Image extracted from one of the Second Life movies

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So it seems things sometimes can happen when you really ask for it…

The cart where the 130 Lindens took place also made a stop at Mark Kingdon’s office and took them all for a new adventure… In French we use the word “charette” to talk about a lay-off, and a “charette” is this old open cart which used to take the aristocrats to the guillotine during the revolution… Fortunately no one should be guillotined here. Mark Kingdon surely tried his best, considering Second Life is such a different “product”, and actually I really wonder if Second Life is a product… It is in a way, but maybe you need a really 2.0 or 3.0 Marketing approach here, considering the community is really judge and part of the product.

Anyway, as I explained in my post “Second Life, engage me one more time!”, the place is cleaned and fit, and the Lab can start to work again. And they need it to be fast enough to stop the hemorrhage and reconquer both old resident hearts’s and new young hearts…
What is there in the head of Philip Rosedale? How do you feel after you stopped working on what was your motivation during so many years? How do you feel to return?

“Our thinking as a team is that my returning to the CEO job now can bring a product and technology focus that will help rapidly improve Second Life. We need to simplify and focus our product priorities—concentrating all our capabilities on making Second Life easier to use and better for the core experiences that it is delivering today. I think that I can be a great help and a strong leader in that process.

It is an honor to have a chance to help more directly again, and I come to this mission with energy, excitement, and an open mind about what we need and how we need to do it. I want to see Second Life continue to grow, amaze, and change the world. It’s what gets me up in the morning. Despite the challenges of such a big change, I am happy to be drafting this blog post while sitting in our San Francisco office, surrounded by the many Lindens who have made it all possible. »

Hopefully, that 2 years break was a time for Philip to resource, learn and take strength because he will need it. We all know when the community will have finish to rejoice, critics and resistances will come as usual.. And we also guess lots of things are in the pipe and that only a man with a deep inside vision is able to break the walls.

3 keys for the next 100 days.

As politics say, next 100 days of the new realm will be crucial in designing the future, even if we all know that the complexity behind Second Life forbid us to think it can be achieved in 100 days… Qui va piano va sano… but sometimes situations are willing men to take risks… and anticipate the moves as in a chess game.

My deep thought is that accessibility is a major key for a success. We definitely need to have :
- a Second Life for everyone, for residents, for education, for enterprise.
- a Second Life accessible no matter what is your system, firewall, terminal, etc.

Second key is called customization. I want to be able to build my own screen and design my own experience of Second Life, according to my needs. Compared to Ajax UI, Viewer 2 is pushy and generate lots of disorder if you use it multitasking. So the viewer should naturally leads to :
- an interactive, immersive and stable platform able to offer its residents all means to choose what and how they want to use it, and all means to create and produce content.

What about if third key would be the cool old long tail effect based on the fantastic collective intelligence that only Second Life residents can provide. Not only it would take part of a natural process of governance but it would also allow Second Life to definitely take the lead on its competitor.

Adoption and engagement will come naturally if the Lab is able to lead Second Life on those tracks, and give us a new kind of future called My Second Life, my world, my imagination…(does it ring a bell?)


I am born in a culture where idolatry was a sin and I definitely reject all kinds of cult of personality. But talking about Philip Rosedale’s soul last week, was a true feeling. Second Life is a piece of Philip’s soul and right now, Second Life cannot work without Philip Rosedale. That is a fact than Linden Lab’s board has realized. No matter if they are about or not to organize a beauty contest and sell the Lab. For sure, there is money and politics involved here too, but the whole story is also about a dream, and dreams are powerful, can move mountains especially when leadership is based on solid and complementary partnership. Think about Louis XIV and Colbert, or on a lower level, Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Berger. Big projects are made of realism and dreams. Second Life definitely needs both, to achieve its goal. Your dream Philip, and our dream too… Let’s make it happen together.

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Did I miss something ? Sometimes I think my english language escapes from me to hide away things that I would naturally see in french… But no, I think I did not, things are just the way they seem to be. We entered in a new era and we are going to adjust, as usual.

This week end, while I was writing the last post, Engage me again, I went thru the readings of a lot of twitts and blog posts, to see what was the general mood. Coming out of those, were a lot of doubts, a lot of anger, like if everyone was deeply concerned by what happened last week. M. Linden was often seen as the bad guy of the film. Some were even calling Philip Rosedale to come back. But Philip was silent, M. Linden was short on his post and his letter, and the rest of the team was not responding to mails… Maybe they were all watching the football worldcup…

So Clara decided to go to SL to see how was the mood inworld and to catch up with a few friends. Or maybe just go and work on some new trees. The problem is that when you work out of virtual worlds to promote virtual world, you gradually end up losing the sense of it. When evening comes you rather want to keep it quiet, away from the computer, away from work… Hanging around the sad Linden graveyard at Rouge, Clara met a friend she has not seen for a while, and started a conversation about life and jazz, then solved a few problems with lands, and end up exploring the forest of Leni and Timmi. A couple was riding a horse, a fairy was flying the site, avatars were popping in. And Clara finally started to design a pine-tree. No noises from the outside world, no conversations about the lay-off. The world was just going on its own way. And one more time the magic was there, in the smooth breeze of the wind… there was the soul of Philip Linden.

Early morning, I opened the Second Life website from a browser which I do not usually use, (which means where I am not logged in), and fell on the new home page of the website. A nice graphic and  motion welcome interface, including full panoramic machiminas. As I clicked to join as a noob, I was proposed to choose between 3D very real animated characters (maybe it is in test, because I could not find it again). So far away from the world we found in 2006. But so close to what is our world, our imagination… Today’s world, in all its facets…

The words of Philip Rosedale, talking at SLCC 2007 in Chicago came back to my mind.

