The UK Blog Awards, sponsored by Odeon Cinemas, Debenhams department stores, and Hills Balfour PR agency, was founded in 2014 “to recognise true viral style and creative excellence across a variety of 16 UK industries, as well as awarding 2 sub-categories: Best Storyteller and Most Innovative award.”
“For what may seem like a lifetime, company employees and private individuals have been found Blogging about opinions, facts and sharing good practice with viewers of the worldwide web since the early 1990s,” the organisers note. “So, here at UKBA we thought it was about time that individual Bloggers and companies received recognition for all your well-earned innovative opinions and content!”
Nominations for the 2015 UK Blog Awards were held over November / December 2015, and one of the blogs nominated for a possible award has been Second Life’s own Windlight Magazine, for which I’m privileged to be a Contributing Writer.
Since its inception in July 2015, Windlight has become perhaps the premier arts magazine in Second Life, featuring a team of highly talented writers (and I’m not simply saying that because I do contribute!), and an outstanding editor / founder in the form of John (Johannes1977 Resident).
During the months following its inaugural issue, Windlight Magazine has provided superb coverage of the arts in Second Life, and has gradually encompassed broader elements of the platform – travel, fashion, etc.
At the same time, the Magazine has sought to promote the arts through the Windlight Fellowships, has supported notable charity activities, and has most recently stepped in to sponsor the UWA art gallery.
During this same period, the Windlight blog has become a go-to resource by which people can discover the arts in Second Life, learn how to improve their SL photography, find advice on art, photography and writing, read reviews of places to visit in-world, and more. As such, it is a worthy nominee for a UK Blog Award.
But it needs your help.
Public voting on blogs nominated for the 2015 Awards commenced on Monday, January 4th and will run through until the end of February. The top 10 most popular blog from the various categories in the nominations will then be shortlisted for judging by an adjudicating panel of experts, with the winners being announced at a special awards evening which will in London ion Friday, April 29th, 2016 (full details TBA).
To help ensure Windlight Magazine might be one of those finalists, please click on the image immediately above right, and place your vote.
Doing so might not only help Windlight Magazine reach the finals and possibly receive and award, but it will also help promote Second Life and Second Life arts to the rest of the world.
Update #3, January 9th, 2016: The testimonials on the landing pages have now been updated with genuine comments and images from Second Life users.
Update #2: I’ve further been informed that the testimonials are intended to the express the sentiments of SL users and are based upon feedback. expressed by SL users. Similarly, the images are in fact stock Internet images. A footnote to the effect that “The consumers above are not actual consumers of the advertised product.” has now been added to each of the landing pages.
Update #1: I’ve been informed by various third parties that the testimonials on the landing pages may not in fact be genuine. I’ve therefore revised this post until I hear further on this matter.
On Monday, December 28th, Friestorm announced the arrival of their Gateway landing pages, and asked Firestom users for their assistance in helping to spread the word about Second Life.
The Landing pages are an integral part of the Firestorm Gateway, which itself forms a part of the upcoming trail Gateways Programme I previewed back in September, and which hopefully will be officially announced as up and running by the Lab in the near future.
In all, six landing pages have been produced, each one of which is intended to showcase a specific aspect of using Second Life, and encourage those new to Second Life to sign-up and log in to the platform. To help with this, Firestorm is asking SL users to share those pages they feel their non-SL friends and contacts would find to be of the most interest and thus sign-up. The six pages have the following topic descriptions:
While one might quibble over the subject titles (role-play and exploring might seem to exhibit a high degree of cross-over, for example), the pages themselves offer a crisp, clean approach to present Second Life, including endorsements from (and photos of) actual SL users.
Each of the pages includes a series of sign-up buttons which carry those interested to the initial phase of sign-up: creating an account – providing a user name, etc.
The sign-up form using the Lab’s API
It’s probably worth pointing out here, and before the conspiracy theorists reach for their tin-foil hats, that this sign-up process uses an API supplied by Linden Lab. This means that, just like all third-party TPVs, none of the gateways in the programme – Firestorm or anyone else – is storing or accessing the sign-up information a new user provides. The information is strictly between the user and the Lab. The only part of the sign-up information which can be accessed is the e-mail address: and that only for as long as it takes for an automated welcoming e-mail to be sent.
