Archives

SEASON TWO

8/25/08 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 online. 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.

8/18/08 Meet Microsoft. Zain Naboulsi, Microsoft’s Developer Evangelist, talks 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.

8/12/08 Enhancing Your View. In this special Metanomics presentation on the Second Life viewer, Dusan Writer reveals the winners of his L$800,000 contest to design a better user interface. 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.

8/11/08 Language Lab. Metanomics sponsor Language Lab teaches foreign languages in Second Life. Their novel curriculum uses a staff of instructors and actors to immerse people in a foreign land, where they must use the native tongue in homes, restaurants, dance halls, job interviews and even airports. Hear the story straight from Language Lab’s Managing Director David Kaskel (Edgware Marker in SL), and find out why Bettina Tizzy of "Not Possible in Real Life" said "Human Resource departments all over the world will soon be ponying up and sending their corporate executives in droves to Second Life to make use of this brand."

8/4/08 Gridnauts. The collaboration between Linden Lab, IBM and an eclectic collection of software adventurers on the Open Grid may be the most direct step taken so far toward a true ‘metaverse’. IBM’s Zha Ewry and Linden Lab’s Zero Linden talk about the progress they have made, and the implications of their work. Ben Duranske weighs in on the implications of an open grid for intellectual property.

7/28/08 The Virtual Chalkboard. Metanomics learns about how K-12 teachers are using Second Life® as a virtual chalkboard to communicate with students, colleagues and administrators. Hear superstar educator Kathy Schrock of "Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators", Teen Second Life® pioneer Peggy Sheehy, and Linden’s Boston Operations Director (and academic evangelist) Pathfinder Linden. But first, we put the grid-spanning group ISTE “On the Spot” to talk about the Second Life activities of the International Society for Technology in Education.

7/21/08 The Imagination Age. Rita J. King and Joshua S. Fouts of Dancing Ink Productions discuss the roles virtual worlds can play in global diplomacy and business. Find out about governmental uses of virtual worlds and discover one of Dancing Ink’s newest projects, “Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds.” Beyers Sellers puts Jane2 McMahon On The Spot about the Netroots Nation in SL event, and Roland Legrand closes the show with opinions on how virtual worlds dissolve international boundaries.

7/14/08 Rocketon. Metanomics launches into an exploration of the web via ROCKETON, the virtual world that layers right in your web browser. Host Robert Bloomfield takes his Rocketon avatar to favorite websites, while Rocketon’s co-founders, CEO Steve Hoffman and VP Eric Hayashi discuss Rocketon’s revenue model, marketing opportunities, business challenges, and implications for the metaverse. We start the show by putting David Levine of IBM "On the Spot" to talk about progress toward interoperability of Second Life and OpenSim.

7/14/08 Manpower's First Year. Metanomics covers the first anniversary celebration of Manpower’s Second Life Headquarters. This event, organized by Dancing Ink Productions, features a roundtable discussion with Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO Jeff Joerres, Linden Lab Chairman and Founder Philip Rosedale, and others,including Second Life resident Gentle Heron, co-founder of the Heron Sanctuary, and Virtual Ability, Inc.

7/7/08 Not Possible in Real Life. Hear our rare interview with Bettina Tizzy, Second Life’s tireless advocate for the creation and celebration of content that is Not Possible in Real Life. Bettina has earned the respect of the most elite content creators in the metaverse and curates the NPIRL blog. She offers frank opinions on matters from Linden Lab’s intellectual property policies and public relations strategies to the state of the metaverse development industry.

6/30/08 Christian Renaud's Time for a Change. Christian Renaud announced June 27, 2008 that he was leaving his position as Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center. Metanomics explores Renaud's experience in the heart of Cisco's incubator for emerging virtual technologies. Find out why Renaud believes that "Second Life and its walled/closed ilk will fade into the sunset in the next 24-36 months."

6/23/2008 Engaging Virtual Communities. Metanomics features USC's Second Life and the Public Good Community Challenge, with guests Douglas Thomas (Doctor Ludovico in SL) Associate Professor, USC School of Communication, and Rik Panganiban (Rik Riel in SL) from Global Kids. We also hear from our new expert correspondents Fleep Tuque (Education), Hydra Shaftoe (Gaming) and Joey Seiler (Industry).

SEASON ONE

4/28/2008 Virtual Nonprofits. Susan Tenby, Senior Manager of TechSoup, and American Cancer Society's Randal Moss discuss the challenges and opportunities facing nonprofit organizations in virtual worlds.

