Behind the Scenes Look at Collaboration Process for Machinima Creation

Night is putting the finishing touches on our upcoming machinima series, "Night and Day". It's the most ambitious virtual project I've worked on to date and involved close collaboration from the initial story discussions through final editing. Although you'll have to wait until Monday to see the first episode, I thought it would be interesting to share some of what went on behind the scenes in its creation including the tools we've been using to collaborate.

Night and I had enjoyed working on the Night vs Human comic together a couple of years ago and were looking for a new concept worth pursuing. The idea for "Night and Day" was born in a series of GTalk chats that Night transformed into a draft script using Google Docs. We worked together to fine tune the script through additional chats and edits and eventually decided on an old fashioned episodic cliff-hanger format.

Scheduling is almost always an issue in collaborations outside one's day job, so the use of cloud-based document sharing and ad hoc chat allowed us to move forward through small windows of time. After a couple weeks of preparation, Night had finalized the shooting script and a shot list. Our first virtual location shoot was in Second Life on sets we assembled for the project. It concentrated on the two scenes for the first episode. Night is the primary cameraperson and editor for this project and worked very hard shooting while I lounged and enjoyed a few cocktails.

Night assembled a rough cut which she uploaded to the cloud-based Dropbox service, which is the primary vehicle we use to share large files. She recorded her voice track and uploaded it to Dropbox, so that I could review it and make sure that Botgirl's takes matched well. I uploaded the tracks I recorded and Night created an audio mix including sound effects. She then uploaded a rough cut of the video including audio, which I used to create the musical soundtrack.

While Night was shooting the LOTRO segments and editing the primary video, I was working on the opening identity segment we'd use for all of the episodes. We both used Apple's Final Cut Pro Suite for video and audio editing, which made it easier to share the video and audio files that would be integrated to create the final product.

Here's a visual representation of our collaboration universe:

We plan to release the first episode on Monday. Stay tuned for details.

Transworld Identity Exhibit Highlights Independence of Avatar from Virtual World

Hanging out at media preview of The Caerleon Museum of Identity

People experience avatarian life in different ways. For some, it's merely an extension of atomic identity with an overt connection to the underlying human. Others create a pseudonymous digital identity that takes on a life of its own with no public connection to its atomic counterpart. Although many of us tend to think about those two ways of approaching virtual identity as binary poles, they are really waypoints on a continuum that transcends our best attempts to place the mysteries of life into nice little boxes.

Art and story offer a way to escape the clutches of our categorizing and reductionist mentality. I think that as a group, the exhibits at The Caerleon Museum of Identity offer a more mind-opening look at virtual identity than any collection of academic papers.

After wrestling for a year with what I would contribute, I finally decided to focus on the transworld nature of avatar identity:

Avatar Identities that were born in Second Life now extend into other virtual worlds, MMOs, social networks, blogs, media sharing sites and atomic human consciousness. Every work that I included in this exhibit was created either completely or primarily outside of a virtual world to illustrate the independence of avatar-based identity from any particular  platform or medium. Artist's Statement for my Transworld Identity exhibit in The Caerleon Museum of Identity.

The works include drawings created on an iPad, an action figure photo comic, and a composited conversation between a virtual Botgirl and a RL ventriloquist dummy. Although they do not form a linear narrative, the conceptual approach weaves its own story of a virtual muse that has escaped into the physical world.

I invite you to come see the entire show for yourself.  It opens this Saturday at 12:00pm SLT on Caerleon Isle and will continue through the month of October.

The Caerleon Museum of Identity Opens This Saturday

After a year of development, The Caerleon Museum of Identity (formerly known as the Ambiguity of Identity Exhibition) will open this Saturday at 12:00 SLT, on Caerleon Isle  (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caerleon%20Isle/219/128/40).

On the following Saturday, October 9, there will be a performance of Gracie Kendal's theatre piece "VB15 - GRACIE / KRIS" at noon, with 16 live avatar models from Vaneeesa Blaylock/Company.

There will be a media preview for journalists and bloggers on Tuesday the 28th from 1:00-4:00 pm SLT.

I've included the full press release below, written by FreeWee Ling. Here's a little video teaser I whipped up to give you a small taste of what's in store.




