New World Notes

Will We Soon Discuss Facebook User Rights the Way We Once Talked About Avatar Rights? (Hint: Yes)

MMO and virtual world innovator Raph Koster recently made a very good point on his blog: A lot of the conversation around "avatar rights", a topic very much in vogue a few years ago when virtual worlds like Second Life were gaining serious attention from academia and deep thinking developers like Koster, is very much applicable to our new era of real world social networks like Facebook. In 2000, Raph wrote a landmark essay called "Declaring the Rights of Players". And now, as he writes:

Doing a search & replace on the original article with “social network” instead of “virtual world” is illuminating precisely because it doesn’t change very much... What was a hypothetical exercise is so no longer, and we should expect the same waves of questions that existed with avatar identities and virtual governance to return. If my daughter stays banned and Facebook continues to get woven into everything we do on the Internet, what impact could that potentially have? Does it mean that her real name and identity are simply not available to her?

Just as interesting to me, many of the leading figures who broke a lot of ground discussing rights for avatars are now deeply involved in Facebook:

Ophelia's Gaze: 3 Secrets to a Sexy Second Life Avatar Shape

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

A couple weeks ago, Strawberry Singh stirred up the SL blogosphere with her avatar shape meme. Fashionistas including myself posted our avatar's virtual measurements, compared notes, and generated a lot of discussion about what goes into an attractive avatar shape. Much about beauty is subjective, but no matter what your tastes, I've got three universal tips to a more gorgeous avatar figure.

Fat Doesn't Mean Fat

There's a reason that when I shared my numbers I included "Body Fat", "Love Handles", and "Saddle Bags". These three features have a lot of unflattering RL baggage attached, but in Second Life they are absolutely vital for a flattering figure. They serve to fill in a lot of jagged an unpleasant areas of the avatar mesh, especially around the waist, hips, and joints. I can say without hesitation that I've never seen a female shape I liked that had these three categories zeroed out. Neglecting to put a little meat on your av's bones leaves them looking more like an insect than a human (not that there's anything wrong with insect avatars, as long as it's what you're actually going for.)

Keep reading for two more tips to shape up your shape!

Second Life Bumper Stickers Become a Twitter Meme

This is pretty hilarious: That "Avatars Do It in Cyberspace" bumper sticker I blogged yesterday has evolved into a massive Twitter meme of suggested SL-themed bumper stickers with its own hashtag, #SLbumpersticker. Behold below, the torrential Tweet-stream of inside baseball metaverse geekery:

Shop for Dark Fantasy Fashion in the Secret Forest, a Barbarically Beautiful Second Life Sim [SLANE]

Nicolette Marx of Second Life Arts and Entertainment [SLANE] explores and photographs the dark side of SL fashion in The Secret Forest, a beautiful sim where roleplay fantasy couture is sold amid burning trees and pikes with severed heads. Click to see more!

New World Tech: Trimensional iPhone App Converts Face Photos to 3D Scans

At a Federated Media party last night, SF green tech journalist Lindsay Riddell showed me a pretty cool iPhone 4 app: Trimensional, which uses the iPhone's screen and front camera to detect patterns of light reflected off your face to create a 3D model. (Evidently, you can even put the subsequent model into a 3D printer.) That's Lindsey demonstrating above. I have to think the funhouse mirror effect might limit its real world applications, but at the very least it's interesting to think how the 3D capture technology will evolve in coming iterations. And, of course, fun at parties. Check it out here, it's just 99 cents. I'm still stuck in the medieval iPhone 3 age, so you'll have to give me your hands-on take in Comments.

Linden CEO Rod Humble on Games, Free Will, Creativity & How They Relate to Second Life

Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble recently gave a fascinating speech on games as art, a subject near and dear to my own heart, though Mr. Humble is in a better place to speak on the topic, as the former head of the Sims franchise at Electronic Arts, and a developer of art games himself. He makes a great point that game developers all too often have a double standard around the topic -- "[We] in the game industry have this clown nose on, clown nose off attitude." We want to be recognized as art, but when criticized, we say "but it's just a game!"-- and then makes an extremely deep point on games and free will:

[S]aid Humble, 21st century cognitive science suggests that we don't possess much, if any, free will... "I think the science as it emerges is going to become so seeped into our culture it's going to hit us, and change our world view. And I want games to help prove that it is wrong. I would like to solve this problem. Because games are all about choices."

If I understand him right, Humble is arguing that games will become a space for people to express free will, which will become more important as we culturally absorb the fact that we have little free will in our actual lives. (Though I suspect the science of free will is a bit more complex than Humble suggests.)

I asked Rod Humble if his point was related to Second Life, a virtual play space which at its ideal enables maximum choice. And Humble told me he did:

Sneak Peek at Bryn Oh's Upcoming Second Life Art Installation, "Anna's Many Murders" [SLANE]

Acclaimed Second Life artist Bryn Oh has an ambitious upcoming project -- get an exclusive sneak preview after the break from ColeMarie Soleil of Second Life Arts and Entertainment (SLANE):

Avatars Do It In Cyberspace: Best Bumper Sticker EVAR

Bumper sticker spotted this morning on my way to get coffee. Judging by the high volume of surreal stickers on the back of this car, the owner likes to party. I just did a Google search, I can't immediately find an online store where this is sold, so I may have to ask the avatar lover in person. Anyone have an idea?

Lovecraft Meets Linden: Second Life Screenshots & Fashion Tell Story Inspired by "Shadow Over Innsmouth"

"Return to Innsmouth" is a really impressive post by Marisol Koenkamp on her blog Some Strangeness in the Proportion that's really a short story weaving together Second Life fashion and screenshots inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, created in an SL sim of the same name. Wait until dark to read. Retro fashion credits listed at the end. Hat tip: Pale Lilienthal

Behind the Scenes at New World Notes: Hamlet Au Interview

Kanomi Pikajuna, who wrote that great if grim analysis of Second Life's business prospects a few weeks ago, has a good interview with me here, in which I talk about my recent essay on Second Life users' fear of change, my relationship with Linden Lab, how much I make writing this blog, and various topics which hopefully clear up a few misconceptions I hear from time to time. Sample:

[G]iven your experience, do you think [Linden Lab] can be relevant in three years?

If they make some very bold moves and bring in a mass user base, yes, they'll still be relevant. But it's going to be touch and go for the next year or so. That's really why I wrote the post about hate and fear of change -- a warning to Residents that there's probably going to be a lot of changes, for survival's sake.

Read the rest here. And no, I haven't changed my hairstyle, my usual avatar hair simply disappeared into my inventory for inexplicable reasons -- one of many many things that need to be fixed, before Second Life's survival can be assured.