The Network

Second Life in the Media

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:12:13 -0700

I won't go into a deep analysis on the following articles about Second Life, other than to point out a couple of things. First, as opposed to the trends in the recent past, where the press was content to create a salacious image of Second Life, that trend might be changing if these two articles are an indication of things to come.

Second, despite what many pundits predicted, Second Life has continued to grow and thrive, albeit not at the hype rates seen in 2007. As such, this would seem to a clear indication that Second Life is in the Slope of Enlightenment phase of the Gartner Hype Cycle (see my earlier posts on this blog for more info on that topic). Nonetheless, we'll keep an eye on it to see if this is truly a trend or an anomaly (however, I tend to believe it is the former).

From the first article:

Last year, as the physical economy withered, the economy of "Second Life" blossomed, with user-to-user transactions topping $567 million in actual U.S. currency, a 65 percent jump over 2008. About 770,000 unique users made repeat visits to "Second Life" in December, and the users, known as residents, cashed out

$55 million of their "Second Life" earnings last year, transferring that money to PayPal accounts.

The big purchases in "Second Life" are land and the material goods that residents put on that land. It isn't real land, obviously, but digital space that looks like land. Users control the intellectual property rights to whatever they build, giving them economic incentive to create things.

From the second article:

While the rest of the world lumbers from one financial crisis to another, the Second Life economy is enjoying a boom companies the world over would be envious of. User micro-transactions hit an eye-watering $567 million an increase of 65% over 2008 figures. Were this to be a multi-national, the CEO would easily make the Time Person of the Year shortlist.

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MySpace to Sell User Data

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:06:20 -0700

One thing you might notice as you traverse the web is the growing trend of having people login to comments sections and other areas using one of their social networking accounts. While on the surface this is a matter of convenience (after all it lessens the number of account ID's and passwords one needs to remember), it also means there is a loss of privacy.

To those who are promoting the idea of a ubiquitous social identity, this loss of privacy is no big deal, and nothing to be alarmed about. At least that is what they are trying to sell, and as Facebook and Twitter grow, it appears that the users of these services agree with that idea, or are oblivious to the longer term implications. From the side of those who stand to make a lot of money from you giving all your information them is this:

At a technology conference in January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his audience that Internet users don't care as much about privacy anymore. The 25-year old said that, in the seven years since he started the company, "people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people--and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time." Zuckerberg defended the company's decision in December to push users to reveal more, saying "we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it."

Certainly Facebook has reason to push this meme, after all, your information, and the more they know, is vital to their future business model. And that future business model will very likely include selling your data to eager marketers who will then target you with narrowcasted ads. And further, the marketers who target you, as they have success in selling to you, will use your data to sell to other marketers. In short, they will know everything about you. Perhaps it doesn't bother you, or perhaps you think it will never happen. Nonetheless, it appears that MySpace is heading down that very path:

MySpace has taken a bold step and allowed a large quantity of bulk user data to be put up for sale on startup data marketplace InfoChimps. Data offered includes user playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes. Friend lists are not included. Remember, Facebook and Twitter may be the name of the game these days in tech circles, but MySpace still sees 1 billion user status updates posted every month. Those updates will now be available for bulk analysis.

This user data is intended for crunching by everyone from academic researchers to music industry information scientists. Will people buy the data and make interesting use of it? Will MySpace users be ok with that? Is this something Facebook and Twitter ought to do? The MySpace announcement raises a number of interesting questions.

Indeed it does bring up interesting questions, and underlying the article quoted above there does seem to be a concern about all of this:

In February we profiled Pete Warden (The Man Who Looked Into Facebook's Soul), a developer who planned on putting a huge pile of Facebook user data online for academic analysis. As we wrote in that article:

If what people call Web 2.0 was all about creating new technologies that made it easy for everyday people to publish their thoughts, social connections and activities, then the next stage of innovation online may be services like recommendations, self and group awareness, and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public.

Still feel safe posting everything about your life onto a public social network?

