UgoTrade

It was a real thrill to see Hometown Baghdad given a whole segment by CNN yesterday. I loved this close up on the blog including the URL. I know many of Ugotrade readers have followed and supported Hometown Baghdad since before the first webisode was even posted. Some submitted designs for the podcast logo, and many were among the first blogs to link to Hometown Baghdad, beginning the cascade of connections that has brought this web series to over a million viewers in the just a few short weeks.

In an interview on CNN, Exec. producer Laurie Meadoff said that Chat the Planet would continue this work of connecting the world’s youth in other places, including Pakistan and India. Mike Dibenedetto who many of you are familiar with from his work on Hometown Baghdad, and across the web, was unfortunately sick, so we missed seeing him on TV too. But, if you are new to this series, Mike has just posted a, Recap - Most Viewed, Most Discussed on Hometown Baghdad. Also, this recap offers a great way to catch up on any parts of the series you may have missed. And, it is a great place to refer people who are new to the series and want to get into it. But, if you need no introduction, you can click on the thumbnails below for Episodes 9 through 20.

I have posted before on how I believe that Web 2.0, and the rapidly evolving social and immersive environments of Web 3.D (exemplified by virtual worlds like Second Life) may provide a new way for us, as global citizens, to realize even our most lofty aspirations for positive global development. As we get to know each other, and make relationships beyond the fairly limited range of identities and opportunities for connection available in our day to daily lives, (and offered in conventional “push” media), a new understanding and era of cooperation and collaboration can emerge across cultural divides. In my view, Hometown Baghdad is one of the pioneers of this new era.

Tags: Hometown Baghdad | Web 2.0 | vlog | podcast | global development | Iraq | Web 3.D | blogging | blogosphere | Chat The Planet | peace |

Steve Prentice, analyst for Gartner Research, very kindly talked to me on Skype from the Symposium/ITexpo in San Francisco, yesterday. Of course, I asked about his controversial prediction, “the majority of active Internet users and major enterprises will find value in participating in this area [Virtual Worlds] in the coming years.” And:

By 2011, 80% of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a “second life” - but not necessarily IN “Second Life.”

Metaversed and others have found this “way off the mark.” But, “Things always happen sooner that people think,” was Steve’s response. And, I had just spent most of the day watching the amazing Gapminder.org videos of Hans Rosling (presented at TED - see TED blog), so I was definitely in the mood to agree.

When dealing with world scale development on issues like poverty, global health, or even the rate of growth of a developing world like Second Life it is very hard to get a handle on events that occur on this kind of massive scale. The amazing, animated, interactive statistical analysis of Hans Rosling brilliantly debunks conventional pessimistic views on beating world poverty - and other major “Myths about Developing Worlds.”

Hans Rosling, co-founder of Gapminder, manages to turn boring numbers into vibrant animations that make sense of the world.

Click on the video grabs to watch these videos!

And as I watched Rosling’s dynamic analysis unfold, I kept thinking about the Seven Digital Divide Fallacies from Digital Divide.org

Those involved in the ten-year effort to close the Digital Divide were all well-intentioned. But we were like blind men describing the elephant as a tusk or a hoof rather and missing the point about the whole elephant. Similarly, closing the Divide turned out to be not a matter of gaining access to computers or cell phones but finding room for both. It is not a matter of promoting personal use of gadgets vs. shared use of gadgets but both. It is not a job for business or government but both. Not about choosing open source software over Windows but both. Similarly, it is not about GSM wireless vs. CDMA but both. Not about bottom-up vs. top-down efforts but both.

Pessimism leads to an over emphasis on top-down efforts.

Well my own small commitment to step out into the sunshine has been to keep the conversations about technology in developing countries linked to an exploration of the development of virtual worlds. Even though the mantra, “What about issues of broadband access?” is ever present in my ears. But, as I mentioned in my last post there have been some big developments in broadband access in Africa, and elsewhere, recently, and new opportunities will emerge with this.

Rosling gives a completely new view on issues of development, poverty and health on a global scale. But, he does not look at virtual worlds! Probably, there isn’t the kind of data available for virtual worlds for this kind of analysis and projection. But, I think it would be very interesting to see some of the same interactive analysis techniques that Rosling applies to developing countries applied to virtual worlds. It might help people get a handle on some of the issues that are just too big too grasp without these kind of visual thinking tools.

What is important about virtual worlds is that they are social and immersive.

Neomeme, recently, brought both the beautiful map of the internet and the blogosphere that are at the beginning of this post to my attention. The image on the left traces links on the blogosphere - blue are reciprocal links and green are one way. Discover posted the original story which will tell you where your favorite, “jocks, gadget hounds, political junkies, and porn aficionados hangout,” and which blogs create the white hot spots. But, what struck me was how color coding the two way links blue on the map told a new and very interesting story of the blogosphere from the point of view of “active”citizenship.

[The] blue blob represents a balanced sociopolitical discourse. The prevalence of blue in this area shows that most of these links are reciprocal, suggesting a sort of metadialogue between bloggers who hurl headlines at one another. The brightest light belongs to syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin.

