A New Year's gift from Chouchou

This morning I received a very welcome New Year's greeting and gift from one of my favorite bands of all time and in any life: Chouchou. This short but lovely video just reminds me all over again why I am crazy wild about the work of juliet Heberle and arabesque Choche, the Japanese duo.


The video came with the message, "we hope our music will always reverberate in your heart." Rest assured, juliet and arabesque, it does!

If you are not familiar with their work, you absolutely MUST see: Enjoy Chouchou while you can: Our days are surely numbered

Gary Hazlitt turns the page on 2008 - What happened and what's coming in virtual worlds

Sydney-based Brit and marketing wiz, musician, composer and rich content creator in virtual worlds Gary Hazlitt (aka Gary Hayes), is already done celebrating the incoming year, while we wait for a few more hours in the Western Hemisphere for 2009 to arrive.

Gary, who studied physics, is the director of the Australian Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP), and also heads up Virtual Worlds for the UK-based The Project Factory, for which he produced the highly successful and eminently revistable (as the traffic numbers indicate) Australian Telstra and ABC Second Life presences.

I welcome Gary's guest blogpost and knowledgeable take on the recent past and the coming adventures of virtual worlds. Happy New Year, everyone! - Bettina Tizzy

by Gary Hazlitt



In the social Virtual Worlds context, 2006 was about hype... another new frontier 'kid-on-the-block,' but became about fast bucks and cheap and cheerful PR. We saw that bubble gently burst in 2007 as the realisation that one world in particular, Second Life® (which is still the leading example of culturally created virtual content), was really about creative communication and artistic expression versus the local shopping mall or a crude business tool.

Last year, 2008, we witnessed a distillation in what Second Life (and by implication other customisable worlds) is really about, leading to a proliferation of new, niche virtual worlds meeting the cultural and entertainment needs of much broader demographics. We effectively saw the 'fat' surgically removed from Second Life and an acceptance that this new medium and form is still in its very early days, but in 2008 there are clearer reasons for being a part of the social web mix:

1. An immersive expression of community - Facebook and MySpace-meets-World of Warcraft. This community can create their own environments or swarm around trusted film, TV or lifestyle brands, too.
2. For business, it is more about a place to meet, present and recruit and far less about brand awareness, product sales or vacuous hype. The business model in 2008 clearly came into focus: the community selling to itself - brands needed to court existing inhabitants very carefully.
3. For education, Second Life is one of the most efficient tools in the learning process. Education becomes democratised, everyone can contribute and learn equally, remote learning is far more compelling, fun and immersive.
4 A creative tool. Second Life, in particular, showed significant maturity as we saw a higher number of serious live performance (CARP, NMC, DanCoyote Antonelli, for example), a record number of in-world 'machinima & TV-like programs' and by far the largest array of creative statements from virtual environment artists, many members of the NPIRL group. The quality of 'experience' creation from talented musicians, designers, photographers, artists, etc., reached new heights.


GROWTH OF WORLDS

Investment across the board - more than $900 million US invested since Oct 2007 - has moved away from generalist worlds like Second Life to more focused niche or user base environments with many starting to exhibit core game elements. These include those with renewed investment after new'ish launches: vSide, Football Superstars, Stardoll, Home, IMVU, Metaplace, Multiverse Places, and Music Mogul.



Towards the end of the year, console social worlds came onto the scene. XBox360 and Wii are very similar in 'cartoon' aesthetic, whereas Sony is far more game focused. All have very similar business models - create a space to hang out and be 'tempted' by games/film/merchandise. Although these are not yet places for community creation, they will soon learn that to keep inhabitants they will need to be or, like Google Lively, have to pull the plug. Embeddable or layered worlds began in 2008 and are likely to be significant in getting people used to real time communication through 'representational' avatars - vs text based 'social network' profiles. Also, Facebook worlds like YoVille or Vivaty, or layered worlds like Rocketon or Weblin that are embedded on the existing 2D web. The dominance of the likes of Club Penguin and Webkinz at the tweens end of the spectrum will be duplicated through teens and gen y's as a series of new, highly focused and targeted social worlds launch next year. This has already begun with Football Superstars and Music Mogul but expect to see many more - including several with user created content as a feature alongside the virtual economy.


