UgoTrade

White African noted last week that in “The Best of Blogs, “there’s a number of African blogs in there” and a lot of activity over the last month in the African blogosphere.

The nominated blogs include two from Africa:

• Actualités de la République Démocratique du Congo in the best Weblog category
• Diário de um Sociólogo from Mozambique in best Portuguese blog

Recently, when Joshua S. Fouts (a.k.a Schmilsson Nilsson in Second Life) who directs the USC Center for Public Diplomacy was interviewed by John Jainschigg for Grid Talk on Second Life, much of the latter part of the talk was spent discussing issues of digital divides with the audience.

Schmilsson noted that among other infrastructure challenges in Africa, “40 countries on the African continent do not have reliable Internet access. Thus, they are not a part of our conversations here. This is a major problem.” The conversation that followed covered a number of the hotly debated issues around the role of technology in situations where food, water, clothing and medicine are pressing needs.

This is an ongoing debate at Uthango’s Virtual Africa project (for more about this see Africa’s Second Life, Our Virtual Reality). Uthango are also coming up with creative ways to connect global virtual communities. They are currently organizing a BLOG CARNIVAL. The Grid Talk discussion on Public Diplomacy indicated there is much interest from Second Life residents in the topic of Infrastructure development in Africa. The blog carnival is an opportunity to connect this conversation to the wider online community and African bloggers in particular. Alanagh Recreant of Uthango explained:

We believe that Africans offer a unique perspective on global issues and all stops should be pulled out to increase their authentic presence in virtual worlds.

The BLOG CARNIVAL topic is: “Infrastructure as an Enterprise Enabler in Africa.” The carnival is managed by the acclaimed blogger Benin Mwangi (currently with African Path and respected writer for Global Voices Online, Africa Ready For Business).

It is really simple to participate by using the little form provided here:
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_1680.html

Do you have any article or would like to say anything about INFRASTRUCTURE development in Africa? (This could include IT infrastructure or property or any other kind…)

Choose a blog article to share, and note its Permalink URL.
Fill in the other fields (hint: copy and paste!), and hit Submit .

Uthango’s Virtual Bike-a-thon

Uthango Social Investments is blazing the trail for African participation in immersive virtual worlds like Second Life while continuing to work at all levels of community development, on-line and off-line. Part of the registered not-for-profit company’s work include asset-based community development to identify gaps and find resources for adequate infrastructure, such as small business ‘incubators’ and shared community ICT facilities.

Another related ongoing project from Uthango in Second life is the [e]bizikile fundraising drive for a specific Opportunity Center in a Cape Town community for unemployed job seekers. Uthango’s Directors speak about transference from SL to RL and vice versa. They point out the [e]bizikile project could be an example of their attempts to do just that! Real life bicycles are also for sale as part of the project and will be donated to an African family in rural Africa.

“In many parts of Africa, bicycles (and mobile phones) are the appropriate technology to drive the local economy,” says Enakai Ultsch of Uthango.

Second Life residents can purchase virtual African bicycles designed by Shukran Fahid of !BooPeRFunK! for L$250 and next year, participate in a grid-wide virtual bike-a-thon (for more Ambling in Second Life). I picked up my bike at the November 15th launch party.

Coincidently Justin Bovington (avatar Fizik Baskerville) from Rivers Run Red invited me to join the beta trial of Vodafone InsideOut in Second Life on a day I really wanted to send messages from Second Life to all my friend’s “real” life mobile phones.

I wanted everyone to know that I was spending Saturday as my avatar Tara5 Oh standing in an avatar chain in Second Life to demonstrate for peace and justice in Myanmar (Burma). I was eager to ask my friends out enjoying the autumn weather in New York City to come and join me when they could in Second Life (see my previous post).

In the picture above I’m picking up my HUD from the Vodafone dispenser in Second Life. I’m wearing my T-shirt calling for the freedom of Burmese leader, Nobel Prize Winner and pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

I received a stream of useful URLs and ways to help the Burmese people from other Second Lifers at the peace demo. And, while I was there, I wanted to connect directly with my friends in real life as my avatar in Second Life. This is what Vodafone’s InsideOut is all about.

You can sign up here to join the beta trials and learn more about Vodafone InsideOut which “will allow you to communicate between virtual worlds and the real world via your mobile.”

Ingmar, Head of Technology for RRR, explained:

The service which has just come out of closed beta allows you to call and text in an out of Second Life. You get a HUD object (and a handset which is just for show and plays animations while you are on the phone.

You must sign up on the web page with your real mobile number and get verified. From then on you can call other users with your HUD, or text message them. If they are online, they get it on their HUD, but if they are off line they get the call or text on their mobile phone. The message/call comes from a virtual phone number, which hides your real one to keep your privacy. They can call or text the virtual number back at any time they want from their phone.

The virtual numbers assigned for the beta trial next week are from a German pool (+49) and, since it’s not restricted to users on Vodafone’s mobile network, when you call these your mobile network operator will charge you for whatever they charge for a call to Germany (based on where you are located in the world).

On the upside, for the beta trial the service will be free when used from Second Life which means free international calls and texts. We suspect some people will get a Second Life account just for that

The Second Wave in Second Life - Convergence and Relevance

Justin Bovington of RRR (a.k.a. Fizik Baskerville) spoke to me about Vodafone’s InsideOut project. RRR is working closely with Vodafone to bring the InsideOut to Second Life and other virtual worlds. Justin explained:

This is the start of Second Wave projects - the business tool world - convergence and relevance.

Open source is more than just a programming term, it should also apply to our thinking in terms of how we approach virtual world projects taking aspects of legacy systems [in this case Vodafone mobile communications], relevant technology and proven ways of working into Second Life will be the measure of future success.

InsideOut is very much about that. We’re not replacing the mobile phone. By trying to create a metaphor we’re using your real life moby as part of the experience. This is true convergence. Exciting stuff!

The emphasis has been on ‘modify the browser’, rather than looking at the bigger picture of integration. Open source is a call to action, not just a nerdy way to create cool interface changes. Integration is part of that message.

We’re seeing it more and more in relation to companies now viewing SL as a logical extension to their collaboration. We think that Vodafone is another level of validation in the same way Adidas did last October with the first true global brand presence [in Second Life].

I have written a lot in this blog about open source as a concept that is vital to develop “an operating system for planet earth.” And I have elaborated on how real life and second life integrations are paving the way for Second Life to play a big role in positive global development. I have argued that such integrations of open virtual worlds like Second Life will produce business and community applications that not only transform current modes of industrial production and design but are one of the keys to a sustainable future.