The dream for a metaverse that is a single coherent environment, with a single client interface and countless virtual planets is possibly emerging faster than we can imagine. In my conversation with Steve Prentice, we went over many of technology issues/obstacles concerning a stable scalable supporting ground for virtual worlds to flourish on.

Who might be the big players? Would Google with their server farm savvy, or even the giant telecoms be the big virtual world service providers one day soon? What about IBM’s announcement of building a massively scalable main frame platform using cell processors? (see discussions of this on 3pointD and eightbar.) Also see eightbar’s comments in support of Steve Prentice and Nick Price’s report from ITexpo.

I asked these questions and Steve patiently answered. But, in the end the most exciting aspect of virtual worlds is emerging regardless of uncertainties around the exact path the technologies will take. The extraordinary quality, or ROA (Return on Awsome), of virtual worlds is the new levels of collaboration and connectivity they present. I also spent time with Jonas Karlsson and Karen Arena from Xerox today and, as this was a long conversation, it is fodder for another post. But, in closing, Jonas summed things up very clearly: “To me, the main point is that these environments are immersive and social.”

Second Life, Ustream and Twitter!

As I was writing this post last night, alerted by a Twitter, I found myself watching Eric Rice stream live from Second Life to Ustream. He was interacting with a group (not to mention a bunch of vehicles!) on Second Life and with a live audience on the Ustream chat lines. It was a social mash up that really started to spin my brain on the possiblities for virtual and RL integrations. I haven’t had a chance to ask Eric about the Fed Ex van that showed up a few times in his stream also. Another interesting point, Eric Rice has decided to switch to his RL identity in Second Life despite the almost legendary status of his Spin Martin avatar. A sign, to me at least, that the linking of virtual and real worlds is happening faster than we think.

Also, thank you Aleister for introducing me to Adri at Metaversality and taking me to Wednesday night’s ” KRTU Jazz for the Metaverse.” KRTU , on 91.7 FM, provides jazz for San Antonio from Trinity University. Here’s Adri and the legendary Ella Fitzgerald - kindred spirits!

Tags: Second Life | Virtual Worlds | Virtual Reality | Twitter | Ustream | Second Life | Web 3.D | social media | social networks | global development | myths of global development | TED | gapminder | Hans Rosling | World Health | global poverty | Jazz | Ella Fitzgerald | blogosphere | internet | interweb | ROA | return on awsome | metaverse | Gartner | IT | digital divides | blogosphere | positive global development | sustainable development | Itexpo |

Picture from ilounge.

This week the announcement by Bob Geldof of his Dictionary of Man or Encyclopedia Humanica triggered a discussion on digital divides.

Live Aid founder Bob Geldof and the BBC announced Tuesday they had joined forces on an ambitious multi-media project to produce a Dictionary of Man [aka Encyclopedia Humanica] that will be a complete record of humanity.

Geldolf said the web-based Dictionary would be a limitless repository of content: an immense, digital catalogue of all current human existence and an enormous resource for the exchange of ideas and information.

There was some criticism of the apparent culture in aspic paradigm.  Culture Matters pointed out that The Dictionary of Man project seems to be framed in these early press releases in an outdated mode of cultural preservation that ignores that “new diversity is created by the encounter between global consumer goods, media, ideas and institutions with local ways of doing and thinking.”

But, my favorite comment on the DoM project was on The Village Pump:

eh, it might be a bit uncoordinated.. but don’t we already call this ‘the internet’?
Oh well, more power to him, I guess. A freakishly massive undertaking, to be sure.

Yes the internet would already be on its way to being the Encylcopedia Humanica, if it wasn’t for digital divides, or rather lets call it Wikipedia Humanica, or even Humanica Life - the potential offspring of Second Life after it goes open source server side, (see announcement).

But, unless digital divides are addressed the internet is a long way from being a platform for all Humanica. And, while Geldof indicated that the DoM website may be up as early as next week, it is not clear from the press release how they will include voices from any of the 900 cultures that will be “captured” by camera crews.

I first saw picture on the left on Boing Boing and traced it back to Wired , and then ilounge where it is currently up to 28,347 views. The picture is captioned, “Female member of Mursi tribe in Southern Ethiopia.” There is no other background on the photo that I have found yet. But, I include the picture to the right for anyone who is not familiar with the genre of ilounge photos - ipods displayed in exotic locals.

When seen on its own the photo on the left suggests that a digital divide is being crossed, in context of other ilounge photos it seems to indicate a digital chasm.

But there was some good news this week in terms of bridging digital divides. From the i-witnesses:

At long last the World Bank has approved a US$164.5 million package to connect East and Southern Africa to the global broadband infrastructure – which will enable cheaper access to the internet and international phonecalls.

And, from Screenshots:

iBurst, is said to have transformed wireless broadband in Africa. The buzz will be in KL next Thursday: MoBif and Kyocera are bringing iBurst International Forum 2007 to town.

“Freakishly Massive”

And, then there is the “freakishly massiveness” of the Encyclopedia Humanica undertaking. The internet, in all its wiki open source glory, is the only media which makes such a project is even imaginable.

But, massive projects approached from the principle of sharing from the bottom up are what has defined the power of open sourcing to create new processes for businesses and society. And, these processes have gone well beyond their origins in software development.