« (extract from Virtual World News) (…) I think as a company we’re at a transition point. Part of that is the size of the room, the number of people building, and so on. We’re at a very interesting point here. The company that built Second is called Linden Lab. And on a bad day, you might feel like the subjects of the lab. Labs are organizations that have a vision about what can make the world better and then will try them out on people, unsuspecting or not, to try and make it happen.
Here’s the point. Second Life is exceedingly complicated, and it’s a dream that people have tried to make happen for years and many of them have failed to achieve the critical mass and spark that we have now. We got there now because we were a Lab. We were a small group of people willing to work very fast with little concern for the troubles people would face using it.
(…)We haven’t tipped yet. Everyone is always jumping ahead and eager to say that the future has arrived. We’ve built the metaverse, and we’re all going to walk in and disappear. We’re still building it. I think some of you here, and even I, don’t appreciate how big these things can get. I worry about crashes and revenue with my head in my hands, and I don’t remember how big these things can get. We’re just the first people to the party. This is an incredibly small phenomenon right now. This is something everybody on the earth is going to use. 
This is bigger than the Web. That’s a bold statement. How can I defend the statement that what we’re all working on is going to be bigger than the Web. (…)

One year after, at Tampa, Philip had given the lead to Mark. Second Life had to become a serious business to keep the leadership of the new born industry. Philip Rosedale seemed sad (like if some light was out of him) but resigned. I guess it is like to see your child going away from home. But, unless Steve Jobs who claimed he was fired of Apple, Philip Rosedale was proclaiming that this was the right choice… and if you think of how SL was before and what it is now, you can see that Mark did a lot to professionalize Second Life, and I think he could do so because he did not have the same history with the residents. The resistance to change, especially when the relation to SL is so affective, must be a real challenge.

Reducing the Lab team to make the vision happened, targeting new populations to enter in the platform and bring new blood and energy to the world of Second Life, accelerating the move to make virtual worlds bigger than the web, all of that was also the will of Philip Rosedale.

Strange thing though is that we feel something is missing. We can’t say it with words, it is just a feeling, irrational and empirical. The magic is still around, the possibilities are infinite, the challenge is everyone’s, but it seems that the soul of Philip is away... maybe watching the football games...

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The reduction of 30% of its workforce announced by Linden Lab last week has been a bombshell in the small business world of Second Life and in the fledgling industry of virtual environments.

Adopted by most major media and blogs and, as always, interpreted as another sign of the agony of the company and the end of an era, this information is to be analysed in details at different levels.

Restructuring and downsizing practices are fairly common in the business world. What the press does not mention is that under the influence of Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab had expanded its workforce in the last 2 years to stabilize its platform, professionalizing its concept and completing a cycle of development.

In addition to a faster and more efficient platform, localized into over 10 languages, ant to a simpler viewer (but still not simple enough) with features that allows to share all types of media (including html and flash), Linden Labs can count on its many targeted websites, independent, efficient and functional, integrated in the user experience, and more specifically on a real platform for e-commerce rebranded XStreetSL.

Moreover, Linden Lab is about to finish installing the new grid (built from Havok 7 physics engine which manages the interactions between avatars and objects), and a new version of its browser will soon allow the import of 3D mesh, and the opportunity to name his avatar the way you want. This development opens Second Life to the classic 3D players and aligns with what is practiced in all social networks considering digital identity. The recent purchase of United avatar suggests an extension of brand presence on online social network Facebook-covering and all MMO players to federate around their common passion.

The Second Life of 2010 no longer has much to do with what was in 2006/2007, at the height of the media wave. And the company's strategy remains firmly focused on the "consumers", the creators and more generally the ecosystem of the Platform. The intervention of Tom Hales at SLPro (NMC) was quite clear on that orientation.

This cycle started 2 years ago, ended in a real world where the virtual worlds industry has changed, opening the way to various competing solutions, open-source alternatives to proprietary, where users, players or not, have increased ... With this restructuring, Linden Lab confirms what makes its profits: the rental of its servers, the trade of virtual goods, the exchange of its currency. And even if M. Kingdon said nothing about SL Enterprise, it is clear that the departure of much of the team assigned to its development suggests that the project SL Enterprise will not continue in its current form. Not enough income ? Sure, the sale of thirty solutions do not satisfy the requirements of ROI, but how could Mr. Kingdon hope that this solution would sell in just a few weeks, with an entrance ticket around 80KE, and the necessary mobilization of a chain of business decision often hostile to innovation (especially that one !).

Strategic error or timing error. Linden Lab intends to deliver its servers behind the corporate firewall when companies think more and more to cloud-computerize their infrastructure ... Yet Enterprise Solution is interesting ... but it requires from Linden Lab, a true support that can pay for itself which is not the case now... So, let's be optimistic and let's hope that the beta of Second Life Enterprise will give birth to a new generation of solutions competitive and attractive ... or that Linden Lab will be able to move quickly on projects in progress ... for current projects, there seem to be, Kingdon said in his press release. « It will also enable us to invest in bringing 3D to the web and will strengthen our profitability… »

For here lies one of the keys for a mainstream adoption of 3D web: the simplification of entry requirements, to be able to access 3D on a single click from the browser. Second Life Viewer 2.0. had improved, but access to the platform remains complicated and for businesses, UDP protocol and ports, application installation and the requirement of an advanced user configuration is often a show-stopper in the process of technology adoption.

