Second Life faces several fundamental challenges, I think: 1) UI
complexity, 2) Expense of a decent level of engagement (i.e., need for
property), 3) Overheated and even conflicting expectations, 4) Competition.
1) seems to stop a lot of people right at the door. Learning how to
navigate, communicate, and dress an avatar with minimal embarrassment is
a huge inhibitor. Imagine being naked and spastic on a dance floor with
costumed lords and ladies swirling everywhere around you and making
snarky remarks in many languages, and you get the idea.
2) sinks in after hanging around in the streets in SL for a while,
buying the upgrade, and then discovering that you have to live in the
slums with pervs, bullies, the tasteless and the clueless. To get a
decent space for yourself requires a good deal of cash flow. That
repels a lot of people.
3) is a killer. Sex was and still is a big chunk of SL's appeal, and
that is a hugely offputting feature of the SLscape for those who want to
run businesses there, or serve as educational meeting-places and
demonstration sites, or perform as actors, writers, artists, or
musicians. Linden Labs has not sorted all this out properly at all.
First they flung open the doors, watched everyone rush in, and then
struggled while hackers, sexers, and vandals grabbed everything they
could. I'm not saying that controlling SL is easy - such things are
terribly difficult - but finding ways to separate the different
constituencies would have been a good thing had it happened sooner.
We're still waiting.
4) isn't a credible threat yet - OSGrid and others simply haven't
reached critical mass as social settings, and game settings like World
of Warcraft and its like offer none of the freedom of building and
scripting and interacting that SL does. But just wait. There are very
smart people out here learning a lot from SL's failures and successes,
and they'll be the ones to step in with new offerings that will make us
all wonder "Why didn't WE think of that?"
I envision a stage of this developmental process in which we wear a
lightweight skintight undergarment with all the sensors and
communications components needed for situating us bodily in a VW that
operates either independently of, or in concert with, the RW around our
physical bodies. We also wear head-up glasses. No more mousing,
keyboarding, command recollection, menu selection, blah, blah, blah. We
just do it. Who pays for all this? Look at today: we all pay at
various levels in various ways, and the usual social arguments about the
deprived and the privileged will evolve and rebalance things, but in the
end it will all integrate in some form. At that stage, SL will be a
fond bit of history.
On 10/29/2010 9:26 AM, Pat Rapp wrote:
Well, the user base has a lot to do with that. The learning curve for
facebook (and it's games) is minimal. Second Life is still
disorienting for all but the most enthusiastic adopters. As immersive
websites become more prevalent, virtual worlds will become more
mainstream.
*From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On
Behalf Of *David Henn
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 27, 2010 8:38 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: Av Rights
At least one reason for this is that facebook and Zynga are making
gobs of money, whereas Second Life has seen its revenues plummet and
has had to close three of its endeavors. Money talks, and all.
David
On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 23:06 -0500, Sal Armoniac wrote:
Just goes to show you that Face Book is taken more seriously than
Second Life. ;)
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 7:08 PM, Pat Rapp <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Interesting ...
http://bit.ly/8ZRbw5
"Under Italian law the virtual burglar's actions are
considered "aggravated entry" and can draw penalties of up to
five years in prison."
*From:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of *Alicia Henn
*Sent:* Friday, October 22, 2010 5:00 AM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Av Rights
http://www.jmir.org/2010/3/e28/
This is an interesting article on rights for avatars. It seems
reasonable and yet ludicrous at the same time. My officemate
and I have had a great time expanding on it. - Alicia
Get Your Paws off of My Pixels: Personal Identity and Avatars
as Self
Mark Alan Graber1,2, MD; Abraham David Graber3, BA
*ABSTRACT*
There is an astounding silence in the peer-reviewed literature
regarding what rights a person ought to expect to retain when
being represented by an avatar rather than a biological body.
Before one can have meaningful ethical discussions about
informed consent in virtual worlds, avatar bodily integrity,
and so on, the status of avatars vis-à-vis the self must first
be decided. We argue that as another manifestation of the
individual, an individual's avatar should have rights
analogous to those of a biological body. Our strategy will be
to show that (1) possessing a physical body is not a necessary
condition for possessing rights; (2) rights are already
extended to representations of a person to which no biological
consciousness is attached; and (3) when imbued with
intentionality, some prostheses become "self." We will then
argue that avatars meet all of the conditions necessary to be
protected by rights similar to those enjoyed by a biological
body. The structure of our argument will take the form of a
conditional. We will argue that /if/ a user considers an
avatar an extension of the self, /then/ the avatar has rights
analogous to the rights of the user. Finally, we will discuss
and resolve some of the objections to our position including
conflicts that may arise when more than one individual
considers an avatar to be part of the self.
*/(J Med Internet Res 2010;12(3):e28)/*
doi:10.2196/jmir.1299
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