Montag, 5. September 2005

Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 29 Aug - 4 Sep 2005. sponsored by: This week: Social tools in disasters, VC trends, Custom Web 2.0 Business Plans, Web-based Office, Techie post of the week - APIs and control. Social tools help in Katrina Hurricane First things first. We've all been shocked by the Hurricane Katrina devastation. Dina Mehta has a couple of great posts that show the way for people to help, using blogs and social software (we all do what we can with the tools we know). Dina wrote: "The KatrinaHelp wiki and blog teams, made up of people across USA, Europe, Bahrain, India and many more places, are currently also working with some of the developers around the Skype API and the SkypeJournal team (all independents, and Skype too has been supportive by offering up free SkypeOut minutes) and have managed to set up a kind of messaging centre between volunteers on the ground to connect those needing help with those that have it to offer. [...] Lets see how it emerges. What we could build around blogs and wikis and RSS and tagging and VOIP There are so many possibilities." In a not unrelated follow-up post, Dina tells us what it's like to be poor in her home country of India. Also check out Nancy White's Full Circle blog, which is covering the Katrina crisis and pointing to resources. VC Trends If you've been following the Web 2.0 space (there's a good lingo word to use), you'll have noticed that Venture Capitalists have taken up blogging in a big way. I take this as an encouraging sign for both the market and the blogosphere - the latter because most VCs have an excellent strategic sense and are not shy about blogging their insights. I won't try and name every VC blogger, but a good RSS feed to subscribe to is The VC Channel - it aggregates a lot of the top VC bloggers. There's also a VC Channel website. Some of the hot trends that VCs are looking at are: China (particularly Bokee, China's biggest blog network), mobile, consumer software aimed at The Long Tail, social media, Web 2.0. As Venture Capitalist David Cowan commented in RedHerring: "Investments such as Bokee extend our consumer portfolio into the realm of applications widely known as web2.0, which to us means applications that are viral in nature and leverage consumer-generated content—two elements of a business that lead to rapid growth and high margins."  Cowan expanded on this comment in his blog, noting that he is targeting the mobile and Asian consumer markets right now. He wrote more about his Consumer Investing theory in a follow-up post. In another VC post this week, Jeremy Levine wrote about shorts and longs - meaning short-term and long-term investment opportunities. An example of a 'long' is what Levine terms "eBay for" businesses, which he defined as marketplaces that "make money by providing a forum for buyers and sellers to come together." Custom Web 2.0 Business Plan So if you're a humble developer or wanna-be entrepreneur, how does one attract the attention of a VC? Well you could try the odio.us Gateway to Web 2.0 Riches, developed by Nathan Torkington. It automatically generates a Web 2.0 business plan elevator pitch for you. Examples are: - Decentralized Web 2.0 Ruby on Rails IM infrastructure that leverages the basic human need to connect. - Mobile hybridized AJAX photo Firefox extension that leverages grassroots talent. - Multi-device open source tagging-enabled voice web-app that leverages ubiquitous broadband. - Long invite-only beta disruptive emergent calendaring Firefox extension that leverages network effects. This reminds me - I wonder when the first Web 2.0 Reality TV show will be made? How about Tim O'Reilly as the Donald Trump character in 'The Apprentice 2.0'? ("MacManus, you failed to leverage the Long Tail and I didn't see any evidence of Network Effects. You're fired!") ;-) Web 2.0 Office I wrote a post this week summarizing some recent trends in Web-based Office software. I mentioned new and trendy products like Writely (Web-based word processing) and Kiko (online calendar). My post got some great comments. Ian mentioned his new product called Openomy, which he describes as an "online file-system". Jay pointed out that "the first Ajax app was Microsoft's web version of Outlook". Phil Pearson (who I met for the first time this week, in Wellington) mentioned that a company called HalfBrain developed an AJAX office suite back in the late 90's. Phil said it was made available to the public, "but then it got bought by IBM and disappeared". I just updated that post tonight, with some more Web 2.0 Office products, so check it out. Techie Post of the Week: APIs and control Thought-provoking essay by William Blaze, who asks: who really has control in an API-powered Web 2.0 world. William says that the API is actually "a system of control", in which "the API creator has a nearly limitless ability to regulate what can go in and out of their system." He goes on to write: "Privilege is what the Web 2.0 is really about. What separates the Web 2.0 from that plain old "web" is the establishment and entrenchment of a hierarchy of power and control. This is not the same control that Microsoft, AOL and other closed system / walled garden companies tried unsuccessfully to push upon internet users. Power in the Web 2.0 comes not from controlling the whole system, but in controlling the connections in a larger network of systems. It is the power of those who create not open systems, but semi-open systems, the power of API writers, network builders and standards definers." Michal Migurski also posted some thoughts on this.  While I don't agree entirely with William's thesis - it's too cynical to say that privilege is what Web 2.0 is about - he does make you think about the implications of APIs. William's right, APIs from the likes of Google, Amazon and Flickr always come with restrictions and strings attached. While we use the platforms of those companies, via their APIs, we're never in complete control.  That's a Wrap! OK, that's just about it for the week. Before I go, I want to give a shout-out to fellow Web 2.0 chroniclers TechCrunch. I'll be rooming with the TechCrunch crew in October, when I'm over in Silicon Valley. I can't wait to visit the home of the Web and shmooze with all the great people I've gotten to know virtually via my blog. That's a wrap for another week! [Read/Write Web] 12:35:15 PM    comment []

22 free and high quality PSP wallpaper images. Since Sony released the version 2.0 update with support for customised wallpaper, owners of the console across the world have had the ability to customise their PSP’s background image. Whilst there’s nothing stopping people from firing up a copy of Photoshop and editing their favorite image to the PSP’s 480x272 resolution; some sites are starting to convert their computer wallpaper collections to the PSP, in the hope that PSP users take a look at buying their higher resolution desktop shots. One such site is PlasmaDesign.co.uk, run by Rob Rantoul, a UK PSP owner. He recently released a catalogue of his most popular desktop images for free download at the PSP’s native resolution. The image designs range from holiday photos of the pool tweaked in Photoshop to surreal 3D landscapes made in Bryce and Lightwave. Full size images range from the PSP resolution right up to an insane 2560x1600 pixels, which are capable of covering the entirety of the Apple 30in Widescreen Display. Get the 800k .zip file with 22 PSP wallpaper images here. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google [Joystiq] 12:20:29 PM    comment []

Semantic MediaWiki. The WikiProject Semantic MediaWiki provides a platform to discuss MediaWiki extensions using semantic web technologies to support machine processing of Wiki-content. The project aims to develop a single solution for semantic annotation that fits the needs of most Wikimedia projects and still meets the Wiki-specific requirements of usability and performance. "I think this is an exciting project with a lot of potential. Wikipedia, for example, is marvelously successful and has made us all smarter. I'd like my software agents to have a Wikipedia of their own, one they can use to get the knowledge they need and one to which they can (eventually) contribute." -- Tim Finin [Thank you Tim for posting !!! sorry for the delay] [Smart Mobs] 10:31:01 AM    comment []

iTunes phone coming to O2 in the UK and T-Mobile in Germany?. Cingular already has a lock on the first Motorola iTunes phone here in the States, but what about our overseas brothers and sisters? Not sure about anywhere else, but apparently UK carrier O2 will be making a big announcement about the iTunes phone in a few weeks, and supposedly T-Mobile Germany “accidentally” revealed during a presentation that they expect to have an iTunes-compatible phone by Christmas. Read - O2 Read - T-Mobile Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google [Engadget] 10:28:31 AM    comment []

Cellophane converts an LCD or cameraphone display to 3D. Wow, cellophane — who knew? Keigo Iizuka knew, that’s who — and he describes how the simple application of cellophane to an LCD can convert it into a 3D display. The technique takes advantage of the fact that light emanating from the liquid crystal screen of a laptop or cellphone is linearly polarized, and is therefore easily manipulated by a polarizer sheet such as cellophane. The technique also includes a method for obviating the need to wear those ultra-hip 3D glasses, by making the screen wear the glasses instead. [Thanks, Daniel T.] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google [Engadget] 10:25:38 AM    comment []