Linden Lab seems to stake everything today on a radical simplification of the access to Second Life, and ensures that it restructures to accelerate this process. How, that is the question ...

It seems from different interviews that we will not see a Second Life like Habbos or Farmville... that is a Second Life 2D or 2D&half, and that's good, because that vision is the opposite of what is fundamentally a virtual environment in real time 3D.

Linden Lab confirmed to James Wagner: " We're Developing a Second Life Viewer FROM access the Web (Not a Second Life ON the Web ) " What Wagner interprets as possibly a browser that works on WebGL, a specification for 3D display for web browsers and potentially distributable on all terminals quoted by Mark Kingdon (web, iPhone, iPad ...)

Alternatively a Cloud type technology, maybe…. A few months ago, the VP in charge of platforms announced that Linden Lab had conducted several trials of this nature, ..."Rather than using the 'cloud service' metaphor here, it sounds like what you’re talking about is better termed 'server-side rendering' and streaming that content down to machines that would otherwise be unable to run a full 3D client. That is technically possible with Second Life, and we’ve actively demonstrated it internally, with a full Second Life client and all graphics settings set to maximum, while maintaining an impressive framerate.."

Technology is changing rapidly, and competition accelerates the movement, Linden Lab needs to develop ways to offer maximum quality and innovative solutions, to keep the leadership. This could also explain the restructuring.

In fact if you look closer, there is really no big problem with Second Life though he is lacking to reach a broader audience. There are errors of assessment, communication, and a lot of prejudice. There was always something Freudian in the attitude of journalists when they talk about Second Life, a sort of quite incomprehensible love-hate relationship, often seen when it comes to innovation vision (cf Apple and many others). Question of cerebral preferences, forms of intelligence, opening ...

For what other technology today can provide the opportunity to meet and share experiences in real time with more than 6 people in a rich 3D environment? Facebook ?  Linkedin ?  Twitter ? The comparison is senseless and not relevant, and those who use it do not really know what they're talking about ...

What other technology can help create a setting as close to reality for training, online learning and collaboration? (800 universities are present today in virtual worlds)

Yes, virtual environments are frightening, because they offer a potential reality and that reality is disturbing. Yes, virtual environments are certainly a technology transition to new practices that virtual reality should be able to offer in the coming decades.

Restructuring or not, Second Life can continue to live through their community, although less vibrant than before, because often destabilized by changes in "political" (Rosedale departure, increased land prices, closing of games, adult continent, bots ...), but always with its thousands of creators and innovators. And it is conceivable that by posting record profits after restructuring, the company is endowed with all the attractions to a sale or IPO. Open to its residents also, perhaps ....

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I do not speak German but fortunately a lot of german people speak a good english and this is how we can communicate though our language and history are so different (the Eurovision winner Lena Meyer-Landrut yesterday is a good example of this world culture we share...)

Egon is a friend of Kai-Michael, my friend and business partner in MakemyWorlds. Kai knew if he got Egon interested into Second Life, something unique could come out of his mind. And one day, I met Egon Koch, an artist, an author, an elegant man of sensibility and sensitivity. It was a short meeting, thru a video-chat. I explained him what Second Life had done for me, how it allows me to be able to discover so many different people I would never even have looked in real life. How it changed my perception of the reality and helped me to grow up. And how, that made me richer inside. I think I tried to communicate him the magic of Second Life.

A few month later, I met a very special noob in Second Life, under the name of Sologo Hoxley. Sologo was a funny avatar, who wanted to see and know everything. He was not working as a journalist, but as an author, getting deep into our second life, taking time to listen each individual story, making no judgment, just listening. He was from every events, every parties, conferences or concerts, and in a few weeks, seems to know more than me of what was happening in SL communities.

Sometimes, late at night, when I was working on my landscapes, he was calling me : Hey, do you want to make a break at the Zen temple. I was wondering : maybe Sologo is getting addicted to SL, as we all went, once in our second life...

One day, Sologo Hoxley disappeared, not showing on anymore in my friend's list.  Sologo was just gone.  He had finished his work and time was starting for him to tell about his adventures like those old writers-journalist who were crossing the world as the beginning of last century.

Tomorrow June 2nd, the story of Sologo Hoxley "Windows of the World" will be broadcast on the german radio SWR 2, 2nd June 2010, 22.05 - 23.00 clock GMT+1 . In the same time, co-organized with MakeMyWorlds, the radio feature will be on air at Virtuelles Koeln in Second Life and Sologo will be with us.

So if you understand deutsch or if you want to meet Sologo, join us at Virtuelles Koeln tomorrow ! See you there !

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Was für ein toller Movie, oder? Und doch muss ich mal eine Lanze für das gute alte Radio brechen: Am kommenden Mittwoch, den 2. Juni 2010 läuft im SWR 2 von 22.18 - 23.15 Uhr ein Radiofeature über Second Life mit Namen »Fenster zur Welt« von dem Autor Egon Koch. Ja, ich habe auch erst gestutzt: Kann man Second Life wirklich verstehen, wenn man es nicht sieht, sondern hört ... und dann noch fast eine ganze Stunde lang?

Ja, man kann. Und man tut offensichtlich.

