Are the masses really ready to converge?

I have had a PC (Mac) in my living room (and Kitchen) for years. In fact, my sole form of media entertainment for five years of my life was solely Internet (I was boycotting cable :) ).


But that is me. I am a technophile, counter culture junkie or just plain different but whatever the reason my media consumption habits do not mirror those of the masses.


Lately I have been meeting more people like myself.


As windows media center grows in popularity and Apple continue to release things such as front row and iTV, we get closer and closer to the Mecca of media; a place where one box houses all.


A recent article in the Times added to my growing excitement for the day when one box will house all. Netflix, mainstream movie-by mail rental business is making a move to streaming video. That is right, STREAMING, no downloading :)


I have had very bad experiences with Netflix in the past. I would say 20% of DVD’s sent to my house were scratched but I guess that is to be expected.


I think it is time to re think my relationship with the service that just may help redefine the way we watch movies.


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Verdino On Second Life

Greg Verdino of Digitas has been very out spoken lately about  brand presence in Second Life. His most recent statements have been in Mediapost and while I think a lot of what he says is dead on, we are not on the same page in all areas (which I love, it keeps me thinking. Thanks Greg :) ).


Verdino say the following;



A common error is to establish a beachhead and then never show up at it



100% agree!


This is one of the biggest problems that I have with current brand initiatives in Second Life. Many brands are not leveraging the inherent value of this immersive environment. The marketers and media planners that are treating SL as just another media buy are way off the mark.


There are a few issues that Verdino brings up that are very relevant, however I do not feel they should necessarily be deterrents for brands.



  • Verdino talks about the ever present sexual culture in SL. While this is true, this is true in all facets of life and was never more true than in the early days of the Internet. While I think this should be a concern it certainly should not be a deal breaker. If close attention is paid by marketers and programmers, risks can be mitigated to a large degree.


  • Next Verdino says,

    •    Pretty much anything goes, anywhere. "Do I as a brand want to take the risk of a bunch of nude people walking around my SIM while I'm trying to engage consumers?"



  • My response to that is, of course not but, there are certain permissions and policing that can occur. It is not easy to do but again, this should not be a deal breaker (Verdino does not explicitly say these things are deal breakers by the way). In terms of anything goes, well, this is not entirely true.


  • Verdino says;

    •     "It's great for the geek elite, but your mom is not likely to be in Second Life anytime soon."



  • It took my mom a very long time to adopt the 2d web. It was not a matter of her adoption curve, rather it was a function of the tools becoming more user friendly. With the open sourcing of the SL client, I predict we will see a lot of changes. When the entire platforms becomes open source I feel that SL will become much more user friendly.

  • Finally the article mentions that Verdino predicts that other platforms will overtake Second Life. This is a very safe prediction as there are so many emerging virtual worlds. I for one am rooting for Second Life as, the premise on which it is built and the company that founded it are very true and I feel they have a very sincere passion for what they are doing.



Bottom line, Verdino is doing a great job of advising brands on the pro's and con's of Second Life (from what I have seen). Greg, if you read this, I cannot wait for more from you as it keeps me sharp.



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The Good, The Bad, Sears and Circuit City in Second Life

Rule #1 Wait until your initiative is complete before going live.


Rule #2 Get someone else's opinion if you are not sure whether or not you initiative is complete


With the barrage of brands entering Second Life, we are seeing something like a land grab for "I did it first's". If you do it first and do it wrong or incomplete, I say wait and do it second (it is Second Life after all, bad joke).


Enter Sears and Circuit City:


Sears:



  • They have been playing in the 3d space on their site for some time and the build is not terrible, just boring


  • A brilliant groundwork for the future is laid with this build but we are from from the future

    •  Design your own media center, kitchen etc. What a cool concept.


    • I love the fact that Sears is calling out there product RSS feeds as well. Not so revolutionary but, it goes along with the notion that Second Life is and all encompassing medium


    • Finally, I liked the fact that Sears created this as a sandbox, asking for consumer feedback.

    • All in all, a weak yet promising attempt




  • Circuit City

    • What can I say? I think I will abstain for now :)

    • Free iPods (I am not sure that was intentional) but, who really needs that in world?