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IDC: 2010 Predictions

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:09:34 -0800

It is the time of the year again when not only do we celebrate the holiday season, but we also start to get the major analyst predictions for the 2010 IT market. In this post we'll list out the IDC 2010 Top Ten predictions. I will follow up with an analysis of these predictions during the week.

As a treat, I will also include IDC's 2009 top ten predictions, and if I have time this week, I'll examine just how accurate they were.

Here are the top ten for 2010 from IDC:

And here are the 2009 predictions:

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Media Coverage of Second Life (and others)

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:18:20 -0800

When the (traditional) media decides to cover Second Life, it's often on the negative or sensational side, at least since it has been since the hype of 2007 faded, during which time these very same media outlets were claiming Second Life to the the Next Big Thing. This is meant neither to bash traditional media (whose job it is to sell advertising space by attracting readers, hence the need to spice up material), nor is it meant to defend Second Life. Rather, it is to point out how difficult it can be to get an accurate assessment on the current state of affairs at Second Life (or any other technology) from traditional media reports.

The fundamental problem is that objective reports do not attract casual readers, and thus, dampen the number of readers, which of course dampens advertising revenue. Fair enough, that is the model, and it is the job of the marketing team at Linden Lab or at Twitter or at Facebook or at (insert your favorite tech company name here) to counteract or use media coverage in their favor. But how do we, as interested end users, gain objective insight?

The answer is it takes research and building your own picture of the what is really occurring, and to not rely on one or two traditional media reports. Case in point is this recent article from the BBC covering Second Life.

Once upon a time Second Life had a Twitter level of hype. Even those without a cartoon version of themselves couldn't plead ignorance due to blanket coverage in newspapers and magazines.

True, but of course the BBC had no part in the hype, right? Also, they mention Twitter and hype. We shall see if Twitter is immune to the laws of the Gartner Hype Cycle.

A year later, newspapers fell over themselves to cover it, devoting many column inches in their business, technology and lifestyle sections to profiles and trend pieces.

Just newspapers? Really?

But just as quickly as it had flared, media interest ebbed away. References plummeted by 40% in 2008 and dropped further this year. And businesses diverted their resources back to real life.

American Apparel closed its shop just one year after opening. Reuters pulled its correspondent in October 2008. When asked about his virtual experience, Pasick says: "It isn't a subject we like to revisit."

Note to BBC: this is classic Gartner Hype Cycle behavior. Of course you can't be bothered to examine that in your article as it makes for somewhat pedantic reading, still, if you really want to know what is happening with Second Life, it is critical material to understand.

"You could go and open these stores and no-one would turn up," he says.

"They would have 20 to 30 people there when it opened, and after that no-one would bother going in there again. It just wasn't worth the spend."

The "spend" varied from business to business. A retailer like American Apparel might spend £10,000 on designers, as well as storage space from Linden Lab, to build a virtual store.

But at the peak of the hype, the cost of purchasing or building property was worth it.

Okay, here's the nub of the problem. Real world companies thought they could go into Second Life and attract more revenue. However, when they did not, Second Life was deemed a "failure" because, as we all know, existing corporations are the only businesses that matter. Let's ignore the fact that SL is a platform, and as a platform, it is helping to launch new businesses that understand how to market in the virtual world, and understand what to sell.

And there is a fundamental question about whether Second Life is a game or a social networking site.

"It's not a really good social space," Mr Hammersley says. "Not as good as Facebook or any general online forum.

Really? You don't understand what Second Life is? Try reading this post of mine from 2007 and maybe you'll get some insight. I'm not claiming to have all the answers, but I see no mention of most of what I, and others, have written about in regards to what Second Life is (and isn't).

Simon Gardner, a 23-year-old freelance social media marketer, believed the hype in 2007.

Hmm.

"It was a real pain. You have to learn how to control things and read manuals on how to get to islands and get off. Half the time you're just wandering around talking to weirdos."

After three months Mr Gardner became bored and left.

What can I say? Bored? Having to read manuals to learn a new technology?

Is this marketing professional out to play games or is he there to analyze and understand and develop value? How much real world experience in technology does Mr. Gardner have? What social media marketing professional would not do their homework before launching into something as new as Second Life was in 2007 (and still is for that matter), and thus understand that the road ahead is going to be work? What marketing professional would appear to not be cognizant of the Gartner Hype Cycle model?

Certainly the article tries to make it appear like Mr. Gardner was and is an expert on this platform. But he only spent an entire three months on it, which seems to me to be the position of someone who was expecting a quick win from Second Life, as opposed to someone who has an interest in developing new markets. I could be wrong, but certainly the article helps to paint that picture.

"Monthly repeat login - a metric we use to gauge the number of users engaged with Second Life - grew 23% from September 2008 to September 2009," says Mark Kingdon, chief executive of Linden Lab.

On average, a million people log in each month, he says. In October 2009, 75,000 of those were in the UK.

And the site continues to evolve, Mr Kingdon says. It launched a new product earlier this month geared towards businesses, and will soon be launching more user-friendly and intuitive software.

And many companies and organisations are still holding on to their virtual selves - 1,400 of them says Mr Kingdon. IBM continues to be an avid supporter of Second Life.

What's this? Actual data in the article which seems counter to all the negative coverage early in the same article? Okay, I'm being critical here, and I do give the BBC credit for including this information in the article. What is missing, at least for me, is information about what has already been announced. Where are the stats that show how the SL economy is doing? Where is the information about the enterprise version of SL that has been announced? Where is the coverage or statements from successful businesses (and there are plenty of them) who are doing well in SL?

Here's the important point. Second Life is well past the hype phase, and is well past the Trough of Disillusionment phase, both of which are heavily represented in this article. Here are the phases as outlined by Gartner:

What are the 5 phases of a Hype Cycle?

1. "Technology Trigger"
The first phase of a Hype Cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.

2. "Peak of Inflated Expectations"
In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

3. "Trough of Disillusionment"
Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.

4. "Slope of Enlightenment"
Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

5. "Plateau of Productivity"
A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

What is important to note here are the clear trends: in early 2007 SL experienced the Peak of Inflated Expectations. By the end of 2007 the Trough of Disillusionment was setting in. As 2008 continued, those who remained in SL and stuck with it experimented through the Slope of Enlightenment, a phase which is still in place. It's debatable whether or not the final phase is in place, and what that will look like, but it is clear by examining the Gartner model, that what happened to SL is not surprising, and that by surviving the hype bubble, it will have real value.

So now, in 2009 marketers have turned their attention to Twitter and Facebook, which are clearly in the Peak of Inflated Expectations phase, and at some point will face their own shake out. Todays popular kid on the technology block is tomorrows forgotten one. But take note, virtual worlds, including Second Life, are not dead and buried. Rather, they are being reshaped into something more focused.

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Virtual Goods Resellers on the Rise

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:42:07 -0700

Cnet is covering an interesting report on the state of virtual goods. While nothing in the report is particularly mind-bending, the thing that is interesting is that it indicates the possible development of a nascent reseller market for virtual goods.

We see these sorts of activities in Second Life, some legal and some illegal, so this isn't a total surprise to anyone who has an SL based content business. Whether the reseller operates via an official affiliate channel or via the numerous yard sales that pop up every week, or on the illegal side, via stolen content, this activity has been operating within the context of SL for quite some time, and if the report is to be believed, is spreading to other platforms:

The research revealed that in-game currency is the most frequently sold digital good from player to player and that two out of three sellers sold in-game currency in the last 12 months, earning a median of $22. PlaySpan, a provider of monetization and payment solutions for games and virtual worlds and sponsor of the research, considers that to be good news as its platform enables game developers to provide player to player marketplaces for their players. In addition, the PlaySpan Marketplace currently provides a secondary market for IMVU players to buy and sell goods as well.

