Second Life turns on screams of horror tool

You'll soon have the chance to talk directly to flying penises and fire hydrants in the void known as Second Life. Linden Lab CEO Phillip Rosedale revealed that VoIP (voice over IP) will hit the Sadville streets "in a couple of weeks," during a speech here at OSCON. Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life, has been testing the …

[Anonymous Coward]

SL Nosedive?

Damn ... I hope Ginko Financial doesn't take the dive, all my "savings" would blow all the way to hell!!!

Truly, the only thing I've seen as an actual income in SL is the banking business, as the interest rate seems to be higher than my real life's CC!

Sad thing is, Second Life actually does have a potential, but it seems to be somewhat limited on usability: you can actually do anything, but to do stuff, you really need to learn how to do "everything". Plus, there is no basic interaction, it basically works like the graphic equivalent of a MUSH. Everything basically relies on roleplaying and clever object scripting.

I really wanted this to work, but it seems it isn't. Though it might start up eventually ... something more than rumpy-pumpy I mean.

[Don Mitchell]

Is There Potential?

Is there potential? I'm starting to think there is not. Many people have tried to build 3D virtual worlds, and they have all sucked -- alphaworld, worlds away, there.com, blaxun, second life. Microsoft had a big effort in this area in the mid 1990s, and I think they even made it open source (virutal worlds).

Something is being missed here, or maybe there just is "no there, there" as we said about there.com.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-08/ff_sheep?currentPage=1

[Kevin Aires]

I love it!

As one of the afore mentioned IBMers working in Second Life, I always find your take on it all pretty funny :)

The "empty" issue is a tricky one that any virtual world of any size will face. Problem is that at any given time people viewing a webpage have no expectation that anyone else will be there at the same time. So there could be hundreds or none. In a virtual space, if no one is there at that precise moment it looks like no one is interested (indeed a cycnical vulture might say no one is interested! ;) ). For example, I built the "Greater IBM Connection" building. There is no way I am going to sit there and "staff" it through the night just to say hi to visitors. If you look at the IBM islands as a whole though, there is quite a lot of traffic and usually someone around to talk to. To further try and and counter this problem we at the IBM Business Center have a team of people who staff a conceirge role. So at any time of day during US or European business hours you can come and visit and discuss your business needs. Visit the Sales Center Reception at the IBM Business Center or IM me for more details.

Boris Frampton

aka Kevin Aires in real life.

[LaeMi Qian]

SL is (was) over-hyped and the backend is cuddy. Nice front-end tho!

For all LL's harping about OSS, the voice client is not available in the Linux client as their tech supplier doesn't support all their client platforms. Being a Linux user is therefore the ultimate excuse for not participating in the voice option ;-)

My own interest in SL is largely in building 3D stuff for the amusement of myself and others - I basicly treat it as a virtual Lego-technic/Meccano set. It is much more like a free-form play toy than a 'game' with an explicit objective, hence people who are used to living by canned objectives (kill the monster get the gold in VR, or, do the job get the house/car/HDTV in RL) tend to be disappointed ;-)

While I can think of a number of VR systems with vastly superior back-ends, SL's UI is the only one I have encountered that doesn't actually require you to be a programmer or 3D expert of some sort to make your own in-world stuff. That is honestly the only reason I use it.

As for the busines world, good on LL for milking lots of development capital from big-business 'managers' who should (but never do) know better than to be sucked in by novelty and promises. OTOH, advertising write-offs might be a very carefully thought-out move on their behalf, so I probably shouldn't assume stupidity (though on past record, it is a pretty safe assumption with most big-business). That isn't to say that SL has no business use, but it isn't the 'new-era' by a long shot. Just as in the long-distant past, private companies could pay for brand placement in Lego sets (I assume Shell paid for that), there is a case for some sort of presence in SL, but probably no more than there is for a presence in a PlayStation game road-side/field-side billboard. A corporate presence in SL is not much use unless the presence is more than a huge 3-D billboard. If I want to see a company's products, their web site is a more usable alternative to wandering a virtual showroom.

As far as the market slump goes, in my own recent experience you are spot-on. Over the past 3 weeks I have noticed a serious flattening in the in-world marketplace for my sales of some of the stuff I made that others seem prepared to pay for (my aim is to cover my online costs, not to actually turn a proffit for RL, and in that I have been more-or-less successful so-far).