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Caerleon Museum of Identity Debuts Saturday October 2 with Grand Opening Gala in Second Life

Collaborative Multi-Artist Exhibition Features Works of 18 Artists

The Caerleon Museum of Identity is the latest in the series of sim-wide collaborative installations by the Caerleon Artists Coalition, a project of the Virtual Art Initiative. The show opens Saturday, 2 October at 12:00 PM (noon) on the Caerleon Isle sim, (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caerleon%20Isle/219/128/40). Additional entertainment (tba) will begin at 1:00. A media preview for journalists and bloggers will be held on Tuesday the 28th from 1:00-4:00 pm SLT.

On the following Saturday, October 9, there will be a performance of Gracie Kendal's theatre piece "VB15 - GRACIE / KRIS" at noon, with 16 live avatar models from Vaneeesa Blaylock/Company.

The Caerleon group was established by Georg Janick (Dr. Gary Zabel of the University of Massachusetts, Boston) and consists of artists, writers, musicians, and scholars who are using the immersive and interactive digital media to develop new forms of artistic content. Members of the coalition are among the most respected and imaginative artists working in SL.

Georg Janick’s six Theses on the Art of Virtual Worlds are the framework for the series of collaborations on the Caerleon sims. In addition to major builds on each of the six theses, there have been numerous theme collaborations on various topics, including consumerism, imprisonment, surrealism, and masks, as well as limited resource challenges like the one-prim and limited texture shows.

The Caerleon Museum of Identity is an interpretation by the collaborative team of Georg’s fourth thesis: the Ambiguity of Identity. It states in part, “…digital bodies, and the names that uniquely identify them, can be altered, multiplied, discarded, or exchanged at the will of the user. Since bodily presence is open to such radical discontinuity, the identity of the virtual person is protean and ambiguous, including indicators of age, gender, race, and even biological species.”

The project has been in development for over a year. Weekly discussions about the project inevitably centered around the subject of identity and how people in virtual worlds both express themselves and interact with others. This is a subject of tremendous interest to many in SL, and some of the team members have formed the open Creative Identity group to continue talking about issues, especially as they relate to creative work.

The early development of the museum metaphor and leadership for the project was the work of Sabrinaa Nightfire, who has run a number of the Caerleon theme collaborations. When Sabrinaa had to withdraw for personal reasons, it fell to FreeWee Ling to take over the coordination of the team and she has brought it finally to the opening with the tremendous support of all the artists. This is the first project of this magnitude FreeWee has done in SL. “It’s a very rare opportunity to work with so many creative people. This is why I’m in SL–to be creatively engaged and to be constantly inspired by talented colleagues. I am so grateful to Sabrinaa recommending my membership in the Caerleon group, for her inspiration on this project, and for her friendship. The Identity team dedicates this build to her with our love and best wishes.”

The 18 artists participating in this collaboration include:

• Artistide Despres
• Botgirl Questi
• Cat Bocaccio
• Chrome Underwood
• FreeWee Ling
• Fuscia Nightfire
• Gracie Kendal
• Ian Pahute
• L1aura Loire
• Lollito Larkham
• Maya Paris
• Nebulosus Severine
• Pete Jiminy
• Pixels Sideways
• RAG Randt
• Sabrinaa Nightfire
• Taralyn Gravois
• Wotthe Dickins

EVENTS:
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caerleon%20Isle/219/128/40
OPENING: Saturday 2 October 2010, 12:00-2:00PM, and continuing through October.
DJ Mommaluv Skytower for opening party.
MEDIA PREVIEW: Tuesday 28 September, 1:00-4:00PM SLT
VB15 – GRACIE / KRIS in an encore performance, Saturday October 9 – Noon-1pm SLT. Gracie Kendal presents her theatre piece with 16 live avatar models from Vaneeesa Blaylock/Company. performance artists.

MACHINIMAS:
Ian Pahute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=symG_03vh1Y
Botgirl Questi: http://vimeo.com/15307758

RESOURCES:
NEW SL GROUP: CREATIVE IDENTITY A group for artists and others to discuss ideas about identity and creativity. This began from the discussions leading up to the Caerleon Artists Collective’s show on the topic of the Ambiguity of Identity, October 2010. We decided to continue the discussions beyond the show and to invite others to join us. Bring coffee and/or donuts. Or cake. But definitely coffee. And chocolate.

