Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Reuben Steiger is the CEO of Millions of Us, a social media agency that was one of the first to market in Second Life. Millions of Us has since expanded to build content in other virtual worlds like Sony Home and license virtual goods. Reuben discussed why Millions of Us is no longer active in Second Life, primarily citing issues with metrics, scale, and attracting advertisers due to Second Life's smaller user base compared to other platforms. He also noted control issues were not as big a hurdle as initially thought for brands in Second Life.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
110507 Second Life's Economic Architecture Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document summarizes an interview with Robin Gomboy about Reaction Grid, an OpenSim virtual world grid. Some key points:
1) Reaction Grid targets education and business users, offering affordable private grids and sims for training and collaboration.
2) It does not have an in-world economy at the request of partner Immersive Education, but users can sell items through external websites.
3) Reaction Grid aims to cultivate a positive culture through leadership, PG-only content policies, and classes on "gridizenship" that teach respect and etiquette.
4) Early users like ThinkBalm Innovation Community and educators are helping shape best practices for using virtual worlds in business and
041408 Linden Labs Past Present And Future Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Reuben Steiger is the CEO of Millions of Us, a social media agency that was one of the first to market in Second Life. Millions of Us has since expanded to build content in other virtual worlds like Sony Home and license virtual goods. Reuben discussed why Millions of Us is no longer active in Second Life, primarily citing issues with metrics, scale, and attracting advertisers due to Second Life's smaller user base compared to other platforms. He also noted control issues were not as big a hurdle as initially thought for brands in Second Life.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
110507 Second Life's Economic Architecture Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document summarizes an interview with Robin Gomboy about Reaction Grid, an OpenSim virtual world grid. Some key points:
1) Reaction Grid targets education and business users, offering affordable private grids and sims for training and collaboration.
2) It does not have an in-world economy at the request of partner Immersive Education, but users can sell items through external websites.
3) Reaction Grid aims to cultivate a positive culture through leadership, PG-only content policies, and classes on "gridizenship" that teach respect and etiquette.
4) Early users like ThinkBalm Innovation Community and educators are helping shape best practices for using virtual worlds in business and
041408 Linden Labs Past Present And Future Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document discusses an interview on the Metanomics talk show between the host Robert Bloomfield and guests from CosmoGIRL, There.com, and Market Truths. CosmoGIRL is promoting their first annual virtual prom in There.com to engage their readers. There.com works closely with CosmoGIRL to support their events and track engagement metrics like time spent in the virtual spaces. Both companies see the partnership as mutually beneficial in bringing their brands into virtual worlds.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Two analysts discuss concerns about Second Life and Linden Lab. They see problems with flat user growth, unstable software releases, and poor communication. They believe Linden Lab needs new leadership with business experience to address these issues. Alternatives like Qwaq and Metaplace are seen as more suitable for enterprise use due to their focus on stability, security, and integration with other business tools and platforms.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document summarizes the 100th episode of the Metanomics podcast. It discusses the new Second Life Terms of Service and interviews law professor Joshua Fairfield as a guest. Some key points:
- The episode celebrates reaching 100 episodes of Metanomics since it started in 2007.
- Linden Lab recently announced new Second Life Terms of Service that focus on treating virtual items as licensed rather than owned.
- Fairfield analyzes the new Terms of Service and says they represent both an evolution towards more corporate control of virtual worlds as well as taking privacy more seriously.
- He notes the Terms move away from the idea of Second Life as a place where users can truly own virtual land and items
This document summarizes the 100th episode of Metanomics, a virtual world podcast hosted in Second Life. It discusses the new episode celebrating the milestone, announces an upcoming thank you party for viewers, and introduces the guest Joshua Fairfield, an expert in virtual law, who will discuss Linden Lab's new Second Life Terms of Service. It also mentions a contest announced by the producer seeking visions of the future of media production and broadcasting.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
- The document summarizes an interview between Robert Bloomfield and Larry Johnson of the New Media Consortium on Johnson's group's work in virtual worlds like Second Life.
- The NMC operates the largest educational project in any virtual world, with over 120 islands and 8,000 members, though it also does work outside of virtual worlds.
- While many universities have a presence in Second Life, museums have been slower to participate significantly. The NMC works with some research centers and has hosted virtual art exhibits in collaboration with real-world museums.
- The NMC's virtual world operations are self-sustaining through leasing virtual land to educational institutions and focusing projects on exploring new uses of virtual spaces for teaching
This document summarizes a discussion between Robert Bloomfield, Barry Joseph, and Marc Weiss about Marc and Barry's upcoming HBO documentary called "Meeting Online". Marc explains that the documentary will tell personal stories of people who met online and how those relationships developed offline. Barry encourages viewers to submit their own stories to the documentary's website. They discuss some examples of stories already submitted, including one woman who met her partner through World of Warcraft and Second Life.
The document summarizes a discussion between Barry Joseph and Marc Weiss on the Metanomics podcast about their documentary "Meeting Online" for HBO. The documentary will feature personal stories submitted online about relationships that began online and extended into real life. Barry Joseph's organization Global Kids is helping collect stories, including from Second Life. Joseph and Weiss met when Joseph contacted Weiss about a job after reading a newspaper article about Weiss's new nonprofit Web Lab.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Enterprise In Virtual Worlds: Metanomics Transcript July 1 2009Doug Thompson
Does meeting in a virtual provide a measurable return on investment? What virtual world platforms are best suited for business? What are the best practices that make an event or initiative successful?
Margaret Regan was the guest on this episode of Metanomics. For this and other episodes visit our Web site at http://metanomics.net
Metanomics Transcript, June 3 2009, Inside Linden LabDoug Thompson
How does the culture INSIDE Linden Lab impact the culture of Second Life? How do the values and attitudes of the Lab translate into changes to how Second Life works? What is the “day in the life” of a Lab employee look like? What tools and cultural norms influence how people work together and operate?
This episode of Metanomics featured Thomas Malaby, discussing his ethnographic study of Linden Lab. In addition, Bettina Tizzy discussed the role of the artist and the "not possible in real life" on virtual worlds.
To view the video on which this transcript is based visit:
http://tinyurl.com/metanomics-malaby
Richard Bartle, the co-creator of the first virtual world (MUD), was interviewed. Some key points:
- Bartle co-developed MUD with Roy Trubshaw in the 1970s, one of the earliest virtual worlds.
- Bartle created a model of four player types (achievers, explorers, socializers, killers) based on what motivates players. However, as a designer he cannot experience virtual worlds in the same way as regular players.
- His four player types model is still used by some game designers to help balance gameplay and provide the right incentives, though they may not fully utilize the dynamics between player types.
- There have been suggestions
Gamemaker es una herramienta para crear videojuegos de forma sencilla. En el minicurso se enseñaron conceptos básicos como añadir sprites, crear habitaciones y programar la lógica del juego. El objetivo era que los asistentes aprendieran a desarrollar su primer videojuego con Gamemaker.
La oficina de grafite de JOTEC 2009 fue dinamizada por Felipe Reis. El evento se llevó a cabo en 2009 y contó con la participación de Felipe Reis, quien dinamizó las actividades de la oficina de grafite del evento JOTEC.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document discusses an interview on the Metanomics talk show between the host Robert Bloomfield and guests from CosmoGIRL, There.com, and Market Truths. CosmoGIRL is promoting their first annual virtual prom in There.com to engage their readers. There.com works closely with CosmoGIRL to support their events and track engagement metrics like time spent in the virtual spaces. Both companies see the partnership as mutually beneficial in bringing their brands into virtual worlds.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Two analysts discuss concerns about Second Life and Linden Lab. They see problems with flat user growth, unstable software releases, and poor communication. They believe Linden Lab needs new leadership with business experience to address these issues. Alternatives like Qwaq and Metaplace are seen as more suitable for enterprise use due to their focus on stability, security, and integration with other business tools and platforms.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document summarizes the 100th episode of the Metanomics podcast. It discusses the new Second Life Terms of Service and interviews law professor Joshua Fairfield as a guest. Some key points:
- The episode celebrates reaching 100 episodes of Metanomics since it started in 2007.
- Linden Lab recently announced new Second Life Terms of Service that focus on treating virtual items as licensed rather than owned.
