Phasing Grace | Social Architecture and Virtual Worlds

One Musician, Two Worlds

2009-03-12T07:40:00.005-04:00

I don't normally talk about my music on this blog, I leave that for my music site. But this story is less about music and more about virtual worlds, so I decided to break tradition.

The power of Collaboration, Community and Creative energy still amazes me despite being immersed in them nearly every day. I am convinced that it's these things that are the very heart and soul of virtual worlds; this is the power that keeps the engine running and the lights on. No matter in what world you find yourself, you can generally get a sense of the collective health of the space just by weighing the strength of those three Cs.

The three Cs powered a two-world live gig this week in Second Life and Metaplace for me. The most interesting aspect for me, is that this is a story of two parts, one in Metaplace and one in Second Life but each with interesting parallels.

In Metaplace
Raph recounts the Metaplace story from his perspective on his blog. It's a straightforward retelling which is entertaining if you know Raph and his passion for this space. From my perspective, it felt like a whirlwind in which I was swept up and carried to an entirely new place. So call me Dorothy if you will, but let me tell you what it looked and felt like from inside the swirl and I'll highlight some important nuances.

It was the first live music performance in Metaplace and it started with a simple note from Raph Koster connecting me to Fredrikkson, a musician in Metaplace who needed a little help with streaming. Raph introduced us via the Metaplace private messaging system which was delivered to me as an email. In this case Raph was acting as a connector and the cross over vehicle between the virtual space and my day to day life was just plain old email. Connecting and cross-over is vitally important to collaboration, and if worlds are encapsulated within walled gardens that don't effectively allow the *right* kind of cross-over, collaboration will be hindered.

I had not been in Metaplace for a while but I logged in to message Fredrikkson and did so with just a few mouse clicks. Finding people and places is critically important, the easier it is to do, the easier it's going to be for people to connect and form communities.

Fredrikkson returned my message, so I logged back into Metaplace and visited one of the first spaces I built. Within a few minutes, Raph appeared, gave me a guitar that I could use to play and stream and literally in the next minute we decided to do a dual-streaming event in conjunction with my Second Life gig planned at the Isle of Wyrms. We had the tools, but we needed a better place. [I'll skip Raph's commentary about my "outdated" space ;-)]

We went to Fredrikkson's cafe, beautifully built and complete with stage, a modified copy of Raph's guitar and lots of room to chill out. Fredrikkson showed up and after brief introductions and a few tries, we had live music streaming into Folk-n-Coffee. There was much rejoicing and honestly I had a bit of a holy shit we can actually do this moment.

Even though I'd just met Fredrikkson and it was well past his time to sleep, he graciously entrusted us with the use of his cafe for our trial performance. I've said this before, but trust is built within communities. As a world builder, you can't manufacture it - it grows organically on a bed of sharing, common goals and values - but you can set the stage with terms of service that are relevant and unmistakably clear.

In Second Life - There Be Dragons
This was no ordinary Second Life live music gig for me, it was a part of an initiative spearheaded by Bourque Rau to raise awareness about live music across the grid by investing in existing communities that are not normally associated with live music.

Bourque, as they say, is a rock star and a perfect example of harnessing the three Cs toward a great end. Bourque has reached out to over thirty communities and has been dispatching live musicians on an on-going basis since February. I learned about this event via a forum for Second Life musicians, not in world. Again, there's a web to virtual world cross over that is vitally important.

My gig was scheduled on the Isle of Wyrms, the home of a most amazing Dragon community. A new stage with spectacular views was erected over Dragon Lake for the event, and the majesty of the dragons and hatchlings cannot be overstated.

As fate would have it, one of the Dragon leaders met with an terrible accident, so we decided to turn the event into a fundraiser for a get well offering. Bourque worked out all the details with the Dragon community leaders, and all I had to do was show up and play!

The Guests are all here ...
I won't bore you with the details of setting up in two places but I panicked just a little as I tried to talk to people about different things and explain to each about the other.

I realized how important it was that I was Grace McDunnough in both places. How confusing and diluting it would have been otherwise when I said "Hello. My name is Grace, welcome to the Isle of Wyrms in Second Life and to the Folk n Coffee cafe in Metaplace".

Fortunately, people were very supportive and had fun with the idea of dual streaming. We had over fifty people in Second Life, around a dozen or more in Metaplace and some in both places (other than just me) and they were all very chatty!

