Virtual Presentations in Second Life

We presented our businesses to our fellow classmates through Second Life this week.  My team, The Awesome Group (name change pending) was able to overcome our lack technical skills to create a six-screen theater with multi-level seating.

The first pic shows Flo Quida during our presentation.  Unfortunately, we were co-located during the presentation due to class scheduling preventing us from reaching more dispersed locations.  I will have to say that talking to a computer screen was certainly a different experience.  The presenter is unable to “read” the audience and loses the ability to dynamically adjust their topics.  I did find myself still using gestures while I was speaking even though they were useless in the virtual setting.

Still, the experience was interesting.  Each team created a unique presentation.  The stores were recreated to reflect the directions of the businesses that each group had decided upon.  The “dating service” group created an interesting avatar that would serve as the mascot.  It’s interesting that they chose a female to be their representative.  I would have thought that they would have a both male and female mascots.  It is possible that they don’t need it depending on the gender makeup of Second Life.

Overall, I see that the businesses have promise.  They have good plans and good analysis to follow.  I am glad to see something interesting for once.  The academic environment is blasé and full of boring subjects with little creativity.  The out of the box ideas are so refreshing and the wondrous environments are a sight to see.

Second Life is definitely a world where real-life assumptions should not be automatically applied.  I do think that many did struggle with that in the beginning and possibly resisted the appeal of Second Life—I am guilty of this.  I had difficulty creating a vision for something I had so little knowledge of.  I truly hope that I have been able to overcome such myopic vision as the others have done.  It has been a great learning experience so far.

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

We had a virtual meeting this week in Second Life.  Overall, it turned out to be a unique experience.  The presentation contained two screens, one was a backup for the slides and was unfortunately needed when the primary screen encountered errors.  Professor Neil Hair intended for the students to be geographically dispersed and attend the lecture virtually.

As you can see from the picture, half the class showed up because they had just come from another class.  It was amusing but the fact is that the other half were sitting comfortably (?) in their homes and communicating as intended.

I was here…

So what value did the features of Second Life add?  I can think an alternative method of presenting through the use of Google Docs and Google Talk.  Both require a higher degree of effort in inviting users to take part.  For presentation purposes, I think that Google Docs could have provided crisper images coupled with reduced hardware requirements.  The advantage of Second Life is that it helps to bridge the media richness gap between digital and real world communications.

Media richness is the amount of information that is capable of being conveyed in a communication medium.  Email, for example, is one of the least media rich mediums.  A person cannot always easily or successfully convey emotional elements or subtleties.  That is why nuanced communications such as sarcasm, humor, and moroseness cannot be conveyed by email.

In person communication is the most media rich form of communication.  The changes in pitch, volume, and speed of speech are combined with facial expressions, stances, and body movements to provide the receiver with a wealth of information.

Digital communication can provide voice, 2D video, and textual mediums.  Second Life ups the ante with the third dimension.  Now, you can present objects through an interface that is accessible to anyone at no cost.  A presenter can use custom gestures to convey an added degree of media richness.  They can manipulate and utilize objects for the audience to see.  If created properly, the audience can examine such objects themselves virtually.  It can save on equipment transport costs as well as setup costs if the real-life object is complex.

Will everyone be able to utilize Second Life to its full potential?  Probably not.  The interface is still not user friendly and requires some advanced knowledge to fully take advantage of.  The hardware issues are difficult to address because they exist with both the provider and user.  The continued development and improvement of Second Life can bring this virtual format closer to the mainstream.

So Reuters and American Apparel Walk Into a Bar…

The joke here is the efforts of commercial enterprises in Second Life.  There was a rush several years ago to enter virtual worlds.  Many so-called experts proclaimed it to be the wave of the future and claimed that companies must take advantage of this revolutionary platform before they are left behind.

Several companies did try…and they failed miserably.  They failed to understand the complexity of this new world.  The platforms are still immature and conventional wisdom cannot be applied to a world unrestricted by the confines of natural law.

A lecture provided by Neil Hair showcased the evolution of internet marketing, a field that is still raw because of the continuing development of the internet.  Some companies have had success with the internet, but a clear cut model is still far from being complete.

Without a clear understanding of how to take advantage of the internet, several companies delved into the world of Second Life.  They faced many difficulties.  They didn’t understand the new world they were in.  Some of its constituents were unhappy with the prospect of “evil” companies invading their space.  Virtual worlds had technical and user issues abound with inadequate resources to address them.

Virtual worlds failed to retain any significant growth.  Linden Labs, for example, uses suspicious statistics to describe its user base.  Upon opening the viewer program for Second Life, I am greeted with an interesting statistic describing users online for 60 days!  Why 60 days?  They proudly proclaim the large number of residents in Second Life which happens to include anyone who had created an account regardless of whether they had stayed 60 seconds and never came back or returned every day.

