I’d earlier stated that at some point I’d re-post on this blog a piece I’d written elsewhere. Now seems like an appropriate time to do that. So here it is… minus the blockquote tags:

–

Avoiding A Short Shot

{Preface: I originally wrote this in June with the intention of submitting it to WorldChanging.com. This was prior to the Second Life Relay for Life event when I was giving some thought to the role technology – and virtual world simulations in particular – would play in our lives. Yesterday I posted an entry over on the Core “Software & Technology” blog that is relevant to the point I was making below. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can hardly wait to interact with some of the people mentioned in the article I reference in that entry. In any case, I had second thoughts about posting this long entry, but that article reminded me that it may still be worth posting. I hope my rambling, verbose style doesn’t interfere too much with the message.}
Continue reading →

When I first read on SeattlePi.com (Link) of Google’s announcement to embed Adsense inside so-called “casual games” , I figured there would be plenty of coverage and robust discussion. There is. Unfortunately, I’m not finding very much of it to be especially insightful.

On the one side you have some people claiming no one saw this coming… even though Google’s purchase of in-game advertiser Adscape last Spring should have clued in most everyone that they were looking to embed their ads as others have done before them. And on the other side are those who considered this development inevitable. Hopefully everyone reading this was in the latter group.
Continue reading →

Ever since my hesitant interview for the ISHUSH blog (Link) last year, I’ve paid a bit more attention to how others believe books might evolve in an increasingly digital world. My first pass at giving it any real thought beyond “Uh, they’ll be e-books”, was in response to a question asked of me at that time:
Continue reading →

As I’m a bit occupied to post much on each, I thought I’d post some quick hits to related video topics.

Pay-Per-Virtual Video Patent

The Second Life blogs are heating up over this one: the apparent filing of a patent over some currently unspecified method for providing Pay-Per-View video inside a virtual world. I caught it first on Twitter, but after having read the most relevant sites, will settle in on Virtually Blind (Link) to follow the action.
Continue reading →

Seems as if the marketing/videogame/metaverse blogosphere is full of posts and comments discussing yet another round of embarrassingly amateurish mainstream media articles and commentary on Second Life. Personally, I’m more interested in discussing the future of this technology than in trading comments with people who obviously prefer shadenfreude to critical thinking. So instead of getting wrapped up in what seems to me to be a complete waste of time, I want to go beyond the current issues and play a game of “What if?”

– Continue reading →