Web Development Live

Quick guide to Second Life

What will varsity training look like in the future?
Take a class called Educ 122 from the University of Canterburys Dr Mick Grimley and youll learn about memory, information processing and cognitive learning theory through a series of 50-minute video games. They have a narrative storyline that draws students in, Grimley says. Its novel. Its 3-D. Its fun.
Design students at Victoria University, in Wellington, make films in an internet-based virtual world called Second Life. They build virtual sets and direct virtual actors in front of virtual film crews.
Its about making films with invisible data made visible through virtual experience and alternative narratives, says Marcia Lyons, Vics Digital Media Design programme director. I see it as a Renaissance, a creative cross-pollination of ideas in a networked environment that makes connecting with collaborative partners possible.
Last year, the Texas-based New Media Consortium, which is comprised of 250 international universities, museums and research centres that study media technologies, predicted that educational video games and virtual world classrooms would become mainstream teaching tools in the next two to five years. As the digital natives — kids who grew up with digital technology — enter university, teaching methods will have to keep pace with their interactive world.
Lyons explains that the digital generation was born into experiencing the world through video games, laptops, iPods, mobile phones, the internet (and often several of these at one time).
They are not absorbing web content but creating it by writing blogs, designing websites, building MySpace portfolios and posting YouTube videos.
In virtual worlds such as Second Life, they are creating whole new identities for themselves.
Computer-savvy students will require more than diligent note-taking in a beige-coloured lecture theatre to connect with new ideas.
Harvards staff knows this. Swedens Royal Institute of Technology faculty knows this. So do lecturers at Japans University of Aizu. They are all developing and using serious games and Second Life as teaching tools. The University of Wisconsin at Madison and Massachusetts Institute of Technology offer degrees in designing serious games. Technology is a vehicle for education and weve got to move with the times, Grimley says.
In his modified version of Neverwinter Nights, olde worlde flute melodies accompany a questing student dressed in a purple tunic and leggings as he enters a medieval version of the University of Canterburys computer science building and approaches a sage dressed in monks robes.
An ogre, which represents traditional learning theories, appears stage right. Modern pedagogys knight in shining armour glows stage left.
Students are inspired towards the creative when at play. The music switches to trumpets when the sage and the student enter the ogres and knights minds to unravel their secret knowledge. The questing student speaks with them during this journey of discovery, and the sage asks the student what hes learned along the way.
When the student correctly answers the sages questions and solves her puzzles, he gathers totems that propel him from ignorance to wisdom and, twenty-four video games later, the semester ends. The novelty kept my interest and concentration levels at a relatively high intensity right throughout the duration of the course, says Russell Tomes, a computer science major at the University of Canterbury. Traditional lectures sometimes lack that kind of energy, he says.
Victoria University was the first in New Zealand to use Second Life as a teaching tool. When the design school decided to teach virtual film-making, it bought a piece of Second Life real estate — with real money and a real credit card — from Linden Labs, the San Francisco-based company that established Second Life. (An island with 16 virtual acres costs about 1700 real United States dollars — schools pay half — with 300 real US dollars per month in maintenance fees.)
Vic students and staff designed their own virtual personalities, called avatars, then logged onto Second Life at specified dates, times and places for Skype-linked lectures. As everyone interacted through their avatars, which could be human, animal or other, such as gingerbread men, no-one knew the avatars real-life identities.
The avatars split off into focus groups. Scriptwriters collaborated on dialogue. Set-builders rummaged through a virtual SuperShed to find construction materials.
Talent agents recruited other Second Life avatars as actors and actresses. Videographers visited the Second Life library to learn virtual programming skills.
There, the virtual librarian thumbed through her reference catalogue and found a real person with real, virtual programming experience. The librarian dispatched a real email to a real person; a PDF document with programming hints was returned to Vic students in minutes. They received a free camera to boot, and the obliging avatar scored a back-stage pass to watch the filming. Students are inspired towards the creative when at play, Lyons says. They are involved and engaged. They become inventive, less self-conscious.
As far as creating avatars goes, there are no rules that require appearance or personality to match real-life counterparts. Shy people can create extroverted avatars. Men can become women. And vice versa. Heterosexuals can become gay or lesbian. And vice versa. Disabled people can become able-bodied. And vice versa. In a virtual reality, anything is possible. Through their avatars, students can travel internationally and experience different cultures and social structures.
Because there are no boundaries, serious games and virtual classrooms can be adapted to any subject. The University of Minnesota uses its modified version of Neverwinter Nights to teach investigative journalism.
The free online came called Rich Man Game (www. rich mangame. com) pits players against each other to make business deals and increase their wealth. Los Angeles Otis College of Art and Design created a Second Life art gallery and sculpture garden where students and faculty can exhibit their work. An Indiana University telecommunications professor has developed The World of Shakespeare, which allows players to live and interact with other players in 17th century England.
Of course, university life, like all good things, must come to an end.
Graduation parties will give way to job interviews. Lyons says that companies are already approaching students to build commercially-viable Second Life versions of their companies. All jobs will have a virtual component in the next 10 years, she says.

The Rocket Man and the funky monk have let Bryan Pepperell use their social networking MySpace web pages to promote his idea that the US Government apologise for the harm caused to native tribes.
