theory.isthereason » SecondLife

Shock & Awesome Show: On digitally mediated sex cultures

Kevin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:03:46 +0000

MixieMoxie and Mander have yours truly as a guest on their strange yet fabulous Blog.tv show, Shock & Awesome.

It started with MixieMoxie asking me whether we could “touch the Internet”. Naturally, our two hour talk show started with tele-haptics, but soon dribbled down to tele-dildonics, cybersex and the digital mediation of sex subcultures such as Furries and BDSM in SecondLife.

Aside: Despite leaving after 2hrs, MixieMoxie went on broadcasting and turned it into a six hour marathon chat session! Be sure to check out my previous interview with her as a Zivity model.

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CIT 2008 // Day 2: Trying Seero.com, Filmmaking, Second Life, and Hitachi’s “Better” Smartboard…

Kevin — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:22:45 +0000

Click here to see the Seero interface up close…

For the second commute to the CIT conference in Batavia, Mark McBride drove, with Ken Fujiuchi riding shotgun. I was behind the scenes, taking the opportunity to try out live video streaming with GPS tracking via Seero.com.

As you can see, I’m in the back seat managing the HP TC1100 tablet PC, connected to a Logitech webcam clipped to the driver’s headrest (FlexClip rawks!). I also have the Qstarz BT-Q1000 Bluetooth GPS recorder on my right lap. Finally, for Internet connectivity, I used the Nokia E51 and installed JoikuSpot to turn the Symbian OS cellphone into a wifi router, fed from its 3G data connection. While I was all prepared with extra power supplies, the real fail came from the wireless connectivity from both the Bluetooth GPS and the spotty 3G data connection along the Interstate highway. As much as I loved what Seero does, I couldn’t make it happen today.

When we finally reached Genesee Community College, Mark and I went for a presentation on “Using non-fiction filmmaking in the classroom” by Chris Gallant (UB). Googling his name, I learned that Chris Gallant won an emmy for his Anthony Capozzi HD documentary “They Made a Mistake”. At the UB Law School, he trains law students on making documentaries for building cases. Given his professional experience in production, he has students use Final Cut Express instead of iMovie. Chris noted that he makes his law students shoot video over and over again, where practice makes perfect. It would be three weeks of shooting, and the remainder of the semester on post-production. Interestingly, Chris had students check out film equipment using their library cards, quick and simple. Being legal documentaries, one of the student videos we sampled included an interview with a Jamaican musician who had trouble crossing back to the U.S. from Canada, even though he was a Green Card holder. Quite compelling.

Next, I joined Ken over at the Second Life presentation. He live-tweeted the panel so I’ll reproduce it here:

CIT2008 – Second Life: What is next for SUNY and SLN? (Panel Discussion)
Presenters: Alexandra Pickett – SUNY System Admin., Larry Dugan – Finger Lake CC, Terry Keys Monroe CC

Presentation available here…

Questions: How does higher ed use SL? How does it affect online and Face2Face? How does SL promote community for the online student?

SUNY Learning Network Island in Second Life (SLURL location)

Showing the Ohio University SL introduction video.

Demoing SL, but couldn’t teletport to Finger Lakes CC island. Now on Monroe CC island

Touring the Finger Lakes CC island now. Teleport finally worked

GED advisement support in SL

SUNY Live! Project. A 1.5 year experience in SL

Regular meetings on Tuesdays at 12:30 EST at the Monroe CC island.

SUNY Project Live! wiki: http://sunylive.pbwiki.com

MUVE Ahead Conference for K-16 educators in SL: http://muveahead.org

Back to SlideShare presentation: How can we support SUNY Live! Project beyond their grant?

Proposal: Student SL Commons and Learning Center, Faculty Innovation Center, and SUNY SL Plaza

look at the goals and implementation ideas from the presentation…

…but they are looking for ideas and participants to make SUNY SL sustainable.

Soon it was lunchtime, and today we had a nice spread of salad, hotdogs and chicken burger. All the food on this campus seemed healthy for some reason. Ken and I decided to tour the technology vendor booths and while we have the usual classroom projectors, computing furniture, etc, one thing that stood out for us was the Hitachi Smartboard.

Hitachi’s “better” smartboard used IR (infra-red) cameras instead of RF (radio-frequency) markers, so you can simply use your fingers to digitally draw and navigate the smartboard. Since no markers were needed, you won’t lose or have to buy additional components. I’ve seen lots of smartboard in my time, and this one was quite amazing to me because of its simplicity. Ken noted existing $99 wii-mote hacks that achieve similar results, but even Johnny Lee’s infamous low-cost smartboard solution required an IR light pen. Here’s a video of us exploring the vendor booths and about 4 min 20 sec in, you’ll see the Hitachi’s Starboard FX-Duo-77 smartboard in action…

In addition, my friend MrBig tipped me off on “Building your own Multitouch Pad” using Touchlib.

Finally, there was ice cream over tea-break! Perfect way to end the second summer day at CIT 2008…

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It’s been a while my friend… exploring Myrl

Kevin — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:24:48 +0000

It’s been close to a year since I last logged into Second Life (SL nick: Kevin Suisei). Ever since I terminated my paid account, I saw little reason to continue, seeing that I’ve got too few relationships with anyone in that metaverse.

I had wanted to own land and build my own home there, but just after I signed up, they canceled provisioning of free land to new users. Without a home, I was left to wander the islands like a ghost. Without a base, there was even less attachment I had for SL.

If you look around the interface screenshot above, I do have leftover Lindens which I was intending to convert back into U.S. currency, but with the real-world economy so bad now (L$16,954 = US$59.50), I’ll hold off that idea.

The reason why I came back was to explore this new social network for metaverses called Myrl. I saw ARG researcher Christy Dena joining it (ambient awareness through social networks), and followed suit since I’ve always been interested in cross-metaverse interactions.

From Myrl’s About page:

Myrl is a social network for the Metaverse, a cross-worlds platform aiming at bringing virtual worlds on the web and connecting users from multiple virtual worlds. Myrl helps users to share their virtual life, publish their avatar/organization profile and automatically update it in real-time. Myrl is all about collaboration and user controlled information: avatars can share, shape, show, vote and rank what’s important to them.

Myrl, which stands for “My Real Life and My Role Life”, currently lets you connect to users from worlds like Second Life and There.com (more to follow). A game-like motivator for using Myrl comes in the form of your avatar’s karma, where the higher the karma, the stronger your influence will be in the community. Your karma is fed by:

Life scrobbler: how much time you’ve spent inworld
Interaction points: how many items you’ve submitted onto Myrl
Networking points: number of avatar you have invited to join the community
Myrlit points: how many times your avatar has been myrled

Right now I’m already experiencing social networking fatigue, so until social networks start talking to one another, I’m not really going to start from scratch with another one. Meanwhile, I’ll just tabs on sites like Myrl, just to see if we can discover more in-depth interactions between metaverses.

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Why porn video games don’t work: The Uncanny Valley

Kevin — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:25:28 +0000

I always get a kick when mainstream media (read: television shows) try their hand at talking theory. This time, Fleshbot (NSFW) pulls through with this golden nugget:

As readers of this site know all too well, there have been many, many, many attempts to meld interactive video games with hardcore porn, and despite the occasional interesting result it’s been pretty much a total failure. Why is this such an impossible task?

Writer Dashiell Bennett points out the above 30 Rock clip which tries to explain why porn video games don’t work using the Uncanny Valley theory. It’s funny, and quite succinct. If you’d like to know more, here’s a comprehensive video lecture by Karl F. MacDorman from the Indiana University School of Informatics.

BTW Trey, actually there is a “video game” that lets you get weird with each other for gold and points. It’s not realistic enough to face the problem of the uncanny valley, but it’s good enough for most.

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Mapping the Social & Legal Consequences of Mediated Identities

Kevin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:23:18 +0000

My last two blog post had an interesting commonality; they both reflected the increasing significance of mediated identities.

In the physical world, your identity is already represented in a multitude of ways, often delineated by geography (e.g. neighborhood), function (e.g. housewife, doctor), tribe (e.g. runners, software developers), and so on. Despite these variations of self, it is the presence of our physical being which authenticates and reinforces the imagination we have of one another.

In the online environment, this body of meaning stretches in more dramatic ways, especially when we consider the types of media to choose to represent ourselves (mediated identities). From the early Internet days of text (IRC, newsgroups ASCII art), to the rich and often exaggerated depictions through photos and videos on media sharing sites (e.g. Facebook, Youtube). Do watch Derek Lackaff’s explanation of this in my recent video interview. The by-products of these virtual selves include everything from the rise of DIY microcelebrities to satirical manifestation of an ex-Prime Minister on twitter.

