New World Notes

OPEN FORUM: WHAT WE GAVE AND GOT FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Underneath my Snowcrash shrine, which stands in as my Christmas tree: as of tonight, cards from Celebrity Trollop, Sansarya Caligari & Phoenix Psaltery, Tao Takashi, Timeless Prototype, and Squeedoo Shirak (who also enclosed a delicate figurine.)  There's an ottoman-sized gift from Sue Stonebender (haven't opened it yet, but I suspect it's a grand piano), and a bag of goodies from the store of Rebel Hope and RH Engel.  Not to mention the lovely ice sculpture from Cory Edo, inset with a sleeping penguin-- perfect companion to the penguin avatar Annedroid Lily made for me.  And I see it all through the Christmas-themed heads-up display from Osprey Therian, which fills my sight with snowflakes.  I may have misplaced one or two other gifts in my inventory, but thanks to all, all the same.

But what did you get this holiday season?  And while we're on the subject, what did you give?

AN SL CHRISTMAS STORY...

... as told by Aimee Weber.

YOUR TUBE, YOUR IMAGINATION-- YOUR PRODUCT

Just in time for last-minute holiday shopping, Tao Takashi points to a marvelously clever contest from Second Life Business Magazine which invited Residents to create machinima commercials for SL-only products.  (The submission rules were themselves rendered in a fairly witty machinima.)  The winners were announced recently, and they're some of the cooler SL machinima I've seen in awhile.  Which shouldn't be a surprise, when you think about it, because the short, concise format of a commercial is ideal for machinima; doesn't hurt if you're the one trying to sell your own product, too.  (Even before the contest, I was particularly fond of Nylon Pinkney's spots for Moopf Murray's skates and her own video camera.)  Trent Hedges created two of the top videos in the SL Business contest (including the above hilarity, viewable here), both of which work as advertising and antic satire of advertising in general.

My personal favorite among the top three is the spot for Francis Chung's Dominus Shadow, beautifully shot and edited, with just the right edge of silly (coming through via the monster truck narration.)  As is often the case with other in-world projects, Second Life machinima ads tends to be more whimsical and true to the SL spirit than machinima created by metaverse developers to pitch their in-world services to real clients.

More from Tao on commercial machinima here.

THE YEAR IN NWN: CELEBRITY AND THE METAVERSE

Judge Posner of the Seventh Circuit befriends the natives

What does it mean for a famous real world figure to enter Second Life as an avatar, and what value does it bring to either world?  Those are still contentious questions, and after covering several such appearances this year, along with helping host several others, I have to say it varies from person to person.  The logistics of making the event happen at all are nightmarish, especially if it requires step-by-step, in-person handholding for someone who has little prior experience with computer games.  (And how many major personalities in arts and letters, let alone academia, politics, or business, will cop to being a gamer?)

At its most ideal, you have someone like Lawrence Lessig, who was instrumental in the development of Second Life itself, and whose appearance led to a lasting presence in the community-- in his case, through the creation of a Creative Commons headquarters in Second Life, with regular events and even more in-world appearances.  (Which, full disclosure, I subsequently became a regular consultant to.) 

Things don't usually work out that way, however.  When the staff of Governor Mark Warner first contacted me last summer, their intent was to make his first appearance in Second Life a warm-up for a series of regular events, both by him and his political action committee, creating a kind of virtual world meet-up which could potentially become a small but passionate base of supporters throughout the country.  The appearance itself provoked a slew of outside media coverage, and for a few surreal weeks, it seemed like the press was more interested in talking about the Governor's avatar, then his, you know, potential bid for the US Presidency. 

NEW WORLD HUD EXPO!

Aster Lardner's Koshin Travel HUD

If you read my GigaGamez essay on Second Life hype and anti-hype a few days ago, you know my biggest gripe with SL is a user interface which is, well, monumentally difficult to use, let alone learn.  But rather than continue ranting about that, or wait for Linden Lab to drastically improve the native UI-- and judging by the massive project list from Cory Linden's last Town Hall appearance, that could easily become a game of geek Godot-- I'm going to do my small part to help here.

With that, I hereby launch The New World Notes User Interface HUD Expo, a two to three month showcase for custom heads-up displays which enhance the Second Life user interface.  Two categories of HUDs will compete to win free advertising on this blog, autographed copies of the official guidebook and my own book (when it's published)-- and, of course, a chance to improve the SL experience from the ground up.

If you have a UI-oriented HUD or plan to create one in the next couple months, read the rules below for submitting it as an Expo entry.

THE YEAR IN NWN: EPOCHAL SHIFTS

Crossing MTV's G-Hole logo-- and into an era of corporate promotion in Second Life

When New World Notes began 2006, I was still Linden Lab's embedded journalist, and the world had just over 100,000 registered accounts.  (And that was back when counting the total number of accounts meant something, because until late 2005, Basic accounts still cost $9.95 and required a credit card for registration.)  By conscious choice, I made my very first post of the year about an MTV producer shooting a fashion video in-world.  It was one of the first real world companies to enter Second Life (and certainly the most recognizable one), so I thought it might represent a major shift in the culture, for better or worse (or better and worse.)  Would the community assail the producer with protest signs, as they did with the first real world brand agency?  Would they embrace it wholeheartedly in droves? 

