I am still a newbie in the world of Second Life, but it hasn’t taken long for me to realize the almost overwhelming potential for the concept behind it. I’ve only recently moved on from collecting Linden (the virtual currency of SL) from the branches of the ever popular “Wolfhaven Money Tree.” Now that I’ve discovered the world of Zyngo I needn’t really bother with teleporting from tree to tree in hopes of finding one or two Linden that have escaped the view of throngs of my fellow tree pickers. Even better still, with a few of the projects I’m working on, Zyngo may soon become obsolete for me too as I will begin to earn my Linden by providing a service rather than playing a game. Don’t worry, if you’re lost right now I will explain.
Second Life is the creation of Linden Lab, which is itself the creation of an American businessman named Philip Rosedale. Within SL users can do virtually anything that they can do in the real world—including buying and selling real estate, holding a job, gambling, dancing, and dating—to name just a few of the more popular pursuits in this vast, virtual world. Incidentally, what you and I call the “Real World,” SL fanatics refer to as the “Old World.” Indeed, as tempting as it may be to call Second Life a game, the moniker really doesn’t fit the enormity of the SL metaverse.
Mr. Rosedale’s words on the subject of his aim with creating Second Life:
“I’m not building a game. I’m building a new continent.”
And he’s done just that, plus so much more. Sure, there are elements of gaming inherent in the SL metaverse and there are even spots where you can go specifically for gaming. But there is no overarching goal, no set mission parameters. The 40-60,000 people who are logged into SL at any given time aren’t logging in to kill boss monsters, collect points, or save the princess—though there may in fact be places within SL where those things can be done. Still, my father would probably consider the whole thing to be a giant pursuit in wasting leisure time, something he would rather accomplish by swinging a stick at a little white ball on the golf course.
Somewhat ironically however, it was talking with him a few nights ago about global economies and the transmogrification of production/distribution in our modern world that really got me to thinking about the astounding implications of SL. My father, a retired elementary school principal here in Western Colorado, is currently reading a book called The Post-American World. This was the topic that we were discussing when I asked him what he felt, being the die hard conservative and poster boy for the capitalist free market that he so proudly is, about globalization. He said that he thought it was a good thing, and I concurred.
I used this as entrée to the topic of SL. It took some time to convince the grade school educator that I wasn’t recruiting him for an online game. In fact, I wasn’t recruiting him at all. What I really wanted to do was to show him that there was already a successful model for an economy without borders where absolutely anybody with a good idea could design, produce, and put up for sale quite literally anything. Indeed, one might consider SL to be the personification of a perfectly equal market, where there are no such things as corporate giants, nor are there any little guys—not really anyway. Equal footing is what SL does best, and it delivers with all the might of a juggernaut.
I’ve written before about a technological coalescence that I like to refer to as the “One Machine.” The OM is akin to the ever popular replicator of Star Trek origin. While I came up with the idea of the OM after reading articles in Popular Science and Scientific American about related research being conducted at universities around the world, I do not claim to be the first to have done so. In fact, if anybody deserves credit I would think it’s probably Gene Roddenberry. It doesn’t really matter much who creates it though, the very idea of an OM is to obliterate borders and antiquate the notion of a supply and demand economy. No one person can lay claim to ownership of everything—a major prerequisite for anyone interested in ownership of the OM.
In home, on demand manufacturing is essentially what we’re talking about here. Never again would you have to rely on corporate product lines for procuring what you need and want. Instead, the sky would be the limit. Say you come up with a way to improve a product. You would be able to design, produce, test, and manufacture the item right there your own living room, or office, or garage, etc. If it worked, you could turn around and sell the blueprints to the item via the Internet (if it’s still called that in the future) so that literally everyone in the world would have the option of purchasing and using it.
Economy would move away from product driven business all together, whittling the transference of “wealth” (a concept that would also be revamped by the OM) down to two primary areas: 1) natural resources to include the entire periodic table; 2) blueprints and/or recipes for products that will literally be manufactured right there in the end user’s home (or local neighborhood for larger items such as vehicles). It’s an astounding concept, to be sure. It’s also one that I’ve been kicking around in my head for some time now. But clearly, I’ve not been alone.
