Ambling in Second Life

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-19T13:16:00.002Z

Just a quickie to wish you all Season's Greetings, and to assure you that Slambling is not actually dead, but merely hibernating.

Bestest Regards

Al Kronos

US Holocaust Museum & Kristallnacht

2008-12-07T17:12:00.003Z

Well, it's been quite a few weeks since I last put virtual quill to pixel-based parchment. There's a pile of reasons why this is the case, but I think they can all be condensed together into a single catch-all: I've got other things to do with my time. Tracking down new enterprise sims has become the SL equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack, and frankly I don't feel like doing it at the moment. Mr Kingdon, in various recent interviews, seems to be in some sort of denial about the business appeal of Second Life. I am not privy to The Numbers, but my experience has left me with the view that Second Life is signally failing to appeal to organisations other than universities and colleges. Welcome news, no doubt, to many of the residents of Second Life, who couldn't give a fig about this, as long as it doesn't interrupt the often bizarre ups and downs of their virtual lives.

Sure, there are several newcomers to Second Life that I have visited - but I've not felt "inspired" (yet) to write about them, including: Air France-KLM, virtual Birmingham and virtual Czech Republic. So why am I writing now? And what am I writing about? A week or so back, I got a message from Drew Stein of Involve, the company behind the rather fine 7Days' Magic Bakery sim, inviting me to view their latest work on behalf of the US Holocaust Museum. After a few attempts I finally met up with Drew and David Klevan, Education Manager for Technology and Distance Learning Initiatives at the Museum, for a tour. The site opens officially on Tuesday, 9th December.

As it has already been described in great detail by Virtual Worlds News I don't intend to offer you much wordage - and would point you towards the extensive set of images at the foot of this post. However, if you want my impressions - here they are:

The first thing to note is this is not actually a full sim, nor is it a virtualised version of the US Holocaust Museum itself. Rather it is an exhibit commemorating the Kristallnacht, the 70th anniversary of which has just passed - an event which many now see as defining the start of the Holocaust. The exhibit, which covers roughly a quarter of a sim, starts in a 1930s news room. The idea - the conceit if you like - is that you are a journo, freshly arrived in Germany (one assumes), a day or two after the events of Kristallnacht. Your mission is to investigate what happened, and file a report. Once you've got the basics, a click will open a wall, and you find yourself on a deserted German street, books and documents are strewn about, and anti-semitic graffiti are daubed on many of the buildings. As you move through the streets you trigger audio commentaries, the first-hand experiences of survivors of that dreadful night. You can also enter a number of buildings - the police station, a consulate, a wrecked house, a ransacked schoolroom and finally, a burnt-out synagogue. Again, the audio gives you the personal reminiscences, while ingeniously designed displays provide you with views of related documents. There are various information notecards throughout the exhibit, giving you yet more details.

From the synagogue you proceed to a second newsroom, where you can opt to file a short report - and find out more about the people to whom you've been listening while exploring the exhibit. There's also a video room, displaying a range of short films.

So what did I make of it? Does it all work? Hmmm... it's hard to say. I think, perhaps, the central conceit of the "investigative journo" may be more suited to an exhibit aimed at kids and teenagers; not surprising, since that is the origin of the piece, in fact. The narratives, the personal testaments, were very moving and interesting, and the build itself has been done with sensitivity and skill. However, I am not sure that it all works - at least, not for me. Scripted items, like the smashing of shop windows or the burning of the synagogue, are impressive as pieces of code - but cannot really capture the fear or horror of the event. Also, while they show what can be done in SL, they are not strictly necessary. Indeed, given that you, the journo, are supposed to be investigating after the event, these occasional flashbacks are also anachronistic.

The exhibit should certainly be seen, and you may find the effects work for you. I know the museum has planned a lecture/meeting in January - and I hope they provide many more. The holocaust, and the many genocides the world has witnessed since then, should not be forgotten. One of Second Life's greatest strengths is the way it allows people from around the globe to meet and share the same experience. So, for example, it should no longer be necessary to travel to New York to attend a lecture or meeting at the Holocaust Museum.

As promised earlier - here are my pictures. It's an extensive set...

Tuning in to AM Radio (again)

2008-10-30T00:39:00.002Z

I am aware of at least 4 blog posts that I have been meaning to write. I am also aware that they are unlikely to get written in the next few days. So "sorry" to places like virtual Birmingham and Czech Republic, and a couple of interesting health sims I've recently toured in Second Life - I will put some ill-formed words together about you in the very near future. But right now, it is late at night, I am off for a few days' away from computers and all-things-virtual tomorrow, and I wanted to put up a mindless post that needed no research or, indeed, much in the way of wordage - just pictures.

I have raved about AM Radio's builds before - and the cognoscenti of Second Life should already be familiar with his many marvellous creations. However, for those of you who don't know his work, or who don't stay close enough to these things (and that includes me), it is worth noting that Mr Radio's latest creations are available for inspection. Spread across 3 sims (Welsh Lakes is a good starting point) you will find many things to marvel at. The multiple, inter-connected Klein bottles have given way to... well... go and find out. And The Refuge and Expansion seems to have expanded too, with the addition of a fine flying machine. Here's the piccies - take a look - and then go visit. If you've not seen AM's work before, I hope you like - I'd be amazed if you don't...

Figment Island

2008-10-17T23:00:00.004Z

Occasionally I stumble upon sims that have been happily (or quietly) going about their business for ages. I found tonight's sim to be a difficult one to judge. Part of the difficulty is that this is not a European or American sim, and so may not have generated much hoopla in the Western blogs. In fact, a little light Googling reveals that the sim is a good 18 months old! Odd that it has been knocking around for so long, yet I have not stumbled upon any actual reviews of the place. So where am I talking about? I guess the title of this post rather gives the game away: Figment Island.

The island belongs, not unreasonably, to a company called Figment - who are based in Singapore. They describe themselves as"Asia's first full-integrated virtual world marketing communications agency" - and while I get the gist, this still sounds like it was dreamt up during a particularly fruitful workshop on buzzword generation. Just to add another dollop of snottiness, I would also question their effectiveness in virtual world marketing communications if I can find so few mentions of their existence. But that is perhaps below the belt. As we shall see, what they have on their island is actually rather good - at least, I think so.

So what's on the island then? It is easiest viewed as being split into 3 zones - in order of preference: the art gallery; the company area and the other bit.

My favourite - and I daresay it will be yours, too - is GetsmART. This is a virtual world art gallery by Ngee Ann Secondary School. I am not sure about the validity of a Secondary School on the adult grid - maybe that's down to a definition of "Secondary" - but this place is great. The accompanying notecard tells me: "Students and teachers’ art works are featured here.In this gallery, students are taken through 'thinking processes' using thinking routines that are adopted from Artful Thinking - a model developed by Project Zero, Harvard University. Through this, we hope students’ thinking dispositions are developed and deepened." You can pick up a HUD that will help you with your thinking processes - but the gallery, tho' small, was fun to walk through. I particularly enjoyed the... what?... "3D charcoal sketch"(?) at the end. The experience is not really designed with the solo visitor in mind, but rather it should be a small group activity, mentored or mediated (albeit with a light touch). Once through the gallery, you are led to a relaxing seating area, where you can discuss the works (or so I deduced). Most of my pictures are of this GetsmART area.

Floating above the sim is the second of the 3 zones. This is Figment's space, and is best(?) described as a giant snowflake lying on top of an immense floating tree. Well, it is Second Life, after all. The various arms of the snowflake offer different facilities - such as meeting areas, or orientation. The content is crisp, well textured and has a nice, open aspect to it.

The third zone is perhaps the least successful - and may be incomplete. This is leased to Ascendas, a "leading provider of business space solutions", to promote Neuros & Immunos, a biomedical research building. The accompanying notecard explains: "Strategically located within Biopolis at one-north - Asia's home for biomedical sciences, the seven-storey Neuros & Immunos offer fully-infrastructured laboratory space and a conducive research environment that makes it the choice location for a quality biomedical R&D centre." There is a faithful reproduction of the facade of the building, but no actual way in. The point? Ummm... I'm not at all clear on that one. I suppose it does offer potential overseas clients a 3D panoramic view - but is that really enough?

Well that's the sim so far... not a huge amount to show for a company that has been doing virtual worlds stuff for well over a year now, unless there's a slew of successful sims that I know nothing about (quite likely!). If this is the case, don't hide them away! Let's get to see them! In the meantime you can see my pictures:

AvaStar - And Finally...(?)

2008-10-16T15:27:00.003Z

I hope my tales of the travails of the AvaStar haven't left you snoring, because I have just one more update for you. Well actually, it's two updates - or rather, insights.

The first comes from blogger and Second Life entrepreneur, Ari Blackthorne, who left the following (slightly re-jigged by me) as a comment on my earlier post. I thought it rated promotion from the minor league of comments to the full blog itself!

The Avastar's first problems began when they moved away from a 'real' published eZine that looked and felt like a real tabloid off to the blog format. I paid big bucks for full-page ads in the eZine. Something to the tune of $200 worth of L$ a month.

When asked to renew my ads on their blog, I refused. I didn't like the blog format. I wanted my advertisements in-world and they wouldn't show the new demographics. There are too many other good blogs to advertise on. When they went blog, I suspect advertising dropped dramatically. No money income - drop the writers (who WERE paid back when it was an eZone if I remember correctly.)

No writers = no content = no readership = no demographics to show advertisers = no advertising = KAPUT. It's that simple.

The second insight comes from a former writer for the AvaStar, who would prefer to remain anonymous.

It seems that shortly after the changeover from PDF to blog, at one of their regular staff meetings, the writers were simply told that henceforth they would no longer be paid for their work. Of course, they could (and presumably should) continue to write, but for free. At this point all the writers, who had effectively been made redundant by this move, quit working.

No writers = no content.

Meanwhile, as already noted in the earlier post, the reader-generated content failed to materialise either.

Hence the death of the AvaStar - an interesting and, in my view at least, worthwhile experiment that ultimately failed. Do you have a different perspective?

AvaStar - Some More Thoughts

2008-10-16T08:26:00.003Z

Following my last post, about the demise of the AvaStar I thought I would root a little further. So I took a look at the range of recent articles available at The AvaStar. I was a little surprised to find it was not the vibrant, information-packed newsfest I had been expecting. There was just a trickle of posts and comments - far fewer, as far as I could tell, than would be found on the average Second Life blog (like this one).

Supposedly, the most popular article is "Too many girls are really guys!", posted back in May, 2008. This also boasted the most recent comment - on September, 28th, 2008 - about 3 weeks ago. More worryingly, aside from the article announcing their demise, there have been just 3 articles posted in October. While September was busier, with over 20 articles, this can hardly be called vibrant.

Did their focus shift elsewhere, away from Second Life? The AvaStar did branch into other areas of the Metaverse - but articles on Kaneva, There and Entropia are very few and far between, accounting for maybe 3 or 4 a month, combined. No news about these worlds has been posted in October.

So to sum up... it seems that, while many of us had heard of the AvaStar, and enjoyed reading it, the actual content generation fell away over time. I don't think the move away from PDF helped, since that at least gave you the feel and 'heft' of a real newspaper - you could see the content, because it was all laid out before you. The website, by contrast, served to conceal the drop in content. I have to confess, I was approached to write for the Travel section of the website some time ago, but declined the invitation. While I obviously write this blog for free (I don't event take Google Ads), I would expect a small something for writing in a more 'professional' capacity. Perhaps others took the same view.

I would conclude, then, that at least a major contributory factor in its closure was simply "lack of content."

Avastar 'Ave 'Ad Enough

2008-10-15T22:53:00.007Z

Thanks to my chum, Veejay, for alerting me to this through his blog over at Mindblizzard. It seems that The AvaStar, the popular Second Life newspaper (think "Red top" rather than "broadsheet") has decided to wind up its operations. The full announcement is here, but the gist is that they are shutting up shop since - and I quote - "The AvaStar has now completed its virtual mission."

I confess I was not an avid reader - but I did like to check it out from time to time and found it had a good range of articles, while also informing me of events and new sims. While I will not be donning sackcloth and ashes, I am sorry to see this popular paper disappearing. I think Second Life will be poorer as a result. As well as the paper, largely written by the Second Life residents, there was a well-made sim. I assume that, too, is being closed.

But let's come back to that quote.... "completed its virtual mission." Unfortunately, this "mission" is not particularly well articulated anywhere - and therefore it is hard to say whether the success criteria have been achieved. While I am touched at organisations not wishing to hurt my (or maybe Linden's) feelings, by declaring they have completed their mission, or achieved their objectives, I can't help but feel that this is often, frankly, bullpoop. Since they do not publish their success... no, let's make that "exit criteria"... it is hard to assess.

Some have asked: "Is this closure due to credit crunch/economic downturn?" I doubt it, personally. I think it is more likely that bild.de, the parent company, had a plan - probably with a timeline of less than 2 years - to explore the (.... no... make that "a") possible future of journalism. It was never part of their plan to keep The AvaStar running indefinitely. Indeed, they may well have expected it to collapse after only a few months. It is to their credit, then, that they kept it running for as long as 2 years.

I have to say that, as a Second Life resident, this departure feels like (another) kick in the teeth. This kick was compounded when researching this piece, by stumbling upon an article in The AvaStar, describing the closure of the Geek Squad sim. By way of closing this piece, I will give you a link to that article. Geek Squad did not close because of the reasons given above, and I think this article (and ones like it) should give you good reason to regret the passing of The AvaStar.

Galonge and the effect of web2.0

2008-10-11T23:23:00.005Z

Not a big post, this one... In fact, it's really just an excuse to show you some of my travel snaps. The subject is the strange, mythical sim of Galonge. However, before I wheel out my snaps, I think some context is in order - hence the title of this post.

As regular readers are surely aware, I use Flickr for storing the many snaps I take on my virtual travels. A day or so ago, I got a new follower, hidenori glushenko, and so I checked out his profile in order that I could add him in return, and check out his pictures. In the course of this, I found the Galonge group on Flickr - and saw a familiar name: Ravenelle Zugzwang, real life wife of everybody's favourite Linden, Torley. Following my 2.0 route, I got a link to this post on Ravenelle's blog - and stared, in awe, at the photo of 2 huge, elongated giraffe-like creatures, reminding me strongly of Dali's painting of the Temptation of St Anthony, which features elephants with grossly out-sized giraffe legs. I got the SLURL from Flickr and hurried along as soon as I could.

Galonge, like the Flickr group, is Japanese in origin. It is described as: "a mysterious unknown civilization in Second Life. (like ancient Egypt or Roma or any old civilization)" - which is fair enough, though the architecture reminded me more of native American Hopi design. I have no idea what the funding model might be for this sim - or the rationale for its existence... and I don't really care. There's a few shops, but nothing that would make tier. There's also some unusual freebies... like your very own Sun god! I just thought that, as it was a really nice sim that caught my eye, I would tell you about it.

Oh.. and finally - here's the snaps!
My thought on this is: While the 2.0 chase was more convoluted than it needed to be, how would I have fared in a 1.0 web?

Boulanger3D

2008-10-09T22:29:00.005Z

I was first alerted to this sim by an article in that veritable treasure trove of virtual tittle-tattle, Virtual Worlds News. There have been precious few atomic world companies coming into Second Life recently, so I was intrigued to read: "The French retail company Boulanger announced today [October 7th] the opening of a store in Second Life with development and planning help from IBM Research and Global Business Services. The goal is to complement Boulanger's physical stores and website with an additional distribution channel and additional services. Initially the build allows users to view and interact with Boulanger objects in a familiar context, click to be taken to the purchase page on a website, watch service and repair videos, or talk directly to a maintenance aide." Wow...! An IBM build! Given IBM's continuing large presence in Second Life, and its cutting edge use of this and other virtual worlds, the prospect was mouth-watering.

But first - a little about Boulanger. Actually, for once Wikipedia has let me down, but I will plough on. Boulanger is a general electrical retailer in France, selling anything from kitchen white goods to mp3 players and consumer electronics. The British equivalent would be someone like Currys. Joining the dots, this would suggest that their outlets are largely out-of-town, in large retail parks. What is clear is that the Second Life build has a particular purpose - to promote their recently opened store at Englos, an arrondisment of Lille, in the North of France. It ties in with - and indeed provides links to - a dedicated website.

I was not able to leg it down to the Boulanger3D sim immediately, and I chose to avoid the details of the Mindblizzard post, so I could arrive fresh and without preconceptions (albeit, with some expectations). I finally pottered along to the sim today and... well... where do I start?

IBM described their aims for this build as: "[to] develop a community aspect through the 3D universe and propose new services (configuration of kitchen, cooking lessons, guides, etc.) -- while integrating the three complementary distribution channels." On arrival, there is a large guest book, where you can post comments - so that suggests some interaction between the island and the visitor. Oddly, the guest book is at the arrival point, when you are least likely to have anything to say - but let's skip over that.

The sim itself is, quite frankly, a confused mess. One strand or theme is to model the island a little like the real Englos site - with its approach road, car park and, of course, the store itself. However, only yards from this is a gigantic luxury yacht, replete with helipad and helicopter - not something normally encountered in the suburbs of Lille. I don't know why it is there, and seems grossly at odds with the "augmented reality" being attempted in the virtualisation of the Englos store.

Another strand or theme is in response to the requirement to give people something to do that is "fun." In the car park you will find numerous vehicles that you are supposed to be able to drive. The sup'ed-up Beetle with the "Try Me" sign signally failed to allow me to drive it! Though I did get a decent razz on one of the motorbikes. Along the coast from the yacht are some windsurf boards that I assume are also available for your use. More fun, perhaps, is the helicopter - which you are free to fly. It is nicely done, but I did not check its provenance. Was it made specially? Or a rebranding of an existing Second Life vehicle?

But returning to the "augmented reality" view for a moment - I expected the virtual store to bear some internal resemblance to the real thing. After all, there's a decent 2D representation on the website. But no... the virtual store seemed somewhat perfunctory inside, with little detail, and little to attract the eye or retain the attention. It seemed unfinished to me.

The "kitchen design" was a disappointment too. A nice looking kitchen/diner, to be sure - but the only thing you could do was change the colour of the units. Even my LSL skills could probably stretch to that - and it fell somewhat short of the "configuration of kitchen" that most punters would expect.

There is a presentation auditorium. Now this is something that is normally done well in Second Life - there are endless examples. Yet somehow this one manages to fail. The seating for attendees is fine - it is the area for the presenters that feels wrong, somehow managing to be cramped, awkward and claustrophobic in what is otherwise an open space! Now that takes some doing.

There are a number of other buildings, but nothing of any note - and I include the "cooking demonstration area" in that observation. Instructions inviting me to click on images of computer games to get more information failed to link to any information in any form - not even notecards or URLs. I could go on, but that is more than enough.

So... there you have it. After the bordering-on-genius of the 7Days Magic Bakery, I found this sim profoundly disappointing - and largely failing to come close to its hype. It seems to me to have been launched before it was good and ready, and before anyone had really given it a thorough critique internally. I have some photos - but don't trust me - you should go along and form your own opinion:

Terry Pratchett Visits Second Life

2008-10-09T21:05:00.007Z

First, I want to make it clear that I was not, in fact, at the Terry Pratchett Q&A today in Second Life. As a semi-professional misanthrope, I tend to avoid large crowds in Second Life - they are laggy, confusing and more disorienting than I prefer - and on this occasion, it seems the sim was already heading towards full a good hour before the kick-off. If I was made of sterner stuff, I might have camped out ages in advance, but for one thing I had a bunch of real life chores to do, and for another, Mrs K would have taken a dim view of such behaviour.

Mr Pratchett was inworld to talk about his new book, Nation, and take questions from the avatar crowd. I assumed the transcript would appear eventually, but perhaps such is the power of 2.0 applications that I quickly learned on Twitter that the transcript was already up, and posted on Flickr!