One of Mr Obamas staff also took a brief break from helping him in his quest for the Democrat presidential nomination to reply to Mr Pepperells e-mail.
The reply said the most important native American issue was the development of authentic government-to-government relationships between the federal government and Indian tribes.
Mr Pepperell is still waiting for replies from President George W Bush and Mr Obamas Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, on whether they would issue an apology.
America is such an important country and if it cant get this right, how can it ever hold itself up as a leader of the world? Mr Pepperell said.
Singers Willie Nelson, the Neville Brothers and Linda Ronstadt have also opened up their MySpace pages to Mr Pepperells quest, with readers asked to leave messages of support.
It is only through reading about the history, going through the documents, and talking to some friends I have met on MySpace that I have decided to do this, Mr Pepperell said.
I also thought that since the Australian Government had the guts to front its [Aboriginal] issues recently, and start down the path of compensation and reconciliation, that I should pick up this issue, he said.

YOU’VE probably heard of the term Web 2.0. It was invented by
computer book publisher Tim O’Reilly and refers to the increasingly
large number of internet applications that are collaborative and
interactive.
There are many examples - Wikipedia, Second Life, social
networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, photo sharing site
Flickr and a host of others. These have emerged just in the last
few years and have already changed the way many of us use the
internet.
Indeed, they have changed the way many of us live. This tends to
be especially true of younger people, to whom cyberspace is almost
as big a part of life as the “real” world.
Until now, Web 2.0 applications have mostly affected
individuals. Companies and government organisations have largely
retained more traditional methods of communication. The primary
collaborative technology for most organisations in the modern world
has become email, which is very much a Web 1.0, or first
generation, internet application.
That is now changing. Web 2.0 applications are increasingly
finding their way into the enterprise. This phenomenon has,
inevitably, been dubbed Enterprise 2.0. That term was invented last
year by Harvard Business School professor Andrew McAfee, who has
emerged as something of an international authority on the subject.
Last week I heard a remarkable presentation by Professor McAfee on
the state of play with Enterprise 2.0 worldwide. His talk was
beamed in via Skype from Orlando, Florida, where he was attending
an enterprise search conference. He spoke to 200 of us assembled in
a conference room in Sydney’s Luna Park to discuss Enterprise 2.0
in Australia.
First, Professor McAfee defined the subject. Fair enough. He
invented the term, after all. “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of
emergent social software platforms within companies, or between
companies and their partners or customers.”
Those “emergent social software platforms” are the Web 2.0
applications we looked at above. Professor McAfee refers to these
as “free and easy” applications, in contrast to something like
email which he describes as “a channel which closes down after each
message”.
Another key point about these “emergent applications” is that
the important thing is how the software is used, not about how it
is delivered, or how it is developed, or how it is integrated. The
key to Enterprise 2.0 is usage - getting more people in the
organisation using software applications that enable them to share
ideas and information.
The event I attended where we heard Professor McAfee’s words of
wisdom was the grandly named “Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum”, run
by Sydney company Future Enterprise Network (FEN). FEN
(futureexploration.net) is run by Ross Dawson, who has become one
of Australia’s leading internet gurus in recent years. He also runs
regular events on the future of media.
We also heard, via the wonders of a Skype videolink, from Euan
Semple, formerly head of knowledge management at the BBC. Mr Semple
reported to us from his sister’s kitchen in Munich, where he was
working as part of his new career as an adviser to European
companies on Enterprise 2.0 issues.
We also heard, from real live individuals within the room, about
a number of Australian companies and their use of Enterprise 2.0
technologies. Westpac is using Second Life for staff training.
Bionic ear company Cochlear uses a wiki for software development.
Pharmaceutical company Janssen-Cilag has developed a blog-like
corporate internet for internal communications. Clearly, Enterprise
2.0 is here.
But there is reluctance to embrace the technology in many
quarters. Mr Semple told of some of the problems he had introducing
the technology at the BBC. “There are significant cultural hurdles.
Many senior managers are not comfortable with the tools. I often
found it was easier to go around barriers rather than confront
them. It is easier to apologise afterwards than to ask permission
up-front.”
He spoke about one manager who could not initially believe that
staff could be trusted with social networking tools in a work
environment. He was worried that they would waste time, or that
material in blogs could be read by people outside the organisation
and give away corporate secrets.
These sorts of issues, as many speakers discussed, are common
barriers to the introduction of Enterprise 2.0 technologies in many
organisations. But the common theme was how these barriers can be
overcome and the many benefits that the technology can bring to the
organisation.
“It’s cheap, it’s easy and it conforms to the way knowledge
workers work,” Professor McAfee says.
“Among strongly tied co-workers, a wiki can function as a kind
of online whiteboard. Among those with looser affiliations, social
networking tools are very important, and can serve as bridges to
other networks, just as they do in the personal sphere.
“And blogs are great ways of coming across serendipitous
information, helping innovation and fostering new ideas.”
We’ve been hearing for years that companies need to be smarter
and more responsive and that they need to find new ways to tap into
employees’ capabilities. Enterprise 2.0 tools would seem to offer
just those capabilities. This may scare some people of my
generation but with the Gen X and Gen Y types coming through, they
will have no choice.
graeme@philipson.info

Quick guide to Second Life

What will varsity training look like in the future?
