WebLinks

Bank builds in SL - not for publicity, but rather for experience????
http://www.slnn.com/article/dnb-nor/

Bruce Willis interview - started 90 minutes late! but people stuck around for it - seem to be understanding of new media, but I wonder how long
http://www.slnn.com/article/bruce-willis-interview/

Articles of Interest

Tiffany, Laura. “Starting a Second Life Business: Finding Out What Entrepreneurial Opportunities the Virtual World of Second Life Has To Offer.” 09 January 2007. 15 July 2007. <http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/article172768.html>

People making the jump from RL to SL jobs. Can this be real? My first question – is how do you put that on your resume?

Cohen, Ephraim. “Hype Alert: Second Life’s Media Focus Outpaces its Business Success.” 15 November 2006. 15 July 2007. <http://www.b2bcorporate.com/blog/2006/11/15/hype-alert-second-lifes-media-focus-outpaces-its-business-success/>

This was interesting because it seems people have been saying that SL is a fad and overhyped for sometime now. There has got to be something more considering how long it has lasted. One really good point is that the process of signing in to SL and getting any kind of ‘interaction’ takes a heck of a lot longer than Facebook or MySpace.

http://wealthcoach.typepad.com/secondlife/

This is a blog about SL hosted by an aviator. Interesting use of the two technologies. I think mergers are where it is at. I don’t want to include this as a source for its content, but rather for its concept.

http://blogs.talksecondlife.com/tsl/2007/02/20/tracking-corporate-success-in-sl/
This blog talks about businesses in SL

Interesting Article

Sponder, Marshall. “Lonely Planet Wired Magazine Article on Second Life.” 21 July 2007. 22 July 2007 <http://www.webmetricsguru.com/2007/07/lonely_planet_wired_magazine_a.html>.

Offers a sneak peak at an August Wired Magazine article about SL. Interesiting description about why so many businesses are failing in SL. One additional entry points out that in RL there is also a business failure rate why should SL be different. Speaking of different, the ongoing idea is that businesses needs to adapt a more creative presence in SL, not just replicate their RL brand. This could be challenging for the DRT. There is a chain of command to consider. Just getting access granted for exploratory purposes was a challenge, it is my opinion that any kind of presense is going to need to get approved and I’m not sure who the higher ups will react to these types of suggestions. My opinion is there is a generation gap that needs to be considered. I think I even may be beyond fully developing something that would work. My most out of the park idea would be for DRT to host a weekly or maybe monthly game shown inviting aviators to be contestants. The question content could come straight from webguides? Or exhibits? Perhaps this would get the attention of a new audience interesting in using these sources provided by DRT.

Interesting Article

Jebb, Richard. “Business Success Through Second Life.” EzineArticles 21 May 2007. 15 July 2007 <http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Success-Through-Second-Life&id=573716>.

Talks about ‘5 Senses Brand Experience’ a business gets out of having a SL presence. In other words, an organization interacts with users using sight, sounds, touch, colors, music, and messages. “It’s interactive, engaging and memorable.’ Also, touches on the benefits of being the first in your company (looks innovative) and gets you in SL while people are still talking about it as a hot topic. This leads to some excellent PR – people talk about SL and invariably will mention organizations already there.

I think DRT could really use the PR that SL could offer. Being a part of the Library of Congress has a lot of benefits; however it is hard to get individual notice as a department within. By having a presence – even if it is just for hosting events (event they already have in RL) – they could get some individual attention. For example, the DRT does web conferencing, this could easily be migrated to SL. The problem of course is the challenge of getting your audience used to a new platform. However, the team has found success using microphones and even video conferencing both which require some kind of know how from those on the other end. The big challenge will be for the DRT to learn how to assist people with technical problems their audience may encounter while using SL.

My day in a SL Class

OBSERVATION of SL

I went to a beginners workshop for SL offered to library staff. It was pretty interesting to just listen to what people thought and or the difficulties they had to overcome. The individuals in the workshop were pretty diverse; five females, and three males all thirty plus. All of them worked in the library and most had set up accounts previous to the workshop. I am far from an expert in SL, but found it surprising how difficult just the idea of SL being of interest to people in general was to these individuals. They couldn’t believe real money was going into this virtual world.

 

-frustrated with timeouts and updates in SL

-when participants logged-off and tried to sign back in had to wait – this really upset the crowd

-distraught by avatar’s slow updates (lack of clothing, what the view was, wasn’t changing positions)

-seemed to REALLY enjoy getting creative with the look of their avatars, I was surprised they were not a bit more conservative seeing as this was work related.

-to my surprise the teachers suggested getting a part-time job in RL to pay for Linden dollars in SL! Just shows there are very different levels of commitment to participation in this community.

After the session had ended I introduced myself to the instructor and spoke with her about her own experience teaching SL to new users. She explained that her and her husband enjoy playing video games and feel this interest translates well into their use of SL. Overall, she felt that most of her time working a reference shift in SL was spent explaining to users how to do things in SL and next to nothing doing actual reference work.

SL Thoughts

This is really exciting, but I have already been warned that SL isn’t really a possibility for the DRT. I think promotionally it could be amazing, but at this point there just isn’t enough interest, personnel, and or security precautions are too high. However, there is definitely a curiosity. The question is of course will the curiosity be enough. In a lot of articles I have read about SL there is mention of the ‘hype’ about it. This is absolutely true, but my question is whether the hype is going anywhere anytime soon and how that will affect SL’s use.