POND ESTATES CLOSURE 16 DECEMBER 2009

Dear Residents, Vendors and Guests,

Telstra BigPond would like to thank you for participating in Second Life through BigPond. Our creative experience with Second Life has been very rewarding for both BigPond and our members. We’re constantly looking for ways to take advantage of the latest social media trends, however, our focus is moving towards entertainment options that are gaining in popularity on computers, mobile phones, TVs and game consoles.

From December 16 you will still be able to continue your Second Life experience directly through Linden Lab at www.secondlife.com but no longer through the BigPond portal.

This will also mean that all Second Life use will go towards your download limits given that the BigPond islands currently unmetered for BigPond customers are closing. Please note that this may put you over your plan download limit sooner than you were expecting.

Please contact our in-world Social Operations Manager Peta Philbin if you have further questions and she will provide information and/or BigPond Support personnel to assist you.

Again, we hope that you continue to enjoy your Second Life experience and keep checking back at www.bigpond.com for other exciting BigPond services.

Regards

The BigPond Team

 

 

Last year a blog post by Mark Pesce titled “Those Wacky Kids” contained this paragraph:

 

Mizuko Ito, a Japanese researcher, studied teenagers in Japan a few years ago, and found that these kids – from the moment they wake up in the morning, until they drop off to sleep at night – are enaged in a continuous and mostly trival conversation with, on average, five other friends. They might be in the flat next door, or on the other side of Tokyo. Proximity doesn’t matter. What does matter is the constant connection. Ito named this phenomenon “co-presence”. It seemed a bit too science-fiction wacky-technophile Japanese, at the time.

[http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=56 ]

 

I just rediscovered this in some little used backwater of my online tools after saving it there ages ago.

 

The bold highlighted part is the bit that struck me, not simply because it’s obviously what’s going on with social networks and why things like Twitter are so popular – I’ve always seen Twitter as a ‘presence‘ app, but primarily because it’s what I’ve craved and been for years living out to varying degrees in various places online.

 

It’s also what I see and experience as going on big time in Second Life. With a twist. There, the physical, geographic proximity of the residents [users of SL] in terms of where they live  certainly doesn’t matter (aside from the obvious problems differing timezones bring). And certainly, the relationships bought about by connection is the thing that keeps them returning.

 

However when in SL the issue of proximity does matter in terms of virtual geography. The “co-presence” spoken of is felt and made stronger by being in the same close virtual proximity with others in-world.

 

It’s why gatherings for dance partys with music live streamed in by DJ’s thrive, companies hold meetings, educators take classes, live music events where artists play in some remote physical location with their music streamed straight into the virtual gathering are extremely popular, it’s why people build homes and have friends around, and why they go exploring together, and develop close personal relationships, and why people gather in groups around in-world, often simplistic, puzzle style games that they share in the same virtual proximity with others – where the being with others is part of the enjoyment of the game – in my opinion, often moreso than the game itself.

 

Yes, in the physical world, proximity may be becoming less important for connection to others.

 

In the virtual word, proximity is everything and co-presence is made almost palpable.

 

Dave

]]> http://dnwallace.com/blog/2009/05/29/virtual-co-presence/feed/ 2 http://dnwallace.com/blog/2009/01/08/microcosms-second-life-and-the-giant-zero-of-distributed-media/ http://dnwallace.com/blog/2009/01/08/microcosms-second-life-and-the-giant-zero-of-distributed-media/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:33:04 +0000 dnw http://dnwallace.com/blog/?p=465

a twitter msg sent by me from within sl

Second Life offers a grid that is a microcosm of the connectedness that the Internet, operating as a pervasive, worldwide grid, promises.

Second Life offers a peek into possibilities of what the world might look and feel like when the internet-as-grid connects all facets of how we live. I’m not talking about how it may look visually, don’t get too hung up on that, but how it functions – or more-so, supports how we as humans choose to function. At a time when it does so in the way that it almost becomes invisible. 

