Talamasca

Oddly enough, Ginny Talamasca's appearance today in New World Notes was made possible by the greatest natural disaster to hit the United States this year. After Hurricane Katrina raked its way across the Gulf Coast, Second Life Residents launched a number of in-world relief efforts; one of them involved a lottery in our virtual New Orleans, with all ticket sales going to benefit Katrina's victims via the American Red Cross. For one of the prizes, I offered a screenshot and a short writeup on this blog. But rather than use his winning ticket on himself, George Backbite coyly sent me to the clothing emporium of Ginny Talamasca with instructions to take a screenshot of her as a gift from him.

Which is how, by pure double-barreled happenstance, I ended up meeting a fashion entrepeneur who makes a real income from her virtual clothing sales-- when she's not studying, that is, to find a better cure for cancer.

TRAVELING LIGHT

Arranging real world travel from an online world (originally published here)... 

So for the first time yesterday, I'm momentarily tempted to use an in-world service I'm supposed to be reporting on for direct personal gain, because I still need to buy two tickets to Florida for the Christmas holidays, and this tall slinky redhead in the silk blue cheongsam and a steel collar around her neck, she could probably get me a bargain.

As it happens, the deals Cattrina Careless can offer now are for two other sunny destinations, one that I'm from, the other I've already been to. "Hawaii is always a popular destination so when GTI published that one," she says, "we had to include it. For the truly adventerous, Greece is a great place to visit and quite cheap with this week's special." You'd have to book and fly immediately she adds, "but if you have the opportunity you can save hundreds of dollars."

"GTI" is Global Travel International, an established and reputed web-based travel agency. Cattrina and her husband PajVar Kerensky are certified independant travel agents working with GTI, so I ask her if they know that their web business now has an online world branch, here on the lakeshore of Bella.

Cattrina Careless nods.  "Although I'm not sure they really understood what I was trying to explain," she says, laughing.

Their main goal for creating an office in-world is to fulfill the fervent need of Residents who want to meet in real life, for group get-togethers like the recent SLCC-- or for more personal, intimate meetings. Though they offer full travel packages with hotel and car to exotic destinations, most inquiries from potential clients have only asked about flights, she tells me. "[T]hey know where they want to go and are sure they don't need to make arrangements for accomodations," Cattrina says, grinning. "But one of the things I always recommend when moving [a relationship] offline is that you have your own transport and your own accomodation. There should be some personal safety involved whenever you do meet offline." Recently someone asked her how it'd cost to fly from the UK to meet someone in the States. "They were just considering the idea of visiting and wondered how much it would cost. It happens more than you might realize." (But then, I realize that quite well.) In a later interview, Kerensky mentions that he and Careless met and eventually married this way themselves, going from another online world to air travel between their homes on the US West Coast and Australia, respectively.

Their agency has black marble floors and high walls of smoked glass. A large couch is nearby, for folks who want to watch a Hawaii surf video, to get in the mood. On the wall are the current travel package offers, which are embedded with a web link that launches your browser, and takes you directly to a secured web page where you can complete the transaction.

"We do not take real life information in any way [here]," says Cattrina. "Global Travel takes any RL information, we simply help you select and personalize the trip you wish to take... we give you the details either in e-mail or here in-game of exact flight numbers, dates, hotels, etc. and a 1-800 number that you can call to finialize booking with Global Travel. Or if you prefer not to call, a direct web link to a page we have created for your travel choices." To earn their commission, they phone in the details of the deal to the agency, or supply their agent number to pass on to the GTI representative the client ends up talking to.

For a demo, I ask her about a New Orleans trip I've been wanting to take, even moreso after Katrina.

"OK," says Ms. Careless, "so what would you be looking at? Five star? Budget? Do you have a preference? In the French Quarter perhaps? The Saint Louis Hotel is the best in the French Quarter. I have a nice picture of the hotel rooms." She uploads and displays the digital snapshot of an ornate room.

"Nice," I decide, "though a little froufrou for me."

"Ahh, but that is the nature of this hotel, perhaps I can find one a little closer to your tastes. More modern? The Hotel Provincial is probably closer to your preferences... can't promise it isn't waterlogged right now, though." She uploads another room photo to show me.

I ask her if she's considered doing transactions through Linden Dollars, acting as a kind of virtual world Paypal, since they can just convert the payment into cash after the sale's completed.