- Fairfield analyzes the new Terms of Service and says they represent both an evolution towards more corporate control of virtual worlds as well as taking privacy more seriously.
- He notes the Terms move away from the idea of Second Life as a place where users can truly own virtual land and items
This document summarizes the 100th episode of Metanomics, a virtual world podcast hosted in Second Life. It discusses the new episode celebrating the milestone, announces an upcoming thank you party for viewers, and introduces the guest Joshua Fairfield, an expert in virtual law, who will discuss Linden Lab's new Second Life Terms of Service. It also mentions a contest announced by the producer seeking visions of the future of media production and broadcasting.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
- The document summarizes an interview between Robert Bloomfield and Larry Johnson of the New Media Consortium on Johnson's group's work in virtual worlds like Second Life.
- The NMC operates the largest educational project in any virtual world, with over 120 islands and 8,000 members, though it also does work outside of virtual worlds.
- While many universities have a presence in Second Life, museums have been slower to participate significantly. The NMC works with some research centers and has hosted virtual art exhibits in collaboration with real-world museums.
- The NMC's virtual world operations are self-sustaining through leasing virtual land to educational institutions and focusing projects on exploring new uses of virtual spaces for teaching
This document summarizes a discussion between Robert Bloomfield, Barry Joseph, and Marc Weiss about Marc and Barry's upcoming HBO documentary called "Meeting Online". Marc explains that the documentary will tell personal stories of people who met online and how those relationships developed offline. Barry encourages viewers to submit their own stories to the documentary's website. They discuss some examples of stories already submitted, including one woman who met her partner through World of Warcraft and Second Life.
The document summarizes a discussion between Barry Joseph and Marc Weiss on the Metanomics podcast about their documentary "Meeting Online" for HBO. The documentary will feature personal stories submitted online about relationships that began online and extended into real life. Barry Joseph's organization Global Kids is helping collect stories, including from Second Life. Joseph and Weiss met when Joseph contacted Weiss about a job after reading a newspaper article about Weiss's new nonprofit Web Lab.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Enterprise In Virtual Worlds: Metanomics Transcript July 1 2009Doug Thompson
Does meeting in a virtual provide a measurable return on investment? What virtual world platforms are best suited for business? What are the best practices that make an event or initiative successful?
Margaret Regan was the guest on this episode of Metanomics. For this and other episodes visit our Web site at http://metanomics.net
Metanomics Transcript, June 3 2009, Inside Linden LabDoug Thompson
How does the culture INSIDE Linden Lab impact the culture of Second Life? How do the values and attitudes of the Lab translate into changes to how Second Life works? What is the “day in the life” of a Lab employee look like? What tools and cultural norms influence how people work together and operate?
This episode of Metanomics featured Thomas Malaby, discussing his ethnographic study of Linden Lab. In addition, Bettina Tizzy discussed the role of the artist and the "not possible in real life" on virtual worlds.
To view the video on which this transcript is based visit:
http://tinyurl.com/metanomics-malaby
Richard Bartle, the co-creator of the first virtual world (MUD), was interviewed. Some key points:
- Bartle co-developed MUD with Roy Trubshaw in the 1970s, one of the earliest virtual worlds.
- Bartle created a model of four player types (achievers, explorers, socializers, killers) based on what motivates players. However, as a designer he cannot experience virtual worlds in the same way as regular players.
- His four player types model is still used by some game designers to help balance gameplay and provide the right incentives, though they may not fully utilize the dynamics between player types.
- There have been suggestions
Gamemaker es una herramienta para crear videojuegos de forma sencilla. En el minicurso se enseñaron conceptos básicos como añadir sprites, crear habitaciones y programar la lógica del juego. El objetivo era que los asistentes aprendieran a desarrollar su primer videojuego con Gamemaker.
La oficina de grafite de JOTEC 2009 fue dinamizada por Felipe Reis. El evento se llevó a cabo en 2009 y contó con la participación de Felipe Reis, quien dinamizó las actividades de la oficina de grafite del evento JOTEC.
The document discusses ways to increase profitability for a venture, including driving revenues through getting more customers or higher sales volumes per customer, and decreasing expenses by paying less per item or reducing waste. It emphasizes the importance of tracking detailed lists of revenues, expenses, volunteers, and profit metrics like profit per volunteer hour and profit margin to analyze and increase a venture's profitability.
Python es un lenguaje de programación interpretado, de alto nivel y orientado a objetos. En 2009, Luiz Vieira dinamizó un minicurso sobre Python en JOTEC para introducir a los participantes en los conceptos básicos del lenguaje como sintaxis, tipos de datos, funciones, clases, módulos y paquetes. El objetivo era proporcionar una primera experiencia práctica con Python.
The document outlines Nourish International's policies regarding chapters, international projects, and ventures. Chapters must abide by Nourish's policies, maintain an executive board and faculty advisor, and select and fund at least one international project every three years. Projects require approval and must demonstrate strong local leadership and community support. Ventures are on-campus businesses run by chapters to raise funds and awareness, and venture leaders must record expenses and revenues and deposit profits within 48 hours.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Mitch Kapor, chairman of the board of Linden Lab, was interviewed by Robert Bloomfield. Some of the key points discussed include:
- Kapor saw potential in Philip Rosedale's idea for a virtual world where users could create content, even though it was deemed too risky by most venture capitalists at the time.
- Second Life has grown tremendously from its origins but retains the core idea of an infinitely expandable simulation created by its users.
- Kapor remains actively involved in Linden Lab as well as other startup projects, and sees potential for virtual worlds to be used increasingly for business applications.
PDF: Virtual Goods Live from San Jose: Metanomics Transcript September 24, 2009Doug Thompson
Philip Rosedale and Tom Hale appear as guests on Metanomics, a virtual world broadcast. In this episode, a mixed reality event joins the virtual world of Second Life with the Engage Expo in San Jose and explores the market for virtual goods in Second Life.
To view the episode visit:
http://www.metanomics.net/show/virtual_goods_and_linden_lab/
Virtual Goods Live from San Jose: Metanomics Transcript September 24, 2009Doug Thompson
Philip Rosedale and Tom Hale appear as guests on Metanomics, a virtual world broadcast. In this episode, a mixed reality event joins the virtual world of Second Life with the Engage Expo in San Jose and explores the market for virtual goods in Second Life.
To view the episode visit:
http://www.metanomics.net/show/virtual_goods_and_linden_lab/
Language Lab uses Second Life to teach foreign languages for profit. They have built an entire virtual city with various buildings and public spaces to immerse students in the target language. The city is meant to provide opportunities for natural interaction between students as they accomplish tasks, similar to how the founder learned languages through necessity while playing games and in real-life situations abroad.
2010 & next second life, virtual worlds and the state of the unionDoug Thompson
Its been a decade of advances for virtual worlds, ending with a year that many won’t forget. As the technologies allowing immersive experiences expand, Second Life has come to a cross-roads of sorts, with Linden pulling the plug on its enterprise product and raising the price for educational and non-profit institutions.
Click here to watch video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/december_13_2010_next_-_second_life_virtual_worlds_and_the_state_of_the_uni/
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Transcript from an episode of Metanomics, a weekly broadcast on the serious uses of virtual worlds.
This episode sees host Robert Bloomfield interview Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. Tony O'Driscoll starts the episode with a review of the enterprise uses of virtual worlds.
The video for this episode can be viewed at:
http://www.metanomics.net/index.php/show/setting_the_stage_i
n_conversation_with_mark_kingdon/
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
The document summarizes a discussion between Robert Bloomfield and Tom Hale of Linden Lab about recent announcements from Linden Lab regarding changes to Second Life. Some of the key announcements include the rollout of the new Second Life Viewer 2, which is now the standard viewer, changes to the new user orientation and registration processes, and clarification of maturity ratings and terms of service. Tom Hale discusses his role as Chief Product Officer at Linden Lab and explains that the announcements reflect Linden Lab's strategic focus on improving the experience for new users and welcoming more new residents to grow the Second Life ecosystem. Hale also provides details on changes to Linden Lab's internal processes to support larger, more iterative releases.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
PDF VERSION: Transcript from an episode of Metanomics, a weekly broadcast on the serious uses of virtual worlds.
