Reuben Steiger's Weblog

I'm Blogging at Millions of Us from Now On

Or at least for the forseeable future.  Here's a link.

We'll See a Play Tonight!

Three weeks ago we announced the Millions of Us Challenge to create and perform a play in Second Life. Tonight is the night and I’m proud (and relieved) to say that folks have risen to the challenge.

As I said originally, the reason we’re doing this is because of how symbolic it is of the entire metaverse movement on so many levels. First and foremost, Second Life is about allowing people to try on different identies. The power of the medium is that it gives us the ability to turn dreams into reality and to share those dreams with others. But almost equally important is that doing a play in Second Life just happens to be very challenging. So tonight will be a celebration of that shared struggle to do things not despite the challenge, but in some cases, because of it. And when you think about it, Second Life itself would not exist if people hadn’t embraced that very same sort of challenge and pushed the envelope.

The show will begin with our feature performance of “From the Shadows”, an original play written by Enjah Mysterio and directed by Osprey Thereian. Following this, we’ll have a more free-form sort of fun where we invite folks to come on stage and tell a joke. We’ll be giving a prize not only to the cast of the play but also to the “Best SL Joke”.

For sim access, please IM Green Fate.

See you at the theatre! (It’s in the New Globe Theatre in the Millions of Us sim)

Great Photo from SLCC

Left to right:  Clarence Smith (aka BushidoBrown Hightower), Eric Rice (Spin Martin), Reuben Steiger (Reuben Tapioca), Daniel Terdiman (CNET -- I just realized I don't know Daniel's SL Name)

Millions of Us on ABC World News!

Video here.

Millions of Us Brings Scion into the Metaverse!

This weekend at the Second Life Community Convention, we announced that we were bringing Scion into Second Life.  This makes Scion the first automaker to enter Second Life and we're super excited about what we're going to be doing with them.

Photo below is from a great Flickr set from Intellagirl.

The first vehicle we chose to produce was the iconic Scion xB -- a perfect choice for Second Life because of its squarish, low-riding shape (easier to build from "prims") and the company's obsession with custimization and self-expression.  To carry out the task, we tapped Second Life legend Francis Chung, maker of the famous Dominus Shadow - a version of which recently sold for US$ 2000 at an auction to benefit the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life in Second Life.

Here's a great launch video made for Millions of Us by Nylon Pinkney.

For the launch, the Millions of Us team of Green Fate, Chris Lake, myself and Francis Chung decided to blur the line between real life and Second Life for dramatic effect.  We all donned royal blue jumpsuits (our uniform in the virtual world).  Next, we convinced the local Scion dealer to lend us a silver xB -- no small feat considering the conversation began like this, "We're going to be launching a virtual version of the Scion xB into the virtual world of Second Life".

On Saturday, we showed up with the real car.  In Second Life, Cyrus Huffhines had been given 20 advanced copies and told to await the signal -- a horn blast from real life, before dropping the virtual Scion on people in Second Life.  We gathered a crowd in the parking lot of the convention in Fort Mason, and as the cold wind whipped off the bay, I told asked everyone to help me count down from ten.  When we reached the count of one, the signal was given and Green Fate drove the real Scion through the parking lot.  As he made a hard left and disappeared behind a building, he slammed on the horn and Cyrus began giving out xB's.  The Scion had crossed over and become virtual!

Above is a photo of the Real Life launch.  Below is one of me standing next to the virtual version in the New Globe Theater on the Millions of Us sim in Second Life.

We're planning a full launch for Scion in October, at which time there will be customizable versions of the cars and much more.  In the meantime, if you'd like a first edition Scion xB, please IM Cyrus Huffhines in world.

Who Are the People Behind the Avatars?

This report was released a couple of weeks ago by our friends over at Trendwatching.com.  For those of you interested in getting a handle on the upsurge of interest in marketing through virtual worlds and avatars, this is an excellent primer.

Jesse Shannon at Adotas has also published a thoughtful 2 Part Feature on his blog entitled "Marketing's New Manifestation; Why Avatars Best Represent Online User Engagement"

Broad pieces like these, coming on the heels of the recent piece in the Harvard Business Review' entitled "Avatar Based Marketing" are beginning to lay out  the broad landscape of virtual worlds and explain to marketers what the advantages  are to reaching out to consumers in these environments.  What seems clear is that one issue confounding folks is the question of  "Who's the person behind the avatar"?  In other words, one of primary draws for users entering spaces like Second Life or Habbo Hotel is the basic guarantee of anonymity and escapism the spaces provide.  Yet for marketers, knowing who they're reaching is critical.

It seems to me that this is an age old problem that is no easier to answer in conventional media or the web than it is in virtual worlds.  Think about it -- how do advertisers know who's watching the TV shows they advertise on?  They rely on sampling and surveys from companies like AC Nielsen -- the same sort of services will naturally arise for virtual worlds.    The problem is that the immersive interface of a virtual world makes it seem harder to figure out than it needs to be -- the optical illusion is that because a 21 year old woman from Peoria can be roleplaying an old man from New York, that somehow clouds the picture.   

At the end of the day, the truth is that marketers will reach their audiences the same way they always do -- by providing experiences of value to the demographic.  The people they want to reach will flock to these content experiences and they'll bring there friends -- and someday soon the tracking and reporting tools will follow.

Play Money by Julian Dibbell to be Released in Second Life

How Many People Will be in Second Life One Year From Today?

In the process of pitching Second Life to various clients, I decided to answer just this question.  Of course, I don't have a crystal ball, so instead I resorted to using Excel (I think there's a marketing slogan in there somewhere: "The next best thing to a crystal ball: Microsoft Excel".

All jokes aside, I think the results of simply applying a compounded monthly growth rate are surprising (we all know how hard it is to calculate compound interest).  What this shows is that if the current rate of 22% monthly growth continues, we're looking at 3.6 million residents by July 1 2007.  If things slow down and SL grows at just 10% monthly, there will be 936K residents.

If we decide to split the difference, we're still looking at a couple million users a year from now.  Pretty mindblowing.

 

Two Videos that Make Me Want to Cry

This video of a chimp that's been taught to play Ms. Pac Man is just sad -- I feel unbelievably sorry for the chimp. 

This video of enormous animatronic puppets created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is moving on so many levels; poignant, impressive, humbling and just beautiful.  Enjoy.

Eames' Powers of Ten

I've loved this film ever since I first saw it in 5th grade Science class.