4/25/2008 New Media Consortium. As part of Clever Zebra's vBusiness Expo, Metanomics interviews Dr. Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium, "a community of hundreds of leading universities, colleges, museums, and research centers. NMC stimulates and furthers the exploration and use of new media and technologies for learning and creative expression," and is the largest educational project of any kind in virtual worlds.

4/21/2008 The Competitive Landscape. Mitch Wagner of InformationWeek and Gartner Fellow Steve Prentice discuss prospects for corporate investment in virtual worlds, the state of the competitive landscape among developers and worlds, and the future of Second Life.

4/14/2008 Linden Lab's Past, Present and Future. Guests Cory Ondrejka, who recently stepped down as CTO of Linden Lab, and W. James Au, author of "The Making of Second Life" focus on the organization responsible for developing Second Life.

4/7/2008 Experimental Economics. Our panel explores the opportunities and challenges of economic researchers in virtual worlds. Guests include Thomas Chesney of Nottingham University Business School and Steve Atlas of Tufts University (who have already conducted such research), as well as John Duffy of the University of Pittsburgh, who has written about the pitfalls of these efforts.

3/31/2008 Just in Time for Tax Day, Metanomics interviews Accountants in Second Life: Arlene Ciroula and Byron Patrick of KAWG&F, a real-world accounting firm with a Second Life practice, and Tom Hood, Executive Director of the Maryland Association of CPAs. We discuss the role of accountants in virtual worlds and the tax treatment of virtual world income.

3/28/2008 Mitch Kapor, Chairman of the Board of Linden Lab, graciously agrees to appear on a special edition of Metanomics to discuss his vision for virtual world technology and business strategy, the future of Linden Labs and Second Life, and the motivations and implications of the announcement that Philip Rosedale is stepping down as CEO of Linden Lab.

3/24/2008 CosmoGirl is There! There's CEO Michael Wilson took Metanomics back to his virtual world, with CosmoGirl's Morgan Brooks, and market researcher Mary Ellen Gordon of Market Truths, to discuss CosmoGirl's activities in There, including their virtual prom.

3/17/2008 Virtually Social. As part of CMP's week-long event Life 2.0, Metanomics interviews Nick Yee of the Palo Alto Research Center. We discuss Nick's work on how virtual environments affect the way we perceive ourselves and others; who participates in games and why; and the behavior and uses of guilds in World of Warcraft.

3/10/2008 Richard Bartle graces Metanomics to talk about real-money trade, game design, his famous model of player types, and critiques of existing virtual worlds.

3/3/2008 David Levine, a 23-year veteran of IBM Research covers the business implications of three-dimensional visualization, Second Life's Architecture Working Group (AWG), efforts to reverse-engineer private servers to work with the open-sourced Second Life viewer, and David's personal perspective on the business models of Linden Lab & There.com.

2/25/2008 Here and There. Check out Metanomics' first event in There.com with There's CEO, Michael Wilson. Mr. Wilson discusses There's business model, his views on intellectual property, open standards, and the future of virtual worlds.

2/18/2008 Real World Press in Virtual Worlds examines the attraction virtual worlds have for Reuters, CNN and CMP, with commentary from Second Life blogger Prokofy Neva. Eric Krangel represents Reuters, Rhonda Lowry represents CNN/Turner Broadcasting, and John Jainschigg represents CMP.

2/11/2008 New Realities in Commerce. From the Emory University Conference, "Virtual Worlds and New Realities in Commerce, Politics and Society." Metanomics streams live simultaneously from Emory University and Second Life, including a cross-world panel with Benn Konsynski of Emory University, Chris Klaus, Founder and CEO of Kaneva, and John Zdanowski, CFO of Linden Lab.

2/4/2008 Forterra Futures. Robert Gehorsam, President of Forterra Systems, Inc. explains Forterra's work with the University of Maryland's Transportation Laboratory, which is using a virtual world to train I-95 emergency response teams. This leads to a broader discussion of the role of simulation and the work being done at the University of Central Florida, and the 'military-entertainment complex'.

1/28/2008 Serious Games. David Wortley, Director of the Serious Games Institute of Coventry University, discusses the role of serious games in training and education, the nature of SGI's unusual public/private partnership, and how they work with the developer community in their region of the UK.

1/21/2008 Federal Agencies. Paulette Robinson of the National Defense University (and director of the Federal Consortium on Virtual Worlds), joins Ericka Vick of NASA, to talk about how Federal Agencies use virtual worlds for outreach and education. Aimee Weber, a Second Life content designer who has contracted with several federal agencies, comments on the challenge of such work.

1/14/2008 Virtual Banking Revisited. Joshua Fairfield (Washington and Lee School of Law), Dan Miller (US Congress Joint Economic Committee), Dave Altig (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta), consider the situation of inworld bankers Travis Ristow and IntLibber Brautigan, and take a broader view with lawyer Ben Duranske of VirtuallyBlind.com.

