Adobe and Macromedia merged a while ago. So think of the tools that Adobe has. Flash, Illustrator, PhotoShop, ColdFusion and Flex. They’ve got the perfect mix of tools for scripters and designers. Imagine what you could do with that tool set if completely integrated into Second Life. Just thinking about it makes me smile and grin. It would be quite impressive.

Now, I don’t think that Second Life fits into the Adobe business plan, but then again I don’t know what their plan is. I could make arguments that having a virtual world would be an amazing place for creatives to unleash their brains because lets face it, that is what Second Life is for a lot of people. It is about a lot of other things too. *grin*

The code side is where the real power could be. I worked with ColdFusion for a number of years and know that it can do some pretty cool stuff. Finally having web integration in both directions would be a huge plus. Being able to query data from other sources and have that data come into Second Life would shift everything. I’m still hoping they do simple things such as tying the weather to a zip code. That way I could build a sim and tell it to pull the weather from Boston or Hawaii to add a certain new level of “real” to it.

I’m not making any predictions here, but I had to share since it gave me something to noodle on today and perhaps it will give you something to as well.

I first met Marc Girolimetti at a Second Life event in Boston and we instantly clicked. We are certainly kindred spirits and are developing a great friendship. So many months ago when we had lunch at China Sky in Wellesley and he told me the secret about bringing Playboy into Second Life I couldn’t wait to tell everyone. But, as a good friend I kept the news to myself. Even when I saw the teaser banners recently I didn’t say anything.

At our last lunch he mentioned how he’d LOVE to be on a podcast sometime and of course I’m not going to miss an opportunity like that!

So last week we got on the phone to talk about the changes his company Green Grotto Studios is going through, how they got Playboy , New England sports, Curt Schilling’s Blog, Babson and new media in general. It’s about an hour long, but a great conversation about a variety of topics.

The island opens today at 4 pm SLT and there will be some fun events to kick it all off. Enjoy!

Call anytime into the comment line at 206-309-4729 and leave a message or e-mailing me an MP3 works as well.

More goodness at Managing the Gray if this gets scraped or you find it somewhere else.

As computer processors get faster and the tools get easier to use I believe we are going to see more of this. With built in tool inside of Second Life I’ve seen even more of it lately. Crayon even has a little trailer for our island that we had someone put together for us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icGPYk_swps

Today I saw this new piece of machinima released from the team behind the Silverscreen island as a wrap up for the press event that they held for the movie 300. Full disclosure that crayon was involved a bit behind the scenes on this event, but had nothing to do with this video. I found it this morning while going through Bloglines.

What I like about this is that it’s not just straight up footage from the event. It is very nicely mixed up with a comic book theme and intercut with some footage from the movie. Overall it provides a very nice presentation that gives you a feel for the event but also drives home that it was more then just a press event. The shots at the end showcasing the island are more powerful then some of the other shots. I think I would have mixed those in or moved them up front so that people don’t miss them.

I look forward to seeing more companies and individuals mixing the mediums to take machinima to the next level.

I’m really looking forward to people who have never even seen Second Life before to submit some fantastic ideas from their imaginations. I’m also looking forward to people using brands other then the normal Coke ones. I got thinking about Enviga pogo sticks or Dasani water slides.

I have no building skills in Second Life, but I do have an imagination and that is the goal of the contest is about imagination and what you can come up with. I’m actually bummed that I can’t enter!!

Full details of the breakfast event can be found here.

Thanks to Michael Seaton and Mitch Joel for the hookup on this event. Always great to be thought of for speaking engagements. Especially one where I get to share the stage with Jay Moonah!

How this came about is last week my Google Alerts let me know about a post by a student. I read the post and in it she talked about being on a scavenger hunt for her class that brought her by Crayonville. I left a comment because I just though this was downright cool.

A short while later I got an e-mail from the DeNel Rehberg Sedo, PhD who is the teacher of the class asking if I’d be interested in speaking to her students. I jumped at the chance.

I had the class meet me at the U-Turn Cafe just so we could be alone and chat easier. It was a lot of fun because the students had come up with questions ahead of time so there was a flurry of conversation. The first batch was pretty laid back and we talked about a variety of topics. They are mainly PR students so it made for great conversations.

The second batch was much more confrontational, but in a good way. They asked the hard questions. How can Second Life be a replacement for employee interaction? Is technology hurting how we communicate? Really good questions! It was a great back and forth.

The other big difference between the two sessions is the first were dancing around while asking questions. Exploring the space and having fun. The second all sat down formerly and didn’t move. It was quite interesting indeed.

One of the students named Lauren posted her thoughts on the second session. I’m waiting to see what the professor’s blog ends up saying about it. Or what Jill will say about it who is also a student and who talked to me a bunch on the side about the conversation and her future.

Second Life and virtual worlds will never replace human contact. As I stated yesterday I see it as a substitute or enhancement for when the situation is right. Would I have preferred to be in front of that class in person and having the same conversation? You bet I would! But, since we couldn’t do that this worked as a substitute and is better then nothing at all.

Thank you again to the class for having me. I hope it’s something I get to do more of in the future. Both in real life and in Second Life.

~ Cross posting on CC-Chapman.com, Managing the Gray and 93 Colors. ~

No they didn’t. What I’m talking about is that they crossed the 1 million users logged in during the last 60 days for the first time yesterday according to the Second Life Insider.

This is important because no one seems to know for sure if alternative avatar accounts count towards the total registered user count or not, so I’ve been watching who is logging in as a better indicator of how many people are engaging in this brave new world.

Sure, people will compare and contrast that number to everything under the sun. I’m just looking at it as a nice milestone. One that proves there IS growth happening there. Not that I had any doubts.

I will say that after some deep conversations with forward thinker such as Clarence and Eric  my desires for Second Life are in a state of silly putty where I’m trying to figure out what to shape it into. SO many possibilities.

I’m a huge fan of virtual worlds as you know and have covered everything from Second Life building costs to my Second Life Primer. This news is a big shift and will effect everything that we know in Second Life. I say that in a good way. I think this is a great thing and I’m looking forward to seeing what people will do with this.

I’m sure some will have malicious intent with their ideas, but on the flip side I know that this is a very good thing. Lots of good can come from this and it’s great to be part of it.

I think I’m going to go jump in world and see what the vibe is like there.

Intro: Welcome to the brand new world of digital marketing consumer-generated media and no control PR. The rules of engagement are no longer black and white. You need to change, to evolve, to manage the gray, and how do you do that? You let C.C. Chapman help you.

C.C. Chapman: Well, I am sure going to try to help you. Welcome to Managing the Gray #22. I am C.C. Chapman. How are you guys doing? Hope you are doing well.

Listen, I know this is kind of quick back-to-back, Managing the Gray’s, but that is okay, I hope you do not mind because the main reason was — it is two-fold. By the time you hear this I will probably be on a plane or already in London, England for PodcastCon UK. I am on a panel talking about unique ways to use marketing for podcast. It will be a lot of fun. People I am on the panel with are very, very cool and I cannot wait to meet — it is my first trip to London, so I am really looking forward to having some great conversations with people that I have never met face to face or may not even have met before at all, which is excellent. I am very much looking forward to that. That was part one and part two was I got this really good question yesterday through the comment line. They sent me an email at managingthegray@gmail.com and I was like, “I wanna answer this right now.” I want to answer this because I think it is a very, very valid question.

The other reason was because while I am going to be on a plane, there is going to be announcements flying, so I can pre-record this and put it out when the time is right. What that is, is I am very excited to announce that a couple of weeks ago, when Crayon went live, Bryan Person from New Comm Road, Bryper.com, said, “Hey C.C. and Joseph, what do you guys think about holding a case camp in Second Life,” and I said, “Of course, let’s do it. Let’s have it at Crayonville. No questions asked. Let’s do it.” That’s one of the reasons that we put together the island was to have events like this, where people could come together and just have events. So, we are happy to announce that if you go to casecampsecondlife.org, you can get all the details on a case camp being held in Second Life. I do not know if it is the first in Second Life. I do not care if it is the first in Second Life. I am just excited that it is happening and it is going to be a lot of fun. If you are not familiar what a case camp is, they have happened in Montreal and Toronto as far as I know; those are the two that I am aware of. It is where you get up and you give — rather than a traditional speech, there are rules. You are limited to five slides. In this case, you are going to have 10 minutes and you present a case. This is not a sales pitch, this is not theory. This is a real case on something you did in the new marketing space that you want to share with the world. Does it have to be Second Life-related? Heck, no. I am thinking that, if not all of them, I am thinking most of them are not going to be on that. We are looking for people to present. We are looking for people to attend. Because of the limitations of how many people can come, we are going to do it as random style. People are going to register and yes, the presenters get in. There are the other people that have to get in, you know, the organizers and such. We are going to randomly pick people out of the registrations to attend. We figured it was the only fair way because first come, first served does not work because when you hear about this, when I hear about this is different and all that. We just want to make it as fair as possible.

Some people are not going to like it, but we are trying something new. This is going to be the first of many case camps I hope and I hope they bounce off all over the place in Second Life. I think they would be very cool. Would we have another one in Crayonville? Of course, we will, but wherever you want to have them, I think that is great, so casecampsecondlife.org. Bryper has been doing some huge things on this. Eli, I am not sure how you say it, from casecamp.org and Kate from My Name Is Kate — the four of us have been going non nonstop so it has been a lot of fun.

So, now, let me get into this comment. It is Second Life-focused, but it is a really good question that I think — these are the type of questions I do not think are getting answered enough out there in the blogosphere, the podosphere and the mainstream media and I wanted to give you mine, C.C. Chapman’s, perspective on the answer to this question. I think it is important if you guys are thinking about — if you have a client or if you yourselves are thinking about getting into Second Life and you see these articles about building islands and stuff I think this question really hits home to that. He said it to both me and Joseph. I do not know if Joseph is going to take an answer, I did not check with him. He is his own man, it is all good, but here is the comment and the question.

Paul: Wow you did it! I heard you talking about getting old school media interested in reporting about how your new company, Crayon, is doing business online with its headquarters at Crayonville Island on Second Life. Specifically, you commented on when you might be covered in the Wall Street Journal. Well today, Monday, the 13th of November, I was very excited to see my Wall Street Journal. Right there on the front page of the section B is a large picture of Crayon’s virtual Second Life meeting room with, I believe, you Joseph and you C.C. attending what seems to be a very informal meeting. They even included close-up headshots of Joseph and his avatar. However, I was dismayed to read the part about it costing roughly 20,000 to build a Second Life presence at least, according to Emily Steel, the article’s author, Industry Executives. I have been wanting to delve into the Second Life experience, but this now has me a little apprehensive about the whole thing. Could you guys comment a bit about your experience with building your Crayonville Island? How long did it take? How much did it cost? I know you had help from the people at Millions of Us and that probably kept cost down, but when the Wall Street Journal talks about a company like Volkswagen AG spending 20,000 to build their presence, what exactly are they spending all that money on? Is it spent paying their staffers to design and build a lavish Second Life presence? Or, is a lot of it going to Linden Labs for paid promotions and “land purchases?” Well, I am really enjoying the podcast, guys. Keep it up and thanks a lot. Cheers from Paul at pdvd.wordpress.com.

C.C. Chapman: It is a really good question there and something that I am sure many of you are thinking about. So, again, this is my take on things and some of it is definitely factual, some of it is opinion-based. When you go to buy land, there are two major decisions you can and — Oh, first off, the answer to the question is no. It does not have to cost $20,000 and the answer is also yeah, it can cost a lot more than $20,000, but there are two different ways to go. You can buy land. A parcel of land can be any size just like in the real world. This is just like the real world. You can buy a parcel of land. It costs more depending on how much land you buy. You buy an acre as opposed to 10 acres, it costs a different price. Likewise, just like in the real world — all of these is like in the real world, the location matters. If you buy an acre of prime, prime ocean real estate in a very nice neighborhood, it is going to cost a lot less than a little hovel on top of the hill in the middle of the dirtiest zone of Second Life imaginable. It is just the way it works. So, it all depends. You can go in and buy land right now. Anybody can go into Second Life. When you are in there, if you do a Find command, which is Control F on the PC, F where it is on the Mac. You can type in Land Sales. You tell it how much you want to spend. You say how much land you want, how many acres, square meters you want. It will bring back results. You can just go on that land right now and click Buy and you buy and you own it and it is yours. Okay?

Now, here is something to think about because I have had a Second Life office for awhile now. I have always had secondlifeoffice.com redirect to wherever that is. Now, here is the interesting thing. It has moved behind the scenes a couple of times and one of the reasons is — here is the biggest thing about not owning an island. I am going to talk about islands in a minute. One of the biggest things about not owning islands is you cannot control your neighbors. Whoever pops up, whoever is next to you now might not be there tomorrow. My old Second Life office, a perfect example. When I bought it, it was next to a beautiful replica of Walden Ponds. Someone had actually built a ginormous replica of Walden Pond, complete with the woods, the deer, everything. It was gorgeous. Within a week of me buying it, they had sold it and it was empty. Then came along a sex shop. Then came along a beautiful, wooded playground, that is what it looked like, but it was a role playing area. Now, it is empty again. You never know. That is one of the biggest pitfalls about buying land not on an island. For corporations, it is something to very much think about, is that you are not going to be able to control who your neighbors are.