The Thesis by Georg Janick (Gary Zabel)  (Source) 4. Ambiguity of identity results from the fact that our bodily presence in the virtual world is mediated by a digital representation. All dwelling within a world involves being present in a body which both constitutes our perspective on things and makes us present to other embodied experiencers. Though personal identity can be a very complex construction, its ultimate foundation is continuity of bodily presence. However digital bodies, and the names that uniquely identify them, can be altered, multiplied, discarded, or exchanged at the will of the user. Since bodily presence is open to such radical discontinuity, the identity of the virtual person is protean and ambiguous, including indicators of age, gender, race, and even biological species.

CURRENT LIST OF PROJECT TITLES/DESCRIPTIONS (In progress)

Fuschia’s Flickr group We request that people post pictures from the exhibition here.

My Take on the Impending Demise of Avatars United

Linden Lab announced it will shut down social network Avatars United on September 29th, less than a year after its ballyhooed acquisition. The purchase occurred at a time when Linden management was infatuated with social networking and had dreams of somehow transforming Second Life into the next Facebook. I'm not sure how acquiring a poorly designed, kludgy and sparsely populated vehicle like AU was supposed to get them there, but I suspect that a very low price tag had something to do with it. Anyway, its impending demise begs the question of what should come next. My answer is NOTHING!

Avatar identities are already all over social networking and media sharing sites. I personally participate in strong and active avatar communities on Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Vimeo.So as far as I can figure, there is not much incentive for virtual world users to add another social network, especially one that is tied exclusively to a particular virtual world platform. We have it pretty good as it is.

My advice to Philip and company is keep improving the Second Life platform and leave social networks to the existing players. The weekly beta build schedule of the SL2x client is a promising start.

My Top Ten Rules For Responsible Twitter Use

1. To quote Kurt Vonnegut: "Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time is wasted."
2. Periodically review your last few pages of tweets. Are you follow-worthy? 
3. Don't make people click twice to get to content. If needed, switch the link in a retweet while still crediting the original referrer.
4. The value of retweets to your network are those that cross social circles. RTs are of no use to those who have already seen the initial tweet.
5. Be a bridge by sharing interesting links that significant numbers of your followers have probably not seen before.
6. Use a service like bit.ly for your links so that you can monitor the number of clicks they receive. It's a much more dependable indicator of the value of what you share than retweets.
7. Don't follow more people than you have time to read. This means you will eventually need to prune your followers.
8. Stay away from flame wars. Don't respond to trolls. Block as needed.
9.  Have fun.
10. Follow me.

Botgirl Shares Her Secret Strategy for Twitter Success

I've wrestled with appropriate Twitter strategy on and off over the last couple of years. Since Mr. Crap Mariner started a ranked list of Second Life tweeps, I thought this would be a good time to rethink the topic. Of course, the initial area of inquiry quickly took on a life of its own so I ended up with more of a meditation on human happiness than a plan of action for Twitter. Maybe next time. :)

Any good strategy starts with a clear understanding of the goal we seek to achieve and its underlying purpose. In most cases, the tangible object of our desire is actually a means to a greater end such as happiness for self and others, love, respect, self-improvement, wisdom, etc. Unfortunately it is very common to go through life repeating behaviors that either don't support such underlying higher-level needs or actually undermine them. We don't do a very good job of predicting what will create happiness in our lives.

One concern I have about the trend to gamify life is that it seeks to manipulate our behavior by associating intense, but short-lived gratification with the achievement of otherwise meaningless rewards. It creates the illusory sense that we have satisfied some foundational human need within an intentionally addictive framework that keeps us checking in with Foursquare or following back people on Twitter to inflate our follower count. Although we know in our hearts that being Mayor of Starbucks or being in the top ten of Second Life tweeps isn't really a reflection of being worthy of love and respect, we keep pressing the treat lever like good little lab rats.

That said, I do believe that Twitter can be a genuine vehicle that contributes to the happiness of self and others. It allows us to share information we believe is of value to others. It can be an avenue to initiate friendships that can deepen over time and repeated interaction. It can help us keep in touch with existing friends, colleagues and distant family. It can support our professional life through "personal branding" and providing a vehicle to demonstrate expertise in our field of knowledge.

I have to admit that my own use of Twitter isn't entirely enlightened. I check Twitter Grader from time to time and have thought about how I might increase my score. But I usually come to my senses and seek the same kind of obliviousness I have to Plurk Karma.  Wish me luck!

Who is Playing the Customer Role in Second Life Agile Teams?

There's been a recurring meme on Twitter over the past few months that Linden Lab employees don't use Second Life very much themselves. Just last week, Delinda Dyrssen revived Paisley Beebe's Mentor a Linden Day concept:

If some of the really hard core users who spend many hours trying to educate, work, create, collaborate and or play in SL were to spend a few hours with some of the key Linden Labs employees.. one on one..doing what they do..showing these talented Linden Lab people the pitfalls.. the needs, the it would be cool or useful if we could, just even how to sit down or put on a pair of shoes (Phillip did say it was difficult to do that). Then..and only then could they really come up with a viewer and platform that serves most people needs in a Fast Fun and Easy way.

I have no idea how many Linden Lab employees use Second Life on a regular basis. Certainly very few of them are openly active members in Second Life communities. In any case, it made me wonder who is playing the customer role in Second Life agile teams.

The key to a successful Agile approach to software development is that the voice of the customer guides the entire process. Agile methodology builds software through a series of short iterations that are typically one to two weeks in length. At the start of each iteration, the person or acceptance team in the customer role sets the development priorities for the week and helps define the acceptance criteria that will be used to test whether the iteration's work is successful.

The Agile process breaks down if there aren't people on the acceptance team who have a deep, working knowledge of the end-user perspective. Although the resulting software will work well from the team's point of view, it may not be useful to the customer. A good analogy is a French cooking team trying to create a new dish for the Thai market. Although the resulting product will be delicious to the European palette, it may leave a bad taste in the mouths of the intended customer.

So I wonder who is playing that role on the Linden Lab Scrum teams. Any Lindens care to weigh in?

Second Life Hexagram of the Month: "Work on What Has Been Spoiled"

I decided to do an I Ching reading on the problems we face in Second Life. The Pentagram chosen for the reading is "ku: Work on What Has Been Spoiled."

WORK ON WHAT HAS BEEN SPOILED

The Chinese character ku represents a bowl in whose contents worms are breeding. This means decay. It has come about because the gentle indifferece of the lower trigram has come together with the rigid inertia of the upper, and the result is stagnation. Since this implies guilt, the conditions embody a demand for removal of the cause. Hence the meaning of the hexagram is not simply “what has been spoiled” but “work on what has been spoiled."  From the Wilhelm-Baynes translation of “The I Ching or Book of Changes“

Although talented people are still doing exciting work within Second Life it is hard to deny that the virtual world as a whole has been stagnating for the last year or two:

• Stagnating from marginal active population growth that otherwise would have brought in new people and their fresh energy, ideas and revenue; 
• Stagnating from endemic foundational technical problems such as broken search that if fixed would have enhanced commerce, improved user satisfaction and increased participation in Second Life events and activities; 
• Stagnating from multiple management errors that have contributed to a very low level of trust and optimism within the community. Despite a temporary respite with the return of Philip Rosedale, recent Linden decisions are once again poisoning the well such as the lastest out of the blue ruling dumped on a key community without discusion or notice;
• Stagnating from a scarcity of breakthrough artistic, social and commercial activities that would invigorate, inspire and transform; and
• Stagnating in a generally narrow public discourse that gives lip service to the 'art of the possible' while plodding along with business as usual.

As our reading continues, the good news is that it's not too late to turn things around:

What has been spoiled through man’s fault can be made good again through man’s work. It is not immutable fate, as in the time of STANDSTILL, that has caused the state of corruption, but rather the abuse of human freedom. Work toward improving conditions promises well, because it accords with the possibilities of the time. We must not recoil from work an danger – symbolized by crossing of the great water – but must take hold energetically. Success depends, however, on proper deliberation ... We must first know the causes of corruption before we can do away with them; hence it is necessary to be cautious during the time before the start. Then we must see to it that the new way is safely entered upon, so that a relapse may be avoided; therefore we must pay attention to the time after the start. Decisiveness and energy must take the place of the inertia and indifference that have led to decay, in order that the ending may be followed by a new beginning.

Hard to argue with that! Of course, the devil is in the detail and the real work is the doing. So dear reader, what are you going to do about it?

Cool Animation Test for Upcoming Second LIfe Machinima

Since Night is handling the shooting and editing of our in-progress machinima series, I thought it would be fun to create a 15-30 second "theme song" segment we can use at the opening of each episode. My goal is to create a look that does not feel like it was created in Second Life. The soundtrack and dancing are just placeholders to evaluate the three effects used to make this short clip. I'm leaning towards the outlines on the wall for now.

Move-See-Interact vs Fast-Easy-Fun: Lessons of the Second Life New User Experience Video

The user experience depicted in yesterday's video illustrated that there is a hierarchy of needs when it comes to Second Life. Before someone can get to fast, easy and fun they need to be able to move, see and interact.

Although Orientation Island and the mentor program were kludgy and unsophisticated training mechanisms, they were certainly better than nothing. Although starting off a newcomer in an area that matches their interest is a great idea (IMHO), it is useless without fundamental instruction in the abc's of functioning in the world.

Second Life New User Experience: From Banner Click to First Rez

There's been a lot of discussion over the last year about the dreaded "first hour experience" in Second Life. Just yesterday, my friend and partner in creative crime Nightflower posted 3 Lessons Linden Lab Can Learn From LOTRO in New World Notes.

Before any first hour experience is possible, there must be some event that motivates a neophyte to register. Since many new registrations originate with a Google-powered ad, I decided to role play as a Twilight wannabe. I clicked one of Linden Lab's vampire-themed banners and followed it all the way through to my new avatar's first rez in Second Life.

Everything went very well at first. I expected the banner link to just dump me at the secondlife.com home page. Instead, it sent me to a nice vampire-themed landing page that led me through a series of simple steps to register. Very well done!

The trouble started when I logged in to Second Life. Although it did rez me within a vampire RPG area, I was left alone with absolutely no help in figuring out how to use the client or to make sense of the environment I was dumped in. I gave it a reasonable try, but only lasted about five minutes before giving up and quitting.

You can see what happened for yourself here. I think it's probably a pretty good representation of why so few people end up transitioning from new Second Life registrants to active participants. Maybe instead of talking about the first hour experience we should focus on the first ten minutes and work out from there?

BEST VIEWED FULL-SCREEN IN HD

Can You Beat "Build Your Dream, & Live Extravagantly" for a Second Life Google Sponsored Ad Message?

Google Sponsored Link for "Second Life"

Google Sponsored Link for "Virtual World"

These are actual Google "Sponsored Links" that Linden Lab purchased for the search terms "Second Life" and "Virtual Worlds". Are these the best pithy description of Second Life to attract new users?

Let's give them a hand and come up with some better ads! I'll be back tomorrow with some ideas of my own. In the meantime, please share any great ideas you come up with. Of coure, parodies are very welcome.

My Take on the Second Life Should Be More Like an iPhone Idea

Surfing between worlds.

I'm very grateful that I'm not the CEO of Linden Lab. There has been so much tainted water under the bridge over the past few years that just about anything he says or does is going to stimulate a fair amount of negative emotional response from the community. Take this fairly innocuous statement as an example:

One of Second Life's biggest problems, says CEO Philip Rosedale, is that it's not enough like an iPhone. From the moment you open the box on an iPhone, it's fun to use, and in playing, you learn how to use it. The whole process is pleasurable. Second Life is nothing like that, learning to use it is a long process, and painful for many people. Philip Rosedale in interview with Mitch Wagner.

There's scant debate in the Second Life Community that the SL client's steep (painful) learning curve is a key reason 99% of people who register for Second Life don't end up as active users. Nevertheless, the social networks were immediately full of snarky comments. Not that I don't like snarky comments. I'm just saying that I'm glad I don't have his job.

Narcissistic introduction aside, the most fascinating aspect for me when considering the juxtaposition of iPhones and Second Life is the relationship between the paradigms of Pervasive Computing and immersive Virtual Worlds.

Pervasive Computing is the first real step towards bona fide human cyborghood. I think Philip actually understated the transparent integration between device and mind/body for heavy users. When humans use tools, the brain experiences them as a temporary body part. Repeated use actually alters how the brain maps the physical body. For those of us who are almost never separated from a net-connected smart device, I think it is likely that our brains ends up treating the associated attributes as being physical capabilities, be they perception, memory or communication. So when we are separated from our devices it feels as if a part of our body or mind was taken from us.

Virtual Lobotomy

While Pervasive Computing today extends human capability within the context of the atomic physical world, Second Life and other immersive avatar-based environments not only extend our bodies and identities into a digital physical world, but also provide the means to transform them into very fully realized beings who are experientially distinct from "standard human".  Just as the brain eventually recognizes a physical tool to be part of the physical body, I suspect that sustained long-term embodiment as an avatar will eventually extend one's psychological experience of "being an avatar" through physiological changes in the brain and nervous system.