Integrating First Life and Second Life

There were other important landmarks last week for an increasing convergence and relevance between first life and second life.

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, spoke at length in Second Life on the important role he saw Second Life playing in domestic/global politics and civil life. You can find a full audio feed on the Clear Night Sky blog. It is rather ironic that a conservative should be one of the first major public leaders to come to Second Life to talk about the relevance of Second Life to “real” public life. Adding more weight to his words was the fact that he had actually engaged in the experience of being an avatar. He drives his own avatar and is knowledgeable about many aspects of Second Life (for more on this event, brought to Second Life by Clear Ink, see Reuters “Second Life Ready For Prime Time at Ginrich Event” and Rik Riel).

Public figures engaging with Second Life and innovations like InsideOut that allow Second Lifers to engage more fully with public life are certainly important markers of a Second Wave of relevance and convergence.

As with all technologies, the uptake of InsideOut by Second Life residents is sure to produce many creative and unexpected applications. And in Second Life especially because of the emotional bandwidth the experiential is a vital to understanding the possibilities for innovation in SL.

Certainly, for me, Justin’s words took on more significance as I stood in the avatar chain in Second Life thinking of all the ways this InsideOut HUD could enhance the already powerful experience of participating in something very close to my heart on Second Life that is showing my solidarity for the monks and people of Burma.

Creating an API and integrating Mobile Phones with Second Life

Another topic that I have written about on Ugotrade frequently is the important role mobile technologies have played in positive global development particularly in Africa. Also an underlying theme of Ugotrade is my hope that access to the global virtual economy and the immersive 3D space of virtual worlds like Second Life will be possible in all parts of the world soon.

I discussed with Philip Rosedale at SLCC the possibilities for the integration of mobile phone technologies with Second Life and how that might create new ways for people to access, participate, and benefit from the virtual economy of Second Life. Along these lines I had many questions for Rivers Run Red on how they had accomplished the integration for InsideOut.

I also wanted to know whether InsideOut was likely to expand into even more applications including a bunch of OutsideIn ones! Justin kindly introduced me to RRR’s head of technology Ingmar so I could discuss all the issues of integrating the mobile space with Second Life.

Prior to RRR Ingmar was working as an IT security consultant in Germany. “He started using the internet before web-browsing became widely accepted and has an extensive background in networking, security and system administration. Ingmar discovered Second Life in June 2003 and became immediately fascinated by it. He spent much of his time contributing to user created scripting documentation at http://lslwiki.net and creating interactive content in Second Life.”

I asked Ingmar a number of questions about the design of the API. I asked about how they had overcome some of the messaging bottlenecks that I frequently hear are an obstacle to developing APIs to SL.

We’ve designed and implemented an API together with Vodafone for both calls and text messages and all the other stuff we needed like account status and channel registration (so it keeps working when you go into another sim). All information exchange is encrypted and signed and the Vodafone servers are using Verisign SSL certificates to ensure we only connect to the authentic ones

The messages are near real-time, we just don’t need to send a whole lot of data, as SMS messages are fairly short in nature so bottlenecks with that weren’t that much of a problem (although they are for some things like contact storage).

LSL memory limits where a much bigger issue to the point were we couldn’t add some features we wanted because even with splitting the HUD up in a lot of scripts we eventually reached the point where the main code grew too large in bytecode size alone.

Securing Second Life: Will mobile phones be a gateway to virtual banking in Second Life soon?

I asked Ingmar what he saw in the future for Outside In applications for mobile phones and Second Life. And what were the challenges to making mobile phones an interface to virtual banking in Second Life? Re the second question issues of security are of course paramount. Ingmar began by pointing out that the introduction of Mono will make big differences for securing data messaging in and out of Second Life.

But the other major issue is that any bank (and all users) are trusting Linden Lab not to interfere - since Second Life currently runs on their servers. [I have written re LL 's intention to allow "trusted" providers to run Second Life on their own servers here.]

Mono is no manna from heaven. But it will hopefully help with the current limitations of LSL in that it will be faster and allow more memory - which is what’s currently limiting security because you can’t even fit a modern algorithm into LSL.

But you managed to do this project on LSL?

LSL is actually quite cool for what it is. I think this is one of the most complex items done in LSL The amount of linkmessages it uses internally is staggering (it spams you horribly when you actually make them visible).

Mono just runs bytecode so you have to have a compiler that converts any language to mono bytecode. I think LL was definitely intending for LSL to be one of those languages, and another hopefully will be Python.

Did you use Python for this?

No the backend is written in PHP. Personally I prefer Python but I did not write the backend, a Vodafone tech (Bruno Rodrigues) did. And we designed the protocol/API together. RRR did consulting work on the development of the backend (like explaining why some stuff should be done on the backend, because it’s such a pain to do it in LSL), but obviously left the telecomms stuff to them (things like integrating SMS messaging and calls).

Are you thinking of developing some OutsideIn project, e.g., mobile dashboards for SL?

Hm, interesting idea, but that’s really the opposite direction - bringing SL onto mobile devices. I can’t really talk about that at this time

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Second Life will be “bigger than the web” and we’re “moving away from being a lab and into an operating system.” These bold statements by Philip Rosedale, in his keynote address at SLCC, inspired my questions in the interview Philip very graciously gave for Ugotrade that morning. Philip is wearing the “Missing Image” T-shirt, created by Millions of Us, that he opened his jacket to reveal during his speech.

The interview is divided in two parts. Part one looks at the possibilities for Second Life in Africa. Part two looks at how Linden Lab “can stop being a lab.”

You can read a full transcript of Philip’s keynote here.

Philip was very present at SLCC. He visited panels, discussed, debated, and answered pressing questions from residents and the press about all aspects of Second life. A stream of admirers seemed to follow him wherever he went asking for autographs, and for pictures of themselves standing next to the man who founded the virtual world that has come to mean so much to them.

But, these quotes, “bigger than the web,” and going from “a lab into an operating system,” certainly got the conversation going.

This is bigger than the Web. That’s a bold statement. How can I defend the statement that what we’re all working on is going to be bigger than the Web.

The essence of Philip’s argument, it seemed to me, hinged around two points. One, that Second Life allows a new form of global communication between cultures that is not limited, like the old Web to predominantly hyper-linked text that you need to be very literate to read and that you visit alone without any way of sharing your experience with others there at the same time.
For example:

[In Second Life] you get to explore it [Tokyo] using a geography and topology that you grew up with. Anyone on the Web, no matter how illiterate, understands it. Want to know more? Walk forward. And the best part, that you don’t see in this picture [screen of Tokyo on Second Life], is there will be other people there.