This episode sees host Robert Bloomfield interview Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. Tony O'Driscoll starts the episode with a review of the enterprise uses of virtual worlds.
The video for this episode can be viewed at:
http://www.metanomics.net/index.php/show/setting_the_stage_i
n_conversation_with_mark_kingdon/
Similar to 121508 Hope Anxiety And Virtual Worlds Metanomics Transcript (20)
This document summarizes a discussion from the Metanomics podcast about the upcoming Second Life Community Convention (SLCC).
The SLCC is an annual real-world conference and social event for the Second Life community held in August. It allows community members to meet face-to-face, network, and discuss their work in Second Life. This year's convention will be held August 13-15 in Boston. Early registration discounts end on July 3rd and hotel rooms are filling up. The convention features tracks on a variety of topics related to Second Life like business, education, art, and technology. Content from the convention will also be streamed virtually in Second Life.
This document summarizes a discussion from the Metanomics podcast about the upcoming Second Life Community Convention (SLCC).
The SLCC is an annual real-world conference and social event for those engaged with Second Life. It allows participants to network, learn about new developments, and discuss the future of Second Life. This year's convention will be held August 13-15 in Boston. Early registration discounts end July 3rd and hotel rooms are filling up. The convention aims to capture many aspects of how Second Life is used through various topic tracks. There will also be a virtual component, with streaming of some sessions in Second Life itself. The discussion focused on the importance of the community coming together at a time when Second Life
This document summarizes a discussion on the Metanomics podcast between Robert Bloomfield and Paulette Robinson. Paulette Robinson is the founder and director of the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds, which brings together government, industry, and academics to explore uses of virtual worlds. She discusses the recent virtual worlds conference hosted by the consortium, as well as a new virtual government environment project that awarded contracts to four virtual world platforms to provide secure virtual training and collaboration services to the US government.
The document summarizes an interview on the podcast Metanomics with Paulette Robinson, the founder and director of the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds. The consortium brings together government, industry, and academics working with virtual worlds. Robinson discusses the recent annual conference which saw participation of over 3,500 people across multiple virtual and real world venues. She highlights several collaborations that have formed, including MilLands for the military and the vGov project, which aims to create a secure virtual world environment for all of government.
Jesse Schell discusses his concept of the "Gamepocalypse", where gaming elements are increasingly integrated into everyday life through emerging technologies. As an example, he describes how future toothbrushes may have sensors that track brushing quality and display it as part of a game or leaderboard. While some see this as an invasion of privacy, Schell believes many people will opt into such systems. He remains optimistic that games could positively influence society if designed well, but acknowledges the realities may be complex.
The document summarizes an interview between Robert Bloomfield and Tom Hale of Linden Lab discussing recent announcements from Linden Lab. Key points:
- Linden Lab announced the new Second Life Viewer 2 which will become the standard viewer, replacing Viewer 1.23. They also announced changes to orientation, terms of service, and registration processes.
- The announcements reflect Linden Lab's strategic focus on improving the experience for new users and making Second Life more welcoming to bring in new residents.
- Tom Hale discusses changes to Linden Lab's internal processes to support the large Viewer update, including dedicated teams, design firms, user testing, and shorter release cycles going forward.
This summary discusses a virtual world podcast called Metanomics that took place on March 17, 2010.
1) The guest on the podcast was Tom Higgins from Unity Technologies, who discussed Unity's game development software and vision to make powerful tools accessible to all developers.
2) Unity offers various licensing options for its software, including a free basic license and paid Pro licenses starting at $1,500 per seat. Add-on licenses allow developers to deploy games on platforms like iPhone.
3) Unity has over 110,000 registered users since making the basic license free last October, though not all are active developers. Some major clients include Electronic Arts, Disney, and Lego. Unity aims to democrat
This summary discusses a podcast called Metanomics that was filmed in Second Life and broadcast weekly. The guest on this episode is Tom Higgins from Unity Technologies, who discusses Unity's game development software and goals. Some key points:
- Unity aims to make high-quality game development tools accessible to all developers through its free basic licenses and competitive pricing for pro licenses and platform add-ons.
- Unity has grown significantly in the last year to over 110,000 registered users since making the basic license free.
- Unity's vision is to make "author-once, deploy anywhere" a reality, allowing developers to build games once and deploy them across platforms with some adjustments.
- The Unity
This document summarizes a radio program called Metanomics that discusses expanding access to education through technology.
[1] The program interviews two professors, Rebecca Clothey and Kristen Betts from Drexel University, about their virtual conference called "Education for Everyone: Expanding Access Through Technology".
[2] Rebecca Clothey organized the conference which features on-demand presentations and live events from March 23rd to 25th discussing trends in technology that have expanded education opportunities. Presenters will discuss projects from around the world using technology for distance learning.
[3] The interview discusses the opportunities and challenges of online education. While technology provides more access, digital divides still exist due to lack
The representatives from Linden Lab discussed the recent release of the Second Life Viewer 2.0 beta and Linden Lab's new product marketing strategy. They explained that Viewer 2.0 and new Shared Media capabilities were launched along with Snowglobe 2.0 to provide more viewer choices for residents. The goal is to improve the new user experience and attract new residents while continuing to support the current community. They discussed plans to gather feedback during the beta period and launch a broader marketing campaign once Viewer 2.0 is complete.
ThinkBalm is a boutique analyst firm focused on the use of immersive technology in the workplace. Their recent report, "The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide", aims to help businesses choose immersive software solutions. ThinkBalm conducted the study by testing various virtual platforms themselves and through their Innovation Community of over 400 members. The report is intended to distill their experiences into an accessible guide for business decision-makers unfamiliar with immersive technologies. ThinkBalm is funded through traditional analyst consulting services provided to immersive technology vendors.
The document discusses a report by ThinkBalm, a boutique analyst firm focused on the use of immersive technology in the workplace. The report, called "The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide", aims to help large enterprises deciding whether to use new immersive technologies. ThinkBalm studied many different immersive software vendors and platforms, testing them out themselves. They found the types of people interested were changing from early adopters to more mainstream business decision-makers just starting to explore the potential. The guide seeks to distill ThinkBalm's experiences testing different technologies to help these decision-makers navigate options.
Douglas Rushkoff was interviewed on the podcast Metanomics about his upcoming PBS Frontline documentary "Digital Nation".
The documentary is integrated with a website that has been active for over two years, collecting additional footage and stories from the public. This allowed the public to participate and influence the direction of the documentary. After it airs, the website will continue hosting discussions on technology topics each month.
During filming, Rushkoff was surprised to hear Philip Rosedale of Second Life believe the virtual world would be indistinguishable from reality within 10 years. He was also surprised by research showing advantages in negotiations from having a taller avatar in virtual worlds, and kids believing they really experienced virtual reality simulations.
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The document discusses a Metanomics podcast episode about using narratives and storytelling in virtual worlds. The episode features three guests: Jena Ball, who creates immersive "Story Quests" in Second Life; Christina Galanis from a regional health information exchange that is using Second Life; and Brent Ward from Research Triangle Park. Jena discusses her Story Quest about a character named Uncle D to educate about HIV/AIDS. Christina's organization worked with Jena to expand the Uncle D narrative in their Second Life region. Brent discusses collaborations similar to what is happening with the health organizations in Second Life.
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The document discusses using games and virtual worlds to change how people work and businesses compete. It summarizes an interview with Byron Reeves, who argues that playing games at work can increase productivity and engagement in the same way napping does. Reeves discusses how virtual worlds can be used to actually conduct work by incorporating game elements like avatars, metrics, economies and competition. He argues the social engagement and interactions enabled by avatars in virtual spaces can increase engagement in work.
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Nordic Marketo Engage User Group_June 13_ 2024.pptx
121508 Hope Anxiety And Virtual Worlds Metanomics Transcript
1. PHILIP ROSEDALE ON HOPE, ANXIETY AND VIRTUAL WORLDS
JANUARY 19, 2009
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Hello, everyone. I’m your host, Robert Bloomfield, and, on behalf
of Remedy Communications, Dusan Writer and myself, I’m delighted to welcome you to our
opening of the Spring 2009 season of Metanomics and what promises to be a fascinating
conversation today with Linden Lab founder and chairman, Philip Rosedale.
