A MOO For SLCC

Above you'll see my new business cards, specially printed up for me by MOO cards. They exist in real life, but are for my virtual identity. Why, you ask, would one need real life business cards for an avatar? Because I intend on using them at the upcoming Second Life Community Convention, taking place this year in Boston from August 13-15th.

I've attended two previous conventions, 2008 in Tampa and 2009 in San Francisco. Both were tremendously awesome experiences, and I expect similar from this year's in Boston. Some might find the idea of meeting other avatars strange or even a bit creepy, but it is nothing like that at all. It's perhaps one of the deepest experiences an avatar can have.

SLCC is how you can become your avatar for a weekend.

That's right - everyone refers to each other by their avatar name, and real names are pretty much never heard. People act like their avatar, and sometimes they even dress like their avatar, even if it involves a tail or wings. People sit and chat, listen to music, have adventures - all just like you would in Second Life. But this time it's avatars doing such things in Real Life. The fidelity of the experience is far better, but the teleportation sucks.

If you're still doubting the value of attending, please read my account of Tampa in 2008 and San Francisco in 2009. Both events meant a great deal to me.

Back to the business cards. When I return home I usually have a small collection of fascinating business cards from avatars I knew from before or those I just met at the convention. I keep the cards in a small pile beside my computer, a tiny physical reminder that those pixelated avatars on my screen are in fact very real people.

I hope to see you there.

The Memorial

Tonight I visited Codebastard Redgrave's Linden Memorial, located in Bowness. This is a relocation of the original memorial she constructed at her own sim, Rouge. It's a brilliant idea that leverages the magic of Second Life into a very moving experience.

The layout is simple: gravestones on a hillside, each representing a recently-departed Linden. (No, they're not dead, they were simply let go from Linden Lab employment.) Nevertheless, I found myself strolling among the rather long rows of headstones, searching for people I know. Knew.

The feeling I had was eerily similar to similar real-life experiences in actual graveyards. Reading unfamiliar names; wondering why there are so many flowers on this stone, and none on another; unexpectedly finding someone's name whom you thought was still alive, er, employed. Just like RL.

The gravestones may be "paid" to produce a flower, and many indeed have flowers. There were many on the graves of Data, Jeska, Minerva, Matthew, Aimee, Babbage, Mia, Harmony, Tofu and my friend Joppa Linden (above), who I spent time with at SLCC. The most flowers by quite a margin were found on Blue and Teagan's headstones.

Interestingly, there were no flowers on T Linden's stone, and I could not locate a stone for M. Perhaps it just hasn't been done yet?

The property is group owned, and they would appreciate any donations you can provide, either through flower purchases or direct donations as indicated on their welcome board. Be sure to visit - and note the ominous "Unknown Linden" headstones at the back awaiting additional announcements.

I Am Canadian!

Yes, if you didn't know, I am indeed Canadian - and tomorrow, July 1st, is Canada Day. I'm off work and celebrating, but I want to remind everyone that I do offer several Canadian-oriented particle products at Electric Pixels. Pictured above is the very beautiful "I Am Canadian" effect. I really should post a video of it, since the still image doesn't really show the subtle motion and fading of the maple leaves. When you wear it, there's no doubt where you're from.

If you're interested in this and related Canadian products, why not drop by Electric Pixels and take a look? Not Canadian? I have similar products for many other countries - and if yours isn't there, drop me a line and I'll make it if there's sufficient demand.

Chasing the Bar: The Linden Lab Layoffs

I read the latest news from Linden Lab, where they abruptly announced they were letting go approximately 30% of the staff, closing and consolidating distant offices and changing strategy. On the surface, and indeed for the unfortunate 30%, this seems to be very bad news. Is Linden Lab on the ropes? Are they desperately cutting expenses in a last ditch effort to buy a few more months of life before the inevitable cash crunch?

Maybe, but I don't think so.They're profitable, but not growing fast enough.

As a business, Linden Lab's role is to provide a good return to the shareholders for their considerable investment. As business managers, they do this by executing strategies that hopefully will accomplish that goal. Like any business, strategies sometimes don't work out and alternative strategies must be developed and deployed. If it doesn't work, try something else. I think this is the case here.

