The NYT has reported on the demise on Google’s 3D metaverse product, Lively.

In my work as creative director, I do a fair amount of projects in Second Life, so I know where the hype ends and ROI begins. It took only a few minutes to determine that Lively had a very limited shelf life. Their first crime was that Lively only worked on Windows platforms - this is a multiplatform world, keeping spiritual resonance with Redmond these days is the kiss of death. If some under-funded start-up was bringing us Lively, I could understand the Windows Only mentality, but this was a Google product. So the thousands of art directors in the ad agencies of America, who were slaving away on the next big campaign, were ignored by the Lively roll-out because most of them are on Macs.

To say that Second Life is a failure is to say the web was a failure in 1996. Remember back then when every company knew they needed a website but had no clue what to do with it? Just how many of those horrible 90s era websites have we blocked out? Oodles probably. But the web didn’t fail, the web sites failed because the developers didn’t know how to make the sites generate ROI.

Virtual worlds are in the same boat. Very few companies out there have a clue about how to generate ROI for their clients with virtual world campaigns. I recently met with a San Francisco Bay Area ad agency who had a client who wanted to invest in Second Life and the ad agency talked them out of it, mostly because they didn’t know how to generate ROI for that medium. Inexcusable. There are plenty of ways to get your clients product into Second Life and have it be a success. It is done everyday.

But there is another reason why Lively failed and it is a problem through out their product line. Google became number one without advertising. Not one ad campaign was ever developed or deployed for Google. Last week, ClickStream published the results of a study showing Google Docs having difficulty finding a foothold against Microsoft products. Well, duh. Guess who has an ad budget?

If no one knows about your product, it is impossible for them to buy it. The process of buying denotes a previous familiarity, even if it is just brand recognition, that is sometimes enough to make the sale. But if you choose to keep quiet about a product, there is not going to be a lot of urgency to buy.

So why did Lively fail? Plenty of reasons, none of which are related to virtual worlds or the marketability of virtual worlds.

And if you still think virtual worlds are never going to take off, check out this little product.

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I guess one of “Obama’s Changes” will be quick action in government. From a marketing point of view, time kills all deals and for government, getting a website up and running is typically this huge, painful and slow process. Committees, political strategists, poll gurus and media analysts are usually all involved before even a bland piece of government brochure-ware sees the light of day.

Brand Obama is not having that. Overnight, Brand Obama has been feverishly at work on Change.GOV and it is now live, less than 48 hours after he won the election. Change.GOV looks to be the portal for the new Obama government with the Obama agenda, complete with the ability to share your own ideas. My past US Representative never wanted to hear from me. If I wrote in complaining, all I would get back is a snide letter more or less telling me I was uneducated about the issue and I needed to trust in the President. That has been my recent experience with government, adult to child and I am on the kindergarten end of the relationship.

Moving back to Brand Obama, his new Change.GOV almost seems… competent. I rarely am impressed with the marketing savvy of politicians. I have some past experience with political strategy and you would be amazed how candidates would sabotage themselves by ignoring common sense results from focus groups. So when a politician pulls off something like the Webbie deserving BarackObama.com, and it turns out not to be a web fluke, but a well thought out social media strategy, it gives one… oh, what is the word I am looking for here?

You know… ah yes.

Hope.

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Lyrics -

My name is Sarah Palin, y’all know me,
vice-prezzy nominee of the GOP,
gonna need your vote in the next election.
Can I get a what-what from the senior section?

McCain got experience.
McCain got style.

But don’t let him freak you out,
when he tries to smile,
cuz that smile be creepy,
but when i’m V.P.,
all the leaders in the world gonna finally meet me.

How’s it go Eskimos?
Eskimos!
Tell me, tell me what you know Eskimos!
Eskimos!
How ya feel Eskimos?
Ice cold!
Tell me, tell me what you feel Eskimos!
Super cold!

I’m Jeremiah Wright cuz tonight I’m the preacher.
I got a bookish look and y’all hot for teacher.

Todd looking fine on his snow machine,
so hot for each other, need a go-between.
In Wasilla, we just chill baby chilla’
but when I see oil, it’s…

Drill baby drilla!

My country tis of thee,
from my porch i can see,
Russia and such.

All the mavericks in the house, put your hands up.
All the mavericks in the house, put your hands up.
All the plumbers in the house, pull your pants up.
All the plumbers in the house, pull your pants up.