HIGHLIGHTS OF 2008

- Graphics in Second Life become teenagers. Still some way from the likes of Crysis, Second Life Windlight turned the world into something far more fantastical for many. It added layers of light, glow and control to a previously very 'flatly lit' world. We still wait for dynamic shadows, better environmental sound and an even more useful scripting language (post Mono), but this was a paradigm shift for environmental artists.
- Some companies got it! There was not a plethora of companies or brands entering Second Life but those that did had continued success as they concentrated on the social (people) rather than 'product' aspects of their business. Although the Pond leads in dwell terms, new entrants like Warner's Gossip Girl have done exceedingly well. Car companies still do well even though Pontiac walked away from Second Life, and Toyota, Fiat and Nissan are always in the top 10 brands.


Click image to see larger

- The quality of machinima across all social and game worlds increased exponentially this year and a growth in communities watching 'documents' of the worlds they spend most of their time in. In addition to some machinima appearing in heritage media ("Molotov Alva and his Search for the Creator" and HBO/Cinemax, for example) there has been a growth in long form game-engine films and notably many more serious issues tackled.
- The New Worlds. A fracturing, as it became obvious that Second Life cannot be all things to all avatars - so nearly 70 other worlds all showed up on the radar. Many are focusing on niche interest or are highly branded. Several of the new 'jack-of-all-trades' entrants will learn that enabling community creativity and an economy is absolutely necessary. There were several walled garden/locked content mirror worlds and builds in 2008, which will learn to be not about 'broadcast' spaces, and realise that their worlds are far more significant than modelling what is around us - "In augmented and online virtual worlds, humanity will exponentially evolve, free from the limiting ghosts of that other virtual world we called reality".

The setting for NPIRL's Halloween parties: Plasma Co. Mining Colony - The future that never was

And so it came to pass that the strangest and most exotic creatures of the metaverse descended upon the gleaming but abandoned ruins of the Plasma Co. Mining Colony in deep space to observe the ancient festival of Halloween. The members of the Not Possible IRL and Impossible IRL groups gather but once a year for such a fete.



Rarely seen outside of adventure comic books and mythical chronicles, the guests were - each of them - one-of-a-kind, all gorgeous and imagined in their own way, convening to shake a leg or an appendage or two or ten to the rocking-est tunes out there.

No one knows with any certainty what happened to the original inhabitants of Plasma City. Kitsune Kyomoon, credited with the re-discovery and its supervision today had this to say: "We are attempting to rebuild Plasma City to discover what went wrong, while hoping not to make the same mistakes ourselves."

The Plasma Co. crew:
Cube Republic - Structures, scenery
Glyph Graves - Structures, sculpties, sound
Judi Newall - PR, publicity
Kitsune Kyomoon - Project coordinator
Lorin Tone - Sound guru, structures, scenery
Madcow Cosmos - Structures, scenery, avatars
Miki Gymnast - Scripting, structures, scenery
Photon Pink - Sculptie guru, scenery
Seifert Surface - Structures, space consultant
Ordinal Malaprop - Rocket ride between worlds
Four sims provided by Rezzable Productions



"We do know that the Plasma Co. Mining Colony is the source of plasma, the energy source which fuels the city. After mining out our original operations on a smaller asteroid, we moved the mining operations to a much larger asteroid in a more remote section of space. Here, we have formed a community of miners, engineers, pirates, merchants, scientists, farmers, fugitives and space scum. We believe that, after abandoning the original mining operations, the former base was overrun with unknown creatures... drifting life-forms from across the galaxy," Kitsune continued.



Discover the Plasma Co. Mining Colony:

Many thanks to Rezzable Productions for unleashing the Plasma Co. crew on four full sims to create the future that never was.

* Miki Gymnast's Asteroid Coaster - teleport directly from here
* Roller Coaster # 2 - teleport directly from here



* Visit... inside of... it (brainwigs... ewwww) - teleport directly from here



So many great guests and their avatars! Such good music.


The parties may be over... but there is always next year!

Coming up... dozens of pics of the craziest, coolest avatars on the grid that night.

See also:
* The incredible avatars at the NPIRL Halloween parties: "Take Two" by Skycat Ranger
* Just press play: The rocking-est avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties, as seen by Tezcatlipca Bisiani
* The exotic and fun avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties
* Scene stealin' avatars at NPIRL's Halloween parties, as captured by Cyberloom
* Trinity Outlander's double-takes at the NPIRL Halloween parties

yu can haz teh POWAH!!! - Creative combustion and a gift economy in the desert

Beginning this Saturday and for one week, scorched earth awaits you. Burning Man, the annual event that Burning Life is modelled after, is about dreaming your dream in a radically awake and alive state.

