Archive for the 'Technology' Category

Who put that avatar in the bath?

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Like many who spend time in Second Life I have virtual friends, virtual business partners and at least one virtual lover. These people live in Europe and the US and are walled off from my real life friends and business partners. That wall has a new crack in it.
New World Notes reports on a […]

Appalling Australian service

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

Melbourne IT is a dreadful business. The leading Australian domain name registrar charge substantially more than their international competitors. More for domains. More for hosting. More for promotion. Pay SEVEN times as much for a .com or a .com.au through Melbourne IT. That would be easier to swallow if their service was better than their […]

Gartner shows the way

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

Gartner’s prediction that 80% of internet users will be in virtual worlds within four years is already bouncing around the blogosphere. Don’t percentages lend a lovely credibility to a forecast? Would you believe them if they said 79%?
Their advice to clients: investigate and experiment with, but limit substantial financial investments until the environments stabilize […]

Holodeck gets ITE kudos

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

My Second Life Development company, Inside This World, recently attended the International Technology Expo (ITE). The product we were demonstrating, the Holodeck, was joint winner of the People’s Choice award for best technology. Over sixty companies exhibited.
A nice acknowledgement of our scripting skills (pats Loki Clifton on back). We are also extremely strong in architecture, […]

ABC Bashing (2)

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

Okay, the Four Corners program. I don’t understand why all the Current Affairs programs in the world don’t share the same footage on Second Life. In case you’re planning to make your own, here is the format to use:
Send in a journalist who has no experience in the environment
Get him or her to report on […]

Disintermediating the developer

Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

Inside This World has just completed a Second Life proposal to a company suggesting they follow the IBM model. IBM have committed a heresy, building their own multi-island facility using their own employees*. The result is a messy and incomplete build which challenges the orthodoxy of Second Life and threatens to succeed and set some […]

Hey! Big Business is wearing NO CLOTHES!

Sunday, December 10th, 2006

Having now conducted a number of tours of real life businesses in Second Life I suggest to you that the medium is not working as advertised. I’m talking in particular about trying to sell real life goods.
Here are the traffic numbers in avatar minutes/week:
Adidas 1,122
American Apparel 2,588
Dell Factory 577
Warner Bros’ listening loft for Regina Spektor […]

IBM, GM show profound understanding

Saturday, October 21st, 2006

The blog of one of IBM’s virtual world evangelists, Irving Wladawsky-Berger (some call him Irving Berger, not sure why) reveals an deep understanding of the potential of this platform. IBM are exploring Second Life as a way of conducting remote meetings and are developing ways of using it as part of an induction program for […]

CNet, IBM and being taken seriously

Friday, September 29th, 2006

CNet and IBM are in Second Life. IBM have a full time employee who is researching Second Life for its business applications and is promoting virtual worlds within IBM. CNet is the first major commercial media group to take a permanent slot. It has covered Second Life more closely than other outlets and this step […]

Second Life for retailers

Thursday, April 27th, 2006

I’m reproducing here an extract from an Instant Messaging conversation I had in Second Life last night. This is to demonstrate how SL could be used as a virtual store and how companies could use the environment to improve internal communication to the benefit of customers.
In SL I was shopping with Kate; I’d asked her […]