Cyberland Comes Up for Air

well, well, well...

Our buddies at cyberland have finally issued a press release and it is a pretty exciting one (once you get past the extended apology and explanation of the lack of communication and action). After over half a year of working in secret, they are reporting that they have everything lined up for opening their own grid.

I was once a director of Cyberland and helped draft the original proposal for the off grid community. After my departure i always wondered what transpired of that idea. Despite being in the dark, I held on to my shares based on my faith in Shaun Altman and Buck Spinaker, the acting directors of the company.

I'm just very excited to see something happening at this company. It's secondlife's first publically traded company. Watch out for this one, people... it's success is going to turn some heads.

Archinect'ed

found an interesting article on Second Life on an architecture site.

Architecture's Second Life

a good quote about second life's potential from the article that resonates with me:

"Well, virtual platforms, as such, are not breaking down any conventions, but they can help us to see things differently. Maybe even think differently. So it's not so much about changing things (doing the opposite), which is more like producing an image in a mirror while continuing to do the same. It is much more about changing the way things change." - Tor Lindstrand

Enjoy!

The Real Story about Open Sourcing

overheard in the lunchroom

Philip Linden: Ben is quiting LL
Cory Linden: oh! We might as well embrace the inevitable

Second Life Population Myth

The Linden Lab figure on the website has always pissed me off. I'm a big fan of SL and a big fan of LL, but I’m not a big fan of dishonesty, especially about something I'm so passionate about.

In answering a blog entry on Corante - "Second Life: What are the real numbers?", I offer the following economic statistic as the best clue:

Monthly Spending by Amount (2006 November)
Transaction Size Residents
1 - 500 L$ 51,940
501 - 2,000 L$ 19,158
2001 - 5,000 L$ 14,744
5,001 - 10,000 L$ 10,556
10,001 - 50,000 L$ 18,130
50,001 - 100,000 L$ 3,604
100,001 - 500,000 L$ 2,697
500,001 - 1,000,000 L$ 277
Total Customers Spending Money In-World 121,332

Its high time LL stopped posting such a ridiculous statistic as 1.9 M as the figure for Population. As Clay Shirky points out, SL seems to have become a "Try Me" Virus due to the explosive hype from the adoption of the environment by high profile corporations, media agencies, and news agencies. It's reached some kind of "tipping point" this fall and now all of a sudden people in my RL who drew blank faces and glazed over when I spoke about Second Life, now excitedy tell me they logged in once or twice but were dismayed that all they could find were strip clubs and couldn't figure out what else to do.

Amongst the dozen RL friends and associates of mine that have tried SL, you would find none of them would call themselves Residents. Yet LL believes that their two or three dissappointing incursions into SL are worth noting and that their voyeurism is sufficient to label them a resident. I would contend that a resident must reside. Metaphorically speaking, one could say I reside in SL. I log in almost daily for extended periods of time. SL is my part-time place of work. Two or three logins just doesn't cut it for me.

insert coin

after four work weeks, my account was finally reinstated in world. my account is still banned from the forum. i haven't received an official statement from LL's "review commitee" or anything, but it had been suggested to me that the hold on my account was in fact a suspension.

for one month, i was locked out from my (part-time) place of work. what was my crime? raising questions on the SL forums about some of the social practices that take place in the game. ironically while LL's only commercial product is a revolutionary communicative medium, the company run forum and blogs are carefully censored.

i'm not sure what to do now that i'm back in sl. i've lost a little bit of confidence in SL as a platform for the short term. i know its definitely on it's way to becoming one. however right now, while LL still has to play the dual role of developer and administrator of the metaverse, it's going to lean heavily towards game. i'm starting to hear the words "open source" more and more lately so perhaps the platform days are not so far.

work visa revoked?

ever had a business meeting with an important client in another country but you missed it because you were held up at the border? a lesson from me: if you work in a foreign country, don't break it's laws. you might think chewing bubble gum is not a big deal but in singapore it will land you in jail. we take freedom of speech for granted in the west, but in the backward kingdom of secondlife, people disappear just for asking the wrong question.

mood: sl is a game.

a second life extinguished?

it's starting to look like my second life is over. my controversial postings have resulted in my account being banned from the forum and being put on hold in sl. a forum ban is probably for the best, but the prok clause might be setting a really unfortunate precedent. is it time to find a new hobby?