Google recently accounced it's foray into the world of online virtual worlds with a product named Lively. Having contributed to two online virtual worlds (There and IMVU) I was, of course, interested in seeing what Google had cooked up.
I had known Google was working on an online virtual world since way back in 2004, when a large contingent of engineers and 3d developers who had recently been laid off from There got hired on at Google. It was clear that they weren't hired to come up with new search algorithms.
I was out of the online virtual world loop until Fall of 2006 when I joined the marketing team at IMVU, a company started by Will Harvey, the founder of There, along with some of There's early key players. Again, I heard bits here and there of Google's impending online virtual world around the gossip mill.
I left IMVU in summer of 2007 but still kept track of the key online virtual world players as their popularity ebbed and flowed with the hype-mill. In the five years since I had started at There, I had seen the same trend with every online virtual world. They hit the scene with a bunch of fanfare then either plateaued for good or went bust. Which, depended much on the people running the show and how in tune with reality they were.
Everyone wants to be a panacea. The killer app that turns an online virtual world in to an ATM machine and your company into the next Google. So, who better than Google to do this?
Frankly, Google got lucky with paid search ads. They have not been able to replicate this cash cow since. Their strategy is expansion all tied together with paid search ads. It makes sense that they would see if they could expand paid search ads in to an online virtual world. I think this strategy is doomed to fail.
When it comes to online virtual worlds, it's clear your main source of revenue, aside from subscription fees, is collecting money from your users in socially creative ways. I feel IMUV's model got this right. You enable users to create content then you charge them to use your platform to market and sell their items. You get a cut of the sale of this content which, of course, was purchased with online currency the user bought from you.
Sounds simple, but it's easy to screw up. After the task of building your online virtual world is complete, the challenges turn from engineering to ones of business and IT. Keeping an engineering dominated organization happy and motivated makes focusing on business and IT an uphill battle. I can't tell you how many times I banged my head against the wall seeing the priorities shift every cycle from what our customers needed to be succcessful (and ultimately the company) to what the engineers felt interested in building.
Guess what, Google is the Mecca, Vahalla, Arcadia, Nirvana and heaven all rolled in to one for engineers. Judging from what I've seen of Lively so far, I can tell that product and marketing have had zero touches on it.
Firstly, it doesn't look fun or interesting. Graphically, the experience of going to the website is about as exciting and inviting as logging in to Gmail. I don't get a sense of the scope of Lively and what I can do there. I don't even get to pick a name or customize my avatar - probably the biggest hooks for an online virtual world - until after I've downloaded Lively.
Secondly, Lively opens up in a Web browser. Once you choose a room to go in to, you realize what a huge mistake this is. Whether it's the atrociously slow load time for the room or the accidental closing of your Lively window, opening a rich 3d environment in an application made for viewing HTML is like putting a Ferrari engine in a Yugo.
Thirdly, you can embed the code for your room. Why is this bad? Well, what better way to have people leave your website than to make them have to sit while your Lively room loads. I'll stick with Yahoo IM, thanks.
Lively is basically a glorified chatroom. Are they planning on just throwing some ads here and there and call it a day? I can't tell because there's no indication of a business model here. Google has failed at a key concept in marketing - telling people what they're supposed to buy. Nowadays you need to offer more than 3D chat with ads to be successful.
I honestly hope someone gets this online virtual world right one of these days, but I think we have a better chance of seeing flying cars and teleporters in our lifetimes.
I've recently began tuning in to watch this show called Psychic Kids" on A&E. The commericals did a good enough job of piquing my interests and I gave in. While it's a nice way to be entertained for an hour, some things about it just bother me.
What would you do if your child told you that they hear voices and see things that aren't there?
For many parents, the choice is pretty obvious. You take your child to a phsycologist for an evaluation. If the psychologist can make a diagnosis, they will prescribe some type of medication.
Then there are these parents who choose to attribute what's happening to their children as something more mystical and bypass the practice of psychology completely. Their children must be gifted with special powers.
In the episode I watched today where the mothers of two "psychic" kids both explained that they had not sought any psychological advice because they didn't want their kids to be on drugs or get too tied to the identity of being "crazy". It was clear that these two mothers had already developed a point of view about the psychiatric industry that colored the way they interpreted their children's afflictions.