Throughout the performance, I wished for a chat bridge between worlds. I found myself contact switching between worlds, responding to *meeps* in Metaplace and chat remarks in Second Life, but I think people would have had a great time talking to each other between spaces instead of me doing the relay (and sometimes poorly).

Other than that, I was completely in both places and it was possibly the most exciting and thought provoking experience I've had as a musician so far. I can't wait to hear Fredrikkson play in Metaplace, and secretly I hope to get him to perform in both places when he does.

Linden Lab Family Tree Pruned Again

2009-04-07T14:02:00.005-04:00

It's been a little over two months since I wrote "Fun With the Linden lab Family Tree" on the announcement of Robin Harper's departure from the executive ranks of Linden Lab.

Since then, John Zdanowski, aka Zee Linden, told us he was off to slay more dragons.

And today, Ginsu (Gene) Yoon announced his departure. It's not likely that many Residents even knew who Ginsu aka Ginsu Linden was or what he did at the Lab.

Gene's commentary about Second Life and the attendant Linden dollar as merely "products" during a Metanomics discussion likely garnered more Resident attention than anything else he'd done otherwise.

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: And so I guess my first question is, do you think we can just import traditional macroeconomics into a discussion of Second Life's economy?

GENE YOON: I think it is great to have an understanding of a lot of general fields, including economics, when we're trying to understand how to shape what's going on in Second Life, because it really obviously is a product that takes into a lot more than just the technology. As a social product, it has a lot of social elements.

That said, I really--this is a thing I have, you know. I just think that the--you know, viewing what's going on in the virtual economy primarily through the lens of economics is a little bit of taking the metaphor too far. What we've got here in any particular element, say the Linden dollar, is a product. It's an element of what our offering is. And when we thought about how to put together the offering for the Linden dollar, it was more in the sense of a product team. We did retain economic consultants. But that was just one input. It was more trying to understand a particular product offering and not trying to understand the world of macroeconomics.

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. So I guess we should think of Second Life as being a technology offering or web service just like any other. And monetary supply, then, would be like a feature of that.

GENE YOON: Right again. You know, the term monetary supply, it takes the metaphor of the virtual economy and assumes that that's essential way to understand what we're doing. And you have these thoughts about how to balance the money supply with monetary policy. I find that those are not the ways that are most useful for us as product managers to understand what's going on.

When we talk about trying to manage the pricing of a product, it's about--maybe it's more simply about microeconomics. It's about the supply and demand related to the attractiveness of a particular product offering we have. And because we allow this one particular product feature to be priced by market forces, it feels a little bit like--more like a macroeconomic policy. But it's really not. It's just, you know, market determinant of what the price is for your product.

Unlike Robin or even Zee's departure, Gene's exit may be but a whisper to the ears of the Second Life Residents, although he may see it differently:

I'm leaving Linden Lab, some of the finest people I've ever known and the most ambitious project I've ever seen. And the most passionate, intelligent, challenging, engaging Residents in any world. And that's good news; it's a graduation of sorts for the company and for me. Yet I'm sure that pundits who prefer their underinformed opinions to verifiable facts will try to find bad news.

Happy Trails, Gene.

Second Life Killer Apps and Weak Ties

2009-05-19T07:55:00.016-04:00

When I was in school we used to sneak out, drive down to the coast and go surfing. (yes Dad, I know I never told you) When we got back our friends would almost always ask "How was the surf?" and most of the time it was "Alright". But there were those rare times that the surf was really, really good - take your breath away good - and we'd answer: "It was -------- killer."

Fast forward to my land-locked career life and the word killer reappears, this time as a modifier, ala "killer app" or "killer application". This phrase means very little to most people; I could not find a standard definition so I lifted this from The Jargon File:

The application that actually makes a sustaining market for a promising but under-utilized technology. First used in the mid-1980s to describe Lotus 1-2-3 once it became evident that demand for that product had been the major driver of the early business market for IBM PCs.

For those of you new to Second Life, you should note that the founder of Lotus Development and the developer of Lotus 1-2-3 is Mitch Kapor. Mitch Kapor is also the co-founder of the EFF, founding Board Chair of the Mozilla Foundation and is a founding investor in Linden Lab.

Mitch is no stranger to "killer apps" so it's not unusual to me that Mark Kingdon / M Linden, now CEO of Linden Lab, has found fascination with the phrase.

