After a hiatus, Erik Mondrian's YouTube podcast "The Avatar's Voice" is back with a thoughtful conversation with longtime SLer Bizi Pfeffer, who's been in-world since 2007:
We spoke about his travels on the SL mainland and how having a contiguous world can help foster a sense of community and discovery, especially when the spaces there are user-created; the rewards, and occasional challenges, of sharing that world with a diverse population of people from around the globe; and the impact of decentralization & open-source software development (or a lack thereof) on a virtual world platform's evolution and survival.
Funnily enough, during their interview, Erik mentions the commercial for OnLive's late-lamented streaming service for Second Life -- watch below:
"I'd brought up the old SLGo commercial [above] where two people meet in a laundromat just happen to both be in SL on their tablets and make a real-world connection because of that," as Erik explains. "Unlikely, of course... but Bizi talked in this part [of the podcast] about how, for him, part of SL's magic is that you meet people from all around the world and can still feel connected to them, sharing the same space."
As it happens, when OnLive was a media partner to New World Notes, I actually helped write this SL Go spot! In the original script, it was just the girl in the laundromat, so I told OnLive's marketing agency, "Hey wait, SL is about meeting people. What if there were a dude also there on SL Go?" And back during Second Life's peak period, I actually would sometimes randomly meet people at Trader Joe's or the MUNI train or elsewhere, because they recognized me by my avatar. Anyway:
"[This] sort of laid the groundwork for much of the later discussion," Erik continues, "[which] was him talking about how Second Life's mainland allows you to 'stumble upon' things, since you can drive around and happen upon things people have made. Which for him has a different feeling than surfing around the web."
Also don't miss Erik's podcast interview with artist MangroveJane.
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