I will leave you to read the full piece for yourselves - but I wanted to lift just a few of the quotes that tickled my funny bone and put them on Slambling:

... I’m not really into all of this YourTube into MyFace kind of stuff!
I like the idea of Second Life, because it is a totally human activity. Monkeys wouldn’t be able to join.
I actually have a small potato in my coat pocket. In time of hunger a potato is more likely to be more useful than prayer.
I’m also a sucker for the kind of books with titles such as “Picky – The History of 500 Years of Snot in Britain”

There is also a Nation sim - which I have yet to visit - modelled, I understand, on the tropical island depicted in the book.

PS: Upset at the lack of piccies? Then try this Flickr group.

Virtual Worlds Forum London - Postponed

2008-10-05T18:51:00.004Z

If you've not picked this up from 101 other virtual worlds twitterers, bloggers or forums, please note that Virtual Worlds Forum 2008, due to be held at The Bridge in London tomorrow and Tuesday has had to be postponed.

This follows a fatal shooting at the nearby SEOne Club. According to the Press Association: "The 24-year-old received a gunshot wound at around 5.30am [Sunday] at the SEOne club, in Weston Street, near London Bridge. He was taken to hospital but later died... St Thomas Street, Weston Street and Stainer Street will all be closed for at least 24 hours and possibly longer."

The Bridge, the venue for the event, falls within this area.

According to the conference organisers the police have closed off the venue for three days and it is far too short notice to find an alternative venue. They are therefore going to reschedule the event - though it is too early to say when this will be.

What it means for attendees is

The event will not take place as planned on Monday and Tuesday.
For those people who are in London, the Four Day members pass to the Hospital is still available. Please go to 24 Endell St, London, WC2H 9HQ to collect your pass – there’s quite a few people in town, so lots of people to hang out with.
The South by South West party on Monday night is still going ahead.

WebFlock or WebFlop?

2008-10-04T19:08:00.006Z

Do you remember the Electric Sheep Company? Since you are one the small band of blogonauts who have washed up on the shores of Slambling, it is quite likely that you do. But if not, let me fill you in. In their own words: "The Electric Sheep Company creates Web-enabled social and virtual world experiences through strategy, design, production, and technology. Since 2005, ESC has worked with the world’s largest brands, media companies, and agencies to design and implement great consumer virtual experiences." And for Second Life that has meant that ESC has been responsible for some of the more interesting commercial builds. However, those days seem long ago as ESC, along with many other virtual world "experience designers", have branched out and moved on. I will leave you to discover for yourself what industry insiders may be saying about ESC, their Second Life experiences and their current prospects - you might find it an interesting exercise. As for me, I'm going to tell you about my experiences in WebFlock.

WebFlock, a Flash-based product announced earlier this year, is described by ESC as “an application for private-labeled, Web-based virtual experiences. It provides a visually immersive environment for social interaction, media consumption and game play." The first of these branded virtual experiences has been rolled out for the Showtime show, The L Word. Showtime is a subsidiary of CBS, who also have a substantial stake in ESC - and it was ESC who built The L Word's substantial and generally well-received presence in Second Life. It is perhaps not surprising then, that the show has become the first customer for an alternative virtual experience, based on WebFlock. I thought I would pop along to see what it was like.

It is simplicity itself to get into WebFlock, chat and move about – and it is this simplicity that, in my view, makes it so disappointing. But more of this anon. Getting into The L Word environment is easy. Having navigated to the webpage, you are invited to select an avatar from a choice of six, give her a name and, well, that’s it – no customisation, not even a change of clothing. I say “her” because there are no gender options here. Am I also supposed to assume that all these avatars are gay? It seems a reasonable inference – and even if this is incorrect, if I infer it, then plenty of other people will too. And that may not sit comfortably with some would-be visitors, who may opt to pass this one by. I don’t believe it is compulsory to be a lesbian to enjoy watching the show.

The first time I attempted to load the environment it took an age. In fact, I ended up terminating my browser session and trying again. The retry, I have to say, was then very quick to load. And what did I find? I found my avatar standing in someone’s open plan breakfast room. The graphics were generally good quality. Moving my avatar, I could walk forwards, I could walk backwards and I could walk from side to side. That might seem OK, but as there are no transitions when switching from one direction to the other, the effect looks basic and amateurish in comparison with the movement available in other Flash-based environments, such as Google’s Lively. Another aspect of movement that I had expected was “camera controls.” Widely used in Second Life, controls that let you pan and tilt your view are also common in less powerful environments – again, I would cite Lively as an example here, but it is one of many. In WebFlock you are left with a single view, like static CCTV, over which you have no control. Sure, this makes the system easy to use – but that is because fundamentally there are so few functions that you can use. It was simple, but I simply did not get any sense of immersion.

What about chat? One of WebFlock’s main objectives is “social interaction” – and it certainly offers text-based chat. My friends had repeated problems with stability of the “chat” function, re-logging several times to reset it. I had no issues with it. You can also “emote” – selecting from a small menu of animated effects that you can give to your friends. These were nicely done, but not terribly expressive. The avatars themselves seem to remain aloof from the fun – having no animation effects other than “walking” and “standing still”. There is no Instant Messaging – or non-public communication.

I tried to get out of the room, which had rapidly started to get claustrophobic and which would fill to bursting point very quickly if more than perhaps 10 people wanted to use it. But there is no way out. What you see is what you get. You see that door behind you? In effect, it is just painted on.

What about the rest of the WebFlock experience? It describes itself, as you may recall, as designed for “media consumption and game play.” There is a TV screen in the room on which you can view episodes of the show, though without a zoom facility you will need a very large monitor to get the most from the experience. And clicking on various objects presented me with opportunities to buy DVDs. So that’s a tick in the box for “media consumption.”

I don’t know how much “game play” has been put into this particular environment, but it does have one really irritating feature. Periodically, like every 2 or 3 minutes, it asks you for your opinion about some aspect of the show, offering multiple choice answers. While it would be possible to use such a feature to obtain useful marketing data, these questions seem more like the puerile enquiries to be found in teen magazines aimed at the post-Barbie set. And the question will not go away, consuming a fair slice of your “screen real estate” until you answer it.

And that’s it. In summary, I found the experience far too lightweight to rate as a virtual environment. I didn’t feel immersed in the experience - it was more like chatting while looking at a picture of some women standing in a kitchen. While I understand why companies leave Second Life, I find it hard to understand why The L Word would bail out of Second Life to go with this instead. Future implementations of WebFlock may end up offering far more than this. I can only hope so, because if this is all there is, then it is a dull future indeed.

I'm Just Arguing About Semantics...

2008-10-02T13:19:00.002Z

While many of my colleagues (and probably yours) remain dismissive of virtual worlds and the prospects for web3D (at least in my lifetime, which given current health constraints may not be as long as I might fancy), they get positively moist when they ponder the imponderables of web3.0. Much of this web3.0 mullarkey remains a mystery to me. In fact, it's taken me long enough to get some kind of handle on web2.0. But that hasn't stopped me staring into the middle distance and letting my mind free-wheel on the topic.

While a fair chunk of the web3.0 vision thang revolves around "ubiquity" and "distribution", a significant slice is taken up with the notion of the semantic web. In techie terms, the ambition is a web in which computers can perform their own analysis, do stuff and find stuff out. Because computers are still basically stupid, even the really really clever ones, they need lots of help if they are to do all of this. According to wikipedia: "The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing and combining information on the web."

In truth, of course, the label of "web X.0" is simply a convenience, an attempt to convey a Big Picture view. In reality, there are no web generations, but rather the evolution of the web is a continuum in which it is not always possible - and certainly never actually necessary - to make such generational distinctions.

In this Big Picture view of the web, we could probably characterise web 1.0 as the Era of the Individual: you make your own way through the web, sharing information only by digital word-of-mouth, and responsible for discovering everything you need. Web 2.0 I would characterise as the Era of Sharing: you are all-but-permanently digitally connected with friends,acquaintances and groups with common interests, sharing with them your travels through the web in realtime, and benefitting from the wider range of experiences and knowledge available within the various groups to which you belong, giving you a more productive and more social web experience. In techie terms, we have the introduction of scores of social tools to help people share stuff, and the development of mashups to pull together diverse information sources to form common, shareable views.

At the moment I don't really know how to characterise web 3.0. Howzabout Era of the Bot? A web in which much of the drudgery involved in finding what you want is taken away by our shiny, digital, computer pals; a web with which you can have an intelligent interaction. It sounds ambitious - and I am curious as to how this will combine with the "Social Web" of web 2.0. web3.0 will also offer intelligent applications, with natural language processing... hmmm... "natural language processing" eh?

In my idle moments, I've been wondering about this semantic lark, and the underlying reasons for it. And concluding that web 2.0 already has a semantic web element and that - like Soylent Green - the semantic web element "is people."

The highly-connected, social mesh that we inhabit now is full of 'em, sharing their ideas and opinions, filling gaps in our knowledge, offering services, advice and support (and all the while, using 'natural language processing'). While noting that "folks is folks" and you don't always get a reliable, consistent service - it is also true to say that people are pretty adaptable and good at interpreting, interpolating and extrapolating stuff, something their machine counterparts will be struggling to achieve for years to come yet.

And for me this social mesh reaches its online apogee in the social, immersive, shared experience found in virtual worlds.

Hmmm... so in conclusion: where semantic web3.0 can be characterised by HAL, perhaps semantic web2.0 can be characterised by AL.

Some Thoughts on the Yammer Clamour

2008-09-28T17:46:00.004Z

After it took top prize at TechCrunch50, earlier this month, an enterprising soul in the enterprise for which I work took it upon himself to get us into Yammer. Unless you've been living under a stone - or more likely, don't give a flying one about corporate stuff - you will be aware that Yammer is being touted by some as "Twitter for the enterprise." And the hype? Oh my... the hype! Even this post you are reading now is contributing to a level of hype that makes Twitter look like some shy, shrinking violet.

Yammer's website explains the proposition: "Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: 'What are you working on?'...Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address."

While I have been a Twitterer for 18months or so, I've only been using Yammer for about a fortnight. Nevertheless, I've now got enough thoughts about it rattling around in my head that I wish to extract and deposit in words. The thoughts fall into 2 streams, answering the following questions:

Is Yammer really a "twitter for the enterprise"?

In a word: No. Superficially, it looks similar. You have ~~140~~ a bunch of characters to record each micro-post. You can elect to follow people. You can reply to other people's posts. So far - so twittersome. But to use Yammer, you need a company email address. How is that an issue? Well, in Twitter I can set up an information "push" channel, using any old email address I care to create, and I can then use this channel to give you news, views and general info in an impersonal way. For your part, you elect to tune in or not. Yammer ties a user to a company email address and a Yammer profile - in effect, it is personal. So creating an impersonal "push channel", such as a "HR News" feed, would be cumbersome, and may even breach company email rules and policies. Thus a facility that is easily exploited in Twitter, and that would be of benefit in a corporate environment, is seemingly unavailable.

A major concern for any enterprise solution is security. I confess I've not looked at the detail of the "paid for" service from Yammer, which offers the ability to manage the security of one's network. However, it is clear that this remains a hosted service, and therefore the more security-minded are likely to conclude that it is not safe enough for company confidential communication. And if it's not safe enough for this level of communication, it is then of questionable value within the enterprise.

A final point for consideration is scale. I work for an enterprise with around 60,000 employees, worldwide (in fact, Wikipedia tells me it has risen to over 86,000 in 2008). An enterprise solution needs the ability to reach everyone within the enterprise - but an individual grunt in the field, like me, does not want to be deluged by the idle ponderings of all of these folk, all of the time. Yet the filter offered by the "follow" facility strikes me as inadequate within this enterprise context. At work, I am actually part of many different networks: some overlapping, some not. I have personal networks, profession-based networks and managerial networks. In short, the corporate world is a complicated place in which each of us has his/her own network needs. A simple "follow" does not come close to addressing this. Yammer is better suited to the Small-to-Medium end of the Enterprise world, where one's networks are fewer and smaller.

So to reiterate my answer to my first question: No.

What would I want in such a tool for the enterprise?

I am a dedicated (some might say, obsessive) Twitterer and I do believe that a Twitter-like tool, restricted to just the company, would be very useful. However, it would need a few tweaks (or major surgery!):

First, it would need to support push channels. Whether it is your Networks Department telling you of planned outages, the arrival of the Sandwich Lady at your office or the CEO telling you where to find the company's annual results - there are many push channels that are of value within the enterprise. Of course, such channels are useless unless you know about them - so a search or browse facility would be a "must have" too.

Second, it would need to support groups - the return of the SIG (if it ever went away). I like Chatterous - a tool still in beta release - as it offers me the opportunity to exchange messages within cliques or groups. I would like to see something similar for corporate use. Given I work in a projects-based organisation, working with teams scattered around the globe, having project group chat/micro-blogging would be very useful. I can see that too many groups would be cumbersome and could rapidly become ineffective - but I'd be willing to test that theory!

Finally: security. I would want to know that I can bring the solution within my firewalls and keep all traces and logs on our own servers.

+++

I am not claiming this ramble makes much sense and it should not be taken as representing the position of my company on Yammer, Twitter or anything else, really. I'm just sayin'...

Portugal Center: A and B

2008-09-28T15:13:00.002Z

This afternoon, having watched the Singapore Grand Prix on TV, I was all set for an explore of Burning Life. However, when I arrived I was underwhelmed with the degree of lag, and so decided to potter elsewhere. Through a process of mindless random clicking I finally landed up at the twin sims of Portugal Center A and B - and as this seemed an appropriate Slambling site, I decided to give it a whirl.

Why appropriate? Well the site, which still seems to be under development in places, belongs to an atomic world company: Wheels Logistica. Basically, they offer logistics services - ranging from distribution network planning, through warehousing, to goods transportation... in Portugal, reasonably enough.

The 2 sims appear to be aimed at different purposes - and though adjacent, do not share a common theme. Center A seems to be geared towards entertainment and engagement with the public, consisting, as it does, of a surprisingly convoluted race track. There's a couple of trucks near the start line, and a right-click tells me that I can "drive" them. Now, I like to think of myself as a reasonably competent driver in the atomic world, but virtual driving has alway been somewhat more challenging. In this case, though, I couldn't even get the truck started! Perhaps you can figure it out, and get me sorted!

The other sim, Center B, seems less complete, but would appear to be pitched more directly at the business user of Second Life. There's a small (and almost deserted) warehouse and a large, glass office building, in front of which are some displays that seem to be talking about what the company can do to reduce your fuel costs.

I haven't really got anything else to say about the site. It's competent; the trucks look good; the racing track should be fun to negotiate - and that's about it. It is not "pushing the envelope" like this site. As usual, I have a few snaps for you:

Temasek

2008-09-27T19:54:00.003Z

I visited Temasek in response to an invitation from Veritas Raymaker, one of the people responsible for the sim, flattered that he not only read this blog, but had actually found it useful. I didn't know what to expect - and it's taken me 3 trips to get all the information I wanted.

The name of the sim means 'Sea Town' in Javanese and was the old name for Singapore - or at least a predecessor of it. As a notecard told me when I arrived: "Temasek is designed to be a place where you can learn more about the culture, history and ecology of Singapore....Although it cannot model the geography of Singapore down to the last detail, Temasek has been designed with great care to provide you with an authentic experience of some of the highlights of the cultural experience. Please do try to visit the Peranakan shophouses, the fishing village - Kampung Laut, and the mudflats."

It also saves me all the faff and hassle of googling for more background by telling me: "Singapore is an island-nation in Southeast Asia. It covers a territorial area of about 700 square kilometres. This is equivalent to 270 square miles; by way of comparison, it is about eight times larger than Manhattan Island in New York. Singapore lies one degree North of the Equator, and as a result it has a tropical rainforest climate... Present-day Singapore has an estimated population of about 4.6 million Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents. The national language of Singapore is Malay, and there are four official languages: Malay, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and English."

The sim is divided into a number of distinct areas, each of which will provide you with notecards explaining aspects of Singapore history, geography or society. One corner of the sim is taken up with 'Fort Temasek', which gives you a chance to find out about the abortive defence of Singapore against the invading Japanese in 1942 - or just fire off some big guns ftw. You can cruise the Temasek River (itself modelled on the shape of the real Singapore River), or take a guided tour. You may also enjoy other, less Singaporean diversions, such as playing a giant chess game, or taking a hang-glider for a spin over the sim.

I'm not sure of the backing for the sim, but as there are both shops and a residential area, it looks like the aim is to "make tier" from rental. On my first visit the skies were largely clear, but more latterly a ruddy big Concorde has appeared. In my view, while impressive enough in its Singapore Airlines livery, it is far too close to the ground and gives the place a rather claustrophobic feel. The island is a 'no-fly' zone, but a teleport could sort out any issues with placing the plane higher.

Here's some holiday snaps from my trip to give you the gist:

7 Days Magic Bakery

2008-09-27T15:23:00.006Z

I've not written much recently, mainly due to the difficulty of finding anything new and interesting to write about. There seem to be no new corporate sites in Second Life, and many that have been here a while are closing up shop. It therefore comes as a pleasant surprise to visit not only a new corporate sim, but one that rewards the traveller handsomely in terms of build quality and entertainment value. The sim in question is 7Days Magic Bakery.

Sound quaint, huh? A sim for your local neighbourhood bakery? Ummm... not quite.

7 Days is a brand within the the Baking and Confectionery division of Greek food conglomerate, Vivartia, formed as a result of a merger in 2006 with Chipita. In total Vivartia employs around 13,500 people, and markets its bakery goods throughout Eastern Europe. On a darker note, in December 2007, Vivartia was found guilty of colluding with other milk producers to fix milk prices in Greece, and its earnings for the year were reduced by nearly 22million Euros as a result. Nevertheless, the company had a turnover of around 1.5billion Euros, with the Bakery Division bringing in some 412million Euro. So as you can see, 7 Days is far from being a little local bakery! If you want to see something of their product range then try here.

OK... so what about this sim? It opened just over a week ago and if I had been slightly quicker off the mark I could have posted a rib-tickling pun about taking 7 Days to write this post - but I wasn't, so I can't.

I have to say that I think the build quality and approach knock just about every other corporate build into a cocked hat. In large part this is due to the decision by involve3d, the builders, to execute most of the build work outside of Second Life, using Maya. The resulting structures and textures were then uploaded for final placement in the sim. The result is a spectacularly successful marriage of forms and detailed textures - which is my pretentious way of saying: it looks great!

Yeah.. yeah... but what does it look like?

You arrive at a landing that is faintly reminiscent of the Crystal Palace - lots of baroque ironwork - and your first action is to proceed thru the door in front of you into a windowless vestibule, where you will trigger the first of many audio commentaries (for the deaf, there are notecards too). A slightly peeved and aggrieved robot will tell you something about the sim - his amusing ramblings giving time for the sim itself to rez behind the scenes. When all is set, you can open a door and proceed into the sim proper. They've aimed for a "Dreamworks/Pixar-like" cartoony look and feel, and they've achieved it. Not only visually amazing, the music and audio fit the theme too.

Your main objective is the Bakery itself, but you should take the time to meander up the hill on which this Wonka-some construction sits, and take in some of the sights and sounds. In the bakery, you can control a machine to make your own personalised baked item - sweet or savoury. As their press release notes, you can concoct such oddities as the Chocolate Symphony Cosmic Satisfaction Croissant or Oregano Grated Cheese Electric Burst Pita Bakes. Whatever you end up with - and there are many, many variations - you really must eat it to get the full benefit. (A slightly cumbersome arrangement - you have to "Buy" for zero L$, then "Wear" the item)

During your wanderings you will encounter, and should pick up, the Vendomaton. I think I was a little too full of sugar-rush to fully absorb how this beastie functions. But in essence, everything you've made can be added to your vendomaton, and that means you can rez it at home and share your baking bounty with your pals; and vice versa.

But why? Why build the sim? I think the answer, in part, lies in the quality. I don't see this place setting new records for concurrent visitors, or establishing itself as the Place To Be Seen in SL. It might - but that would be a side benefit. Is it there just to promote the company? Well, yes, of course... but it is more subtle than that. Simply promoting within Second Life is largely a waste of effort, as many companies have discovered. But using Second Life as a stage in which to create ads - both movies and stills - that can be pumped into the real world. Now that is something different - hence the need for high quality, essentially non-SL constructions. I look forward to seeing how this story unfolds - and to the opening of their orientation sim, which also promises something new.