I scowled and shook my fist at the heavens yesterday because 22 sims brimming with the creative art and builds produced by hundreds of talented minds is too much to absorb in just one week, but now I am going to put all that behind me and immerse myself in the joy.

The temperatures at Burning Man are brutally hot. And cold. The dust storms whip the camps for hours at 50mph. Lag is Second Life®'s weather. Be brave, be courageous... it will all be worth it.

A core element of the Burner's culture is gifting, with no strings attached. It is not about trading or barter. Just a way to say hello, or thank you, or hey you!

One such gift will be from artist Truthseeker Young.



His vase of flowers contains a single stem flower staff and an animation with particles. Put them together and "yu can haz teh POWAH!!!"

STEALTH BLOGPOST #1: Battle of the Ironclads

Unless you are a member of their group, the EXCLUSIONARY ELITISTS at the Playa have made it impossible this year for you to enjoy the Battle of the Ironclads or any other fantastic build on the 22 sims worth of extreme NPIRL goodness by hundreds of extraordinary artists and builders until they open their LAGFEST IN THE DESERT 2008 for just one week. Furthermore, it seems that I am not even ALLOWED to blog about any of the creations at LAGFEST 2008 until it officially opens for just seven miserly, tight-fisted days - despite the fact that I am literally drooling... so I must resort to stealth blogposts and stealing other people's materials. Even though I respectfully requested - as instructed - press materials from Linden Lab's press office over a week ago, I am still waiting, and the organizers have made it clear that they want me to STAY AWAY.

I can't help wondering how this all fits with the Ten Principles of Burning Man which they claim to be living by... especially this one:

Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

One more thing... When we organized the Garden of NPIRL Delights, we restricted access and the publication of photographs, because we wanted to keep it a surprise... but that was just four sims worth of work and the exhibit was open well over a month. Even so, so much of the work went unnoticed because people simply didn't have the bandwidth. This event covers 22 sims and it is only open one week. So what does that mean for coverage? I bet if you polled the participants, they would almost unanimously say yes to early coverage. Wouldn't you?

Anyway...

***


Hotspur O'Toole describes himself as "An Irish would-be gentleman of indeterminate age, of a somewhat military bearing..." but any amount of text written by or about about this man cannot begin to convey the character he keeps, or the world that he and his cohorts live in.

Hotspur is always up to something... and more often than not it has something to do with a battle, but don't assume that guns and swords are always involved. For example, in July 2007 he invited me to attend the Duel of Compliments for the benefit of the Caledon Library, which he presided over. Here's but a snippet of text that I managed to keep from that event, just as it was getting underway:

Hotspur Otoole: We have surveyed the ground, sirs, and can attest that there are no stray compliments laying about, and we will take your words you have no extras hidden up your sleeves.
Bryndal Ellison hopes that she's not naked...as SL is not working
Terry Lightfoot giggles
Eva Bellambi: You do appear to have clothes on, Ms Ellison
Bryndal Ellison: Your Grace, good to see you
Hotspur Otoole: um, yes..... you're totally clothed... yesssssss
JJ Drinkwater sighs in disappointment, as she is quite clothed

Oh, I know... most of that text has nothing to do with the actual duel of compliments, which was uproariously funny and entirely and spontaneously ad libbed, but that level of sophistication in their text chat is standard fare with his crowd, where "LOLs" and "ROFLs" are quite, quite absent.

At any rate, he and his clan have been spending a good deal of their time in the desert lately - The Playa, to be more specific - and what they have concocted is a great deal of fun!

It isn't hugely complicated to play this radio-controlled game. First, take a copy of the free HUD that is offered there and wear it. Next, take one of the four available seats on the sides of the pool/ocean. Then, find the ironclad that corresponds to the color of your flagged seat and apply all your dexterity and skills with the goal of being the last one standing! Um... floating!

Because I am unwelcome on the 22 sims of the coming LAGFEST 2008, I've snuck over to Hotspur's delightful blog and swiped his video of the build.

Bryn Oh chronicles the fall of the angels: A story in prims

It is hardly surprising that Toronto artist and painter Bryn Oh’s installation at Second Life®'s answer to Burning Man, Burning Life 2008 which opens on September 27, has many steampunk features, or that it includes dozens of humming robotic insects, for these are acknowledged and signature elements that we have come to expect in her work.

