Talib Kweli in Second Life: Missed Opportunity?
Reuben Steiger’s virtual world services company, Millions of Us, has launched a new listening station in the virtual world of Second Life for Brooklyn-born “underground” hip-hop artist Talib Kweli, located in the company’s Millions of Us sim. Similar in nature to the one Millions built for Regina Spektor back in May, Kweli’s is a big Bed-Stuy brownstone, built out by SL architect Lordfly Digeridoo.
But as SL resident Tao Takashi points out in a BlogHUD post made from within the world, he was unable to find a link at the site to purchase a Kweli CD from Amazon or another Web-based service. Is there a missed opportunity here? It will be interesting to see what the Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog) do for their project for Sony/BMG, which, according to The New York Times, “has rooms devoted to popular musicians like Justin Timberlake and DMX, allowing fans to mingle, listen to tunes or watch videos. Sony BMG is also toying with renting residences in the complex, as well as selling music downloads that people can listen to throughout the simulated world.”
On a side note, this is the first post I’ve made that links to a BlogHUD post, which are showing up more and more often on Tao’s World of SL aggregation site. And despite some initial skepticism, residents love the functionality that resident Koz Farina’s little app provides. One recent post: “Blogging from SL - this is sweet!” It’s the kind of thing that really makes you believe that Web-to-SL crossovers and/or mashups are the way forward.
Feeds
There is a CD case in each artists pavilion on the Sony/BMG Media sim. Underneath is a sign that says “Click the CD case to buy now.” When residents click on the CD they are directed to the Sony Music Store, where they have the option to buy the artist’s music. I’m checking out Audioslave right now :)
Gosh Mark, that’s a great idea — I wish we’d thought of it. Oh, wait a second, the album’s not available for sale yet. But when it is (the Kweli thing is a newfangled concept they’re calling “pre-release publicity”) we’ll be sure to try and figure out how to do something snazzy like that “hyperlinking” Satchmo is talking about.
Gosh Reuben, perhaps you should think about how you post.
Coming back with a pithy remark to Mark/Satchmo is a sign of your own insecurity. You don’t work for Linden Labs anymore, stop trading off that position. So many other agencies are doing so much more and interesting work.
If this is pre-release publicity, perhaps you should be collecting Avatar names, you know so you can capitalize on that “pre-release publicity”? I heard two people say they left your brownstone confused and bored.
A good opportunity missed, shame.
Ugh, what I can’t tell about a news story and its comments like this is whether I’m reading impartial coverage of the news of SL metaversal developer companies or reading what they said about media in the Balkans “the continuation of war by other means”.
The ESC-sponsored blog 3pointd.com — can we invent the term blogola? — takes a swipe at a project sponsored by its rival, MOU — from the perspective of an outsider, it looks like a deliberate swipe, and then naturally engendered Reuben’s swipe back.
Who cares if the hip-hop guy doesn’t have a link to his CD page — like…he’s not already selling gadzillion CDs the normal way, through radio and TV play, advertising in conventional old-media, etc.?
SL is just a hypey new thing — he could have rented the blimp flying over Manhattan with his album’s name, instead, he rented MOU and SL to reach a fraction of the eyeballs.
The real news here is:
o Lordfly built something for MOU, which shows that FIC networking is alive and well and thriving and what is has always been all about.
o MOU can’t seem to get the concept that putting its clients in bed with them literally on their own sim might not be the best thing — it invites the wars between the Metaversal Myrmidons we’re seeing
o The point was reiterated about Sony toying with entering the rentals market. Sigh. Forseti, I hope you get what I’ve been arguing about now for a year — you claimed the Starwoods and such would never invade the inworld rentals business. Of course they will. They can’t be stopped, but it is a sad and even ugly thing to see.
I don’t know who Bluesapphire is, or works for, is Myrmidon to, but I think it’s safe to say that all these very few companies that were feted and nurtured by the Lindens are doing pretty well. They do good work. Isn’t there enough work for all of them?
Um…aren’t there supposed to already be a million of us, if not yet millions?
It’s Sunday night and I wanted to weigh back in and eat some delicious, 2 day old crow.
On Friday night when I saw this, it had been a crushing week and I felt attacked and bit back. In retrospect, that was totally silly.
We’re at this weird point in the market when so many of the exciting things that we’ve all been working so hard to create are finally starting to materialize and the funny thing is, this also creates competition, rivalries and criticism. On Friday night, I missed the forest for the trees. For this thing to really fly (and continue to be a flight worth taking), we’re going to have to continue to be critical of eachother to improve our efforts, but also supportive, of both our colleagues and competitors. Anyway, long-winded way of saying — let’s keep lighting it up and striving to do stuff that makes SL better.
R