DISQUS

Paul Cohen/Komuso Tokugawa · 4 months ago

It's true that the real force driving the virtual live performance experience is a primal need for "Connectivity" while the art itself (music, interactive, or whatever) is to some degree secondary. It is the context within which the need is fulfilled.

Connectivity + Context = "KIller App"

There is no cookie cutter checklist in order to implement this as the new breed artist who has the artistic/social and technical skills can create infinite experiential variations for their 24x7 globally distributed/connected virtual tribe, but it's a no brainer that certain pieces of the underlying infrastructure need to be available in order to fully actualize and capitalize on the emerging possibilities.

Linden Lab continually drops the ball in this regard, and putting a virtual boxed product manager on the job just confirms his (however competent CL is in general, which he seems to be more than).

LL has had more than enough feedback with regards to enhancement to the social infrastructure tools needed to enable a solid tribal connectivity experience, and also on the technical side for context (standard graphics interchange formats, standardised avatar rigging/animation controls, interactive audio/midi system, etc etc)

Maybe their new web interface integration will implement some of these issues. Maybe not.

With their apparent focus on 3D enterprise technology and service provision (beyond the Hosting and community freesourcing model that has made them profitable so far) you would think that anyone with half a brain in LL would understand that the same connectivity needs/tools that exist for new breed artists are also fundamental to the needs/requirements of the new breed agile business that will rely on the 3D web as part of their core infrastructure.

As we see more viable competition in this space, open source or commercial or combination, evaluating their offering on the connectivity dimension will be one of the key criteria.

Onwards and Upwards!
PC.KT

Paul Cohen/Komuso Tokugawa · 4 months ago

& for the record I believe that genuine "True Fan" Connective Tribal Ties are a Lifestyle Strong Tie, not weak;-)

gracemcdunnough · 4 months ago

Fans are most certainly strong ties but if you want growth and sustained interest, you have to provision for cultivating weak ties.

And oh yeah I see now - I made a bad transition and it sounds like I said the opposite in the post. Let me go edit that. Thanks :)

Paul Cohen/Komuso Tokugawa · 4 months ago

Sure, you need to have a robust weak tie infrastructure for enabling bidirectional Artist/Fan discovery and exploration, but it's the strong ties that bind!
(aaaaarrrrrrrrghhh- could not resist a chance for a bad pun;-)

ed lamoureux · 4 months ago

the last half (or so) of Lessig's newest book REMIX is very good on the mutual responsibilities (business & users) in the hybrid economy. I very often think that LL isn't quite living up to their portion of the deal. HOWEVER, I am grateful over their providing SL and I am mindful of the difficult technical challenges it poses for them.

gracemcdunnough · 4 months ago

Great point, Ed. I particularly like this quote from page 260:

Philip Rosedale of Second Life emphasizes a different value: transparency.

“I’m a tremendous believer in the idea that there’s a new mode by which businesses can interact which is based on complete transparency,” he explained to me.

There’s a trust- building exercise there that doesn’t traditionally happen, because companies are inherently private because historically, competition was the first order of concern of companies. Therefore privacy [or secrecy], for the purpose of giving you a leg up on your competitors, has always been a kind of a central building block of corporate behavior. And, in a world where openness and network effects are likely to decide the winner, you now have to break down that perception. You want to build a company whose first value is not privacy but, instead, disclosure."

dizzybanjo · 4 months ago

I also feel despondent about the level of engagement from Linden at the moment. Not just from the point of view of live performance, which is important and needs work to make it really fly the way it could.

There is a swell of interest in the potential for music as software at the moment. SL is ideally positioned to be a place where amazing online interactive music environments could flourish, but again some work is needed at an architectural level to achieve this.

It makes me kinda sad to think about the number of times music has been 'looked at' by LL, with various members of staff assigned to the role. Each time with no actions happening as a result. All I can presume is that it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the priorities list - which may or may not be justified in the overall picture of SL.

I also did a talk at SLCC, which tried to discuss the potential for SL to move into the realm of being a distribution platform for 3d globally interactive musical social experiences, something other companies are trying to develop at the moment and lack the existing infrastructure that Linden enjoy. But I'm getting tired of performing my half of the crowdsourcing deal with little action from the company I am trying to help.