Lizzie Jackson

I was looking on Facebook for groups talking about virtual worlds, and there are quite a few: The London Second Life Meet Up Group, Who’s Who in Virtual Worlds, and the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe.

The London Second Life Meet Up Group had its first meeting last week, in Shoreditch in the east end of London, at which there were people from Rivers Run Red, from the BBC ‘Hack Day’ and long-term residents of Second Life. The second meeting will be in September and it will run monthly from then onwards. I missed it, but am meeting up with the organiser Francesco D’Orazio next Thursday, Francesco is doing a PhD on Virtual Worlds.

The Who’s Who in Virtual Worlds is going to be a book, which seems to be using Facebook to compile its entries in a kind of Wikipedia/Facebook hybrid fashion. Very neat and a good place to find people who really are immersed (ho ho) in virtual worlds.

The Virtual Worlds Forum Europe says it is “A group for all those interested in the business of virtual worlds, and coming along to the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe Conference, October 23-26, at Canvas in Kings Cross, London, UK.” I see my old pal Alice Taylor (ex-BBC Innovation Team) has had a hand in getting all the speakers together. She also mentions, in her  co-authored blog, Wonderland, speculations that the BBC will launch a virtual world for children. This is also mentioned in Virtual World News (9th August). The article says it will be an immersive game called ‘Tronji’. As the article also says, this has been common knowledge for some time within the industry. What is interesting is the BBC is beginning to strategically place all these participative or immersive games, environments, conversation spaces or UGC archives within either new or existing ’broadcast’ brands; a self-titled ‘360 degree’ approach. This is moving on from Ashley Highfield’s (Director, BBC Future Media and Technology) stated wish to deliver ‘martini media’ (anytime, anyplace, anywhere). It seems to be moving towards convergence something which has been a holy grail since the early days of the Internet? The jury will still be out - for a long time to come - on whether converged or 360 degree media is useful or valuable, early steps  into this realm being the  Walking With Beasts series (TV, CD, Internet combos), and Celebdaq (TV, narrow-band Internet site, game/celebrity stock exchange, broadband console, mobile content). Luckily I chose to include a study of Celebdaq in my PhD, this is proving to be useful. Celebdaq had flaws, the television programme lost its way, but the online service flourishes een now.

People are already talking about the bust that’s expected around Social Networks. Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology; says in an article titled You’re Getting Older and So Are Social Networks “We’ve speculated doom, as is our nature some say, doom for the real world, the digital world, and most pointedly and assuredly for social networks. But social networks are an easy mark – in the beginning they depended on kids.”

This reminds me of BBC Radio 1 (the BBC’s radio network for teens/younger listeners). The station began in the days of Pirate Radio, when I was in my teens in the 1970’s. As the network matured us kids became older, but we ‘didn’t leave’ the network. When the BBC had started online communities around its radio and TV networks this phenomenon became more obvious. The BBC Children’s community, which is for 7-11 years olds, has kids in there who are ‘too old’. The reason for this is partly because radio networks and online communities are places to be, to hang out. We feel ‘at home’ there. If you habitually view/engage with/visit media you have mentally homesteaded.

With social networks you have your links and your pals all nicely organised in your home space, do you want to move on? Maybe not. You may stay there for some time. So the hip network you joined will grow older together, and maybe the teens who joined My Space will become mums and dads?

Jason Miller has a point. He ends his article by saying ”the biggest challenge to social networks will be attracting the next set of youngsters to their hangouts, not retaining their regulars, as they reach the plateau and become where the “older” kids frequent.” Interesting.