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Will Second Life Ever Be Able To Address International Issues?

Second Life, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds 6 Responses »

Feb 272013

I was listening to MetaReality Podcast over the weekend when Qarl mentioned that Second Life under Mark Kingdon had been considering ways to bring back gambling, according to some it has never really gone away, but the days of casinos on the landscape are certainly long gone.

This remined me that I’d been reading about real money Facebook apps: Facebook strikes deal with 888 to launch more real-money gaming apps in the UK. The key here being the in the UK part, so as to not fall foul of laws regarding online gambling in jurisdictions where it’s not allowed.

A quick recap on gambling in Second Life, as far as I’m aware it was never licensed. However it was popular and it did require land, so it generated tier revenue. Linden Lab took a business decision to ban it, but I can recall a forum or blog post where Zee Linden, former CFO, said they had been considering finding a way to bring it back. However that has never happened.

When Linden Lab struck a deal with Dragonfish to process payments, I wondered if this was to do with introducing gambling back to Second Life, as Dragonfish are related to 888, the same 888 who are introducing gaming apps to Facebook. When you used to email support, they had an 888 address. This was for the now defunct Local Payments System, US residents didn’t have their payments processed in this fashion.

Now one way of bringing gambling back to Second Life would have been to do what Facebook are doing, and restrict it to residents of a certain country, so for example if 888 had opened an 888 sim, only UK residents would be able to enter. This would obviously be problematic, especially as gambling winnings would find their way into the wider economy, but it does raise the issue of restrictions on Second Life based on the geographic location of Linden Lab, rather than their customers.

Giulio Prisco Won’t Avoid The Immersion vs. Augmentation Issues In New Virtual Worlds

Second Life, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Dec 282012

I was reading the Second Life Forums when I saw a post from Mecha Innis entitled Giulio Prisco of the IEET Declares Second Life Dead. “Here we go again” I thought and went to read the article itself: Snow Crash(ed) in Second Life (end 2012).

The article isn’t as ignorant as some articles on the death of Second Life, it’s clear that Giulio was a big fan and there are areas where I’m in agreement with him. However there are also areas where it seems clear that Giulio isn’t happy because people didn’t want Second Life to be as he wanted it to be, and that’s something I always find disappointing because the beauty of Second Life is that it can be what you want it to be.

The article is interesting because it brings up the old debate of Immersion vs Augmentation and has links to some interesting old articles:

“Many early users of SL were very jealous and protective of the early SL culture, strongly centered on pseudonymity and non-disclosure of real life information, and vocally resisted all technical innovations that could facilitate the intrusion of reality into their “magic circle” (see for example the very heated debates that followed the introduction of voice in SL in 2007). Most of them were “immersionists,” mainly interested in SL as “another world” where they could live “another life” entirely separated from their “first life” (FL) and strongly resisted the “invasion” of “augmentationists” interested in SL as a communication tool for telepresence applications related to FL. I think the tension between these two communities played a significant role in the demise of SL. Henrik Bennetsen’s essay on the subject is not available anymore at its original URL but a backup is still on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.”

The thing I find odd about Giulio’s comment here is that in the first linked article, of which he is the author, he wrote: “I support that idea that everyone should be free to live her Second Life, AND her Real Life, as she wants to live it. So, though I use voice in SL routinely, I do not have anything against immersionists refusing to use it and support their freedom of choice. At the same time, of course I protect _my_ freedom of choice and resist immersionists trying to tell _me_ how I should live _my_ SL (or RL). The point is, I _am_ into making my SL a reflection of my RL – and want the freedom to use all options that permit doing so.“ Continue reading »

Cloud Party Removes Facebook Only Restriction

Second Life, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds 2 Responses »

Dec 222012

I’ve blogged about Cloud Party a couple of times and both times I mentioned that to have an account you needed to use Facebook. This is something I simply do not support, although as I said in both posts, I can understand why startups turn to Facebook for logins, it fills a hole in the starting process but the longer a product continues to be Facebook login only, the more it becomes an albatross around the neck of a product. Facebook should simply not be the only login in town, keeping Facebook logins as an option is sensible, but there should be other options.

