Category Archives: News

RL brands in SL – study

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Market Truths Ltd released the third of their reports on Second Life this month, entitled Real Life Brands in Second Life (Q1 2007).

The study will be interesting to anyone weighing up what effect Second Life can have on a brand. Some might argue that the sample size could have done with being a little larger, but even the 201 responses used give a useful insight into what SL residents think about the impact and effectiveness of real life brands. To give you some idea of the findings, here’s the table of contents:

  • Executive Summary
  • General Attitudes Toward RL Brands in SL
    • Overall Attitudes
    • Expected Effects and Consequences of RL Brands in SL
  • Exposure to RL Brands Currently in SL
  • Marketing Tactics
  • Marketing Implications
    • Link RL and SL
    • Give Residents Things to Do
    • Provide a Quality Experience
    • Make a Contribution
    • Tread Lightly
    • Try to Work with Small Content Creators
    • Increase Awareness
  • Appendix A: Methodology
  • Statistical End-Notes

I was pleased to see that IBM comes out pretty well, with a good score for positive brand impact and 20% of respondents being able to name it as an RL brand in SL, making it the leader in terms of awareness and putting it ahead of Adidas, Dell, Toyota, Reuters and Coca-Cola in that order. (The latter is fascinating, because as far as I can tell the presence of Coca-Cola textures in SL is unfunded and unofficial).

The study also lists some of the key features of what each brand is doing in SL, along with some detailed discussion of the implications for marketing in SL, and suggestions for what to consider and what to avoid.

If you’re reading up about this area and trying to gather evidence for whether it’s worth getting involved you may well find this an interesting and useful study. You can buy it for US$200 from their website or for L$25000 from their SL office.

Second Live voice beta

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I had a chance today to try the Second Life voice beta.

The demo requires a separate download, and only certain sims on the beta test grid are currently voice-enabled. I know that Spaceport Alpha and NMC and enabled. Apparently Abbotts, Lusk and Pulveria, are also voice-ready too. I’m sure the list will grow quickly.

When you speak a green wave form appears above your head. It fades to grey and vanishes when you stop, and goes red when you’re hurting other peoples ears. Here is Algernon complete with wave form…

And a bunch of people trying it out at Spaceport Alpha…

Some observations about voice chat:

  • The waveform thing is nice, though rather basic. I don’t get the sense that it reacts to what is is being said. Rather, it gives a hint as to whether the avatar below is speaking quietly or loudly. Even having a hint of who might be speaking is useful though, and I found I could normally work it out even when some people just had an open mike (rather than using push-to-talk).
  • The audio quality is crisp, but the 3 second (ish) delay leads to some strange satellite delay effects and odd pauses in conversation.
  • The audio is stereo, and sensitive to distance. The connection between someone’s location and their voice is nice and obvious.
  • … at least until you move your camera. Your virtual ears are affected by the position and angle of the camera, not your avatar. This means that you can listen in on remote conversations, but also that you stop hearing your local conversation when you focus elsewhere.
  • Puppies get confused and playful when you put on a headset. The lead was very appealing to my 6 month old pup. A couple of us were racing to see who could have the first dog ‘speaking’ in Second Life.
  • Despite the green waveform, it’s strange to be standing still with your hands still while you talk. However, this is being addressed. From the Voice Beta page…

This build also gives you the ability to “wear” an initial set of “speech gestures”. These speech gestures are randomly selected from nine different animations based on the intensity of your voice. These Gestures are currently located in your Library’s Gesture Folder (under “Speech Gestures”).

  • There are three gesture “sets” of three gestures each for low, medium, and high speech intensity levels.

…

We will refine and add to the set of nine speech gestures in the next few builds.

I’ll be interested to see how this develops, and what other new features get added. I suspect that mute, which is currently not implemented, will be an important one.

I like it. I don’t think it will ever be my favourite way to communicate and I’m undecided how much I’ll use it, but it’s nice to try these things out.

Second Life temporarily closed to new members [Update: not so much]

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Second Life recently closed the new registration signup process.

Sorry, we’re currently jam-packed

To ensure the best possible experience for all of our Residents, we are temporarily limiting new account registrations. There’s been a huge influx of new Residents into Second Life and we are working hard to keep up with the demand.

Please check back soon to create your new account. Be sure to use special offer code WAIT76 for a free Linden Lab gift pack. Look for it in your inventory after you log in. Thanks again for your patience.