While the physical realm of identity has been constantly studied under numerous disciplines such as philosophy, sociology and communication, some work has been done to illuminate the mysteries of our virtual selves, much of it to reveal why we’re willing to displace so much of our time for games like World of Warcraft or social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Still, not enough might have been done to examine the impact that mediated / virtual identities could pose in the context of the real world.

My friend Shady pointed out an article on Massively (a MMORPG meta-blog) hinting about this topic. It lead me to Smartmobs for quick pointers on a new book focusing on the impact of virtual selves.

The book is “Digital Ego: Social and Legal Aspects of Virtual Identity” by Jacob Van Kokswijk. Here’s an abstract from the academic publisher based in the Netherlands:

Non-human virtual identities have an increasing impact on our society. A virtual identity is not just an online identity of a person, but a new technical and social phenomenon. What if software agents, powered by artificial intelligence, start acting on your behalf in a digital marketplace? What are the legal consequences of decisions made by these autonomous virtual agents?

Digital Ego counters the common belief that a virtual identity is only a temporary and innocent phenomenon, which disappears when a computer is switched off. Influenced by markets, politics and culture, cyberspace is becoming a highly regulated world where, compared to our tangible world, behaviour will be much more tightly controlled. The author addresses a broad range of social and legal aspects of virtual identities, such as the position of virtual environments in real world legal systems, and the difference between virtual and real identities.

Jacob van Kokswijk is a communications expert. He has written several books and articles about digital interactive media, user controlled technologies, cross media development and human behaviour in cyberspace. He is Adjunct Professor HCI at KAIST Graduate School of Culture Technology (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). Jacob is also a Research Professor in digital media at the Dutch Twente University , and is currently researching the phenomenon of Virtual Identities at the Law School of the Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Strathclyde.

It’s currently a pre-order on Amazon, but you can get it through The University of Chicago Press for US$25.

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Video: My views about Second Life on Channel News Asia

Kevin — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 06:51:00 +0000

As some of you noticed, here’s one of my last interviews in Singapore, and it’s about Second Life. This was broadcasted on Channel News Asia’s “That’s IT” show on Wed, 2007 JUL 25, 8.30pm.

Yes, I do feel funny bringing up Second Life, as I frankly told the producer that I didn’t really login as much anymore. I’m not the only one feeling this way; there’s a debate going on as to whether Second Life is on a decline.

When the camera rolled, producer Tiffany Ang asked about what I typically do in Second Life, why people enjoy it as well as the serious applications of such MUVEs (multi-user virtual environments). I focused on the educational aspect of it, on what works (simulations) and what doesn’t (virtual classrooms). I spoke based on a previous interview I had with EdTech Librarian / SL Resident, Milosun.

While Linden Lab’s CTO, Cory, made an appearance, I also pointed out key players in our Singapore Second Life scene (Alvin Loo, Rinaz, Aileen), but I believe CNA was too strapped for time to reach them.

Aside 1: You can also view the clip on Youtube and Google Video.

Aside 2: Hat tip to Priscilla Tan for acquiring the clip and sending it via DVD to Buffalo!

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Livecasting: “Web 2.0: What Went Wrong?” by Trebor Scholz

Kevin — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:15:56 +0000

UPDATE: This was livecasted on Tuesday, 1pm EST. Here is Trebor’s high quality videocast in Quicktime format.

Having gotten the green light, I’ll be livecasting (live, not life this time) the first class of Trebor Scholz’s latest UB digital media study course, The Social Web (DMS415). Here’s the course briefing from his blog:

Today, is it feasible to live ethical, meaningful lives in the context of the Social Web?

This course formulates a critique of the Social Web. Based on the rapid growth of participation in social life online and in mobile space– from social news, referral, social search, media sharing, social bookmarking, tagging, virtual worlds and social networked games, social mapping, IM, social networking, blogging and dating, this class formulates a critical analysis of the international Social Web with regard to privacy, intellectual property, and the utilization of social creation of value through the lens of a small number of case studies in the areas of education, political activism, and art. The course starts with a history of computer-facilitated networked sociality. We’ll discuss the preconditions, motivations, and typologies of participation in order to then start to debunk the Web 2.0 ideology. The course concludes with an examination of the future of the Internet (mobile social space, net neutrality, and the changed nature of the digital divide) in order to then locate fields of possibility for social change.

Key theoretical texts that we study include Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks, Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture, Trebor Scholz’ What the MySpace generation should know about working for free, Jurgen Habermas on the Internet and the public sphere, Fred Turner’s Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy, Jeff Jarvis’ “Who owns the wisdom of the crowd? The crowd.,” Nicholas Carr’s “Sharecropping the long tail,” Michael Hardt’s “Affective labor,” Olga Goriunova’s “From Art on Networks to Art on Platforms“ and Adam Arvidsson’s “The Crisis of Value and the Ethical Economy.”

This is a theory-based course that also teaches you to participate, discuss and analyze practices on the Social Web (e.g., the use of Facebook, Twitter, IM, blogs, SecondLife).

This Fall 2007 course will be held every Tuesday and Thursday from 1pm to 2.50pm (EST), and though I’m not likely to narrowcast those, I’ll try to share notes. In the meantime, his presentation slides are available here.

BTW: I’m auditing this class under my own academic interest.

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Photos: Counting down to “Bye Bye Singapore” time…

Kevin — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:39:59 +0000

Looking through the photos of my last few days in Singapore, I think I’m turning into a geeky socialite… now if only I could turn this into a full-time profession!

Click to see this particular photo set…

Wednesday, 2.30pm:
Channel News Asia: “That’s IT” interview about Second Life
When I realized I was going to be on television again (hat tip to IdeaFactory), I figured I’d better learn what to wear. Apparently you’re not suppose to wear white, and preferably dress in a boring fashion since the subject is your face and not your clothes (check out this media training guide). Timothy Go of That’s IT wasn’t in Singapore, so his producer Tiffany became my invisible interviewer. Although I won’t be around to see it, she emailed me the telecast dates for the show: Wed, 2007 JUL 25, 8.30pm, 11.30pm // Thu, 2007 JUL 26, 10.30am // Fri, 2007 JUL 27, 1.30pm // Mon, 2007 JUL 30, 5.30pm. If anyone of you could help me Youtube it, I’d be very grateful :)

Click to see this particular photo set…

Wednesday, 4.10pm:
Tech chat with managing director of Chimei (Singapore)
Daniel Tan happened to be at Geek Terminal and since the place was adorned with Chimei LCD screens, I took the chance to ask about Chimei’s corporate background and product positioning, especially in light of Sony and Samsung’s dominance in Singapore. Daniel took the time to explain how Chimei was Taiwan’s popular brand, having been involved with various forms of community outreach. On the LCD screens, he remarked that Chimei produces their own LCD panels, and even supplies them OEM to the bigger brand names. I said that perhaps they could appeal to the technically high-end market in Singapore, where they might be willing to forego brand name for high-end specs. He later showed me the Chimei Hippo laser mouse, which not only works on glass, but has media controls which actually works on the Mac! Without installing anything, my sister and I could adjust volume and tracks on our Macbooks just by hitting those extra buttons. Perhaps the best feature: Their products are pretty reasonably priced.

Wednesday, 5.50pm:
Raffles Place to Harborfront MRT computer error
I have a conspiracy theory that some of these computer errors are intentionally activated to promote break time in the office. Not as cool when Windows happens to be used for public video screens. Blame that dengue mosquito on the right.

Wednesday, 8.45pm:
Expensive drinks at St James Powerhouse
I’m so glad I don’t drink. For the same price, my sister got that huge glass of beer, while I got less than half a drinking glass of Bailey’s. Good Bailey’s though. I eventually got kicked out for wearing bermudas, but they let me in first… really. My little sister and the bouncer got into a staring competition over this, so I said it’s not worth it. Let us fight the good fight another day!

Thursday, 3.10pm:
My last McDonald’s meal in Singapore
Grilled Teriyaki Chicken Burger, Fries, Green Tea, Garlic Chili Sauce, Sweet & Sour Sauce. Note that we don’t get these funky local sauces in the States… all we have is tomato sauce, so I have friends who bring tons of McDonalds chili sauce packets to the States. Some things we don’t take for granted… hiyah!

Click to see this particular photo set…

Thursday, 7.30pm:
Fine dining @ Dempsey Hill
This has been my latest haunt… it’s upscale and great for people watching. Can’t afford to eat here too often, but when I can, it feels like you’re in some other part of the world. We had Korean Charcoal BBQ for dinner, then moved over to Ben and Jerry’s for ice cream on Belgian waffle for dessert.

Click to see this particular photo set…

Thursday, 9.23pm:
Media invitation to “House: the social benefits”
When I drove past this place the first time, I was curious what it was about. Thanks to a friend’s media invite, I got to explore the classy place, bustling with models, stylists and what nots. “House: the social benefits” is an entire block (like a school) plus a refurbished army barracks designed to cater for the health conscious fashionista who needs a place to chillout with friends. All I remember was the excellent lychee vodka and the waitresses all dressed in school uniforms. Kawaii!!

