And it will be here:
Concert over!
Thanks to everyone who came — I had a blast! I recorded the audio stream, so I will post it up once I get a chance to peek at it in a sound editor. Off for Halloween night stuff now, though!
Oct 312009
Oct 302009
A collective of Metaplace users led by the intrepid MacZ have set up a huge Halloween event tomorrow. It kicks off at noon Pacific time in the world Riverbeer with costume contests, art displays, and a bridge to similar events in SL., proceeds to hayrides and world tours at 1pm, then Superbad supplies DJ music in The Lotus Room until 4pm.
And then comes the SCARY part. 
I’ll be doing a 2 hour live set of music selected to fit the spooky theme, just me, my guitar, and as many creepy laughs as I can muster! It runs from 4 to 6pm Pacific in The Stage, and I will have it embedded here too. I set up a special version of the venue all decorated up for Halloween.
After my set, we’ll have more DJing, in the same venue, from J-Digital.
This will be the first time I have done a formal virtual concert, and I am terrified. Come share my fear.
Chong+Koster
(Visited 4732 times) Misc
Oct 302009
This is a shoutout to my younger brother Josh (who has featured on the blog here before) — his firm?Chong+Koster, which does political new media services, has just announced a partnership with TSE Consulting, which is a company that deals with what can only be called the politics of sports. They’ll be doing their “nanotargeting messaging” thing for sport-related campaigns.
It is fascinating to me to see the sorts of convergence that are happening; here, it’s new media marketing crashing into Olympic bids with the tools honed during the last election cycle. The world is changing fast!
Virtual Goods presentations
(Visited 3916 times) Game talk
Oct 302009
Slideshows from the Virtual Goods Summit are starting to pop up, and here two that I found so far:
Virtual Goods: Why & How They Work by Amy Jo Kim, all about them motivations behind virtual goods purchases.
Virtual Goods: Why & How They Work
View more presentations from amyjokim.
A nicely detailed deck by William Grosso of LiveGamer on Managing a Virtual Economy that has plenty of concrete advice.
Managing a Virtual Economy
View more presentations from William Grosso.
CNN on how games are healthy
(Visited 4041 times) Game talk
Oct 272009
Are video games good for your health? – CNN.com. It’s one of those slideshow dealies. Among the anecdotes:
- Playing games can cure “lazy eye” better than an eye patch
- Training with Wii Fit and Wii Sports improved balance in Parkinson’s patients
Always nice to see more of these studies…
VW educators in the UK, look here
(Visited 3715 times) Game talk
Oct 272009
Virtual World Watch has? a request for information up — they want to hear from you about how you use virtual worlds in UK higher and further education.
The question
How are you using virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life, OpenSim, Metaplace, OLIVE, Active Worlds, Playstation Home, Blue Mars, Twinity, Wonderland) in teaching, learning or research?
Things you may want to include:
- Why you are using a virtual world.
- If teaching using a virtual world, how it fits into your curriculum.
- Any evaluation of the experience of using the virtual world.
- Will you do it again next year? Why (or why not)?
A few side points
- Do you know of any other individual, group or project at your institution using virtual worlds for teaching, learning or research? If so, a contact detail would be appreciated.
- Do you have any interesting screenshots of what you’ve been doing in virtual worlds? If so, then please consider submitting them to the Virtual World use in UK Education Flickr group ? thanks.
- – Snapshot survey #7 of virtual world use in UK Higher and Further Education.
Oct 272009
He’ll be taking audience questions, as well as answering some of ours. Visit by following this link, or if you’re on my site reading this, just click on the embed below:
(event over, but here’s the log!)
Today we had Cory Doctorow in Metaplace, and he was a fascinating speaker!? We had way too many audience questions than we had time for, and could have probably went all day long.? Read on for the full chat log!
Cuppycake: As many of you are aware, Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author and blogger at BoingBoing.net. He’s known for his activism on DRM and copyright, and for providing his books for free on the web through Creative Commons licensing.
Cuppycake: We’re excited to have him in Metaplace today!
Cuppycake: Hi Cory
doctorow: Hi there!
Cuppycake: First question
Cuppycake: You are a huge proponent of giving away electronic forms of your books. Can you talk about why?
RezEd podcast
(Visited 3320 times) Game talk
Oct 212009
I was lucky enough to be part of a podcast for Global Kids’ Digital Media Initiative, the RezEd podcast, alongside Daniel Livingstone and Joe Castille, who are two of the educators using Metaplace. It was a great conversation! Check it out here.
RezEd Podcast Episode 42 – Metaplace and Forecasting the Future of Virtual Worlds
(WORLD) The forty-second RezEd monthly podcast, produced by Global Kids.
Raph Koster, President of?Metaplace, and two practitioners discuss the advantages of using Metaplace within the classroom, and an In Focus with Nic Mitham of KZero, discussing their new chart forecasting the future of virtual worlds.
The Sunday Song: Ducklings in June
(Visited 3398 times) Music
Oct 182009
I actually wrote this back in June, after a walk in one of the neighborhood parks where there were, you guessed it, some baby ducks.
The recording is a little funky — something weird going on with the panning or presence in the left vs right channels.
I’ve already forgotten how to play it. 
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Philip Rosedale leaves Linden
(Visited 4104 times) Game talk
Oct 162009
As a full-time job, anyway. There are theories as to what he’ll do and elegiac meditations on his legacy, and among long-time users of Second Life, there are crises of confidence.
Philip is a crazy dreamer, so I am positive that whatever he does, he’ll keep doing that much: dreaming crazy dreams, and more power to him.