M Linden is an Artist?!

I made it over to Dusan Writer's sophisticated uber-intellectual (that is a compliment) blog to read his reaction to Tateru Nino's exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon (a.k.a M Linden) brought to you by Massively.

Both; the Massively interview, and Dusan's followup are not to be missed. Both are interesting, intriguing reads.

As Dusan points out: "...a wide-ranging interview with Tateru at Massively, which is not only a must-read but perhaps one of the best interviews I’ve ever read with someone from the Lab..."

I completely agree.  It is probably the best interview Linden Lab has given to date.

I will sum it all up in two words:  long tail.

But I digress.

I'm not here to comment, nor am I here to comment on Dusan's follow-up, nor am I here to follow-up on the follow up.  I'm here to bring attention to this wonderful juicy nugget:

M Linden is a brilliant artist!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlinden/

Brought to my attention by wizard gynoid in Dusan Writer's comments.

Here are a few M Linden pieces (no infringement is intended):

M Linden's artwork is cerebral, abstract, energetic, symmetrically cluttered... much like Second Life.  His artwork sheds some light into what it must be like inside the brain of someone running a 20 million user metaverse.

Mark has over 700 pieces uploaded to his Flickr stream.  I urge and encourage you to check out his stuff.

The Gracie Kendal Project - An Exploration of Self and Art

The Gracie Kendal Project
by Gracie Kendal
 
For as far back as my memory allows, I had never found myself in a place I felt comfortable. My world has been in a constant state of change since I graduated High School, actually since my parents divorced when I was 12. I have moved in and out of my mom and stepdad’s house, had several roommates, had over 16 cars in 20 years of driving, changed my hair more times than I care to say, fluctuated my weight with the rising and setting of the sun and the list goes on… Needless to say, I have not felt comfortable in my own skin.

When I joined the web 2.0 virtual world known as Second Life www.secondlife.com, it was probably the first time I felt at home. My life within Second Life has remained pretty constant from the time I started. I bought a house and land and have lived there for almost 3 years now. My avatar, virtual representation, has pretty much remained the same. I have had the same body from the beginning and have only had a couple hairstyles that I have kept. In fact, I normally wear the same clothes, consisting of my jeans with paint splatters, a black t-shirt or tank top, my glasses and my Chuck Taylors. This is who I am. I am comfortable in this alternative/virtual skin, within my avatar known as Gracie Kendal. Although I still have deep personal issues I am working through in real life, I am consistantly inspired by who I am in Second Life. My avatar allows me to be free. I often feel more confident and I’m not scared to say what I feel. I know, that my avatar is run by who I am in real life. So the confidence and self esteem I exude in second life, does come from my real life self. But I don’t know where in my real life self it comes from. I want to explore this relationship more fully in this project.

I am currently a Graduate student in art at CSU Northridge. The current artwork I am creating, has to do with my identity in both real life and second life.

On November 1st, I started documenting my life in both worlds. This is going to be an ongoing project. I am going to document how Gracie Kendal inspires me to be a better person. I am going to show on a day to day basis, my real life self (I hate pictures of me, so this is not something I am taking lightly) juxtaposed with Gracie. We are both going to go on an exploration of our selves. And we will see where it leads. I am posting the documentation which I started on November 1st, and will try to keep up the blog on a daily basis. I would love any suggestions or critique you’d like to offer. Thank you so much for your support.

-Gracie Kendal

Follow along with the Gracie Kendal project as it progresses. 

Ravelong Productions Updated in the Second Life Solution Provider Directory

A quick mention that Ravelong Productions (Doubledown Tandino) now has an updated Solution Provider directory listing:


http://solutionproviders.secondlife.com/provider/show/id/276

Ravelong Productions

First Life:
Brad Reason
DJDoubledown@gmail.com
Atlantic City, NJ, United States
Second Life:
Doubledown Tandino
(Muse Isle NorthEast 204,205,26)

Services:
Audio
Events
Marketing

Incorporate Gaming In Virtual Events

Incorporate Gaming In Virtual Events
by Dennis Shiao of It’s All Virtual

Virtual Worlds, Virtual Tradeshows, Virtual Meetings and more…

We’ve reached a point in the virtual events industry where users who have attended 1-5 events (or more) are starting to ask, “What’s next”?  If the industry doesn’t effectively answer that question, then users will eventually stop coming back and attendance will suffer.  One concept that makes a lot of sense is to introduce gaming into virtual events.  By doing so, you’ll achieve real results.  Why gaming?  It’s all about REEL:

Retention
Retention is a key objective of any virtual event – whether it’s a lead generation event (virtual tradeshow), partner education event or a virtual sales meeting, you want attendees to leave the event with a level of retention over the content you’ve provided (e.g. exhibitor product information, your own product and technology specifications or the the coming year’s sales priorities and initiatives).  Even in a virtual career fair, “retention” is about job candidates retaining information about your company and why they might want to work there.

