Giant plans and small boxes

Its been a year since I last posted. It feels like even longer. Scanning for inspiration today I stumbled across a post by Chris Brogan that seemed timely. Here are the main points:

1. "Decide what matters most. Articulate it in the largest possible way. It’s easier to drill down when you have the larger goals in mind.
2. Put constraints around HOW you’ll accomplish the goals you’ve set out to accomplish. Include accountability in the constraints.
3. Figure out what you need to help you achieve those goals. In my case, I need two other people and some more education. You’ll need something else.
4. Make your goals public in some form or another. (This helps with accountability)."

He continues, "If you can put your giant plans into small boxes it will help you move towards your goals."

One goal I have is to get back to creating content, be it written or otherwise. My content creation experiments got pushed to the back seat along with the blog last year and I want to change that.

Looking back on those efforts they seem dated now. In the gap I missed out on the whole Twitter explosion and I don't really have any regrets about that.

I have been deeply involved with Flex and AIR desktop applications but some of those projects could have used some small boxes along the way too.

I finally got an iPhone. I have played the waiting game with Apple since I got my first SE in 1988 and I wanted to wait for the 3G network.

The iPhone is sharp. It looks good, feels good and provides a portable computing platform unlike anything else I have seen. Its ok as a phone but I knew that going in. I like the headphones and try to use them when I can but in regular use sometimes its hard to hear the other person and hard for them to hear me.

Call management and especially voice management is awesome. Being able to delete voice mail without having to listen to a menu system is great. I have used the speaker phone and it works fairly well too.

Like everyone says I only turn on 3G when I have to get data and am not on a wifi connection because it does drain the battery. Hitting the "find me" button on Maps is super cool.

My favorite app Art Envi Deluxe:


The main thing the iPhone has done is freed me from a desk by putting a computer in my hand. You may say, "I've been getting email on my Blackberry for years."

I say, "whatever, fraking Blackberrys..."

Maps and mobile data are gradually finding their way to automobiles, the last human environment to be enabled. With the new XOHM WiMAX and the whitespace projects I expect one of the next big things to be a mobile broadband cloud. Fast access everywhere is going to change things, just like the iPhone has changed things for me.



So as I think about content creation in the year ahead I am going to focus on small projects that involve mobility and connectivity.

My last goal is to have fun. Its been a hard couple of years.

(Oh yeah, transfer blog to wordpress!)

Second Life...the street finds its own use for things

TechCrunch hasn't been that excited about Second Life, until now.

From TechCrunch:

"Last Saturday night I noticed that Australia’s answer to Robert Scoble (in a good way) Microsoft’s Nick Hodge was in Second Life chatting to The Podcast Network’s Cameron Reilly via Twitter. I jumped into Second Life to join the conversation, making it the three of us. I Twittered my presence and provided a link. Within 30 minutes three had blown out to around 15 people, or 20 different people over 3 hours. With voice in Second Life we discussed a variety of topics, from Second Life itself, to Web 2.0, politics and the environment."

The Happiness Factory

Coke is taking a different approach with its new Happiness Factory promotion.

From AdWeek:

"For the sequel to the Cannes Silver Lion-winning (and Emmy-nominated) "Happiness Factory," Coke engineered a Hollywood-style premiere in Second Life.

There is nothing like a movie to be able to tell the story of the world inside the Coca-Cola vending machine and bring the characters to life," said Judith Snyder, a Coke representative. "Through the short film and other promotional elements—including authentically designed movie posters, movie-style trailers, an interactive digital program, promotions and packaging—we are able to extend the life of this campaign."

"The eco-system of the world feels very complete, from the weather to geography to insects to relationships, to magical elixir to archetypal character," said Al Moseley ecd at Wieden + Kennedy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, of making the spot. "We played to narrative conventions, with the ordinary guy who goes through a right of passage to learn about himself."

"It isn't about disruption anymore, it's about creating a piece of entertainment that people choose to download and own," said Moseley. "That's the difference here: we've created something people will want. It's a commercial, but it's not a spot."

Second Life: racing towards the deadpool

In a Wired smackdown, Second Life viewed as a worthless investment for brands.