From his beginning at The Lab, CEO Mark Kingdon has spoken about simplifying the user interface, improving the first hour experience and growing the user base substantially. I even seem to recall seven-digit numbers being bantered about.

Over the past year we've seen some moves that theoretically should have supported those goals: viewer 2.0, Linden Homes, policy changes and several others. However, we are now in mid-2010, and we just haven't seen any significant growth in the user base. We also haven't seen growth of the business client base, in spite of the release of the Second Life Enterprise private grid server. These strategies, while good intentioned and reasonably executed, haven't done the job.

For me, the main problem that still exists is the incredibly difficult user experience. Yes, viewer 2.0 did simplify some things for new users (although complicating things for some existing users), but it's no where near the level of simplification required. Let's face it: users who can have a good time in minutes on innumerable other simpler systems just won't spend the time to learn the mysterious intricacies of the SL viewer and the virtual culture.

The Lab has been spending efforts trying to simplify their total experience, moving towards an invisible goal of easiness. But the bar has just been moved.

This spring the iPad was introduced and it is a monstrous hit, so much so that it's expected to be in the hands of tens of millions of people a year from now and many more after that. I'm not saying we should run SL on an iPad, but there's an interesting phenomenon taking place: the iPad has revealed that many people want ultra-simplified computing. Its amazing to watch seniors, very young children and those unfamiliar with computers to immediately use an iPad. It turns out that many people (but probably not you) just want instant on, touch and a reliable simple interface. They don't want software versions, graphics cards, DLLs, viruses, upgrades and all the nonsense you have to put up with to use a PC. Sure, techies will still want and use PCs, but who among us hasn't found ourselves helping a baffled relative with a PC problem - and you just know they have no business owning a PC as they have no chance of ever properly operating it. Those are the new majority of computing users, the folks who will be using very simple interfaces on simple devices - and not just the iPad, but many similar devices that will inevitably follow. The bar of simplicity has just been raised.

Back to The Lab. Their new strategy involves creating a new web browser based interface. You know, something that would run easily on all these new simple devices? The ones to be owned by tens or even hundreds of millions of people?

Does this mean we'll all have to use it? I think not. I think we'll see existing and sophisticated users keep the main downloadable viewer to create SL content: the content needed by the (hopefully) huge numbers of new simplified users. Perhaps some of them will like SL so much that they'll take the time to download the "full" viewer and become content creators themselves.

Meanwhile, there should be a great many new users seeking content - from the content creators, property owners and service providers who could enjoy a new boom. At least I'd imagine that's the theory; we'll see if it comes to pass.

One more thing: this post was entirely created on an iPad.

We of the White Suits

I'm not saying we are or should wear white suits, Hamlet Au aside. I'm referring to the 1951 comedy/science fiction flick, "The Man in the White Suit" starring Alec Guinness, who would later on become Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star wars series.

The premise of this 60 year old film is straightforward: a nerdy chemist working at a textile factory produces an amazing invention: a fabric that is virtually indestructible and automatically repels dirt, staying clean forever. Even better, the suit slightly glows white due to its "radioactive content". Well, perhaps that isn't so good.

Nevertheless, the story unfolds and the protagonist, Sidney Stratton, attempts to convince his textile factory to produce clothing with the new miracle fabric. Initially interested, the factory owners soon realize that if they were to produce clothing with the new fabric, they'd be out of business because people would never need to buy clothes again! Even the workers found the possibility to their detriment, and they united with management (unprecedented in the 1950's) to force Stratton's idea out.

It's a fun movie and an interesting premise. But could it be true? I believe we're living this science fiction story out in Second Life today. Consider the clothing our avatars wear: it never wears out; it never gets dirty; and, if you are so inclined, it can slightly glow. Our clothing doesn't have to be white, however.

And thus we'd never need to buy any more clothes, and the virtual clothing factories would close?

Apparently not. An inspection of anyone's inventories shows at least hundreds, if not tens of thousands of clothing items that don't soil, never wear out. The virtual clothing factories are not closing. They are thriving, mostly.

Why is this so? What is the difference in attitude between the 1951 movie and 2010 virtual life? I think it's that people think differently about life today - we are accustomed to living in a universe of creativity and options, whereas the people of 1950 were less well off, with far fewer options for creative outlets. They were satisfied with less, while we are never satisfied because we know something new is merely as distant as the next imaginative thought. Sure, there were no doubt 1950s fashion hounds, but none of them had 17,000 items of clothing as our avatars do.