Take a class called Educ 122 from the University of Canterburys Dr Mick Grimley and youll learn about memory, information processing and cognitive learning theory through a series of 50-minute video games. They have a narrative storyline that draws students in, Grimley says. Its novel. Its 3-D. Its fun.
Design students at Victoria University, in Wellington, make films in an internet-based virtual world called Second Life. They build virtual sets and direct virtual actors in front of virtual film crews.
Its about making films with invisible data made visible through virtual experience and alternative narratives, says Marcia Lyons, Vics Digital Media Design programme director. I see it as a Renaissance, a creative cross-pollination of ideas in a networked environment that makes connecting with collaborative partners possible.
Last year, the Texas-based New Media Consortium, which is comprised of 250 international universities, museums and research centres that study media technologies, predicted that educational video games and virtual world classrooms would become mainstream teaching tools in the next two to five years. As the digital natives — kids who grew up with digital technology — enter university, teaching methods will have to keep pace with their interactive world.
Lyons explains that the digital generation was born into experiencing the world through video games, laptops, iPods, mobile phones, the internet (and often several of these at one time).
They are not absorbing web content but creating it by writing blogs, designing websites, building MySpace portfolios and posting YouTube videos.
In virtual worlds such as Second Life, they are creating whole new identities for themselves.
Computer-savvy students will require more than diligent note-taking in a beige-coloured lecture theatre to connect with new ideas.
Harvards staff knows this. Swedens Royal Institute of Technology faculty knows this. So do lecturers at Japans University of Aizu. They are all developing and using serious games and Second Life as teaching tools. The University of Wisconsin at Madison and Massachusetts Institute of Technology offer degrees in designing serious games. Technology is a vehicle for education and weve got to move with the times, Grimley says.
In his modified version of Neverwinter Nights, olde worlde flute melodies accompany a questing student dressed in a purple tunic and leggings as he enters a medieval version of the University of Canterburys computer science building and approaches a sage dressed in monks robes.
An ogre, which represents traditional learning theories, appears stage right. Modern pedagogys knight in shining armour glows stage left.
Students are inspired towards the creative when at play. The music switches to trumpets when the sage and the student enter the ogres and knights minds to unravel their secret knowledge. The questing student speaks with them during this journey of discovery, and the sage asks the student what hes learned along the way.
When the student correctly answers the sages questions and solves her puzzles, he gathers totems that propel him from ignorance to wisdom and, twenty-four video games later, the semester ends. The novelty kept my interest and concentration levels at a relatively high intensity right throughout the duration of the course, says Russell Tomes, a computer science major at the University of Canterbury. Traditional lectures sometimes lack that kind of energy, he says.
Victoria University was the first in New Zealand to use Second Life as a teaching tool. When the design school decided to teach virtual film-making, it bought a piece of Second Life real estate — with real money and a real credit card — from Linden Labs, the San Francisco-based company that established Second Life. (An island with 16 virtual acres costs about 1700 real United States dollars — schools pay half — with 300 real US dollars per month in maintenance fees.)
Vic students and staff designed their own virtual personalities, called avatars, then logged onto Second Life at specified dates, times and places for Skype-linked lectures. As everyone interacted through their avatars, which could be human, animal or other, such as gingerbread men, no-one knew the avatars real-life identities.
The avatars split off into focus groups. Scriptwriters collaborated on dialogue. Set-builders rummaged through a virtual SuperShed to find construction materials.
Talent agents recruited other Second Life avatars as actors and actresses. Videographers visited the Second Life library to learn virtual programming skills.
There, the virtual librarian thumbed through her reference catalogue and found a real person with real, virtual programming experience. The librarian dispatched a real email to a real person; a PDF document with programming hints was returned to Vic students in minutes. They received a free camera to boot, and the obliging avatar scored a back-stage pass to watch the filming. Students are inspired towards the creative when at play, Lyons says. They are involved and engaged. They become inventive, less self-conscious.
As far as creating avatars goes, there are no rules that require appearance or personality to match real-life counterparts. Shy people can create extroverted avatars. Men can become women. And vice versa. Heterosexuals can become gay or lesbian. And vice versa. Disabled people can become able-bodied. And vice versa. In a virtual reality, anything is possible. Through their avatars, students can travel internationally and experience different cultures and social structures.
Because there are no boundaries, serious games and virtual classrooms can be adapted to any subject. The University of Minnesota uses its modified version of Neverwinter Nights to teach investigative journalism.
The free online came called Rich Man Game (www. rich mangame. com) pits players against each other to make business deals and increase their wealth. Los Angeles Otis College of Art and Design created a Second Life art gallery and sculpture garden where students and faculty can exhibit their work. An Indiana University telecommunications professor has developed The World of Shakespeare, which allows players to live and interact with other players in 17th century England.
Of course, university life, like all good things, must come to an end.
Graduation parties will give way to job interviews. Lyons says that companies are already approaching students to build commercially-viable Second Life versions of their companies. All jobs will have a virtual component in the next 10 years, she says.

Canterbury University recently announced that 13 academics would lose their jobs in a back-to-basics drive. But what is really driving change in education is technology.
