Lifestreaming and virtual worlds
JESSICA’S DIARY
The intersection of everything
The second summer school session begins tomorrow, and I need to get started on my two other independent studies. I knew I wanted to study the intersection of virtual worlds and lifestreaming, but couldn’t figure out what kind of project to do. Using Photoshop for a brainstorming tool, I believe I have finally come to a really sweet conclusion.
After collecting my thoughts in Photoshop, I realized that I had been looking at Second Life and lifestreaming in the wrong way. I was trying to figure out why someone would want to lifestream into Second Life (like have a Twitter feed or Flickr gallery, etc) but realized that I should be looking at lifestreaming OUT of Second Life. Basically virtual world activity should be documented and collected just like real world activity. This will become more and more the case as the real and virtual continue to merge. For now, it’s important to collect virtual world activity to elevate it, justify it and share it.
After figuring out that I needed to lifestream virtual world activity like real world activity (which will likely be the basis of my summer projects), I sketched out a process that describes a premium lifestream lifefuck as the ultimate information filter.
“…I should be looking at lifestreaming OUT of Second Life. Basically virtual world activity should be documented and collected just like real world activity.”
Hmmm interesting. Will the output be in the DiSo blessed noun/verb format?
I do take a bit of an expectation to Second Life’s “closed” nature – How can people who don’t have Second Life accounts get any value from consuming your character’s activities? Seems somewhat exclusionary.
Also, World of Warcraft has something similar called TweetCraft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfUDUAtG7Rs
i like the lifestreaming out of second life! i have been mulling over a somewhat similar topic…maybe this will feed your idea? people are always trying to turn “the internet” into print…but so far it’s kind of been dumb, for example, there are services that turn your year’s worth of tweets into a book, etc. maybe that activity or the desire to translate digital things into physical things is related.
excellent point jimmy. the desire does seem similar–to lifestream into second life would be like turning the real into the digital and then further into the digital/virtual. except the virtual is supposed to be closer to real, so there is loss in the translation and an incomplete loop created…
oh dang i have an idea for an interface btw your second life avatar and the real. maybe we can have an idea session tomorrows.
todd,
i think when i get to the point of figuring out formats i will have to consult you about the DiSo situation, i still don’t have enough grasp on it to say yes or no. second life is a closed system but i believe there are things you can do… for example there is this iphone app: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/03/iphone-app.html which i haven’t tried yet.
but about my avatar’s activities having value to those outside of second life (without an account or not logged in), i think that is exactly my point – valuable, meaningful, real world activity takes place in virtual worlds just as it does in real life. my real life experiences are often closed to outsiders, but i share them in digital format in case they could have value to myself or others. and even if my virtual life stream is only of interest to others on the same platform, at least i would be contributing searchable data to the internet. sometimes it’s hard to find decent information about second life outside of the software, and i really wish to see them more merged (web + virtual worlds). tweetcraft looks like it can start to do that.
additionally, since lifestreaming is often most useful to the creator as a diary reference, i think making a point to lifestream from virtual worlds could really improve in world activity, or at least make my own activity more deliberate. it’s a matter of finding what ways of documenting are useful and easy. and then finding what ways should exist, but don’t.