Comments on: Is Interest in Second Life Waning?

By: socialmediaboston.org » Great Event!

socialmediaboston.org » Great Event! — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:00:51 +0000

[...] 100 who put on a killer Second Life event last month–the Text 100 guys, Greg and Doug and Weirdharold have great posts about the event. The Boston Globe’s Hiawatha Bray was in attendance, and [...]

By: Adam Zand

Adam Zand — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:41:48 +0000

WH, Excellent overview - I feel like I was there. Oh yeah, I WAS there when I wasn’t in the lobby of the hoity toity Hahvahd Club showing friends my avatar. I was impressed with the passion, creativity and energy in the discussion. The more Social Media Club events I attend, the less skepticism I hear.

Drew Stein challenged us to imagine new ways of doing things in virtual worlds. One example was a conversation with an educator who was asked why recreate a blackboard when you could build an immersive human cell sim. I look forward to seeing his work for the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose - partly based on wiki ideas and suggested scripts for online and museum exhibits.

I’ll ask you the question I asked the panel - what would you like to see researched about Second Life? As a research fellow with the Society for New Communications Research (www.sncr.org), I’m looking for ideas and partners.

Drew stressed that the social anthropology aspects are important - looking at different ways of interacting. The ability to “walk in someone else’s shoes” through an avatar would be great for educators and those working for positive social change.

By: Will Honeywell Aerospace Rocket Into Second Life? » VTOR - Virtual TO Reality

Thu, 31 May 2007 13:34:01 +0000

[...] two days ago I wrote about Pathfinder Linden’s comment, when the question of identity and authenticity was mentioned by Fidelity Investments, (an [...]

By: Weirdharold

Weirdharold — Wed, 30 May 2007 17:36:47 +0000

Greg,
Thanks for stopping by and checking out VTOR, but most of all thinks for blogging thearticle on over the River. Without that comprehensive post I would have never had a clear understanding of what transpired there in Boston. That is so excellently done.

If there is anything I could do to help you in making your entrance to Second Life, please let me know.

By: GregPC

GregPC — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:26:28 +0000

Nice write up. I was there, and as you pointed out, blogged on the event. I’ve tried to get into SL a few times in the past but was never really able to get it. In the past couple of months though, my interest, involvement and appreciation of it have grown. There are clearly lots of issues to be worked out; but they will be resolved over time.

By: TD Goodliffe

TD Goodliffe — Wed, 30 May 2007 12:17:41 +0000

I spoke to someone who has been with Second Life since the beginning yesterday. That person is having many, many problems with SL at the moment and is frustrated.

I’ve been taking a bit of a break myself from the world while Linden Lab hopefully gets their act together. It’s kind of humorous to read about Pathfinder making excuses for SL avatar in sim limitations. What his statement fails to acknowledge is that the limitation is per sim (server) not just per event. So if a couple different groups try and meet on a sim it could prevent people from being able to teleport into homes they are paying for. I fail to see how that is a benefit to anybody that’s paying for the service.

An analogy: if somebody at my hosting company is getting pounded with traffic it doesn’t impact my websites because my sites are on dedicated servers. That’s not how it works in Second Life on mainland sims. On private sims it works that way if you control who has access to your island.

Whatever the case, 40,50,60 avatars or whatever the number is these days on an entire server that costs $395/month plus over a thousand bones to setup is not a good deal. Even at $295 it wasn’t a good deal for that kind of limited traffic.

Keeps it more human? Like the telephone in the early days? LOL! Nice spin cycle, Pathfinder.