When I blogged about Spiral Moon Media Inc.’s recent viral attempt, I left it about as ambiguous as the company itself left things. Is this for real, or is this a prank? What’s going on here?

The difficulty is that people are going to get angry. If a person sees the video, spends time thinking about how stupid this whole thing is, and then discovers that it was just an ad for Spiral Moon Media, there’s a reaction at that moment. What you WANT is: “Gee, that’s great! I’ll hire them!”

In the case of the “Share The Air” viral campaign, I don’t think that’s the reaction being generated. I try not too swear too much on this blog so I won’t type out what people’s reactions are.

Take, by way of contrast, Opulence, I has it:

Dogs playing poker. Gold grapes. A miniature giraffe. Plus, as an added bonus, an entire hoax website for Sokoblovsky Farms, “Russia’s finest purveyors of petite lap giraffes.”

The website itself has gone viral, and people find it completely awesome whether or not they think it’s real. But… why?

When you “peek behind the curtain” and see the wizard back there, you smile and laugh along with him. He wasn’t trying to trick you. Rather, he was putting on a show for your benefit. This was about you, not him. More to the point:

• If you call people stupid, they’ll hate you.
• If you call people smart, they’ll love you.

This is true whether they are, in fact, smart or stupid. It’s also true if they actually believed the deception or not.

Also see The North American House Hippo:

Respect the audience at all costs folks.

Hmm. This has to be the cutest blog post I’ve ever done.

To me, that’s not the real question. The character of “Rachel Sequoia” is obviously not genuine and neither is the presentation. The real issue is whether:

1. This is an activist prank to comment on the constant quest of capitalism to make us pay for what we once got for free. (See The Yes Men for a good example.)
2. OR… is this some marketing group trying to create a viral video business?
3. OR… is it just some wacky kids having some fun?

I wonder… does it matter?

If so, why? How does that knowledge actually change the content?

We Live in Public – 2008, 18A, 88 minutes

Ondi Timoner’s documentary chronicles a decade in the life of Internet pioneer Josh Harris, who instigated an “artificial society” experiment in which more than 100 artists lived under 24-hour surveillance in an underground compound in New York City. After FEMA broke up the project, Harris turned the cameras on himself and his girlfriend. Timoner’s provocative film (winner of the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at Sundance) includes clips from Harris’s projects as well as her own original footage.

Keep it digital and catch it on Netflix. It’s scary and awesome, although the ending is a little weak. The point, through, is this notion that we are all encouraged to make our lives public. It is the way forward. “Web 2.0″, “User-created content”, “Social media”, assorted buzzwords yadda yadda…

Now that we’ve lived with these ideas for a few years, the hipster movement makes sense. After all, you can’t be cool all the time, and in an age of constant surveillance and recording you’re bound to do something stupid that people will take notice of. As a result, people claim it was “supposed to be ironic”.

That, or your idiotic status update was “just trolling lololollol”… sure, we believe you. No, really, I’m not typing sarcastically or anything.

The older generation got flinchy about public perception by doing what they always do: hiding behind “professionalism”. The number of dry, sterile public profiles that tell you nothing about the person in question is staggering. People have thrown themselves into mediocrity enthusiastically in order to keep the all-seeing eye of the Internet from making them look like an ass. So, instead, they look ignorable.

Now, if “ignorable” is part of the job description, then your resume is perfect. For the rest of us, its time to just be guileless and let the chips fall where they may. Either you’ll run your business yourself, or you’ll let the world run it for you.

Which one has your best interests at heart?

The Social Network is a movie based on the construction of Facebook.com. Its another story about a quirky genius who lives for his art, doesn’t care about money, and just wants to be loved. Just take that, mix in a bunch of standard “going into business movie” tropes, and you have this. In a sense the only thing that makes it unique is that most scenes are filmed in David Fincher’s preferred “dark-green-o-vision” to indicate the murky and manly depths of introspective turmoil, and lots of low-angled shots to force us to be impressed by everyone’s godliness.