Doc Searls talks about the Giant Zero - how the internet potentially puts us zero distance from each other. Second Life, because of its contained grid nature, provides interesting glimpses into that giant zero existence.

One such glimpse I experienced the other day while in SL.

I was trying out a media browser in-world that offered a screen where you can choose to view different things like youtube and google videos, see images you load into the browser, open a url, play streaming audio. Nothing overly special. You are able to also add anything you watch as a favourite, like bookmarking. Where it gets interesting is these favourites, your favourites, go with you so that if you are at another of these media-browsers anywhere else in SL you can step up and see the things you’ve favourited at any other browser. There’s no login or signup or password. You are recognised as you and your favourites are available (the owner of each media-browser has ability to set permissions).

Now just imagine that. You are at a friends place and you say, “gee mate, you should see this great youtube vid I saw” then you pickup the remote to your friends TV and the remote automatically recognises it’s you, knows your a friend and as you press the Favourites button on your friends remote it’s your favourites that appear on his screen, ready to select the youtube video you’d saved yesterday … at yet another friends place or your home or a public library or on your mobile on the way. The same could apply for any digital media that fills your life.

Instantly you have access to your own set of data that is user centric and goes with you .. even though you don’t actually ‘carry’ it around. In a sense it ‘follows’ you on the internet connected grid that exists by connecting all the devices we encounter as we go about our lives.

Now okay, none of this isn’t anything people haven’t written or spoken about before. Certainly though the discussions around identity and intellectual property and personal data portability became very clear to me. But there was an enlightening moment as to how all these things could work together, and how in doing so our lives would be made richer, and just how very close it is.

All this in a fleeting encounter in a virtual world that many consider just a game. 

In my view it’s much more for those who choose to look, and, as I said in the beginning, one of the things it certainly is, is a microcosm of a future connected world.

Dave

October 10 is World Mental Health Day.

Expect to see lots of Blue.

A lot of my Twitter friends are already turning blue and are doing various things, calling it Blueday2008 and
using the hashtag.

I’m never one for jumping on bandwagons for the sake of it. Like these wristbands you see everywhere for instance. But I wear a BeyondBlue wristband, constantly. If you’ve got one, or see one, you might like to take a photo of it and put it on flickr and add it to the group I started there.

I also made a T-shirt for your Second Life Avatar, if you feel so inclined. You can pick one up from here as part of the Blueday2008 event in Second Life.

While there you might like to have a look at/in my sculpture / artwork in there called Ocean of Tears , which, though I started long ago, have been spurred on to complete at, and release on a time like this.

I wrote before in this blog post here why I’d be interested, and in fact why I am doing this stuff.

All this Incandescent Blue, and the iTunes Genius gave me a music list to write this post to.

As long as we are talking about it – What do you do to stay sane?

Peace.

Dave

http://www.beyondblue.org/

Technorati Tags: blueday2008, secondlife

“…a 3-D virtual environment allows us to
more naturally experience and visualize this
information in real-time with others and also
appreciate their presence around us.
Virtual worlds are such an appealing concept to users
primarily because of the social ‘co-presence’ of
others in these worlds in a very realistic manner.”

Maged Kamel Boulos 

This is advance notice I got about the last performance coming up.

It’s awesome and worth getting up early if you need to to experience it.

Saturday 31st May 2pm SL time

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Havens%20Beach/224/25/701

Technorati Tags: pinkfloyd, secondlife

I was awake at 5am the other morning so I could go to a artistic performance in Second Life.

The performance was of Pink Floyd’s The Wall concert set to the original music from The Wall.

And it was spectacular. It is so popular we had to be there an hour before start to make sure we could get into the sim.
The group who put it together used particles, objects moving, photos and digital puppets all coreographed the the soundtrack to great effect by the CARP team.

During the performance the wall was slowly built until the climax at end when at the crowds shouting “Tear Down The Wall” saw the wall of bricks all tumble down at which point everyone was invited to go dance on the bricks.

It was at hat point you got to see just how big a stage it was. These bricks were huge.