Enter Second Life, and the creative mind. Remember what I said above about there being no overarching goal or mission set for SL? Well, this is perhaps it’s most important feature. Think of SL as the Jeet Kune Do of virtual economy—actually, don’t stop there. Think of it as the JKD of all economies; the singularity for economy in general. SL takes my idea of the One Machine, an item that gives equal footing to anybody with the time to think of something new, and makes it absolutely real in the here and now. No waiting for technology to catch up with the front lines of conceptual idealism is necessary. Just as JKD was to martial arts, the SL economy is the formless form of business. (Have I lost you yet with the esoteric gibberish? No? Good, read on.)
SL can take on whatever shape you wish. If you want a place to log in and sit down with friends for a graphically enhanced phone call (because SL uses Skype to allow for open, verbal communication—even with folks who don’t have SL)—Second Life can become that for you. Want a place to tinker with architecture while avoiding the inherently massive costs of building? SL can be that too. Sure, SL can be a place to go for recreational gaming pursuits, but to sum the metaverse up in such a narrow sense is something along the lines of a travesty.
It took some time to convince my father that there was more to SL than a game. I tried to briefly describe my One Machine to him, being that he too is an avid Star Trek fan, but all I got for my effort was the look of a disbeliever and the all too dismissive, ” Sure. Okay.” Spotting his doubt with the ease of locating the letter “A” in the alphabet, I moved on to compare the OM with SL. The underlying concepts are precisely the same. We are moving, as a society, toward instant, on-demand fulfillment of quite literally every need and/or want that we might have at any given moment. Instant fulfillment of all needs is on the horizon.
Though there is no One Machine or other tangible mechanism involved, within Second Life you can design, “manufacture,” and make for sale absolutely anything that your mind is capable of dreaming up. This is no exaggeration either. Have an idea for an improved banana hanger? Create it! Then, sell it to people. Think you can design a better bike than the guys from Orange County Choppers? Then do it, and may it make you rich! But here is the sticking point for most folks, including my father. How can a “game” make you rich in real life?
Within SL the currency of affluence is the Linden Dollar. These can be purchased for real money on the Linden Exchange, at a rate of roughly L$230/$1. Just as you can deposit Linden into your SL account using the exchange, so too can you withdraw funds—straight to your PayPal account. There are people who make good money doing this. In fact, Second Life is credited with creating the first real world millionaire (Anshe Chung) to earn their entire fortune within the confines of a virtual world. But she’s not alone.
According to the SL website there are tens of thousands of people who generate a positive cash flow entirely inside of the Second Life metaverse. Some people do this by dabbling in virtual real estate, others by providing services, and still more by way of designing and selling virtual products. Linden Labs offers the following as a partial list of means by which SL users create positive revenue streams:
party and wedding planner
pet manufacturer
tattooist
nightclub owner
automotive manufacturer
fashion designer
aerospace engineer
custom avatar designer
jewelry maker
architect
XML coder
freelance scripter
game developer
fine artist
machinima set designer
tour guide
dancer
musician
custom animation creator
theme park developer
real estate speculator
vacation resort owner
advertiser
bodyguard
magazine
publisher
private detective
writer
gamer
landscaper
publicist
special effects designer
gunsmith
hug maker
And the list goes on. Indeed, the SL economy is the formless form—a free market on speed. In my first week on SL I bought up a handful of tiny pieces of land in hopes of following in Anshe’s footsteps. In that same week I converted two pieces of land that I bought for L$99 each into a single piece of land (because fighting advertisers who use these small plots for billboards is all the rage in SL) and then resold it for L$555. That’s a whopping profit margin of 280%! Granted I’ve not been able to replicate such a deal since, but it was a very promising start for me.
From there I moved on to the services industry. Because Second Life users are so vehemently opposed to “ad farms”—blocks of land that are divvied up into the smallest allowable plot size (16m square) and then plastered with unsightly billboards—I decided that there had to be an environmentally friendlier way to go about offering ad space. Before long I had created my very first product and begun to take steps towards offering said product up as a rental, providing advertisers with a service that would have no lasting impact on the SL landscape while simultaneously improving the market saturation that clients get for their advertising dollar (Linden). Watch the video below to see what I mean.