KDDI's EZ Passenger Seat Navi. KDDI has announced a new navigation service for their CDMA 1X WIN handsets over in Japan called “EZ Passenger Seat Navi.” Based on the same technology that made the company’s “EZ Navi Walker” pedestrian GPS navigation system possible (yes, walking directions are frequently needed in Japan), EZ Passenger Seat Navi provides basic driving direction assistance to those with compatible handsets. The system offers most of the basic GPS features such as voice commands, auto-reroute if you go off course, refreshes every second, and preference-based searches. But what’s most attractive is the price of the service — you can pay either 157 yen (about $1.42) for 24 hours of usage, or 315 yen ($2.86) for an entire month. Considering the costs associated with purchasing a dedicated GPS system for your car, this makes a nice low-cost alternative for those only wanting basic functionality. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google [Engadget] 10:24:56 AM    comment []

Objects of Desire: Week of 9/4/05. It’s not possible to do our round-up post this week without noting that our biggest desire this week is that the people displaced by Hurricane Katrina find shelter and some semblance of normalcy in the coming weeks. We here at Weblogs Inc. have donated to the Red Cross and encourage you to do the same. The Residences at Burj Dubai Zoom Zoom Zoom Signature Days Caesar’s Designs 333 Sherbrooke Furla Greta Bag Phuket Pavillions Corum Bubble Privateer Watch Pink Razr Phone West Fork Ranch Britain’s Most Expensive Seaside Town Mike Tyson Home on eBay Bogner Lunar Boots Changing Regulations on Vintage Wine Van Cleef & Arpels Watches Forty Love Elio Necklaces ArTours Montecito Estate Virtual Gaveau Museum Sasco Point Home Damien Hirst Buys Toddington Manor Design Within Reach Bedding Star Sapphire For Sale Phil Donahue’s Home Villa DKD Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google [Luxist] 10:16:35 AM    comment []

Subscriber Stats and Web-based Feed Readers. Last night while looking at the new Feedburner design (well done guys!), I noticed that my subscriber stats figure has suddenly jumped. My current count of RSS subscribers in Feedburner is 3744. The main reason is that Rojo has just been added to Feedburner's numbers - previously it was missing. What surprised me is the extent of Rojo's impact on my stats. Rojo has overtaken Bloglines as the number 1 RSS Aggregator for my readers. Here is my current top 10: Rojo Bloglines NetNewsWire Newsgator Online ThePortNetwork Firefox Live Bookmarks MyYahoo Google Desktop FeedDemon SharpReader A few quick comments on that: - 7 of my top 10 are web-based RSS Readers (I'm counting Google Desktop in that). And 7 of the top 8 are web-based! Possibly that reflects my own bias towards web-based apps, which presumably a lot of my readers share. - On the other hand, NetNewsWire is still going strong in 3rd place, which probably reflects my geek cred ;-) - Rojo and Bloglines dominate my stats, which suggests to me that the other web-based readers have a lot of ground to catch up (and there are tons of new web-based feed readers on the market currently). Coincidentally yesterday, before I found out about the Rojo numbers in my Feedburner, I decided to give Rojo another try. I've been increasingly frustrated by Bloglines - it doesn't cut the mustard anymore in terms of organising one's feeds, tracking topic feeds and in general adding value to my feed-reading existence. Already I've noticed that Rojo's performance has improved since I last checked (that was my number one complaint about Rojo) and its added some neat new functionality - e.g. you no longer need to physically click the "Mark as Read" button. So I'll be using Rojo for the short term and perhaps in time it will convince me to stick around :-) My question to Bloglines: when are we going to see these new improvements you've promised in the past? You'd better hurry up, because it's clear that Rojo is eating your lunch. [Read/Write Web] 10:14:53 AM    comment []

