E-Mail 'The coming sim-com boom' To A Friend

10 Comments

1. 

   i was one of the pre-vrml, vrml, vrml2 crowd. then in 2007 i looked at second life.

   i do think the opensim has more than vrml had and i hope it keeps going.

2. 

   nice post and the timing issue is a huge factor! i can see a point of view that would have SL as having been too early in some regards

3. 

   This is an interesting article, Maria but I wonder how pseudonyms are going to fit with your notion of Sim-Coms since pseudonyms are a well established feature of virtual worlds? Will the pseudonym controversy put off Business investment in the open Metaverse?

   Or will the Googles and Facebooks of tomorrow’s 3D Web come to terms with it in new ways rather than treating the masses as moronic consumers having their online activity collected and used without their expressed consent?

   Personally, I have no problem with anyone knowing who I am but I claim it as a human right to be the one to decide that on a case by case basis when dealing with business. I don’t expect to avoid the law if I were to break it by hiding behind anonymity but I can enter Second Life under a pseudonym and do business. Virtual currency makes that possible and, as we have seen, even Ron Hubble of Second Life says he is committed to pseudonyms.

   Sim-Com implies reaching out to a mass market but could it be that the wide spread use of fake avatar names will keep virtual worlds as a bunch of interconnected niche markets?

   1. 

      Gaga — I predict that virtual worlds — like websites — will take different approaches to identity. Some — like dating sites, for example, or role playing gaming grids — will bend over backwards to allow pseudonyms or some other form of anonymity. Others, like business networking groups, might tends towards a different approach.

      Personally, I would like to see develop an identity service similar to what Facebook has, but which allows people to determine how much information to release to the individual grids — just a first name, for example, or a nickname, or all information, or something in between.

      Another possibility is that we will have multiple avatars — one for work, one for dating, one for the “Vampire Lust” game I predict we’ll all get addicted to. (If “Vampire Lust” isn’t already taken — I had the idea first!)

      We already do this for our email accounts — I have my work email. I have my personal email for friends and family. And I have an anonymous email for subscribing to disreputable websites. (Not that I subscribe to a lot of these, but if I did…)

      — Maria

      1. 

         I believe you just described Diaspora as an identity service but with privacy aware approach.

4. 

   The greater Metaverse will be likely comprised of many different systems all sharing common heritage and protocols for interoperability. A collective of virtual environments working together as a total seamless Metaverse. Whether that is SecondLife, OpenSim, Kaneva, Bluemars, ActiveWorlds, and many others – the underlying fundamentals will be that common interoperability standard.

   The new age of Hyper-Media that we experience will likely come together as a conglomeration of related services – from graphics, identity, social networks, et al in order to comprise a very complex standardized infrastructure when taken together.

5. 

   Yes I need to know what are the positives and negatives about Hypergrid Travel. My first impression is that a visitor in a grid that offers a currency cannot buy anything unless he or she registers on that grid.
   The visitor will be bound to only being able to buy freebies?
   How does a grid manages a visitors account if that visitor has no account? If that visitor commits a TOS offence how does the grid handles that situation?
   The creators need to feel confident that if someone uses COPY BOT on their objects that the grid can act on that individuals account and even take the illegal copy out of that offenders inventory. If the offender is a visitor how does the grid handle that?

   Many questions….

   1. 

      There are two ways to enable hypergrid shopping — the hypergrid-enabled OMC currency, and PayPal. 

      For blocking visitors — how do you currently block folks who steal content? If anyone can create an account, do you block them by IP address? Or do you require proof of identity, such as a PayPal account? If by IP address, then you can also block inbound hypergrid teleports from that IP address. If all your residents have identities verified, however, then you’re probably best off keeping your grid closed or say, just setting aside a welcome area for hypergrid visitors so that they can learn about the grid — maybe pick up a free grid T-shirt — and register for membership.

6. 

   what youre really talking about is a realtime 3d OS that has built in my 3Cs. Until an OS and a delivery platform are in SYNC via a planned ROI or by an accident, all other “vr bubbles” will only just repeat the ones since 1990.

7. 

   What really kills me is when I got online in 1995, fresh and new and all paranoid The Internet would pounce down into my real life and cause unimaginable horrors – see, I can’t even write that statement because it’s so absurd, but suffice it to say, I was one who was scared of The Internet and Computers and figured they had some inherent power to become my Overlords (facepalm)…but I got heavily into web design from the get go and my desire was a 3D virtual reality website to engage visitors, a place to rent movies, chat, move around and interact…

   I had this fabulous idea to upload movies and have a membership site where people could rent movies for a small fee per month. I saw the writing on the wall but back then, with dial up, it would take what, a week and a half to upload/download about a meg of data ;-p The technology just wasn’t there.

   Then came Netflix…I knew they had a good idea but wanted to wait and see if it would catch on. Least I know I had a billion dollar idea, just didn’t have the expertise to do it.

   I won’t be making that mistake with 3D virtual worlds…I know nada squat right now, and can barely get Open Sim running, but that’s okay…baby steps. 

   I’m among that 10k who sees the future and I want to be part of it. I love 3D, and one day I will have my 3D virtual reality website, basically Second Life regions accessed by a simple 3D style browser…sooner, finally, rather than not at all ;-p