And secondly, the opportunity Second Life gives people to join a global virtual economy free of “fees and tariffs and taxes.”

I really believe the one thread that I see a lot of lately is that the rapid growth outside the US is confirming a lot of things. The fact that SL is so flat and globalizing is going to be a huge change agent. Globalization involves fees and tariffs and taxes. None of that is going on here. That’s going to be part of the pressure that’s going to drive an enormous amount of interest.

In response to a question by Prokofy Neva who asked about Second Life’s influences on First Life (see transcript), Philip elaborated on the power of Second life’s small but thriving economy (with the caveat, “That’s a big enough question that I obviously can’t say perfectly that I know.”)

shrinking of the communication sphere is one of our biggest influences. And then the other is the entrepreneurial early phase. SL is still very early and small. The thing that makes it grow is the success of individuals in two ways. Being able to find and connect to each other and those individuals who are able to work together. There are about 1000 people who make $1000 or more each month. That’s critical mass. That’s the real-life impact we’re having today. We’re creating jobs and opportunities at a small scale, but at a scale that’s large enough to be irreversible.

After the keynote, I was so excited by the implications of Philip’s projections for the future of Second Life that before I turned on my recorder there were about ten minutes of informal discussion on how Second Life could help the developing world, and Africa in particular. What follows is a transcription of the recorded interview with some editing of my rambling questions!

The unrecorded portion of the interview was a mini brainstorming session on broadband connectivity in Africa, and how Second Life could be made available to Africans. Africans have shown the world how mobile phone technologies can be used for virtual banking and to create new economic opportunities in areas with no banking infrastructure.

“Well over 80% in Egypt and South Africa alone, according to a report by the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad)” rely on mobile phones to run their small businesses (BBC News).

Philip talked with me about the role of Second Life in positive global development at VW2007. And, if Africans had access to the global virtual economy of Second Life and its rich immersive forms of collaboration and communication, all our first lives and second lives might become immeasurably richer.

Africa is often called the “missing link” because until now it has been left out of the global broadband revolution. But, there are many new initiatives to get Africa connected, and to find ways to deliver cheaper international bandwidth.

Well over half of the countries on the continent now have some kind of broadband offer delivered through DSL, wireless or satellite.

If you are not tuned into connectivity issues in Africa yet, the best source for information on African connectivity, that I know, is the Balancing Act News network. For up to date information on the state of the African internet in various markets Balancing Act has (pay for) publications they make available at special rates for students and universities. Also, there is a download zone for longer research publications. If you go into these reports and the data provided you will see, not only is there are some very interesting Data Bandwidth forecasts for (2006 - 2011), but also of particular interest, may be, the paper, “African Broadband, Triple Play and Converged Markets.”

Well enough pre-amble here is my interview:

INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP ROSEDALE

Part One (my questions in bold type):

How could Second Life bring the benefits of a virtual economy to Africa?

It seems that if there were a few computers, even not individual computers but shareable cafe style computers. And then there was also a mechanism where you could redeem Linden dollars for something - you were talking about phone minutes, or a local currency. If you had that minimal point of infrastructure broadband access and an individual, I suppose to co-ordinate that bank transfer mechanism - my understanding is no-one can use Pay Pal to withdraw money from banks in Africa today, so you would need a person that could pay you in minutes or in local currency. But I think, if those two things were done, and you built a cluster of machines in an area there you might actually be able to see people log in, create accounts, and create jobs for themselves.

Yes, in Africa people use mobile phones to send money to each other in areas were there are no banks or ATMs for miles. And local entrepreneurs set up kiosks where people can redeem their minutes for currency…

Well we could probably make it possible even for people to trade Linden dollars. It would be relatively easy to trade Linden dollars for phone minutes directly. I mean if there is a phone company running a back bone there where that is quite common, it would probably to fairly simple to make it possible for somebody to take Linden dollars even on our site and say redeem them as phone minutes on the exchange. That would be something that we could potentially do, if there was a way to pay for phone minutes in the US in dollars and essentially get minutes on the phones there. We could allow someone to go to our exchange and put Linden dollars up for sale, get dollars back and have them basically put in their phone as minutes.

Given the current high rates for broadband in many parts of Africa, do you think it would be possible to organize and fund the introduction of Second Life in a community there, at least a proof of concept, even before these hoped for changes in broadband costs and connectivity have occurred?

I think the thing that I am a little skeptical about in that is, if you fund a program like that and then you come back and you say, “Wow we can give jobs to people in Africa if only broadband didn’t cost anything,” I would be rather frustrated by that because then you can’t just snap your fingers, nobody is just going to relent and say broadband is free in Africa now. I guess an interesting problem in all this is, if cheap broadband is absolutely necessary, I think you need the cheap broadband first. You can’t really use Second Life to argue that people should have cheap broadband somewhere, you need to provide it.

The thing to demonstrate is a wholly entrepreneurial model. Where I guess you could charitably help the world develop are those places where you can show an operational model that soup to nuts makes money for someone. I mean if someone could go into Africa somewhere and make money by allowing people in Africa to have the jobs using something like Second Life then you’ve got it. So the trick is how to finagle that. It seems that the connectivity is the key problem there.

Part 2:

At this point in the interview, I took sometime explain to Philip how interested and excited I am about the future role of Second Life in reducing the world’s carbon footprint through large scale energy monitoring, facility management, network control centers and other projects that link Second and First life in sensor/actuator networks for the mutual benefit of both.

I have blogged a lot about the potential of such real/second life integrations, so I launched into a rather long preamble that I won’t transcribe here, as there I have many posts on this topic. But, Philip quickly teased out the main question hidden in my long intro about such projects that must have secure and powerful communications between Second and Real Life!

“You mean how quickly are we going to open things up?” he asked.

Yes, I said. And, is it all going to happen at once or are there steps that can happen first, like will people be able to back up their own assets soon?

Well I think backing up assets is something that will be very soon. We are working on it right now, so that you can do much better off line back up of assets. But, that only covers one piece of it. You still have a state, how much money you have, the various flags and global markers that are on things are not things you can back up and restore. But I am not sure what else you have in mind……

Well I know Second Life can be incredibly useful not only for facility management and energy monitoring but for city and an environmental planning. And for these applications you need to be able to import large scale architectural models, for example?

