To provide a foundation for some recent and forthcoming arguments, I would like to point to Virtual Worlds: hype or reality for businesses?, an 18-minute discussion with three panel experts, hosted by Silicon.com. Imho, this video is bang-on stuff. Anyone with an interest in virtual worlds, Second Life for business, and how this technology might shape in future should take the time to watch it. This panel nails it regarding sideways scalability, the open sourcing of server hosting, dependence and fragility of single source hosting, competition, and lack of objectivity when so much focus and commitment are with one sim. This is so much more intelligent and succinct than all the fluffy hype being blown around the info-winds, imho.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Reshaping the ego for the Virtual Web
This is the first part of a three-part post that examines potential aspects of a future Virtual Web experience. Part 1: Reshaping the ego for the Virtual Web makes the case for the essentials of self and a review of the current phenomena of the Social Web to conjecture what might take shape and work well in any virtual successor. Part 2: Virtual druthers: social union of games and Web discusses asset management and offers final a list of 15 salient aspects and why I feel each is something to be considered for a successful offering. Part 3: Virtual contenders is a list of some of the major virtual words, current and future, and how I feel they stack up against the former arguments.
I think if one were to boil it down to essentials, I would consider the cornerstone features of the existing Social Web to be ego, anonymity, and identification; yes, the last two are contradictory. If correct in this assessment, then many of the current crop of virtual worlds are lacking in one or more aspects.
Ego
Ego or the extension of self, I feel, is the most important consideration. Avatar creation and use as the foundation of the virtual experience is a given. But it seems that some existing purveyors of virtual worlds fail to realize the significance of the avatar, feeling that the function and use of the virtual space is paramount and what engages a user most. Many as well fail to realize that there are other aspects of self beyond the embodiment of an avatar. I think in the years to come, in the process of weeding that will decide which virtual worlds persist and which die, that a failure to engage our egos will be the significant cause of most failures.
Why do I think this? I would ask you, where have many of the recent most popular innovations in the current Web 2.0 changes taken place? Not just in the filtered personalized web experience crafted to our own tastes and needs, but in the expression of a more social Web. One sees this extension of self into the heretofore anonymous Web via mechanisms like blogs, wikis, YouTube, Myspace, Flickr, Facebook. What social experiments like Second Life, and even social games like World of Warcraft or Everquest, show us is that a significant amount of energy, time, and money can and will be expended on the personalization and embellishment of personal projection. When you couple the growth phenomena of the social aspects of the Web conjoined with the energies invested in avatar and personal space embellishment, any solution that ignores the emotional and social appeal of ego extension in virtual realms will fail to engage. Yes, such virtual worlds might be useful; they might allow for activities such as business, games, and education, yet they will fail to register on an emotional level if they lack the ability to project and maintain aspects of self. I pose that any such will fail to become the virtual equivalent of the existing Web.
People might maintain that the cited are merely examples of well-crafted activity spaces. That it is indeed the function or activity of the space that counts most. That is partly correct. As we shall see in Part 3, the lack of engaging activities is another failure of some virtual vendors. If not corrected, any space, virtual or not, that fails to engage enough users to achieve a critical mass to make it stand out amongst its competitors will ultimately fail. And, as shown by the rapidly changing lineup of leaders in the Social Web, users are quite willing and likely to abandon one purveyor for another who does the job better in their eyes. There is no loyalty to an activity. But there is loyalty to one's self and one’s community, including the virtual.
The bulk of people engaged in the spaces that comprise the Social Web and virtual worlds are drawn to the activities that these places provide. When we consider that education, business, and socialization are just activities, as much as any that can take place inside of MMO games, then we can define activity itself as the definition of both the Social Web and virtual space. Success is defined by use and subscription fees and is a result of how well the vendor provided for the needs of the users to participate in the activity. But, once again, there is no loyalty to an activity. As we have seen in chat clients, the ongoing battle between Myspace and Facebook, and with more and more MMO games coming up to challenge the market dominance and revenue of World of Warcraft, that activity itself can be outdone.
The resistance to change for users of such spaces does not come along the merits of activities but on how much of one's personal and perceived social network stays, or migrates to the new space. Consider MMO games, which are more like other virtual worlds; then add in the investment and emotional bond to one’s avatar self – nonexistent for some, but highly important for others. Both of these factors provide a sort of social glue that brings traction to the space, beyond the merits of its activity. Challenging activity spaces must bring either a much better mechanism for the activity function, or offer attractive new features to create a lot of initial interest. Since these spaces are mostly proprietary, there are no guarantees that one's existing social network will also make a conversion and very little likelihood that any avatar investment will survive the transition. And though some users do participate in multiple spaces along the same kind of activity, hoping to preserve as well as adapt, given a finite amount of time, there is usually a favorite that wins out in the end.
These transitions are very expensive. Users are faced with some sacrifice of themselves, either social contacts who are unwilling to migrate, or their own avatar investment. Businesses must constantly try to reshape their offerings to attract or retain users, or ascertain who to partner with. Process improvements are found but the energy expenditure, wasted efforts, and social dissatisfaction that results are the reason why there will be pressure to transform what are likely to be initial virtual world empires into a comprehensive virtual solution akin to the Web.
The single factor most unique to virtual worlds is the abstraction of ego into visible forms. The use of icons in forums and movies on video share sites in the current Social Web is a hint that our desire to present a form to the world at large is ever-most. Virtual world vendors who embrace and understand this need for self expression will have clear advantages over their competitors. They will enjoy a form of associative loyalty possibly, probably I would say, more powerful than the social glue provided by personal networks. Persistence and the time it takes to craft those visible forms of ego create by their very nature an investment in the space. More choices, more variety, implies more time, and hence more association with those forms, with more implied loyalty therefore to the space that houses them. Though activity will be the draw that brings the crowds, it will be the permutations and persistence of ego, as well as social networks, that will help retain them. We have already seen this in current MMO games; there is no reason not to expect the same from other virtual worlds.
