LA Times Reports on Anthropologist Researching Second Life Use By Disabled

Many residents of Second Life have mixed opinions of mainstream media coverage of Second Life, feeling it focuses on the more salacious aspects of the Grid, notably sex. But LA Times reporter Ben Brazil recently wrote about anthropologist Tom Boellstroff's work in studying Second Life, which after the first few years began to focus on it's disabled users, which he reasons make up forty to sixty percent of it's population.

Boellstroff and his co-researcher Donna Davis talked to about 200 disabled residents. Davis told the Times, “We so often hear about the dark side of technology. But I think that Tom and I have found that there is a bright side. People can connect in these virtual spaces in really important and meaningful ways.”

The National Science Foundation has funded his study, contributing $277,000 US dollars. Boellstroff "is writing a second book" about his research on the disabled and hopes that his efforts "will cause technology developers to pay heed to the issues of disabled people when creating virtual reality products."

Read more on the LA Times article (Here) 

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Video: "BBC News Whatever happened to Second Life "

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From June 2013, the BBC looks at Second Life ten years after it's founding, "Ten years ago, a social media website was launched which some corporations thought would change the face of business forever. It was called Second Life - a virtual world where users could live, meet, go shopping or make music and art. Multi-nationals like IBM rushed to be part of it and countries even opened embassies there. But what has become of Second Life?" The BBC concluded once the novelty wore off, many of the people the businesses were trying to appeal to moved on, and so did the businesses. But for some people, like the musicians featured, Second Life is still important for what they do.

Project Sansar Login Page, CNN Article

With the public viewing of Linden Lab's "Project Sansar," it's next generation virtual world, later today, A German blogger, Echt Virtuell, posted a link to what looks like it's login page, along with a screenshot of it, at www.projectsansar.com. The page is not a static one, the white outline of various objects morphing and changing with the passage of time against a wilderness backdrop.

Project Sansar has been making real-life news, one article appearing on CNN's website a few days ago on September 15 by Heather Kelley. She describes Second Life as "an aging virtual world" that while still used by "hundreds of thousands of loyal users" and profitable, "but it's not the future. ... Starting fresh gave Linden Lab a chance to rethink how a virtual world is organized and how it makes money." She describes a few things what the Lindens have been building, "They've made a desert scene with crazy big machinery, weird futuristic lounges and a famous landmark. They've even created an exact replica of a conference room in Linden Lab's San Francisco office, down to the objects on the desk." And it seems the release date, once described as "sometime in 2016," has been moved back to "by the end of 2016."

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager, Cristiano

Second Life Featured on Dr. Phil

Second Life isn't featured in mainstream media as much as it used to be. So when it is, it's news. And when The virtual world was going to be mentioned on the "Dr. Phil" talk show, Linden Lab mentioned in on their blog.

Mark your calendars and set your DVRs: an upcoming episode of the popular daytime talk show, Dr. Phil will feature Second Life and some comments from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg (Ebbe Linden in SL). The episode is slated to air on Tuesday, July 14, and you can find your local listings through the Dr. Phil website. Be sure to catch the very beginning of the show - you won’t want to miss Dr. Phil controlling his avatar live on what’s very likely the largest monitor Second Life has ever run on (40 feet wide!).

And in the first few minutes of the show, Dr. Phil used "the very popular Second Life" as an example of how far computer entertainment has gone from the early days of Pong and Pac Man, "I can literally create an entire world for myself and meet other people, or at least their avatars." The audience chuckled as they saw his avatar somersault in the air and fly, "Let me see you do *that*!" He showed clips of his avatar flying around, with and without a plane, riding a "Tron" lightcycle, walking the streets of 1920s Berlin, and shop in a virtual store.

But the show wasn't mainly about Second Life, but rather, the story about one 23 year old young man whom had a severe gaming addiction.

The episode is focused on helping a young man who is sadly struggling with a number of problems, including an addiction to playing an online game. He’s not a Second Life user, nor is Second Life presented on the show as a negative experience. Instead, it’s shown as an example of how far digital experiences have come from the days of Pac-Man and Pong, and Ebbe briefly speaks with Dr. Phil about some of the incredibly positive ways Second Life is being used by people around the world - from education to entrepreneurship, creative self-expression, and more.

In addition to a number of Lindens who helped make it possible for Second Life to be included in the program, we’d like to give special thanks to Naughty Mole, Abnor Mole, Ancient Mole, Bat Mole, and Draxtor Despres for their help in creating Dr. Phil’s avatar and filming some inworld footage showing his explorations of Second Life.

Dr. Phil emphasized early on he wasn't slamming computer gaming in general, "I think they can be very good." But that it was the abuse of them that he was concerned about. Later in the show, he invited Ebbe Altberg (known inworld as Ebbe Linden), Linden Lab's CEO, whom was in the TV audience, a few moments to explain.

In her blog, Jo Yardley mentioned she had met the Dr. Phil avatar, concluding it was either him or someone from his TV show team. With the show not yet having been played, she had mixed feelings about Second Life being mentioned on his show, "I soon learned that Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab) was also interviewed by Dr. Phil and Ebbe knows how to handle himself when talking to the media. ... And with its several million users, it could be a nice bit of PR for SL.The first videos the Dr. Phil show has put online so far seem to share with the world that not all games are bad and Second Life seems to get some positive attention, being described as the good side of gaming. Still, I can’t help but be a little worried about how our virtual world is going to be portrayed to the media, will we be part of the problem, or part of the solution?"