The full story can be viewed by clicking here.

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Top Areas of Growth in Marketing

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:00:00 -0700

The Creative Group recently released the results of their primary research into the question of which areas within marketing are expected to experience the best growth and which areas are expected to not do so well. I mention this report because to me it acts as a barometer of sorts to tell us in general where some of the hot points are likely to be in regards to marketing our own respective businesses.

The top three growth areas, in order, are (1) Web Design/Production; (2) Creative/Art Direction; (3) Interactive. As for the worst areas for growth, we have (1) Public Relations; (2) Media Services.

The Creative Group states:

“The hiring of creative professionals often signals that a company is preparing for growth by increasing its investment in advertising and marketing initiatives,” said Megan Slabinski, executive director of The Creative Group. “Many firms are particularly interested in expanding their digital presence. This is an area in which a number of companies continued to invest even in the downturn, and as the economy improves, they will want to build their capabilities further.”

Slabinski cautioned, however, that advertising and marketing executives are taking a judicious approach to hiring. “Businesses often opt to bring in people on a project basis to avoid layoffs if the economy loses momentum,” she said. “Supplementing the core team with freelance professionals allows companies to more easily adjust staffing levels as conditions change.”

What does this tell us? Essentially that the web and digital design is going to be the focus area, ranking in even higher importance to areas such as branding and product management. Not that those areas are no longer important, but rather, at least for the next year, design skills are king and where we should consider if it fits into our own business priorities.

Here's the chart:

Click image for full size.

For the source click here.

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Gartner: Avatar Appearance Matters

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:49:21 -0700

It's been quite some time since I've talked about Gartner reporting on virtual worlds, so it's timely that they just issued a report identifying the six key things enterprises need to do in order to get control over their employees virtual worlds avatars. There are two reasons I find this report interesting.

The first reason is the content, which I'll cover momentarily. The second reason is that with Gartner covering virtual worlds it's a salvo that the technology is at a point where it's being taken seriously by the enterprise. However, we'll discuss that at another time. For now let's look at the actual information from Gartner on this topic.

Out of the gate here's Gartner's opening statement:

Avatars are creeping into business environments and will have far reaching implications for enterprises, from policy to dress code, behavior and computing platform requirements, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that by year-end 2013, 70 percent of enterprises will have behavior guidelines and dress codes established for all employees who have avatars associated with the enterprise inside a virtual environment.

2013 is also the date that GigaOm Pro reports that the virtual worlds market will be at $8 to $10 billion annually, as I wrote about yesterday. So while the market is beginning to heat, these are some of the specific items Gartner is mentioning:

1. Help users learn to control their avatars. For most people, controlling and using an avatar is not viewed as intuitive or easy, but like any skill, after a few sessions a user can master the basics. The platform being used can also be an important factor, but improvements in optimizing virtual environment memory have lessened this issue.

For example, anyone who is new to Second Life can attest to the steep learning curve, especially around avatar control. While we live in a real 3d space, our computer interaction to date has largely been via 2d interfaces and specialized games for 3d. A 3d virtual world in which an avatar is completely unhindered by the type of pre-programmed movements inherent in 3d games is a completely different experience. So yes, this is important.

2. Recognize that users will have a personal affinity with their avatar. Users often take pride in their avatar and dress them up or down. For enterprises, this is where dress codes can come into play, if the avatar is being used for company business. Early efforts with avatar appearance have often been viewed as an inhibitor to adoption but this issue should fade as quicker and easier methods of configuring avatars become available.

Indeed, the ability to personalize an avatar is as important as being able to personalize ones workspace. The avatar is an extension of the real person.

3. Educate users on the risks and responsibilities of reputation management. Organizations can avoid problems with employees mixing their personal and professional avatar interaction and activities by suggesting that employees use one avatar for their work interactions and another avatar for personal activities.

Well, ask most experienced Second Life users about the phenomenon of alts. I think to an extent this is important, but it really depends on what the person is doing in their personal time.

