Down the Second Life Rabbit Hole ala CSI Miami..no CSI NY

It should have been Miami in my opinion…TheGridLive carries some interesting news and trends in this piece on Second Life and CSI NY, CBS, and Second Life hitting mainstream TV. I really don’t think the mainstream is ready, but there you go. From the piece.

He also describes the thought process behind the Down the Rabbit Hole episode, such as having the sim after the show that people can do stuff in and interact with, they are calling it the CSI:NY Virtual sim, where they have recreated the Flat Iron Building, not sure if that is right but it is the one you see in the Spiderman movies and episodes of Friends, they have recreated Times Square, the Chrysler building, the Empire State building, he says they have recreated every inch of New York city, so it really is a virtual representation. It will take you through an orientation process and then right after the show you will be able to do some cool things like a facial reconstruction game, puzzles and memory games, for the intermediate player you will be able to play Murder by Zuiker, a blog written by him in which you have to find one crime scene a month and the one who comes closest to giving the correct explanation of what happened wins a prize.

The last thing is Murder of the Month, where you can fly around virtual New York city, find crimes, solve the crimes, go to the virtual lab, be hands on inside the lab, and go to the Cisco teleconferencing system and deconstruct and solve the crimes every month. The same lab that you see in the show, will be the same in the virtual lab, with an audio/visual department, where you can trace, do fingerprints, do an autopsy, think about that, do an actual autopsy on a body to gather evidence, so you can be the CSI in first life and in Second Life, he says.

Some Points to Note

— CBS makes a strategic investment (correction- NOT an acquisition) in the Electric Sheep Company who are also making the OnRez viewer platform a direct market competitor with SLEX. Long neglected it is good to see it getting some attention although I think both platforms will fill different niches and bridge platforms will rise too.

— CSI NY, which means CBS, is making a foray into Second Life. I am a fan of the show and Second Life, but I am not so sure how they will mix together on network T.V. or will they be able to incubate large scale community. There are obvious uses for simulations in Second Life…we will have to wait and see. I know the Havok4 engine should help and no doubt I have seen demonstrable IMPROVEMENTS in the Second Life GUI and customer service response the last two months. (Thanks Dee Linden). Then again, they had nowhere to go but up….

— Pay Attention: Powerhouse, Cisco Systems, is a prominent sponsor behind all of this…with buys on the CBS tie-in pages pitching “The Human Network”. As a West Virginia native I have to cheer Cisco on through regional nationalism if nothing else. I really think they “get the picture”, or I hope they do and they aren’t planning a “Myspace with clunky social aspects”.

— Think “unified communications + collaboration + social networks + security”. Let us not forget their CEO, John Chambers, is dyslexic- he likes video and micro-chunked information. Maybe they should check out this emerging ARG. See Brian Clark’s schmeldritch.com. I plead the fifth, but I am punking him.

— If we look at their behavior, or not so recent behavior in Internet time- March of 2007- DNA and scalable tech based acquisitions and mindset- this was obvious. Cisco executives are banking on social networking and the general Web 2.0 phenomenon as pipelines to shift around Internet traffic, and thus traffic over their routers and other networking gear. Given the moshpit in the industry I can see why.

Previously, Cisco provided presence on a separate, optional server to what was then called Unified CallManager. Cisco also added the Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator, which puts presence, corporate calling, and unified messaging capabilities as an application on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian OS and, eventually, Brew handsets. Other additions to the Unified Communications System includes a new Wi-Fi phone; upgraded its MeetingPlace 6.0 Web conferencing with Flash for better PowerPoint viewing; the Cisco voicemail system, Unity 5.0, with handsfree and security functions; Cisco’s contact center with e-mail and chat integration and created special technology bundle for SMEs.

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TEN MILLION NO SET BACK TO “SOCIAL MEDIA” BUYING BLITZ

Despite losing $10 million to a fraudster Cisco isn’t done with their social media acquisitions either. The company bought select assets of privately held Utah Street Networks, the operator of the social networking site Tribe.net and is on the lookout for more. Ugh. Tribe.net? OK…they wanted the infrastructure- not tribe.net- good.

So Tribe.net will remain independent and since the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, we don’t know what they are paying, but I am sure it is a drop in the bucket.

Speaking of Cisco I recently found out their CEO and Board Chairman of Cisco is a native West Virginian (well born in Cleveland, but moved to Charleston as a tot), as were other key founders. Some WVU alumni, some Marshall. Either way chalk one up for the Appalachian technologists no one knows exists. Didn’t know that did you? Go ‘eers, go Thundering Herd.

Silicon Hillbillies. Love us, hate us…get used to it.

Copious Buckshot Fired Feedback on the CSI:NY CBS Second Life Crossover Show

From this post at Pacificrimx the author also notes that Cisco was a sponsor. No real surprise given their foray, albeit rather bland, into Second Life and their appetite for “social media” DNA as I noted above and months ago. They are in Second Life for a reason. They want to gather the skills to negotiate the slippery turf of a metaverse. Rumor has it they encourage all employees to sign up.

Henry Jenkins interviews some of the people at Electric Sheep about the cross-over.

