A White Paper Explaining SL and its immediate Value Proposition for B2B Media Companies

Second Life is a new communications medium in which people meet inside a computer simulation of a 3D physical space. The simulated space can range from something whimsical, like the Greenies' "home world," to a relatively accurate representation of the real world, like the Second Life homes of Pontiac, IBM, Cisco, and Dr. Dobbs Journal (pictured at right). People appear in SL as "avatars" that they create. Avatars also range from whimsical to realistic. Second Life is in some ways just one of 50 or more virtual worlds, all of which share a common heritage evolving out of the world of video games and multiplayer online games.

But Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life, had the brilliantly insightful idea to put out into the world what amounts to a multiplayer video game platform with no game!

(That's cybercelebrity Callie Cline below, handing out signed copies of her Pontiac Solstice. She was hired by Pontiac as the world's first spokesavatar, and named No. 95 on Maxim magazine's list of the world's 100 hottest women. I kid you not.)

And so thousands of developers have set up residency in SL, inventing everything from real estate development businesses to avatar creation businesses to sex shops (every new technology has its share of sex shops). All of this is made possible by two elements of the Second Life platform (in addition to the open, unfettered nature of the platform itself):

• Linden Labs created an "inworld" currency, the Linden dollar (L$), which is tied to the U.S. dollar at an exchange rate of roughly L$268 to $1. The L$ has evolved into a neat micropayment system.
• Second Life residents are granted property rights to anything they create. Therefore, SL residents can sell their creations and earn real money.

Why does this matter to business media professionals? Remember my opening statement: Second Life is a new communications medium. Just as with the last big new medium to come along, the Internet, it is still too early to predict all the possibilities this new medium represents. But one possibility is already apparent to those of us who have spent real time in SL: It is a potent forum for business meetings and even medium-sized conferences. I like to tell people that, if you can imagine the value of attending a teleconference on one end of a spectrum, with the value of attending an in-person conference at the other end, then attending a meeting in Second Life gets you about 80% of the way there. And in some ways, meetings in Second Life are better than in-person meetings. Video conferencing experiences pale by comparison. Best of all, anyone can attend an SL meeting from anywhere on the globe, without leaving their desk. And as SL grows, its meeting-hosting prowess will improve.

People who have never experienced SL (especially if they are of the baby boomer generation) scoff at the idea that a cartoon world can be used for a serious business purpose. The explanation for why it works has to do with arcane details of brain function that I don't pretend to understand, but which I distill to this: because you know that sitting behind each avatar in the meeting is an actual person who is (at least mostly) paying attention, your brain imbues the setting with an appropriate seriousness of purpose. To distill this to essence: You actually sense the presence of others in an SL meeting. It's like magic.

THE SECOND LIFE LAND RUSH
The combination of fun, games, opportunity, and serious business intent creates so many different motivations to enter Second Life that there has been a land rush, captured by the press in the form of hype. But here are some actual adoption statistics that may come as a surprise. These stats are as of Oct. 28 end-of-day (midnight Second Life Time [SLT], where SLT = Pacific time):

• There were 31,387 new signups during the previous 24-hour period, bringing SL to 10,490,916 total signups.
• There was peak concurrency (i.e., the number of residents logged in simultaneously) of 56,181 at 2:25PM SLT (a new record!), and a minimum concurrency of 29,033 at 11:50PM. Median concurrency for the day was 43,077.
• In the last 60 days, 1,412,534 residents logged into SL at least once.

The number of SL residents has spiked a bit in recent weeks due to two television events: CBS's CSI: New York did an episode on Oct. 24 titled "Down The Rabbit Hole" in which the CSI team chases an assassin into Second Life; and the following evening NBC's The Office did an episode involving Second Life. The CSI folks have concocted an elaborate plan to lure viewers into SL, detailed at their Web site.

Closer to the home of business media, Jeff Barr is a Web Services Evangelist for Amazon whose job is to go around the world speaking at conferences and to corporations about Amazon's Web infrastructure services. He's discovered that the profile of SL residents closely matches his target customer. Jeff told me he is trying like hell to curtail his travel and do more speaking in SL, so he can spend more time with his family. His coworkers laugh at him because they think he's playing games, but he is an effective evangelist, reaching customers all over the world, without having to leave his desk. There are many Jeff Barrs in SL, and more arriving every day.

