| Second Life Community Users |

The Connections Between Metaverse and Reality

Some of the Metaverse Blogger readership is probably familiar with my background in the studies and investigations of Architecture, Urban Planning, and I venture to say Place-making, all of which are topics that have dramatically been influenced by my having grown up in the Metaverse (specifically in Activeworlds). In many ways the parallels between the development of real world communities is particularly telling for virtual “Metaverse” communities, such as Activeworlds, Second Life, and countless others. While that may sound like a leap, both situations of “community” involve interactions and dynamics between real-life individuals who seek the same kinds of entertainment and activities real world community members seek in their day to day lives. This may in fact, have something to do with the reality that virtual communities are populated by real world people, who are also part of their own real world communities (in many cases by default, ie. I live in a city therefore I am part of my cities ‘community’ however loosely). Maybe.

Following the train of logic down the current rabbit hole, that’s to say if we accept the idea that virtual communities experience similar problems and issues as real life communities, we can begin to see a few astonishing parallels: primarily between the current “decay” dilema present in virtual worlds the Metaverse over, and the floundering of our contemporary cities amidst an economic collapse. Contemporary cities, specifically in the United States, are facing (and have faced) an urban decline keenly effecting their downtown and neighborhoods surrounding it. That’s to say that many cities that once had a “thriving” downtown presence with activities abound for residents and visitors alike, have over the last thirty or forty years seemingly dried up. In many cases the deterioration of a downtown neighborhood begins with the increase of what planners and architects alike call “blight” - in other words, when the neighborhood’s maintenance slowly begins to decline until the care of streets, signage, graffiti cleanup, etc, drop off completely. And while there are other factors that lead and contribute to the decline of urban/downtown neighborhoods such as the closing of valuable stores, community programs, and entertainment venues, one of the initial causes of “decay” seems to be the abandonment of maintenance and continuity of services offered.

| Active Worlds Community Awards Ceremony |

What’s in a Community?

Looking at the definition of “community” we find a whole variety of takes on the word. The definition that probably speaks the closest to what a community of the Metaverse looks like is most likely this: “Ecology. an assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area.” In our case a “given area” represents the specific program the community resides in (Activeworlds, Second Life, etc). Indeed within this over all community are others that cater to common interests among individuals. If we take the idea of a community, a gathering of various people (often with a like minded attitude or interest, but not exclusively) around a common virtual environment, we can begin to point out specific elements that the community hinges on. Under normal circumstances we typically wouldn’t associate the reasons a real world community declines with the reasons our Metaverse communities experience decline but there seem to be a parallel in one key way: they both begin their decline, if not meagerly, with the abandonment of services and maintenance.

While a community is certainly more than a group of people who rely heavily on the provision of services and maintenance (especially in a virtual environment where people have come together usually over great distances), the longevity of an environment (and therefore a community) hinges on how well it is maintained and preserved (or improved upon) throughout it’s contemporary lifetime. The philosophy behind this notion is that psychologically when a neighborhood (or this case the virtual environment) isn’t maintained, the people inhabiting it (the community members) keenly perceive this abandonment. In an unfortunate way, this abandonment can have the effect of creating disillusionment, and in turn harm the longevity of the community itself.

| Second Life Community Gathering |

There’s a reason we turn off our televisions or change the channels when we realize the episode we may have been anticipating for the evening is a re-run, and it’s probably a similar reason as to why the slow abandonment of a virtual environment has a negative effect on a users feeling of connection; nothing new is happening. And while I don’t aim to suggest that the sole purpose or task of the people running or maintaining virtual environments is to constantly, and laboriously create new content day after day, it is the task of these stewards to constantly make sure that the cobwebs and dust bunnies aren’t gathering in the corners. It’s also their prerogative to make sure that, even minimally, new features or activities occur every so often. We can liken this to the maintenance of a downtown district in the real world. While we may grow to love the local bookstore or coffee shop, if our variety is always limited to those two activities, we will eventually grow restless and seek out other venues of entertainment, even if we have to move outside of our comfort zone to do so (comparable to seeking out other Metaverses). Even worse, regardless as to whether or not we enjoy our local cafe or bookstore, if the street they’re on suddenly experiences an increase of graffiti, trash begins to build up, old posters and advertisements are left around, and some of the normal folks we typically see around have mysteriously begun coming around less frequently, we may be more likely to seek out other places to spend our time.

None of this is to suggest that the single most detrimental cause of decay in our virtual environments (and real world communities) is because of what’s been mentioned thus far. The point of the above is to point to the fact that when times get rough, either when a metaverse can’t always create new content with lightning speed or when loyal users begin to get adventurous in their explorations of other alternatives, the maintenance and signs of life within that metaverse become even more important. When a metaverse struggles to create new content because it’s costly and takes a great deal of man hours, that metaverse has to focus strongly on what they can do. And what any metaverse *can* do is focus on making the environment feel well tended to. A stately garden doesn’t need new plants constantly introduced to feel well maintained - it simply needs to be regularly watered, with it’s weeds and rubbish cleaned up.

| Second Life Citizens Gathering |

Where do we go from here?

At this stage, any pseudo-philosopher would be hesitant to suggest answers and solutions, because clear cut wisdom about what those solutions are is non-existent. The problems facing our metaverse realities is almost as complex as our downtown developments in that, if an answer was currently present that would fix any situation, we would most likely know about it by now. While we can’t pull out the rubber stamp-o-answers to fix it all, we can look intuitively at the problem and make suggestions that might lessen the effect of decay.

First, it’s obvious based on what has already been mentioned that I place a good deal of emphasis on the necessity for a metaverse to be maintained, in a likened way to how we maintain a garden, a home, or a neighborhood: with care, and with attention to detail. Perhaps it is not necessary for the owners of the metaverse to release tons and tons of new content, but it is necessary to steadily keep things fresh and maintain aspects of an environment that were notably successful. One may begin to suggest that it should be the prerogative of a metaverse owner to release new environments and features in a steady roll out, where users and community members have new things to marvel over, even in subtle ways, once a month, or once every couple of months. New things make people happy, and give them a sense that progress is constantly happening, even if it’s small.

Second, it’s imperative that a metaverse in some way allows the users to create their own community groups, and have some kind of impact on the environment. If a metaverse is struggling to release boat loads of new content, it is essential that that metaverse make it possible to highlight and support user created work. This is a broad statement, and is open to the interpretation of each individual metaverse. In some places, 3D content created by users creates a marketplace and facilitates creativity (Second Life), and in others users are empowered to create some elaborate projects with free support of the metaverse owners (Activeworlds). In each case though, I’d imagine that there is room for improvement, and if one tactic is proving to not be as effective as it once was, that only signals that newer and more creative solutions need to be investigated.

The Shift

So what is this shift in paradigm that’s been alluded to? Up until now, it seems that most, if not all metaverses have operated under the assumption that what they offer their users should be “good enough” and that residents of any given metaverse should accept it, or move on. Additionally, metaverse citizens always seem to have felt a sense of entitlement, bestowed and owed to them merely for their meager monthly membership fee/contribution. Both of these viewpoints are not only outdated, they’re delusional and fail to take reality into account.

And the reality of it is that any successful metaverse exists not because the graphics are cool, or because the residents hold it up on a pillar of awesome, but because there’s a well balanced mix of give and take, contribution and provision flowing from the community and the powers that be, behind each environment. Any given metaverse is likely to experience periods of abundant production and happiness, as well as abandon and disillusion. These should not be signs of victory or defeat, but should merely be taken as signs of change, and we should likewise allow those signs of change inform us (community members and metaverse owners alike) about what needs to be improved in our environments. And ultimately, it is up to both sides to improve the lot of any given environment. Yes, we as citizens may be entitled to some level of service based on our hours of contribution and membership fees. Yes, we the owners of a metaverse should not be held completely responsible for every facet of entertainment within an environment… But sometimes, creating a successful environment is mutually inclusive between the two. While it may not always be fair to suggest that community members should contribute more, it’s the reality of a situation. While it may not always be fair to say that a company should over extend themselves in providing more for the benefit of a community, it’s the reality of the situation.

If the world were ideal, we wouldn’t be living in a metaverse in the first place. If the world were ideal, our cities and in turn our community (both in the real world and in the metaverse) wouldn’t suffer decay. In order to turn the tide behind this decay requires looking at the problem (and in turn the solution) differently. The problems and solutions aren’t one sided and consequently, don’t rest on one side or the other entirely.

| A beautiful but desolate environment in Activeworlds |

This goes out to all participants in metaverse realities, owners and residents: It’s time to cooperate. It’s time to create like we once did. It’s time to stand up, and become active like we once were. It’s time to become more involved in the community and environment we all created, even if it doesn’t mean we’ll make boat loads more in income off the arrangement; because at the end of the day if your community dries up, what does that say about your product? At the end of the day, if the community dries up, what does that say about any of our ability to commit to anything that makes us happy? Very little. We’ve been empowered to create beautiful environments, such as the one seen above. But what is a beautiful environment, if it sits empty?

| Blue Mars Golfer |

Every so often a piece of virtual environment software pops onto the market that the entire industry hears about. Buzz words trickle down, people get pumped, and suddenly everyone is slamming the Blue Mars Online beta request list. But more often than not, there are other environments that slip by, unnoticed, even when they’re producing cool and worthwhile content. Do you know of any such environments? Are there any Metaverse realities that we haven’t covered here, that you’d like to regularly hear about? If so, let us know, and we’ll do our best in keeping track of these not so in the spotlight communities. Because after all, everyone deserves a little coverage here and there… No?

