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I had the opportunity today to catch up with Chris Collins, the “Technical Assistant to the CEO” at Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life. A Commerce graduate from the University of Western Australia he started in tech, then like many locals (Vibe Capital, Mig33) headed off overseas. After working on his own startup 3 years ago in the Valley he fell in love with Second Life and landed a job as a Business Analyst with Linden Lab. More recently he took up the Technical Assistant to the CEO role, an interesting position in that it’s essentially an executive in training position. Collins shadows Linden Lab CEO Phillip Rosedale at all meetings and functions, and is also directly responsible for Lindex Exchange, the Linden Dollar to US Dollar currency service for Second Life. At the end of the position (6-9mths) he will then take up an executive role with Linden Lab.

The following from my notes of the interview, the answers may be paraphrased at times but the core answers are per my notes. I’d hoped to record it but the initial Skype call was unusable.

DR: There’s been a lot of talk about open source in virtual worlds, with talk of everything from virtual world interoperability, open standards and web based browsing. What’s Linden Lab doing to open up its doors?

CC: Firstly we’ve opened up our client. As a direct result of this we are seeing new and innovative ways of connecting to Second Life. There are already a number of browser based clients in development, and more recently we saw a custom browser built specifically for the CSI:NY program. We’ve also started to provide API’s that hook into Second Life; registration is one area that provides Second Life registration capabilities to other sites, for example Telstra in Australia now provides registration from its Bigpond/ SL page.

DR: What about the Second Life world itself? Obviously the sale of server space is the bread and butter of Linden Lab’s business model; will you consider opening this up as well in future?

CC: Eventually we want to open up everything, every aspect of Second Life, but it’s a massive undertaking and it’s not something we can do overnight.

DR: Talking of servers, there has been rumors that we might start seeing Second Life game servers in other countries, specifically there was a rumor that Telstra in Australia would be hosting them. True or not true?

CC: We currently have around 6000 servers and they are all based in the United States. We are aware of the lag caused by people connecting from a distance, so we are looking at placing servers in other countries.

DR: stability is an ongoing problem for users of Second Life, and lately this seems to have gotten worse. Why? and what’s Linden Lab doing about it

CC: Our biggest focus at the moment is on stability and scalability. We’ve undergone incredible growth over the last 6 months and this has presented a huge challenge for Linden Lab. Stability is the key. Second Life and our backend is entirely unique so there is nothing else like it so it’s not a something that has a simple solution.

DR: We’ve seen companies such as IBM, Cisco and others use Second Life as a virtual meetspace, holding events, virtual recruiting etc.. and yet it’s always struck me as odd that a sim in Second Life can only handle 50-60 people at a time. What’s Linden Lab doing to address this aspect of the Second Life experience?

CC: We’re currently exploring ways of increasing concurrency on a server. This is related to our overall goals of stability and scalability, and like them Second Life in unique so it’s not easy to just provide it.

DR: Second Life has had its fair share of headlines this year for the wrong reasons. Gambling and age play come to mind. You’ve cracked down on gambling, but still there are stories relating age play in the press. What’s Linden Lab doing?

CC: Linden Lab has always had a policy against any activity in Second Life that is illegal. Linden Lab’s has cooperated and is cooperating with authorities in a number of countries.

DR: Someone once said to me that Second Life’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness, and that’s Linden Lab’s libertarian hands-off governance of in-world activity. Only in the last week has there has been yet another attack on Second Life financial institutions with L$3m reportedly stolen from one bank. Griefing is also on the rise, and has been known to interrupt many a meeting. Will Linden Lab step in, and if not, why not?

CC: We don’t encourage this sort of activity and we do have ways to reporting it. We’ve recently improved our community department who is able to deal with complaints of this nature. We are also going to introduce tighter registration requirements

DR: Are you able to elaborate on the registration requirements: credit card, drivers license, something like that?

CC: We have users in over 100 different countries and each country has different forms of identification. We’re still working on the best way of implementing verification that is inclusive of all legitimate signups no matter where they live.

Second Life

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Linden Lab’s Second Life has seen its fair share of controversies in the past; an FBI investigation led to a shut down of inworld casinos, some media reports suggested that Second Life may be being used as a training area for terrorists, and in July there was suggestion that Bestiality may be driven out of the metaverse by a crackdown under a new TOS that banned “Broadly Offensive” behaviour.

UK authorities may soon be entering Second Life as part of a crack down on virtual pedophilia following the above report being shown on Sky News.

The report investigates an area in Second Life called “Wonderland” where users dressed as children offer virtual prostitution in a space designed to mimic a kids playground.

Someone recently said to me at a conference that Second Life’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: pure uncensored freedom; they are completely right. No self respecting person could argue that the staging of virtual pedophilia is anything but sick and should have no place within Second Life, and yet libertarian governance has been the key driver of the Second Life success story . The whole thing is yet another tarnish on a space where some really great things are happening, a space that is slowly finding a much wider acceptance in the broader community. The quicker Linden Lab cracks down on these sickos, the better for the many Second Life fans out there who preach the Second Life gospel where ever they go.

Second Life

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We’ve been rather harsh in our coverage of Second Life in the past, the sad truth being that this year Second Life has provided a range of tabloid fodder that we’ve seen fit to print.

Of late our coverage has started to change. The initial rush of “build it and they’ll come” corporatism has given way to something with more useful substance. Companies including IBM, Cisco and Amazon are now using Second Life as a corporate collaboration space, and conferences such as the Metanomics Series are bringing serious discussions on the benefits of virtual worlds to the virtual space.

Voice came to Second Life in early August, and although it wasn’t widely popular, particularly with old-time Second Life users, it radically changed Second Life in terms of functionality.

Lately I’ve discovered the benefits of voice in Second Life in its ability to be used as a spontaneous web meetup space. Last Saturday night I noticed that Australia’s answer to Robert Scoble (in a good way) Microsoft’s Nick Hodge was in Second Life chatting to The Podcast Network’s Cameron Reilly via Twitter. I jumped into Second Life to join the conversation, making it the three of us. I Twittered my presence and provided a link. Within 30 minutes three had blown out to around 15 people, or 20 different people over 3 hours. With voice in Second Life we discussed a variety of topics, from Second Life itself, to Web 2.0, politics and the environment.

The natural comparison is to the conference facility on Skype, but as a long term Skype user who built a startup that relied on Skype I’ve long known that any more than 4-5 people on a Skype conference call is a recipe for unusable. Second Life on the other hand never skipped a beat at 15-20 people. The visualizations and point of reference speech (SL delivers audio from the point of reference, so if the avatar is to your left you hear the voice from the left of your headset) made for a workable meetspace.

The ability to join and discuss anything in Second Life delivers something between a Barcamp or Podcamp, and a discussion at your local bar (or pub) amongst friends. I’ve read elsewhere suggestions that people who spend time in Second Life are sad; to that I can only respond: married with children. Whilst my wife was catching the latest episodes of America’s Next Top Model (streamed over the home network on a Zensonic Z500…which is probably pretty geeky) and my son was asleep I participated in a virtual recreation of many a good blog meetup or barcamp, and better still it was spontaneous. Over time more will see these benefits in Second Life and other virtual worlds as a useful meetspace. No longer is it necessary to hold a discussion in person in a real world meeting venue when you can have the same discussion via Second Life, at no cost and with virtual reach.

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The second session of the Metanomics Conference was held in Second Life today (see our previous coverage here) and I had the pleasure of attending.

Guest speaker for today’s session was Sandra Kearney, IBM’s head of 3D Development. Kearney spoke from Sage Hall, Cornell in front of live audience, with a live stream being delivered to both Second Life and IBM’s Active Worlds chat platform.

One of the inherent problems with Second Life today is the limitations on attendance; an entire island or sim (Second Life for server) can only handle a maximum of approximately 78 users at one time. Conference attendees could participate at two locations in Second Life, but it was a first in, best dressed affair, so to attend I had to teleport in 45 minutes before the conference session started. 30 minutes prior to start and the main conference facility of Metaversed Island was at capacity, and unlike a TechCrunch 40 conference, you couldn’t sneak into the back of the room and stand against a wall; once full users simply couldn’t teleport into the facility.

The conference location itself mimicked a real life conference: chairs, lectern, stage and video screen.

The discussion itself was interesting to those following the virtual world space as it focused on the evolving role of virtual worlds and covered the move towards open source and interoperable virtual worlds. Metaplace, a TechCrunch 40 presenter has launched a product that is promising to provide interoperability, and Chinese Second Life clone HipiHo is currently attempting to form an industry working group to work on standards to allow this. Linden Lab has also been making noises in this direction for some time.

From a viewing perspective, it was not unlike a regular conference; the video quality on the live stream from Cornell was watchable and participating in the session live provides a superior experience to watching the recorded video of the event later.

The first question from the audience came from me and I asked Kearney what she thought of Paul Twomey’s suggestion that the future of global commerce is in virtual worlds. She didn’t agree, saying that ultimately nothing will replace face to face, however there was scope for virtual worlds to provide an alternative when face to face isn’t an option.

Overall I think the format works. IBM is already holding meetings and doing other staff/ communications activities in Second Life, and others are including Cisco and Amazon are also using Second Life for business meetings. It won’t replace a top end teleconference setup, but it works as a more affordable alternative.

A short video clip below show the layout of the conference. I couldn’t voice over it and run the audio from the presentation at the same time, so there was some one speaking during the clip, even if it’s not recorded.

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The online virtual economy is not only doing wonders for the bottom lines of some startups. Charities are winning as well. The American Cancer Society has announced it raised over $115,000 (L$32 million) this year for its third annual virtual “Relay for Life” in Second Life. The relay was originally started in 2005 when some Second Life residents approached the organization with the idea. This year’s virtual relay (July 28th-29th) greatly surpassed the organization’s original $75,000 funding goal, up from $41,000 raised on 2006.

So how exactly does a virtual relay work? Much like its real-world counterpart, the virtual relay is a cooperative all night relay around a track. However, the virtual event has the added benefit of being more accessible than the all night real world relay with some whimsical scenery. Like the traditional event, donations were either solicited before the run started or through a variety of games played on the track. Over 1,700 people participated worldwide.

This year’s custom-built track was inspired by action-adventure films. The track featured a variety of scene,s including a graveyard, forest complete with bandits, water slide, and an underwater length of the track. You can see Flickr stream of them here (photo credit).

Readers interested in more Second Life non profits should check out NPSL.

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An ongoing investigation by the FBI into gambling in Second Life is believed to be directly related to Linden Lab’s sudden decision to ban all forms of gambling on Second Life.

The FBI investigation commenced in April and was considering the legality of online gambling within the virtual world. The US Government prohibits most forms of online gambling.

It was unclear at the time of writing whether the FBI would take the matter further, including the possible arrest of Linden Lab directors or the prosecution of individual users.

Casinos and gambling have been a prominent part of the Second Life metaverse over the last 2-3 years. Linden Lab will take a financial hit from the decision as casino owners cancel virtual land ownership agreements; top tier casinos contribute large sums in monthly fees to Linden Lab.

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Formally announced during the week with funding of $12.5 million, Encyclopedia of Life aims to be an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on earth.

Encyclopedia of Life is a collaborative effort. Tens of thousands of citizen scientists with expertise around the world are responsible for the creation of content.

The Encyclopedia will be developed by bringing mashups of content from a wide variety of sources. This material will then be authenticated by scientists so that information listed is vetted and known to be authoritative. Data is then supplemented when and where new data is discovered in the field – from scientists across the globe – to ensure it stays current. Software tools will mine scientific literature in order to provide regular updates from external sources.

Encyclopedia of Life is being developed to serve as a comprehensive resource for everyone; scientist, teacher, student, media, any interested party. The Encyclopedia’s goal is to become a valuable learning and teaching resource for anyone who has an interest in life on Earth.

But is it better than Wikipedia?

Thomas Goetz writes at Epidemix that Wikipedia “sucks when it comes to Science topics”, not for being inaccurate, but unapproachable. “On science, there’s a oneupmanship going on, and a topic will be honed to an ever-greater level of expertise. That’s great for precision and depth, but horrible for the general user”.

Without seeing more than screen shots of ,the final product at Encyclopedia of Life it’s difficult to judge decisively whether the new comer will be superior to Wikipedia on Science, and yet it sounds far more approachable in terms of readability. Visually Encyclopedia of Life wins by a country mile.

Will Encyclopedia of Life be better than Wikipedia? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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High profile virtual reality game Second Life reported today that one of its databases containing unencrypted user information was breached two days ago. The company confirmed that this is the first time user data has been breached since the service opened for public use in 2003. The database did not include customer credit card numbers, a requirement to register for the game (correction, that’s not the case anymore), as they were kept in a different database. The breached database did include unencrypted names and addresses, and the encrypted passwords and encrypted payment information of all Second Life users.

A company representative wouldn’t tell me whether behavioral or attention data tied to users was exposed in the breach, but did say that to the best of their knowledge none of that data had been captured. Such data could include information about embarrassing activities in Second Life that users may not like to have tied to their real life selves. There’s a lot of very cool things that go on in Second Life, but there’s also a lot of sex and gambling. Update: Vladimir Cole at AOL’s gamer blog, Joystiq, a better authority on the particulars here than me - concurs (emphasis mine). “To put a finer point on it,” he writes, “what happens when archived MMOG chat logs are breached? It’s going to be ugly, like AOL ugly: ‘I swear honey, that Furry [avatar] meant nothing to me. It was totally just research for my new book. I’ll sell the teledildonics equipment on eBay first thing tomorrow.’”

Virtual worlds are big, they’re going to get bigger, and we should be demanding protection of user data from those worlds now. There’s already one politician said to be a possible US Presidential contender campaigning in Second Life, you can participate in American Cancer Society fund raisers, hang with the American Library Association or participate in substantial daily commerce. There are major corporations launching advertising initiatives in Second Life and consultancies forming to facilitate such activities. Acts of violence in a game that prohibits it are being reported with increasing frequency. This is serious stuff.

Apparently our Second Lives aren’t as separate from the rest of the world as we might have liked to think. Obviously no company is immune from such security attacks, but there’s something about the supposed freedom from consequences in Second Life that this calls into question. It’s been a rough week for privacy, considering the Facebook explosion, Craigslist sex baiting and HP spy scandal.

The security breach occurred on Wednesday and users were required to change their passwords at 9:30 am PST this morning. Mark Wallace at 3pointD writes, “Oddly, it seems that no notice was sent to users flagging the problem.”

One source told us that the entry into the database appears to have occurred via an exploit in Tikiwiki, a third party open source collaboration service that the company has since stopped using. The company was hesitant to disclose information about the breach, the data put at risk and the company’s architecture for fear that such information could make future exploits easier to perform.

Though far from the largest virtual reality game online, Second Life has gained loads of media attention (including the front cover of Business Week) because of the diversity of participants and the dynamic economic activity that goes on in the game. There are an estimated 3,000 users who make at least $20,000 per year from businesses in Second Life and the company’s founder recently said that between seven and eight million US dollars in real money changes hands each month in the game. Investors in Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Globespan Capital Partners.

Though this wasn’t the first time a virtual reality game has been hacked and user data has been put at risk, it’s notable because of the number of nontraditional gamers who participate in Second Life and the discourse around it in particular as a symbol of online life to come. The number of registered Second Life users has doubled over the last two months.

Tags: Techcrunch, Web2.0, Secondlife, VR, gaming, security