DISQUS

With a dramtic increase in the quality of the video and effects that can be produced in a homebrew way, plus massive online distribution it stands to reason that the movie industry will be impacted by people choosing to do their own thing, find their own heroes, hear good stories not formulaic hollywood hand cranking.
Having said that I like hollywood blockbusters and the star culture to some extent.
What is really exciting is the truly distributed story, the ongoing narrative that crosses platforms, games, tv, film, ARG. Its by no means easy to create, but having heard Tim Kring talk about the various Heroes story arcs, the intertwining of individual small properties, like cereal packets with the "mothership" of the tv show. Each experience designed to work both on its own, but still add to the narrative.
Its exciting and forward thinking entertainment and art for the world we live in now :)

That is of course http://symphony.lotus.com/

Lotus Syhmphony. It may not help in all situations (like mac's), but it is an option for all those machines and less need to pay full whack for the msoft stack.
I am starting to use it a bit, its still all beta. Using more open document formats should help people build nice mixed mode documents, sometimes online sometimes private.
It is amazing though isn't it that something as apparently simple as word processing is still vexing us in the tech world!

I appear on stage at every metaverse pitch I do with Bono. It is just a picture of the U2inSL tribute band but everyone, young and old, knows who Bono is. It gets a laugh most times too.
Still you cant beat teh real thing. Nice one!
I love the quote too, very like the dont you know who I am izzard sketch with vader

I have been using the comvu pocketcaster service on my n95 the same sort of gig really but I will check out this one.
I get to run it over 3g here in the UK and even did one of our SL wimbledon press conference behind the scenes gigs with it.
I tried doing one of those california style driving on the freeway things.
The problem is, well this aint california. Usually the driving rain and stop star traffics does not make for a good shot ;-)
It did seem to be having some problems when I just checked epredator.tv, but I am sure it will be back

Yes there is a lot of IBM as this whole thing of liberating people to talk and explain has unleashed a good percentage of the 300,000 people in the company as eightbar shows :-)

A very nice write up.
I think the fact that you have met people that help you is a good indication of the majority of the people in SL.
We over at eightbar.com have been exporing ways to help our people get onboard more easily.
People tend to pop along to our private island first, where they get a semi personal tutorial. We have a mix of techies, designers, business consultants etc. So everyone has different interests and needs. That in itself is good as it lets people understand the pwer of connection and tutoring in these sort of environments.
Look forward to see what you get to experience and see and do.

Well the answer has to be virtual conferences, Second Life or something else. Turn up when you want, talk to the people you need to for 5 minutes then clear off.
I never get to go to conferences. Too much paperwork in expenses and approvals.
I do want to hook up with people, see whats going on, and some things still need you to be there. Like cars and houses and boats.
Software? Not sure about that one apart from people getting an ego buzz presenting to 2000 people.

The Long Tail is certainly making its presence felt in business. I had heard it mentioned lots. As per usual I have not managed to read it. Instead relying on the gladwell "Blink" effect and watchng for the Gladwell "tipping point".
I think people who are starting fledgling content business in things like Second Life are discovering the long tail principle even if they cannot articulate it.
I found my palm guide to Hong Kong (that I bought) very ueful. I hope to find my PSP talkman talking phrase book equally useful. So it seems natural that the content by experts combined ina user created content, open source thinking way would be well worth pursuing.
We have PDA's for museum and zoo tours http://www.eternalegypt.org being an example. Now if I could help author that content as a user, how I viewed an exhibit and how people like me chose to view the exhibit it woudl save a lot of wasted time looking at things that are not of interest.

"So, as I head into the content business I’m thinking a lot. What’s valuable today? Owning a Google keyword."
I still have dibs on mashplication (check it out on google :-) )

Wow that is a real pity. I guess your personal brand made you a target. I will have to make sure my three year does not get to experience any of Second Life with my guidance. I will just have to let her randomly click mouse buttons and see where she ends up on the regular web.
It seems to me a bit harsh, but equally its their T's and C's.
It will be interesting as they move to the 'anyone can run a server' model over the next few years as to where the ownership of the account lives.
For instance woudl it be possible to run a family sim that your 'kids' cannot leave like the cornfield in SL. So as a family you could experience building and sharing things, but only the adults could go out and visit the rest of the world.
I hope they let you back when you have served your time.

Sure I can work from rainy England :-) We now have such a connected world that it makes no difference. I guess the post "calling seattle startups" made me think local.
Working in a global multinational,as I do, and as you once did Robert, we get used to be virtually and sometimes physically all over the world. I dont think my personal brand is quite up there with yours yet but the principle of us all getting to know who is who with all this stuff is really exciting. ;-)
Its a bit of a shift of power.
I remember the great dot.com shiny thing, but it still feels that there is a real buzz in the ether at the moment and lots of opportunities to follow up.

Certainly been doing a lot of all that! Locationally challenged being in sunny England ;-)

It is amazing the take up rate on SL the past few months. It was around about march that I decide to take a look at it. Having read about it for years, and being a gamer it did not (at the time) seem to make sense.

Now however I understand its a 3d Wiki/Situational Application. Yes games happen, but its more like contributing to wikipedia.

It also represents what the web was linke back in 97.
People see dodgy goings on, and maybe get a little scared of it AND it looks like a game. But I rememebr people looking over my shoulder when i started surfing the wide world interweb back in the day. Oh no graphics, sound, content. Howver its turned into a pretty serious business now!

I think things have really come on, all the elements have come together, user created content, broadband connections, a generation brought up on games consoles, digital photography, open source communities. Its all there. With Linden Labs riding a significant wave.

All that deep stuff, it is also actually fun.

Yours, epredator potato

It is interesting that over here in the UK our Sky Satellite provider was starting to advertise HD (its only just taking off), at the same time the BBC were saying they were going to record the World Cup in HD, but at the time had not sorted out a deal with Sky and had no way to broadcast it as terestial digital TV cant cope yet.

I had thought they were doing it for export, or for some great after its all happened HD DVD.

Now though they have announced they are on Sky, so you cant get a HD installation for love nor money.

Lots the cars over here in the UK are adorned with the st george flag. SO I adorned my epredator potato in Second Life with the same :-) They are available for sale for a whole l$5 on my scruffy public plot http://slurl.com/secondlife/Myeolchi/176/24 :-)