Second Life

The Longest Gap

Jan 11th, 2007 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Innovation, Media Personalizing, On-demand, Personalization, Second Life, TV, Virtual Worlds, Web 3.0

Well, it has been the longest gap (over a month) in posting on this blog since I started - and the guilt has been unbearable! I blame it on a mixture of end of year, the slow Australian January (summer), ‘no real news’ syndrome, designing and developing Second Life commercial launches and waiting for something [...]

Popularity: 14% [?]



Witnessing the Birth of An Entertainment Form

Dec 6th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Brands, Creativity, Cross Media, Distribution, Divergence, Events, Featured Articles, Games, Innovation, Interactive TV, On-demand, Production, Second Life, Social Software, TV, Transformation, Virtual Reality, Virtual Worlds, Web 2.0, Web 3.0

The Relentless March of Channels and Formats into Second Life

Rather than just referring to the many standard press articles about the growing number of companies or formats that are setting up in Second Life (the media’s favourite MUVE at the moment) I have been ‘living it’ so to speak. My inworld blog JustVirtual provides an [...]

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TV formats in Shared Spaces, Virtual “Big Brother”

Nov 7th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Brands, Creativity, Events, Games, Production, Revolution, Second Life, TV, Virtual Reality, Virtual Worlds, Web 3.0

Been hit by a server hacker in London today so would have blogged about this earlier this morning! I have talked before about TV branded virtual worlds and what I called Merged-Media Entertainment, those strange synched and non synched, virtual/real cross-over entertainment formats that have great potential. Anyway the plot thickens as yet another [...]

Popularity: 29% [?]



The Real Alternate Reality in Future Social Networks

Oct 22nd, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Creativity, Divergence, Innovation, Media Personalizing, Personalization, Revolution, Second Life, Social Issues & Privacy, Virtual Reality, Virtual Worlds, Web 3.0

Still catching up with drafts and this one is more about my editing than my own crystal ball gazing. I love predictions about the way we will be interacting in the future especially when we are getting a little sniff of them in the present day, eg: web 3.0. So I selected, last month, some [...]

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Virtual Worlds, Web 3.0 and Portable Profiles

Aug 27th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Cross Media, Distribution, Featured Articles, Games, Innovation, Media Personalizing, Metadata, Personalization, Portals, Profiling, Revolution, Second Life, Social Software, Targeting, Virtual Reality, Web 2.0, Web 3.0

I have posted prolifically about MUVE’S (Multi User Virtual Environments) in the past, concentrating mainly on the ever customisable Second Life. It is interesting to watch the buzz spreading and consider if virtual worlds are really web 3.0, I think so. A quick look at the evolution of the intraweb from the mid 90’s. From [...]

Popularity: 18% [?]



Personal Second Life Posts

Aug 12th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Media Personalizing, Second Life, Virtual Reality

In case you wondered, I thought my ‘personal’ Second Life posts were slightly inappropriate in this blog so they have moved. I wanted to be true to the virtual world and blog from virtual character’s perspective so I have created another blog at JustVirtual.com
This contains mine and eventually many other characters POV journals told, as [...]

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Merged-Media Entertainment - where reality ends, virtuality begins

Jul 23rd, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Cross Media, Divergence, Events, Games, Media Personalizing, Revolution, Second Life, Story Telling, TV, Transformation, Virtual Reality

“Video games are another important medium. Our vision is to blur the lines between the virtual sports game world and the real sports game world. When you’re connected online, you can stay immersed in your game world and you don’t need to go to another device to see what’s going on in the real sports [...]

Popularity: 14% [?]



Putting the Space in Virtual - Second Life

Jul 22nd, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Creativity, Events, Games, Media Personalizing, Personalization, Production, Second Life, Social Software, Story Telling, Virtual Reality

A quote to start off yet another Virtual World post…
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion” Democritus (Greek philosopher, 460-370bc)

We live in a world where you don’t need to eat or drink, you cannot die or harm yourself, you can breathe underwater and you can fly? Add to this our [...]

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Smashing Down Second Life’s 4th Wall

Jun 24th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Advertising, Alternate Reality, Distribution, Games, Media Personalizing, Personalization, Second Life, Social Issues & Privacy, Transformation, Virtual Reality

Will the “Avatar Based Marketing’ initiatives be a tsunami that will break down the fourth wall of Second Life for most, and in the process end the growth of premium subscribers many who use the world for other things besides doing enhanced duplicates of their first lives.
The shared virtual online world Second Life is at [...]

Popularity: 12% [?]



Second Life - The Creative Tool for the Masses

Jun 13th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Creativity, Games, Innovation, Media Personalizing, On-demand, Personalization, Production, Revolution, Second Life, Social Software, Story Telling, Transformation, Virtual Reality

Give people very simple and highly social tools for producing and creatively sharing content and truly inventive things will happen. In a growing ‘easy to publish’ movement the current user generated, digital personalized content explosion will continue indefinitely - the creative big bang. A digital stills or video camera and a computer in the right [...]

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Immersion - Ambient TV, Addictive MMORPG…

Jun 2nd, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Creativity, Cross Media, Games, Innovation, Interactive TV, Media Personalizing, Mobile, On-demand, Personalization, Production, Second Life, Social Software, Story Telling, TV, Transformation

…and the never changing human.
Senor Hontar: “We must work in the world. The world is thus.”
Father Altamirano: “No Senor Hontar…thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it”
Final lines of the film ‘The Mission’
There have been several events this week that have focused my attention on the nature of immersion. Within AFTRS and [...]

Popularity: 100% [?]



Alternate Reality Games in Virtual Spaces

May 27th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Creativity, Cross Media, Distribution, Featured Articles, Games, Media Personalizing, Personalization, Production, Second Life, Social Software, Story Telling, Transformation, Virtual Reality, Web 2.0, Web 3.0

Ok the title sounds a little ’space cadet’ and paradoxical but bear with me on this one because the implications go way beyond the focus of this post which is a quick orientation and guide to non-scripted but organised ’social play’ inside a virtual world and a great way to plan a Real World Alternate [...]

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The Personalization of Second Life

May 20th, 2006 | By Gary Hayes | Category: Alternate Reality, Games, Innovation, Media Personalizing, Personalization, Portals, Revolution, Second Life, Social Issues & Privacy, Social Software, Story Telling, Transformation, Web 2.0, Web 3.0

What is driving the current shared, participatory virtual spaces? Giving audiences seemingly unlimited personalization and social structure, means big business, if it can be contained within a walled garden where everything you do is chargeable. A phenomenal strategy driving all web 2.0 services at the moment. Second life now with 200 000 plus subscribers and [...]

Popularity: 9% [?]