I do admit that the allure of the virtual life can be strong.  I am fascinated by the creations within and the ingenuity of its dedicated user base.  A strong argument cannot be made for companies to fully engage with virtual worlds unless the core issues of virtual worlds are addressed from server-side hardware improvements to user interface improvements.

Why did the companies go all out when they entered Second Life?  The Xerox site was once fully developed but is now a bare island with a billboard to let you know that they still own it.  American Apparel exited after a “terrorist” attack left some of its constituents “dead.”

There are plenty of people in Second Life who have had commercial success.  These “natives” have been able to parlay their talent into a viable commercial scheme because they understood their populations.  The entrepreneurs even carry influence within Second Life.

If a company wanted to enter Second Life, I say that they must engage the entrepreneurs of Second Life.  They should form partnerships or joint ventures within Second Life to leverage the expertise of the natives with the products of the companies.  Yes, this does mean losing some degree of control but it reduces the barriers to entry significantly.  Entering Second Life this way minimizes the exposure of the company due to a lack of understanding.  As with any partnership/joint venture, the company can use this cooperative agreement to acquire the knowledge and insights that have escaped them.

They can make an agreement to host select items within certain stores in exchange for a cut of the profits or a sponsorship deal.  Eventually, if the virtual words do take off into the mainstream, the companies can leverage their newfound knowledge into a proper standalone entry.

The execution of this suggestion is very dependent on several items.  First and foremost is the legal status of virtual worlds.  The application of the law is still murky.  Individuals from all over the world use virtual worlds and the laws of their respective nations become unenforceable across borders without a real-life agreement between national governments.

Another item of concern is the willingness of the owners of virtual worlds to enforce necessary rules such as intellectual property protection.  They would go a long way by enforcing rules protecting creators throughout the virtual world.  To do this, they would have to expand their workforce to be able to settle such matters within a reasonable time.

It will be a while before real-life commercial entities are able to make virtual worlds viable for them.  For now, the virtual world natives are the only ones who are most able to understand their fellow residents and have monetized it accordingly.

The Internet

I have been (un)fortunate to have had access to the internet in the early 90’s through Compuserve when it was only text based and there were about 5 interesting web sites to visit. 

I experimented with some radical services for the day.  The Imagination Network was based on gaming at the time but had a graphical user interface that users would navigate with.  Click on the bar to go to the chat rooms.  Click on another object to go to the gaming area.  The novelty wore off as its specialized gaming nature got old without the content of the rest of the internet readily available.

Next came my experience with the providers Prodigy and America Online (AOL).  They both provided portals to the internet and the fantastic resources beyond.  America Online eventually won my favor because it provided a good portal, interested array of unique features (Air Warrior!), and a nice browser.  America Online soon became extremely popular and it became overloaded as more customers began logging on.

Cable made dial-up internet obsolete.  The speeds they offered was fantastic.  The quickness of the internet allowed me to have better access to information by reducing the load times to a fraction of dial-up.  Even better, the internet was becoming better organized and searchable through the advances of Yahoo and later Google.  The AOL portal was no longer necessary.  Improved search algorithms brought the relevant items to you faster.  The rapid expansion of internet sites also reduced the efficacy of Yahoo’s categorical listing for finding interesting sites.

Today, I still use cable.  It is somewhat faster than the service I had when it first started but even that speed was sufficient for modern content—with the exception of streaming HD video.  Google is now my start page due to its simplicity in design.  Compare its page with the garish and overloaded pages of other providers.

The internet refuses to stand still.  It continues to evolve.  Right now, they have termed it Web 2.0.  The web is far more interactive than it was when it first came out.  Consumer generated content fattens the internet and companies are still trying to figure out how to reliably use it for marketing.  Social networking rules the roost and Twitter is coming into its own.

I imagine that the internet in 10 years will look remarkably different from how it looks now.  It is developing as I continue my trek through life.  I know that this may sound weird, but it is like a childhood companion for me.  It is something that I can say I grew up with and watched it develop.  What did I ever do without it?  I will definitely say that it has positively influenced my development throughout the years, bringing the world to my fingertips and opening my mind.

Through the Looking Glass

The mission is to find a population within Second Life and to observe them.  Given the problems that presented themselves from my previous post, I was unable to satisfactorily observe my desired targets.  They were islands populated by fantasy role-players that we known to come from several different countries.  The fact that many of the participants on that island came were international was important to me because Second Life’s geo-demographic makeup favors locations outside the United States.  While the US still has a significant presence by itself, several European countries that are far smaller (i.e. France) have very similarly sized populations within Second Life.  It was my hope to observe such diverse cultural interactions in a virtual setting in order to gain a better understanding of how the consumer markets would have reacted in Second Life.  I’m majoring in International Business, if that matters.