Providing the fields are correctly filled-out – error messages will be displayed at the foot of the input fields, although you may have to use the vertical slider to bring them into view thanks to the API – clicking Get Started will move you on to the next page, intended to step the user through downloading, installing and launching the viewer.
The Firestorm instructions page
To me, this page presents some issues which perhaps need to be dealt with if it is to be as effective as might be hoped – I’ll come back to this a little later.
One thing established SL users are bound to note is that nowhere is there any opportunity for the new user to select an avatar.
This isn’t an oversight on the part of the Firestorm team – it is a result of having to use the “old” user sign-up API, which doesn’t have any hooks into the Avatar Picker seen on the Lab’s own sign-up pages. Thus, the first opportunity new users get to picker the gender of their avatar is after they have logged-in – and even then, they only initially get either the male or female default Character Test avatars which (a long while ago) replaced the infamous “Ruth”.
As the gateway has to use the “old” SL registration API, users do not get to select the gender of their avatar until after they log-in (left), and are then defaulted to either the female or male Character Test avatar (click to enlarge, if required)
Obviously, this is far from ideal. First impressions count, and many people seeing their avatar for the first time and comparing it to the glossy images on the landing pages could end up feeling a tad bit aggrieved or disappointed and might even simply log off.
This issue has already been raised with the Lab, so hopefully, something can be done about it, either by providing the updated API with the avatar picker to those involved in the gateway programme, or by the Lab finding the means to present new users coming into SL via these gateways with at least one of the new “Classic” avatars instead of the Character Test versions.
Once they have selected their gender and have seen their avatar appear, the new user will find they’re starting at the start of the Firestorm’s orientation island, where they can start learning to use the viewer, before progressing on to finding out more about Second life in general through the various activities and events operating within the Firestorm gateway regions.
Given that new users are confronted with the Character Test avatars on first logging in (and allowing for the fact this will hopefully be changing), I did find myself wondering if a short lesson couldn’t be provided showing the new user how to access the Avatar Picker and quickly create an alternative look, just to reassure them that avatars in SL really don’t all look like they first see themselves.
Once new users have progressed through the Firestorm landing / sign-up pages and have installed the viewer and logged-in with it, they’ll be delivered to the orientation island in the Firestorm gateway regions
I caught a Tweet on December 22nd (my apologies to the sender, I forgot to bookmark it and so can’t state form whom it came It was Rocky Constantine, as he correctly reminds me in the comments) which pointed those reading it to an article on the PSFK website with the enticing title, A Look Into a More Social Virtual Reality With the Makers of Second Life, by Ido Lechner. It makes for an interesting read.
The banner image is that of Second Life – and for once, it’s actually post circa 2010, and is quite reasonable in looks, and gets kudos points for being there, rather than the more usual 2007/8 images which tend to get used. Although that said, an image of the old v1 UI, circa 2007/8, plonked in the middle of the article doesn’t do SL any favours.
After a slightly blusterful introduction lauding Virtual Reality for already being a major disruptive force in our lives (and then admitting it has yet to go mainstream), the article settles down to discuss – and the title suggests – the more social aspects of VR in a chat with Lab’s own Ebbe Altberg and Director of Global Communication, Peter Gray.
This is a terse, and to-the-point piece, managing to both cover familiar ground (LL’s “head start” in running SL for 12+ years, the ability for users to generate content – and income – with the service, etc), and to give more insight into what “Project Sansar” may offer in terms of accessibility, and some of the reasoning behind the Lab moving in that direction. In particular, and where accessibility is concerned, Lechner notes:
PC games have traditionally had a heightened learning curve for older audiences who have a hard time navigating worlds with mouse and keyboard, but Project Sansar looks to be an all-inclusive medium thanks to a more instinctual set of controls. Gesture-based movements, advanced expressive avatars (the kind that’s rigged to your real life expressions), voice chat, haptic feedback and other progressive modes of interaction will all be welcome additions to the game.
That the Lab is looking at the plethora of new hardware that being developed around the first wave of VR headsets isn’t exactly news – Ebbe Altberg has pointed to this very fact a number of times of late. However, it does again point to the fact that while very distinct and separate entities, “Sansar” and Philip Rosedale’s High Fidelity are in some ways travelling the same road in terms of aspirations with their ability to adopt emerging technology. But there is something else in this statement which draws my attention.