What will varsity training look like in the future?
Take a class called Educ 122 from the University of Canterburys Dr Mick Grimley and youll learn about memory, information processing and cognitive learning theory through a series of 50-minute video games. They have a narrative storyline that draws students in, Grimley says. Its novel. Its 3-D. Its fun.
Design students at Victoria University, in Wellington, make films in an internet-based virtual world called Second Life. They build virtual sets and direct virtual actors in front of virtual film crews.
Its about making films with invisible data made visible through virtual experience and alternative narratives, says Marcia Lyons, Vics Digital Media Design programme director. I see it as a Renaissance, a creative cross-pollination of ideas in a networked environment that makes connecting with collaborative partners possible.
Last year, the Texas-based New Media Consortium, which is comprised of 250 international universities, museums and research centres that study media technologies, predicted that educational video games and virtual world classrooms would become mainstream teaching tools in the next two to five years. As the digital natives — kids who grew up with digital technology — enter university, teaching methods will have to keep pace with their interactive world.
Lyons explains that the digital generation was born into experiencing the world through video games, laptops, iPods, mobile phones, the internet (and often several of these at one time).
They are not absorbing web content but creating it by writing blogs, designing websites, building MySpace portfolios and posting YouTube videos.
In virtual worlds such as Second Life, they are creating whole new identities for themselves.
Computer-savvy students will require more than diligent note-taking in a beige-coloured lecture theatre to connect with new ideas.
Harvards staff knows this. Swedens Royal Institute of Technology faculty knows this. So do lecturers at Japans University of Aizu. They are all developing and using serious games and Second Life as teaching tools. The University of Wisconsin at Madison and Massachusetts Institute of Technology offer degrees in designing serious games. Technology is a vehicle for education and weve got to move with the times, Grimley says.
In his modified version of Neverwinter Nights, olde worlde flute melodies accompany a questing student dressed in a purple tunic and leggings as he enters a medieval version of the University of Canterburys computer science building and approaches a sage dressed in monks robes.
An ogre, which represents traditional learning theories, appears stage right. Modern pedagogys knight in shining armour glows stage left.
Students are inspired towards the creative when at play. The music switches to trumpets when the sage and the student enter the ogres and knights minds to unravel their secret knowledge. The questing student speaks with them during this journey of discovery, and the sage asks the student what hes learned along the way.
When the student correctly answers the sages questions and solves her puzzles, he gathers totems that propel him from ignorance to wisdom and, twenty-four video games later, the semester ends. The novelty kept my interest and concentration levels at a relatively high intensity right throughout the duration of the course, says Russell Tomes, a computer science major at the University of Canterbury. Traditional lectures sometimes lack that kind of energy, he says.
Victoria University was the first in New Zealand to use Second Life as a teaching tool. When the design school decided to teach virtual film-making, it bought a piece of Second Life real estate — with real money and a real credit card — from Linden Labs, the San Francisco-based company that established Second Life. (An island with 16 virtual acres costs about 1700 real United States dollars — schools pay half — with 300 real US dollars per month in maintenance fees.)
Vic students and staff designed their own virtual personalities, called avatars, then logged onto Second Life at specified dates, times and places for Skype-linked lectures. As everyone interacted through their avatars, which could be human, animal or other, such as gingerbread men, no-one knew the avatars real-life identities.
The avatars split off into focus groups. Scriptwriters collaborated on dialogue. Set-builders rummaged through a virtual SuperShed to find construction materials.
Talent agents recruited other Second Life avatars as actors and actresses. Videographers visited the Second Life library to learn virtual programming skills.
There, the virtual librarian thumbed through her reference catalogue and found a real person with real, virtual programming experience. The librarian dispatched a real email to a real person; a PDF document with programming hints was returned to Vic students in minutes. They received a free camera to boot, and the obliging avatar scored a back-stage pass to watch the filming. Students are inspired towards the creative when at play, Lyons says. They are involved and engaged. They become inventive, less self-conscious.
As far as creating avatars goes, there are no rules that require appearance or personality to match real-life counterparts. Shy people can create extroverted avatars. Men can become women. And vice versa. Heterosexuals can become gay or lesbian. And vice versa. Disabled people can become able-bodied. And vice versa. In a virtual reality, anything is possible. Through their avatars, students can travel internationally and experience different cultures and social structures.
Because there are no boundaries, serious games and virtual classrooms can be adapted to any subject. The University of Minnesota uses its modified version of Neverwinter Nights to teach investigative journalism. The free online came called Rich Man Game (www. rich mangame. com) pits players against each other to make business deals and increase their wealth. Los Angeles Otis College of Art and Design created a Second Life art gallery and sculpture garden where students and faculty can exhibit their work. An Indiana University telecommunications professor has developed The World of Shakespeare, which allows players to live and interact with other players in 17th century England.
Of course, university life, like all good things, must come to an end.
Graduation parties will give way to job interviews. Lyons says that companies are already approaching students to build commercially-viable Second Life versions of their companies. All jobs will have a virtual component in the next 10 years, she says.

The highly touted web-based drama series quarterlife
proved a network television flop in its NBC debut, drawing the
network’s worst ratings for its time slot in at least 20 years,
Nielsen Media Research reported on Wednesday.