Having been unable to deal with the lag and rezzing, I turned my attention to an area that gathered decent traffic but was less interesting.

This area is Western themed.  It has a small ranch with horses as well as a mechanical bull.  A saloon is located directly ahead of where I first teleported in.  To the left is a commercial area styled in the flavor of the Wild West towns you would often see in movies.  The saloon carried the majority of the population so I headed there and observed events for approximately an hour.  There, I observed a very friendly staff that greeted everyone who came in.  After the initial hellos, I headed to the upper level to gain a better view of events.

From what I could gather, many of the patrons were familiar with each other.  They greeted each other with familiar sentiments.  For the majority of the people who were in attendance, they remained on the dance floor.  They attempted to perform line dancing.  I assume that they used a similar gesture set to accomplish the dances.  For what it was worth, I could recognize the dance moves from  my days in high school (I had to learn how to do some dances and line dancing was no exception).  They spent over an hour doing the dances and conversing simultaneously.

The population seems to have been drawn together to this particular place because of the theme presented, although it was somewhat confusing that a large majority came in beach-appropriate clothing.  Only a few came in cowboy/girl attire which was readily available in the commercial area no more than a minute’s walk away.  It is my belief that the people came together with a common interest–country music/lifestyle–and became friendly over time.  The increasing familiarity allowed the participants to feel more comfortable with presenting themselves in a more relaxed state.

It seemed very interesting to me that they would even bother attempting to line dance.  The actions are simply gestures and require little interaction to complete, yet they persisted in dancing.  They outlasted my patience (which totaled 1 1/2 hours) dancing.  I could understand that they were chatting with friends while they were doing it.  What that tells me is that the people have invested themselves into Second Life in a manner that I probably would not at this point.  They have developed a loyalty to this lifestyle and maintenance of this second life; they are willing to deal with the added steps of dealing with a three-dimensional world rather than just going to a chat room which would have been far quicker and simpler.  This is something that I will have to reconcile myself with as my team and I continue fleshing out our business model.

This post is long enough.  More on how this will affect the development of the business later.  I’ll see you later, Alice.

My Second Life Rant

Let me preface this post with a comment on Second Life in general.  I tried touring through what I thought would be populated areas in Second Life.  The program seems to suffer from heavy lag and rezzing (loading of in-world objects) in the high traffic (if you would call it that) and/or complex areas.  This was a tremendously frustrating experience.  I do not know who or what could fix it at this point but Second Life is definitely not prepared for any mass injection of mainstream users!

The rezzing is tolerable (but definitely not something that is enjoyable).  Everytime I enter a new area, I check to make sure that I’m not in an object heavy area where the rezzing will reach ridiculous levels.  I make a rush to exit the area if I think that is the case.  If I felt compelled to stay and attempt to explore the area, I would walk away from my computer hoping that the area would be finished loading by the time I can back.  More often than not, it wouldn’t be.

Even worse is when I’m traversing an area and walls and ceilings begin materializing around me.  It is not uncommon to find myself trapped within buildings.  I then have to navigate the structure to exit so that I may continue on with my exploration.

The lag drove me to leave areas that had significant populations for me to observe.  It was terrible in the high population areas.  At times I felt like I was stuck in a repeating time loop where I would reappear in locations that I had left many seconds earlier.

It is a shame that such difficulties led me to leave many areas in frustration.  The vistas provided in some areas were gorgeous.

It is truly a shame that I believe that Second Life’s technical issues may prevent people from being able to enjoy the beautiful creations within it.

Confirmed: Beautiful People Dating Site Full of Terrible People

So I was scanning my RSS feeds and came upon this story by CNN talking about how this dating website called Beautiful People booted 5,000 people for gaining weight over the holidays.  Upon entering the website, it asks “Do looks matter to you…No more filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites…”

This web site struck me as incredibly vain.  Maybe I’m applying my values to them so I will state that I am expressing an opinion.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Their standards for beauty have most likely been established by mainstream media outlets with no regard for the intangible factors that will make the relationship actually work.

I’ll be honest.  I do evaluate the attractiveness of people, but I have never closed the door based only upon that.  Personality is very important in my evaluative process and takes precedence over the physical factors.  In all likelihood, some relationships that are created from that site may end up being real–but I believe that most of them will end within a short timespan.