What I hadn’t anticipated were the delicate, intricate details… the lightness that she has given steampunk overall, and I certainly had not expected a story, or one as sad as this artwork conveys.


Better quality viewing is available here

Art: Bryn Oh
Music: Arcadia and Tiny Fuge by Kevin MacLeod
Machinima: Bettina Tizzy

Bryn’s most recent installation at arcspace, the Gashlycrumb Tinies, has already appeared in the hardcover book Bryn Oh and the Tinies by Aiko Aichi and Ritva Nybacka.



What follows are excerpts of a conversation I had with Bryn a couple of days ago.

How long did it take you to create this, and how is it different from previous works?
Bryn Oh: I have been here for about a month. Kind of lonely really, but for me the main difference is the finished piece. I am really happy with it.

Are you going blind? All this tiny prim work! How many prims is this all told and how tired have you been?
Bryn Oh: Very. It’s been a nightmare. This is about 2,000 prims. No rotating textures, just tiny rotating prims. It is shown for one week only :) I hope the music plays okay.

Condos in Heaven is based on a poem she authored for this project. Before she got started, Bryn researched real angels from the Bible. Apocalyptic writings have explored the concept of fallen angels who succumbed to temptation or rebelled against God, and have therefore been exiled or banished from Heaven, but in Bryn’s scenario…


The bee at the heart of the captured angel

This has a new feel about it... more delicate, but also looks more real. It is the closest to real I've seen virtual steampunk get.
Bryn Oh: I was contemplating how angels would appear to us (in the future). Mystical gods… but would that change and would they become less mystical as we became more advanced technologically? They would (ultimately) allow us to conquer them. What would happen if mankind discovered a way to heaven; what would we do? For resources, we will destroy habitats, etc., and drive species to near extinction, but what would stop us? What are our boundaries? So I thought, perhaps, finding heaven would be. I am becoming more and more interested in the narrative, immersing one into a story in Second Life.

Bryn Oh: This is a store that sells accessories taken from the angels.

In fact, the store's “accessories” include the wings taken from Hadraniel, the guardian of the gates of heaven who is five stories tall and Cassiel, the angel of solitude and tears that appears in post-biblical Judeo-Christian mythology, and presides over the death of kings.


Gabriel's wings

Why ice? (Referring to the texturing of the building) Did the Playa have anything to do with your decision to use ice as well?
Bryn Oh: It is what mankind would build in heaven… their idea of what a structure should look like. It is faux ice. It is a way to glamorize the selling of chopped up angels and make it so people are not horrified.

Bryn Oh: I think of the angels as a kind of beekeeper with the human race as the bees but with the ability to sting. I am hoping that people will come in and sense that there is a story to figure out and piece things together. See the little boy and his father who are shopping? The angels have been defeated and their wings are removed and sold as accessories.

The shopkeeper's face... is that rust or blood stains or both? He also looks like a drone.
Bryn Oh: It is rust. I don’t like overt imagery like blood. They are all meant to be advanced but flawed. There is a secret room, of course. (Most of Bryn’s installations include one or more secret rooms). The gramophone plays, too.

There is the notion of artificial replacement... a futuristic selection of the species. You have put the beetles to work.
Bryn Oh: Steampunk insects are not cute, but edgy. The beetles are an idea that I have not put in words yet… a feeling, sort of. So let me try now. I think of them as something made by mankind and brought into heaven, kind of accidentally, much like a foreign bug comes into a country in a crate. They are a replacement to the bug that went extinct, to maintain the food chain. When something becomes extinct, it is replaced with something else to keep things working. The good pyramid. For example, if the fox became extinct, rabbits would overrun the countryside, causing problems for other layers of the food pyramid... so build a robotic fox - a steampunk one :) That is how I see the beetles. They came from earth to heaven accidentally. I think too much.

Do you hope that your virtual work might someday become much more of a full time thing?
Bryn Oh: I see Second Life as a possible new frontier. For example, when I paint in Real Life, I use large canvases to block out the peripheral vision and allow the viewer to come into the painting and become more immersed, but Second Life is absolutely immersive. It is being inside a painting.

Has your Second Life art influenced your Real Life work?
Bryn Oh: Originally, I brought Real Life ideas that didn’t work into Second Life. I guess that right now I have stopped bringing in Real Life ideas and am now exporting Second Life ideas to Real Life. It is reversing. This build, for example… could it be as effective as a painting in Real Life?


