18
Dec 07

Virtual Worlds Forecast 2008 Report

I’m reading the Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2008 whitepaper, see their website for details to get your own free copy, and so far the first thing that strikes me is that they took the replies from all of the respondents and apparently just pasted them all into a document without even making sure they were similarly formatted.

I guess I’m used to reading academic papers and research that uses anonymous or attributed quotes, rather than seeing exactly what so-and-so big wig from so-and-so company jotted down in an email one day. Some folks wrote formally, others seem almost offhand.

Definitely worth a read, just don’t expect it to look too much like a traditional “white paper”.


18
Dec 07

FCC, FISA, & The Enemies of Reason

On Saturday I drove through a snowstorm doing 20 miles an hour on the interstate. It was a horrible drive, my hands hurt from gripping the steering wheel so tightly, and the roads were in terrible shape. I must have seen 30 accidents along the way – tractor trailers jackknifed, cars over embankments, one car hanging on a guard rail over a steep and dangerous cliff. Without any CDs in the car, I was left to the tender mercies of the radio, and for quite a long stretch there was no NPR to be found. Egads. The radio airwaves are full of the most awful music and even worse talk radio. But I forced myself to listen as I slipped and slid and wished desperately for a salt truck or a plow to come and clear the roads.

When I got home, I fell into an exhausted sleep that lasted off and on for two whole days. At some point when I was awake to eat, I learned that a whole family had died driving on those slick roads, and many more had horrible accidents and were injured. I felt lucky to have made it home safely, I felt warm and cozy and snug in my house as the snow and sleet continued to fall over the weekend, and I began my vacation by being a complete slacker – no work, no email, no phone calls, no house cleaning. I parked on the couch in a blanket curled up with the kitties, and watched a bunch of TV. But not mindless TV, I watched a couple month’s worth of Bill Moyers’ Journal, NOW, Frontline, and CSPAN coverage of the FCC review of media ownership rules hearings in the Senate.

And I got angry.

Angry with myself more than anyone else, for being so busy with the demands of job and family that I stopped paying attention and stopped talking about issues that matter. I wasn’t just sleeping for a couple of days, I think I’ve been sleeping for a couple of years, maybe since the 2004 election as I mentioned in a previous post. Well, I’m awake now and I am determined to stay that way.

Today the FCC will meet to consider changing the rules to allow greater consolidation of media giants, as well as competition in the mobile services market and minority participation in broadcasting – and unless something happens, it appears that the chairman, Kevin Martin, intends to go in the face of public opinion and Senate concerns and change the rules in ways that will favor the media conglomerates. Which means on the next long drive, I can look forward to even more drivel on the radio, and less diversity of opinion on the TV, and fewer newspapers with concentrated editorial control.

A brief clip from the hearings:

You can watch the FCC meeting live on CSPAN today at 10AM EST.

You can contact the FCC and contact the members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation which held the FCC hearings on December 13th at http://www.committeecaller.com/ (just pick the right committee on the left).

You can do these things, and you should. I should have before now, but I didn’t until maybe it’s too late.

You can also pay attention to the FISA changes that the Bush Administration is asking Congress to grant. I tweeted about that yesterday too, and over 2500 people called the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and at the 11th hour he pulled the proposed legislation from the floor and postponed it till January.

You can call your representatives about that bill, too. And you should.

I think we all need to wake up. I don’t care if you’re right, left, center, independent, progressive, conservative, or WHAT label you prefer, there are certain things that surely we can all agree are dangerous for democracy, and more media consolidation and warrantless spying on American citizens has to rank right up at the top of that list.

Apathy is as much an enemy of reason as anything else.


17
Dec 07

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-17

  • Just woke up again. Have done nothing really but sleep for two days. Ahh vacation. #
  • Ready for Metanomics event at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Metaversed/218/229/22 #
  • Metanomics event will be broadcast live on http://slcn.tv for those who can’t make it in-world. #
  • Metaverse defined as 3D3C – 3D, Community, Creation, Commerce #
  • From Metanomics guest: http://www.dryesha.com and http://www.metaverse-labs.com #
  • SL is the "gopher" of the metaverse, have a long way to go, but will be a huge opportunity for aging populations #
  • Also will be great equalizer, can have a girlfriend in India and an assistant in Africa #
  • Keep in mind it took 10 years for Google to emerge after TCP/IP and DNS #
  • To be a true Metaverse it must have a high level of 4 things: controllable 3D environment, can walk, can interact #
  • Community, system tools to communicate and connect with others #
  • Creation, not web 2.0, but ppl can actually BUILD stuff, unleashes creativity #
  • Commerce, KEY factor for true metaverse, real money structured into the system. #
  • WoW generates 1.5billion for Blizzard, but is it metaverse? 3D yes, Community, Yes, the last two no. #
  • @GwynethLlewelyn I spent a couple hours in Kaneva yesterday.. ugh. Not impressed. #
  • HiPiHi perhaps constrained by China’s regulatory environment #
  • More links from Metanomics event: WSJ article http://tinyurl.com/2dxhjq #
  • Gamasutra site w/ info about MMO trading platform http://tinyurl.com/ywvrpp #
  • Another link from Metanomics event: http://www.metaverse1.org/ #
  • Virtual goods to the metaverse is like advertising to the internet. #
  • Advertising is paying for the innovation of the internet, as virtual goods will fuel the metaverse. #
  • @wporter I think you’re right, but the virtual goods angle is interesting too. #
  • Calling my federal reps about the FCC changes and FISA legislation. Things are completely out of hand. #
  • @deanpence FCC is set to hold a meeting tomorrow to allow even MORE media consolidation #
  • @deanpence and Senate is debating expanded FISA powers bill, both of which are horrific, IMNSHO. #
  • @deanpence Check out CSPAN coverage of FCC issue, looking for link now. #
  • @deanpence Can’t find it on CSPAN but here on YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/22lp8j #
  • I swear we’re watching democracy swirl the drain right in front of our faces. #
  • @ordinal I assume you mean other than right clicking and checking the object tab to see if the box is checked? #
  • @ericrice Haven’t been following all of the Arrington hoo-ha, but good call on your part. #
  • @ericrice But what’s a meaningful way to respond? Email Arrington and say "Hey dude, NOT COOL" ? #
  • @ericrice feels almost as worthless as the calls to my senators about FCC and FISA. Not very. #

