Saloners,

I recently blogged about a very interesting indie film called Four
Eyed Monsters: http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=292 . I
also put out a call for people to request that the film be screened
in Second Life, as the filmmakers promised to take it any city that
had 150 or more requests.

Four Eyed Monsters co-creator Arin Crumley kindly commented to say
he's added "2nd Life" to the drop-down list of countries on the FEM
request form: http://foureyedmonsters.com/request_film

If you'd like to see the movie in SL, please take 10 seconds to
follow the link and put in a request (you can use your real life zip
code, just choose 2nd Life--right at the top of the list--as your
country). They're currently touring the film around the US,
grassroots style. It's an awesome project and I'd love to see how SL
does in comparison to screenings in a real life cities. Please spread
the word and tell any friends or groups that might be interested.
We've just got to hit 150!

Again, the request link is http://foureyedmonsters.com/request_film
and here's Arin's comment:

"Thanks for this post, this sounds great, I just added 2nd life to
the list of countries that come up when someone is requesting the
film. I guess I’m thinking of it more as a country then a zip code
area. That way, whatever people put in the zip code field, whether
they see your post about what to put there or not, they’ll see on the
drop down for countries that 2nd life is one of the places the
screening can occur. So yes, if that number gets to 150, we’ll honor
the promise to book the screening, and hopefully we can pack the
virtual house for the screening and show up for a virtual q&a and
through swanky virtual party afterwards, maybe even book a few
thursdays in a row if attendance is good.
Arin"

Best,

Jerry / SNOOP

OK, the next SL Future Salon is all set for Tuesday, September 26th
at 6 PM PST with Justin Hall and Mark Barrett (danah Boyd can not
make the date--hopefully some other time). The post is up at http://
slfuturesalon.blogs.com/second_life_future_salon/2006/09/
next_sl_future_.html and I've copied it without links below. The
theme of the night is balancing the deep creative possibilities of
transparency and lifelogging with issues of privacy and control of
personal information.

Please send me an informal RSVP if you're planning to come so I can
estimate attendance. This one will be released as a podcast with the
help of Secondcast and Metaverse Sessions' John Swords AKA Johnny
Ming (w00t John) and I'd like to experiment with bringing some
saloners onto Skype with us towards the end, so update your Skype and
prepare your vocal chords if you'd like to try that out.

Hope to see you there! And don't forget to join the inworld group SL
Future Salon if you want to get inworld announcements and join the IM
channel too. And BTW this salon is two days before my RL birthday,
virtual cake appreciated ;).

Jerry Paffendorf / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

---

The Second Life Future Salon continues on Tuesday, September 26th at
6 PM PST with Justin Hall and Mark Barrett. We'll be talking on Skype
and streaming live into the Sheep Tower 5th floor conference room [<--
SLURL] on Sheep Island. The theme of the night is balancing the deep
creative possibilities of transparency and lifelogging with issues of
privacy and control of personal information.

Justin Hall has been working on a framework for what he calls
passively multi-player online gaming or PMOGing. See his short video
presentation here for a succinct introduction, and an MP3 of his
inspired keynote at the Mobile Games Conference for more. PMOGing
asks that you make your online activity transparent to others in
order to turn the web itself into an MMO of sorts, one that we play
simply by behaving and performing for the networked public eye. From
PassivelyMultiplayer.com:

      Description

      Passively Multiplayer is a system for turning user data into
ongoing play. Using computer and mobile phone surveillance, a user
and their unique history. These resulting avatars can be viewed
online, and they interact with other avatars online.

      Examples of data: web sites visited, email addresses, chat
handles, contents of email or messaging, contents of word processed
documents, digital images, digital video, video game moves.

      Examples of avatars: virtual pets, animals, virtual humans,
virtual fantasy characters, secret agents, athletes, movie stars,
famous people, gangsters, soldiers.

      Summary:

      A system for using user data and device-use history to generate
avatars and/or game moves in an online multiuser environment.