NBC had high hopes for the made-for-internet series, a show
about young adults designed to appeal to the very audience group -
viewers aged 18 to 49 - prized most by television advertisers.
But the show’s dismal performance in its prime-time network
launch on Tuesday threw its immediate future into doubt at the
General Electric-owned network, where a source said the series
could end up canceled before its next airing.
An NBC spokeswoman said quarterlife officially remained
on the network schedule for now. It had been slated to move to
Sundays on March 2.
But its initial broadcast on Tuesday ranked a distant third
place for the 10 p.m. hour, averaging 3.1 million viewers and a
meager 1.3 rating among the 18-49 crowd, the lowest for NBC in that
time period since Nielsen began measuring TV viewing by age with
“people meters” in 1987.
By comparison, NBC’s usual Tuesday 10 p.m. show, Law %26amp;
Order: Special Victims Unit, has consistently led the hour with
a 4.5 rating among adults 18-49 and more than 12 million viewers
overall.
quarterlife, dramatizing the urban lives of six young
artists, was originally created for the social-networking site
MySpace.com by Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, Emmy-winning
producers of thirtysomething and My So-Called
Life.
Consisting of 36 eight-minute “webisodes,” the series began
running on MySpace.TVcom and quarterlife.com in November, with two
new segments appearing online each week.
NBC made headlines when it announced in the midst of the
Hollywood writers strike it was picking up the series as a
mid-season replacement show, and has heavily promoted the drama in
the run-up to its prime-time launch.
At the time, quarterlife was touted as a new model for
the development of video entertainment, marking the first program
to originate independently online before moving to a major
broadcast outlet.
NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman acknowledged in
remarks to The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday the
experiment did not live up to expectations, but was “so worth the
try.”
“The website traffic went up a huge amount, and we continue to
try new things and new models,” he said. “It’s very inexpensive but
we hoped for higher ratings.”
The show’s network debut may have suffered somewhat from viewer
fatigue among its target audience given that the series has already
run online and cable network MTV aired segments of it the day of
its NBC premiere.
Reuters

The allure of Hollywood’s biggest stars is losing out to entertainment based on microscopic circuitry and fancy software.Do you doubt it? While movie attendance has essentially been flat for six years, games for computers and video consoles have been booming.If the trend continues, many people in the entertainment industry will lose their jobs, but new types of jobs are already opening up, particularly in parts of California, which form a digital entertainment hub.”I feel a massive shift,” said Dana Settle, a venture capitalist at Greycroft Partners in Los Angeles who invests in online companies. “Movie studios are corporate behemoths. They’re going to crumble.”Movie stars Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Mike Myers as the voice of Shrek and Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow came out with hit sequels last year, which helped raise box office receipts in North America to $9.7 billion. But that total, which excludes shrinking DVD sales and downloads, was up a mere 2.4 percent from 2004, according to data tracker Media by Numbers.Apples-to-apples comparisons aren’t possible, but the contrasts are clear. Game industry sales, including consoles and software, totaled about $18 billion in the United States last year, up 43 percent over 2006, according to market researcher NPD Group.The first-person shooting game “Halo 3,” the hard-to-find Wii game console and the role-playing “World of Warcraft” were among the hits that contributed to those sales. Last month, Warcraft publisher Blizzard Entertainment of Irvine announced the game had 10 million subscribers.The No. 1 game even outpaced the No. 1 movie last year. “Halo 3″ brought in $170 million on its first day; “Spider-Man 3″ grossed $151 million on its first weekend.Game experts recently discussed the effects of changing entertainment choices. The impact extends from the living room to the workplace.”Studios are on the down slope, and they know it,” said Jamie Somes, senior managing director of Alexander Dunham Capital investment bank in Los Angeles. “They’re not well-positioned as organizations for the new digital environment.” He cited predictions that within five years studios will be only half to one-tenth their current size.”In studios, you can smell the fear,” Settle said. “They’re missing the creative spark. At game companies, people are psyched.”Unlike movies, modern computer-based games let viewers interact with the game’s story or with other players, said Bob Drobish, president of startup True Games Interactive, who spoke to a meeting of video game engineers at the Digital Media Center incubator in Santa Ana.Modern games often do not appeal to consumers over 30 because they tend to think of computers as one-person productivity tools - which is what they used to be, Drobish said. People under 30 take to those games more readily, he said, because they view computers as social devices for exchanging e-mails, instant messages and pictures with friends.”Computers are inherently social,” especially in the age of high-speed broadband networks, he said. New types of games tap into that quality, especially multiplayer online role-playing games such as “World of Warcraft,” he said.The development of multiplayer social games is possible because of fundamental technological improvements in computers and computer networks, said Tim Walsh, the Los Angeles-based executive vice president of in-game advertising company IGA Worldwide.”Improved software, file compression, better code, Flash animation - they’re coming together to extend the digital lifestyle,” he said.With the new appeal of games come new business opportunities - and more games in the future.- Red 5 Studios. Three game makers and executives from Blizzard - “World of Warcraft” team leader Mark Kern, art director William Petras, and Taewon Yun, who launched the game in Korea - founded Red 5 Studios in 2005 and since then have been working on their first game. With development studios in Aliso Viejo and Shanghai, China, the company’s goal is “bringing together millions of gamers across the world by creating immersive worlds, intriguing stories and compelling characters.”