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Today, Hamlet Au posted on Zonja’s great OpenSim blog entry. He suggests the following:
…I think Grace McDunnough is onto something when she describes Second Life’s “killer app” not conferencing or other work-related uses, but a platform for binding weak ties between a large, culturally diverse community. (I’d subsume SL’s internal economy and user-created content under the “community” rubric.) Since OpenSim is still just the province of extremely early adopters, Second Life’s community is the Lindens’ main advantage.
For those who want Second Life’s community to be the organizing principle of their inworld activity, I would agree with Hamlet and Grace. The community of interesting and creative minds is not something to gloss over. It is not the “killer app” on a blanket basis, however.
Of course, there is also a not insignificant group of people who will not leave SL because they would not have access to the inventories built up over months/years when using OpenSim. In my mind, Linden control of inworld inventories is at least as important a “killer app” as the whole “weak ties” argument.
I can easily see a day when Linden Lab creates a tier of premium account with inventory portability across the SL and OpenSim grids, especially now as Philip Rosedale is conducting the open source dialogue for Linden Lab. (I’m still floored that Linden Lab opened up their viewer to open source coders – not the brightest of moves in my opinion – but they did.) As grid hopping will eventually be more and more common, would one not think that inventory hosting would emerge as the “killer app” that keeps people connected to Linden Lab and their Second Life product?
So what if it’s a beer commercial, it’s awesome.
“World Builder”:
Not particularly new, but awesome nonetheless. Hope you like!
This post by Zonja Capellini has me rethinking my past objections to OpenSim. This post is so thorough that I can’t even find a specific passage to quote. The only holdback is that Sonja suggests that she had to make some tweaks on her infrastructure, something I can’t do as I don’t program much past rudimentary HTML. Still, the experience she had makes me think it’s worth another serious look, especially as the Parallel Selves Message Grid plugin appears to bridge the gap between SL and the OSGrids.
I also know that there are some third party grid providers as well, but I’m a little skeptical of working with a fly-by-night operator. But what of hosting a sim on a DSL connection with a dynamic IP? Hmmm…this is going to take some investigation.
Hat tip to Pixeleen for leading me to this blog entry!
Degrees won’t be far behind. (Oh, and why exactly would we want to pay for some school to upkeep on their bricks and mortar? I’d rather pay to upkeep a couple sims. More flexible, and costs MUCH less…)
And I heard that there was some serious work involved by the students. No basket-weaving there. I might look into that program a little further.
Congrats to BlueGin Yifu, Marianne McCann and the entire Bay City Alliance for bringing Bay City to this point – it’s more than a collection of sims….it’s a community!
posted by Morris Vig on Bay City – Argos using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
Great machinima by Marianne McCann:
Enjoy the parade in Bay City this weekend! More on the parade and Bay City’s anniversary celebration is available on Mari’s blog.
On the eve of the birth of my first child, I went to The Great Fissure and peered over the edge. I think I saw a beacon of light at the bottom. What a wonderful metaphor for the leap I am about to take as a new father!
As Bowie would say, I’m going to be undergoing ch-ch-ch-changes…
On Thursday morning, around 5:30AM or so, Mrs. Vig and I will be signing into the hospital for the purpose of delivering our first child – a son. As best we know, he’s on track to be a healthy young boy…and if the pregnancy is any indication, he’s going to be an active one!
So we’re in the twilight of our “DINK”-ness. You know, “Double Income, No Kids”? We only were in that mode for 15 years, which now is starting to feel like a front-loaded retirement. We’ve seen the world; now it’s time to settle into the “parent thing.”
All I know now is that things will change. I have absolutely no idea how at a nuts and bolts level. I know I’m going to be spending time differently, spending money differently, pushing some priorities forward and some to the rear. And it will all be on very little sleep, at least for the next few months (years?).
What this means to Morris Vig in Second Life – I have NO idea. Nazz Lane’s contributions to Second Arts have been great, and I hope he continues the outstanding reports from the SL arts scene.
Mrs. Vig and I have waited a long time for this incredible moment, and we’ve made plans to implement changes in our lives in drastic ways to accomodate the new addition to our family.
So I stand at the edge of the cliff, with an inkling of what’s at the bottom, knowing that I MUST jump in less than 36 hours. It’s a very surreal feeling.
(Maybe I should spend some time over at The Great Fissure tonight and ponder this leap, metaphorically speaking.)
I hope to be able to share (within reason, I think he’ll stay “Viglet” regardless) over the days, weeks and months ahead. Enjoy the ride!
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