Interestingly we were told to turn the music stream on beforehand and leave it on and not pause it or it would then be out of sync with the performance. It reminded me of just how much we a still at the infancy stage of the virtual world emergence – a sense of almost analog linear performance in a totally digital environment.

Brilliant stuff. See the slideshow on Flickr below.

Slideshow: http://flickr.com/photos/dnwallace/sets/72157604647772637/show/
Flickr set: http://flickr.com/photos/dnwallace/sets/72157604647772637/

Found this great slideshow of the event on the second arts blog:

Peace – Dave

Using Virtual Worlds and Emerging Technologies for People with Disabilities

This two-part, interactive event will take place in two locations online:

First, the live discussion in the virtual world of Second Life at 9am PST
The follow-up discussion will take place for the rest of the day, 10AM PST- 6PM PST, in TechSoup’s Accessible Technology & Public Computing forum at: <http://www.techsoup.org/go/accessibletechnology>
Event Schedule:

9 AM PST in the Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater in Second Life.

Simon Stevens (aka Simon Walsh in Second Life) <http://www.simonstevens.com> will be speaking about his work in Second Life. Simon Walsh is chief executive of Enable Enterprises which manages the Wheelies nightclub for people with disabilities in Second Life and the Second Ability Second Life simulator. In real life, Simon has cerebral palsy and lives in Coventry, UK. He is a disability consultant and trainer working with many organizations large and small.

Simon will give a virtual talk via text chat in the Nonprofit Commons amphitheater, in the virtual world of Second Life

10AM PST- 6PM PST –the follow-on discussion will continue in an all-day, asynchronous (not-live) forum on TechSoup. This event will occur in a question and answer format in the TechSoup Accessible Technology & Public Computing forum <http://www.techsoup.org/go/accessibletechnology>

Online Event: Using Virtual Worlds and Emerging Technologies for People with Disabilities in this forum, Feb. 29th, all-day, asynchronous (not-live). No registration is needed; just show up here and post your questions!

Accessible Technology and Public Computing message board, TechSoup

Dave

Just like Laurel, I was asked on the ABC Radio Tuesday night to talk about Second Life (SL).

Evidently the show was about online relationships, not just SL, but I didn’t know this beforehand, not that it worries me. Unlike Laurel, who got bombarded with the sex and Second Life questions that seem to titillate the main stream media, I tended to focused on what SL offers me in terms of adding to the fabric of my life, the creative expression and particularly how online social networks of any kind hold the potential to lessen the effects of social isolation for a variety of people.

Second Life, as a visually rich environment full of a diverse range of people can give an opportunity for equally rich social interaction. Just like the physical world….only a different geography.

Pixels are people too.

It was interesting to be in discussion with the twitter crowd, particular thanks to @mpesce, @nickhodge & @silkcharm, before, after and as the show was on air and get comments and encouragement from them – another group of social interactions.

The show was streamed live but I don’t think podcast. However I’ve been in touch with the Producer and have a disc with the whole show on its way to me. Will see if I can make it available.

Dave

Here’s the email:

Hello folks

The Linux Conference Australia will be running from 28 January to 2 February.

The Education Mini-conference will be held over Sunday 27 January(live only)
and Monday 28 January (live and online)

Feel free to

* check out the Secondlife facet of the education event.
Timetable and information about how to log on to
http://miniconf.mel8ourne.org/wiki/index.php?title=Education
Feel free to come along to a single session or to stay longer.
You will be able to participate using the Second Life text chat.

* invite Melbournites to the Open Day
The Open Day will be 12-4pm Saturday 2 February(live)

* forward this to other folks who may be interested in participating online.

Thanks to Kerry Johnson for a recording device and
Dave Wallace for Second Life suggestions.

==============================

From the conference wiki, locations in Second Life:

Monday

SL Venues with IRC bridge

Thanks to Ash Qin and Artex Panther for help with the irc bridge on irc.quickfox.net

This venue is open and has the irc bridge enabled currently.

