Everything is neatly tucked away, including cables and compartments for peripherals. Oh, and did I mention it has a fish tank? A fish tank!

Rosedale and other executives say they fully expect there eventually to be multiple virtual worlds that use Linden’s code, or that at least are interoperable with Second Life, so avatars can pass from one world to another. Says Rosedale: “Say IBM builds its own intranet version with our code that’s somewhat different from Second Life. But it’s probably not that different. A user may say ‘Wow, this virtual thing IBM’s built is pretty cool. Now I want to go the mainland.’ And we have another customer.”

Sounds like the kinda thing Marc Canter would dig.

Open source, open standards, open ID, and now… OPEN WORLDS. Taking SL out of one set of servers, distributing it, making a community of second lives – furries in one (or 100), builders in another (or 1000), designers in another,  regular folks running through all – different social mores, codes of conduct, experiences, platforms…

Article here.

Welcome to C-Ville – Where Choices Define You

C-Ville is an all-Flash site that teaches kids/teens about the risks of smoking, why making good choices are important, and why choosing not to smoke is important short and long term.

While I agree with the message, the execution is what really stands out. From the music to the grapihcs, the video shorts used in the production, the overall look and feel just clicks. It is fun and immersive and gives users a reason to explore and click and check things out with a really open and not-intuitive-in-a-good-way navigation. The look and feel brings you in, feels immersive and has a ton of objects on each screen to play with.

From the AdRants post:

Final Cut’s Carlos Arias explains the approach saying, “Kids are so sophisticated these days so we don’t need to make the message obvious. This is a new way of communicating with youth — by not spoon-feeding them.”

Kudos to these guys for coming up with a smart design, solid execution, good message and real appreciation and respect for the user. While the site loads slow on the network here in the bunker, the video encodes are really tight and the payoff is there – it frickin works.

Got the chance to hang out this evening with the crowd for the first meeting of the NYC chapter of the Social Media Club (whose tagline is “if you get it, share it”). Chris Heuer (founder of BrainJams, Media Literacy advocate and Bloggercon/Gnomedex attendee) and Howard Greenstein (ex-member of the WWWAC, NYNMA, and all-around evangelist of the NYC Media scene pre-bubble) led the discussion.

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I showed up late, but got to participate in the discussion of podcasting (“the term podcasting is the biggest thing holding back podcasting”) and a short discussion about microformats as well as XPRL (XML Press Release microcontent format).

All in all, it was a fun event (even though I showed up late). Some of the usual suspects showed up (HI Steve and Annette), and the discussion was fun, if not a little short (will not be showing up late again). It was a lot like one of Isabel’s dinners – not as intimate, but some great conversation with cool people.

I am really looking forward to the next meeting.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=110404 

What’s special here is us participating in a new phase of the social-networking evolution,” said Mr. Schionning.

How do fans interact

how to give power back

2 spaces – stage and audience space – existed since greek times

power of fan, power of audience

participatory culture

REM – SD 2003 – estab norms of space

fans determin the set list

bands control over the audience becomes complicated

audience organzied by another algo – profiles in range of clusters to go see who to go meet

discussion board going on thru sms

henry jenkins – aprticipatory cultuere

where there is no diff fro mthe fan and the band

hier of control breaking – artifacts of culture (Mp3s movies) and discourse (board, blogs) – never happened before

implications of media give more weght to what is being said

settled in their own hierarchies

author subj to the qual or representation in the internet age

onus of authoritative voice – ceases for content providers and now sits with the audience

fleetwood mac – end to end didnt listen to users

now – producers and consumers are a lot closer

headautomatica.com

diff between consume an dproduce has been reduced and the barriers are completely gone

Please please please watch the video until the end where he discusses his friend Jace. Its worth it.

Considering whats going on with the Katrina Refugees, I think he has the worst timing in the world. Then again, he has gotten almost $1500 bucks.

I would considering giving him $10 bucks , but would rather see him give the G4 to MOUSE or another non-profit that could use it (he plans on blowing it up).

Click here to check out the site

The Cardboard House — roofed with HDPE plastic — is recycled, recyclable, flat-pack, home-assembled, and comes with a composting toilet and condenses its own water, which doubles as an under-house ballast tank to keep it from blowing over.

Very cool. Link to BoingBoing article here.

Link to the Houses of the Future site here.

Check out John Robb’s comments on Dave Winer’s instant outlinerhere

It connects IM, weblog publishing (a weblog is essentially a published outline), RSS (if RSS items are brought into the outline), and outlining in a new way that radically improves team productivity.

I have been searching in vain for some groupware for the boutique ad agency I work for for about a year now. MS Project is too unwieldy and most of the open source apps dont fit the bill. Shrinkwrap? too expensive.

Cant wait to see what Dave & co. is cooking up.

Hugh Macleod’s GapingVoid is a great site. The commentary is awesome and the cartoons are always great.

Above is hysterical. We have been having lots of discussions internally and with clients about the use (and overuse and flashturbatory use) of Flash in our projects and the web in general.

Don’t be that guy.