"Yes and no. The primary concern of many people (and an honest concern it is too!) is the chance of having to give out real life information. We don't want to put them in that position, thus the direct interaction with a well-known travel company. If we took payment in Linden Dollars we would require personal information to make the final booking, like [real] name, etc. Not going to do that." She smiles sweetly. "One of the attractions of Second Life for many people is the anonimity that SL provides. Even when they are going to meet someone in real life they dont want some stranger to know who they are-- a valid concern."

In any case, their new agency has yet to complete a sale. "We have had a lot of interest, but as yet no one booking travel," she acknowledges. "But such is the nature of the travel agency business. Many people like to browse."

I wonder if the lack of sales has anything to do with the comparative strangeness of the setting, the surreal prospect of chatting with a femme fatale avatar so you can spend hundreds of dollars for a service that usually involves being strapped into a steel hull and sent airborne thousands of feet, flying at speeds approaching Mach One. Or maybe it's just the bulbous pink sculpture near the travel agency that's been nagging at my periphery throughout our conversation.

In any case, I finally have to ask.

"You're a submissive wearing a steel collar with your master's name on it and there's a 50 foot animated penis tower right outside. Is that distracting to clients wanting to do business?"

Cattrina Careless laughs. "Unfortunately there is little we can do about the penis. We own most of Bella, however [the penis tower owner] owns what's left. And as you know we can do anything we want on our property.

"As for my collar," she adds, "you are actually the first person that has even mentioned it. So I don't believe it has worried anyone." Ms. Careless smiles. "We try to be professional in all our dealing with our customers and that's ultimately what counts."

IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE

A pervasive political statement or quasi-griefing scheme (or both) comes to Second Life-- again and again, and maybe yet again (originally published here)...

So when you're trying to run an honest sex club on a pleasant foothill off the highway, you probably want the clientele in the lobby to enjoy the view outside, while waiting to enjoy the services provided within. The mini-mall across the way, for example, or the mansions up the slope. Though maybe not the giant, multi-color sign floating right outside, the one emblazoned with the words "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS - End the Illegal War in Iraq - Restore US credibility - IMPEACH BUSH". Because even if the clientele happened to agree with the sentiment, it's probably not something that gets people in the mood.

Especially if it's a sign they've already seen in Second Life,in so many places -- floating above mountains, along roads next to castles and fine suburbs, next to shopping centers and casinos, looming over nightclubs and lakes.

"It's really annoying," OnnaYokai Yamabushi, proprietor of the Cage of Sin, told me. "It looks horrible, too. They're [on] really small parcels and priced way too high."

When I talked with her several weeks ago, one of the dozens of "Impeach Bush" signs that appeared in Second Life recently was hovering right outside the Cage of Sin. Like the rest of them, the property where the sign resided had been set for sale, at disproportionately high rates-- often L$500 or L$1000 (about $2 to $4, at market rates) for a plot of land no bigger than an Afghan rug. So if Mistress OnnaYokai wanted the call to impeach George W. Bush to darken her door no longer, she'd have to pay the price of a small latte. Or maybe even go high as Venti size.

Too steep for her, in any case. "I can deal with it," she told me. "I figure I just don't have to look out the window. I haven't had any of my guests complain about it, so it's not really hurting me in any way."

But the dozens of signs have had a lasting impact on Second Life culture, beginning with an enraged Forum topic on the subject.

"I play Second Life to get away from such nonsense," Ranma Tardis, a Resident from Japan, fumes to me after posting there. "This is suppose to be a happy place! Too rude, people deserve respect."

The in-world response has taken several forms-- most prominently, a rash of giant signs put up to decry the original signs. 

"Yes, I agree it doesn't help the view," acknowledges Dook Buckenburger, one of the counter-sign creators. "But if I don't do anything, will anyone? The fact that you're asking me about them means that it has, if maybe just a little, had the intended effect... I feel it is disgusting what this person is doing. It is painfully obvious this person is not making a political statement in any way."

In all this back and forth, Linden Lab has not taken a view on the spread of "Impeach Bush" signage across the continent one way or the other. They have removed a few of them, Daniel Linden, Director of Community Services, tells me. This has provoked complaints from Residents who support their message, and believed the Lindens were restricting free political speech.

