The assets of Teleplace are being liquidated after the business-oriented 3D virtual meeting place hit a financial singularity which prevents the venture's continued operation, according to a mailing sent to potential creditors - including the Alphaville Herald's own part time typist/technical advisor Mark McCahill. 

Mr. McCahill provided the Herald with copies of the liquidation notification but pointed out that the Teleplace software was recently open sourced as Open QWAQ, so the software will live on indefinitely -- despite the apparent demise of Teleplace, Inc.

seeking a more fluid situation

While opponents of open source may be dismayed at this development, software immortality is good news for the members of the Turing Church Online. The group had been holding their transhumanist services at a virtual venue hosted by Teleplace, but have now moved to another hosting service running the Open QWAQ software. Is it any wonder Second Life conspiracy theorists fear a  transhumanist tropism for open source systems?

Unfortunately, the Teleplace and transhumanist news cut short the Herald staffs' well-earned break from the virtual world news beat. After dusting the cobwebs off our virtual printing press and consulting the staff directory,  I was able to arrange a meeting with Mr. McCahill at the fashionable Martinis and Power - an after work club favored by Herald reporters despite having almost nothing in common with Philip Rosedale's new Coffee and Power work club.

Pixeleen Mistral: Hi Mark! Sorry to interrupt your vacation but what's this about Teleplace being shut down?  
Mark McCahill: Way back in the day - back when QWAQ was just getting started - I spent a couple days talking with them and they put me in their rolodex. Eventually QWAQ turned into Teleplace, and the rolodex must have made it through the transition. Now it looks like they are notifying everyone who might possibly be a creditor, and so a couple weeks ago, I got this notice. It sure looks like they are selling everything off. Here are the papers - what does it look like to you?

calling all creditors

Pixeleen Mistral: Hmmm. Looks like game over. That's a shame. Were you surprised to see Teleplace go into liquidation?
Mark McCahill: Not exactly. I knew something was up when Teleplace open sourced their code after a long run as a proprietary branch of the Open Croquet project.

It breaks down like this. David Smith and Andreas Raab worked on the Open Croquet project. They are some of the best software engineers I have ever seen - so they have really great tech - but its not just about the tech. David and Andreas went on to form QWAQ after funding for Open Cobalt got tight, which happened once Carly Fiorina left HP and Mark Hurd took over and started cost-cutting. At that point Alan Kay's research group was wound down, so David and Andreas needed to find a new home for their work. In the end, the people at the universities kept working on Croquet and David and Andreas formed a startup based on the Croquet code. That was the genesis of QWAQ, and eventually QWAQ changed its name to Teleplace.

But the business-oriented virtual meeting place market is really crowded, so a shakeout was inevitable. Look at what happened to Linden Lab - they took a huge hit and laid off 30% of their staff after Mark Kingdon pursued the business meeting place biz. So when the Teleplace code was open sourced, it seemed to be a sign that a change in direction was coming. It was ironic that the code was released under the GPL, but I imagine it was the best they could do.

Pixeleen Mistral: How was releasing the code under the GPL license ironic?
Mark McCahill: Teleplace is based on Open Croquet, and Open Croquet was released under the MIT license. This means that you could do pretty much anything with derivative works, including take them closed source and proprietary. GPL is different - and viral. GPL says that all derivative works have to remain open source. That is a big turn-off for companies that want to sell proprietary systems. Now, if I'm at a university working on a research project like Croquet, I want the widest possible impact for that research, so I prefer the MIT license. On the other hand, I imagine the only way the Teleplace guys could convince their board to release the code was under GPL, because the board was probably worried someone else might take the code and compete with them - so they wanted to see any changes made to the code. Unfortunately, this fragments the open source development community.

Pixeleen Mistral: How so?
Mark McCahill: We can't add any of the Teleplace code to MIT-licensed projects like Open Croquet or Open Cobalt without those projects getting infected with a GPL license, and we don't want a GPL license. So we have to be very careful to keep Teleplace code out of Open Cobalt. There is a way around this mess, which would be for the rights holders of the Teleplace code to dual-license it.

Pixeleen Mistral: what do you mean by dual license?
Mark McCahill: Make it available under both the MIT and GPL license and allow people to choose the license that suits their needs. I imagine that they will be selling the rights to the Teleplace code as part of the liquidation of assets. I wonder who will end up with the rights? Maybe they will also release it under an MIT license. 

Pixeleen Mistral: Where do you see the virtual meeting space for business software going next?
Mark McCahill: Onto mobile devices like the iPad and Android tablets. WebEx works really well on an iPad and I see a ton of tablets going out to corporate salespeople. To get anywhere in the corporate market, a 3D meeting space will need to be better than WebEx or Google+ video hangouts and work on tablets - and also do something WebEx and Google+ doesn't do.

Looking at the way the virtual meeting place market has played out you can see why Linden Lab bailed on marketing Second Life for business meetings. But as you keep reminding me, there is money in the babyfur and My LIttle Pony/Brony markets - and not much competition, so Second Life for fancy dress party socializing still makes sense.

Pixeleen Mistral: Never underestimate the power of cute, at least outside a business context.
Mark McCahill: If anyone would know, it's you Pix.

by Frankie Antonioni.

Since early 2008 I have been in business in Second Life, and by March of 2008 I had two stores running. In August of 2008, I had about 19,000 L$. Both of my stores sold drugs and other goods: clothes, cars, guns, motorcycles, and other items. In an average day I made a total of about 110 L$. I made about 60 L$ from camping, and the rest from my stores. Most of the people that came in, payed the random prize machines. They were from 10 L$, to 20 L$.