From Wired:

"Many places you go, there's still nobody there," he (Micheal Donnelly, worldwide head of interactive marketing at Coca-Cola) concedes. That's certainly the case with Coke's Virtual Thirst pavilion, where you can long linger without encountering another avatar. "But my job is to invest in things that have never been done before. So Second Life was an obvious decision."

Ever since BusinessWeek ran a breathless cover story titled "My Virtual Life" more than a year ago, reporters have been heralding Second Life as the here-and-now incarnation of the fictional Metaverse that Neal Stephenson conjured up 15 years ago in Snow Crash. (Wired created a 12-page "Travel Guide" last fall.) Unfortunately, the reality doesn't justify the excitement.

You might wonder what Coke is doing in such a place. "It had a lot to do with hype," admits Michael Donnelly.

"Companies say, 'It's an experiment' — but what are they learning?" Tobaccowala asks. "Basically, they're learning how to create an avatar and walk around in Second Life." Which is fine if that's what you want to do. Just don't expect to sell a lot of Coke."

Coke frees trademark in Second Life

In an interview with Rebang, David Vanderpoel talks about the company's decision to allow its trademark it be (mostly) freely used in Second Life.

From Rebang:

"After I’d read the secondhand report that Coca-Cola had “released” their trademark, I immediately got to thinking that a) there was no official guidance, and b) even I wouldn’t unconditionally release a trademark.

So I contacted C.C. Chapman who put me through to Vanderpoel. And I’ve got one thing to say: I’m impressed.

First off, my understanding from our conversation is that no one should expect any official guidance from Coca-Cola. Additionally, I was informed that Coca-Cola simply doesn’t want an intermediary policing their brand for them. Nor do they want to interfere with the in-world economy when people are using their brand in ways that do not adversely impact them.

Okay. So that part makes good, reasonable sense to me. But there’s more.

For those people who feel the need to use the Coca-Cola trade dress in ways that are detrimental to the brand’s reputation, Coca-Cola is more interested in establishing a dialog to help them understand why people want to attack them in the first place than they are in trying to stop them.

This is by far the smartest position I’ve seen a company take lately."

David is actually at North Highland Consulting, but is a project lead for Coke in Second Life. In the past Coke has not been a real industry leader in the interactive space. Sure, they were big and there but things just didn't go so well much of the time.

Maybe people like David and Tom are going to change all of that!

Anshe Chung launches inter-world financial market

Lot's of financial news in the metaverses lately. And now, predictably, here comes a new service by virtual baroness, Anshe Chung.

From 3pointd:

"Virtual entrepreneur Anshe Chung will launch a virtual world-spanning financial market in early June, according to a news release on the Anshe Chung Studios site. The service will “allow direct capital flow and investment across virtual world boundaries,” and will link the markets of Second Life, Entropia Universe and IMVU. Anshe Chung Studios — which is run by German citizens Ailin and Guntram Graef — will provide “a virtual financial market, financial products and a set of services” linking the three worlds.

“We believe that allowing residents in a virtual world, no matter which one they have chosen to live in, to easily diversify their portfolio of virtual investments into other virtual worlds is going to lead to a paradigm shift,” the press release reads. “At ACS we are convinced that once capital is flowing freely, people, goods and services will follow and eventually we will see incentive and pressure for the emergence of open tools and standards. It is our vision that one day even traveling across virtual worlds and taking your belongings with you should become as easy as a mouseclick.”

NBA in Second Life

From the press release:

"Bringing the NBA to the virtual world provides us with a new and innovative platform to reach our fans and the millions of residents in Second Life,” said Stern. “The NBA Headquarters creates an interactive worldwide community where fans can come together, engage with our game, and most importantly, share in their passion for the NBA.”

"The NBA is a sports innovator, being the first professional sports league to unveil a comprehensive headquarters in a virtual world,” said Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company. “The NBA is engaging its fan community at a whole new level, and bringing fans together from around the world.”

The NBA Headquarters will feature branding by existing NBA partners T-Mobile, Toyota and Cisco, along with commercials highlighted in the broadband content from television partners ABC, ESPN and TNT."