Dusan Writer comments on the potential for a “tipping point” as 400+ sims were brought online to handle the load. What if…that didn’t work? I was in-world and did not watch the show. Aside from a couple problems with assets not uploading for a brief period, the Grid thrummed on without a hitch while avatars bet on how long before the Grid would tear apart. It didn’t. The Second Life website went down for a bit, but the Grid, incredibly, worked well. Maxing at no more than 40k simultaneous users.

- Second Life Insider gives their preshow take based on the commercial.

- GayGamer.net chimes in with the extended presence of CSI:NY in Second Life.

The list goes on and on and on- just hit the blogosphere or RSS reader of choice. Second Life, hate it or love it…

What was Everyone Anticipating?

Not sure. Knowing major networks I was figuring we might get a much better pixel resolution of say… Tron, with avatars doing all kinds of things they probably can’t. What they pitched…

The episode will see Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) entering Second Life to pursue a killer who has killed a Second Life user in a case of virtual stalking gone too far. CSI:NY fans will be encouraged to join Second Life and investigate the case by following a link on the CBS website. CSI:NY will have three options for CSI-related inworld activities. The first option will allow viewers to walk around virtual New York buildings and visit a CSI lab and play forensic games.

The second option consists of a game called “Murder by Zuiker,” a unique murder plot which can be solved by users finding clues. The 100 people who come closest to solving the murder will win virtual gifts.The big tie-in gives new users the ability to become CSI investigators, complete with field kit and tools, and are given a chance to interview suspects and to solve the murder featured in the actual CSI:NY episode. The episode itself will apparently end in a cliff-hanger with the solution not revealed until February.

Down the Rabbit Hole with Sketchup… Alice

Now for a tangent…

I also noted a local paper in Huntington, WV (a recent “hyper-local” acquisition according to their purchasers) and a local university press releases corroborates that Google Earth is working with Marshall University to prepare a virtual tour of the university in three dimensions using Sketchup and Google Maps. The buildings are created using Google’s free Sketchup software and they are then uploaded to the Google Earth Warehouse. From there they are await review and accuracy checking by Google. After the 3D structures are reviewed, they become part of the Google Earth application. Did I mention they bought Sketchup from In-Q-Tel, and In-Q-Tel is sponsored by the CIA? I probably did, not that it is a big secret or anything.

Do I think Google and Second Life will go in the same direction? No, not at all and this is due to corporate vision and risk versus reward behavior. Although I know some Lindens have defected to Google…(Hi Hunter.)

I am Banking on “Zs” and Heterogeneous yet Linked SIMS

Hollywood glitz aside I am looking forward to the future. I am ready for the change over the next 2-3 years. X, Y, Z- it is all about the “Z” variable- depth. This depth allows us to measure or model those “new metrics” everyone talks about- I think we have killed the page view and replaced it with stickiness- still not good enough.

Think “Curiosity + Engagement + Word of Mouth”. I figured this out in July (O.K. I am slow), and if marketers want to know when developer “Bleys” finishes up with “Project MicroPepper” drop me a line. My observations from early summer below…I stand by the analysis on Facebook (which MSFT just dumped in almost $250,000,000.00 for a 1.6% stake), problems with MySpace, and what Linden Labs really needs to do.

- I feel Facebook’s success is predicated on their wise choice to attack the weird angle of a delicate time- renegotiation of college social networks…and their almost incredible illusion of an extension of privacy. Zero privacy, read the TOS…background etc- not a secret- just cleverly wrapped. (Sam please quit messing with my social AI- hanging out in the desert does not mean we lived together).

- Couple that wise choice with control of mass and the velocity at which this mass moves. It has to be somewhat “safe”. Something that MySpace has failed to do, as Chris Boyd points out time and time again, and why they are trapped in this impression/click world of defectors. Once again let’s philosophically call it the Z variable- it lacks “depth”. Facebook offering up an API lets the community give it all kinds of depth, but they do contain the aesthetic to where you can operate without getting knifed by malware and if you leave the system they are sure to reinforce the fact you are leaving the system! Very astute.

So while everyone chucks bad food at applications like Second Life (primarily due to the ridiculous amounts of perceived freedom, in some ways a low barrier to entry, poor protection for content creators against system gamers, a hideously steep learning curve coupled with complex GUI) the parallels are very similar and valuable. Whether it fails it or not may be largely predicated on LL’s ability to nurture trust, making it secure, reformation of their GUI, and making it more pragmatic and perhaps the rate of adoption of post-humanism among society. I know there are many trans-humanists in Second Life which is even further evolved or devolved depending on your POV.

I will leave it at that, well maybe I won’t. Second Life fever will catch again, after flagging in the press, so I may just blog on the topic until someone throws a mega prim my way…

Some CSI Second Life Videos below.

Sample CSI:NY - CSI:NY in Second Life Videos from virtualworldsvideo.com

CSI NY Video 1

CSI NY Video 2

3D social networking avatar photos CBS CBS and Second Life Cisco crimes csi CSI New York CSI Miami CSI NY electroic sheep company Gaming google google maps in q tel Marshall University Net Lifestyle Second Life Second Life Cisco CISCO Systems sketchup slex The Viral Dance thegridlive.com The Human Network university Video Games virtual autopsy virtual murder web2.0

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