I’ve been a huge fan of Second Life since I first “rezzed” (logged into the virtual 3-D environment) in March 2007, and have previously blogged about my own Second Life. Despite all the limitations and downsides of Second Life (and there are many), it has been one of the most flexible and inspiring proving grounds for virtual worlds for business. Just like with Twitter, I try to cut through the hype and go straight to the core: Using this new platform can introduce you to new ways of thinking and help you hone valuable skills that will put you at a clear advantage as communications and workspace technologies continue to evolve. Read the rest of this entry »
Despite all of the hype about Second Life, followed by the Second Life bashing, followed by some more hype, and now the latest “Second Life is dead” pronouncements, the 3-D virtual world owned by Linden Lab is still breathing. I feel strongly — as do many others — that Second Life is an important, and often overlooked, aspect of social media marketing.
To be clear, Second Life is social media. If you break down the key features of social media, you will see that Second Life stacks up very well against other popular tools. Here are some of the reasons why you’d be remiss to leave Second Life off a well-rounded, integrated social media marketing plan. Read the rest of this entry »
Depending on who you ask, Second Life is either an early pioneer in what promises to be a brave new virtual world of peer-to-peer interaction, rife with business opportunities, or a non-starter that got way too much hype way too early and won’t live up to any of it, no matter how long we wait. I believe my fellow WWD writer Aliza Sherman is very much on the former side of the fence. I’ll only say that Second Life’s rise hasn’t been as meteoric as Twitter’s, for instance, but that I still see potential for it to grow.
Yesterday, a couple of new tools were announced that made me stop and reconsider how much of that potential is actually being capitalized upon, how soon the virtual world’s appeal might broaden, and what that might mean for working on the web. The services in question are a Virtual Conference Centre and Real Time Research, joint venture projects by Second Life development vets Rivers Run Red and consulting group Futuresource. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve talked about live blogging events as a way to enhance and promote a real world event, literally as it is happening. But lately, I’ve been asked to host virtual world events simultaneous to real world events. Mike Gunderloy and I also included planning and hosting virtual events in our 10 More New Ways to Make Money back in August. The virtual events I hosted recently were both held in Second Life. Clearly, Second Life is not dead.
So how do you host simultaneous online/virtual events? Very carefully, of course, but here are a few tips to help you straddle both worlds and pull off both events without a hitch.
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In Part 1 of this little series of posts, I talked about my move from Anchorage to Tok, Alaska. I went from acceptable Internet speeds at a fairly reasonable price ($60-ish/month) to barely 512K up and down, a 10 Gig monthly limit and $180/month plus $30 per Gig over the limit. As a web worker (read: Bandwidth Hog). I’m still reeling from the adjustment and keeping a careful eye on my bandwidth usage daily.
So how have these connectivity challenges and unexpected expenses affected my web work? And how am I compensating for these…developments?
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As an active resident in Second Life as part of my Web work, I am fascinated by the exploration of virtual world environments as platforms for “wikitecture” which essentially is collaborative planning and design. The process is being tested by architects and urban planners, but for anyone building in 3-dimensional spaces, wikitecture could be the next wave of collaboration.
One of the companies exploring wikitecture is Studio Wikitecture, creator of an open-source, 3-D Wiki plug-in for Second Life in partnership with i3dnow that facilitates the creation of a “wiki-tree” to design objects such as building models.
In June, the company’s entry placed third in an international competition hosted by Architecture for Humanity on the Open Architecture Network. The company demonstrated their application by bringing together dozens of web workers from around the world to collaboratively design and build a 3-D model of a medical center in rural Nepal.
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Just read Mike Gunderloy’s post Times: Looks Aren’t Everything. One thing he said really stuck out for me…
Times is worth looking at, though, if you’re trying to gently introduce someone new to a few RSS feeds.
He’s talking about me, I thought, as I read that line. He knows my secret. And now you will know it, too.
I am terrified of RSS feed readers.
You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. I have no problem saving feeds to my reader of choice – Google Reader – but have no idea how to get started with actually reading any of them. And using Google Reader is nothing more than a knee jerk choice based on using several other Google applications and finding them to be useful. But actually reading something in Google Reader?
(Cue the horror movie music – you know, the one that plays when the mutant serial killer is coming up behind the heroine.) Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been a huge fan of Second Life since I first “rezzed” (logged into the virtual 3-D environment) in March 2007, and have previously blogged about my own Second Life. Despite all the limitations and downsides of Second Life (and there are many), it has been one of the most flexible and inspiring proving grounds for virtual worlds for business. Just like with Twitter, I try to cut through the hype and go straight to the core: Using this new platform can introduce you to new ways of thinking and help you hone valuable skills that will put you at a clear advantage as communications and workspace technologies continue to evolve. Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
