Soup Radio, June 2011
I’m part of the team of Regular Guests & Contributors of Soup Radio, a non-profit online radio station dedicated to the arts, with a particular focus on the virtual world Second Life.
Our new schedule began yesterday, Saturday, June 4th 2011 (12pm PDT, 3pm EDT, 8pm BST).
About the topic for this month let me paste an extract of the Show Notes for this month:
- Amy Freelunch (despite a debilitating hangover) presents a specially prepared sound collage based on the themes of art, games, and technology. She talks about these subjects and also responds to a recent blog post by Patrick Lichty. (Duration 61 mins)
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Arahan Claveau introduces his show with some announcements, before welcoming back regular guests Allan Stanley Taylor and Jane Vippond who return for their third visit. The group attend several exhibitions in Second Life, beginning with Selavy Oh‘s ‘Construct‘, followed by Oberon Onmura‘s ‘Uncanny Valley 1‘, and ending with an exploration of the Nordan Art group show, with work by Paola Tauber, Simotron Aquila, Claudia222 Jewell and Shellina Winkler. This extended episode explores many issues raised by the artists’ work, often taking the conversation into unexpected areas. (Duration 164 mins)
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Penumbra Carter is joined by Nebulosus Severine at the The Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) Art Sandbox in Second Life. They tour the space and discuss work by Robin Moore, Ozzy Wozniak, znort Gant and Alizarin Goldflake. The LEA Art Sandbox is supported by Linden Lab as an area where artists can rez objects, experiment, and learn how to build. The LEA exists to promote understanding and support of virtual art. (Duration 50 mins)
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Raul Crimson talks to blogger Honour McMillan about her project for the next SL8Bevent (Second Life 8th Birthday), a collaborative installation of photography. They also discuss the implications of extreme roleplay, the evolving sense of community, and exploration in Second Life, all of which are topics of keen interest to Honour as a blogger. (Duration 43 mins)
Hope you really enjoy this month shows, you can listen Soup Radio in two ways:
- In an Audio Stream
- In iTunes as a Podcast
Special thanks to Honour McMillan for his time and his interesting conversation… and because she is just great! 
Related Articles
- Soup Radio… i’m part of the show! (raulcrimson.com)
- Soup Radio, May 2011 (raulcrimson.com)
Soup Radio, May 2011
I’m part of the team of Regular Guests & Contributors of Soup Radio, a 24/7 online radio station dedicated to the arts, with a particular focus on Second Life.
Our new schedule begins on Saturday, May 7th 2011 (12pm PDT, 3pm EDT, 8pm BST).
About the topic for this month let me paste an extract of the Show Notes for this month:
- Amy Freelunch has a conversation with art critic (and husband) Jeff Edwards, regarding the difficulties and rewards of organising artists and academics online.
- Arahan Claveau talks to artist Selavy Oh about new work ‘Construct‘ which opened on May 1st at the HUMlab sim in Second Life. Selavy talks about his experiences creating the project and how it will integrate with visitors in the physical gallery space in Sweden.
- Raul Crimson talks to Treat Kanto about the new exhibition ‘Walking Canvas‘ at SOMA in Second Life. They also discuss the reduced support for artistic initiatives byLinden Lab, the lack of diversity on the Grid, and how Second Life has become closer to real life through this process.
Hope you really enjoy this month shows, you can listen Soup Radio in two ways:
- In an Audio Stream
- In iTunes as a Podcast
Special thanks to Treat Kanto for his time and his interesting conversation… and of course his charming personality. 
Related Articles
- Soup Radio… i’m part of the show! (raulcrimson.com)
Soup Radio… i’m part of the show!
From this month of April i’m part of the team of Regular Guests & Contributors of Soup Radio, a 24/7 online radio station dedicated to the arts, with a particular focus on Second Life.
About my topic for this month let me paste an extract of the Show Notes for this month:
Raul Crimson interviews artist Elros Tuominen about what Second Life means to him personally and as a creator. Part of the interview, conducted in Spanish, is related to how language in SL can be a barrier, but also an effective way to learn and practice different languages. Elros also comments on how much avatars represent the person behind the keyboard, and at the same time can evolve into independent personalities causing a loss of identity.