When I speak of persistence of ego, I’m actually referring to two abstracts of oneself: space (static) and avatar (dynamic). Personal virtual space, be it a house, a castle, a starship, are analogous to blogs, online photo albums, and Myspace pages. Commercial virtual spaces, stores, kiosks, and vending machines have the same relation to commercial web sites with less of their actual use currently, due to lack of mechanisms and security concerns. So to say that a future virtual world should maintain persistent space is simply to ask one to rethink existing Web spaces in three-dimensional terms. Comparing Web and virtual spaces, each type of presence can have visitors; each demonstrates something about the owner in its design and contents; each can be the instigator of social or business contact and therefore contains the potential to drive interaction or commerce; each seeks to engage. The leap to understanding this concept is not hard to reach. It's only left to ask if the purveyor of the virtual world feels that that a mechanism to offer and maintain personal space is worth the overhead of maintenance and creation. I suggest that they should consider such worthwhile, if any of the success of the Social Web is valid. Where virtual worlds surpass existing Web 2.0 mechanisms is in the level of immersion.
The projection of self into a definable form is new to virtual worlds and does not have a correlation to the existing Web. Heretofore, we interacted directly with the Web via point, click and URL. Now, in virtual terms, we must craft a visible intermediary, an avatar, that represents us. On the one hand, this can be incredibly freeing in that we can rethink ourselves and present ourselves, not as how we might seem, but how we wish to be seen as. The importance of this projection to how others interact with us is not lost on anyone who has spent significant time in a world like Second Life, one that allows for infinite avatar permutation. However, most other worlds, as can be seen in Part 3, offer only limited options when crafting a concept of self. For this reason, though they might succeed on other levels of entertainment, security or ease of use, and might enjoy initial success, they will ultimately be susceptible to being supplanted by a later offering that connects more personally with the user. Furthermore, none of these worlds as yet offers the ability to translate in any way avatar, space, or any form of virtual self-expression over to another offering. They are each closed systems vying for dominance and yet unable or unwilling to register that the ultimate best use, like the current Web, is the ability to interlink and travel everywhere, in a form of one's own choosing.
Anonymity and identification
Virtual worlds present some significant challenges and differences in how we engage each other. Perception is everything, at least at first. Avatars can and will be as like or unlike to ourselves as we wish, limited only to the choices inherent in the creation system offered by the space vendor. Sometimes these choices are only offered at onset upon creation of the avatar, aspects being fixed, partly or in whole, thereafter. In other systems, they are exchangeable at will for any form anytime. A person might be represented as a single avatar or have multiple representations. The summation is that we can never be sure of whom we are dealing with when engaged with another person’s avatar. We can only see them as they wish to be seen, just as they see us for how we wish to be seen, something very new and very powerful for the virtual experience that separates it from other forms of interaction that have come before.
But as freeing as this is to some, it can be extremely frustrating to others. Harping back to that point of being social animals, we have evolved to using the appearance of others to help us understand how to engage each other. It's in the very nature of our personal dealings, whether we understand or acknowledge it or not. Studies have been shown where people tend to react to avatars as if their own avatar and the others were in fact real, using the same visual cues they would have in real life. Aspects of gender, age, attractiveness, height, or weight all carry preconceptions. But there is no guarantee any longer that any such appearances have any true foundation with the person behind the masque. Right or wrong, true or misconceived, many people feel that ethnicity, clothing, hairstyle, expressions and body language might offer them clues to such things as culture, class, nationality, or orientation and might use such clues to govern their interchanges. In the virtual setting, some of these are either missing or boiled down to very limited animations. Just as has often occurred when misreading the intention behind written text, devoid of the body cues that embellished the meaning, there is frustration and apprehension that a misreading will lead to a misunderstanding, or that one is never free to fully express oneself fully given the lack of verification and a potential for deception.
And, aside for some virtual words built around an activity or activity theme, the two most current being social and gaming, where appearance is taken in context, there is a challenge and affront to some when it comes to dealing with the more outrageous or fantastical forms that people choose to adopt. For example, except for worlds such as Club Penguin where such are the norm, some people find that interacting with an animal avatar is just too silly or disconcerting. There might be cultural issues as well. As shown in Mary Chase's play, not everyone has Elwood P. Dowd's capacity to accept and interact with a six-foot tall anthropomorphic rabbit as an equal. Perhaps it is more with the issue of equality when examined in purely social settings – and having fantastic shapes just makes this more apparent. Or perhaps it is or is also the inability to know when to say what that people really have issue with. And in virtual worlds, there is a possibility of encountering many Harveys along the way.
For certain activities, such as business, and for legal considerations in both social and business dealings, anonymity is anathema. At some point, regardless of surface anonymity, there must be a way to effectively engage the real person's identification verification and payment mechanisms to both ensure payment as well as receipt of goods and services. That usually means a name, and address, and other identifiers along the way. And when such transactions fail, to know that there are ramifications and avenues of redress available to users, helps foster economic security. Go-betweens such as PayPal and vendors such as Linden Lab help insulate the identities from the transaction, but for real commerce and use to ensue, no one doubts that there must be a way to effectively engage parties directly.
In other situations, it is equally important to know the true nature of the person behind the avatar. If a virtual world is used as a distance-negating tool for meetings and negotiations, someone who thought he was dealing with an adult for a real world auto sale would be very disconcerted if he were to find out that the adult person he thought he was making a case to was actually a precocious seven year old, wasting his valuable time. Conversely, a young child who found a friend elsewhere in the world to share thoughts and personal confidences with might be shocked, as would their horrified parents, to find out that the child avatar on the other end was in reality an adult pedophile milking the child for information. So used are we to judging people in the context of how they appear, that there is a real danger for misuse beyond the extent of embarrassment.
These are all valid and compelling arguments, along with so many others, for the need for transparency. But there are others just as valid and compelling for the need for anonymity. Anonymity is one of the reasons why the Web and Social Web have seen such success to date. Anonymity allows for safe socialization and exploration. Many women for instance like the safer nature of virtual social interaction in going to new scenes and not having to deal with the repercussions of aggressive or unwanted attention; it has given them more control. People like to sometimes go shopping or check out trade shows without having to worry about being pestered in their real life with annoying offers. Children are finding that they can be team leaders in some activity spaces, even directing unknowing adults, something that would never happen in real world groups, and thus fostering confidence in their own abilities and leadership. People with disabilities can have others not focus on the first thing that comes to mind when seeing them in real life and can sometimes find more acceptance in online worlds where all looks are equal essentially. And for some activities, such as games and roleplaying, some people just like to keep that aspect of their lives private without perceived repercussions of others knowing that they cavort as an elf archer in a fantasy game some eves – all of which helps drive business for vendors of such.
Granted, there are serious negative aspects to these as well. Social stagnation, excessive distraction and dependence on virtual worlds, failure in general to engage the real world are all real concerns that people need address. But my issue is not to judge the validity and use of virtual worlds but to offer thoughts on how to best apply them. Change is a constant and all socially impacting technologies are going to require people to reassess their values and try to reapply these to the new challenges faced by work and interaction with these tools.
