Op-ed – Page 11

Monash Uni: closed island?

November 16, 2007 by Editor 16 Comments

In an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, I was a little surprised at a quote attributed to Monash University’s Dr Melissa de Zwart: “our area won’t be open to the public; you will need to be on an authorised list to get in”.

I try to avoid real-world comparisons but it’s difficult in this case: this is the equivalent of putting a barbed-wire fence across the entrance of the local university. Doesn’t a total closed-door policy from a taxpayer-funded entity go against its purpose as a community facility? RMIT Island has blocked off most of its island from general access but it at least has a public welcome area. As Gary Hayes says in the same article, it’s not hard to prevent damage to a Second Life presence. So why the lockdown?

Perhaps someone attending this event can ask.

The Wonderland saga – ageplay focus increases

November 1, 2007 by Editor 8 Comments

Over the past day, the ageplay investigations by UK authorities has well and truly hit the mainstream media. WIth gambling now gone from SL, sex was always going to be the issue that piques the media’s interest, particularly when it potentially involves children.

At SLOz we’ve been contacted today by a couple of mainstream media outlets including one of the national TV news services. NineMSN has a perfunctory story on its site. Our comments to the media matched those we’ve made here: any efforts to remove child pornography are to be applauded, determining the actual age of SL users is fraught with difficulty and Linden Lab have a significant issue on their hands.

Linden Lab’s response response today is a re-hash of its previous position i.e. ‘tell us when you see it happen and we’ll investigate’. We’re assuming this is an initial response – there’s a momentum growing in a number of countries now and the status quo probably isn’t going to be good enough.

Update: there’s a sizeable discussion on the saga at TechCrunch.

Filed Under: General News, Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ageplay, media

Pornography and virtual worlds

October 28, 2007 by Editor 1 Comment

In the eleven months SLOz has been running, one of the most vexed questions about Second Life and virtual worlds in general in pornography. Our story on Linden Lab’s ban on ageplay is the most viewed story on SLOz and by an extremely large margin – its follow-up is also regularly read. The reason for the enormous number of views comes down to the venerable search engine.

Each day we get hundreds of views of the ageplay story, through people typing a bunch of terms into Google or other search engines. Some of the more common being used are:

– child porn
– virtual child porn
– preteen porn
– preteen panties
– beastiality
– virtual porn
– legal porn
– child panties

There are a bunch of other ones I won’t publish here, suffice it to say there are some sick people out there. What it illustrates is the universality of the issue across the internet. Linden Lab’s crackdown appears to have been effective in minimising overt ageplay. What it can’t do is minimise the significant demand for undesirable images nor the dilemma of defining what consitutes pornography or otherwise.

Where do you see this issue progressing in future?

Filed Under: Op-ed, TMJ Site News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ageplay, sex

Where’s Australian charity in Second Life?

October 10, 2007 by Editor 4 Comments

One of SL’s greatest strengths is its ability to muster the community for worthwhile causes. The Relay For Life is one well-known example and we’ve covered and the Garden for the Missing is another that has gained a lot of interest.

Given Australia is one of the larger contingents in Second Life, where’s the Australian effort in community service / charity? If you know of one, we’d love to cover it. Even if you offer free services to the SL community, let us know.

Filed Under: Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: nonprofit

More than just the jitters? Australian business in Second Life

September 16, 2007 by Editor 3 Comments

One of the most commonly reported aspects of SL is its relationship with RL business. A year ago, the reporting was predominantly rose-shaded and that continued up until recently when some US business reduced or ceased their SL presence. The mood change in the mainstream media was noticeable and to a large extent its continued. Even in the SL blogosphere there’s arguably a more sceptical tone adopted in relation to corporate presences – there were always sceptics but there’s now a wider acceptance of the pitfalls of doing business in SL. That said, corporations continue to set up shop – Peugeot are a recent example.

In an Australian context, Telstra and the ABC’s launches remain the largest to date with a few smaller presences either established or under way. Is it just our relatively small population that explains the state of play or a fundamental case of ‘wait and see’?

Filed Under: Business, Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: business, Op-ed

Stock Exchange churn continues

August 20, 2007 by Editor 11 Comments

The near-farcical nature of the multiple stock exchanges in SL continues, with the delisting of a number of companies on the fledgling ISE (International Stock Exchange). A number of these delisted companies were refugees from the World Stock Exchange and they now state they’ll list elsewhere.

The obvious question is – why would anyone have confidence in any virtual world stock exchange or the companies listed on them, when it’s so easy to change exchanges at a whim. To be fair to the ISE, they have implemented “a policy of disclosing all CEO’s stock transactions in direct relation to their listed company”. If this is the reason that the companies have delisted, then the concern should be focused on the company side of the equation. It’s a fair expectation that shareholders know the shareholdings of a company’s CEO.