- Carbine Studios. Ten other former “World of Warcraft” game makers, including lead animator Kevin Beardslee, lead composer Jason Hayes and senior artist Matt Mocarski, founded Carbine Studios in Aliso Viejo. The company has 17 former Blizzard employees who are developing a multiplayer online game.- True Games Interactive. Last year, Drobish and Jeff Lujan, chief publishing officer at True Games, left executive positions at K2 to pursue their startup. They hope to launch a domestic version of a Korean game this summer.- Sleepy Giant. Last year former K2 executives Matthew Hannus and David Lee started Newport Beach-based Sleepy Giant, which runs other companies’ games rather than developing its own. The gaming opportunities aren’t limited to entrepreneurs.”A lot of good Hollywood TV and movie talent is being drawn to games” because game production can be more stable than the boom-and-bust movie business, and can even offer better fringe benefits, said Mark Friedler, founder of the GameDaily Web site. People who are moving from movies to games include digital artists and special effects experts, who tell Friedler one reason for the decision is, “I like having health insurance,” he said. Because the virtual landscapes of online worlds have grown to accommodate so many players, Walsh said, “Game companies need a tremendous amount of digital artists, physicists and designers.” Friedler cited two problems new game companies face - rising costs and growing competition for consumers‘ time. “To create a next-generation console game costs $40 million to $50 million,” he said. “That’s the same cost as a lot of movies.” With “World of Warcraft,” Blizzard changed the market, raising players’ expectations for how realistic a game will be. To accomplish that, the company spent an estimated $90 million, Drobish said. At first the budget seemed excessive, but now it looks brilliant, he said. Intense competition for consumers’ time has already affected traditional forms of entertainment. “Movies and TV are seeing a shift away from them because there are only so many hours in the day,” Walsh said. He foresees a bright future for games, but some industry observers think the same competition for people’s attention could hurt games, too. “People worry about crowding out,” Friedler said. “If someone is always on Facebook and MySpace and texting, how much time is left for games?”

The allure of Hollywood’s biggest stars is losing out to entertainment based on microscopic circuitry and fancy software.Do you doubt it? While movie attendance has essentially been flat for six years, games for computers and video consoles have been booming.If the trend continues, many people in the entertainment industry will lose their jobs, but new types of jobs are already opening up, particularly in parts of California, which form a digital entertainment hub.”I feel a massive shift,” said Dana Settle, a venture capitalist at Greycroft Partners in Los Angeles who invests in online companies. “Movie studios are corporate behemoths. They’re going to crumble.”Movie stars Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Mike Myers as the voice of Shrek and Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow came out with hit sequels last year, which helped raise box office receipts in North America to $9.7 billion. But that total, which excludes shrinking DVD sales and downloads, was up a mere 2.4 percent from 2004, according to data tracker Media by Numbers.Apples-to-apples comparisons aren’t possible, but the contrasts are clear. Game industry sales, including consoles and software, totaled about $18 billion in the United States last year, up 43 percent over 2006, according to market researcher NPD Group.The first-person shooting game “Halo 3,” the hard-to-find Wii game console and the role-playing “World of Warcraft” were among the hits that contributed to those sales. Last month, Warcraft publisher Blizzard Entertainment of Irvine announced the game had 10 million subscribers.The No. 1 game even outpaced the No. 1 movie last year. “Halo 3″ brought in $170 million on its first day; “Spider-Man 3″ grossed $151 million on its first weekend.Game experts recently discussed the effects of changing entertainment choices. The impact extends from the living room to the workplace.”Studios are on the down slope, and they know it,” said Jamie Somes, senior managing director of Alexander Dunham Capital investment bank in Los Angeles. “They’re not well-positioned as organizations for the new digital environment.” He cited predictions that within five years studios will be only half to one-tenth their current size.”In studios, you can smell the fear,” Settle said. “They’re missing the creative spark. At game companies, people are psyched.”Unlike movies, modern computer-based games let viewers interact with the game’s story or with other players, said Bob Drobish, president of startup True Games Interactive, who spoke to a meeting of video game engineers at the Digital Media Center incubator in Santa Ana.Modern games often do not appeal to consumers over 30 because they tend to think of computers as one-person productivity tools - which is what they used to be, Drobish said. People under 30 take to those games more readily, he said, because they view computers as social devices for exchanging e-mails, instant messages and pictures with friends.”Computers are inherently social,” especially in the age of high-speed broadband networks, he said. New types of games tap into that quality, especially multiplayer online role-playing games such as “World of Warcraft,” he said.The development of multiplayer social games is possible because of fundamental technological improvements in computers and computer networks, said Tim Walsh, the Los Angeles-based executive vice president of in-game advertising company IGA Worldwide.”Improved software, file compression, better code, Flash animation - they’re coming together to extend the digital lifestyle,” he said.With the new appeal of games come new business opportunities - and more games in the future.