From MediaWeek:

"The NBA has launched an elaborate series of interactive milieus in the popular online virtual world Second Life, including a 3D NBA store, a mock NBA arena and even a press center where Web users can roam and play using video-game-like avatars.

In addition, fans can visit the T-Mobile Arena, where they can watch highlights of classic NBA playoff games and receive up to the minute stats on this year’s contests. They can also visit a secondary virtual court to play games like horse and the Toyota Crash the Boards challenge – a dunking contest.

NBA Commissioner David Stern acknowledged that the NBA’s Second Life presence was but a early attempt to tap into a medium is still new for mainstream brands. “We’d like to really have a place that people can have a little fun,” he said. “We plan to look to our users and fans to tell us what they would like this to be. We’ll be listening very carefully.”

SAP in Second Life

From 3pointD:

SAP, the German software giant, is about to open its doors officially in Second Life. Rather than going for an out-and-out island build, they have opted for a more conservative approach, opening a relatively small office on the Second Life developer island of »Silicon City«, owned by The V3 Group, who are sponsoring the ITE’07 event, that starts tomorrow (Friday, 20th April).

The work is largely that of company Second Life evangelist, Craigster Hax. Initially, he wants to provide education and information for the SAP Developer Network, a global community of It professionals. “Many can’t make conferences and meetings and this could be the bridge for that. I [also] plan to start a movie a week here showing video blogs and things like that, then start to bring the folks in to have conversations. South America seems to be hot for VoIP but we’ve not got a large amount of conferences going on there, so this could be an alternative.”

3D Web

Newsweek has a big article up about the 3D web.

From "The Coming Virtual Web:"

"They suggest that before long, the Internet of the future, and the vast wealth of information and services on it, will look different: slicker, more realistic, more interactive and social than anything we experience today through the Web browser. "Three-dimensional virtual worlds will, in the near future, be pervasive interfaces for the Internet," says Bob Moore, a sociologist who studies virtual worlds at Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, the legendary Xerox (XRX) lab in Silicon Valley.

Above all, virtual worlds hold the potential to transform social interaction online: In contrast to the Web, where there's almost no assumption of a human heartbeat behind the Web page, virtual worlds are inherently social settings. "You go up to an avatar and you know there's a real person on the other end," says Joe Miller, vice-president for platform and technology development at Second Life creator Linden Lab.

"Virtual worlds will be bigger in five years for shopping than the Web," contends T. Sibley Verbeck, CEO of Electric Sheep, which helps businesses market in Second Life and other venues.

The main challenge, though, isn't technical. It's conceptual. Today's 3D interfaces are a work in progress. "They're dragging too much of the baggage of the real world into online," says Multiverse Marketing Director and Executive Producer Corey Bridges, citing virtual stores built by the likes of Circuit City (CC) and Sears (S) in Second Life."

From "The Virtual Meeting Room:"

"At the typical global corporation, 20% of employees have never met their boss in person, House says. And 3D spaces offer a level of interaction that's not possible over the phone or via videoconferencing, says Sebastien Jeanjean, head of sales and marketing at France's Tixeo, a maker of corporate virtual-world software used by customers including Raytheon. "In 2D, even if you hear and see a person, you still have a feeling of being alone," Jeanjean says. "After half an hour, it's very difficult to keep people's attention."

From "Digital Suburbia:"

"In Second Life, you're encouraged to explore an alternative universe," says Klaus. "We're trying to keep within human boundaries, and get you into that world where 'first life' isn't separate from 'second life.'"

In Klaus' virtual world, dragons, aliens, and castles are not allowed. The idea is to create a Norman Rockwell setting that is seen as stable and safe by big-brand companies that want to promote their products without worrying that the medium may be too uncontrollable or chaotic."

Virtual Thirst: Coke in Second Life

Coke enters Second Life.

From the press release:

Mike Donnelly, Director, Global Interactive Marketing: "Put simply, we’ve invited the world to use the Second Life platform to design and prototype the ultimate Coke machine – something that delivers an innovative, engaging experience in Second Life, as defined by its community of residents. For example, it could play music from a jukebox, or display fun animation and video, or transform the user’s experience and capabilities in some positive way.

