Archive for July, 2008

If you’ve noticed the right hand column of my site recently you know that sometime around the 4th of July I began tweeting on Twitter. Though I long eschewed it and still find it can be a time-sink, I’m beginning to see a place for microblogging: keeping up with friends; asking questions-to-the-universe that (sometimes) beget worthy answers; and it’s downright entertaining (the mad scientist — or micro novelist? — IngenBio comes to mind).

But now that I’m gettiing my tweet on, MIT Tech Review reports that Identi.ca has written an open source microblogging code base called Laconica that anyone can use. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

Is this too much of a good thing? Will my peops migrate there, forcing me to follow if I want to keep up? Should I be running an instance of Laconica on my server, the way I do Wordpress, to foment my own microblogging network? These were my immediate questions but I realize the bigger meme is that everything on the Internet is mutable, no matter how original, no matter how well done. If you build it they may come, but you can count on someone else building it too. Maybe better. And they’ll try to eat your lunch. How’s an entrepreneur-developer-businessperson to cope?

Just as with bricks-and-morter businesses and tangible products — you know, the old fashioned kind you could touch or hold in your hands — the differentiator has to be design. One obvious example is Apple (a few stumbles notwithstanding) who have built design into the company’s DNA. Arguably Google, paragon of the lean interface, has too. Need some inspiration to get your design on? There are lots of places to turn for inspiration, but the thumb-worn copy of Tom Peter’s modest booklet Design (as modest as anything associated with Tom Peters can be, that is) that’s a fixture on my desk is one of my favorite places to start.

Danc, a “game designer, pixel artist, painter, tools designer, product manager and marketing guy… deep in the forests of the North West” blogs as Lost Garden. His writing and graphics are exceptionally clear, and I’m finding the site very helpful for communicating with non-gamer clients.

He wrote an excellent “waterfall vs. agile vs. stage gate” post on project management which has been on my Resource Page for some time, and he’s written an index to his best posts that I’m often referring to. So on this dog-hot summer day with nothing else to write about I decided it was worth another mention, and an expression of thanks to the north west forest gamer guy named Danc.

I’m getting my first look at Google Lively tonight, the 3D virtual world/avatar chat environment they began anonymously testing on incoming students at Arizona State University last summer. My first impression: Second Life doesn’t have anything to worry about — yet — but I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of the field from the Big G, would you?

From the home page we’re told that as long as we have Windows Vista or XP we can “download the local client software and create our own virtual space, chat and interact with friends in rooms we design; customize our avatar; and invite friends to chat and help decorate.”

Knowing some of my friends I’ll pass on the decorating help. The rest is pretty cool, though, including the Facebook widget (and reportedly soon one for MySpace) and the ability to stream your own video and music.

A Google search brings up lots of stories and almost as many blog posts in the past day or two. There’s a hands-on review in Ars Techica and more reports in Wired, on TeraNova, in the New York Daily News, nextNY Blog and of course a ration of Google Lively machinima on YouTube. [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/zjOMjhnT4nA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Many of these first reports and posts sound like they were written by greifers, and the lack of a Mac client is a disappointment, but like most things in early Beta — particularly those that are funded by Google’s billions — my bet is it’s going to get better over time. It’s also hugely validating for the new convergence of social networks, virtual worlds and user generated content we’ve been talking about and working on here lately, and that alone brings a certain satisfaction.

Last winter Stanford University hosted the Metaverse U Conference to “bring together industry leaders, artists, and academics to discuss a range of topics surrounding virtual worlds.” For some reason that seemed important at the time I couldn’t attend, but as the July 4th holiday nears I’ve taken time away from a social media-cum-virtual world-cum MMOG project for <> to catch up on what I missed at this and other conferences.

Today’s installment is a video of virtual world pioneers Raph Koster, Howard Rhinegold and Cory Ondrejka in a conversation about the emerging 3D web and the state of the metaverse.

I wish I’d been able to be there — and could be at GLS 4 next week in Madison for that matter — but videos of all the Metaverse U sessions can be found on Blip.tv. So get green, reduce your carbon footprint and tune in. See you in-world!

Designing software that could be used by people with differing abilities was a big part of building software for Pearson Education. Working there taught me a lot about Universal Design for Learning and making products accessible, so it’s refreshing to see this meme make its way into a game for the Wii — in this case a design that welcomes the visually impaired. [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/HmEF5LhhQtU" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
The game, called AudiOdyssey, simulates a deejay trying to build up a catchy tune and get people dancing. By swinging the remote-control device used by the Nintendo Wii, which senses motion, the player can set the rhythm and lay down one musical track after another, gradually building up a richer musical track. It was developed by MIT and Singaporean students to make it possible for visually impaired people to play the game on a level field with their sighted friends. Very cool. More info here..