Mark Barrett came on the Second Life scene relatively recently and
made waves with his site SLStats.com which tracks how much time
you've spent inworld, where, and with who. After initial controversy
over people's SL information being posted to the web without their
explicitly opting into the SLStats system, Mark quickly modified to
the service to only track those who've signed up themselves. Mark is
also the creator of SLBuzz and SLTags. From SLStats.com:

      Second Life Stats allows you to see how much time you spend
playing Second Life, and can even keep statistics on other
interesting things, such as tracking your whereabouts. It does this
using a small attachment that your avatar can wear.

      SLStats is completely passive, and doesn't require you to do
anything besides wearing the SLStats attachment. You can browse
statistics of other Second Life residents using SLStats, rate them,
and also write blog entries straight from within Second Life.

I also find myself now working on an SL side project that juggles opt-
in etiquette, transparency and privacy. What is it? Well, I kid you
not, it's a kind of mix between the old SLTV, Subservient Chicken,
and "Someone keeps stealing my letters..." (a kind of massively multi-
player alphabet sandbox). More on that soon, and at the salon.

And so the three of us will discuss our projects and visions, issues
and expectations around privacy and transparency, and work with
saloners on defining some groundrules for lifelogging etiquette on
the web and in virtual worlds. There's been a lot about this in the
news recently. More background posts coming soon.

Hi saloners,

Thanks to those who replied about helping with the future salons. I
got back from the Austin Game Conference over the weekend and am just
getting back to everyone now.

Justin Hall signed on for this month's future salon but I'm waiting
on a response from another invitee before I can confirm a date.
Justin's been working on the concept and framework for what he calls
"passively multi-player online gaming" which you can read all about
at http://passivelymultiplayer.com . PMOGers might track and log
everything they do online and level up or earn points as they spend
time on various sites or performing various tasks ('I'm a level 60 in
email!'). With so much of it in the news lately (AOL releasing user
search queries, Facebook feeds, SLStats.com, even SL's email hack) I
thought we'd steer the conversation towards trends in privacy and
transparency on the web and in virtual worlds.

I highly recommend checking out the short video of Justin talking
about PMOGs on http://passivelymultiplayer.com . And if you want
more, the MP3 of his keynote at the Mobile Game Conference is
awesome: http://www.quicklybored.com/?p=151 . Justin's one of the
most interesting people creating things on the web and I can think of
lots of ways to connect PMOGing to Second Life so I'm really excited
that he'll be joining us.

Also a very, very short notice ping for anyone around the world who's
up at 6 AM PST (I will be :), there's going to be a live stream of
Jeff Pulver's keynote at the Video on the Net conference in the
Pulveria sim. Satchmo Prototype has details on that: http://
blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/chris/?p=131 .

More soon,

Jerry Paffendorf / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

Saloners,

This is the first word of it and I'll be posting an official
announcement, but we've just confirmed there will be a Metaverse
Roadmap pre-release party at the awesome Eyebeam lab in New York City
on Thursday, August 10th from 6-9 PM. (Eyebeam is the lab that did the
OGLE 3D extraction from SL: http://ogle.eyebeamresearch.org/ --you can
check out their 3D printer and other goodies.)

Information on the Metaverse Roadmap is at http://metaverseroadmap.org .
We aim to have the first report up on the site in September so this will
be the last physical gathering to get feedback before that. I'll be
there to show off where we're at and some of the interesting things
we're finding, and we'll have some guest presenters too.

The event is free and open to everyone. Let me know if you can make it
and I'll add you to the list (have to cap it at 100).

The talk about creating a "Metaverse Factory" mixed-reality living and
work space in New York is heating up. I'll give the download on that
too, and there are opportunities for involvement.

We've got the Second Life Community Convention coming up in San
Francisco, August 18-20. For those on the east coast who can't make it
out or for anyone who wants more meetups, this is for you.

Jerry

Way back at the first salon meeting in April 2005, Jim Purbrick AKA
Babbage Linden discussed the idea of "inhabited TV"--different flavors
of TV and video made social in massively multi-player virtual worlds. I
like this as a compliment to "interactive TV." Notes and link to audio
of Jim's talk at http://tinyurl.com/pxbyk .