Kitely was initially Facebook login only, so that’s another example of a startup turning to Facebook, but Kitely moved on and now I’m pleased to say, so has Cloud Party. Hamlet Au over at New World Notes blogged about the change yesterday. They have also added flight, which along with other changes, such as their marketplace and royalties system, shows that Cloud Party is developing rather nicely.

Cloud Party has some interesting people involved in its development, such as ex Linden Cory Ondrejka and Cryptic Studio’s ex-CTO Bruce Rogers, who are I believe investors, I don’t know if they’re hands on. Cloud Party is also developing with previous worlds in mind, for example one of the reasons cited for Facebook logins is to minimise griefing.

So how does this new accout creation work? Well I, as a fearless hero, dipped my toes into the water.

Cloud Party Improves But Remains Nerfed By Facebook Login Requirement

Social Networking, Virtual Worlds 2 Responses »

Dec 122012

Hamlet Au reports on improvements to Cloud Party, in a blog post over at New World Notes. There are some interesting improvements going on with the product, especially in terms of the marketplace, which you can read about on the cloud party wiki, here.

Those who have US bank accounts can now cash out their Cloud Party Gold coins, but there’s no date set for when this will be available to international customers. They have a really interesting royalty feature for items and this is something Linden Lab may want to pay attention to. Royalties can be read about here. This allows a merchant to sell an asset and then have a royalty from all future sales of that asset, sent to them. So for example, if your asset is used in another users build, when that user sells their item, the original creator would receive royalties, this is a very good idea.

However where Cloud Party continues to languish in epic fail territory, in my opinion, is the requirement for those who seriously want to use the platform to use a Facebook login.

Second Life Cited In Divorce Case

Second Life, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Nov 162012

I sometimes google news of Second Life, or Rod Humble, to see if there’s any news on Second Life or Rod Humble! So today I discover a story that claims that a man’s addiction to Second Life was cited in a divorce case. The story claims that the man, who can’t be named (and nor can his avatar) spent twenty five hours a week in Second Life.

He was also said to be addicted to watching porn on his computer, one would hope he was not partaking in adult activities in Second Life and then going for more outside of Second Life! There are claims that this may be the first case whereby Second Life has been cited in a divorce case, but it’s unfortunately not, in 2008 there was the Dave Barmy affair. This one involves all sorts of shennanigans, including a honey trap!

Then there’s a case that was apparently reported in the now defunct News Of The World, but made its way to the Huffington Post: Second Life Divorce: Woman Catches Husband In Virtual Gay Affair :

“I saw John’s little person having it off with another man in a dungeon on the screen,” said horrified Lisa, 28.

This sort of thing isn’t specific to Second Life, Facebook and other social media sites have been cited in divorce cases and I expect this to increase, especially as we embrace the digital world more firmly. The issue isn’t really Second Life, or Facebook, there will be far deeper issues involved in all of these cases, ones that will make more sense and should be taken more seriously.

Facebook Pages Can Be Useful

Second Life, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Mar 162012

Via Hamlet Au over at New World Notes, there’s a link to a post from Strawberry Singh on using Facebook pages to promote your Second Life brand. The good thing about Facebook pages is that you aren’t breaking the Facebook Terms of Service by having a Facebook page for your Second Life avatar, or your Second Life brand.

The thing I found even better about Facebook pages is that you don’t need to have a Facebook profile to create a Facebook page, you will still need to provide an email address and you will need this for logging in but you don’t need to have a Facebook profile, so when Facebook has a burp and sets your privacy settings to something you weren’t expecting, it won’t be an issue. That is unless Facebook have changed that now, but I created pages on Facebook without needing a main Facebook profile.

Google + on the other hand requires you to have a Google + profile to create pages, so it’s a bit different but Google + largely seem more relaxed on the names you use than Facebook are.

What’s In A Name Yet Again!

Second Life, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Jan 242012

“Lastly, I really do regret I that spoiled ‘Ciaran Laval’ s night away from the pub. The way this election is going he may find me there before long.” – Sir Norman Tebbit, April 19th 2010.