With the open source code you will basically be able to do any kind of object importing and exporting you want. And the open source that is available on the site today will allow you to do multiple imports of CADs.

But, I think I have heard from architects that using the current tools to do this is a very long and complicated procedure?

I think in the next couple of quarters we will probably have rich interchange formats for objects - we like that. But I can’t tell you anything too specific about it right now.

When will it be possible to own islands on our own computer and connect to the main grid asset server?

That is the nearest term thing that we are going to try to do with respect to opening up the back end of the system. So that what we want to do is to allow people to, even before we are able to open source all the technology, we will probably find ways to have people operating servers outside of our building. We probably will not, until we reach the full open source point, have enough security in place to trust un-trusted individuals to run servers on the grid. But initially what we can do is we can establish a relationship with larger companies of operators that we would be able to trust with everyone’s assets in second Life.

Yes, its a good interim thing…

Yes, it’s a great interim thing! What I would like to do is have servers operate internationally as soon as possible so that people in Australia, for example, put their land on servers that are hosted in Australia. So that is something that we are working very hard on right now.

So how will Linden Labs make money after the opening sourcing of everything?

It is easy for us to make money this is just one of those things. If there are network effects, which push everyone to being in one single world, we can charge fees where appropriate for registering or connecting to that world. So even if we don’t host a server for example, we can still charge you whatever we like for attaching your server to the grid. We control the registry, we control DNS if you want to be to the North East of somebody else’s island only we can put you there, even if it is your computer, even if you are the one hosting it.

So that is a fine model. It is similar to DNS. It is one in which we basically we provide a global function to people, naming and the allocation of spaces, and charge a fee for it. And, that will actually look relatively similar to the business today. So we should be able to let people run their own servers, charge them a fee for attaching those servers to the grid, run some of our own servers that we collect if you will the whole fee for and it all works fine.

But if you open all the protocols then other people can do that?

No, because they won’t be able to get a hold of you. There is only one world that you have the name that you have in Second Life.

So they will have to set up competing worlds, if they don’t link to Second Life, closed of to your grid and then who would want to be there because no-one else would be there?

There is a powerful network effect behavior there. New York will always be the largest city in the continental United States. It has been that way for 200 years. So if you are the largest virtual city, you will always remain the largest virtual city. And, we are. So that means we can open up everything we are doing without the kind of risk that you might normally see.

So are you going to open up everything all the protocols?

Yes, everything.

So some people will just go off and do their own thing?

There is a good place for lots of little or purposeful applications to be built. But the internet was completely open protocols to begin with. I notice it is not fragmented. There is only one internet. Big surprise [said with irony!].

Thanks so much Philip, perhaps you could say it one more time about going completely open source!

Yes, open, open!

*********

 

Doing what they love & getting paid for it on Motarati Island.

The picture below shows Toby Rainbow and Suku Ming from Ponitiac’s Motarati Island in Second Life, and the USA in First Life. I met them while they were standing patiently in the long line of residents waiting to speak to Philip after his keynote at SLCC. They built a stock car racing track that caught the attention of Pontiac. Now it is part of Motarati Island. And, you can find them there everyday doing what they love, and getting paid for it!

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I met with Alanagh Recreant (a.k.a. Dorette Steenkamp) from Uthango Social Investments, on Virtual Africa in Second Life. And, while Uthango’s Virtual Africa initiative has barely begun yet - terra forming is first on the agenda - there is already a very special feeling of possibility, and great things to come. Uthango has already put out tender to all the listed developers on the Linden Lab website. And, many of Second Life’s top developers, PR companies, marketing experts, and consultants have offered services, as well as pro bono work.

The core of the USI strategy for poverty relief in Africa does not primarily revolve around Second Life. But Uthango uses Second Life as an enabling platform for social innovation. By doing this, they are taking the visionary extra step of including Second Life in their strategy to make an impact in the lives of the people they benefit.

A participatory social media convergence bringing mobile, Web 2.0 and Second Life together for community engagement, is happening now and will - in itself - make the first steps to addressing the exclusive nature of 3D-platforms. And, USI is determined not to let the digital divide that is exasperated in Africa by expensive, inadequate/non-existent broadband coverage (for now) widen any further. While significant moves are afoot to bring broadband to large swathes of Africa, often known as the “missing link,” because of the lack of connectivity, access is still a big problem for all but the most privileged.

Uthango’s concerted effort to tackle inequality and social injustice in South Africa goes beyond advocacy for connectivity to other divides - economic, educational and access to opportunities as well.

Investment is our passion - to draw attention to investment opportunities for people in Africa.

But, Uthango is pioneering the inclusion of participatory new media and advocacy for connectivity in their vision. And, while broadband remains prohibitively expensive in Africa, they are preparing the way with projects utilizing mobile connectivity. Mobile phones have become a powerful tool for creative economic development in Africa (see African Uptimist). Uthango has a participatory social media initiative in the works that will link three very diverse communities - two with 65% unemployment and lack of resources, and the other an affluent sea-side community with better infrastructure.

We plan to institute an inter-cultural and civil engagement program across these communities, using video-blogging, mobile, and upload to a central server, and link it up to Google Earth. There will be a community portal, initially linked to computers at the schools and library and ultimately with an upload facility from mobile phones - a mobile magazine linked to the portal with community events. Ultimately, this extensive and integrated social network will be linked to Second Life. Meanwhile, innovation from the more inaccessible SL will be channeled back via the more modest communication framework in real life. This RL/SL convergence for social gain will be a unique example of an integrated ICT approach to development.

Uthango are working with partners and professionals in Second Life to explore the commercial value for companies and individuals and the social benefits for institutions such as universities and schools, in their preparation for Virtual Africa. A key initiative on Virtual Africa will be a Bottom-of-the-Pyramid Innovation Center (see ‘Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ by C.K. Prahalad). Uthango are serious about seeking ways to bring community voices into Second Life while broadband issues are addressed.

But the plans for Virtual Africa also include creating one of the most sophisticated ecosystems on Second Life that will extend to the wildlife to ensure an exciting, educational experience: Eagles swooping, lions hunting, zebras reacting and mirroring wildlife patterns as closely as possible whilst highlighting endangered species and indigenous cultures. The vision of Second Life/Real life integrations possible for Virtual Africa goes well beyond educational and immersive goals into a vision that includes health, travel, adventure, e-commerce, environmental monitoring, and even disaster management.