Not at all, says Daniel Linden. "Some neighbors thought we were acting in a reactionary manner," he explains, "when in fact the only reason we removed them is they overhung parcel boundaries. Content is something that Linden Lab is not concerned with unless it crosses the line into 'broadly offensive'. The only time we'd remove a sign for content would be under that circumstance." (As spelled out in Linden Lab's Community Standards, that rubric includes publicly viewable profanity and nudity, for instance.) "There's no free speech issue as far as I'm concerned," he says.

As for their status as an "eyesore", Daniel Linden goes on, "It's not for us to decide the relative merit of construction in Second Life. We'd also remove the signs if they were script-intensive or a targeted attempt to harass another Resident." (Being a public figure, he adds, it would not become harassment if President Bush ever decided to get a Second Life account.) As for Residents accusations of "extortion", he continues, "If someone can demonstrate a concerted attempt to extort then we would appropriate action."

The day before Thanksgiving, I reached the owner of the many "Impeach Bush" plots scattered all over the world, interviewing him via a long series of IMs that he replied to, he says, via cell phone text messages while on a train cutting through Middle America. Rather than refer to him by his Second Life name, I'll call him "Jedidiah Profane"-- reflecting New World Notes' general standard not to give press to those engaged in griefing.

That's even though, in this case, Jedidiah Profane's signs don't explicity violate Linden policy. In my own judgment, griefing is at heart an attempt to violate the implicit social contract to sufficiently maintain the consensus reality necessary for an online world to function. By puncturing that illusion, artificially imposing reminders that we're not really in an alternate world of castles and clubs, and we're just displaying a stream of 3D images regulated by a monetized data management system onto our computers-- the magic leaks away. And then we really are just in a three-dimensional Web, and not another world. And whether it's an honest attempt to express a political opinion, or just a clever way to make money-- or perhaps more likely, a calculated experiment to test the limits of expression in Second Life-- I'm erring on the side of caution here.

But motivations are for the reader to decide. What follows after the break is my complete conversation with Jedidiah Profane, edited only for grammar and clarity.

POINT TO POINT: POINT, COUNTERPOINT

Arguments and counter-arguments for P2P teleportation...

Back when Second Life was a tiny world, Residents could magically teleport point-to-point: that is, from any place on the grid to any other place, just like that. Shortly after launching commercially, however, Linden Lab introduced "telehubs", scattered throughout the grid. From then on, when you teleported from point A to point B, you were actually sent to the telehub nearest to point B-- usually a few hundred meters away, meaning you had to travel the remaining distance on your own power (fly, walk, vehicle.) In the same way, in the offline world, that a public transit system tends to create a civic gathering place and neighborhood around each of its stops, telehubs were a way to mitigate the urban sprawl of a constantly expanding world. A place to meet folks, and a chance to look around, wherever you were going. Smart urban metaverse planning, in other words.

All that's about to change. Linden Lab recently announced that an imminent update would re-introduce P2P teleportation. Telehubs-- which, unsurprisingly, drove up the real estate prices of the surrounding land-- would then be transitioned into some kind of public/community space.

Also unsurprisingly, the decision has generated energetic Resident debate on whether this will be good for the world at large, so I offer two contrary opinions from the SL blogosphere. For P2P, there's Forseti Svarog, who addresses the fears that the end of telehubs will lead to urban blight with a 15,000 word rebuttal.  (So to speak.)  Offering close to 15,000 actual words is Gwyneth Llewelyn, who is decidedly more pessimistic:

In a sense, SL will be a place of isolated chatrooms, linked together through point-to-point teleporting. People will not care what is "in-between"... It won't simply interest them. Notions like urban planning or organic growth will simply not fit in this model — what will be important is the ultimate destination, not how and why you get there... This will definitely not "destroy" Second Life, or "destroy" SL's economy, or make everybody go away in disgust, or anything like that. The only thing that will happen is that Second Life won't be a "virtual country" any more — ever again. It will be a collection of snapshots linked together by teleports.

For my part, I wonder what will happen to the various technologies that Residents introduced in the era of telehubs to make traveling more efficient: specifically ROAM, created by Francis Chung and Rathe Underthorn, a fairly cool and ingenious means of traveling point-to-point through an auto-mapped, AI-piloted jetpack with a Google-style web interface for searching the places you want to go. (Torley Torgeson has write-ups on ROAM here and here.)