Archive
METANOMICS Immersive Workspaces
We get a sneak peek inside the new Immersive Workspaces™ platform with Justin Bovington, founder and CEO of Rivers Run Red™. Bovington joins host Robert Bloomfield to discuss the challenges to enterprise adoption of virtual worlds, recent improvements in data display and collaborative tools designed to create a more familiar business and branding environment, and the company's experience in collaborating with Linden Lab®.
Rivers Run Red chose the Metanomics program to introduce their new product Immersive Education Spaces™.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links! VIDEO NOW POSTED.
Holiday Book Roundup
Benjamin Duranske of the popular legal blog VirtuallyBlind.com takes a turn as guest host, interviewing authors of books about virtual worlds. Guests include: Mark Bell (Second Life® For Dummies), Eddy Shah (Second World), Julian Dibbell (My Tiny Life; Play Money), Tom Boellstorff (Coming of Age in Second Life) and New World Notes’ own Wagner James Au (The Making of Second Life; Second Life: The Official Guide).
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links! VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
Mapping Virtual Territory
Samsung Vice President Victoria Coleman predicted in the 1980’s that email would never catch on; she is more optimistic now about virtual worlds. Hear Ms. Coleman discuss Samsung’s plans for the metaverse, and give us an update from the Steering Committee of the Virtual Worlds Roadmap project. We start the hour talking with European Parliament member Paulo Casaca (Portugal) about his new book, 'The Hidden Invasion of Iraq,' and his use of Second Life® to discuss global politics.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links! VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
Electric Sheep Company
11/24/08 Electric Sheep Company. Two years ago, Electric Sheep Company was one of the premier content creators in Second Life, responsible for high-profile corporate builds and events, such as CSI: NY. Earlier in 2008, they announced their intention to develop a flash-based virtual environment of their own, Webflock. Hear CEO Sibley Verbeck talk about the fortunes of ESC after Second Life, and the future of Webflock, which hosts the new virtual presence of the Showtime series ‘The L Word’. This week's 'On the Spot' features Nonny de la Pena's "Gone Gitmo" and Bernhard Drax's machinima.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links! VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
Liquid Artifacts: Architecture in Virtual Worlds
Host Robert Bloomfield welcomes Jon Brouchoud of Crescendo Design and Studio Wikitecture. The October 2008 issue of Architectural Record -- one of the world's foremost publications on architecture-- featured Brouchoud and colleague Ryan Schultz for their pioneering work in Second Life®. Jon writes the virtual world blog, The Arch. Kirsten Kiser is On the Spot to talk about her recent work with architect Frank Gehry, and her efforts to bring architects to virtual worlds through her influential online architectural magazine, arcspace.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links! VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
Unpredictable Spaces
Rezzable Productions claims to maintain "the largest public space in the metaverse", and are the well-respected creators of Greenies, public art, machinima, games and music. Jon Himoff, Founder and CEO of Rezzable Productions, Ltd. talks about his inworld business and his thoughts on Linden Lab®'s new pricing and policies for open space sims. Virtual worlds experts Nic Mitham of Kzero and Doug Thompson of Remedy Communications Limited and Dusan Writer's Metaverse join in to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing residents, businesses and developers.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links! VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
World Bank
Dahlia Khalifa, senior economist at the World Bank discusses both the World Bank’s launch into Second Life and the conclusions of the World Bank’s "Doing Business 2009" Report, which examines business conditions in regions around the (real) world. The program follows the World Bank and IFC venture inside Second Life as they launch their Doing Business 2009 report to the digital international community in an event on October 30, 2008. Also, Dorette Steenkamp of Virtual Africa and Uthango appears "On the Spot" to talk about public benefit work in South Africa.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links! VIDEO now posted!
Dmitri Williams: Who Plays?