Web 2.0 Office. This week I've been noticing a lot of Web 2.0-style Office apps coming out. Here's a selection of some of them: AjaxOffice - "A complete office suite usable via your browser. Your documents are safely stored on a server..." Writely - "The Web Word Processor" (unfortunately the beta is full already). TechCrunch reviewed it and said: "Writely is a highly specialized niche application built with ajax. Ajax allows this (and other applications) to act very much like desktop apps." The weirdly named FCKeditor is also an MS Word-like web app. It's open source too. (hat-tip Josh) gOFFICE - "a browser-based online word processor and desktop publishing program" Num Sum - web-based spreadsheets (hat-tip Michael Fagan). Interesting service that lets you share spreadsheets, except only the author of a spreadsheet can edit it. Kiko - Online calendar solution powered by (of course) Ajax. TechCrunch profile here. Those are just some of the web-based Office apps that have popped up recently. Don't forget established tools like Gmail (Google's email app that blows MS Outlook out of the water) and Chandler (the open source Personal Information Manager that has been in development for a Web eternity). Interesting also to note this CNET article from way back in 2001, speculating that Yahoo was looking at Web-based office tools. CNET quoted from a survey on the Yahoo website at the time, asking questions about a "full-featured suite of office productivity tools available online through a browser, handheld devices and Web-enabled cell phones." Hmmm, wonder what ever happened to that?! IBM has also talked about server-based office apps in the past too. Current Crop of web-based Office apps But really the most interesting web-based Office apps are the current crop of Web 2.0-style apps, built by small start-ups or open source developers. Ajax seems to be a common denominator amongst a lot of them. Is the development of this new kind of "Web 2.0" Office tool likely to be worrying Microsoft much at this stage? I'm interested in knowing what other Webified Office tools are out there - alpha, beta or even a glint in a developer's eye. Please add to the comments and let's see if we can build a big list of them. [Read/Write Web] 10:13:38 AM    comment []

RSS on mobile phones. Barb Dybwad posed an interesting question this week: "how many of you read some or all of your RSS feeds on your cellphone? If you do - which application or service do you find the best/easiest to use/most comprehensive and why?" Personally I don't read feeds in my mobile phone, although I would like to. I do download content from the Web onto my Palm PDA, for offline reading. So it makes sense to go the next step and read content online on my mobile device. Anyway Barb's readers recommended the following apps and services for mobile RSS reading, if you're interested: - BuddyBuzz - winksite.com - LiteFeeds - Bloglines mobile - PHONifier - iFeedYou - FreeNews [Read/Write Web] 10:09:39 AM    comment []

50Mbit/s Broadband, for Free!. Everything in life is better when it is free, especially torrents of your favorite fetish porn downloading at a blazing 50Mbit/s. Calm down you silly porn-loving American, this is only happening in Germany. Deutsche Telekom apparently has a pocket full of amphetamines. The project, titled Lightspeed, plans to have this new fiber line run to 2.9 million households a year from now. The freeness I speak of is currently available via their site and will run at just 25 Mbit/s for the time being. The free offer is only taking place in Hamburg and Stuttgart. Deutsche Telekom: 50Mbit/s Broadband… [Digital-Lifestyles] [Gizmodo] 10:06:29 AM    comment []

