Whatever...

Round 2: Second Life Vs Reality

By Tom Kirkham

Harassment, political violence, traumatised avatars - sounds like Second Life is finally starting to get interesting! 

Seriously, it's easy to scoff at Second Life users, to paint them as socially inept geeks who can't make a proper go of things in the real world.  However, the massive worldwide popularity that these type of online games have achieved makes you wonder if perhaps it's the ridiculers that have got it wrong. 

For starters, who's to say that Second Life is any more pointless than physical existence?  At least with Second Life you have a choice over whether or not to sign up in the first place.  And, right from the off, you're given far more options than in the real world.  Imagine how hard it would be to hold down a job in technology PR if I turned up each day wearing a giraffe's head.  On the other hand, this would not present a problem in the virtual world.

When you look at the evidence, there's a sense of inevitability about the rapid growth of these online worlds.  Our reliance on the internet has increased steadily for years - to do our jobs, to shop, to watch TV, to listen to music, to talk to our friends and family, to form relationships and to break them.  We use it every single day at home and at work, and apparently 5.7 million people in the UK now use the mobile internet too, even though it's rubbish!  We are clearly becoming an internet-dependent society, so doesn't living the whole of your life online simply represent the next logical step on from this?

Second Life user numbers continue to rise, and with more and more businesses setting up a virtual presence, fast forward several years and the opportunities to earn a decent living could match or even outnumber those in the real world.

Should this happen, many Second Life scoffers will doubtless be forced to join up, at which point they'll find themselves outcasts in a world where everyone apart from them owns an island, has a well-paid job and is firmly established within a vibrant social community.  The tables will have turned - these sad avatars won't have a clue what they're doing, they won't have any friends or any prospects, and they'll almost certainly end up having to pay for cybersex.

Many people, myself included, don't understand the appeal of Second Life, but it's here to stay, and rather than trashing it, it may be more prudent to sign-up now (in secret, if you really are that embarrassed) and buy yourself a plot of land - y'know, just in case...

Round 1 – Second Life Vs Reality

By Dominic Walsh

Linden Labs' Second Life seems to have gripped the media's attention in a way not seen since Apple decided a flat panel slider was the best way to control an mp3 player.  Yet in marked contrast to the tales of how computers are corrupting the nation's youth and stopping everyone from going outside, the coverage it's received has, for the most part, been surprisingly positive.  Whether this is deserved or not, the first impression seems to be that Linden Labs either has a superhuman PR team or has caught the media zeitgeist perfectly.

Naturally, for every pro-Second Life story, there is another, usually less high-profile, attempt to combat the assertion.  A prime concern seems to be with subscription numbers: while Linden Labs claims to have over six million users, looking at the actual figures suggests that the vast majority of these users haven't logged on even once for over two months.

Using the figure of how many residents actually spent in-game money in April - assuming this is a fair measure of those users that aren’t just one-time experimenters - we arrive at a population of just over 300,000. While a reasonable figure, it pales in comparison to other online worlds or games with more rigorous criteria for ‘citizenship’.  Really, can you imagine the need for a Swedish embassy in Coventry in the real world??

However, a high churn rate and ever-so-slightly-overestimated population needn't in itself debunk the claims that are being made for Second Life.  But what is more worrying are the continued attempts to sell Second Life as a platform for stuff it’s just not suited to.

While an excellent medium for art, music, performance, design and simple social networking, a lot of business applications that are being touted - such as conferencing, presentations and shopping - are still better suited to older, less media-friendly technologies such as 2-D websites, email and messaging, the telephone and even, heaven forefend, actual face-to-face communication. There is the risk that in the media rush, the actual benefits of Second Life will be drowned in hype.