1/10/2008 Virtual Banking. Two special panel discussions discuss the motivation for and impact of Linden Lab's January 2008 banking policy. Hear the views of David Talbot (Chief Correspondent, Technology Review), Ben Duranske of VirtuallyBlind.com, Second Life bankers Travis Ristow and IntLibber Brautigan, and representative of Danish Saxo Bank, a retail bank and Metanomics sponsor.

1/7/2008 Linden Marketing. Robin Harper, Vice President of Marketing and Community Development at Linden Lab, speaks on a wide range of topics, including business disputes, zoning and privacy in Second Life, and the political considerations involved in dealing with virtual world residents.

12/27/2007 Virtual Interoperability. Dr. Yesha Sivan is a Harvard-educated Israeli who is pursuing interoperability standards for virtual worlds. Dr. Sivan describes his views on standard-setting, defining the metaverse, and doling out funds to companies that are seeking to create new standards.

12/10/2007 Journalists on Entrepreneurs. Daniel Terdiman (CNet), Peter Ludlow (Second Life Herald) and W. James Au (New World Notes) discuss their books and their views on business ventures and journalism in Second Life.

12/3/2007 Virtual Retail engages two of the more colorful and successful retailers in Second Life, Stroker Serpentine and Temporal Mitra, who market largely to the adult entertainment industry. Don't worry, the discussion never gets inappropriate, and encompasses a number of lessons for anyone exploring e-commerce in virtual worlds.

11/26/2007 Higher Education examines the efforts of Chris Collins (University of Cincinnati) and Benn Konsynski (Emory) in using virtual worlds for higher education.

11/19/2007 Synthetic Economies. Edward Castronova, Associate Professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University, was the first economist to examine virtual worlds. His work on synthetic economies, and Everquest in particular, has helped to define the "cyberian frontier". Using traditional economic tools to aggregate and quantify virtual world data, Castronova has published two books on the subject: "Exodus to the Virtual World" and "Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games". He cofounded the blog Terra Nova.

11/12/2007 Virtual Finance discusses the challenges involved with investing in and regulating Second Life financial markets. The panel discussion includes exchange CEOs IntLibber Brautigan and Arbitrage Wise, blogger Gigs Taggert, as well as David Karsbol and Jillian Falconi, representatives of the real-world Denmark investment bank, Saxo.

11/5/2007 Second Life's Economic Architecture. Gene Yoon, the VP of Business Affairs for Linden Lab (the maker of Second Life), expresses controversial perspectives on the nature of the Second Life economy (of which he is often called "the architect.").

10/29/2007 Electric Sheep and CSI reveals the experience of the Electric Sheep Company's Chief Creative Officer, Chris Carella, who worked with CBS to tie their top-rated crime drama CSI-NY to content within Second Life, to mixed reviews.

10/22/2007 Taxation of Virtual Worlds., Bryan Camp of Texas Tech University's School of Law explores the tax implications of virtual commerce in game worlds (like World of Warcraft) and unstructured worlds (like Second Life).

10/15/2007 Fashion! includes Raven Pennyfeather, who quit her job as a mortgage compliance officer to create a very successful line of Goth and Victorian clothing in Second Life and Nyla Cheeky, a real-life designer who extended her real life brand by developing copies in Second Life. Jack Myers, a media analyst who weighs in on the challenges and opportunities of Raven and Nyla's efforts.

10/8/2007 U.S. Congress Looks at the Metaverse. Dan Miller, Senior Economist of the Joint Economic Committee is trying to stay a step ahead of the IRS and Department of Homeland Security (and perhaps the SEC) before they do something unwise in regulating the metaverse.

10/1/2007 Julian Dibbell is an author of numerous books and articles about virtual worlds who emphasizes his recent writings and his exploration of "ludo-capitalism."

9/24/2007 Anti-Social Contracts, with law Professor Joshua Fairfield, explores the limitations of the current state of contract law in virtual worlds. Fairfield specializes in the law of video games, online regulation, virtual world economics.

9/20/2007 IBM in the Metaverse encompassed three worlds with Sandra Kearney, IBM's Global Director of 3D-Internet and Virtual Business. This mind-stretching show seamlessly integrates real-world feeds from a Cornell (Johnson School) classroom, a feed of Sandra's avatar in IBM's ActiveWorlds space, and our audience in Second Life.

9/17/2007 Metanomics 101 sets out Professor Robert Bloomfield's view of Metanomics, laying out all three major subfields (experimentalist, immersionist and augmentationist).