Announcing Entrepreneurial Venture Profile Posting. This whole VC thing has really got me thinking. It's really exciting to me to see the new concepts that people are launching right now. In some ways it's almost like 1995 all over again. At the same time, there are lots of entrepreneurs out there with great ideas, excellent teams, the ability to execute, and maybe even beta software or products who, mainly because they don't have a connection, are condemned to toil away in obscurity all because they don't have a contact that can get them in front of a VC. It's no exaggeration when you hear investors lament that they're buried in business plans. I've seen stacks of them four feet high in some VC offices. It pains me to say it but there aren't enough hours in the day to read them all. So what to do? Well, in most cases this means that the people that a VC knows are going to get their plans read or at least read ahead of the others. I know that I would never have been in a single door if it weren't for a mentor of mine recommending me to a VC who (probably grudgingly) agreed to give me half an hour. I'd like to change that. Of course, I'm not going to be able to single handedly change a dynamic that exists simply because there are so many entrepreneurs with ideas, but at least as far as Angel Strategies and Mobile Technology is concerned I am going to do something a little different. At least I'm going to give it a try. Starting now, I'm going to reserve my Friday post to profile at least one new venture. That is, one new venture contributed for my review by the readers of this blog. Here's how this will work: pay attention, my blog, my rules. If you or someone you know has a new business venture that you'd like me to profile, and possibly even analyze or critique a bit (if I have anything meaningful to say), all you have to do is send me a BRIEF summary of the plan and the people who would execute. Here are the other key caveats: The plan MUST BE RELATED TO MOBILE TECHNOLOGY. NO EXCEPTIONS. The venture must HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY VENTURE INVESTMENT (a small friends and family or very small angel round is ok but nothing more) By sending me this plan you understand that I MAY post some or all of what you submit on this blog which is in the public domain and publishes under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Use "Some Rights Reserved" parameter. You understand that while I might receive many submissions it is at my sole discretion which submissions I display or discuss. You also understand that while I reserve the right to present any, all or none of the plans to Angel Strategies Principals, I am under no obligation to do so. You acknowledge that this Entrepreneurial Venture Profile Post (EVPP) is not part of Angel Strategies evaluation process nor is Angel Strategies directly involved in the review or analysis of any submissions that I receive. You accept that from time to time, I may forward your submissions to other Venture Capitalists or Angel Investors if I see a match that I believe at my sole discretion is in the best interest of any of the parties involved. You understand that anything you send me will not be returned. DO NOT SEND SOMETHING YOU NEED BACK. I don't want to be responsible for proto-types, demo units, irreplaceable copies of code...you get the idea. Do send me stuff to play with, or software to try, just don't think I have time to go to the post and mail it back. By submitting a venture summary for my consideration you a knowledge that you have read everything above and agree that these are the terms under which I accept these submissions. Whew...I was starting to feel like an attorney! Okay, here's the fun stuff. How do you get profiled? First have a good succinct summary. You're heard of an "elevator" pitch? Reduce it to paper, add the bios of management and send it in. Make sure it is related to MOBILE TECHNOLOGY. DO NOT SEND ME A PRESS RELEASE. I DO NOT PRINT VERBATIM PRESS RELEASES. EVER. It will help your chances if I already know your name. This does not mean that I went to school with you or that we know one another...one of the surest ways for me to know (and remember) your name is for you to comment on posts in this blog. Help me critique the other ventures I profile. Get into the dialog. Have a GREAT IDEA. This is most important. If you blow me away with an idea...one of those "damn, I should have thought of that!" sort of ideas, you can bet you'll be on the top of my list come Thursday night. Last, get me your submissions early in the week. If I get 200 summaries on Thursday evening, most of them are going to sit till the next week at least. Final words on this for now: I really hope people jump on this. John (the Managing Partner) was enthusiastic about this concept and I'd love to see some plans that do get funded through this channel. It is for real and I will champion ideas that I think merit the effort. One other thing that you can do to really improve your venture's chances of getting funding (way beyond a submission here) is to go visit The Venture Alliance's web site and commit to their process to help you determine how ready your enterprise is for a round of venture capital. My understanding is that entrepreneurs that go through the TVA process are more than 80% more likely to get a venture capital investment than those that do not. In any case TVA connects with funds who in total have an aggregate of $4 billion available for investment. Getting in front of them is much more important than getting in front of me. Okay...that's it....have fun. I wish everyone luck and I look forward to seeing some fantastic ideas. Oh, one final thing...it should go without saying that I reserve the right to change any or all of my rules or discontinue posting profiles or even evaluation of submissions at any time, and that I may also, at my sole discretion, change, break or ignore some or all of the rules I have listed above where so doing does not violate any laws, ordinances or human rights. [The Mobile Technology Weblog] 10:03:36 AM    comment []

