Virtual Worlds Much Like Real Ones – Yet Worse…

It’s already well known (among those who care to know at all) that much of Second Life is devoted to various sexual quirks and fetishes.  Sure there is some other cool stuff happening there once-in-a-while but its the virtual sex that drives the core user base.

Recently, there was an attempt to open a virtual world for Muslims.  This was quickly shut down after various haters invaded the world and basically harassed the crap out of the users.

Now, Sony is having to eliminate voice-chat from their new VR world “Home” because it was being used to harass female avatars.

It might be time to face facts – virtual worlds that have no directed gameplay element will quickly devolve into a lowest-common-denominator society.  Maybe total freedom is less of a gift than it appears.

Related articles by Zemanta

• My First ‘Home’ Experience: Dancing, Sexual Harassment And A Marriage Proposal
• Google Lively is dead … ly
• Online nookie…

Conde Nast + Flip = FAIL

Conde Nast has always struck me as being pretty far behind the curve when it comes to leveraging their print presence in the online world.  While their magazine sites have improved somewhat over the past year they are certainly not breaking any new ground.

Now comes word that one of the few large-scale efforts to come out of the Conde Nast tower, Flip.com, is being shut down.

No surprise there.  The site, a social networking site aimed at teen girls, was based around the concept of a flipbook.  Um, a flipbook?  Seriously?  That’s your big hook to catch teen girls?  What teen girl has ever even seen a flipbook?

It never fails to shock me just how out of touch and out of sync major publishers can be when it comes to connecting with youth online.  Still, a flipbook?  Why not base the site on Zoetropes or View-Finders?

Do We Want To Go Virtual?

In sorta big gaming news, The Sims is becoming EA Land, an online virtual world ala SecondLife and There.com.

One of the main reasons I find myself emersed in new media today is due to my love of cyberpunk as a kid.  The idea of a full virtual reality that we could plug into was just completely enthralling to me at the time.

However, though I was a very early internet adopter and user I never got excited by things like SecondLife or There.com largely because they just seemed like toy – there is nothing that one needs to do in SL and most of the possible activities are pretty much things I do in my real life.  That’s all fine as a temporary escape but it doesn’t emerse one in  a useful alternative world.

It is still quicker and easier to navigate the 2D web via links and scrollbars than it is to wander a Virtual town looking for the “library.”

As a social alternative there is some real potential in these virtual worlds but the idea i had as a kid that we would be living part of our lives inside the machine seems silly to me now.

However, the notion of a “filter” that puts the web over the real world, like explored in Gibson’s last book, Spook Country, is potentially REALLY exciting.