Enmeshed

Trees moved: 1 (irritating); Wire fences erected: 1 (bad)

The SL blogs I follow are producing thoughtful and sane postings, but I will take the opportunity, being on my personal laptop, with a good network connection (in Reading for a RL conference in a student bedroom: free broadband!) to post some pics that are on THIS machine.

Yes, it's neighbours. Got a polite IM a couple of weeks ago, asking me to move a tree. In fact person even said how much tree would need to be moved (3 metres approx) so it no longer overlapped new neighbour's land. Apparently tree was causing anxiety, though is perfectly well behaved tree from the Heart Garden Centre.

Tped in and found - a a sort of compound.

You see here the offending tree (which I duly moved) and the compound. This is a beach with unrestricted view of protected water. So why would you want to spoil your own view with wire mesh and a bunker-like house? Oh well, at least it only spoils MY view if I look sideways.

In fact has been a lot of buying and selling going on around me: well, actually, more, land being put on the market and NOT selling. One chap IMed me to ask if I was interested and when said no as am maxed up to tier limit, he IMed me AGAIN only 5 mins later, obviously (to judge from the message) under the illusion he was IMing another neighbor. Interestingly, he was asking for more money from the neighbour than he did from me.

Neighbour on other side is also selling up 2/3rds of her land - the rain soaked graveyard scene has been turned into a cute house, as I'm sure any Relocation Relocation show would have advocated. Though of course the graveyard might have been a big selling point to goths. Perhaps she should get a holodeck so people with no imagination of their own can see it with the ambience of their choice. That would be a jolly useful feature when selling RL houses.

Students, Computers, Calendar

Calendars created with Factory: 1 (good); Student installations visited: 2.5 (good); No of different computers, data sticks etc. through which SL pictures are scattered: 7 (approx) (bad); No of SL pics on Flickr: 1000 (approx) (um - good?)
Time was that only place I stored pics of SL was on the hard drive of my work PC. They were organised neatly by month, since at the end of each month would move all the previous month's ones into new folder. Now and then would back these up by copying onto Departmental server.
Alas, all this went to pot when started using other computers: my personal laptop, my home computer, plus got new work computer last autumn (and still haven't transferred pics from old PC), and also started saving pics directly to a memory stick, or one of two different folders on the server. Have uploaded some pics to Flickr, but only a percentage: since there are 1000 on Flickr, dread to think how many there are in toto - 3000 perhaps? For someone teaching Information Mangement this is a pretty poor show, though could pretend am setting myself up as a case study for a student project.
All this is prelude to saying that have lots to blog about last week, but since am on home computer, only pics that can show re the week are from today, so that is where I will have to start.
Was intending to finish off marking, but wandered into SL to update the board that says when the next Infolit iSchool Discussion is going to be (23rd July BTW) and realised that a presentation from North's students was taking place at that very time. His message said: "summer students have been working on exhibits that can be used by middle school science teachers to "spark" interest in science. Larry Klugman served as the client for the three exhibits - Physics of a Homerun, Thunderstorms, and The Atom Bomb."
These are always interesting, so tped over (and that was the rest of the evening gone, essentially).
These were all designed so that a teacher could go inworld and then show their schoolchildren (in the classroom) round. The Atom Bomb involved sitting in an atom chair and having an automatic guided tour round: first of all some background on the Manhattan Project, then a bit of the science behind it, then experience of different effects (e.g. black rain (2nd photo), pulsing light), finally pictures of victims and the area affected (3rd photo). The end part was particularly powerful. Was impressed by all the parts, but only constructive criticism would be that it might be a long tour to have in one go, and might be better broken up into sections.
There was a queue for the tour, so first had visited Weather Experience, with Clouds, Mountain Rain and Storm. RL cooperated by demonstrating what a summer rainstorm is like, so had RL sound effects along with SL ones. All three exhibits were attractive, with the clouds moving, the signage on the mountain particularly good (first photo), and the tornado had some cows in it (but unfortunately didn't get a pic of that).
Almost saw the baseball exhibit, but when bounced out to watch accompanying Youtube video, crashed from SL. However, since baseball itself is a veiled mystery to me, possibly am not the ideal audience anyway.
Then spent a while trying to find things in inventory, and partially failing. However, thought could at least display my first calendar produced with the Calendar Factory. You simply rename 12 textures Jan, Feb etc., and pull them into a calendar blank. Also can insert a logo: in this case the international information literacy logo. Once calendar is complete, position it above the Calendar Factory (not inside it, that doesn't work, I tried) click the factory, and duplicate calendar appears. This 2nd one can be copied and transferred, but doesn't contain the actual textures, so you can set it for everyone to be able to copy around, or sell individual calendars. You have to keep the original in your inventory.
One catch is that each time you need to create another (different) calendar you have to buy another 100 Linden calendar blank. However, not like am going to create 100s of them.
Gave out the calendar at the Infolit iSchool discussion on Thursday, though perhaps people weren't as stunned as had hoped.
Other things done this week, that may or may not blog, were:
- attended launch of Centre for Study of New Literacies in RL, and met RL alt of Anya Ixchel, and spotted that in SL she was wearing a dress from House of RFyre (i.e. can recognise work of SL dress designers from back of room in dim light, how sad is that)
- gave talk about SL at University of York in RL
- attended Educators Coop chat
- had Thursday discussion (as noted) which led to demo from Graham on his island, then chat with Adra
- sent notecards to various people about the Information Literacy Week
That's quite a lot really, for a moderately quiet week in SL.