Egon Koch hat es in der Tat fertig gebracht, nur anhand von Stimmen, Geräuschen und Musik eine Atmosphäre zu schaffen, die einen abtauchen lässt in die virtuelle Welt unseres Vertrauens. Er hat dabei als die Figur Sologo Hoxley mit einer ganzen Herde von Avataren inworld gesprochen, Interviews geführt und die Geschichten aufgeschrieben. Dabei ist es zu einer ganzen Reihe von Begegnungen gekommen, die so im realen Leben wohl nie stattgefunden hätten. Und das Ende ist wirklich überraschend.

Also, unbedingt anhören. Das gilt vor allem für diejenigen unter uns, die Second Life immer noch nach dem beurteilen, was sie wissen ... oder an was sie sich zu erinnern glauben. Grundsätzlich ist das natürlich nicht verkehrt, Dinge nach dem zu beurteilen, was man weiss. Allein, es wäre gut, wenn der Wissenstand etwas aktueller wäre – und nicht unbedingt auf das Jahr 2007 basiert. Da war nämlich ohnehin alles anders.

Bei dieser Gelegenheit sei noch erwähnt, dass die Radiosendung auch per Livestream in Second Life übertragen wird. der Autor wird anwesend sein und auch alle Residents, die in dem Feature zu Wort kommen. Wo? In Köln ... virtuell, versteht sich. Einfach hier klicken!

Sei`s drum. Glotze aus am Mittwoch – und Radio an.

Dabei wünscht wie immer viel Spass

Kai-Michael Schmuck

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Just a quick buzz to give you a taste of the video from the Caleb Booker Virtual Keynote for Treet TV . It was a great experience and a really special moment for me to experiment talking about virtual conferences and being filmed and recorded at the same time. Caleb Booker is in Canada, the Treet TV is in Australia, and I was in Paris, at 11PM local time. That is the magic of virtual environments... Tomorrow, I'll be back to speak about Viewer 2.0 and the SL Pro Conference....

Real World Expos In Virtual Worlds

View more presentations from Helene Zuili.

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Oh boy! That was a nice break! Not a work break, but this kind of break we all need once in a while just to gather our ideas, clean the place from all those things you drag with you from a while and you can’t never achieve because you are too busy, too full of things to do here and there, take care about the one you love and who always complained that you are never free for a diner, a theater, a concert… just an instant of life to share.

So my time has come to wish all of you a great new year 2010, health and happiness. I wish you to keep your joie de vivre –joy of life- no matter what, because this is what keeps us going on every morning, this great energy of life that is so precious, so fundamental. And I wish you love too, for love is that unique dimension which add perspective to our lives, love without which everything is flat like a 2D cartoon!

Health, Joy and Love, this is my 3D wishes for this New Year ;) And peace of course…
I mean it, deeply, sincerely, may this year bring all of you the best, wherever you are in the world.

For weeks, I have wondered if I could write those predictions for virtual worlds, since everyone does, at least professionals. No client ask, but professional just feel obliged to say « hey, those are my predictions for the next year! ». And on the top of it, a lot of them wrote predictions for the next decade… But how many Jules Verne, how many George Orwell, hmmm

My idea of consulting, especially in my field, new medias and immersive Internet, is that you should be able to anticipate. Anticipation is the key of a concept, a product that meets desires and needs of an audience. The more the production of your product is delayed, the more anticipation is a necessity if you don’t want its release to be already old fashion when it reaches its market.

But anticipation should be the result of a strong analysis, based on a deep understanding of the past, the history, a deep feeling of the present, what’s in the air, and a wide watchfulness not only about technology but sociology and above… One can have flair, but is it enough in those days when all is going so fast, when transversality and globalism are the main keys that can modify at any instant the course of the time. In fact, I would think "trends" is more appropriate than "predictions"...

So, let’s go back now to so called “virtual worlds”.

Past

What is past for virtual worlds? Is it an addition of the past of virtual reality plus the past of video games? Or would it be the past of humanity pursuing its old dream of ubiquity, of being in different places at the same time, of belonging to different realities thru the quest for a perfect medium?

The dream of an ultimate medium driven by the ancient desire of physical transcendence associated to the search of the essential copy, has crossed the centuries until we entered into Second Life… until this very moment… until now.

Present

Which reality do we talk about when we speak about virtual worlds? Persistency? Real time? 3D? Or do we talk about this great ability we have to go back and forth to cross and leave the membrane, this magic circle that separe the physical world from the synthetic world?

When I logged in, at the beginning of my Second Life,  I used to think about Matrix (guess now Avatar would be THE reference !), because when I am inworld, my brain is totally there, with all my senses. It is not just a question of screen and mouse; it is its capacity to take me in, to set me in the state of “flow”. And when we are in the flow, we lose perception of location and time. We may reach that flow on the Internet, when a website is ergonomic, when the user experience is well done. But virtual worlds are much more immersive because they offer our brain representations and archetypes which are totally familiar, natural.

We do not see a synthetic world on our devices: we are in the world. We do not look at an avatar that we love, we see the person behind it, we feel his soul and hear his heart. All our perceptions are changed, and this is why people outside do not understand until they give themselves the opportunities to immerse, thru games, thru education, or work.

Second Life and virtual worlds, as they are now in early 2010, reflect the state of technology: quicker processors, better graphic cards, large servers and broader bands. We do not realize it because we are part of it, but slowly our experience get closer to the real thing, which is virtual reality. It is not yet there, we still can’t really teleport, smell a mimosa, or feel the skin. But we are on the way, and this is why so many people are afraid of it. The membrane gets more porous every day.

As Marshall Mc Luhan said, media is the message, and virtual worlds like Second Life are mediums which allow us to extend ourselves above physical frontiers, push our possibilities, our limits exactly like newspaper, radio or television did it. And this medium changes us. We are now ready for more.


