Revisiting Second Life
I'm still not convinced about virtual words but….I had a chance to talk with C.C. Chapman at a dinner last night hosted by Louise Clements from Rogers Publishing and Canoe.ca's Patrick Lauzon (as part of the Canadian Marketing Association's Digital Marketing Conference). Chapman, who's got a new, exciting gig that will be unveiled soon, started to talk about some of the social aspects of Second Life that seemed far more reasonable than people buying virtual clothes and pimping up virtual cars. For example, he talked about attending a conference at Harvard on the Web. Instead of watching streaming video, he attended the conference in Second Life where he was able to chat with other people attending the same virtual event. Another good social example is going to a virtual concert where you can talk to the person next to you about the music being played and other artists in the same genre. Now, this kind of activity, which be described as Chat 2.0, makes more sense to me. I'm not ready yet to concede defeat on my “virtual worlds are lame” thesis…but you know there might be something there. Thanks, Louise and Patrick for the invitation. It was a terrific evening.
October 20th, 2006 at 10:09 am
I began looking at Second Life as an enthusiast, wrote about it and was then contacted by people who had gone in with high expectations (chance of earning a buck….) only to be disappointed. They then found 2nd Life taking on a Second Life as a dating site and a place to explore sexuality and opportunities. As for learning in Second LIfe that does not convince me and I suspect Harvard is one of a whole bunch of companies looking for first mover kudos.
October 20th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Mark, in contrast to my argument to “give it a chance”, Slashdot Games has a good post about people deeply involved with MMOGs who are suggesting that Second Life is indeed pretty lame.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/20/1914253&from=rss
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Hey Mark. Greatings from an old friend! Take a look at some of the thigns IBM is doing in Second Life:
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=171044
http://greateribm.typepad.com/web_log/2006/10/greater_ibm_vir_1.html
http://irvingwb.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/transforming_bu.html
http://eightbar.co.uk/2006/09/21/our-private-island-is-a-little-less-secret-now/
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/09/21/ibm_secret/
http://www.babasucks.com/2006/67/ibm-meets-up-in-second-life/
Alan Lepofsky - Lotus Software
February 21st, 2007 at 5:02 am
[...] I have been following the story of Second Life - a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents - and am confused. [...]