By Will McInnes

Tom is getting in to SecondLife

My business partner Tom Nixon is getting excited about Second Life, which is cool, because - although deeply flawed - it is a window into the future.

Check out his 'Why I'm excited about Second Life' blog post.

SecondLife helluva technical challenge

I don't know what half of this refers to, but just the enormity of the technical challenge that Linden Labs has in front of it washes over my non-technical self when I read this blog post.

Applying ARG techniques to clients, projects and our recruitment

This ARG thing has got my mind a-whirring.

Michael Smith from Mind Candy dropped me a mail last night that's kept it buzzing.

1. Which of our bigger brand clients might enjoy and get results from weaving part of them into one of these story/games?

2. How we can make some of our forthcoming projects more ARG-like - can we add some offline elements to it or some puzzling, so some of current social media website projects?

3. Lastly, and possibly best(?) could we do something fast but effective for our recruitment - make it an ARG? Open with a puzzle on a jobs board to stand out, lead to a web page that has a further puzzle, finish with a Twitter or something. Generate some buzz, catch-ee catch-ee some hot shizzle creative talent to join the elite team.

Please do share ideas in the comments.

SecondLife ecological impacts

Last year I raised the question "Is Second Life sustainable ecologically?"  This question was picked up by Nick Carr, who found that an avatar in Second Life consumes about as much power as the average Brazilian.

An avatar in Second Life consumes about as much power as the average Brazilian!!!!!!!

[From Clickable Culture]

Technologoy concerns over SecondLife continue

Excerpt from the SecondLife Herald due to current technical problems in-world:

It has to be said that it seems to me unlikely that LL [Linden Labs - producers of SecondLife] can survive very much longer if things continue like this. The level of unprofessional behaviour permeating every level of LL is now so evident, both in the antics of the management, and the day to day operation of Second Life that it’s actually affecting signups and concurrent logins. Don’t take my word for it, go check the figures.

LL are about to find that the ‘well, it’s free, what have they got to moan about?’ model only works so far. And the level of problems in SL is now so high that even the freeloaders are leaving. Or is it the paying customers? We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?

I hope it's not really this bad.
Not because I spend much time inworld: more because the fascinating impacts of SecondLife and other virtual worlds are only now beginning to capture the mainstream's attention.

I also hope it's not that bad because our work with online technology, particularly on the techiest project we've ever worked on as a team, has taught us that you can't outrun fundamental technology problems through 'band aid' fixes (like extra bandwidth, more processing power, and other fringe fixes). Problems at the core need to be fixed at the core, and from other reading I understand that the community feel that SecondLife has inherent development problems that need incredibly brave decision making and strip-it-back-to-the-bare-bones re-development. Could all be nay-saying but the lag in SecondLife can be crippling...

Fascinating piece on SecondLife and business

If you are interested in SecondLife, its community of developers and its confluence with the worlds of business and advertising agencies, you must read this beautifully, thoughtfully written piece from the SecondLife Herald.

Very interesting.

Q: Have you even been in Second Life?

Following its incredible rise to fame as a successful mass market virtual world, Second Life has become a cliche and an object of misunderstood amusement among the marketing and communications community.

And that's starting to annoy me...

Because I'm realising more and more that the same people that drop into conversations 'and on Second Life' before dismissing it as a geeky world where men dress up as space travelling female horses [1] are the same ill-informed 'new media' [2] know it alls that have 'understood' but actually failed to comprehend in the slightest blogging, how real online communities work, and every other important shift before them..

Second Life is amazing. It's nearly mind blowing. It really is. I'm not a geek, and I don't use the virtual world to cross dress in...(well I would say that).

Why is it amazing?

It is an incredible execution of the virtual worlds forecast by Sci Fi writers and filmakers. It is very like those worlds we've all consumed through film and literature. But it actually works.

You meet incredible interesting people. This afternoon I thought I'd check out new marketing super-agency Crayon who have an office in 2L. And fortunately I stumbled in at the right time - there was a 'Crayon Coffee' thing going on so about 15 people were chatting away, from Text 100 (top tech PR firm), people from Crayon, other well informed and interested digital media types.