Open Source evangelist Dana Blankenhorn’s famously posted on:

Bill Gates demanding that AIDS researchers share or open source their results if they’re to get some of the $287 million the Gates Foundation is putting into the search for AIDS vaccines.

Blankenhorn asks: “If you can change the way things work in AIDS vaccines, how about the world’s other pressing challenges? And if Bill Gates can learn the value of sharing, isn’t that the final proof open source works?”

Open Source activism has been in the news this last week when an open source heckler at Bill Gates recent talk at Bejing university seized a photo op.

The picture on the left is from Boing Boing and the picture on the right AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel.

But, if Bill Gates is not yet willing to put his money where his mouth is on open sourcing, Linden Labs it seems is.

“Having already taken the timid steps of open-sourcing the code for its client software, Linden Lab has confirmed that they’ll be going the whole way, and will soon be opening up the server code for Second Life. This furthers Second Life’s ambitions to be a fully distributed 3D network — built on interoperability and not owned by one company — a bit like the Internet itself.

ZDNet’s The Social Web asks: ‘who will be the first to offer Second Life hosting or use the server code for their own internal purposes? IBM would be an obvious candidate, perhaps offering corporate Second Life services. And for the rest of us? GoogleLife, free virtual land — ad supported of course. It’s certainly a possibility.’”

Humanica Life: virtual worlds serving all humanity.

It was quite clear at Virtual Worlds 2007 that IBM has no intention being caught napping re virtual worlds. The IBM key note speaker, Colin Parris, succinctly articulated the potential of virtual worlds to facilitate large scale collaborative innovation across geographical boundaries. Also noted was the power of virtual worlds to enhance learning by leveraging a variety of sensory inputs and to realize an individual’s potential that comes only from being able to tap into a larger network of people.

IBM is clearly focusing on making virtual worlds “fit for business and society.” But, without at the very least a discussion of virtual citizenship from the rest of us, will virtual worlds ever be fit for humanity?

I would really like to thank all the folks who discussed virtual citizenship in their comments on my last post, Can you be a citizen in a virtual world? This topic was well beyond the scope of my own imaginings. But, it came to life for me in the discussion of Aleister Kronos,Team Mascot, Gwyneth Llewelyn, Tisha, Dandellion Kimban, and Ziggy Figaro.

Some projects to watch re Humanica Life

African Path - “is one of the most exciting African citizen media projects. It is an online platform whose content comes from bloggers, readers, artists, and specialists. It also aggregates news on Africa from different sources (Global Voices).”

Language Labs - this Beta Technologies build and their client, Language Labs, have been getting a lot of press lately.

Second Life International Education Conference, May 25th, 2007

Tags: Second Life | Virtual Worlds | Virtual Reality | Virtual Citizenship | Virtual Citizen | Web 3.D | Bob Geldof | Dictionary of Man | Encyclopedia Humanica | Open Source | Bill Gates | Africa | internet | e-learning | internet development | Wikipoedia | digital divides | global development | positive global development | wireless broadband | open sourcing | user generated content |

Online communities play an important role in positive global change not just because they bring crises to world attention, Hollywood celebrities are even better at doing this! More importantly, they bring together diverse aspects of the global community/polity to make human dignity and freedom a priority in a world seemingly dominated by global competition (see Chika Anyan Wu).

I have been focusing on “bridge blogging” and “virtual worlds” because I believe on-line communities, in general, and virtual worlds, in particular, will play a role in positive global change so big that we cannot fully imagine it yet.

A connection to the experience of others motivates the social and political actions that can make the world a better place. The potential of virtual worlds, in particular, to enhance and energize shared experience and human connection has been acknowledged by everyone I have met (who has actually explored them), educators, corporate marketers, gamers, and political activists.

Are Virtual Worlds just games?

On Tuesday, I went to visit Xerox Innovation Island on Second Life to hear panelists, from Xerox Innovation Group, Beta Technologies, Multiverse, IBM and Xerox (PARC) and others discuss, “A vision of what’s next for virtual worlds.”

The theme that came through strongly despite grid problems was the role of virtual worlds in enhancing and enriching the experience of communication and collaboration at work. And, while this of course can be debated, and it is not the main topic of this particular post (later), I will mention that “making work fun” came up a lot. The focus of the event was, “perspective and ideas for business.” But, there was food for thought on the potential role of virtual worlds in global development. And, an important factor will probably be the particularly engaging qualities of these environments.

I am sitting on the far right in a xerox T-shirt looking very prim and proper (no foxy face this day). I had actually stripped my avatar of my “fun” accessories like flames and a foxy face. Inappropriate, I thought, for a Xerox guest. So, I was a little jealous of Jonas Karlsson’s (prime mover of the Xerox Innovation Island project) cool skates, and Philip Linden style spiked hair.

Second Life is not a game!

There was a large press turnout for the Xerox event that was being watched by a Real Life Audience. At one point, I found myself sitting next to Ziggy Figaro of Information Week. And, I couldn’t resist telling him I had been tweaked by Cory Doctorow’s post and article, “Why Online Games Are Dictatorships in Information Week. Doctorow asks the question “Can you be a Citizen of a Virtual World.”

