If you even remember the previous posts, you may wonder what happened to 4 and 5. Unfortunately I got bit stuck on money (which was going to be the forth, but I never quite decided whether an economy is directly relevant to virtual worlds- my current suspicion is not) and physics (which was going to be the fifth, about the different approaches used to construct virtual worlds, rather than physics simulations), but I kept getting distracted! If it wasn’t for user generated content, I doubt I’d be the least bit interested in virtual worlds; I get bored being a spectator in computer games very quickly.
Luckily I don’t have to write a whole post about what’s so important about user generated content, because Dale’s done that already! Jonas’ “Dead Gnomes as Enterprise Collaboration Tools” post is also worth a read as it shows that the goal of content creation can often be something other than content which is produced. The content is just a means to an end, and user generated content can take care of the long tail requirements that virtual world developers would never otherwise get to. How far up the list of priorities would dead gnomes be?! And how long would you have to wait for the opinionator?! (My current all time favourite gadget in second life.) Even the opinionator is a luxury when you can just stack up cubes, but one that makes for richer interactions- you can’t have too many ideas like that to make up for the loss of real world interactions if virtual worlds are to be the next best thing.
News that professional design teams are getting tools to collaborate on content creation inside the world they are building makes things even more interesting, further blurring the lines between designers and users/producers and consumers.
UGC FTW!
(And I almost forgot to mention MQTT enabled ducks and UK energy price turbines on ReactionGrid!)
Notes from a small field 