Now, on that note, there is zoning in some cases. As an island owner, people who sell pieces of island, there are huge real estate companies in Second Life, they can zone it. You will see an island that has a theme. Themes may be a better description. You will see an island theme, lots of beach. You might see a winterscape, you might see a dreamscape, you might see a Japanese — I have seen some beautiful builds that are all Asian-influenced, they are beautiful. Samurai Island is a perfect example. Warning, Samurai Island is violent, so be careful if you go there. Everything has a certain theme to it. You can buy land there. It is more expensive because it is at a premium. It is just something to keep in mind. Now, when you buy an island, the biggest difference about the island is you control everything. Everything about the island is yours. You control access, you control who can and cannot get there, you control the night, the day, you control everything. That is one of the reasons so many people go for islands, especially on the corporation side because they want to be able to control that level of access and have that level of detail about it.

Now, how much does an island cost? Actually, the prices are just about ready to go up. Actually, by the time this goes out, they may already be up. An island costs, you buy it Linden Labs and think of it as buying a web server, it is what you are doing, you are buying web server space, it costs $1695 USD to buy the island and then you pay $295 a month maintenance fee. It is just like paying maintenance on a server. That is how much an island costs. That gets you a plain, flat, green island in the middle of nowhere or wherever you put it. That is what it gets you. You can start with that and be done. Now granted I do not think it is going to be very exciting to you as a marketing person or anybody in Second Life, so you have to hire builders to build your land. So, the $20,000 quote, yeah that is probably a good estimate. If someone asks me right now, “C.C., I wanna buy an island for my company and I wanna have it built up. I wanna have buildings. I wanna have some interaction. I wanna have it very nicely done. How long is it gonna take and how much do you think it’s gonna cost?” I would tell them roughly, I would say estimate between $10,000 and $20,000 and probably a month of build time because there are going to be lots of — it is just like building a website.

Do you remember the first person you paid to build a website? You cannot be talking about last week. Go back 10, 12 years when there was not a whole lot of people building websites. Think about what you paid for that. It was not cheap! It is supply and demand. There is not a huge number of people in Second Life who are builders, who are skilled builders. A lot of you play around, which is a great thing, but that is what it is. It depends. You can hire an independent builder who is probably going to cost you less than a big company builder. Now, I am not going to say that independent builders are not as good as big company builders because I think there are some amazing independent builders out there. There are tons of them. It is just a matter of you finding the right one that is for you and that is what is key. There is a developers’ directory and a builders’ directory on secondlife.com. Look them up, talk to them, see what they have built, talk to them. That is the key. Most of them, at least most them I have worked with and most of them I have seen quoted, work on usually an hourly basis rather than a build basis, but I have also worked with some who do on a build basis. You talk about what you want to build, they say, “Okay, that’s gonna cost X,” and you go, “Oh okay.” I have also worked with people who charge based on hourly. You start with an idea and of course the minute you get going, you know how scope creep is, you build more and more and more. You have more ideas, more ideas so it costs more in the end.

The other thing I have learned is that there are builders and then there are scripters. Some do both, do not get me wrong. A perfect example, on Crayonville, our builder built all the buildings. She put it all up, she put up the wallpaper on it, she put up the little things, but she did not script. She did minor scripting, but when like I wanted — when I wanted the jukeboxes and the diner to play music, they are still not happening yet because our scripter is working on that. It is a separation of power and you are paying them individually. Some people will do both. You can also pay for decorators, we decided not to. I have done all the decorating on Crayonville. So, if you do not like a chair, it is my fault. I mean, no, because I am a guy and I do not know this stuff. I am figuring out as I go along. There is that level of difference, too. Every piece of furniture you buy costs money so it can add up very, very quickly or very slowly, depending on how you do it. It is the nature of the beast.

Something else that I wanted to mention is about controlling the island. You control whether it is PG or whether it is mature. All land is labeled as that, so if you are going to buy some individual land as opposed to an island and you are really worried about who might pop up as your neighbor, buy some PG land because that is going to make it — granted you still do not know what is going to pop up next to you, but you can be pretty sure that it is not going to be anything of the adult nature, so look for PG land. It actually will say it right in the “About Land” tab. Actually, it also says that up in the bar across the top of Second Life. Wherever you are, it says that so keep a look out for that. Do not be scared by $20,000. It could cost that much. Might it cost a lot less? Yes, it will and I strongly encourage people to work with people who have done it before.

There are project managers in Second Life. Right now, I own a separate piece of land outside of Crayonville that I hired a project manager to help me build. She is doing an amazing job. She is helping me do that. She knew the builders, I did not know them. She reached out to the builders, she found me a builder. We talked, we went to the land. We talked about what I wanted to do. It is just like any other requirements document on any other campaign you have done. Do not think that just because this is a virtual world, it is different. You have to sit down, you have to write a brief, you have to have discussions, you have to lay out the scope of what it is and then you start building. It is like every other thing you have ever worked on. Think of it like a website. When I was laying out — the office has to go in the middle of the island. Yeah, we could have put it in another corner, we said, “No, let’s put it in the corner.” “I wanted the amphitheatre in the corner.” You lay those things out. It is just like when you build a system or you do a campaign. You want to get it done and make those decisions before it goes to print, the same thing with Second Life.

I know I am kind of rambling here and I have kind of gone in a couple of different directions, but I hope I am giving you the information you are looking for on getting land in Second Life. Do not be scared off by high price tags, it all depends on the campaign. You can get really creative with what you want to do. You could buy a piece of land and just stick a pole in the middle or stick a lighthouse and put an ad on top. Is it going to get you what you want? Probably not. It is going to cost you to do it effectively. Now, I am not saying it is always top money. It might be time that is going to cost you because you could build it yourself if you wanted to, you are just going to learn the skills, but to do it right you have got to have the skills. If you do not have them and I do not have them — I do not have builder skills, I just do not have them, I have to reach out and find them. Let me tell you, there is a thriving building community in Second Life that you can work with. My experiences so far have been hit and miss. I have had builders promise things and then they disappear. I have had them promise and not deliver, but I have also had them promise things and I get them. It is just like in the real world. You do business with people and then if they do not work out, you never do business with them again. Second Life is no different than the web. There is no difference in the agency world. There is no difference in life in general in that sense. So, find people, ask around.