With gaming, retention isn’t going to be achieved magically...

[READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE]

See also:

Virtual Trade Shows No Longer Novel at BtoBonline
Gaming and Virtual Reality at Cisco’s Annual Sales Meeting at Cisco

Rocking the Metaverse at Club Cooee - Friday November 6th, 2009 - Starts 12pm (slt)

Rocking the Metaverse at Club Cooee
Rocking the Metaverse is back. The stars of the most hot crossworld live music tour will perform on the 6th of november (Friday), starting at 12pm SLT(pacific time) in Club Cooee, the new-innovative 3d Chat World.

The show will take place in the International Club of Club Cooee
EVENT Details: http://www.clubcooee.com/events/view/2246


Rocking the Metaverse is a crossworld live music project, aimed at bringing live music in all the virtual worlds. The musicians of the Rocking the Metaverse (Doubledown Tandino, Slim Warrior, Grace Mcdunnough) already performed in Second Life, Reaction Grid, Twinity, Metaplace, Active Worlds and now they are headed at Club Cooee

 This is the direct link to the Club Coeee music venue of the show

Sasun Steinbeck's List of SL Art Galleries

A massive list of Second Life Art Galleries provided by Sasun Steinbeck of SasTech
http://sasun.info/ArtGalleriesOfSL.aspx
(DIGG IT)
 
This list was created on 5/1/2006 by Sasun Steinbeck and has been maintained since then for the benefit of the wonderful galleries, artists and art lovers in Second Life. Spend some time visiting the galleries and museums by clicking below to visit, spend generously to support the many excellent artists making Second Life such a beautiful and creative place, and send the gallery owners a word of thanks if you enjoyed their gallery!

If you are a gallery owner and would like to join the list, please go get a kiosk in-world or at xlstreet.com and rez it at your gallery. The kiosk will give you detailed instructions on how to be automatically added to the list.
When in world, be sure to click one of the gallery kiosks found at any of the locations below to get your gallery tour HUDs that make it easy and fun to visit more art galleries in Second Life. Enjoy!

About the kiosks

The kiosk system used for the gallery list was designed and scripted by me. It is an advanced version of the Kiosk.Net system sold by me commercially. The kiosks contain a notecard that is customized with gallery-specific data by the gallery owner - the gallery name, contact name, gallery type, website, etc. This data is stored in a custom SQL database that you can view live here on this website at any time. The SLURLs are stored as a location a few feet in front of the kiosks, so updating your gallery location is a snap, just move your kiosk and your SLURL will be updated automatically in the database. This makes maintenance of a huge list like this possible. I just give out the kiosks, and the users fill them out. The rest is automatic.
 
Visit SasTech in Second Life here

(Sasun Steinbeck on Myst of Forzane)

November 5th: A Reminder to STEP UP! Against Content Theft in Second Life

Step UP! Make your voice heard about Content Theft

For more information on Step UP! SL please visit our blog:
http://stepupsl.wordpress.com/

You are also invited to join our Step UP! Ning Group:
http://step-up-sl.ning.com/

 November 5th – Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night in the UK.

Action:
a) On this day – 
no-one uploads textures to the grid.
This should show the economic power of people acting together, without harming content creators. We want Linden Lab to see the power of the feeling about the problem of content theft – and to discuss urgently strategies for tackling it.
b) As many people as possible wear an orange ribbon as a sign of support for creators. And creators can design these – they can be lapel ribbons, they can be arm bands, they can be tee-shirts … the idea is to make the orange ribbon the theme of the day. And everyone who gets a free orange ribbon gets an information sheet – explaining what content theft is, what they can do about it etc. And they also get an information pack that they can give to their friends (which also contains an orange ribbon for their friends). Why orange? It’s been used before, but has no overwhelming association (unlike pink or red ribbons). It’s a bright, noticeable colour. It suggests explosions and colour …
And it’s an opportunity for stores and content creators to become involved too.

Celebration:
The day ends with parties. Bonfire parties. That means that all around the grid, people have parties. We’re not going to be trying to stage Big Events that maybe only 60 or 70 people can cram into. Instead we encourage every club to hold a Step Up! party. We encourage every musician to play Step UP! events. Everyone on the grid has a part to play. Everyone can take part.

ACTA - The Internet Illuminati Planning a New World Order?!

Via BoingBoing
by Cory Doctorow
Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

• * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.
  
• * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
  
• * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.
  
• * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

-----

via Michael Geist
The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotations continue in a few hours as Seoul, Korea plays host to the latest round of talks. The governments have posted the meeting agenda, which unsurprisingly focuses on the issue of Internet enforcement. The United States has drafted the chapter under enormous secrecy, with selected groups granted access under strict non-disclosure agreements and other countries (including Canada) given physical, watermarked copies designed to guard against leaks.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

-----

Via EFF.org
Leaked ACTA Internet Provisions: Three Strikes and a Global DMCA
Commentary by Gwen Hinze
 
Negotiations on the highly controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement start in a few hours in Seoul, South Korea. This week’s closed negotiations will focus on “enforcement in the digital environment.” Negotiators will be discussing the Internet provisions drafted by the US government. No text has been officially released but as Professor Michael Geist and IDG are reporting, leaks have surfaced. The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations. The Internet provisions have nothing to do with addressing counterfeit products, but are all about imposing a set of copyright industry demands on the global Internet, including obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies, and a global expansion of DMCA-style TPM laws.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

-----

Via Huffington Post
Transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

The letter below reports the views of several groups and individuals concerning the lack of transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This is something that is so obvious, it should not require comment, on a policy that is completely indefensible.

The. U.S. and 39 or more countries are negotiating a new global agreement on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and everything so far is secret from the general public. The main topics are civil and criminal rules, such as injunctions, damages and third party liability from infringements, searches of Internet transactions, border measures affecting the import or export of various consumer goods from medicines to cell phones, and a host of other issues. All 40+ countries in the negotiation have access to the proposed text. And, there are processes for just about any corporate lobbyist with ties to the Administration to see proposed texts, if they sign tough legally binding non-disclosure agreements. So why is it secret from the public?

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

-----

Via GamePolitics
Letter to Obama Seeks ACTA Transparency

As the 6th round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations get underway in Seoul, Korea, a dispatch has been sent to President Obama expressing concern over the “lack of transparency and openness” surrounding the initiative.

The letter notes that “Unlike nearly all other multilateral and plurilateral discussions about intellectual property norms, the ACTA negotiations have been held in deep secrecy.”

While a curious mix of entities have been allowed to see ACTA documents, after signing a non-disclosure agreement, the letter states that “there were no opportunities for academic experts or the general public to review the documents,” adding that “very few” public interest or consumer groups were included as well.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

-----

Via Freakbits
Obama Petitioned to Reveal Secret Anti-Piracy Agreement

ACTA is a mysterious thing that no-one is really certain about. That lack of certainty is because of the lack of transparency around the negotiations. KEI wants that changed, and with an open letter-cum-petition, is calling on President Obama to stand up to his election promises, and make ACTA public.

There has been a lot of controversy over the ACTA treaty. Mostly over the the scope of the treaty (which could see iPod searches at borders for illegally downloaded music) but there has also been a fuss over the way the negotiations have been conducted. Negotiations have been conducted in secret over the past two years, and the Executive Office of the President (Office of t he US Trade Representative) has denied Freedom of Information (FOI) requests earlier this year from FEI, citing Executive Order 12958 – referring to Classified National Security Information. In January, just before the Bush Administration left office, they made similar claims to EFF FOI requests.

[FULL ARTICLE HERE]

Not Possible in Real Life (NPIRL): no longer blogging

So long, farewell...
by Bettina Tizzy


Back when this blog began, 750 posts ago, there were few blogs that did write-ups and reviews of great content and installations in Second Life. This has changed dramatically, especially over the past year. Today, a number of academic journals are gearing up to focus on virtual content, and they will be the appropriate venues for most of the topics we've been covering lately.

I like to think Not Possible IRL has raised awareness of quality content, not just in Second Life but in other virtual worlds where User Generated Content is possible. We've certainly showcased a lot of extraordinary talent and work.

[Read the Full Story at NPIRL]

-----

A blog moves on....NPIRL
by Soror Nishi

There are a few blogs that I read regularly, I started when my own ideas about blogging began to mature beyond a very brief diary of my entry into the world of Second Life.
As my poor ramblings developed I looked to NPIRL blog as really the pinnacle of blogging, well informed, researched, thoughtful.

That it has become a time-consuming beast of a project is no surprise to me, I know from my time with Koinup and here that life is not long enough. That sort of quality, which it was a joy to read, does not come without the research. So it's a shame, but Bettina has become a victim of her own talent in one way, and we all have to make decisions about how we want to spend our time.

I personally think that Bettina has made the right decision, NPIRL as a group will grow, nurtured by her insight and commitment and we will have to look elsewhere for quality coverage of SL arts and crafts. Nothing springs to mind at the moment.

