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The Virtual Whirl: Community guide to Virtual Worlds
Welcome to The Virtual Whirl, a new weekly Massively column covering virtual environments generally. The term 'virtual world' is slowly seeing less use, being supplanted by the more general 'virtual environment', but the world term still has a fair bit of life left in it. Virtual environments covers a whole lot of ground. From William Crowther's original efforts in 1976 that based a game in a virtual version of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, virtual environments have been a part of gaming, artificial intelligence and behavioral research, modeling, telemetry and process control and more. Nowadays we're seeing Second Life, Blue Mars, There.com, IMVU and others trying to find places in non-game contexts, like content-development and prototyping, publishing and performance, entertainment and social, education and business; efforts that are met with varying amounts of success.
Linden Lab says Second Life huge, shows numbers
Generally, operators of MMOGs and virtual environments don't show their numbers unless they feel they've got something to crow about, and Linden Lab's crowing today, releasing a selection of figures that give you an idea of the scale of Second Life. Approximately 1,250 text-based messages are sent every second in Second Life. That's 108 million messages per day and more than 600 million words are typed on an average day. That's a whole of messages for any architecture, quite honestly.
Rosedale sparks speculations
Newly minted Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has recently been talking about somehow incorporating Teen Second Life into the broader Second Life environment, though no details or plans have yet emerged on how that would happen. At a Metanomics session on Monday, Lab chairman and founder Philip Rosedale sparked considerably more speculation, though his comments on the matter didn't actually provide any new information. The last time we asked Linden Lab about plans to bring adult and teen users together (more than a year ago now), the Lab said that it had no plans or intentions of doing so in the foreseeable future. That appears to be changing, though it isn't clear if the Lab has any ideas of how to bring it about.
Cinemassively: Current TV talks about A Virtual Recession
Current TV viewer and contributor, Vasilis Siskos, created this look into the virtual economy of Second Life. Curious as to whether the real life recession trickled down into the virtual world, he asked some experts, including Robert Bloomfield, of Metanomics, John Zdanowski, or Zee Linden, the CFO of Linden Lab, and Alliez Mysterio, of d'Alliez Estates. They had some interesting insight on the situation, but ultimately felt that it wouldn't be a problem, as crafty residents would find what worked better next and adapt.[Thanks, Kai!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: The Metanomics Colbert Challenge
On April 1st, Philip Rosedale appeared before the Congressional Subcommittee to discuss virtual worlds. Among those testifying was Susan Tenby, whose in-world name is Glitteractica Cookie. Once the Daily Show found out, it was open season for Second Life.After John Stewart mocked poor Glitteractica, Robert Bloomfield, aka Beyers Sellers, had her on his show, Metanomics, on the SL Cable Network. While there, he issued a challenge to the man whom he felt was John's little brother, Stephen Colbert. You'll just have to watch to see the amusing incentives that he offers![Thanks, Beyers!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Zee Linden discusses Linden Lab's finances on Metanomics
On April 21st, Robert Bloomfield, better known as Beyers Sellers in Second Life, held his weekly show, Metanomics. His guests, Mitch Wagner, of Information Week, and Steve Prentice, of Gartner, called the future of SL dire. John Zdanowski, also known as Zee Linden, then came on to address the points that Mitch and Steve made.In his two part response, he talks about premium accounts, the Lindex, and the recent lowering of land prices. Only time will tell if the situation is truly severe, but at least you can buy cheap* islands now!* Excluding VAT and $295/mo USD tier fee.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Special Metanomics session: Linden Lab Upper Management Musical Chairs
In the wake of the announcement that Philip Rosedale would be moving up to chairman of the Linden Lab board of directors, and that present chairman Mitch Kapor would be moving to a key (but as-yet-unnamed) role, Cornell University Professor Robert Bloomfield (Beyers Sellers in Second Life) will be hosting a special Metanomics session this Friday at 10:30AM SLT (US Pacific time). The session will feature a one-on-one discussion with Kapor, himself. The topic? Bloomfield offers, "We will talk about his vision for virtual worlds technology and business strategy and, of course, the future of Linden Lab and Second Life." Live coverage of this special edition of Metanomics on Friday, March 28, 2008 from the CMP sim, owned by United Business Media's Think Services division, will be broadcast exclusively on slcn.tv for those who cannot attend in person, or are unable to attend the sim in person.
Richard Bartle at Metanomics
Richard Bartle dips in and out of Second Life. He likens it as going to London. He might not be there for months, and then multiple times in a week. To him, Second Life is a place, much like many others. Bartle was in that place on 11 March, as a part of the Metanomics series, hosted by professor Robert J Bloomfield. Bartle often regarded as the father of the first MUD. In a sense he's the progenitor of all existing virtual worlds, both those based on games and those that are game-free.
Ted Castronova needs a female dwarf, stat!
The inestimable Caleb Booker brings to our attention that economist Ted Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, will be speaking at the Monday, November 19th Metanomics session in Second Life. What's more, Mr. Castronova has requested "make me a dwarf female, high fantasy style."While we're sure he means 'create for me a high fantasy-style dwarf female', rather than making a dwarf female utilizing a high fantasy method, we know you guys are up to the challenge. If you can do this quickly, go ahead and send your creation to Onder Skall in SL, and if yours is chosen, you'll get special thanks during the event and on the Metaversed.com site. And we'll put up a photo of your dwarf right here on Massively! Get crackin', troops, time's a-wastin'![Thanks, Caleb!]
The Linden dollar - every bit as fake as the US dollar
Caleb Booker (better known as Onder Skall) reports on this week's Metanomics session in Second Life. For those of you who came in late, Metanomics (sponsored by our friends over at Metaversed.com) seeks to study how economies work (or sometimes don't work) in virtual worlds and MMOs, how they develop and how people interact with them. A virtual world economy is a capsule microcosm full of lessons about real economies.
Metanomics discussion with David Karsbol
On Monday, 12 November at 11AM SLT (US Pacific), Professor Robert J Bloomfield, JGSM, director of the Business Simulation Lab at Cornell's prestigious Johnson Business School will be speaking with David Karsbol macroeconomics expert, and Market Strategist for Saxo Bank, as part of a post-analysis of the session with Linden Lab's Gene Yoon, earlier this week. Saxo Bank are a progressive investment bank, specializing in online trading, founded in Denmark in 1992 and have an evolving presence in Second Life. With his strong background in macroeconomics and metals pricing you can expect Karsbol to have quite the contrasting opinion of the metaverse economy from Yoon.
Stretching the metaphor - the world and the economy
A metaphor is an analogy which is intended to assist in our understanding of something by indicating points of similarity between them. Our virtual worlds are all metaphors to one degree or another. Many artificial constructs are. The problem with metaphors is that they're generally not readily reversible, and it's far too easy to get caught up in them and stretch them far too far.
Metanomics discussion with Gene Yoon
On Monday, 5 November at 11AM SLT (US Pacific), Professor Robert J Bloomfield, JGSM, director of the Business Simulation Lab at Cornell's prestigious Johnson Business School will be discussing Linden Lab's economic policies with Gene Yoon (much better known as Ginsu Linden) in Second Life. Yoon is the Vice President of Business Affairs at Linden Lab and was formerly General Counsel. The talk is part of the Metanomics series of discussions and talks, focusing on business and policy in the "metaverse" of virtual worlds. The Metanomics audience includes game developers; executives managing real-world and virtual-world businesses; and scholars of business, economics, law and sociology. Residents of Second Life follow the Metanomics series particularly closely, as many events focus on issues arising in Second Life's vibrant business community.
