« April 2010 | Main | June 2010 »
Update, 5/31: Bumped up -- please vote before the June 1st Linden Prize announcement!
The Lindens recently announced the ten finalists for their Linden Prize, which awards USD$10,000 to the Second Life project which "improves the way people work, learn, and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world." The winner will be announced on June 1st, and assuming the Lindens take public opinion into account with their decision, here's a chance to advocate for your favorite:
|
|
Today from 3-9pm SLT (as Chestnut noted in her weekly calendar) there's going to be a multi-band concert featuring performers like acclaimed bluesman Von Johin to raise funds for The Wounded Warrior Project, a non-profit that benefits severely wounded service members. Appropriately, the concert takes place on Patriot Island, a Second Life support center for veterans and their families, which is also home to a virtual tomb of the unknown soldier (pictured above), where a guard keeps constant vigil: Direct teleport at this link.
|
|
Direct teleport to Second Life's Vietnam Memorial Wall at this link
Today is Memorial Day in the United States, and actor Drew Carey, who is a Marine veteran and perhaps Second Life's most well-known Resident, recommends visiting the Vietnam Memorial Wall in SL. Built in 2007, the Wall recreates Maya Lin's famous memorial in DC, integrated with immersive features unique to Second Life: The names of the war dead are pronounced aloud with a synthesized text reader, while music from the era is streamed over the island. (Here's the official site.) I shot a short video of the Wall a couple years ago, embedded below, but if you have any inclination, take the time to go in person. When you visit, you will often see flowers and little flags left by Residents near the names of fallen loved ones, and especially today, visitors paying their respects. Teleport at this link.
|
|
The forum is open, and you know what to say...
|
|
Avatar Days from Piranha Bar on Vimeo
Here's a brilliant mixed reality machinima documentary that merges World of Warcraft avatars with audio interviews of the Dublin gamers behind them, and real footage of their life in the city. I'd love to see a technique like this applied to documentaries about Second Life. Hat tip: Kristine Schomaker.
|
|
Botgirl Questi wants to replace the terms "Augmentationist vs. Immersionist", which were coined by Henrik Bennetsen during his stint as an academic with Linden Lab, to describe the way Residents interact with their avatars. (Short version: Immersionists keep their first and second lives separate, while Augmentationists blend them up.) Though it's useful in many cases to characterize user attitudes to their avatars this way (as here), many believe it doesn't capture the full spectrum of how people act in Second Life. Here's Botgirl's suggested alternatives:
Read the full explanation here. I think it's a good start, though perhaps the terms need some tweaking to be more immediately comprehensible. (By contrast, "Immersiveness" is already a well-known term in virtual world/gaming, and thanks to the vogue for augmented reality, "Augmentation" is even more quickly clear.)
More than anything, however, my strong sense is that relatively few people clearly fit in the named categories of "Anthropic" or "Avatarian", with a small percent who fully blend their Second Life with their real life activities, and perhaps a slightly larger minority who keep them totally separate. We do know, however, that the majority of returning Second Life users go in-world less than 3 hours a month (at least according to stats last year), which would make "Dabbler" the primary category. Since that's the case, shouldn't any new terminology be based on the observable behavior of the majority of users, instead of the outliers? But I'm definitely open to suggestions.
|
|
Shauna Skye of Moonletters has five complaints about Second Life fashion blogs:
She explains why here. I'll add two more of my own:
How would you fix your favorite SL fashion blogs, if you could?
|
|
Red Odile of Real Life Etc. has a tour of religious sites in Second Life, hitting all the major faiths (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto) and even manages to find a Wiccan site and a church devoted to LaVeyan Satanists. Ms. Odile poses in many beautiful houses of worship along the way, but it's also an unvarnished look at the harsher side of religious belief (or lack thereof.) She visits an Atheist Center and finds a display of controversial Mohammed cartoons and a stripper pole (!), stops by a conservative Muslim sim and meets friendly people who are very insistent about converting her to Islam, and then notices someone there in a small group supportive of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In Comments, one of her readers notes that a Second Life synagogue service is often interrupted by "someone who has rezzed a swastika or is shouting hate speech during services." So it's another example of Second Life's double-edged power, where it's extremely easy to create a place of worship and gather an international community around it -- or sadly as some prefer, easy to express opposition to others' beliefs, with a vehemence or even viciousness that rarely occurs in the real world. Image: rletc.com
|
|
Continuing our tour of Japanese-language Second Life blogs with lots of appealing photos and SLurls that transcend language barriers (as here, and also here), check out Hepatica, written by Yuzu and Terra Auster, a celebration of great fashion, strange encounters, and bunnies. Lots and lots of bunnies. Thanks to Naoyoshi of Metaverse.JP (a sponsoring partner to this blog) for the tip!
|
|
Every day, thousands of people try Second Life, but only a fraction of them become regular returning users. There's probably a number of reasons that 95% or so of those newbies leave, but what's the main factor that keeps those few retained? In an important study from two academics from the University of Michigan, which Grace McDunnough brilliantly blogs about here, chat is the primary predictive factor. Not making money, not creating content, not exploring the world per se, but active chat -- the number of fellow Residents a new user talked with, over a longer period of time. This is probably the simplest form of user-to-user interaction in Second Life, but as it turns out, it generates the best retention rates.
The problem, as Grace goes on to point out, is the Second Life interface as it currently exists makes finding people online to chat with extremely difficult and time-consuming. (This is likely why searching the dynamic map for the green dots of online users has become the preferred workaround solution, but not an ideal one for numerous reasons.) The viewer's "Destination Guide" will take new users to beautifully created places in Second Life, but owing to the world's architecture, it's likely they will meet few if anyone there.
How to encourage new users to chat? Fortunately, there's an easy and already proven solution, and it looks like this:
|
|
Classic New World Notes stories:
Sander's Villa: The Man Who Gave His Father A Second Life (2011)
What Rebecca Learned By Being A Second Life Man (2010)
All About My Avatar: The story behind amazing strange avatars (2007)
Fighting the Front: When fascists open an HQ in Second Life, chaos and exploding pigs ensue (2007)
Copying a Controversy: Copyright concerns come to the Metaverse via... the CopyBot! (2006)
The Penguin & the Zookeeper: Just another unlikely friendship formed in The Metaverse (2006)
Guarding Darfur: Virtual super heroes rally to protect a real world activist site (2006)
The Skin You're In: How virtual world avatar options expose real world racism (2006)
Making Love: When virtual sex gets real (2005)
Watching the Detectives: How to honeytrap a cheater in the Metaverse (2005)
Man on Man and Woman on Woman: Just another gender-bending avatar love story, with a twist (2005)
War of the Jessie Wall: Battle over virtual borders -- and real war in Iraq (2003)
Home for the Homeless: Creating a virtual mansion despite the most challenging circumstances (2003)