It’s fine. A fair rating gives it 3 stars (of 5), or 4 stars if you really love this genre.

Most people don’t want to give it a fair rating though. They’re screaming “5 stars!” as loudly as they can with fingers in their ears to block out any dissenters, and telling everyone who will listen to get in to see this thing. The buzz has been unbelievable. People are even talking about Academy Awards for the leading actors, despite the lack of any moments in the movie dramatic enough to justify this.

Why?

1. People hope that this makes it cool to spend too much time on Facebook.
2. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs fanboys want another hero, and hope that could be Zuckerberg.
3. Dreamers hope its true that if your girlfriend dumps you, you could get drunk, write some code, and make a billion dollars.

As of October 31st the movie had grossed $132.9 million at the box office. So, what have we learned? The same thing that we learned when those horrid Twilight movies hit it big: insecure people love to spend money. Pander to them.

What does that tell you about “closed” vs “open”.

/soapbox

BOSTON, MA – November 09, 2010 – The Immersive Education Initiative (http://ImmersiveEducation.org) today unveiled iED 3D/VR™, the open and royalty-free cross-platform 3D/VR mesh file format that enables 3D and virtual reality (3D/VR) content to be created once and and experienced across a range of virtual worlds, games, simulators and mixed/augmented reality applications. The culmination of over 2 years of work conducted through the Open File Formats Technology Working Group (OFF.TWG), iED 3D/VR is aligned with the COLLADA standard and currently supported by official iED virtual world platforms realXtend, Open Wonderland, Open Simulator (“OpenSim”) and Open Cobalt in addition to the candidate iED platform Sirikata.

A range of hands-on workshops will be given at iED 2011 (http://MediaGrid.org/summit) to teach educators how to create cross-platform 3D/VR content using a variety of authoring tools, including Google Sketchup and Blender, and starting immediately virtual training sessions will be provided to Initiative members online and free of charge.

iED 3D/VR is designed specifically to enable 3D and virtual reality content to be exchanged between all official Immersive Education Initiative platforms. To this end, iED 3D/VR a functional subset of COLLADA that is tested across conformant iED platforms to ensure consistent content representation from platform to platform. The current baseline profile for iED 3D/VR features static 3D mesh models and textures. New features and capabilities, such as animation and skinning, are now being added as well.

Thousands of Members Worldwide at http://ImmersiveEducation.org

The Immersive Education Initiative is a non-profit international collaboration of universities, colleges, research institutes, consortia and companies that are working together to define and develop open standards, best practices, platforms, and communities of support for virtual reality and game-based learning and training systems. Thousands of faculty, teachers, researchers, staff, administrators and students are members of the Immersive Education Initiative.

To learn more about the Media Grid, Immersive Education or the Education Grid visit:
http://MediaGrid.org, http://ImmersiveEducation.org and http://TheEducationGrid.org

Laura P Thomas, Social Media Strategist, Dell

Events are a great way to create word of mouth marketing, but taking them to a worldwide audience is expensive. Using immersive virtual world technologies you can expand your local event to a global audience without breaking the budget.

Today at 2pm Pacific Virtual Worlds Keynote will be host to Laura Pevehouse Thomas, strategist for social media at Dell. Profiled as one of five “social media mavens” in the March 2009 issue of Austin Woman Magazine, she’s worked in and around the Dell family for nine years, primarily in the areas of corporate communications, employee communications, public relations, community affairs, branding and online communication.

Laura has earned the designation of Accredited Business Communicator from the International Association of Business Communicators, and received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Louisiana State University. Before joining Dell Financial Services in 2000, she worked at the Texas Workforce Commission and PepsiCo Food Systems Worldwide.

—

To join us in Second Life:

1. Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
2. Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
3. Click here to be teleported to our studio before 2pm Pacific.