On Monday night there's an interesting test case of a kind of inhabited
TV in Second Life. Major League Baseball and ESPN will be streaming
live video of the annual Home Run Derby into SL on Monday at 5 PM PST.
The Electric Sheep Company (who I work with as resident futurist)
created a stadium venue with a scaled-down field and cute little
bobble-headed avatar players who virtually recreate and track the hits
that their real life counter-parts are making. So participants in SL
have the traditional TV experience of the real thing, plus the
heightened (erm, shortened? :) simulation, plus the avatar
communication with other people. Chris Carella explains more:
http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/chris/?p=92 .

Tickets to the event cost $1,000L or a little over $3US. If you're not
into baseball (I don't normally follow it myself) this is still a
really interesting new kind of event that might trailblaze the way for
similar events in SL and other virtual worlds. If any saloners can make
it out, as of right now there are 15 tickets left at
http://www.slboutique.com/index.php?p=buy&itemid=92132 or
http://tinyurl.com/rorfs .

I'll be at the MLB.com offices helping to run this on Monday, so my
avatar may be in and out. BTW I'm the very happy owner of a new MacBook
Pro so I can finally easilly run SL in the background while I work on
other things. This means I'll be inworld more than I have been in in a
while. Look me up as SNOOPYbrown Zamboni!

Jerry/SNOOP

Some blog links:

Micro Persuasion:
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/07/mlb_to_simulcas.html
3pointD:
http://www.3pointd.com/20060707/a-day-at-the-virtual-ballpark-with-mlbcom/
Eightbar:
http://eightbar.co.uk/2006/07/08/baseball-and-wimbledon-in-secondlife/

Jim Purbrick/Babbage Linden on inhabited tv from the April '05 salon:

>>>"The idea behind that is that a lot of people watch TV, and a lot of people
play computer games, but what’s in the middle? So we were looking at some of the
things where on the one end people are watching avatars in a virtual world
wander around and then they can decide they can watch it as a story, they can
get involved in the story, they can decide they want to be one of the characters
and then they can move through the screen again and then decide to be part of
the story. So we did a couple of experiments with that. We took over a theatre
in Manchester and we showed the show to an audience who was sitting down in the
theatre, and then in the same theatre we had people on work stations actually
interacting in the virtual world taking part in the story, and potentially
people could move from the back room to the front room, and they could move
across that boundary from watching to participating in the story. And I think
this is a really good example because it’s kind of already happening in Second
Life. As soon as the video stuff started happening there’s lots of interesting
people making videos in Second Life starring people in Second Life. And you can
imagine that once that stuff gets going that people are going to be making
stories in Second Life, some people are going to come across it and they’re just
going to watch it and it’s going to be interesting, it’s going to be a TV show
made in a virtual world which is interesting in and of itself. But then on that
Web page they’re streaming that video from, we can have underneath that: ‘If you
want to be a part of this, go and get yourself a Second Life account and then
become part of the story that you’ve been watching.’ So Inhabited TV is a really
good example of something that’s sort of happening in Second Life already."

Saloners,

Heads-up on two Second Life events coming up real soon (info below).
There's a piece of the Supernova conference live in Second Life this
Thursday the 22nd (as in today or tomorrow depending on when you get
this!) and a discussion on the future of avatar-based marketing on
Friday.

Hope to see you there! BTW I'm in San Francisco through Friday if anyone
in the Bay Area wants to grab dinner or meetup. Just let me know.

Jerry/SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

---

http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=173 for pic and links

Supernova Sim Open: Connected Innovators Showcase Live In Second Life,
Thursday 6 PM PDT
Filed under:Second Life, Mixed-Reality

The Supernova sim is now open. If you have Second Life installed on your
machine click here to teleport to the Supernova lounge[<--SL link]
co-sponsored by Yahoo! and created by the Electric Sheep Company. If
you don’t have SL, it’s completely free and easy to sign-up right here.

Starting at 6 PM PDT on Thursday, June 22nd video of the Connected
Innovators Showcase co-hosted by Tech Crunch will stream live into the
virtual lounge from the Supernova conference in San Francisco. Inworld
attendance is free. If the Supernova sim is full, teleport to the Media
sim (type Media into the region box of the map and click teleport).