Philip is just the first of a number of great guests we’ll be hearing from this season. Right
now our schedule includes top-ranking executives Robert Gehorsam, of Forterra; and
Ruben Steiger, of Millions of Us; educators Barry Joseph, of Global Kids, and
Tony O’Driscoll, of Duke University; academic researchers Dan Arielli and Tom Boellstorff;
in-world content creators Kiana Writer, of MadPea, and Damien Fate, of Locos Pocos; and
two members of Barack Obama’s transition team Kevin Werbach, of Supernova and
Wharton, and Beth Novak, of the New York Law School.
Metanomics is coming to you from the virtual Sage Hall, right here in Second Life, thanks to
my Real Life employer, Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. I’d
also like to give special thanks to Doug Thompson, founder and CEO of Remedy
Communications and author of Dusan Writer’s Metaverse. Remedy, as many of you know,
has taken over management and operations of Metanomics, leaving me some more time to
do what I love most about this series, which is talk with guests and potential guests and
learn as much as I can about the business aspects of Virtual Worlds.
2. I’ve talked quite a bit with Doug, and I know that he’s firmly committed to developing
partnerships with new sponsors, with the Second Life community and with all of you who
understand that Virtual Worlds are important, exciting and filled with lots of opportunities and
challenges. If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor or developing any other kind of
partnership with us, please contact Doug directly at dusan.writer@gmail.com.
I’d like to offer a very special welcome to everyone at our event partner locations spread
across Second Life. As we focus more on improving the quality of our final video archive of
Metanomics and the broadcast itself, it becomes more important to limit the number of
people who are actually here at Sage Hall on the Metanomics Sim. So I apologize you can’t
be with us right here, but it’s great to have more and more of you out there at the
Confederation of Democratic Sims, Meta Partners Conference Area, Rockliffe University,
New Media Consortium and Orange Island. And a shout out also to Fleep Tuque, Second
Life educator extraordinaire, who I understand has set up some space for her folks at
Chilbo, so hello, Fleep and friends.
Just because you’re all on different Sims doesn’t mean we can’t stay close. We use
InterSection Unlimited’s ChatBridge system to transmit local chat to our website and website
chat into our event partners. I see it is fired up already, so speak up. Let everyone know
your thoughts and feel free to use that to pass questions along.
Before we hear from Philip Rosedale, we have another very special guest today, the dean of
my Johnson Graduate School of Management, Joseph Thomas. Regular viewers of
Metanomics know that the title of our opening segment for every show is On The Spot, but,
3. of course, I have no intention of putting my dean “on the spot.” So instead, we’re just going
to give Joe a chance to say a few words of welcome. Joe, welcome to Metanomics and
Second Life.
L. JOSEPH THOMAS: Thank you, Rob. I’m delighted to be making my first appearance in
Second Life and on Metanomics. On behalf of Cornell’s Johnson School, I’d like to welcome
everyone out there to the atrium of Sage Hall, for the season kickoff of Metanomics. We at
the Johnson School have watched with great interest as Rob has taken Metanomics from an
informal series of guest lectures for a handful of Cornell students into one of Second Life’s
most respected venues for discussions about entrepreneurship, business and policy and the
opportunities and challenges of this fascinating new industry of Virtual Worlds.
Rob’s guest today, Philip Rosedale, has argued passionately that Virtual Worlds hold
tremendous promise for developing economies and for distance education. We at the
Johnson School share Philip’s focus on these goals. Our Center for Sustainable Global
Enterprise works directly with companies, around the world, to help the private sector solve
the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems. Our board [members of the?]
Executive MBA Program, run jointly with Queen’s School of Business in Canada, uses
internet technology to conduct classes with students spread across the United States and
Canada. Rob’s work with Metanomics has encouraged us to explore how Virtual Worlds and
related technologies might help our efforts, and we look forward to watching this industry
develop.
The Johnson School slogan is Real Impact. Metanomics, along with achievements of Rob’s
4. guests and many of the audience members here today, have shown that Virtual Worlds can
indeed have real impact on the Real World. So, on behalf of Cornell’s Johnson School, I
wish all of you continued success as you shape the world of our future. Thank you, and I
hope you enjoy this new season of Metanomics.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Thanks a lot, Joe. I start teaching managerial accounting
tomorrow. Can I get you to come in to my first session and give a little speech then too? I
think it’s a good way to kick off.
L. JOSEPH THOMAS: Sure. Absolutely.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Thank you, Joe Thomas. Joe is the dean of the Johnson School,
and I would like to express my appreciation again, as I do every show, for the support that
the Johnson School has given us in Metanomics. There’s a natural educational fit with what
we’re doing at Cornell, with our focus on distance learning and on the use of technology in
particular, to allow for a green, global enterprise, and Second Life certainly has been a boon
to that for us. So again, thank you, Joe. And I’ll see you in B11 first thing tomorrow morning.
Okay. Let’s turn to today’s main guest, Philip Rosedale. Philip founded
San Francisco-based Linden Lab in 1999. And though he’s no longer CEO of Linden Lab,
he does act as its chairman and remains actively involved in the strategy, development and
design of Linden Lab’s products, particularly the World of Second Life and the Second Life
grid platform. So, Philip, welcome to Metanomics.
5. PHILIP ROSEDALE: Thanks for having me. It’s funny. It’s funny, I feel like you and I have
talked enough over history that I guess this is my first time officially on Metanomics.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, yeah, it is. And we are pulling out all the stops. You can
see also--and you went through the orientation. We have JenzZa Misfit as our avateer,
animating you to make you look realistic.
Before we jump into the heavy stuff, I do have to ask you about your clothes. If I don’t
change my outfit for a week, then my staff makes fun of me until I do. We have a picture,
and maybe SLCN can pan over to this. There’s a picture just offstage, to my left, from 2003,
where I gather you are--
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Oh, look at that.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: --going in-world to talk with people about opening up the
economy and actually having Lindens be real money. I know that took a lot of persuasion
and combing people and so on, but I notice, you’re wearing--you look basically like you do
now. So any plans to upgrade?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: You know it’s great jest. I feel like the day has got to be coming when
I build some sort of a new avatar for myself here. You’re right, I built my current avatar, over
maybe an hour, doing some of my very first work in Photoshop, back in I think it was
probably 2002 actually when we got most of the sort of avatar-look attachment stuff working.
I’ve never changed it because, I don’t know, it has felt so personal, and it has also felt, I
6. guess, somewhat iconic. Philip Linden isn’t just me; Philip Linden is Philip Linden. So I’ve
never changed the way I looked, and I love that you found that picture because you’re right.
That, in fact, that photo there is one of my most memorable moments, both, I think, as a
CEO and as a Second Life experience, that moment where I was trying to convince
everybody that it would be okay to tolerate basically a more open economy and a land
system in which people could purchase their own land, rather than essentially earning it
through exclusively in-world behavior, was one of the most intense kind of, I guess, political
moments that I personally had ever had. Really something.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Yeah. And I think now it’s hard to imagine. Of course, I’m a
newcomer. I started in Second Life at the beginning of 2007, but really it’s hard at this point,
I think, to imagine it any other way than with that tie to the real economy exchange rates and
so on.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: But it was an amazing transition at the time.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: So now speaking of transitions, you made a big transition in May
when you switched; you stepped down as CEO, and you brought Mark Kingdon in to take
that role over, with you becoming chairman of the board. How close are you now to the daily
operations of Linden Lab and overseeing Second Life?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Well, as I’m sitting here talking to you on Metanomics right now, I
could reach out and grab onto Mark, if I wanted to. He’s sitting about four feet away from
me. He just waved--
7. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Hi, Mark.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: --hello to everybody on Metanomics. But I think that’s a good
question. I have changed my role a lot, obviously. I’m certainly not the CEO anymore. Mark
is, and he’s doing a fantastic job. I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying sitting next to the
CEO and watching all of the pieces of my job getting done by somebody else, including the
parts of it that, I don’t know, the tough ones. It’s such a fascinating job to be the CEO of
Linden Lab and, through that, to have the relationship with Second Life that one does. I’m
so happy, and, I don’t know, it’s so delightful to see somebody else doing that job now, and,
hopefully, guaranteeing that we’ve built a company where it doesn’t take a particular person
to do a particular job. We can grow and change and survive and flourish.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: When we spoke in September and I asked you a similar question,
you talked a fair bit about getting back to tech issues, not having to deal with the day-to-day
and sort of a lot of the executive administration. Just the way you described it, I had this
picture of you out in a garage, surrounded by scattered parts of old Commodore computers,
whipping up a new server. So can you tell us a little bit about any of your newest tech
projects that you’re working on?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Sure. It’s actually--the timing is so perfect because we, on Friday--so
I’ve been working with two other developers. So part of my job, you’re right, I wanted to
make a transition back toward technology and design. I thought that was the best way that I
could add value to Second Life. I mean I think it always has been, and now that the
8. company is the size that it is, I think the CEO job is not the perfect job for me, and I think the
last few months have actually been fantastic in terms of proving that to be correct. Mark’s
doing a tremendous job. We’ve got a bunch of new people that are doing a great job. But, I
am getting back to technology, and a good example of that is our web map. If you actually
take a look at SLurl.com, probably a number of people here use at least some, you will see
that, as of Friday, it got some updates.