Why do I say it’s full of terrible people?  I say it because the people were booted based on votes by the membership.  The offending parties were presented to the membership to be voted upon.  The US suffered the worst with over 1,500 users removed.  The managing director blatantly stated that “The USA has been grossly over-indulging since Thanksgiving…We hope they will be back after shedding the festive pounds.”

For those people who were expelled, I hope they reevaluate their expectations out of life.  There is much more to it than what you can see.

Read the story at CNN.

Sweet Twists on Great Classics

This is the second performance of the Performing Artist Series that I have attended.  The first was an exceptional performance by the classical pianist Andrey Pisarev.  The second held a particular place in my heart because of my affinity for the Beatles and their music.

I have heard various transformations of the Beatles–most recently being the film Across the Universe; it was more literal in its interpretation but powerful nonetheless.  I wondered if the quartet could successfully merge jazz and the Beatles.  To my delight, they provided an excellent show that pleased my ears and roused my emotions.

The solo piece played by the talented Rob Blumenau became my favorite of the night.  In the middle of the first session, he requested that the crowd allow him to indulge in his desire to play a classical song.  Why not?

As he began to play, the song was instantly recognizable as Moonlight Sonata by a rebellious Ludwig Von Beethoven.  The piece was perfectly played, relaying the lament of Beethoven’s (rumored) love for one of his students.

Very subtly during the first movement, Rob reversed the music–essentially playing the chords backwards.  It was a change that was unnoticed by half the audience according to a cursory poll taken afterwords.

Rob had morphed Moonlight Sonata into the magnificent song, Because.  In a way they complement each other.  Beethoven wrote Moonlight Sonata about his love.  The Beatles wrote a song about how love just is. In the song, the Beatles sing, “Because the world is round.”  There is no reasoning behind it.  The is no explanation for it.  It is part of the fabric of the universe.  Take it and accept it.   Love is something that just is.

The piano-only performance was very moving.  I couldn’t help from being enchanted.  Throughout the entire song I was smiling.  I loved it.

The other members of the quartet were as follows:  Jeff Cambell (bass), Gabe Condon (guitar), and Brad Paxton (drums).  They all played deftly and presented the passion of their music with gusto.

The last song they performed was not on the program.  It was Jude, Paul McCartney’s song of solace for John Lennon’s son.  It was also the only song that was performed with vocals–provided by the young and talented Gabe Condon.  They invited the audience to join in the refrain, which many did.

I hope to see another performance by the group in the future.  I enjoyed the entire performance that night many thanks to the group for providing such beautiful music.  Until next time…

Enter The Matrix

What is the matrix?  Is it some secretive program used to subjugate humanity while machines farm us for heat?  Is it a nice little car manufactured by Toyota for sale in the United States?  No, it is a useful device championed by none other than Dr. Neil Hair of the Rochester Institute of Technology which seems to have been inspired by the mathematical matrix.

Normally, I am reluctant to deviate from my normal methods.  They have served me well time and time again.  The compulsory usage of the matrix also served to give me pause because I tend to resist such impositions.  I had to remind myself that I must be open to new ideas and assess them for their utility.  Just because my methods been successful doesn’t mean that they are the best.

The explanation was relatively straightforward.  Dr. Hair reminded the class to consider the relative weights of the various categories we created for the matrix.  Each category does not carry equal importance and that must be reflected when building scores from the matrix.  This helped to assuage my concerns about intra-rating the categories.  We were left to our own devices with regards to assigned the weighted scores.  Fair enough.  Everyone has different ideas about what is important and it gave us the opportunity to mold our business into niches if necessary.

The team met in person at the end of the week–the information was too information intensive to be able to do over the internet efficiently (i.e. too media rich).  We threw out some ideas ranging from fairly conventional to very interesting.  An idea was brought up that initially had not received too much attention from the group in earlier meetings.  We decided we were going to flesh out each idea and develop them a little so that the matrix could be used to gauge them.

It turns out after scoring the different business models, the idea that won was the one that we had been less attentive to earlier.  In fact, we developed a supplementary business model which we scored and happened to equal the previously mentioned model.  The team was able to combine the models.  We are now on our way to fully fleshing out the model for a presentation when the break is over.  Just a fair warning not to dismiss any idea until you really know it won’t work.  We almost lost a gem here.

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Take the blue pill and the story is over…for now.

My First Creation

I tried to create something in Second Life today.  I was inspired by the view next to my team’s store so I decided to create a telescope.

The solar system is floating off in the distance so I decided that placing a telescope would be appropriate.  Note that I have no design experience and that the telescope itself is magically standing on two legs but I didn’t want to spend the time designed something that was inconsequential in Second Life.  I have to figure out how to link the objects together so that they are one.

I’m mildly satisfied with what I’ve made, although I’m sure that the rest of you would scoff at it.