But, like that killer wave that you catch once in your life, it seems that Mark's having a hard time really nailing down what constitutes the "killer app" for Second Life. I've seen/heard him use the word several times in the past year or so as follows.

M Linden quoted from his posts on the Second Life blog:

Apr 2008: Second Life has many magical properties, but one killer app is Second Life for work. It can’t be beat.

May 2008: Inworld collaboration is going to be a killer application.

Jul 2008: I’ve come to see a couple of use cases as future killer apps – namely virtual meetings and education.

Jul 2008: Even though the initial novelty has worn off for me, I am blown away by how effective Second Life is for meetings. I am fully convinced this will be a killer app.

Jul 2008: Using the virtual meeting environment for education is an even more exciting killer app. Dozens of universities are buying land from us or working with other inworld providers every week and the pace is accelerating. Seventeen of the top twenty universities in the US have land in Second Life.

M Linden quoted in interview with Second Places:

Oct 2008: Mr Kingdon says his company is still looking for the “killer application” that will draw in the casual consumer. He suggests “it could be live music, learning a new language, visiting a virtual landmark. It could be connecting with friends to go out for a night of dancing.” But arguably, those things will always be available in a richer form in the real world.

M Linden quoted, A gence France-Presse"

Mar 2009: The array of things people do in Second Life has blossomed. One thing that has popped out as a killer application is business meetings.

What I hear Mark saying for the past year is that somewhere there is a breakout, ass-kicking application of Second life for work, and mostly for meetings - meetings for business, meetings for education, meetings for collaborating.

Take all the imaginative power, creativity, persuasion, immersion, community and passion that is Second Life, do you think the transformational application for Second Life will be about meetings?

For me that answer is just a "meh", not because I don't appreciate a good meeting, but because I think Mark is missing something more fundamental about the strength of weak ties.

We have meetings primarily to sustain or maintain our strong ties, not our weak ties. And because they are strong ties, our preferred choice for interaction is "in person" and secondarily via phone, VOIP or video conferencing but not virtual worlds. Mark et al hold meetings in Second Life because it is their job - drinking their own bathwater - but you, Mark, are not your audience.

Strong ties reinforce homogeneity and don't spurn organic growth. The leverage toward mass adoption and transformation within virtual worlds and social spaces resides within the weak ties and the ability to navigate the paths of our connectedness over which we would normally be stymied in the real world. Weak ties help us build bridges that help us solve problems, find information and unfamiliar ideas. Weak ties further innovation - that is the target of a killer app. NOTE: For a lesson in weak ties, please read Mark Granovetter: 1973. "The Strength of Weak Ties." American Journal of Sociology, 78 (May): 1360-1380.

The killer app within Second Life is that which allows for rich fields of weak ties, that which affords relatively easy access to other people, other art forms, other spaces, ideas, cultures, music, and all within the context and dynamic immersiveness of Second Life.

More recently, Mark spoke of another "killer app". M Linden follow up to Metanomics talk:

May 2009: We absolutely have to make it easier for musicians and other performers to perform meaningfully in Second Life. We’ve looked at the challenges extensively and have a good idea of what we need to do but we won’t be able to get to it in 2009. We see live performance as a “killer app” in Second Life.

Furthermore, at the opening of the MacArthur sim yesterday, Cory Ondrejka indicated that it was watching live music emerge in Second Life that "led directly" to him to taking the position he holds at EMI. He even says:

Music became this killer app in Second Life years ago.

As a live musician in Second Life, I might be standing on a chair applauding - but I'm not.

Why? Because live performance cannot be a killer app unless it can adequately leverage the strength of weak ties and currently the infrastructure, poor performance and design limitations of Second Life social systems - groups, chat, messaging, and events - does not provide us the ability to do so.

How many groups can you join? 25
How many live musicians are there in Second Life? Hundreds

How many group notices fail to deliver? Too many.
How often does group chat fail? Too often.

Where is the messaging system that allows for casual conversation that doesn't result in social harassment, banning or group expulsion because you were chatting in the group IM?

Where is an event system that has a robust search capability, one that you can put on a calendar, one where you can see who else is attending, or one that allows comments, that allows you to share with others?

I could go on and on, but I'd like to hear your ideas about how Second Life might change so that weak ties become the killer app.