I completely understand where they are coming from though. My wife went through a few years being diagnosed as bi-polar and taking just about every medication out there to treat it. She finally got fed up with what the drugs were doing to her and now only takes an anti-depressant. She's come to have real doubts about whether or not she was really bi-polar to begin with. I also saw how it became her identity after a while and how easy it seemed for her to almost conform to what someone suffering from bi-polar should be like. It was extremely hard for her to go through, and I can see not wanting to put a young child through that.
But what about being labelled as "psychic"?
Watching this show, I've noticed patterns in how these children describe what they're experiencing that leave me unconvinced. It's as though they've been fed this idea that they are gifted and have magical psychic abilities so they have to act the part. As these kids talk, you see thier parents nodding with approval. It's the same type of behavior you see in children who have been diagnosed with mental/mood disorders - they, and their parents, buy in to that identity.
Isn't that just like therapy?
The last part of the show has the show's medium/clairvoyant guy help the children find ways to cope with thier "gifts". Typically, this involves going to a place that is haunted and having them communicate with the spirits. The clairvoyant talks them through what is happening and teaches them ways to control the spirits and how they affect their lives. The final message is always something along the lines of "They'll always see spirits, but we've taught them how to feel normal and live with it."
To me, this sounds dead on like how a therapist will urge a patient to put themselves in situations or around things that distress them in order to learn coping skills. The theory is that you still have those aversions, only now you can deal with them and not let it take over your life.
So if these people bypassed the medical field, what about religion?
I have yet to see a family on this show that has said they first went to their church for help when their kids began to have these supernatural experiences. I'm sure a huge reason is that parents who were devoutly religious would never consult a person who deals with the occult to help their child. This aside, I feel the show completely avoids aknowledging yet another obvious path of reasoning.
Here's what I think is going on. You have a group of people who prescribe to an explanation of the world that is rooted in the occult. You have parents who desperately want to prove their kids are somehow gifted and more special than other children. Desperate enough that they'll put them on a tv show. Then you have children who've learned that when they talk about spirits visiting them, their parents actually pay attention to them in a positive way. It's funny to see how these all feed in to and support eachother.
And one more thing. The way this show is put together plays in to every hokey idea of the supernatural. Apparently, you can only be visited by spirits at night with the lights turned off. I had no idea that ghosts kept to such a tight schedule. The editors also rely heavily on creeepy camera setups and sound effects to give the shots some semblance of scariness. Granted, an old man walking around a house with a couple of kids in the middle of the day is probably not the stuff of great thillers. I just can't believe how they can do all of this with a straight face.
At some point, every Portlander finds themselves on 82nd Ave. Whether it's going to a strip club, Clackamas Town Center, Target, or purchasing crack/meth/heroin, the pull of 82nd Ave. eventually sucks you in. We live a good enough distance from 82nd, but, for better or worse, it's our main drag. Yes, we can get to where we want to go by taking 92nd, but we always find ourselves on 82nd.
Shitty Little Dive Bars
82nd Ave. is home to about 34332512 shitty little dive bars. Whether it's "The Farm House" or "Dixie's Finish Line", they all look the same: shitty little square building with a crappy paint job and one car in the parking lot. Who goes to them? Shit if I know. I'm a fan of dive bars, but these places make your average dive bar look like Buckingham Palace. And there's literally 3-4 on every block. On both sides of the street.
Strip Clubs
Just like shitty little dive bars - but with naked women! And just as prevalent up and down 82nd.
Working Women
Anyone who's driven down 82nd Ave. has probably witnessed a scene similar to this: Car pulls over to parking lot; woman gets out; car and woman head in opposite directions as quickly as possible. Whether walking (strippers don't drive) to work (strip club) or doing some freelancing, you can easily spot a working girl by the 7inch heels and hotpants.
