I briefly tried SL and abandoned. I am a strong advocate of the idea but I find the experience itself to be clunky. Thinks will improve of course. But I am a text freak enthused by visualization and animation.

My point relevant to the discussion is my deep disappointment at the rate of adaptation of networking technology to group formation or rather to getting beyond the binary possibilities of making contexts and links. So for me the E8 group is potentially about what fantastic groups of ideas and people we might create were the software to be suitably enabling.

I have written extensively about this but my embarrasing point is that a seemingly simplistic proposal I made in the early computer days is still seemingly richer than that offered by computer dating, and other offerings. How do current environments enable BETTER groups to form — whatever the criteria for better. I offer you, maybe for a laugh, my early piece (weep at the date on it):

Group Questing or Twelving
Proposal for a large-scale small-group development process
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs70s/76twelve.php

I still have a trouble with my shoelaces, though…

I also completely agree with Rob’s comments:

“…the sense of presence you get when interacting with people in virtual worlds really does blow away other forms of synchronous distance communication. I haven’t enjoyed talking on the phone since I was a teenager, I haven’t been to a web conference that I didn’t find a gruelling experience, and let’s not even talk about phone conference calls. Yet, I find meetings in-world to be more than tolerable. You really *are* there.”

Those of you who are doubters have NOT done the experiment. That’s pretty lame for scientists who believe in direct evidence! Until you have spent time in SL with experienced users like George as guides, your assessments lack any scientific validity.

Regards,
Chimera Cosmos
(Liz Dorland in RL — college chemistry faculty for 35 years, currently at Wash U and working with faculty development, web 2.0, and virtual worlds)

Wireless spectrum: FAQs by By Peter Nowak CBC News May 26, 2008 3:13 PM ET

What is Spectrum?Spectrum is a catch-all term for the radio airwaves that many wireless gizmos use to communicate information. Radios use spectrum, as do the rabbit-ear antennas on older television sets. The CBC, for example, is broadcast free to many parts of Canada using a part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Cellphones, of course, also use it.

Spectrum is divided into different frequencies and measured in units called hertz.

So we are identifying an area here where current technologies while used currently by piggy backing libraries or universities might be extended to the public?

Unlicensed Spectrum

Unlicensed spectrum is not sold to the highest bidder and used for the services chosen by the license-holder but is instead accessible to anyone using wireless equipment certified by the FCC for those frequencies. Among the advantages of unlicensed spectrum is the opportunity to test new technology directly with consumers instead of going through spectrum license-holders. One of the disadvantages of unlicensed spectrum is the possibility of interference among the transmissions of the various users, both within the assigned bandwidth and with other bandwidths. Currently, there are no commercial applications for WiMAX using unlicensed spectrum. The cost of developing WiMAX applications for unlicensed use could impact its adaptation by municipalities seeking to provide wireless broadband services.

So while discussing a software application it brings potential markets to realization when it is perceived that only 20% of the world population is connected. Why there is a White Space Coalition. Maybe some incentive for second life?:)

Best,

Re: Apple ruling the world, eh, I’m not worried. After all, Google came out with Google Lively, and if you believed some of the hype about that when it came out (hype that referred to Second Life *already* in the past tense), nobody should be using Second Life any more…. So much for that!

LL may well, in retrospect, turn out to be a Netscape or another early pioneer that didn’t go the distance. We’ll find out. But at the moment, SL is still “it”.

Rob, no disagreements here. Perhaps I was not clear enough in what I meant in the sentences you take to task, but that lack of verbose clarity was in part to avoid an even longer post.

What I was trying to convey is that VR is a technology which will continue the historical evolution of the ways we interact with each other and with the world of information and culture we create (and which changes us in return). It enhances our abilities. It does not replace anything, be it a direct personal interaction, phone, print, web, etc. - it will add to them, and change the way they are used. And some communication technologies do become obsolete and go away, e.g., the telegraph, since they are replaced by something much better.

Also, I am sure that LL people are working to improve the user experience, as they should. They better, or someone else will eat their lunch. Just wait until Steve Jobs discovers VR, then Apple will truly rule the world!

