Novus Ordo Seclorum

In a post over on New World Notes, Tateru analyzes the impact of SL’s crossing the magic 1-million registered users mark. (I like the header image, by the way…that would make a nice header for some stationery, Tat.)

One part of her observation caught my eye:

You and me, we had a culture. Maybe it was a good one, and maybe it wasn’t. But it’s gone now, for better or worse. By sheer numbers, these new women and men are Second Life. They outnumber us, and they will be the ones to make or break the world. They don’t know who Aimee Weber is, or Anshe Chung, or Starax Statosky or Prokofy Neva or Torley Linden. They’ll likely never even hear the word “FIC” during the rest of their second lives. The tax protests will probably not even register as a curiosity.

OK, I myself arrived too late for the tax protests…though I later read about them. But I do know about the rest of it…and have even met Torley in person, and Prokofy’s shown up at our club for a live show. See, I didn’t come to SL to impose my idea of a “culture” on it; I came with an open mind, looking to learn about the existing culture and maybe tell other people (back on Electric Minds) about it as I did. It saddens me that I may be one of the last people to do so, if what Tat says is correct. (I arrived in May…after the January boost she mentions, but before the gates were flung wide with open registration in June.) Still, cultural change is inevitable…and perhaps my own efforts at fitting into the world will leave it changed for the better.

I come from a site that’s had its own issues with its culture, and has resisted change in the past more often than not. Yet it’s culture is not too dissimilar from SL’s…SL’s strong emphasis on IP rights, for instance, closely parallels EMinds’ “You Own Your Own Words” philosophy. Some of my fondest wishes are that I figure out how to help bridge the gap between the two worlds…make it easy for the two to talk with one another, paving the way for more Resis to become EMinders and more EMinders to go in-world. This will, no doubt, change both cultures; one may only hope that the blending will leave each stronger than before.

More interesting is her assertion (in a comment) that the SL of 2006 is very similar in feel to the Web of, say, 1996. That’s the era that Electric Minds originated in, of course…so one wonders: What will the “EMinds” of SL be? And who will start it off? Or, even more interestingly, and possibly lucratively…who will be the SL equivalent of Yahoo!, or Amazon.com, or eBay, or Netscape? Or do we even need one?

I don’t have any answers as to what’s to come (and I’m pretty sure Tateru doesn’t either). Just questions. But–like metaphysics–what fascinating questions!

Livin’ La Vida Segunda

It’s almost impossible not to notice these days how many people are coming into Second Life that are outside the good ol’ U.S. of A. And I don’t just mean from the UK (like Keeva and Woodie, not to mention the esteemed Ms. Malaprop) or the Land Down Under (like Shockwave and Tateru), either.

Last night, a young lady from Argentina spent some quality time at the Gin Rummy, having an animated political discussion with Danielle, in Spanish. (Danielle confessed she was relying on Babelfish and her superior typing skills to understand the conversation.) The night before, Danielle and I were over at GuRL 6 when I overheard some young ladies talking in Finnish behind us. (I called Pamela over to the computer, since she’s been studying Finnish recently. She recognized a few of the words.) The night before that, the Frogg & Jaycatt show at the GR was well-attended by French-speakers. I’ve also been in a position to overhear speakers of Dutch and Turkish in the past, too.

I figure LL’s strategy to try and attract more people from outside the U.S. is working pretty well; maybe there was some small benefit to throwing open the floodgates on the infamous date of 6/6/06. (What? Heresy! ) And it’s certainly going to make SL a more interesting place with all these people around from a variety of backgrounds. I’m a teensy bit surprised that so many people from so many places have the computing horsepower and bandwidth to run the client and connect to the Grid in San Francisco, but not as surprised as I might have been a few years ago; this stuff wants to spread like wildfire.