Doctorow argues that Second Life is just like World of Warcraft - a dictatorship because the control of wealth and property is ultimately in the hands of the Lindens. The debate continues from a gaming perspective on Raph Koster’s blog. Where Koster writes: “The core of his argument [Cory Ds] is that while democracy can be really fun, actually governing sure isn’t, and interactions with governments tend not to be either. And that this poses challenges for any world (just as it does for the real world!)

I asked Ziggy Figaro what he thought of Doctorow’s article. And, he told me he had edited it, adding:

I thought it was interesting, his idea that games might well have to be dictatorships. I think he’s right. Unlike Cory, though, I don’t think that’s a bad thing…..in a game, like many businesses, you’re the customer and you expect the business owner to RUN things……his essay convinces me that SL is not a game. Because it’s not a dictatorship.

Can you be a citizen in a virtual world that is not a game?

Issues of governance are debated in depth in some communities on Second Life, notably in the Neufreistadt (a topic for another post!). And, Second Life citizenship is discussed both in the sense of property rights, rights to participation, and as active citizenship.

Forms of “active citizenship” are very much a part of online culture. If you go to this link you will find a detailed argument for this, and many other relevant links. There are reasons to be skeptical of the potential of “cyberactivism” to result in real world change. See Mutant Palm’s, “Nailhouse Blues,” where it is pointed out that the “Nail House” cyberhype seems to have had little impact, so far, on the much “blogged about new property law.” But, there is plenty of evidence for a more optimistic view.

In particular, there is the role new media technologies have in questioning “the role of nation states as agents of change, public police and social monitor.” And, as the state of nations states is frequently corrupt, oppressive, impotent or defunct. And, the majority of successful political or social movements in the last few years do not reside in their country or society of opposition due to political pressure and intimidation (Wu), this role is pretty important. See this post, “Reporters Without Borders, has published The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.” (BBC Click)

Darfur - Giving Voice to a Crisis.

The on-going Darfur crisis in Sudan has caught the world’s attention (we are still waiting for global leaders to act) through a combination of celebrity activism - Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg - and the work of new communication networks. Working across a wide physical and cultural geography these new networks of communication and online organizations have found ways to give voice to the refugees, e.g. savedarfur.org, and bring attention to the crisis (see the Google Earth Darfur initiative).

The New York Times, reports on Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg’s efforts to put pressure on China. And, how in the new global politics, governments are more likely to listen to global threats to their interests than local protesters. A Senior Chinese official -

Mr. Zhai even went all the way to Darfur and toured three refugee camps, a rare event for a high-ranking official from China, which has extensive business and oil ties to Sudan and generally avoids telling other countries how to conduct their internal affairs.

Just when it seemed safe to buy a plane ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, nongovernmental organizations and other groups appear to have scored a surprising success in an effort to link the Olympics, which the Chinese government holds very dear, to the killings in Darfur, which, until recently, Beijing had not seemed too concerned about. (New York Times)

This picture and the drawing by a child from a Darfur camp at the beginning of this post are from Camilla Nielsson. Her film, “The Children of Darfur,” “tells the children’s version of what is happening in Darfur. Some of the strongest testimonies are told by the children and etched in drawings made in the support centres that have opened throughout Darfur.”

I talked with Camilla about her film, her experiences making it, and talking to people around the world about the situation in Darfur. Camilla stressed the necessity for people to have some experience of a situation, and to make a connection, for political motivation to arise. Her film by taking you into the day to day lives of children in the camps, as they draw, cook, duck their head against the sandstorms creates an opportunity for such a connection to be made.

Camp Darfur in Second Life is a trail blazing effort at trying to connect people, through a multi-dimensional experience in a virtual world, to a social crisis in the real world. This and other projects like it are the beginning of an exciting and crucial adventure in positive global development. But, as anyone who has tried knows, establishing a presence/experience in a virtual world, whether it is corporate, educational, or as an active citizen, is an on-going experiment - a process of trial and error as we learn how to engage the potentials of virtual worlds more fully and effectively. But, as we learn how to deepen the experience and link on line and off line worlds in more and more creative ways there will be an ever increasing ROA - Return On Awesome (ROA is from Jerry Paffendorf).

Tags: Second Life | Virtual Citizenship | Virtual Worlds | Virtual Reality | Metaverse | internet | Xerox Innovation | Xerox PARC | Beta Technologies | MMOGS | online games | bridge blogging | blogging | blogosphere | global development | Darfur | Cyberactivism | celebrity activism | Return On Awesome | Camp Darfur | Digital Democracy | active citizenship | xerox |

In the year of 2010, 70% of the population in the developed nations will pass ten times more time per day interacting with people in the virtual world than in the physical world, says Charles Abrams a Director of Research for Gartner in, Internet Midia Digital.

What with the upcoming launch of Second Life Brasil, the arrival of Second News! Brasil, and the Gartner Conference in, Sao Paulo, Brasil (April 10th and 11th), virtual worlds in general and Second Life, in particular, are making a big splash in Brasil at the moment.

The picture on the left is of the opening party on Second Life for Second News! Brasil. The picture on the right is of the Pelorinho, Salvador, Brasil from Omar Junior’s Flickr photostream.