Virtual Africa will be a key place for Uthango to bring attention to their Real Life work in poverty reduction, and collaborate with others on the goal of social investment in Africa. There are many initiatives already planned that will both bring in the Second Life Community to Uthango’s work, and make connections to Real Life projects - including concerts, a Second Life Bikeathon, publishing parties, and much more.

A new global market is emerging. The sellers are intelligent, energetic and pragmatic young African leaders with innovative projects in their respective fields. The buyers are equally intelligent, energetic and pragmatic young Westerners yearning to apply pragmatism to their idealism. The market place is new media, where stories are told, opportunities are elucidated, connections are made, and action is taken. (Joshua Goldstein, African Path)

From the Blogosphere, to Twitter, to Facebook, to Second Life!

I first met Yee, who is from Jinjiang, China and a recent graduate with a Business Diploma from HELP College University, in the blogosphere. Yee’s blog caught my attention and I linked to him in a post, “Bridging On Line Off Line Worlds.” And, Yee’s comments on my post re the task of bridge blogging were so wise that a connection was born.

Then we became friends on Twitter where I followed the obstacles Yee faced keeping his blog open to world despite the GFW (Great Firewall) of China. Then last night Yee joined Facebook. We instantly struck up a messaging exchange that covered everything from the role that religions played in American culture to how participatory media, blogs, social networks etc. could play and important role in intercultural communication. This is what Yee had to say on this topic.

There are many many English language learners in China. But a large number of them just take this language as a means to pass the exam or a “certification” for better job occupation, once they achieve these goals some of them will probably stop learning, in a word, they do not treat English as a tool for two-way communication. So you can see there are many many translations of English-to-Chinese blogs in China. But, there very few Chinese-to-English blogs.

To encourage participatory media in China, I think it’s important to help Chinese English learners realize that English is not only a means for graduation or better jobs. It’s a tool for communication! In addition, they must have confidence to use it properly

The obstacles: According to my experience, all Chinese people welcome the behavior of translating their posts or profiles or business documents into English. They have a strong desire to be understood by the world. However, things are not always so easy, as our logic and mind and culture are quite different from foreigners. And, culture conflict happens from time to time and sometimes conflict leads to bigger misunderstanding. Besides, on the internet, there is a Great Fire Wall which was founded by the Chinese Gov to block “sensitive info” from abroad.

I had asked Yee a little while ago if he had ever explored Second Life. I said I would love him to write about his experiences in SL for Ugotrade. Well in a matter of minutes after our Facebook exchange Yee had logged into Second Life for the first time. And so I met his avatar Yee Heron on Scope Cleaver’s sim.

It is hard to describe the excitement of meeting Yee for the first time in Second Life. The gulf of culture and geography and even the GFW of China seemed to dissolve as his avatar materialized in world.

Here is a picture of Yee, Scope Cleaver, Miko Omegamu (Scope’s right hand!), and I greeting Yee only minutes after he logged on and got his Second Life Avatar.

There were a few obstacles to getting Yee’s avatar fully rezzed. And, whether it was due to network connection issues, or the need for more memory on his lap top, chat was lagging and SL was taking a while to rez for Yee. Yee did mention that HiPiHi will not let him log in and was giving a message that he has not enough memory. Interesting that it was easier to get in SL from China than HiPiHi. But, we managed despite the technical obstacles to show Yee some of SL, including Scope Cleaver’s awesome virtual furniture store in Second Life, EOLUS One, and where to shop for cool clothes! And, here is a snippet of our chat as Yee saw Scope’s work on Second Life.

[23:29] Scope Cleaver: This is the office furniture building
[23:29] Scope Cleaver: I seel modern furniture here for Second Life residents
[23:29] Scope Cleaver: sell*
[23:29] Yee Heron: wow,so cool
[23:31] Scope Cleaver: the building looks empty but it’s only to hold all the production and hard work I’ll be doing on the coming months hehe
[23:32] You: Yee Scope is what they call a metabrand
[23:32] Scope Cleaver: in the making
[23:33] Yee Heron: IS Miko your partner, Scope??
[23:33] You: scope makes products and architecture just for the virtual world
[23:34] Scope Cleaver: Yes she is Yee
[23:34] Scope Cleaver: Been working in SL for a bit
[23:34] Yee Heron: cool, you do your business just as real
[23:34] Scope Cleaver: Yes indeed
[23:35] Scope Cleaver: You’ve been here less than half an hour and you look better than I do.
[23:35] Miko Omegamu: lol
[23:35] Yee Heron: are you a full time SL business woman?
[23:35] You: I know it is amazing Yee!
[23:35] Scope Cleaver: Should I work on my AV?

Yee stayed on Second Life for a couple of hours or more. And, we talked until the time difference meant I really had to leave to sleep. Welcome Yee to Second Life! We all look forward to seeing you again soon. And, as Scope Cleaver said:

[23:43] Scope Cleaver: Good luck Yee, and give SL a chance and it will reward you

Africa, better planet, China, Crossing Digital Divides, HiPiHi, metaverse, metbrand, participatory media, Second Life, social entrepreneurship, Social Media, social networks, Virtual Africa, Virtual China, Virtual Worlds, Web 2.0 Web 3D

Today, I had what felt to me like a ground breaking meeting with Alanagh Recreant on Second Life (a.k.a. Dorette Steenkamp in Real Life). Dorette Steenkamp is Executive Director of Uthango Social Investments, Cape Town, South Africa. Uthango is the first African-based NGO with a presence in Second Life.

You can visit Uthango’s newly established offices on Second Life here! SLurl: Uthango in Second Life.

Ginsu Linden, Linden Lab, told me earlier this month there was interest from Africa in the Linden Lab Global Provider Program. So, I was very excited to meet Alanagh in person, or rather in the pixels, and hear that an initiative to create an access portal and community for Africans on Second Life was actually underway.

“Not exclusively [for Africans] but with the exclusive aim to promote access to virtual reality.”

Uthango have just begun establishing their presence in Second Life. Their current offices are a first base from which to address the digital divide. But, please watch for more news about Uthango projects on Second Life to be announced shortly!

Uthango is an investment company specializing in finding and creating sustainable programs - connecting corporate/government with communities through collecting local intelligence and translating it to the business sector. But, “we only work at the invitation of communities. We are a relationship broker and bridge-builder between diverse interest groups to create mutual benefit.”