I won’t likely be getting rich any time soon, but then that’s not the point. I suppose that the possibility exists for my advertising drone blimps to become all the rage and thus kick start my Linden influx. But the odds are more in favor of an outcome that will have me tweaking my ideas and rebuilding my creations until I find a product or service that will truly fill a need. Just as is true in the free market environment of America in the “real world,” Second Life business is all about who can come up with the better mouse trap.
On a related note, there are some “real world” businesses with a presence in the SL metaverse. Some of my favorites are the bookstores, like Bantam Dell, mostly because I’m always looking for new ways to market my own book. With that in mind I’ve recently built a Greek-ish sort of building on a small piece of land that I own, and have decorated it in a very Spartan theme (in that it sports minimal amenities). There are three Persian rugs on the polished marble floor, chairs to relax on, and a table upon which sits a copy of my book. Actually, the book hovers above the table and rotates slowly to allow for a better view from all directions. I’ve even gone and added a Zyngo Wyld! machine. Come for the book, stay for the Zyngo!
Click to enlarge.
Visitors can buy a copy of the book for L$5, though it isn’t a complete edition—yet. Presently the book contains two note cards. On the first is a link to a website where they can download the first chapter for free. On the second is a link to my publisher’s website where they can buy a complete copy of their own. I do have an e-book edition for Five Years in Hawaii, which I could include in the sale of the digital edition in SL, but I’d have to raise the in-world price of the book to over L$1200 in order to avoid a pricing conflict with my publisher. It’s something to consider, for sure.
Anyway, the point that I’m getting at is that the formless form of the SL economy is a wonderfully promising model for the sort of economy that I believe this world is headed for. I know that the technology exists to make the OM real, though some of it is in the embryonic stages of life. The problem that we face out here in the “Real World” however, is that the transition from capitalist free market economy to in home, on demand manufacturing would require one major, missing link: a way for the implementation of the OM to make somebody rich. Sadly, the machine that would bring instant gratification to even the greediest of people, will likely be blocked by the greed of those who see it as an end to their era. For now, we must save such idealism for the Second Life metaverse.
The men of Division 012 were incredibly cold and even more tired as they stood in formation outside of Galley 928, the Navy’s largest dining facility anywhere. They were in week four of their training and still weren’t used to the icy cold wind that seemed never to cease flowing in their direction from the Great Lakes, a present for the men from Mother Nature. But despite the harsh climate they would be going nowhere anytime soon.
One man was missing from formation and Chief Price was beyond livid. The head RDC of Division 012 marched up and down the ranks of his recruit division, counting heads and trying very hard to determine which man was missing from formation. According to the count, he was down one man but for the life of him he couldn’t put his finger on the recruit’s name.
“Why am I counting you bugs at minus one? Which one of your sorry ass shipmates is missing from my formation?” The recruits were silent. “You mean to tell me that out of the entire lot of you, not one man can come forward and tell me who is missing?” Heads swiveled amongst the men as they too tried to determine who was missing, and yet not a single one spoke up. This infuriated BMC Price. “Half right, face! Drop!”
The men let out a pained sigh for they knew very well what that order meant. They were about to be cycled. This typically meant that they would be cycled through a series of pushups, sit-ups, and eight-count body builders until the lesson being taught by the RDC who gave the order to drop had been given ample time to “sink in.” On that morning Chief Price intended to cycle his recruits either until they were all doing pushups in pools of their own vomit, or until his missing man was found.
“Michaels! Front and center.”
“Aye, aye, Chief!” Hunter rose back up to stand at attention while the rest of the division waited with arms fully extended, bearing most of their body weight. This was known around RTC as waiting in the “ready position.” Chief Price was shaking his head in disgust.