On some days I made more than 110 L$. If somebody bought a brick of weed for 220 L$, then I made 88 L$. Drugs were the number one thing that was sold. Clothes were the least likely to sell. Other things that sold well were the Carducci guns, cars, and motorcycles.

Camp chair slot machine — legal gambling

After I had gotten the cellphone vendor, I started making more money. Each cellphone cost 500 L$, and I made 200 L$ from each sale. Sales started going up. By December of 2008, I had about 35,000 L$. I had an idea for a new camping device. It would be a campchair, connected to a slot machine. While camping, you wouldn’t make any L$. Instead you would make credits, that could be used to play the slot machine. So you couldn’t use L$ to play the slot machine, but only credits, earned from camping. The credits that you won from playing the slot machine, you could cash out. So this would be a legal gaming machine.

I contacted a scripter, and told her about my idea. I had a budget set at 28,000 L$. After talking to her I found out that it would take more than 28,000 L$. This was in January. So I decided to wait a few months, and save up some more money.

Linden Lab bans camping for L$s

By May of 2009, I had about 42,000 L$ saved up. So I had plans to contact the scripter, that I had talked to in December, and January. But then came the news that LL, had banned camping, to increase traffic. So I had to think of something else.

Linden Lab’s new adult sim policy and BDSM clothes

After that, LL came out with their new adult policy. The person I paid rent to, told me I might want to rent some land in the new adult mainland. She said since my store old guns, it might go against the new Linden rules. Then I started getting emails from LL, about certain words I had in search. I thought it was the word drugs, or weed. So I changed the words to Spanish, and French. After I did that, I still got emails from LL, about the words I had listed in search. So I did a few searches, putting different words in each search.

I found out that it wasn’t the word drugs, or weed. But the word BDSM clothes. My clothes vendors sell all kinds of clothes. Some of these are Gorean, and other outfits. But by the time I had found that out, I had already opened a store in Yierburn sim.

Magic Bottle prize machine

I contacted the scripter, that I talked to about making the new camping idea I had. I asked her if she knew how to make a random prize machine. She said yes. So I had her make a prize machine that is called "Magic Bottle". When somebody pays 10 L$, they would get a prize, and the person that owned it, would make 5 L$. It would also send out a message saying "Your wish is my command, then the persons name". I paid 3,000 L$ to have the Magic Bottle made.

After about three months, I closed the new store in Yierburn.

Today’s Second Life business climate

Fast forward to today. lil Carducci is no longer in the people search. So, I no longer sell cars, or motorcycles. Others have also been affected, by the SL economy. Six months ago, Cocoanut Koala closed her prefab store. Since LL went into the housing business, fewer people bought from Cocoanut, and other creators.

Today, the total L$ I have is 15,620 L$. That is 26,000 L$ less, than I had in May of 2009.

One of the problems affecting the SL economy, is the new SL viewer. Not only is it hard to use, but also hard to find anything. You also can’t look at more than one profile. This includes personal, and group profiles. What LL should do about the viewer, is to let people choose which viewer they like, and let them use that viewer.

Will SL keep on going? Or will LL sell off SL to another company? As of yet, no one knows, except for those that work for LL.

By Journey Yellowlist, Herald Religion Pew Desk 

Even as His Holiness Pope Benedict launched a frontal assault against media in general and virtual worlds in particular, the Church has rolled out its own competitor to soon to collapse once-heralded Second Life. 

Ex Cathedra^tm will soon launch using a dedicated client bearing the imprimatur  of Rome, with immersive simulations that include an interactive pilgrimage to medieval Canterbury, a dramatic game recreating Apostolic succession, real-time exegesis of ancient religious texts-on-a-prim, a vampire-hunt with “The Holy Inquisition 2.0” team of superheroes, and a humorous casual game for young men about the perils of altar-boy duties, “Who Dropped the Body of Christ?” 

Catholic gamers are delighted that the Vatican will finally enter the 21^st century. 

“Dude, The Church has totally been like this really boring wine-and-cracker party that went on for like 2000 years,” said StXavrRulz, a respondent at the Holy Father’s blog, Nihil Obstat. “But being able 2 stake fag vampires and burn heretics at the stake completely rocks. ROCK ON Benny ROCK ON.” 

Conclave of Developers To Do God’s Work 

The Vatican has been quick to avoid the sorts of mistakes common at Linden Lab. 

“From the start we intend to avoid doctrinal errors that, sadly, have led so many souls astray,” said His Eminence  Bonaventure Ignatius Loyola Jeanbaptiste, Cardinal of the server-farm inside the Vatican. “We have constant supervision now of all coding and hardware acquisition, and we hold our team to the highest possible standards.” 

The Cardinal is said to be a leading candidate to become the next Holy Father. He has been instrumental in several technology initiatives for the Vatican, notably increased security measures to protect The Church’s priceless treasures and key prelates.  The Cardinal oversaw the purchase of several hundred Leopard III tanks and Eurofighter aircraft, a move that caused protests outside St. Peters by mobs of antiwar protestors. To quell the riots and “restore peace,” the Cardinal dispersed the crowd using the Pope’s personal bodyguard of fifty 800-series Swissguard2000 ^tm defensebots. Cardinal Jeanbaptiste personally designed these robots. 