Slidecasted

Slidecasts created: 2 (good)(in my opinion); Software installed: 2 (good); Deadlines met: 1 (almost)
If you like long, rambling posts with accounts of ill-planned attempts to create Web 2.0 presentations, then this one is for you.
On Thursday, or to be honest was actually early hours of Friday, finished almost-overdue presentation for virtual seminar. Seminar turned out even more virtual than had first thought i.e. even though it was scheduled for a particular day, was no obligation to do anything except provide stuff in advance & look at forums afterwards.
Topic was information literacy in virtual worlds. Decided to create a page with links to videos, make 2 slidecasts and put in some narrative to explain what was what. Original plan was to use page of iSchool wiki, but pbworks seems to be unobtainable a lot this week (memo to self: back up those wiki pages!) so plumped for my Netvibes space instead. To cut to chase, the page is here: http://www.netvibes.com/sheilawebber#Using_virtual_worlds
Had already had one page on Netvibes devoted to virtual worlds, but half of that was about Google Lively, which is of course an Ex World, so cleared it out and started again. Knew I wanted to link to some Gobal Kids material and also found an (I think) excellent video about SL in schools, on Teachers TV. Spent some time trying to find decent stuff showing libraries. Included the “I am Library” video that HVX made, but otherwise there seemed rather too many talking SL heads giving presentations of varying quality.

My own presentations include some slides that will be familiar old friends to anyone who has leafed through my Slideshare space, but of course put into a fascinating new order and DID create some new ones, since this is aimed at school librarians. Decided that had to do more than intended when dipped into logs of a couple of chat sessions from the virtual seminar in which participants were slagging off (politely, of course) the presenters for just putting in dry powerpoints and not focusing on the interests of the audience.

Doubtless own contribution will still be unsatisfactory as regards school librarian focus, but have Made an Effort. Biggest effort was in doing My First Slidecast. Indeed is My First MP3, since have not even done my own podcast before. Started by uploading ppts to Slideshare and looking at a v. useful Slidecast showing how to create Slidecasts. This was created by one of my Contacts, and it was only at this point (2 years on from joining Slideshare) that realise that this person is like Tom on MySpace, i.e. he is EVERYONE’s friend.
Hunted in a desultry way through programmes on own computer, but feeling that currently did not have voice recording software was confirmed. Could have used MP3 player, but this would have involved uploading software to work pc that currently was sitting on a CD at home. Therefore Googled “Creating MP3” and when that didn’t seem to bring up the right stuff, “Recording MP3”. A top hit was Audacity, which immediately recognised as being subject of various postings on SLED list. Was free, so downloaded it, hurrah.