Close Future

More, in a close future means a few different things.


More means easier: easy interfaces, ergonomic and customizable to each one according to its brain preferences.

More means more realistic (if we want it): more realistic avatars with face expressions and smoother body movements.

More means more interactivity with other applications, social, transactional, operational.

More means, that slowly slowly we forget about virtual worlds to talk about immersive internet, immersive platform which gives us more power to interact with others on private or professional matters. On this ground, I would think that virtual worlds will change name to slowly be called something close to internet 3D….

Sure, it is difficult to separate virtual worlds from the evolution of technology and of our societies.
Convergence leads the debate on a technological point of view and 3D seems to be in the center as a must for a user experience. The success of Avatar is not only due to the story itself but also to a conception that relies on 3D. 3D representation invading all other medias will changes the whole perception of the human being exactly as it did in the Renaissance times with the intrusion of perspective in painting.

The first effect of this change should be that getting use to 3D mass medias with television and movies, will slowly make people unsatisfied with online 2D conversations or representations.

Best example is to compare a browser based 2D exhibition and an exhibition in Second Life… The example of Linden Lab Solution Providers conference was a great demonstration and I will give more details of it in my next post.

The second effect, more subtil, is that watching ourselves thru 3D will reinforce hyper-ego and offer social and global movement, a gentle way to gather in real time in 3D environments as decors for brainstorming, conferencing, live-showing, etc…

Many gurus will find a way to extend their consulting offering by organizing virtual consultations or conferences in a more sophisticated personal atmosphere. Big corporate companies in need of strategies for crisis communication will invest virtual media centers where they can react in real time in a more emotional way than just press releases.

So to end with those predictions which do not want to look as predictions, what about Second Life is 2010 ?

New viewer 2.0 with the Media-API and the html-on-a-prim (expected first term)
New generation of avatars with the possibility to name them as you want
New social widgets linked to the major social platforms we all know…
New secured transactional features to make payment directly linked to a real life logistic (not linked to the internet but directly linked to the server)
Import of 3D Mesh Objects Into Second Life
New offer on land with higher speed servers for special event or businesses needing more resources
More internal meetings and the organization by Linden Lab of a mass event
Main partnerships announced with the official launch of Second Life Enterprise
An improvement of the general image of Second Life in Europe and in the world
We’ll be passing the 100 000 accounts online simultaneously on a regular basis….

Waiting for those changes which will open Second Life to other great minds like you all, once again a very happy new year 2010! 


P.S. Want to read more predictions ? And please, feel free to give your predictions ...:)


Mark Kingdon - M Linden
Daniel Voyager
Dusan Writer
New Worlds Notes
Gwins Home

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France is the most visited country in the world. About 80 millions tourists from all over the world are coming every year and Paris is the most visited city with about 16 millions people. And I have to admit, it is a fantastic country to travel, and it is true that Paris is a beautiful city too ! I have been living here for 30 years now, often left but always returned ! That is maybe why, the first region I created on Second Life was the famous Champs Elysees where I could try to give a taste of one of most visited avenue in Paris !

Right now, it is snowing big flakes, the conversations here are about how to avoid Paris to be a museum city with no life except tourists ... Night life is going away to Berlin or London, energy is in New York or Tel Aviv, fantasy is in Roma or Barcelona... and Parisian start to be jealous ! French people, if you don't know them, have a great tendancy to grouse, to complain about changes, and others but more of all themselves and about everything... I am not very sure why it is that way, but I had the chance to travel a lot around the world, and this is always something I felt as a painful thing about the people here. Maybe it has something to do about deep and old identity that find it difficult to coop with this new global way of life, maybe it is a strong sense of analysis we cultivate since we are children at school, maybe it is just a trait of personnality, ethnic, historic...

When you live in France, you do not realize so much the chance you have to live here. The country has "a wide variety of landscapes, from coastal plains in the north and west to mountain ranges of the Alps in the south-east, the Massif Central in the south-central and Pyrenees in the south-west". You can cross the country from north to south, or east to west in a day and you' ll see so many different landscapes and will meet so many different types of people, there is no chances for you not to find something you really like, or maybe fall in love with.

If you want to have a taste of this, take a look to some regions of Second Life. Recently I visited Jura and Alsace, and I really thought that was a nice way to discover the country. Jura is close to Switzerland and belongs to a region named Franche-Comté,  you can have an idea of its architecture, industry and landscape there. Alsace is close to Germany, and has a great reputation for its Christmas Markets. You can even order delicatessen directly from Second Life to your hometown !

Those two places may give you an idea of the whole potential for tourism business to "demonstrate" in 3D into Second Life, a sensation that only 3D can give to be in  "there". It is not only about architecture, tourism or culture, but also about economic since you are also able to put in perspective the main sectors of activities from the region, its enterprises or its commerce. Talking about commerce, it is also so easy to link from virtual goods to an e-commerce platform online and allow people to discover and to buy. And it is also a great way to know the people, to go above the cliches and to really enter into relationships as a trempolino to real life meetings.

As we say in french, to try it is to adopt it !

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Image via Wikipedia

I just came back from James Cameron's 3D movie Avatar which was a really great experience. For almost 3 hours, I just forgot the time, my mind was not anymore in cold snowy Paris, but in Pandora, where you could see the slow move of Jake Sully to his long tall blue semi-lion man avatar. I wish I could also have jump into that jungle and fly on those strange birds.