While His Eminence’s tactics may seem reactionary, his technical skills are impeccable. In leading development of the Ex Cathedra team, the Cardinal has made several noteworthy changes from the competition. All avatars will have their owners’ real names, “in order to avoid occasion for sin in this sacred space,” The Cardinal added.  “Though in a moment of vanity, I made my own avatar to look a bit like His Eminence Jean du Plessis de Richelieu.” 

“In fact, mine is the first virtual cardinalitial diocese.” He eyed the rows of hardware with pride. “There are thousands of souls in these boxes already. With my brothers in the faith we will maintain excellent stability and reliable service on our grid.” 

Coders and customer-support clergy who prove poor at their jobs will be transferred by the College of Cardinals to remote parishes. 

“Or we’ll sell them to the godless Turk to be his galley slaves,” Cardinal Jeanbaptiste said, with a wink. “Just kidding.” 

All third-party viewers have been branded, in advance, as malefactus for Catholic gamers, known in Ex Cathedra as “brothers and sisters.”  Those found using TPVs will be subject to excommunication. All non-Catholics are blocked from the virtual world, though potential converts may use a secondary grid, Purgatorio, until certified as ready for conversion. 

“We want to give those bound for perdition a taste of what awaits them unless they convert. Though they will not feel the torments of hell itself, their avatars will not be glamorous, their activities banal, and the setting and company will test even the strongest of errant wills.” 

a view inside the Purgatorio grid

User-generated content will be permitted in Ex Cathedra, but most will be subject to review by a panel of Bishops and theologians.  Some unrestricted content will be allowed: cakes for church bake-sales, tracts against birth control and masturbation, baptismal fonts for parish churches, yard-sticks for nuns in Parochial School region, and implements of torture for the adults-only Torquemada sims. 

Unholy Fail: Heretics Stumble in Attempt to Match Rome 

Even before Benedict sat in the chair of St. Peter, plans were afoot for Catholic dominance of the gaming industry. John Paul II was particularly fond of St. Mario^tm, an early PC game that he had planned to offer as an MMO teaching youth virtue and manual dexterity. 

Had the pontiff lived longer, this project may have come out of beta into full release. Instead, after his death, the short-lived and unpopular Torments of the Martyrs^tm was released and quickly sank. Reviewers noted that the choice of soundtrack-hymns alienated many young gamers and modern Catholic parents were offended by images of disembowelment, flaying, boiling in oil, cutting off of noses and ears, all accompanied by violent lyrics that boomed from their children’s speakers: 

O sacred head, surrounded 
by crown of piercing thorn! 
O bleeding head, so wounded, 
reviled and put to scorn! 

infallible beta-tester prefers Ex Cathedra^tm 

Progress has continued unabated since that early gaff, and today the Holy See appears to be far ahead of The Archbishop of Canterbury, whose Anglican Life^tm virtual world was derived from an early version of Ex Cathedra released during a ecumenical thaw. 

The stability of Anglican Life has been derided by some tech writers; pro-Catholic griefers recently attacked several regions, leaving the tags “Rome pwns CoE!” and “Henry8 burnz in Hell!” on the side of virtual Westminster Abbey, while a Sunday service at the virtual York Minster was interrupted by a particle attack featuring thousands of images of Queen Elizabeth I kneeling, in Gorean slavegirl attire, before Philip II of Spain. 

“We deny these childish acts,” Cardinal Jeanbaptiste insisted. “If, however, some overly-zealous member of the One True Faith^tm were culpable, desecration of once-Catholic, now heretical, virtual buildings would only merit a few years in Purgatory. Yet I think it more likely that the LutherSim codeset favored by Protestant virtual-world builders permitted the defacement of the English heretics’ places of worship. With such variation, all sorts of error creeps into the purity of what began as the One True Code^tm.” 

Whatever the faults of Anglican Life, it’s undeniable that other branches of the LutherSimulator client-and-server software are not only less stable than the Vatican’s platform but also grid owners running this software show no sign of reaching common standards.  

A recent conclave of LutherSim developers broke down into ever-smaller factions, each with its “divinely approved” version of the source code.  All of them united, however, to denounce the Roman Catholic software. 

“That’s Open-Source theology for you,” Cardinal Jeanbaptise lamented, rolling his eyes heavenward. 

Dark Powers Exploit Early Flaw in Code 

His Eminence was less sanguine about a flaw that emerged during the closed-beta tests of the new world.  Upon login for nearly a week, clergy found their Ex Cathedra avatars wearing altar-boy uniforms while trapped in the locked vestry of a church and unable to log off. The avatars were carnally violated by “Father Agrippa,” a malevolent figure whose face resembled an amalgam of many priests accused in recent sex scandals. 

“This was the work of the Evil One and his minions,” Cardinal Jeanbaptiste noted, dryly. “We found a security hole in the login protocols, left by one of our brothers who had not yet taken his vows. He has been disciplined, though the fault lies with his listening to GWAR during an all-night coding session and we blame them for this possession by Satan.”  

After the incident all servers were sprinkled with holy water, and one unrepentant CPU was buried with a titanium stake through its hard drive. Coding then resumed. 

Corporate Sponsorship  

Interest in Ex Cathedra has been intense, with some companies already announcing plans. Among these efforts will be a Red Papal Bull^tm in-world quest to see which sinners can be rounded up and brought before the Inquisition.

Microsoft’s Stained-Glass Windows^tm marketplace will also open to provide virtual goods and services to brothers and sisters in Ex Cathedra.  

Not to be outdone by the private sector, the Jesuits and Benedictines have formed in-world orders with intensive requirements for full group membership. For a weekly contribution, members of the public may join the orders as laity. 

