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.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

I think it was my pal, Xantherus Halberd, who brought this to my attention the other day. Since then I've been mulling it over - though I hasten to point out, not obsessively. By way of an aside, I like to have an array of things to mull; it's healthier and less boring than a single mulling object.

Aaaaanyway... the object of this particular mull is the timezone in S~~~~d L~~~e. Rivetting, huh? Well it is often the little details that help illuminate the big picture. For as long as I have been in this virtual world it has used its own timezone, known as "SLT". It was merely a trick of Fate that this happened to coincide with the timezone in California, home of Linden Lab. The inworld timezone appears at the top of the viewer window, and has been used by meeting and events organisers since the earliest days of the environment (or so I assume).

OK, so what? Well if you look now, it doesn't say "SLT" - it says, "PDT" (Pacific Daylight Time). The change may be simply a calendrical consideration, perhaps introduced in early March, when the clock leapt forward into Summertime. Alternatively, you might see it as an another little detail in the repositioning of this virtual world - moving it away from being the plaything of a small clique of fans, freaks and the technosavvy (choose which categories apply to you).

As with the introduction of the S~~~~d L~~e Grid website, and maybe the much-despised (and misunderstood?) branding thing, this tiny detail moves Linden Lab towards a more generic virtual world metaverse, with themselves as the 3D version of an ISP.

Well, it's a thought. Maybe that's what comes of too much mulling.

By the way - curiously(?) "SLT" seemed to be one of those common terms that does not appear to have fallen into the path of the mighty trademark juggernaut.

Eolus - A Big Leap Toward 3D Internet

Before I went off on my recent city break to Tokyo, I was chatting with my good friend (and, coincidentally, my SL landlady), Ludo Merit. During the course of the conversation, she asked me whether I had heard of a think tank called EOLUS(I hadn't) and would I like to get in touch to find out more (I would). She put me in contact with Eolus McMillan, who invited me over to the EOLUS ONE island for a chat. I came away from the chat with my head buzzing with all manner of stuff that would take a while for me to inwardly digest. As a sizeable chunk of the discussion was about the convergence of Second Life (and Virtual Worlds generally) with making "a Better Planet", and recognising that I would not have time to blog it, I got in touch with Tara5 Oh (Tish Shute of the excellent Ugotrade blog) to see if she would pick up the cudgels on this one. I was certain this would be of huge interest to her, and so it proved - check out her giga-post here.

Normally, I'd give you a rundown on the island, its features and its raison d'etre. However, I think Tish has already covered that more than adequately - as has VeeJay Burns at Mindblizzard. My main reason for this post is to talk about what I derived from the EOLUS session(s) - plural, because I also spent an hour or two there today. Before that though, here is the EOLUS conceptual architecture - not quite Zachman, but it works!



EOLUS as Think Tank
Perhaps the key philosophical driver for Eolus is to act as a think tank where creative minds can get together and explore how to apply Second Life as a vehicle for achieving a Better Planet. Some of this comes from the pioneering work being done by Implenia (one of the RL companies in the "EOLUS consortium") in the use of technology to improve building efficiency. But already ideas have been streaming in for using SL as a visualisation tool - for example: to illustrate solar water disinfection.

EOLUS as RL-SL Integration Solution
The think tank is a great idea, but is not unique within Second Life, which teems with forums and think tanks. However, where it wins out is in taking the visionary ideas from the think tank into practical implementation. There are already a number of integration points between SL and non-SL applications. However, the majority of these exist as "proofs of concept" and are aimed at improving personal communications between SL and internet-based applications. EOLUS takes the idea much further - into integration with large-scale business applications like SAP, the world-leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. In this model, Second Life acts as a sophisticated 3D user interface (UI) that is able to display data from the back-end systems (eg: SAP) in ways that cannot be done with other UIs, employing the 3D environment to its full effect. By extension, Second Life can also accept commands or instructions that can be fed through to the back-end systems.

