XMAS IN SL

Every year I wait with (un) bated breathe for the glorious lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center (I hate to be a cynic but, for some reason it just does not turn me on and it has nothing to do with the fact my last name has a "man" at the end of it).


This year was quite different. I heard that the Electric Sheep Company was doing a virtual tree lighting and got very excited. Guess what. I have been so swamped I missed the event all together so, I will refer you to the great people over at 3pointD for the details (I love 3pointD and if you are not reading it, you are doing wrong!)



Photo by Canimal Zephyr on Snapzilla


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All Roads Lead Back To Danny

I never met Danny Sullivan but I certainly have been to his conferences, read his blog and now am hooked on his quirky, whacky and sometime corny (sorry Danny, perhaps it is the singing but, I would not change a thing) Daily SearchCast.


Well fear not my fine feathered SEM friends, there is now more Danny to love!





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Out Of Touch For A Day And…

Chaos my friends! The blogoshpere is on fire :)


Well not really but, things were said, taken out of context, misconstrued etc etc (and so forth).


I will not get into so I apologize if you do not know what I am talking about. I do not want to propagate this any further I just want to go on record for realizing my own errors.


The medium is the message and I used a public medium to converse about a much respected individual, Robert Scoble.


Seeing as how I do not know him personally I am in no place to make personal attacks (which I did not do) but, any attacks at all in this forum were not fair.


I am a fairly opinionated person and stand by my opinions however; I looked at the sequence of events and imagined myself waking up to a message board thread ripping apart an email exchange that I had had with someone and can image I would be upset.


So Robert, my apologies!



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Even if you are not buying into Second Life, your Future Exists in 3D

Fine, so you are thrown off by the cartoon-esque nature of the Second Life avatar.


Perhaps you have tried it and have said the most matched and wholly unoriginal statement, “I don’t even have enough time for my first life” (I really deplore that comment on so many levels, get over yourself J).


Well, this is all fine and good. To be honest, I can see many reasons why you may not be into Second Life (the above reason not being one of them) however, one thing I know for certain, your 2D web life will change whether you like it or not!


…and why not? Why not use the 3rd dimension that the great master artist of old uncovered for us in their works? Why not have a web site on the http:// web that leverages depth.


I happen to know for a fact that this will uproot where you least expect and soon. In the meantime, look at this.




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Outside Second Life

Happy Post Turkey Day to All!


I had a great post turkey meal with the folks of the metaverse however we all took a holiday break from virtual space to congregate the old fashioned way.


The meetup was at Planet Thailand in Williamsburg Brooklyn and was organized by Jerry Paffendorf of The Electric Sheep Company. In typical media circus fashion I drank too much but held it together (no comments please J ) and had an enlightening evening.


I met Rhiannon Chatnoir in person (now I can say her name right, I will always spell it wrong though) who is an absolute delight.


I met with the legend Bruce Damer. He gave me a copy of his book, “Avatars” and signed it for me.


I did shots and had a great conversation with Nexeus Fatale. Nexeus, you are the man!


I spoke with Ron T. Blechner of Out of Bounds Software and Infinite Vision Media (really friggin smart dude).


After a night of discussing the metaverse, copy bot, libsecondlife and bottom shelf sex we adjourned to Jerry’s place where we all got school on the history of the metaverse by Bruce Damer. It was a truly spiritual experience.   


My only regret is being a little too drunk to be a little more coherent in front of a really pretty girl that showed up towards the end of the night. Perhaps I will meet her in the metaverse!


Once again, thanks Jerry, Bruce and everyone who showed up!


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Have I Found A New Love?



Yes, I found this at TechCrunch and this thing is hot! I am going to have a lot of fun with this tool and i recommend you check it out. It is a next level vertical search and social bookmarking tool.


Out of all the great tools the first thing that struck me as totally new was its ability to auto tag sites that you have been to a given number of times. For those not interested in taking the time to leverage the power of del.icio.us, but want to take advantage of social bookmarking and the seeds of the semantic web, this may be for you.



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The Semantic Web

I realize you can just as easily go to wikipedia and get this info yourself but, I am going to bring it to you anyhow!


