World of Warcraft, your boss and succeeding at work
For a lot of people, politics, corporate strategy and philosophy are the sort of topics that lead to thoughts of using a cheese-grater on an inner thigh. If you’re a cubicle jockey in an office, or someone questioning their existence in the meatspace, then WoW may be able to help. When I say help, I [...]
Avatar: The film, the idea and the word
James Cameron’s new film, Avatar, teaches us nothing about avatars.
Why? Well, let’s take a step back and look at the basic idea that already exists.
Most people are members of one of the 20 or so major religions, pretty much all of which have the concept of the avatar in common. Throughout religious philosophy and doctrine, [...]
Virtual worlds predictions for 2010
Having completed our review of our 2009 predictions, we’re back for another round for the coming year.
1. OpenSim will continue or even improve on its growth trajectory – the momentum will continue, although a handful of larger grids are likely to have the lion’s share of that growth, with all the challenges that go along [...]
2009 predictions review
Twelve months ago we published our ten predictions for 2009. Below is the report card on them.
2009: how accurate was our crystal ball?
Prediction 1: OpenSim grids will bleed Second Life users – this may seem a very obvious prediction given the growth of OpenSim grids, but what I mean here is that the exodus will [...]
Alter Ego on SBS, and thoughts on vocabulary, identity, truth and perspective
So, here I am, watching the Alter Ego documentary on SBS. Indeed, it is still running at the time I am writing this. I’m not really quite sure what I expected. Not the usual sense of regretful chagrin that I’d expect at a documentary on Second Life, because Writer/Director Shelley Matulick is basically a good [...]
Surfing the virtual world hype
Riding the hype wave of a new technology with a “world-first” isn’t exactly unusual. We’ve seen this a lot with Second Life, right?
But there’s actually other, more interesting lessons to be learned.
Firstly, the newspapers and magazines don’t really check if you’re first, so if you want you can just copy what someone else is doing. [...]
Virtual worlds as lawn mowing
Although it’s mostly a throwback to the mid to late 20th Century, there’s still a significant cohort of Australians who associate mowing the lawn with the ‘Aussie lifestyle’ (I hate generalisations, but bear with me). There’s no shortage of people who still dream of owning their own land, on which they can inflict the weekly [...]
