antti.vilpponen.net

During the last few nights I’ve been exploring Second Life a bit more. It was quite fascinating going back and explore it in more detail and smoothly than before (graphics wise). It still requires quite a bit of machine power and is still very nudgy with an Intel Dual core processor and a proper graphics card.

I’m a bit divided on my opinion still. It’s definitely a platform bound to get huge growth, however before the masses arrive SL needs to do a lot of UI design for the average John Doe. There are still too many features and small illogicalities that got me wondering where to go and how to change certain options. One of the most options uses of second life is a meeting place for communities to hold events between their users. It’s still a bit of a wild wild west with casinos and free commerce roaming everywhere which probably does not appeal to the masses as much. You can consider it a bit like the internet in it’s early days.

I’m definitely going to continue exploring it and building a presence there. Not just sure when - whether this week or later in the year…

ps. Another “BIG” virtual world, Project Entropia, is selling banking licences at the moment… read more here.

Amazing weather forecasted for Finland this week. It’s about 13 degrees outside and the sun has been shining all day long. Excellent.

If only this would continue through to June and July…

Wow - this is cool. An excellent way to begin my summer holiday. I’m riding my Triumph to North Karelia to see H.I.M. play their gig on saturday evening (July 15th) in Ilosaarirock. The following day they are warming up the crowd for Metallica in the Olympic Stadium. Especially when I’ve got tickets to both gigs :-)

Have a look at the image below. It’s a screenshot from a relatively popular business website in Finland. I’ve marked the content in pink. Am I the only one to notice that there’s slightly too much noise in there in the form of advertisements and other widgets and gimmicks?

I’m sure they’ve managed to capitalise on the traffic very well with regard to media sales, but how sustainable is the traffic in the long run (or even in the short run)?

Money is important, there’s no doubt about that. However, I do feel there are some principles editors of websites should keep in mind. In this case the content becomes unfindable and thus makes the reader work twice as hard.

Then again - as an advertiser, I don’t see the website that appealing when there are about 10 other advertisements already grasping for the reader’s attention.

Sorry Roxie, but this leaves me wondering about the Americans :) Helsingin Sanomat published some results from different studies that quite honestly are shocking:

• According to the State Education Study, about 33% of Washington’s Washington D.C.’s citizens are illiterate.
• About one third of Americans are scientifically illiterate, meaning they are unable to understand simple scientific material for example from a newspaper says the US Science Academy (own translation)
• John D. Miller from the Michigan State University rightly argues that this could be the reason why most of the Americans are unable to understand evolution, DNA or global warming.
• About 20% of Americans believe that the sun revolves around Earth.

Sigh….

The market for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) in the West is now worth more than $1bn (£511m). BBC has the news.

Update: eMarketer has more info on in-game advertising in MMOGs. Link.

Asmo wondered whether his latest blog entry would turn into a meme. I’m pushing it a step closer with this entry. Below a list of websites in alphabetical order that I follow on a daily basis. Some 10 news sites aren’t included (I follow my 150 blogs through Google Reader):

• Finnish Meteorological Institute - Helsinki/Kaisaniemi station
• Flickr
• Google
• Google Reader
• IRC Quotes
• Last.fm
• LinkedIn
• Onko se Perjantai? - can’t be too sure!
• Reittiopas.fi
• Telkku.com
• Wikipedia

Is that really it? These probably the core of the websites I follow on a daily basis. Pingback to this entry if you participate :)

Today I probably created one of the most useless webservices history has ever seen. It’s a ripoff from an international service. You can see it at OnkoSePerjantai.net. In short, it tells you if its Friday with a small surprise every friday. I think I really need to get more hobbies - too much time on the computer :)

PicksPal set up a website where friends can gamble with virtual money (for free) to show off how good they are at gambling and beating the odds. As such there’s nothing new to this idea of offering a free gambling site to have some fun. However, there’s great wisdom to be tapped on with people trying to outsmart each other in hope of cash prices.

Last year the company capitalised on this community by offering the best and most bet odds for 10 USD. With 10 dollars you can get the top 30 users’ picks on any 5 games of your choice. So, is PicksPal community beating the Vegas odds? So far it seems so:

PicksPal’s overall record, against the spread, has been 562-338, or a 63% win rate. In college basketball, the win rate is 66%. In pro football, 62%. They are even getting a 52% win rate in pro hockey, their worst sport. Some of the recent results can be viewed here. (via Techcrunch)

I’m reading Wikinomics which speaks about the issue of harnessing different development projects through mass collaboration. It’s full of similar examples and I’m quite sure that currently companies are only touching the possibilities of the phenomenon. Some of the largest and most simple examples of this sort of knowledge harnessing is Wikipedia, however PicksPal is another great example.

I came across 2 excellent Wordpress plugins tonight as I was finishing off the facelift I began yesterday. They are both coded by Joe Tan from TanTanNoodles.com.

• Flickr Photo Album for Wordpress: This pulls in your Flickr account stuff and shows them in a very nice and integrated way in your blog. Here are my photographs I pulled in tonight. It took me about 30 minutes of configuring to tweak the default stylesheet to show it the way it is at the moment.
• Google Analytics and Feedburner Reports: this little app pulls in your Google Analytics data as well as your Feedburner site stats into the WP dashboard. Again, very easy to use and extremely handy.

Both apps strongly suggested!!