A unique aspect of this transformation is that it is impossible to be fully present simultaneously within a virtual world and the physical world. Like the Rabbit-Duck Illusion, for those with distinct virtual identities you can only be fully one or the other at the same time. Like a ventriloquist and his dummy the sum is much less than the distinct parts.

As you've probably noticed, this post is more of a ramble than a thesis. I'll leave it here for now with a quote from Marshall McLuhan:

At the very high speed of living, everybody needs a new career and a new job and a totally new personality every ten years.

Two Laptops and a Bored Alt

Majic and Botgirl's laptops for machinima shoot.

A guest post by Majic Questi

Botgirl and Night were up all Saturday night working on their new video and asked me to help. I was excited at first because I thought they might have written a good part for me since Botgirl postponed the video we were supposed to make together. But she just wanted me to keep a chat window open so that her screen wouldn't be cluttered. Since Night was the one actually capturing the video I'm not sure why Botgirl needed my screen space. I guess as an alt I'm used to doing whatever she wants and being treated more like a beloved tool than an actual person.

Anyway, I didn't really mind helping out but it was very boring. So boring that I decided to take some video myself. Since Botgirl postponed our project I decided that if I wanted to learn to make machinima I'd have to take matters into my own hands. So I decided to follow Hamlet's example and become an embedded journalist. Not in Blue Mars, but in Botgirl and Night's production.

Here's my first video report. It's not really informative but it captured my experience of the shoot. We Won't Be Fooled Again seemed like a fitting background track for my mood. Assuming I'm not banned from the set, I'll be reporting on the rest of the project including voiceover sessions, editing, foley and special effects.

If you want to get the non-alt view of the shoot, take a look at Night's post on her new blog. Oh yeah. Botgirl and Night want go give special thanks to brgn Halberstam from L+N Signature Designs for donating her remarkable SCORPIUS Steampunk ship to the project. See it and her other astounding creations inworld here.

Production Begins on New Transworld Machinima Project Crossing Worlds and Genres

Botgirl Questi on the set of her new transworld machinima project.

I'm thrilled to report that two years after releasing our Night vs. Human comic, Night and I have started production on a new machinima project. The still untitled series will be a character-driven adventure comedy released in a series of cliff-hanger shorts. The first three episodes are scripted, pre-production is finished and shooting commenced last night. I don't want to give the exact premise away yet, but can disclose that it will be somewhere in the neighborhood between The Big Bang Theory and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Stay tuned for project news including announcements of episode release dates.

A Tale of Two Second Life Banishments

From Visual Thesaurus

Two Second Life banishments hit the blogosphere and SocNet yesterday. Emerald Viewer developer Arabella Steadham's accounts were permanently terminated for "severe or repeated violations of the Second Life Terms of Service or Community Standards." Virtual fashion designer and artist Eshi Otawara was banned for one hour for using swastikas and a concentration camp theme in an art installation on the day before the Jewish New Year holiday. The juxtaposition of the two events brought a couple thoughts to mind:

• You still don't own crap in Second Life, including your identity. A virtual world is not a country and you are not a citizen with certain inalienable rights. A virtual world is a software platform owned by a corporation. You are a customer with whatever rights have been granted in the Terms of Service Agreement. If you haven't read the TOS, here's the salient language: ACCOUNT HISTORY AND ACCOUNT NAMES RESIDING ON LINDEN LAB'S SERVERS, MAY BE DELETED, ALTERED, MOVED OR TRANSFERRED AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON IN LINDEN LAB'S SOLE DISCRETION. 

• The word "ban" seems to be used by Second Lifers to refer both to permanent account termination and a one hour lock-out. This can be a bit confusing. I first heard of the Eshi ban in a Plurk yesterday. Since there were no other details at the time, I assumed she had been permanently blocked from Second Life. I was very busy all day and didn't have a chance to get the details until late that night when I discovered the "ban" was only for an hour. I suggest we use another term for these mini-bans for clarity of communication. Although it would have been less dramatic, I would prefer a headline like "Eshi Otawara Punished by Linden Lab with a Time-Out For Use of Nazi Symbolism in Her Art Project."

These incidents are a good reminder to make sure your virtual identity is replicated in other worlds including your name, avatar form and whatever possessions you can smuggle out. 

Is Dating in Second Life like Dating in the Dark? And What Would You Do?

