The fifth episode of The Drax Files Radio hour, presented by Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley is yet another excellent listen. Naturally the show discussed Ebbe Altberg’s arrival as CEO and has input from Strawberry Singh, Vic Mornington and Robin Harper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unfortunately Robin didn’t surprise me and turn up as CEO but it was really nice to hear Robin talk. Vic raises some excellent points about Linden Lab embracing the community, because that has been lacking for a number of years and a perfect person for the community would be Robin Harper!
The show is critical of Mitch Wagner’s information week article about High Fidelity, which I’ve covered here recently. The reason for the criticism is that Drax took umbrage at Mitch saying of Second Life : “it’s mostly forgotten”
Personally, I disagree with Drax’s assessment, not because I agree with Mitch’s comment, but because I feel Drax may have taken it a little bit out of context, the full comment was :
“Second Life proved bewitching for many people. I was one of them. But most people sneered. It’s still around, and it got a lot right, but it’s mostly forgotten.”
When you consider that many articles about Second Life have comments along the lines of “Second Life, is that still around?” it’s refreshing to see a journalist say that it is still around. However more to the point, Mitch Wagner’s Second Life experience was not fly by night, he put a lot of time and effort into his Second Life ventures and although he sounds a bit jaded by it all these days, he was most definitely an enthusiast at one point and knows a lot about Second Life. Maybe they could invite Mitch onto the show?
Moving on, this week’s episode has a wonderful interview with Mike Mikula, a former teen grid resident who talks of how he surprised his parents with his Second Life income and how the old teen grid worked and why teens really wanted to be on the main grid. Mike also talks of what he’s doing now as well as talking of other former teen grid residents, one of whom is employed by Disney these days.
There’s also an excellent interview with Barry Joseph who talks of what Second Life did well with kids as well as talking about what Minecraft does well for kids. This interview actually touches upon an issue I’ve recently discussed too, how the blank canvas of Second Life can sound wonderful in theory but actually becomes quite intimidating for some people when they are faced with what to do with it.
There’s far more to listen to than I’ve got space to cover and really, if you have a spare hour or so, it’s very much worth listening to. What Drax and Jo do so well is capture input from people, oh and they also manage to get someone to give me a shout out in the closing credits, but I swear, I’m not being bribed to write good feedback about the show!
Whether you agree with the issues raised or disagree with them, don’t be shy about sharing your views with Drax and Jo, the show really does raise some excellent points as well as showing excellent use cases of Second Life.
Hi Ciaran, so great that you enjoy the show and the format we are trying to establish. In re journalism: my comment on the show was primarily about the Silicon Valley press core which I strongly believe is partially to lame for the narrow perception of what SL was/is – they had NO problem hyping the concept of virtual worlds [especially for business applications!!] to no end during the 06/07 period and thereby creating very warped expectations that could never have been fulfilled [arguably even if the tech at the time had been matured already]. There is some responsibility attached to one’s role as a journalist/curator/gatekeeper of information and facts, especially if you have them [if you do not you should try to get them or acknowledge you don’t have them all!]. It is quite interesting to speculate WHY some folks who were sooooo enthusiastic [and unrealistic] in their writings about when and how virtual worlds would change ALL our lives would now choose to ignore certain facts about SL thriving quite considerably among artists, small digital entrepreneurs AND mind you even non-profits and educators. Two words [and I am speculating myself here]: hurt feelings? mmmmmmmhhhhhh……