Great 3D movie with hundreds of people stuck on their chair and applauses at the end. Sophisticated media, simple message and the idea that soon, someday close to us, our Second Life will also be as real as the world of Pandora for Jake. I know for some this may sound as a nightmare, but for some of us, - and I belong-, this will be a small revolution....

How did we arrive in Second Life ? What was the main reason . How did we end up to incarnate our avatar, what was the drive, when was the exact moment ?

For some, it might be easy to say, but others more shy or modest, it would be more difficult to explain. For some coming from video game univers, it was a natural prolongation. For others, manipulating the keyboard took a month before they could get handle movements properly.

Reasons to get and to stay into Second Life  are all individual choices. Maybe SL was an answer to loneliness, tough and modern, maybe just an inside solitude that nothing could kill before. Maybe it was a way to keep active, brain & engine. Maybe it was an overdose of television, bars and light relationships. Maybe it was sickness, handicap, difficulty to move but will to share and socialize. Or unemployement,  or opportunities. Or maybe just curiosity, fantasy, creativity. And maybe for some, it was a little bit of everything.

Whatever was the reason to get in, there was an instant, short, fleeting, an immaterial flash, where we and our avatar became the same person. The avatar was not anymore a puppet on the screen, but the person behind it, mind, soul and body. We even did not realize it, we were just in the mental flow, no more idea of time and space, just inside this 3D world that was so hard to leave.

This is called immersion, brain immersion, and that makes all the difference.
Because when the avatar becomes a part of us, and that we can evoluate in a 3D environment,  then all the doors open to leave a stream of emotion going from inside the screen to outside the screen. That helps us to get interested by others, their culture, their mood, their life. That is why we can spend hours building a house or decorate it. That is how we can make real friends and relationships. That is also how we can learn more easily, or share a conference together, or understand concepts better.  

When emotionnal doors are open, what happens to our avatar also affects us. It can be good, like a friend of mine who suddenly discovered she had no more vertigo in her real life after using parachutes a few times in Second Life. It can also be sad, like when suddenly you learn that someone you used to talk to everyday, had a mortal accident in a trip on the Himalaya Mountains.


Yes, our avatar changes us, that is a fact. 

People who never were in virtual worlds can laugh about avatars and maybe they do it because they dont get it. They understand you need a pen to write, or a screen to watch a movie.
But they dont get the idea, you may need an avatar to enter in another dimension, and eventually spend the vacations you can't afford in real, go to bars, laugh and dance, meet people, share time and mental energy with them, architect a palace you would never be able to afford, become the Madonna of the international virtual stage from you small village in Arkansas. But apart from the fun, your avatar in a 3D world, is a way to feel the abstract space, to see yourself in an environment that flat design or internet lists & catalogs are unable to provide.  For business people, an avatar will allow you to travel during the same day in many regions of the world, hold meetings and media conferences, exhibit your goods and products, recruit specialists, visit prototypes...

Your avatar is all about putting your dream in action, and at the end, you never know how this action will impact your person in the physical world.

People do not understand it mostly because they are afraid of it. Afraid that you would lose all contact with your reality. It is a risk for some, but for how long ? As Jake Sully, you do not feed your body with pixels...

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Except if you have been sick and away from any traditionnal or new medias the last 2 month, or out on another planet, you certainly have heard about UN Copenhagen Summit on Climatic Changes which is being held until Dec 18th.

There are many ways to participate to this conference, if you are not invited at the Summit ! You can of course do it the traditionnal way, which means waiting for hearing the news on TV. But if you want to be more active and get the feeling to participate, you can either share and interact on the website OneClimate which distribute a live stream from Copenhagen 24/7 thru Justin TV, either join the Virtual Expo in Second Life at OneClimate Island where you will get to participate to real conferences and meet interesting people who have been using Second Life and virtual worlds as a platform to prove their concept for a greener world. That is one of the most interesting aspect of virtual worlds and this is the best moment to get the idea !

This means you'll have the opportunity to ask questions of the policymakers and campaigners shaping the most important climate negotiations of our time.  You can also watch films & get information, based on the five elements, covering the Arctic, rainforests, wind turbines & typhoons, volcanoes, peak oil, virtual allotments and Australian wetlands.  

You'll find all details of the program and places in SL here.

If you have any questions about this great event and want to relay or know more, you can contact Paolo Rousselot in SL aka Peter Lundquist.

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Zwei Putzfrauen im Bürogebäude. Sagt die eine: "Ich mache jetzt Diät".
Darauf die andere: "Gut, dann mache ich die Fenster".

Warum müssen wir über so etwas lachen (komm, gib es zu, du hast wenigstens geschmunzelt)? Keine Ahnung, und im Grunde auch völlig unwichtig, ich benutze das Stilmittel des Witzes nur als Einstieg in diesen Beitrag.

Aber mal ehrlich, das Jahr neigt sich dem Ende und spätestens nach Sylvester sind sie wieder da, all die guten Vorsätze. Immer gerne genommen, der Vorsatz, im neuen Jahr abzuspecken. Deutlich abzuspecken, versteht sich. Und endlich kann ich diesen Blog einmal dazu benutzen, wirklich hilfreich zur Seite zu stehen. Mit meinen beiden Tipps. Tipp 1: 15 Kilo abnehmen in 5 Minuten – die Bein-ab-Diät!! Funktioniert immer und dauert vor allem nicht so lange. (Übrigens: Vorsicht, funktioniert genau zweimal, dann ist Schluss mit dieser Art von Diät!)