I don’t see it mentioned on the official Second Life blog yet.

I keep telling people about virtual worlds and they keep signing up for everything from EVE to Second Life.. so inevitably I got a couple of complaints people saying that they want to try SL but can’t. This is a shame, but hopefully won’t last long.

Update:Yoz Linden clarifies the situation in a comment below. Grid back up and registration is open again

PlayStation Home and LittleBigPlanet – Sony keynote at GDC introduces ‘Game 3.0’

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I know I’m not the first blogger to mention this (even on Eightbar I’ve been beaten. Twice. ) but… Sony’s keynote at the Games Developer Conference was pretty fascinating.

Opening by putting the future of the games industry in the context of Web 2.0,  Sony introduced us to a new Noun X.0, ‘Game 3.0’. Apparently, it’s…

“all about the connected device … empowered by audiences and powered by dynamic content, powered by active communities built on open standards”.

Yes. Of course. Sony gets it. I especially the tip of the hat to open standards.

Later summarised as being a “new era of creativity, collaboration, communication and commerce” (4 Cs; I’m a sucker for a memorable soundbite), the biggest and best example given of ‘Game 3.0’ in action was Playstation Home. It’s an avatar-based 3D virtual world. Home is not a product, it’s a free service. In fact, it’s a “3D social networking service”. Home provides the user with a customisable avatar, and a user interface which includes a virtual PSP as part of the controller metaphor.

Each user will have access to both private and public spaces, as well as a personal hall of fame with 3D trophies (optionally involving video).  Communication options include:

  • quick chat (phrase choices)
  • virtual keyboard (on screen keyboard.. “ho”)
  • USB keyboard
  • voice chat
  • animations

All very nice. But where does the content come from then? Well, it’s a combination of premium content, which users will pay for, and free items that will be delivered by game developers, game publishers, and Sony themselves; the personalisation is delivered not through custom, or user generated content, but by provided content which is either purchased or unlocked by buying games.

Despite the heavy Sony influence in the 3D content used in the demonstration (which included dropping a Sony Bravia television down the stairs)…

“Home is not just about Sony brands and Sony games, it is a much wider network of connected spaces. … Individual spaces dedicated to either games publishers or to game developers or to individual titles.”

Just game content then?

Over time this will extend beyond the game arena to include non-game brands as well. So you can imagine a location built around a famous coffee company or a famous drinks company, clothing company, record company, retailer, magazine, you can get the idea as this will build out.”

Right. But how is the content created?

“This is very very simple to build. As game developers, as content creators you can reuse content that you’re designing for your own games. It’s all using Maya. It’s really simple to build the 3D spaces and we will be providing you with the tools and the SDKs to unlock this and to maximise this. Any surface can be tagged as video. Any surface can be powered by HTML pushed from websites, and you can have individual areas dedicated to games. The way you want to design it as developers is entirely up to you.” … “All of these things are really simple really easy really powerful ways to build community and socialisation around your game brands”

I still have this nagging question. What about user generated content? Am I wrong in thinking that part of what makes something like Second Life so popular is the freedom for every user to create anything they want? Sure, they might not all be builders, but Sony: why are you limiting the building to your partners? What about the creativity of the end users?

In the second half of the keynote we are introduced to LittleBigPlanet from Media Molecule (the makers of Rag Doll Kung Fu). I really like this. Seriously fun-looking play, with user content in spades. More words than I can write at videogamesblogger, joystiq, kotaku and more.

Now this is more like it. I’m sure the palette will still be a bit limited, but the community which will no doubt build up around this with users creating cool levels to out-do each other is going to be fun to watch.

House of Horizons grand opening, Danish band Carpark North rocks the crowd

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Hosted on IBM 2, the House of Horizons project is a partnership between IBM, Computerworld Denmark and a Danish firm called Innovation Lab. Each of the companies involved has a sphere in a floating bubbleplex, with other shared meeting areas too. The architecture was designed by real-world architectural firm Arkitema and built by Aimee Weber and her team. Partnering with other companies in this way is fun, and organizing a shared space which we can all invite our clients into, as well as hosting events like today, has been a fun experience. It’s a bit like setting up a convention center or a a shared office complex but one in which silly things like gravity and fire regulations are not an issue. All of this is getting plenty of coverage from Computerworld Denmark too, particularly in their Danish-language Second Life blog.

