New World Notes

Felicia Day & Other "Guild" Stars To Appear In Second Life

My geek wheels squeal with delight: This Sunday at 6pm Pacific/SLT, the multi-talented Felicia Day and other stars of the hit online video series "The Guild" will appear in Second Life as guests of "The Copper Robot", Mitch Wagner's ongoing podcast show that's recorded in-world. Even cooler, they'll appear as avatars of the MMORPG characters they play in the series. (Above left is Ms. Day herself; inset, her Guild character; right, her SL avatar.) This news has personal resonance for me, because I interviewed Felicia Day a couple years ago, shortly after the show launched; formerly a cast member of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Day wrote a script about a mismatched team of online gamers, and after television networks passed, she and her collaborators went ahead and developed the show themselves. Episodes have since been seen millions of times, and thanks to her DIY moxie and considerable charm, Felicia has gone on to become a major Net celebrity in her own right. (She also co-starred in Joss Whedon's beloved "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along".)

As fans of "The Guild" know, we never actually get to see the game they're so obsessed with. (Day told me they wanted to avoid copyright issues, and thought the 3D graphics would distract from the characters.) So it's a treat to see them finally realized as avatars in Second Life. They're the work of Rissa Maidstone, of metaverse development company Worlds2Worlds, who created them with existing SL assets. "I used a combination of her real life photo and her cartoon character as shown on the website," she tells me by email. "I did the same thing with Vork and Zaboo. Everything is 'off the shelf' though I spent hours shopping SL for each avatar trying to get as close a match as I could." In other words, she created avatars based on avatars, who are in turn based on actors.

More details at Mitch's blog. Hopefully this won't be their only in-world appearance.

Fotoscope, A Second Life Island For SL Photographers

Recently added to the Virtual World Directory, a resource from NWN partner Rezzable: Fotoscope Island, a locale designed to maximize scenic locations for SL photographers.  Voshie Paine has an illustrated review on the blog, including this WindLight-powered pic.  Here's the Directory listing with teleport link and other info.

Philip Rosedale To Lead Development of Alternate Open Source Second Life Viewer (But Is It Too Late To Be Linus?)

Philip Rosedale may no longer be the CEO of the company he founded, but if a new announcement on the Lindens' official blog holds true, he's essentially seeking to become the Linus Torvalds of Second Life. In what will easily be his most prominent role since stepping down as CEO last year, Second Life founder Philip Rosedale now says he plans to manage a new Linden team that will work hand-in-hand with the open source community to implement patches and additions. These will be put in a publicly available repository, so anyone can access and use them.

This will almost certainly be considered welcome news to the fairly large community of developers that's sprung up around Second Life's viewer code, which the company open sourced in early 2007. Since then, however, it's fair to say they haven't devoted much resources to fostering it:

The Second Life Avatars of Helen Thomas and Bob Schieffer

Fresh from the talented fingers of renowned avatar customizer Haver Cole, here's the Second Life personae of veteran journalists Helen Thomas and Bob Schieffer.  They'll be appearing with me in SL next week (April 6) when they participate in a Q&A session in-world. In the real world, they'll be based at Washington State University, where the seasoned journalists will receive 2009 Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Awards from the communications department. (Also named after the legendary broadcaster.)  They're also participating in a day-long program, Reporting in Virtual Spaces, along with CNN's Lila King, award-winning machinima reportor Draxtor Despres, SL founder Philip Rosedale, Club Penguin co-founder Lane Merrifield, Erica Driver of Think Balm, and myself.

I'm honored in a dazed sort of way to share the stage with a woman who's been grilling US Presidents since Kennedy, and a news anchor who moderated one of the Obama/McCain debates.  Then again, I wonder if they ever imagined their journalistic activity would include speaking into an immersive 3D world. Or for that matter, that they would share something in common with Justin Timberlake.  (Haver also created the popstar's official avatar, when he made a brief appearance in SL.) 

The program is sponsored by WSU's Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and the McCormick Foundation.  To request a reservation to the Thomas/Schieffer in-world event, send an Instant Message in SL to Washington State University's avatar-based representative, Paley Westinghouse.

Open Forum: What Are The Most Useful Real World Applications of Second Life?

