http://www.cocomment.com/comments/ianbetteridge Copyright 2007 coComment.com 2009-11-25T19:07:28.664+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/images/logo4rss.gif http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=584178&comment_id=11106595 Ian Betteridge I hope that some way is found to continue and develop Radio. Radio was my first "real" blogging software, and there are features in it that I still miss. 2007-03-27T21:59:43.851+02:00 2007-03-27T21:59:43.851+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=454467&comment_id=8322435 Ian Betteridge "Anon" says: "Second Life. World of Warcraft. Everquest. Ultima Online. EBay. Vanguard. Star Wars Galaxies. One of these things is not like the others. One of these things does not belong. I remember the "does not belong" game from when I was a kid. Do you?" Nice try, but you're wrong. Unlike the rest, SL and eBay are both predicated on real-world money. Now repeat after me: "Just because I can be sarcastic doesn't make me bigger or smarter". 2007-02-07T21:20:52.964+01:00 2007-02-07T21:20:52.964+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=454467&comment_id=8294200 Ian Betteridge SA Member says: "It's just as idiotic to lament cyber vandalism in Second Life as it would be for a gold farmer in World of Warcraft to complain about someone undercutting their auctions and jeopardizing their major source of income." Replace "Second Life" with "eBay" in the above statement. Would you still agree with it? 2007-02-07T09:17:47.764+01:00 2007-02-07T09:17:47.764+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=454467&comment_id=8264298 Ian Betteridge Cael says: "Second Life is... not a financial opportunity d) not stable e) not efficient f) not capable of providing any service of benefit to people not available elsewhere in a better implemented form..." Of course, many of these arguments were also made about the web. A web forum is less "efficient" than a text-only one accessed via telnet (I still miss my Well terminal access). Efficiency, though, is not the goal of a social medium, and it's not what attracts people to either the web or SL. What both give is a greater depth of experience than the "more efficient" media that predate them. "So what is it? A platform for creativity, pomposity and sexual frustration and deviance? I can understand that one not being commonly quoted by Philip Rosedale." And thus, it reflects real non-virtual life, with which it share all those characteristics. And, come to think of it, it shares all those characteristics with the web too. So what exactly *is* your point, Cael? :) "The Goons however, recognise this extremely clearly - and the greater grow the pomposity and the hype, the more active one should expect them to become." But that's the point that you're missing: there is nothing pompous about the people that play SL, any more than there is anything pompous about someone using the web. It's a tool for socialising, working, and having fun. It's an extension of "real" life, not a replacement for it. Not referring to you personally here, Cael, but I do find it incredibly funny that there's a bunch of people sitting in front of their computers answering this thread and telling other people to stop using their computers and get outside. Particularly since the readership of this blog is hardly the most likely group to be going out and "getting a life". :) 2007-02-06T20:23:01.182+01:00 2007-02-06T20:23:01.182+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=454467&comment_id=8211595 Ian Betteridge Matt writes: "Linden's own stats (http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php) say that in December 2006, not even 500 Second Life users managed to gross $1000 in that month. Pretty poor considering they brag on their front page about having "3 million residents." Considering, though, that peak concurrency is only 30,000 that 500 looks a lot better. Plus don't forget that underneath that 500 there's a lot of people making in the $100-1000 USD range. Now that might not be a lot to you, but to some people it's a decent chunk of change. Like I say, I have personal experience of people for whom SL has replaced McJobs. For a virtual economy that's really only hit its stride in the past year, that's not bad going. "Magnitudes more is being made by selling gold in WoW" This is something of a red herring, given that selling gold in WoW is explicitly against the ToS. That, incidentally, is another reason why SL is a service in the same vane as the web, and not a game. Mark W says: "I'd pay good money to hear their leaders collective experience of how to organise a group of players that big into something cohesive." If there's one thing the above discussion has proved to me, it's that goons aren't cohesive. The comment by fofofo where he/she doubts that goons could be responsible for the griefing she has had shows that. The behaviour varies not just because of the "rules of the game" and what the game mechanics let them do, but according to the reaction to them and the individuals involved. 2007-02-05T19:32:10.670+01:00 2007-02-05T19:32:10.670+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=454467&comment_id=8205188 Ian Betteridge Cael: "But really, when the carnival moves away, so do the jobs that follow it. Neither SL nor the carnival are Real Life." Tell that to the people who work in the carnival - to them, of course it's real life. What you're claiming is that because SL looks a little like a game, it's of no more importance than a game. That's easily refuted, and I think I've done that. Griefing in WoW is an irritant, but at the end of the day all it robs someone of is the opportunity to gain completely artificial tokens. SL gives you the chance to make real money, and - if you're good enough - even make a living. That means that griefing within SL natually has more "real world" consequences than WoW. It's not often I agree with Prokofy, but on that point at least she's right. I think her language is ludicrous, and part of a nasty extension of the use of "terrorist" to mean "any criminal who does things that I disagree with", but that's by the by. 2007-02-05T17:01:11.527+01:00 2007-02-05T17:01:11.527+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=454467&comment_id=8199103 Ian Betteridge Cael says: "Your four-page comments are equally, just jerking off. It's not life. Nobody really cares. Grow up." But that's the problem, Cael, and the key difference between Second Life and (say) WoW. For some people, SL is a vital part of their life, because it provides a significant chunk of their income. At one end off the scale are the Anshe Chung's, but at the other end their are lots of ordinary people - students, home workers and others - who manage to make a decent chunk of money. Two students I know replaced their summer McJobs with making stuff in Second Life. Griefing and grid exploits affect these people's real lives to a far greater extent than they would in WoW or Eve. 2007-02-05T13:59:25.197+01:00 2007-02-05T13:59:25.197+01:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=85568&comment_id=1274953 Ian Betteridge Digg is "one of the most interesting cultural experiments occuring on the web right now"? I thought it was thousands of people bickering at each other and adding precisely zero insight or information to the stories it points at. But I guess YMMV. 2006-07-21T14:57:14.877+02:00 2006-07-21T14:57:14.877+02:00 http://www.cocomment.com/sidebar?object=people&context=explore&mode=detail&id=ianbetteridge&conv=87800&comment_id=1273467 Ian Betteridge Testing testing 2006-07-21T13:06:39.473+02:00 2006-07-21T13:06:39.473+02:00