I just want to echo what Bekka said. Existing in the VW isn’t a perfect substitute for real-world interaction, any more than posting a comment on a science blog is a substitute for talking to people in a cafe about science… and yet, you manage not to leave that to the geeks
I used to be a professional astronomer myself — that is, I used to be a fully employed professional astronomer, as an assistant professor. Whether or not I still am a professional astronomer is a semantic argument I don’t want to get into. Now I work for Linden Lab. And, I want to echo what George said in the original blog post. The “sense of presence” you have in a virtual world is very real, and very hard to describe to those who haven’t experienced. Yes, I started futzing around with Second Life because I *am* an extreme computer geek. I am the sort who would play with 3d software for fun, who dabbled very briefly with MUDs (the text predecessors to things like WoW), and who would procrastinate grading intro astronomy exams by doing system administration tasks on my linux machines. However– while that’s what attracted me there in the first place, that isn’t the reason I fully agree with George that this is going to be a transformative technology. There are probably a plethora of cognitive psychology theses in here, but the sense of presence you get when interacting with people in virtual worlds really does blow away other forms of synchronous distance communication. I haven’t enjoyed talking on the phone since I was a teenager, I haven’t been to a web conference that I didn’t find a gruelling experience, and let’s not even talk about phone conference calls. Yet, I find meetings in-world to be more than tolerable. You really *are* there. And, it has an advantage over a real-world meeting : if you’re multitasking and doing something else at the same time, nobody sees you doing it
Now, working for Linden Lab, I go to meetings *all the time* in world for my job, in addition to meetings for MICA. It’s the standard at our company. Yet, even though I’m a remote employee (the only Linden in Nashville, TN), I do fly out to San Francisco or another Linden office a few times a year to interact in person. Avatars do not have the emotional range of human expressions by a long shot, and there still are things that in-person interaction gives you that in-world interaction does not. But, given that I can’t have in-person interaction all the time, and that travel is expensive, doing it in-world is an amazing substitute.

I might also point out that were it not for VW technology, there would be no semantic argument about whether or not I was still a professional astronomer; I would be completely out of it. The existence of SL and MICA has given me the opportunity to remain associated with a group of professional astronomers, even though I don’t have a “home” institution. So, yeah, stick with the real world communication… but just as you very clearly don’t view the Web as an either/or with real-world communication, you need not view VWs that way either.

@ George #1:

At Linden Lab, we’re aware that the interface is, shall we say, suboptimal, and that the “first hour” user experience is something that needs a lot of work. We’re very aware that we lose a lot of people very early after they first try Second Life, and we’re working on that. (I’m not — it’s not what I do there — but others are.)

I also want to comment on your statement that personal interactions are weakened by the fact that people choose different personas when online. There’s a whole lot to say about this, and I’ll try to avoid being *too* verbose. But, the truth is, we all assume different personas or “masks” as we go to different places in our lives. When you’re at home interacting with your family, you don’t bear yourself in the same way you do when you’re in a meeting of colleagues. When talking to your own students and closest co-workers, you don’t bear yourself the same way as you do when you’re at a AAS meeting interacting with random colleagues. Context is very important to the persona you present to the world. My persona when I’m blathering at length in text as I am right now is quite different from my persona when you meet me in person– probably more so than I’m aware.

So, given all that: one can still make an argument that the persona you choose to display in a virtual world is in some ways a *more* real representation of you than what you present in the physical world. Yes, if you’re consciously roleplaying, this isn’t the case; but, that’s a different affair, and we’re not talking about gaming or theater. (Aside: I perform Shakespeare in Second Life too, another opportunity to keep involved with something that had fell by the wayside in my life.) In a virtual world, you have a lot of choice and control over how you appear, much more so than you do in the real world. Some people put more time into this and others. And, yes, there are some people who won’t tell you their real name, but that doesn’t necessarily make your interactions with them any less “real”. As long as I’ve been active on the Internet, I’ve had friends that I’ve never met in person. Does it matter that I don’t know, in the real world, the name and person behind the avatar Joff Fassnacht or Maedin Tureaud? No, but that doesn’t make the interactions I’ve had with those two people (both of whom I’ve acted with in in-world theater) any less real, and it doesn’t mean that I can’t have a friendship at some level with people that are known to me by those names.

I better stop this comment before it gets longer than the original blog post.

I know we are moving forward, its just that it reminded me of the ole days of Mount Olympus? This is not meant to be unkind, but to draw attention to the reality that this format can move too, while other minds are moved to think in relation to education.

I think it then adds “dimensional reality” to the blogs format.

Wonderful addition to the issues of “Web Science” and it’s considerations.

Best,