Thursday, 11.30pm:
Shirley Tan and her Unexpected band @ Wala Wala
As I was heading home, MrBig called me over for live music at Wala Wala. Nice to be able to catch Shirley Tan and her Unexpected band performing… she rawked the entire house. For a Thursday night, I’d say the crowd was above and beyond what any pub could muster.

Click to see this particular photo set…

Friday, 11.03am:
Meeting Arun Mahizhnan & Tan Tarn How @ Institute of Policy Studies
The morning had me finding my way to Tan Tarn How and Arun Mahizhnan at the Institute of Policy Studies. This opportunity came about after my recent videocast interview entitled “Introduction to the Socio-Political Blogosphere” and the appended spreadsheet on socio-political bloggers. Several parties have started building off the list, producing versions for their own use. This is fine by me, so long as it’s shared and made public domain so we can all benefit off each other’s work. At the informal meeting, graduate student Elaine Foo joined in with her thesis on “Civic Discourse on the Internet in Singapore”. An hour in, I was pretty surprised (or shock even) to hear the kind of opinions from our distinguished academics… they weren’t just open, but were downright challenging bloggers to go further than they were right now, taking cues from how online civil discourse works in other countries. I’ll explain this in detail in a later post as I took lots of notes from our 3hr conversation over lunch.

Click to see this particular photo set…

Friday 3.12pm:
Research Visit: NuffNang blog advertising community
I visited the temporary office of Nuffnang (Singapore) where Ming Shen (one of two founders) and intern Nanny Wen were working. Ming had invited me over to show me how their blog advertising system worked while I looked for useful data points I could use for blog-related research. I was impressed with how detailed and real-time their ad placement and accounting system worked, but most useful were their reporting data which could instantly lookup the top performers and more at a whim. I can’t go into detail, but I’ll be keeping Ming Shen in mind if ideas come up. Fresh from my IPS visit, there’s a strong need to understand the ecology of our blogosphere (e.g. motivations, media effects). I feel that there’s a void and people like us need to go right in to fill it, sorta like a health check on our blogosphere (or even Internet use).

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Video: Crowdsourcing the Media @ Nexus 2007 (24th March 2007)

Kevin — Thu, 17 May 2007 04:19:16 +0000

Crowdsourcing the Media @ Nexus 2007
Panelists: Kathy Teo (CNET Asia), Jennifer Lewis (STOMP), James Seng (Tomorrow.sg)
Moderator: Kevin Lim (me)

Thanks to Peter Du, we can now watch this Crowdsourcing conference panel in its entirety.

You can also watch the Second Life panel (which I was barely moderating) among the other videos on The Digital Movement’s blog. The Second Life panel featured Rina’s Relationships in Second Life, Alvin’s story on Lion City, and Aileen on doing business in SL. Second Life CTO, Cory Ondrejka, showed up a little later.

For details on both panels, take a look at my Post-Nexus 2007 Report.

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In the Netherlands? Check out this Second Life Conference…

Kevin — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:30:31 +0000

Check out this Second Life conference held in the Netherlands. Now I can’t read Dutch to save my life, and that’s even though my earliest girlfriend was half-dutch. So I did the next best thing: Bablefish machine translation:

You hear everything concerning: ? Newest developments and results in the virtual world? The behaviour of your virtual consumer? Your marketing chances with 3D-internet? future expectation and consequences on your policy? Gouden tips, falcon owls and edge conditions for success PLUS: unique insights of dé preambles such as Essent – ING – municipality zoetermeer everyone whom wants know which (on)mogelijkheden 3D-internet to independent platform offer!

Gouden tips and falcon owls does sound pretty exciting, but really, from what I understand (which is quite little), the conference covers various applications about Second Life, from doing business to education. It also looks like several major corporations are involved. It’s interesting to see how “big” Second Life can be outside of the States.

Incidentally, I got wind of this through conference manager Annemarie. She had found some of my Second Life images on Flickr and asked if she could use them for her conference brochure. I of course said yesssss.

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Video: COM125’s All-Girl “Online Gaming” Presentation

Kevin — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:05:56 +0000

You’ve seen the photos, now watch the video of their snazzy “online gaming” presentation for COM125: Intro to Internet.

Typically, I have two separate modules presenting the same topic each week, but this one takes the cake. Pretty good stuff as they’ve covered everything from the history and genre of games, to government initiatives for the game industry, virtual property and virtual crimes, positive uses of games (e.g. Simcity for economics, cancer education, stroke therapy), and finally gaming addiction where they fleshed out news articles relating to the Singapore context.

If you’re interested in their presentation, please respect Creative Commons: Attribution where you’ll need to credit the girls (with links to their blogs) for their work. They include Liyana, Sabrina, Andrea, Ee Lin, Jasmine, and Rosalyn. You may download the Powerpoint here (no images, 164kb)

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What a Second Life: Cory @ Idea Factory + Second Lifers @ Nexus 2007

Kevin — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:04:03 +0000

Last night was my first time meeting Singaporean Second Life residents in the flesh…

Perhaps it was limited by invitation only, but most of the people who showed up were either smart, creative and/or gorgeous… which lends well to the fact that either geeks are getting pretty upmarket, or that upmarket people are getting geeky (how’s that for a scientific deduction).

Held at Goldhill Plaza’s penthouse, the venue was also home of The Idea Factory, a consultancy engaged by Linden Labs to oversee their impending arrival to Singapore. At this meetup, we got to meet and greet Cory Ondrejka, Chief Technology Officer for Linden Labs. I had recorded his talk about life in Linden Labs as well as their plans for Singapore, but I’ll will share this a little later (when I’ve time to upload the huge audio file).

At this meetup, it was also evident that we had plenty of fun ideas to share, such as making a First Life video of our Second Life avatars in action (as seen in the slideshow above). Likewise, I also mentioned about the Nexus 2007 conference this Saturday where a new panel just opened up for us. Entitled “Living, Working and Creating a Second Life” (at 2pm), guess who’s moderating that… that’s right, me. So it’s only natural that I rounded up as many people to join in the panel as I possibly could. This meetup certainly made it easy.

If you look at the Nexus conference agenda online, this Second Life conference panel isn’t even mentioned there yet, but fret not… from my discussion with organizer Ming Yeow, it’ll be a “bonus” mentioned on the day itself.

For this panel, I proposed that we have three three way discussion with the different classes of the SL community:
Residents / Users: Marina, Alvin, Preetam, etc
Organizations: First Meta’s Aileen, NYP’s Dioselin
Creators: Linden Labs’ Cory and Jean

This doesn’t mean that the rest of us are left out. People like Preetam, Vanessa, Coleman, me and so on can always interject and share our experiences. Having the three groups there helps reflect the interdependent cornerstones of the SL community.

As Jean mentioned, most people want to know what residents do in Second Life… I admit that I sometimes get bored in there, so it’d be good to see everyone sharing personal experiences what they’re doing. Some thoughts include Alvin on Lion City in Second Life (that virtual Singapore island), Marina on SL relationships (e.g. love, breakups, death), First Meta’s Aileen on business in SL, and my thoughts on education in SL (Building Rambling Librarian’s guitar + How NOT to teach in SL).

I’ve advised panelists as well as conference participants to bring their laptops. During the panel, we’ll be in Second Life as a projected backchannel to the ongoing discussion. Makes for a great photo-op there! The unbeknown public audience of (400-600 expected attendees) can then either gawk or get enthuse with us.

Finally, if you have something to share or have ideas of what else we could do with out 1hr 45mins Second Life panel time, feel free to plug it here. e.g. flashmobbing a Second Life party…

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VR pioneer Jaron Lanier’s free talk @ NUS (3pm, 20th March)

Kevin — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:14:44 +0000

Although it’s hard to find publicity for this beyond a certain mailing list, there’s a free public lecture by Jaron Lanier at NUS on 20th March, 2007.

Organized by the Interactive & Digital Media Network (IDM) R&D Programme Office @ NUS, Jaron Lanier will talk about the future of virtual reality and interaction, which is increasingly important in a world where more time is spent in virtual environments. E.g. Second Life.

Who is Jaron Lanier?
According to Wikipedia, Lanier pioneered the term “Virtual Reality” (VR) in the early 1980s. At that time, he founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. Since then he’s appeared in several documentaries, including the 1992 Danish television documentary Computerbilleder – udfordring til virkeligheden, the 1995 documentary Synthetic Pleasures, and the 2004 television documentary Rage Against the Machines. Lanier was credited as one of the miscellaneous crew for the 2002 film Minority Report. Lanier stated that his role was to help make up the gadgets and scenarios.