Hope you really enjoy this month shows, you can listen Soup Radio in two ways:
- In an Audio Stream
- In iTunes as a Podcast
I would like to thanks specially Arahan Claveau for his suggestions and technical help with the show and to Elros Tuominen for the interesting conversation.
The dilemma of the two SLviewers
I was checking Twitter lately and saw some people is speaking again about that “dilemma”… Should Linden Lab have only one viewer for Second Life, or to improve the usability is better to have two?
I think it was Anthony Hocken who restarted the topic, anyway this have been a topic long time discussed by a lot of people in a lot of places. Some people wonders (and for some comments by Rodvik Linden in Twitter that may be the way Linden Lab decides to go) if it would be better to have two kind of viewers instead of only one, one for basic users with a simple and improved UI and one for advanced users with all the options we have and maybe some more.
Even this may seem a good idea some people thinks that would keep the new users away from content creation since they would be used to a simple UI and may be scared to use an advanced one. One thing Rodvik Linden mentioned was the possibility of having only one viewer, but with a “switch” to change between both options.
Personally i think the two viewers option is not a bad idea. One of the big problems of Second Life is how hard the UI and the learning curve has been always keeping potential users away and making a lot of people create an account only to try it and never come back. Having a simplified viewer, or a web-based one, would be interesting to permit new users have a basic approach to Second Life and even to have access for SL from iPads, mobile phones or netbooks. This kind of viewer would permit also that integration as Facebook game some think is a good idea. I think having SL and Facebook together is not actually needed or even a good idea, but this is material for another blogpost. 
Then, after this web-based viewer Linden Lab would have a really improved SL viewer (maybe 3.0?) with that “switch” Rodvik mentions. As now we have some menus as optional (Advanced and Develop for standard users) we would have a really improved and simple UI and at the same time the possibility to change to a more complex one but really powerful. And speaking about all this… please, Lindens… can you improve the building tool? Thanks!
I don’t think that last option would keep new users away of content creation, i know people who were SLusers for the last 4 years and never created a simple plywood cube even they had the ability to do it in the viewer. The ones who would be interested in content creation would click the “switch” for sure and will experiment. At least is what i think… and you? *points at the comment section below*
Second Life Press Corps and the PR of the Lab
We all know Linden Lab uses to manage their Public Relations in… let’s say interesting ways. One of those “interesting ways” is a group called Second Life Press Corps. For those who don’t know it, is a group managed by Pete Linden to connect with SL bloggers, informers, writers, TV-machinima creators, etc… Some like a press club. The group is not “Open” but theoretically everybody would join following the instructions included in the group chart:
This group will be used by Linden Lab’s PR team to share announcements, invitations to inworld press events, etc.
To request an invitation, please email pete@lindenlab.com with the following information:
- Your Second Life name
- The outlet (blog, magazine, TV show, etc.) that you work for – please provide the name, URL, and a brief description
Note: To be admitted to the group, the outlet you work for must be in compliance with our trademark guidelines: http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/
So if you want to join, you know what to do. I’ve been member of this group for a year or so, and it was pretty silent until a month ago or so, i presume that’s related with the changes in the PR team of Linden Lab, well, in the full Lab. Sincerely, never thought to blog about it, because of this silent, but after reading this interesting blogpost by Chestnut Rau possibly it was the time.
I’m not an expert in PR, but i understand the Lab wants to control who has access to some information, or at least who has it first. Let’s see an example, today there was a Meet and Greet event with Rodvik Linden (Rod Humble), new CEO of Linden Lab. The PR team of Linden Lab sent a notice in the Second Life Press Corps group, and i think only inside this group, asking the members to send a request by email to be in that meeting. Initially i was supposed to be out today and i didn’t send the email (Chestnut Rau was in the Meet and published a transcription *good work*).
I’m trying to be neutral and just to tell the facts, but is hard not to express an opinion about that matter. I presume Linden Lab wanted to introduce the new CEO to the “inworld press”, and that’s nice… i also presume they wanted to do it in a “safe environment”, out of greefers, excessive lag… maybe excessive criticism too? It’s nice the CEO connects with the residents, is even important since those residents are also customers, but i wonder if that could be done in a different way not so… FIC, not so “VIP club”. Maybe is just i’m missing the times when we had those Town Hall meetings with the Lindens to talk about things…
Anyway… what do you think?
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