In other corporate news, The Church has denied that HP agreed to change its brand-name to “Heavenly Powers” or “Holy Pontiff,” in exchange to exclusive contracts for the entire Vatican server-farm and upgrades to the 800-series defensebots. 

“That claim is false,” Cardinal Jeanbaptise confirmed. “The 1000-series Swiss Guards are being tested and produced with the assistance of several German firms. We’ll introduce them soon to the lapsed faithful in Europe before a full global deployment on The Holy Father’s next tour.” 

The Vatican also reaffirmed that no Linux clients of any sort will be released for Ex Cathedra. As Cardinal Jeanbaptise put it “we do not accept this Unitarian-Universalist OS as legitimate for the salvation of souls.  Steve Jobs and Steve Balmer, however, would have made excellent medieval cardinals, so we have embraced both Windows and the Mac OS. God’s will be done. See you in-world.” 

We recently posted a story about a dust-up in the WoW community over the new Blizzard policy about addons — user made enhancements of the game interface. According to the new policy, addons can not be sold and donations can not be solicited in world. Now one target of the new policy — the maker of Carbonite — has decided to comply with the policy. They will only solicit donations from their web site (which is allowed by the new Blizzard policy).

It is difficult to know what to make of this. On the one hand it is good that addon makers will continue to develop their products, but on the other hand this sort of quick compliance might embolden Blizzard to flex its muscle against user/developers again in the future. In the meantime, we hope that the Carbonite makers will continue to be able to make money.

h/t WoW Insider

by Kris Dibou

an example of the disputed illustrations

As I was working on a story for the Herald (regarding a fellow who was writing a children’s book on heart health) including illustrations make from screenshots of Tiny avatars in Second Life, I received this note from Ms. Wynx Whiplash, one of the creators of the Tiny avatars:

  In response to accusations by certain parties; I, Wynx Whiplash, am releasing this statement.  All parties except myself will remain nameless as I do not wish to cause others the harm they seem to wish to cause me.

    Thursday May 8th, 2008, I was contacted by a Second Life resident who claimed to be authoring a pamphlet to educate children on the risks of heart disease and I was informed that images of my work were going to be used.  I was taken aback that I had not been consulted first for the use of the images of my avatars.  The resident told me that he did not require my permission.  I politely begged to differ and was concerned for the reactions of other residents whose work he was also photographing.
    Feeling rather upset that someone felt they could use images of my characters whether I wanted them to or not, I unwisely continued the conversation, trying to be helpful, which is my usual demeanor when speaking to someone via instant message.  This helpfulness was in answer to his request for free or rented avatars, which alone is a bit shocking since they only cost $1.63 USD.  My mind still racing with the fact that this man just told me he could violate my rights as an artist and wanted a discount to do so, I suggested that if he needed models the Friends of Raglan group (a group I – nor any of my alts – have never been a part of) might help out.  This was a mistake, I should have been more firm that I did not want him to use my images because I did not trust him.  When contacted by my best friend about his message to the group, I told her I did not trust him and had not given full permission yet and that he merely assumed I had but had to log out to prepare to leave town for a funeral for a close relative.
    What happened after that is anyone’s guess since I was not around that afternoon.  I started getting messages from friends and customers telling me that they were being harassed by this author.  More advice flowed in – that I needed to be more clear that I did not want the images used.  So I typed up a polite, clear notecard stating that I did not wish the images used, that there were better, cheaper and legal alternatives and that I would be contacting his publisher to make sure they knew not to use the images.  SL being what it is, I could not get the author’s profile to load Friday morning.  I couldn’t wait – I had to leave for the funeral.  While away, I had no computer access and waited to send the note Sunday night when I returned home. 
    I felt that the note was a mere formality, a polite clarification of how I stood on the matter.  Subsequently, I received a note from the author and although it wasn’t pleasant, it was mostly incredulous that I would not still want an association with him after he harassed my friends and customers.  This I could easily live with.  However, a friend of his who claimed to be his editor at his publishing house sent me an instant message so filled with bile that I could hardly believe my eyes!  I did not respond, I do not respond to bullies.  Yet, here I find myself having to respond one more time to these bullies who have contacted The Second Life Herald to attempt to slander me.  I have been told that this publication does not wish to be part of their harassing behavior and I trust that they will not.
    Let this be a lesson to anyone who has worked hard to be original in Second Life and use it as their creative medium:  you have rights.  You MUST speak up when people try to push you to agree to something you do not want to or feel is not in your best interests.  Do not think you have no recourse, you must protect your creative content and copyrights.  If I had been more firm, perhaps at least my friends would have been spared this drama, even if I had to go to court to protect my intellectual property.  Never be afraid to say No.