Ernie C Young, Head Coach, SalesTeam East LLC

Want to know how to leverage Second Life to get new clients? Today’s guest is sales guru Ernie Young presenting: “Moving From Contact to Client in Second Life – Finding a Sales Process to Gain and Keep Customers for Life”. If you’ve ever had an interest in getting new clients, do not miss this rare opportunity to hear a true expert speak on the topic!

Today at 2pm Pacific Virtual Worlds Keynote will be host to the Head Coach of SalesTeam East, Ernie Young. He started his selling career by opening his own business at 12 years old and operating it door to door throughout his teenage years before leaving for college. Over the past 35 years, Mr. Young accumulated vast experience and accomplishment in professional sales, sales training, and management. He has consistently led his sales teams to record-setting company performances in both large and small business organizations, and has been repeatedly awarded recognition for his personal career sales performance and for the sales levels achieved by the sales professionals under his management.

His teaching of and adherence to the “3 Factors of Sales Success” formula typifies his ability to clearly impart an understanding of selling as both an art and a science. Mr. Young is certified by Integrity Systems, Inc. as a sales coach, trainer, and facilitator. SalesTeam East LLC is licensed by SalesTeam USA to deliver sales training programs utilizing its tool kits, including SalesMap©.

Before his long career in professional sales, Mr. Young served 10 years on active duty as a U.S. Naval Officer after which he continued to serve for 10 more years on a part time basis in the U.S. Naval Reserve. During his military career, he developed seasoned management skills, managing and training organizations of hundreds of military personnel. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Management from the U.S. Naval Academy and the rank of Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve.

—

To join us in Second Life:

1. Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
2. Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
3. Click here to be teleported to our studio before 2pm Pacific.

Lady Gaga Telephone (Pomplamoose cover)

See also Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) – Beyonce. Hipsters are just loving this stuff. Ironic takes on popular songs make people feel so good about how very clever and “above it all” they are. Please remember to wear an expression that encapsulates focused disinterest or you’ll spoil it.

From a technological point of view, however, the above video represents how cheap and easy media has become to produce. Two people accomplish here what used to take dozens, using equipment that used to carry a prohibitive cost. A sign of the times, to be sure.

The issue I take is when people talk about us being able to do something fundamentally new here. Cheaper and faster, sure, but this isn’t actually anything new. The fact is that the same “hipster appeal” media can be produced without even using electricity:

Ukranian Polka Band playing “Hot N Cold”

Ok, sure, they’re not true hipsters because they sniggered before they started but it’s counter-balanced by the retro instrumentation. The point is that 20-somethings always consider themselves innovators by default, but pretty much always try to accomplish the exact same thing no matter what decade we’re in.

There’s a difference between new technology and true innovation.

While pop sociology isn’t what I’m primarily interested in, it’s necessary to point out that technological progress is having a ripple effect through the world of business at the moment. First websites, then email, then cell phones, and now smartphones have forced themselves into our daily lives whether we want them to or not.

Those seeking a competitive advantage often ask: “What are the kids into these days?” Many execs still feel scorched from missing the big scores of the dot-com bubble days, and want to know what’s being hyped as the next big thing before it gets forced down their throats.

This works itself out in both positive and negative ways: we sometimes find faster and cheaper ways of being productive, but we also occasionally spend time and money on things that are irrelevant. The real magic happens when we apply a little innovation.

Spinning Flax Into Gold

Take Twitter, for instance. When it first launched it was a waste of time. 90% of the content was completely useless, and only appealed to voyeur celebrity stalkers or friends who were enjoying a new way to chat. Since we were all so paranoid about missing the “next big thing”, however, massive resources were dumped into supporting the platform.

So many people had put their reputations on the line promoting Twitter that, with their backs up against the wall, they were forced to innovate. (Cue defensive technophiles rushing to the comments to tell me how unbelievably useful Twitter was even before it was released etc etc etc… guys, have a quiet moment of honesty with yourselves.) Eventually people figured out how to make it productive, shoehorning in social networking opportunities, hash-tag protocols for live on-location news updates, and quick polling for instant feedback.