4. Extend the code of conduct to include avatars in 3-D virtual environments. Just as with social networking sites and individual Web pages where employees participate as representatives of their employer, an avatar's behavior and appearance are a reflection of the individual and the company they work for. Companies with codes of conduct for other Web activities, such as blogging, should be able to extend those policies into virtual environments. However, because 3-D environments add the visual dimension, they will need to make sure that their policies also cover dress codes.

This makes sense especially when someone is representing a business. There has to be a code of conduct in place.

5. Explore the business case for avatars. Justifying avatar use in a business setting is becoming easier, in part because avatar use is gaining wider acceptance. Training and virtual meetings are the top use cases, and one of the main reasons for the increased use of avatars is cost.

Also remember we are still early in terms of discovering all the possibilities of virtual worlds, especially as more augmented reality solutions come to market. So this is an area that will continue to be dynamic I think.

6. Encourage usage and enterprise pilots. Looking ahead, one of the biggest uses of avatars appears to be for online meetings. Web meetings are emerging as an important new use case for virtual environments, and this may be a good point at which to start learning about the issues and opportunities surrounding users and avatars. Enterprises may find that they have a willing and ready population of users who are familiar with avatars and their usage. Pilot testing is still the best option for starting to understand the issues that enterprises will face with increased avatar adoption.

This last one is fairly standard for new technologies as they are adopted into the enterprise. In any event, it will be interesting to see what Gartner has to say as this market continues to evolve.

For the full article click here

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Second Life Enterprise Usage

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:13:58 -0700

Back in early 2007 Second Life was the big thing for corporate marketing, and seemingly every company and marketing firm was rushing into SL in order to establish a presence. As we know, that mostly fizzled out as hype, but Second Life continued to develop and build. Fast forward to late 2009 and suddenly some positive media coverage and analyst reports are beginning to appear.

Case in point today, GigaOM Pro, while it may not considered to be quite Gartner level quality by some, is research analysis, and does provide insight into this market space. They have the following to say:

Enterprise 3-D virtual world applications have proliferated during the past several years. What began as fun and games is becoming a serious business with a lot of upside.

Further, GigaOm's network site, WebWorkerDaily says the following:

According to the new GigaOM Pro report “Virtual Worlds for the Enterprise Market” by Kris Tuttle and Steve Waite of Research 2.0, business use of virtual worlds is a growing market — one that we shouldn’t ignore...

Develop a plan. Companies should develop a plan for use of enterprise, private 3-D virtual world environments for both internal and external use.

Technology continues to evolve. The “in world” experiences of these new virtual environments will be leaps and bounds ahead of that currently offered by Second Life.

* Don’t underestimate the market. The market for enterprise 3-D worlds may seem small today, but according to the report, it’s doubling year over year, with estimated annual revenues of $8-10 billion in 2015.

That last bullet point is vitally important. Those of us who are working in the 3d worlds market space need to be prepared for rapid growth because if the market doubles in size year over year, the next decade is poised to be a rocket ship ride in growth. Another important item to note is that Second Life is being used in the article as a jumping off point, rather than the end all be all of 3d worlds. But if we step away from the specific platform, and look at what the article notes as important areas in which to focus, we get the following list:

1. Maneuvering an avatar in a 3d space

2. Interacting with others in a 3d space

3. Communicating with others using voice and text chat

4. Presenting in a 3d space

5. Teaching and learning in a 3d space

6. Collaborating with others in real time

7. Branding via an avatar

8. Promoting and new methods of marketing

9. Building and design skills for 3d

That isn't a bad list, however I would revise the list and go for something like this:

1. Social networking using 3d

2. Integration of 3d space with enterprise data and the enterprise web

3. B2B using 3d spaces (collaboration, commerce)

4. Use of micro-commerce capabilities provided by 3d spaces

5. IP issues in 3d spaces (copyright, trademark, patent)

6. Technical skills required for 3d design and deployment

7. Use of 3d spaces for "green" initiatives

The point is that 3d immersion is far more than just learning how to communicate, rather it holds the possibility of radically altering the way in which enterprise processes operate, and if businesses simply view 3d spaces as just another marketing tool they are completely missing the point. In any event, I will be continuing my work in this area and look forward to seeing this market space develop and mature.

Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a wild ride.

The GigaOm article can be found by clicking here

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Linden Lab Hits Back at Copyright Infringers

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:17:38 -0700

Content creators in Second Life have long complained about the outright theft of creations in Second Life that it has become almost a ritual for complaints to surface weekly. For those who are unaware of the issue, or for those who believe that copyright infringement is not the same as theft, the situation is as follows.

Content creator A will make some sort of virtual item and market in SL, setting permissions to however she or he decides is appropriate for distribution. In most most cases this will either restrict modification of the item, or restrict transfer of the item, or restrict duplicating the item, or any combination of the three. Content thieves however, bypass these restrictions, create duplicates, and pass themselves off as the original creator, thus trying to muddy the DMCA process.

There is much more involved here, but if you want more info, go to the SL forums and search for threads about content theft and you'll find plenty to keep you reading for a while. This particular post is focused on what Linden Lab is starting to do to combat theft, and it is good news:

In any case, it seems there was this particular asset that many users with... let's call them non-conformant viewers were grabbing and replicating. As we understand it, the Lab slipped the asset out from under the UUID, and replaced it with something (that we presume was quite similar) that called up the Lab and let them know who the naughty person who copied it was.

The NeilLife viewer creator (if 'creator' is the appropriate word as it was just another after-market viewer with some exploits added) and quite some tens of the users of that viewer had their accounts banned pretty much outright. Not because they were using a non-conformant viewer, but because they were using it to infringe (and apparently doing it pretty darn stupidly at that).

As a bonus, there would now be a documentation trail supporting US Federal criminal charges should the Lab find that any of the banned users are overly vexing or troublesome.

Well-played, Linden Lab. We – along with the vast majority of your users and customers – are rather looking forward to hearing about more actions like this.

Content thieves pay special attention for your days are numbered: "As a bonus, there would now be a documentation trail supporting US Federal criminal charges"

The original article can be read by clicking here.

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Free Video Format Converter for OSX

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:35:42 -0700

If you use a Mac for video work, then one of the issues you might face is format conversions. While Quicktime does well with some formats, sometimes it is a hit and miss proposition. So a company named Leawo provides tools for this purpose. I have not had the opportunity to try this out yet, and while it's not open source, it is free. They have a Pro version which costs a few dollars, but if you already have editing tools, it might be overkill.

Anyway, here's the link to the free version. I'll post an update with a review once I have a chance to try it out.

http://www.leawo.com/free-mac-video-converter/

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Media Warming up to Second Life Again?

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:59:33 -0700

It's too early to really call it a trend, but over the past couple of days there have been signs that the media may be warming up once again to Second Life. Back in late 2006/early 2007 Second Life was the media darling, similar to what's presently happening with Twitter and Facebook. But whereas Twitter and Facebook may be enjoying a much longer hype cycle than did Second Life, the inevitable media backlash did give SL a change to focus on core competencies and develop the possibility of real value as opposed to pure hype.

But now it is getting renewed media attention, sans the sensationalism and yellowish journalism that has marked some of the coverage for the past 24 months or so. A blog post in Ad Age on Monday has this to say:

it is now feasible to choose Second Life as a much more pleasant and inviting place to host your meetings and conference calls, especially in a world rife with swine flu and chopped travel budgets. You can easily set up an office space or a conference room and all meet up in-world, together, to engage in negotiations and collaboration. What's more, thanks to something like SkypeIn and SkypeOut, you'll soon be able to loop in all the folks who can't make it to SL through a telephone-to-Second Life number. And soon, denizens of Second Life will be able to send and receive SMS text messages via their in-world cell phone to their friends who are outsiders, according to Linden Labs' Kingdom (sic).