Most troublesome phase was next one, i.e. getting Audacity to admit that I was saying, or later, shouting, things into my microphone. In sum, after reboots, countless trys at the Sound Test from the Windows control panel, several trawls through Audacity Help, plugging microphone into all possible computer orifices etc etc realised that problem was that had failed to set Microphone to correct device in Audacity Preferences.

Then seemed doddle to talk through slides in first presentation and time finally came to Export to MP3. Was minor delay when was prompted for unintelligible thing called LAME, and am still not exactly sure what LAME does. Anyway, was beyond asking Why at this point, so Googled LAME and turned out this was something that could download from web at only 2nd attempt (not sure where the first download ended up). Then it was scumble scumble and a sparkley MP3 was sitting in my Second Life folder. As recommended by Everyone’s Friend, I uploaded MP3s to Archive.org. Not quite sure why I did this, since it appeared afterwards that could have uploaded them to Slideshare, and also could have just bunged them on the university server. However, there they are, at ....
Finally the thrilling moment came to Synchronise slides with audio, which was actually quite fun. Then there it is, my first Slidecast. I will embed it here.

Information Literacy in virtual worlds Part 1

View more documents from sheilawebber.

Second one obviously took less time, but did have upset in that when nearly at end of first recording Audacity Unexpectedly Quit. Hate it when that happens. When rebooted, Audacity told me that if I didn’t press delete the unsaved files would be in a manually recoverable temp file, so as you can imagine wasted time trying to locate temp file. Turned out that, since this was yet another thing had failed to set in Preferences, temp file had gone irretrievably to temp file graveyard. Second slidecast may therefore seem a little rushed as was getting tetchy by the second time round.
If this is podcasting, doesn’t seem too difficult. Of course would take much longer if had been troubled by any perfectionist scruples that required editing out background noise, adjusting audibility etc. May revive ideas for regular Information Literacy Hour, or perhaps Information Literacy 10 minutes might be more palatable. Perhaps should get feedback about whether people can understand what am saying before devise too many grand podcasting and slidecasting plans.
Pictures are: Me on Infolit sun deck with latest batch of DSN network, me in the National Library on the DRowsy sim, and me with new acquarium and cinderella shoe bench.

What Information Specialists say about Second Life

Have realised that while I publicise the Infolit iSchool discussions in various inworld groups and discussion lists, had neglected to do so here. Oops.

What Information Specialists say about Second Life: Presentation to be held in SL on Thursday 2 July at 12 noon SL time (8pm UK time; time elsewhere http://tinyurl.com/m8j8ba )
Marshall Dozier and Fiona Brown of Edinburgh University, Scotland, (Pancha Enzyme and Zeno Silvercloud in SL) will report back on findings from their survey and focus group discussions* on SL for for networking, collaboration and CPD. This will be based on their conference presentation at the EAHIL conference in June 2009 and includes time for discussion
Location is Infolit iSchool http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/235/34/28/

This is part of the University of Sheffield Center for Information Literacy Research discussion series.

* picture shows the focus group that was held on Infolit iSchool

Logga in

Error messages: 1 (amusing); Blogger languages: several (sometimes unexpected)

When logging out from Blogger just now received startling news that:

"Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request."

Shall reprimand Client immediately.

Took me back to Good Old Days of internet when 404 File Not Found & assorted other messages popped up with a regularity that reassured you that you were still at the pioneer edge of technology. In fact takes me back even more to heady early phase of online when you had to wrestle phone handsets into rubber cups to get some sort of online connection and the screen was one mass of enigmatic messages. In fact can even remember time when WAS no screen, everything got printed out onto thermal paper that faded and curled up almost before you had time to read it.

To return to blogger, other oddity that have meant to mention for a while is that if connect to internet using free wifi on National Express trains, for some strange reason Google and all its services (including Blogger) are displayed in Swedish. This being National Express can only assume that is because is cheaper for them e.g. perhaps they are getting some sort of cut-price IKEA wifi.

Fortunately is pretty obvious what to do since buttons and boxes are all in the same place and already knew that Swedish for Search was Sok.