Sincerely,
Wynx Whiplash

  Now this had me in a fix; here I was, ready to run a story about Riots in Raglan, Tiny attacks, and greed-  armed with a folder full of half-truths supplied to me by the fellow in question.  Half-truths?  Actually half-conversations…you see, the fellow supplied me with only the ‘other side’ of the conversations, filling me in on what he had said and his list of witnesses.  I put out enquiries to the Tiny creators, and was supplied with this (I have removed the names by Wynx’s wishes):

[13:08]  Writer: hello
[13:09]  Writer: i was told u seem to have concerns with my use of tinies for educating kids about heart disease
[13:14]  Tiny: You can’t use someone’s property in a RL publication without explicit permission. You were told no, that you do not have permission to use the tinies in a RL publication.
[13:16]  Tiny: If you wanted some illustrations or something done of them, you could have asked, but you were definitely told ‘no’ on the using them like that thing.
[13:21]  Writer: and who told me this thing
[13:21]  Writer: do u own all small avatars in sl
[13:22]  Writer: in fact a check on slexchnage with your name shows no association at al with small avatars
[13:23]  Writer: Roland Francis, Etheria Parrott, Kyro Kilian, Lalinda Lovell, Beezle Warburton, all make them, in fact accrding to sl wiki: Many residents make and sell Tiny avatars under their own (or no) brand names.
[13:23]  Writer: so why am i to stop taking photos of small vatars because u tell me too, i have the owners permission in each case
[13:23]  Writer: and BTW
[13:24]  Tiny: You want to use Wynx’s creations in your RL publication. To do so without permission is a violation of intellectual property laws. I am Wynx’s business partner and we created the Tinies and put them out in 2004.
[13:24]  Tiny: You do not have Wynx’s permission to publish anything using her avatars.
[13:25]  Writer: i have many patents in the patent office, i am not infringing on your name, i do not need fords permission to take a pic car
[13:25]  Writer: so
[13:25]  Tiny: if you publish something for profit using someone else’s products that is copyright infringement as much as it is intellectual property infringement and I am telling you that if you proceed and publish without express permission, we will be contacting our attorney and filing a lawsuit.
[13:27]  Writer: well do u get the perm of every texture u use for your constructions, hmmmmm
[13:27]  Writer: do not be absurd
[13:27]  Tiny: You obviously do not understand. This conversation will cease right now. You’ve been told NO. and NO means NO. To continue to publish something using someone else’s intellectual property is a violation and it will be pursued.
[13:28]  Writer: u know i am trying to help teach about heart disease to kids, and using sl is a great way of helping those who volunteer to do this social work
[13:28]  Writer: u r just upset because u think u arent getting enough money
[13:29]  Tiny: That’s great but you were told No on using them in a RL publication. this conversation is over. Anything said further will be considered harassment and reported.
[13:29]  Writer: my, my u r testy
[13:29]  Writer: do the small avatars know u prevent them from any profit if they where that av
[13:29]  Writer: perhaps ill tell them
[13:29]  Writer: in fact
[13:30]  Tiny: I am filing an abuse report if you do not cease right now.
[13:31]  Writer: ohh the tinie lawyer scares me
[13:32]  Writer: i have rl patents dude
[13:32]  Writer: i make no claims to your product
[13:32]  Writer: il will now establish my basis for making pics
[13:32]  Writer: and ill get an attrney to depose this conversation
[13:33]  Writer: i do not nor wil i ever knowingly use your small avatars
[13:33]  Writer: i wil go out of my way to be sure of that
[13:33]  Writer: il remind every small avatar of your concerns
[13:34]  Writer: and that u have no interest in helping kids, so i will politely ask others to do so
[13:34]  Writer: so may have al your avatars
[13:34]  Writer: ill check with the shots i have made now and ask the models if they used your product
[13:35]  Writer: if so i wil ldelet that pic
[13:35]  Tiny: I have now filed an abuse report for harassment. I asked you to stop. now Stop.
[13:35]  Writer: but i wil make this open that u refuse to allow this
[13:35]  Writer: find
[13:35]  Writer: and what abuse have i committed
[13:35]  Writer: helping children
[13:36]  Writer: so how many kids have u tried to help lately
[13:36]  Writer: mind if i post these comments on SLNN
[13:36]  Writer: will make a great story
[13:36]  Writer: just back off
[13:36]  Writer: u canhave your money
[13:36]  Writer: i am here to help ppl
[13:37]  Writer: if they ban me
[13:37]  Writer: the worlds loss

Hmmmm…No ego there! 

  So, attitude aside, was Mr. Writer correct in his assertion that he did not ‘need their permission’ to print photos of their creations for profit? Would he need Ford’s permission to use a pic of their cars in his book?  Will Lassie ever find Timmy in the bottom of the old well?  Stay Tuned…

]]> http://alphavilleherald.com/2008/05/the-real-raglan.html/feed 38 http://alphavilleherald.com/2008/04/nasa-wants-an-m.html http://alphavilleherald.com/2008/04/nasa-wants-an-m.html#comments Sun, 20 Apr 2008 11:22:24 +0000 Alphaville Herald http://localhost/wp_2/?p=747 RFP asks developers to create a game for fun

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Friday, NASA released an RFP seeking a partner to help create a massively multiplayer online game to help teach science and engineering. The project has been seen as an exciting opportunity since it was initially announced in 2007 – a promised $3 million budget could have something to do that. The level of interest was such that rumors of over a hundred responses to an RFI issued in January of this year seem credible.

But joy in the metaverse development community was short-lived, after it was clear that NASA’s MMO development partner is expected to create and maintain the MMO for free – or to use NASA’s language a “non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement (defined as one with no exchange of funds)”.

Of course, the development partner will get something from the experience – as the RFP points out, “In exchange for a collaborator’s investment to create and manage a NASA-based MMO game for fun and to enhance STEM, NASA will consider negotiating brand placement, limited exclusivity and other opportunities”.

This would suggest that the ideal development partner will be able to pay employees not with dollars, but with fun.

As one source put it, “NASA is not putting any money into this project at all. They will be graciously granting the rights to demand certain conditions be met by whom ever they choose, and yet will be providing no money. None for development, none for support. What ever happened to that $3 million we read about a year ago?!?”