Of course, some of us are going to have communication gaps to bridge. I was capable of understanding a little bit of what that young lady from Argentina was saying; when she asked me “no bailas Erbo?” I was able to respond, “Oh, si, si! Un momento…” and reach over to click on the dance machine on the wall. (I lived in Southern California up until 1999; you can’t live there and not pick up at least a smattering of Spanish.) When the conversation really got going, though, I was no longer able to follow it. I suppose I could have used Babelfish myself, or one of the many in-world objects that act as a front end to it (and, in fact, it’s now a built-in function of the incomparable Multi Gadget); while machine translation is still a bit shaky, it’s good enough to hold at least a rudimenary conversation. I’d do a little better if the conversation were in German; I had three years of that in high school, but I’m somewhat rusty. No wonder LL is no longer accepting applications for Mentors from North America at least from people that aren’t fluent in a foreign language…

In summary, to all our new friends from faraway lands, greetings, in whatever language you speak. And, if you don’t mind, come on over to Don’t Panic! Designs and check out our line of “World Tees” (designed by me)…each one has a country’s flag and the name of that country in their language. Show your colors with pride!

Communications Channels

So it appears Lethe Naumova is getting her wish…the SL Forums as we know them are going away.

Robin’s right, though; forums do take a lot of time and energy to keep running. I oughta know, and I don’t even have as big a problem as she does. And the Forums as they are today are full of a lot of drama and outright BS; at least this way, it won’t be LL’s problem to deal with anymore. Sites such as the Grand Unified Linden Blog and Second Life Insider should be capable of disseminating important news and information formerly handled by the Forums, and other Resident-run blogs and Web sites will take care of a large portion of the rest of it. (Which makes me proud to be on the forefront of the revolution in SL communications. I have devoted a lot of space here to writing about SL-related topics, and I will continue to do so.)

By making this transition, LL seems to be encouraging Residents to self-organize and establish their own communications channels. This is completely in line with chaordic theory, and LL’s best role in this will be as a facilitator, to not only encourage this, but to maintain a master directory of known sites, allowing people unfamiliar with SL to jump in and find what they’re looking for.

In the meantime…for all you Resis who will miss the “Sandbox” forum in particular, feel free to come to Electric Minds (once we’re back up, which should be sometime next week) and check out, in particular, the “Speaker’s Corner” conference, devoted to politics and current events. We’ve got some lively posters there, and additional viewpoints are always appreciated. (Does this mean that I haven’t actually given up hope after all? Well, yes and no…I’m not talking about trying to change EMinds or anything and never really have been, just looking for more EMinders…and if they happen to be Resis, so much the better…)

Immiscible

Electric Minds is down right now, or I might be posting some of these thoughts over there. Then again…I might not.

When I entered SL, I began documenting my experiences on EMinds, partly inspired by another poster’s thread about Neopets, but mainly as somewhat of a travelogue. I hoped to encourage other EMinders to take the plunge and come in-world. At the same time, I have also worked assiduously to bring good SL Resis to EMinds.

The latter direction has borne some fruit, especially among those Resis who were already bloggers. Mera Pixel was the first to jump in. Then Torley, bless her heart, posted once. Then Akela and Danielle also joined in. But, to date, no other EMinders have come in-world. (To be fair: Irene was in-world once long before I was, but she left.) It’s ironic that the second EMinder to enter SL will be its founder, Howard Rheingold, as part of an event early next month…

I also floated some thoughts I had about encouraging greater cooperation between the two worlds, because I saw many similarities between them in terms of community. To my chagrin, these meandering thoughs were met with, not just mere indifference, but outright hostility among core EMinders. Why? I wasn’t talking about making EMinds some sort of “official SL forum”…there already is a set of forums run by LL, as well as the sluniverse.com forums, and I couldn’t supplant either of those even if I wanted to. Besides, EMinds’ scope is broader than that. I just was thinking of ways to promote more crossovers between the two…it might benefit EMinds more than SL, by bringing it some new attention and helping grow the userbase.

Perhaps that was wrong of me to think. Perhaps EMinds and SL really don’t mix, like oil and water, or Mobile Infantry and Fleet.

In the meantime, there continues to be a placard on the inside wall of The Cutlass Club that is a link to Electric Minds. I don’t know if anyone clicks on it…but I want it there nonetheless.