There's a lot more I could say about this place - but really the only thing I would say is: add it to your 'Must See' list. No.. don't do that. Just go there. But a word of warning... I found the triggered audio really impacted performance on my machine - and SL crawled along abysmally at times. This probably improves with cacheing... I went back with a friend, and found performance was much better. But don't let that stop you!

As regular readers will attest, you can judge how impressed I am with a sim by the number of pictures I take of it. I think I might have set a new record for myself:

A Shell of its Former Self

2008-09-16T21:47:00.003Z

I'm sure you can think of better puns than that lame title, through which I am alluding to the fact that Shell, the global oil company, may no longer have a place in Second Life.

What's that? You didn't even know they'd had a place to begin with? Well in truth neither did I. But a couple of days ago a chum passed me a link to here, a page in the Innovation area of Shell's website. This page tells us that GameChanger, an innovation incubator within Shell, had been developing a learning and collaboration area in Second Life. In fact, not only that - it had even won first prize in 2008's TEC Intraverse awards, in June. The website mentions 2 sim by name: "Learning Island, designed for virtual meetings and learning; and Ideation island, a project management space."

Shell's press release gives more background of their work, introducing us to Unfrozenmind, a "strategic innovation think tank", with whom they put together this presence. It quotes Phil Rosedale as saying: " ...Shell and Unfrozenmind have developed a wonderful example of how the businesses of the future will use 3D environments such as Second Life to drive collaboration."

Now all of that sounds simply peachy.... there's just one fly in the ointment. When I came to look for these islands today, they had effectively disappeared. Certainly, Ideation no longer appears on the Second Life map - while Learning is now part of the New Media Consortium cluster, and appears to bear no relation to Shell whatsoever.

It is only 3 months ago that there was all this hullabaloo, with lots of fancy words and mutual back-slapping and starry-eyed admiration. And now... there's not even somewhere for the virtual tumbleweed to blow through. Anyone care to explain what's going on? My most generous guess is that Shell have now taken all of this into OpenSim, behind their firewalls. What do you think?

Primtings

2008-09-14T22:28:00.004Z

...now, there's something about AM Radio's work that reminds me of the sense of isolation to be found in the paintings of Edward Hopper. Having finally caught up on AM's build The Refuge and Expansion, I was doing some mental filing and, thanks to the power of association, I recalled reading that someone had built a virtual 3D replica of one of Hopper's most famous paintings: Nighthawks. A bit of Googling brought up the sim location: Primtings.

A trip to the Primtings sim proved both enjoyable and frustrating. Basically, the sim (at ground level at least) is dominated by... what?... hmmm... some sort of giant, black ziggurat. Inside, there's a cool modernist minimalist ambiance - lots of black and pale grey, with subtly subdued lighting. The ziggurat houses (what I take to be) a growing 3D Gallery. Almost all of the works here are 3D representations of famous 19th and 20th Century works of art - featuring artists as diverse as Van Gogh, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, Paul Klee and MC Escher.... oh, and Edward Hopper.

Whether this is art is a debateable point - but it is certainly an interesting exercise in craft, and an interesting place to wander around. I said earlier that it was also frustrating. My frustration came from lag and delays, that saw me ejected to the far edge of the sim whenever I tried to take a seat in the Nighthawks diner and that made initial movement through the building difficult. Hopefully this is a temporary glitch and not something inbuilt.

Finally, for those who decide to explore higher up, you will find a sim-sized version of Broadway Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian. Here are my travel snaps:

Welsh Klein Bottles, Refuge and Expansion

2008-09-14T20:48:00.005Z

This is the first of two related posts, and concerns a trip to a trio of Welsh sims: Welsh Lakes, Welsh Springs and Welsh Cove. Most seasoned travellers have probably already been through here - but it was my first visit.

My first port of call was Welsh Lakes, home to a huge floating sculpture consisting of a series of interconnected Klein bottles - a bizarre mathematical oddity that seemingly points up its own fundament. The sculpture is the work of Miki Gymnast, and appears to be floating over recently ploughed farmland. The skyline is one of those seemingly endless prairie scenes beloved of AM Radio: a few farmhouses, dwarfed by a towering, sickly green sky. The bottles are cleverly constructed, but I have to confess, left me a bit cold as they felt more an exercise in mathematics than design. I know this is unfair - but that's what I took from the construction.

A floating pink block, reminding me of an eraser from childhood, provides a link to the 2 other Welsh sims, which prove to be The Refuge and Expansion - a classic tour-de-force by the aforementioned AM Radio. Again, we have the rather bleak greeenish sky and distant farmhouses, but this time we have a cluster of Mr Radio's builds to entertain us. The point of arrival is a country crossroads, somewhere in the boondocks, way beyond the Back of Beyond. There's an old Texaco gas station (I believe that is the term they use over there) with a hotrod sat outside it. Is the owner now inside, paying his bill? No - the place is deserted. Why not sit a while, and wait to see who turns up?

In fields opposite the gas station you will find a rusting locomotive (sound familiar? I did say it had a cluster of AM's builds). Back along the road aways you will find a neat and proper little house. Go in, why don't you... You will find Mr Radio's trademark hat. Where can he be? And why are there so many chairs piled randomly by the window? Maybe there's a clue upstairs.

Hmmmm... the plot thickens. There's an amateur science laboratory - a microscope, a telescope and a few specimens. But it's hard to reach because of the veritable mountain of chairs and books piled throughout the room! I tbrought to my mind the scene in The Prestige, when the magician wanders around the back of Tesla's laboratory and finds a mound of hats and cats (watch the movie to find out why).

And that's about it... as with all AM Radio builds you marvel at the detail, and at the ambiance he creates. Beautifully constructed items, set in a lonely, alienating landscape.

I have a stack of pictures - please flick thru them - and go and view them fullsize at Flickr:

Bumrungrad Hospital

2008-09-13T16:30:00.002Z

No really.... despite appearances, this is a real place - now building a virtual presence in Second Life. When I first noticed the Bumrungrad Hospital sim on the map, I assumed it to be some sort of crudely comical take on med school. Kind of like Animal House for medical students? But as it turns out - there really is a Bumrungrad Hospital.

It's website tells me: "Bumrungrad International is an internationally accredited, multi-specialty hospital located in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. Founded in 1980, today it is the largest private hospital in Southeast Asia with 554 beds and over 30 specialty centers. Bumrungrad offers state-of-the-art diagnostic, therapeutic and intensive care facilities in a one-stop medical center. Bumrungrad serves over a million patients annually. Over 400,000 are internationals. " So that's me put firmly in my place! You live and learn, eh?

The sim is at a very early stage of development. It looks like a solo effort (and I know how long that can take!) and may take quite some time yet before it can be said to be fit to visit. As you might expect, a representation of the hospital seems to be the centrepiece of the build. How much of this is actually going to be of use is anyone's guess. It seems like a lot of effort to build structures (floors, rooms) that no-one is likely to visit - but then, I do recognise the need to show people a digital representation of the atomic building. I recognise it - but I don't always agree with it. But it is too early in the build here to get a sense of what is intended - so I will cut this short.

Here's a couple of snaps that may give you the idea (lots of plywood on show):

Voda...Gone?

2008-09-07T18:44:00.005Z

I dunno... my posts are like Mancunian buses: you wait ages for one, then three come along at once.

While ferreting around the sims near Sick and Dante's Inferno, I noticed a couple with a distinctive and familiar shape:

Mean anything to you? Perhaps this might ring a bell. These sims, constructed by RiversRunRed, once housed Vodafone's presence in Second Life. I wrote about the site in February last year.

But now? Well I can't access them, but as I hope you can see, they are now labelled Innovation Centre. A little digging reveals a Second Life group of that name, created by UK company Second Places. So what gives? A search for Vodafone sims now draws a blank - but instead we appear to have a couple of sims that may have been ceded from one British company to another. I dunno... you tell me what's going on?

Of course, the biggest "news" in all of this is the apparent disappearance of yet another corporate presence from Second Life. Something that Linden Lab may wish to ponder on further.

Sick

2008-09-07T17:13:00.003Z

My thanks for the tip about this sim go to Garth Goode - another bald, bearded and bespectacled traveller in Second Life, and his blog: SLWTF. I was thinking of constructing a mildly humorous title for this post, playing with the name of the sim. But finally I thought the name of the sim was bizarre and obscure enough on its own: Sick.

This is a fantastic place. I have no idea what the aim of the sim is - and I don't really care. It is one the most impressive and immersive sims I've visited in some time. In terms of its look and ambience, the place owes a massive debt to Bladerunner - Ridley Scott's dystopic masterpiece based on Philip K. Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'. While in terms of comparable Second Life locations, the one that sprang most readily to mind was Kowloon, a site I wrote about here.

When you arrive you will find yourself in a neon-lit urban canyon. It is nighttime (don't mess with the settings!), and the rain is pouring down. In the distance are great towers of light rise up into the leaden skies, but at ground-level things are in a state of dismal decay. I spent only a short time here, and have yet to sample all the 'delights' that Garth uncovered. However, I will be going back very soon!

The sim is the work of Japanese owner, mk curtiz. If your knowledge of Japanese is better than mine, you might be able to get the whole story from the sim's rather cool website. I was able to discern that it is set in the year 2054 - and that it seems at least part of the function of the site is to provide a rich shoot-em-up gaming environment. At least, that's what these videos seem to suggest.

Whatever the purpose of the sim (well - a pair actually - Sick2 is next door), you've got no excuse for not getting your virtual ass down there for a lookaround. If you want some encouragement, here's a few measly pictures:

The Inferno is Back

2008-09-07T16:03:00.005Z

Back in July ,2007, I posted an entry about an educational sim that had brought Dante's Inferno into Second Life. Not long after, it disappeared and I thought: "ho hum, well that's that then." However, while off exploring today I noticed it is back. Now, it may have been back for ages, but as this is a welcome return, I thought it worth blogging about. Rather than forming part of the large NMC cluster of sims, it is now proudly on it own as the Dante's Inferno sim.

It is very much like the earlier incarnation - but rather than describe it myself, I will be lazy and quote one of the many, many notecards at you, instead:

This exhibit is meant to engage all of your senses... On each level, there are activities where guests are asked to contribute content...

Please explore all the circles of Hell. You will find notecards, activities, displays and as the course develops student generated content too. If you reach the centre you will also find details about the "Build Lucifer" contest we are running, with a L$10,000 prize. You are welcome to just walk down each level, the fall here will not hurt, but you may also catch the flying gondola ride down a level at a time if you wish.

On each level you will find rocks which offer you a chance to chat to Virgil and Dante. The conversations that result may seem to ramble, but the points they raise ask you about features of the circle that you are on, and give you hints about further learning you may wish to explore. Alternatively, they can be used just for fun!

Gloria Naylor used the concept of the Inferno to frame her modern African-American novel, Linden Hills.

The novel, and the Inferno, celebrate the results of life choices. Linden Hills focuses on the choices of modern blacks in their quest to reach "equality" and urges that "equality" is in the heart and not the pocketbook. Likewise, Dante's tour illustrates that life is a series of choices about virtue.

Unlike Dante and Virgil, once you reach the centre of Hell, you can step through the wall to enter student displays about Linden Hills. This will help you understand the book, and help you and the students understand the links between the structure of the two novels.

Dante's Inferno and The Linden Hills Classroom are property of Literature Alive! in Second Life Credits: Eloise Pastuer, Design and Content Creation, Desideria Stockton, Academic Content Designer, Daliah Carter, Assistant.

When I last saw it, students had already been contributing their own ideas as to the denizens of the various levels. However, at the moment this amusing and potentially thought-provoking aspect of the sim is missing. I didn't see any Lindsay Lohans or Adolf Hitlers! The notecard quoted above is right though. There is a lot to learn here, and many activities that should keep the Infernally Minded busy for a while. Here's a small selection of images to give you a taste:

PS: I left the reference to The Gluttonous as a warning to self!

An Avatar, By Any Other Name...

2008-09-05T12:32:00.004Z

.. might be a lot happier with Second Life.

Most of us who came into Second Life out of curiosity, and have stayed ever since, are probably happy with our avatars. We instinctively associate our avatar name with ourselves - regardless of where we sit in the 'Spectrum of Involvement' that goes from the fully-immersed digital beings at one end, to the augmented reality users at the other. Incidentally, if these terms mean nothing to you, then I'm afraid you will have to Google them if you want to know more. The subsequent romp across the blogosphere makes for a long and interesting diversion!

For the more prosaic purposes of this post, I want to consider names. It hadn't really occurred to me just how out-of-step Second Life is, compared with other virtual worlds. Everywhere else - as far as I know - you are pretty much free to select your own avatar name. OK, it may need to be unique in the World, which can be a challenge. But in principle, you have carte blanche. For example, I am used to a semi-digital existence thru' my avatar, Aleister Kronos. Therefore, in all the virtual worlds I am signed up to - and there are many - I am happy to use this name, or variants that may be forced by a local naming constraint (like no spaces in the name). Importantly though, I could instead have opted to use the name I was given in the atomic world, Tim Kelly (again, subject to some basic constraints). I'm hardly blowing away any great atomic/digital divide here, since anyone who was remotely interested could have garnered this information in about... ooh... one Google hit.

So where am I going with this? Oh yeah...

Second Life marches to a different tune. It forces you down a path of pseudo-anonymity by compelling you to select a surname from a predefined list, rather than allowing you to elect for anonymity or openness. And what a bunch of surnames you get! If your aim in Second Life is to have a laugh, muck about and generally use it as a purely social environment then the disproportionately high ratio of "wacky, zany" surnames may be just the ticket. It means you don't have to employ too much brainpower of your own in order to appear interesting, when you can get instant charisma, off-the-peg, just by choosing a suitable surname. Maybe most Second Life regulars are happy with this arrangement. Personally, as a resident, I'm perfectly happy with my avatar name.

But it is as a corporate resident that issues arise. I have recently been hosting or assisting with a number of internal presentations for various company folk. The aim of such presentations is to show that you don't need to waste time and money travelling to meetings when they can be done, at least adequately, in a virtual environment. And virtual meetings are far better than the other alternatives: video and teleconferences. Most of the attendees are not out-and-out Second Lifers, but rather casual visitors, looking at the potential for using the environment as a work tool.

Now then - in proper Blah 2.0 fashion I have been eliciting feedback, to understand their experiences and see how I can help to improve them. Oddly, the recurring concern was not the awkwardness of the user interface, or the lag, or indeed any of the technical issues that I had anticipated. Instead, it was the avatar naming constraints. The general view was that the absence of real names lead to confusion and lack of clarity, while the names that were used could not really be characterised as 'professional'. When you have large numbers of colleagues using virtual worlds on an occasional basis, for specific activities or events, they are not likely to know each other's avatar names - leading to confusion and lack of effective communication. While this will change over time, the process is unnecessarily slow, when all you ever wanted was to use your own name in the first place.

There are cumbersome ways around this, usually involving a dumb-ass surname but putting your full name (without spaces!) as your avatar's first name. Don't get me started on the ludicrous costs associated with having a user-defined (in this case, corporate) surname. The point is, it should not be necessary to go to these lengths.

Second Life is coming across as somewhat antediluvian, a primitive throwback to a time when happy-clappy early adopters wanted to look funny and have hilarious names. While I accept that many, more recent residents also share these aims - it is time for Second Life to grow up, grow out and make better provision for those who don't share these aims. I am sure that it is not just business users who have this frustration.

So a note for Linden Lab: if you are still trying to be taken seriously by the business world then changing the naming system would be a small, but non-trivial step in the right direction.

(And God knows... it seems that right now Second Life could do with all the help it can get)

The Neuromancers of Google and their Burning Chrome

2008-09-02T21:17:00.004Z

A lame title, for cyberpunks everywhere. I don't normally write about this kind of stuff, but as there seems to be seismic rumblings of positively Cyclopean scale in the intertubes, I thought I should make an exception. I refer, of course, to the net-wobbling news that Google have opened a new line of attack on the old World order and launched Chrome, their first web browser.

If you are a techie and into comics (and let's be honest- "techie" goes with "comics" like "Laurel" goes with "Hardy") then you can read the background documentation in cartoon-form here; some thirtymumble pages of it. But why am I telling you this? If you've got this far, you know this already!

Now in truth, the average web user is probably not going to get much to get excited about from Chrome. As one chum pointed out: what new and exciting stuff can you do to a browser? Oh, it has some clever gubbins under the bonnet - and much of this clever gubbins may well go to make for a faster, more stable and more secure web experience. But at the moment it's kind of hard to tell. I will certainly give it a reasonable run... but my first impressions are: "So it's a browser. And...?"

Of course, I am a technical Philistine, who fails to appreciate the subtlety of the Javascript implementation, and who finds the interface a little too bereft of familiar friends. However, I suspect in the coming months I will come to love and cherish this newcomer - in marked contrast to Lively, Google's foray into virtual environments, which leaves me completely cold.

Dubailand

2008-08-22T16:34:00.004Z

Last week I took the opportunity to pop into Dubailand, not really knowing what to expect. Well that is not entirely true. I was expecting to find recreations of the Burj Al Arab, that huge hotel that looks like a sail, and the Palm Island, the artifical island shaped (as one would expect from the name) like a palm tree - and I did. In fact, there's not much more to it than that.

I'm not clear who this is aimed at. It has the feel of a privately-owned, non-professional sim.

Here's a few snaps:

I know it's a cursory post - but there didn't seem to be much to say about the sim.

+++

In my last post I mentioned the disappearance of the Logica island from the oceans of Second Life. A few days ago I was chatting with a colleague and suggested to her that she might want to check out the virtual offices of our parent company. These had been hosted on an island belonging to French digital media marketing company, The Blast Machine. However, when I came to search the map, I found that this island, too, has disappeared - taking with it the aforementioned offices. So is this just part of the normal wear and tear of Second Life? Or is it the case that increasing numbers of companies are choosing to abandon this first foray into virtual worlds? I'm frankly intrigued...

Whither Logica?

2008-08-18T22:25:00.003Z

You may have noted that my rate of posting has dropped somewhat in recent times. Now while I admit that I am spending less time in Second Life, and when I do I am often engaged in building and scripting stuff - I think there is something else going on here. I do still spend way too much time looking for new (or at least, new to me) non-residential islands. However, the chances are few of stumbling upon something new and of sufficient interest as to justify the hassle of putting a post together. Oddly, there's actually a clutch of places I really like, but have not written about (yet). However, I sort of 'missed the moment', failed to write about them and now don't feel fired to do so.

But I digress... I think the main reason why I am finding it a struggle to locate new corporate sims, is that the flood has slowed to a trickle. Sure, I am probably missing many thrilling new sims - but I don't get the impression there is that much happening out there. In fact, it looks like the tide may really be receding - for now at least. I recently noted that BWM had left Second Life. Today, while doing a routine search I noticed that the sim belonging to Logica CMG no longer appeared on the Second Life map either.

I have not seen any announcement about this, and perhaps there is another explanation, but for all the World it looks like they've not renewed their maintenance and the island has been reclaimed. A shame, given the effort that had gone into building it in the first place.

If you know of new corporate sites - or indeed anything non-residential and worth the trip - then do let me know. Alternatively, if you know what's happened to the Logica CMG sim, then I'd love to hear.

VS2008/.NET 3.5 SP1

2008-08-07T22:27:00.004Z

Don't run away... I know the title of the post looks a bit... well... tekkie. But hopefully, with luck, we can steer a safe course through to the end of this without any palpitations, hot sweats or brains turning to mush. So what's this all about? Why the weird sim name: VS2008/.NET 3.5 SP1? It seems this code is Microsoft's way of communicating with microsofties and microserfs around the globe, who will immediately recognise this as meaning: Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. If you are non-the-wiser (and why should you be?), suffice it to say that this is all about developing solutions for Microsoft platforms. And that's pretty much as far as I go with the technobabble, I hope.

