1. I guess you weren't thinking about SL 2.0 part though.... ;)

Posted at 9:05PM on Oct 10th 2007 by Nacon

2. Aimee,

Please go to www.web3d.org and www.kronos.org and its completely clear that over a decades work has been done to already provide TWO open starndards,, one ISO X3D and the other "Sony" Colloda, that provide FREE access to do this for not just avatars BUT full PERSONAL or PRIVATE virtual worlds...

BUT IBM and LL want you to believe in the "future starts now" and will CHARGE you and culture dearly for that myth.:)

a decade ago dozens of companies and private individuals formed organizations dedicated to OPEN FREE standards for all things 3d and digital. The blog and recently "meta" crowd partying around the SL software and the have been ignorant to the past of web3d standards and the efforts of over a decade. Some continue to maintain that ignorance due to a lack of intellect, others surpress it for what seems clearly self interest only.

i know your new to virtual worlds as a designes media, and are trying to be a leading "designer" in the medium and growing community, so please do some research beyond your blogging outward efforts so that your elevated "position" to those only knowing of/or using LL, can guide others based on more than "inspirational" press releases.:)

History as "long" ago as 2003.. shows that such "universal 3d" ( google INTEL- ADOBE 3d) altruism from private companies answering to stockholders first, never ends with "truly" open free standards that provide for mass medium for culture and others businesses to flourish FREELY within.

the open standards of LL and IBM are not most likely going to be anything like the open standards of the WWW.
By now it should be clear that the Fuedalism of Second Life is a system that is highly unlikely to really make open standards that they give up all control too...


Its good to dream about what the future holds, but to uncritically accept anothers future, and worse to ignore the past , can never be a winning recipe to create any world, virtual or not, that any person should have to experience.:)

You took the time to TM your IP. Youre profession is based on true ownership of ones "creations".
Usage of any IBM or LL product for any of your or your clients IP has certainly been shown publically by now to be "at best" a gamble based on "faith" and certainly on no "mutually" agreed upon "standards".:)


best
c3

Posted at 10:46PM on Oct 10th 2007 by larry r

3. Ah, excellent analysis, Aimee, and what an optimism you have :)

I'm sure we're many many years away from such an easy metaverse with "gateways" across completely incompatible systems. Just because it's *possible* — manually — to port content from one platform to another, it's not so simple to envision an *automatic* mechanism, *unless* — and this is the big issue here! — *all* those platforms adopt an Open Metaverse Protocol, to be launched by LL and stepfathered by IBM.

The major issue here, as with all similar things in the past, is mostly how much will the non-Open Metaverse Protocol platforms benefit from changing all their code to adapt the new, open, public protocol. Many of those — IMVU, Kaneva, There come to mind — have a solid business model rooted on the notion that the company behind the platform controls the content, and make money because of controlled content.

Second Life, and to an extent Multiverse, are different because they rely on a business model based on content hosting, and where anyone can upload content without explicit permission of the company running the platform. So I can believe that these two might converge (as could, for instance, OpenCroquet). The others would actually be at the mercy of content creator who would simply build on either of the "open content" platforms and simply "cross over" through a gateway — thus ruining their business model in a few days :) Keeping away from the Open Metaverse Protocol will be for them the best option to guarantee their business.

Or perhaps not? Perhaps they'll all be forced to convert to a content hosting business model instead, or disappear from the face of the Metaverse? Only time will tell, of course.

In any case, I can only see the newly announced partnership with IBM as something *absolutely wonderful*. It gives LL a lot of extra credibility to explore the future. It gives them technological know-how — and apparently, even SL-specific new hardware to run the grid faster! It'll also attract smaller, dynamic, enthusiastic players who have always had the idea to "build their own metaverse" but simply had no hope to start their own ideas with just a handful of new users; now (or soon) they can make "their" platform fully SL-compatible and enter this new market without fear of being seen as a "competitor" — but just another player in the "same" metaverse.

And for us all, it means that SL will stay around for many and many years to come :)

What nice news on the week that LL gets 10,000,000 registered accounts on their database ;)

Posted at 10:51PM on Oct 10th 2007 by Gwyneth Llewelyn

4. c3, VRML?... Well, how many people ever used it on a global scale?... Anybody can create an open source project, publish the protocol openly, gather support, get a dozen of thousand supporters world-wide, and claim "we were the first". I have nothing against VRML and its successor X3D, but... as said, 10 million people at least tried out Second Life at some point (granted, most left after a few hours/days/weeks/months/years), and ten thousand companies are using it *today*.

A successfully launched protocol also requires promotion and backup from a large userbase. Think how many people used Gopher in 1993, and how many are using the World-Wide Web today. Sure, Gopher was fun and had dozens of thousands of users and developers. But the Web attracted 2 billion users and hundreds of millions of companies, a few of which were very early supporters of the "new" protocol and fully committed to it, like, well, IBM and Microsoft...

