Thought for the day: For every Google, there's 5,000 guys with startups living in a cardboard box. On the other side, for every 5,000 guys with startups living in a cardboard box, there's a Google, which employs 10,000+. We come out on the plus, is what I'm saying.
Second Life is a Virtual World - THE VW, in fact, because the major competitor at the moment is OpenSim, and open source variant of, you guessed it, Second Life. In Second Life, you can fly. You can swim. You can build a car, a house, a boat. You can be male, female, animal, human, robot, a creature made from crystals and light, all within about 5 minutes of each other. You can run a business using a real currency- the Linden Dollar($L). You can, and here's the kicker, exchange Lindens for USD, and vice versa. If you're particularly clever, you can make a living from Second Life.
For quite a while, Second life was the darling of the major Old Media. Corporations were FLOCKING to it. Reebok, Dell, they all set up digital storefronts. Everyone was convinced Second Life was the wave of the future, going to change the way we interacted with the Net.
And it flopped. Crashed. Businesses are shuttering all over SL. In 2011 they had about 1mil logins per month- in that same period, Facebook had 500mil. Why? Why did this supposed golden opportunity for business turn out to be nothing more than an, ahem, golden river?
Remember all those things you could be? Ask yourself honestly, now. If you can dress like Dracula, Dyonisus and Dianna Ross, are you really going to buy Abercrombie and Fitch? If you can be a mermaid, is Sketchers going to get your business? If you can fly by pressing and holding the Page Up key, what need have you for Volvo?
But, ah! Cast no stones just yet. There is a silver lining for Second Life. Corporate forays into Second Life flopped, but they were not the only ones who saw the immense potential in a virtual world. Educators, also, toyed with it. And SL is sooooo much kinder to Education than Commerce.
Harvard is on Second Life, as are several others.That last links to a case study of The New Media Consortium, a group which aims to help member organizations, including Harvard, Yale and MIT, use virtual worlds as much to their advantage as possible. There are even some organizations, like Rockcliffe University, which are strictly virtual, having no real world campus whatsoever.
Rockcliffe's an odd example though. What it teaches, mostly, is virtual worlds; not just SL, though the primary campus is there, but also WoW, which comes under the heading of a game-type virtual world. On the other hand, the capstone classes for the various programs are, essentially, How To Apply What You Learned Here To The Real World. And, of course, it has courses teaching in media, specifically for First Responders type information. I have to admit, it seems like the best use of SL I've seen so far.
And of course beyond all that there's the recreational use of SL. I happen to have visited, among other places, a lovely Steampunk City, Paris in 1905, Konoha and Minas Tirith; because of this being the Internet, there's also a lot of adult entertainment as well.
But that's not why I'm fascinated. Well, only No, my fascination is in the Linden Dollar. A truly virtual currency, which could be traded at will? It's a novel idea. We already exist in a digital world. How much do you own in virtual goods? All the data on your computer, in clouds on the Net, the games you play on Facebook. I own a lot more in virtual goods than I do in tangible goods. A digital currency might be exactly what the Internet needs.
And it has choices, too. The $L, of course, is bound to the USD. On the other hand, there's the Ven, which aims to be an ACTUAL currency. The $L became what it is by accident; Linden Labs basically woke up one morning and said "HO SHIT! We accidentally made an economy!" Which, I suppose, is one of the reasons the Linden fails; they never really foresaw the full power of their product. They continually produce more Lindens on demand; this is a bad idea for the same reason the US Govt. doesn't simply print $16 trillion one-dollar bills and have a surplus.
But the Ven actually IS designed to be a real currency. And I think it could come to prosper, if it can get USE. Use, ultimately, is the life and death of an idea. How many of you had heard of the Ven before reading this? Despite the fact that it could be quite useful, how many of you will actually keep a stash of Ven in your Paypal?(actually, you wouldn't need to, but that's not the point) Most of you won't, is what I'm getting at. Or, maybe, a lot of us will. It depends. As my Thought said: for every 5000 failures, you get a Google.
Here's to being 5001.
Bill
Second Life is a Virtual World - THE VW, in fact, because the major competitor at the moment is OpenSim, and open source variant of, you guessed it, Second Life. In Second Life, you can fly. You can swim. You can build a car, a house, a boat. You can be male, female, animal, human, robot, a creature made from crystals and light, all within about 5 minutes of each other. You can run a business using a real currency- the Linden Dollar($L). You can, and here's the kicker, exchange Lindens for USD, and vice versa. If you're particularly clever, you can make a living from Second Life.For quite a while, Second life was the darling of the major Old Media. Corporations were FLOCKING to it. Reebok, Dell, they all set up digital storefronts. Everyone was convinced Second Life was the wave of the future, going to change the way we interacted with the Net.
And it flopped. Crashed. Businesses are shuttering all over SL. In 2011 they had about 1mil logins per month- in that same period, Facebook had 500mil. Why? Why did this supposed golden opportunity for business turn out to be nothing more than an, ahem, golden river?
Remember all those things you could be? Ask yourself honestly, now. If you can dress like Dracula, Dyonisus and Dianna Ross, are you really going to buy Abercrombie and Fitch? If you can be a mermaid, is Sketchers going to get your business? If you can fly by pressing and holding the Page Up key, what need have you for Volvo?
