Video From a Virtual World

Triumph, thy name is video!

We just went live with video which is being captured in Second Life  and streamed to our homepage.  While this may sound a little odd (video of a virtual world, what does that mean), it's actually profound.  Here's why.

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world that is 100% created by its 32,000 residents.  The challenge this presents us at Linden Lab is that all the action that takes place in Second Life is very compelling; whenver we sit down and show it to someone, their mind is summarily blown and they very often sign up for an account.  The problem is a chicken and the egg one -- showing Second Life in person isn't scalable and screenshots just don't do it justice.  You really need to see avatars flying around, building amazing creations, chatting with eachother in order to get it.  The energy of that experience is what sells Second Life -- the raw, unedited magic, but until recently we couldn't bottle the magic. 

The first significant bottling of this magic came in the form of Snapzilla, a very clever tool that allows residents to take pictures and post them to the web.  Created in February by Cristiano Midnight , Snapzilla was an almost instant hit with Second Lifers.  I worked with Cristiano in those early days, sharing ideas and figuring out how to morph this thing to let SL'ers tell their stories and chronicle their Second Lives.

 Once the process of democratizing content creation was begun, we Linden Lab a live feed of all these snapshots to our homepage -- a scary move that's inherent in user-created content -- by giving power to the people, you also have to place your trust in them.  What's to stop somebody from taking naked pictures of their avatar in compromised positions?  Nothing.  And yet we've been amazed at the general civility of the content in the Snapzilla feed.  In the 4 months since its launch, Snapzilla users have taken 15,509 pictures of their Second Lives (that's an average of 129 per day).  Of these pictures, only 6 have been topless and 0 have been bottomless, so to speak.  Why is this?  Who knows -- either people are afraid of the repurcussions and reprimands they might get, or they are almost as invested in their avatars as they are in themselves -- they'd no sooner post naked pictures of their avatars for the world to see than they would pose for Penthouse in "Real Life".

Today we took the next step in lowering the barrier between Second Life and First Life by letting Live Video out.  As always, this experiment is scary -- we must trust that people/avatars will behave themselves.  Only time will tell but my bet is the same as always -- I believe in the goodness and decency of people and moreover in the power of the bonds created in a social society.  Stay tuned for results.

 

Comments

[Alfa Rubio]

I'd love to know why that video is windows media when all the video going into secondlife is quicktime

[Alfa Rubio]

It is pretty bloody cool though!

[Reuben Steiger]

Thanks, Alfa. We did a lot of experimentation with both Quicktime and Windows Media and were able to get both streaming at similar quality levels. The difference was that in order to encode for Quicktime streaming we'd have needed to use Camtasia which is a tiny bit pricey and WM Encoder is free. Secondly, and more importantly, we had better luck embedding Windows Media into the browser.

[mary]

you were wrong about ppl being decent and good in sl. the video was nothing but smut as usual. why shouldn't they your giving them development checks to support this behavior via their club and b.s. decent? hardly.

[Joe Public]

Yawn...dream on reuby.

You little wunderkinder, you...

[Steve]

Wow, Mary...bitter much? Sorry, but there are many demographics to SL now; its not all about you anymore. (Although it still includes you).

I thought the video was awesome. And the reality is, 99.9% of people in SL are honorable. There is a 0.1% that's not - as in real life - but I welcome taking the good with the bad.

[Huns]

You should have Video jump in a plane and tear around the vehicle park.

[Prokofy Neva]

Reuben, the video and the screenshots are hella cool. I love 'em to pieces. And I think you should be aware that your company only allows us to pass through screenshots taken in PG sims, so that may account for the toplesslessness, hmm? Can you get them to dial it back to M?

I'm also wondering what you meant by "I worked with Cristiano in those early days, sharing ideas and figuring out how to morph this thing to let SL'ers tell their stories and chronicle their Second Lives." In intense debates on the SL forums, Cristiano made the statement that he was the last to find out that LL was using his technology on their front page. Now you're saying you worked with him since the early days. Well?

And really more to the point, can other residents with other websites and/or simply e-mail also have their snapshots show up on the front page? That is, currently, only if we type [email protected] will our screenshot be snagged for the SL page, then go on to Sluniverse.com to be stored there. But what if we'd like to be on the SL front page, but not on Sluniverse.com? Please, build in that capacity with a checkoff box so that *any* screenshot emailed out of SL can be eligible -- this would *truly* "democratize" the technology you claim is democratizing, if it is not just one high-profile business partner of LL eligible for this privilege of getting the shots displayed on LL's website and stored on its own site. I appreciate all the hard work, etc. that goes into this but I'm interested in the long-term of creating fair conditions for the metaverse. I also want to make sure that no one third-party business has the power, for arbitrary reasons, to block access to LL's front pages.

I'd also like to raise the issue of privacy. In RL, casinos forbid taking photos or videos of patrons because not everyone wants to be seen in a casino. The same can apply for people in SL, even in PG (and I'd advocate that you allow M shots as well). How do you propose to handle the issue of consent yet retain the creative energy?

And what about advertising? I've seen people put LAND FOR SALE in their screenshots and I'd like to put RENT THIS SPACE in my screenshots, too. I see some people doing barely-disguised infomercials. And I'm all for allowing that, after all, the shots only stay on for a few minutes. Commerce is a big part of SL and deserves a place on the front page, too. Comments?

Reuben, the bonds in SL range from fiercely deflective and exclusionist tribal loyalties of the FIC to a horridly fraying social fabric among the masses living in the griefed and uglified mainland grid -- I think you need to get out more, I can't imagine where your Pollyanish notions of the "goodness and decency" of people came from except through the antiseptic portals of the Lab.