What is it about virtual worlds that will draw this many people in for this amount of time? Certainly it is not just about being 3D! The pivotal points of a virtual world are outlined in “Onder’s Big Three.”

“Onder’s big three” describes the qualities any virtual world must have if it is going to play the kind of role in 2010 that Abrams from Gartner describes. (Notably, Onder finds that, at this time, Second Life is the “ONLY virtual world that completely complies with ‘Onder’s Big Three.’”

1. Real money must move in and out of the “virtual” economy freely. RMT (Real-Money Trading) is designed in, not forbidden by TOS.

2.Users must be able to create unique content and retain ownership over it. Things like scripting and accepting uploads are important here. Multimedia is a bonus. We must be able to control the rights to our content.

3.The world must be persistent, and the users able to change it. Residents like being able to build the world themselves, and don’t need somebody stepping in and erasing their work.

But, in terms of the growth of virtual world’s in developing countries, at the moment, Onder’s number one point is, perhaps, the most important. The use of mobile phones as virtual bank accounts, to send, receive and save money is being touted but Telecom industry pundits as the major market driver after SMS.

M-Banking

BBC News notes: “M-banking, as it is known, might help to serve the three billion people who currently have no access to financial services, according to the World Bank.”

On the left is a Kaizen Cash booth on Brazilian Second Life (Kaizen is one of the Brazilian partners in Second Life Brasil - see 3pointD for the complete story). It will be possible to buy Linden Dollars using Brazilian currency, the Real.

On the right, is a “Geesm,” (GSM) kiosk in Lagos for mobile phone based virtual banking (no connection to Second Life, yet!).

Olusola Oyewola points outs call centers as they are known “attend to their customers just like your banker does when you go to cash some amount of money.” For more about the role of mobile phones in job creation in Africa see, Textually, Mobile Africa, Afrigadget, and Timbuktu Chronicles.

Leapfrogging

Jamais Cascio in World Changing, discusses “Leapfrogging” - the “notion that areas which have poorly-developed technology or economic bases can move themselves forward rapidly through the adoption of modern systems without going through intermediary steps. ” Bowers writes on PSD blog, “M-banking remains the most powerful example of leapfrogging that I know of. It’s actually a double leapfrog - from landlines to cell phones, and from traditional banks to virtual wallets.

Scott Schaffer has been blogging for a while about “leapfrogging” from “Phase 1 of internet development, the connection of the electronic world” which has been dominated by the platform creators (Microsoft) and search (Google) to “Phase 2 - connecting every physical item to the Internet,” which will take the internet into 3D. He notes, “Phase 2 will be 1000 times larger and more lucrative than Phase 1.”

Physical World Connection Players

Business Week, last week summarized the Chinese physical world connection players. Gmedia uses two-dimensional bar codes to bridge “the online and offline worlds, turning, say, a coffee table into a physical hyperlink, and your mobile phone into a giant mouse pointer. You “click” the barcode on the coffee table by taking a picture of it with the camera on your phone, and then are automatically taken online.”

Hong Kong-based, MyClick, “Although, it uses a patented photo recognition technology, not barcodes, the end result is virtually identical. Any visual medium - a magazine page, billboard or television commercial - can carry an image framed by a special border. The user simply snaps a photo of the framed image.”

Steve McCormick, vice-president of MyClick says: “In China, consumers are into marketing that’s hao wanr (fun). It’s not like the US, where the internet is a tool for purchasing products. Here, it’s all about yu le (entertainment).” Also, see Pacific Epoc’s interview with MyClick.

But, for a questioning look at whether mobile phone advertising and datamatrix codes will work , see Danwei.

What is happening “on the ground? M4G and Life Logging

Africa - Ready For Business tagged me recently. And, ever since, I have been wondering what to write for a meme post - What are my goals? Well one of my goals for this blog is not just to focus on top down innovation, but to keep looking at what innovations are coming from people who take up and use technology in creative and unexpected ways.

I love coming up with big ideas. But, I have been reining in my love of “big ideas” lately. I have come to realize that more often than not deep engagement with very specific areas evolves into big ideas one could never have imagined when starting out.

In Africa, the focus of innovation may not be on broadband at the moment, but, this does not mean trails are not being blazed. Virtual banking “the next big market driver after SMS” is being pioneered in Africa and other developing countries (including Second Life!).

Also, Africa Ready For Business notes, new and innovative uses for SMS are emerging . See their post for a video on M4G - Mobile For Good about how MG4 is helping Kenyans find jobs. And, check One World, to see more about this “social franchise project designed to use mobile phone technology to alleviate poverty” by delivering vital health, employment and community content via SMS.

Innovative approaches to connecting on grid and off grid worlds don’t just come from large corporate ventures.

Please check out, the other here, to learn about Jerry Paffendorf’s (The Futurist In Residence at The Electric Sheep Company) “on the ground” experiments in Phase 2 internet development using his shoes.

Pursuing an instinct to life log with his Nike+ tracking shoes plus new camera plus new Google MyMaps service, Jerry begins work on the virtualizing the neighborhood side of things.

Bridge blogging is a very big idea!

