Virtual environments and social media: from despair to being halfway there
[View the story “Virtual worlds, why they are so limited, and so precious” on Storify]
Category Archives: second life
‘Silicon Valley is a state of mind, not a place’
Cities, centers of innovation, do matter. Even though we have telecom, internet, tele-presence technologies, people seem to need concentrations of innovation and expertise: look at the international financial centers and the geographical clusters of technological innovation. The tech blogger and evangelist Robert Scoble brought a round-up of what’s hot in… Continue reading
At last! Moving around in Second Life using Kinect
Remember the guys who used the Kinect to move around and play in World of Warcraft? I was frustrated that Second Life did not have the scoop… but here we are now: those same people from the University of Southern California, Institute for Creative Technologies, demonstrate how they use the… Continue reading
Can we do evil while curating and practicing social media optimization?
Not everyone is an avid explorer of new media. Not only that a majority of internet users won’t give Second Life a try, they even won’t use Twitter. The fast moving streams of information or the immersive experiences in virtual environments are new experiences and it’s not always easy to… Continue reading
Rehearsing the day that we’ll program matter
So I’ve been monitoring that State of the World 2011 conversation on The WELL (with Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowski), learning about design fiction (see also critical design) and watching an awesome video about Claytronics (programmable matter). Sterling, on his blog Beyond the Beyond: “Check out this bonkers Discovery Channel… Continue reading
Eternal shame! World of Warcraft mage beats Second Life geeks!
Oh my! Is our Second Life community, and especially the geeky part of it, losing it’s innovative edge? New World Notes posted a few days ago about how the Kinect is being used to move around and play in World of Warcraft. Watch this video: Interesting to note: in 2008… Continue reading
Talking about virtual worlds outside virtual worlds: Quora
One of the impressive things about virtual worlds are the communities which create not only those worlds, but also a social media ecosystem around the actual virtual environments. This is a first post in a series about those “other places” where we meet. Instead of starting out with the usual… Continue reading
Second Life seems to be focused on entertainment (Gasp!)
Shocking! Maybe Second Life is a game after all! For years now residents of Second Life explain over and over again that they are not ‘players’ but ‘residents’, that one does not ‘play Second Life’ and that it is not a game even though one can play games in that… Continue reading
Kansas to Cairo: vanishing cultural differences, or rather avoiding stereotypes?
If there is one thing which seems to be perfectly suited for collaboration and research in a world such as Second Life, it seems to be architecture. If such a project also involves geographically dispersed teams, education, and different cultures, it really becomes a fascinating challenge. Students from Cairo and… Continue reading
Existential questions about virtual worlds
It has been interesting to be away from virtual worlds stuff for a few weeks. I had some catching up to do, but at first sight it seems not much has changed. There is another famous Linden Lab employee leaving the company, Jack Linden. Other virtual worlds are presenting themselves… Continue reading