Metaversatility :: Blog

KRTU FM 91.7 Jazz for San Antonio becomes Jazz for the Metaverse, with the launch of their Second Life Virtual Jazz Studios on April 25, 2007. Located on Metaversatility island, the complex provides a space for musical sequencing, live station stream access, and a venue for blended reality performance. Popular SL musicians Anakin Gallacher, Ankari Holder, and Komuso Tokugawa will play at the opening of this new jazz venue. A specialty KRTU program commemorating Ella Fitzgerald’s birthday will be streamed between sets.

Festivities begin at 2:30 (SLT) and continue into the evening.

Set Times:
2:30-3:30pm Anakin Gallacher
3:30-6pm Drive-Time Jazz Program :: Ella Fitzgerald
6-7pm Ankari Holder
7- 8pm Komuso Tokugawa

1. Join Second Life

2. Download and install the client

3. Follow this link to get to Metaversatility Island and join the fun!

SAN ANTONIO – KRTU 91.7 FM, Trinity University’s listener supported radio station, enters the Metaverse when it opens a studio in Second Life, the 3-D virtual world on the Internet. KRTU, which primarily plays jazz, will officially open its Second Life location on Wednesday, April 25, the birthday of legendary singer Ella Fitzgerald.

KRTU will be one of the very first college radio stations and one of the first jazz stations in Second Life.

Visitors to KRTU in Second Life will find a virtual studio, where they can hear live streaming music from the real world studio as well as a lounge to mingle with other listeners. They can also access music archives to hear past programs on KRTU, and they can even record some of their own music in a game program found on the site. In the future, KRTU plans to simulcast virtual concerts in Second Life when the radio station broadcasts live music on its terrestrial airwaves.

William Christ, general manager of KRTU and chair of Trinity’s communication department, said opening a virtual studio was a natural extension of KRTU’s outreach. “We are on the Web and we get e-mails from around the world. We saw this as another opportunity to extend our brand to ‘another world,’” said Christ. “If you want to hear some jazz in Second Life, you can come to KRTU.”

KRTU’s second home is the creation of Metaversatility, a virtual world development company, based in San Antonio, which fosters community, entertainment, education, and commerce in online spaces. Other clients for Metaversatility include AMD, the micro processing and graphics technology company, and New York Law School.

KRTU in Second Life is located on Metaversatility Island, and can be accessed by going to . Visitors must first register for a free account with Second Life and have a computer with the Second Life software installed in order to visit the virtual KRTU.

Additionally, registered users of Second Life can find KRTU under both the places and events tabs on its home page. The name Metaversatility also works as a search term.

KRTU provides 17 hours of jazz programming a day beginning at 5 a.m. on the radio and on the Internet. Beginning at 10 p.m. KRTU offers a mix of new and independent music.

For more information, contact KRTU at 210-999-8917.

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Slides from today’s presentation at the International Technology Expo are now posted online. Streaming video (with the audio track) will be posted tomorrow afternoon on the Second Life Cable Network at: http://www.slcn.tv/

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Don’t get fooled again: Making sense of market research related to Second Life
Dr. Aaron Delwiche

When new information technologies arrive on the scene, they are often accompanied by market research that rests on flimsy methodology and sloppy statistics. Instead of asking a handful of logical questions that can expose the strengths and weaknesses of such research, busy decision-makers allow themselves to be swayed by the reputation of the analyst and by the slickness of the graphs. Those of us who care about Second Life (and other virtual worlds) can’t let this happen again. In this presentation, Dr. Aaron Delwiche (co-founder of Metaversatility) will identify a few basic questions that can be used to effectively analyze market-research studies related to Second Life.

Some images from the conference, including Aaron’s extemporaneous speech. Thanks to Sibly Verbeck Sheep for being so generous with his stage time. 

Hello from Cambridge, MA. This afternoon, I’m giving a talk on global youth culture and virtual worlds on the Harvard campus. The talk is organized by the undergraduate arm of the university’s Asia Society, and it will be held from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Friday in CGIS South 020, on 1730 Cambridge Street. The event is open to the public, so please feel free to stop by.

“Kill all these Chinese Gold Farmers” – Transnational conflict and cooperation in virtual worlds

During the first decade of the 21st Century, two world-historical trends are converging. The first of these trends is China’s rapid ascent to global superpower status. The second is the emergence of virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life as legitimate vehicles for business, education, and entertainment.

Whether they take the form of games, social spaces, or instructional environments, virtual worlds are now truly global in scope. From Thailand and Malaysia to Indonesia and the Philippines, the Asia Pacific region’s on-line gaming market generated approximately $1.4 billion in annual revenues last year – a figure that is expected to reach $3.6 billion by the end of the decade.

At this very moment, from Shanghai to Peoria, tens of thousands of young Chinese and American citizens are encountering one another in virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Maple Story. In these shared digital worlds, young gamers from both countries have the opportunity to work together to achieve shared objectives. Unfortunately, as in the real world, the potential for cooperation is overshadowed by fierce competition over scarce resources. One need only search Youtube for the words “Chinese” and “Warcraft” to uncover dozens of angry, anti-Chinese videos created by American gamers.

The cross-cultural interactions unfolding in contemporary game worlds are too important to ignore. The ways that young people interact in these worlds today offers a glimpse of what might happen when virtual worlds become further entrenched in the global economy. Today, Chinese and American gamers fight over gold pieces and monsters. Tomorrow, they will compete in virtual worlds for the chance to perform symbolic labor (e.g. computer programming and 3D modeling) for transnational corporations.

Drawing on fieldwork conducted with youth in Hong Kong and Thailand, Dr. Aaron Delwiche explores the increasingly blurry boundaries between fantasy play and real-world cultural politics. Despite evidence of cross-cultural conflict in virtual worlds, he believes that virtual worlds have the potential to enhance transnational cooperation between Chinese and American youth in profound and meaningful ways.