Uthango is serious about access for all. They will be working in parallel at establishing internet hubs in communities. And, they are seeking partnerships with mobile telecoms on mobile applications for Virtual Africa, and to develop links between mobile space and Second Life.,

They are putting together an Uthango Global Advisory Board that will be an innovation team both socially and commercially - to put out and receive ideas concerning producing a viable Virtual Africa Platform.

It is so exciting to see the first steps towards realizing a vision for a Virtual Africa being taken by Uthango. This group is deeply experienced at working on the ground with rural communities on sustainable development and poverty relief. And, they are expert at creating commercial partnerships with social value.

Uthango won the Centennial Award from Rotary International for Sustainable Projects in Communities in 2005, for District 9350, and The National Impumelelo Innovations Awards in the same year for Innovation in Private/Public Projects for their micro-enterprise project affecting a community of 45000.

I am especially impressed with how Alanagh, while very committed to expanding the possibilities for mobile technologies in sustainable development, is equally committed to the idea that Africans should not be excluded from high quality internet connectivity, access, and the potential that Second Life, as an immersive virtual world, has for Africa.

These are exciting times for African innovation!

Tags: Second Life | Virtual Africa | Africa on Second Life | Uthango Social Investments | Web 3.D | Linden Lab | Linden Lab Global Provider Program | Sustainable Development | Digital Divides | Poverty Relief | African Innovation | Africa Sustainable Development | Ginsu Linden | Alanagh Recreant | Web 2.0 | Dorette Steenkamp | mobile phones in Africa | mobile phones and sustainable development | mobile space and Virtual Worlds | Mobile Phones and Second Life | Metaverse | Virtual Reality | Virtual Worlds | World 2.o | virtual realities |

Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation, and Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, appeared in Second Life to talk about the future role of philanthropy in virtual worlds (also see Jonathan Fanton’s post.) The tireless crew of USC Center On Public Diplomacy (see my previous post for more on Anna Annenberg and Sitearm Madonna) did an amazing job of hosting this event that used four sims to bring so many people together (perhaps up to 250 at peak).

A recording of the event can be found at the MacArthur site for Digital Media and Learning here , a great post from Rik Riel here, and a call from Prokofky Neva for a new philanthropy here. But, the high point for me was the emphasis Jonathan Fanton put on Africa - developing access, connectivity, and bringing Second Life there.

In response to a question about using the combined energies of Linden Lab and The MacArthur Foundation to help Second Life to bring opportunities and training to communities in isolation - cutting out the middle man so to speak, Philip Linden said:

while they had nothing planned yet, this question was a fabulous example of the kind of barrier reduction that Second Life enables………cutting the costs of collaborating with people to close to zero sometimes.

And, Philip added:

I would love to work on ways, with the MacArthur foundation, to enable that.

Jonathan Fanton responded:

That question is a great example of what I hoped would come out of this conversation which is a series of concrete ideas that we could look at and develop into a program or two.

One of the challenges we face is being sure that places in the world that are remote, where people are desperately poor, that some of those people have access to the technology that enables them to come in and be part of Second Life. The MacArthur Foundation along with other foundations has a partnership for higher education in Africa working now in a dozen countries. One of the principle pieces of that initiative is to expand bandwidth at a lower cost and to get high quality internet connectivity through the continent of Africa.

Also, Jonathan Fanton described “being in the Google office and looking at the map of the world,” and :

how he remembered where inquiries were coming in ….and it is shocking to see that Africa was totally dark, just one or two places where Europe and the United States and places in Asia were bursting with activity. So, we have a real challenge in this world to get to the places where people most need us.

This project of developing high quality internet access and the opportunity to access virtual worlds like Second Life for all, especially people from remote and isolated communities, has been a prime motivation for much of my writing on Ugotrade.

The Magic of Second Life - talking one on one with Jonathan Fanton and Philip Linden

Both Philip Linden (above) and Jonathan Fanton stayed after the event to chat one on one with people (although Philip L. had to leave for the office fairly quickly).

I sent an IM to Jonathan Fanton about an African initiated Virtual Africa portal to Second Life (see next post!). And, I got an instant response. Not only did Jonathan Fanton himself want to stay in touch with project. He immediately sent contact information for the person most involved with Africa at The MacArthur Foundation.

“Africa Open For and In Business:” TED Global 2007

Soyapi Mumba writes about the mood at TED Global 2007 that convened in Arusha, Tanzania in early June:

everyone I met was determined to solve Africa’s problems without waiting for governments or donors. So I’ve come back energized and connected to the right community that will hopefully keep me motivated.

The picture above shows William Kamkwamba. His presentation was a highlight of TED Global 2007. Ethan Zuckerman who blogged every session of TED Global, and summarized in his post, “A New Wind Blowing In Africa.” Also, he noted the debut of William Kamkwamba’s Malawi’s Windmill Blog. William has begun blogging with the help of someone he met at TED.

(more…)

Mirror Worlds on Second Life

Epredator (a.k.a Ian Hughes) and Yossarian Seattle a.k.a Rob Smart, both of IBM and Eightbar, gave Destroy TV a guided tour of Hursley. “The Unofficial Tourists’ Guide to Second Life,” says “the IBM island Hursley, is being kept strictly under wraps.” But, thanks to Epredator, Yossarian and Destroy TV, a tour of this inner sanctum of innovation - invention and insight, IBM’s incubator for pervasive computing and the meaningful virtualization of reality and more, on Second Life, is documented and searchable online in Destroy TV’s Flickr stream. Destroy TV has created the most searchable archive of Second Life to date.

“Innovation has to be part of your life.” (Andy Stanford-Clark)

The Real Life house pictured above is IBM Master Inventor Andy Stanford-Clark’s Real Life farm, and Llama trekking business on the Isle of Wight, UK. On the right is the virtualization this house which is part of a Second Life Real Life Home Automation project. The pictures in the bottom row shows Stanford-Clark’s Real Life Llamas on the left and their virtual counterparts on Second Life on the right. Real and Virtual Llamas are linked through GPS and MQ telemetry so that Andy S-C can be a good shepherd when away from his farm (see this IBM podcast).

Pervasive and Mobile Computing and Virtualizing Reality: Why High End Business Executives Care

“because it’s what enables an event-driven, on-demand business.”

While his Llama mapping project began because Andy S-C needed to protect his trekking lamas from theft and misadventure, it evolved into a solution to a customer demand for “Pay As You Drive” insurance for Norwich Union.

If you want a detailed explanation of how IBM inventors are using Second Life and IBM’s MQtt messaging to virtualize and make meaningful data from Real Life on Second Life there are many relevant posts on Eightbar. Also see my earlier post on C.J. Chowderhead’s virtual lab.