It’s been discussed in detail all over the SL blogosphere: the current situation is a murky mess full of contradictions and conflicts of interest and it’s fair to assume the churn isn’t going to improve until some fundamental transparency measures are implemented across the board.

On a related note I received the following IM overnight:

[23:41] MouzurX Wise: (Saved Mon Aug 20 01:13:14 2007) You have been ejected from ‘World Stock Exchange’ by MouzurX Wise.

His profile claims:

“I work at WSE Customer Service, am GMG PR/IR Manager and I run an investment company in SL, Wise Financial. Also, I am the CEO of Builders Paradise – Franchise.”

Aside from no explanation about my ejection, here’s one of many examples of the conflicts of interest that abound. Can you imagine someone in RL who owned a financial services company also working for the stock exchange?

Filed Under: Business, Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: finance, ISE, WSE

Ageplay three months after the ban

August 14, 2007 by Editor 8 Comments

It’s been just over three months since the ageplay ban instigated by Linden Lab. There’s been no reports of ageplay sexual exploits in SL since that time although there’d be no doubt it’s occurred. There also remains an enormous range of children’s clothes, skins and accessories on offer:

To test the level of risk for an avatar in child form, we logged in on an alternative account as a child avatar and spent some time wandering around a number of clubs in SL to see if any approaches were made for sex. In the hour or so we did this, we weren’t approached but on the other hand, no-one was at all peturbed by a little boy watching their activities:

Some clubs do have prominent warnings on the issue although just as many don’t:

Overall, the ban may have stopped overt displays of ageplay sexual activity and instilled significant wariness of those frequenting the more popular sex clubs, but all of the support mechanisms are healthy and well. What are your thoughts on the issue? Are there valid reasons for over-18’s to be involved in ageplay, sexual or otherwise?

Filed Under: Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ageplay, lindenlab

Ongoing grid issues – how geography bites

August 12, 2007 by Editor 8 Comments

The explanation by Linden Lab of ongoing grid stability this week is fairly technical but it once again illustrates the significant technical hurdles Second Life has to jump over just to function normally. Add to that the geographical distance and sub-par broadband in Australia and it’s not hard to see why we’re a frustrated bunch at times.

At a forum in May this year, we were told international servers would occur “real soon now” by expatriate Linden, Chris Collins. Here’s hoping “soon” involves the year 2007 – as voice in SL increases in popularity, the issues are only likely to exacerbate.

How have you found stability over recent weeks – worse or about the same?

Filed Under: General News, Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: lindenlab, usability

OECD report: lag issues are no surprise

July 14, 2007 by Editor 8 Comments

There’s unlikely to be many Australian SL users who don’t have to deal with the frustrations of lag. The physical location of the servers in the United States are a key issue, but the speed of broadband internet in Australia is also a contributing factor.

To throw the issue into very stark relief, the OECD has relesased a 310-page report entitled “OECD Communications Outlook 2007”. It’s not a report for the light-hearted but it provides some fascinating comparisons of broadband access, speed and price.

1. Dial-up versus broadband:

Australia is well below OECD average of broadband take up. One would think speed and pricing would play a role as well as geography.

2. Broadband speed by incumbent telecommunications operator:

Australia is second lowest in speed across the whole OECD. Do not the disclaimer however that there was a speed bump late last year but we remain well down the list. With a bit of luck your connection may match that of a New Zealander.

3. Cost of bandwidth:

No surprise here – broadband in Australia isn’t cheap. GigaOM have covered the report and cite how expensive broadband is in the United States. They should be thankful they’re not Australian based.

Linden Labs have publicly committed to Australian-based servers, but it looks like we’ll be accessing those servers via comparatively low-bandwidth, expensive connections. A number of promises have been made by the Government and Opposition in the lead up to this year’s election but that’s all they are until well after polling day. We’re running a poll on the SLOz forums on your Second Life experience from a broadband point of view, so jump in and have your say.

Filed Under: Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: usability

Is it just ‘Summer’ Doldrums?

July 12, 2007 by Editor Leave a Comment

Since the release of the June metrics, there’s been a general consensus that a peak has been reached. The only conjecture is when growth is likely to increase again. Or if it will at all. The northern hemisphere commentators are calling it summer doldrums but not ruling out a deeper change.

Australian users are contradicting the trend, with a jump from 1.93% to 2.61% in active Australian users. That’s arguably because the Australiam media’s interest in Second Life is recent when compared to the USA and Europe. As media stories increase their focus on user growth, some will argue the media are spooking potential new users. That may be a risk, however any product lives or dies on its usability and Second Life is no different. Imminent enhancements like voice will determine in a large way that perception of improving usability.

Filed Under: Metrics, Op-ed, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: Metrics, Op-ed