One of the ways we can and should think about how to best apply the uses of the virtual world in relation to anonymous versus identified/verified is to consider that any Virtual Web is just an extension of the Web, which itself is just an extension of the real world, encapsulated and drawn together by this new electronic phenomena. I'll make more of a case for this in Part 2, but appearance and identity should be thought of as two aspects, linked, but distinct. Just as we walk around the world dressed how we wish to be, our identities aren't (hopefully) demanded of us on every turn of the corner. But when we wish to engage our environment, say to purchase something or prove our qualifications to enter a space or engage an activity, then we must provide corroborating identification and means. The same is true of the Web. We are essentially anonymous and we can even represent ourselves as something other than the truth to some extent, but when presented with the need to function, we must present the validated means of access or payment. And function is the key word here. The function of engaging a virtual space in a social or social activity context is not the same as conducting business. They are two distinct uses of a virtual space. And when such a space contains both or all types of activity, such as a projected Virtual Web, then it must allow for all uses of that space.
Therefore, when conducting business or verification for access, I argue that there should be mechanisms for validating an identity that would not be tied to displayed name or surface appearance of an avatar. There is just no need for it. Validation, identity, payment, should all be "subcutaneous" aspects of an avatar account, accessible when needed, but unseen and inaccessible to others when not. It’s not much different than my changing clothes (going to a costume party or fishing even) but always carrying my wallet. Or in a Web sense, just shopping the Web but when I see something that strikes my fancy, I either have my credit card or I make use of the handy PayPal button. Until that point, they shouldn't know or care who I am (sorry to the marketing folks but I’m on the side of anonymity) until the point that I decide to buy.
The most likely aspect I see is that, unless a governing body, like the Web 3D Consortium, is able to shepherd all venues to a universal and interchangeable linked standard, that there will likely be many successful but mutually exclusive virtual worlds, each governed around an activity or set of activities. If there is to be a future encompassing Virtual Web, it will be more likely drawn from the most successful aspects of these offerings. Or, less likely, it will be a single offering that has captured the market. I'll examine some of these in Part 3. The sooner we can see the realization of a universal Virtual Web, the sooner we can realize the advantages that such a space will engender, as well as confront the challenges that it will bring. I'll go over the 15 core aspects that I would like to see included in Part 2.
I think if one were to boil it down to essentials, I would consider the cornerstone features of the existing Social Web to be ego, anonymity, and identification; yes, the last two are contradictory. If correct in this assessment, then many of the current crop of virtual worlds are lacking in one or more aspects.
Ego
Ego or the extension of self, I feel, is the most important consideration. Avatar creation and use as the foundation of the virtual experience is a given. But it seems that some existing purveyors of virtual worlds fail to realize the significance of the avatar, feeling that the function and use of the virtual space is paramount and what engages a user most. Many as well fail to realize that there are other aspects of self beyond the embodiment of an avatar. I think in the years to come, in the process of weeding that will decide which virtual worlds persist and which die, that a failure to engage our egos will be the significant cause of most failures.
Why do I think this? I would ask you, where have many of the recent most popular innovations in the current Web 2.0 changes taken place? Not just in the filtered personalized web experience crafted to our own tastes and needs, but in the expression of a more social Web. One sees this extension of self into the heretofore anonymous Web via mechanisms like blogs, wikis, YouTube, Myspace, Flickr, Facebook. What social experiments like Second Life, and even social games like World of Warcraft or Everquest, show us is that a significant amount of energy, time, and money can and will be expended on the personalization and embellishment of personal projection. When you couple the growth phenomena of the social aspects of the Web conjoined with the energies invested in avatar and personal space embellishment, any solution that ignores the emotional and social appeal of ego extension in virtual realms will fail to engage. Yes, such virtual worlds might be useful; they might allow for activities such as business, games, and education, yet they will fail to register on an emotional level if they lack the ability to project and maintain aspects of self. I pose that any such will fail to become the virtual equivalent of the existing Web.
People might maintain that the cited are merely examples of well-crafted activity spaces. That it is indeed the function or activity of the space that counts most. That is partly correct. As we shall see in Part 3, the lack of engaging activities is another failure of some virtual vendors. If not corrected, any space, virtual or not, that fails to engage enough users to achieve a critical mass to make it stand out amongst its competitors will ultimately fail. And, as shown by the rapidly changing lineup of leaders in the Social Web, users are quite willing and likely to abandon one purveyor for another who does the job better in their eyes. There is no loyalty to an activity. But there is loyalty to one's self and one’s community, including the virtual.
The bulk of people engaged in the spaces that comprise the Social Web and virtual worlds are drawn to the activities that these places provide. When we consider that education, business, and socialization are just activities, as much as any that can take place inside of MMO games, then we can define activity itself as the definition of both the Social Web and virtual space. Success is defined by use and subscription fees and is a result of how well the vendor provided for the needs of the users to participate in the activity. But, once again, there is no loyalty to an activity. As we have seen in chat clients, the ongoing battle between Myspace and Facebook, and with more and more MMO games coming up to challenge the market dominance and revenue of World of Warcraft, that activity itself can be outdone.
The resistance to change for users of such spaces does not come along the merits of activities but on how much of one's personal and perceived social network stays, or migrates to the new space. Consider MMO games, which are more like other virtual worlds; then add in the investment and emotional bond to one’s avatar self – nonexistent for some, but highly important for others. Both of these factors provide a sort of social glue that brings traction to the space, beyond the merits of its activity. Challenging activity spaces must bring either a much better mechanism for the activity function, or offer attractive new features to create a lot of initial interest. Since these spaces are mostly proprietary, there are no guarantees that one's existing social network will also make a conversion and very little likelihood that any avatar investment will survive the transition. And though some users do participate in multiple spaces along the same kind of activity, hoping to preserve as well as adapt, given a finite amount of time, there is usually a favorite that wins out in the end.
These transitions are very expensive. Users are faced with some sacrifice of themselves, either social contacts who are unwilling to migrate, or their own avatar investment. Businesses must constantly try to reshape their offerings to attract or retain users, or ascertain who to partner with. Process improvements are found but the energy expenditure, wasted efforts, and social dissatisfaction that results are the reason why there will be pressure to transform what are likely to be initial virtual world empires into a comprehensive virtual solution akin to the Web.
