3pointD.com

• City Life - Build a city using landmarks from around the world
  SimCity knock-off with in-game (?) building editor
  (tags: games simulation)

I’ve been thinking for a while now about starting up my own podcast, a short solo show devoted to the metaverse in all its glorious manifestations. I’m slightly skeptical, though, as to whether anyone would actually listen to such a beast. On the other hand, SecondCast (which no, I’m not quitting, sorry Cristiano) has a huge audience, as does this blog. So I thought I’d ask you: Would you listen to a 3pointD podcast? What would make that more likely? How long should it be? Any suggestions for regular features? Anything you don’t want to hear? Should I host it over at PodShow, which is what I’m thinking of doing? Or should I just forget it and keep my mouth shut?

Oh and also, if anyone can link me to some simple guides for recording podcasts (preferably on Mac, but PC could work too), I’d be grateful. I think I have a system going, but alternatives would be nice to know about.

I’ll be talking to you.

I didn’t think the link was going live until later today, but del.icio.us user mzn apparently found a way to drill down to it (which I just spotted on the excellent SL aggregator site, World of SL). What is it? It’s my story on MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach in the February issue of Wired magazine, on newsstands now. It covers VLB and a couple of other virtual worlds MTV has in the works, and notes that the highest levels of the company, including Viacom execs, are ready to throw more money at virtual worlds. This is the new kind of media convergence that’s only going to gather speed in coming years. With Les Moonves of CBS all excited about virtual worlds, as well as the other broadcast networks and people like Disney jumping into the pool, it seems only a matter of time before virtual world integrations are the norm. Of course, it could still all go south, but there aren’t many signs of that happening, while there are a lot of indications of two important things: that companies want to be in these spaces, and to offer them in entertaining ways; and that audiences enjoy them and will only flock to them in increasing numbers. Tune in, or — just keep watching your boring old flat TV, I guess.

For all the time people spend worrying about how to make their avatars look in virtual worlds, why not just get a real person to be your avatar, in the real world? That’s exactly what The Girlfriend Experience offers, though it’s hard to tell whether they’ve gotten many takers yet. The home page sums it up nicely: “The Girlfriend experience is a multiplayer game allowing you to enter into a real-life person and use this person as an avatar.” All this is done via Skype, which calls into question just how much fun you can have “playing” this person, but as a concept, it’s pretty interesting — at least, on some vague philosophical basis. Just what are the limits of avatarization? Or is this more of a performance, with the avatar/actor playing a role that’s written and transmitted in real time? The experience is being offered by Mediamatic, which bills itself as “a cultural institution in Amsterdam.” Unfortunately, the service is rarely available, and then only for short periods of time. We’d be interested to hear from anyone who’s actually had this strange out-of-body Girlfriend Experience. Log in and get your avatar to drop us a line. [Via VTOR.]

Only cricket fans will realize that I don’t mean 50 years here, I mean 50 episodes. That’s right, the 50th episode of SecondCast, Second Life’s favorite podcast, is now on the air. We’ll pass our one-year anniversary sometime in February, which means we’ve been keeping up a remarkably good schedule of almost a podcast a week. Once again, kudos to Johnny Ming for pulling it all together and keeping us in line. Tune in to Episode #50 for a long discussion with Aerdr1e Fabre of Second Life matchmaking service Tea and Sympathy (which can be found in the »Infamy region« of SL (in a skybox, natch), and hear what Cristiano’s looking for in a mate. And despite the fact that I’ve been having Skype problems lately (grrr), downloads are apparently higher than ever, currently running at something in the low five figures per episode. Wow. Nice to know that someone other than ourselves is enjoying what we’re up to. Special thanks to Matthew in Georgia for the extra cool illustration he sent along to celebrate Episode #50 — and for continuing to listen despite the fact that he hasn’t used Second Life in months! Interesting.

Second Life resident Cory Edo of the Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog) has an interesting entry on the blog chronicling the construction of Starwood Hotels‘ new aloft line of hotels (from which I’ve lifted the image above. It seems that feedback from visitors to the virtual hotel will be incorporated into the design of the real thing, due to open next year. When the project originally launched, Starwood wasn’t sure whether they’d incorporate such feedback. Nice to see them recognize the value of resident feedback, and to see that they’ve found a way to use a viritual world to improve their products in the real world. Just what revisions are being made is being kept under wraps for the moment, but they’ll be reflected in the virtual model first, so check back at the aloft blog or in-world. You can’t get into the aloft sim at the moment, but you can get a long-distance view from the neighboring »Argali region«.