Strawberry Singh described in her own blog about how she, Draxtor Despress, and Marianne McCann helped out Dr, Phil in his flying. She would later watch the episode in question, an update her entry

I watched the show and live plurked it all at this link. Dr. Phil didn’t say anything negative about gaming, virtual worlds or Second Life. He just said that it’s the ‘abuse’ not the ‘use’ of gaming that is dangerous. He also had some other gamers on, after Ebbe, that talked about how they have full, successful real lives but still balance a healthy gaming lifestyle along with their real lives.

So it appears Second Life's portrayal was short but positive. Hopefully there will be more and longer exposures in the larger media soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

News And Commentary: MTV's "Catfish" Looking For Second Life Couples

By Bixyl Shuftan

It was several weeks ago when the term "Catfish," meaning to create a fake Internet identity and trick someone into believing the identity is real, made the national news when a rising football star was exposed as being in an Internet relationship with a pretender. While many felt sympathy for the athlete, others expressed confusion, or ridicule. Of the latter, some posted pictures online of themselves sitting next to an empty seat at an event, or sitting at a diner table and raising a glass to an empty chair, saying they were on a date with their Internet friend.

With this only recently having faded from national headlines, I was surprised to come across the following announcement in the Linden blog.


MTV's "Catfish: The TV Show" brings together couples that have online relationships to meet online for the first time, often with surprising results as the differences between online personas and offline lives are revealed.

MTV is now casting the show's second season, and they're interested in hearing from Second Life users who have fallen in love inworld, and would now like to meet their love in person. If you're interested in being on the show, you can apply online here.

I couldn't help but wonder just what Linden Lab was thinking with this "Catfish." I hadn't seen the show, but I could certainly imagine it. And what I thought was something worthy of the worst of canned reality TV. I felt given how Second Life is often portrayed in real life media, I imagined producers with zero interest in the well-being of hopeful couples, and more interested in getting carwrecks for ratings, and smearing the Grid in the process.

In the Linden And SL Universe forums, there were threads on the matter. Most expressed skepticism, "I wouldn't touch these guys with a ten foot barge pole. … stations like MTV: they are not interested in proper reporting. They look for the seedy icky stuff … if necessary, they will invent and script stories to pad out the show." Blogger Botgirl Questi took it upon herself to actually see episodes of the first season before making a conclusion, and what she saw was different than expected.

I expected it to be an exploitive Jerry Springerish freak show. What I found was a thoughtful series with a well-intentioned host who helps messmate positive resolution for both parties. The show takes situations that conform outwardly to the sensationalized stories we hate, and respectfully reveals the underlying humanity.

With this kind of review, perhaps the Lab wasn't being as dumb as I initially thought.

Something not unlike this happened a couple years ago when Oprah Winfrey's OWN Network did a documentary on Second Life, Life 2.0, which included an inworld couple who decided to meet in real life. Most expected a positive review, though Oprah's good reputation may have helped in creating higher expectations. Many were satisfied with the results, though some were less than happy with what they saw. But the show didn't result in much change in people signing in, nor did other mainstream media pay any more attention than before either.

So perhaps "Catfish's" interest in Second Life isn't worth so much of our worry. Then again, I can't help but wonder if one episode that shows a freak show will once again result in the kinds of mockery displayed by those poking fun at Manti Te'o, only this time aimed at the residents of Second Life.

Hopefully nothing goes wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

Bixyl Shuftan

Philip Rosedale: "The Media Is Wrong, SecondLife Didn’t Fail"

In an article written by Sarah Lacy for her online magazine Pandodaily, the writer came across Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab and Second Life. Rosedale talked about what the writer called, "the all too familiar hero-villian press cycle," about how national publications ignore companies in Silicon Valley until it's certain to be big, "then they make the founders into two-dimensional cover boy 'overnight' successes. … And then when it starts to fall apart, they either become evil or stupid. Either way, they're mocked, written off, and forgotten about."

It's never that simple for a startup, Lacy wrote, and certainly not for Second Life, which was praised as the next big thing, and then dismissed and mostly forgotten. It's audience had stopped growing, and "many consider anything that's not growth" or going pubic or sold, as "death."

Rosedale argued that contrary to what the national media might believe, Second Life didn't fail, it was a success. It currently has about a million active users, almost the same number it had at it's peak. when IBM and other companies were setting up places there. That the number never fell should still be considered a success "in a world were fads quickly come and go, especially with 700 million a year in virtual goods traded every year.

So why didn't the numbers grow, even with virtual worlds a success in other countries? Either Americans have a failure of imagination, "or he was way too early." Rosedale felt most people desire what they know, and if they can't get it can escape through other means such as TV, getting as Lacy put it "the culture that's already built for them, but without the responsibility to build it themselves."

As for being too early, Rosedale was proud to think that might be the case, "We were early to an idea that most people thought would eventually happen … What I'm most proud of is that we found a way to make that into a profitable company years earlier than it should have emerged, through our hard work."

In an economy all about continuous growth, Second Life might seem easy to ignore. But after ten years, it's still going and self-sustaining. Lacy commented if her company built that, "I'd still be damn proud of my team."

Read Lacy's article in full Here.

Special thanks to Solar Hydro