Many organizations and individuals are attempting to use Second Life as a platform to solve real world problems. Most of them, however, are still rudimentary or experimental in nature. To prove itself as truly useful, I think the project must satisfy several criterion, such as:

• The SL application must be an official, integral, regular part of an organization's workflow.
• The SL application must have concrete, universally recognized metrics of success, demonstrating that its benefits outweigh its costs (time, money, and other resources.)
• Ideally, the SL application should have esteemed advocates with no vested interest in Second Life or virtual world technology in general.

Which brings me to a recent CNN story about a UK university that uses a Second Life simulation to help train its medical students. An interesting and potentially worthwhile application of Second Life, of course, but as yet, I don't think it comes close to qualifying as a proven one. Why?

Academic Study On Gender and Self-Perception Using Avatar Customization

Take a look at the photos at left, and the trio of avatars surrounding them. Using Second Life's avatar adjustment sliders, three people were challenged to create an avatar resembling the photo: a man, a woman, and the subject herself. Can you guess who created which avatar? And which of the four (photo included) is the most physically attractive?

That's the intriguing challenge in a study conducted by a University of Pennsylvania student, which comes to us via FlipperPA Peregrine. These images are taken from an online survey associated with the project, which you can take here. (Be warned, it's about a dozen entries long, and the correct answers aren't revealed at the end.) Because SL's default tools are so rudimentary (long term Residents almost always enhance them with custom-made skins), this test may actually do more to study an individual's artistic and technical facility, than self-perception. Leaving that to one side for a moment, it's still an intriguing idea that begs for follow-ups. I'm trying to get the study's results, but until I do, it's fun to speculate who made what avatar. Generally speaking, my guess is the photo's subject will be most accurate with specific facial features, while also under/over-emphasizing other details; for gender, I'd guess the female observer will generally create the more subtle avatar portrait (even if it doesn't have much actual resemblance.) What do you think, and does this process actually reveal anything fundamental about gender and self-perception?

Last Week In New World Notes...

• Advice for SL bloggers who want more (Technorati) authority.
• Kanomi reviews the Kaaos adventure game, and gets her hand trapped up a strange tube.
• Iris looks at SL-based cosplay fashion.
• Ex-Robin Linden reports a Resident is cashing out $1.7 million/annually.
• Decorated Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) says Second Life for treating PTSD sometimes "Working when nothing else has”.

New World Tableau: Gauge Laville's "Desafinado"

This mysterious and gorgeously composed photo comes from Gauge Laville, shot in Welsh Lakes, with minimal post-processing of contrast and brightness. See different size variations here, and more great imagery from Mr. Laville in his Koinup profile. He also blogs about SL at This is your Second Life.

Want to submit a Tableau of your own? Join my Koinup NWT group, and enter images to be considered there. Other submission methods after the break.

Weekend Machinima: Insilico City Gets Some Radar Love

Created in Final Cut Express with great cinematography, scoring, and foley work, this is Radar Masukami's tribute to Insilico, one of Second Life's most awe-inspiring cyberpunk cities. (Featured in NWN here.) It's a tad too lengthy as a narrative, but works great as a visual moodscape, and tribute to a neon-drenched city infused with loneliness and foreboding. Ironically, this also seems to be Radar's inadvertent requiem to the metaverse, because the SL blogger and podcaster has since taken an indefinite leave from [commenting on the] the virtual and its many mini-controversies. His opinions will be missed, but at least Murakami left this machinima behind to be remembered by. Update, 3/30: Amended per Radar's comments below.

Who'll Catch Residents' Flack Now That Zee Linden's Gone?

It's official: declaring victory and withdrawing, Linden Lab's Chief Financial Officer John Zdanowski (known as Zee Linden in-world) has announced his departure from the company, in search of "the next business adventure". (Curiously, the image accompanying this announcement is an avatar perched on the edge of a cliff.) Zee joined the Lindens shortly after I departed in 2006, and I haven't had much interaction with him since; however, I do think it's fair to credit him with maximizing the profit of Lindens' virtual land sales, to a point where it's drawing revenue at a run rate likely in excess of $100 million/yearly.  In any case, what's always impressed me is his ability, even in the face of extreme rancor, to directly address Resident anger head on with a minimum of corporate passive voice locution. During last year's Openspaces rebellion, for example, he openly said, "[Our] credibility took a hit because of the way we launched Openspaces then had to change it." I think that earnestness helped quell Resident anger to a manageable degree. Question is, now that he's gone, which Linden will come forward to endure your wrath, when the next controversy inevitably provokes it?