The single factor most unique to virtual worlds is the abstraction of ego into visible forms. The use of icons in forums and movies on video share sites in the current Social Web is a hint that our desire to present a form to the world at large is ever-most. Virtual world vendors who embrace and understand this need for self expression will have clear advantages over their competitors. They will enjoy a form of associative loyalty possibly, probably I would say, more powerful than the social glue provided by personal networks. Persistence and the time it takes to craft those visible forms of ego create by their very nature an investment in the space. More choices, more variety, implies more time, and hence more association with those forms, with more implied loyalty therefore to the space that houses them. Though activity will be the draw that brings the crowds, it will be the permutations and persistence of ego, as well as social networks, that will help retain them. We have already seen this in current MMO games; there is no reason not to expect the same from other virtual worlds.
When I speak of persistence of ego, I’m actually referring to two abstracts of oneself: space (static) and avatar (dynamic). Personal virtual space, be it a house, a castle, a starship, are analogous to blogs, online photo albums, and Myspace pages. Commercial virtual spaces, stores, kiosks, and vending machines have the same relation to commercial web sites with less of their actual use currently, due to lack of mechanisms and security concerns. So to say that a future virtual world should maintain persistent space is simply to ask one to rethink existing Web spaces in three-dimensional terms. Comparing Web and virtual spaces, each type of presence can have visitors; each demonstrates something about the owner in its design and contents; each can be the instigator of social or business contact and therefore contains the potential to drive interaction or commerce; each seeks to engage. The leap to understanding this concept is not hard to reach. It's only left to ask if the purveyor of the virtual world feels that that a mechanism to offer and maintain personal space is worth the overhead of maintenance and creation. I suggest that they should consider such worthwhile, if any of the success of the Social Web is valid. Where virtual worlds surpass existing Web 2.0 mechanisms is in the level of immersion.
The projection of self into a definable form is new to virtual worlds and does not have a correlation to the existing Web. Heretofore, we interacted directly with the Web via point, click and URL. Now, in virtual terms, we must craft a visible intermediary, an avatar, that represents us. On the one hand, this can be incredibly freeing in that we can rethink ourselves and present ourselves, not as how we might seem, but how we wish to be seen as. The importance of this projection to how others interact with us is not lost on anyone who has spent significant time in a world like Second Life, one that allows for infinite avatar permutation. However, most other worlds, as can be seen in Part 3, offer only limited options when crafting a concept of self. For this reason, though they might succeed on other levels of entertainment, security or ease of use, and might enjoy initial success, they will ultimately be susceptible to being supplanted by a later offering that connects more personally with the user. Furthermore, none of these worlds as yet offers the ability to translate in any way avatar, space, or any form of virtual self-expression over to another offering. They are each closed systems vying for dominance and yet unable or unwilling to register that the ultimate best use, like the current Web, is the ability to interlink and travel everywhere, in a form of one's own choosing.
Anonymity and identification
Virtual worlds present some significant challenges and differences in how we engage each other. Perception is everything, at least at first. Avatars can and will be as like or unlike to ourselves as we wish, limited only to the choices inherent in the creation system offered by the space vendor. Sometimes these choices are only offered at onset upon creation of the avatar, aspects being fixed, partly or in whole, thereafter. In other systems, they are exchangeable at will for any form anytime. A person might be represented as a single avatar or have multiple representations. The summation is that we can never be sure of whom we are dealing with when engaged with another person’s avatar. We can only see them as they wish to be seen, just as they see us for how we wish to be seen, something very new and very powerful for the virtual experience that separates it from other forms of interaction that have come before.
But as freeing as this is to some, it can be extremely frustrating to others. Harping back to that point of being social animals, we have evolved to using the appearance of others to help us understand how to engage each other. It's in the very nature of our personal dealings, whether we understand or acknowledge it or not. Studies have been shown where people tend to react to avatars as if their own avatar and the others were in fact real, using the same visual cues they would have in real life. Aspects of gender, age, attractiveness, height, or weight all carry preconceptions. But there is no guarantee any longer that any such appearances have any true foundation with the person behind the masque. Right or wrong, true or misconceived, many people feel that ethnicity, clothing, hairstyle, expressions and body language might offer them clues to such things as culture, class, nationality, or orientation and might use such clues to govern their interchanges. In the virtual setting, some of these are either missing or boiled down to very limited animations. Just as has often occurred when misreading the intention behind written text, devoid of the body cues that embellished the meaning, there is frustration and apprehension that a misreading will lead to a misunderstanding, or that one is never free to fully express oneself fully given the lack of verification and a potential for deception.
And, aside for some virtual words built around an activity or activity theme, the two most current being social and gaming, where appearance is taken in context, there is a challenge and affront to some when it comes to dealing with the more outrageous or fantastical forms that people choose to adopt. For example, except for worlds such as Club Penguin where such are the norm, some people find that interacting with an animal avatar is just too silly or disconcerting. There might be cultural issues as well. As shown in Mary Chase's play, not everyone has Elwood P. Dowd's capacity to accept and interact with a six-foot tall anthropomorphic rabbit as an equal. Perhaps it is more with the issue of equality when examined in purely social settings – and having fantastic shapes just makes this more apparent. Or perhaps it is or is also the inability to know when to say what that people really have issue with. And in virtual worlds, there is a possibility of encountering many Harveys along the way.
For certain activities, such as business, and for legal considerations in both social and business dealings, anonymity is anathema. At some point, regardless of surface anonymity, there must be a way to effectively engage the real person's identification verification and payment mechanisms to both ensure payment as well as receipt of goods and services. That usually means a name, and address, and other identifiers along the way. And when such transactions fail, to know that there are ramifications and avenues of redress available to users, helps foster economic security. Go-betweens such as PayPal and vendors such as Linden Lab help insulate the identities from the transaction, but for real commerce and use to ensue, no one doubts that there must be a way to effectively engage parties directly.
In other situations, it is equally important to know the true nature of the person behind the avatar. If a virtual world is used as a distance-negating tool for meetings and negotiations, someone who thought he was dealing with an adult for a real world auto sale would be very disconcerted if he were to find out that the adult person he thought he was making a case to was actually a precocious seven year old, wasting his valuable time. Conversely, a young child who found a friend elsewhere in the world to share thoughts and personal confidences with might be shocked, as would their horrified parents, to find out that the child avatar on the other end was in reality an adult pedophile milking the child for information. So used are we to judging people in the context of how they appear, that there is a real danger for misuse beyond the extent of embarrassment.