There are few restrictions, except that the more inspired and original the idea, the better. This competition is a chance for anyone with a vivid imagination to design an experience that embodies the in-world Coke Side of Life in a way that enhances their lives and the lives of others within Second Life.

The prototypes are merely thought-starters that set the optimistic tone of the Coke Side of Life and the virtually limitless possibilities of such a machine. We have been careful to seek the opinion of the Second Life community before bringing it a new experience. Our approach has been to create a program that enhances this exciting virtual environment.

We plan to continue conversing with residents throughout this process. Our goal is to enable individual creativity in pursuit of a ‘vending’ machine that can exist only in your wildest imagination. Virtual worlds make it possible for such innovations to occur, and we selected Second Life as the most conducive to this experiment."

From Millions of Us:

"It makes me so happy to see this project come to fruition. Today, in partnership with Crayon (who rock) and the Coca-Cola Company, we launched the “Virtual Thirst” campaign in Second Life. The basic idea that Coke is asking people to help them design the Coke machine of the future. One of the coolest things here is that submissions are welcomed in a wide variety of formats, from objects in Second Life to suggestions in Myspace to videos in Youtube."

From 3pointD:

"A number of companies have been coming into Second Life lately with similar initiatives, hoping to find the killer entertainment app that residents will either keep coming back to or will carry around with them and use. It’s a nice twist to ask residents themselves to design the device. And definitely a great contract for the crayonistas to have. Looks like we’ll see how refreshing the results are sometime this summer. Should be interesting."

From SLNN:

"Coke had already been experimenting with virtual worlds and creating it's own, Coke Studios which launched in 2002. The company has virtual environments in Mexico, Spain, and Hong Kong . Donnelly said Coca-Cola chose Second Life over other virtual worlds because of SL's lack of a safety net, referring to other virtual worlds as "walled garden communities." "Specifically SL is where the traffic is. Its hockey stick of growth is intriguing."

Coca-Cola consulted with an advisory panel made up of SL residents who offered tips on what to do and what not to do. The panel will also act as judges for the contest. The judges include: novelist Scott Sigler, Second Life Herald founder Peter Ludlow (Urizenus Skar in SL), audio educator Chris Hambly (Audio Zenith in SL), Dutch builder Latok Neumann (Latok Millionsofus), video podcaster Britney Mason, consumer advocate and music producer Eric Rice (Spin Martin in SL) and podcaster Lynette Young (Lynette Radio in SL) among others."

From Second Life Insider:

"Are they making a big island, and a big splash, and hoping we'll go and visit them? No. What they are doing is launching a competition (full details on their launch sitevirtualthirst.com for an idea to make something in SL that will be the SL equivalent of the RL Coke machine.

This machine will then spread around SL, just like RL. It's phenomenally successful IRL, so why not in SL? It's also a new approach, at least for the big RL companies. No guarantees it will work, but it feels like a different idea in SL to me, and that's a good thing to see."

From New World Notes:

"The competition is... well, unusual for such a strongly branded entity as the Coca-Cola Company. They're not creating a controlled brand experience for you. They're inviting people to mix their own brand experience. I don't remember the last time a strong brand invited people to just mess about with the trademarks, if ever."

Eric Kintz's 10 problems with Second LIfe

Eric is a big time marketing guy at HP. He makes some good points about Second Life.

From the post:

"I really believe that Second Life is another example of a web 2.0 property that marketers should explore and understand. It opens up a window into the future of 3D web, but I still need to be convinced about broader marketing activities and here is why:

1. The technology is still too complex
2. The model is not yet scaleable
3. The subscriber statistics are misleading
4. The model’s scaleability is further threatened by a corporate IT backlash.
5. The content is primarily adult oriented
6. Brands are underestimating the investments required
7. Brands are not staying true to the Second Life values
8. Second Life experiences are not integrated with the overall brand experience
9. Potential revenues and profits are limited
10. I barely have time for my first life……"

From the comments: Prokofy

"#7. Brands are not staying true to the Second Life values. Some companies have really flat-footed it and disrupted the labour force, the events calendar, the media coverage and indeed that has backlashed on them.

I agree that some brands' *presentation* would be utterly inappropriate; nobody can drink Coke in a virtual world, you can't drink. That doesn't mean Coke couldn't sponsor hockey games, ballet, clubs, live music, architecture just as it does in RL.