One thing I wish and I really want to make this happen, so if you want to help me, let me know. I would love to get this built. I want a job posting system in Second Life where people can rate builders and this goes beyond builders too. Like, I want to hire a receptionist for Crayonville. I have no way of doing that right now and that drives me nuts. Would it not be great to have a board where I could go and post, “C.C. is looking for such and such.” They used to have forums on secondlife.com which have been disbanded unfortunately, which had that to an extent, but I would still like to have it much more detailed than that where people could rate like eBay where before you buy something, you can actually see the ratings on people. It does help you make a decision. I wish I could have that for builders and scripters and decorators and event planners in Second Life, every type of thing possible because people are doing it. That is what I wish so I wish that can happen soon. Oh, I am wishing a lot today. It must be the rain. That is the way it goes.

I really hope that answers your question about does it have to cost me $20,000? Keep in mind, like with anything else sometimes you get what you paid for and free is not always the best solution. My advice to you, in Second Life, in anything new marketing that you are trying, work with someone who has been there before, work with the expert. Get them in there, learn from them. Pay them what they deserve, but learn from them as well and then take that knowledge and take it to the next project. That is really what it is all about.

I am going to get out of here. I know we have been very focused on Second Life lately and I hope that has not deterred many of you listeners because we are getting back to the — it is just Second Life is a hot thing right now and there are a lot of questions coming in and people seem to be asking me a lot with the questions, which is cool. I love that. I am happy to answer it and I am very happy also to do cool things like this where we boil it down to a very basic question. How much is it going to cost me to play in Second Life? It does not have to cost you anything. You can do a lot of stuff for free. You can interact for free. When you start building and you want to do a proper marketing campaign in Second Life or to open up a proper presence in Second Life, then you have got to talk about it. It all depends on what you want to do, how much it is going to cost. It is the nature of the beast, we all understand that. Virtual worlds are no different, in Second Life, or there or any of the other — any of these virtual communities, they are all going to have different costs associated with them and you just need to be conscious of that and think about it.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me at managingthegray@gmail.com. I am going to get out of here. I will talk to you soon when I get back from London. I will have plenty of pictures and I am sure I will be blogging something before then, so you guys all take care. Thank you for listening. Thank you for passing on the word. I have got a bunch of new listeners lately and it has been very nice to hear from them all. It has been very, very fun. I will talk to you very soon. See you around Second Life. Swing by Crayonville, swing on by cc-chapman.com, say hi and I will talk to you very soon. Take care.

Closing: Thanks for listening to Managing the Gray. Tell your coworkers. Tell your friends and tell us what you think by leaving a comment at managingthegray.com.

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Sorry for the delay. I was in San Francisco and realized I didn’t have my FTP information on my laptop! How bad is that?

If your a resident you can jump right there through this Big Brother SLurl.

I actually know two people in the house right now. TheDiva Rockin and Gideon Television.

I love watching “reality” television, but never got into this show very much. It is interesting swinging by the island and seeing what is going on. It’s great to see it totally leveraging SL and what makes it fun while still keeping the basics of the show.

When I first saw the build I thought it was horrible, boring and not imaginative at all. Now, I get why it was so simple. The particpants have to build everything. That makes sense.

Good luck to all of the contestants. I’ve got my favorites I’m pulling for.

1. Massachussettes Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) Digital Marketing Series:
   Get a “Second Life”: Exploring the 3D World

2. Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) Summit 2006 in Washington, DC
   Marketing on Social Networks and Second Life

Any Managing the Gray listeners/readers attending either of these? If so I’d love to meet you and grab a drink and some conversation.

His podcast audio drama Shadow Falls did very well when it came out a few months ago. Serialized audio drama content that you could listen to every week as the story moves forward. I’m looking forward to hearing the next batch when season 2 begins.

But, they are trying something new to continue the draw for the fans and to bring in more listeners. I’m not sure it’s going to work totally towards those goals, but I applaud them trying mixing of medias and seeing what happens. If nothing else it’s going to be great to stop and look back at it afterwards for us all to learn.

Earlier this week Britney Mason announced that The Shadow Falls Experience would be opening in Second Life.

What is being done is clues are being given on a podcast which directs listeners to areas of the build in Second Life where they will unlock further clues. Each builds on the next and you must listen to the podcast and take part in the Second Life piece to get all the way through it all. It’s a very interesting merging of two technologies. It was very interesting to see a 3D representation of some of the major landmarks in the story.

I’m a bit biased being from New England on how they don’t fit what it looked like in my head, but when do they ever? Each persons imagination is their own. It’s what makes movies of books so hard to do right as well. Each person is going to have their own experience, but isn’t that sort of the point?
Reminds me of how earlier this year another friend of mine JC Hutchins held a big event in Second Life around his new podiobook 7th Son: Book 2 – Deceipt. A different approach, but still a nice integration of different tools.

Does any of this work? I don’t know. None of us do. It’s something new and we’ll have to play along to see. I’m just excited to see authors jumping into the fray and not being afraid to give it a whirl.

Now all I need to do is to get someone to create a machinima version of a football game from The Rookie by Scott Sigler and I’ll really be smiling.

It was fun as we got to hear the stream of the live audio from the interviews until the lawyers shut that down.

After a sim crash and delays upon delays Jay-Z finally performed. His avatar danced around the stage while we heard the live stream from the performance. Just like any other concert in SL which happen every night.

After two songs it was done. I felt completely underwhelmed so I turned on the TV to see how they used it during the actual airing of the show. That was what I was interested in since I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with it.

I stayed up watching it and besides a little mention of SL at the beginning there was NOTHING.

All hype, zero return. This is not how a company should approach something like Second Life. They didn’t even go for any buzz since the announcement of the event only came out late yesterday afternoon. I know some very talented people who worked on setting this up and they were working hard last night during it as well. I feel bad for them because I don’t understand what they did all the work for during a holiday week. It confuses me.

I’m sure there was a point to this whole evening, but I sure don’t see it yet.

The highlight was the random conversations and the live DJ at the beginning spinning mashups from the UK. Wished he had stayed around longer.

After crayon’s exposure in the Wall Street Journal this week, I got a question from a listener focusing on the quote about how much it costs to build a presence in Second Life. My answer plain and simple is “it depends.”

So, I took this episode and tried to give a sort of building concerns in Second Life 101. Focusing on things that marketers and individuals should think about when building in SL and more importantly buying land with the intent of building. I talk about the difference between buying an island and buying land anywhere else in SL. This isn’t just for big businesses but really anyone who might want to set up shop.

I talk from my personal experience and what people have told me as well. It is NOT meant to be the end all answer to the question so please provide more feedback in the comments because I believe that it takes the voice of the community to really get the answer your looking for. I’m sure I forgot some things or said something unclear. That is what happens when you podcast live.