This sim is far from complete, but already there is one corner where people who actually understand anything about the above can go and start picking up information. There's a video by Scott Guthrie, author of the blog linked above, giving an introduction to the use of dynamic data in ASP.NET, and a number of presentations (see pictures below) on other such gubbins - with a bunch of links to pertinent pages, such as the thrilling ADO.NET Entity Framework Overview. (hehe... more technobabble... sorry!)

You will also find a link to Project Manhattan. No... not that one... this one. This is "a community based effort to explore the OpenSim virtual world software. OpenSim is free software that can be downloaded and used by anyone to create their own simulators and grids. This effort is supported by Microsoft... " News of the project is distributed via Twitter. If you hanker for more on the whole OpenSim thang then you should take a deep breath and dive into Tish Shute's Ugotrade blog.

Anyway - this island will presumably grow and develop. But for now, here's some snaps to look at:

Now it's getting technical...

Braving The Arctic in Inouk

2008-08-05T20:01:00.003Z

Another sim that's been open a few months, but I've only just stumbled upon is: Inouk. The word has a distinctly Arctic ring to it, and the sim itself is indeed decked out in sub-zero fashion, with igloos, ice floes, snowballs and all the trimmings. The mystery of the sim's name is soon resolved - if I told you it belonged to a well-known tour company, would you be any the wiser? Howzabout if I suggested you reverse the name?

Kuoni has been providing holidays to the discerning for over 100 years now. Although headquartered in the UK, the founder of the company, Alfred Kuoni, was actually Swiss - which is suitably apt, since this sim is, in fact, owned by Kuoni Switzerland. Kuoni's first package trips, in May 1906, were journeys by mountain railway up the Uetliberg on Zurich's western side and the Dolder on itd eastern side. A year later he was offering package tours of Egypt! Since then the company he created has gone on to offer high-end holidays around the globe.

The sim itself is quite good fun, and not overly pushy about Kuoni holiday offerings. You can pick up a "Travel Book" - a heads up display that will compare and contrast RL and SL locations, offering you brochure page links for the former and teleports for the latter - and there are other freebies, like an animal rug (choose the fur you want). The most complex element of the build is the Ice Labyrinth. Enter and find the six keys (while in theory absorbing messages about holiday locations), locate the treasure and win some money! I got 20L$ - which is more than I had when I went in. You are also invited to complete a questionnaire and get another 40L$. For those wanting free money, it beats camping.

The sim is mainly aimed at "doing stuff" - like the Labyrinth - or the Snowball Battlefield: pick up a pile of snowballs, and over the course of a week, see how many people you can hit - within the designated battle zone. A rather elegant and sinuous bridge leads you across the freezing inlet that nearly splits the sim in two. On the far side is a large globe, with map pins suggesting the location of Kuoni holidays; a bar and ice piano (nice touch, that); a dance floor; a video area and an explanation of the Travel Book.

In construction and ambience, it reminded me of a refrigerated version of the TUI tour company site in Second Life - you can read my post about that here. I didn't see much sign of events - which is regrettable. However, if you wanted, you could perhaps fix that since you can rent one of the large igloos for your own shop. I don't know if the Planning Regs allow events and parties - but it would be one way of livening up the place.

And here's what it looks like:

Late News From The Newseum

2008-08-04T21:44:00.004Z

While I occasionally manage to time my site visits just right - or even, just a little 'ahead of right' - one of the recurring motifs of my virtual travels is the frequency with which I make a spectacularly late arrival. Tonight's sim fall isn't this category: Newseum. I reckon I'm about 4 months late for this one... And it's not like I didn't know of its existence. In fact, I've seen it many times on the Second Life map over the last God-knows-how-long, but whenever I tried to teleport it was always shut. So often had this been the case that I gave up trying maybe 6 months ago (maybe longer than that) and it was only on a whim that I tried it this evening, while I was visiting a neighbouring sim. I have to confess, I was rather surprised to find myself teleported in. But enough of this tedious tale... what am I actually waffling on about?

To save you wading through my prose, I can point you to this post, which gives you all the news that's fit to print about Newseum and the Newseum sim. But if you want to persist with my prose, here goes:

It seems that the Newseum opened its prestigous new building on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC in April this year - with its Second Life equivalent opening at pretty much the same time. The version in the atomic world describes itself as "the World's most interactive museum" - a claim I have no means of (or for that matter, any interest in) verifying. And this spirit of interactivity is carried across into the Second Life build - where you will find a lot to see and do.

The build consists principally of the museum itself - the surrounding landscape being a little perfunctory, in my view. There is a rather sketchy Washington Monumen t, but the main effort has been poured into the museum. And unlike the surroundings, the museum is a great success. It is a copy/homage/interpretation of the atomic world building - and to my untrained eye it seems to carry it off very well.

The textures and shading are well executed, conveying a strong 3D feel, and this is heightened by the thoughtful detailing in the furniture and other fixtures and fittings. The virtual museum also houses a lot of stuff - including a number of intriguing integrations with the outside world. For example, in the atrium there is a running tickertape-style headline display that seems to be current, while in another part of the museum you can read today's front pages from a number of US newspapers.

The Pullitzer Prize room is thought-provoking, providing background on some of the most iconic photos of the last half century or more. In another room, you can listen to brief histories of some the many journalists killed in the line of duty. Continuing the sombre theme, there is the 9/11 Gallery, which is also to be found in the atomic world museum, comprising cover stories about that fateful day from papers across the USA, and indeed much further afield.

Or if that is too gloomy for you, perhaps you'd like a run-through of the top Stories of the Century - or take part in a news quiz. For the more cost-conscious museum-goer there are free T-shirts to be had in the Gift Shop. And to round things off, there's also an auditorium, a studio and a couple of staged scenes (I assume so you can get a photo of yourself or your companion as 'intrepid reporter').

The build has been done by Bethany Heart and Echo Seigo, who together make up EB Creations. While they may be relatively new to this scale of building, I think they've done a fine job, and look forward to seeing what they do next. One note of concern, though - despite the interactive nature of the build, there isn't much sign of a continuing engagement with visitors, for example, I didn't see any indication of a schedule of events. With the avowed aim of the Newseum “to provide a forum where the media and the public can gain a better understanding of each other", I would expect more in the way of discussions, debates and other activities.

Anyway - here's my piccies of the build:

Scoping Out Princeton East

2008-08-03T16:16:00.004Z

I have written several times about Princeton's sites in Second Life as it continues to expand its presence and, more interestingly, continues to commission work from some of the most thoughtful builders and artists in the virtual world. Last night, I popped along (again) to the Princeton cluster of sims after noticing an unusual-looking construction on Princeton East on the Second Life map. From the aerial view it seems to resemble a rocket in flight, or perhaps a ship travelling at speed, and leaving a wake behind it:

The sim turns out to be another fascinating build from Scope Cleaver, though as you will see from my photos, it is not quite complete. The only mention I've found on the web so far about this construction was on arcspace.com, which commented almost a year ago: "Princeton East, a void sim is currently open space, but a folly/ tower/ observation point designed by Scope Cleaver is planned for future development." Now, nearly 12 months later, this folly / tower / observation point/ whatever-the-heck-it-is is approaching completion. Indeed, Persis Trilling, the custodian and curator of the Princeton sims, has indicated that it will open officially in just a couple of weeks - and reading between the lines, I understand we can expect a few surprises when it does open.

Until then, I will leave you with this taster. In most of these piccies I opted for a moody, mysterious "foggy" setting:

Archidemo and Nippaku100

2008-07-31T22:55:00.006Z

Last Sunday I got an email from Hidenori Watanave, Associate Professor of Tokyo Metropolitan University, letting me know that he and a student team from the University have developed a 3D image database in Second Life dedicated to Oscar Niemeyer and his work. The database is an "official art project" as part of the centenary of the first exchange between Japan and Brazil. Niemeyer, who reached his own personal centenary last year, is best known as the inspired architect behind muich of the construction of Brasilia.

According to the Archidemo blog, the current construction is just a first build, with much more to come. Nevertheless, I recommend you pop along to the Nippaku100 sim and have a look. Click on the cubes as they float past, and click on the pictures too - to bring up weblinks. It's a clever and imaginative piece of work - as hopefully my pictures below will show:

If you want more on Archidemo, take a look at my post from January this year.

Back on the Blue Pills

2008-07-31T21:12:00.006Z

I first wrote about Belgian virtual world build company bluepill GROUP last October. Now, following one of those odd pieces of synchronicity, I am writing about them and their sim again. Synchronicity? Well... I re-discovered this sim some 4 or 5 days ago, while looking for somewhere to write about. I had a brief look around, but to be honest, couldn't see that I could do a quick post on something I found a tad baffling. So I consigned it to my "Maybe Later" pile, in the almost certain knowledge that I would never get around to it. And there it would have remained if it wasn't for an IM from one Paco Zagato, who suggested: "you might be interested to check out an Intercultural Learning Space. Curious to hear your opinion." Said space being on the Bluepill sim. Incidentall, a quick search told me that Paco is the owner (or co-owner) of 4 bluepill GROUP groups in Second Life, and would thus qualify, perhaps, for the title: "Mr bluepill."

So what's this Intercultural Learning Space all about then? To explain I will need to copy and paste liberally from the many informative notecards available at the site. The SIETAR Intercultural Learning Space is brought to you by the bluepill GROUP in collaboration with DIVERSOPHY.COM for SIETAR - The Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research.

The most immediate feature of the Space - apart from the fact that it sits inside a giant, transparent sphere on which are displayed the faces of young people from around the globe - is the set of 19 quizzes., that are there to help you "explore different cultures and learn how you can deal with the challenges of living and working with people different from yourself in ever more diverse and multicultural places." I took the British test, and while I am pleased that (at the time of writing) I lead the table, I am also a little disappointed at scraping only 80%, given this should be my specialty! I could not get the American one to ask me anything - but I have captured a couple of snaps of the tests anyway. The Space is actually intended to tie in with the SIETAR Global Congress 2008, to be held in the rather wonderful setting of Granada in Spain from 22nd - 25th October. As well as being interesting and entertaining, participation in the quiz qualifies you to win a pass to the Congress, or other (as yet unspecified) prizes.

In the St Gery Contemporary Art Museum on the sim you will find a related photographic exhibition, The Face of Tomorrow, by Istanbul based photographer Mike Mike.

Asking the question "What does a New Yorker, a Londoner, a Parisian look like?" he has photographed 100 people at random, and generated a set of composite images for a range of cities. As the photographer put it, as a result of the merging process: "You end up with a new person. Someone who didn't exist before. Someone who doesn't exist now. But someone who is nonetheless quite real."

And now for my take on the site. Well, as I intimated in my opening paragraph, I initially found the Space rather busy and confusing. While the giant, transparent globe looks striking in the publicity shots, I found it made the background too fussy for my tastes. I'm not usually one for minimalism, but with so much happening in the foreground I think a quieter background would have been good. The quizzes are fun and - for all I know - illuminating, though the English is a little quirky at times; I don't normally refer to people from the USA as "Usians" for example. As well as the quiz area, you will find a wealth of information about SIETAR and a small auditorium. The Face of Tomorrow expo is fascinating.

Here's my photoset - I have covered most of the sim, in fact!

Incidentally, I am also reminded that the bluepill GROUP logo is curiously similar to my blood pressure tablets.

BMW are leaving Second Life

2008-07-29T20:30:00.005Z

I was unfortunately unable to make the inworld announcement today by Munich Express, the Second Life avatar of Achim Muellers, the Head of Brand Relations for BMW. However, he kindly IM'ed me the gist of the announcement:

BMW have decided they will be leaving Second Life in the near future.

This may not be a great surprise, but I have to say I am disappointed. I hope to find out more from Munich/Achim when I can, and will bring you more when I find out more.

On a personal note, I hope this does not mean the permanent disappearance of Herr Express from Second Life, as I have had many enjoyable debates and discussions with him in the past, and would welcome further such debates in the future.

UPDATE 31-07-2008:
I thought you might be interested to see some previous articles I posted on BMW. Perhaps the most illuminating is a chat with Munich/Achim from over a year ago. While This, this and this give you a bit more historical background.

Versailles Architecture

2008-07-24T21:34:00.004Z

When I saw the name on the Second Life map, I would have sworn I'd been to this sim in the past. I know I've pottered around at least a fraction of a virtual Palace of Versailles. But on a whim - or may be that should be a hunch - I decided to take a look in any case. After all - it might have evolved since the rough and ready version I visited (but did not write about) last year. What I found was... well... a surprise.

I am not sure I can bring this sim to you in all its strange glory - but hopefully I can give you enough of a flavour that you will seek it out for yourself. First things first, though... the sim, Versailles Architecture, belongs to the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles, or énsa-v. The website informs us that: "the énsa-v is one of twenty public schools that provides higher education in architecture. The pedagogical aim of the Architecture School of Versailles is to favor an intense experience in the architectural project while developing the questions of architecture in the fields of building, city and regional planning. The school prepares the students in methods of diverse professional exercises...Situated in the heart of Versailles, opposite the Palace, it is very close to the capital and its high cultural circles, but also close to the peripheral urban fabric, just between urbanization and the rural world." It has a little over 1000 students.

Second Life - with its strong emphasis on user generated content and object creation, free of many of the restrictions imposed by real world physics and materials - is a great place for budding (and practising) architects to explore their craft. They can unleash their creativity in ways which are currently not possible in the atomic world. I would cite, for example, Keystone Bouchard's wonderful experiments in 'Reflexive Architecture', which I discussed last year, or the Archidemo work by Hidenori Watanave, Associate professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University. Now énsa-v have discovered, and are exploiting, the creative environment offered by Second Life.

So what about the sim itself? As with many of these "architects at play" sites, it is very difficult to know where to begin, or indeed make any sense of what one has seen. At ground level the land is roughly divided into 9 parcels in a 3x3 grid. And all bar one of these parcels is... ummm... how do I put this? "Very busy". One parcel, for example, consists of a large "URL farm" - though at first sight you would be hard pushed to recognise it as such. Others parcels provide you with all manner of experiments using particles and scripted prims, including a Museum of sorts. The central parcel contains just a large shiny sphere. Touch this sphere and it will set you on a path that explores the rest of the build, which is constructed high above the ground. Again, links abound, and you will find student areas, dance areas, more information zones and links to other universities and colleges. And don't forget to take the rocket ride at the end of the exploration.

Actually, a large part of this sim is given over to information sharing - with various ideas being explored to bring new ways of accessing data and giving students links to web-based resources. In this respect, it differs from some of the other architecture builds, which are more focused on just exploring the medium.

I have no idea whether this description does the site any justice. I think it doesn't, since simply listing the features does not really impart the ambience of the place. But I also think you should go along and decide for yourself. Personally, I love its quirkiness, flair and imagination - though it is hard to translate all of that into a few short, stumbling paragraphs. Perhaps these photos make the case more strongly:

Innovatie Eiland

2008-07-11T21:46:00.003Z

Even my tenuous grasp of other European languages is good enough to spot Dutch when I see it, and that is indeed the case with tonight's sim: Innovatie Eiland. Furthermore, I will push the boat out with a bold attempt at translation. I could be wrong, but I'm plumping for Innovation Island. It seems like an age since I last posted a piece about Dutch sims. In early 2007 it seemed hard to move without stumbling on a new Dutch build, but latterly I cannot claim to have seen many. I do realise that this sim itself may go back a long way - it's just that I have only just stumbled on it. However, I have some reason to believe it is not that old - as you will see - but if I am wrong, then this sends a worrying message about the state of non-residential, RL business use of Second Life.

It's a bit difficult to figure this place out - so bear with me. As far as I can tell, it belongs to Syntens, though the website is about as much use as a chocolate teapot to a non-Dutch speaker. Fortunately another site has all the info I need - and it's in English. Here are the salient points: "Syntens focuses on helping medium and small sized enterprises to innovate quicker, better and sooner, by being a full partner to the management and R&D directors... Syntens is a not-for-profit organisation, which operates in and with companies that want to innovate. Syntens’ advice stretches to the first crucial phases of innovation: finding the challenge and the best path for its solution."

It seems quite natural that a company with strong innovation credentials should gravitate to an innovative innovation environment like Second Life. *Phew* That's a lot the 'i' word!

Their presence in Second Life has been constructed by DNBmedia (cool website by the way), a digital media and virtual worlds build and consulting company, like Syntens based in Amsterdam.

As for the island itself, it is a clever construction, built in 2 layers. The lower layer seems to be a rural scene in present day Holland, with a farmstead set amid fields, with old churches, traditional towns and a modern wind farm on the horizon. Clever use of shadowed textures and photo-quality road tesxtures give a wonderful sense of being there. All of this is enclosed in a megaprim hemisphere, who inner surface provides the sky view, and serves to block out some the "machinery" of the sim.

The second layer is a couple of hundred metres above sea level, and comprises the same rural scene, but this time at some unspecified time in the future - presumably after all this innovation stuff has been done. The farm, roadways and canals are pimped in a sci-fiwards direction.

Use the teleport in the barn (also acting as a seminar room) to teleport between the 2.

But where's the innovation? hmmm... not sure. One thing I failed to point out is the group of open-sided spheres, floating over this pastoral landscape. The are labelled with various business areas, such as Logistics or Health. But only a few of them have any contents - hence my earlier observation about the state of RL business in SL. If this sim has been here for a long time, then it is remarkably underutilised - a worrying sign. On the other hand, if relatively new, then it is providing room for growth. Maybe someone will tell me which is true!

In any event, the spheres that are occupied seem only to carry links to traditional websites. While this is fine, it is hardly at the cutting edge of innovation. Nevertheless, the build itself is rather good, and the split "now/future" concept is very neat indeed. Here's my snaps, which I hope give you a fair view of the place:

WIKTI

2008-07-10T22:09:00.004Z

I found tonight's diversion while exploring the Southern Marches of Second Life, where you will find an archipelago of French islands. It is the sim belonging to the WIKTI Project - short for the Water International Knowledge Transfer Initiative. The sim and its associated web page seem to be at an odd point in their development. At first sight, they look complete - but on closer inspection both seem to be a little way off being ready.

So what is this WIKTI thing then? Well it appears to be a project or initiative of SUEZ, whose website informs me: "SUEZ, an international industrial and services Group, designs sustainable and innovative solutions for the management of public utilities as a partner of public authorities, businesses and individuals. The Group aims to answer essential needs in electricity, natural gas, energy services, water and waste management."

In the Commercial section of the website, we are told: "WIKTI, the Water International Knowledge Transfer Initiative, was developed by SUEZ Environment to standardise and implement knowledge transfer. This method, which is ISO 9001 certified, relies on the establishment of a matrix-based organisation: vertical operational tasks are cross-referenced against horizontal functional tasks, defined according to the WIKTI maps for the 36 task processes. For each process, a Business Area Expert is given the task of identifying the level of expertise and instigating the transfer with the help of a ‘business kit’ consisting of appropriate learning tools."

As part of the KT process they are building the WIKTI University sim in Second Life. This has a fairly basic structure, resembling a quincunx. The corners are occupied by the Orientation, Learning, Conference and Information Centres. The centre of the island is labelled "Discover Wikti" and has a large number of graphics panels, depicting various aspects of water management. I assume these will eventually hook into pages on a web site, but at the moment they are mute. The build appears to be the work of French virtual world construction company Stonfield Inworld (go here for the more complete French site), who have already done work for Credit Agricole. Completion cannot be far off for this sim and its associated website - but I don't think it's quite there yet.

Here's a few snaps for you - they should give you the idea:

It's not an Earth-shattering build, but that should not prevent it from doing what it is setting out to achieve - namely vLearning; providing an always-on resource centre, teaching facility and meeting space.

What's in a Job Title?

2008-07-10T12:54:00.002Z

I have recently been pondering the question: "What's in a job title?"

I've been prompted into this line of pondering by the role of Chris Collins. I am not referring to the well-known virtual worlds educationalist, whose avatar name reminds me of Nip/Tuck. I am actually thinking of the one who works for Linden Lab.