Of course could be ruse to try and get passengers to talk to each other ('Excuse me young man, do you know the Swedish for "log in"?') or even altruistic attempt to teach us another language. However, given notorious disinclination of British railway passengers to talk to anyone they don't already know, and their adherence to the English language, fear both enterprises are doomed to failure.

Information Literate plans

Chatlogs edited and mounted: 1 (good); New Google calendars created: 1 (good); New wiki page created: 1 (good); Emails sent to important IL person: 1 (good); Anxieties about amount of work storing up for self: many (bad)


Have put online the transcript of the discussion on 10th June, which discussed the idea of a US Information Literacy month (see http://www.infolit.org/news/campaign.html) and the possibility of an Information Literacy Week in SL. The chatlog of our meeting is here: http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=437


Was a smallish meeting (boosted by a few observers to start with) but there were good ideas and people thought that an information Literacy Week in SL was feasible and worth pursuing. You can read more in the chatlog.


Have created a page on the Infolit iSchool wiki here http://infolitischool.pbworks.com/Information-Literacy-Week-in-Second-Life-2009 (please tell me if you have problems viewing it!).

Set up a calendar on Google here, which obviously doesn't have much on it at present, though there is a meeting on 9 July at noon SL time to update people - plus obviously the week istelf is already on the calendar.

Sent an email to the Vice Presidents of the National Forum on Information Literacy (which is behind the Info Literacy month initiative) and it looks like they will be supportive. Yay.

So, only oodles and oodles of work to be done to plan it .... am already getting distracted by planning the freebies, to start with, an Information Literacy calendar (using the IntelliCalendar factory ... this, of course, involved buying the factory. Will explain its working when have published the calendar).

Tags

No of different tags used in this blog: 450 (approx) (like, wow)

Have just added list of Tags/Labels used in this blog to the Adventures home page. Can be found on the right after the j-pop player. There are an awful lot of them. Therefore thought should explain something about my approach to tagging.

Now, whilst at the Uni of Strathclyde, taught indexing for several years. This was for usual reason i.e. no-one else wanted to teaching indexing and I agreed to do it when arrived as new lecturer and knew no better.

Thus am aware of benefits of controlled vocabularies, can tell a Broader from a Narrower term, and describe the glory that is the Scope Note. Since started in this business when indexes were mostly on paper also know the difference between KWIC and KWOC and might even still attempt a description of PRECIS.

However, fond readers will note that in this blog have happily thrown all that nonsense out of the window. Instead am practising the art of Tagging as Stream of Consciousness. Basically, when come to the end of the entry, fill in the tags happily with whatever first comes into head. This is usually related to the content of the entry, though this is not guaranteed. Sometimes yield happily to word association e.g. in post before last tagged Mirror (because was using mirror water effect) and then tagged Smoke, since, you know, there is that phrase smoke and mirrors. Think this may be rather ineffective subconcious act of subversion against the dark tides of orderly metadata.

Therefore you may find the list of tags:

a) A delightful source of serendipitous amusement; or

b) A disgrace.

Enjoy! (As the waitress says when serving you with a plate of slightly overcooked pasta and a glass of slightly underchilled white wine)

Reflecting on glitches

Shapes lost by Linden Labs: 1 (v.v. bad); Times trapped under umbrella: 1 (OK); Times part of land unexpectedly disappeared then unexpectedly reappeared: 1 (fortuitous)
Talked to yet another person in RL who was sceptical about SL because they found it difficult, kept bumping into things etc. Ruminated today on how you *keep* bumping into things in SL, but suppose difference is you get to know:
a) bumping into things is ok;
b) how to get out of places when you are stuck;
c) when you do, and do not, need to worry when strange things happen.

For example: when I teleport in somewhere and find myself about 10 feet off the ground unable to move and with my arms and legs waving - know that this is usually because there are loads of people tp-ing to the same spot and I'm stuck on the top of someone's (currently invisible) head. Normally if you just wait they will move and you can proceed as normal, or at least you need to wait til things rez and you can see what the problem is. Glitches over the past days include:

1. My shape disappeared from the Database. I noticed this 20 mins before giving a presentation on Thursday and it did not exactly reduce the mild sense of panic I already had. Had noticed a message about something not being found in the database but simply clicked it away and it was only when I cammed out to see the poster I was preparing I suddenly realise my feet were larger than my shoes (see first pic) and my hands were like dinnerplates. A quick inspection proved that other parts of the Yoshikawa Shape were also different. Attempts to Wear "My Body Small Feet" failed miserably and so had to disappear underwater for a quick slider session, reducing (e.g. foot size) and increasing (e.g. body fat) various aspects of appearance.

