Mitsubishi Corporation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.