If you do some choice Googling you will most likely encounter Chris being described as "the Technical Assistant to the CEO at Linden Lab". While this may conjure up images of a geek whose role in life is to switch on the CEO's PC and make sure he knows when Outlook has a message for him, I suspect the role may be larger than that. For example, most techie button-pushers are unlikely to be interviewed by Tech Crunch. The article, dating from November last year, gives us more insight: "recently he took up the Technical Assistant to the CEO role, an interesting position in that it’s essentially an executive in training position. Collins shadows Linden Lab CEO Phillip Rosedale at all meetings and functions, and is also directly responsible for Lindex Exchange, the Linden Dollar to US Dollar currency service for Second Life. At the end of the position (6-9mths) he will then take up an executive role with Linden Lab."

In more recent articles (such as this from Reuters) it is clear that he has now taken up that executive role, as Director of Enterprise Business Systems. To residents of Second Life who have no interest whatsoever in the enterprise use of the environment, this job title might sound as vacuous as Homer Simpson's classic 'Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence'. However, for me, given that the thrust of this blog - and indeed much of what I do in Second Life - is directed to the business use of virtual worlds, this job role resonates strongly.

I would therefore be very interested to know what the heck this role entails. I can see that there is a recurring piece of blurb that appears in recent articles: "For more information about the Second Life Grid visit www.secondlifegrid.net/, or contact Chris Collins, Director of Enterprise Business Systems at business@lindenlab.com." But frankly, that tells me sweet F.A.

Is this job title as meaningless and confusing as his earlier "Technical Assistant" role? Or does it mean that Linden Lab are really going to provide some proper focus on enterprises wanting to use the environment. While some residents whinge and moan about the arrival of enterprises, there is no reason to believe that this needs to be to their detriment. Indeed, the size and strength of enterprises should be better at applying pressure to obtain the necessary improvements in grid performance, stability and capacity.

Right now I am not getting a strong sense of "Enterprise Business Systems" forming part of the Second Life ecosystem. I would therefore be interested to know how the new CEO (with or without someone to switch on his PC) and the Director of Enterprise Business Systems are going to address the shortcomings of their company's engagement with the business world.

Sigma Aldrich

2008-07-09T21:20:00.005Z

Occasionally I like to see what new islands are appearing at the very edges of the great Second Life grid. These far-flung islands will, soon enough, be gobbled up as the region starts to fill - but for now they lie out in the deep blue ocean as vanguards of the advancing grid. Today I happened upon a small group of 4 such sims belonging to Sigma Aldrich, and thought I would take the opportunity to give them a post.

Sigma Aldrich is a global company, headquartered in the US, who specialise in research chemistry and the supply of "fine chemicals", together with the manufacturer of products for use by research chemists. Their website has some engagingly whimsical pages, such as the Scientific Origamists Gallery and their Design A Lab Coat competition - while the more seriously minded might want to wander into the Stable Isotopes Centre (just one of many product pages) to checkout what's available in the world of NMR solvents (I have no idea what they might be, I hasten to add).

The four Second Life sims are glued to form a single land mass. Two of the sims are at a reasonably advanced state of construction, while the other two are at a very early stage in the build process. In part, the rapid build may be due to the employment of various Clever Zebra prefabs, all the work of Lordfly Digeridoo. However, since a lot of additional items, such as lampposts and fountains, are also the work of Lordfly, it is possible that he is providing rather more hands-on assistance to the build. I am tempted to touch on his recent departure from CZ, but instead I will point you in the direction of Prokofy for the full story. It is an interesting tale*.

As regards the Sigma Aldrich sims, there is little to say, to be honest. The "corporate buildings" look suitably corporate, and the overall build seems to be progressing well. But it is really too early to tell what the site will eventually offer. In the meantime, a few pictures, methinks:

* Thinks: Dunno why I'm driving footfall to Prok's blog, as Prok seems to think I'm a total d*ckhead. Oh well.

Does Lively Look Lively?

2008-07-09T12:49:00.002Z

Yesterday Google joined the virtual world party with the launch of Lively. There have been dark mutterings and rumours for a long time that Google would shortly turn their gaze on this part of the Future Web and hose it down with a mega-product of their own. Well this prediction remains in force, since Lively does not - at least on first acquaintance - fit the bill.

I have to say that my stance is somewhat jaundiced owing to the number of issues I have had trying to get the damned thing running on my PC. It still doesn't work properly, despite several re-installs, careful checking of my security settings and even an unnecessary re-install of Adobe Flash. Did I mention it is Flash-based? It is.

To access Lively you will need to run a client-side installer and create yourself a Google account (if you don't have one already). Once you have done this you are ready to visit the virtual rooms. In Lively, the "world" is reduced to a number of 'rooms' - tiny handkerchief-sized pieces of virtual real estate. Some are pre-built, but you can create your own. In creating a room you can select from one of a variety of templates. I rather like the classic "tropical island".

I've explored a few rooms as best I could - and noted that it does integrate smoothly with, say, YouTube - allowing the owner to stream videos into the room. There is a small but growing catalog of avatars, clothing, furniture and fixtures for users to grab and employ. It is also very easy to embed links to your room(s) in web pages, including (I understand) MySpace and other social sites.

And that is basically where my experience with Lively runs out. When I run the software I should see a toolbar on the screen that would allow me to select and configure an avatar, add friends, view my inventory and so forth. Or at least, that is what I have read. On my machine there's no toolbar - so no avatar, no inventory, nothing. I also lack the "chat" feature. Instead I simply see the display "Joining room..." My Lively is not so lively, then. I've checked the related discussion forum and can confirm that I am not alone in experiencing this - but also, at the time of writing, as far as I can tell, no-one from Google has actually posted any replies to the many, many queries that are building up there.

So my views are somewhat soured by these frustrations. That said, Lively is far from being Google's virtual world "killer app" and I am mystified why the computerworld blog thinks this inflexible, buggy, room-based world represents a great leap forward for teleworking. Perhaps, as Chris Carella puts it on Twitter, Google's involvement provides validation (or even, benediction) of virtual worlds, and therefore stuff we've been discussing for years now becomes mainstream "news". But this is not really a virtual world in the style of, say, Second Life, Entropia or Active Worlds. Rather it is positioned to be used alongside existing social networking to add... well... what exactly? An increased sense of connectedness maybe? You tell me.

To sum up, Lively may prove popular because (a) it is coming out of Google and (b) it can be embedded in just about any web page to "extend" the page's reach and capability. But it isn't the virtual world we still suspect lurks somewhere behind Google's closed doors.

Asahi Broadcasting Corporation

2008-07-08T20:08:00.004Z

This blog is largely given over to looking at non-residential builds in Second Life - they could be corporate, education, not-for-profit or whatever. But how do I find them? Well, in truth, I find as the number of islands grows, the more time-consuming and tedious the job of finding suitable sims becomes. Now, even regular readers may be forgiven for forgetting one of the tricks of the Ambling Rambler's trade: if you see initials on the Map, then check out the sim. So many organisations use acronyms and initialisms that it is worth investigating if you see them. And so it proved with today's site. In fact, it is a cluster of 4 sims - but the one that caught my eye was the enticingly entitled: ABC.

The list of possibilites was extensive, even after noting the neighbouring sim is called TV. In fact, the 4 sims belong to Asahi Broadcasting Corporation. This was easily ascertained, since it is plastered on the underside of the blimp that circles the TV sim. Originally founded as a radio station in Osaka, Japan, in 1951, ABC now broadcasts both radio and TV to around 20 million people. And that about taps out my knowledge of the company.

The 2 principal sims (ABC and TV) are rather splendid - at least to someone who likes both rich immersive textures and well-made Japanese sims. To be fair, not a great deal happens on the sims, given the amount of real estate available. ABC features a nicely made office block (though there is limited access to the interior) and a set of teleports to locations around the block where you can acquire a variety of free branded vehicles. Though the ads have the number "100" emblazoned on them, I did not seem to be charged for the pleasure. I can recommed the wheeled vehicle, but I found the aeroplane a nightmare! Most striking about this sim though, is the near photo quality of the textures.

The TV sim is rather more exotic. A large ... what?... (hmmm... words... what words to describe it?...) blue, fluroescent sci-fi ziggurat dominates the sim. Within this, somewhere, is a splendidly realised theatre. You reach this via a nifty teleport, which bears a small amount of explanation. To use it - simply walk on to the square plate of the device. You will be instantly boxed in by blue walls. Now use Right-Click and select "Sit" to operate the teleport. All this is explained in Japanese, with pictures, but there's no harm in explaining it. Also around the sim are 3 blue "studios" - I won't explain these, mainly because I can't - plus it might spoil your own discovery. Finally there's a sandbox and freebie station, where you can acquire a cartoony avatar. At least, I think that's what it is - I've not unpacked it yet.

The other 2 sims are still basically empty, so I won't bother describing them yet. Using my yardstick that the more pictures I take, the more I like a place, I can safely assert that I like this place (14 pictures). Oh, I'm not saying it's cutting edge - or that it engages with the virtual world community - or that it does a great job for ABC. But I really like the build. Kind of reminds me of Electric Sheep builds of yore. Oh, and if you can tell me about the builders responsible, then I'd like to hear that. In the meantime why not have a look?

The Triptych at Princeton North

2008-07-07T20:12:00.003Z

I have a largely visual treat for you today, courtesy of Poid Mahovlich, who has produced yet another interesting piece of work on one of the growing cluster of Princeton sims. I've talked about Poid's stuff on these sims before, but I think this takes things to a new level.

Poid commenced work on Triptych around 6 months ago, and launched it at the end of June (or thereabouts). As the name would suggest, this is an immersive installation in 3 parts, accessed through a common portal. The parts are labelled 1) Gossip Death of an Avatar, 2) Binary and 3) elit-sim. At first I had a problem picking up the thread connecting them, and to be totally honest I'm not sure that there is one. But more of this anon. Let's consider each of the parts first. If you've not yet visited the sim, do be aware that it is not a mirthtastic, laugh-a-minute, rollicking roller-coaster of rumbustious fun. I do suggest you follow the advice to set your daylight settings to "midnight".

Gossip is dedicated to a friend of Poid's who was hounded out of Second Life by gossip, lies and insinuation, and whose live (both atomic and digital) was made a misery. A steady drizzle of gossip (the word actually pours down and through you) forms the backdrop to a couple of remarkable constructions. One resembles an orrery, and seems quite benign; the other is a disconcerting circle of whispers, some consuming you with incandescent fire, and all the while you are poked and probbed (and even impaled) by rods emanating from the centre of the circle.

Elit-sim is a commentary on elitism. As the accompanying notecard puts it: "Elitism - The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. There is NO room for elitism in art in any world." Both this and Gossip I suppose represent aspects of the dark side of existence, and in particular the oddly enhanced and speeded up existence to be found in virtual worlds like Second Life.

This not-so-neatly segues us into Binary, the final part of the Triptych. This is inspired by Snow Crash, which is often referenced as a key influence on the development of Second Life, and particularly "Chapter 8 - Black Sun Passport - Stepping Through the Stargate." A black room ripples and dances with noughts and ones. Aside from acting as a metaphor (and nod in the direction of The Matrix) that everything you see in virtual worlds is digital, I am not clear what this is about. But Poid does say that (if pushed at any rate) this does provide a common thread linking the other parts.

It's a great build. Sombre, certainly, but also full of texture and detail. It should be on anyone's "must see" list - though perhaps not on Day 1 of their new Second Life. Give it a few days, eh?

It is also worth mentioning 2 other people: Talia Tokugawa, who provided additional scripting for the build and Persis Trilling, responsible for Princeton's Second Life and more importantly, curator and mentor to the group of artists who have produced such fascinating works on these sims. Here's my pictures - which I hope whet your appetite:

Rezzable Introduces a Pay-to-Use Service

2008-07-03T20:09:00.005Z

Gosh, this is the longest I've gone without posting to this blog - and on this occasion, you don't even get any pictures. Instead you get a long rambling prose piece - so good luck getting through it. Here we go....

Thanks to my chum Xantherus Halberd for letting me know via Twitter of this interesting blog post, concerning those inscrutable souls at Rezzable. Who? Oh come on... where have you been for the last year? Rezzable is a UK-based virtual world design and build company, who have brought us - or perhaps "have curated" would be more accurate - some of the most interesting sims on the Second Life grid. Their best-known sim remains Greenies, with its brilliant concept of a truly immense room infested by aliens. In fact, the company owns a large number of imaginative sims, many of which I have featured in this blog.

Anyway, it seems that they have grown tired of providing us ramblers, tourists and other freeloaders with free access to another of their great sims: Black Swan. Henceforth, visitors will need to stump up nearly 200L$ (about 40p or 80 cents) to acquire a HUD that will grant them entry. Anyone refusing to buy and wear the HUD will be ejected forthwith.

So why are they doing this? Their blog offers the following explanation:

"We are still exploring the right revenue model for virtual world content. We have merchandise that contributes some revenues. However,we have seen the interest in corporate sponsors (like L'Oreal Paris) evaporate. We think the best way to go forward is to charge for an object that can then be used many times for admissions. We realize that this may limit the number of visitors to the sim, but hope that high-quality areas are considered worth paying a little to see, explore and hang-out with friends."

(Thinks: But doesn't Kzero usually reference L'Oreal Paris as a success?)

When Rezzable first appeared there was a lot of conjecture about their business plan. There were making a significant investment in virtual real estate - and undertaking a lot of high quality (read: expensive) construction. Yet they didn't seem to be promoting or selling anything. My thought at the time - and I still think it valid now - is that they were looking to make A Big Splash and establish themselves, almost overnight, as a viable alternative to the established Big Boys of Second Life like, say, Electric Sheep and Millions of Us. But the L'Oreal Paris campaign aside (and that was never intended as a long term commitment, or so I understood), they have not exactly grabbed the corporate world by the lapels, spun it upside-down, and shaken the change from its collective pockets.

I am curious to know why not. At one time, say around 6 to 9 months ago, it looked like they might be getting into some commercial building work. But latterly Rezzable has resembled more of a "vanity project" than anything else. A harsh view perhaps, given that there are people whose livelihoods depend on it. But it seems Rezzable has not capitalised on that first eruption into Second Life, and has instead continued to spawn many interesting and arty sims that do nothing apart from (hopefully) putting the word "Rezzable" in people's minds.

So what about this new "money-maker"? If the sole reason for doing this was to try and get some money back to cover the outlay then I'd be inclined to question the sanity of the decision. But then, I'm a rambler and general freeloader, so I am bound to think that. There are so many amazing sims in SL that I'd sooner not pay for Rezzable ones, thanks, when I can enter the others Free Of Charge. I can get the gist of their exclusive, deluxe sims from Flickr and other bloggers, so I am struggling to see why I might then want to part with hard currency just to walk around them. This is not like RL, where I might spend half a day or more, wandering around a museum, gallery or historic site. In SL I am looking to be there for perhaps 15 minutes... and probably less.

But I don't think this is the sole reason why the HUD has been rolled out. I wonder if it is also a way of introducing a new pay-to-use solution that other SL entrepreneurs can buy off the virtual shelf. It's not a marketplace I've looked at, so I don't know if there is already a welter of such tools out there. But while the Rezzable HUD is currently set to be pay-to-use, based on a one-off payment, it would not take much further development to convert it to a one-off pay-per-use device instead. And there are many opportunities for such pay-per-use services.

Forgive my grubby mind, but for example a concept like this could work admirably for the... ahem... "Adult" market - a sizeable market in Second Life, let's face it. You can figure out how that might work, I'm sure. Similarly, you could use it as the basis for any ticketed event in Second Life - where the HUD = the ticket. Then you might have something...

But no doubt I've got it all wrong, and it's something totally different again. Let's see, eh?

Mitsubishi Corporation

2008-06-17T19:19:00.005Z

How odd? When I visited this sim last night, it was part of a cluster that was surrounded by ocean. Skipping back today, to pick up a landmark and check a couple of things, I find it has moved - and is now nestled up in one large conglomerate of sims built by Japanese builders, MeltingDots. I'm guessing this is a temporary measure while they reposition on the grid - or something - since otherwise they are making one large, indigestible land mass, mashing together the islands of their various clients. I hope, by the time you read this, that these Mitsubishi Corporation sims will be back in splendid isolation.

As their website informs us: "Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is Japan's largest general trading company (sogo shosha) with over 200 bases of operations in approximately 80 countries worldwide. Together with its over 500 group companies, MC employs a multinational workforce of approximately 54,000 people. " Its origins are in shipping, when the first Mitsubishi company was founded in 1873. It added coal-mining some 8 years later, using the coal to power its ships. From there it further diversified into logistics, shipbuilding, finance, and vehicle manufacture. In fact, it seemed to have interests in just about every commercial marketplace. Continued diversification led to the founding of the Mitsubishi Corporation in 1950.

As a large and successful corporation, it is good to see it taking "corporate citizenship" seriously. One of its main contributions is support for the Global Coral Reef Conservation Project, with research bases in Seychelles, Okinawa and Midway. It is this Project that forms the foundation for a 6-sim presence in Second Life. Most of these are 'low prim' ocean sims, but a couple of them provide the substance of the build - a couple of tropical islands and a coral reef.

Newcomers should start on the MitsubishiCorporation sim, which has a nicely executed orientation zone, constructed as a series of interconnected huts, built on stilts out over the sea bed. After completing this you are led, via a park area, to a faintly Polynesian beach house, where you can discover some facts about coral. Emerging from the beach house you then arrive at the beach itself. Here you can help yourself to free scuba diving gear before heading out into the sea. Just offshore will reach the coral reef, replete with clown fish and other piscine inhabitants.

Beyond the reef you come to the second island, which also features a beach house, where you will find links and a gallery of information about the Conservation Project. While the 2 islands seem to be largely complete, the remainder of the site is still somewhat bare. I assume the intention is to extend the coral reef into the empty sims, as it is still quite small at the moment.

This is an attractive and diverting site - though I hope it will grow in coming months, as it is a little spartan at the moment.

It also shows off another possible meme in Second Life - the use of the virtual world to promote your 'corporate citizenship' credentials. I mentioned another such site a few weeks ago, and I'm sure there are others that I have simply missed or mis-filed.

Anyway, more of that another day - time for some piccies, I think:

Airship Caravan

2008-06-16T22:07:00.003Z

I know... I've not been posting much of late. I have a couple of things on the back burner, but I rather fancied telling you about this sim: Airship Caravan. It's been around a while, I gather, and is one of a mini-continent of sims built by Japanese virtual world build company, Metabirds. If you've not toured them before, you will find many of the sims here will reward the curious traveller, but this one has to be my favourite (so far).

It is actually a rental sim, intended for virtual commercial lettings - and at ground level has relatively little going on. A damn big bell seemed to be about it. The fun starts, as you have no doubt already realised, high in the air - on the airship caravan of the title. This is an assemblage of old, rusty, steampunk-y airships, tethered together with walkways. Most of the airships are available for rent - or maybe it's just the space they occupy - provided you follow the sim's zoning rules. I found the best way to view the place was with a "foggy" setting in Windlight. I think it gives a nice, brooding atmosphere to the place. I love the textures here - that's really why I opted to feature the sim. Beyond that, I don't have anything else to say - other than I hope you enjoy my snaps:

Message in a Bottle

2008-06-12T20:52:00.006Z

On logging into Second Life I received this from Dizzy Banjo, one of the virtual world's virtuoso musicians, and in the spirit of sharing I am passing it along for your attention:

SECOND LIFE IS 5 YEARS OLD !

As part of the SL5B celebrations, Dizzy Banjo and Lillie Yifu are creating "A Message to Second Life". We have created a giant bottle, which we want to fill with all your messages to Second Life. What would you like to say to the entire SL community on its 5th birthday ?

What does Second Life mean to you ?
How has your Second Life affected you ?
What hopes do you have for the future of Second Life ?

