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Sun Holds News Conference In Second Life
mikesd81 writes, "Internet News is reporting that Sun held an in-world news conference in the online game Second Life. From the article: 'Tuesday, Sun became the first Fortune 500 company to hold an "in-world" press conference to show off its new pavilion in Second Life, the popular 3D online world. Sun said it plans to invest in the Sun Pavilion as a place for developers to try out code, share ideas, and receive training.' Sun hopes to reach millions of Java developers, as opposed to the 22,000 that show up at its JavaOne conference each year." Good luck with that goal of "millions" — the total population of SL is under 800,000. And, who knew that Sun has a Chief Gaming Officer? Good quote from him in the article. He said Second Life isn't a game, "It's an amazing platform for global communications."
... Linden Labs has no intention (at this moment) of using Java for their scripting language. Mono is the next step, from the developer logs.
Do I need to pay for access to Second Life to communicate globally? I prefer to communicate globally in my First Life, so to speak... it's amazing! ;)
Any channel spammer from the Starcraft/Diablo II days could have told you about the potential to reach millions of customers...
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
and it wants it's bubble back.
Seriously though, I think this is another sign that Sun isn't focused. Yes they have product and technology, but I don't see them turning it into sales. Company hasn't kept up with market changes in this way.
Warm and fuzzy this may be, but show me the money!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I would go to the Java One conference if it wasn't for the cost. So from that point of view this is great. Still, you would need some pretty craetive presentations that are SL aware to make this work. Wouldn't work if you just had a bunch of avatars standing next to each other talking about code. I can picture some custom objects that work as powerpoint screens/laser pens. Uuuu time to use all those neat 3ds plugins for SL now!
And WoW isn't a game either, it's a platform for global gold farming and life draining.
You know it's interesting that he termed it a great communications medium, because it is. Or it could be, with some work.
Think of all the time that people are sinking to keep email- a stressed and some would say broken- tenable into the future... now divert some of that energy into making Second Life (or a Second Life-like system) into something useful for communication. The result would be newer, richer and arguably better suited for human communication than text based email ever will be.
Coo. Just plain coo.
No, really? If I want to share code, ask questions, read docs, does having an avatar and going through that environment really add anything at all to these tasks?
Come on, Sun, tell us how it does things that can't be more efficiently served with a website and forums?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
There's actually more than a bit of truth to what he says.
I've been lurking around SL lately just to figure out what all the buzz is about and would say it's a platform in which you can create and manipulate objects, avatars, and buildings. Interaction via "game physics" occurs and keeps the environment manageable.
It's immature right now -- and maybe it always will be -- but I can see the potential. It's not a bad way to meet up with others to collaborate or teach/learn.
Sun isn't the only company seeing value there. I understand Adidas/Reebok are setting up store there...
Life is short: void the warranty.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Did I miss something here? Sun holds a press conference. In an environment that cannot even run on their machines or in their own operating system? They're basically saying "We're cool, we're tech 'leet, but our hardware and software are worthless!"
Why didn't they just hold it in Microsoft Netmeeting?
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
Hopefully the tech will improve over time. Online venues for meetings could be quite handy, especially when you are dealing with 3D models. Nice for everyone to be able to walk around them and poke them.
Life is short: void the warranty.
.. a giant polka-dot dong materialised floating above the podium, but was quickly removed by Second Life admins. Probably.
Sun Microsystems first attempt was to do a massive, universal campaign in another popular online game, EVE-ONLINE. Reports are scarce, but from credible witnesses flying around in Polaris ships to monitor the event, the endeavour quickly became a fiasco.
Sun thought Querious, which permitted word play for 'query' and provided them to boast their server and sql database presentation, would be a good idea to rally tons of people to the event.
Unfortunately, a large in-game Alliance known as Band of Brothers [BoB], setup a trap to permit tons of people into pouring into their soverign territory. While Sun Microsystems (working with Quaff Marketing Agents) to launch the event, BoB came in with Interceptors, Heavy Assault Cruisers, Battleships, Carriers and Motherships and podded everyone except for the GMs. Many petitions were filed that day, even Sun Microsystems employees filed petitions. As usual, all those petitions fell on deaf ears. Across the street from CCP in Iceland, police received complaints from residents nearby for excessive laughter.
So you see no advantage to going to conferences or classrooms as learning experiences? Let's just shut down all the colleges then. Pheonix U online should be just as good as Harvard or MIT.
Oh, wait, now maybe there is some advantage to the classroom/conference format. OK, now if you want more people to show up, you have to get a bigger meeting space, arrange dates for when it's not in use by some other organization, arrange for people to travel to the location, arrange for places for them to stay, and figure out a way to pay for all of that.
But if we can get all of the advantages to a real-time, interpersonal learning environmet with top notch presentations and leading experts, but with none of the travel, hosting, or cost issues, isn't this exactly the kind of value added service we (that being technology advocates) have touted the web as providing for so many years? Yes, it comes wrapped in all the other silliness and baggage that is Second Life, but had Sun released this as a stand alone client/learning environment, and Second Life didn't exist, everyone would be hailing this as proof that tech can provide most of the benefits of a real life meeting, while avoiding the static and overly artificial interaction of webpages and forums. In fact, once VoIP is fully integrated, and dynamic expressions become easier and clearer (a frown while someone is listening to you, or the tone/type of clapping after your presentation provides a world of useful information back to a speaker) this could replace 80% of the gain I get from attending conferences. That loss would be more than offset by using this to allow me to attend far more learning and idea sharing forums.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Everything was going great at the Sun's news conference, until he had a bout of indigestion and scorched the attendees with a solar flare...
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
How do they keep the economy from hyperinflating?
If they're giving everyone a constant supply of money in their weekly stipend, isn't that just like a country's central bank printing money? How does the price of goods not spiral out of control?
Is it just because they're constantly pulling money out of the economy through land rent, that they can do it?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You think that's bad? I heard that Steve Jobs rides to his Apple Expo keynotes in a car not made by Apple! And sometimes when the CEO of McDonalds goes to lunches with business clients, sometimes he goes to restaurants that don't serve Big Macs! Hell, I work in an architecture firm, but I live in a house that someone else designed. I must think I'm crap!
They're basically saying, rather than roll our own online "environment" for this project, we'll just use a pre-existing one, and save our company some money by not doing a lot of extra work. That seems to make sense to me.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I would have thought that using an open source system specifically designed for multi-user conferences would have been a better choice for holding a virtual conference.
http://www.opencroquet.org/
Open Crouquet is shaping up pretty well and dosn't come with half the hassles, you don't have to worry about users gate crashing your conerence ( Conference is closed... coz of AIDS! ), you can run Croquet on your own hardware, and it can be customized to suit your needs..
Maybe someone should mention this this to Sun?
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
You're a fucking moron if you think that assholes annoying people is "greifing". I had friends who used to do similar things, and they're (along with a bunch of their friends who basically did nothing except exist in the same group with them) all banned now over things that could have been handled on a parcel-by-parcel basis.
Second Life is a huge shithole of malls, 'sex clubs' and batshit crazy, self-important, no-reason morons. The only fun I ever had was hanging out with friends mentioned above, who also happened to make really funny and creative builds too. Now that they're gone, and I feel like there is a banhammer just waiting to hit me just by association, I have no more reason to be there. I suppose it's a great place to be if you feel like conforming to the whims of the hundreds of subcultures and not being able to say a bad thing about any of them, ever, without them being offended and reporting you.
Another case of a game with tons of potential ruined by its userbase.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion