Much as I love Second Life, I’m not so infatuated that I can’t see that Linden Lab are wide open to someone overtaking them with a smaller, lower-spec application with a similar feature set. And while it’s still in Beta (isn’t everything these days?), Unype’s ability to use your Skype account and Google Earth to create a multi-user avatar populated virtual world looks like it has the potential to become a serious contender. Granted, it doesn’t have SL’s content creation features or the bells and whistles … but the lower barriers for entry may render that irrelevant. [Clickable Culture]
Tag Archives: metaverse
Simulations – from guns to festivals
Via reBang, here’s an article on the ironically named Zen Technologies, an Indian company that specialises in training simulators that can teach everything from driving a truck to crack-shot sniping with an AK47. When you add this selection to other training devices like the virtual chainsaw, you realise we’re rapidly reaching a point where almost any high-risk activity can be experienced virtually.
But low-risk activities are catching up fast now the technology is more accessible; as soon as people get access to virtual worlds, they start recreating objects and events from the real world (even major festivals, like Burning Man’s SL incarnation), and fabbing technology means that objects that start their life as virtual can be made real and solid in meatspace … so how long before we need the equivalent of Customs and border controls between reality and everywhere else?
Ginko Financial – beleaguered virtual bank or collapsed ponzi scheme?
Much like the early incarnations of the web itself, there are a few tried and tested ways of making money in Second Life: porn is one, of course, and another is financial confidence trickery. The jury is still out over whether Ginko Financial – a Second Life banking scheme that offered 60% (yes, sixty) interest on deposits – fits the latter category; what is certain is that, after a sudden rush of withdrawal requests, Ginko don’t have the liquid assets to give the money back … and they’re none too forthcoming about what exactly they’ve done with it all, either. Common consensus seems to label the whole thing as one huge ponzi scheme, but only time will tell … probably very little time, in fact.
There are other ways of making money in the metaverse, though, with new ones appearing or rising to prominence all the time. Maybe virtual property is a smart business investment for the near future. [Image by Tanya Ryno]
The metaverse: bad for marketing, great for terrorism?
The corporate love affair with Second Life seems to be fading, at least in some camps, as businesses realise that having a sim isn’t going to instantly develop them a massive revenue stream. Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and the guy behind the Long Tail hypothesis, wrote a short piece explaining why he thinks metaverse marketing is a pointless proposition, which developed into an interesting conversation with SL uber-pundit Wagner James Au. The jury is still out, I guess … but as Jason Stoddard says, it’s early days yet, and it’s a wise move to get on the train while there are still plenty of seats.
However, according to a report in The Australian [via], terrorist organisations are taking to the metaverse like ducks to water, and allegedly using virtual worlds as training platforms to dry-run attack plans. There may well be a grain of truth in there, but the story reeks of sensationalist over-hype to me … however, it’s given Charlie Stross the opportunity to pat himself on the back for predicting that we’d see just such a story. To be entirely fair, though, Edward Castronova discussed the same ideas in his excellent book Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games back in 2005 – which is well worth a read for anyone interested in the metaverse, whether as user or observer.
And your supplementary bonus link: Ian Hughes is one of the folk behind IBM’s big push into the metaverse, and he and a colleague are guestblogging over at TerraNova; his inaugural post examines the possibility of business becoming more like a form of emergent gameplay as interactions increasingly migrate into virtual spaces. Fascinating stuff. [Image by D’Arcy Norman]
Second Life is hell – classic literature meets the metaverse
Next time someone tells you to go to hell, save yourself the inconvenience of an eternity of torment – check into Second Life, where a recreation of Lucifer’s domain as envisaged by Dante can be explored from the comfort of your favourite computer chair.