I'm sure that as change happens and we shed old skins to grow new we meet Anxiety, but with increasing experience we learn that new life grows on what has been composted in the past..:)) sounds like Gardener's Question Time....hehehehe....

Bettina is great, we all love her and look forward to her new ventures.... ... "What Bettina Did Next..."

Alec Baldwin Plays Wii Wario Shake - Saturday Night Live (SNL)

[Thanks GeekSpazz]

Step UP! Call for Live Performers

On Thursday November 5th Step UP! SL will have an all day grid wide celebration to show solidarity & support for content creators in Second Life.

There will be all sorts of parties across the grid on that day. We think it would be fitting to have Live SL performances featuring performers who sing their own original songs. It will be a great opportunity to make people aware of the wealth of talent and original music in Second Life.

There will also be a party at the Step UP! Headquarters on the Planet Mongo sim fro 2-6pm SLT. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Planet%20Mongo/125/151/30

If you would like to particpate, please contact either myself or Saffia Widdershins.
angie.mornington@gmail.com
saffia.widdershins@gmail.com

*****Please let us know:

1. What time of the day (SL Time) you can perform:

2. What type of music you play:

3: If you can offer your stream of original music that we can give to people who are hosting parties throughout the day:

Thank you so much and we look forward to hearing from you!

For more information on Step UP! SL please visit our blog:
http://stepupsl.wordpress.com/

You are also invited to join our Step UP! Ning Group:
http://step-up-sl.ning.com/

And there is a Step UP! SL inworld group.

angie.mornington@gmail.com
saffia.widdershins@gmail.com

How To Make Second Life Truly Mass Market, Part 1: Deep Integration With Facebook

How To Make Second Life Truly Mass Market, Part 1: Deep Integration With Facebook
by Hamlet Au of New World Notes

The latest official economic stats for Second Life are now available, and they tell a mixed picture: while user-to-user transactions continue to grow, the absolute number of unique users does not. After a steady growth period at the start of the year, monthly unique repeat SL users have plateaued to around 750K. In his report, Linden Chief Product Officer T. Linden suggests this flat growth is the result of the new policy (imposed last May) banning Traffic-gaming bots.

That may well be the case, but what's undeniable is that Secnd Life is still struggling to become a virtual world with mass market status. By way of comparison, consider today's largest virtual world: YoVille, from Zynga, a web-based MMO played in Facebook and MySpace. Only launched in May 2008, it now counts nearly 20 Million unique monthly active users on Facebook alone. (Making it much larger than not just World of Warcraft, but web-based MMOs like Habbo.)

There are a number of reasons for YoVille's rapid and sustained growth, but one in particular stands out: Deep integration with leading social networks, especially Facebook with its 300 million active users. This explains how YoVille managed to grow so speedily, for its appeal is not just the virtual world itself (cartoonish and simple as it is), but the desire to play it with Facebook friends. "At their most fundamental level," Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, recently told me, social network-based games like YoVille "are games that you can play with real people with real identities."

I recently wrote about how mass adoption is so crucial to Second Life, and at the time, I promised to offer suggestions for making that possible. Taking YoVille's success as a reference point, my first recommendation is this: Second Life needs deep integration with Facebook.

I don't mean a mere SL-related Facebook Application (those exist already), but integration across all channels, starting with the very first SL signup page, which should accept Facebook account credentials.

Doing this would associate new Residents with their Facebook page, which generally contain many of their real life details. In that way, the subsequent SL avatar would have a subordinate status, after the owners' real name and autobiographical details. (As with my YoVille avatar friends, at left, who are automatically linked to their Facebook profiles.)

Philip Linden often says that someday, Internet users will feel obligated to use an online avatar that's somehow distinct from the actual owner. However, with the largest virtual world (and other leading social games) the exact opposite is the case: the most popular avatar types are explicit extensions of an already existing real world identity.

Or to put it another way: to gain mass growth, Second Life may have to abandon the expectation that new users adopt a whole separate personality. As YoVille and other top social games (which now count 100 million+ users) suggest, most people prefer avatars that are firmly linked to their first lives.

Poll of the Day: If You Suddenly Lost All of your Second Life creations, would you Start Over or Quit?

Lets say you woke up one day, logged into Second Life, and discovered everything you had built and created was suddenly erased... gone... wiped out of existence...  It's a disturbing thought, yet it's happened to quite a few Second Life long time residents.

If all of your creations, your wares, your shop, your inventory was GONE, what would you do?
Would you start from scratch and rebuild or would you throw your hands up in disgust and quit?



Another question I would like to pose is this:   Having all of your original content (intellectual property) copied and stolen; is this the same as completely losing your content entirely?   If you discovered all of your content was ripped off, would you quit Second Life?   Feel free to leave your thoughts and responses in comments.