One of the biggest gripes coming from the Metaversians who use Macs is that a fair portion of our environments aren’t compatible with the Mac OS. On September 22, 2009, a bit of that changed as another “larger” player in the 3D virtual environment universe stepped up and released a Mac compatible version of their software. While it’s still in beta testing phases, and is only a “Lite” version, Vivaty has given the  Mac world something to be pleased about.

Indeed, the Vivaty experience offered in the Mac compatible version is fairly limited for the moment, but the technical achievement behind the move in itself is something to take notice of. Vivaty managed to make the environment work purely in Flash, which means that web users no longer need to download or install custom plugins in order for the environment to work (other than Flash, of course). Vivaty staff admits the the customization on this release of the Flash based environment is minimal, but that much of this initial push was to simply get a working version of the environment out the door. And so they have.

You can give the Flash version of Vivaty a try here.

Make no mistake: The test verion of Flash Vivaty is by no means the full enchilada. Lots of development is to come, and some of the functionality of the full version is not present in the Lite deal.

All of this brings up some interesting points about Mac compatibility with virtual environments. While “most” of the internet is dominated by Windows based operating systems like Windows XP, Vista, etc., there has been a sharp increase in Mac OSX usage over the past year. Some figures have been released that suggest almost 20% of internet browsers (that’s to say, the people doing the browsing) today are Mac users. And while that number isn’t exactly staggering, it does show that there’s been an increase in Mac usage, suggesting that perhaps it’s time for Metaverse creators to step it up on Mac development. Indeed, it’s well known that many “artists”, be it musicians, graphic artists, etc, prefer and use the Mac OSX environment over Windows.

Currently, the only large-scale 3D virtual environments to cater to the Mac population that we know of, are 3D Xplorer, Just Leap In, Habbot Hotel, and Second Life. Activeworlds, Blue Mars, ExitReality, IMVU, There.com, and Twinity, currently do not have Mac versions (that we know of here).

Way to go, Vivaty. Time to step it up, guys. The bar has been set just a little higher.

Recently I decided to try my hand at a new aspect of the Metaverse Blogger: Podcasting! I played around a bit last night and created Episode #1 of the Metaverse Blogger Podcast. Let me know what you think. If it’s a hit, great. If not, I’ll see what I can do to improve it.

Episode #1

The aim of each podcast is to do a wrap up of the most recent events that have been covered here. Additionally, I’ll try to look a little more in depth at one of those topics, most likely a topic relating to my home-verse.  Feed back is as always, appreciated.

|Users gather for an in world presentation|

On September 25, 2009 highly acclaimed virtual presence in Second Life, Orange Island, announced that it would be holding its last event on September 29, 2009, as a final parting farewell to the Second Life platform. It is still unclear whether or not Orange Island will be moving onto a different platform, or if they’ll be ceasing to pursue their virtual presence altogether. The Orange Island project began two years ago, in 2007, when the UK’s fastest growing mobile technology company, Orange, entered Second Life to pursue an interest in virtual environment technology and its possibilities.

|Orange Island Concert|

|Orange Island environment|

“Orange Island was an experimental project aimed at getting a better understanding of virtual worlds. We wanted to learn about users and their cultures, content creation and collaboration, and the challenges of immersive, real-time social environments. Two years later, it’s safe to say that together we really did more. You and us played, explored, talked and created, we shared our passions and made many meaningful encounters. Because, as you know so well, there is no such thing as virtual memories – only real experiences.”

Orange Island has been highly praised throughout Second Life for creating and stimulating a community of “movers and shakers” who sought to push the platform to its limits. It has been the practice of Orange Island to hold virtual seminars, concerts, meetings, and a handful of other user oriented events.

The departure from Second Life and the conclusion of a legacy seems to weigh heavily on Orange Island staff, even if the specifics behind the seemingly abrupt ending are still unclear: “We hope you too are proud of what we achieved together. Thank you for creating Orange Island with us.”

While we in the ActiveWorlds community are somewhat unfamiliar with the feelings behind the departure of commercial parties from the platform (as there aren’t any to speak of in the primary platform run by Active Worlds Inc., in general), I can imagine it’s similar to the parting of a highly valued user run organization. One thing is clear, we’re sorry to hear that Orange Island will not be a lasting presence in Second Life, and empathize with our Metaverse kin. Here’s to Orange Island.

|Orange Island Rock Concert|

The Farewell Event

“We’ll be holding our closing event on Tuesday 29th September, to share our (and your) findings about virtual worlds… and beyond. We invite you to join us at 11 am SLT on Orange Island’s Lower Plaza Auditorium for a casual, open meeting with the team behind Orange Island and some insightful guests. We hope to see you there!”

For the full Orange Island blog post, click here: The Orange Island Project Has Come To An End