I’m planning to go with my video camera. If you’re interested, make sure to RSVP Ms Nurasyikin Mansor at elenm@nus.edu.sg or call 6516 7514 to register your attendance. Details of Jaron Lanier’s lecture can be seen in this image file.

Aside: Unlike the States, being in a small country like Singapore has its perks. It’s so easy to attend events like these!

Update 1: Crap, the event registration lady emailed me back to say that all the seats have been taken. Don’t they know who I am? I’m the Juggernaut *@&#!

Update 2: WTH. Friends who went said that there were empty seats and no registration counter. Thank you National University of Singapore. *shakes head*

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E27 Unconference: “Virtual Worlds and MMORPGs” (session 1)

Kevin — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 02:03:46 +0000

E27 SG IV Unconference @ SMU
Track 1, Session 1 : 7.45pm to 8.15pm
“Virtual Worlds and MMORPGs” by Aileen & Douglas (Expara.com), Leonard (TYLER Projects)

First up, the Virtual World’s discussion (lead by Expara) talked about the potential of virtual worlds overtaking our current Internet as a predominant online platform. Unfortunately, they reiterated that “it is the future”, without providing any usable evidence (yes, the “iffy” SL economy data was cited). Participant were solicited for views on what they thought about their claim, but since the question was superficial to begin with, most of us had little to go on and agreed that it was just hype.

I joined in by explaining how 3D virtual spaces should be viewed like any other media, where they don’t replace one another, but rather used according to a one’s needs. In the case of Second Life, I explained how for the first time on the Internet, shades of identity, spatial presence and non-verbal communication could be experienced in a very rich way. This allows for SL to be a great socializing medium, which I see as a serious application of such services. We use particular media for particular needs, and no one needs to dominate over another. Judging from the Expara’s take on this, I doubt they fully grasped what I meant.

From a later conversation I had with them, I learnt that they were actually trying tap into virtual economies. Thanks to people like Anshe Chung, Second Life has been invaded by new residents hoping to make a quick buck, without truly participating in the existing culture throughout the lands. These gold-rush residents exploit the goodwill that could have persisted in SL, since they use all means (including scripts/bots) for economic gains. For example, they sometimes use multiple accounts to buy over cheap First Land meant for new residents, and reselling them for a huge profit. On the other hand, there are metaverse marketing companies such as The Electric Sheep Company and Millions of Us who seem to be doing a decent job establishing SL presence for real-life companies, yet incorporating them well into SL social/technological ecology. The bottomline is that one really has to see where the difference lie, and to use such metaverses according to their advantages over traditional textual spaces.

If only the Expara group were less guarded with their ideas, participants like ourselves would have reciprocated in kind. Granted in a user-generated unconference anything goes, but the same dynamics of giving and sharing still needs to exist for everyone to happily co-operate.

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Going to Macworld in Second Life…

Kevin — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:37:28 +0000

As reported on TUAW earlier, if you can’t go to SF for Steve’s keynote at Macworld, you can do so virtually in Second Life (See screenshots).

Those crazy Germans from mac-essentials.de have built an island in the shape of the Apple logo, complete with the signature Apple Glass cube store on 5th Ave!

It’s one thing to read text updates via a blog, and another to be in the company of mac fanatics from around the world, watching updates on a big screen together in Second Life. Feels almost like being there. If you have a Second Life account, just click here to teleport to the island.

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“Second Life: The Official Guide” now available

Kevin — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 09:01:55 +0000

Looks like the official guide to Second Life is now available on Amazon.com. I don’t know how a printed book can catch up, since things change really fast in Second Life (being beta and all). Still, most of it should stay conceptually true.

As seen on the publisher’s web site… Second Life: The Official Guide is the perfect book for anyone interested in Linden Labs fascinating Second Life metaverse. This book explores in detail every aspect of Second Life s rich and multilayered virtual world, explains how it works, and offers a wealth of information and practical advice for all Second Life residents.

The first part of the book, Getting a Second Life, acquaints potential and new players with the Second Life world. It describes the metaverse’s geography as well as its society, explaining the written and unwritten rules. The second part, Living a Second Life, deals with the practical and economic aspects of Second Life: creating and customizing an avatar, building objects, scripting, and making money. The third part of the book, Success in Second Life, discusses ways to enjoy Second Life more. This section includes profiles of successful Second Life residents, discusses fascinating in-world events, and examines how some are using Second Life for business, training, and other purposes. The book closes with a glossary as well as quick-reference and additional-resources appendices.

The accompanying CD-ROM features special animations, character templates, and textures created by Linden Lab exclusively for this book. The disc also guides new users through installation and includes a code that grants a special object their first time entering the metaverse.

Buy “Second Life: The Official Guide” at Amazon.com

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Video: The Rise of Us – The Distributed Power of Social Media

Kevin — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:38:55 +0000

As mentioned earlier, I was invited to speak at Dr. Michael Stefanone’s Organizational Communication class. Entitled “The Rise of Us”, I spoke on the present and future uses of social media in corporations. By social media, I largely refer to things such as blogs, wikis and even Second Life.

Even though it was a huge lecture hall, I was quite disappointed with the lack of awareness to a lot of things I mentioned. Once again, there was the mentality that people who engage in these forms of activities have no life… be it studying black friday deals online, blogging, or even trying Second Life. Perhaps they do spend time on Facebook or MySpace, but we didn’t get there.

On a positive note, one of the students asked where people find the time to invest in these new media and whether it was a socially healthy in the first place. In response, I pointed out how the same question could have been asked when televisions first came around… followed by when the Internet first connected our households. While we are comfortable with the traditional media, I highlighted to them how legitimate affordances of social media are still being discovered, such as for the purpose of improving education or redefining politics.

Before I ended the session, I urged the students to experience these things for themselves since things like blogs and Second Life are very much like blank canvases waiting for an expression. As science fiction writer William Gibson once said, “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet”.

UPDATE1 : Who’d knew that this little video presentation of mine has made it into The Chronicle of Higher Education. Entitled “When Professors Are More Wired Than Their Students“, writer Scott Carlson points out our discussion on technological-apathy in academia, and on the legitimacy of blogs and Second Life as part of our mainstream media landscape.

UPDATE 2: By request, here’s the Microsoft Powerpoint file I produced for the presentation in the video. Feel free to use it to evangelize social media use on your campus!

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Anshe Chung makes US$1 million in Second Life

Kevin — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 23:46:30 +0000

Anshe Chung seems to have come out of her shell now that she has issue a press release stating that she’s become the first virtual world millionaire. Not only do we learn of her real name, but we actually get to see a real-life photo of her and her office in Wuhan, China.

Here are some key points from about her:

Second Life’s Anshe Chung is actually Ailin Graef in real life.
In 32 months, she’s turned US$9.95 into virtual assets worth around US$1 million (when $L274.5 = $US1).
Her virtual real estate that is equivalent to 36 square kilometers of land.
This property is supported by 550 servers or land “simulators”.
Originally from China, Ailin Graef moved to Germany with her husband, Guntram Graef, in the mid-1990s
She took up a job teaching Chinese, English, and German.

Anshe is just one of many others earning an income in virtual environments. A more extreme case involves gold farming in other online games. You can learn more about Chinese Gold Farmers from this great video documentary by Ge Jin.

Since Second Life has been getting tremendous media exposure already, this story once again adds more legitimacy to serious forms of gaming (or fun forms of work). Expect to see more people entering Second Life hoping to make a quick buck, possibly to a point of committing cybercrimes. Given Linden Lab’s mostly hands-off policy to making policies for their virtual world, perhaps a grassroots-level police force will be required soon.

In any case, should you want to know more, Anshe Chung will be holding a press conference in Mengjing @ Second Life on Tuesday 28th November at 9 am PST.

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What the hell is Second Life? A Primer.

Kevin — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:04:56 +0000

Over at the popular Singapore aggregator Tomorrow.sg, there was a post about Second Life’s CTO visiting Singapore. In the short description, it described the emergence of Second Life from a financial perspective. To the uninitiated, I felt that this might have given them the impression that this metaverse was simply about making money, so here’s my little primer for anyone trying to explain what this strange thing called Second Life to newbies.

So what the hell is Second Life?
Just to set the record straight, Second Life (SL) isn’t a game. There are no mission, no quests, no experience points to earn. Unlike games like World of Warcraft, you don’t get told what to do…

Think of these MMORPGs as like renting a fully furnished apartment. Everything’s in there and you just need to mix and match items and strategies to navigate your world. Now think of Second Life as like buying an empty house. It’s not much fun when you start out, but you get to ultimately have full control over how you want it to turn out (you make more choices). In other words, SL is fun in a different respect… one where the canvas is larger and one’s creativity is almost unbound.

For most SL residents, it’s an open-ended metaverse where you can interact socially, by meeting new people, attending virtual conferences/concerts/clubs streamed from real-life (RL) or even make hot cyber-love if you’re so willing, just to name a few. I spend most of my time in there exploring the immense world, experiencing both the beautiful and the ugly.