The fact is that there was nothing inherently wonderful about Twitter. It was later innovation that turned it into a useful tool.

Here’s another great example: MySpace. Once the darling of the interwebs, everybody just had to be on it. Of course, then people realized that Facebook has a better interface, LinkedIn a more focused network, and custom made websites more flexibility. MySpace started to die.

How did it survive? Innovation. That MP3 player plugin, combined with some good deals with record companies, turned MySpace into one of the easiest and fastest ways for bands to promote themselves to an audience that might never listen to them otherwise. The built-in e-commerce system was a nice touch as well.

Virtual environments have the same issues. They can be a waste of time, or with a little applied innovation, the pivotal tool your business uses to create a serious competitive advantage.

The latest gadget will not save your company. Only innovation will.

Justin Bovington, CEO – Rivers Run Red

You would be shocked at how much time and effort goes into planning your supermarket experience. Stock isn’t just tossed up onto the shelves by category, but careful work goes into how to lead people’s eyes across the products and onto what they need to move the fastest. There’s an entire art and science at play that you’re a participant in every day, even if you don’t know it.

Every shelf is designed ahead of time using a “planogram”, which is a drawing of the shelf showing exactly where each product goes. The thing is, up until this point this has all been done on paper. Justin Bovington of Rivers Run Red came up with a much better way to plan shelves that work: use a 3D environment.

This week, Justin is going to showcase and explore the potential of virtual worlds in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Retail Sector. Taking it beyond meetings and collaboration: An exploration of how Rivers Run Red are developing immersive solutions and applications.

Join us today at 2pm PST (10pm GMT) in Second Life for this latest session of Virtual Worlds Keynote. Question and answer period will immediately follow this quick 10-15 minute presentation, so make sure you are there!

—

To join us in Second Life, you’ll need to do the following:

1. Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
2. Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
3. Click here to be teleported to our studio before 2pm Pacific.

The document reads like a bit of a eulogy, filled with memories of the golden years and happy thoughts of their achievements. This, I can accept – they’re going down and aren’t funded by anyone, so there are no stock holders to give solid explanations to. What I’m not so sure about is the blame they cast upon the “economic downturn”.

This was a world whose primary source of revenue was virtual goods, an industry that saw $1.38 Billion in investment last year. What happened?

As business began to slide, they started tinkering with the toy:

Throughout the last year and this quarter, we have fought the good fight by churning out new features and revisions as fast as we possibly could. [...] introduced a whole new suite of casual games, a completely new foundation for our user interface, improved internal efficiencies for the product, real estate, a whole new level of Community Involvement, etc, etc. On top of that, we’ve revised our first user experience several times [...]

This is a little disconcerting. While the move to get the “first user experience” right was a positive one, it should have been perfected back when they opened the world in 2003. The rest of these tweaks are just that – tweaks. Ask Blizzard what effect applying patches to World of Warcraft has on customer loyalty and new user generation.

What it comes down to is this: you can’t be a computer geek or Web 2.0 guru after the initial build of a .com. Instead, you have to be a business geek and entrepreneurial guru. Specialists built the enterprise, and now new specialists are needed to run it.

To put it another way: architects and engineers who build skyscrapers don’t busy themselves making sure the offices are leased out and a maintenance crew is taking care of the place. The reverse is also true: most landlords can’t manage a construction project.

Sure, every once in awhile these two specialties are combined in one person, but this is why there’s only one Steve Jobs and one Bill Gates. Its a very rare individual that can handle both roles.

There needs to be an understanding, now that we’ve seen the dot-com boom and bust and we’ve seen so many of these worlds rise and fall, that there’s a difference between building a company and running it. This needs to be a common understanding, out there in the open, not as a criticism of anyone’s skill but as a way of placing value on specialization.