Recently, I was following a link from Clapping Trees post on, Top Blogs in China Malayasia and the Phillipines, when I came across Yee’s Blog, “Ya, I Yee, if only I could be a bridge blogger.” Aha, there you have it. That’s the way to think about “bridge blogging.” It is too big of an idea to pin down. Now I feel I can write down three goals:

1) Aspire to”bridge blog” while remembering this is a lofty goal.

2) Work on some practical bridge building everyday. For example, put time into at least one of my avatars (other than my blog), e.g., in Second Life, Twitter, Stumble Upon, Jaiku, Mybloglog, etc., etc., to build connections, make friends, and exchange ideas with an aspiration to building bridges across digital divides, and towards the goal of positive global development.

3) Practice meditation everyday.

I tag

Ya, I Yee, Electronic Village, Mshairi, JynxedPanda, African Gadget Geek, Congo Girl, Zanglu, Team Mascot, Brown Thoughts, Mutant Palm, Black In Business, Steli

Tags: Second Life | Virtual Worlds | Virtual Realty | m-banking | kaizen | global development | internet development | leapfrogging | Web 3.D | Web 3.0 | GSM | SMS | Africa | Second Life Brasil | physical hyperlinking | mobile phones | cell phones | mobile computing | MyClick | Gmedia | Electric Sheep | social media | social networking | life logging | Nike | Web 2.0 | virtual china | bridge blogging | Brasil | MMOGS | digital divides | social entrepreneurs | social entrepreneurship | internet | web development | positive global development |

Children are working on their OLPC laptops in a school 10 miles outside the capital of Nigeria, Abuja. This school was selected by Khaled Assounah, Director of Nicholas Negraponte’s One Laptop Per Child Program (OLPC) who spent a year touring schools in Nigeria. For the full story from Nigeria, see CNET, and here for more background on the OLPC project, and a video demonstration.

Tags: OLPC | Nicholas Negraponte | Nigeria | global development | digital divide | education | $100 laptop |

“Croquet was built to answer a simple question, ‘If we were to create a new operating system and user interface knowing what we know today, how far could we go?’”

So, in simple terms, Croquet is a new operating system with a virtual 3D world as the human interface to the OS. The latter is is what most obviously separates it from all its predecessors, MS Dos, Windows, Vista, Linux, Unix, Apple OS’s etc, etc. But, there is probably a lot more to be revealed about Croquet in its less visible layers.

The Croquet Consortium (an open source software foundation) with some industry and many academic members gives this description of Croquet.

Croquet is a powerful open source software development environment for the creation and large-scale distributed deployment of multi-user virtual 3D applications and metaverses that are (1) persistent (2) deeply collaborative, (3) interconnected and (4) interoperable.

But, the programming guide that you get when you download the recently released Croquet SDK v 1.0 (available at Croquet) doesn’t mince words or hide behind technical jargon. They write:

The existing operating systems are like the castles that were owned by their respective Lords in the Middle Ages. They were the centers of power, a way to control the population and threaten the competition. Sometimes, a particular Lord would become overpowering, and he would declare himself as King. This was great for the King. And not too bad for the rest of the nobles, but in the end - technology progressed and people started blowing holes in the sides of the castles. The castles were abandoned. Technology enables this.

The pictures at the top of this post are Prise de la Bastille, by Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel (left) and an avatar editing a text document in a Croquet world (right). There are some interesting screenshots at the Consortium site, including one of an avatar editing a conventional blog inworld.

I think I might have hung back while the developers brought Croquet along a little more, if I hadn’t seen this “storm the castle” manifesto. But, that got my attention. And, I have decided to try to become an embedded reporter for the start of the siege, watching in the field as the first fire balls get lobbed over the castle walls.

Most of the work on Croquet is still in academia, at the moment. But as Croquet SDK v 1.o is now out, I will try to launch a WAN site - a croquet world on the WAN accessible to anyone else running Croquet. I have an experienced developer and systems engineer friend on board to help! And, one of Croquet’s key premises is users and developers will be able to interact naturally and collaboratively.

So far I have found it is easy to download Croquet and run it locally or on a LAN. But, getting Croquet running on a WAN is another matter. Croquet is currently working on some of the performance and other issues. But, they say it is now doable. And, they have done it. And, there’s a picture to prove it!

There are also a number of interesting Croquet projects show-cased on the site. And, 3pointD, recently reported on, “Teledildonics Coming To Croquet,” a project not listed by the Consortium.

The connection between the development of virtual worlds and positive global development is one of the main themes of Ugotrade. This coupled with a look at how people use technology in innovative and unexpected ways in new environments. There are not many non academics or non corporate developers using Croquet yet (and may not be for a while). But, I couldn’t resist looking into the storming the castle metaphor. And, with a blog on crossing digital divides, probably I shouldn’t.

Here is my first screenshot. The chicken (me) is meeting the teradactyl (my developer friend) for the first time. He just came through that portal and we are figuring out the user interface and voice chat (which sounded like speaking on a noisy jet - not sure if this is my problem or Croquet’s). The navigation rocks though. Moving around is easy, and motion control is precise.

I decided against being Alice in Wonderland - one of the other available avatar options. Wearing Alice just seemed too pretentious for me. And, I don’t want to spend time learning how to import a cool avatar from Second Life, which apparently you can do. There is no-one here yet to admire the artistry.

