I love playing Pocket Legends from Spacetime Studios on my iPad (my avatar is the courageous but clumsy Wilbear). The game has all the characteristics of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft: quests, group action, contests between players and player groups etc. It’s pretty good graphically… Continue reading
Just found this new screencast by Howard Rheingold about finding, refining, organizing and curating information. It’s really about the basics of the social media ecosystem, while augmented reality and immersive environments can be considered the high-end part of it. New for me (I’ll have to add it in my Prezi-presentation)… Continue reading
This seems a very nice project: artists organize an exhibition in the New York  MoMA, and a few days before the opening the museum is “not involved yet.” How is this possible? The answer seems simple but there is quite an intellectual puzzle behind it: augmented reality. Here is the… Continue reading
A few weeks ago I started exploring  liquidnews, an open project for collaborative media.  It reminded me of projects in Second Life, where developers at Linden Lab use the Scrum methodology for their viewer project (Snowstorm), publishing the documentation and getting comments from the community for the project. The Second Life… Continue reading
While the educators and non-profit people in Second Life are up in arms against the loss of their discount pricing, I’ve been reading an intriguing text about a world characterized by a consumption trap. Economists are familiar with the notion of a liquidity trap, a situation in which monetary policy… Continue reading
It was quite an evening, during which I tried to do some multitasking and so doing got some weird connections between ideas I’m working on. I was attending the Metanomics show in Second Life, where professor Robert Bloomfield provided an overview of how economies are not dissimilar to game mechanics,… Continue reading
The Second Life show Metanomics is about to start a new season, and is innovating once again. In fact, Metanomics would be a great research topic for communication and media students, as it demonstrates key principles of new media. Metanomics is owned and operated by Remedy Communications which also owns the… Continue reading
Tomorrow I have the opportunity to facilitate a seminar for journalism students. Preparing the seminar I was surprised how strongly virtual worlds and gaming influence me. No, I don’t believe people will routinely watch and read the news in a World of Warcraft setting, dressed up as Orcs or Trolls…. Continue reading
Identity is a fascinating subject, in some complicated ways it also determines the attraction and/or rejection people feel for virtual environments. The idea of being mediated by an avatar, who shares many characteristics of your real life persona, but who also is different, confronts people with the fact that their… Continue reading
Checking on what’s happening around the Liquid News project on the #liquidnews Twitter feed, it seems the project is advancing: Toni Hopponen from Sparkbox posted on his blog that Liquid News will likely use his service to publish articles, opinions etc. of experts involved in this project. Sparkbox is a… Continue reading