At the entrance to the lounge you’ll find a vending machine with a HUD
or heads-up display, like a little shrinkable webpage that sits in the
corner of your screen with info on the event.

For those without access to Second Life, the Quicktime video stream will
be viewable online right here.

---

http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=175

Marketing To Avatars Discussion In Second Life This Friday

Fellow Electric Sheepers Chris Carella/Satchmo Prototype and Giff
Constable/Forseti Svarog both recently linked to a Harvard Business
Review article called Avatar-Based Marketing by Paul Hemp.

This Friday at 12 PM PDT I’ll be in discussion on the topic (donning my
me-based avatar) with Paul and some other peops at the virtual Harvard
Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

From James/Hamlet Au’s New World Notes blog:

     "“Avatar-based Marketing: What’s the future of Real Life Companies
Marketing to Second Life Avatars?” Friday, June 23 at Noon, Second Life
Time (i.e., PST), Berkman Island.

     The author himself will also be there in avatar form as Hempman
Richard. Event’s open to the public, but space is limited.

     Panelists:

     - Hempman Richard (aka Paul Hemp, Senior Editor, Harvard Business
Review)
     - Cristiano Midnight (SLUniverse/Snapzilla)
     - SNOOPYbrown Zamboni (aka Jerry Paffendorf, Second Life Future
Salon/Electric Sheep Company)
     - Zero Grace (aka blogger Tony Walsh, Clickable Culture)
     - Razor Rinkitink (aka Raz Schionning, Director of Web Services,
American Apparel, with just-opened Second Life outlet)
     - Hamlet Au (aka blogger Wagner James Au, New World Notes)

     Direct portal to Berkman Island here.

     IM Ansible Berkman to pre-reserve a spot.

     The event sign on Berkman Island has a link to the HBR article, but
Hempman Richard warns that it will be online for free until the 27th."

the website is at
www.21stcenturymed.org
click on disaster self care.

it is primarly pictorial, with supporting text in several languages, including
bahasia
indonesia (in purple font). The methods here are based on the same healing art
used to shave up to 21 days from stem cell transplant patients at stanford
hospital.

If you or someone you know might benefit, please pass this along.
http://www.21stcenturymed.org/disaster-relief-self-help.html

Also if you have a suggestion on what we might add to make it more
useful,or if you speak indonesian and see something that could help,
please let me know:
cmason@...
cindymason@...
510-967-9005 (cell)

i would be happy to give a talk on self care projects, including this one, in a
salon,
if there is interest.  we are currently working on getting spanish going.

cheers,
cindy

Hi saloners,

I created a wiki for an event being planned for July (no firm date yet)
that brings together Second Life and World of Warcraft via live
streaming video, bridged audio/text communication, and themed builds:
http://slow.pbwiki.com/ . It's called [...drum roll...] Second Life of
Warcraft, or SLoW. I'm *really* excited about the concept and looking
for ideas and participation. Let me know what you think.

There's also a little post on my Other Here blog:
http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/jerry/?p=150 .

If you have a WoW guild that would like to participate let me know (the
first one to sign on is Joi Ito's We Know: http://weknow.to ). If you
want to build SLoW environments in SL let me know. If you want to get
involved in any way... you know :).

Let's do it,

Jerry / SNOOPYbrown Zamboni

Paul Marino is Executive Director and co-founder of the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences, and author of 3D Game-Based Filmaking: The Art of Machinima.  His blog can be found here: Thinking Machinima. 

Our very own Pierce Portocarrero is responsible for bringing us the Ideal World documentary, following the second life of Nephilaine Protagonist. Pierce's passion for machinima is infectious!  After having spoken with him, I'm firmly convinced that machinima is even better then the development of sliced cheese!  More of his work can be found at his new site, PeirceP.com.