17
Dec 07

Summary of Standardization process


Using the virtual cities metaphor to test Metaverse 1..
posted by Fleep Tuque on Metaversed using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]


17
Dec 07

5 Dimensions of Standards


Metaverse development will require standardization, Dr. Yesha Sivan discusses the dimensions of standards development.
posted by Fleep Tuque on Metaversed using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]


17
Dec 07

Exploring the Definition of the 3D3C Metaverse


A slide from the Metanomics session discussing the future of the Metaverse.
posted by Fleep Tuque on Metaversed using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]


17
Dec 07

Waiting for Metanomics to Begin


Sitting in a very comfy chair waiting for the Metanomics session to begin. One of the best things about the Metanomics series, besides the fantastic interviews, is that you get a few quiet moments to catch up with good friends in the audience and on the Metanomics chat channel. Come join us!
posted by Fleep Tuque on Metaversed using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]


16
Dec 07

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-16


15
Dec 07

Digital Immigrant Bookworm Goes Native Butterfly

Perpetually behind on my blog reading, but today I caught up with Intellagirl’s Ubernoggin and got sucked into her Response to Jenkins, Prenskey Regarding Digital Natives post.

Intellagirl’s analysis points to two key phenomena that differentiates the Digital Native from the Digital Immigrant – exigency (need) and medial hauntings (previous experience with earlier technologies that lingers on). Now “medial hauntings” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue and until I read further, evoked images of severed limbs screaming BOO! from dark closets (oh MEDIAL not MEDICAL), but I think she’s onto something there. Certainly she addresses the kind of fear that I’ve seen in so-called digital immigrants, who already have a community of people to share thoughts with at church or the bowling league or whatever, and who are afraid to press a button in case it breaks or click a link in case there’s no way to go back, that sort of thing. And it brings to mind my own complete aversion to all things web based for years – my command line BBS works just fine thanks, I don’t need any of this newfangled blog crap! I BBSed from 1994 to 2006 and largely ignored blogs and blog culture because I had an interface that I was comfortable with and a community to share my thoughts with and what _need_ was there to change? So in that example, Intellagirl’s analysis hits it right on the head – I had no need and the few attempts I’d made at blogging were painful because I didn’t know what the heck I was doing and I kept saying to myself, “Pushing the spacebar to get new content is so much easier!”

This Digital Native/Immigrant dichotomy has been sticking in my craw because it doesn’t quite explain ME. By age demographic, I should be an immigrant. By socio-economic background and access to technology and gadgets, I should be an immigrant. By all sorts of measures and characteristics used to describe the two groups, it seems as if I should fit squarely in the immigrant category, but clearly I do not. Intellagirl’s post is the first I’ve seen that begins to get at an explanation that makes sense, not just on a macro level, but on a personal level. My adoption and wholesale immersion into the BBS/MUD community in the mid 90s was born out of great need, I was away from home, poor as a church mouse, out of my social element, and desperately seeking to connect with other people, and that technology provided something that my limited social and financial circumstances could not – COMMUNITY. I was moving constantly, like a bag lady, from apartment to apartment and state to state, but with the magic of the intarnets, my friends traveled with me wherever I went. Further, limited experience with previous technologies left me with no old habits to break, at the time I discovered email and UNIX talk and telnet, I was a fairly clean slate and picked it up quickly.

OK, so finally an explanation that begins to make sense.. Hm.