The web map that we publish is now deployed directly to Amazon S3, meaning that it loads
a lot faster. The overhead images of the grid that you see there will now be updated on
something close to a two-day schedule, where today it’s actually, I think, a couple of weeks,
or previously it was. So when you put a new island online, you’ll be delighted to see it show
up on that map very quickly, and then you can also click anywhere in Second Life, on the
map, and you’ll get a little bubble that shows you the name of the region and gives you a
teleport button. So that technology work was myself and two of our other great engineers
working together, for about the last month and a half we’ve been working on that stuff. So
yes, I am getting back into development, and that was our first project, to try and both do
something useful and also kind of get re-acclimated to the code and the systems and
everything we’re doing.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: So first, let me say that sounds great. Yet another improvement. I
feel like every little bit you guys do can make a real big difference, especially when it comes
to helping people find content, find events, find the things to do in Second Life. You
mentioned that’ll be up on the Second Life blog shortly?
9. PHILIP ROSEDALE: Yeah, I haven’t blogged about it yet. We were putting it up to just see
if it was stable. I just saw in chat somebody was mentioning, yeah, you’ll sometimes see a
message that says it can’t find the Region: Ahern. That comes up sometimes. We’re looking
at that right now, but it’s not really slowing down the performance of the site very much. You
may just sometimes click on an island or a location and have to wait, or you may not get that
bubble for a little bit. But, yeah, I’ll blog on that in the next day or so. So it’s kind of fun. We
actually hadn’t talked about it. It was just a quiet update on Friday, to make sure it was
running okay before we blogged on it. But I guess you heard about it here first.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: I only ask that, when you blog about it on the site, you say, “As
heard on Metanomics.” No, I won’t hold you to that. I do want to follow this up with one other
question. When I picture what a chairman of the board would do for a company with--what?
You have somewhere around 300, 350 employees?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Yeah, that’s right.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: And a pretty big executive management team. Everyone’s fine
with you working on what’s a fairly specific, detailed project, not sweeping in its scope, not
talking about business strategy, not out there raising capital or making sure Mark’s doing his
job, though I guess you’re four feet away from so you can--am I right in thinking it’s a rather
non-traditional chairman’s position?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Well, I think it’s a little non-traditional, although we as a company
have, if anything, been a fertile ground for non-traditional things; Second Life being the big
10. one. I do spend a good portion of my time both talking to Mark and helping the executive
team as much as I can on strategy, so I am definitely involved in a traditional chairman’s
role. But the traditional chairman role, in a well-run company which I think we are, is one
that is not--if all is going well, it’s one that is not a hundred percent time intensive, which is
why, appropriately, a lot of people have asked me, “Hey, what are you doing? Are you doing
stuff outside of Linden Lab?” And my answer to that has been, “Well, no. I love working on
Second Life.” And so my other job, if you will, is not my next company; it’s just doing things
to make Second Life better. And design and development is where I do the best work.
That said, I think that I’m going to continue looking for opportunities to make Second Life
better, that have the highest they can. The web map, I think, is a great project to add some
value and kind of get familiar with things. I hope I continue to have major impact, if possible,
as a designer and a developer in Second Life. But, I am doing the sort of chairman work and
the consulting with the team and being close to what’s going on as well. But, with Mark there
and with the other members of the exec team that have joined and are there, that stuff is
really pretty well covered. I think things are going quite well.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Great! I’m glad to know that, between you and Mark, you’ve got it
covered, and I look forward to hearing from Mark soon, sometime this season, on some of
the more day-to-day executive management issues.
Let’s move on to what I’m hoping will be the main theme of our discussion today, which is
the two themes of Barack Obama’s presidency: hope and anxiety. We’re quite literally on
the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration, and he is promising hope and some anxious
11. times. I know that you see tremendous hope and promise in technology, particularly in the
developing world. There’s an interview with the BBC that you gave, where you end by
saying, “What does the future of the internet look like? It looks like a world map, where even
the furthest corners of the planet are able to get online because of the decentralization of
power generation. What technology is getting me excited right now? Electricity.” So I always
thought, Philip, that I liked electricity as much as anyone could. But what is that gets you so
excited about decentralization of power and particularly electric power?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Well, I think, like you said, I guess there’s sort of two things there.
There are the specific sorts of technology that are changing things the most, and then
there’s the general observation, which I think is so great to be making on the eve of this U.S.
inauguration. The general trend, I think, in the world is toward technology having a greater
and greater impact on people’s lives. Like it or not, I guess. There are certainly ways in
which that’s tense and stressful, but there are also ways in which it can be wonderful and
empowering. You know, I’m 40, if you go back to my childhood and you look at big things
that changed in technology, there were things like the introduction of ATMs and cell phones,
which, compared to, say, 40 years before that, those were massive kind of cultural changes
in human behavior that were empowered by those technology changes.
But I think today we’re looking at an even more aggressive and accelerating rate of
technology impact. If you look at the impact that Second Life could have on somebody
who’s rurally located, but does have access to broadband and to electricity, as you said, the
impact that something like Second Life can have on them suppose they’re one of the people
who’s making their living working inside Second Life. If you look at the impact that going into
12. Second Life has had on them, by extension that’s an impact that technology has had on
them, it is really enormous compared to many, many of the ways that technology has
impacted people historically. So I think we’re on an accelerating trend.
On the subject of electricity though, obviously I think computers, communication, cellular
telephones, broadband networks, all of those things are critically sensitive to the availability
of electric power. Additionally, electric power enables things like the desalination of water,
the creation of heat. So electricity can be a key way of establishing the basic human needs
that we all have, and I think that there’s wonderful work going on in technology to
decentralize and extend the access that people have to electricity all over the world. And so,
yeah, whenever I’m asked about technology trends, I look at things like Second Life and
broadly with the internet and global communication is affording us as being a very important
trend. But then I always point out that electricity is still a critical requirement that is missing
in so many places, and I think that the developments around electricity are therefore really
important and interesting to watch. I’m naturally an optimist, so I guess I’ll lead with that
bias, but I think that there’s wonderful work going on around electricity right now.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: At the SLCC Convention in Tampa, you talked about the
possibility of having an internet café in a developing nation, that would allow people to come
into Second Life, and I can imagine this fitting very well with what you just said: it’s using
local power generation and so where there are basically no opportunities, you say, “I have
this vision of an individual, an entrepreneur, in a developing country, who serves as a point
of currency exchange and facilitation, maybe a teacher that teaches people in their local
community how to use Second Life to educate themselves, make money, whatever, and
13. then facilitates the currency exchange and the more complicated things and does that at a
profit. So it’s really a self-perpetuating system.” So I’m wondering, Philip, it’s been five
months or so, have you had a chance to pursue that, and does that look as viable or more
viable than it did when you mentioned that in your keynote at the SLCC?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: I have pursued it a little bit. I can’t point to an example yet of that sort
of imagined internet café, and, I guess, let me back up and repeat what you said, which
was, I have a feeling that because Second Life so generally provides opportunities for
people to learn and make a living in a virtual environment, I think that there is a huge
opportunity around finding simple, repeatable entrepreneurial mechanisms to get more
access to Second Life in, say, developing nations where statistically people don’t use
Second Life and, for the most part, the internet much today. I think the model for that can be
one where, if you imagine an entrepreneurial individual who sets up a little café with 20
computers in it and teaches people, in that café, how to use Second Life on those
computers--and, of course, we have presume this person has some sort of broadband
access as well so they can get those computers online--that individual could essentially
provide both education on how to get into Second Life, how to get through the learning
curve and also could provide a currency exchange for the people who needed it. In other
words, you might, for example, be living in a country where the primary mechanism for
buying groceries is cell phone minutes, as it is in parts of Africa. You can imagine somebody
essentially taking Linden dollars that--that person running the café taking the Linden dollars
that you made in-world and giving you cell phone minutes directly for those Linden dollars.
