New World Notes

Last Names for SLers Return Soon -- Plus News & Updates

After a month long absence from social media, Linden CEO Rod Humble posted an update on his SL profile, updating the company's plans for returning last names to SL avatars, along with other features to names, such as titles:

Speaking of long absences, the company hasn't updated its blog since December, and I have heard rumblings that something pretty big was coming. (And by "rumblings" I mean, "Coy non-answers from SL insiders.") But spokesman Peter Gray just pretty much confirmed to me that news is the case:

Uncanny Valley Theory: The Effect Occurs When We're Passive Viewers, Not Interactive Participants

Berkeley philosophy professor Alva Noe has a pretty fascinating take on the Uncanny Valley as caused by 3D computer-generated movies like The Polar Express and Tintin (which I talked about recently). If understand him right, he's arguing that the feeling of uncanniness happens when CGI simulations of people are incorporated into a movie, which we watch passively. This confuses our expectations, because cartoons usually demand a level of interactive imaginativeness in our viewing:

Cartoons don't give us glimpses of worlds, they give us worlds to play in and toys to play with. Live-action movies, in contrast, don't give us opportunities to play; they give us access to hidden worlds... the uncanny valley yawns [when animators]... get confused about what kinds of stories they are telling: Are they inviting audiences to play, or giving them an opportunity to watch? [emph. mine]

Read it all here. I think Noe's theory also explains why the Uncanny Valley effect doesn't seem to happen as much in 3D virtual worlds like Second Life -- while human-like avatars should tweak our sense of the uncanny, the fact that we're interactively participating in the simulation, with the knowledge that a real human is at a keyboard, operating each avatar, keeps us away from the Valley.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan. Noe, by the way, gave a great and accessible Google talk about consciousness which goes down like a smooth bourbon:

Epic Second Life Clockwork Orange Outfit is Epic

Viddy this SL fashion tribute to Clockwork Orange, which was created by Nestag Itano, who has a well-named male SL fashion blog called Untouchable Life. It's from a series of movie-themed fashion spreads, which also includes this equally great Rorschach from The Watchmen. So... click here to see how Mr. Itano clockworked his orange. Warning: site auto-plays a music stream, but fortunately, it's full of cool cuts.

Hat tip: Cajsa Lilliehook's indispensable "What I Like" column on Shopping Cart Disco.

SL Estate Revenue Falls Below $5M/Mo, Lowest Since 10/09

Tyche Shepherd's latest indispensable Second Life economic analysis is up on SL Universe, and the news is not good: "Monthly private estate tier estimate is down below US $5 million for the first time since I began the monthly surveys in October 2009," she tells me. "It's currently estimated at $4.920 million." This is based on data she compiles from her bot-powered surveys of the grid, and notes: "Because it's based on a survey, there is a margin of error of plus/minus $58,000 but this still puts it under the $5 million barrier."

For Linden Lab, this fall represents another dip in land revenue, which comprises about 80% of its total revenue, and a downward trend from last year:

Why Reddit Rules Over Facebook: It's the Pseudonymity, Stupid

I have a new post on Internet Evolution about the rise of Reddit in the age of Facebook and Twitter, which I'm pretty proud of. Why does Reddit, a content-sharing community with pseudonymous identities, keep rising in the face of Facebook? Because of the pseudonymous identities, I argue:

Reddit's rise is directly related to the dominance of social networks that fail to let us share online content and community in ways we need, which Reddit can better provide. Facebook is where we share limited, safe aspects of ourselves with extended family, friends, and colleagues. For that very reason, Reddit is becoming our "third place," the virtual pub where we feel freer to share aspects of ourselves that Facebook has almost totally constrained.

As I've said before, Reddit shares a lot of the best qualities of Second Life, just as a more accessible, web-based virtual community. (And has a pretty active SL sub-community of its own.) Hope you give it a read and even better, create an Internet Evolution account and jump into the conversation there.