Some helpful links:

• Second Life Land Page
• Developers Directory

I also announce CaseCamp Second Life which will be happening on December 14, 2006 at the Crayonville Amphitheatre. I believe I forgot to mention the date on the podcast. Silly me! I’m very excited for this event and look forward to trying a new medium such as this for this event. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

I’ve read tons of articles from every sort of publication and I have to say this is the most objective and honest look I’ve seen. It talks about the fact that it is not the most user friendly interface while talking about some of the success stories.

This article is for Fortune so of course it focuses soley on the big businesses coming into SL, but I was amazed at how dead on I thought the article was. I was also impressed to see him put his avatar at the end of the article. I jumped right in world to drop him an IM to say thanks for the great article

They’ve built a city scape with a road course around it. It’s known as Scion City. Stops include the show room, the stage and a drive in where some cool machinima was playing when I checked it out tonight. It’s geared towards cars.

Now, I’m not really a “car guy” in real life or Second Life, but I like how the three variety of Scions can be completely customized. Basic colors and rim styles can be done through a simple click interface, and for more talented users you can chop shop it to pieces and make it whatever you want. I’m planning on at least trying to turn mine into a convertable. We’ll see.

What is interesting? I bought one of the sportier models on the spot. Bought it the minute I saw it because I wanted to give it a whirl and try it out.

More proof that this stuff works? I’ve had one of the first edition Scions for a while. I drive it around and my kids get a kick out of it. We were driving down the street when we passed a silver one just like mine. From the back seat Dylan exclaims, “Look daddy it’s your car from Second Life.”

Well done Toyota.

So I’m going to cheat and go the good old fashion bulleted list route:

• crayon launch press release
• My post on CC-Chapman.com
• My post on Connecting the Dots
• crayonville.com
• crayonvillesecondlife.com
• crayonville flickr

I will say that I’m more impressed with Second Life then ever before. Doing the launch even in Second Life really committed me to that thinking.

Hey, welcome back, everybody. Welcome to Managing the Gray #19. How is it going?

By the time you listen to this I will be in Toronto at the Canadian Marketing Association’s annual Digital Marketing Conference, but I wanted to record another Managing the Gray and get it out there because someone raised a question to me about the big announcement yesterday.

Thank you for all the great E-mails, the phone calls, the personal notes saying, “Congratulations on the new company and your new partnership.” I could not be more excited. More than one person have said, “C.C. your passions are really coming through how excited you are about this company.” I am excited. I am genuinely excited. It is unlike anything I have ever done before I mean in any adventure I have ever undertaken.

I will tell you back in May when I started Managing the Gray, I had no idea it would lead to something like this. I am going to tell a story about that opportunity about looking things in the face and just jumping for it, but first, I got a comment, an audio comment that I need to address.

It is from a good friend, P.W. Fenton. If you are not familiar with P-Dub, P-Dub is one of the most talented producers in the podosphere. He is also a genuine storyteller, a good man and a good friend of mine. Check out digitalflotsam.com, I will link to it in the show notes, actually it is a dot org — no, I forget. I will link to it in the show notes. Digital Flotsam is one of the premiere podcasts on the Internet bar none, storytelling at its finest. Just an old guy in Florida telling stories from his life and it is beautiful. P-Dub needed to scold me a little bit. He is an old wise man and definitely a mentor, someone I look up to and he sent me this comment.

P.W. Fenton: Dude, I just listened to your show where you let us know finally what was going on, but as I listened, I realized you are not identifying anyone. I assumed that everybody knows you and you do introduce a guy named Joseph Jaffe, but then we only hear the first names of somebody named Neville and somebody named Shel. Who are these people including Joseph Jaffe? Why are they so important to your new company? Now, I personally have a reason to know one of those people. He gave me the best review quote I could ever have received from anyone. His first name is like Cher or Frank to me, no need of a second name, but seriously, you need to introduce these guys, all the members of this new endeavor.

C.C. Chapman:
Thank you, P-Dub. Cher though? Come on. One name and you can be a she. Well, that is bad.

Anyways, P-Dub is right. I realized this that new listeners to Managing the Gray, people not in the marketing space may not know how cool these individuals are that I am working with. I also realized, I went back and listened to our little interview, you are right, we never did say last names, very faux pas of us.

So, who is Joseph Jaffe? Joseph Jaffe is this crazy, wacky South African that I love to death. He hosts a podcast called Across the Sound, new marketing to its fullest. He also wrote a book that if you have not read it, shame on you. This is a must read for anybody, anybody interested in this whole new marketing space. If you want to know what type of stuff my new company is going to be doing, read this book, it is all in there. The book is called Life After the 30-Second Spot. I will link to it on the show notes. Seriously, it is a book that changed my life, changed my way of thinking and you should read it.

Shel Holtz, he is one of the co-hosts of For Immediate Release, which is another great podcast. He is a PR and corporate communication specialist. He is a nice guy. I remember meeting him in San Francisco when I spoke at the San Francisco Podcaster’s meetup.

He came up to me and said, “Dude, the Podsafe Music Network has changed my life, thank you.” He was such a nice guy and he is such a good guy. He has written books. The one that comes to the top of my head is Blogging for Business because I am looking at it. It is right here on my shelf. I have read it. It is a great book. A great, great guy, almost always has a cup of coffee in his hand everytime I see him, great guy.

Neville Hobson is the other half of For Immediate Release. He is a PR and a corporate communication specialist as well. He was based in Amsterdam. He is now based in the U.K. A great, great guy, super nice, speaks his mind, which I love. He does not bite his tongue very often, I love that. Those are the three people that were on the podcast, P.W. and the rest of the world who do not know who I am talking about.

I have got to tell you what is cool about this. This is what I have been dying to tell everybody, is the circumstances of how this company came about. This is a story about opportunity, about the randomness, about the six pixels of separation that Mitch Joel talks about all the time that you have got to realize. I took this job. I did not know Neville and Shel were on board yet, but I also took the job. I have met Joseph once, face to face. I actually have met Shel and Neville once as well. I met Shel at the San Francisco meetup I talked about. I met Neville this past summer when I was in Germany. He was also speaking so we met there, had some drinks, had a good time.

I came home from Babson one day and I was frustrated, something just happened and things have been happening and I got to the point where I said — and literally I came home, I was talking to Laura and I said, “Listen, this weekend I’ve got to start looking for a new job. It’s not going the way I want it to. There are bigger things out there. I don’t know what it is, but I want to start looking.”

This was a big deal because I loved my job there. I loved it, stable, great people, great opportunity, great stuff going on. She knows it was a big deal if I actually said, “I’m done. I gotta start looking.”

That night, I sent an E-mail out to a couple of friends, colleagues more, people I talked to about and possibly consulting gigs just to see what was going on, to see if they have thought anything more about it. Then in a random E-mail, it had nothing with this, to Joseph, I do not even remember what we were talking about. I have to go find this E-mail. Somewhere in it I said, “Yeah, you know I think I may start looking for a new job this weekend too” or mentioned it in passing.

Later that night, I am in Second Life with Mitch Joel. We were just kind of hanging out. Jaffe, gets in and we were just kind of hanging out. We were just all shooting the breeze, hanging in our HQ, having a good time, actually we were interacting with some other people, the next thing I know I got this IM from Joseph. He says, “Call me now.” I am like, “What?” I said, “Well, let us get out of Second Life and talk so we are not distracted.”

Picture this, Laura goes to bed, I am talking about getting a new job. Joseph and I had a long conversation. He said, “Listen, I’ve got this opportunity. I’ve got this — here is what I’m talking about, here is what I’m doing.” It excited me beyond belief. Everything I heard was everything I wanted in a position. We are talking about it and he said, “Listen, C.C., I was going to come after you down the road at some point, but you were so happy. I didn’t know you were available.”

There are two lessons there. One of them is you never know when something is going to bloom. Remember how we talked about — I said the guy or girl you meet in line at a coffee shop might be your future boss or might be the best partner you could ever find or might be — you never know when you are going to cross. So, a random E-mail with Joseph led to this, but the other thing is for employers or anybody on the other side or this goes for anybody, do not ever assumed someone is not interested in whatever it is you are offering them. I have had this happened before too. It might be a job offer. It might be an advertising opportunity. It might be a speaking opportunity.

Do not ever think, “Oh, I shouldn’t ask him.” I learned that recently too with someone who wanted to help me with some music. I did not reach out to this person because I did not want to call in a favor. I did not want to abuse our friendship was what I said. He was like, “What are you talking about? Always ask.” So, do not ever be afraid to ask and that works up and down the food chain as well. If you got a small little conference, maybe you do not have any money for a sponsorship — I have had this happened. People go, “Why did I not know if I could ask you to speak at my conference. I am like, “You’re kidding me. Ask.” Ask, always ask. Do not be afraid to ask.I tried stressing this to my kids as well. It is an early thing. What is the worse that could ever happen? They can say no and this applies to every level of business. See, it all comes back.

Back to the story, Joseph — we were on the phone. At the end of phone conversation, it was like 1:00 in the morning. It was a two-hour phone call or whatever. I remember I am sitting on my sun porch and he goes, “I’m sorry.” I said, “What are you sorry for? You just talked about the greatest opportunity ever.” He said, “No, I’m sorry because I know you’re not gonna sleep tonight because I know you and you’re gonna be wired about this.” He was right. I could not sleep.

I remember waking up in the morning and babbling. All I remember is being so excited and like 20 minutes later, Laura going, “Do you remember anything that you just said?” because I was not really awake totally yet. I said, “No.” She was, “Wait a minute, you had an offer? What’s going on?”

That is how the social media thing works. Joseph and I negotiated, not that there was much negotiation, but we negotiated in Second Life “Let’s do this right. Let’s have some fun. Let’s push these boundaries.” Then we all connected. It was funny because what I did not realized was he was having conversations with Shel and Neville. He said, “Hey, can I tell them that you are coming on board?” I said, “Yeah” and I am like, “Wait a minute. Shel and Neville might come on board?” It just got even cooler because I have no idea, so the idea is what drove me.

It was funny because Laura — we were two weeks into the conversation and Laura goes, “So, how much do you get in pay of this?” “I don’t know. I haven’t asked.” I did not ask because I did not care. It was the opportunity. It was the excitement. It was the passion. It was the spark. You guys got to find that spark, whatever it is and when you find that spark, attack it, get it, capture it, turn it into a flame, make it something bigger because you can.

You control your destiny. That is what I want to get at. Opportunity is out there. It is ready. Is this a risk for me to take this job from a nice, stable company? Yeah, it is, but you know what as my wife said she goes — I love her to death. I said, “Are you okay with this?” She said, “Listen, I know you. If you are so excited about this and you pass this up, you would never ever forgive yourself and I trust you” and that made it the easiest thing in the world. So, find those opportunities, grasp them, get them. Do not let them pass you by. This world changes way too fast. Social media and new marketing is changing the world we live in.

I talked to a client yesterday and I brained up all these ideas and things they could do. The next thing I know this one person said, “Well, can we do this?” It was the best idea in the room and I am so glad she brought it up because it was amazing. That is what it is. Everybody has got ideas. Everybody has got passions. Find yours, embrace it, turn it into something bigger.

Everybody talks about, “C.C. you found your dream job.” Yeah, I think I have found my dream job. My dream job is really sitting in a cabin in the woods with a glass of scotch writing a novel, but we will get there, writing a book. I want to write a book so bad and I am going to find a way because I want to. Hell, I will self-publish it if I have to, but what I am saying is just — so, I guess some points to remember. You never know when an opportunity is going to post itself. Do not ever be afraid to ask and find your passion and attack it. Make it happen. Make it a reality. That is what it is all about.

Yes, I am living that now. I can actually say that. I was comfortable for far too long. Looking, going “Man, I wish I could do something different. Man, I wish I could just attack this space and really do it all the time.” I am doing it now and that is exciting. You can do it too. I sound like a self-help guru, I do not mean to, but I am just very excited, very passionate about this and I want you to be passionate about it too.

So, there are some more details about the new company and yes, you will be hearing more. I think the number one comment was, “C.C., you forgot to tell us the name.” No, I did not forget anything, people. It is coming very, very soon. I am very, very excited about it. I am very excited about everything that is happening and it is all happening very, very quick. Ah, you are going to see stuff before you know it. It is going to be everywhere.

So, guys, girls, everybody in between, I will be back very, very soon. Keep the comments coming, managingthegray.com or E-mail me at cc.chapman@gmail.com. Keep everything coming, guys. You guys stay safe. Have a great one and I will talk to you very, very soon.

I wil give them major kudos for keeping the community up to date through the Second Life Blog. It’s the first place I go whenever I have a question on the status of things. Few companies do this as well.

It is a bit challenging though when you are trying to conduct buiness that requires you to be in world, but the world is offline. It’s a new challenge that we are all trying to figure out how best to react to. Meetings get canceled, but do you reschedule in world or do you go back to traditional means.

We all know about “black Wednesdays” and how you never plan an event of any importance on a Wednesday because this is when Linden has scheduled down time for upgrades.

Now though as I plan some major events in Second Life I wonder if like in real life we often have rain dates do we now need back up dates for SL Events? What are your thoughts?

My first reaction was “is this it?”

Knowing the book I was expecting a lot more then just a HUD that would pop up pages of the book I could flip through or listen to some audio.

What I did like from a business perspective is that right there in the HUD I can click on a link to buy the book through a special page set up just for Second Life visitors. That is smart because it’ll let them know if the HUD is driving book sales or not.

After reading their press release I feel a bit better about all this because what they are trying to do is bring themselves and their library into Second Life. They hint at a virtual bookshelf of all their publications which I’m looking forward to seeing and hopefully adding to my office. If they do it right, I hope they make it so that new titles can be auto updated to it so that the bookshelf can grow with new titles.

A special thanks to Jeremy Neumann (in the pictufor giving me the sneak preview.  I said to him that I was expecting something more and I loved his answer which was basically “hard to do more when all of Second Life really IS what Snow Crash was.” He is right, but it would be neat to see some custom avatars or even a small build dedicated to the book.

Kudos to yet another business dipping their toes in the virtual waters. From the sounds of it Penguin Publishing will be jumping in full blown.

If you are trying to give someone an introduction to Second Life there are two great videos that I would now point people to.

1. NMC’s “Seriously Engaging”
2. Text 100’s “PR Video”

Either of these give a very good peek in world without having to have someone go in themselves.

Trust me that there is nothing better then having someone try out Second Life to really get the feel for it, but a video is easier for a room full of people or when you just don’t have the time to learn the interface and give it a full whirl.

I’m getting a lot of calls and e-mails asking me if I’ll come into companies and give them a tour. I’m very happy to play Second Life Consultant for anyone out there. Just drop me a line.

I’m a bit worried about what this means. I’m going to remain positive though and assume that they need to just pause a moment while they bring in new hardware so that they can support the growing demand. It’s growing at such a rapid rate. If this goes on more then a few weeks though I’ll begin to worry. *grin*
I’m not going to be a doom and gloom and say that they’ve grown to fast and are going to fall. I don’t believe that for one minute. I do hope that along with this new hardware is some additional support staff to handle the downtime issues that have been happening.

Of course now this means that land that already exists is going to be going for premium prices. I’ve actually got a plot of land I’ve had for sale for about a week now. It’s here if you want to check it out.

Last night I was sitting in the Hummingbird Cafe listening to a live concert when I got a notice from my messenger at my office from someone saying hi. They said there was two of them there so I jumped over. Great to meet two brand new people. One came directly from listening to this show. The other said they had heard of me through For Immediate Release. The power of CAPOW continues.

But, I got thinking about this and wanted a way to share places of interest with other people. Some I might work with. Others just might be friends looking for new places to visit.

Thanks to a cool new tool called BlogHUD this is going to be easy to do.

Koz Farina has developed this tool that you wear in Second Life. Anytime I find something of interest that I want to blog about I just type a command and my blog entry and it posts it to Cleon Goff’s BlogHUD. Not only does it post what I typed up, but it embeds a SLurl on the fly and integrates with the map so that you can easily visit. On top of this it’s even got a feed if you want it.

It’s still in BETA and I haven’t been using it as much as I should, but now I will be much more often. This combined with things like my SL Stats watch and the social networking is emerging.

Once I got in I went looking for people to add. I figured there would be a “add friend’ or “request friendship” on someone’s profile but I was wrong.

You actually have to go to your friends list and then there is a Add Friend button.

I’m dissapointed that there is not any form of message you can send when requesting friendship. It means I’m going to get a lot of friendship requests from only an Avatar name and I’mnot going to have a clue who they are. That’s just annoying and hopefully will be something the Lindens will take a look at.

But, I’m psyched it’s added. It’s a great feature for sure.

Residents can be invited to your Friends list, even while they are offline or far away.

This is huge because one thing that was a pain was that in order to be added as a contact/friend of someone both of you had to be in world at the exact same time and get together. This is a pain because you needed to manually check every time to see if they were online or not and that isn’t fun for everyone.

Yes, this has the potential for Spamming, but I hope it works just like Skype where I get a message and decide what to do. Hopefully they will also allow you to enter a message to the person in case they have no idea who the real life version of the avatar name is.

I’m happy. I’d be happier if this upgrade didn’t have the grid still down so that I can try it out!

But, over the weekend I became extremely frustrated with something that I’m shocked is so difficult.

I have a plot of land that I’ve wanted to have a custom residence built on for quite sometime. This is not the SecondLifeOffice.com place that people have been to, but rather a new place. I randomly crossed paths in world with some builders and we reached an agreement that in the end took longer and did not fit the plot as well as we both thought it would. No bad feelings, they did a great job with the build, but it just didn’t fit everything in the end.

So, I’m looking for builders in Second Life. That should be farily easy right? Nope!

Yes, there are builder groups and such, but Spamming them is not going to win any friends. I was shocked when I searched the web and came up mostly empty. Linden Labs has a great directory of developers, but there is no way that is the complete list. Plus, most of these are companies and the truth is I don’t have the $$$ to hire a full blown company to do a build for me.

If you are an independennt second life builder looking to gain some experience and have a showcase piece in your portfolio please contact me. Warning that it’s a large plot basically on a cliff so it has some unique challenges to it, but I think that makes for a fun design.

And trying something new here Podshow PDN {podshow-ADMIN}

I’m looking forward to the day that I can have magazines or books sitting on my coffee table or desk and individuals could click on it and buy it right there. Either with real world money or Lindens. THAT is going to be a cool day.

But, I read a post from Giff at Electric Sheep with some very intersting new stats:

• SL sees around 150,000 hours of usage a day
• 4 million lines of script code are written every week
• 50% of new avatars beings created are from non-US countries

I love that this shows the growing global nature of Second Life and the fact of how much usage is going on every day. I’d love to see some stats on when the most active hours of the day are. I’m curious because my experience has been that starting around 11 pm EST things start getting busy every night, but that could just be the circles I travel in. I don’t know.

Lots of new faces in Second Life. LOTS of them corporations and name brands that you know. Toyota’s Scion is the latest one and there will be many more.

If you are not familiar with the book, let’s just say that it predicted things like SL and coined the term Metaverse. I’m not a fanboy or anything, but it’s a great read and as pointed out in the post you’ve got to remember that this book was written before graphical web browsers as we know them even existed.

Eric is going to love this news.

I’m back from vacation and was psyched to see the NFL back on television last night.

It got me thinking about some very simple things that sports teams are missing out on and that would not be that hard for them to embrace in the new media space. If a sports team actually wants some help implementing anything I mention on the show, drop me an e-mail and lets chat.