But there’s something else about my own personal experience that has been ricocheting around in my head and always comes to the forefront when I listen to one of Philip Rosedale’s speeches about how navigating 3D virtual worlds is innately more intuitive than navigating word-laden webpages. I think there’s truth to that and it seems to me that we’re entering a new .. phase, era, whatever word you prefer. But let me go back for a moment to the ricocheting thought, which is that I think my digital native behavior was/is extremely influenced by my lifelong addiction to reading. I was the kind of kid that would rather read a book than do just about anything else. If I was in the middle of a good story, nothing short of prolonged shouting could break the spell, to the annoyance of friends and parents alike. Somehow I transcended mere “literacy” and I’m sure there’s some academic term for those of us who become immersed in the written word and visualize it with such clarity that the “real world” ceases to exist while we’re in it. (I bet Henry Jenkins knows that word.)

So, being such a reader, the world of BBSs and MUDs and entirely text based virtual worlds wasn’t just an easy transition to make, it was like the holy grail – an interactive story that I was part of, that I wrote and changed and played a role and wow, what a dream come true. Webpages didn’t interest me quite as much, except as an information source, because they were like magazine stories, way too short and eventually full of too many pictures, when what I prefer is a nice big meaty novel that will take at least two or three days to read. And so I stayed in my text based virtual worlds for a very long time. Long after other BBS friends adopted LiveJournal and Blogger and reveled in posting pictures and links and video clips that could never appear in the old telnet window.

Until EverQuest, that is. MMO + RPG + 3D = love at first sight. I still remember the thrill of it: the beautiful scenery, the long walks across unexplored territory, the adrenaline rushes, the late nights, the empty Mt. Dew cans. Then DAoC and WoW and various single player games in-between (NWN, Deus Ex, Sims, etc.). And somehow, between 1994 and 2006, I transformed into a Native butterfly, an advocate for technology in education, a creator of digital content, a camera, mp3-player, cell phone carrying junkie, a 1337 translator with some old skool credibility, tivo equipped and subscribed to so many blogs, and now tweeting my life away for all to see. Indistinguishable from a so-called Native, except that my text messaging thumb dexterity is woefully inadequate.

I hate these terms, Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, because they imply all sorts of connotations that do more harm than good, and because my Women’s Studies 101 classes taught me to _always_ be suspicious of false dichotomies. It is not an either/or choice, rather there are continuums of related skill-sets and proclivities and if you look deeper under the skin of a Digital Native, you will find more complexity than a single word can possibly describe. Sure the 17 year old chained to his cell phone can text message while eating, driving, and talking, and sure his ipod seems to have grown fully formed out of his skull, but can he use a search engine effectively? Can he write a coherent paragraph with correct spelling and grammar to save his life? Increasingly, I think that answer is NO and that is worrisome.

Jenkins writes:

At one time, the digital immigrant metaphor might have been helpful if it forced at least some adults to acknowledge their uncertainties, step out of their comfort zone, and adjust their thinking to respond to a generation growing up in a very different context than the realm of their own childhood. As Prensky concludes, “if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their students – they will have to change.” Yet, I worry that the metaphor may be having the opposite effect now — implying that young people are better off without us and thus justifying decisions not to adjust educational practices to create a space where young and old might be able to learn from each other.

So, what would digital multi-culturalism look like? Can we come up with a different set of metaphors to talk about these issues?

I say we MUST come up with a different set of metaphors, because to circle back to Philip Rosedale’s point about the intuitive navigability of 3D virtual spaces, if we don’t figure out a better way to talk about these concepts, the so-called natives will run so far ahead into the virtual world, that the wisdom of the text-based and physical world might be lost altogether. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this chilling report from the National Endowment for the Arts about current literacy rates. It strikes fear into the heart of this digital [whatever], because the power of all of this technology is tremendous, and while those who have accepted the term “digital immigrant” feel cut off or dismissive or frightened or too old or whatever it is are sitting around reading newspapers and drinking coffee at church and thinking that things like Second Life is just a game, the world is going to change around them, so fast it will make their heads spin if they’re still around to see it, and the certainty that this is coming fills me with such urgency, I just can’t shake it.

It keeps me burning the candle at both ends, and now we’re at the end of 2007 and my resolution in 2006 to figure out this blog crap, to bring Second Life to my campus, to work even harder to be the translator between the “immigrant” and “native” camps has been one of the most exhausting and stressful, yet wonderfully fulfilling years of my life. I’ll save the reminiscing for a different long rambly disorganized thinking-out-loud post, but at the end of all of this, I’m thinking we have a lot of work to do and we can’t do it fast enough. I don’t know if Digital Multi-Culturalism will cut the mustard, either, because that implies some acceptance of the status-quo that I don’t want to accept. I want to be intolerant of intolerance in the digital sense. I don’t want to just talk about it, I want to smack the hand that reaches for the phone book instead of a search engine. As I reach the ripe old age of my early 30s, I finally have come to understand that not all old people are wise, but there is wisdom in age and experience, and frankly, I fear we’ll lose that wisdom when the “natives” put down their video games and start harnessing this technology to change the world around them.

I think, moving forward, that we need to challenge those words wherever we see or hear them, because they are perpetuating a concept that we can’t afford to continue.


14
Dec 07

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-14

  • Listening to Matthew play Christmas tunes at http://tinyurl.com/ywpnl7 #
  • Net connection keeps dropping, grrr #
  • @matthewebel has such a sweet voice. #
  • Crashed again! geez! #