You can submit your message in two forms :
- An uploaded audio recording of you speaking your message ( PREFERRED OPTION ! ! )
- A text based message in a notecard

Once we have received your messages they will all go into the bottle and spill out intermittently as part of a fun interactive sound and music installation celebrating the Second Life spirit !

At the end of the 2 weeks of birthday events the bottle will be sealed and cast off into the SL ocean, perhaps it will be found again at SL10B ...

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR MESSAGE:

Audio Messages :
Watch this easy video tutorial which will explain how you can record your voice and upload your message and give it to us.

Text Messages :
1. Please write your message within 140 characters in a notecard.
2. Make the notecard FULL PERMISSIONS by right clicking on it in your inventory and checking the "copy" and "modify" boxes
3. Goto SEARCH (open the 'all' tab) and type in DIZZY BANJO and click my resident profile ( the top link )
4. Drag the notecard onto my profile.

Note : All messages need to adhere to the Second Life Terms of Service, and be PG in nature.

DEADLINE !!

ALL RECORDINGS AND MESSAGES MUST BE RECEIVED BY :

WEDNESDAY 18th OF JUNE 2008

Thanks for your interest and we look forward to hearing your submissions soon and putting them into the bottle !

/End of Message

Michelin and Enterprise Architecture

2008-06-06T12:17:00.004Z

My 'About Me' tells you that I am "a virtual, electronic traveller on behalf of my real, atomic self." Unlike those who, for a variety of reasons, maintain a clear separation between their electronic and atomic selves, I have been happy for the two to overlap. I don't go to great lengths to conceal my atomic identity and regular readers may therefore be aware that, in the atomic world, I work for a large global IT consulting and services company. Furthermore, I work within the Enterprise Architecture group of that company - a role I largely enjoy and that requires much beard-stroking and drawing of boxes. [ I would strongly refute the assertion that architecture is merely "testiculating" - that is: waving the hands about while talking boll*cks ]

Anyway...I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah...

Today I had the opportunity to read a new report from Forrester Research entitled "Case Study: Michelin Uses Second Life For Enterprise Architecture Training." You can now hopefully see the relevance of my preamble and understand why this would pique my interest. I don't intend to go into the report in great detail - but I hope Forrester will not mind me lifting the following quotes, which give a brief summary:

Michelin’s EA group has launched a private two-island Second Life region designed for training IT pros on architecture concepts. Michelin doesn’t intend to replace — rather, to augment — its traditional classroom training on EA concepts.
Starting in April 2008, the EA group at Michelin began training IT professionals in Second Life. As of this writing, about 30 IT pros had completed the training, with 170 more expected to finish during the next couple of months.
Michelin hired French virtual world development company Community Chest to build the Second Life region. It took about two months to build and cost €50,000 to €60,000.

Although only recently launched, the early feedback has been very positive. Reading (and badly translating) the builders' blog, it would seem that attendees enjoyed the "gameplay" style of the training - and the use of such an unusual training environment made the sessions held in Second Life particularly memorable. And that can't be a Bad Thing in the context of training!

I don't have any more information about the site - but I would love to look around (*hint* *hint*) as the Forrester report contains some tantalising glimpses.

Rambling in ExitReality

2008-06-04T13:29:00.006Z

After my recent post about the name of this new virtual world, I thought I should go for a longer ramble in ExitReality to check it out. It is currently inviting people to join its beta test programme, and so I signed up last week. However, after some initial frustrations I did not return to it until today.

My initial frustrations have been around getting the software to work reliably. I found that on IE7 it was not well behaved. The display was incomplete, performance seemed poor, the HUD ceased to function after I opened a website and I never got a sight of my avatar. On the other hand, the software was much better on Firefox 2: everything displayed (as far as I know), performance seemed OK, the HUD worked and I could toggle my avatar on or off. Nevertheless, the software was flakier than I had expected, and it crashed FF2 on several occasions.

Having had limited success, I went back to it again today, to have another go. This time I went to... well... this blog, Slambling, to see what I would get, since we are encouraged to travel freely on the internet using the virtual world interface. This was very slow, but eventually it presented me with a large hall, containing images and links gleaned from the website. Here's a couple of snaps...

While it was novel seeing Slambling set out like this, I am not sure it really helped much. Apart from the images and links I found it hard to make much sense of what I was seeing, or the layout I was seeing it in --- which seemed to be a mirror-image of the actual site.

I then checked out some of the pre-built places in ExitReality. These look like tests to illustrate what can be built - and quite good fun they are too:

I was unable to access the Online Help - though I don't know if that's because I cocked up my password, or because (as I suspect) I don't actually have access rights to the help server. Therefore, there's a lot I don't understand about the environment. Such as:

What are these things I can pick up?
What is a skybox? (I'm assuming it's like a private sandbox - is that right??)
How do I add places to my favourites?
How do I find friends inworld?

The avatar movements are a little awkward. Use the arrow keys - or the right mouse button - to move your avatar. You can tilt the view using the scroll wheel. No flying, no zoom in/out and no animations in your avatar, aside from a lolloping run. You select your avatar from a list of pre-built, pre-dressed characters.

I like the idea of ExitReality (thought not the name) and I think it is full of ideas - though I have no idea what many of these might be since I cannot access the User Guide in Online Help! However, it strikes me that it is too flakey to be out for beta testing. It really needs a good spell of alpha testing behind closed doors. Still... we are where we are, and it is open for public beta. Their blog makes for a reasonable read - though I am struggling to square my own experience with that described.

Anyhow, don't take my word... if you're intrigued, give it a go and let me know what you think.

DnB NOR

2008-06-02T21:22:00.004Z

As we move into June and start hurtling towards the Summer solstice, it seems appropriate (OK, it feels like stretching a point) that my rambles should take me Northwards, to the Land of The Midnight Sun. Well, to one of them, at any rate. Tonight we are off to a Norwegian sim, belonging to the banking and finance group, DnB NOR.

DnB NOR is Norway's largest financial services group, formed in December 2003 through the merger of the financial services groups DnB and Gjensidige NOR (Union Bank of Norway). It has more than 2.3 million retail and 198,000 corporate customers, and is behind Norway’s largest Internet banks, dnbnor.no and postbanken.no, which have more than 1.4 million users. It also has one of Norway's largest private art collections, with over 12,000 works of art dating back from the end of the 1800s up till today. A tiny fraction of this is available for viewing in Second Life. According to the notecard I picked up: "these are works which normally decorate the many DnB NOR offices and meeting rooms at home and abroad, and are a source of pleasure to both the Group’s staff and customers."

This is another sim where I appear to be about a year late (D'OH!). Mindblizzard, and many others, covered it at the time. Still, I am here now - so I shall plough on, undaunted.

The sim is terraformed as a number of small islands. From your arrival point you can elect to use a large teleport map to move around, or take the more leisurely option of waiting for one of the small ferry boats to stop and pick you up. I opted for the latter and sat back as we chugged between the islands. I disembarked at the presentation auditorium, with its ultra-polished floor that - as with all other such "shiny" surfaces - reflects the furnishings and surroundings, but never the people. Are we all vampires?**

A glass walkway takes you to the next island, which plays host to a large floating sphere. Here you will find formal meeting areas, links to the company website and, if you fancy it, a free coffee. The next island houses the art gallery, which I found a little confusing. It seemed to feature no more than a dozen fairy mundane art works - from an even smaller range of artists. Am I missing something? Outside the gallery there a casual meeting area, though not quite as casual as the camping ground, where you can sit around a campfire to warm up, after taking a quick windsurf among the islands. The final feature is the Nobel Peace Centre, reflecting the real life centre that exists in Oslo, where you can experience and learn about the various Peace Prize Laureates and their activities. AS you will gather, itis supported by DnB NOR, among others.

The implementation is by Norwegian agency, Design Container, using contractors for much of the build. And I have to say, I think they've done a pretty decent job to get so much in, and provide a pleasant sunny, Summer's ambiance to the place. I have no idea if the island is actually used though. I'm guessing not - because it has a number of minor glitches that would normally get sorted if there was much feedback. Simple things like overlapping textures that lead to a jittery, "migraine-y" look; too much repetition of the same texture, when it only needs sliding slightly between prims to make them look different and a more up-to-the-mark teleport system where you don't arrive rotated thru 90 degrees. Anyway, here's my slideshow. The fact that there are 9 pictures suggests I do like the place!

** BTW, I do know how it's done really. That's why the island on which the auditorium sits is also, by no coincidence, the highest land on the sim. ;-)

The Oracle of Culturegion

2008-05-31T21:43:00.003Z

if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, is it a duck?

That is the question posed at a new art installation, which opened yesterday on the German art sim: Culturegion. The installation, called 'Oracle', is the work of nonnatus korhonen / andrew burrell, an Australian "hybrid media artist". The accompanying notecard informs me: "He is no techno-utopian but nevertheless is excited to see a hastening collapse in the divide between techno speculation and reality. He understands the privilege of the artist to be the use of a subjective voice and here he is using this voice to investigate a certain interplay of art, philosophy, technology and the life-sciences." So there you have it. You can find out more about this and other art work on his website.

The Oracle of old would offer up inscrutably worded solutions to problems posed. And so it is with this Oracle. Create a notecard containing your question - no more than 20 words - and place it in the urn provided. Then let the Oracle work its magic. At the far end it will spit out the answer.

I suspect that I only got part of my answer, as I was too busy watching the process. But my question is taken from Firesign Theatre's "I think We're All Bozos On This Bus". In the World of the Future our anti-hero, Clem, gets to put a question to The President, now no longer flesh & blood, but an artificial intelligence. His aim appears to be to crash the AI and talk directly to Doctor Memory, effectively the operating system running The President. If you don't know it, track it down... if you do, then this will all be familiar to you! Anyway, the question he posed was:

Why does the Porridge Bird lay its egg in the air?

This was enough to break The President... and it looks like it did a fairly weird job on The Oracle too. This is the reply fragment I did recover:

Aleister Kronos: I say to you : have statistically future why lay its egg in dimensions future statistically included. statistically and body . . . . . . a
Aleister Kronos: I say to you : (which into the number Universe the cognitively

Hmmmm... I have no idea what is going behind the scenes on this, but it is a diverting build and nicely crafted. Why not give it a go? And take time out to explore the sim too. There's always something worth perusing here.

Sapland

2008-05-31T20:38:00.004Z

German ERP software giant, SAP, have had a low-key presence in the virtual world of Second Life for quite some time, thanks to the sterling efforts of Craig Cmehil (well I've only ever seen it written like that, so that's what it must be!). I spotted the island of Sapland a long time back, and had always assumed it was owned by SAP - being their next logical step in terms of growth in Second Life. When I last checked, many months ago, the island was not accessible to the average rambler, but at some time in the long intervening period it appears to have opened. I happened upon it by chance, when I was actually looking for somewhere else.

My initial surmise about the sim turns out to be wrong. The island actually belongs to Dutch IT consulting and systems integration company, Uphantis. However, I was not badly wrong, since Uphantis make much, if not most, of their income from SAP consultancy, development and integration work. According to their website "Uphantis provides services and products that smoothen the integration of business processes within medium-sized to large companies." The name is Greek for ‘weaver', with the implication that they "weave and integrate the various technologies that still exist next to each other within organisations, designing a completely new and innovative IT landscape that offers a new functionality and new possibilities for business success."

Evidently they are not without a sense of humour - as this YouTube vid reveals:

And so to the sim.

The sim is rather less zippy than their YouTube contribution, being a fairly run of the mill company sim. It has the inevitable lighthouse... I have to confess, even I have succumbed to this and built one on our corporate island. I don't know why... Anyway, back to Sapland. Aside from the lighthouse (oh, btw, light cones should really be phantom, you fellows), which appears as an afterthought in any case, the main feature of the island is an office building. There are plenty of links back to the company site. and along the two main walls you can find a list of their job vacancies, again with links to relevant pages on their website. I declined the freebie - I have enough company T-shirts already. At the far end of the building are 2 presentation or lecture theatres. At least one of these is set up to tell you all about SAP. Upstairs there's offices, and on the top floor, a boardroom. And that's basically it. It's a handy site if you are looking for a job, and I can see that the company could derive some benefit from holding the occasional meeting here. But although competently put together, it lacks warmth, humour or - in a nutshell - a sense of engagement. Judge for yourselves:

Are You Going to ExitReality?

2008-05-31T17:51:00.005Z

Naming a product must be hellishly difficult, mustn't it? So many factors to take into account. Consider, for example, those infamous automobiles where the name sounded fine in one language but meant things like "tiny male member" or "fecal matter" in others. I occasionally wonder whether Young Mr Rosedale and the Gang down at Linden Lab ever wake up sweating when they recall the naming of 'Second Life'. It must have seemed so simple and innocent at the time, little realising the millstone they were placing around their collective neck.

There must be scarcely any resident of Second Life who has not, at some time or another - and probably much more frequently than that - been confronted with the same sad litany of witticisms by non-believers, revolving around the name of the virtual world. The witticism usually hinges on the word "Second", contrasting it with "First" (or, for the less witty, "Real") Life. Thus, with depressing frequency, you encounter such rib-ticklers as: "You should get yourself a First Life" and "I'm too busy having a Real Life". Meanwhile Linden Lab, bless 'em, have staunchly refused to kowtow to this perpetual torrent of piss-taking, and have instead had the sheer brass neck to create a branding centre that actually celebrates this misbegotten name.

Now here's a little tale that may be enlightening. As a Brit, I am theoretically ruled by Queen Elizabeth II, of the royal House of Windsor. But the House has not always been so named. It started out as the distinctly Germanic House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. However, with the outbreak of World War 1, anything German (not surprisingly) became somewhat suspect. Even so it took until 1917 (for my American readers WW1 began in 1914, not 1917 - when the USA joined in) before the royals twigged that maybe their household name sounded a tad foreign. So in July 1917 George V officially declared that "all descendents in the male line of Queen Victoria, who are subjects of these realms, other than female descendents who marry or who have married, shall bear the name Windsor." And the British royals have been Windsors ever since. The Queen's hubby is Greek, but his Mum was Princess Alice of Battenberg. In order to sound neither Greek nor German, but perhaps exotically English, he adopted the name Mountbatten.

So the British royal family, in effect, rebranded themselves, and largely removed the stigma of their old names.

While I don't expect the agile, business-savvy brains at Linden Lab to follow this example, it is something they might wish to consider if they want to be the powerhouse for web 3D. OpenSim does not have this baggage to contend with, although those Tribal Net folks really ought to re-think their brand position too.

But actually, all of the above is just a rambling preamble to this:

Yesterday, after reading this post at Virtual Worlds News ("all the virtual worlds news that is fit to print"), I signed up for a new, browser-based virtual world service called ExitReality. I ask you! 'Exit Reality'!!

I'm sorry... but to me this makes Linden's selection of 'Second Life' seem like a work of marketing genius. Perhaps it's just me... but the first impression that crossed my mind was 'assisted suicide'. I recall a lot of fuss some years ago about a pressure group called Exit, and while researching this post I encountered the Final Exit website. Even without this connotation, why would I wish to be 'exiting reality'? And why would I be using a website to do so, rather than chemicals??

What are the people behind ExitReality trying to tell me about their product? Apparently they are trying to tell me it "is an exciting new social media platform that aims to improve your online experience with an enhanced 3D, multi-user, immersive messaging environment. Photo albums that become virtual galleries where you can walk through, admire and even comment on the photos that decorate the wall. Video clips that transform into 3D flat-screen TVs that you can enjoy watching with friends... hey, even fight over the remote. Immersive Messaging where you are able to see and interact with all your friends while chatting with them at millions of locations online." And it "works with leading global social media sites Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut and Bebo and is launching soon." Sounds great - but sorry chaps, your product name sucks - and as with Second Life before it, if it has any success it will be mercilessly teased.

I like the idea though! Oh.. and when I tried it, it seemed happiest on Firefox 2.

PS: Linden Lab might want to consider adding their new CEO on this page.

C1

2008-05-30T22:33:00.003Z

I don't know how this one passed me by. Perhaps because it is Italian, and I'm slow to pick up on Italian builds. Or perhaps it just was not well advertised - at least outside of Italy. In much the same way as I recently featured a Japanese sim advertising a Spanish product, tonight I have an Italian sim advertising a French product. The sim in question is 'C1' and the product being advertised is a car: the Citroen C1. But not just any C1, this is the C1 Deejay, a specially pimped and prettified version perhaps only produced for the Italian market. You can see a 'hilarious' ad for it here. I profess a degree of bafflement about the semiotics of the ad, as I can't see why a middle-aged bloke should suddenly become the embodiment of the vehicle - with far-from-sidesplitting results. Maybe you have to be Italian.

From information on the website, it seems the sim has been here for around a year, and has played host to a few events. However, the traffic stats are very low (61), so I am not too sure what to make of that. The centrepiece of the island is a giant C1 Deejay. which occupies most of the sim and seems to be largely constructed from megaprims and photo-textures.

The front looks a bit rough... as if it's driven into something - maybe that lighthouse, for example. Not surprisingly, inside the C1 is a well-equipped dance floor:

The vehicle itself straddles 2 tropical islands that spell out 'C1'. I was reminded, when I saw it, of Metaversatility's 'Club Scion' in there.com. However, aside from the enormous size of the vehicles, the 2 builds seem to have little else in common.

The 2 islands on the sim have relatively little to attract the attention. Some seating and a couple of beach houses, and that's about it. I can't say I was particularly thrilled... but I suppose, on reflection, it is the biggest car I've seen in Second Life, so that must count for something.

Virtual Jobs Fair for Luxembourg

2008-05-28T09:43:00.003Z

Interested in working in Luxembourg? A high standard of living, a pleasant climate and conveniently located in the heart of (old!) Europe? It sounds appealing, you have to admit. If you agree, then you'd better get your curriculum vitae up to snuff and your virtual suit pressed and ready, because tomorrow sees the latest virtual jobs fair for Luxembourg to be held in Second Life.

I actually mentioned this a couple of months ago, when looking at the Grand Ducale sim and its siblings. This morning, though, my Google mail decided to suggest I visit the Working Worlds website - scarily efficient those Google ads - so I went along and found the following:

Join us for the first virtual Job Fair for the Benelux and meet recruiters from prestigious companies. Start your new career in the Netherlands, Belgium or Luxembourg on Secondlife!

On May 29 the first virtual Job fair for the Benelux will take place on the Working-Worlds Islands.

You will be able, without moving from your seat, to have a first chat with potential employers, some of which are major actors on the Benelux job market. These companies are actively seeking international executives and qualified professionals. So have a go and let them convince YOU!

So there you go... jobs not only in Luxembourg, but the entire Benelux area. Good Luck!

A Lot of Tips for Second Life Learning

2008-05-28T08:42:00.002Z

What is it about lists? There's a particular type of person who just loves lists - and it's a type that defies most existing classifications, cutting across most stereotypes. From geeks to go-getting executives, nerdy hobbyists to presidential candidates, the Lure of The List is irresistible. The blogosphere seems particularly prone to this, with posts with names like: '5 thingies that do something or another' ; 'My top 10 rants about any old stuff' or '10 tips for self-regarding bloggers and navel-gazers'. Occasionally, however, you do find a list that actually carries some useful information.

I recently received an email about one such list, and after giving it a quick once-over, I thought I'd bring it to your attention. I admit that the title of the list is somewhat inauspicious. In place of the classic '5' or '10' we get a whole '50'! But if you are already delivering education and training in Second Life, or are planning on doing so, then I would suggest you take a squint at:

'50 Tips and Tricks to Create a Learning Space in Second Life'

The post provides a handy one-stop-shop, bringing together links to a wide range of educational websites, blogs, examples, ideas, articles, resources and tools. If this is an area in which you are involved, or simply interested, then you might find some useful stuff here.

Princeton WWS - Ephemeral

2008-05-27T16:04:00.003Z

The second of today's Princeton posts relates to the Princeton WWS sim. While I assume that the 'WWS' of the title relates to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the sim at present houses another art installation. This one is entitled 'Ephemeral', which may be an indicator that the installation is temporary, pending the construction of a virtual WWS.