Croquet is a lonely, culturally barren world, at the moment, and absolutely no comparison to the excitement and social richness of Second Life. But, lets see where a portal on a WAN leads. The Croquet SDK v 1.o intro says it designed to be used only by experienced developers, at the moment. So what am I doing in Croquet? Not sure yet. But, I will certainly report on what I find, and if I see any castles under siege.

Tags: Croquet | Web 3.D | Virtual Reality | Virtual Worlds | Second Life | Linux | Unix | Windows | Vista | OS | Operating Systems | Metaverse | MMOGS | Croquet Consortium |

Two podcasters from Kent State?

Adam Broitman with Leesa Barnes, on left. Chris Penn co-founder of the Podcamp movement,on right

(photos from CC Chapman’s Flickr page)

PodCampNYC was buzzier than a post that’s made it big on digg. And, I thought I would spend Saturday being a mouse potato (see my pre-camp post!).

From the fringe of the fringe to main stream marketing insiders like Leesa Barnes of Podonomics (go here to listen to Leesa speaking at Podcasters Across Borders ) the whole wonderful wiki world seemed to be there. For business like reports, and background on the “unconference” movement see ZDnet and the New York Times. But, if you want to taste the day go to CC Chapman’s Flickr page.

And, if you still feel out of the loop click through some of these links - some of the poderati and new media celebs who show up in CC’s pics, e.g., Rocket Boom, Lynette Young, Chris Hambly with CC himself, The Diva, Kroosh, Eric Skiff (one of the organizers), Best Damn Tech Show, Roadie Show, Lee Coulter, Thoughtout.biz, Natalie Gelman, Brother Love, Blip TV, Chris Brogan (co-founder of podcamp), and many, many more. CC’s photos capture the great vibe at the meet up. There were viral smiles everywhere.

I arrived after lunch. I was stirred from my Saturday slouch by the twittering of Mark Wallace of 3pointD. Mark kicked the day off bright and early with Joseph Jaffe, Greg Verdino, Johnny Ming, and Adam Broitman, presenting “Social Media Convergence and Virtual Worlds.” You can watch the entire “social media convergence and virtual worlds” session here — video courtesy of PodcampNYC and TV Worldwide. Also, on Greg Verdino’s blog you will find pictures of the panelists (entire set on Flickr).

I was lucky to arrive for CC’s presentation thanks to that fabulous “waste” of time twitter. (see O’Reilly Media’s great comment on Twittervision!) To say CC was inspiring is an understatement. If you are involved in new media in any way, or you want to be, check his presentation out. There is a link to it on his blog.

I did try hard to stay home. But, when the live streaming was canceled on Second Life, Mark’s tweets starting exerting an iresistible pull on me. The stars of new media and some interesting UFOs had come out for Pod Camp, NYC. And, I was only a few subway stops from the whole shebang!

What Happened To PodCamp on Second Life?

I did manage to remember my ipod and I got an impromptu interview from Adam Broitman/Mockben Hegel - see imediaconnection for an early roadmap to marketing for Second Life success (as learned in-world by Mockben Hegel). He explained why the live streaming of PodCamp was canceled and what is going to happen in PodCamp Second Life instead.

We waited a little longer than we should have in terms of getting the build live - there were some questions with bandwidth and we weren’t sure of logistics. So, rather than stream live, we are extending the experience for the sponsors by keeping the build there for probably about three weeks . We will be bringing in all of the content and we gave full permission to all the sponsors and anyone who is part of the community do whatever they want with the sim. Come and co-create.

This way the experience is not just encapsulated in one day but extends the experience for a period of weeks. To anyone who came to the build expecting a stream I do apologize. But, hopefully we will be able to make it up over the next couple of weeks with an experience. And, I definitely invite anyone who is not here today to bring their content. And, if you are a Second Life creator be my guest set up shop, bring your content. If you’re not a creator shoot me an e-mail Adam at MorpheusMedia and I will see about what I can do to help facilitate you getting your content in there.

Mockben in PodCamp, Second Life.

Tags: PodCamp. podcasting | podcast | vlog | social media | virtual worlds | Web 3.D | PodCampNYC | internet marketing | new media | Blip TV | Rocket Boom | Second Life | Web 2.0 |

“Like water and heat, internet is a clear necessity in the modern world, opening doors to education, employment and engagement.” (Sarah Lai Stirland, Wired)

This great “story of community-initiated sustainable development” that was posted on Boing Boing is some of the best news I’ve heard all week.

Sarah Lai Stirland of Wired writes: “Last month, volunteers turned on a novel broadband network in this 135-unit block [a San Francisco housing project], throwing a digital lifeline to Emma Casey and other tenants.”

“Using a refurbished PC she picked up for $100, the 47-year-old mother of two adult children is now going online to help her son find a job, get health information and, she says, pay tribute to neighbors who’ve met with violent or untimely deaths.”

While local governments remain mired in debates over how to do it - public versus private infrastructure - and academics argue cart and horse scenarios on education and teachers versus IP addresses and computers, some enterprising mixes of profit and non-profit groups working with local communities are getting the job done.