“Michaels. You’re being given the opportunity to rescue a shipmate who is in bad, bad trouble. As far as we know, he has fallen overboard. While I take muster you are to go back into the galley and attempt to locate our missing man.” The RDC pulled a list of names from out of a folder that he always carried with him, and then slowly and deliberately began to slide a ballpoint pen from out of his breast pocket. “What in the fuck are you waiting for, recruit? I’m halfway finished here already. If I can identify our missing man before you locate him I’m going to nominate the entire division to attend Extra Military Instruction tonight. How would you feel about that, Seaman Recruit Michaels?”
But before BMC Price could finish his sentence Hunter had already executed a perfect about face and marched straight back into the galley. The harsh nature of Chief Price’s behavior towards his men was offset, if only momentarily, by an honest smile. He was beginning to like Seaman Recruit Michaels. Of course this was a condition that rarely lasted very long, and he knew it. Chief Price turned back to his men, who were still waiting in the ready position, and began to take muster.
Hunter all but ran back into the galley. For the first time since his arrival at RTC he was thankful that his division’s berthing happened to be the farthest from the galley of them all. This meant that most of the rest of the galley’s patrons, all recruits like himself, had already finished their meals, formed up outside, and marched off to begin their daily instruction. Only three divisions remained, and most of their personnel were sitting on the far end of the eatery.
Michaels spotted his missing man almost immediately, slumped over his tray and sound asleep. It was the cowboy who had caused the division some considerable pain just two weeks prior by answering a question for which the RDC wanted no response. Hunter wondered for a moment if this kid from Montana even knew what a rhetorical question was. Snapping back to the present moment, Michaels realized that he was running out of time. He grabbed the cowboy by the shoulder and gave him a stiff shake.
“What the hell?” The cowboy was clearly shocked to find himself face down in his waffle, and all by himself to boot.
“Wake the hell up! The rest of the division is waiting outside. Chief Price is pissed. He’s talking about sending the entire division to EMI tonight, and all because you’re not in formation.”
“What?” The kid was still a bit groggy, not entirely awake.
“Damn it all! Stand up and lets go!” Hunter was growing impatient.
“What about my tray?”
“Forget that fucking tray or you’ll find yourself on the division shit list. Let’s go!” Hunter tugged on the man’s shoulder to impart upon him a sense of urgency, but the cowboy tugged back, clearly unhappy about being touched by another recruit.
“Get your fucking hands off of me, buddy. I don’t like to be touched.”
“Get off your ass and let’s move, buddy. We, meaning the rest of the division and I, don’t like being fucked over for your stupidity. You’re about to put the rest of us into some serious shit, and I’m getting the impression that you don’t really give a flying fuck. Is that about right?”
“Fuck you.” The cowboy shoved Michaels back, not quite to the ground, but with enough force to get the point across. Here was a young man who was used to telling folks the way things were. He wasn’t about to let Hunter, who was nothing more than some city slicker punk as far as he was concerned, play the role of RDC with him. They were both recruits after all.
“Listen up, ass hole. Clearly you think you’re something special. But if you think getting physical with me is a good way to display your cup size, you better think again.” Hunter grabbed the cowboy by the back of his shirt, a hand for each shoulder. With teeth clenched tight, he yanked that cowboy straight up out of his chair.
The cowboy from Montana was clearly not happy about this. He swung around with a haymaker that would have caused any trained fighter to burst into laughter. Hunter easily ducked under it, using the momentum and body weight of his assailant to launch him into the table behind them, scattering the chairs. This action caused a bit of noise, as one might expect, and suddenly every eye in the building was on Hunter and the cowboy. They were circling each other, preparing to engage in serious combat.
“You fucked up, city boy.” With that the kid from Montana grabbed a chair and reeled back as if he intended to knock Hunter’s head off at the waist. But for some reason he couldn’t swing the chair forward.
“What the fuck were you planning to do with this chair, recruit?” BMC Price had a firm grip on the chair. Seeing this caused the cowboy to let go and snap to attention. Hunter was already there. “Looks like you two have some EMI in you futures.”
Yay! My memoir just hit Amazon in both paperback and hardcover editions! If you look closely you’ll see that I am offering a special deal through my own Amazon Seller account. If you order from me through Amazon you’ll get an autographed card or bookmark, shipped directly from me to you! The book will ship from my publisher (Lulu).