It has been constructed by Poid Mahovlich, and as far as I can tell it has seen little use since it was employed as the venue for an exclusive film showing back in February. The film, Passage to Zhong Fu, is a piece of machinima directed, produced and edited by Verdi Millionsofus as part of the 48 Hour Film Project. It stars Poid Mahovlich and duckyfresh Wantanabe, both of whom also contributed to the making of the props and landscape. Music is by the prolific Dizzy Banjo.

It seems that the ephemeral 'Ephemeral' is still here - and is best experienced in midnight mode. It seems to consist of a number of odd, enigmatic scenes... an old British telephone box surrounded by phone books, a smoking crater, a beaver lodge next to a magical sword, an otherworldly celtic burial chamber, and a diving point from which you dive into a piranha-infested pool (and those boys bite!). That's a far from complete list, but hopefully gives you a flavour of the place. I can't actually see where one might actually screen a movie - but perhaps you can find a hidden (haunted?) cinema somwhere! As usual I have a bunch of snaps for you to peruse. I know these ones are rather dark - but that's what happens when there's no lights on:

Princeton West - The Quiet

2008-05-27T15:21:00.002Z

Princeton has shown itself on a number of occasions to be at the cutting edge of artistic work in the virtual world of Second Life, and its latest installations serve to cement that reputation still further. Many of you may already be familiar with this first one, since it has already garnered plenty of column inches in blogs and elsewhere. It is the latest work by A.M.Radio, the creator of the fabulous Wheatfield - or more accurately, The Far Away.

For the new piece, The Quiet, he has had access to an entire sim, yet the construction itself is deceptively simple. A small wooden shack - little more than a tiny vestibule and a bedroom - sits alone, in a bleak winter landscape. Outside there's a frozen pond, with a number of Radio's trademark(?) fiddles embedded in the surface. Next to it is a small rowing boat filled with kindling, nestled in which is a picture frame displaying an enigmatic and oddly eclectic mix of items. The shack itself is impeccably done. Complex textures abound. Is that an old, washed out photograph, blown up and replayed as a wall texture? And what's with those handbells? Try clicking the bell on the bedside table. Or take a seat and be bathed in soft, honeyed light streaming through the old window. And what's that strange piece of electrical jiggery-pokery on the floor? And how come, when you touch it, you receive a link to a photomap of the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois?

Yep... A.M.Radio loves to be enigmatic, and this is no exception! Here's my snaps - but as with all his builds, this is best experienced first hand.

Feyenoord

2008-05-26T20:27:00.009Z

I think this one has been around for quite some time, so apologies if this is all Old News to you. In fact, my chum VeeJay mentioned it back in November last year on his Mindblizzard blog. At that time the site was not open, so he could only go on information released by the build company. Since then I've tried a couple of times to get in, without joy. Today, however, while randomly scanning the map, I happened upon the sim again - and found it open. It has been open, as far as I know, since at least February - judging by this post from Nic, at Kzero.

And the sim? It belongs to Dutch football club, Feyenoord.

The club, based in Rotterdam, was founded 100 years ago, although it went through a couple of changes of name before settling on Feyenoord in 1912, taking its name from the city district where it was founded. It also settled on its final team colours, of red and white shirts and black shorts. Despite being one of the 'big boys' of Dutch football - along with Ajax and PSV - it has just finished a disappointing 6th in the league, though this was offset by winning the Dutch Cup. It is due to start work on a new 100,000-seater stadium, but this will not be ready until 2016. Until then, fans will have to make do with their 50,000-seater.

Rivals Ajax opened a sim last year, as I reported at the time. Although according to VeeJay, that site was apparently created by supporters, not the club. The Feyenoord sim, on the other hand, is official. It has been built by the Dutch virtual world branding, business development and construction company, SLionhead, who have also created a launch page at the club's website, from where fans can create new Second Life accounts.

The sim itself falls into 4 component parts. First is the arrival hub, at the end of a walkway projecting out into the sea. From here you can walk up to the first building: the club shop (clearly they have a view of their priorities!). In the shop you can acquire a club strip, club scarfs and even club animations (though I am not sure of the relevance of a rock'n'roll guitar hero animation here). What is slightly surprising is that all of these items appear to require parting with the princely sum of 1 Linden Dollar. This is as close to 'free' as it is possible to get, without actually being free. So why not give away the items? I mention this because of the use of the registration API on the club website, and implication that newbies will quickly arrive here. And those newbies are going to arrive penniless, more often than not. So does it really make sense to charge them for club "freebies"? I can't see the point.

After the shop we arrive at the main building. It has a bar and dancefloor downstairs, and meeting rooms and an extensive history of the club upstairs. I don't know if this building exists in RL, but I found it terribly dour. Oh... I admire their use of textures, and the depth of field achieved - but the place is very grey and moody, bordering on the gloomy.

The last component is a slice of stadium, with a goal and a larger-than-lifesize photo of the team. Advertising hoardings separate the various tiers of the stadium, offering punters the opportunity to have their name (or their company's) emblazoned here. Beyond that, I am not clear about the point of the goal. Is it there to allow you to practice penalties? Or have a knockabout with your mates? There didn't seem to be anything to tell you. The same applied to the team photo. Was the idea so that you, too, could be part of the team photo? That'd be a nice idea - but it is simply not set up to make that option viable.

So all in all, a slightly odd site. The actual build is solid, with some great textures. But overall, I felt it just missed. As ever, I have a few snaps for you to ponder:

Everything is a Tribute to Mozart

2008-05-26T17:14:00.003Z

If you fancy a bit of relaxation after the rigours of a day doing... umm... whatever it is you do in Second Life, then you might like to pop along to the latest piece by virtual sculptor,Eshi Otawara and musician, Dizzy Banjo, entitled "Everything is a Tribute to Mozart". You can find it on the Tivona sim. Eshi and Dizzy have collaborated before on mixed media installations in Second Life, and seem to thrive on each other's ideas.

The sculpture is built around Mozart's 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik'. Notes glow underwater, in a circular pool, before surging into the sky, while Dizzy's ambient electronica matches the refinement and stateliness of the sculpture.

If you've not done so yet, make the time and take the trip. I don't think you are likely to regret it.

Preferred Family Healthcare

2008-05-26T16:19:00.003Z

If you are a frequent visitor (perhaps you prefer "resident") to the virtual world of Second Life, you are probably aware that it plays host to some large island groups - large enough to form their own mini-continents. One such group is the cluster of library, education and not-for-profit sims that I usually (and inaccurately) think of as the Info Island Cluster. I have watched this grow over the last couple of years from a small core of sims, to a large, rambling continent that, while often badly laggy, has much of interest. As it has expanded it has also spawned its own archipelago of islands, many of which may end up absorbed into the land mass as it grows. This post is about one of these islands: Preferred Family HC.

This island belongs to Preferred Family Healthcare. Established in 1979, it is a provider of mental health and substance use disorder prevention and treatment, throughout Missouri and San Antonio, Texas. The island's notecard informs me:

PFH has established a presence in Second Life to explore the value of early intervention oriented activity in substance use disorders (SUDs) and other addictions.

Substance Use Disorder (also known by many other names including alcoholism, drug addiction and substance abuse) is a primary, chronic, progressive and fatal illness. Although it catches hold rapidly in some cases, it can often take years, even decades to develop to the point where traditional interventions come into play. By the time most individuals with this problem actually seek or are directed to helpful resources, they have often developed significant additional problems that need immediate attention and often interfere with recovery.

Medical complications (e.g. liver damage, malnourishment, obesity, diabetes, or the results of accidental injuries) are often present, as are problems with work, family relationships, finances, and the legal system. The road to recovery gets longer the longer you wait to make a change.

But societal stigma often acts as a strong deterrent to seeking help. Because of the way our cultures have come to look at SUD, there is often a great deal of shame and guilt associated with this condition, even in the early stages. The very act of seeking help can open one up to the negative opinions of others.

At PFH, we hope that the relative anonymity of Second Life might open the door to many who would not wish to entertain the notion they could have a problem, to give these individuals, and their families and friends, information leading to self-assessment, to offer some simple "do it yourself" type solutions to try without formal intervention, and to direct those who need it to more intensive forms of assistance.

The notecard alse seems to suggest that PFH actually started out with smaller presence in Second Life, on one of the Commonwealth Island sims, part of the Info Island Cluster.

The principal feature of this island is the office and meeting building - a reasonably attractive modern structure, that provides a number of meeting rooms of varying sizes, and virtual office space for officers of the organisation. While this seems largely complete, I couldn't help but notice that there is a desk suspended in mid-air around the back of the building. Elsewhere, there's a small house by the seaside, and a couple of boats. It looks like these may become dance zones in due course. While I wish them success with the venture, I don't know whether people will really wish to use it in the way they suggest. But then, I recall talking to someone about university Rhetoric courses being run in Second Life, where the relative anonymity and detachment offered by the environment actually increased student involvement in the course. So maybe it will be used. For now, it looks like it is nearing completion, rather than ready for business - a view borne out by the traffic stats, which are very low at the moment.

Anyway, here's my snaps:

Weltbild

2008-05-23T22:24:00.006Z

I had an odd time, scouring sims tonight. I alighted on a number that looked vaguely promising, but proved to be in development or were otherwise of limited fascination. The one I finally settled on is, at least, complete:

The weltbild sim belongs to German online media retailer, weltbild.de. While there are many such companies, the one factoid that seems unique to weltbild is, according to wikipedia, "it is owned by the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church of Germany." Further, it claims to be Germany's largest media and mail-order company, with a market share of 10%. However, it is far from sentimental. Its aggressive pricing is causing consternation among small publishers and booksellers, who are finding it hard to compete with this behemoth. Nor does it let its Catholic ownership overly influence its product selection, being happy to sell 'The DaVinci Code' as well as books on sex, drugs and - as seems evident - rock'n'roll.

The sim is pleasant enough and does the job, though it may not cause hearts to flutter, or stirrings in the trouser department. Built by Bokowsky + Laymann, the sim probably does exactly what was asked of it. The main feature is a large, crystalline building, partially encircling a small plaza. The building is divided into 3 main sections, devoted to film (DVD), music and books, respectively - the main planks of the company's business. You can watch movie trailers, listen to music, or read book extracts. A selection of popular titles are shown - with links to the relevant page of the website if you'd like to purchase. Aside from that the sim has an auditorium, an ornamental pond (for no clear reason - but it's quite nice) and some beach-type stuff. Oh... and there's a giant game of Tetris.

It's not unique or compelling as a sim - but as I said above, it delivers what it was asked to deliver. While I am somewhat skeptical about the prospects for atomic companies promoting their wares in Second Life, I do, for example, recognise the value of the Long Tail and see that virtual worlds may be a good way to leverage it. As for the style of this sim, it may not be arty or clever, but I can see this straightforward approach selling product in web3D. [ Gawd, sounds like I've spent too long watching Sir Alan Sugar on The Apprentice. ]

Oh... I would point out that I rather like the main building. It is unusual, well-constructed and eye-catching - to my eye at least. Here's a few snaps to ponder:

IslamOnline dot Net

2008-05-19T20:16:00.004Z

Have you ever wondered what happens on The Hajj, when Mecca becomes a mecca for muslims from around the world? I've seen plenty of pictures of the crowds going round and round that huge black cube, the Kaaba, but otherwise I've little idea about the rest of it. In fact, to be honest, I'm not entirely clear why they go walkabout around the Kaaba - although I do recollect it has a chunk of meteorite built into it. Well if you can no longer suppress your curiosity - or if you'd like to find out more - then help is now at hand in the form of the 'IslamOnline dot Net' sim.

The sim, along with its sibling 'IslamOnline dot Net2' have been constructed on behalf of (drumroll, please...) IslamOnline.net, in order to promote a greater understanding of Islam, its culture and history. The wider mission of IslamOnline.net is "To create a unique, global Islamic web portal that provides services to Muslims and non-Muslims in several languages. To become a reference for everything that deals with Islam, its sciences, civilization and nation. To have credibility in content, distinction in design, and a sharp and balanced vision of humanity and current events."

The main "virtual Hajj" sim provides you with plenty of information - in the form of notecards - about the rites, routes and traditions, in a range of languages. While it compresses the whole route into a single sim, which inevitably means there are compromises, on the plus side, you are not likely to get trampled in the crowds, given the finite limits on the number of visitors to a sim. The overall build quality looks a little rough around the edges by today's standards, and I can't tell whether the sim is actually supposed to be finished. Everything appears to be there, but I think it needs more polishing. My doubt is also heightened by the fact that the second sim is definitely still under construction.

This sim houses an auditorium, a large building whose purpose I haven't fathomed (looks like offices and meeting areas from the outside) and - no doubt controversially - the Palestine Holocaust Memorial Museum. The purpose of this is described as "to prevent the crime of silence. By telling the stories of the victimized Palestinian children, we are saying 'no to any form of Holocaust." At the moment this is under construction and is awaiting further development, however you see it towards the end of the pictureset below, including the full text explaining the background to the museum.

Gartner's Latest View on Virtual Worlds

2008-05-19T18:38:00.003Z

Last week Steve Prentice of Gartner came up with his latest view of businesses in Virtual Worlds. Steve, you are probably aware, is the chap behind some rip-snorting headlines. Last year, for Gartner Emerging Trends Symposium/ITxpo 2007, Steve came out with the view that "by the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a 'second life', but not necessarily in Second Life." That one caused much debate, and not a little ridicule.

For Gartner Emerging Trends Symposium/ITxpo 2008, held last week in Barcelona, Steve's headline-grabbing headline was: "90 Per Cent of Corporate Virtual World Projects Fail Within 18 Months." Quite where this statistic come from, I really don't know. However, I can't say I have an issue with it. In fact, if you go on to read the rest of the announcement, you might conclude (as I did) that the outlook is far from bleak for virtual worlds. There is a fair amount of what I would describe as 'TBO' - The Bleedin' Obvious. A case in point is the sub-heading for the piece: "Success requires clear objectives, focus on users and realistic expectations." However, no matter how self-evident this is, Gartner rightly point out that too many have failed to follow it.

The piece then goes on to list a number of ways in which Virtual Worlds can deliver dividends for businesses. I cannot see that any of these would come as a surprise to a Virtual Worlder, but for those with no experience - or have given no thought to the subject - then these might prove interesting:

Rich real-time collaboration environment, far better than web-based tools
The cost to experiment is miniscule - a small outlay, with maybe big gains
Reduce the cost of travel by hosting virtual meetings
Know who your market is, and address their needs
Immersive scenario-based learning - particularly for hazardous occupations
Persistent virtual workplaces

It concludes with the advice to organisations "to experiment with virtual world projects on a small, internal scale initially and pace their development to enhance the chances of success and minimise costs." I am quite pleased with this concluding observation, since this is the approach we defined for ourselves 9 months ago.

So there you have it. Read the headline - and it's all Doom & Gloom. However, delve into the article and you will find this is a very positive piece about the corporate / organisational use of environments like Second Life.

Oh... they also slipped in another prediction, that by 2012 an estimated 70% of organisations will be running private virtual worlds, the 3D intranet. So you might now want to get hold of OpenSim, Multiverse, Wonderland, Qwaq or whatever else floats your boat.

WnG Island

2008-05-18T22:55:00.004Z

Here's another sim that is probably not going to set the pulse racing, but in the manner of philatelists, train spotters and lepidopterists everywhere, I am nevertheless adding it to my collection.

It belongs to Swiss "web and new media agency", WnG. Based in Lausanne, the company has now branched into the virtual world, viewing it as a natural extension of their website. Visitors can get up-to-date company news and register for a newsletter, as well as obtaining links to their portfolio of customer websites. While it is still early days, the company also wants to offer its customers the opportunity to have their virtual presence, built and hosted on the WnG island. You can find a more detailed description of their proposal, in French, here.

At the moment, there is only WnG's building on the island. It is hard to get much of an impression of the place, since there is so little to get much of an impression of. The building is fine, with displays linking to both their own and their clients' web pages - but it so far fails to excite. It is perhaps too early to talk in terms of community and interactivity - but if they expect the island to function solely as an extension of their website, then I think they are misinterpreting the value and use of virtual worlds. That said, I assume the build is home-grown and the capital outlay is small, so right now it is a case of "nothing ventured, nothing gained". I took a few pictures - but as you can see, there's not much to show right now:

Spanish Horror Hits Japan: REC

2008-05-18T00:07:00.004Z

"While covering the night shift at a small-town fire department, an ambitious young television reporter (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman follow the crew on a call to rescue an elderly woman(Matt Frew) trapped in her apartment. Upon their arrival at the scene, the calm midnight air is pierced by the sound of horrific screams, and the television report takes an unexpectedly dark turn." That is the basic premise of the Spanish horror flick, 'REC' - if you want something a bit more visual here's a YouTube flick. The movie has a Blair Witch-y handicam look.

The REC sim, recommended to me by my chum (and ace photographer) Lem, is actually a Japanese construction, presumably built to help promote the film's release in Japan. At one point in your wanderings thru the sim, you will pick up a link to the Japanese promotional website. I don't know how the film has fared - or indeed if it has been released. If I am interpreting the website correctly, it looks like it may not actually open in RL cinemas in Japan until the 14th of June.

As for the sim itself, you never really get to see it. Instead, on arrival you will find yourself in a dimly lit, blood-stained room. Help yourself to the movie camera, wear it (it is a HUD) and follow the arrows. This will place you inside the lobby of the apartment block - also dimly lit and dripping with unpleasantnesses. From here, find your way around. The HUD gives you a scene-by-scene view of your progress (unless you opt for mouselook mode), as you explore the stairwell and various rooms, clicking on the sparkly points of light. I suspect there was more to the sim than the areas I saw - but I was impressed with both the look&feel, and the clever use of the hud. Being easily suggestible, I would have been happier operating my avatar by remote control, with me hiding behind the sofa. I took a few snaps to - of course - to give you a flavour:

The sim is well worth a visit, to sample the ambiance - though whether anything truly horrific happens I don't know. As a wuss with a dodgy ticker, it was enough to give me The Willies though.

Secondference in Gijon, Spain

2008-05-16T09:40:00.005Z

My Spanish colleagues, Claudio and Gemma, maintain a blog - Virtual World Works - largely aimed at highlighting their work in Virtual Worlds on behalf of our parent company. They also kindly link to the posts I make here at Slambling - so you run a distinct risk of falling into an infinite loop if you follow the links.

Checking out their blog, I see that they are attending /secondference, the first meeting of Second Life’s users and professionals in Spain, which is being held tomorrow, 19th May. I mention this, because I've not seen anything about this elsewhere, and thought you might like to know about it. If you are a cheapskate like me, then one of the more appealing aspects of this conference is the price tag - it's free! What is more, you can save those carbon miles and attend it from the comfort of your PC (Mac or other weapon of choice), as it is being held in both the atomic and virtual towns of Gijón.

According the '/secondference' website: "It is the first meeting of Second Life's users and professionals in Spain, which also includes the participation of Linden Lab. Companies and users will speak about Second Life as a business, educational and entertaining platform. Everett Linden, director of community initiatives and social networks from Linden Lab, will travel to Spain and participate in the event, which will be attended by major industry and user groups. /Secondference will be broadcast in Second Life, and (only by reservation), you will be able to participate in the event in real or virtual Gijon. The event is free, but registration is required."

Date ----: Saturday May 17th in the afternoon (sorry - I don't know what time!)
Venue --: Hotel Asturias, Gijón or Second Gijon in Second Life

Leaving it late, maybe: but you can register here.

3 Italia

2008-05-15T22:31:00.004Z

Telecoms companies are well represented in Second Life. Perhaps this is inevitable, since they all like to portray their brand as associated with a combination of fun, technology and innovation - something that it is reinforced by having a presence in Second Life. One I'd not noticed before, though I daresay it's been here for ages, is the Italian division of mobile internet company, 3.