Love notes


The baby carriage: The baby’s eyes are watery earth orbs, and the infant holds a praying mantis - The Violinist, a tiny (and musical) robobug – as its toy. Gently floating just beyond the baby’s reach, is a robotic june bug

How does the baby tie into the story?
Bryn Oh: It is the wonderment that he has. Unaffected and still pure, but a product of an advancing human race.


The surgical procedure

The slurl for this installation will be posted on opening day of Burning Life 2008: September 27.

See also:
* Crap Mariner's marathon video session
* Edward Gorey's alphabet gets steampunk'd
* Self-hypnosis and Bryn Oh's "Steamgarden"

Turning the page on 2007 in virtual worlds - What happened and what's next

Virtual worlds are at the heart of what Not Possible IRL is about. Without them, our group and our cause would cease to exist. 2007 was the year I discovered Second Life. I am too new to look back and too new to look forward - with any real sense of perspective - so I turned to three thought leaders and veterans of virtual worlds who are deeply in touch with the ups and downs of the metaverse in very different ways.

Larry Pixel (aka Larry F. Johnson, Ph.D.) is the CEO of the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international consortium of more than 250 world-class universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies - and the largest educational body in Second Life - dedicated to using new technologies to inspire, energize, stimulate, and support learning and creative expression. He is also the founder and chief instigator of the prestigious Horizon Project , an annual status report on emerging technologies and education.

Forseti Svarog (aka Giff Constable) is the COO of The Electric Sheep Company, the largest startup dedicated to the creation of 3D content and sticky experiences in virtual worlds Second Life and There.com, including the "I am Legend" survival game on behalf of Warner Brothers, and the "CSI NY: Virtual Experience" - both in Second Life - as well as the OnRez viewer, a User Interface that makes navigating the metaverse more intuitive and accessible.

Seifert Surface is a post-doctoral mathematician who is probably best known in Second Life for creating a tesseract house inspired by Robert A. Heinlein's short story "--And He Built A Crooked House--," as well as his math-inspired sculpture, but I will likely think of him first and foremost as the winner of the Not Possible IRL logo contest.

Bettina Tizzy: Insofar as virtual worlds are concerned, what are you looking forward to?

Larry Pixel: I am pleased to see the work Linden Lab (LL) is doing to address stability and quality issues -- I am seeing real progress, and many signs that indicate that it is a major focus for them. I am also excited by the large number (50+) of players in the larger virtual worlds space, many of them new in the last few months. LL has been especially supportive of the work education is doing in Second Life, and that, along with the clear successes we are seeing in the edu space, makes it easy to be excited.

Forseti Svarog: I think 2008 will be a continued year of interesting experimentation for Second Life. SL will continue to see amazing creative exploration but its overall growth will slow until Linden Lab and the broader SL ecosystem are able to solve some of the things holding SL back such as stability, scripting limitations, limited APIs, usability, and more. I actually do not think that it is the visual capabilities (i.e. Windlight) that are getting in the way of its success right now, and LL needs to be careful not to focus on visual sexiness in such a way that they push the platform out ahead of most people's computer capabilities. SL needs more killer apps, i.e. more reasons for non-creatives to come, but the platform really needs to become more robust to get there. That said, I do expect SL to remain an interesting and active virtual world.

2008 should see a lot of virtual worlds activity around the youth market, more private worlds on a diverse set of platforms, and more "stepping stone" approaches where projects bridge 2D, flash-based worlds, and 3D. There will be continued corporate and educational experimentation in Second Life, Wunderland, and other tools as people try to understand how virtual worlds aid in team and group learning and collaboration. It shall be interesting to see what Google/Sketchup does in 2008, and if that consumes some of the architecture/design energy that has been pouring into SL this past year.

Seifert Surface: Lots of stuff. Better and faster scripts with Mono, and physics with Havok 4 should lead to lots of new ideas becoming possible to realise. Longer term, I think sculpties will be only the beginning in terms of better support for 3D objects.

Bettina Tizzy: What technologies or trends have you particularly intrigued?

Larry Pixel: I am very, very interested in social networking, something that is inherent in Second Life, yet still not implemented very well, especially when you compare it to some of the other major social networking platforms in common use on the flat web. An entrant that can bring the "user-built" philosophy and the openness to IP and ownership of virtual work that LL has pioneered, and mesh it with true ownership (ie backup to disk), easy compatibility with other 3D creation platforms, and rich social networking tools, will take over this space in no time. I have not seen that company emerge yet, but I am watching!