Basic accounts are free and there’s really no reason to pay for it unless you want to earn weekly stipend of Lindens (SL currency) and/or to own land (to build homes, shops, etc). Lindens are the virtual currency for buying all sorts of virtual items (e.g. clothing, gadgets) or services (like in RL).

As you can see from Rinaz’s video, more advanced SL residents own land, build items (e.g. homes) and even make a living virtually as the system supports intellectual property (IP) rights. You can set the level of creative commons you want on items you distribute (free/forsale), including transfer rights, modify rights, copy rights.

For those interested in getting a Second Life but need a starting point, there’s an “SL Singapore” group you can join. Simply search and join the group, or add “Alvin Korvin” as a friend (he’s the group coordinator). I think there were just under 30 members from our previous in-world meetup (see Vantan’s and RamblingLibrarian’s posts).

I personally see these metaverses as the “New Web”. Since Second Life is ever-changing thanks to constantly user-generated content, SL makes the case where it exists as the most feature rich multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) I’ve seen so far. It’s applications have gone into the realm of education, research (e.g. sociology, psychology), business, etc. Still, SL isn’t the “be all end all”. Just as when Mosaic first gave us the means to experience the visual web, I see Second Life as giving us the first glimpse at a tangible online social space. There should be more competition in this genre in time to come.

Before you go, here are some random tidbits related to Second Life…
You Know You’ve Spent Too Much Time In SecondLife When…
Via Intelligirl’s Second Life Education Research blog, this oldie but goodie post tells you ten signs you’ve been spending too much time in Second Life.

Making a One Minute Machinima in Second Life
Electric Sheep Company shares their tips on making a short machinima. Thing is, for a quality video recording, you need quite a bit of hardware…

Explosive public attention for Second Life
As expected from the influx of publications and commercial involvement with Second Life, more people are starting to get curious about this virtual world. I wonder how many stay on vs. drop off SL after trying it…

Vimeo: Ordinal Malaprop’s clips
A good example of machinima used for showing how particular SL items work. Ordinal Malaprop demos some of the items he has for sale in Second Life.

Slick Flickr Browser in Second Life
Siobhan Curran / Kisa Naumova made a slick Flickr browser item for Second Life. Useful for quick presentations.

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Nothing “virtual” about virtual crimes…

Kevin — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 22:54:37 +0000

The CopyBot incident in Second Life has renewed interest on the impact of virtual crimes in real life. This becomes especially dramatic when you consider how more virtual economies are now tied to real world economies (e.g. LindeX, Virtual Currency Chart). In essence, as Wired magazine noted back in Jan 2004, virtual cash breeds real greed.

So far we’ve seen Linden Labs handle this from both a legal (ToS violation) as well as architecture (programming code) perspective. According to Lawrence Lessig’s Code and other Laws of Cyberspace, these two actions account for both Law and Architecture. The two other bounding factors in cyberspace include Norms and Market. Norms can be seen in how Second Life residents feel about the issue and take action against it (e.g. protests, using defensive scripts). However, the Market isn’t in favor of the general populace since it’s what motivates unscrupulous residents to use CopyBot for personal gains.

On the Second Life Educators Mailing List, some residents wanted Linden Labs to take a more proactive approach about this. They said that we should learn from previous experiences, even from other MMORPGs, to figure out how such issues were dealt with instead of wasting time deliberating about it. There were similar cases of course… On July 2005, CmdrTaco of Slashdot reported a duping bug found in the World of Warcraft game where items (e.g. gold, rare items) could be endlessly duplicated (see screenshot). Instructions on how to dupe items were released but this bug was eventually fixed by the developers at Blizzard. Note that Blizzard owns the intellectual property (IP) of the entire game, and thus can take drastic measures to control the game. In Second Life though, the case involves an open-source software, but more importantly, since IP is granted to resident builders in the metaverse, a more democratic (read: careful) approach was needed.

Aside from Second Life, I believe that part of the reason why virtual crimes are getting more prevalent might be due to how society in general strongly perceives the connotation of “virtual” as “not real”. In the Intro to Internet class I guest lectured at today, many undergrads still perceived gamers / residents as having no life. They felt that since there’s no real physical money involved (e.g. American dollar, gold), no one was going to take such crimes seriously and that we should simply blame online residents for being so naive. As you can see, the “not real” aspect causes a lot of social problems… in most cases, even to the stigmatization of online victims.

On the point of online residents / gamers as having “no life”, we should first remember that everyone has the right to their own individual interests. Recall that the reason why most of us have personal hobbies would be purely under uses and gratification. In other words, we are what we do. While someone spending $1,000 to build beautiful model trains might be respectable in real life, someone spending a similar amount to buy and develop a beautiful island in Second Life should be given the same respect too.

In light of metaverses having no physical equivalent of money, Kumagoro made a priceless quote on Slashdot when he/she said, “[k]eep in mind that our economy is completely virtual too. Money is just a promise from the government that this particular peice of paper or hunk of metal is worth something useful. Our “real world” isn’t as “real” as many people choose to believe.”

In a world where we often oversimplify things (e.g. war = good vs. evil?), we have yet to learn how to see the grey areas in between. Virtual isn’t as fake or unreal as we think anymore… we’re starting to see an imminent convergence between our real and online world. We simply have to be prepared to face the challenges that come along with this next wave.

Metaverse Crime Related Links:
The SL Herald: New Crimes, New Punishment
Virtual crime present literal challenge for real life police
New Scientist: Computer characters mugged in virtual crime spree
Second Life Police Blotter

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Second Life: CopyBot causes widespread protests among residents

Kevin — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:54:28 +0000

Yesterday via the Second Life blog, I read a discussion Robin Linden had with the Sellers Guild about the implications of a recently-developed LibSL product called CopyBot. As Robin explains it:

CopyBot allows the user to create a replication of an object, including textures, that is fully permissive. Needless to say this product has caused tremendous worry among content creators who want to understand how its use may possibly affect their business. In particular, they are concerned about theft of their creations, and the potential for unscrupulous people to undercut their prices and essentially take away their business.

Isn’t this like the Star Trek Replicator?
This whole fiasco immediately reminded me of the Star Trek Replicator. In the fictional Star Trek universe, a replicator is a machine capable of converting energy into matter and vice-versa. A replicator can create any inanimate matter, as long as the desired molecular structure is on file, but it cannot create antimatter, dilithium, or a living organism of any kind. From personal memory of Star Trek lore, after such a machine was invented, currency as we knew it ceased to be function. Since everyone had the capability to create (replicate) anything they desire, capitalism as we knew it died, and the new dawn of perfect Marxian philosophy was adopted by the Federation.

How did the CopyBot exist?
Produced by libsecondlife, Copybot was created as a debugging tool by the development team. It became rapidly apparent that it could be used to show the potential of the libsecondlife project. The official Copybot application required a user to ask to be copied, and presented a disclaimer before it occurred. The libSL project has since tightened it’s source control system to lessen the potential for abuse of debugging applications. I believe that this is part of an open-source Second Life client they were working on, the official client being proprietary to Linden Labs.

But not all forms of copying is wrong…
Now the act of copying doesn’t always mean that a copyright violation has occurred. For instance, the law discusses ‘fair use’ as one type of copying that is not a violation. In that post which yielded just under 700 comments, Robin stated how Linden Labs would help pursue such copyright abuses under the DMCA, but even they acknowledge that it’s a tedious process, thus not the best solution.

What SL resident sellers thought…
This didn’t sit well with residents who were selling original items in Second Life where some even considered Linden Labs as being ignorant to their users. Since this evening, I’ve been receiving countless protest votes where sellers have either decided to shut down their shops indefinitely, or to keep their stores open but watch out of residents who use this offending gadget (or script). They promised that if they caught anyone using such a device on their wares, they would tear a new one on them. I don’t think this is possible in the metaverse, but I do know that a neighborhood watch is in place to report such users.

The Aftermath unfolds…
This massive call to action has not only inundated my email inbox, but has also triggered a cascade of drop-down notices when I log into Second Life, effectively crashing my Mac client. This flurry of activities has prompted Linden Labs to take further action and in their most recent blog post, they now consider the use of CopyBot and similar tools as a Terms of Service agreement violation. They also admitted that Second Life needs features to provide more information about assets and the results of copying them. In defense, they mention how like the World Wide Web, it will never be possible to prevent data that is drawn on your screen from being copied. While Linden Lab could get into an arms race with residents in an attempt to stop this copying, those attempts could harm legitimate projects within Second Life. Indeed, changing any code in SL can have drastic effect on items owned by the critical mass of SL residents. Libsecondlife has since removed the CopyBot from their repository, but that doesn’t stop those users who already downloaded it from using it. On a positive note, this event has pushed the developers at Linden Labs to prioritzing their time to work on additional asset data (allowing creator’s imprint and better control over items), as well as in support for Creative Commons and expanding the ban lists.