When it comes to all these new and wonderful ways of interacting with the digital, people are very quick to blame the keyboard and mouse. In 2014, for example, Philip Rosedale when addressing the VWBPE conference that year, directly pointed to the poor old keyboard and mouse as being one of “the” technological barriers to entry into virtual environments.
Yet the fact is, the keyboard and mouse have beenour primary means of interaction with computer systems for so long that using them is sort-of “intuitive”; we can all grasp their use pretty easily. Who is to say all these wonderful now methodologies for interaction won’t also bring their own issues with them, thus presenting those “older audiences” Lechner mentions with precisely the same kind of “heightened learning curve” as is perceived to be the case when it comes to using the keyboard and mouse within certain environments?
Professor Jeremy Bailenson – a strong influence on the Lab’s thinking (image: Stanford University)
Another common thread between High Fidelity and “Project Sansar” (which again should not be taken to mean the two are in any way linked) comes in the persona of Jeremy Bailenson of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford.
Bailenson serves as an advisor to High Fidelity, alongside of Tony Parisi and Ken Perlin in particular, and as I’ve previously covered in these pages and Peter Gray states to Lechner, Bailenson’s work is greatly influencing the Lab’s approach to Sansar, which is no bad thing.
Certainly, Bailenson has offered some incisive views on the potential and pitfalls in VR, and his views and outlook are very relevant when considering the social / psychological impact of VR. Hence the Lab would seem to be availing itself of the right spheres of influence as it develops “Sansar”.
The focus on the social aspect of Second Life (and potentially of “Project Sansar”) is an interesting new direction to take when comparing this with earlier media discussions the Lab has had. In those, the focus has tended more towards emphasising the potential for “Sansar” among a defined set use cases with those vertical markets where VR can be seen has having great potential: education, training, design, healthcare, architecture, etc (again, it is no accident that the first public demonstration of “Sansar” came during San Francisco’s month-long Architecture and the City Festival in September 2015). Although all of these do get a mention at the end of the piece.
Certainly, there can be no doubting the social power that Second Life has, and both Altberg and Gray are entirely correct in pointing towards the added depth the environment has given developing relationships. So really, there is no reason to doubt that, as / if / when “Sansar” can be accessed by more-and-more people, the same cannot be repeated there.
Nevertheless, I confess to remaining sceptical of “Sansar” really ever reaching the kind of audience numbers the Lab has tended to boldly predict. Second Life has had a hard time reaching beyond a certain level in terms of user traction. Like it or not, the central reason for that isn’t really to do with the difficulty in entering SL or the UI, or “understanding” what SL is “about” once people are inside it (although all have a role to play, for sure).
It simply comes down to people not seeing Second Life as having relevance in their daily lives. Given that VR is supposed to bring us a whole new world of immersive opportunities, distractions, capabilities and so forth, all designed to keep us informed, entertained, involved and immersed – who is to say “Sansar” and environments like it also won’t face a similar uphill batter when it comes to people seeing them as relevant to their already involved physical and virtual lives?
Which doesn’t mean the I don’t think “Sansar” will “fail” or isn’t worth the effort. The Lab does need to move with the times, and there is certainly no reason that while Sansar may remain niche is a similar manner to SL having always been niche, there is no reason why it cannot settle into a much larger niche. Or, as seems more likely to be the case, take up residence in multiple niches and ride along comfortably within them.
Winter Wonderland 2015-2016 features a much bigger snowball fight area
In blogging about the re-opening of the Lab’s Winter Wonderland on Thursday, December 17th, I asked:
The big question is, however – will there be a residents vs Linden Lab snowball fight this year?
Well, the answer wasn’t long in coming, as a blog post from Xiola on Friday, December 18th, announced that there will indeed be a snowball fight to mark Christmas 2015 in Second Life, as she wrote:
Come one – come all to the Snowball Arena for a friendly ice battle of epic proportions! We’re bringing back the Official Snowball Showdown – where you’re free to pelt your fellow Second Life Residents and Lindens with a bevy of sparkling snowballs!
If you missed last year’s battle – now’s your chance to get some snow slinging fun in an icy free-for-all at Winter Wonderland. Join us on Monday, December 21st between 10 AM SLT and noon SLT.