The answer, I concluded in a story cheekily called "And Your Chicks for Free", was a bit of both:  some were interested, a few were annoyed, but most were just indifferent or unimpressed (or at least, pretended to be.)  And the world kept growing more or less unchanged by the arrival of corporate interests.  Since then, however, that interest has continued to grow, fueled in part by a Harvard Business Review article which had an in-world forum, other articles and pioneering projects, and the arrival of numerous "metaverse developers" who create Second Life sites for real world companies and organizations.   (The big five currently being Aimee Weber Studios, The Electric Sheep Company, Infinite Visions Media, NWN sponsor Millions of Us, and Rivers Run Red.)  But though they've been working at it throughout the year, it's still unclear how much impact they're having on the community at large, most of whom seem unimpressed by or indifferent to all these big money bids for their attention.  (Then again, if you had read "Chicks for Free", that wouldn't be surprising.)

That was one epochal shift New World Notes reported on in 2006.  A few more, after the break.

Rik's Picks for December 20-24

Rik Riel's weekly round-up of upcoming SL events...

It's December and that means only one thing: it's time for the third annual Second Life Winter Festival from Dec 15-22. There's a crazy amount of fun stuff going on all over the grid, from concerts to holiday building contests to menorah lightings.  To help you navigate, there are two free heads up displays (HUD) you can wear that will help you 'port around to all the best holiday festivities. Check the SL official blog for details.

Other cool happenings coming up: silly combat in Saturnalia, tech talk with Cory Linden, art from 3,000 AD, and much more after the jump...

(All times in SLT, "Second Life Time"-- i.e., Pacific Standard)

THE WORLD FROM MY WINDOW: THE CAVES OF MODESTA (Updated)

To describe one of his favorite haunts in Second Life, Douglas Story composed a short illustrated essay and profile:

My contribution to this series falls into the "one of my favorite places" category: it’s the wonderful Second Life version of the famous real-world Cro-Magnon art gallery in France: The Caves of Lascaux. I’ve always been fascinated with prehistoric cave art, so when I read about an example in-world I rushed there as fast as a teleport could take me. I was delighted by what I found, and have been bringing friends there ever since.

A SIM DARKLY

A virtual head trip, supplied to avatars by the good people at Warner Brothers

He's such a looming influence on me and my writing, I would promote anything that was directly related to the legacy of Philip K. Dick for its own sake, so it's strange (and strangely flattering) that people connected to the latest movie based on his writings are now buying ads on this blog.  (They appeared here intermittently over the last few days.)  If I were a character in a Dick novel, I'd start believing that I'd imagined them and their PKD site in Second Life into existence during a hallucinogenic session.

That full disclosure out of the way, here's a brief preview of the Second Life promotion for Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly, after the break.  As befits Philip Dick, who made "What is real?" and "What is human?" his two recurring themes, bringing his vision into SL pretty much involved those very questions-- except they were asked by Warner Brothers' lawyers.

PASSING THE TORCH

From San Francisco to Florida to Portugal to Japan and back again--  Creative Commons' 4th year anniversary celebration was held last Friday throughout the physical world, but three of its key figures were in the metaverse chapter for it.  I briefly entered SL from the Bay Area party, with Jimmy Wales, Lawrence Lessig, and Joi Ito logging in from those points across the globe. 

As it turns out, the SL-based party was also a place for an important announcement:  as of now, Joi will be taking over from Professor Lessig as Creative Commons' Chairman.  The event was symbolized in-world by a literal torch passing from Larry to Joi, and an award plaque presented to Larry by Wikipedia's founder. As is traditional in Second Life, wild dancing followed. 

(As it happens, where you might expect the roles to be reversed, there was less dancing at the hipster San Francisco party held at the office of a cool Internet music site, than in Second Life.  In fact, people at the SF party seemed too transfixed by the big screen projection of people dancing in SL, to dance themselves.)

More screenshots from the event after the break.  Since I wasn't able to save the transcript (Akela Talamasca of the SL Insider has some good excerpts), I'm merging them with Larry's official announcement on the CC blog.  You'll notice he makes a plea to consider donating to Creative Commons, but remember, SL users can contribute their Linden Dollars by teleporting to CC's office in Kula, and paying the Donate sign.  (Direct teleport at that link.)

Update, 12/19:  In Comments, CC's Genevieve Junot adds important credits for the gala and torch passing ceremony-- "Common Cure, who leads BoomToysLabs and the Toyshoppe Team for Second Life to Real World production, and partner, In Kenzo, who leads the AMO Studio content development team were responsible for designing and building the CC torch.  Larry's gift from the CC Board of Directors came from the Aimee Weber studio. Aimee Weber quickly and creatively made the scroll with customized text just in time for the ceremony."