• SL-Koru Koru in Second Life
• #Koru Koru-IRC Thanks Arwenna Stardust

This venue is open bridge is not enabled.

• SL-Jokaydia Jokaydia in Second Life
• #Jokaydia Jokaydia-IRC http://jokay.com.au/ Thanks Jokay Wollongong

This venue will be open on 28 January IRC bridge is enabled.

• SL-IBM IBM in Second Life
• #IBM IBM-IRC Thanks Gizzy Electricteeth

Mini-Conference wiki

So here’s my alter-ego wearing it.

It’s my first try so a bit frayed along the edges. Still, if you’re in SL, go grab yourself one from this SLURL

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sobaeksan/67/1/65/

Dave

I’m trying to sell my waterfront land in Second Life so have just listed it on Facebook Marketplace. Let’s see the famed power of this ‘social network’.

Funny how I couldn’t list it in $Linden.

Here’s the slurl to the land
Listing on slexchange.com

I’m of the opinion that what’s stopping Second Life (SL) moving from the  ‘game realm‘ to the  ‘useful business platform realm‘ is  a four letter word – TEXT

Simply put, SL needs to integrate text in-world.

The only talk for ages has been about voice integration. Fair enough. Voice could help. But really, those who care to can already partake in a voice experience while being ‘present’ in SL – it’s called Skype, or Yahoo Voice or any other existing voip platform. Many, many people already use voice over IM while interacting with virtual avatars in-world. I’ve done it. And here’s a thought. What effect on grid stability will integrating voice have.

Back to text – words. Currently the only way to get words into SL that aren’t transient (like twitter), and to stay there as part of the landscape, is to put them on an image and upload the image as a texture. Any changes means a new texture, another upload. Besides that cumbersome process, providing a way for others to interact with text in-world is hopeless. And in fact it’s not interacting with text, it’s interacting with images of text. Even a simple in-world guest book is a save card, open card, edit card, save card, copy card process.

For any of the businesses investing money into a presence in SL to be anything but a ‘presence’ will take easy interaction and collaboration. And the historical base to real business has been, and I think will continue to be, the written word.

Yes, there’s a lot of two-way interaction between in-world and the web. Certainly the membrane that exists in that space is a semi-permeable one. I’ve done my fair share of punching holes in that membrane. But as an individual interacting in SL I have found the lack of easily putting words into the fabric of SL a hurdle. I can only imagine that business has found it similarly a problem to moving forward in engaging the waiting, ‘captive‘, 3D population existing in-world in a meaningful way.

It was the web, and particularly hypertext that blew the internet open. Imagine a web browser in SL that works like a browser and you can write to and others can walk up and contribute to as well, or even just read it – while others look on. It’s that kind of thing I mean.

Bring hypertext to SL. The flexibility and power of links – links that link to each other in-world, not just in->out or slurls that link out->in.

To make the Second Life experience a truly immersive one, immerse hypertext.

Dave

Technorati Tags: second life, sl, hypertext, business

From the article titled “Flying with disability in Second Life”

Australian David Wallace, a quadriplegic who works as an IT coordinator at the South Australian Disability Information and Resource Centre in Adelaide has also found an outlet for his artistic side in Second Life. He recently held an exhibition of his Second Life art at the building that Illinois-based Bradley University have established on Information Island.

The article is well written by Margaret Cassidy, go take a look….

Thanks to a comment from a reader, Janet, for the heads-up.

Dave

“A ContextAds board listens to the conversations of those avatars around it, displaying advertisements when certain keywords are mentioned. Advertisers can bid on keywords, with their account only being charged when their ads are actually shown. Avatars can click on advertisements of interest to them, and can be offered a website, or a teleport to an in-world location.”

[contextads via adverlab via twitter of jj]

From Park Paradigm, via JP

Just wish I had a clearer view…persevere, it’s worth it.

Edglings – some previous thoughts about life on the edge

Dave

I took the opportunity to capture the opening and snipped together my versy first video with iMovie and on YouTube. See what you think.