I believe this attitude is one of the success factors for virtual reality. People want to create. They want to consume new things. In fact, many proceed through their virtual lives almost with the sole purpose to acquire new (indestructible) clothing designs.

With the exception of Hamlet, of course, who has only one white suit.

Virtual Peace

Yesterday I caught a tweet from Friend Joshua Fouts (@josholalia) who had retweeted Yoko Ono’s tweet from eariier in the day:

@yokoono: Join us when IMAGINE PEACE TOWER lights at #SecondLife sunsets http://bit.ly/2LIPT 3:20 7:20 & 11:20SLT (SLT=PT)

I attended this event last year, and I returned this year to the 7:20PM SLT lighting.

The display is simple and beautiful: luminescent blue beams, reach far into the sky from a pleasant, meadow-like island. The beams are a soft blue, but when placed together in symphony towards the sky, something wonderful happens. The tower is a reproduction of a real life exhibit in Reykjavik, Iceland, first unveiled last year.

The Imagine Peace Tower inspires people to think of peace, consider our world as one and just maybe, take some action to make it a better place. From Yoko’s manifesto:

So let’s work together to save this planet. Since destiny is created by first imaging what destiny we want for ourselves, we should IMAGINE PEACE in a big way with total conviction. In the old days, gurus sat and meditated day and night. That was pretty powerful. But we live in a different world. Time is so precious to us now. A million kids can be killed in one second as we are wondering what to do. So we can’t just sit and meditate. We should IMAGINE PEACE day and night, as we go about our daily lives.

 
There were not very many people there, that night on Yoko’s island. Haley and I sat quietly and awaited the lighting. As I looked at the unlit platform, I recalled the song that began the movement, Lennon’s “Imagine”, that I first heard long ago. While some may argue with its ideals, I believe it influenced me throughout my life by making me perhaps a little bit more peaceful than some, striving for something better - for everyone.

Suddenly, the lighting ceremony began as I heard Yoko’s voice. She welcomed us, and explained why the tower was made, calling it the “Light of Wisdom”. Then the familiar piano strokes of the famous song began to play as the tower lit up and it all came together for me. Amidst the peaceful scene, the towering lights, the song did its magic. As it continued, both John and Yoko spoke of their immense ideals, and challenged everyone to join their movement.

For me the experience was brief and wonderful, because it reminded me of our obligations in this troubled world. Each day we see, read or even participate in conflicts large or small, many of which are unnecessary, distracting or hurtful. Of how we must pause our conflicts and try our best to make life better not only for ourselves, but everyone. In my immersed state on that lonely island, the light of wisdom shone brightly.

Thank you John, and thank you, Yoko, for leaving us this place and these ideals, where anyone in the world can visit, and Imagine.

A Volcanic Eruption!

It’s been a while since I released a new product, so I wanted to make sure it was something big. And indeed, this one is huge! It’s called “Volcanic Eruption”, and it does just that.

Volcanic Eruption provides more realism to Second Life volcanoes. Most volcanoes are simply a dead mountain with a cone-shaped depression at the top, and the odd one might have smoke percolating out of it. However, I wanted to do something better.

Originally a custom build for a private estate owner but now available to all, the new Volcanic Eruption particle emitter provides a realistic twist to your virtual volcano. Simply place the emitter into your volcano’s cone and it does all the rest for you. And what, exactly, does it do?

It erupts!

To be more precise, it follows a sequence typical of real volcanoes:

• It remains idle for a time. (You can specify how long you’d like it to remain dormant)
• The eruption commences with a stream of smoke flowing skyward
• Suddenly an explosion occurs, releasing flying ejecta in all directions!
• A column of fire rises from the volcano’s cone
• The fire collapses, resulting in a deadly pyroclastic flow that runs down the sides of the mountain

 
In real life, the most dangerous part of a volcanic eruption is the pyroclastic flow. It’s a superheated mix of toxic gases and dust that speeds downward at velocities far faster than you can run, cooking and choking everything in its path. That’s what kills people during eruptions.

And now you can have it for your volcano too. Just drop by Electric Pixels, where you can find the new Volcanic Eruption in the Garden and Weather departments.