The supercool technology behind this SF community project, providing bandwidth that matches DSL service, is from Meraki. While it is still in beta, the “Meraki’s mini” contains a Wi-Fi router-on-a-chip, combined with the same microprocessor and same memory that formed the heart of a Silicon Graphics workstation 10 years ago. These components are now cheap enough to sell with a box in a $49 dollar “plug in.”

The New York Times noted, “$50 boxes that serve, depending upon population density, more than one household and can be installed by anyone with the ease of plugging in a toaster…….This grass-roots approach, with next-to-nothing expenditures for both equipment and operations, is impossible to ignore.”

One billion on line - five billion to go. And, lets start with those most in need this time.

18.-22. May 2007 WirelessSummit, USA

Aug/Sept 2007 WSFII 2007, Ghana

The concept of Mesh networking is to automatically detect the best route, highest bandwidth, and dynamically adjust to varying conditions. The ability to automatically reroute connections was first developed by phone companies to deal with down phone lines and provide people with continuous access.

While Meraki requires multiple nodes for widespread coverage, Air Jaldi has found an elegant solution to developing a wireless mesh network that works over large distances in the mountainous terrain and inclement weather of the Himalayas. Air Jaldi’s Mesh network, provides broadband internet access, and is based on recurring deployments of a hardware device, which is designed, and built locally - it is known as the Himalayan-Mesh-Router.

Here are some members of Tibetan Technology and AirJaldi . They have just installed A New Node at Government Polytechnic College, Kangra.

[left to right: Tenzin Gonpo, Phuntsok Dorjee, Ranbhir Rana, and Pauli]
Photographed by Aurelien Personnez, 15th March, 2007

Another flagship Mesh networking project is the e-village, “in Mahavilachchiya (Sri Lanka), a little known village, 40 km from the nearest town Anuradhapura, and surrounded three sides by the Vilpattu jungle…… There are 50 PCs and a sophisticated multimedia lab. The majority of the computers are located at the houses of the children attending the Horizon Lanka Academy.”

Tags: Mesh Wireless networks | global development | digital divides | Sri Lanka | e-village | community WiFi | Internet access | broadband access | Mest | networking | Meraki | Air Jaldi | Tibetan Technology | ICT education | wireless | social entrepreneurship | internet |

“I don’t have any MSN, hotmail, friendster, icq, irc or any forums. Do not add the impostor to your list!” says the real Lao Zha Bor. But, by
riffing and rapping about her life, the real Lao Zha Bor, who acted as Fann Wong’s mother in Just Follow Law, has soared to the heights of the blogosphere, obliterating the digital divide of age - an impressive feat!

I have so little time to add friends or visit forums these days. Lao Zha Bor’s success really cheered me up! Check out, “Aunitie’s,” impressive number of hits, and her stream of comments too.

Lao Zha Bor, is not IT trained. She got her start blogging with the help of young friends: “They taught me how to create a blog and design template.” (hey another form of “bridge blogging” has begun). Lao Zha Bor comments on the media attention her blog has brought her, “I think more and more aunties and uncles will start to set up a blog soon!”

I learned about this new rockin’ blog star from Clapping Trees, my second friend on Twitter, who is keeping me up to date on what is going on in the very cool Singapore blogs - pioneers in the exploration of virtual worlds. (My first friend Jim Gustafson reminds me of events and scripting classes on SL. I will check out his 11 am class on the beta voice grid tomorrow) One of Clapping Trees tweets led me to Rinaz’s latest report on a Singapore Second Life Meetup hosted by Engkiat and Nicholas from the Idea Factory and to the Nexus 2007 conference.

She writes: “I met fellow Secondlifers like Preetam, Vanessa and Alvin. I also met Aileen and for the first time ever, finally got to meet up with Jeremy, or Limkopi, as he is known inworld.”

Aunties and Uncles to storm virtual worlds?

I can imagine that soon, not only blogging, but virtual reality, will begin to play an important role in banishing the loneliness, isolation and depression that is all too often part of aging. Right now probably most people on line who declare themselves as 80 are decades younger. But, perhaps, the next big “off the grid” community to get a ramp to the super highway will be the elderly - with a little help, like Lao Zha Bor had, from their young friends.

Now, virtual reality plays a big role for people with disabilities, not just because in a virtual world many disabilities are not the factor they are in RL. Mitch Wagner reports, “one woman whose cancer was quite severe, for whom Second Life had become her first life.” And, on Second Life there is a community using SL to aid in the recovery of stroke victims. But, also, Wayne Porter notes that HUDS that simulate disabilities in Second Life can offer a way to educate people from a new perspective (also see Wayne’s review of the groovy and free SLtweets HUD (Heads UP Display) available at SLTweets.com).

With a little bit of luck, inspiration and support the next suave lady and gentlemen you meet on SL, gliding and twirling on the dance floor in “tails” and “bling heels,” may really be 95!

Tags: Second Life | Web 3.D | Virtual Reality | Virtual Worlds | Second Life | Singapore | Just the Law | Lao Zha Bor | social media | social networks | forums | blogging | disabilities | internet | meet ups | twitter | SLtwitter | scripting classes | blogs | ratings | hit counts | blog ranking |