Then today we have this in PC World:

Second Life is very disruptive -- as disruptive as a video game. Twitter and Facebook can exist in the background and follow me in my pocket in my Android G1 phone. With SL I need a DSL land line, a badass laptop or PC, a headset, and some time "away" with which to completely focus. I work and watch TV or listen to NPR while using Twitter and Facebook and Email and IM all at once (and that is appealing to someone with aggressive ADHD like I have) and they're not disruptive.

This may not yet be a trend, but it certainly does appear that SL is beginning a rebound, so we'll keep an eye on coverage and provide updates as they happen.

AdAge Post click here.

PC World story click here.

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Gartner Hype Cycle

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:58:06 -0700

Included below are a few videos which discuss some of the latest trends with regards to the Gartner Hype Cycle. In case you are unfamiliar with the theory of the hype cycle, I've also included a video which discusses the concept.

The first video is from the SLCC conference that happened in May, and feature Mark Kingdon (M Linden), CEO of Linden Lab, which discusses the current status of Second Life within the hype cycle. Clearly his chart outlines what we have covered in this blog in the past, which is that in mid-2007 Second Life entered the Trough, and has since begun a slow steady climb back to relevance. What will emerge is a more focused solution, and for those who have stuck with Second Life through this period, it should be positive.

The second video is from Gartner, and discusses the 2009 e-Commerce hype cycle. I've included this because it has relevance to the first video, namely, that e-Commerce is being seen as a way of cutting costs. Interestingly though, there are a number of highly hyped companies in this space, but Second Life is not amongst these. Clearly though, there is an e-Commerce aspect to SL, which is still being ferreted out, so it remains to be seen how this space will develop.

On the last video, you only need to watch the first few minutes to gain an understanding of the hype cycle.

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Business Focus

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:39:54 -0700

When we as a company first entered Second Life back in 2006, our initial focus was around marketing and analysis. While we still do some of this, gradually over time we have shifted our focus to become more of a content focused business. This would include areas such as training, virtual goods, video, audio, scripting, integration, design, and so on. As such, very soon we will be updating the website to better reflect our evolving product and service offerings.

I will still maintain a market analysis focus on this blog, particularly since virtual worlds, cloud computing, mobile, and social applications are beginning to show the early signs of convergence. As such, the next few years are going to be extremely interesting, and we'll monitor the developments here. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

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Gartner: The New Tech Jobs Aren't so "Techie"

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:50:08 -0700

Up until this point in time, if one wanted to work in the Information Technology sector, the usual path was to gain a computer science degree and deeply develop and aptitude in topics such coding or systems architecture or network architecture.

According to a new Gartner report, however, that is going to change. Their take is that the new talents required "will blend business, artistic and technical skills.” Certainly if you look at emerging areas such as video, 3d design, etc., artistic skills are high on the list. Also given the rapid changes the web enables, it doesn't make sense to simply rely on your technical prowess to get you through challenges that are both technical and business related.

For their part, Gartner has selected four key descriptions for the nextgen IT worker:

Web User Experience Roles
User experience roles enable users to effectively consume the applications and information delivered on the Web. Although the role of interface designer has been around since the inception of computing, with consumerization and the densely populated and competitive Web environment, this role is often the critical success factor in a product or service

This sounds like a blend of web designer and HUI expertise. Certainly as we move towards more cloud computing solutions, this does become important.

Behavioral Analysis Roles
These roles are aimed at understanding, responding to and exploiting human behavior on the Web and how it may mirror and differ from behaviors in the physical world. Some key roles that will interpret and leverage human behavior are Web psychologists who are becoming increasingly important to product development and marketing, community designers who are responsible for architecting organization-owned communities, and Web and social network miners and analysts who focus on discovering, understanding and exploiting the social and behavioral dynamics of Web communities.