Links from the show:

• The Elusive Fan
• Mrs. B’s Patriot World Podcast
• Miami Herald’s Dolphins Podcast
• The Engaging Brand audio comment
• iTunes

The comment line is always open at 206-309-4729 and so are the doors/lawn over at SecondLifeOffice.com.

[Update: Transcript for this episode now available]

Those doubters in the crowd will scoff at this as a stupid idea. Avatars running around tracks set up through 12 different sims, each with a different global theme and familiar landmarks from around the world. Pink cars being auctioned off and special t-shirts for sale. Sounds pretty silly to some of you?

How does $40,000 US Dollars raised doing this silliness sound to you?

This makes me amazingly happy. Any way that people can find to raise money for a good cause excites me. I think it is very important for people to give back and take part in charity events. I know I donated several thousand Linden Dollars to this in various ways. I should have given more.

Congrats to everyone who helped make this happen. MANY hours were spent putting together the courses, designing unique items and setting everything up. And who wins? Everyone. Especially the American Cancer Society.

And be sure to check out this video someone did of the course. It’s quite impressive what people put together.

Every day I have discussions with people about “what is Second Life.” It’s not an easy conversation. I don’t think it was meant to be. Remember back in 1996 trying to explain to people what the web was? I remember tons of conversations with people as I showed them a web browser and they shook their heads going “this will never catch on. There is no point.”

Listen up all the doubters who shun all things new and unknown. You are the same people who say Podcasting is a fad. That Blogging will never catch on. That Second Life is pointless.

If that is truly what you believe then keep on believing so. It’ll mean more success for the people who get it. The people who realize that Second Life is NOT about marketing. Bingo! It’s about a community of people doing their own thing. It’s a big old gathering in a virtual space where professors are teaching classes, musicians are building followings, organizations are raising funds to find a cure for cancer and a whole bunch of people are pixel bumping. (that’s something I still don’t get the appeal of *grin*)

As with any place in the world that people gather there is an opportunity to market to them. That’s marketing 101 for anyone who cares to think about it for a minute. The problem is that it’s not the same as the markets that people are use to. It’s not a magazine so print ads don’t work. It’s not radio (thankfully) so the 30 second spot is dead and won’t fly here. But, guess what, avatars do fly….perhaps there is something there? Think about it.

I love reading articles like this because it reminds me that there are so many people locked inside their boxes while I’m out crushing mine and trying to think of new ways to approach and succeed in this new space.

Is Second Life the golden goose for marketers? Is it the eagle that is going to swoop down and carry us all up to higher success rates? Beats the hell out of me. But, your right, it’s not a duck.

What is fun about Second Life is that we never even went inside. We just sort of mingled around, got shown some artwork, watched my daughter rock out on the video wall and then ride around on the roof of a car.

But, the whole time we were engaging in new media and discussing lots of topics. Let’s see you do all that in an old school chat room!

More formal meetups will be scheduled soon. The new house is almost done and then we’ll have a good old house warming party and invite everyone on over. Can’t wait.

Plus, since there are lots of newbies coming in and I haven’t seen anything like this I figured I’d start the conversation. Hopefully others will add to it in the comments and we can get a good old fashion conversation brewing.

• Because Second Life is not a game, just because I’m “in world” does not mean that I can socialize the second I arrive. Patience is important.
• If you IM me when not in world, I get it e-mailed to me and will usually respond because I think it’s great that I can do this. But, don’t freak out when you can’t find me in world because of this. *grin*
• If we are friends in world you can find out where I am at any time and teleport there, but this is very bad form. Always drop an IM before just showing up. It’s the polite thing to do and you never know what you might be popping into the middle of. I had someone pop into the middle of a meeting the other night. Doh!
• Many people conduct meetings in world. Just tonight I was on the phone with someone while they showed me around some places. I had someone arrive to chat with me and I politely told them I was busy and couldn’t chat and they got it and said “talk to you soon” and I appreciate that. Please keep in mind that business is happening in SL. People are doing work and sometimes can’t just socialize.
• Linden Labs has not yet added a way to become friends with people unless you are both in world at the same time. I have a habit of jumping in, becoming a friend and jumping out. This sometimes leads to people seeing me, IMing me and then wondering why I left so quick. Now you know why.
• My current office in world (new one still being built) is just that an office. If the doors are open, come on in. If they are shut then perhaps there is a reason. Chill outside on the hammock or watch the movie of the week. I’ll be back soon.
• Second Life is all about community and thus chatting and just saying hi to people is highly encouraged. Just keep in mind that they might be shopping, building or just passing through and can’t chat at the moment. If they don’t say hi back don’t pester. But, also don’t get scared off from saying hello to the next person.
• Snapshots are great, but in case you don’t know, every time you do a sound goes off an your avatar will show that they are taking a picture to everyone. Most times this is cool, but it’s quite possible that the situation might not be appropriate. Just think before you snap.

As I said this is just a starting point in the hope that it’ll kick off some more comments here on the Blog so that we can all pool our knowledge and experiences.

See you in SL!

Back in the studio finally to record a show. 206-309-4729 for audio comments or questions.

Today, I spent most of the show answering the question from a listener about my thoughts on marketing to avatars and people in Second Life. It’s a different then what most people are thinking and I hope they start realizing that.

I also spoke about opportunities I think could be both very effective and cost effective. As I’ve said before if you need some Second Life consulting just let me know. I would be happy to help you.

Finally, I briefly described the concept of The Long Tail and told everyone that they must buy the new book from Chris Anderson. I consider it must reading.

Tonight the show is about one thing. Second Life.

I’ve been in too many meetings and conversations where it quickly becomes apparent that people either don’t know enough or they think the wrong things about Second Life and I wanted to clear it all up with what I hope is a good overview of what Second Life is and isn’t.

Virtual worlds and new media go together like the infamous chocolate and peanut butter. Sure, right now everyone might not see the connection, but we will all look back someday and shake our heads at the doubters.

This picture is one of the meetings that I mention on the show where like minded individuals gathered at my house to discuss marketing. Doesn’t it look more fun then the same old boring chat room?

One thing that I completely forgot to mention on the show is to thank Eric Rice for introducing me to this and for being completely forward thinking. That guy continues to tap new corners of this world and pushing forward to help out everyone. Not only is he a great guy, but damn is he fun to watch. And I mean that in a completely business manner.

If this introduction to Second Life isn’t enough and you want to discuss further I’m only an e-mail away.

We talked about a WHOLE bunch of different topics. We hit on music, the evolution of podcasting and of course some interesting winners and losers of the week.

Thank you Joseph for allowing me to come on the show and reach out to your listeners. I’ve been a fan and a listener of the show for a long time so I’m still smiling from this opportunity.