My Body Small Feet is still Absent Without Official Leave. This is indeed Worrying as perhaps is sign that having reached 25,000 items my inventory will go AWOL piece by piece ... on the other hand is problem (apparently) with central database rather than actual inventory. Not sure which is worst.

2. When trying out a new DSN gift, namely parasol table and stools, placed stool too near table so that, on standing up, was catapulted onto table under parasol and trapped (see pic). This is one of those situations where one's Virtual Literacy skills come into play, since know now that easiest thing to do is to find something to sit on (in this case, stool) and then sit on it.

Also since have editing skills, could move stool backwards so didn't get trapped again. In early days would have wasted time struggling this way and that. Associated is the "when it's very laggy rez a box, sit on it and move that around" solution (see also: jumping from pose stand to pose stand to move in a crowded fashion store)

3. Teleported home to create poster during Educators Coop retreat (see last post) to find that the bit of my land that is in another sim had disappeared. In fact the sims on BOTH sides had disappeared. However, since this is mainland & my payments are up to date, did not panic. Instead took the opportunity to take mirror-water reflection of the land that HADN'T disappeared (see third picture), so actually saw it as happy chance.
Opened Map to see whether the sims were offline, but there they were, as usual, and when teleported to the land-on-other-sim - everything was as normal. Odd.
Perhaps this is actually example where should be panicing - is this the beginning of the end? The whole of the mainland flickering in and out of existence? But seems more likely that it is glitchy business-as-usual.

Retreat, Mirror, Sheep

Retreats attended: 1 (v. good); Mirror presets discovered: 1 (amazing); Hours spent taking pictures with mirror presets: 2 (at least) (bad); Information Literate sheep created: 1 (ok, could do better)

Today was Educators Coop retreat. We gathered at the Mesa on the Educators Coop, and then were told to teleport to sparkly new Educators Coop 5, which will be official HQ with breakout areas, auditorium etc. Agenda can be seen in the picture. After brainstorming ideas of what we would like to see, went off to breakout groups.

Inevitably tp-ed initially to WRONG breakout group but then had useful chat with North, Larry and Pirate on cool palm shaded island. These palms are by same person as made the new treehouse on Infolit iSchool. Have in fact just invested in palm trees by this person (Tobias Novi) myself, since are only 2 prims for clump of 4 trees plus you get animated palm tree shadows. Not cheap but is copiable.

I had ideas about creating individual exhibitions for each coop member, and also mentioned the Swine Flu project. We also talked about pooling our induction stuff, having area with freebies, and doing an Educators Coop conference.

After this went back to plenary and chewed over ideas some more. Finally had individual time in which to take picture and make notecard about self. I created a poster (which have now also put up on Infolit) and also a notecard. Rx, who is ace builder etc., put the textures from us all into a slideshow and I show mine being displayed. We talked about research collaboration and Lorri and Mummer both expressed interest in working on virtual/digital/information literacy. So all good stuff.

Yesterday followed up SLED post to discover blog entry which explains how to make the Linden water reflect like a mirror: http://zonjacapalini.wordpress.com/
guides/mirror-water/. Was immediately bewitched since Infolit island looks v.v. cool, with all the trees, bays, hills etc. Will have post just on that, but can see effect in pic of Educators Coop 5 at the top of this blog entry.

So on to the sheep. Spent very end of day (or should I say early morning) adapting a sheep I had received as a carrier for a notecard for some event or other. It was full perms, so retextured its coat back to wool, lowered sound and frequency of baa-ing (since baa-ing is only really cute for the first 5 mins you hear it) and created a notecard with some information literacy definitions.