So that would be a simple entrepreneurial model by which people could do generalized
kinds of work in Second Life and get paid for it in local dollars. And that, I think, is
14. extraordinarily empowering because, in general and sadly, the Real World still forces people
in many parts of it to choose from a small set of potential vocations, jobs, which is a lot
smaller than the basic sort of capabilities that we all have. I mean we all, as humans, can do
just about anything, but we are often extremely restricted by where we live as to what we
actually get to choose to do. So I think there’s an enormous amount of opportunity there.
I guess if I’d go back being a guy who’s always trying to do too much at the same time, I
would love to say that, in the last six months, I had personally gone out and set up a café
like that and worked hand-in-hand with someone, to see if that model can really work. I
haven’t actually done that yet, but I have taken some steps toward that, in terms of talking to
people who are running other similar operations where they’re reaching out in developing
nations, setting up internet access points, setting up computers. And so I’m having those
conversations, but I don’t have a demonstrative site to talk about here yet, and I wish I did,
but I still am working in that direction.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. Great! Well, I hope we’ll hear an announcement sometime
and not too long on that. Much of the way that you’re describing these efforts, it’s from the
standpoint of working as a basically private industry, solving problems in a somewhat
point-by-point way. But there are also big policy issues here, and certainly some of these
came up in the election. Some of them are just the issues that have been big over the last
few months in the transition team. One of them is debates on net neutrality, for example,
large investments in infrastructure, particularly broadband access for everyone in the U.S.
And I’m wondering, since Linden Lab relies so much on consistent broadband access, if
Linden Lab actually talks with-- you know, do you guys reach out to policymakers and get
15. involved with these various debates?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: We haven’t really done that to date. There was the time that I spoke at
Congress, on request, in front of the Telecommunications Subcommittee about Second Life
and about Virtual Worlds. I had some great people with me.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Susan Tenby.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Yeah, Susan. I’m trying to think of them.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Larry Johnson.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Larry. That’s right. Whose name I was forgetting there. And then Colin
from IBM. So we were talking about what Virtual Worlds could do. That was, I think,
informational. We haven’t reached out, and I’m going to say to my knowledge, because
there might be exception I’m unaware of. But we haven’t really gotten involved in these
policy issues around thing like net neutrality. I do agree though that, obviously, low-cost
uniform internet access is absolutely critical to nation states generally, to technology
advancement, to education. It’s critical to everything. I think the question regarding
regulation though is one of whether we are yet at a point where competition is likely to be
the fastest establisher of those conditions or whether we sort of need regulation to help with
things. And I guess that’s really the net neutrality debate.
I would say, having looked at it as a technologist myself, it’s really hard to tell whether, say,
16. in the United States, we are yet at a point where the last mile is a competitive environment. I
would say that, if providing internet access to people in that last mile can now be taken to be
reasonably competitive nationwide, then we really shouldn’t need any regulation. I mean I’m
generally of the view, and I think Second Life is great proof of this, that you don’t need very
much regulation. There are certain times in human societies where there are critical things
people need that are inherently monopolistic, say, because they’re very, very expensive to
establish or something like electricity or railroads or telephones. At least my commentary on
it would be that we keep these things regulated for too long generally because the
regulations themselves establishes jobs for people and agencies and all these different sort
of mechanisms that tend to stay in place for longer than they need to. So I guess that’s
more of a lecture on my thinking on the topic than a comment on net neutrality. But I think
it’s critical that everybody have uniform access to broadband. My gut is probably that
technology allows us to be pretty darn competitive on these grounds today, that is, if
somebody’s charging ridiculous fees or tariffs or whatever for net access, there’s probably
going to be competitive providers waiting in the wings to compete with them. But I think that
that’s something that has to be looked at very carefully, and I hope that that’s a major part of
what’s going on with the whole debate about net neutrality.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: There were a number of sentiments in there that sounded on the
libertarian side of things, liberal libertarian, and some of them closer to the conservative
side, sort of a skepticism about regulation and a concern that it become self-perpetuating.
Are you willing to tell us who you voted for in this last election and why?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Absolutely. I voted for Obama. I was I think, like many of us, I was just
17. moved and delighted when the election happened. I do think we’re going to see some very
exciting changes. I think, generally, that Obama is a guy who recognizes the importance of
technology and its accelerating impact on people, and I think that we’re going to, therefore,
have a government here in the United States that is more sensitive to technology issues
than ever before, and that that’s extremely important. Even discounting something as
game-changing as Second Life, just looking at virtually any issue today, technology
becomes extremely important. So I’m delighted to see that happening.
On the topic of regulation and being libertarian and then how I voted, I think it’s a much
better choice to, I guess, do the right thing, but a bit more slowly than one might optimally do
it. Which, I think, is kind of a world where you’re doing the right things but maybe you’re
regulating a little too much, or you’re incenting this or that behavior, and you generally are
going in the right direction, but you’re accidentally kind of slowing the whole thing a bit by,
say, too much regulation. It’s much better to do that than to do something that’s profoundly
wrong or dangerous or harmful to people, but do it very efficiently. So that’s my thought on
why I would say I am very tolerant of an environment in which there’s lots of transparency,
lots of discourse, good knowledge of the impact of technology and maybe sometimes more
regulation than I would tend to vote for, I don’t think that’s a big deal.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. I’m looking at the backchat. So first of all, it sounds like
people weren’t too surprised by your voting, and also I’m getting chastised for focusing on
local politics, and I am sensitive this is a global show. So actually, if I could quickly ask you
to turn this a little more globally. A question from Fleep Tuque, which is: What impact do you
think Virtual Worlds will have on democracy generally?
18. PHILIP ROSEDALE: Well, even if you look at, say, the Electoral College process that we
use here in the United States when a President gets elected, that’s, I think, an example.
That process is an example of the fear that people had about whether democracy could
work in the earliest years of the United States. And that was a time when, obviously,
educational levels were enormously lower than they are today. So you were afraid then, in
times like that, how far you could go with democracy, I think, in part because you were
worried that people weren’t broadly well-informed and capable of making decisions about,
say, the governance of their country. I say that because take a look at--what I think
technology does is it equalizes things, it educates, it adds transparency, it adds speed to the
communication process, accuracy, diversity of opinion. All of those things are necessary
components for democratic systems to be successful.
If you create an environment where there is tremendous opacity, nobody knows what
everybody else is doing, you can kind of do game theory to show that you can have
conditions where, even if you establish democratic operating principles for that community,
the lack of knowledge about what’s going on, the lack of education can still create a bad
outcome, in terms of people’s behavior. So I think that technology is primarily an accelerator
and a sort of risk-reducer around whether and how democracy can work.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Actually, I’m going to have some comments at the very end of the
show, in our little opinion piece, Connecting The Dots, that’s going to play on that issue,
and, in particular, technology facilitates markets and economies which are fantastic
aggregators of information. So I think we’re on the same page on that one.
19. I’d like to turn Linden Lab itself and its business, and that’s going to take us then into the
in-world economy, which I know our viewers are always very interested in. First, I’d just like
to ask: How do you see Linden Lab faring right now in these difficult economic times, at the
corporate level?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: At the corporate level, we’re, I guess, a midsized company now.
We’re profitable, so I think we’re in that realm, as a company, happily, where it doesn’t
matter that much. We’re less impacted than lots of other companies that are broadly and
substantially impacted by changes in the economy. As you pointed out earlier, we’re pretty
global so the U.S. economy doesn’t directly impact us. U.S. users of Second Life are around
30 percent, a minority, and therefore, we’re somewhat insulated from the most direct impact
of some of the economic problems we’ve had over the last couple quarters.
