People communicate more in SL

In my travels around SL, I have found that the environment is far more conducive to communication than, say chat rooms or simple instant messaging. So lets spend a few minutes examining this, and trying to understand what it is about the 3D environment that makes us more communicative.....

First of all, compare viewing something in SL with looking at a web page.

If you start exploring a location in SL (a library in Cybrary for example) and see another another users' avatar looking at the exhibits, it is only natural to strike up a conversation; exploring your common interests. In fact, it feels quite rude NOT to speak to someone if you are about to invade their personal space.

Once you "meet" someone in SL, you are able to quickly pull up their profile to get an instant view of their interests and experience. So you are able to establish at a glance, whether or not this is someone you could easily relate to.

Compare this to the more solitary pastime of browsing web pages..... you have no idea how many other people are looking at the pages you are reading. Even if you ARE given details of how many other people are visiting a particular web site, you have no idea who they are or what they are looking at. More fundamentally, you have no simple mechanism for striking up a conversation with them.

Once you are in conversation, it is difficult for interlopers to "lurk" in the shadows. You are generally aware of other avatars within earshot, and are quite likely to bring them into the discussion. (though if you are keen to hold a private conversation with someone in SL, the answer is to stick to Instant Messaging to ensure that you are not overheard).

Finally, you can easily forget that the avatar is not really the person you are speaking to; that there is actually someone else hiding behind the avatar. The plus side to this is that you can see their hands moving as they type - so are more likely to wait until they have finished the next message before butting in with your response. Furthermore, they are invariably either young and good-looking, or totally bizarre (think purple dragon with wings!) but that's another topic of discussion altogether.....

Brigadoon - a project for Asperger's Syndrome

Brigadoon is a private island in Sl for a group of people with Asperger's Syndrome. For the uninitiated, Asperger's is an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. People with AS have difficulty in following the subtler aspects of communicating with people (picking up on double meanings, reading body language etc.) On the positive side, some people with AS may appear to be "geeky", having high level skills in e.g. Maths, or having an obsessive approach to a particular hobby or interest.

The Brigadoon project has been looking at using Sl as a means of communication for people with AS. The argument is that, because an Avatar does not have the same body language as a human (in fact an avatar has hardly any body language at all) then communication for someone with AS is that much simpler, as they don't have to try to deal with difficult body language.

Details of Brigadoon can be found at > braintalk.blogs.com

Main Page - Sl Wiki

My good friend Aleister Kronos has created a Wiki all about Second Life. Here's a link to the Wiki....

Main Page - Sl Wiki

IBM SOA Island

After visiting SEARS on one of the IBM islands, I hopped across to the nearby IBM 8 - their Service Oriented Architecture promotional site. It is still under construction, but they are putting together some rather impressive exhibits. The place was crawling with IBM'ers who were either putting finishing touches on the displays or just being nosey!

Here is a bit of a phototour of some of the innovative ways that IBM are presenting their services in SL. Their approach certainly shows a lot of commitment to SL.

First, a rather straightforward display.... nothing too creative here...



But then the displays got a bit more creative, as the diagrams were 3D objects rather than simple flat-panel pictures....



Once inside the builing complex, there was a display to take you to the various entry points for SOA.... these mapped directly into rooms within the building. Note that the shape of building mapped directly onto the shapes in the original SOA diagram.



To get around the building, they had built a "teleport centre"..... a model of the virutal building... just click on the teleport pad to take you to the appropriate floor / cell within the building.



Next, if you are visiting a vendor, it is aways good to take something away to remember them by. First off there was a table full of "toys" for finding your way around SOA.... things like SL bikes, jet-cars, boats etc. Something which I must try playing with in a sandbox somewhere! (but then I always was a sucker for a good freebie gadget!)

Then there were the more sales-oriented gadgets - items that were fun to own, but which had a built-in message; like the SOA Sunglasses which will (apparently)explain about SOA terms; or the hard-hat which is supposed to come with an inforamtion card about upcoming IBM envents.



