An odd comment to make on virtual worlds Leo Laporte?

Andy Piper was telling me that he was listening to a podcast with Leo Laporte where he basically dissed Second Life as a gimmick and suggested it was not all that. Well I did have a listen to the end of this podcast and sure enough both Leo and Amber Macarthur made some throw away comments about the value of Second Life. Now to be fair, it was not a rant. In some ways this was about the time and effort required to engage, and they did give a shout out to the great communities that have formed. Though Leo did use the word gimmick.
Clearly they only said Second Life, they did not say virtual worlds in general, so they may have been dealing with a specific experience and press bubble, but it is a little odd position to take when someone has a reputation for transitioning across media. Yes it can take a little bit of time to engage with people in virtual worlds, but that is the point in many ways.
There is room for text, for twitter, for podcasts (that I sometimes find very time consuming to have to listen to), for virtual world events and for whats next.
Without virtual worlds we have no place to take this further, no mirror worlds, no augmented reality, no 3d printing/rapid fabrication.
It is of course different horses for courses, but I dont think any of us in any field should consider excluding any of the others or writing them off out of hand. Text and voice still work of course.
The journey of discovering good ways to interact with one another is one I think we are all on so I am just let them off this time 🙂
If they want a metaverse evangelist on the show to explain…. well happy to help.

5 thoughts on “An odd comment to make on virtual worlds Leo Laporte?

  1. I had the opportunity to talk to Leo at Macworld Expo this past week, and while the subject of Virtual Worlds did not come up, I do agree that he has been key in bridging media. One of the key things that Leo spoke about, while presenting to the crowd, was the importance of forming a community around your media. With this perspective I would suggest that he may be more anti-second life (as you pointed out on the bubble) than anti-virtual worlds.

  2. I do find it ironic that if you aren’t one to create media, you might just be more of the social type. Kinda like the podcasters and Twitterers of the world…

    I’m convinced most people won’t understand spatial socialization and creation unless it has a video game context to it– even if they do the exact some stuff in a 2D capacity.

  3. @Michael I think that is correct. I did not get a complete anti buzz, but if quoted out of context it could look that way. The community around the media or set of media, game , event or sport is what makes the difference. If its a shared interest it should be encouraged.
    Obviously in business the shared interest may be different to pure social but the principle still holds of a flag to rally around.
    @Eric/Spin (I should have added you got a name check in that podcast 🙂 for community building. I do agree that a context is needed, though in my experience it has been the suprise of the non gamers that this stuff works. Once you cut through any tech filtering, arrow keys to move, free camera movement, many people seem to relate to the non verbal communication as much as the actual thing itself. In a game space this is really self selecting, not everyone is able to understand the engagement or motivation for a pure game. However, that may be the thing we need to evolve, the proper hybrid game or entertainment metaverse. What we need is the equivalent of what the Wii has done to bring gaming to people who just never did, dare I say a casual MMO? If Warcraft is the new golf then we need the equivalent of the new pub for those not needing to cut big business deals, but just to be?

  4. I agree, sure, regarding: ‘just to be’ however…. Heh, myspace accomplishes that, and it does so in a big way, but look at the hate piled on by the technocractic elite– it’s a class issue.

    We, of this elite class, make social judgements.

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