jeremy snyder's meta|remix

over on the sg entrepreneur blog, there’s a roundup of yesterday’s panel discussion that i participated in. they have a brief summary of my comments about twinity:

Directed at budding virtual world creators, Jeremy of Twinity talked about the need for compelling reasons to participate in your virtual world. Why yours? For Twinity, the question for them while creating the virtual world is: How can we put something out there that is interesting for people, and doesn’t take them away completely from their life? Because they believe that even if you play World of Warcraft for 40 hours a week, you still need to live in the real world. It is not possible to have a total divide. As such, he claims that Twinity is the only virtual world that is based on the real world. (I don’t really understand how having more realistic 3D virtual worlds translates to not taking you completely away from your real life? Unless ‘real’ just means physical surroundings.)

probably i should have explained better. it’s not only about real locations – it’s also about real identities, real relationships, real friends and real life. and what i said about the division is that most people can’t afford to live only in a virtual world or only in an online game, purely from the financial perspective.

just a quick note. i’ll be on a panel at an event called “doing business in virtual worlds” at the national university of singapore.

when we first got to singapore, people told us that the only funny local show was the noose. i finally got to see it last night during the new year’s eve end of year recap show. it was pretty funny. my favorite segment was the naming competition for the 3rd integrated resort, with the winning entry being “IR III”, coming from a guy who had also won naming competitions for places like “bukit batok bus interchange.” i especially liked his rationale for why he wins these competitions, “i guess i’m just more creative than other people.”

i just finished into the wild by jon krakauer.
Read the rest of this entry »