Do add anything you think might help us understand the situation better, including anything I might have not correctly stated.

Update 1: As a form of protection against CopyBot users from replicating their unique avatars, several residents have started to don “freebie” avatars temporarily. For example, Snoopy as seen in the above picture.

Update 2: Second Life resident Cory Edo got his/her hands on a CopyBot and writes up what it’s capable of doing…

Update 3: Collin Smith interviewed Baba Yamamoto, who administers the libsecondlife.org website, to get his thoughts about their CopyBot.

Update 4: Woah! CNN Money just cited me on the CopyBot vs. Replicator on economy issue, and so did game designer Raph Koster. Popular news aggregators TechMeme and Megite tagged me on this CopyBot phenomena as well. I’ve been getting some hits from Technorati, and from my referral logs, I can tell that people are looking to find places to download the CopyBot! (Guys, it’s not as good as it’s hyped to be!)

Update 5: Second Life Insider has an interesting discussion on the parallels between Star Trek’s Replicator and Second Life’s CopyBot.

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What worse than having no “Third Place”?

Kevin — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:32:42 +0000

While doing my literature review on MMORPGs and Metaverses, I came across the theory of The Third Place (Oldenburg, 1999). In particular, I was reading Constance Steinkuehler’s “Where Everyone Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as ‘Third Places’ ” as published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC).

As neatly summerized in Wikipedia, The Third Place is a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. Ray Oldenburg wrote The Great, Good Place (August 1999), perhaps the most influential work to date on why third places are important for civil society. Third places and public spaces are important features for democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place.

I was explaining this concept to my study-buddy MrBig when he joked about how he doesn’t even have a “Second Place”. Being a fellow doctoral student who spends plenty of time in school, he considers his home as his 2nd workplace (as seen in the 1min comic strip above).

How true, how true! :P

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State Of Play IV: Building the Global Metaverse @ Singapore

Kevin — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:44:32 +0000

Frankly speaking, I’m really looking forward to this conference. I first learnt about it via Jude Yew, who is currently pursuing his PhD at the School of Information, University of Michigan. As part of my interest in Second Life, this State of Play conference isn’t just what the doctor ordered, but it happens to be held in Singapore at the same time I’m going to be there! From the looks of it, it’ll also be accessible via webcasts and podcasts. I only hope that registration isn’t crazy-expensive!

Here’s the gist of what State of Play IV is about:

State of Play IV: Building the Global Metaverse, the fourth annual State of Play conference on the future of cyberspace
The academic conference will be held at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, on January 7-9, 2007
Organized by Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, New York Law School, Trinity University, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore
Like the recent AoIR conference I attended, the hallmark of the conference is its multi-disciplinary perspective
Virtual worlds are global in scope, but seem to remain disparate in how they are managed across cultures (e.g. Eastern vs. Western).
The absence of cross-cultural dialogue means that virtual worlds are being set up and run without sensitivity to diverse cultural, legal and social norms.
This lack of cross-cultural understanding can manifests itself in the social tensions emerging online.
Last June, close to 10,000 Chinese players rioted within The Fantasy of the Journey West to protest the presence of what they thought was Japan’s national flag. Two years ago, players of Lineage II teamed up to slaughter game characters perceived to be “Chinese gold farmers.” Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese players complain that Western gamers in World of Warcraft apply racial profiling, excluding Chinese players from social groups based on language skills and recognizably Chinese surnames.
These virtual worlds are crucial building blocks of global civil society. There lies a promise for relationship-building and cooperation across national borders.
You can read the entire About page here.

I must add that the biggest “players” in virtual worlds are going to be there…
• Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash (must read!)
• Cory Doctorow, Canadian Fulbright Chair (2006-2007), USC Center on Public Diplomacy (Author and Boing Boing-er)
• Nick Yee, Palo Alto Advanced Research Center / Stanford (His interview and The Daedalus Project)
• Ge Jin, Director of Gold Farmers, Doctoral Student in Communication, UC San Diego
• Constance Steinkuehler, Cognitive Science and Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Wagner James Au, Second Life Explorer: New World Notes
• Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun
• Kjartan Emilsson, Producer of Eve Online (Sci-Fi MMORPG)
• Mike Wilson, CEO, There.com
• Danah Boyd, social media researcher at UC Berkeley and Yahoo!
• And many more…

If you’re attending this and would like to meet up, indicate so on this Upcoming.org event page. While you’re at it, make sure to join and subscribe to our Social Media Conference group over there. For official details, stay tuned to the State of Play IV: Building the Global Metaverse web site.

Update: For those living around NYC, you can also attend the State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium on Dec 1-2 at the New York Law School.

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Interview with Milosun: How NOT to teach in Second Life

Kevin — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:18:05 +0000

Having subscribed to an unhealthy number of Second Life education and research related mailing lists, I’ve been seeing interest from the academic as well as government agencies towards education via games. On the SL education list, Jeremy Wang shared an article published in the Seattle Times titled “Scientists say video games can reshape education“. Adding more legitimacy to gaming research, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) recently declared that video games (like SL) should to be researched as a possible direction for education in the future (See FAS Game Summit). As Jeremy explained, the good news is that there may now be federal money (NSF and DOE) to support research into how video games can be used in education.

This has prompted me to look at the various ways we could teach via Second Life (SL). One of the ways I thought of was to compile a “SL Teacher’s Toolkit” so that educators interested in teaching within Second Life could have the necessary tools to get started with a virtual class of students quickly. Such items have typically been dispersed all over the SL world, until I found the ICT Library which now houses almost the entire universe of teaching tools in SL.

Naturally, I met up with the Second Life ICT Library founder, Milosun Czervik (RL: Ross Perkins, PhD), where we discussed the possibility of easing the process for new SL educators by building such a package to distribute in-game. Off the bat, he didn’t really like the idea, but he explained why. This eventually lead us on a journey through instructional design, constructive learning, and on whether some tools function as novelty or distraction. The dialog is filled with honest to goodness anecdotes useful for understanding how Second Life should be approached from an educational perspective… and how it should not.

Using a chatlogger in the form of a SL notetaking gadget, the interview was recorded at 7pm PDT on 30th Oct 2006:

Kevin Suisei: Do you think it’s a good idea to compile a SL item that packages a bunch of “ready-to-use” tools for teachers?

Milosun Czervik: yes and no….

Kevin Suisei: Go ahead

Milosun Czervik: first, I don’t want to come across as protective…. I am not making a profit from this place…. but I do like getting the traffic and the kudos… so when I say “no,” it’s not to protect my turf, so to speak. On the positive side, a box would be a handy thing to have so folks wouldn’t have to click/read so much… as you did upon your visit here! I think another positive is that it gives noobs (who are into education) a great way to know that there are some easy to use tools out there… it reduces the overhead somewhat… as some folks take a while before they can even get a notecard!

Kevin Suisei: This is where an opportunity can be found… When I mentioned that your library contained “the universe of teaching tools”, I meant just that… that there are a lot of tools, some more specialized than others, some requiring more work (e.g. scripting). This is why I think the teacher’s package might work

Milosun Czervik: you are right… some are easy to use… others are not.

Kevin Suisei: It will only contain a sample set of tools which are directly useful to most teachers. So for example, the top ten tools could be compiled with credits to authors… and for more, a landmark link to your ICT library. Chances are, while say these ten tools are useful to most, many would want to find specialized tool, and that’s where they would visit your library. This ends up becoming a freebie with dual purpose… to allow SL AVs to teach immediately with a virtual classroom setting, and to promote your library as a good resource.

Milosun Czervik: overall, it’s a good idea… but let me give you some reasons why I say it might not be too useful…

Milosun Czervik: first, I am an instructional designer … to me, the most important part about teaching in SL is not learning to use AngryBeth’s whiteboard or figuring out how to place a survey script in an object. I am a little uneasy to package a set of tools and promote that set as a “teaching kit,” because to be honest, most of the tools… as good as they are… only promote a teacher-centered, didactic form of teaching…

Milosun Czervik: take for instance these hand-show chairs… No one will ever convince me that it’s a good idea to bring a bunch of students or trainees into SL as avatars and then have them sit around on chairs to listen to lecture. They have a great purpose to help control conversation… and there are equivalents in web-based tools like Breeze or centra… but SL is a place for collaboration and creativity and constructivist learning… not to simply replicated what goes on it a classroom.

Kevin Suisei: Yes, that is a good point… form defines function.

Milosun Czervik: So – I might be preaching to the choir, but that is my philosophical issue with a kit.

Kevin Suisei: In your own words, the teacher’s kit might promote the wrong idea of what SL should be?

Milosun Czervik: the bigger issue is this… and this is based on observation… by the time a person new to SL has figured out how to even set up and use said tools, s/he has a better handle on what kind of tools are needed.