More explicitly though, we just published some data about Q4 and what you can see there is
that user hours in Second Life are up. Dollars transacted between people are flat.
December, relatively flat, are I think one percent down from November. So generally, what
you can see happening is, there is a drop in user-to-user spending in Second Life, that it
seems completely reasonable to say is a result of the overall health of the Real World
economy. But, if you look at the percentage drop, it’s very small. We’re joking internally that
I think most companies, and most countries, right now would give up a great deal to trade
their position with that of Second Life.
If you looked at Second Life’s economy, a drop of one or two percent in spending basically
20. would be very appealing to most countries right now. So generally, I think that, for the few
months of data we have so far, Second Life seems a bit more recession-proof, as people
say, than other environments, and therefore, by extension, we as a company are
recession-proof or more recession-proof. But it’s still early to tell. It seems very reasonable
to say that Second Life’s economy, which is sophisticated and complicated and has a lot of
transactions in it, could potentially be affected by the world economy in ways that we still
haven’t seen yet.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: You mentioned that Linden Lab is profitable. When I read the
papers, I see all this concern about being unable to make money in Web 2.0, Facebook has
huge expenses and has not been profitable. MySpace, YouTube, similar issues. These
firms are getting huge numbers of users. They’re far, far greater size-wise than Second Life,
but they haven’t actually made money. Why do you think it is you are able to monetize your
much smaller membership base while these behemoths struggle to do so?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: The best thought that I have about that is simply that the reason why
Linden Lab is able to make money is because Second Life itself creates value and, in some
cases, real financial value for the people that are using it. So I guess, in a manner similar to
sites like, for example, eBay, Second Life actually provides an environment in which people
can, through their investment of energy and time, make money. Whenever you do that,
whenever you create a broad-facing platform or environment in which people can make
money, and they’re actually provably able to do it, as a company, it’s reasonable to expect
that you can collect a small percentage of that money one way or another, in how you
charge for the service, in a way that keeps you around.
21. I think, if you compare Second Life to some of the other new uses of the internet that we’ve
seen over the last few years--and this isn’t to slight them--it’s just that, in many cases, you
may create a lot of traffic or a lot of use, but you don’t yet create value for people either
financially or indirectly. And when you don’t create that value, obviously, as a company, you
have to figure out some way to monetize what you’re doing. If you’re not creating value for
people, you have to be fairly clever about how you monetize your business. If you are
creating value for people, then you can just try and collect a fraction of that value as a way
of operating and growing your own company, and that is exactly what we’re doing, and
that’s where I think the difference lies.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: We have a question that maybe combines some of the last two
issues we’ve talked about. It comes from Roland Legrand, a business reporter in Belgium,
who asks: Is it possible for Linden Lab to invest heavily now in new technology, or are
important projects on hold?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Well, we certainly are able to invest in new technology. I think the
broadest answer there is yes, we are profitable, which means we have the ability to grow
the number of Lindens, the number of people we have working on Second Life broadly, and
then also look for investment opportunities more specifically. That said, I think it’s a good
question because the question I would ask myself, if I were sitting in your seat is, hey, is
there a really huge thing that’s wrong with Second Life that you guys think you should be
making an enormous investment in, say, fixing or making better or finding? And, in that
case, I think that the incremental approach that I took during my time as founder and CEO is
22. one that we’re still continuing to take. That is to say, there aren’t enormous opportunities for
change that we see where we need to make big, up-front investments. And I’m happy that
that’s true because it certainly is a tough economy and a time where every company and
every CEO is thinking very carefully about making sure that they are very sober about the
risks and, in general, don’t make those big, up-front investments. But I don’t think there’s a
particular up-front investment that is large, that we need to be making, that we’re not.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: When we talked, back in the fall, you did emphasize this strategy
of what you called small bets, that you would introduce new products or pricing or features,
little things that would help, but nothing that was such a big investment that, if it failed, it
would be catastrophic. I think you used the example of voice then, which was just a small
team of people. And certainly, for me, I view that as money very well spent.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Right.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: You’re talking about the map now. When we spoke more
recently, last week, to go over issues for the show, you also made a very interesting claim.
You talked about this idea of spending a lot of money to change something major, and you
suggested that you thought Google’s Lively, which lived about six months, actually did
demonstrate the correctness of your strategy of small bets, by saying that they were
basically directly going for Second Life’s market and didn’t really produce any breakaway
differences that might have--
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Right.
23. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: So did I get you right on that?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Yeah. I think that, if you look at all of the work that’s being done in
Virtual Worlds right now, and there’s obviously a lot, and Lively from Google is one example
of that--there are tons of other examples that I think underscore this fact as well. When you
look at all of them, you don’t see, even in cases like Lively where there are fairly substantial
teams deployed to do the work. My understanding is that Google’s project there was one
that had a lot of people working on it. It was a pretty big project. When you look at those
projects or when I look at them, I don’t see really critical advancements that they’ve made to
the interface or the experience or the Virtual World environment that suggest that we’re
making a mistake by not doing a huge 2.0 effort.
When I look at something like Lively, what I see is a cool product that had a bunch of people
working on it. It certainly has lots of neat innovation and thinking that went into it, but it
doesn’t cry out and say, “Hey, Linden Lab, if you guys made a similar large investment in
money and new people, you would get some massive obvious improvement to the
experience of the Virtual World that you could give to everybody that was using Second
Life.” So I think that that example of Lively is seen in a lot, you know, that there are other
anecdotes that suggest the same thing. And it suggests that, yeah, it’s the right call for us to
not make massive investments in technology areas because we just don’t yet know, for
example, what the critical steps are that are going to make the interface to Virtual Worlds
really simple.
24. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Now along those lines, I have a question from Sean Cinquetti:
Can you give us any hints on the modernization of the new Second Life viewer and when it
may really come?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Well, again, I that that is going to be more like small bets and small
updates deployed sequentially. We make changes to the way the website looks for brand
new users. You may not have noticed this as an existing user because, if you hit the
website, it’s smart enough to know you’re you and not show you the new pages. But the
map changes that we made last week. We’ve a team of people working on--as many people
are following along with here--working on revising the information architecture and the
structure of the actual viewer application. I think that we’re going to keep deploying
incremental changes to the UI, the interface, what happens when you click on objects
in-world, these types of how do you navigate. I think you’re going to see us do those in small
steps, and there isn’t a big, “Hey, I can let you guys in on, you know, this is the month when
we’re going to release Second Life 2.0.” I don’t see us doing things that way.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. We have so many questions coming in through the
backchat. There’s a related set of questions I think would be great to get to, and that is,
you’ve made the point that Linden Lab’s profitability rests on the ability of the people in the
Second Life economy to monetize their experience and make a profit. I guess we have a
few people here asking how serious you are about improving the ability of fully in-world
content designers and others and people who are just operating purely in-world. Ordinal
Malaprop is asking are people operating purely in-world still important to Linden Lab, and
how is this being expressed? And then Prokofy Neva is seconding. Mary Ann someone’s
25. question--actually I don’t catch the last name--on what you’re doing not only with enterprises
but with in-world content designers and land dealers.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: You had that great picture of me. Do we still have it up there? I think
we do. Yeah.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: I think maybe SLCN can pan over to that again, if they remember
where it is.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: That picture of me standing there, having that amazing moment where
I was trying to convince everybody at that time; Second Life was less than a thousand
people that were, oh gosh, probably almost less than a thousand people ever, and a few
hundred people who were really actively using it. I at that time, at the end of 2003, had to
convince everybody that it would be okay to allow entrepreneurial in-world--and that’s
exactly the question you were just asking--people that are just working in-world, in Second
Life, to make money. Everybody was saying that that was a terrible idea, and it would kill
Second Life and that all we would care about, as a company, would be then helping those
people make money and that nothing else would matter to us.
And so now the question is, in other words, as every new wave of change comes into
Second Life, there is an appropriate fear that gets voiced by the community, that says,
“Well, all Linden Lab is going to do is care about the new wave, whoever they are.” So I
would say six or twelve months ago, you’d be talking about education. We’re still talking a
lot about education. We’re also talking about groupware, people using Second Life for work
and small teams having meetings. I think what history has shown is that I think we’ve been
26. reasonable as a company, and we’ve always maintained a balanced approach, where we’ve
assumed that no one application for Second Life will ever be the majority of Second Life
use. I think that’s the clearest way to state it.
Our operating principle and assumption, which I think has always been true and certainly
continues to be proven true, is that no single thing that people are doing in Second Life will
come to be the defining experience that we must, as a company, solely or primarily support.
I don’t think that’s true. It certainly wasn’t true at the end of 2003. It wasn’t true when
Second Life became really well-known, and people started putting up islands in it. It isn’t
true about education and business use today, so I think we have to continue to steer a
course where we support everybody fairly uniformly, with the assumption that, like the
internet, there’s not going to be one killer app in Second Life. I guess, in the strongest words
possible, I would say that is not what we’re doing. We’re not looking at any particular
change in usage and saying we need to put all our resources behind that.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. This hour just totally flies by. We have time for one more
question. This one comes from Daniel Voyager, who actually was a resident of the Teen
Grid, but is no longer a teen and is too old to be in that grid. He has shifted over now to the
main Second Life grid. Daniel, welcome to Second Life. His question is, well, it’s more of a
comment: Linden Lab doesn’t seem to be doing anything these days for the Teen Grid or
stop signups outside the U.S., not doing resident events or advertising the Teen Grid
effectively. So what are your plans with the Teen Grid at this point?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Generally, I think that the future of Second Life needs to be one where
27. people of all ages can use Second Life together, and that’s the direction that we’re taking in
our planning and our work. I think that the educational opportunities for Second Life are so
great for all ages that we need to make it as available as we possibly can to people. If you
look at what we’ve done with the Teen Grid, I think we’ve done a good job, as a small
company, of being inclusive and creating an environment in which teenagers were able to
use Second Life, I think, perhaps earlier than, I don’t know, we might have been able to. We
pushed hard to get that working.
But, if you look at the problems with having a teenaged area, which is itself so isolated from
the rest of the World, they’re substantial. There’s an inability for educators to easily interact
with people in there because we’ve made it an exclusively teen-only area. Parents can’t join
their kids in Second Life so problems like that are ones that we think are pretty fundamental
and need to be fixed. We need to stop creating isolated areas that are age specific and,
instead, look at how we can make the overall experience appropriately safe and controlled
for everybody. So that’s the general direction that we’re taking there.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Do you expect any official action or public notice on this anytime
soon? And is the idea--am I hearing you right--that it would basically be to allow people of
any age to come into at least some parts of Second Life? Is that what I’m hearing?
PHILIP ROSEDALE: Definitely. From my perspective, our long-term strategy is that--but I
won’t make any specific “this is what’s coming next and that’s where you can expect it,” in
that regard. We’re still working on how to do that and what to do next.
28. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. Well, thank you, Philip, for coming on to Metanomics for
your first appearance. I certainly hope that it won’t be your last since I have pages and
pages of stuff here that we didn’t even get to and lots and lots of questions from our record
live audience today. So thank you for joining us. Thanks so much to our audience members
for a large number of very thoughtful questions. And, of course, we post not only the audio
and video archives, but the backchat, and so your questions will at least be out there, and I’ll
make sure to pass them on to you, Philip, so you can see them and decide if there’s
anything blog-worthy in the future to address.
PHILIP ROSEDALE: I would like that. It is stressful, even with the speed with which we can
communicate, voice and text right now. I’ve been reading all these questions flying by as
well, and it’s frustrating. I mean it’s great actually that you get asked these questions in an
environment like Second Life, which is one of the things I love about it; it’s frustrating though
to not be able to answer all of them. I wanted to say that the Teen Grid actually had an
international registration PayPal problem that’s been going on for the last six months that we
just fixed. So I’m sorry it’s taken that long to fix, but if folks have had problems registering in
the Teen Grid, outside the United States, you actually can try again right now, and you
should be able to. So I just wanted to throw that one in there because it’s a little technical
note.
But, yeah, thank you very much. I hope I am back on here soon. I also hope, with my new
job, I have a little bit more time to do things like this. It is one of my goals is to be able to
spend more time talking to people and talking more broadly about what we’re doing as
opposed to being in the meetings, trying to help get things done day to day.
29. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Great. Well, again, thank you for your time, and thank you to all
our audience members. As usual, we end our show with a short opinion piece we call
Connecting The Dots. Our plan for this season is to pass this around to different people to
make their points, but I just couldn’t resist making my own connection on the eve of
Barack Obama’s inauguration. Just as the people of the United States are looking to
Barack Obama to strengthen our country’s economy, the residents of Second Life are
looking to Philip Rosedale and Mark Kingdon to do the same for Second Life’s economy.
And, as long as I have Philip right here, it’s hard to resist giving a little advice. I motivate my
advice with a question, which is: What is the first indicator of the health of the Real World
economy? Sure, the U.S. government collects and publishes scads of data about economic
growth, consumer spending, employment, but that’s all old news. We learn about
December ’08’s consumer spending in January ’09. But, fortunately, we can get advance
warning by looking at market prices. Back in September, we could make pretty good
predictions of December’s consumer spending by looking at the plummeting stock market
and behavior of various markets for government and private debt.
Linden Lab also does a nice job of collecting and publishing economic data on everything
from the value of the Linden dollar money supply and the volume of in-world transactions to
user hours and, well, you can go see Zee Linden’s page for the full set. Great stuff. But,
again, it’s just too late. The problem is, we don’t have a market that can aggregate the
predictions of the many, many people who are experiencing the Second Life in-world
economy firsthand. The solution is straightforward, and I actually described this on the
30. academic Virtual World blog Terra Nova some time ago. I would like to see Linden Lab or
perhaps an outside party run a prediction market that lets people profit from making
accurate predictions about the health of the in-world economy.
Some of you may have heard of the Iowa Electronic Market or Intrade. These are markets
that let people buy and sell shares of securities that pay a dividend based on just about
anything, including the outcome of elections, which is their most popular. Or, the winner of
the Superbowl, also popular. Right now on Intrade, for example, you can buy a share of an
asset that pays off $10.00 if Barack Obama’s approval rating is higher on March 1st, 2009,
than George Bush’s was on March 1st, 2001. Last I checked, the price was about $9.30, so
people seem to think that’s a pretty good bet right now. But any misstep by Obama, he says
the wrong thing tomorrow in the inauguration, that’s going to cause the price to drop, and we
can get a good look today on how Barack Obama is likely to be perceived in March.
How could we arrange something like this for Second Life? Well, imagine a security that
pays a dividend based on Linden dollars outstanding in January 2009, or something we can
trade today, whose dividend is based on the recorded volume of in-world transactions for
the month of December 2009. Or, the number of residents spending at least a dollar or
earning at least a thousand dollars U.S. of monthly Linden inflows. People who are better at
making these predictions will have the opportunities to profit. So the creation of this type of
market gives a lot of people incentive to search out information that will help them predict
the numbers that are most crucial to Second Life’s long-term success. The technology of the
financial market itself aggregates everyone’s individual beliefs into a number that is probably
better than one we could get any other way.
31. Creating this type of prediction market isn’t a trivial task. You have to find the right
indicators. They need to be relevant, objectively measurable and not easily manipulated.
Linden Lab would need to consider their legal exposure or a third party, if they were to take
this on. You’d have to make the right regulatory arrangements. For example, the Iowa
Electronic Market had to request a no-action letter from the Futures and Commodities
Trading Commission. But, in my view, the benefits of the information we could get from such
a market far outweigh the costs, giving advance notice of changes in the health of Second
Life’s economy to the management of both Linden Lab and the in-world businesses that
form Linden Lab’s basis for survival. So if you find this idea interesting, whether you’re from
Linden Lab or a third party, hey, call me.
Okay. That’s the end of today’s event. See you at Metanomics next week. We’ll be hearing
from David Klevan, of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Barry Joseph, of Global Kids;
and we’ll have Connecting The Dots commentary from Second Life educator Fleep Tuque.
See you there. Bye bye.
Document: cor1046.doc
Transcribed by: http://www.hiredhand.com
Second Life Avatar: Transcriptionist Writer