If you’re looking for the latest in snow-slinging arsenal, be sure to grab your free snow launching weaponry from the vendors around the arena. Premium members can unlock even more powerful artillery.
Mark your calendars, assemble your dream team of friends, and meet us in the snow!
The 2015 snowball fight – which marked a return of the event after a lengthy absence – was a pretty robust and fun affair. This year, with a greatly expanded arena space and the odd monster thrown into the mix, promises to be far more of an occasion.
The February 2015 snowball fight at Winter Wonderland: Strawberry Singh swings into action, demonstrating her skill with a snowball rifle in a one-handed, from-the-hip snap shot at a moving target! (Flickr)
So, reconnoitre the playing arena, if you are Premium, grab your upgrade badge from a Premium kiosk, and get ready to lock’n’load on Monday, December 21st, from 10:00 SLT.
As I recently reported, Art at the Park, located at Holly Kai Park, re-opened on Thursday, December 17th, 2015 with an exhibition featuring six very talented individuals, some of whom you may be familiar with through their art, and some may be somewhat new to you, given they haven’t widely exhibited their work in-world. They are: Boudicca Amat, Kess Crystal, Jaydn Firehawk, Johannes1977 Resident, Nico Time and CioTToLiNa Xue.
The re-launch of Art at the Park has been a personal project for me, as regular readers will know, having been asked to take over curating the park’s art events by estate owner Nber Medici. As such, when it comes to previewing this exhibition. Given this, rather than writing a review of the exhibit itself, I thought I’d offer some thoughts on why I wanted these particular six people to be a part of this inaugural exhibition for the re-launch.
Boudicca Amat
Since its original inception in 2008, Art in the Garden / Art at the Park (to give the programme its original and continuing titles) has tended to offer a mix of art from photographers and artists in SL on a rotating basis, with special events added to the mix. In taking over the role of curator, this was very much something I wanted to continue, and it will hopefully be the hallmark of exhibitions and shows at Holly Kai Park going forward.
As a part of reworking the Park, Nber and I also agreed that we wanted to try to focus as much on artists and photographers who may not be “regulars” on the SL exhibition circuit as much as those who might be regarded as “established” exhibiting artists. This decision also played a role in the selection of these six people for the re-opening exhibition.
Kess Crystal
This latter point is why I’m especially thrilled that Boudicca Amat and Kess Crystal accepted invitations to display their work at Holly Kai. Both are extraordinary talents in art and photography, but neither has particularly sought to offer their work for in-world exhibition – and i personally feel that SL’s art and photography scene is the poorer for it as a result. I’m sure anyone who has seen either Boudicca’s Flickr stream or Kess’ Flickr stream will agree.
Both ladies present very different styles, and somewhat different approaches to their work, but the end results are unmistakable in the deep of narrative and emotive power evident in their finished pieces. I’ve always found the studies they each produce to be deeply compelling because of this, as well as deeply admiring their individual techniques and skills in developing their images. I also really hope we’ll get to see more of their work in galleries across Second Life.
Johannes1977 Resident
Johannes1977 “John” Resident is well-known in the art community as an artist, photographer and entrepreneur. His work has been widely displayed in Second Life and can be found on his Flickr stream and at his in-world gallery.
I first encountered John’s work at Angel Manor, where he was exhibiting a series of images he took while on deployment with the US Marines (in which he is a serving officer). Since then, I’ve never ceased to be drawn to his work, wherever it is displayed. His range of styles and approaches is such that any series of pieces his produces tends to be completely fresh and original in and of itself – as demonstrated in his display at Holly Kai Park, which features six images of his mother’s beloved Germany, which are dedicated to her memory.
Jadyn Firehawk
Jaydn Firehawk and Nico Time are two Second Life photographers I’ve admired for a good while, and as such, very much wanted to feature them at Holly Kai Park.
Jadyn’s work covers both the physical world and Second Life, and as she notes in her biography, is often informed by her disability, which she notes has bestowed a mantle of intensity in the way she sees the world. At Holly Kai, she presents two sets of studies to visitors:one in colour, the other in moncohrome. Both demonstrate that photography from the physical world can and does translate into the virtual as a means of artistic study. Be sure to visit her in-world gallery.