SL is really free-play. A small number of people have turned their play into a profession, but most just play for the sake of play and some are like my brother's garage band who are happy to make enough at pub gigs to cover the costs of petrol and to get new instruments occasionally. Don't be expecting to give up your day job for a virtual one any time soon!

[Austin Modine]

Voice chatting

I predict a massive exodus from Second Life's red light districts.

You can only convince someone your voice is deep and husky because you have a cold for so long...

[Esko]

different opinion

Is it really so bad that some furry teethed geeks have to suffer for a some time when they are implementing a possibly a really great future feature. And that feature is one of those kinds that can be used in different applications.

Shame on you for a posting news like that without critisims.

- Esko

[Jason Nolan]

Thank God for Sadville

I wish there were more articles like this. It seems that business can never figure out that there really is no place for them on the internet. There just isn't. Yes, they can BUILD places for themselves to sell services and widgets; Amazons and Ebays come to mind, but why would anyone online WANT to interact with a corporation when they don't have to, especially when we know why the corps are there, trying to make a buck and extend their brand influence. I still think that letting business on the internet was a bad idea, and the last dozen years have been interesting to watch in this regard.

But in the end, it all comes back to people... or as you put it vacant spaces full of exposed body parts. Personally I see a lot of talking, sharing of ideas and experiences, forms of creative expression. Just the things that could never interest business, or perhaps journalists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even sadder...

Having attended the con and seen this keynote, I think I found it more sad that he ran his slides from within SL. That is, he was running in the virtual world on the conference projector, and playing his slides on a display in there. And to top it off, he said they hold meetings every 12 days within the SL world, as well. I dunno, there's something kindof odd about holding business transactions in a "game". Then again, maybe I just don't appreciate all that SL has to offer.

[Kami Harbinger]

Old news.

Voice has been enabled in SL for, what, two months? You Regitards aren't even *competent* parody news any more.

Your analysis of the business in SL is typical Onion-style antics I expect from you, and I take it just as seriously, but really, try to keep up, Regitards.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Fun parody :)

Hehe ,the Reg is always an amusing read, even if this article could have been funnier :)

After all, one of the measure of success of many venues and ventures is how often – and how good! — the parodies are. I expect for SL nothing but the best, really!

[Rob]

Heh.

Going for flame of the week Kami?

[Dave Cheetham]

Benefits of using voice in SL

As usual, the "SL is only sex" brigade have become so up their own backsides, they can only raise the same old misconceptions of what SL is all about.

Voice is not in the mainstream yet but is available in a test viewer called "First Look". I built a virtual social club / 3D web site for my real life company so that my customers could text chat in real time with people who share the same interest. They are able to meet the developers of our products. I have networked in-world and come up with NEW real world products by meeting people in that environment. With voice, I am now able to stage a lecture in SL combining a live guest speaker in another part of the world, giving a voice talk with slides and video, ability to create and demonstrate things by manipulation of objects and convey concepts in a way that can't be done in RL without a massive budget.

I was talking to a leading lecturer in Chemistry who sees the potential of being able to put together chemical molecules and build models instantly to demonstrate to his students.

I remember when Apple macs first came into the graphics business and our 24 strong team of typesetters laughed and said how poor it was at setting type. Within 1 year, they were all unemployed. SL is in that early infancy.

Open your eyes to the future and don't be sucked in by the hype that it is only sex and roleplaying.

[Simon]

Talking to yourself.

Will the voice have an echo facility in it? "Helloooooo? Is there anyone thereeeeee?" As you walk past the endless rows of deserted shops all filled with the same identical slutty female outfits that no one is looking at.

[Azrael]

The real challenge...

...will be making it sound like the avatars are the ones talking.

When I walk into a room of five (or fifty?) avatars, and hear someone say "Hey, welcome to the club" I want to know who said that.

Will they be able to pull it off using stereo sound and speech indicating bubbles easily enough?

Or some sort of filter, so the more people in the room, the softer their voice gets as they move away?

It'll be interested to see if they can pull this off. If they can, it *will* bring new life into second life, by making it a more convenient way to meet people for voice chat. Sure, Skype may be better, but you need to already know the people. Going to a virtual bar to "pick up" has a certain appeal to a large section of the computer savvy youth. You just need to make sure that the technology helps, rather than getting in their way.

As always, the success of a social system comes back to how well you enable people to do what they already do, socially.