Last words

Second Life to IPO?  

Ok, so this was one of those conversations in a bar with someone who was too inebriated to remember his NDA, so I won't repeat much.  I will say keep an eye on SL, they are making moves to clean up their image for legal reasons, and they are still profitable and working to become more so -- I have reasons to believe there's an IPO ahead.

Stanford's Virtual World?

Last month I attended a conference on Machinima at Stanford, where I had the chance to speak with members of Stanford's Humanities Lab.  Turns out Stanford has been looking at using virtual worlds for education for the last two years and is ready to launch their own world later this month.  Take a look at this article for more info.

Experiment

Tittle:

Not your mother's tourism.

Experiment Scenario:

Prepare for your trip by seeing your destination virtually, learning about language and cultural matters, and exploring sustainable travel through recycling.

SL Location:

Meet at Translator site found at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spike/26/198/621/ then follow directions to china town

Roles:

Recorders, question askers, tourists (see list bellow)

Recorders -- Record the virtual trip using screen shots and sound and video recording if possible.

Question Askers -- Follow tour group and ask one or two specific questions about culture, art, architecture, or language pertaining to the locations visited.

Questions to Learn:

- What time is it

- Good morning

- How are you

- Where is the bathroom

- How much does this cost

- Do you have vegan/vegetarian food

- I'm lost, where is the nearest embassy

Things to learn to say

- (some form of slang such as)

- Cool

- Awesome

- (informal) hello

- (informal) goodbye

- Which way to the bar

Tourist -- Follow tour group, and think about if you would like to visit this place in the real world and how the virtual trip influenced your decision.

Role Assignments:

Question askers for each group --

1 Colleen

2 Danny Pan

3 Jose Ramirez

4 Laura

Groups --

1 Grant, Chris, James (recorder)

2 Josh, Karen, Xiaomin (recorder)

3 Ed, Tara, Kim (recorder)

4 Stephen, Zachary, Brandon (recorder)

Assets Provided:

Translator found at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spike/26/198/621/

Participant Preparation:

Download translator, think about any concerns you have regarding foreign travel.

Production plan:

We will be taking participants to existing areas in Second Life and leading virtual tours. As such we will not be designing most of the in-world materials, but will instead focus on the user interaction, and how best to guide a tour group through virtual China Town, Museum, etc. We will leverage existing materials to explore cultural, language, and sustainability issues in Second Life.

At the end:

1. Go to Sand Box for survey.

Land name: SAND BOX, Build for FREE

Navigator: 129,80,95

You will find a Survey billboard in Sand box, click the center of the billboard and go to SurveyMonkey.

2. The green eco bag will be given away during the trip.