It's the start of something important and new. The cluetrain manifesto talked about the conversation. IRC, online forums and chatrooms, blogs, all facilitiate this conversation between real human beings. In Second Life these conversations take place in an equally distributed way, but in a much more textured, lifelike visceral way. Avatars are a huge component of the future of online interaction, and Second Life is allowing people to break their own ground here.

Next time you hear someone dismiss Second Life (or you are tempted to do the same) I'd ask: 'have you even been there?; have you explored it, played with it, talked to people?'. Because if they're just doing the whole 'I'm in marketing and I can name drop MySpace, Bebo and blogging' then screw 'em. Here's to virtual worlds.

footnotes:
[1] Yes, people do have avatars in bizarre forms - it's really quite scary and colourful. A bit like Brighton (where I live and work) really!
[2] It's not 'new media' you pillocks - it's the here and now, you frickard.

2 big deals: Why the Brighton digital media shakes binary booty

Big deal #1 - Top US agency iCrossing buys Spannerworks (Brighton-based) as European launchpad

Big deal #2 - SecondLife creators Linden Labs opens Brighton office

These deals represent a superb start to 2007 for Brighton's superb digital media community.

I have lived in Brighton & Hove since I was 8 years old.
I am a participant and business owner in Brighton's digital media community.
And I love this shit.

Brighton's media community already has a good national reputation, but doubters say there's more hot air and lifestyle businesses than real substantial activity.
Bollocks, I say.

We intend to build on on our national reputation significantly, and them some - by building recognition for this uniquely excellent city internationally too.

Come to Brighton. It's nice.

SecondLife is a-buzz, but do you know what ARGs are?

SecondLife is seriously hot at the moment. Marketers are really talking about it - only today I was at a major UK brand and the lady I met was really interested in it.
Like all technology adoption, it's working it's way thru the curve, and however passe it may seem to out-and-out web heads, the vast majority (e.g. normal people) haven't even HEARD of SecondLife.

So what about ARGs - do you know what they are and what promises they make?
Alternate Reality Games, apparently.
Not quite a virtual world like SecondLife, or a MMORPG [definition] like World of Warcraft.

I came across the concept on the BBC, reading about the winner of a cutting-edge ARG called Perplex City.

Reading the maker's website got my mind fired.
Fascinating. In some ways more than Virtual Worlds given that they are totally removed, whereas this ARG model blurs the lines between real and virtual.
Sounds like a quick route to insanity, but fascinating fascinating.
It's the future baby.

Rupture: online social networks for niche communities (Or, bald eagles with hard-ons')

An obvious opportunity really starting to kick in now is that of creating bespoke online social networks for carefully defined niche communities. Following on from the mass online social networks of MySpace (consumer) and LinkedIn (suits), this niche lifestyle approach is really 'gaining traction' in MBA speak.

Shawn Fanning, the Napster guy, has launched Rupture, an online social network for World of Warcraft players.

- pic by Phu Son, Flickr

(Link: About WoW)

It's a massively powerful idea, and well-executed, as it has been, will fly like a goddam bald eagle with a hard-on! (Note: I've never seen a bald eagle flying at all, with or without hard-on, so excuse me on that one).

Why?

1. the community of real people already exists - they already are fanatical about the game, play it WAY too much, live and breathe it - another conduit for dialogue and community between these geographically dispersed people can only succeeed! Hardest part of developing a successful online community is achieving critical mass where there is sufficient activity to offer a meaningful return to its members.

2. because at this stage - due to their core competencies and need to concentrate fully on those - companies in a market will find it hard to develop their product (in this instance, the video game WoW) AND develop an online social network

3.. see reason 1 + 2.

In ref to point number 2 though, I should say that the early successful niche online communities can in some instances expect to be bought by the core service provider in that market (WoW's video game publisher buys Rupture as it's success kicks off, or a Wine & Liquor company buying the wine community, etc), and also that as vanilla -off-the-shelf social network software becomes available and better understood by in-house marketers, these companies will begin starting and owning the communities themselves, or at least trying to.

Looks like another $10 m in the bank for Fanning, and fair play to him :-)

[Found Rupture launch news on mashable.]