Hi all,

Unfortunately we're going to have to postpone tonight's SL Future Salon
until sometime in May. Looks like SL is down for a bit after an attack
on the grid. Should be up very soon, but not a sure thing for tonight's
event. A memorable one-year anniversary! :-)

On a brighter note, everyone in (or who can make it to) the Silicon
Valley area should be aware of the SDForum event on virtual worlds
happening this Thursday:
http://www.sdforum.org/SDForum/Templates/CalendarEvent.aspx?CID=1910&mo=5&yr=200\
6

Great lineup (copied below). I'll be on one of the panels so say Hey if
you come! $150 entrance, very fair for all this content and networking.
Electric Sheep will also stream live video into SL so hop in for that if
you can't come in RL:

Agenda
8:30am - 9:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00am - 9:45am Keynote- The Rules of Engagement
Philip Rosedale, CEO, Second Life

10:00am - 10:45am In-World Culture
Moderator:
Daniel Terdiman, Reporter, CNET
Panelists:
Nicole Lazzaro, President, XEODesign
Susan Choe, CEO, StrayFish
Wagner James Au,In-World Journalist, SecondLife
Danah Boyd, Social Media Research at Yahoo! Research Berkeley and PhD
student in School of Information, University of California-Berkeley

11:00am - 11:45am The Virtual World Value Chain
Moderator:
Sharon Wienbar, Managing Director, BA Venture Partners
Panelists:
Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings
Shital Mehta, Founding Partner, Shanth Interactive
Alex St. John, CEO, WildTangent
Sibley Verbeck, CEO, Electric Sheep

12:00pm - 12:45pm Lunch
Special Video by Philip Torrone, Make Magazine

1:00pm - 1:45pm Navigating the Road Ahead
Moderator:
Kevin Efrusy, General Partner, Accel
Panelists:
Jerry Paffendorf, Futurist in Residence, Electric Sheep Company and
Research Director, Acceleration Studies Foundation
Jeff Sandquist, GM Developer Platform Evangelism, Microsoft
Reuben Steiger, CEO, Millions of Us

2:00pm - 2:45pm Business Models and Monetization
Moderator:
Michael Kim, Partner, Rustic Canyon
Panelists:
Corey Bridges, Co-founder, Executive Producer and Marketing Director,
Multiverse
Shawn Carolan, Managing Director, Menlo Ventures
Sean Ryan, CEO, Donnerwood Media
John Welch, CEO, Playfirst

3:00pm - 3:45pm Keynote
Will Harvey, CEO, IMVU

4:00pm - 4:45pm Keynote - The Future of the Metaverse
Joi Ito, VP of International and Mobility, Technorati and Chairman, Six
Apart Japan

5:30pm - 7:00pm Reception: Crown Plaza Hotel, Palo Alto
The reception is brought to you by Acceleration Studies Foundation. Meet
the industry experts planning the metaverse roadmap.

Anyone in New York City, consider checking this out on Saturday from
10-1: http://tinyurl.com/m7eof . I'll be there helping with some of the
sessions. There will also be something going on inworld on Democracy
Island--more to follow. Many thanks to Tom Lowenhaupt/Ramona for
setting it up ( Tom is point-person on the 3D wiki for prototyping a
real life park in Queens on Democracy Island, in progress:
http://www.wired.com/wired/images.html?issue=14.05&topic=start&img=1&pg=11
).

Event description below:

---

At first glance, secondlife.com looks like a game. But look closely,
you'll see it's a virtual world where residents can earn a living. Join
us on April 29 to hear about economic opportunities on virtual worlds.
Our focus will be on how to start a business or find a job in
secondlife.

Some frequently asked questions:

Can I really make money? The virtual world is a lot like the real one,
some can some can't, some make a lot others a little. But some people
have started using secondlife’s software to make cars, clothes,
jewelry, houses, and other items (virtually, of course). Then they sell
them to other secondlife residents and take the money earned out in real
U.S. dollars. A few people make a comfortable living, many others are
experimenting with this new economic frontier. A recent Wired News
article provides insight into this issue. See
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70153-0.html.

What will I learn? The April 29 AGENDA will include a tour of secondlife
and a demo of the basics of how the world works. You'll learn how to
make things and how others are making money. We'll take a look at the
Open Source Metaverse project to see where we all might be in 5 years
(see http://metaverse.sourceforge.net/. (Metaverse is a synonym for
virtual world.) And you’ll be able to network with others
exploring opportunities in secondlife.

