MIXED REALITY MONDAYS

A few months ago, I did an in-person video interview for an upcoming cable TV documentary on online games and Second Life, and to accompany my segment, the producers understandably wanted machinima footage of me doing my job in SL.  Before shooting of that commenced today, the in-world movie crew gave me this uniquely strange and emblematic item: the virtual world release form, designed to apply both to an avatar and the real person who owns the avatar.  No idea whether an agreement like that would stand up in court or even private mediation, but it strikes me as the kind of thing we'll be seeing more of, in coming months.

Screenshot by Goldie Goodman

The filmmakers who shot my footage were the team of Silver and Goldie Goodman, the two Residents who produced the wonderfully bizarre "Stephen Colbert: The Battle for Truth" SL machinima that took the "green screen challenge" of The Colbert Report to new levels of strangeness.  So after my shoot was over, Silver put on the avatar of the comedian who plays a reporter with a strange world view, and we posed together.  Thus making this screenshot possible:  the avatar of a virtual world reporter with the avatar of a virtual real world reporter.

In other Mixed Reality Monday news, my weekly roundup of SL projects backed by real world companies and organizations:  more virtual world reporters, another car company island, another US government representative, and to twist the ontological screw just one more notch, a leading reality TV show comes to Second Life.  All that after the break.

Mixed Reality Government

The CDC in SL:  The Center for Disease Control safeguards US citizens against infectious and chronic diseases, and provides the people with resources in the event of chemical and radiation emergencies, and bioterrorist attack.  They also hosted a health fair in Second Life, put together by a man whose avatar is a fetching redhead.  (Far as government officials go, he follows in the footsteps of Homeland Security, and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.)  Social Marketing blog Spare Change has the report on the CDC's appearance.

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Mixed Reality Media

More reporters on the virtual world beat:  Now including Robert Holden of TheStreet.com, and Randy Shore of the Vancouver Sun.  (Hat tip on the latter to SL Insider.)

Big Brother in Second Life:  The Dutch producers of the original "Big Brother" reality TV show-- where cameras track the every movement of a group confined in a single enclosed space for weeks-- comes to the metaverse.  Adam Reuters has the scoop-- though no word how contestants will be prevented from just logging off, after a house fight.

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Mixed Reality Business

The corporate fee for entrance into the metaverse:  Starting at $5000 if you go with Rivers Run Red or Aimee Weber, $10,000 if you go with The Electric Sheep Company, and $20,000 with Millions of Us (a sponsor of this blog.)  BusinessWeek runs the numbers, summarizes the strategies, and offers a smidgen of skepticism.

Launching Scion Island: The cars began appearing in-world a few months ago, and now working with Millions of Us (sponsor of yadda yadda), Toyota has an island to drive them in: Scion City, opened tonight with a live DJ and a packed house which lagged the sim, so a fully optimized test drive will have to wait.  (It will be interesting to see how the island's Traffic holds up, next to the new Nissan island.)

Winged Iumi Cline and another Scion guest

Your Name for Millions:  Scion City was built by MOU staffer Neil Millionsofus, while the island's launch event was promoted by MOU staffer Baccara Millionsofus.  Veteran residents will immediately recognize those residents, of course, as expert builder/scripter Neil Protagonist and legendary hostess Baccara Rhodes.  Each have been famous in-world for well over three years, so their avatar names carry enormous cachet and brand recognition, as it were.  So it struck me as strange that their work with Millions of Us involved taking on a third name.  Did that mean their original avatar identity was being subsumed by their company?  I put that question to Millions' CEO Reuben Steiger.

"We don't insist that anyone use the Millionsofus last name," he tells me.  "In fact, our new policy is that it's a badge of honor that you get after finishing your first project."  But it also serves a practical function, he says.  "[C]lients find Second Life somewhat disorienting -- knowing that people with the Millionsofus last name work for them is comforting.  Additionally, since we own the Millionsofus accounts, it allows us to create the avatar equivalent of a 'work computer'.  Lots of people like this-- it allows them to seperate the work they do for hire from their regular Second Life activities.

"It's a really interesting and thus far imperfect system," he acknowledges, "but the last thing in the world we want to do is decouple people from their identities, famous or otherwise.  Unfortunately, there's no perfect way to accomplish all our goals in SL so we have to loudly and publically give credit to people project by project."

And so identities and realities keep mixing and merging-- between Second Life and the world of brick and mortar, and within the virtual world itself.

Comments

[Goldie Goodman]

Hamlet, Colbert fans get quite upset at seeing their hero's name misspelled. It's Stephen with a "ph", please!
:-)

[Hamlet Au]

Ack! Fixed.