These are all valid and compelling arguments, along with so many others, for the need for transparency. But there are others just as valid and compelling for the need for anonymity. Anonymity is one of the reasons why the Web and Social Web have seen such success to date. Anonymity allows for safe socialization and exploration. Many women for instance like the safer nature of virtual social interaction in going to new scenes and not having to deal with the repercussions of aggressive or unwanted attention; it has given them more control. People like to sometimes go shopping or check out trade shows without having to worry about being pestered in their real life with annoying offers. Children are finding that they can be team leaders in some activity spaces, even directing unknowing adults, something that would never happen in real world groups, and thus fostering confidence in their own abilities and leadership. People with disabilities can have others not focus on the first thing that comes to mind when seeing them in real life and can sometimes find more acceptance in online worlds where all looks are equal essentially. And for some activities, such as games and roleplaying, some people just like to keep that aspect of their lives private without perceived repercussions of others knowing that they cavort as an elf archer in a fantasy game some eves – all of which helps drive business for vendors of such.
Granted, there are serious negative aspects to these as well. Social stagnation, excessive distraction and dependence on virtual worlds, failure in general to engage the real world are all real concerns that people need address. But my issue is not to judge the validity and use of virtual worlds but to offer thoughts on how to best apply them. Change is a constant and all socially impacting technologies are going to require people to reassess their values and try to reapply these to the new challenges faced by work and interaction with these tools.
One of the ways we can and should think about how to best apply the uses of the virtual world in relation to anonymous versus identified/verified is to consider that any Virtual Web is just an extension of the Web, which itself is just an extension of the real world, encapsulated and drawn together by this new electronic phenomena. I'll make more of a case for this in Part 2, but appearance and identity should be thought of as two aspects, linked, but distinct. Just as we walk around the world dressed how we wish to be, our identities aren't (hopefully) demanded of us on every turn of the corner. But when we wish to engage our environment, say to purchase something or prove our qualifications to enter a space or engage an activity, then we must provide corroborating identification and means. The same is true of the Web. We are essentially anonymous and we can even represent ourselves as something other than the truth to some extent, but when presented with the need to function, we must present the validated means of access or payment. And function is the key word here. The function of engaging a virtual space in a social or social activity context is not the same as conducting business. They are two distinct uses of a virtual space. And when such a space contains both or all types of activity, such as a projected Virtual Web, then it must allow for all uses of that space.
Therefore, when conducting business or verification for access, I argue that there should be mechanisms for validating an identity that would not be tied to displayed name or surface appearance of an avatar. There is just no need for it. Validation, identity, payment, should all be "subcutaneous" aspects of an avatar account, accessible when needed, but unseen and inaccessible to others when not. It’s not much different than my changing clothes (going to a costume party or fishing even) but always carrying my wallet. Or in a Web sense, just shopping the Web but when I see something that strikes my fancy, I either have my credit card or I make use of the handy PayPal button. Until that point, they shouldn't know or care who I am (sorry to the marketing folks but I’m on the side of anonymity) until the point that I decide to buy.
The most likely aspect I see is that, unless a governing body, like the Web 3D Consortium, is able to shepherd all venues to a universal and interchangeable linked standard, that there will likely be many successful but mutually exclusive virtual worlds, each governed around an activity or set of activities. If there is to be a future encompassing Virtual Web, it will be more likely drawn from the most successful aspects of these offerings. Or, less likely, it will be a single offering that has captured the market. I'll examine some of these in Part 3. The sooner we can see the realization of a universal Virtual Web, the sooner we can realize the advantages that such a space will engender, as well as confront the challenges that it will bring. I'll go over the 15 core aspects that I would like to see included in Part 2.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Dark and Stormy Night 2007
San Jose State University, sponsors for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, aka Dark and Stormy Night Contest, aka Where WWW means Wretched Writers Welcome, has posted the results for the 2007 winners.
This annual contest run by the English Department requires entrants to write the very first line of a really bad novel. You can get a hint of what to expect by reviewing, in descending order, the winners from 2004, a banner year whose pungent prose will be forever savored for its overbearing ripeness ;-) - Other past winners from this twenty-five year old effort can be read in the book, It was a Dark and Stormy Night, published by The Friday Project.
This annual contest run by the English Department requires entrants to write the very first line of a really bad novel. You can get a hint of what to expect by reviewing, in descending order, the winners from 2004, a banner year whose pungent prose will be forever savored for its overbearing ripeness ;-) - Other past winners from this twenty-five year old effort can be read in the book, It was a Dark and Stormy Night, published by The Friday Project.
10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it."
9) "Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens."
8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."
7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.'"
6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."
5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."
4) "Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do."
3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor."
2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies."
1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You lied!"
SL Spotlight: Coldwell Banker
Last Sunday, I took some time to explore the Coldwell Banker site in Second Life (SL). Thinking that the recreation of a showcase home was an almost obvious brilliant use of virtual worlds (similar to taking VRML photographs), I wanted to see how they pulled it off. Well, I wasn't so impressed with the home (the recreation was good, just not my taste), but I was really impressed with the simulation.
This is one of the best business uses of SL and a virtual world, if not the best, that I’ve come across to date. This simulation is worth looking at in detail because of its multi-faceted nature in terms of use, attraction, and as a bridge to areas outside of the simulation. Let’s examine it in terms of my eight-point list from my report for what constitutes a good business plan for a sim-space.
The main headquarter building you first come to is nicely done but typically boring and offers prominent branding done in an obvious though not too over-the-top presentation throughout (#2). When one first enters the space, one is presented with a number of interesting offers. One is for free nice-quality animated furniture and other freebies. People in SL love freebies – especially those they can use to dress up themselves or their personal spaces (#5). Word gets around; people come and expose themselves to branding (#2), if only to get the freebie. Can they be lured to see more? The answer is yes, judging by the fact that this was one business sim that obviously had traffic. I could see many people there, more arriving all the time. This space is clever enough to present interesting offers directly up front, but as well reward exploration by hinting at more rewards (#5) lying within, each discovery precipitating a desire to see what else there might be.