Sheep now stands outside Centre for Information Literacy Research and will either give notecard on touch or (I hope, must test it with Dimitrova) you can buy sheep/notecard for zero Linden.

Plan whole flock of these with different notecards in. I am calling it Woolley the Information Literate Sheep.

Daily dose

Items received from DSN: 15? 20? (who knows); Ratio of interesting to uninteresting items: 1:1 (not bad)
Have continued to log in eagerly to Accept the items from the Designers Showcase Network (see prvious post). Boxes of free stuff rattle into my inventory like rain onto ... onto land that is pretty damp already. However, present are always good, in my view.
On a serious note (to get that over with) I hope this is still going when I bring in students next academic year, since I could "persuade" them to sign up and it would give them regular practice in opening boxes and learning how to tell what you are supposed to do with stuff (wear, drag to ground, contemplate in wonder, send to trash). Also they could get some decent clothes out of it, because the stuff that is otherwise genuinely ok to pass round full permissions looks a bit dated in terms of textures and prim work.

You see here booty from a couple of days ago: a waterful complete with rocks and plants, a rose bush in a pot, a vase of flowers, and a little brazier. This was actually the box that the real present came in, but I thought the box was more interesting than the contents.

If asked who produced them, I'm afraid that all I can tell you is that the fire-thing came from a designer with the word Phoenix in their name, and the waterfall was from Perfect Prefabs. I know this as it is the first designer where I have gone and looked at their stuff, and I was sorely tempted by their Waterfull Cave grottos. I may yet indulge in another waterfall, though goodness knows I have enough of them already in my inventory. This was a good example of a designer I've visited some time ago, and it was useful to be reminded to go and look for new stuff.

The 2nd pic shows me peeking out from behind yesterday's boxes before I unpacked them, then using a couple of them: a corridor "set" (mainly aimed at fashion bloggers), another plant, the hat with flowers & a veil (cool, I think), a heart-emitting cookie (in my mouth) and the pose itself.
The final set of pictures are from Friday: longing in front of the boxes and then using the sofa. The reason I couldn't use the sofa to start with was that when I clicked to Sit on it, it gave the message "no place to sit", which is not the kind of feedback you expect from a chair.
In the end I found a place to click that allowed me to sit, but I would say I have identified a design fault.

Prims, glitches, trees

Prim gateways to the cream of British academia: 1 (v. good); Retrospective tree house posts: 1 (good) (if retrospective).

Am currently on travels again, trying to fit marking around doing academic things in exotic (Thessaloniki) and less exotic places (Manchester) (OK, suppose Manchester is exotic to some people). Am thus getting few opportunities to meander round SL. Am restricted to brief sorties to see what is free this morning from the Designer Showcase Network (see previous post) and pick up IMs and the odd prim.
Most useful prim is not from the DNS, though DNS has subsequently yielded some cute household goods from Second Spaces (cushions - you can never have too many - and bathroom vanity jars - well, why not?), and more useful poses. Also one gown which will try on when can prise self out of current outfit. Other stuff more dubious, though sure will find a use for the operational swing door, they always come in handy.

Will note here that, whilst unpacking, noticed odd glitch in SL, that everything was being rezzed and copied twice over. This was baffling at first when rezzed box containing various DSN objects, and they appeared to still be there even after deleted them. Then noticed that was getting 2 sets of objects, landmarks, notecards etc. and also when examined land, list of of Object owners was duplicated. Hmm. Am hoping this is strange quirk to do with wifi connection in Thessaloniki hotel.
Anyway most useful item is from Graham, who has produced simple prim that when you click it turns into searchable database of UK university SL properties. Cool or what. Includes Infolit iSchool, am pleased to say, plus 40-ish others. When you select a university, the map pops up with the right place marked and you can teleport in with one click.


Have placed this useful prim in the library on Infolit. Could not resist texturing it with pic of me and Nigl in academic garb on a seesaw. First picture, above, shows 3 stages in the process of tp-ing to a university. Image for first step has illegible text because a) This is a small image b) "twinning" glitch appears to have affected this prim as well, so here you see 2 conflicting hover texts and c) did this quickly in Photoshop and think I stretched the photo by mistake.