3 (or more properly: Hutchison 3G, at least in the UK) is a global brand, owned by Hutchison Whampoa, and describes itself as "the mobile media company". The name 3G comes from third generation wireless services, a high-speed cellular phone network that supports streamed video and other forms "rich content" internet media. As of December 2007, 3 Italia was the large supplier of 3G internet services in Italy, with around 8 million registered customers. It also operates HSDPA wireless broadband and Digital Mobile TV services. Hutchison Whampoa is based in Hong Kong, and has interests in a wide range of industries. I'm not clear whether they have, or simply plan to divest themselves of their holdings in 3 Italia.

As for the sim itself, it is modeled as a semi-tropical island, shaped like a number '3'. While there are numerous links to websites, and hefty promotion of the Nokia N95, I found the place to be rather lacklustre. There is only one building on the island, comprising a number of blue glass plates, loosely "stitched" together. Elsewhere you will find a bar, dance area and pool. Tucked away in the South of the island is a sort of amphitheatre. I have provided a few snaps so you can judge for yourself, but I felt the sim lacked coherence, purpose or, frankly, much of interest. If I had to make a call, I'd suggest that it was actually a "first fit" build - a rapid development to get a toehold, show to the company what is possible - it is easier to impress when there has been no other experience to compare it against - and form the foundation for a more considered build. I hope so, because its current content leaves a fair amount to be desired.

Union Fenosa

2008-05-11T21:19:00.002Z

Out and about tonight, I came across a 4-sim island called Union Fenosa (1 - 4). While it is not the most exciting find in the world, it does have one intriguing aspect - which I shall come onto anon. First though, let's find out a little about the owners...

Union Fenosa is a Spanish utilities company, headquartered in Madrid but now with a presence in 13 countries, supplying gas and electricity to some 8.7 million customers. It employs around 12,000 staff. They are currently executing their BIGGER Plan, targeting a net profit of 1.2billion Euros and a share price of 4 Euros by 2011 - in effect, doubling the current figures.

The Second Life island is not the normal corporate showcase. Indeed, on arrival it is hard to find any indication of the company or its business. In fact, you are most likely to pitch up in the Virtual Forest, which is the dominant motif here. Actually there are 3 forests - evergreen, deciduous and tropical. Rivers separate the forests, and at their confluence there is an island with a small wooden structure that houses the company office. A YouTube video provides the context - it seems that, in return for your participation in a short questionnaire about energy efficiency, the company donated a Euro towards offsetting climate change, and planted a tree in this virtual forest. The tree would have your name on it. And that nicely explains the fact that all of the trees, and there are many, have floating text identifying on whose behalf they have been created.

There's a decent machinima here, or you can make do with my piccies:

Gyeonggido

2008-05-10T15:00:00.003Z

By way of an update on the Korea International Boat Show, the Gyeonggido sims are now open. I've been for a look, and came back with the following photoset:

VWCE2008M

2008-05-09T23:19:00.007Z

OK, come on, 'fess up... what am I missing? I was minding my own business, out for a late night stroll among the islands of SL, and stumbled upon VWCE2008M. Now, if you know my modus operandi, you will see immediately why I went for a squint at this sim. If not, let me explain: one of the small and distinctly dodgy tools I use in deciding to check out a site is whether the name seems to consist of initials. If it does, it is likely to be non-residential and generally of relevance to this blog. So.....

I can tell you that the name is shorthand for VW 2008 Conference and Expo, that the sim is Japanese, and that IBM (Japan?) have a pavillion here (with a couple of freebies). At which point I hit a metaphorical (if not virtual) brick wall. Oh... apart from: there's a whole ruck of "VWCE08" groups in Second Life. A little light googling has not turned up what I expected to find, namely: a Virtual Worlds conference, hosted in Japan, with sponsorship by IBM and Sun, amongst others. Meanwhile, the sim itself is in a fairly early stage of development, which would suggest that the conference is a few months away - but it lacks any links to websites, or other obvious clues.

There's a couple of rudimentary stands so far - including one for "Lamity", which I understand to be a Japanese cellphone-based game world.

Here's a piccy or two... if you know more, then do tell:

Oh... and of course, I have to wonder why I was able to simply blunder in here in the first place.

UPDATE May 10th: See comments. My thanks to Ak Yip, who has nailed this one for me.

Korea International Boat Show

2008-05-08T22:04:00.006Z

A slightly odd one this... it relates to a sim I can see, but not get into. But my little story starts with an email from my Korean friends at Acid Crebiz (do a search in this blog if that name means nothing to you). It seems they've been busy, as they sent me a press announcement regarding the launch of the Korea International Boat Show, 2008 and the Korea Match Cup in Second Life.

I have to admit, it has taken me some effort to unpick the meaning, as the announcement had the look of a document that has been parsed by Babelfish. But this much I can tell you:

The Korea International Boat Show will be held in the atomic world in mid-June at Jeonggok Marina in Hwaseong City, Gyeonggi Province. It will be one of the largest marine festivals of its kind in Asia and will provide a focus for the rapidly emerging consumer base in Korea, as well as nearby China and Japan.
In April Gyeonggi Province opened a sim in Second Life - Gyeonggido - to promote the boat show and to help develop the local marine leisure industry.
Second Life residents can visit facilities such as a floating dock, as well as indoor and outdoor exhibition halls, an auditorium and an event zone featuring various boats and yachts that are at their disposal. They can then try their hand at yacht racing, remote controlled speedboat racing and scuba diving.
After the show and Cup are over, the island will become a themed resort allowing residents to experience marine leisure sports, such as yachting, scuba diving and so on - and promote the region.

Furthermore, there is an inaugural event in Second Life - and it starts tomorrow, 9th May. That is the reason for the post. The details are:

Event--: Virtual Regatta
Date---: Friday, May 9 at 11PM (SLT) to Thursday, May 15th at 1 AM (SLT).
Venue-: Gyeonggido sim
First place winner will receive L$10000; second and third place will receive L$5000 and L$3000 respectively, while 4th to 10th places will each receive L$1000.

A small note of caution: Despite the statement that the sims have been open to the public since April, I was unable to gain access today (May 8th). So I hope you have better luck. If for some reason you cannot get in, then you may have to make do with a look at the YouTube promo instead.

+++

UPDATE May 9th: According to the response I've had from Acid Crebiz, the sim should now be accessible. I'm not in a position to test it myself - but I would suggest you give it a go.

Further Update on May 9th: Hmmm... I still can't get in to the pair of sims.

Final(?) Update - May 10th: The sims are now open - go here or here for my photoset.

Ontario Public Service Careers

2008-05-08T21:40:00.003Z

Gosh, it's a very long time since I posted anything about the public sector in Second Life. And almost certainly the first time for the Canadian public sector. So without further ado, I give you Ontaria Public Service Careers, on the OPS Careers sim. OK, now while the Canadian public sector is (I think) a first for Slambling, it is most definitely NOT the first time I've looked at virtual recruitment. In fact, regulars are likely to be aware that I've covered many recruitment sims in the last year or so.

For reasons which in large measure escape me, virtual worlds are proving popular as potential recruiting grounds. I am not convinced, personally. Sure, the 'received wisdom' is that Second Life is great for recruitment - but that doesn't make it so. Despite having written optimistically in the past about using SL in this way, I now think differently. I was happy to go with the 'received wisdom' because it suited my hopes and aspirations to do so. However, I'm struggling to see how this is ever going to be anything more than a gimmick. By all means give it a go, and prove me wrong. I know my own company's efforts at inworld recruitment did actually lead to at least one person taking up a position. However, I do not believe that Second Life was pivotal to recruiting for that position. I would say that it can, however, provide a canvas for promoting your organisation and the roles that may be available.

But what about this site?

Broadly this seems to be the route being taken by Ontario Public Service (OPS). There is information relating to jobs in a number of areas, such as healthcare, science and business. Each area has its own building, with viewing rooms, some form of interactive activity and interview rooms. All the buildings also have kiosks with links to the OPS careers website. At the centre of the sim is an 'airport, which provides your arrival telehub. Basically, the site employs the device that you have just flown in and are now standing in the arrival hall, wondering where to go. Teleports will transfer you to your preferred location - or you can make your own way.

Nowee.org built the OPS website and according to information on their own website: "The Ontario Public Service(OPS) simulator in Second Life, built by our partner Architecture and Associates for the SL Agency provides the SL visitors with various activities meant to inform towards a panel of jobs offered by the OPS."

In terms of the build, I suppose I'm jaded after travelling for so long. The build quality is fine, but unexceptional. The tie-in with the website is good, and there are some nice touches, but it didn't have any 'wow factor' for me. One problem I did notice (at least at the time of writing) is that the general public seem to have 'object create' rights across the sim. As far as I could see, there were just a few plywood boxes lying around, but this could lead to bigger problems if not addressed.

Here's a few snaps for your perusal:

SEAT Auto Emoción

2008-05-05T20:06:00.008Z

I almost forgot about this one, but a piece of tumbleweed blowing through my otherwise vacant mind dislodged a memory that I had forgotten about. Around a week or so ago I got an email from Barrabas Zabaleta of virtual worlds builders, Mosi Mosi (who produced the entertainingly fun Prados Azules sim). The mail contained an offer of a pre-launch walkabout of a new sim. I had meant to take up the offer, got sidetracked and ended up forgetting about it... until today. Why today? Well today was when the sim actually opened, and this (or the tumbleweed) triggered my memory. I was a little surprised when I checked the map, though. The sim was empty. Had I got the dates muddled up? Had I missed it? Was I too early? The answers are (in order): 'No'; 'Dunno' and 'Dunno'.

But before further ponderings on this, it would be a good idea to tell you about SEAT. The company name is an acronym for Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo; in English, Spanish Saloon Car Company. Founded in 1950, it used to make re-badged Fiat cars for the Spanish domestic market. It has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen since 1990, producing a popular range of cars for both the domestic and international marketplace. As for the 'auto emoción' strapline, I can't find a really good reference for this, but I take it to mean that the SEAT design philosophy is to produce exciting vehicles that are enjoyable, even thrilling, to drive. Perhaps The Guardian had it right in 2006, when reviewing the Leon:

"SEAT is not the world's most popular brand, but it is trying. Its recent products have been supported by splashy advertising campaigns, pressing home the slogan "auto emocion", which, it would appear, is to be said where possible in a smoky, post-coital whisper. By this means the company hopes to persuade us that it is an A-grade manufacturer of pulse-quickening automobiles, rather than a low-maintenance corporate outcrop of the VW group and a budget car builder from Spain - Spain being about as famous for car production as Italy is for golfing holidays."

The car got a good review, by the way... but now let's move on to the sim.

The first thing that struck me was just how much Mosi Mosi have been able to fit into the sim, yet without it feeling cramped. I honestly had to check the Map a couple of times, to reassure myself that it was just the one sim! There's a lot to see and do, as you might expect. One nice idea is a series of computer screens showing some "html-on-a-prim" webpages you should explore. By way of an example, in the attached photoset, I've included Torley's YouTube page. If you are new to SL, there's a number of orientation displays and there's also a HUD you can pick up, giving you information on cool sites to visit in SL.

The cars are displayed in an elegant showroom, all sweeping curves and open space. Here you can pick up a range of freebies, ranging from drivers' helmets to scuba diving gear. While the latter seems bizarre - as if shoe-horned into the sim - there does seem to be some logic, since you are able to use your newly-gained equipment at the Beach Club. Here, you can also indulge in dancing and generally carousing. The biggest freebie is a car - but you have to win this by completing a series of challenges, at the end of which you receive your license and vehicle. Being totally rubbish at driving in SL, I did not give it a go. Finally there's a sandbox - which is nice to see.

Here's my photos (judging by the number, I think you can assume I liked the sim) :

How this sim will fare with those who are professional marketing folk, I do not know. However, I liked the sim. It had handy hints for newcomers, lots of freebies, a sandbox (not that common these days) and some interesting, interactive challenges. It is also well constructed, coherent and adheres well to SEAT's branding.

My only note of concern is about the promotion of the sim. I had expected some indications of a launch party, and perhaps a series of events to get the sim off to a good start. Promotion through SEAT's existing websites too - if it's there, I've not spotted it. So it appears to be something of a soft launch. If so, then all well and good. But for the company to extract more from the site, it will need a bigger, louder launch at some point - and a schedule of events and competitions might be an idea, too. To be honest, in promotional terms, I'm not sure how much good these actually do - but they're better than comatose sims.

Pioneer Pioneering in Second Life

2008-05-05T16:05:00.006Z

Japanese home electronics company, Pioneer, was the destination for today's promenade. I recall that VeeJay covered this site a while back, but I didn't get around to visiting it at the time, forgot about it, and only (re-)discovered it by accident, while browsing the map for somewhere interesting to go. Actually, I am not sure that this sim gets into the "interesting" category - as we shall see...

The Pioneer Corporation has been producing home entertainment products since 1938, and is perhaps best known for its speakers and hi-fi systems. In recent times it has embraced digital technologies, such as Blu Ray DVD and HD TVs. The island in Second Life is primarily aimed at promoting lines that are unique to the Japanese marketplace, such as the 'Kuro' home cinema system - or 'systems', as there are 4 such systems in the range. You will also find a stand for their Pure Malt speakers(!) - whose cabinets are made from 50-year old whiskey barrels. These have been sold in Japan for years, but have been available internationally for about a year now.

The principal feature is a roadway that twists and turns around the island, and that is intended to pull the site together and provide it with some sort of coherence. You can rez a car if you want to drive round the island (and/or race your mates) - but I don't feel the roadway helped much.

You arrive at a reception building, where you can take a short tour of the Pioneer museum - in effect, a less-than-thrilling tour through the history of the company. After this, you can make your way outside to avail yourself of the charms of the 'Pioneer Resort Island'. The largest building is the 2-floor, cylindrical tower promoting their audio-visual treats, in the form of the Kuro range and Pure Malt speakers, mentioned earlier. You can rez a tour balloon, but this is neither comprehensive in locations visited, nor informative in any language. If you choose to walk, there are some show-houses, where you can see the Kuro home cinema in situ. Apart from that. there's a couple of camping areas - one in the Blu Ray dance arena, and one on the beach itself. Freebies are available in the form of T-shirts and Kuro home cinema packs.

Here's a selection of pictures for you to peruse:

Is this site any good? To be diplomatic, I think it is rather 'disappointing'. It has limited content, the interactivity is dull and lifeless, and the whole place feels rather disjointed. It is very much like most company promotional sims - and like most such sims, is unlikely to show any return on the investment. Incidentally, I gather from the comments on the Mindblizzard post, that the site was not even promoted in Japan.

So to conclude: despite the title of this post, this is far from being a pioneering build.

Seoul Sungnyemun

2008-05-01T22:08:00.003Z

This evening, while furkling among the islands to the West of Caledon, I got an Instant Message from an old acquaintance with whom I'd not spoken for many, many months: Noneget Barnes, head of Korean build company, Acid Crebiz. We had a bit of a chat about the apparently parlous state of Second Life in Korea, and the fact that Cyworld are now demonstrating a 3D element for their hugely popular social network. He then offered me a teleport to Seoul 2, part of a cluster of 4 Seoul sims where the company appears to be building a virtual chunk of the city.

Sitting at the intersection of these 4 sims is a virtual replica of the Sungnyemun (or Namdaemun) - the historic city gate situated in the heart of Seoul. This is particularly poignant as the original gate, a construction of stone surmounted by a delicate and complex wooden structure, was severely damaged by fire on 10th February, this year. It has a history dating back to the 1300's, though it has been through a number of traumas and reconstructions in that time. It was made Korea's "National Treasure Number 1" in 1962, and it is a sad loss - or at least, setback - for Seoul and Korea. According to wikipedia: "A 69-year-old man identified as Chae Jong-gi was arrested on suspicion of arson and then later confessed to the crime. A police captain reported that Chae sprayed paint thinner on the floor of the structure and then set fire to it. Police say that Chae was upset about not being paid in full for land he had sold to developers. The same man had been charged with setting a fire at Changgyeong Palace in Seoul in 2006."

I admire the execution of the build - which you will find bears an uncanny resemblance to the real building (pre-inferno). And I particularly admire this as a response to the fire. It demonstrates more than amply, how powerful Second Life can be as a visualisation tool, and how strongly it can work on and with the emotions. This is a dignified and rather wonderful construction, that serves as a sort of virtual placemarker and reminder, while the real building is reconstructed.

Here's a few snaps to give you the flavour, but it is best experienced first hand:

My Alibaba

2008-04-30T19:34:00.004Z

Out and about after an interesting day, helping with a guided tour for about a dozen newcomers, I stumbled upon the intriguingly-entitled My Alibaba sim and its immediately adjacent neighbour, the rather more prosaically named HongKong Island sim. Not too sure what to expect, I opted to teleport and found myself at a Hong Kong racetrack - which I assume is Happy Valley. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Hmmm... so what has this to do with Alibaba???

I'm glad you asked. In truth, I'm not 100% sure of the answer - but here's my shot at it. My Alibaba is a reference to Alibaba.com. Launched in 1999 and listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2007, Alibaba.com, according to their website, "is the world's leading B2B e-commerce company. We provide an efficient, trusted platform connecting small and medium-size buyers and suppliers from around the world...Our international marketplace (www.alibaba.com) focuses on global importers and exporters and our China marketplace (www.alibaba.com.cn) focuses on suppliers and buyers trading domestically in China. Together our marketplaces form a community of more than 27 million registered users from over 200 countries and regions." Gulp!! And muggins here had never heard of 'em until I found these sims. Given their global B2B reach, it strikes me as a sensible use of Second Life to explore how they might use virtual worlds as another B2B channel - at least, until the Cyber Recreation District comes onstream later in 2008.

The pair of sims are both under development, with the HongKong Island sim rather more advanced than its next door neighbour. The former has a number of large, modern buildings, typical of the Hong Kong skyline. I think these include versions of the Bank of China Tower and the International Finance Centre. Perhaps the most striking feature of the sim, though, is the Tian Tan Buddha and associated temple complex. The modern buildings offer shopping, and there is a small orientation area. The My Alibaba sim seems to be mid-development, with a lot of familiar-looking plywood boxes dotting the site. The dominant feature is the race track (you can race motorbikes right now, but horses are still being sorted out), around the edge of which you will (eventually) find a number of businesses.

Of course, I may be entirely wrong about the background to these sims - in which case, feel free to pass on the real story. But while we wait - here's a few pictures to contemplate:

Vichy Healthy Skin

2008-04-28T22:10:00.004Z

Depending on your age, and doubtless a few other factors, the word 'Vichy' is likely to conjure up a mixed bag of mental images. For some, it may be Marshal Petain and the shame of WWII collaboration; for others, it is more likely to be the natural spring waters, bottled and sold at great expense to gullible (or is that, 'discerning'?) punters. Let's go with the latter image, the healthy, rejevenating effects of the Vichy waters - and take a short trip to Vichy Healthy Skin.

This, despite the name, is actually an Italian sim, though the products being promoted here are available worldwide. The products in question are the Vichy Aqualia Thermal range of lotions and potions, which I assume take the health-giving properties of the Vichy spa water and incorporate them into a variety of skin products. Yeah... well.

The sim has been constructed by Italian builders Hikari Design, in collaboration with Web Science. It has been here for many months - but this is the first time it had impinged on my awareness. As a sim, it has the many of the features one would expect, such as a bar area, a dancefloor and plenty of informal seating. Water and (I assume) volcanic rock are the dominant features of the sim. In terms of freebies, there's a t-shirt (durrr) but of arguably more interest there are free skins (or at least faces), available in a range of hues. Before you chaps start getting too excited, I'm afraid it's "Ladies Only" - unless you are looking for 'something for the weekend' for yourself. There is also a group you can join. I didn't --- but I'm guessing it will keep you informed of exciting new happenings in the world of Vichy-themed spa products.

I have a few snaps:

I am not qualified to comment on the effectiveness of the island from a marketing perspective - but I'd be very surprised to find that it had contributed greatly to either increased sales or increased product awareness. This has little to do with the build itself, which is quite enjoyable in its own way, and everything to do with the fact that static sites - with freebies or nay - simply don't cut it.

Now back into hibernation... zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....