Kevin Suisei: Indeed, it would almost be more troublesome to run a class in SL if the same class could be taught IRL, unless it has something that RL cannot provide.

Milosun Czervik: that’s just it… people are using SL, in some cases, for the weakest of instructional reasons (imho)… personally, I don’t think “novelty” counts as a good reason… in fact, the novel environment may well distract from learning rather than enhance it.

Kevin Suisei: Well, since SL is still new, it’s worth experimenting with various types of classes… we’ll never know for sure…

Milosun Czervik: um… well… I disagree a bit… in that we know enough about learning – and even enough about virtual environments – to make good instructional design choices. We should not have to experiment with a range of classes each time a new tech tool hits the streets.

Kevin Suisei: Perhaps you could share ideal class situations which would work better in SL than IRL?

Milosun Czervik: Sure…. virtual environments lend themselves to replicating RL things that are too dangerous or expensive to do in RL. For example, I was an English teacher at one point. My goal would be to have students actualize narrative in SL – whether their own or from a novel and then to do machinima based on it.

Kevin Suisei: Hmmm, say we categorize such an activity.. could we say that SL works best in Role Play situations?

Milosun Czervik: I wouldn’t say “best,” – it’s just one option available. Remember, Kevin… SL makes the digital divide wider, not narrower. Inclusion is a keenly important issue… and in truth, access to SL is limted. SL is also an interesting environment for social presence, but I would be careful not to concentrate on SL. SL is only the latest iteration as a number of other graphics-based MUVE’s exist… and 10 years ago or more, people like Chris Dede of Harvard were doing research on things like MOOs and MUDs .. but like Neal Stephenson of SnowCrash fame… they saw an avatar-based world coming.

Kevin Suisei: amazing isn’t it?

Milosun Czervik: Actually, that is one reason why I did the early ICT Library… to clue people into the fact that though SL has some unique features… it’s in the line of many similar things. Anyway… I don’t want to preach too much… I don’t want to discourage use of SL for teaching – though I would urge caution on a number of fronts. I have hope that even folks who come here and stink it up with terrible design strategies may eventually see the light…

Kevin Suisei: Yes, there’s a strong push towards educational uses of games or virtual environments, sometimes we forget it’s not the best “tool”

Milosun Czervik: who knows… the tool itself may reform them. The best tool is the well-trained/experienced teacher. Period.

Kevin Suisei: I appreciate your time… this has been an honest and educational interview. Perhaps over time I will see what works and what doesn’t.

Milosun Czervik: I don’t think we resolved the kit thing though…

Kevin Suisei: well, it’s not going to happen is it?

Milosun Czervik: BUT… it has reminded me that I need to do a better job at advertising perhaps.

The meeting carries on as we blab about other stuff, but one good thing did come out of this… I will be helping to promote the ICT library through various activities, not just to leave my mark in SL (builds identity), but to explore the ways we can educate in Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs).

Related Links:
• The ICT Library blog
• The SL Library 2.0 blog
• Teleport to the ICT Library

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Video: Building a Flying-V Guitar in Second Life (plus Copyright woes)

Kevin — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 18:33:17 +0000

On Saturday, I mentioned Rambling Librarian’s special guitar he created as his first ever item in Second Life. The guitar is a virtual version of the Gibson “Flying-V” which you can see here in real life. In this video we made yesterday morning, the Rambling Librarian (SL name: IvanChew Link) shows us how he goes about making it. It’s not too complicated and looks great as a intermediate level project.

On a side note, this is my first machinima. Now I made it in high quality so you could see our text-based conversation, and it would have looked good on Revver (my choice of video sharing service), but there was a hitch. While I like Revver for their higher resolution video playback, their ad revenue sharing feature became a problem for me. Even though this was a user-created work, the Revver moderators said that I couldn’t publish the video there since I would be essentially profiteering off the creators of the Second Life. Makes sense in terms of copyright, but isn’t this helping to promote SL anyway? Perhaps Linden Lab should consider creating a space for user submitted in-game videos.

For now I was back to square one… finding a video sharing service that was high-res enough for you to see our text-based chat conversation. I’ve settled for Google Video until I can find a better solution. I don’t need the advertising dollar… I just want to get stuff published. Can anyone recommend a higher-res video sharing service besides Revver?

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Second Life: Building 101 + Wired Magazine’s opening day…

Kevin — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 05:56:11 +0000

See entire Second Life photo set here…

Today, I took my first class in Second Life called “Building 101″ at 2pm EST. It was interesting seeing a class of strangers gather in the training area near the Second Life Library and then building things under the guidance of a librarian volunteer named Eiseldora Reisman (See her SL avatar / her library blog). She first showed us the basics of building by having us produce a cube then manipulate it by size, position and so on. We then learned to link objects together, add textures and even throw in pre-built scripts to allow for our creations to animate or interact with the users.

After a 1hr lunch break, we started an advanced lesson on building furniture, specifically sculpting a love seat using just one prim (i.e. basic 3d object such as a cube or sphere). As with most 3D games, building items with less prims means more speed for the end user, since it is more efficient on bandwidth (everything’s stored on the server) as well as the end-user’s graphic processor. While I was happy with my creation, I was even more impressed by what the Rambling Librarian managed to accomplish on his own, by creating a V-shaped guitar which he now sells for $199. Some day I’ll get there, but for now I’ve experience first hand the learning potential in a virtual world. While the subject matter was meta in nature, there’s a strong possibility to demonstrate things beyond the classroom in here. For one, a well-trained user would find it easier to visualize and share ideas here.

I’m not the only one in discovering this of course. According to Wired Magazine, professors from Trinity University, University of Texas at Austin, San Francisco State University, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Vassar College have used Second Life in their courses. Plenty have probably joined the fray by now and many have even established virtual campuses in Second Life.

As the RamblingLibrarian pointed out, it’s no surprise that Singapore’s Ministry of Education has sought to establish presence for learning in digital environments, further legitimizing the importance of understanding how Second Life could be use to further active forms of learning.

Apparently, in order to help teachers bring their classes to Second Life, Linden Lab donates accounts for each student, as well as an acre of land in the metaverse for the teacher and students to work and build on. Afterward, anyone wishing to stay a member can do so at half price. There are more details in the Second Life Education Wiki.

Speaking of Wired Magazine, they just opened their virtual offices in SL by throwing a virtual party today. Many gathered for the opening address by Wired magazine’s Chris Baker and Danny (didn’t catch full name), as well as a Millions of Us’ designer, Rodica. I suggested that they start a SL group so as to capture their readers who were present and they did so by creating one called “WireHeads” (search to join group in SL). I also asked them what their plans were now that they had an online presence and they said they weren’t sure yet. I told them I understood and that it’s always good to try something for yourself first anyway so you can discover the social affordances along the way.

Besides the Wired folks, I got to meet a Millions of Us designer responsible for creating the Wired magazine offices, which looks like a life-sized computer motherboard (See my photo / their clever design rationale). Philip Linden stopped by to check out the party and I got to ask him if they could allow for items that could be destroyed (e.g. smashable TV sets). He liked the idea and said that he’s seen artists do that before. If you’re wondering why I asked such a weird question, perhaps you might understand why in future. For now, you can read Rodica’s account of the event or teleport to Wired’s office to take a look.

Aside: With all this talk about Second Life, I really hope Linden Labs doesn’t turn into another case of AOL. Don’t overcharge… SL is after all an enclosed service that works over the Internet. Embracing the Internet, opening your APIs and making your virtual world accessible to the rich and the poor makes it more socially responsible and significant.

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Starting our own social media group…

Kevin — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:58:34 +0000

Derek’s with his arms up saying “What me worry?”. I’m not pictured as I was in Second Life attending the SL Library opening (as seen on the laptop above)…

Being the only few “Web 2.0-ish” doctoral students in the Communication department, Derek and I got our first social media research group off the ground. I kept feeling that the both of us were in the wrong crowd, but I was proven wrong! Fellow graduate students who showed interest gathered in a public space at the Alfiero Center last Thursday at 7pm. Surprisingly, the meeting ended up being so stimulating, it went on till 9.15pm!

At the meetup, we started by exchanging stories on what we were academically involved in. I could tell that many of us had unrealized aspirations when it came to doing research, so this gave us the perfect opportunity to shine. This idea naturally became one of the prerogatives for our research group. Being free of official channels, we get to do our own thing and rekindle our lost passion for academia. As a deliverable, we’ve made plans to collaborate on a social networking paper and to eventually get it published. I can’t share our work at this point, but I can share the social media conferences calendar I’ve been pimping.

If you’re in graduate school and feel like you’re not getting anything done, try starting your own gig like ours. Collaborative tools such as Google Groups and Wikispaces make it so easy to self-organize. I’ve got pictures to share if you’d like to be inspired. Wish us luck!