When I say Obama, you say Ayers,
“Obama!”
“Ayers!”
“Obama!”
“Ayers!”
I built me a bridge, it aint going nowhere!

Ooooohhhhhhhh.

McCain/Palin
gonna put the nail in
the coffin of the media elite.
She likes red meat!
Shoot a mutha humpin moose eight days of the week!

Now youre dead!
Now youre dead!
Cuz I’m an animal, and I’m bigger than you!

Holdin’ a shotgun, workin’ the pump,
everybody party, we going to hunt!

La la la la la la la la

Yo I’m Palin, I’m out!

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Erika Defying Gravity, originally uploaded by EthnoScape.

I have finally gotten around to adding Flickr posting to the blog. This is a great photo and a wonderful selection to start off photoblogging.

It really captures the human spirit.

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I want to thank Luke Kilpatrick and Alan Musselman for letting me run amok at Adobe’s Fire On The Bay user group meeting.

Below are some links, notes and files to go along with the presentation.

The text of the presentation comes from a guide I put together talking about how to publish a political webcomic.

Guide to Publishing A Political Webcomic

I get asked alot about where I got the fonts I used. Well, it is BlamBot baby!
Blambot Fonts

When building a webcomic site, you need a CMS and a cool theme. I use Wordpress to publish and Comic Press for a theme. It is custom built to handle webcomics. I do not use Comic Press, but not because it isn’t up to snuff, I have a lot of sub-branded strips (Spicy Fish Prophecy, etc) and I use categories for those sub brands. Last I looked, Comic Press uses Categories in a different way.

I used Keynote to build the intro presentation. You can grab the PDF below.
Keynote Presentation (3.0mb PDF)

I used poor Alan as a new character for the demo part of the presentation. The image below is a layered Fireworks PNG file for you to rip apart.

Alan Musselman Lab - Fireworks PNG

I use a template for the daily strip. This file is a layered template to demonstrate how I build the daily strip.

Daily Production Template - Fireworks PNG

This is a sample of the final production strip, complete with set (Golden Gate), character (Alan Musselman), and the dialogue and dialogue balloon. The file is layered and fonts have been turned into paths.

Final Production File - -Fireworks PNG

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Wherever people gather there is the chance for humanity to impart itself upon those gathered.

We should expect no less from Second Life.

In a garden pavilion on an island, I sat with an assortment of human beings - one clad as a teddy bear wearing a Santa hat, another as a brazen vixen, a blue man, a tuxedoed prom king - and poured out my heart from a place of loneliness and grief. Click click went the computer keys, like the staccato beat of my heart. Clack clack went their replies, their empathy and their own tales of triumph and woe. Via my avatar - the persona I’d created to engage here - I was participating in an “anxiety support group” in the free, virtual world of Second Life.

As I write those words, I can hear the scoffing. Pathetic! Escapist! Are you addicted to computer games? Do you have no friends? Second Life? That place is just about weird sex fantasies!

I saw my first instance of online group therapy in the form of an email list in the mid-90s. Second Life is no different really, it is just a more immersive experience than email. And that immersion could be the key to better connections and a more expressive group therapy experience. Gone are the vulnerabilities of speaking to strangers in person. Expressing issues is more important I believe than rubbing elbows at the local church.

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I was in San Francisco’s City Hall on Monday and Tuesday (sneaked in the employee entrance) taking pictures of the happy couples, howling protesters and assorted well-wishers for In La Magazine and The Bilerico Project.

For those of you who want to see the pics, you can click on the THIS LINK to go directly to my Flickr set.

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All good things must come to an end and so has my ownership of the Spider. It was sold last week to an AVID collector near South Beach, Miami. The new owner sent an 18 wheeler car carrier just to fetch the Spider. I watched it depart for the Interstate and she was gone.

The Spider will be long mis… hey, now I have room for a Porsche 911… or a E type Jaguar! Hmmm…. E-Type…

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Tags: triumph, tr7, spider

I appeared in Second Life last week for a taping of The Late Show with Angelico Babii.

My avatar name is StormBear Hitchcock and he was the last guest of the night. We discussed the the creation of Books For Soldiers and the technology used to bring Books For Soldiers to Second Life.

Angelico’s show is part of the MBC’ (Metaverse Broadcasting Company) 1600 in-world screens and the show is seen throughout Second Life and is also available on the web. If the below player doesn’t work for you, you can also see the show HERE.

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Tags: second+life, books+for+soldiers