Dating in the Dark is a reality show on ABC that provides an interesting parallel to dating in virtual worlds. Here's the show's premise:

Each week three single guys and three unattached ladies move into a house uniquely looking for love. Everyone is sequestered from the opposite sex until they are introduced in a ridiculously dark room ... Looks are taken out of the equation as guys and girls get to know each other in total darkness. After a few sight-unseen dates, the participants pick someone they'd like to meet with the lights on. That's when they finally get to see just who it is they've been wooing and kissing.

The shows producers have taken a very conservative approach to casting. Participants so far have mostly been average looking or better and within a decade of each other in age. No morbidly obese. No senior citizens. No disabilities. Nevertheless, on just about every episode one of the contestent who was very attracted to someone in the dark eventually rejected (or at least reconsidered) their love-is-blind soul mate because of disappointment about their revealed form.

In Second Life, the variance between the appearance of an avatar and the corresponding human can be exponentially greater:

• On the show, contests can hear the other person's voice, get a sense for their physique through the sense of touch, cuddle and kiss. 
• In Second Life, many relationships are carried out strictly through shared virtual experience and text-based communication. 
• On the show, the fantasized image of a person is based on the imagination working off cues from the other senses. 
• In Second Life, the fantasized image of a person is based on an avatar form which is usually an idealized figure with little or no connection to the corresponding human's body.
• On the show, you are certain of the other person's gender.
• In Second Life...

For virtual daters in Second Life who are NOT looking for a physical world relationship, none of this may matter. But it's interesting to consider. What if you fell in deep romantic love with a virtual sweetheart and later stumbled upon a RL picture that was unappealing? Start with a "not my type" in your mind's eye and work down to your worst nightmare. Would the physical reality undermine your attraction? Really???

Personal Voice in Textual Chat

I've been noticing recently that some people's textual voices are almost as recognizable as physical voices. Although timbre and pitch are not present in text chat, repeated word choices, phrasing, timing and pacing can create distinguishable patterns. Although some mannerisms are the result of conscious affectation, there are also unconsciously expressed tells that are akin to body language.  Some I've noted include:

• acknowledgement of humor: tee hee, ha; LOL,
• use of bridging phrases followed by a return (akin to the verbal "um"): but, and
• specific patterns of emoticons and non-standard punctuation
• consistent spelling errors of certain words
• habitual pauses in certain situations, such as breaking a sentence in two for dramatic pause

None of the examples above are exclusive to any specific individual, but in combination they can be unique enough to create a recognizable signature. 

That Bitch Stole My Retweet

The subject of proper attribution on Twitter came up this week on my Twitter stream. Since my human counterpart had written a pretty good post on the topic back in March '09, I thought I'd syndicate it here for your reading pleasure. BQ

There’s been discussion recently about “retweet theft.” I have a two problems with any gravity attached to that concept. One is philosophical and the other technical.

Philosophical: I admit I sometimes feel a twinge of indignity when a follower posts a link I recently tweeted without giving me the RT credit. Fortunately, I usually remember that buying into any sense of being wronged is an inaccurate and personally destructive apprehension of reality.

If my motivation in sharing something is altruistic, then the fact that the link gets passed along should trump any perceived slight. And since it’s likely that an omission is unintentional, I’m better served by examining my own motivation instead of getting worked up by trying to mind-read the intentions of the perpetrator.

Technical: As the graphic above visualizes, the vast majority of links I run across every day are from Feedly, not my Twitter client. I imagine that few people use Twitter as their primary news monitoring source. The odds are very likely that most tweet-worthy items we find are from other venues.

Just because many of us have access to a Twitter client every waking hour doesn’t mean we have the time and attention to notice every post in our stream. Nor are we obligated to try. The more people we follow, the less likely it is that we’ll keep up with everyone’s posts, and the more likely it is that we’ll unintentionally fail to give someone credit who has previously posted something in our stream that we find in a different source.

And that’s okay.

Majic in Twitterland Video: A Sneak Peek at the Initial Test Shoot

The idea for an avatar's guide to social networking has taken on a life of its own and is turning into a more complex production than initially anticipated. Plans now include voice acting, motion infographics and a transmedia twist that will bring Majic into RL social networking and regular blog contributions. Since it's looking more like a month-long project than the originally planned 48 hour sprint, I thought I'd slam together a few shots from the initial test shoot and share it here.