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Second Life gets millionth user = Increases in worth?

Kevin — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:00:02 +0000

I saw this while I was explaining how Second Life worked to a friend, so I grabbed a screenshot. Linden Labs noticed it too of course. This coincides nicely with the 300th millionth mark of the U.S. population two days ago (16th Oct 2006).

Let’s legitimize the figures a little…
Since we can have multiple AVs (avatars) in game, it wouldn’t be too difficult for a small group of users to create numerous registrations (like how you would Googlebomb?). As such, the population counter also shows the number of active residents in the last 60 days, which is just under half of the total population, at about 405,931 users. Still not bad. Interestingly, at my last refresh the total number of residents was about 1,005,000. Less than half an hour later, the registrations increased by another 9,000 users. Makes me wonder if the peak in signup was due to the million mark as if someone was hoping to get a prize (e.g. iTunes millionth user), or if some recent media event triggered some urge to sign on (can someone investigate?).

Will Second Life be worth even more?
Intrinsic to Second Life (SL) is the ability to build and own virtual items (e.g. designer clothing, houses, gadgets, etc). If we measure SL’s worth based on virtual items alone, we should see an increase in transactions, which should make for a thriving economy. At this point, the LindeX (SL Currency Exchange) stands at $1,000L for US$3.98. For those of you who still think that virtual items aren’t worth anything, take a look at the amount of money spent in-game… after conversion, it’s US$429,060 per day (US dollars, not Lindens!). Developers at Linden Labs know how important it is to appraise their virtual world, that’s why they’ve released a torrent of frequently updated market data and economic statistics to help auditors and researchers along.

You can’t be serious… right?
It’s no surprise that the IRS now wants to figure out how to tax virtual items. Indeed, with virtual property increasing in worth, what happens when say your server hard drive crashes? That’s where insurance companies come in… Nationwide Insurance already covers digital media such as your iTunes audio files, so there’s really nothing to prevent them from insuring your Second Life inventory if they ever felt like taking that business.

Alright, so how do I make money in Second Life?
Learn to build. I think that’s the most fundamental way to earn money virtually… by building interesting items useful to anyone. There’s a whole designer fashion industry in SL as reflected by the beavy of SL fashion mags available (e.g. SecondStyle and LindenLifestyles), but you can also make eBooks, music, vehicles, houses and so on. There’s a very good pricing guide on the Fashionista blog where author Celebrity Trollop graphed and analyzed economic data for September 2006, which included two new metrics, transaction count by amount and monthly Linden spending distribution. If you’re lost, the author essentially realizes two pricing points: “If you’re a content creator looking for some guidance about how much to charge for your designs, the sweet spot seems to be a price under L$200 [... and ...] people who are on a budget are really on a budget, and those who aren’t tend to spend quite a bit more Lindens per month than the average user”.

I’m interested in finding out alternative ways of earning money in Second Life. So far I’ve seen those money chairs and trees used to increase the popularity of certain islands, but if you’ve found something truly disruptive in terms of increasing your AVs’ finances, do drop a comment!

UPDATE: Woah… we’ve seen a lot of media attention on Second Life recently, but this latest article by New York Times hits it home. In “A Virtual World but Real Money“, NYT reports on the thriving industries in SL, including how it is fast becoming a three-dimensional test bed for corporate marketers, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Sun Microsystems, Nissan, Adidas/Reebok, Toyota and Starwood Hotels. It’s a seminal piece on the economics in Second Life.

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On Now: NMC’s Digital Media Symposium in Second Life

Kevin — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 03:20:44 +0000

I’m glad that my Upcoming.org initiative is working out for about 40 members so far… if you haven’t heard, it’s a way for us social media researchers / educators to keep track of conferences worthy of our attendance. Join now or else! ~~Now even if you’re punk-ass broke like me, you’ll be able to know about awesome conferences you can attend for FREE, such as this one…~~ It’s not free after all, but the events on the NMC Campus in Second Life should be…

The 2006 NMC Online Conference on Digital Media

A one-of-a-kind event, to be held entirely via the internet from October 24 to 25, 2006. Join keynoters Howard Rheingold (Smartmobs fame) and Danah Boyd (her blog) for this 2-day examination of the impact of digital media on all aspects of our daily lives.

This online conference is informed by the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning, a two-year project in which the New Media Consortium (NMC) is helping to explore the impact of digital media on our lives in a variety of ways, and encouraging dialog among experts, visionaries, and thought leaders from around the globe. This unique event will expand that dialog beyond the project and reach out to an international audience.

The conference is designed to extend the examination of this phenomenon now underway among leading writers and researchers in the MacArthur-sponsored project to a broader audience, and further explore both the positive and negative aspects of technology on learning, social interaction, self-expression, and more.

Digital media, for this event, is interpreted broadly as anything from the traditional uses of the medium for creating and sharing rich content to the explosion of blogs for self expression, and increasingly, real time interpretation of news and breaking events. Also included is the notion of shared content via sites like Flickr, YouTube, and blip.tv, social sites like FaceBook and MySpace, and more powerful content and media search tools.

Now if you are looking to register, you’ll notice at first that it’s $125 for “NMC Member” Registration. Don’t worry, they didn’t make it obvious (I wonder why), but you can sign up as an “NMC Plus Member” for FREE (might have to do it before 18th Oct). The difference is that Plus Members can only attend up to 10 online conferences, which is good enough for me.

Sorry to burst your bubble but apparently NMC Plus is a special membership paid for by our members to get additional conference attendance slots. It’s not a free ticket for anyone who clicks there. Oh well, try the other option below…

A bit of background: New Media Consortium (NMC) serves as a catalyst for the development of new applications of technology to support learning and creative expression. The non-profit educational technology organization is quite forward-thinking, especially once you check out their awesome virtual campus established within Second Life (see NMC campus photos).

Happening right now and serving as a precursor to the online conference is a 12-day symposium on the NMC Campus in Second Life focusing on the impact of digital media on all aspects of our daily lives (Oct 10 – 21, 2006). I also think anyone can attend this for free so prep yourself and teleport there now.

Update: According to Alan Levine, if you complete the NMC web form, it will provide the instructions for joining the right group to gain access– no one is rejected, and they have well 800 AVs across our groups, a significant number are not members of our organization.

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On Now: Second Life Library Opening (12-14th Oct)

Kevin — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:11:13 +0000

If you haven’t downloaded and played with Second Life, now’s the time to do so.

As the Rambling Librarian mentioned, residents of the InfoIslands have organized a series of programs revolving around the opening of the first library in Second Life. From 12th to 14th October, get to meet real life librarians, teachers and related academics over there as you participate in activities throughout the island:

Thursday, October 12
* 4 pm sl – 6 pm sl: Virtual Worlds and Education: The Cutting Edge – Speakers: Pathfinder Linden, Kitty Paul, Puglet Dancer, Professor Beliveau, Lorelei Junot and Maxito Ricardo ? Puglet Dancer and Kitty Paul will cut the ribbon to begin grand opening ceremonies at Info Island open air auditorium (Info Island 143, 82, 34)

Friday, October 13
* 7:30 a.m. sl – 1:30 pm. sl: Virtual Worlds and Alternate Realities – Where Do Libraries Fit In? – A variety of wonderful speakers with keynote by Pathfinder Linden – Info Island open air auditorium(Info Island 143, 82, 34)
An audio link is available at http://67.19.231.218/v4/login.asp?r=67955673&p=0 type your name and click enter. Minimize this window. For those without audio we will transcribe the speaker as they speak.
* 5:00-6:00 p.m. sl: Scary Movies at Second Life Pantheon Picture House (Info Island II, 98,71,24)
* 6:00-8:00 p.m. sl: Costume Ball at Info Island Mystery Manor ? prizes for best costumes! (Info Island, 214, 163,33)

Saturday October 14
* 8:00 a.m. sl: Opening of Caledon Branch – 19th century library (Caledon Tamrannoch 211,31,22)
* 9:30 a.m. sl: Grand Opening of Second Life Library Medical Library – special events (Info Island 165, 204, 33) – Bioterrorism demonstration, Speakers: Moriz Gupta and Sojourner Truth
* 12:00 p.m. sl: Second Ribbon Cutting and special speaker – Info island Open Air Auditorium (Info Island 143, 82, 34) – Katt Kongo, editor, Metaverse Messenger
* 3:00 p.m. sl: Talis SciFi & Fantasy Portal Opening – special events (Info Island 29, 62, 33)
* 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. sl: TX950 Beach party and celebration – dancing refreshments, fun (Info Island 85, 33, 23)
* Throughout the day: Tours, scavenger hunts, information kiosks – come and have fun!

You can get further program details over here. If you’re there, try finding me as “Kevin Suisei”. If you have trouble locating this island, click here for the map where you can instantly teleport there.

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