- Red 5 Studios. Three game makers and executives from Blizzard - “World of Warcraft” team leader Mark Kern, art director William Petras, and Taewon Yun, who launched the game in Korea - founded Red 5 Studios in 2005 and since then have been working on their first game. With development studios in Aliso Viejo and Shanghai, China, the company’s goal is “bringing together millions of gamers across the world by creating immersive worlds, intriguing stories and compelling characters.”- Carbine Studios. Ten other former “World of Warcraft” game makers, including lead animator Kevin Beardslee, lead composer Jason Hayes and senior artist Matt Mocarski, founded Carbine Studios in Aliso Viejo. The company has 17 former Blizzard employees who are developing a multiplayer online game.- True Games Interactive. Last year, Drobish and Jeff Lujan, chief publishing officer at True Games, left executive positions at K2 to pursue their startup. They hope to launch a domestic version of a Korean game this summer.- Sleepy Giant. Last year former K2 executives Matthew Hannus and David Lee started Newport Beach-based Sleepy Giant, which runs other companies’ games rather than developing its own. The gaming opportunities aren’t limited to entrepreneurs.”A lot of good Hollywood TV and movie talent is being drawn to games” because game production can be more stable than the boom-and-bust movie business, and can even offer better fringe benefits, said Mark Friedler, founder of the GameDaily Web site. People who are moving from movies to games include digital artists and special effects experts, who tell Friedler one reason for the decision is, “I like having health insurance,” he said. Because the virtual landscapes of online worlds have grown to accommodate so many players, Walsh said, “Game companies need a tremendous amount of digital artists, physicists and designers.” Friedler cited two problems new game companies face - rising costs and growing competition for consumers‘ time. “To create a next-generation console game costs $40 million to $50 million,” he said. “That’s the same cost as a lot of movies.” With “World of Warcraft,” Blizzard changed the market, raising players’ expectations for how realistic a game will be. To accomplish that, the company spent an estimated $90 million, Drobish said. At first the budget seemed excessive, but now it looks brilliant, he said. Intense competition for consumers’ time has already affected traditional forms of entertainment. “Movies and TV are seeing a shift away from them because there are only so many hours in the day,” Walsh said. He foresees a bright future for games, but some industry observers think the same competition for people’s attention could hurt games, too. “People worry about crowding out,” Friedler said. “If someone is always on Facebook and MySpace and texting, how much time is left for games?”

Fed up with Facebook? Miffed at MySpace? Or are you just annoyed at people who abuse alliteration?If so, feel free to express yourself on a handful of antisocial networking sites, a curmudgeon’s version of popular online places to collect “friends” and interest strangers in your tone-deaf garage band.On sites such as Snubster.com and www.Enemybook.info, users can take a big gulp of Haterade and let fly. Instead of gathering friends, you can go all Richard Nixon and make an enemies list.Snubster takes things a step further, allowing you to (a la Stephen Colbert) put people “on notice” or make them “dead to me.”In a way, this snarky backlash was inevitable, says Brian Choung, the 26-year-old software engineer from Washington, D.C., who started Snubster in 2006. It now boasts more than 16,000 users.”It just seemed ridiculous and a platform ripe for parody,” Choung says. “I decided that it would be an amusing exercise to develop a site that did the opposite. Really, it started out mostly as a joke and an exercise in Web development.”I guess it just caught on from there. People would go online to see why they were put on a list on Snubster, browse the site, get the joke and then make their own lists.”And, yes, Choung is quick to add, the site is a parody. But, like many such jokes, it also sheds light on the inherent vacuity of social networking sites.”More people I didn’t really know were putting me on their Facebook friends list,” Choung says. “I hate the awkward social situation that is created by becoming `friends’ with someone online that you barely know in person, but obviously a lot of people thrive on it.”What puzzles me even more than these `friend collections’ is all the effort to create `personal profiles’ and photos carefully picked and crafted to create a shiny persona online for all your new Internet friends to admire.”There’s nothing shiny and friendly about Enemylist and Snubster, both of which, ironically, can also be accessed as applications on Facebook.Snubster’s litany of kvetches and snide remarks ranges from the obvious (President Bush) to the seemingly innocuous (people who floss at stop lights). Besides Bush, who’s No. 1, the five most snubbed people or things include Scientologists, emo kids, MySpace and Paris Hilton.Some get mightily specific, though. For example, a user named Meredith put “Kym” on notice because “She hasn’t sent me more than one weekly e-mail although she promised to send me more this year yet still will use work as an excuse and I don’t want to hear it.”OK, then.Choung says he had hoped social networking sites could have evolved into more meaningful dialogue.”I just don’t get it,” he says. “It’s the year 2008 - I thought the Internet could do better than this. Ultimately, what are these social networking sites? A better way for teens to send smiley faces? A new way to anonymously snoop on people?”And what of Snubster? Well, Choung thinks the negativity can be cathartic.”A lot of time’s it is liberating when you get to just vent about something that grinds your gears,” he says. “And when people make connections with other people based on these real-life observations, I think it’s something special.”

As the Writers Guild of America strike plays havoc with
television programming and TV execs pull their hair out over delays
on top-rating shows such as Lost and Desperate
Housewives, a creative outlet for small-screen writers is
emerging online.
Independent “web series” productions are starting to gain
popularity around the world. These programs, specifically created
for online viewing, might appeal to writers as a way to work with
fewer limitations.