And therein lies the main problem: what could be an interesting precursor to a "new" type of online environment is being stifled as it's co-opted for purposes it was never designed for.  There's also the problem that greater corporate involvement is pushing up the price of membership, specifically land ownership, to the degree that the original inhabitants who made Second Life newsworthy may be put off.  Crazy as it might sound, a virtual island now costs more per year than Central London council tax…

Remove those rose-tinted spectacles – switching ISPs isn’t pretty

By Lisa Talbott

Recently, we had a few issues with emails going astray and slowing internet connection speeds.  Being the person who deals with IT complaints at JK, I tried to explain that although it’s a pain, the service we were getting wasn’t that bad compared to what we’ve had in the past - and there simply isn’t an ISP out there that can guarantee a fast and reliable service. 

In fact, the service we’ve had over the past couple of years has probably been the best ever and switching would really be a hassle.

However, people never remember the old days, they only think about the here and now - maybe because they don’t want to believe things are still as problematic now as they were back then.

Still, we live in an age where the customer is meant to be, err, king, so surely something like switching an ISP should be an easy thing to do in 2007!?

In fact, given the huge problems people have encountered over the years switching ISPs, a change in the law was instigated by telecoms watchdog Ofcom in February of this year. Could it be true?  Could there really be a way of changing ISP and not having any ‘issues’? 

Well, let me tell you, we switched ISPs over a month ago - and as predicted, we’ve had missing emails, delayed emails, duplicate emails, and we even had a whole day without email, which is always nice, particularly for a PR agency.

To add insult to injury, when we phoned our new ISP to tell them we were having email issues, we were told, “there’s nothing wrong with our server” and we then had to go through the whole pantomime of convincing them, “oh yes there is”…  I mean come on, if there wasn’t a problem, I wouldn’t be wasting my time (or should I say my IT guy wouldn’t be wasting his time) phoning them - grrrrrrr !!!!

One thing’s for sure, when I hear the words “I think we should switch ISP”, a chill goes through my body.  Quite frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear those words and then have the confidence to say, “not a problem, we’ll switch ISPs and you won’t even notice!!”

At least it’s a good way to test one’s stress levels… Now, could someone please pass me some headache tablets - all this hitting my head against a brick wall is starting to take its toll…

Google Vs Viacom – ridiculous to sublime?

By Richard Scarlett

Back in March, when a frustrated Viacom decided to slap Google with a $1bn lawsuit for hosting copyright-protected video clips on YouTube, it probably didn’t realise that it’d end up taking on the entire social networking system – and challenging our basic human right to freedom of expression in the process.

But according to Google, it’s doing just that.

Taking a break from its quest for world domination, Google has kept an unusually low profile since news of the impending lawsuit broke.  However, it seems that during this conspicuous quiet period, the search giant has been conducting a search of its own.  Through a legal library.  The result – plead ignorance with a defence strategy so ridiculous that it might actually work.

In deciding to take advantage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act - which protects a company from liability for copyright infringement if it is just the medium by which others post unlawful content – Google is well and truly scraping the barrel and has set out to test the limits of this flimsy ‘safe harbour’ law.

I say flimsy because surely this law can never work in the case of user-generated websites such as YouTube etc.  Even if the host were to comply with the regulation and take down the offending material when instructed to, the problem is only solved until some other user decides to hit the ‘repost’ button.  That’s simply the nature of the social networking beast.

But no matter how it’s dressed up, YouTube is generating traffic from other people’s material –and is already looking at ways to monetise its profile.  Google has a tricky blame-shifting task on its hands to convince a court otherwise – and if successful, the lawsuit could set a major precedent and cause a key part of the social networking phenomenon to die a sudden and highly publicised death.

However, in the throes of desperation, Google has actually stumbled upon a good point.  YouTube aside, Viacom’s claims could seriously threaten the way that many people interact and exchange information, news, entertainment and pure opinion on a daily basis.  And if this case were in fact to set a precedent, how then would it be regulated?  Would the content of blogs such as this come under direct and constant scrutiny?

The question now becomes that of who is actually liable for what we post online – the offending user, or the host?  Although it may initially be seen as Google frantically clutching at straws to defend its $1.65bn impulse buy, this new twist may actually form a legitimate defence.

If it were anyone else I’d say that there was very little hope of success, but because of Google’s gritty egotism and self-importance (read arrogance), I think that they may just get away with it this time.