The above quote is relevant in the name stakes because it demonstrates I have a persistent online identity outside Second Life circles, although what I was ever doing on The Torygraph blogs whilst sober still remains a mystery, what Sir Norman was referring to is that I’d stated on another blog post of his that I was stone cold sober and agreeing with him, it was a scary evening.

Which brings us to the latest episode of the nym wars and Google +, which rears its head in the shape of form of Google’s Bradley Horowitz suggesting a new and more inclusive naming policy is being r0lled out. Now before you get too excited you need to tread carefully here, Violet Blue, who was very involved in the nym wars because her name was considered to be fake (it isn’t) has posted over at Zdnet suggesting that pseudonyms still aren’t welcome. However Violet seems to be getting a tad confused, Bradley Horowitz is talking of one name nyms, rather than normal looking nyms and this is where it all gets confusing.

The Function Creep Gains Pace – Spotify Join The Evil Empire

Social Networking 8 Responses »

Sep 272011

When people ask why people are concerned about real names rather than pseudonyms or talk of people not having to use a service, it’s all well and good, but as I’ve stated before there’s an underlying function creep going on and into that murky water comes Spotify.

The free music site recently struck a deal with Facebook, first of all this means more piddling about with Facebook settings, but there’s something really bad about this deal, if you’re not a Facebook user you won’t be able to signup for Spotify. No new accounts can be created unless you have a Facebook account.

Ah well what’s the problem, it’s free? Well no, you can pay for extra services with Spotify and even if you want to become a premium subscriber, you will still need a Facebook account to signup, which quite frankly is an absurd requirement.

Spotify aren’t the only people to have gone down this route, the virtual world Kitely still has the ridiculous Facebook requirement, whereas TechCrunch, the tech blog, still have Facebook comments. However at least on Facebook people can comment via AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo accounts, although still not via Twitter. TechCrunch really should know better.

Twitter Emphasise They Are Nym Friendly

Social Networking No Responses »

Sep 092011

Twitter CEO Dick Costollo has firmly planted his feet in the nym friendly camp according to a post at Wired’s Epicenter, which you can read here. Mr Costollo is quoted as saying:

“Other services may be declaring that you have to use your real name because they think they will be able to monetize that better and think they will be able to get more information about you that will help them monetize better.”

“We are more interested in serving our users first, and we think by serving that by serving our users first, we will have a better platform for marketers and advertisers.”

Hooray for that but not only is Mr Costollo absolutely right in his thinking, he shows Google + how wrong they are with their real name policy because in terms of advertisers, whom people follow and what their interests are, will likely produce better targetted marketing than what their name is and Google should know this because so much of their advertising service is based not on your real name, but what you’re looking for or at.

Real Name Policy Function Creep Needs To Be Halted

Social Networking No Responses »

Sep 022011

Cory Doctorow had an interesting piece in The Guardian this week about Google + and more to the point Eric Scmidt’s comments that nobody is forcing people to use Google +. This came on the back of Eric Schmidt’s comments to NPR’s Andy Carvin in Edinburgh. This was the same piece that led to claims that Google + is primarily an identity service, although Tateru Nino commenting on Hamlet Au’s blog post on social networks suggested it’s Google profiles that will be the identity service.

Cory’s post is largely about discussing the real name policy of Google + and why Eric Schmidt’s comment is off, I don’t entirely agree there, I’m someone who won’t use Google + because of their policy but there is an underlying function creep with these real name policies that could very well spread, I remain opposed to such policies for many reasons, one certainly being that in some ways they are anti social, you don’t need to know your friend’s real name on a social network because if that friend wants to interact with you, they will tell you their name, that’s often how friendships are forged, you meet, you say hello, you get to know each other, you get to know more about each other, this is normal human interaction. I’ve mentioned this before but in the days before Real_ID on World Of Warcraft the guys I play WoW with would share avatar and server names and then we’d all get into a guild together, that’s how friends work.

The arguments in favour of real name only social networking are flimsy to say the least, yet they come up all the time in these sort of threads. Why wouldn’t you want your name associated with a comment? What are you hiding? If you don’t want to be known don’t go on The Internet. All people who don’t use real names are just anonymous trolls, it’s tiresome reading the same flimsy reasons over and over.

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