The companies need to support the environment and the experience so that avatars begin to associate the brand with their virtual experience, not be literalist about pushing a discrete product into their little avatar hands."

Why marketing in Second Life doesn't work (right now)

James at GigaOm has a great article about the lack of interest Second Life residence have for marketing in world.

From the post:

"Teleporting is to SL Advertising What the Channel Clicker is to TV Ads

The standard means of travel in SL is point-to-point teleportation, near-instantaneous transit from one x,y,z location to another. (Though it gets more press, Superman-esque flying is mostly used in short, localized bursts to get around obstacles.) P2P teleporting renders billboards and most other location-based advertising useless, and in any case, most SL marketers buy and develop on private virtual islands, where they can fully control the branding experience.

Death by Green Dots (or lack thereof)

Any noticeable clump of green dots (people on the map: ed) attracts more dots, and as those grow, more follow– a feedback loop colloquially known as “the green dot effect”. Second Life’s most successful entrepreneurs (who’ve proven far more agile and inventive then most of their real world counterparts) sustain this flurry of dots by holding constant events, giveaways, and games, and even go so far to pay Residents to visit. Amazingly, corporate marketers have been slow to replicate these homegrown strategies. (Surely several interns can host regular activities at their company’s SL site? Has to beat photocopying and bagel runs.)

A Failure of Imagination

Fashion companies have it even harder. A thriving homegrown industry of avatar clothing design (free of production costs and overseas mass production) already exists, largely ruled by housewives with astounding talent and copious amounts of time, and since the designers are popular personalities in Second Life (whose avatars become their brand), they enjoy– and frankly deserve– the home team advantage."

And the big take-a-way:

"Faced with such talented competition, smart marketers should concede defeat, and hire these college kids and housewives to create concept designs and prototypes that re-imagine their brands merged to existing SL-based brands which have already proved themselves in a world of infinite possibility."

Geek Squad in Second Life

From Yahoo News:

"Best Buy Co. Inc. plans to open Geek Squad Island, a spot in "Second Life" where its Geek Squad technical support workers will offer free computer advice.

The virtual world will have regular office hours (6 p.m. to 3 a.m. EDT, seven days a week). The online characters will wear white, short-sleeve button-down shirts, black pants and, of course, a badge.

Best Buy said many of its Geek Squad agents already were a part of "Second Life," a virtual 3-D world where people can gather and interact."

Virtual Worlds Conference: Trends and Numbers

3pointD reports from the field:

"Steve Prentice of Gartner Research: We’re pretty much where the Internet was in the mid-90s. People are interested, but they don’t quite know what to do. Describing it as a media channel is probably one of the most accurate ways of doing it.

Corporates are starting to understand that this is a channel that needs to be used along with everything else. But they’re still isolated islands. You can’t yet move your avatar or your assets from one world to another, That’s one of the constraints. There’s only one Internet. Once you can move from one to another, the growth you see today will look pretty stagnant.

There’s a great tendency to think about commerce, but one of the biggest opportunities for larger organizations is to create community within the organization. We see the VW not so much as a community space, which it is, but also as a collaboration space. Its an incredibly powerful tool.

When you’re actually having a meeting in a virtual environment, they can be much more involved. For a lot of large organizations, the opportunities lie to better improve their communications and sense presence. It’s like fooling people that they’re actually there.

Interesting thing about 3D space is you get to see what the other person sees. You get that sense of being there, it’s a very powerful attribute. Nothing to do with commerce, has to do with oiling the wheels inside large enterprises."

Second Life: 5 million

Broke 5 million:

• "31,377 new signups bringing us to 5,011,608 signups total. The five-millionth signup took place between 2PM and 3PM today. Signup rates continue at their depressed level, and the six millionth signup is due in 28 days, on 24 May.
• A peak concurrency of 37,765 at 1:49PM, and a minimum concurrency of 18,440 at 1:40AM. Average concurrency for the day was 26,598.

Coldwell Banker in Second Life

Coldwell Banker has entered Second Life to provide in-world residence a trusted name for buying and selling houses.