Emily Chang from Bloomberg Business discusses the future of VR with Ebbe Altberg and AltspaceVR CEO Eric Romo (via Bloomberg Business)
On Monday, December 7th, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg appeared alongside AltspaceVR’s CEO and founder, Eric Romo on Bloomberg Business with Emily Chang, to discuss How to Find Realistic Timeline for Virtual Reality. In the interview, which lasts just under 5 minutes, the three discussed the potential of VR including.
The foundation for the interview is a report by TrendForce which proclaims the VR market will be worth around US $70 billion by 2020, with some US $20 billion coming from hardware purchases and US $50 billion from software and applications. It’s the latest in a bullish series of predictions on the future of the technology, many of which have gone unchallenged – and even then, TrendForce believe their prediction is an “understatement”. But how likely is it?
US $70 billion represents a tenfold increase in market worth for an industry slated to generate around US $6.7 billion in 2016. However you look at it, that’s a pretty steep growth curve. Both Ebbe and Eric see it as “reasonable”, with the latter citing the idea that a lot of companies which might not be considered as “VR companies” seeing a value proposition in the technology and leveraging it within their business model. In particular, he refers to the expected upsurge in VR as a paradigm shift comparable to that witnessed with the smartphone revolution.
Others are more cautious, as is the case with Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe, who is shown commenting:
We definitely believe the mass market … there’s going to be a lot of adopters, early adopters, of VR. but if you’re looking at the kind of smartphone scale, you know, billions of users out there, that’s going to take a long time.
While not nay-saying the potential of VR, other analysts view the TrendForce report as being unhelpful. When approached by Tweak Town, for example, Moor Insights & Strategy’s VR Analyst Anshel Sag, had this to say:
$70 billion by 2020 is more than extremely ambitious, $70 billion assumes that VR is a mature and mainstream market. There is no way that VR will explode into such a mature market within effectively 4 years. While I am extremely optimistic about the future of VR, such projections do nothing but hurt the future of VR by setting unrealistic expectations. There are no players in any part of the market that could turn this industry into a $70 billion industry in 4 years.
During the Bloomberg discussion, there is an acceptance that VR needs to overcome certain technical hurdles to gain more of a mass-market appeal. Certainly, these issues – cost, reliance on high-end supporting technology, etc. – are real, and doubtless will be overcome. But they aren’t the single issue facing VR in terms of its adoption.
Like it or not, VR is actually an isolating experience. Sure, you can in theory see anything, go anywhere, etc., while using it. But you do so at the expense of pretty much cutting you off from the rest of the world around you. It curtails your ability to properly interact with the things around you, to multi-task, etc. For many people and situations, even those seen as potential VR use-cases, that could curb the appeal.
There’s something else as well to be considered when discussing VR and its potential; what might be called the elephant in the room: augmented reality.
While AR is off to a slower start that VR, it is fair to say that it has the potential to reach into many of those markets and use-cases as seen to be ideal for VR, and offer a more attractive option in doing so. Initial AR systems are far more self-contained and portable; those on the horizon promise a wealth of capabilities (up to and including VR). More to the point, they do not isolate users from the world around them, something which could make AR far more practical and appealing for everyday use in the house, at work, on the street, etc.
By the time VR is really in a position to offer low-cost, lightweight systems freed from requiring high-end computing power, it could be facing stiff competition from AR for many of the markets seen as “ideal” for its use (image via CastAR)
So, it could be said that AR appears to be a far more natural proposition for widespread adoption and use, becoming a far more natural evolution from (and with) mobile and smartphone technologies. Hence why some put AR’s market worth as being in excess for US $100 billion by 2020.
Which is not to say that VR doesn’t have a place in the future. There are very niche and compelling cases where it will gain momentum. But whether it will ever reach the level of adoption comparable to the smartphone, as is so often cited, is questionable. There is no reason why, that for many of those potentially uses of VR outside of entertainment and gaming, AR might not offer a far better value proposition for take-up when compared to VR, leading to the latter being subsumed by it well before it has the opportunity to reach the scale of growth predicted for it.
You can catch the Bloomberg video by flowing the link towards the top of this piece, or you can catch the audio below.
The UK Blog Awards, sponsored by Odeon Cinemas, Debenhams department stores, and Hills Balfour PR agency, was founded in 2014 “to recognise true viral style and creative excellence across a variety of 16 UK industries, as well as awarding 2 sub-categories: Best Storyteller and Most Innovative award.”
But it needs your help.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 