S-tech is the social sciences: Economics, Sociology:  Electronics don't buy things.  People buy things.  Start with 2 key concepts:

Community:  "The word is often used to refer to a group that is organized around common values and social cohesion within a shared geographical location."    Or, we might add, shared virtual location.

Network effect:  "In economics and business, a network effect (also called network externality) is the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product to other people.

The classic example is the telephone. The more people own telephones, the more valuable the telephone is to each owner."

And the more people on a given network, the harder it is for a competitor to survive.  Here, the phone system is not a great example anymore, because there are now legal requirements to support interconnection across networks. 

To put this in e-terms, voice over the internet has been technically feasible for years. But it was limited to geek-to-geek transmission.  You couldn’t call you grandmother on it.  Skype arranged to connect to land lines.  Now people are using Skype to replace their land lines.  Pure network effect.  The value of using Skype grew hugely with the increase in the size of the network.        

Now put this in Second Life terms:  People tell me about e-tech improvements in virtual reality.   They seem to think that these e-tech improvements will create something that can compete with Second Life.  But most of us are not using SL because we like e-tech. We are using it – wait let me put that in big letters so that King George can read it without his glasses

We are using Second Life because we value creative collaboration with our friends.

We have creative communities in Second Life—many of them.  And most of us will react to a competitor just as I will:  “I am not interested unless my friends go there too.”     In other words, the network effect strongly favors an entrenched monopoly over a competitor, even if the competitor has better e-tech.  The competitor needs to be vastly better or vastly cheaper to have any chance in that game. 

Second Life = f(community ^ social network) ^ virtual reality

Virtual Reality is the e-factor.  Needed in SL the way Skype needs the internet.  Infrastructure.  Could be replaced by some other infrastructure that offers the same services.   Other infrastructures are being developed. 

OnLive is a new infrastructure that could provide Second Life (or a reasonable facsimile) on a netbook.  Some features they mention:

• Connect to OnLive with your TV, PC or Mac and start a game
• Your game runs in a state-of-the-art OnLive game server center
• OnLive connects you to game servers through the Internet, instantly sending your controller actions upstream and the results back downstream at blinding fast speeds
• Enjoy ultra high-performance gameplay on your TV or entry-level PC or Mac
• Massive spectating
• Brag Clips
• “Coming Soon” Winter 2009

For more info, read the FAQ

For the YesButters

Yes, but will it really work?  Check it out for yourself. They are inviting signups for the beta now. 
Try it out and get back with your comments. 

And now for a word about those communities.

Theater In Second Life

Writing for Second Life Theatre
Fostering the Literary Arts -- Exhibit by Skylar Smythe

Saturday, June 27th  2-3 pm SLT

Featuring Second Life playwright Lailu Loon, who discusses her current play "I Gave At The Office," followed by a Question and Answer period for writers interested in producing theatre in Second Life.

On stage now  -- that very play opened this past Wednesday

I GAVE AT THE OFFICE

The amphitheater at Ivy Falls

An original farce written and directed by Lailu Loon
designed by Rekka Berchot and OhMy Shalala

June 27         4 pm SLT
June 30         7 pm SLT
July 1            7 pm SLT
CallieDel Boa, Marin Mielziner, Lauren Weyland, Moxy Barracuda, Thundergas Menges, Candi Zephaniah, Rowan Shamroy

If you are interested in theater, you really want to see the set for this one.  Theater in the midst.  I put in some pictures from the opening night.  But if you want to know what they mean, you will have to see the play.

Blended events

EvaMoon Ember and her real life band, the Lunatics, will blend worlds in a simultaneous physical and virtual world release concert for their new CD, “Moon Falling Down."   In this release concert, her band will be in both worlds.  The physical location will be in Redmond, Washington, the band’s home town.  The location in Second Life will be in Menorca.  

Eva Moon (EvaMoon Ember in SL) is known for her hot music and hilariously sexy, no-holds barred lyrics.  (Don't bring your grandmother to the show.)

Think about it 

Are these events about technology or about people?