Second Life as Trend Meter
Blog-EFL, which covers e-learning tools for language teaching, flags an interesting phenomenon occurring in Second Life, in which the presence of a celebrity (in this case it’s podcaster Adam Curry) has galvanized a community of residents in the virtual world, as well as a small-scale land rush as fanbois people vie to set up shop near the home of the star. Not so different from the real world, perhaps, although such trends become apparent far more quickly in SL, which could lead to some interesting applications
“Every day there’s a gathering of podcasters and podcast listeners around this area, with spontaneous parties breaking out on rooftops in the area,” writes blogger Graham Stanley. “It’s also interesting to note how a scramble has begun to build in the area that is completely crazy — within a couple of days, what was a sparsely populated area has seen huge property development as podcasters and others hoping to make it rich living next to a famous neighbour, move in.”
Part of what makes this possible is the fluid nature of virtual worlds as compared to the real world around us. Pulling up stakes and moving house is a matter of 20 minutes time in Second Life, since it’s no problem to put everything you own in your inventory, teleport to your new home and then drag it all out again. Does this make SL real estate markets more volatile? To a certain extent, yes, but in the broad view they seem to move in step with longer-range trends. What it does mean, I’d wager, is that fads and other trends can be spotted more quickly in Second Life. But they may be of more transitory nature as well. Could a trend-watcher or a branding company such as Rivers Run Red take advantage of this fact? The view from the bandwagon indicates they may well be able to.
Feeds
If there’s one thing I see as an obstacle to a “level” world (both real and virtual), it’s cult of personality. I realize there’s not much that can be done, but when people complain about inequities, one only has to point to how we create our own unlevel systems. We don’t need governments and corporations to do that for us. We do it all by ourselves.
I doubt a level system is possible, in the real or virtual worlds. You’re absolutely right, csven, we create unlevel systems for ourselves, it seems to be part of our nature. I doubt there’s a technology that can guide us into some kind of completely level system. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.