About those "interesting offers": one is an information and teleport terminal to a recreation of an actual showcase multi-million dollar home that is for sale IRL (#4). Interested parties can read the fact sheet, walk through the reproduction, including bathroom and kitchen fixtures; if they want to take it the next step, they can leave a message on the for-sale sign in front of the house that will generate an e-mail to the real estate agent for more information or possibly to tour the real home (which is in Seattle). This larger than it would be IRL for-sale sign in front of the house included agent photo and name, photo links, and more information. Its larger size both helped it contain more information but also to help it stand out as something special from the rental homes around it. The other offer is an invitation to simply "touch" the board to enter a contest to get $15,000 U.S. for a home makeover (#4). Either of these will generate real contacts that can be investigated IRL and as well, draw and keep interest in other offers. Offering a tour of a home replica is a brilliant, obvious I would say, use of SL. Just one sale generated from such a use could offset the development costs for the sim and such models for years to come (#1).
Off to the right, is a timeline display (#3), which offers information about news and about the world featuring top stories from decades past, encouraging visitors to not only learn, but possibly enticing them to see what else the sim has to offer (#5).
Within this simulation, Coldwell Banker offers a number of rentals. There is a large area with a variety of homes, broken up to three neighborhoods organized and named according to themes. Which homes are for rent are displayed on models of the three neighborhoods in the area just past the entrance in the interior of the first floor. These models aren't explained at first but they offer a fun chance to see what is available (#5). These homes are being offered to SL residents to rent as personal space for a fee that is very low compared to other offerings (a bit less than $1 U.S. per week), with a very generous prim allotment to allow for customization and with a selection of home styles enough to suit just about any taste. This is genius on many levels: it provides a service that people will bring people to the simulation to rent space (#5); the pricing and prim allotment are very generous (#3); that makes people happy with the good service and cheap cost (#2); the fact that people are homed in the simulation means that they will constantly pass through the area, bring visitors and friends to their home space, who might be exposed to branding (#2), as well new offers for real services, such as the showcase home (the first of many I’ve no doubt), parked right in the middle of the residential area (#4); being homed adds to the traffic of the sim and since sim popularity is assessed by traffic, this will keep Coldwell Banker higher in the sim traffic index, making its relative popularity more obvious, which again attracts more visitors (#2); finally, the rentals, though generous, are quite extensive. They not only add to the neighborhood theme, which is itself clever branding and ties in very well with Coldwell Banker’s business, but they generate real albeit modest revenue, enough to subsidize Coldwell Banker’s sim costs (#6) for their presence in SL.
And it doesn’t end there: there is even a further tie-in to this rental offering. Next to the model of the neighborhoods, showing which homes are available for rent, there is card with a large key on the floor below it. Find three such keys spread through the sim, and one will receive a free week’s rental in a home. Again, genius: fun activity (#5), encourages exploration of the sim (#2), more exposure to real services (#2 & #4), and possibly even encouraging a new tenant to settle down in the sim, lured by the free week’s rental, and all attendant advantages as described above (#2, #4-6). Who knows - maybe even the one contact that leads to a successful home sale from being exposed to one of the real showcase homes recreated in-sim (#1)!
Just inside, there is a contact point where either a real person is staffed to answer questions (#3) and if not, the chance to leave a message, which will generate an e-mail and response for your avatar later, whether it is online or not. Given the stored messaging capability of SL, knowing that there is an interested warm body waiting, Coldwell Bank staffers can make arrangements to meet the prospective avatar(s) at a convenient time, possibly even offering fun activities like a helicopter ride (see below).
On the floors above the main reception floor on the first level, There is plenty of conferencing space upstairs (#1). Obviously one can’t discuss sensitive information but this space also provides a great place to meet potential clients and answer general business information on a 1:1 basis (#3). As well, there are two functional helicopters on the roof. Though there was no information provided, my guess is that these are there for Coldwell Banker staff members to take visitors on tours of the sim (#2 & #5), including rentals (#6), real offers, possibly even to add members to an existing list of contacts for future offers or events (#4-6).
So Coldwell Banker has done a brilliant job and to say that they obviously have addressed points #7 & #8 is a gross understatement. Whoever thought up this model not only understood how to engage the population of the sim, use the strengths of virtual worlds over other contact points, but even to generate real revenue, either sim support revenue in the form of virtual rentals (which themselves fit so well into the theme of a business selling homes) to contacts for real world sales. All of this, will of course, once more people visit it, not only make Coldwell Banker’s island a success, but bring people to look at a business that might have never done so before because they intelligently and competently assessed, served, and engaged their market (#2).
This is one of the best business uses of SL and a virtual world, if not the best, that I’ve come across to date. This simulation is worth looking at in detail because of its multi-faceted nature in terms of use, attraction, and as a bridge to areas outside of the simulation. Let’s examine it in terms of my eight-point list from my report for what constitutes a good business plan for a sim-space.
The main headquarter building you first come to is nicely done but typically boring and offers prominent branding done in an obvious though not too over-the-top presentation throughout (#2). When one first enters the space, one is presented with a number of interesting offers. One is for free nice-quality animated furniture and other freebies. People in SL love freebies – especially those they can use to dress up themselves or their personal spaces (#5). Word gets around; people come and expose themselves to branding (#2), if only to get the freebie. Can they be lured to see more? The answer is yes, judging by the fact that this was one business sim that obviously had traffic. I could see many people there, more arriving all the time. This space is clever enough to present interesting offers directly up front, but as well reward exploration by hinting at more rewards (#5) lying within, each discovery precipitating a desire to see what else there might be.
About those "interesting offers": one is an information and teleport terminal to a recreation of an actual showcase multi-million dollar home that is for sale IRL (#4). Interested parties can read the fact sheet, walk through the reproduction, including bathroom and kitchen fixtures; if they want to take it the next step, they can leave a message on the for-sale sign in front of the house that will generate an e-mail to the real estate agent for more information or possibly to tour the real home (which is in Seattle). This larger than it would be IRL for-sale sign in front of the house included agent photo and name, photo links, and more information. Its larger size both helped it contain more information but also to help it stand out as something special from the rental homes around it. The other offer is an invitation to simply "touch" the board to enter a contest to get $15,000 U.S. for a home makeover (#4). Either of these will generate real contacts that can be investigated IRL and as well, draw and keep interest in other offers. Offering a tour of a home replica is a brilliant, obvious I would say, use of SL. Just one sale generated from such a use could offset the development costs for the sim and such models for years to come (#1).
Off to the right, is a timeline display (#3), which offers information about news and about the world featuring top stories from decades past, encouraging visitors to not only learn, but possibly enticing them to see what else the sim has to offer (#5).
