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Mar 29, 2004

Comments

1.

Gotta admit, SL is all that the late 90's VRML worlds hype did NOT turn out to be. Well, maybe its a lot harder to build stuff, but nobody's perfect.

2.

Dan wrote:
How do you share your Second Life adventures with those who aren't yet in the know? Take a snapshot of your favorite people and places and send it as an email postcard right from the Snapshot window

A MUD-dev roundtable this past weekend nibbled away at an edge here. The topic there was to contrast the impact of graphical emotes with text based ones. My re-spin of it for here: its hard to communicate enough context of a VW to impact with those "not in the know". What can sending the occasional snap and "love and kisses" from a VW to someone on the outside accomplish?

So, I speculate that the value here is more of an ALT channel of communications for those already networked in the VW.

3.

Dan Hunter>typing "/me blanks" in chat results in a display of "Your Name Blanks".

I wonder why they don't go for ;blanks or :blanks, if they're keen on using textual world standards?

Do they allow "hello or 'hello for speech?

Richard

4.

You know, these worlds could be really quite interesting. Hell, we might even play games there. I can't help but feel that there is an important shift happening right about now...

From what I understand, There is working on something like this. Adding small games into the larger framework of the VW. Imagine being able to go into a Tiki arcade in There, walking over to a machine, and your view zooms in to whatever game you'd like to play. Since there uses tons of .swf files, flash games could easily be integrated into a framework like this. Meet me at the arcade...

5.

This version also allows anyone to buy entire islands. A group of ex-Uru players plans to buy an island and recreate the Myst-world they didn't get to experience.

Full details here.

6.

Dan, I'll take your AOL bet, especially if Mr. Case is involved in decision making. AOL has a bit of a record of canceling these kind of social/game spaces in favor of larger, trackable (advertisable) spaces (chat, IM, etc.).

I view the new features in SL as brilliant. First the IM<=>email maintains a social contact with the world that might otherwise be broken (*especially* among more casual users who don't collect IMs address of eveyone they meet).

The screenshot feature as "wish you were here" postcard tool *can* draw fringe people in. It's working those social nodes. As for not providing enough context - sure, but neither do travel brochures or picture postcards provide a rich sense of the location. They do provide social contact with context which can pique curiosity and lead someone one step closer to clicking on the "download" button.

And thats what I see these two as - bring curious, but cautious, folks in and keep them connected so they stay. They seem pretty low overhead, to boot.

7.

> The screenshot feature as "wish you were here"
> postcard tool *can* draw fringe people in.

Now all we need is a SL/Flickr gateway. :)

8.

No, but someoen in the orkut SL group posted her live journal listing:

So, some of you are wondering just exactly what it is I am doing in SecondLife so much? I thought I’d give you a peek.

Dial-up, beware.

A little tour, in alphabetical order by image name.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ladychangeling/108186.html

9.

(pardon, this is a slightly more coherent and better spelled reply)

That may be coming. Someone in the orkut SL group posted her live journal listing (prior to the new SL feature release):

So, some of you are wondering just exactly what it is I am doing in SecondLife so much? I thought I’d give you a peek.

Dial-up, beware.

A little tour, in alphabetical order by image name.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ladychangeling/108186.html

Granted, most of the comments are by other SLers. I find it interesting that she took it upon herself to try to explain her interest to people who might not get it. Not suprising for anyone with niche interests.

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