Auf Tipp 2 bin ich gerade eben gestoßen: Abnehmen in Second Life. Was?! Ist der jetzt total irre geworden? Ist er nicht. Kürzlich hat in unserer virtuellen Lieblingswelt Kaliforniens beliebtestes Fitnesstudio eröffnet: Club One. Auf einer kompletten Insel kann der gemeine Resident Sport treiben, relaxen, Pfunde verlieren und was weiß ich noch alles. Dass das kein Gag ist und man es in Kalifornien offensichtlich verdammt ernst meint damit, sieht man nicht zuletzt daran, dass Club One jetzt ganz aktuell ein spezielles Programm aufgesetzt hat, für das der elitäre Club Leute sucht, die mitmachen. Und zwar in Second Life ... also virtuell. Genauer gesagt, Fitness OS (Ohne Schwitzen).

Ok, wenn wir uns alle wieder beruhigt und hingesetzt haben, dann lasst mich erklären, warum das tatsächlich funktionieren kann: Wer schon mal eine Diät gemacht hat (und wer hat das nicht, außer mir?), der weiß, dass die meisten Diäten an sich selbst scheitern, sprich an den Leuten, die sie machen. Der biologische Prozess des Abnehmens ist nicht das Problem, das Problem ist die Frustration, die Motivation, kurz: die Emotion. Und genau da setzt dieses virtuelle Pfunde-verlieren an. In angenehmer Umgebung treibt man Sport, schwitzt, saunt, schwimmt und dieses virtuelle Verhalten überträgt sich sozusagen automatisch auf das Verhalten im realen Leben. Wer einmal virtuell 2 km am Morgen durch das eiskalte Schwimmbecken gekrault ist, dem sollten lächerliche 200 m Freistil im Schwimmbad um die Ecke keine mentalen Probleme mehr bereiten. Na, das denk ich doch auch.

Wer's immer noch nicht glaubt, der schaue hier:



Anmeldungen übrigens direkt in Second Life. Das wollte ich nur noch erwähnen. Nur für den Fall, versteht sich ...

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What is the common point between Second Life 2008 and Second Life 2009 ? Or let's figure the question as one of those wine lovers friends, and since we are almost at the end of the year, can we assert the Second Life 2009 vintage is one that will show a definite break between the old Second Life and something that we do not know yet but which is on the way.

So much changes everyday announced on the Second Life blog, new website, adult policy, new policy for the newcomers, new premium accounts, new rules for merchants, new enterprise program, new viewer in perspective and so much more is showing a deep change and it is hard to believe Linden Lab is not onboard to announce some main change.

I am not reading the cards but I really would like to be in one of that movie where you could read the newspaper of december 2010, then come back and use that news to achieve the best position for the future.

Today I was having a closer look to Blue Mars strategy with content partners, reading about the lauching of NearLondon , listening to people talking about Eve, downloading pdf about web.Alive and finally ended by watching James Cameron talking about his movie Avatar which I am looking forward to see next wednesday with my nephews !

I celebrated my 3rd rezz day a few days ago. At the time I entered SL, blogging was the hot thing. My Space was this music thing, Facebook was a joke, microblogging was not even existing, Apple was talking about the iPod Phone and Second Life was wowwww. So much is going on with web 2.0 and time passing, we dont realize how we have ingest that change, how all that has changed us, but also shaped a whole generation coming in the ring and for whom Second Life looks not so wowwwwww.

I love Second Life and the way we were. I am working as an evangelist for 3 years, and integrated it in my personal and professionnal life but let's face it. Change we need & change the community needs to accept.

I remember Philip Rosedale in Chicago saying " we know virtual worlds are here to stay and grow. We just don't know if Second Life will be the one..." and disappear in the boiling flow of technology as Netscape did in its time. And because I want Second Life "to be the one" (dont know why really, but this is how it is), I think we all should work to accept and manage this change and the opportunities it offers each of us.

More than this, I think nothing will really change for those who dont want to change. Second Life is just opening to other users, other needs and wishes, other type of consumers, and why would it not ? Why would we want to keep the old Second Life the way it was like a jealous lover who would ask you not to ever change ! And for this move, all of those changes make sense :
- a new viewer to simplify the first hour experience for those who are not video game oriented
- a new premium account with land and basic house to enhance that experience
- a new enterprise product to feet corporate needs
- an adult policy to run away from usual scandals that pollute the image of the world
- a change of Xstreet to enhance the shopping experience and maybe avoid crazy dumping
- Second Life Answers with Resident Help Network like the aardvark model
- an energetic solutions providers program to chart quality and extend "a B2B sales force" (affiliation program ?)
- a reorganization of the P.R. program to reinstall the real image of SL

I am sure I forget a lot of announces but what I feel for sure is that the change behind all this is leading to a swift in the economic model. More income, sure, but also more money to finance more technology and therefore more services.

More technology also means different versions of the viewer and maybe a lite SL browser based, real time, acting as a twitter inworld. Means also integration of 3D meshes, and interoperability with other social medias.

And to get back to the image of Second Life, this change would take us to a really new Second Life, a Second Life 2.0 that would certainly needs a change of name. Is a suffix enough to identify what is your Second Life, entertainment, enterprise or education ? Or is Second Life already a brand of the past that needs a total fixing with a new name ? Is Second Life ready for a change of name ? What do You think ?

My opinion is that name must be relevant to the user you are talking to, and I am sceptical on the fact that a radical change of name would carry the idea of a total new change without losing the benefits of 6 years experience and work. Except if SL would be totally integrate by a larger company, what is the point ? A suffix would be a good start so each consumer will associate it to its own interest. The first talks we had with corporates mentionning a new product called Second Life Enterprise are showing us a slight change of attitude and a positive concern.