Why was the club created? Residents living near Landing Lights Park,
located just south of LaGuardia Airport, are developing plans for
upgrading the 7 acre park. A source of ideas for the upgrade will come
from a park model that's been created in secondlife. One reason for
starting the Juggernaut Club now is the hope that club members will
help local residents manage this new information tool. For example,
club members might help residents with park designs or creating new
items to be placed in the virtual park. But the long term goal is to
introduce young adults living in northwest Queens to the economic
opportunities this new world offers, to help them be creators of
knowledge.

What's a young adult? If you can operate a computer and use video games,
you're young enough. It's interest and ability that set the membership
criteria.

Is the club linked with the park effort? The club is independent of the
Landing Lights efforts and will direct its own future (see Organizing
Session below).

Where can I see the park model? The park model can be found on New York
Law School's Democracy Island at www.secondlife.com.

Does it cost anything? You need a fast computer and internet connection
to live in secondlife. See www.secondlife.com for the details. But
there's no out-of-pocket expense to attend.

Can anyone attend? No. First, make sure you can connect to secondlife.
Second, the club is for residents who live in northwest Queens. (But
experienced secondlife builders and entrepreneurs are welcome as
mentors.) Third, send an email to TomL@... to see if
there’s room. We have limited space on April 29, but there will
be other meetings and we'll be creating a website to facilitate the
club's operation.

Organizing Session After the meeting there will be a gathering to
discuss the future of the club. How should the club be organized? How
does it promote training, sharing, and business relationships?

All are welcome . But you must RSVP to TomL@....

It's alive! http://metaverseroadmap.org

Let me know if you want me to add you to the Metaverse Roadmap mailing
list, which will invite your participation in shaping the 2-, 5-, and
10-year technology roadmap and visioning doc on the 3D Web, as well as
video scenarios and more. Way too exciting. Hit me up with your ideas
and we'll plug 'em in.

And hey, April is also the one-year anniversay of the SL Future Salon!
Hard to believe that 365 days ago Randy Moss/RC Mars and Jim
Purbrick/Babbage Linden took to the virtual stage and streamed their
voices and visions into SL (and perhaps equally hard to believe we
don't have built-in VoIP yet! *cough* ;-). Check out the year-old post
and pics from that event, cutely titled "One Salon Down, Innumerable
More To Go"
http://slfuturesalon.blogs.com/second_life_future_salon/2005/04/one_salon_down_.\
html
. And so there are.

Tim Moenk/Lyre Calliope is setting up a bunch of great presenters for
the end of April through May, with invites and bites back (though no
firm commitments) from Charles Stross (author of Accelerando), Bruce
Sterling, Paul Marino (machinima.org), Pierce Portocarrero
(idealworldmovie.com) and Steven Johnson (author of Everything Bad is
Good for You). Updates soon.

Cheers,

Jerry

Hey all,
Just wanted to let folks know about a class I am teaching in SL starting
next week - the Alt-Zoom Machinima Academy.  It will be a month long (2
classes a week) series that will take you through everything you need to
know about making movies in SL.  By the end, you should have a finished
short film, and we will then screen them in world - I think Alt-Zoom is
the only place you will find in world screenings of movies made entirely
in-world - it is a lot of fun.

For more info - check out http://www.alt-zoom.com/classroom/

And let me know if you plan on showing up, so I can get an idea of how
many to expect.

BuhBuhCuh Fairchild

Jerry, can we control the off-topic messages coming from this group?
I think it's about time to start moderating the group membership.

Thought i would share something with ya'll. Great fun and it does actually work.
Met       my girl on here, http://www.hookupatthisplace.info/lwxk and so far
it's been the best year of my life ever! Wish you all the same happiness.

Hi guys,

Quick reminder that the next salon meeting is this Friday w/ Phillip
Torrone from MAKE magazine ( http://www.makezine.com/ ) We'll meet at
5:30 PM PST at MAKE:land which you can find by searching places in SL.
Announcement post at
http://slfuturesalon.blogs.com/second_life_future_salon/2005/12/phillip_torrone.\
html

Hope to see you there! IM me in SL as SNOOPYbrown Zamboni.

Jerry