But, ah! Cast no stones just yet. There is a silver lining for Second Life. Corporate forays into Second Life flopped, but they were not the only ones who saw the immense potential in a virtual world. Educators, also, toyed with it. And SL is sooooo much kinder to Education than Commerce.
 |
| Princeton University's Second Life Campus |
Rockcliffe's an odd example though. What it teaches, mostly, is virtual worlds; not just SL, though the primary campus is there, but also WoW, which comes under the heading of a game-type virtual world. On the other hand, the capstone classes for the various programs are, essentially, How To Apply What You Learned Here To The Real World. And, of course, it has courses teaching in media, specifically for First Responders type information. I have to admit, it seems like the best use of SL I've seen so far.
And of course beyond all that there's the recreational use of SL. I happen to have visited, among other places, a lovely Steampunk City, Paris in 1905, Konoha and Minas Tirith; because of this being the Internet, there's also a lot of adult entertainment as well.
But that's not why I'm fascinated. Well, only No, my fascination is in the Linden Dollar. A truly virtual currency, which could be traded at will? It's a novel idea. We already exist in a digital world. How much do you own in virtual goods? All the data on your computer, in clouds on the Net, the games you play on Facebook. I own a lot more in virtual goods than I do in tangible goods. A digital currency might be exactly what the Internet needs.And it has choices, too. The $L, of course, is bound to the USD. On the other hand, there's the Ven, which aims to be an ACTUAL currency. The $L became what it is by accident; Linden Labs basically woke up one morning and said "HO SHIT! We accidentally made an economy!" Which, I suppose, is one of the reasons the Linden fails; they never really foresaw the full power of their product. They continually produce more Lindens on demand; this is a bad idea for the same reason the US Govt. doesn't simply print $16 trillion one-dollar bills and have a surplus.
 |
| The Ven |
Here's to being 5001.
Bill
Hello Bill,
ReplyDeleteI decided to read your blog after failing to sleep once again. :) It was very nicely written. However, I wanted to suggest an artist to research. Her name is Cao Fei, and she has based her art in a virtual world, specifically Second Life. In your opinion, is this art? If so, does it hold value? These were questions given by Dr. Eakin in Contemporary art.
Below is a link to an episode of Art21:
http://www.art21.org/artists/cao-fei/images
Fascinating. Simply fascinating. After trying to use Second Life, and failing due to computer complications, I never really understood the appeal. Now, however, I wish it didn't make my computer cry every time I thought about visiting SL. Another very interesting blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm still baffled by the concept (and practice) of paying real money for items in a game. Allow Cracked to break it down:
ReplyDelete"Much of what you will be charged for are things you were used to getting for free. Like the new Call of Duty series holding back some maps and features for their "elite" service, for a monthly paid subscription. This will be on top of what Microsoft already charges Xbox 360 users for online service, and the $60 you paid for the game. They're testing the boundaries of how far they can push it."
Read more: The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-ominous-trends-in-video-games/#ixzz1icL9QMxj
You're going to have to further explain to me how the Ven is supposed to be useful, because I don't see it I'm afraid :/
@Sparky It *is* hard to get SL to load on some computers. The problem is that, due to the relatively real-time nature of the game, it must be constantly loading.
ReplyDelete@Creativelyartzyme Hooray! More new readers! Now to your question.
Yes? No? Maybe? Look, I'm a business major. I know art when I see it, not before. From what I see in the link, yes, it's art. As for value? Remember, I'm a business major. I go back to Cicero: Everything Is Worth What Its Purchaser Will Pay For It. Would I pay for this art in the currencies of time and appreciation? Maybe. Would someone? Definitely. Does their virtuality lessen their worth? Absolutely not. After all, most of the world is inside our heads.
@Lauren It's an economics thing. And it's important to note that SL is *NOT* a video game. It's a virtual world. There are no game mechanics(except in places where people have instated them) there are no 'rules' beyond the terms of service, there is no storyline, no goals, nothing like that.
ReplyDeleteYou go there to have fun. Ergo, game :P Though if you really want to dive into technicalities of what makes a video game, well, that's a different blog post I think.
ReplyDeleteI'll conceed though, that I neither understand economics nor the appeal of virtual worlds with nothing to accomplish. I can also fly and swim in most games and plenty come with customizable avatars and open sandboxes *shrug* I don't really see how SL is special or different.
So how much Ven do you have? I paid a visit to their website, but it's vague in it's information. Maybe that's why it's stagnant. SL is okay if you're not a rabid gamer, but it's trying to hold it's own against the likes of Entropia, WoW, and a boatload of others.
ReplyDeleteI've got no Ven, because I haven't bought any, because I don't have any USD, either. :P But yes, it is pretty vague unless you're using Hub Culture, the social network it originates from. If it ports out to Facebook, I'm sure we'll hear all about it.
ReplyDeleteActually, viz a viz Digital Currencies, I think Entropia's got the leg up on SL in that regard. The PED(Entropia's currency) has a lower fixed exchange rate to USD (10:1,$L is 248:1), and it IS a video game. SL is a Sandbox game, you can do whatever you want. But there's no place to START; it's overwhelming. In Entropia, you just go join Lemmy's army and fight Zombies. Easy! :P
Yeah, I was at the Ven site, and not the Hub Culture site. That might be just a bit beyond any of us. Something for the elite to play with, apart from us commoners.
ReplyDeleteThe PED is an awesome currency. But I feel that Entropia is a questing based game. You get paid a better currency because you're performing to specific expectations.
I've never heard of SL as a sandbox. Interesting concept. But SL is one of the original social VR's. As in it's all in who you know, and how you accomplish what you want. I've had two false starts in SL before I finally caught on to the concept. I have a background familiarity in the old VRML worlds with a closed economy, and I was totally unprepared for the SL business model. But then, like you say, "ho, shit!", neither were the Lindens. Entropia's model was planned from the beginning, I believe.