Within this simulation, Coldwell Banker offers a number of rentals. There is a large area with a variety of homes, broken up to three neighborhoods organized and named according to themes. Which homes are for rent are displayed on models of the three neighborhoods in the area just past the entrance in the interior of the first floor. These models aren't explained at first but they offer a fun chance to see what is available (#5). These homes are being offered to SL residents to rent as personal space for a fee that is very low compared to other offerings (a bit less than $1 U.S. per week), with a very generous prim allotment to allow for customization and with a selection of home styles enough to suit just about any taste. This is genius on many levels: it provides a service that people will bring people to the simulation to rent space (#5); the pricing and prim allotment are very generous (#3); that makes people happy with the good service and cheap cost (#2); the fact that people are homed in the simulation means that they will constantly pass through the area, bring visitors and friends to their home space, who might be exposed to branding (#2), as well new offers for real services, such as the showcase home (the first of many I’ve no doubt), parked right in the middle of the residential area (#4); being homed adds to the traffic of the sim and since sim popularity is assessed by traffic, this will keep Coldwell Banker higher in the sim traffic index, making its relative popularity more obvious, which again attracts more visitors (#2); finally, the rentals, though generous, are quite extensive. They not only add to the neighborhood theme, which is itself clever branding and ties in very well with Coldwell Banker’s business, but they generate real albeit modest revenue, enough to subsidize Coldwell Banker’s sim costs (#6) for their presence in SL.
And it doesn’t end there: there is even a further tie-in to this rental offering. Next to the model of the neighborhoods, showing which homes are available for rent, there is card with a large key on the floor below it. Find three such keys spread through the sim, and one will receive a free week’s rental in a home. Again, genius: fun activity (#5), encourages exploration of the sim (#2), more exposure to real services (#2 & #4), and possibly even encouraging a new tenant to settle down in the sim, lured by the free week’s rental, and all attendant advantages as described above (#2, #4-6). Who knows - maybe even the one contact that leads to a successful home sale from being exposed to one of the real showcase homes recreated in-sim (#1)!
Just inside, there is a contact point where either a real person is staffed to answer questions (#3) and if not, the chance to leave a message, which will generate an e-mail and response for your avatar later, whether it is online or not. Given the stored messaging capability of SL, knowing that there is an interested warm body waiting, Coldwell Bank staffers can make arrangements to meet the prospective avatar(s) at a convenient time, possibly even offering fun activities like a helicopter ride (see below).
On the floors above the main reception floor on the first level, There is plenty of conferencing space upstairs (#1). Obviously one can’t discuss sensitive information but this space also provides a great place to meet potential clients and answer general business information on a 1:1 basis (#3). As well, there are two functional helicopters on the roof. Though there was no information provided, my guess is that these are there for Coldwell Banker staff members to take visitors on tours of the sim (#2 & #5), including rentals (#6), real offers, possibly even to add members to an existing list of contacts for future offers or events (#4-6).
So Coldwell Banker has done a brilliant job and to say that they obviously have addressed points #7 & #8 is a gross understatement. Whoever thought up this model not only understood how to engage the population of the sim, use the strengths of virtual worlds over other contact points, but even to generate real revenue, either sim support revenue in the form of virtual rentals (which themselves fit so well into the theme of a business selling homes) to contacts for real world sales. All of this, will of course, once more people visit it, not only make Coldwell Banker’s island a success, but bring people to look at a business that might have never done so before because they intelligently and competently assessed, served, and engaged their market (#2).
Eight points to ponder
What came first? The prim or the plan?
The following is an excerpt from a team report I did investigating Second Life as a possible solution for some business needs. It represents my thoughts (concerns even) about what needs to be considered first before making the leap into a virtual presence. There is so much that is shiny and sexy about virtual worlds in all the attention they are receiving that the desire to participate can sometimes be premature, imho. And not wanting to add another empty presence to the virtual landscape, these are the points I feel should be considered prior to any construction. Not all might be answered in a satisfactory way, but it wont' be a wasted effort for trying.
The reason I posted this here is that I'll be addressing these points in a case study post later for what I consider to be a very successful and well-thought out implementation for Second Life: Coldwell Banker's sim island. That particular adaptation does not address the particulars of my team's needs but it does represent a successful adaptation into virtual scope. And it does meet all of the points below.
The following is an excerpt from a team report I did investigating Second Life as a possible solution for some business needs. It represents my thoughts (concerns even) about what needs to be considered first before making the leap into a virtual presence. There is so much that is shiny and sexy about virtual worlds in all the attention they are receiving that the desire to participate can sometimes be premature, imho. And not wanting to add another empty presence to the virtual landscape, these are the points I feel should be considered prior to any construction. Not all might be answered in a satisfactory way, but it wont' be a wasted effort for trying.
The reason I posted this here is that I'll be addressing these points in a case study post later for what I consider to be a very successful and well-thought out implementation for Second Life: Coldwell Banker's sim island. That particular adaptation does not address the particulars of my team's needs but it does represent a successful adaptation into virtual scope. And it does meet all of the points below.
1. Try to find a realistic business use for one’s own employees to function in the simulation. (a)
2. Establish a handsome presence with prominent branding. Advertise your sim and its location.
3. Offer a contribution to the simulation’s community and function (b)
4. Offer unique goods or services that customers can only get within the simulation but which are used in the real world. (c)
5. (optional) Offer an activity or goods that are useful or entertaining, but which can only be used within the simulation (d)
6. Offer an in-sim business activity, viable goods and services that reflect the services or products you sell. Make any such apparent along with contact information and methods of access and payment. (e)
7. Don’t be lured by hype but don’t be slow to adopt, if such seems to make business sense.
8. Really should be the first step, but everyone seems to leave this last so it appears last here. Plan and architect all of the above on paper and make sure it’s viable before laying down a single prim. Otherwise, consider coming back later when better uses and functions suggest themselves. (f)
(a) This will help traffic flow while your sim is still waiting to be discovered, and provides a baseline value in and of itself, regardless of how much revenue traffic is generated.
(b) Perhaps it were best if this has nothing to do with the company services in the pursuit of altruism? – With tasteful branding nearby, the benefits will happen in due course. IBM’s sandboxes are a good example of such.
(c) Continue to refresh this service over time adding to it or revolving the material for something else. This might be something like free expert tech support during certain hours, or as Apple does, offering desktop pictures – or even revolving coupons or offers.
(d) (since these currently are what draws in visitors). Just like offers for real goods or services, keep this content fresh by either adding to it or revolving it over time. An example of such might be cosmetic social embellishments that people actually want to buy (such as Mercedes’ virtual cars, which are fun to drive and help keep the brand name prominent). Suggest that you also sell these, for a modest cost, as it helps offset the cost of the simulation.