We have to wonder – if there is no money changing hands – does NASA even need an RFP? Since this is all about having free fun, perhaps NASA should let anyone participate – the more the merrier!

by Urizenus Sklar

I don’t know, I’m asking. I missed the event announcing the winner of the Coke Virtual Thirst Contest, and I don’t know how that event went down. As I disclosed earlier I was on an advisory panel for Coke and the Crayonista marketing company where my advice — 1 million L in prize money and that they protect the IP rights of the winner — did not have uptake. I was also one of the contest judges. I’m guessing there were 80 to 100 entries and a lot of them were impressive and showed considerable effort. I don’t know what participation levels they were looking for but they generated a nontrivial number of entries at least. Here is the eventual winner:

This seemed like a particularly important hypervent for SL because it involved a very serious new media marketing company working for a big time advertiser in Coke, and I felt they were making a genuine effort to figure out how to approach SL in a way that avoided the usual fare of ghost islands and empty monolithic buildings. How should we assess this effort: win? fail? learning and E for effort?

Meanwhile, for those of you who missed it, Crayon has relauched as a “conversational marketing company”, or as one less charitable blogger put it: “gone out of business“. Whatever you want to call it, Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Steve Coulson, Gary Cohen, and C.C. (“I’m done coloring“) Chapman have all left Crayon. Whatever the future of Crayon in SL (if any), it seems like Joseph Jaffe hasn’t given up on SL, claiming that the problem with marketing efforts in SL is not the medium of SL per se, but rather with the creativity of the marketing types. Well, maybe.

As for me, I had a bad nostalgia attack for the days when we dumped on them for their launch and then the Herald and the Crayonistas got to talk smack to each other and let’s not forget the Cardie Mahoney scandal. In the end of course we became good buds, and I wish them all well. They definitely gave us something to write about.

In Memory…

[update: photo credit for the picture below - Tara5 Oh. The original picture and Tara5's interview with King Philip can be found here: here]

Mrs. Linden’s little boy is growing up. The fair-haired, Donnie-Osmond-cute repository of our hopes and dreams, “El Chefe” who says we can “blame it all on him,” is now honed into a competent media sound-byter and Customer Experience Specialist more caring than the finest call center has to offer. Back at Virtual Worlds 07, Philip blundered on stage with his architecturally-correct shock of hair, saying that gosh, he engineered this platform, and wow, all these people came on it and he didn’t know what to do with them — before rushing off to hobnob with Bill Clinton on Renaissance Island. We weren’t impressed.

By contrast, at SLCC, his haircut was flat, with visible, no-nonsense bangs — and he was oh-so-accessible. While Philip didn’t give an interview to the Herald (they didn’t ask — they’re too kool for skool now), he made lots of time for Reuters and hung in for the entire 3 days of the fanboyz gathering constantly chatting with residents. At his keynoter, he was all charts and graphs and apologies for poor performance and promising to do better, opening his modest corduroy college jacket to flash a t-shirt with the words MISSING IMAGE and saying “That’s me, in the way.”

Oh, to be sure, once the party got started at the exclusive Volunteer’s gathering, Philip came sporting a transparent pearly-white golf shirt, which exposed what Ingrid Ingersoll immediately dubbed “The Phipple”.

Moving the Slider

Still, we’re a long way from SLCC 1, where the fangirlz got together to buy Philip a replica of his avatar’s trademark rocker T with the gaping red mouth, and even sewed on a sequined crotch to some stone-washed jeans to mimic his scripted, blinging boxers. I got a glimpse of the awkward teenage Philip back then, seeing him blush when I said, with his risque outfit on, he needed to move the “package” slider.

Now, Philip is all delivery. He hung out at the workshops and stood around in the hallways after the talks to answer the most obvious questions, “Why is land so expensive?” in his earnest manner, which has now developed away from laconic California hippie or excited Tesla into something like that quintessential television newscaster’s voice with the STRESS on syllables where YOU don’t expect it (Corey Bridges of Multiverse does a wonderful imitation of that…wait…I don’t think it’s an imitation.) “Because we need to give YOU guys the TOOLS to manage the ECONOMY,” he explains.

I caught up with Philip in the corridor after an SLCC panel and asked him why he was logging on so much more now to the world. Should we worry? Shouldn’t he be retiring to a real-life island like Crete?

I could see the gears turning in the Customer Experience Call Center and finally he said, “Well, Prok, I’m visiting all these cool sites that everyone is telling me about like Straylight.” I had sent him a landmark to Straylight. “And not only you,” he said, ever sure to make sure there’s no FIC — except when there needs to be.

NAPKIN TUTORIAL

Lunch was the usual conference-circuit draped chicken, and as we sawed away, with Arbitrage Wise and Lindsay Druart of SL Capital Markets (yet another stock exchange) plying him with financial questions, Philip dead-panned about Ginko. “I talked to those guys,” he said, seeming to imply that he has known of them for a long time and didn’t believe they had intended a Ponzi scheme. He went on to advise, like Zee, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Despite repeated pressing to get involved, either by restoring Lindens to those who lost them, or helping to prosecute Ginko, Philip would only reply: “We are staying away from this.”

“But Benjamin Duranske has you wearing stripes by the end of the year, Philip — you’re the cashier for these alleged scams,” I put in. He grinned, all California white teeth and bronze tan. Philip has an uncanny way of conveying repressed mirth and engagement that probably cover up some actual uneasiness or exasperation.

