Second Life's Hype Cycle

This picture shows the Gartner Hype Cycle graph for 2008. I wanted to point out the position Second Life (and other public virtual worlds) is at in the cycle. This was the most recent depiction that I found with virtual worlds. It shows VWs (Virtual Worlds- not Volkswagens) past the Peak and heading into the Trough of Disillusionment. The basic idea is that VWs are at the make-or-break point right now. The near future will tell whether or not Second Life and other VWs will find their niche in the public sector. I'm curious to see what Linden and other VW companies will do to market their products as effective tools in order to be productive technologies/applications of technology.

Sony Playstation Home

This week I was given the privilege of beta testing Home for Sony Playstation 3. It is very similar to Second life, the characters are customizable and the overall feel of the community is the same.

The MAJOR differences are the PS3 has HIGH QUALITY graphics and SECURITY that comes with Home existing on a protected game platform.

I have not used either platform enough to say who the winner will be. I think that this could be a more protected environment that schools could take advantage of in the future.

http://www.us.playstation.com/PSN/Home

Second Life vs. Reality

Where are priorities placed?

I don't know about you folks but I have enough trouble trying to keep myself sane in reality let alone in a cyber-relationship too. This article and its related links go to show how wrong things can go either in real-life or with a fantasy relationship. This article and the links with it just blew my mind. Now I see why I haven't visited this Second Life site. I guess you can take anything too far. I want to know where these people find the time to spend on developing these online relationships when real life is so time-consuming. They must not do anything with their free-time other than this Second Life site - affairs, divorces, rehab, killings... these are all a bit much for me to understand. Read this article and the associated links and see what you think.

Second Life Affair ends in Divorce

Instructional Design in Second Life

Hijack Alert!

My post today contains a link to another blog called "knowledgework." While I am posting to a specific post in that blog (here), the blog itself is also a valuable resource--for the same reason ours is! The postings there are often very similar to ours in content and type. There is a lot on elearning there.

This specific link is to a post about instructional design in virtual worlds. I found this while looking for some last-minute wiki info. Basically, the blogger found the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) location in Second Life to have some effective instructional design techniques built into their SL space. Anyone with a SL account may want to search the ASTD space and give it a look.

Second Life and IBM

Recently, IBM announced that it will be teaming with Linden Labs (creator of Second Life) to develop "enterprise solutions for security-rich, custom virtual world creation and collaboration" using the Second Life Grid platform.


This new solution will allow businesses and organizations to create private or public virtual environments. Basically, businesses can benefit from Second Life's virtual environment platform without the unwanted exposure that public 3D worlds present. Businesses can use this new platform to train employees, collaborate with partners and consumers, hold corporate meetings/events, compose product simulations, and much more.

Second Life Grid provides the corporate world with an alternative to Protosphere in the 3D marketplace. Businesses will be able to create custom environments, as in Second Life. Second Life Grid will allow businesses the freedom of creation and use that Protosphere limits for its users in the corporate environment.