Whatever will be chosen, wherever leads those changes, we may all agree Second Life has definitely opened the way and changed the life of millions of people all over the world, introducing the era of 3D web real time... Let's continue, let it be the one, let's move on and share !


"Life 2.0" documentary teaser from Jason Spingarn-Koff on Vimeo.
This feature length documentary follows a group of people whose lives are dramatically transformed by a virtual world, Second Life - reshaping relationships, identities, and ultimately the very notion of reality.
Premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival

Related articles by Zemanta

• Linden Lab to raise Xstreet fees, loses vendors, products (massively.com)
• Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon (massively.com)
• Linden Lab to alter third-party Second Life viewer policies (massively.com)
• Second Life is Still Around but Media is Less Interested (shoppingblog.com)
• Second Life Economy Healthier Than First Life (manolith.com)
• Second Life Takes Virtual Goods Corporate (marketingvox.com)
• Virtual world workers need avatar dress code policy (blogherald.com)
• Dusan Writer Blog
  

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Kein Grund zur Panik! Ganz ruhig bleiben. Es kann Ihnen nichts passieren. Natürlich nur insofern Sie das Haus nicht verlassen, öffentlichen Versammlungen fernbleiben, nicht in den Urlaub fahren und mit niemandem reden – oder nur mit Ihrer Familie, die mit Ihnen im Bunker lebt.

Mittlerweile glaube ich ja an gar nichts mehr, vor allem nicht an das was ich lese. Zu oft werde ich überrascht. Beispiel? Gerne. Nehmen wir die Weltwirtschaftskrise. Noch bevor sie uns alle dahingerafft hat, ist sie auch schon wieder im Orkus des Unwiederbringlichen verschwunden, die Gute. Natürlich erst, nachdem die Blüte unserer Wirtschaft (ich meine Unternehmen) dieses kurzweilige Phänomen ausreichend zum Anlass zu nehmen konnte, im großen Stil Arbeitsplätze abzubauen. Das versteht doch jeder!

Eigentlich hat die Weltwirtschaftskrise auch ihre guten Seiten, denn am Ende bleibt dem Normalo-Bürger (arbeitslos oder nicht) so wenig Kohle, dass er an Urlaub gar nicht zu denken braucht. Wie gut, denn dann kann er sich in der Fremde auch nicht anstecken. Und null Reisekosten, sozusagen.

Das gilt natürlich NICHT für Unternehmen. Denn für die gehören Reisekosten ja zum festen Posten einer jeden Budgetplanung. Klingt nach Einsparpotential – und siehe, genauso ist es. Und was hilft da beim Sparen: richtig – virtuelle Welten wie Second Life! Denn SL ist nicht nur von der Schweinegrippen-Epidemie weitestgehend verschont geblieben, sondern bietet Unternehmen überdies eine ganze Reihe von Möglichkeiten, virtuell zu meeten. Und davon wird immer mehr Gebrauch gemacht. Wie z. B. IBM. Virtuelle Messen, Kundenmeetings, Mitarbeiterversammlungen, Online-Präsentationen – das alles geht jetzt in einem Rutsch. Und kostet so gut wie nix. Aber das beste ist: Keiner pennt mehr ein in so einem Meeting.

Denn Jetlag gibts auch nicht mehr! Na dann ...

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Needed a nice break from Second Life this week end to enjoy my real nephews, and socialize with my natural environment ! Fall is nice in Paris those days and walking makes your ideas clear and fluid. It is important, when you spend a lot of time inworld, to create those breaks that make you see your old second life as a newbee. I can't believe I will enter into my 4th year of SL in a few weeks...

Ending my week end with a great movie (Le Concert from Radu MIHAILEANU) shared with some friends in a comfortable movie theater, I was remembering of a live performance I enjoyed at Natt Jazz Club sometimes ago, and wondering if it would be the same kind of emotion to share this movie with my SL friends from all over the world, in a great decor like the one of the incredible Rose Theater. That is maybe why so many people are using TV screens in SL...



Last week I spent quite a bit of time updating my social online networks thru facebook, linkedin and twitter... Those followings are a few articles I run thru on the way. Glad to see that aside from usual critics and complaints, and far from the medias affects, there are still a lot of people and organisations who are experimenting and working to make the best out of SL and virtual environments.

What happened to Second Life? I was not too sure when this was written when I read it... Look as an old vision of SL, which is very different from what I can see. Apparently there was an interview given by M Linden and the BBC journalist wrote it yesterday... But she does not seem to have really taken the time to explore Second Life 2009....

How Virtual Worlds Mimic the Politics of the Real World
Interesting thoughts & questions about governance in MMO and democracy in virtual worlds...

Business Process Modelling in Second Life
"Our scope was to explore how Web 2.0 techniques, social networking tools and virtual world environments can be used to support the collaborative design of business process models."

The U.S. Army Embarks on Virtual Worlds for Amputees
"Pixels and Policy looks at the growing trend in developing an amputee-friendly Metaverse, and the role new "accessible worlds" will play in improving the lives of amputees."

Wiki Tree Goes Open Source
"So we’re liberating the Wiki Tree software. We’re releasing all the code, both in-world and server-side under the Berkeley Software Distribution license."

Related articles by Zemanta

• Wikitree (deangroom.wordpress.com)
• The Linden Prize goes to ... Studio Wikitecture and Virtual Ability (blogs.secondlife.com)

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