Third time lucky! Hopfully no virtual world CEO’s quit or platforms announce their forthcoming closure whilst I’m finishing this post! I’ll have more on the Rod Humble departure later. The third episode of The Drax Files Radio Hour is out and this week’s episode is a controversial affair with an introduction and interview with the infamous Esteban Winsmore, I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of him but Second Life is a very big place. Yes, I’m someone who had until now not heard of Esteban, apologies for that.
The show covers many issues, coming out of the virtual closet being one. This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, many people prefer to keep segments of their life separate but it does demonstrate very well that many people are happy to share their virtual world experiences with people who are not so familiar with the concept.
There’s an interview with Monty Linden full of geeky goodness about the HTTP project in Second Life.
A feature about a documentary from Loki Eliot regarding the history and future of virtual reality. Jo Yardley and Inara Pey have more on this, I haven’t watched it in full yet but the brief preview looks fascinating.
There’s mention of a Twitter exchange between Hamlet Au of New World Notes, Philip Rosedale, you should all know who he is, Cory Ondrejka, who used to be CTO at Linden Lab and Marc Andreesen, a man who was hugely influential in the growth of the web browser due to his work on Mosaic which turned into Netscape. Younger readers should note that Netscape was once the browser to have before Microsoft came along and unleashed the browser wars.
The extent of these browser wars was highlighted when Microsoft released IE4. The legend is that after the release party for IE4, Microsoft engineers planted a ten foot Microsot IE logo on the lawn of the Netscape HQ. Netscape called it a fraternity style prank to get revenge and then promptly replaced the logo with their Mozilla dinosaur mascot and a sign pointing out Netscape was still far and away the prominent browser. We’re talking back in 1997 here but the importance of Marc Andreesen’s work should definitely be appreciated. I’ve gone off on a big tangent here!
@CoryOndrejka @slhamlet @sw @philiprosedale Second Life & amazing creators will inspire programmers & entrepreneurs for 50 years! — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) January 23, 2014
Positive praise indeed. The background to this exchange was a discussion about Bitcoin, Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has more on that.
Back to the show, there’s plenty more to listen, read and comment on. The show is fullof clips, commentary and interviews. There is a definite difficulty in playing video clips on a podcast, but the links in the post help you to appreciate where they’re coming from. One criticism may be that the show is too packed, an hour goes by very quickly when there’s so much content but that’s not such a bad thing.
Then there’s the issue of whether the work of Esteban Winsmore should be discussed. Esteban’s interview is done in character and his character reminds me somewhat of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat. The humour is uncomfortable at times and it seems as if the victims are not willing participants. This is the sort of humour that may look funny but spare a thought for those who appear to be being harassed in the goal of this style. Many will find that an uncomfortable mix.
All in all, another decent show which again extends the discussion about virtual worlds and Second Life in a wider context. Let’s also not forget that the show is in its early stages, it will grow and change as more episodes are released.