HOW CAN SL MEETINGS POSSIBLY BE BETTER THAN REAL LIFE?
The image below was captured during an SL panel session when IBM and Linden Labs discussed their joint effort to create portability and interoperability standards among the different virtual worlds. The session was conducted entirely in text chat (other sessions have been done in voice, voice with slides, or video). Regardless of whether the panelists/presenters use voice, video, or text, audience members are free to contribute thoughts and questions in the text window at any time during the session. Panelists see these comments in real time and can choose to respond or ignore them; they can effectively incorporate these thoughts and questions into an integrated whole with the rest of their content. The characteristics of SL support this kind of interaction because, in SL, it is non-intrusive; but the real-world equivalent (shouting a question from the audience) would not be tolerated during an in-person event.
In addition, note the tabs along the bottom of the text chat window. Each tab opens onto a different conversation. Although you can't make out the blurred text, there is the main tab housing the public discussion in this space; then comes a tab wherein I was IM'ing questions to Ziggy Figaro, the panel moderator (another accepted form of interaction); in another I was asking technical advice of the island's operations manager and hostess, Rissa Maidstone; in another, having a personal discussion with a colleague; and finally, the last tab is for a group to which I belong, members of which were in attendance and having a private group-wide side conversation.

The same factors that make SL a great meetings forum also make SL a great place to foster community. But don't make the mistake of viewing SL as a "3D Web"; while the Web is all about human interaction with automated systems (think eBay, Amazon, Google), Second Life is all about human interaction with other humans. Second Life represents the emergence of a brand new communications paradigm. But what's new and important about Second Life is its synchronous communications directly among live human beings, not the asynchronous communications of email or the automated human-machine interaction of Amazon and Google.


WHAT SHOULD A BUSINESS MEDIA COMPANY DO?
The answer to this question will vary by market segment, as follows: the more technically savvy your audience, the more quickly you must move to develop a place in Second Life for that audience to form a community around your brand. Otherwise, as history has shown through the rise of the Internet, someone else will do it for you. Many companies were blindsided by the sudden rise of the Internet. Don't let it happen again. I don’t refer only to audiences for technical subjects, but rather an audience for any subject that happens to be comfortable with the use of computer technology and networking. This includes most any audience under 35.


FURTHER READING:

• Killer Apps and Virtual Worlds: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/16876


• Playing Tricks on the Mind: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/19373


• The Second Life Insider: http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/


• SunCorp GM Says SL Trumps Video Conferencing: http://www.searchcio.com.au/topics/article.asp?DocID=6100929&SiteID=19


• Callie Cline's SL Fashion Notes: http://slfashionnotices.wordpress.com/2007/05/31/callie-c-cline/


• Neuromancer, by William Gibson (the original, and the great granddaddy, of cyber novels)


• Idoru, by William Gibson (the most thoughtful and esoteric of virtual reality novels


• Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson


• Second Life Sign Up Tutorial (By me, available by contacting me at mike@azzara.com)
  
  (Click this for a pdf of this white paper. It's prettier!)

Direct Brain Control of Second Life Avatars!!!

This blew me away. It's a small step for a man, if you see what I mean.

This first link goes to the best blog post I found (from a site called Pink Tentacle) describing details of research that was conducted at a Japanese university, and published previously in Japanese. This second link goes to the Japanese-language page on which the university published its research. I don't read Japanese, but the two links (labeled Windows and Macintosh in English) above the photo on the page take you to a video demonstration of a guy controlling an avatar in SL with electrodes strapped to his head and his hands in his lap.

Assuming the video isn't rigged, it's a fascinating portent of possibilities to come! How rapidly can research like this become useful from a product/production point of view?

Phoning a Second Life avatar is a call to Germany!

OK, the last entry in my Vodaphone InsideOut trilogy is that I learned that while calling OUT from Second Life to the real world is free (for now), calling INSIDE is the same as a call to Germany, and is going to be charged that way by your U.S. cellular provider.