I said I hope he *did* stay out of the banking and stock market business — whether to GOM or regulate or close — precisely so as not to foreclose any interesting and innovative experiments in making more credit and capital to people around the world with the platform of SL. Of course, not even Grameen Bank is the wonder people imagine, what with the flipping of international development agency loans and venal international civil servants, but still…More white teeth.

Philip hit the softball. He nodded enthusiastically. He loves socialist-capitalist thingies like Grameen Bank — and he didn’t *call* Ginko a Grameen Bank, but merely said he was staying out of it so that the Grameen Banks of the world could emerge.

But…back to sim performance! Soon he was laying linen napkins end to end to explain to Arbitrage, who seemed to be drilling him on why you can’t drive or build well between sims, modeling this complicated, intensive “hand-off” of agents between sims. Of course you can just prop up the build with a rooted prim. Philip was as eager and enthusiastic and just plain *helpful* explaining the age-old sim-crack problem as he was 5 years ago.

KEEP HIM AWAY FROM THE CODE

At the Linden party, at least one staffer went racing across the room to get some face time — saying Philip hadn’t been in the office for 4 months — it’s wall-to-wall conferencing, travel, media interviews. They keep Philip away from the code now (Cory, too) as one Linden explained — I guess it stands to reason, as otherwise SL would suffer even more than it does from “Founding Father Syndrome”.

So just what *is* Philip doing all day? Customer satisfaction surveys. Performance metrics. Cleaning up SL of gambling and ageplay, burnishing his image, in order to sell? He keeps saying no, preferring to re-drop the already-made hint that the server code will be open-sourced within a year, and dodging detailed questions about just what the business model will be by that time.

I hobby-horsed him on the Orientation Island issue, and Draxtor, my favourite German machinima TV guy, flipped open his $2000 laptop that was making a movie right as we spoke (and if he had been Scoble, he could have uploaded it right there to Kyte.tv). ‘Do you mind getting on the news?” Draxtor asked, but didn’t really stop filming.

Philip barely missed a beat, and with a flourish, took out a notebook to write down my suggestion about orientation — impressing Draxtor. He wants you to feel *heard*. I think the program for the Reg Apis needs to be opened up to others to assess their metrics, too, and even non-reg API orientation such as the resident-created infohubs need to be measured. “OK, tell you what,” says Philip, all business. “I’ll put everyone who wants in the list, but if their retention rates aren’t at a certain level, they will be cut out.”

SOCIAL DARWINISM

“Social Darwinism!” I cried. “It would be better to just sell the slots on the list,” I said.

“It’s the same thing — people who can compete are the same ones who can afford to pay,” Philip said matter-of-factly, always dismissive of open markets and trading them for technocratic meritocracy. “But newcomers can buy in if they raise the money,” I countered. It’s hopeless.

“Philip looks like a school-boy called to task when you asked him the question after the keynote,” Draxtor commented later. I had asked him what SL’s influence was on First Life now — and in years to come — as that is how ultimately it would be judged. No, it wasn’t a trick question, as Chosen Few thought it was — it was genuine. Would it erode cultural differences? This often happens with mass-market American-made entertainment media overseas. Would it drown out distinction? Or even when hundreds of thousands of Russians and Chinese can in theory log on to Virtual Japan?

As for today’s influence, he replied sanguinely with a mantra that is long-practiced in media interviews and around the office: “We have a thousand people who make more than a $1,000 a month.” Um, is that after tier? As for tomorrow’s…”I think 10 years down the line is when we start to see Second Life taking away time and energy from the real world,” he envisions — with a grand shrinking of the communication sphere. And a seeemingly preposterous notion that virtual worlds will be “bigger than the web.”

Back on earth, the performance charts and graphs told a pretty frank story of a service not always available, with poor FPS for a good chunk of the time and for many people and lost inventory — which he declared as “less” by measuring only one kind of lost inventory problem (no rez from inventory) — a premature declaration indeed as the bug was back this weekend.

WOULD PHILIP BETRAY CHINESE DISSIDENTS?

Many might associate Philip with the ultimate in freedom of expression and creativity, right? That’s because you haven’t figured out that engineering the software is far more important to him than this or that freedom of expression case. Listen to his recent BBC interview. He makes a tremendous mumble about China. The Beeb reporter asks him very directly whether he’d turn over the information about a Chinese dissident to the Chinese government, the way Yahoo did.

Instead of just saying “yes” or “no,” he embarks on a side trip, saying that Yahoo has to play to the lowest common denominator, but SL will be on each country’s servers, and LL will “enable the platform” so that every government can “have the tools they need” for implementing their local laws. Um…is this essentially making China’s work easier for it?

He speaks vaguely about a common set of values that will get evolved as we are all standing “here” — a here that at one point in his interview is “on servers in the U.S. where we have to abide by U.S. law” but at other points seemed more like what Jerry Paffendorf has called “the other here” which is this common sensibility in SL, which presumably overrides pesky things like Chinese censorship (by ways that aren’t clear yet).

Contradicting his point about Yahoo and common denominators, Philip explains ardently that if, for the good of the platform, to make it available to the most people, they had to make some restrictions due to laws (like those against gambling in the U.S.), then, that sacrifice would indeed be made. Would their be some Chinese dissident eggs broken in making this omelette? The reporter pressed: will you in fact turn over the dissident names?

Philip begins to mumble again — but professionally and smoothly mumble, like “We as a company pride ourselves on maintaining privacy” blah blah blah. He concedes that they would have to look at each case.