In fact, my money’s on a 2008 launch of Google Legal Services 2.0.

The Cute and the Crass

By Claire Ayles

It’s hard to argue with the success of smoothie maker, Innocent Drinks.  But those funky guys at ‘Fruit Towers’ haven’t just made it possible for us to get our five-a-day in a couple of swigs of blitzed-up fruit – they’ve also been prime movers in the use of an increasingly popular form of marketing: corporate cuteness.

For Innocent and its ‘little tasty drinks’, this branding really works.  It has a busy yet health-conscious and environmentally-friendly target market, which undeniably responds to this kind of eco-quirkiness.  Most importantly, Innocent has promoted these brand values from day one – way before it was a multi-million pound business.

But inevitably, we’re now seeing multinational conglomerates jumping on the cutesy ‘brandwagon’ in an attempt to become our bezzy mates while simultaneously selling us products and services to make us feel all warm & fuzzy – even if they’re not much cop.

Take Virgin Media.  Please.  It rebrands my Telewest service at great expense, drops some channels, enters into a very public and childish spat with Sky and – let’s not forget – puts up my prices.  Not to worry though, I may be losing money and programmes, but I have gained a rather famous friend – Richard Branson. 

I recently received a lovely letter from Sir Dick explaining why Sky was being a big nasty bully and Virgin wasn’t going to put up with it, so there.  It was written as if we were in fact godparents to each other’s kids.  I know he only wants me for my money, but I have to say I feel that my intelligence is severely insulted if he thinks that by writing me a chummy letter, he is going to make me forget about all the things that Virgin Media stands for from my (admittedly rather embittered) perspective.

So, while Innocent has got it right – because its branding actually reflects what the company is about – I simply can’t buy Virgin Media’s manufactured persona.  To me, the folks there just seem to be building a very expensive and elaborate façade, behind which they intend to hide Virgin Media’s middling-to-poor service.

Oh, and did I mention that its on demand service (Teleport) hardly ever works?  Not to worry though, at least I’m keeping Uma Thurman in lip-gloss.

(By the way, one word about those TV ads, Uma: sue)

CrackBerry users do cold turkey for RIM

By George Mensah

The BlackBerry is hailed for its revolutionary impact on wireless and mobile businesspeople.  However, last week, it was anything but revolutionary, as a network outage swept across North America. With many users clearly regarding their BlackBerry as an extension of their physical beings, this nightmarish scenario left a bitter after-taste in the mouths of many, who were left reeling for two days with ‘CrackBerry’ withdrawal symptoms.

OK, that might sound like a joke, but there are wider implications in terms of how seriously RIM are taking research and testing.  It’s true that all networks are subject to technical difficulties at one time or another - but one would think that RIM, an organisation that is estimated to have around 45% of the market for smart phones, wouldn’t be in a position to fall foul of something this big?

In a statement (eventually) released by RIM, it attributed the failure to “the introduction of a new, non-critical system routine” (‘non-critical’ is a nice irony).  But despite this seemingly plausible jargon, customers, journalists and analysts alike were left to wonder why this outage had been able to happen in the first place.

In my opinion, this is only going to foster ill will in the future, as RIM has still not released a full analysis of the shutdown, neither has it indicated it has the means to avoid it happening again.  Consumers have been given the impression that the BlackBerry is the king of the smart-phone world, with RIM promising on its website “platforms and solutions for seamless access to time-sensitive information” – but its crown will certainly be under threat if an incident like this happens again.

As a high-end phone user, I can assuredly say that consumers want added functionality from smart phones. After all, it’s the full-featured capabilities that are attractive. But what every user needs first and foremost is reliability.  This localised failure by RIM should be a lesson about the need to test systems fully before offering a service designed to cater for high-end users fixated with 24-hour communications – if it’s not heeded, RIM might be surprised to find just how quickly people are able to kick the BlackBerry habit. 

(Oh dear, looks like RIM’s knocking heads with Microsoft now...)