Let's consider an example: order processing. With EOLUS you can view and select items for purchase within Second Life. When you come to actaully request the items, an order is sent from Second Life to the SAP application, which returns an order reference. Thereafter, you can track your order's status from within Second Life, which gets the information in real time from the back-end SAP system. In effect, this is like using Second Life as a particularly powerful form of web browser.

Another example is in housing energy management. EOLUS can show you a house that has been modelled in Second Life. Data from various sensors in the corresponding Real Life house can be displayed in a readily understandable visual format in the Second Life model. Controls can be set on the model which are passed back to feedback devices in the Real Life house. Such controls could include thermostat settings, air-con settings and so forth. It is then a simple matter to replicate the model as many times as required to handle the energy management of an entire estate.

EOLUS as Virtual Operations Centre (VOC)
The housing energy management is a simple example of a virtual operations centre. However, far more complex operations centres can be constructed. In fact, pretty much any application or system (or set of applications or systems) that provides control information could be managed through a virtual operations centre. The visualisation of this information will depend on context - but Second Life provides a rich palette of options. One could model something akin to a RL operations centre (basically, walls of graphs, and alert lamps), but virtually any form of 2D or 3D visualisation that simplifies the system management could be constructed.

But why is this such a big deal? Two answers: first, this approach can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of a RL operations centre; second, as it is in a virtual world, accessible from across the globe, it can be manned around the clock at a fraction of the cost of a manned RL operations centre.

One point to bear in mind - this is not (yet) appropriate for mission-critical operations, as Second Life cannot yet provide the levels of availability needed for such operations. However, there are many scenaros in which a VOC could deliver improved management over other (more costly) solutions - indeed, scenarious in which a RL centre would not be feasible due to cost.

EOLUS as Enabling Technology
Concepts like the VOC rely on the ability to pass information between SL and non-SL applications. To this end, EOLUS have devised the Virtual Worlds Communication Interface (VWCI) - a combination of hardware and software that sits between SL and non-SL, and provides a common interface between them. There is actually a lot more to this than meets the eye, and I am awaiting more information from EOLUS about this. However, suffice it to say, this is an essential component for getting information in and out of Second Life.

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And that's about it (for now). I am sure I have over-simplified some things, over-complicated others, and simply forgotten a whole lot more. However, to state my position on this - in its use of Second Life as a 3D User Interface, together with the VWCI, I think EOLUS have taken a massive leap toward 3D Internet.

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Sorry about the paucity of pictures.... I promise I will get back on track with rich visuals very soon. But in the meantime, here's one showing the key companies participating in EOLUS:

Thanks to Eolus McMillan for his time and patience in trying to explain all this to me!

China and Virtual Worlds

I came across an article in the Asia Times, that you might find interesting. It concerns the burgeoning appetite - and market - for 3D virtual worlds in China. Rather than focusing on the Mindark deal, which will see Entropia entering the marketplace, it looks in more detail at the (for me) more intriguing prospect of HiPiHi. This is a "home grown" Chinese virtual world, still in Beta test, that apparently bears uncanny similarities to Second Life (although no decision has yet been taken concerning the implementation of an inworld currency).

In the article Ken Brady, a director of international strategies at Centric, is quoted as saying: "China's the No 2 market now, with Blizzard and Shanda Entertainment just two of the major players. HiPiHi will launch this autumn, Entropia Universe is moving in soon, and Shanda has announced plans to create another Chinese virtual world. There are, of course, more out there, and many more coming. It's a busy time in China's online 3D landscape."

HiPiHi will face fierce competition. For example, Shanda Interactive Entertainment,China's leading online gaming company, has been developing a virtual-world game similar to Second Life. Meanwhile, UOneNet Technology have been developing their virtual world, called "uWorld." Yet another new virtual world in development for China is Frenzoo, which is aimed squarely at the youth market.

These will need to slug it out with highly successful Far East virtual worlds, like South Korea's Cyworld, which launched in China in 2005. It boasts 19 million residents in South Korea alone - some 40% of the population - and now has more that 3 million residents in China.

All in all, an interesting 12 months in prospect in China! And where will this leave Linden Lab, who have signally failed to break into this market so far?