We’re left thinking that if LL ever has an office in Asia, and the Chinese government asks them to shut down a parcel or give a name, “for the good of the platform,” they just might do it — all their high-minded talk about not playing to the lowest common denominator like Yahoo, notwithstanding.

This is what it takes — Philip enduring endless fanboyz questioning, falling on his sword and displaying poor performance charts and vowing to do better, making some patter up that sort of kinda sounds like it isn’t like Yahoo about China. This is what it takes so that “everybody in the world will use Second Life — something he appears genuinely to believe in.

by Jimbo Quality

After my last article, I sensed that there was something missing from my campaign to become President of Second Life. I sensed that the people had expectations of me that I wasn’t meeting. My team hit the streets and conducted extensive research to find out what my fellow residents want in their leader. [Don't be fooled, this just means Jimbo finally read some comments - the Editrix].

a candidate prepares for extreme presidential makeover

What I learned is that my people don’t think I’m good looking enough to be President. It was a tough thing to hear, but I am nothing if not eager to please, so I set out to fix this. I decided to part with some hard earned lindens and go skin shopping.

I knew I would need help, so I asked our fashion writer, Tenshi Vielle, to help me. She was thrilled.

Tenshi is a very busy avatar. For what seemed like a month, maybe two, I stood by her desk waiting for her to return. Finally, I IM’d her and amazingly, she had just logged on for the first time in weeks! It was like fate had brought us together.

I immediately went to my favorite shopping place, Odds&Ends in Wagaland, because they have good freebies. I sent Tenshi a TP and then I saw it; "Hair for There."

hair for there

This is a place that sells pubic hair, you know, "hair" for "there." Don’t worry if you don’t get it right away, it took a while for me to get it too. You’ll see it’s very funny because they sell "hair" for "there." Don’t worry if you don’t get it, it took me a while, you see…[We deleted several pages of variations of Jimbo explaining the name of this place. The Herald staff thinks this may be the first "clever" name he's understood and he seemed very excited about it - the Editrix].

Tenshi reacts

I finally understood what it was I had been lacking as a presidential candidate- Second Life needs an avie with a little chili releno on his huevos if you know what I mean. [Uh, no, but that's ok- the Editrix]. I immediately stripped and looked to see if they had demo pubes. For some reason Tenshi, who’d just rezzed, ran away screaming. [If you see her and she's still running, please tell me because then I win the office pool - the Editrix]

still running?

I looked at the selection of pubes and threw up a little in my mouth when I saw the ones in the bottom right. I mean, I find these broadly offensive. Can we get a Linden to do something about this?

a LOT of hair for there

I browsed. I saw that each box was L$50 and tried not to think about how many hours in a camping chair that was. Then I realized that it’s pubic hair for girls and started wandering away when it hit me that the monster bush would make for some rocking chest hair and I blew my L$50 like it was nothing. Talk about impulse purchases! I didn’t even realize the hair is just painted underwear until after I’d bought it.

I immediately pulled my wild pubic bushwoman underpants up as far as they would go, right up under my armpits, and for the rest of the day I sported the best chest hair anyone has seen this side of 1977.

president bush riding high

I never knew fashion shopping could be this much fun, so I kept going. I found a thing that makes me laugh and cry and smile and stuff. It was just sitting there in the bottom of a box of freebies! When I smile I look just like motivational speaker Tony Robbins, so I gave up trying to find a new skin. Tony Robbins is so smart they gave him his own infomercial. If I’m in that class I could be President easy.

I quit on skins, but I did find a place that sells a slick looking layer of oil. I figured I was on a spending spree anyhow so I popped the L$10 they were asking for it and walked around all oily looking a while. Even my pubic chest hair looked oily. I kept trying to get people to touch me so they could see I wasn’t really oily, just wearing a clever suit, but for some reason they wouldn’t. Their loss.

Eventually I went back to the Herald and they made me take off my pubes and oil and put my clothes back on. As Editrix Pixeleen kept saying "It takes the lotion off the skin or it gets the hose again!"

Hey, why don’t you come down to the Herald office and buy some of my presidential t-shirts and signs. I think they cost L$1. I need to make some Linden space buck e-monies to go shopping again.

by Urizenus Sklar, Media Mogul/Critic

As the Second Life mediascape continues to diversify, a number of in-world radio stations have emerged. Of course such radio stations have been familiar to us at least since the days of The Sims Online, where there were a number of radio stations, including stations run by mafias and by the infamous The Sim Shadow Government. And of course the game-centered radio broadcasts for World of Warcraft and many other games exist today. Here in Second Life there have been numerous online stations as well, ranging from Taco Rubio’s Phreak Radio to the now defunct Dreamland Radio, which was the voice of Anshe Chung’s Dreamland, continent to the Virtual world radio network (VWRN) and the German Language SLR2. Hells Bells, there are even radio stations that straddle both TSO and Second life (Maxed Out Radio being a case in point). What got our attention though was the rise of at least two full time Gorean Radio Stations.

Gorean Portal Radio claims to have been broadcasting nonstop for three years. It began as an IRC channel but now broadcasts from Ar. Meanwhile, the relative newcomer The Edge, Gorean Radio, which was doing a play-by-play of Gorean combat contests when I tuned in. I guess I’ve always been interested in the way subcultures like Gor create their own media outlets, including not just radio stations but “newspapers” like The Tarns Feather (which is only available in world).

Question: what other radio stations (Gorean or otherwise) are currently up and running in SL? I’d also be interested in hearing about other “community newspapers” like The Tarn’s Feather.