    • There is also something that is trying to be a digital advisor for home theatres. My advice, just got to the store for now








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Making Friends Is Easy

Someone read the article that I wrote in iMediaconnection and contacted me. We then meet in world and had a great chat! She sent a follow up email with a rant I wanted to share with everyone.



My gripe with a lot of marketers and others in the ain't-it-cool crowd is that they don't seem to take a lot of time to walk around in SL and see what's what, to see how it works from a mechanical or technical point of view, to see what people want to get from SL and what seems to be most popular. Yes there are some who get it but from what I have seen from some big brand-name marketers they're all about using SL to shove a product at the people. You would think at last 15 years of interactive marketing should have taught them that you can no longer be successful with one-way marketing.



My other gripe with a lot of the marketing efforts is that there's little opportunity for live interaction. Take the Nissan vending machine. If it doesn't work, whom do you contact for help? And unless they've rescripted the car, you almost have to have an IT degree to make it work. Whom do I contact to explain it to me?



A lot of the marketing seems to be beside the point for most of the folks I have become friends with, none of whom are marketers or involved in out-world marketing or branding efforts. I also don't see the big-name guys making much of an effort to reach out to the mainland community. I seldom see any events or classified notices in the search engine, although Cnet does do a good job. And for the most part, they don't even have groups you can join to get info and updates on activities. Although Cnet, Crayon and Millions of Us do have groups, they don’t send out notices regularly.



Some of the independent businesses, especially the hair shops and the clubs, do a good job with this. They would be worth copying, but I'll bet the marketing establishment wouldn't even consider it.



EvansMom Goodspeed


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A Man, A Plan, A Canal (well...), MORPHEUM

The sun was shining bright on this virgin parcel.


I was there to see it open it eyes and heart to the world and say, "hello I am your sim".


In the distance I heard and ancient drumbeat; the stomping of the gods and I, Mockben Hegel, new that may season had come.


What could an avatar do but soar around these majestic hills and dream of an entire world, a 3d world like the I saw before me.


A word that did not discount the Z axis like so many before it.


A world that did not shutter at the sound of the words podcast or wiki.


A Second World...A Second Life





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Separated at Birth? Reunited in the Metaverse?

All I have to say is, wow!


I have heard the name Greg Verdino and I sure as hell have read David Armano's amazing blog Logic+Emotion but if you want to see something that will really bake your noodle, have a look at this post!



-Courtesy of David Armano




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All you naysayers can shove it! Sears In Second Life

Making e-commerce more engaging and personalized is certainly part of the future of buying and selling goods online. There has been a lot of skepticism about the efficacy of Second Life in helping achieve this end but Sears is already virtual on their site:



I saw an exhibit by Home Dept at Shop.org about a year ago where they were talking about the same type of technology. With this in mind, why all the SL hating lately? If you are not into SL at least recognize the potential!


Sears Does:


See


See


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Welcome back Jaffe/Paying it Forward

JJ welcome back man!


I missed ya (is that weird to say to a guy you have meet in person only one time? no way!).


 I too was away but that did not stop me from checking my iTunes to see if anything new was pushed out.You are slacking on me man, spending time with your family instead of social media :). Hope it was a great time.


 Alas, we get a new ATS and I am psyched about it.


 I just want to share something with my audience that makes me very proud and at the same time is reflective of my relationship with Joseph Jaffe. After reading "Life After the 30 Second Spot" I was inspired. At the time I was working as a media planner. I was in the interactive industry but, my thinking was far from interactive and my media buys were tantamount to a traditional print buy.


It took me a while to start up a blog (and I still have only created two test podcasts that are really bad) but after seeing Joseph Jaffe speak at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC I realized that joining the New Marketing revolution was my duty.


Since then I have become the resident social media and marketing brain trust at Morpheus Media and my goal has been to motivate others as Joseph has motivated me. Here is an example of the extended motivation.


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Perhaps it is not right to criticize close minded people but can we laugh at them?

Read This



Laugh at these-




Intriguing…but why do I feel like “Get a Life!” is the best response to these Second Lifers?



— Posted by Pete





Can someone please explain why Second Life exists and why politicians are pandering to “Second Lifers”? They need to get a FIRST Life, get away from their computers and get some sunshine.



