The always interesting and cool venture capitalist / gamer Joi Ito gave an interview to Daniel Terdiman of CNET at their in-world headquarters yesterday. Joi touched on such subjects as copyright and IP in Second Life, Creative Commons, the game industry, and work and World of Warcraft. Daniel will be posting a fuller interview shortly. …
Returning to the virtual Camp Darfur
During the talk that In Kenzo and I gave at RootsCamp on SL political organizing last week, In Kenzo brought up that she and a team of other volunteers had been working very hard over the past months to create the virtual Camp Darfur as an awareness raising and politicizing tool. I realized that I…
“The Journey” and media reform
I watched again Friedrich Kirschner’s spectacular machinima "the Journey" last night. It’s been floating around in my head ever since. It strikes me that it’s a good allegory for media reform. Little stick figures pointlessly race around a bleak valley while giant monitors display banal images at them. A sign tells them to "Never leave…
Joi Ito to be interviewed at CNET HQ in Second Life tomorrow
I just heard word that CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman will be interviewing well-known entrepreneur, lEEt g@mr, virtual worlds innovator, and overall cool dude Joi Ito tomorrow (Friday), at 4PM EST/1PM SLT. Joi will talk about his experience using virtual worlds as a tool to manage co-workers, his World of Warcraft guild, and his investments. To…
“Before the Music Dies” tackles the increasing homogenization of the US music industry
"Before the Music Dies," a new documentary film by Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen, explores how the radio and record industry conspire to limit musical choice by consumers. Meanwhile they examine how independent artists find new fanbases through the internet and live performance. The film includes interviews with such diverse and notable artists as Branford…
Little known fact about Copybot
State of Play Symposium Dec 1-2, NYC
Although the full-strength State of Play IV Conference in Singapore in January still seems to be in jeopardy, there’s a smaller, equally interesting State of Play / Terra Nova symposium happening in a couple of weeks in New York City, December 1-2. The event will feature a number of cool panels on such topics as…
Friedrich Kirschner is a machinima genius
I finally got an opportunity to see some of the machinima pieces of my friend Friedrich Kirschner. With due respect to the other machinimators I know, Friedrich really creates at a completely different level than everyone else’s work. I am not sure I can even call it machinima. They are more like moving collages of…
But do you REALLY want to work for an NGO?
Me with the WFM staff in 2001 A friend invited me to speak last week to a group of students interested in careers in International Relations at St Johns University in Queens. I have done these sorts of talks a number of times and it’s always both invigorating running into young people interested in social…
Szyndi & I in the Gardens of Apollo
A romantic moment watching the sun go down in the Gardens of Apollo with my baby.