Then, rather cleverly, were the podcasts - or to be more precise, web links to podcast downloads. The neat feature here is that you click on a virtual i-Pod to get the podcast! I guess the next step is to include an in-world player and have the podcast immediately available to listen to within SL.



Finally there was the reference library - full of software titles and documentation that was available for download. Again, this pointed off to web links for the download sites. My only criticism of this concept was that the various CDs on display didn't actually have any titles visible.... but again, remember this all appears to be a "work in progress" so I'm sure someone will be back to add the necessary labels.



As you can see, I came away from the site being very impressed. I'm surprised that I was able to blunder around without being challenged... but I did find that I was blocked from creating a landmark to take me back to the building. The surrounding buildings also looked worth a visit.... but I think this blog entry has enough information in it for now!

Shopping for RL in SL

Just been to visit the IBM SEARS building in SL. This is a first introduction to one of the more obvious uses of SL - providing the ability to walk around a virtual store and play with the goods.

The building has 3 main areas - Kitchen, Garage and Living Room. These are used to demonstrate some kitchen layouts and appliances, garage storage and home cinema equipment respectively. Just at present, the demos are rather crude - touching an appliance brings up a link to the relavent web page, though there is a neat feature in the kitchen area whereby you can change the appearance of work surfaces and cubpoard fronts at the touch of a mouse.

From a kitchen design perspective, the next step must be to provide a 3-D design sandbox - with "standard" appliances and units to fit into a model kitchen of your own creation. The likes of IKEA and B&Q have such software available on their web sites as a stand-alone application, but it would be so much neater to have the facility within SL.

I think the Sears site provides an interesting prototype - though requires FAR more information / products to be made available before it is a viable commercial channel.

Perhaps this is something to ponder for SL and RL Retail - you need to have the range of stock available before you can attract many punters.

Once useful feature of the Sears store was that you only needed to click a transporter ball within a display area to be whisked away into the prototype kitchen or living-room. Far quicker than having to walk for miles from one location to another.....and in keeping with the comment in my last post - that SL inhabitants do more teleporting than flying!

Why do TV documentaries always show flying avatars?

Following the BBC Newsnight piece about Second Life on Wednesday night, I started thinking about how SL is portrayed in the media, and how this impacts on how SL is perceived in business.

As I have said earlier in this blog, a challenge for business is to dispel the idea that SL is "just a game". Unfortunately, when TV presenters put together a piece about SL, the immediate response it to show the more exotic avatars (after all, a key element if SL is your avatar) and then show the presenter's avatar flying over the virtual world. So, the memorable feature of SL is that you are able to fly! (Which is a shame, because anyone who visits SL knows that the only way to travel is to Teleport!)

(Photo courtesy of the BBC)

This is a pity, as some of the more useful concepts in SL are the ability to interact with people regardless of location; the ability to interact with 3D objects; the new ways of presenting information.... the list goes on.

Instead of just flying over anonymous buildings in SL, why not visit the Cybrary and see how librarians from around the world are getting together to share ideas? Or visit one of Aimee Webber's beautifully rendered locations; Or show one of the science exhibits that allows you to climb around a caffeine molecule?

Next time I'm in SL I will take some photos to brighten up this post!.

Cool representation of Sau Paulo

A friendly librarian (Elizabeth Rockwood) invited me over to take a look at this site..... There's an areal photo of Sau Paulo on the ground, and a series of photo-spheres linked down to key points on the ground. The spheres look rather odd because they are carrying full 360degree pictures of the points linked on the map. Stand inside the sphere, and switch to "mouse look" to get the 3D view experience. Turn on the sound, and you get a commentary about the location and image.

Once I'd mastered the art of standing in the sphere, and getting Mouse Look turned on properly, then it was a pretty amazing experience!

If you have an SL account, try following the SLURL link below and take a look for yourself

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Snafu/13/179/117/?title=Snafu