Any open protocol to become successfull requires *strong backing*. So, sure, LL & IBM can pat themselves on their collective backs for being able to show something that *actually works* and is *really being used in real life* — and not just an academic project stashed up somewhere on a corner of a research lab.

You could also add to your list of open source and open protocol projects things like OpenCroquet, who has been along for a few years, and definitely has a reasonably large academic group supporting and sponsoring it. Still, it's used for nice experiments of a few hundreds of users on a high-speed LAN. All very exciting, I'm sure, but hardly worth a footnote on the history of the metaverse.

Of *course* I'm biased and I'm fully aware of it. Still, I let the numbers speak for themselves :) On the other hand, it's also clear to me that looking at past and present projects, learn from them, understand what they have done well (and where they failed) will be an important lesson that should not be overlooked. First and foremost, people's knowledge from working on all those platforms for "over a decade" should be incorporated into this joint effort by LL and IBM — not "discarded", since that would be a waste of time.

Once CSI:NY's episode featuring Second Life hits the TV screen of perhaps half a billion viewers world-wide, I'm pretty sure that "VRML" will never cross people's minds any more...

Posted at 11:14PM on Oct 10th 2007 by Gwyneth Llewelyn

5. sadly,:)

not only biased, but uneducated to the facts and the real numbers of users and money spent on web3d from 1995-9. And just to be clear, VRML may very well be the most widely used 3d format in the world today. It hasnt been adopted as a display format in great number, but as the standard for 3d data interchange it appears to have larger global usage than any "privately owned" format.

And since you seemed to forgot;), we assisted in the production of 3d games online at budgets as large as any ESC production current SL project- for film/tv studios for large films such as LOST IN SPACE MOVIE, XENA tv, , the SPAWN MOVIE, and many others over a decade ago. These vrml based 3d games were played by more on the open www using open standards vrml than the total number of 1.4 million that SL suggests it has as users today. These promotional 3d games reached millions. As did the vrml-web3d based promotions/games of Pepsi, and many others at that time.

Protozoa created DILBERT 3D and many more 3d vrml cartoons that reached as many or more than CSI will in SL this next week.

I also suggest you research the numbers of users of Cybertown( blaxxun vrml) and youll see they equalled many of the actual numbers of SL users up until only last fall. And those "membership" numbers, however slanted as then as well, still are equal or larger to those of any other "meta beta" virtual worlds platform being sold in san jose this week. (except for 2d kids game worlds like neopets and game MMOs)


As to dave smith and the real history of croquet, the diffence between the web3d.orgs size and quantity of past contributers over a decade and Croquets supporters is quite large. But im sure Dave Smiths 20 year efforts in 3D and vr will not be the footnote in the metaverse story, but that its this IBM/LL anouncment that most likely will be:)

But the reality is that vrml and x3d were approved as open standards by ISO and that took real community/ and open corporate effort.

the other web3d "open standards" are just marketing ploys and todays PR departments smoke and mirrors.

as to stong backing..i suggest youre missing the real information as SGI. MS, SONY, SUN ,INTEL and many others "AS Web3d.org members" used web3d and in many cases missused it and left a long open gap that a small company like LL was able to finally fill. temporarliy i believe.

to also assume the web3d.org only meant "vrml" as you suggest it is also a shame. My experience suggests that those following the methods you suggest have traditionally ended up with useless or lost content due to single companies going out of business and preventing your content from further distribution. Adobe Atmosphere "fanatics" learned that lesson just as "SL" was getting out of its "almost closing down cause no users " stage in 2004.:) Ask any user of SL whose lost entire years of work to a TOS error or technical glitch, how their "faith" wasnt enough in the end.

CSI-SL and ESC will most likely be as forgotton by the web3d digerati and "vr public" of 2012 as easily as you suggest the works of those using vrml in 1997 have been dismissed by the 2006 HOT SL crowd.;)

the real open standards story (which is what VRML was-open-free) is that the work from 1997 CAN be seen on computers today. In 2012 i truly doubt the SL grid and the CSI game will be anything other than screenshots or recorded short videos in a portfolio of an ex sheep;).

Historically these "open standards pledges" from one or two vice presidents from companies like these dissolve away with the next quarters new PR and new executives.


c3

Posted at 5:36AM on Oct 11th 2007 by larry r

6. Does anyone know how I can find Second Life's destination servers ip's?

I am having holes poked in our corporate firewall but the security folks are balking at completely opening the ports and will not work otherwise. Any suggestions?

Posted at 6:32PM on Oct 23rd 2007 by Ben