The reason is that Vodaphone assigns a virtual number to your handset inside SL, in order to protect your identity, they say. They chose a block of numbers from Germany (+49) to use as the virtual numbers. So if you dial up an avatar in SL, you get charged (by your provider, not Vodaphone) for making a call to Germany. (Here's a link to the page where they explain these costs.)

Vodaphone says it may charge L$300 (300 Linden dollars) per minute for calls made from inside SL out to an RL phone, once the free beta trial ends on Nov. 30. I guess they haven't made up their minds for sure yet.

Calls from Second Life to Real Life not working in USA

I was so taken by the concept of Vodaphone InsideOut that I raced to their island, got the free HUD, and began the set up. But text messaging isn't working to the USA (or China), and that means that anyone with a USA (or Chinese) cell phone cannot activate their service, either. This is because the activation process sends a text (SMS) message to your mobile phone and you have to reply to that message to confirm and establish your service. It's a darn shame.

I tried to activate anyway, but so far have received no text message from Vodaphone. The company's web site says their working to resolve the problem. Here's the Web home page for Vodaphone InsideOut. And here's the SLURL to take you directly to Vodaphone InsideOut island (use only if you already have an SL account).

You can't see the activation page, which carries the message about the USA and China having technical difficulties, until you link to it from your HUD from within SL. That's because each activation page is, of course, unique to each user; the SL HUD tells the service your SL name. HUD, in case you don't know, stands for heads-up display; it's jargon that SL inherited from RL.

Who's not living in the real world?

I don't know why the old Blondie song came to mind when I thought about what to call this post, but even if you're NOT living in the real world you can now phone up someone who is.

Vodaphone has announced a beta product in Second Life. It's a mobile phone service that allows an avatar to phone out of SL to anyone in the real world. How cool is that? I can't wait for Yazzara Robbiani to make his first call to some unsuspecting Earth dweller. You can read more about it here but trust me, all the official news articles I've read about this have written it up so confusingly that you may as well just stick with me.

The service is called Inside Out and it will be free until Nov. 30 (none of the reports I saw said what the subsequent cost would be). Apparently there are Inside Out vending machines in SL as we speak that dispense free phones that enable the service.

Inside Out also lets you call other avatars, but you can do that already without a handset. People outside SL will be able to phone up avatars, and you'll be able to send and receive text messages as your avatar too. But the reports I read weren't clear about whether the text message function works "Inside Out" of SL, so to speak, or how in fact it does work.

Vodaphone's Inside Out service really puts the exclamation point on the fascinating interaction between RL and SL that makes it all really OL (one life) that I started writing about in the Rissa Maidstone post.

And let's close with the immortal words of Blondie:
Every day you've got to wake up
And disappear behind your makeup,
Hey, I'm livin' in a magazine,
Page to page in my teenage dream,
Cause I'm not livin' in the real world.
No I'm not livin' in the real world No more.
No more. No more!

How Second Life (virtual worlds) effect your identity, Part 2

Rissa Maidstone, sort of the chief operating officer of Dobbs Island in SL, was the host and topic of a fascinating discussion at the island's Amphitheater last Tuesday (9/25). Rissa, a true Earth mother, is the subject of a book to be published next month by photojournalist Rita King, titled "Portraits of Rissa Maidstone." I'll post the link when it's available.

Clearly, Rissa is beautiful. Otherwise, who would want to publish a coffee table book of her pictures? But there's no end to the number of gorgeous, sexy avatars in Second Life, so her beauty isn't what sets Rissa apart, what makes people want to spend time with her, want to photograph her and publish books about her.

SETTING RISSA APART
Rissa is special because through the medium of Second Life – in other words, a handicapped text chat interface – she projects extraordinarily human qualities of warmth, intellect, helpfulness, and humor. Well, I guess SL is more than text chat – I'm thinking now of the time I was stumbling around Dobbs Island in the dark showing it to my 16-year-old triplets, who were looking over my shoulder. I bumped into Rissa while she was working, preparing for some upcoming client presentation. No sooner had she heard my kids were watching than she whipped a dragon out of her inventory and offered me a ride. "Oh my God Dad, you have the coolest friends!" Tony (the middle child) said, as we flapped along high above the landscape. (Rissa's blog is on the Dobbs Life 2.0 Web site.)