I am soooooo ready for SL on my iPhone. I hope someone is working on that client right now.

Forseti Svarog: There will be a host of private worlds built on emerging 2.5D and 3D virtual world platforms, but I'm guessing that many will not be as accessible to creative exploration as Second Life. Multiverse is quite interesting but my impression is that it is oriented around much bigger game and virtual world projects with larger teams and budgets. I think this audience should keep its eye on Metaplace, which should be a really neat avenue for creative exploration, albeit quite different from SL in that creativity will orient around 2D and 2.5D art and game design.

Seifert Surface: There are many interesting 3D interface ideas happening, particularly the Wii Remote and what people are doing with it. Imagine building in 3D by moving things around in 3D. Also, check out this video on head tracking for desktop VR displays using the Wii Remote:

Bettina Tizzy: What, if anything, has you especially concerned in regards to Second Life and virtual worlds' evolution?

Larry Pixel: Second Life, in particular, is already suffering from the perception of it as a "walled garden." We are seeing a move, among companies especially, to far less capable platforms, which are "open" and which they can "own" (ie, put behind a firewall). This may not be a bad thing for SL, but it is not a good thing for virtual worlds in general, as it will drive dollars to lesser platforms.

Linden Lab has said publicly several times that they want to go open, and have with the client. If they can open the backend in 2008, they will grow immensely. If not, we may be seeing them in 2-3 years as an interesting early player -- like CompuServe, or AOL.

Forseti Svarog: I remain very bullish on the entire virtual worlds space, but it is going to fragment in 2008 in more platforms and more private worlds. I think Second Life is going through a transition period where the technology, and our broader culture, has to catch up to the vision. SL's ability to succeed will depend on how well and how quickly Linden Lab is able to execute, and if and when someone puts forth a compelling competitive alternative.

Seifert Surface: Nothing really, I think the seed has been planted now, and no matter if it is Second Life or some other virtual world that becomes the de facto metaverse, it's going to happen. I guess the demise of net neutrality could be something to worry about.

Bettina Tizzy: Is there anything in particular that you wish Linden Lab was doing differently?

Larry Pixel:
1) See above re: open sourcing the back end.
2) Find some way to relax the Byzantine hoops and rules one must go through to do anything with highschoolers.

Forseti Svarog: This is hard to say without a clear window into their priorities and active projects. I know they are aware of all the problems and challenges, and complex software is not written or improved overnight. This stuff takes time.

Seifert Surface: There are occasional issues, I think, that could be handled better than they are, but generally I think they're doing a pretty good job.

Bettina Tizzy: Any personal goals or projects you'd care to share with us?

Larry Pixel: NMC Virtual Worlds plans a big announcement after the first of the year. It will come out first in the NMC Campus Observer, about January 10th.

Also, the NMC's highly influential Horizon Report (75,000+ copies downloaded or purchased in hard copy in 2007) will be released in late January. The contents of the 2008 report will be announced on the wiki next week.

Notably, this will be the first year since 2005 that some form of virtual worlds is not mentioned in the Horizon Report. I am not sure if that means it is now mainstream for edu, or if it is passe, but among my Real Life constituency, there are many many established projects, and many of these are clearly reaching mainstream faculty and other groups. Within the NMC, virtual worlds are still important, but are no longer considered the set of hot emerging technologies they once were.

Forseti Svarog: My own bandwidth for taking on creative projects remains extremely limited. In 2007, my only big creative project was the book of avatar portraits. In 2008, I hope to find time to either dive into a personal Second Life Machinima project, or try something completely new on Metaplace.

Seifert Surface: Well, there's my new sim, "xyz", currently (and likely for the rest of time) under construction.


Finally, I asked if they considered themselves optimists or pessimists. Turns out that all three identify themselves as optimists, but Larry added, "Clearly an optimist, but also a pragmatist. I am quite optimistic that good ideas will be adopted broadly -- it just takes time. Some fall by the wayside, but as someone who has devoted a career to implementing emerging technologies, the ride is always fun, and there is much to be learned by studying ideas that seem to have great promise, even if later it becomes clear they were a side road on the path to another set of ideas."

I can't help wondering if all participants in virtual worlds... really, all early adopters, must be optimists in order to remain sane while embracing and exploring new ideas and opportunities.