From CNN Money:

"Coldwell Banker has bought extensive tracts of property on the central "mainland" of Second Life. (Most companies own "islands" scattered all over.) It subdivided this digital land into 520 individual houses and living units, half of which it will sell and half it will rent.

"In the end this is about buying and selling homes in the real world," says Charlie Young, the company's senior vice president for marketing. "We're trying to figure out how to reach what we call the 'new consumer'." Executives insist that any profits will be reinvested in Second Life real estate.

Unlike almost every other big company, Coldwell's offices in the virtual world will be staffed with real people (in the form of avatars of course). They will not only sell virtual real estate, but also answer questions about real world transactions."

Grind House in Second Life

From New World Notes:

The Weather Channel in Second Life

The Weather Channel recently launched in Second Life to mostly positive reviews. The build was handled by Infinite Vision Media.

From Media Week:

"While initially Weather Island will provide additional distribution for The Weather Channel’s TV and broadband content, the plan is to eventually open up the virtual island to marketers. “With Second Life, we’re hopeful we can expose our brand in an original and meaningful way,” said Debora Wilson, president, The Weather Channel Companies.“ We also see Second Life as a potential advertising platform for brands currently partnering with us.”

From Kzero:

"What makes this venue work is the interaction and ability to ride and slide around the features. Understanding that giving is better than receiving, the free ‘kit’ takes the island to a level above many of the other major brands already in SL. The other element given a lot of thought is the terraforming.

Epic Conditions sets the benchmark for a company understanding its brand values and applying them precisely, fully and correctly into a new advertising and branding medium."

From Linda Zimmer:

"Epic Conditions sims employ – well, simulations for an experiential aspect of that storytelling – weather teamed with extreme biking, surfing and skiing. And thanks to the scripting, some of the most experienced in-world sports creators and the SL physics engine – it’s extremely fun. A lot of LOL heard about here.

More importantly, it is a very memorable way to introduce Second Lifers to the show, its purpose, and its content.

The growth of SL means more and more of the population is new and retention at both an individual sim and in SL in general is important to the return on the brand experiments here. The best way to do that is with people combined with engaging experiences such as Epic Conditions. People encourage others to try the experiences - and to stay and play. That said, there are avatars playing here.

The Weather Channel is as close as they come to using Second Life for what it is good for. "

From Phasing Grace:

"I stopped by The Weather Channel's new Second Life presence today to soak in what I thought might be a more spectacular weather-themed experience than the NOAA sim. My expecations were not met, and were probably misaligned anyway since NOAA is all about the science of weather, and The Weather Channel is about linear network broadcasting. I don't know what I was thinking.

The Weather Channel islands offer Residents three interactive experiences they've called "Epic",Extreme Skiing, Moab Desert Biking, and Big Wave Surfing. None of these really held any appeal for me personally, but you may find a few minutes to waste here."

Assignment Zero's Second Life Assignment

Assignment Zero has been getting some attention lately. They are working on a Second Life story.

From the site:

"Let’s talk to a Second Life journalist, covering this digital world as an avatar who resides inside it. Not only have Reuters, Wired and CNET set up virtual bureaus within Second Life in order to bring outside content in and in-world news out, but a host of Web sites, blogs and even an in-world newspaper—the Second Life Herald—are now devoted exclusively to covering the lives of avatars. Brian Howard got us started with his post on Second Life Journalists for NewAssignment.Net, but let's take it further."

CBS's Quincy Smith and The Electric Sheep

CBS will participate in a 7m round of financing for The Electric Sheep.

From Reuters:

"We believe that all these virtual worlds represent next generation communications platforms," CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith said in a phone interview last week."

From 3pointD:

"Sheep CEO Sibley Verbeck tells the news agency, “Electric Sheep plans to use the financing to create software to make virtual worlds ready for mainstream consumption.”

From ESC: (Giff)

"As Sibley told Reuters, some of the capital will be focused on our software efforts as we strive to make virtual worlds ready for mainstream consumption. A big part of this is ease of use, which is why Electric Sheep is so active in the Second Life open source effort and hosts openmetaverse.org. Another part of this is building a second layer of information services on top of virtual worlds that helps people communicate and engage."