MacroMyopia

I was listening to Mitch Kapor's keynote address at the 2nd Annual Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco today and he brought up the term, macromyopia.  I had never heard the term before, but as an entrepreneur, it resonates with me very well.

"Macromyopia is society's tendency to overestimate the short term results of a technology and to underestimate its long term results, because it takes a certain length of time (long enough for a sufficient number of people to die, actually) before a completely new technological paradigm can be assimilated." -- John Barlow, Author and Songwriter

At the Second Life convention, I am sitting around an extremely macromyopic room.  Everyone in the room is so entrenched on what we're building and contributing to within Second Life to fully understand the ramifications on what it will have on society and the virtual world in the long term.

Comments

[csven]

"Everyone in the room is so entrenched on what we're building and contributing to within Second Life to fully understand the ramifications on what it will have on society and the virtual world in the long term."

I guess that includes this: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=577

What about this: http://slfuturesalon.blogs.com/second_life_future_salon/2005/04/the_flat_earths.html

I wonder, have you considered those issues? A lot of people in that room have read both those posts. I'd enjoy seeing how much further out your ramifications extend. Please share.

[Darren Herman]

In reference to csven's fantastic comments, I'd like to add a bit of my thoughts. Your blog at rebang.com talks a lot about brands and their relationship with BOTH games and virtual worlds. This is the first mistake when folks are trying to learn what Second Life really is. Though the "uneducated" virtual world onlooker may say that it is a GAME, it really isn't.

Games have a clear purpose and plot whereas anything can happen within reason in a virtual world. The lines are blurring between some types of video games and the virtual world.

Brands moving into video games, hence my position at IGA Worldwide are a natural fit IF the game has relevant IP for brands and if the brand can add significant value to the game. The game must have some sort of a realistic environment where the gamer would expect to see brands if it were in real life. Also, if there is any in-game branding, the brands must add value to the gameplay.

For virtual worlds, your example of jeans are dead on. You show someone coming up to your avatar and asking about your jeans - this is exactly how things happen in real-life. Depending upon if you worked for a jeans company, you may not be able to give them out for free, but you certainly can sneeze (Seth Godin) the ideavirus about the jeans (viral promotion).

Your blog then takes a different turn altogether and talks about tracking in the virtual world. I am going to save my thoughts here for the most part as I'll be blogging about it coming up... however, this leads to a macro-posting about how does tracking in the digital world affect you in 2006? If you do not want it to be found, don't pursue it digitally.

[csven]

"Your blog at rebang.com talks a lot about brands and their relationship with BOTH games and virtual worlds. This is the first mistake when folks are trying to learn what Second Life really is."

My blog isn't about Second Life at all, that just happens to be the best example for a portion of what I do discuss. In fact, my blog isn't just about games and virtual worlds - not by a long shot. However, I discuss both of them because at the core they're both 3D representational. And that is where I leap from the Virtual to the Real. I'm an industrial designer most of the time. That means my life is about designing tangible goods that are manufactured. That's from where my thoughts originate.

"Though the "uneducated" virtual world onlooker may say that it is a GAME, it really isn't."

I've long argued that, so nothing new here.

"Games have a clear purpose and plot whereas anything can happen within reason in a virtual world. The lines are blurring between some types of video games and the virtual world."

More preaching to the choir.

"Brands moving into video games, hence my position at IGA Worldwide are a natural fit IF the game has relevant IP for brands and if the brand can add significant value to the game. The game must have some sort of a realistic environment where the gamer would expect to see brands if it were in real life. Also, if there is any in-game branding, the brands must add value to the gameplay."

And here as well (Tony Walsh, of Clickable Culture, and I often echo each other on this count). Again, nothing new.

"Depending upon if you worked for a jeans company, you may not be able to give them out for free, but you certainly can sneeze (Seth Godin) the ideavirus about the jeans (viral promotion)."

That's where we part company: as far as I'm concerned, all things digital will be free. I'm a proponent of what I call the Experience Model (I mentioned it on my blog recently in relation to music). I also see that tied into Reputation systems (also documented on my blog). I'm not even concerned about music or movies or intangible media. I'm thinking about my real world designs and what the future is when rapid-manufacturing and virtual commerce merge. I've tried to get the ID community to recognize that what is happening to the music industry could happen to Industrial Design, but people aren't there yet. They will be eventually.

"Your blog then takes a different turn altogether and talks about tracking in the virtual world."

Not a different turn at all! I assume you're familiar with the real world billboards that can do this? I assume you've seen "Minority Report"? All the same and a part of a much larger convergence. I'm only extending the unseen virtuality of Wal*Mart's infamous distribution system into the virtual world, where I see it heading. It's all data, so it's all fair game.

"If you do not want it to be found, don't pursue it digitally."

You'll also notice that I cover rapid-manufacturing and 3D scanning on my blog. If someone doesn't "pursue it digitally", that's far from a guarantee of it not being found.

[Darren Herman]

This is our major argument here. Some things digital will be free, others not. Business models need to exist. If I can’t monetize it via someway (free is $0), I wont be in business long… how can you say that everything digital will be free?

One example of this is a pair of Diesel Jeans. If I go to the store in Union Square and buy a pair for $179, they could possibly come with a pair of exact digital replicas for Second Life or Habbo Hotel. You can argue that the pair for the virtual worlds is FREE, but it isn’t, as the price is added to the $179 to cover the labor expense and resource for the digital copy.

As for the music industry, it’s NOT free. Sean Fanning opened up the floodgates with Napster, but what he has really proven is that we can distribute in new ways through this emerging medium. Now, we need to put the business model around this new distribution methodology. That is currently in the works by the appropriate companies.

[csven]

{Sorry folks, we took it offline. Blame Darren. And jump in next time.}