Cingular to Launch Apple i-Tunes Phone. This just in from PostSecret details have emerged (FINALLY) about the long awaited Motorola i-Tunes phone. Ryan Katz, Senior Editor at PostSecret reports: September 2, 2005 - Apple will upgrade both its iPod mini and iPod shuffle lines of music players, but most likely not at its media event next week, Think Secret has learned. The media event will instead be devoted almost exclusively to the new iTunes-enabled Motorola phone and the company's partnership with Cingular. The new phone will reportedly be available in two capacities, 256MB and 512MB, capable of storing about 70 and 140 songs, respectively. Users will not only be able to plug the phone into their computer to tap their iTunes Music Library for tunes, but will also have the ability of buying songs on the fly over Cingular's network, probably for about $2 a song, sources report. The ability to download songs from the phone represents a departure from Apple's original design for the phone. Months ago it emerged that cell phone networks Apple was in talks with, eager to share revenue that a music download service could generate, were uninterested in carrying the phone unless such a feature was included. Cingular will be the only carrier of the phone in the U.S. at launch, while London's Times reported Thursday that O2 will be the exclusive carrier in Britain. People sometimes ask me if I have it in for the carriers. While I won't say that I particularly want to hurt them, sometimes their selfish behavior makes me hope that prognostications like Russell Buckley's and Om Malik's. If they keep treating their customers with contempt, taking advantage of the very people that put revenue in their coffers then by all means they deserve to be dis-intermediated from their revenue stream. And believe you me, a vast number of people will deal with slight compromises in quality and convenience to teach someone that hasn't been treating them fairly a nice lesson. Russell Buckley pointed out that he felt this exact scenario was highly likely and lo and behold, they've proven him prescient. Not that predicting that the Recording Industry is going to go straight to the lowest common denominator of insulting greed is all the difficult. I also think in the end, charging so much per song is going to ultimately prove to be very foolish. Not only because it will dampen enthusiasm for the phone, but also because in the final analysis, Cingular will probably lose out on a lot more revenue than their share of the $2 bucks they're charging per song (which is probably somewhere around fifty cents when the record labels get their $1 and the distribution company...i-Tunes gets its share). Did Cingular forget about their other source of revenue from these customers? Megabits, kilobytes...you know, just data in general. Unless you shell out for an unlimited plan, Cingular charges for data by the kilobyte. Instead of encouraging users to circumvent the music download altogether... (and believe you me they will)...and you'll see people using WiFi, bluetooth, infrared...anything to get their existing library onto their phone. I am already aware of one technology that will be profiled in the next few days or so on this blog that will facilitate the storage and downloading of music to any phone capable of playing a music file. Cingular would have been much smarter to have learned of this technology and turned their customers into downloading fiends. They shouldn't have worried so much about getting a piece of the music sales, they should have focused on getting more data revenue per user the way they're set up to do it. Dumb. That's the only word that really sums it up. So what to do? I say don't rush out and buy one of those phones yet. There are going to be plenty of open solutions that will let you get the music you've already purchased, or want to purchase at a FAIR price and store it anywhere you'd like...not just how some greedy carrier tells you to store it. [The Mobile Technology Weblog] 10:01:58 AM    comment []

Will Mobsharing and Ad-Hoc P2P Nets Stymie Recording Industry?. To see this image in its original context go here: http://www.cheesebikini.com/art/matrix-swarm.jpg I had the good fortune to stumble upon a truly fantastic blog post today by Mike Evans of Mobilementalism. This idea is so clever, so right now, and is likely to be hugely popular especially with the younger set. Plus, take this concept and add to it the use of a MoSoSo like Dodgeball or StreetHive and you have a perfect Howard Rheingold scenario. With the advent of phones that have better MP3 fidelity, the ability to store many (as in the case of Nokia's N91, around a thousand) songs and the increasing availability of phones that have Bluetooth or WiFi capabilities, this kind of activity that combines social interaction with a popular activity like file sharing is sure to drive adoption of many of the applications that enable events like Flash Mobshares to take place. Now all we need is for an enterprising developer to write a bit torrent program to be run over personal area networks or small ad-hoc LANS and we're in business. [The Mobile Technology Weblog] 10:00:11 AM    comment []

PSP downloads won't be free for long. It turns out that Wipeout Pure’s free content downloads were just a test case. In 2006, Sony plans to move to pay-per-downloads, according to comments made by SCE’s European vice president Phil Harrison in Edge magazine. This will be made possible by a digital rights management system (similar to iTunes) that Sony is in the process of constructing. What concerns us is that new features that in that past would have been included in firmware upgrades (e.g. the web browser) might end up costing us extra. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google [Joystiq] 9:56:36 AM    comment []

Fame for you and your gaming alter-ego. Almost a year ago now, we took note of the work of artist Robbie Cooper, who took photos of real people and put them next to screenshots of the Everquest avatars that those people controlled. Pictured at right is one of those juxtapositions. (For the rest of them, click here.) In an update to his Alter Ego project, Cooper has teamed with writer Tracy Spaight to put together a book featuring Second Life players who, according to blog Clickable Culture: Look like their avatars Make real money through virtual businesses Are males playing females or vice versa (”Manginas” and “Shenises”, in MMOG parlance) Express themselves creatively online (fluent l33t doesn’t count) Met a significant other online Have a zany tale to tell about an online experience The artists can be contacted at tspaight@gmail.com. Include your location, contact information, and why you think you’re worthy of their artsy interest. Just don’t brag about that one time you and two wood elves shacked up for an entire fortnight in Kelethin. Virtual gentlemen never kiss and tell. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google [Joystiq] 9:54:18 AM    comment []