Rissa will help anyone with anything; I couldn't have survived in SL without her help, which continued unabated even after I left the employ of CMP, the company that pays her to bring her special brand of magic to their SL endeavors. But she's no pushover – her weapons arsenal makes short work of any griefers (SL terrorists) who show up at Dobbs Island. Her "unofficial" title is DDI Security Officer. Rissa was the second avatar I met in Second Life. Lindying with her on the Dobbs beach to the tune of "In The Mood" is something I will never forget (in RL I couldn't Lindy, not even at gunpoint).

THE IDENTITY DISCUSSION
Notice I haven't mentioned Kim Smith, the human life force behind Rissa Maidstone. That's because I didn't even know her name for months after I met Rissa, and I still think of Rissa only as Rissa, and I'm barely aware of a human named Kim and I'm always a little surprised and weirded out when someone mentions this Kim person I've never met (though I wonder how that makes Kim feel!).

But the fascinating part of last Tuesday's discussion centered around the interaction between Kim and Rissa – the humanity that Kim brings to Rissa and the life lessons that Rissa has brought to Kim. What follows are excerpts from the text chat interview between Kim-Rissa and Rita King, whose SL avatar name is Eureka Dejavu. It's verbatim, but I have distilled it so you don't have to put up with the choppiness and chaos of SL text chat. A bit of background you should know is that an IBMer named Grady Booch commissioned Rita to take one photograph of Rissa for a book he was writing about Second Life, and that commission took on a life of its own to become the forthcoming book.

Eureka Dejavu: The concept of identity and self is the theme of the book. [It's about] building a life across worlds, and capturing the fleeting process of turning one's life into art. I believe we create ourselves as much as circumstance does.

Rissa Maidstone: Rita asked me to put together a list of ideas for themes for the photoshoot. I had to spend some time thinking about things like "What IS Rissa?" What have I created here? Is she part of me in my 1L? Or is she a fantasy? I thought about that for a long time. Rissa is my inner child, my parent, and my adult, all mixed into one. So, the persona she represents truly is me... and more, in a way.

Eureka Dejavu: Has your real life changed as a result?

Rissa Maidstone: Yes my 1L has changed a great deal. I'm becoming a better person in regard to my listening skills, which I value a great deal. In business, if you don't "listen" to your clients, your peers and associates, your success rate tends to be rather low. The other thing that's happened that correlates directly to 1L and into 2L is that, for the last 19 years I've spent my time as a business development or marketing director for engineering and architectural firms. Great industry, but...19 years?

I took a big gamble switching careers and coming to Second Life. I was *not* in the high tech industry, although I'd been intertwined in one way or another – you sort of have to be if you're a marketer or business development person. When I came here, I had no clue what this was all about. I've been a gamer since I was a kid – Zelda ultimately hooked me and it progressed from there. In RL, I had a 2-hour plus commute on a daily basis. It took time away from my personal time, left me no time to be myself, nor to indulge in many of the things I missed out on in my effort to climb the career ladder. And the stress was amazing. You had an 8 a.m. meeting with your officers . . . traffic was bad, raining, you were still 30 minutes out from the City and you *knew* you were going to be late, again. Despite having left 90 minutes ago to travel 17 miles. That's gone now, and I'm loving it.

One of the neat things about SL is that you *can* use your imagination for a much lesser cost than in 1L and try a number of different ideas, before you select. In Second Life, with this ability to "create" a persona, I find that I am able to take time to think before I speak (most of the time) and it's teaching me to keep my mouth shut when normally I'd blurt out exactly what's on my mind.

I also started a fairly strenuous exercise program to get myself as fit as Rissa is. Mind you, I'm not going to achieve that for probably another six months or so, but she's very inspirational. I have time to get myself physically fit again, I've an inspiration in looking at Rissa, my ideas and creativity are once again being fully challenged and darn, if it doesn't work, we delete it, right?

Eureka Dejavu: To me that's one of the most intriguing aspects of virtual worlds, they are training grounds for developing authenticity in our lives. Philip Rosedale [CEO of SL's creators, Linden Labs] told me once that he gets letters from people who have done the same thing; because once you realize that it's possible to create your reality in a virtual world, it seems apparent that the physical world is also an art project. As are our lives.