New World Notes Highlights from Last Week: Kinect and SL, Google+ and SL, Avatars vs. Hollywood, and Much More

SL/OpenSim news:

• Tokyo University Developing Real Time, Open Source Kinect-to-Second Life Software
• Explore OpenSim & SL Regions on the Web & Convert Others for Web Use With Avatars Via the ArchTech Engine
• Google Reportedly Allows Second Life User to Keep Google+ Account Named For His SL Avatar (see below for more)
• Iris Rants: Don't Let Fear of SL Content Theft Cause Paranoia Over Alternate Designer Identities!
• OpenSim Active Users: Now About 15,000 (Same as in 2009)
• Have Furries Fairly Fled Second Life for Furry Forums?
• Why Lindens in Second Life Seem Arrogant & Out of Touch

Other tech/gaming/social media news...

• Google Now Allows Fully Pseudonymous Google+ Profiles -- But Only Those Known by a "Meaningful Number" of People
• Do Hollywood Actors Fear the Rise of Avatar-Based Acting?

Why Lindens in Second Life Seem Arrogant & Out of Touch

Serendipity Haven has a fairly funny field guide for satirically spotting Linden Lab staffers in Second Life (which I first spotted on SL's Reddit group.) The post is largely for the yucks, though there's an underlying assumption I often see SLers make in other, more serious contexts: That Lindens in SL are arrogant and out of touch with SL culture. At the risk of missing the joke, I should explain why that seems to be the case (for it often does), based on my own three year experience as a Linden (albeit one who was mainly contracted to explore and report on SL), and from knowing a hundred or so Lindens personally. Most of them are not arrogant in real life, and most of them do care about SL as a community, at least in the most general sense. However, they may seem both arrogant and detached in regards to SL (both in-world and on their website), for at least a couple key reasons:

Iris Rants: Don't Let Fear of SL Content Theft Cause Paranoia Over Alternate Designer Identities!

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

Recently a group of experienced SL designers got together to start a new menswear-focused superbrand, Entente,  opening this month. Of course, they've become a hot topic as a result, both because of their teaser images (which are gorgeous) and their choice to release under alts rather than their main accounts. Of course they aren't the first designers to reinvent themselves through anonymity or to see controversy as a result-- fri.day and Paper Couture are two other well-known examples (who were all eventually outed). For some this is innocent curiosity and speculation, but for others there is a sense of entitlement to knowing the "real" names behind these brands.

There are many good reasons to want to know who someone is, but the underlying motive is probably fear over content theft, which sometimes gives way to paranoia and makes us forget what makes SL identity valuable in the first place. Though this is a very real threat, identities are not information that designers owe their clientele, and here's why:

OpenSim Study on Virtual Treatment for Phobia Needs Cars!

A very cool OpenSim research project for use in real world therapy is in need of virtual cars. It's being run by Jorge "Eggy Lippmann" Lima, a longtime SLer, for the University of Lisbon, and the study will use virtual world experiences as a way of treating people with real phobias. Specifically, as Eggy explains, "[S]ome people with agoraphobia will have panic attacks when driving over bridges and into tunnels, or even walk out of their car in fear if they get stuck in traffic." Eggy will show therapists and their patients virtual renditions of cars in various scenarios, "and I will ask them and their patients to answer some questions regarding whether or not they feel the therapy is helping them." Eggy is looking for modern mesh-based cars to use in OpenSim, and of course, your contribution will be acknowledged in papers published on the project. And you might even help some folks deal with their phobias. Go here for more info on the project and contact info on Eggy.

Sim Deathwatch: SL's Hardcore Hard Alley Hits Hard Times

SL tier prices and economic hard times keep hitting hard, even those who are hard: To wit, Hard Alley, a notorious Second Life virtual porn sim that has been popular for years (I recall reading scandalized reports about it as far back as 2006), is in danger of going out of business, Mark "Pixeleen Mistral" McCahill reports on the Alphaville Herald. The owner cites high sim tier ($295 a month) and a decline of renters to defray those costs, problems that are universally hitting the SL economy on all varieties of sims. I doubt it represents a decline in interest for hardcore porn in SL -- about a third of the most popular sims by traffic are Adult-rated.

So what's happening here? Without investigating too deeply (and I'm not hugely het up to have a hard look at Hard Alley) my initial guess is this: