Remember when All Truth could be put in 5 bullet points?  On a series of transparencies. Projected on an overhead projector.  And presented in a linear sequence with roots tracing back to the old fashioned slide projector.  What do you do with that neatly linear truth when you move into virtual reality?    

You  begin with the horseless carriage model of technical innovation.   You make a carriage with an internal combustion engine.  What do you do with it?  That is obvious.  It is a carriage without a horse.  So you will use it the same way you use a carriage with a horse.  Except you don’t have to bother with the horse. 

Same way with the bullet points and the neat line sequence of “slides”.    The technology has come to be called “PowerPoint.”    So you go into virtual reality and ask people, “How do we do PowerPoint here?” 

Is Viewer 2 really Second Life on training wheels? And, if so, is that bad?  Linden Labs brought out a new viewer at the end of last month.  It offers a valuable new feature, the prim browser:

The web comes into the virtual world

Viewer 2 also presents a major change to the viewer interface.  And that change has stirred up a firestorm of criticism from the experienced users.  The news media would probably say “firestorm of controversy,” but I have not heard much controversy.   The views of experienced users seem to range from “I won’t use it at all,” to “I don’t like it, but it might be good for newcomers.”

People already know where to find me:

Hobo Helpers HQ in Rockcliffe:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rockcliffe%20I/44/84/24

The strange code above is a slurl.  It will take you right to the place if you click on it and have a Second Life account.  

Notice that I am putting it right out in the text, rather than hiding it as a hyperlink under the name.  This form is more useful because: If you are already in Second Life and if you are using Viewer 2, you can copy-paste the slurl into the white (address) bar at the top of your viewer.  Then press return.to go to the slurl location.  Faster than clicking on the slurl from the web.

“On the web you are alone with millions of other people.  In Second Life, you are never alone unless you want to be.”   That’s a line I started using several years ago in presentations (by virtual visit).  

Shared media.  

Now you can be on the web and in Second Life with your friends.  At the same time. 

I have used a previous version of inworld browser for presentations in Second Life.  It was useful because I could prepare the visuals on my website, make changes easily, and make the entire content, including references, available before and after the presentation.

Bur the previous version offered various limitations.  I won’t list them because they are all old data now.  With Shared Media, you can bring your prim browser to a meeting, rez it any place you have rez rights, and manipulate it right in front of God and everybody.  Power Point on steroids.   You got the whole web in your hands!  The whole wide web in your hands! 

Big cities put lots of dollars and effort into attracting conventions and into maintaining credibility as conference destinations.  It is big business.  Second Life and some of its residents are looking for a piece of that action. But can Second Life host an online conference? 

Already has.  The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference just completed a successful 48 hour event. 

VWBPE Conference: Preparations in Progress

Virtual World, Real Education in Second Life

The conference had the usual things:

Viewer 2.0 arrives.  And with it, prims that can display live web pages.   Pages that show any video – not just Quicktime.  Flash.  Probably any video that will play on a browser   All of YouTube is now in our hands.  Web links that you can click on.  Web pages you can scroll through.

 Just like your browser.  But wait, there’s more!   On the web, there are millions around you but you are always alone.  In Second Life, you can call in your friends to look at that same page. 

• To watch that video you just made. 
• To look over your new web page design.
• To share an old move, spiced with new comments.
• To talk to an audience from web content that they share now and can access later.

Slaton Linden sent me some sample prims  and instructions on how to make a web prim on my own.  I found the instructions easy to follow and made my own web-prim.  It is at the Hobo Helpers Headquarters at Rockcliffe

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2010 conference.  That’s the official name.  Dates, 12-13 Mar. 2010. 

I reported on it before, when the call for papers was announced:
Virtual World, Real Education in Second Life

Now all the papers are in and the conference planning gets underway in earnest.  The Lindens are giving us 20 sims for the conference-- to be available about now.  So the builders can get busy on the design.  And the Program committee can get busy on reviewing the papers. 

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference is a community-based project, with meetings held entirely inworld (in a virtual reality).    It is by nature multilingual.  That means we have to accommodate newcomers with many different languages.  In the next section I describe our efforts in that direction.

Newcomer’s first question in SL: Why do I want to be here? That’s the same question as with any other software.  Do I really want to climb this learning hill?  (We geeks call it a learning curve to make it sound easy.)  The answer comes by exploring what you can do.  If you like what you find, you will probably want to climb that learning hill. 

The Hobo Helpers group is developing the HH Travel Service to make it easy for newcomers explore the parts of Second Life that appeal to them.     We want to help the newcomers will find what they seek.  

Who would be interested in HH Travel Service?

1.  Community Gateways, the Lindens and others who want to help newcomers find their Second Life destinies

2.  Destinations -- places that want to attract people, especially newcomers.  That would include

• Music venues
• Malls
• Role-playing estates
• Educational estates
• Business estates
• Museums
• Art galleries
• Others (TBD)

3.  People interested in rail and other transportation models in SL.