This one sounds a bit crass, but essentially this is what marketing already does. However, what Gartner seems to be saying is that every business, in any sector, is going to have to blend marketing with your web presence. This is a logical extension of where we are heading, and success will hinge on how effectively your web applications are designed and deployed, which is not just a technical exercise anymore.

Information Specialists
With the volume and diversity of content generated, posted and modified on the Web, there is a rising need for information anthropologists who trace the origin, history, and evolution of Web content. Their objectives range from providing the history of content or information to spotting fraudulent or modified images, audio and texts. Information anthropologists may therefore contribute to legal analysis or to processes where intellectual property or information quality and integrity are at risk.

Gartner is acknowledging that IP protection is no longer just the purview of the legal department. If you place an image on your website, or audio, or embed a YouTube video, do you know if it is properly licensed? If not, you need people in place who do understand these things and can act on them in real time.

Digital Lifestyle Experts
These experts will aid individuals and groups (for example, executive management, technology or marketing teams) to become more digitally aware, connected, effective, and sophisticated. A digital lifestyle expert may also assist or stand in for their clients in their Web endeavors — defining target digital profiles, building out a digital image or personal brand — as well as helping wired users achieve the digital status they aspire to. As such, key roles will include digital persona consultants and personal brand advisers.

Personalization. Don't hide behind your website!

The summary is this:

“The future is solidly connected to the Web and new work streams clearly need to arise to support this,” said Ms. Harris. “Creative, artistic and clever people will develop the early iterations of these new jobs. This will enable businesses and government to take early advantage of new capabilities and develop them into mainstream skills.”

Indeed.

The report can be found by clicking here

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Snow Leopard and Photoshop

nospam@example.com (Allison) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:11:33 -0700

As most Macintosh owners are likely aware at this point, Apple's new upgrade of OSX, dubbed Snow Leopard, is coming out tomorrow. One of the biggest questions is whether or not certain applications will continue to work with Snow Leopard, most important for many being Adobe Photoshop.

The good news is that CS4 on Snow Leopard has been tested by the Adobe team, and is all good. The worry for many users however, is that CS3 versions might be impacted. However, according to Adobe's John Nack, the product manager for Photoshop, CS3 should work fine on Snow Leopard. On his official Adobe blog he writes:

I've done some more research into the history of Adobe's work with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). I can't speak for product teams besides Photoshop, and in the interests of time, I'm sharing what I've found out so far.

It turns out that the Photoshop team has tested Photoshop CS3 on Snow Leopard, and to the best of our knowledge, PS CS3 works fine on Snow Leopard.

Apple and the Photoshop team worked together closely during the development of Snow Leopard, as we do during the development of every OS revision. The Photoshop QE team reported a couple of dozen problems to Apple, and I'm happy to say that Apple has fixed all the significant issues we found.

This should bring a sigh of relief for those of you who are planning to upgrade to Snow Leopard (I hesitate to call it SL to avoid confusion with Second Life).

Now some other bits of information. Even though Snow Leopard moves OSX to full 64 compatibility, according to reports on OS News, it will default into something called 32 bit mode which in effect, allows all 32 bit applications to run natively. This presumably will be phased out over time as more and more apps are converted to full 64 bit code, but for now it appears the transition may be fairly smooth. We shall see starting tomorrow:

Even though Apple has been hyping up the 64bit nature of its ucpoming Snow Leopard operating system, stating it will be the first Mac OS X release to be 64bit top-to-bottom, reality turns out to be a little bit different so far. With the current Snow Leopard seed, only Xserve users get the 64bit kernel and drivers - all other Macs default to 32bit. By holding down the '6' and '4' keys during boot, you can to boot into full 64bit mode - that is, if your Mac supports it. As it turns out, some Macs with 64bit processors cannot use the 64bit kernel because the EFI is 32bit. Note: I should have included in the article that 64bit applications will run just fine (including benefits) on a 32bit kernel in Mac OS X. Since this was already possible in Leopard, I assumed people were well aware of that. Turns out some were not, so my apologies for that.

For the Adobe blog, click here

For OS News, click here