Metaversatility :: Blog

My good buddy Ben Richardson sent me a link to a story that pertained to a discussion we’d had previously. As the riplounge ad-network-virtual-world-thing has just dropped beta-styles, it put me in the mood for a good old-fashioned analogy festival!M

I figured that I may as well man up and publicize all of the slander I talk behind closed doors… So my response to Ben’s linking me to this mashable article, and a short subsequent visit to riplounge was as follows…

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Interesting…

Here’s the thing about that: building an “ad network virtual world” is a bit backwards, isn’t it? It’s like building a “wait-in-line and pay-your-bill house” that also happens to be a restaurant that serves food, or a “hangover house” that also happens to be a dance club. Ok, weird analogies, but d’you see what I mean there? People go to a restaurant to eat… paying the bill is a kind of annoying consequence… people go to dance clubs to dance and meet people… the sweat smell and hangover are bothersome side effects. The latter is part of the experience, and even can lead to some interesting stuff, but it’s not the reason you engage in those activities.

You build the virtual world that’s fun for people to use, that has a real focus on empowering users to express themselves toward other users, socialize and make friends, make enemies, whatever they want to do … then you build in promotional stuff and advertising so that you can continue delivering that experience to them for free. And you make those promotional elements and advertising/marketing contextual and even useful/rewarding for them.

You build the restaurant, and then as a necessity you charge the customers for what they consume.

Anyway, I just want to see how they draw their users and make it sticky. Says they have avatars, locations, etc., but so do alot of other places, and those other places have probably been designed with more focus on fun than advertising… but maybe i’m wrong

Ah, here’s another one: it’s like a “lose all of your money” environment that also happens to be las vegas

-M

So We just finished up an exciting week in Austin, Texas at the SXSW Interactive Conference. Tons of great stuff happened that week. Matt got to meet Judge Dread and waved/winked at Moby, Peter and Matt became super-mega-ultra-uber cool rock band studs, and Adri and Chadrick talked up virtual worlds like no-body’s business…..

Either way we, photos are up on flickr. If you have any for us to add please email them to us at team@metaversatility.com

p.s. Big money goes to anyone with some sort of photo or video documentation of any of Matt or Peter’s rock band fame. BIG money. I wont tell you how much because you might get scared…but it’s big.

Joey Seiler has a great post up with some industry reaction to Philip Rosedale changing his position at Linden Lab.

In my opinion, Philip and Linden Lab made a great decision here to bring in new management to help grow the company far beyond what it is now (and into what everyone hopes it will become).

I can’t imagine how hard this decision was for Philip to make. The man obviously LOVES the company, the product, and the environment. Second Life is without question his baby. I absolutely respect him for being able to recognize that new management was best for the company, and further to acknowledge that and act accordingly.

Many people I’ve spoken to previously have shared my concern about the future of Second Life given their experience with its direction and management over the last few years. The “Tao of Linden” and the “future workplace” seem inefficient for a team the size of Linden Lab, making it difficult for residents and developers to see concrete progress. This change in management gives me hope, and that hope makes the day to day problems with Second Life bearable again.

Thanks Philip.

Matt and Saeya worked very hard on our new company logo, which is up and running on our website (www.metaversatility.com), highway billboards, and commercial jets. We’re trying to find some zoo animals willing to rent out some fur space for our logo.
So keep your eye out and say hello to…

Special door prize to the person that can identify all the interpretations.

GDC has been nothing but fun. With two days left there’s still plenty to see and hear. We wanted to be part of the excitement with a demo of our own.

The demo was created on the Multiverse platform and looks great. The demo consists of a three different platforms in space. Theres the first platform that the user starts at in the form of a cute little robot our developer Eric Dziurzynski created. You then can travel to a snow platform where your bot gets some accessories and the same is true for the desert platform. You can travel from platform to platform battling other users… we plan to use this space as our continued prototyping grounds for new functionality we’ll be developing for multiverse, and we’ll be making it more publicly accessible quite soon
The demo is up and running thanks to AJ Moore, Rick Canfield, Eric Dziurzynski, Eric Garza, Peter Haik, and Matt Daly.
We’ll be at our booth on the GDC floor for the rest of the week so come by and say hello!

Well, it’s that time again. The Metaversatility crew have arrived in San Fransisco for GDC. The Metaversatility booth will be located at the Multiverse booth (6519, North Hall) on the GDC floor. Come by and visit us! We’ve got goodies! We’ll be there all week (try the veal).

Metaversatility and GSD&M’s Idea City have teamed up for an exciting avatar contest. Idea City is set to launch an ongoing research and data collection in Second Life. The program allows avatars to sign up for different research panels in Second Life and take surveys in world, but we need your help. Idea City and Metaversatility is looking for a unique avatar robot to use as the initial bot to live and collect data on Idea City Island.

This is a great opportunity for all. First place prize receives 38,000L, major exposure in Idea City’s promotional materials and residence on the island as an active research bot. The second place winner will receive 13,000L and promotional exposure. Both second place and thrid place winners will have their avatar placed on a team of future research bots.

Entries can be made until February 14, 2008. Judging will take place on February 16, 2008 on Idea City Island. Judges will consist of a member of GSD&M’s Idea City, Metaversatility and a Second Life content creator.

So get those bots in quick.

TO ENTER:

Metaversatility has quite the busy schedule these days. Here are the respective dates of all the fun that will occur. We hope to see your shining face at one, if not all of them.

February 10-12: Virtual Worlds and Social Sciences Conference at Emory University in Atlanta, GA

Februrary 15: Metaverse Roadmap Summit at Stanford University in Stanford, CA

February 16-17: Metaverse U Conference at Stanford University in Stanford, CA

February 18-22: We’ll be sponsoring a coffee break at Virtual Worlds in Motion Summit at GDC where we will also be demonstrating Multiverse on the expo floor in San Fransisco, CA.

March 7-11: SXSW (South By Southwest) Conference in Austin, TX

April 3-4: Sponsoring the Virtual Worlds Conference in New York, NY

If you have any questions about the schedule or would like to meet up with us some where please email team@metaversatility.com

So it continues

Tomorrow, Feb 8, Metaversatility’s own Jade Lily will be speaking about her work with the SL Relay for Life on a Global Kids panel about Best Practices for Non-profits in SL. The panel features a great lineup of speakers, and is based on a paper of the same name by Rik Panganiban.

Full event details lifted from Rik’s blog under the cut.
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