USC Professor Dmitri Williams talks about his terabyte-sized data set from Sony Online Entertainment. We delve into Dmitri’s survey results on who plays massively multiplayer online games, and take a look at the future directions of the research project, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation. Read more about it at Terra Nova. We kick off the show with a review of Spore, filmed inside the game by our Metanomics gaming correspondent Hydra Shaftoe.
VIDEO NOW POSTED!
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links!
Gaming is a highly social activity, and we know from media research dating back to at least the 1930’s that social context can change media effects drastically. Some games have vibrant social communities, and some have none. A massively multi-player game like ‘‘World of Warcraft’’ is as unlike a game like ‘‘Doom’’ as ‘‘Sesame Street’’ is from ‘‘The Sopranos.’’
Testimony by Dmitri Williams to the U.S. Senate
The Credit Crisis
Maureen O'Hara of Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, an expert on real-world banking and markets, gives her take on the causes of the credit crisis and outlook for the future. We also put IntLibber Brautigan “On the Spot” to learn how Second Life’s financial markets have fared after January’s banking regulations.
VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
Monetizing the Metaverse
Jay Geeseman of Xstreet(formerly SL Exchange) and Stevana Case of fatfoogoo talked about their business experience in Second Life® and other virtual worlds. Xstreet recently changed it's name from SL Exchange, and is perhaps the best-known Second Life®-integrated commerce website featuring real-time shopping, real estate listings, and full-fledged currency exchange. fatfoogoo is a leading provider of in-game commerce ecosystems, and is working with Project Darkstar, an open source development arena under the aegis of Sun Microsystems Laboratories. Artist, designer Eshi Otawara was "On The Spot".
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links!
VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
Rosedale's Vision
At the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, Florida, Robert Bloomfield was granted a rare interview with Philip Rosedale, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Linden Lab. In well over an hour of questions, a number of significant themes emerged, from the specific future of Second Life to the widespread promise of virtual worlds.
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Listen or download the audio. (MP3)
href="http://www.metanomics.net/transcript092908">Read the transcript.
Read the Chatbridge transcript Part 1. (Not yet posted)
Read the Chatbridge transcript Part 2. (Not yet posted)
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Over the last year, Metanomics has featured much of the upper management of Linden Lab® on Metanomics: Gene Yoon, Robin Harper, John Zdanowski, Cory Ondrejka, Zero Linden, Pathfinder Linden…even Mitch Kapor, Linden Lab’s first Chairman and a key fount of Linden’s capital. But try as I might, I couldn’t get founder and current Chairman Philip Rosedale to appear live on the show.
After a number of different approaches, I finally got a reasonable approximation of what I was looking for: a face-to-face interview with Rosedale, conducted in a small office behind the registration desk of the Second Life® Community Convention. (It was also the office with the passes for the Linden employees—sorry for keeping you from them, but thanks for being so patient while the interview went about 20 minutes longer than expected.)
We covered a lot of ground: Philip's transition from CEO to Chairman of the Board; balancing the interests of enterprise and personal users; managing the press; what it will take for virtual worlds to become mainstream; bringing Second Life to developing nations; and Linden Lab's competitive position in the industry, with specific focus a possible competitor of it's own making--Open Sim.
Since we can't bring you Philip's voice (I have permission only to publish the text of the interview, not the audio), we've had to be creative on how to make this more than just dumping a transcript into a blog post.
You would think a face-to-face interview with Philip Rosedale would be far better than one mediated by a virtual world (as we do for the weekly Metanomics series). Certainly it was nice to make the personal connection, especially someone justifiably renowned for his charisma and good looks. But a virtual world interview would have let me and my guest exploit one of the signature advantages of virtual worlds, which I call constructive cacophony. Had this interview taken place during a live Metanomics show, a simple voice interview would have been supplemented with no end of text chat: people reacting to my questions and Philip’s answers, suggesting follow-up topics, pasting links to past news stories and quotes, debating among themselves.
It’s not a free-for-all, of course. After all, the goal is constructive cacophony. We have made a lot of progress harnessing the wisdom of our crowds, while still allowing a thoughtful discussion that stays on track, and as Metanomics progresses over its second year, I hope we can create even more cacophony, while making it more constructive.
