Your Second Life Avatar May Impact How You Act In Real Life

from the you-mean-second-life-may-have-a-purpose? dept

Slashdot points us to a clip from NPR's All Things Considered discussing some research out of Stanford about how the appearance of your virtual avatar may impact your actions in real life. In the story, two examples are given. The first is showing a thinner version of you, and letting you see the avatar exercising and getting thinner. Apparently, being able to see that (very fast) "cause-and-effect" really does drive people to exercise more. The second is that if someone has a "more attractive" avatar within a virtual world, once they leave that virtual world, they're more likely to have higher self-esteem and believe that they're better looking in real life as well. In the study given, right after leaving the virtual world, the subjects are told to create online dating profiles and pick people that they thought were their equals. Those who had more attractive avatars picked more attractive real life people as "attainable." The researchers (of course) have their own website with more info.

While this sounds like interesting research, it seems rather early to draw many conclusions from it. In fact, I'm a little surprised that the Slashdot post about it didn't mention the obvious parallels to questions about research on how people act after playing violent video games. That research has generally shown that it makes kids emotional, but just for a short period of time -- which would make me wonder how long-term the impacts of seeing these avatars is as well. However, if the goal is to just give you a little burst of motivation to get over some self-doubt or inertia (say, to exercise), then that might not be a bad thing. Either way, the research itself is interesting -- but it's still early. It'll be worth watching what comes out of the research down the road.

Filed Under: avatars, real life, second life

Second Life Lawsuit Over Copied Goods Settled

from the just-like-that dept

Just after we discussed yet another bad situation involving bringing real world laws into virtual worlds involving World of Warcraft, it looks like there's an update on another such case we discussed last year. In this case, it was a dispute between two members of Second Life, one of whom had "copied" items made by another and started selling them. This seemed perfectly ridiculous, since being a virtual world where there is no scarcity, nothing was being stolen. Indeed, it looks like the participants in the lawsuit more or less came to the same conclusion. They've "settled" the case, but by settling, it sounds like they really meant giving up the case. No money is exchanging hands and no one is admitting to any guilt. That sounds a lot more like they're just dropping the case.

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuits, second life, virtual worlds

Government Continues To Search Virtual Worlds For Terrorists

from the anyone-look-on-America's-Army? dept

A few weeks back, we pointed to a ridiculous report from the federal government's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, claiming that places like Second Life could be breeding grounds for terrorists. Why Second Life as opposed to any standard web chat room? That's not at all clear. Salon has gone through and thoroughly debunked the notion that terrorists are likely to use Second Life, noting that the so-called "experts" who made the claims clearly had never used Second Life. Yet, don't think that means the government won't keep up its fear-mongering over the issue. Wired is reporting that the U.S. intelligence community is working on software to detect terrorists infiltrating World of Warcraft. Initially, the program will focus on just profiling the behavior of people in such virtual worlds, but down the road they hope that it will automatically identify those likely to be terrorists. I wonder if they'll use similar programs in the Army's own America's Army online video game?

Filed Under: second life, terrorism, virtual worlds, world of warcraft

Lawsuit Over 'Theft' Of Digital Items In Second Life Shows Up In First Life Court

from the what-happens-in-second-life,-doesn't-stay-in-second-life dept

It's been almost exactly four years since Linden Lab announced that the digital goods anyone created within Second Life were owned by whoever created them -- effectively bringing the outside world's laws into the virtual world. While this move received cheers from those who thought it was better than the company that ran the game owning everything, we felt that it was only going to lead to some serious problems. Specifically, our concern was that this was effectively bringing existing problematic laws, such as copyright, into this new world -- or, rather, pulling those issues out of this world and throwing them onto the US justice system. It appears that's coming true.

A new lawsuit has been filed by a woman who uses Second Life, claiming that another member of Second Life was "stealing" the computer code used to build products that she sold in the virtual world. Of course, that's not all that surprising, as digital goods are easily copied -- and in the past we've even pointed out systems like copybot that made that process quite easy. In the end, it does come back to the same basic economics that we discuss around here all the time. If you're betting your livelihood on selling digital goods that are easily copied with zero marginal cost, you're going to have to deal with people copying your products sooner or later no matter what. It's just not a very good business to be in. While it may feel like "theft" to some, it's hard to justify that as being theft since no one is missing anything. In other words, the economics at play in the virtual world are entirely different than those in the real world -- and yet, we're now going to expect the real world laws to handle a lawsuit involving digital world economics. It doesn't make for a good combination.

Filed Under: digital goods, second life, theft
Companies: linden labs

Do Virtual Aeron Chairs Violate The Rights Of Herman Miller?

from the getting-ridiculous dept

Apparently the maker of the famed Aeron chair, Herman Miller, has joined Second Life... and discovered that there were virtual Aeron chairs created by others. To its credit, the company didn't go sue crazy... yet. Instead, it offered those who had a "fake" a free trade-in program to get official virtual Aeron chairs (yes, official virtual chairs... what is this world coming to?). However, it has started sending cease-and-desist notes to the makers of the unofficial virtual Aeron chairs, which they note are "firm, but polite." The company claims that these virtual Aeron chairs violate both copyrights and trademarks, but it's an open question whether or not that's necessarily true. The trademark claims may be somewhat stronger, but there's a point at which you need to take a step back and simply ask what's the harm being done here? It's a virtual world. The fact that people are making fake Aeron chairs should simply be seen as flattery and a sign of just how iconic the chairs have become.

Filed Under: aeron chairs, second life
Companies: herman miller

You Mean Second Life Marketing's Not All It's Cracked Up To Be?

from the hype-hype-and-more-hype dept

It seemed pretty obvious from the outset that all the corporate interest in Second Life was driven more by hype than clear thinking. Company after company set up shop in the virtual world, either coming up with some pointless way to try and do business there, or more frequently, for marketing purposes. The only problem for marketers? Second Life is a pretty worthless place to try and sell people on your company's brand and products. Wired gives a laundry list of drawbacks, but the biggest is that very few people actually use Second Life. As has been pointed out before, the number of active SL users is nowhere near the number of "residents" it's supposed to have. SL claims more than 7 million residents, but that's just the number of how many avatars have been created. Linden Labs, the company that runs Second Life, says that 4 million people have created avatars, but just 1 million have accessed the world in the past month, and less than a third of that had visited in the past week. And within the world, people seem interested in little more than gambling and sex, Wired says. Still, companies that build in-game properties for big corporations say they're doing booming business, thanks to many marketers' lemming-like attraction to fads. A quote from Coke's director of interactive marketing sort of sums things up: "This is not about reach anymore. This is about connecting. It's about establishing meaningful, impactful conversations. So when people ask, 'Why Second Life?' I ask 'Why not?'" It's lovely that he wants to have these "meaningful conversations" with people about Coke. It's too bad that the lack of real interest in Second Life and the marketing efforts within it show people aren't interested in having those conversations with him.

Filed Under: marketing, second life, virtual worlds
Companies: coke, linden labs