Meth
If Oregon is the meth captial of America, then 82nd would have to be Pennsylvania Ave. It's pretty easy to spot the signs. Just look for the profusely sweating grown man with bugged out eyes riding a kids BMX bike. Yep, that's meth. Or the woman who looks about as aged as her clothes are too large for her shambling out of the bus like she hasn't seen the light of day for weeks. That's meth too. Or, as we witnessed just the other day on a busy corner, a trio meets up and, while two look around to make sure the coast is clear, the third sits on the curb and proceeds to pull a baggie from her backpack. She gets back up, they complete the transaction and split up and go their separate ways. The purchaser was even able to use the same walk signal he used to cross the street on his trip back. A busy man indeed.
Serial Killers
Meet Dayton LeRoy Rodgers:
"He traveled up and down 82nd Avenue in Portland, Oregon. He picked them up and then he would tie them up at knife point and take them into Clackamas County to the Molalla forest and rape and torture them. Then after he was satisfied sexually he would cut off their feet while they were still alive and conscious.
Then he would kill them. They died a very horrible, painful death. He killed 9 before he was caught. He tried to take the 9th girl at knife point from a Denny's Restaurant but she fought him and they made such a ruckess that people in the parking lot came running to help the girl but he stabbed her repeatedly and pushed her out his truck door before anyone could get there in time to save her she died in the parking lot."
Trailer Parks
Shit, they all have to live somehwere don't they? As they say in the real estate business, it's all about location, location, location. If you're one of 82nd Ave.'s finest, you have to live close to the action.
Somewhat entertaining show where wives from two families swap places for two weeks. Usually they pick two wives who are about as opposite from eachother as possible and see how they cope with a family that is used to doing things a certain way.
I always thought it would be interesting if there was a Husband Swap, but when I think about it I know it wouldn't work. Here's why:
Top Reasons Husband Swap Wouldn't Work
1) Who's going to make all the money?
2) There's no way I'm going to Wisconsin during football season and have to deal with a bunch of fucking cheeseheads.
3) Guys are too similar - eventually we all end up drinking beer and watching sports or videos of people doing stupid shit.
4) The guy would probably end up hitting on the other wife and/or daughter
5) The guy would lie about how they do things back home if it got him out of doing anything laborious
6) The guy would "borrow" the other husband's radial saw
7) What if there isn't a liquor store in the new town?
8) The guy would be forced to spend time with a family
9) They won't let you bring your dog with you
I'm sure there's more out there. Just got bored and stopped at 9.
Actually, I think #2 would be a great idea for a reality show. You take fanatics from rival teams and swap them for a couple of weeks. I'd pay good money to see what happens when a Pats fan has to cook brats for a legion of Colts fans at a tailgate.
Pretty annoyed today. I've been on a project from Hell the past few weeks. It's pretty clear to me that everyone associated with it is so because they weren't smart enough to get out of it or had the dumb luck to not be doing anything when they were staffing it. Me, well I'm a contractor who lives about 500 miles away from the office. I have no manager to look out for me and therefore have little control of what I work on. I just get passed around like a little bitch. But the pay is great!!!
So yeah, I successfully managed to avoid working on this project the past two days so I could work on something a little meatier. That didn't mean that the PM on that project wasn't fighting me every step of the way and trying to get me to work on his lame ass project anyways. I just love it when someone who has no experience doing my job tells me that the work I need to do on the project is easy and shouldn't take a long time. Thanks, asshole. Maybe you should do it then. Then I can do your job, since you seem to have a lot of time to sit around and get on my case.
I think my favorite is when every single deliverable is top priority and has to get done ASAP. I think my cat is smart enough to figure out that when every single thing is top priority, nothing is top priority. The whole idea behind "top priority" is that the thing that is top priority needs to get worked on first. If everything needs to get worked on first, then what the fuck do I work on first? Want to explain that one to me? I'm waiting. TOP FUCKING PRIORITY! They actually went through the trouble of bringing this fucktard all the way here from fucking India for this kind of garbage? I'll be more than happy to help pay for his trip back.
The funniest part is that they're not in the position where they can hire a new person and get them up to speed. They're basically stuck with me. When the PM gets all ball-achey with me I push back like I have nothing to lose. He gets totally frustrated with me because he's trying to pull some intimidation bullshit on me and it doesn't work.
Well, I've procrastinated enough. It's the day before the 4th which I have off and it's really nice out today. It's taking all I have to will myself to get this shit done.
