Like I told ya before

Inworld-outworld party at my retirement community

When: Sunday, Oct. 25.  12:30 to 3 pm California time. 
Open to the public. 

Where In Second Life inworld:    Brigadoon theater,  hovering above the line between Cookie and ThInkerer Quests, providing a 2-sim venue.  Like Brigadoon, this theater only emerges from the mists in response to theatrical need.  At other times it remains in two holodecks. 

Theater Credits:

• Jubjub  Forder, designer and builder
• Cheshyr Pontchartrain, Horizons Holodeck

Where in the outworld:   Franklin Park at Cityview,  Fort Worth, Texas
In the Activity Room.   Refreshments served by Cholly Gordon, Activity Director here.

Communities live on communication. You would think that Second Life, which lives as a collection of communities, would have uniformly good methods of communication.  You would think that until you tried to duplicate conventional means of business communications:

• Talk in person (local voice chat)
• Phone call (voice IM)
• Send a short message to one person.  (instant message)
• Send a private letter (send notecard)
• Meeting (local voice chat)
• Conference call (group voice IM or voice conference IM)
• Distribute a memo (send notice to group)
• Distribute a promotional flyer (send notice to group)
• Display an advertizement (put up a sign)
• Send a short message to multiple people (instant message to group or friends)

All of these equivalents work.  Maybe their performance is adequate for casual use and game playing.    Business people will find some serious inadequacies.  Here I will describe a few of the most serious inadequacies and suggest workarounds.  

As I promised last week in Musician’s Entry Path to Second Life, I interviewed Bones Writer about Trax and the services it offers.  I invited Bones to provide written answers (as I had done previously with AWM Mars), but he preferred to talk.  I took a video capture of the interview, but decided that transcription to text would require a lot of condensing and rewriting. So I am reporting his responses in narrative, rather than as direct quotes.   

To summarize the previous article, Trax is bringing together musical artists, venue managers, and relevant resources to provide an infrastructure for musician starting or working in Second Life

Now you are in.  What do you do next?  Here one place to start.  Trax.   “A place for venue owners, agents, musicians (old & new), and everyone else to learn, listen, book and buy Live Music in SL.”   

The place is run by Bones Writer, a composer and perfomer himself.  This week I will just give you an overview of what is offered at Trax (listening booths and bundled services).    Next week, I expect to have an interview with Bones himself. 

Crap Mariner is looking for suggestions on what the Linden Labs can do to foster the music business in SL.   This blog (and some following) will organize a few related things that I know about.  But not just about what the Lindens can do.  Also about what other people are already doing.   And how the Lindens can become irrelevant, without really trying.

Suggestions on SLCC Music Track project 

Promotional messages. 

These are vital to music and other entertainment businesses.  Many performers still rely on SL groups to send IMs and notices to fans.  I have discussed some of the problems of using SL groups for this purpose in previous articles.

Yes, they do have one.  Just started last week.   Here is the announcement in a blog by Amanda Linden.

Goal:

“To get new potential customers comfortable in Second Life and to clearly demonstrate that Second Life is not a game— but a powerful collaboration and learning tool.” 

Current topic:

Bringing enterprise or government client people into Second Life for the first time for a demo and tour of places that show potential of SL.

Amanda observes that most business people are used to browsing the web and so have point-and-click habits already.  But they don’t have move-around habits.  The orientation starts on the phone, with voice instruction that they already know how to handle.  I think that is a good plan.  Skype start is the method I have been recommending to instructors planning to bring their classes into Second Life.