Virtualized Worlds Are Key To Sustainable Development

Also, described in the IBM podcast and virtualized in Second Life (and visited by Destroy) is the bridge below where in Real Life Andy Stanford-Clark invented a flood monitoring system that has wide applications not only to the insurance industry for better flood prediction, but for monitoring the effects of global warming.

If you have read Ugotrade before you will know that I try to explore the possibilities of virtual realities and 2.0 thinking, pervasive and mobile computing in positive global development. The work of virtualizing reality has incredible significance for a sustainable future.

From an uber visionary perspective, this is a future where “green” means, perhaps, eliminating the need to build anything at all. This remark comes from Keystone Bouchard, Virtual Architect for Clear Ink, who was also visited by Destroy TV - more later this post about Keystone, and 3D Experience Architecture.

On Ugotrade I try integrate an expansive view that imagines an end to this era of industrial production, all it’s horrors of inequality, waste, pollution and scarcity, with an on the ground perspective that not only tracks corporate innovation, but looks at how people in developing economies (including Second Life) are using virtual realities in innovative ways, for example:

Mobile phones have enabled Africans to leapfrog lack of banking infrastructure and invent virtual banking. And, how ordinary people all over the world are reinventing their lives and careers in Second Life.

Virtualized Business on Second Life

Destroy’s visit to the IBM Business Center is also worth a mention. So much of business reporting on Second Life has focused on whether Second Life is “working” from a very narrow and often poorly conceptualized marketing/sales perspective. This kind of reporting on Second Life has been all too common lately, even by reputable business writers. But, it has been rife with inaccuracies and is based on many misconceptions - see here for a thorough analysis.

I found out, on the ground, some of the innovative ways IBM is developing their Second Life Business Center as a place to relate with their customers, on what is approaching a 24/7 basis, on Destroy’s Flickr stream!

A Searcheable Guide To Second Life

Destroy TV has, in the last ten days, created, an extraordinary guide to Second Life (which will be released as a DVD later). But this guide is available now as a searchable Flickr stream of more than 99,000 photos and the accompanying chat. You can check out Destroy’s flickr tags that logged every place she has been and every avatar she encountered here. Flickr tags were created from the Second Life chat lines and are correlated with a SLurl.

This is the first time that such a vast searcheable document of Second Life has been created. Perhaps, you can, tell how powerful it is by the way I was able to match up Second Life photos from Destroy’s record with Real Life photos I found through Googling Hursley Park on the web.

A toast to Destroy’s accomplishment!

The cover of “The Unofficial Tourists’ Guide to Second Life” is held in front of the camera streaming the Fuse Gallery event into Second Life.

Sharing The Experience Of Second Life

Steve Nelson from Clear Ink notes:

I think both machinima and exported live feeds will be an important part of one of the hurdles of SL, namely the learning curve. The more people are acclimated to the environment before they enter for the first time, the more accelerated I think their introduction to SL will be. It’s like visiting a new country after having seen videos - it isn’t as much of a shock when you actually get there.

As Destroy toured Second Life her adventures and chat were not only streamed live to the web at Destroy TV, they were also projected on a wall in Fuse Gallery, New York City, where people could watch and interact with the avatars. Also what was happening in the Real Life Gallery in New York City was streamed back into Second Life to the GHava{SL} Center for the Arts. This was quite a conceptual and technical achievement.

Pictured above is Clear Ink’s 3D Experience Architect, Keystone Bouchard. When Destroy accompanied by Jerry Paffendorf encountered the team from Clear Ink (one the most visionary agencies working on Second Life), they found people who really got the significance of the multiple levels of reaction this project created (photo from Destroy’s Flickr stream).

A good opportunity to check out Clear Ink and their work on SL will be this event on Autodesk Island HERE (SLurl), June 14, 10AM PST Chris Luebkeman : Future Challenges: Global Creative Contexts.

Annie Ok writes of this extraordinary meeting of minds in a long comment on this post on 3pointD. Here is an excerpt:

the exemplary moment of Destroy’s potential educational/informative application has been the happy accident of running into Keystone Bouchard and him immediately TP-ing in Theory Shaw and the ensuing tour they gave to destroy of architecture island and the Wikitecture project.

Keystone talked to me later about the Clear Ink encounter with Destroy. There are several key-points Keystone touched on:

Sharing The Experience of Second Life with People In Real Life

At Clear Ink, we had several people watching on my screen, who could see both my avatar’s movements and Destroy’s view through my browser. So, on my end, there were several people viewing both portals simultaneously. But, what makes it really interesting is that through this virtual medium, it ended up being both absorbed and transmitted through a multitude of experiences. Because, on their end, they had the virtual scene being projected onto the wall of a real life gallery with several people in real life witnessing the phenomenon - even taking pictures of themselves standing next to avatars - as you would in a real life gathering. It blurred so many lines - it was quite extraordinary.

Interacting With An Avatar On Second Life To produce A Shared Narrative

We could see what Destroy was looking at through the browser. I could see her camera so, when she would move her camera over to a certain build, I could describe what she was looking at, so the people in the gallery could read what i was describing. In a sense, we even transcended our avatars - and became invisible cameras - flying around the island looking at, touring and describing the entire island - while our avatars stood still. Plus, at Clear Ink, it was a great way to engage my co-workers, and show them a really unique experience - using SL in a way it hadn’t ever been used before.

Sharing Avatar Viewpoint To Enhance Collaboration On Second Life

Architecturally - in a virtual environment - understanding the avatar’s gaze is absolutely critical - and one of the biggest challenges in a virtual environment. Because, I can design something using Mouselook - and it could be visually compelling based on the way I use my camera - but another user would have an entirely different experience based on the way they use their camera. So, you have to design a building to accommodate many levels of approach and viewpoint.

Being able to see what Destroy was looking at did truly provide a missing link. I was able to give her a more thorough description of the island. At one point, I was describing the Wikitecture experiment. But I could see that Destroy was looking at the Architecture 101 build - so I shifted the conversation to describe that. At which point, Destroy started going from project to project, knowing that I could continue the narrative. The collaborative potential is something we’re very interested in and actively building experiments around on Architecture Island.

The Metarati In Action

Jerry Paffendorf at Destroy’s wrap party last Saturday at Fuse NYC watches Destroy’s visit to Relay For Life - the American Cancer Society’s SL adventure that has sparked enthusiasm and creativity from Second Lifers (three years on SL now!) Destroy was welcomed by a large crowd of avatars.