The space was launched this morning with a concert from Danish band Carpark North, who recently announced the gig on a Danish music news site. Sorry to our cousins in the US, but having a big event which is convenient for those of us in European timezones, and makes Americans wake up early (or, more likely, stay up late) for one was a pleasant change. 🙂

Not so long ago a few of us were planning where in IBMland the House of Horizons should be based…

Then, before long, it was a building site. Under construction. (Get it? How mid-90s web is that?)…

 

But recently, floating above the cloud level, some bubbles appeared…

The sim was very full this morning. 70 people in IBM 2, with another 34 in surrounding sims, many of them waiting to get in…

The gig went really well. Lots of cheering, whistling, clapping and and people calling for more…

I confess I’d not heard of Carpark North before, but I really enjoyed their music. I also really liked the ambient stuff that was playing before the gig got started. (Anyone know what that was?).

Aimee’s construction of the floating soap-bubble idea is really well executed, and looks beautiful. Well done to IBM’s lead SL architect Jessica, who made sure everything ran smoothly, even changing the sim time to night as the concert started, which really made the lit stage stand out.

Come by and see it. There are teleports at ground level to get you up to the bubbleplex (I don’t know if that’s the preferred term by the way, but it’s a word I like). Once up there there’s plenty to explore. There are a couple of contests running at the moment, one to submit a Second Life news story or anecdote for inclusion in Computerworld, and another for the best gadget or artifact. Two L$10,000 prizes to be won on 15th March.

Drop into IBM 2 and visit the floating House of Horizons some time.

Long tail spam

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As you probably know, Eightbar runs on WordPress. Akismet is a pretty good spam filter. Viagra, casinos and all manner of unspeakable nastiness and vile unpleasantness has no chance of getting though. On the other hand, how can I expect it to spot and handle comment spam such as this one we received this morning…

This site contains relevant information about irregular verb french.

Yes, those pesky spammers, realising spam filters are too clever for them, have begun harnessing the power of niche spam. Or, as Tim O’Reilly might nauseatingly put it “monetizing the long tail“.

Today we’ve had all of these make it through Akismet and into the comments:

  • irregular verb french
  • world of jewels category
  • knitting pattern for sweater
  • steam turbine
  • scratching with long nail
  • cochlear implant controversy

some of which are amusingly eclectic and downright odd (I particularly grinned at the first and the last in the list).

Meanwhile, Akismet did manage to catch:

  • transnational bus malaysia
  • rest area usa
  • girlie lake
  • professional resume writing services
  • Reviews on drilling through brick wall
  • Delete this spam!

So there is hope yet. The last one, I think, was not really trying very hard though.

So, my apologies if you see the odd bit of comment spam in Eightbar. I hope it is at least weird enough to make you smile.

I is for IBM

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if you’re in the UK and get a chance to glance at pages 14 and 15 of the today’s Independent, you’ll see they have published an A-Z of Second Life.

A is for Avatar, B is for Building, and of course, I is for IBM…

“The computer giant is one of a growing group of businesses to cash in on SL, where virtual dollars can be exchanged for the real thing (see Dollars, Linden). Last month IBM built 12 new islands in SL, where clients and the public can visit special projects, including a partnership with the US electronic retailer Circuit City. Together they have opened a virtual shop where potential real-world customers can view products. The firms have also experimented with an interactive home theatre, where residents can recreate their living rooms and choose the best TV to fit. One island includes a social area for 900 IBM residents and company alumni to swap ideas.”

Of course, stats which change quickly are very difficult to keep accurate, and since they heard it was 900 (probably fairly recently) the number of IBMers in SL has already risen to over 1600. Still, nice IBM made it into the list (along with Linden Lab, Newsnight and Reuters. Grab a copy if it’s still at your local newsagent.

Open Source Second Life client announced

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I was very encouraged, back in October, to hear Jim Purbrick (AKA Babbage Linden) confirm Linden’s plans to “open source Second Life as soon as possible“, starting with the client and eventually opening up the server too. I’m excited to report that the first part has finally happened, and today Phoenix Linden announced the open source Second Life client.

This is an important step. Remember the recent technical Town Hall meeting? One lovely quote from Cory:

“As we’ve talked about, the long term goals for Second Life are to make it a more open platform. Part of that process is learning how projects like libSL can be beneficial to all of Second Life. We should be thrilled that we’ve built an interesting enough set of technologies and communities that people want to tinker and explore. In the long run, this is why we’ve talked about wanting to be able to Open Source eventually. My hope is that in 2007 we’ll be able to get there.”

