3pointD.com

From TechMeme and many other places comes the news that O’Reilly has trademarked the term “Web 2.0″ and has sent a cease-and-desist letter to IT@Cork, a small non-profit networking organization for IT professionals, which has been planning a Web 2.0 half-day conference for some months now. I have to admit, I find both parts of the story, the trademark and the letter, inexcusable. [UPDATE: It’s actually CMP that’s responsible for both legal actions. But as I point out in the comments below, O’Reilly has been acting as the shepherd of this meme, and should at least have told CMP to call off the dogs.] (more…)

As some 3pointD readers know, I also serve as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Second Life Herald, working in the guise of avatar Walker Spaight with Editor Emeritus Urizenus Sklar, who founded the Herald on the Alphaville server of The Sims Online back in 2003. Lately, I’ve found I can’t give the Herald the attention it deserves and still fulfill my other responsibilities. So I’ve just posted a help wanted ad for an underpaid, overworked Managing Editor. If you’re interested in getting involved in one of the best publications in virtual worlds, feel free to drop me a line.

The New York Times has a story about a new GPS system that learns and follows your favored routes, instead of giving you the weird pathways that things like Google Maps and most GPS systems tend to come up with. Plus: “With accessories, the unit can play Sirius or XM satellite radio, show which roads are jammed, connect to Bluetooth cellphones, operate an iPod and display images from a rearview camera.” It’s new to me, and to the Times, but the product (which retails for about $2,250) has been available for about six months now.

The Register reports that the new television network planned by Rupert Murdoch, MyNetworkTV, will leverage Murdoch’s ownership of MySpace to form a similar social network around its shows. Clips will be freely shareable among members of an upcoming MyNetworkTV.com site, and the network will of course be cross-promoted on MySpace. (I missed this story when it broke last week, but I haven’t seen or heard of it in any of the regular metaverse channels, so it seemed worthy of a post here.) Another feature of MyNet, as the Hollywood Reporter is calling the network, will be Casting Call, in which aspiring actors will be able to post their videos, and have them voted on as to who should get parts in MyNet shows. Could MyNet do for those people what MySpace has done for aspiring rockers? (Note that some people don’t think it’s done all that much.) And why not just wrap this into MySpace itself? Is it wise and/or useful to try to make a second such social network work?

Raph Koster yesterday extended some ideas from the Metaverse Grudge Match that began last week. Raph talks about the kinds of power users and administrators have over the virtual worlds they occupy and run, and the fact that both camps ultimately find themselves at a stand-off where their final recourse is mutually assured destruction: if governance sucks, users can leave, depriving the administrator of operating income; if the users are out of line, adminstrators can kick everyone out and shut down the world themselves. Until we can break this stalemate, Raph says, there’s no really good reason for administrators to share power. Can we break it, though? Perhaps. (more…)

Glitchy links to “a sweet X-Men promo” called X-Planet that layers a fan-based social network on top of a browser-based Google Earth-powered app (or Google Earthsat data, at least). Click around the map and you can find your fellow mutants, see their profiles and links, zoom in on their GPS locations, add them to your buddy list, join fan squads and assign yourself mutant powers. Around 4,500 members have joined so far.There doesn’t seem to be a way for members to communicate with each other, but it’s an interesting use of geospatial data and a cool way to represent a social network. Imagine all of MySpace plotted as dots in your Google Earth. (Sites like Platial and Community Walk are doing similar things with Google Maps, of course.)