Jerry Paffendorf, Metarati and Futurist in Residence for the Electric Sheep Company (this is an independent project) teamed with artist Annie Ok, curator and collaborator, and Christian Westbrook (Metaverse Architect ESC) to create Destroy TV. Ben Byer, who is from Apple BSD technology group, was visiting from California, (on right). He came up with the name for Destroy TV.

It is an extraordinary feat of vision combined with some coding genius. They pulled off the extended two way streaming, projection and logging to Flickr with only a few minor burps. This is no minor feat. See Christian’s blog for a post on what happened when their Flickr stream topped 99,000.

Turning Extreme Lifelogging Into Meaningful Virtual Experience

I talked at length with Jerry Paffendorf at the closing party at Fuse Gallery about the challenge of extreme life logging in virtual worlds both from a technical and expressive point of view. Just like there is a need for a new language of virtual architecture as Keystone points out - “a more interactive, reflexive architecture” - there is a need to find an expressive language for life logging. Jerry Paffendorf has been pushing the envelope on this and has some very interesting projects in the pipeline (which I will let him reveal).

Flickr, the poster child of Web 2.0, began as a user generated virtual world.

Jerry talked about how Flickr is a big influence on his thinking right now. Flickr as he notes is the poster child of Web 2.0 - it gets better the more people that use it and interact with each other inside it. But, Jerry also pointed out something about Flickr that may not be so well known, i.e., it started out as user generated virtual world called Game Never Ending.

It is fascinating how Destroy TV by using Flickr to document Second Life begins to reconnect with this initial conception. Jerry noted that it is possible Destroy TV was the most prolific poster to Flckr in the world, during Destroy’s ten day adventure.

Also, Jerry sees the Destroy Project as a sketch for how we are our going to record and organize our own Real Lives - remembering the places that we have been and the people we have been around. This is what Destroy TV does, and documents. Like Game never Ending turned out not simply to apply to organizing a virtual world, Destroy TV is also about inventing ways to organize our experience of the real world, and bridge the imagination gap needed to do this (also see 3pointD on Ambient Gaming: Life Logging in Disguise). Talking about the future of Destroy TV, Jerry said:

What I want to see happen is that anybody who logs into Second Life, or any virtual world, can record absolutely everything that they see and create a lifelog of their Second Life experience.

Virtual Worlds have a big advantage over the real world re life logging because they have built in wireless, RFID, meta data and geolocation, so it makes sense for this to be a place we will proto-type life logging.

The search for a an expressive language for extreme lifelogging -where the traces and tracks of real life can be expressed in virtual space in meaningful ways - is where 3D experience design and the virtualization of real life merge to create innovative hybrid realities.

A 3D Experience Architect- building a new language for virtual design.

I have been meaning to visit Architecture Island for a while now, and seeing Destroy’s Flickr stream inspired me to go yesterday. First, I talked to Keystone Bouchard.

Keystone Bouchard is a Real Life architect who has recently transitioned exclusively to a virtual mode as a “3D Experience Architect” with Clear Ink. He is standing here in an experiment he is working on. You can click on the video grab below to see a short machinima.

The blurring of lines between familiar and unfamiliar experiences of music and space create an other-worldly environment that is cinematic yet still an invitation to interaction.

Keystone observed avatar movement and behavior on a Architecture Island, then wrote a piano score that approximated that movement. Then he transposed a video of him playing that score and imported the video. His goal is to make the architecture interactive so that it understands where you are and what you’re doing - and provides an audible reaction to it.

Wikitecture On Second Life

Keystone is also interested in the crossroad between the professional practice of architecture and virtual environments, as well as the development of a new language of virtual architecture. Keystone and Theory Shaw, pictured below, have teamed up to use virtual worlds as a tool for a collaborative approach to architecture in the Real World. Theory Shaw has outlined how virtual world can be used in the the planning of future cities.

The central build on Architecture Island is the Studio Wikitecture experiment - an open source approach to architecture that everyone is free to join - co-creating projects and participating in collaborative design.

Theory is an architect living in Chicago. He is currently researching the prospect of using an open source (or wiki) type paradigm toward the improvement of architecture and city planning.

I feel our cities are so complicated that no small group of people can possibly design them from the top down….it’s a such a grand problem, that we need to set up a framework (or platform) where people can come together and tackle the problem from a local perspective.

My ultimate goal is to use Second Life, or what will be ultimately the next metaverse, (and the tool you utilize for open source architecture should be just as open), as a tool for the world’s population to come together, and solve collectively, how architecture should be defined.

The Studio Wikitecture experiment needs a complete post, so I will not go into all of the interesting aspects of this project Theory mentioned in our chat right now. But, Theory has written a program and protocol for the experiment - available here.

Tags: Extreme Life logging | life logging | 3D experience architecture | Second Life Builders | Second Life | Web 2.0 | Web 3.D | Web 3D | mirror worlds | virtualizing reality | wikitecture | open source architecture | architecture island | vitual architecture | Destroy TV | virtual experience | IBM Virtual Business Center | virtual business | machinima | virtual worlds | metaverse | sustainable development | virtual banking | pervasive and mobile computing | virtualized worlds |

Fizik Baskerville (a.k.a Justin Bovington) says:

“Web + TV + Print + Virtual Worlds = Powerful”

This week Virtual Life and World 2.0 entered a new era with Destroy TV and virtual lifelogging in full swing, and the opening of the Sky News sim on Second Life. Sky News launched with a live event and live simulcast from the Guardian Hay Festival. Sky News has partnered with Rivers Runs Red on this watershed project for Second Life. And, the impressive Second Life replica of the real life Sky News headquarters was packed for the launch.

Web 2.0 is a mindset that leaves behind the negative forces of monopolies, and one-way communication. Web 2.0 is not a new version of the internet but the coming of age of the original vision of the internet to serve the interaction and cooperation amongst people (see Daniel Orsolic). And, it will be very interesting to see how Sky News develops 2.0 concepts, e.g., citizen journalism, user generated content on Second Life. For a good round up of a range News 2.0 phenomena see, “What is news 2.0 to you?” It is very exciting to see mainstream news media beginning to explore the collaborative potential of Second Life.

The 2.0 view has now been expanded to all aspects of our world - you can google news 2.o, sex 2.0 (I didn’t actually check the links on this), and enterprise 2.0 - lots of buzz about that (and if you want an inside view on what enterprise 2.0 is about check out IBM