(e) Education, recruitment, demo evaluation, user testing are all areas that have found adapted uses for virtual worlds. New uses are being discovered and learning how to effectively use virtual space is part of the function and value of being there.
(f) The words user-testing seem to have fallen out of favor. Don’t assume you know best. Run it past some people, hopefully with some different backgrounds. A mature plan can stand a few questions and challenges as a test of how solid it is. And the questions raised can help you plug some concept holes or fill needs you hadn’t considered.
Crime & Pixelation
Picture Crime Scene Investigators, a popular television show watched by millions. Picture Gary Sinise on the heels of a criminal, using his arsenal of clue-tracking tricks to bring a murderer to justice. Now imagine the whole thing in pixels, taking place in the virtual reality world of Second Life.
Meet CSI: SL
Yes, you heard correctly, Crime Scene Investigators: NY is coming to Second Life. It will be a multipart show that is going to involve some of the citizens of Second Life during the break. I’m not sure of the details but apparently it’s going to involve investigations to take place in Second Life’s virtual world before the murderer resurfaces in the real world in the concluding episode the following season – potentially to be influenced by what takes place in Second Life.
Why? Apparently this brainstorm is the result of C.B.S. having purchased a stake in one of the design firms specializing in virtual worlds, Electric Sheep.
I’m not a CSI fan but I’ll have to make plans to try and catch this one. If someone who watches the show could give me a heads up as to when it’s going to be on, that would be much appreciated.
Virtual reality crime solving in fiction or television is one thing. But virtual reality has been used in trying to solve crimes and in court rooms for reenactments for some time now. These are closed systems, not part of a Multiverse or virtual world. But there’s no reason not to think of some future distributed virtual world akin to the Web where court room attendees might be able to access, with permissions, a server linked to the grid in order to view recreations. Such tools and the distance dissolving aspect of virtual worlds could even be used in future law enforcement enactments, allowing students to walk around and examine crime scenes from cases in detail. Who knows, as tools and methods are built up over time, recreations of fresh crime scenes might give lawmakers the in-depth understanding of distant crimes that no blotter or film footage can convey, to help them better participate in multi-regional efforts.
Meet CSI: SL
Yes, you heard correctly, Crime Scene Investigators: NY is coming to Second Life. It will be a multipart show that is going to involve some of the citizens of Second Life during the break. I’m not sure of the details but apparently it’s going to involve investigations to take place in Second Life’s virtual world before the murderer resurfaces in the real world in the concluding episode the following season – potentially to be influenced by what takes place in Second Life.
Why? Apparently this brainstorm is the result of C.B.S. having purchased a stake in one of the design firms specializing in virtual worlds, Electric Sheep.
I’m not a CSI fan but I’ll have to make plans to try and catch this one. If someone who watches the show could give me a heads up as to when it’s going to be on, that would be much appreciated.
Virtual reality crime solving in fiction or television is one thing. But virtual reality has been used in trying to solve crimes and in court rooms for reenactments for some time now. These are closed systems, not part of a Multiverse or virtual world. But there’s no reason not to think of some future distributed virtual world akin to the Web where court room attendees might be able to access, with permissions, a server linked to the grid in order to view recreations. Such tools and the distance dissolving aspect of virtual worlds could even be used in future law enforcement enactments, allowing students to walk around and examine crime scenes from cases in detail. Who knows, as tools and methods are built up over time, recreations of fresh crime scenes might give lawmakers the in-depth understanding of distant crimes that no blotter or film footage can convey, to help them better participate in multi-regional efforts.
AV it your way
Avatars, AVs, Toons, Monsters from the Id - call them what you will, these ego extensions we fabricate and launch into virtual universes project our curiosity, playfulness, needs, and desires for how we might wish to seem or be seen as. But how much of the person behind the avatar comes through? Is it always a case self made over: bigger, badder, blonder, or leaner? Or do we rather project ourselves into a famous icon or assume mythical proportions?
If you've never found yourself wondering who the person is behind the masque, I would say you're in the minority. For those of us who don't mind a peek behind the pixels, HERE is said peek, briefly done, courtesy of the New York Times. For myself, I found the image of the 80-hour hero particularly touching. It is a good reminder why the ability to leave self behind and be judged for who we wish to be rather than how others might see us is one of the great equalizing benefits of these new virtual realms. Why not fly where our dreams dare take us?
The above photos are part of Alter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators, a book by Robbie Cooper and Tracy Spaight, published just this June. Cooper and Spaight were interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about the book, providing a few more shots in that piece as well.
If you've never found yourself wondering who the person is behind the masque, I would say you're in the minority. For those of us who don't mind a peek behind the pixels, HERE is said peek, briefly done, courtesy of the New York Times. For myself, I found the image of the 80-hour hero particularly touching. It is a good reminder why the ability to leave self behind and be judged for who we wish to be rather than how others might see us is one of the great equalizing benefits of these new virtual realms. Why not fly where our dreams dare take us?
The above photos are part of Alter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators, a book by Robbie Cooper and Tracy Spaight, published just this June. Cooper and Spaight were interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about the book, providing a few more shots in that piece as well.
Pottering
For you Harry Potter fans, fancy finding out which Hogwarts house the Sorting Hat might have placed you in? Or perhaps you'd rather chat a bit with Olivander and see what sort of wand he could have in mind for you?
Me? I was hoping for Ravenclaw but ended up a Gryffindor. My wand: "Oak signifies wisdom, endurance, protection, and authority. The veela hair as a wand core means that you are slightly unpredictable but very powerful."
And finally, with the caveat of THIS IS A SPOILER, some interesting thoughts about the future of some of the surviving Potter series characters years after the events in the final book have ended, by none other than J.K. Rowling herself (and who would know better than she?). (And again, please don't click unless you've finished the final book or you just don't mind having the end spoiled for you).
Me? I was hoping for Ravenclaw but ended up a Gryffindor. My wand: "Oak signifies wisdom, endurance, protection, and authority. The veela hair as a wand core means that you are slightly unpredictable but very powerful."
And finally, with the caveat of THIS IS A SPOILER, some interesting thoughts about the future of some of the surviving Potter series characters years after the events in the final book have ended, by none other than J.K. Rowling herself (and who would know better than she?). (And again, please don't click unless you've finished the final book or you just don't mind having the end spoiled for you).
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