— Posted by Joe





why do I feel like “Get a Life!” is the best response to these Second Lifers?



            They did. A second one.


— Posted by Joe





These folks would have a more effective conversation in a text-only chat space, or God forbid, a real room. Second Life is an overhyped environment that is better used for entertainment and escapism than political discourse.


— Posted by sarah






Sounds like a big sham if you ask me that is only to pander to the notion that these officials are “with it” with the latest technology. Second Life is a game for those not in the know and while it’s one of the largest online communities (the largest is actually World of Warcraft surprisingly enough), it neglects to mention that only 1.2 million people worldwide use it. So you are lucky to hit maybe about 1% of the population of any municipality. Take that and mesh in voting demographics of the typical user and you have the most inefficient use of someone’s time. Seems like there are other much more worthy methods of encouraging political involvement than Second Life.



— Posted by Brian






I think the whole SL “phenomenon” is a load of BS. If people are so interested in meeting other people, going to clubs, buying coffee at the local cafe, or having a political discussion, I think their energy (not to mention $$$) is wasted by sitting in front of a computer while doing it. I agree with Pete and Joe, SL-ers need to get a REAL life and stop fooling themselves into thinking that living virtually is at all as fulfilling as living for real. However, they’ll probably be the only ones still alive in their little plastic virtual bubbles after the climate crisis wipes out all of Earth’s already limited resources. I bet they don’t even remember the last time they went outside.


BTW, I’m a web developer by profession, even have my masters in IT, but I still think SL is a bunch of poo. I may contribute to the virtual world, but I’m smart enough to leave it behind when my work day ends and go home and enjoy my family, friends, neighborhood park, dog, cooking, BOOKS, non-virtual hobbies, and what’s left to experience of our beautiful, fragile planet while I still can.



— Posted by Erin






Second Life is boring, clunky and un-fun. As with MySpace, I am absolutely mystified why “social” people want to spend so much of their time on UGLY websites administered by others.


I think people who use these services simply have a longing to be in a controlled world where they don’t actually have to be in charge of running it.



— Posted by Donna






Second Life is great for people who have no real personal life. Otherwise, its a waste of time. I mean who has time to diddle around with a fake reality? Anyone who is doing it as part of a “balanced life” clearly isn’t spending much time on it. BUt if you don’t spend hours a day on the game, you can’t get anywhere in Second Life. The extremely few people who are earning real income from SL are spending +12 hours a day staring at a computer screen. Does that sound like a life to you?



— Posted by Alex



It is people like you that make it easier for people like me to be successful! Thanks for being so far behind the curve.


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When should Second Life Aggression Enter Real Life?

Sure, I am relatively new to SL (born May, 2006) but, humanity is humanity, in any world! Perhaps some of Second Life's elites do not want the likes of me (people who were not fortunate enough to have discovered SL early on. People who are not gamers rather, academics, business people and those simply fascinating by the wholly unprecedented form of communication that is Second Life) in-world.


Why am I ranting?


I feel that a lot of the grief that I have been hearing about has to do with creating a sense of terror aimed at those looking to capitalize on Second Life. Perhaps I am wrong about this. Perhaps much of the grief has no aim but, after listening to the  "Dirty Jew" Secondcast (which is one of my favorite podcasts by the way. Even if you are not into the content those guys, and girl are hilarious and insightful) my feeling that the exclusionary element in Second Life is behind much of this grief is growing. I realize that there is a long history of griefing in SL but I get a sense of negativity in many of the SL related blog posts that I read. Negativity aimed at the casual SL'ers.


Next Topic: When should Second Life Aggression Enter Real Life?


Never!


Listen to what the folks at Second Cast have to say


There are many Second Lifers who are embracing the new wave. There are many who have been open minded and greeted me with open arms as, my greatest focus is the future of communications, is that so wrong?


I would like to take this time to thank those people:


Nexeus Fatale


Rhiannon Chatnoir


Aimee Weber


Frans Charming


Jerry Paffendorf


I salute these people for helping create the future of communications for ALL of the world. I am sure there are many more like them and I would love to chat. Perhaps my morning shoulder chip is due to the fact that I am on a diet and cannot have a good breakfast. Perhaps my rant is really only meant for a small population.


Feedback please!


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