The Semantic Web is a project to create a universal medium for information exchange by putting documents with computer-processable meaning (semantics) on the World Wide Web. Currently under the direction of the Web's creator, Tim Berners-Lee of the World Wide Web Consortium, the Semantic Web extends the Web through the use of standards, markup languages and related processing tools.


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The Jeff in Action

First of all, you should be listening to the Businessweek Covercast if you you are interested in business. It is one of the best major media podcasts out there as, it takes advantage of the medium by extending the cover stories with additional content. Some major media companies have decided to merely read their own printed word into a mic and call it a podcast. While I see the value in this, it is not truly exploiting the medium.


 Businessweek's podcast however is not perfect. I think they could do more by opening the conversation up to their readers but, Covercast is certainly headed in the right direction.


This story was on the cover of Businessweek and all over the blogosphere so, what better reason to share it with my readers (perhaps some have not seen it already, cmon). Also, I just listened to the podcast that went along with the story and it was pretty cool.


"Bezos aims to transform Amazon into a kind of 21st century digital utility. It's as if Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) had decided to turn itself inside out, offering its industry-leading supply chain and logistics systems to any and all outsiders, even rival retailers."


By lowering the barriers to entry even further for online retailers, I think that Bezos' move is very exciting. Furthermore, the concept of building an online platform in place of  things that were once done in part on the desktop is perfectly aligned with the way the what seems to be the future of the web.


Elastic Compute Cloud (as the service is named) could either revolutionize business or be a very expensive failed experiment.



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I ain't no jive turkey!







Mockben Makes A Turkey Fly at the Morpheus Ice Chanty_001, originally uploaded by bunstin_.rm.



Thanks to Frans Charming for the turkey, i love it!

"We Are Not A Passive Pilgrim"



I am not quite sure who said the above quote but it is very profound in light of the world that it exists in. I had an amazing night last night!


My new friends Rhiannon Chatnoir, Frans Charming and I had a great night in Second Life and on Ventrilo (which by the way has much better sound quality that Skype).


They took me to amazing places including "The Big Easy" (which is something that they had worked on for Katrina relief). We spoke about copybot issues and other issues pertaining to Second Life.


We came to this island where I saw the statement pictured above and I thought, how perfect! Although I am not one of the earlier adopters of Second Life (in comparison to my new friends) all night I felt like a pilgrim traveling in search of intellectual stimulation and the future of mediated spaces. The difference between my pilgrimage and the common concept of a pilgrimage is quite obvious but no less profound.


We are ACTIVE pilgrims in a world still dominated by passive media spaces!


I owe a lot to my new my friends (Frans, thanks for the turkey, I will treat it well) and offer the same experience to those who have not yet discovered Second Life.


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Second Life and Web 2.0

What the hell is Web 2.0 anyway??


I can more easily define what Second Life is because it is a tangible platform with certain definitive attributes while web 2.0 is a memetic discourse that takes different forms depending on who you are speaking with.


I just read a great account of how Web 2.0 and Second Life fit in our world together (or separately depending on who you ask) by Tateru Nino. I agree with most of it. Here are some of my highlights although I urge you to read the whole thing.



  • In reference to creation, "That ... spark leaks through the cracks and crevices of all our worlds, a relentlessly postmodern agglutination of the conscious and the subconscious; the life and the times.

  • Working in space

  • When you're in Second Life, you're in the world. This world

  • ...it takes something like Second Life to lift you out of your chair and give you that crucial juxtaposition that makes you more than just a few words on a page.


The last point is amazing!


 The idea that Second Life is more of an active medium than the Internet at large is truly profound.


 People are still getting used to the fact that the interactive space is lifting people from their TV sofas while Tateru is one step ahead talking about how Second Life is bringing people out of the lurker mode of the 2d web.


Great Stuff!


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Business Communications in Second Life

Question:


Should you enter Second Life?


 The Answer will invariably be yes. I have yet to find a brand that would not be able to make a name for themselves in Second Life


Better Question:


What should we do once we get there?


Get this answer from Linda Zimmer of Business Communicators of Second Life



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