Well, now that the interview is over, and I have subjected myself to Benjamin Duranske's questions and the unpredictability of the virtual worlds chat during this first show of our new year, I still have a chance to harness the wisdom of crowds. Well, a small crowd. I have segmented the 75-minute interview into various themes, and found someone who is expert on each theme to explore Philip’s remarks more thoroughly (and point out, hopefully gently, what questions I might have asked).
For each theme, I provide the complete transcript on our site, along with a few comments of my own and a link to the expert analysis. Here’s what we have:
- Excerpts from the Original Interview, Roland Legrand's thoughts at MixedRealities.com, as well as Wagner James Au at New World Notes on Philip’s transition from CEO to Chairman. (Posts active!)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview, Roland Legrand's thoughts at MixedRealities.com, as well as Wagner James Au at New World Notes on the management style at Linden Lab. (Posts active!)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview and Bettina Tizzy at Not Possible in Real Life (NPIRL) on Linden Lab’s strategy of dealing with the press. (Post active!)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview and Nic Mitham's take at KZero on mainstreaming virtual worlds and positioning Linden Lab. (Post active!)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview on broadening the use cases of virtual worlds and original excerpts regarding capital investment with Christian Renaud's comments at Christian Renaud's Weblog. (Post active!)
- As well as Nic Mitham's take at KZero on the the same original interview topic of investor strategies and profitability that Christian covered. (Post active!)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview and Dusan Writer's Metaverse on the Second Life viewer and interface, and features blocking mainstream adoption of virtual worlds. (Post active!)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview and Tish Shute at ugotrade.com on the implications of the open grid. (Post active!)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview and Tish Shute on bringing Second Life to developing nations. (Post coming soon)
- Excerpts from the Original Interview and Ben Duranske, author of Virtual Law and blogger at his own virtuallyblind.com, on Linden Lab’s philosophy for regulating behavior in Second Life®. (Post active!)
Thanks to this panel of experts for bringing insights I couldn’t have on my own!
Metanomics Revisited
Live from Copenhagen at Noon on Monday, September 22, we turn the tables when Benjamin Duranske, author of Virtual Law and editor of virtuallyblind.com , poses questions to Metanomics Host Robert Bloomfield about his experience producing the first year of Metanomics. We revisit the distinction between the three major subfields of virtual world economies -- immersionist, augmentationist, and experimentalist -- as we examine the inner workings of the weekly multi-world virtual event.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links!
VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT now posted!
KZero
A strong focus on brands sets KZero at ground zero of the most volatile hype cycle in the metaverse. KZero's Nic Mitham examines marketing hits and misfires of the past, and maps out directions for branding as new worlds come on line. We also put ThinkBalm's Erica Driver "On the Spot" to focus on enterprise uses of the immersive internet, a tortoise that is quietly and steadily overtaking the flashy hare of brand management.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links!
VIDEO now posted!
METANOMICS: Meet Microsoft
Zain Naboulsi, Microsoft’s Developer Evangelist, comes to Metanomics on Monday, August 18th, at Noon PST, to talk about Second Life’s new role in the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN), what the rise of virtual world technology means to Microsoft, and what Microsoft’s plans in the industry might mean for the rest of us.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links!
VIDEO now posted!
Enhancing Your View
In this special Metanomics presentation on the Second Life viewer, ENHANCING YOUR VIEW, Dusan Writer reveals the winners of his L$800,000 contest to design a better user interface. Then Adam Frisby discusses his exploration of the viewer possibilities associated with OpenSim, including XBAP, one possible method for creating a viewer that meshes seamlessly with your browser. We also consider the future of the Second Life viewer, with an eye to the challenges developers face when trying to create an experience which works well for both new and skilled virtual world residents.
If you are on the front page, READ MORE for the full story and lots more links!
VIDEO now posted!