Yay for Open Source. This could mark the start of a very important shift in Second Life’s development, from being a closed-source proprietary platform to something more open, taking contributions from the wider community.

IBM Virtual Worlds event in London and SL

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As Andy pointed out, some of us spent much of today in both London and Second Life hosting a Virtual Worlds event for European press, which included a rather exciting global ThinkTank session.

ThinkTank#1

We tried to make the day as interactive as possible, and after introductions and a real life discussion in the morning we spent a chunk of the afternoon immersed together in Second Life. It was a good opportunity to run a ThinkTank, in which we invited a wide array of bloggers and thinkers (including Ren Reynolds, Jerry Paffendorf, Adam Pasick and many more) to discuss Virtual Worlds, open standards, and the 3D Internet. Not everyone could make it of course (sadly some suffered from some recent issues with SL) but I think we ended up with 33 attendees altogether, covering a wide array of subjects. I’ve uploaded put the transcripts of the two discussion groups, both Ian’s group and my own.

I am already looking forward to running another one of these before too long. Thanks to everyone who battled with troubled teleportation to make today happen.

In other, but related, news: IBM.com carries a big flashy link to a big flashy piece on Game Tomorrow, starring Jai from the GameTomorrow blog (who, I see, even has his own MySpace page). Pretty timely stuff.

Innovation Jam results

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This years Innovation Jam was the third of IBMs jams. It was mainly web based, with over 150,000 people (IBMers as well as their families, business partners, universities, clients, …) apparently generating over 46,000 ideas.

Of course, as you’d expect, some of the fun happend inside Second Life too. This was a joint effort between IBM’s Virtual Universe Community and the NMC, with the Alliance Navy providing security and joining in the discussion too.

All the ideas generated went into a multi stage selection process, in which they were filtered and refined down, with $100 million in funding to make the top 10 ideas happen.

As was already reported by Reuters (as well as Business Week and, well, pretty much everywhere) this week…

Chairman and Chief Executive Sam Palmisano (right, with his Second Life avatar) is set to visit Second Life on Tuesday, Nov. 14 following a “town hall” meeting with some 7,000 employees in China

The 14th is finally upon us so I thought you’d be interested to hear what happened.

The event itself was a ‘townhall’ IBM meeting, held in an IBM location in China, in front of more than 6,000 employees. Sam Palmisano presented in person, but when he started talking about Virtual Worlds and the 3D Internet, he first handed over to Irving (who recently blogged about signing up to Second Life) whose avatar was surrounded by a decent sized bunch of IBMers from across the world.

Later, Sam’s avatar (samatar?) entered as well, and, nimbly assisted by our own Rob Smart, delivered his message both to the IBM China employees gathered there in person as well as those of us in the Second Life portion of the event. Rob was also joined in Beijing by Holly Stewart and Ian Smith, whose tireless work recently resulted in their being invited to attend (read: be camerapersons and generally make it all work) in person. Huge respect to John Tolva for his tireless efforts in making this event happen too. John has written an excellent post on his blog about the logistical challenges of pulling something like this off.

I didn’t get any great screenshots of the Sam avatar (I hope to add some more later), but here’s a quick grab of Sam and Irving presenting together.

So what are the ‘winning’ Innovation Jam ideas Sam announced? They are…

  • Smart Healthcare Payment Systems
  • Simplified Business Engines
  • Real-time Translation Services
  • Intelligent Utility Networks
  • 3D Internet (building a seamless, standards-based 3D Internet)
  • “Digital Me” (personal content service)
  • Branchless Banking for the Masses
  • Integrated Mass Transit Information System
  • Electronic Health Record System
  • “Big Green” Innovations (new business unit)

You can read the list in full, complete with an explanation of each one, in a recent IBM press release.

As with so much of the recent Virtual Worlds related work, this was a lot of fun to be part of. It doesn’t look like much, but it is a bit of a milestone, and will no doubt increase the internal interest in Virtual Worlds still further.

Because of the timezone, the US employees attending virtually were up late (1:30 AM EST) and those of us in the UK were up early (6:30 AM GMT). While the rent-a-crowd were excitedly waiting in Second Life we were listening in to the event over a phone call and getting gossip from those embedded locally over IM. The atmosphere was tense, but also slightly hysterical due to the late night/early morning/what on earth are we doing nature of the event. Total madness of course, but what else would make us all want to get up at crazy times and dress up in suits?