Actually the whole thing is illegible unless you CLICK on it to see the picture full size. If you do, you will see the hover texts and dialogue onscreen. Best thing is to visit the library in SL and have a look.

Speaking of places on Infolit (to change the subject) appear to have failed to blog the new tree house on Infolit. This is serious omission.

Had been feeling that previous tree house was starting to look its age, and then spotted a feaure about tree houses on a blog. Thus the Denmark tree house somehow found its way into my inventory. It is v. atmospheric and has operational lift. Came with candles that emit fireflies (romantic!) or butterflies (colourful!) and candles that emit bird sounds (some of the birds actually sound like they are being done to death, but still).


Took off roof of top house in tree house to make romantic/utile platform, and this is where last week's infolit discussion was held. Since still have not uploaded chatlog etc etc will give sneak preview of one of the participants, namely Pancha, who was wearing a supercute butterfly Avatar.

Lessons in fashion marketing: 2

No. of free items obtained through DNS: 10 (good); No. of useful free items obtained through DNS: 7 (even better)
On Thursday had interesting meeting about possibility of having information literacy week and will blog that when have gone through usual tedious business of putting chatlog online, editing pictures, putting up link to chat inworld, announcing that same is available, plus this time intend to put out notice encouraging people to contribute ideas and possibly set up dedicated social networking site. Feel tired just thinking about it.
In meantime have joined the Designers Showcase Network as Consumer. This is something that had been at edge of radar, with fashion bloggers mentioning items from "DSN", but finally sprang into action when noticed that Chic Aeon blogged an intriguing tree from October Rust. Am a sucker for SL trees (hmm, almost an unintentional pun there). So followed v. useful explanation of how it works [which can't find atthe moment, but can use the DSN link above] and then popped inworld to sign up for a few channels, namely Female Fashion, Jewelry, Tools, Home & Garden and Poses.
Idea is that each designer contributes a free item. Each day a randomly selected sample of people get that item. No person gets more than 1 item per channel per day. No one gets more than 1 item ever per channel from the same designer.
Gain from designers point of view is that for a mere 250 Linden and cost of designing item get possible access to new markets, or reminding existing customers that they exist. Obviously the hope is that you say "Wow, really great [insert name of item] must buy more!" and tp over to store to buy.Benefit to Consumer is that you get free stuff. This is definitely a plus (see below) and adds excitement of "what will I get free when I log on today!"
Down side is that you want to log in to see what free stuff you got today, so addiction factor of SL goes up notch. Also adds IMs, thus meaning some useful IMs may get capped. Also is matter of inventory bloat, but at 25,000 items, what are another few? Or so I say to myself.
I am pictured with some of the best items above. Am rather picky about fashion things, so neitherof 2 outfits were my thing, and only one of the jewelry items, so outfit is Model's Own, as they say. However, am using one of the free poses, from Reel Expression. Also can see cute piano stool from Kunstkammer (today) and Bed from Lyla (yesterday, see 2nd pic showing it in my bedroom), plus 2 tools. Translation one is a board where you drop in notecards in different languages (should you be able to translate into all those languages) and then people click on relevant flag to get them. Designer sells translation services, so obvious where THEY see money coming from. This COULD be used to dispanse notecards about Information Literacy in different languages, is my thought on this - even just "what is 'info literacy' in ..."
Other tool appears to be full permissions, and when you click it, asks for you to type something in (you would drop in a texture saying what you wanted e.g. "type in your idea for information literacy week") and then it dispenses whatever object you put in, as a gift. Am thinking of commissioning some jewelry with the info literacy international logo, that would be IMHO cool.
Crunch point is: have I spent money with any of these people? At this stage answer is: no. However, will certainly visit new-to-me Lyla and (whoever it was designed the full perms tool, am not inworld at present), also it reminded me that Dark Mouse (cute bangle) and Kunstkammer are good designers. So think this is good marketing idea.
Research perspective: one of my key interests used to be the pricing of electronic information, so marketing is topic know something about; promotional strategies for virtual goods ....
Final pic has nothing to do with all this and advertises Infolit iSchool June festival. Bring your friends.