US producer and writer Edward Zwick says individual creativity
is often compromised by commercial productions. “The business of
television today makes it harder for the individual filmmaker’s
voice to be heard,” he says in a media statement about his new
online show, quarterlife.
Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, producers of the television shows
Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, are
working together on the online show. Herskovitz says the internet
provides “a creative frontier with many untouched possibilities”
for productions such as quarterlife, which is aimed at
young people, or “twentysomethings”.
“We are portraying the lives of young people in their 20s
struggling to find themselves through their creativity,” he says.
“This series is all about how this generation … work, love, or
goof around … how they interact and communicate in the world
today. As we all know, they are obsessed with being online.”
Aired on MySpace and its own website, quarterlife is
one of the first independent web-based productions by professionals
established in the film and television industry. Herskovitz says
creating the web series “proved to be an exciting opportunity to
tell the quarterlife story and be part of this growing
online community”.
“Through artistic expression, and interacting with the
characters online through profiles and video blogs, members of the
quarterlife community will be invited to participate in the ongoing
creation of the series.” As exciting as it is for the likes of
Herskovitz, there is a significant challenge for these productions
to be financially viable, which is why quarterlife
premieres on Myspace before its own site.
It might be easier for big companies such as US pay TV channel
SciFi, which is exploring the commercial possibilities of internet
broadcasting. This year has proved eventful for SciFi with the
announcement of “new original online programming”, including
Invent This!, a show about “quirky” inventions;
development of a web series for the cancelled American-Australian
show Farscape and a series of “minisodes” for the TV show
Battlestar Galactica.
The online shows all feature an advertisement before the
selected video is played. It’s less than you get on TV but enough
for SciFi.com to maintain steady sponsorship. The Battlestar
Galactica minisodes were originally aired during another TV
show in SciFi, then released online as “webisodes”.
The decision to create these may have been due to online success
last year when SciFi released Battlestar Galactica: The
Resistance, a well-received series of webisodes, which
received high user-generated ratings and more than 200 comments on
the first webisode alone.
By connecting programming on its pay TV channel and its website,
SciFi can explore the possibilities of web shows using commercial
funding, but for independent web series, funding is still an
obstacle.
Queensland University of Technology PhD student Sue Davis says
this might be why the format hasn’t been explored as much before
now. “To produce material of quality takes effort and funds to
support the project,” she says. “In the past, companies found they
couldn’t make money, so cyberdramas have tended to be
community-based.” Davis created the Australian “cyberdrama”
Cleo Missing as part of her masters research, and also
runs a website, http://www.cyberdrama.org, with information on the
format.
She says online social networking and video-sharing sites are
precursors to serial web shows, which often encourage the
development of communities and discussions around the online
content.
“YouTube was a breakthrough in this area because it got people
sharing ideas and communicating through videos.”
Davis believes the internet also opens up different
entertainment and audiences. “One of the things you want online is
different audiences to films and television. The barriers that used
to be there for people online have been reduced as technology
continues to develop,” she says.
“It doesn’t mean we won’t use TV and film; they still play a big
role. People still want to get immersed in a great story, they
don’t necessarily want to sit in front of a computer. People want
different kinds of experiences.”
As with Herskovitz, Davis agrees audience involvement in any
web-based entertainment is important, but says it should not
compromise the story. “I think good drama should have a strong
narrative. For cyberdrama to work you have to have a good
story.”
As in any good TV show, Davis says, a web series should be
engaging and believable. A good example was lonelygirl15,
a web series broadcast on YouTube and originally believed to be a
true story of an isolated girl in the US.
“Lonelygirl15 was brilliant … so many people believed
it was real,” she says. “When it came out that it was actually a
made-up story, the reaction was incredible.”
British screenwriter Philip Gladwin, whose work includes
episodes of The Bill and the Doctor Who spin-off
series The Sarah Jane Adventures, sees the internet as
closely linked to television programming developments.
“It’s fairly clear to me and a lot of the TV people I know that
our future as writers-producers-directors is heavily bound up with
the future of the internet,” he says. At this stage the lack of
funding and the limited number of professional web series suggests
this future is not set in stone - as Davis points out, web shows
have been around for a while and have drawn little attention in the
past.
But Gladwin thinks the independence it could offer will be
enough for some writers to head in the direction of the
internet.
“Small budget with minimum interference is way more appealing
than big budget and a battle of attrition with the many layers of
script editors, execs, story consultants, series editors, producers
and channel controllers that control any project nowadays,” he
says.
Gladwin, like Zwick, thinks there are creative limitations with
working on film or TV shows.
“As a TV writer here in the UK, my immediate customer base
comprises a small number of gatekeepers … [who act] as an
impenetrable barrier between the work of any TV writer and their
audience.”
The “gatekeepers”, who financially support most TV and film
productions, might not back web shows but Gladwin says there are
ways around this obstacle.
“I’m talking a kind of grass roots internet TV, funded by
multiple product placement and sponsorship, and selling ads on the
page in an Adsense model.”
Web shows have been around in various forms, under different
names, for years. They may stay in the background or become more
popular as independent or commercial ventures. Either way, Gladwin
is one of many excited by the possibilities.
“The way the broadcasters are frantically developing their own
web-based projects suggests it won’t be too long now.”