Just look over to the right of this post, second column from the right. Click on “Best Price” to go straight to the page that offers the above mentioned autograph package. It’s that simple!
How embarrassing! I didn’t expect anybody to follow the link to my SL (slang for SecondLife) shop but several of you did! Thanks for doing that. If you’ve been there in the last day or two, you may have been surprised to find a very different place than the one displayed in the photo of my last post. This has been for a couple of reasons.
First, after digging through the vast information available at the SL Wiki, I’ve found a new interest in building objects for resale and/or pursuit of leisure. This of course means that I quickly discovered that I would also need to spend time learning SLS, the programming code used by SL to imbue objects with “life.” After giving this some thought I quickly realized that being a capable builder in SL would allow me to do some things that I’ve been wanting to do in real life for ages, without spending very much money at all. I decided that I would need a private place to work in order to develop the physical constructs and accompanying scripts that will be necessary to make my real world dreams a virtual reality.
After removing all of the products in my “store” with the exception of my book’s promotion package, I boarded up the windows and got to work. It would require several trips to places in SL such as Bromley College and Jopsy Pendragon’s Particle Laboratory to get it right, but before long I had completed my very first creation—a Mad Squid blimp.
It looks fairly innocuous, but it is actually capable of doing quite a bit. It will be capable of even more in its next generation. Right now I only feel comfortable with talking about the advertising possibilities for this device. Built into the MS Blimp is a holographic projector that displays an image up to 4 meters square, which hovers just a couple of meters above the blimp itself. At present, the blimp is stationary, but because the holographic projection is an SL particle, it is perfectly viewable from 360 degrees even though it’s really just a 2-D image.
In the 2nd generation of this blimp, I intend to have included a script that gives the blimp autonomous mobility. Now, because property owners often set their land as off limits to the average resident, and because business don’t want you dropping your creations on their land, permission is needed to enter a lot of places. This is a fact that would severely restrict the mobility of my blimps. But there are “roads” that run through SL which are often lined by tiny little “ad farm” plots which tend to quickly fill up with billboards—something that can very quickly anger nearby residents.
My very first piece of land in SL was (and is) the location of the billboard listed above. It was a picture of my book cover and a list of places to go to find it. Not very daring in terms of SL functionality, but it was my first piece of land. Now that I’ve wandered around “in world” a bit more, I’ve come to see that such billboards and “ad farms” are actively opposed. This one will likely come down soon.
The nice thing about the blimp, however, is that I will hopefully be able to program a course into it’s scripting that will enable it to move up and down the various roads of SL while displaying advertising that clients will be able to sign up for at kiosks on all of my land. They will pay weekly subscriptions to have my blimps displaying their ads while moving quietly up and down the road networks. This way the blimps stay off of private property and never clutter the skyline because they won’t be stationary.
As I’ve mentioned, I have plans for additional capabilities with this device, and other devices, but to get a start in SL and really get a foothold I figured i would need a simple, automated means by which to provide a service that SL residents will find useful and less intrusive to their in-world experience.
Okay, call me a nerd. I’ve given SecondLife a second chance (as prior to upgrading my video card a few months ago I was unable to run the software.) I must say, I’m quite impressed.
I’ve opened up a little shop in the Hewes District of SL which feels very much to me like a Sharper Image sort of store, only much smaller. I have a parrot greeter, a giant fish tank that has a built in, flip down TV monitor (on which will be playing a trailer for my book very soon), an ATM, four South Park novelty avatars for sale, and one final, special little product.
Click to enlarge.
Available for sale in my store, JMK’s Oddities and Gouge, is a special promotional pack for my book Five Years in Hawaii! That’s right, for just a few Lindens (the fake money used in SL) you can buy a virtual copy of my book that includes access to a free chapter from the book and gives a link for more information about the book. I’m particularly proud of this accomplishment. You can see my book hovering in the back of my store as circled in red in the image above.
Cool, huh!? I plan to do much more when I get my hands on some of my own land. I hope to see you on SL soon! I resisted for a long time but now I think it has quite a lot of potential.
