In addition to the inimitable Prof. Castronova, there were all sorts of extraordinary persons in attendance, including Randy Farmer (now of Yahoo!, but a pioneer in multi-user graphical games), Richard Bartle (co-author of the first MUD), Mia Consalvo (author of a new MIT text on Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames), Sarah Robbins (the ubiquitous Intellagirl), and so on. For the most part, I kept my mouth shut and listened, which seems, at least, not to have caused any harm: Prof. Thomas Malaby, the amiable and erudite UW-M anthropologist with whom I was initially teamed, went on to be elected spokesperson for the Virtual Worlds Policy. Prof. Malaby is currently at work on an ethnography of Linden Lab, and is interested in issues of online governance; his first book was on gambling and contingency in ancient Greece (by now, if you were in CCTP-688 last semester, as I rambled on interminably about Plato and Heraclitus, Ajax and Achilles, Homer and Odysseus, agon and agora, you understand why I was so pleased to be part of his little retinue). He blogs for TerraNova, and is a voice from which you’ll be hearing more in the future.

I’ve written several pages of thoughts on the experience, which (if I can get through a particularly sticky part of my dissertation) I’ll share with you presently. In the end, though, it was a thoroughly enlightening, satisfying experience.

“The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer” by Julian Dibbell

Doll Web Sites Drive Girls to Stay Home and Play
NY Times
By MATT RICHTEL and BRAD STONE
Published: June 6, 2007

Presleigh Montemayor often gets home after a long day and spends some time with her family. Then she logs onto the Internet, leaving the real world and joining a virtual one. But the digital utopia of Second Life is not for her. Presleigh, who is 9 years old, prefers a Web site called Cartoon Doll Emporium.

Let this link stand as a reminder that there is a palpable need for scholars of literature and film to help others (within the games industry and without) understand how to talk about narrative. We need to do a better job of sharing all of the work that has gone into reader-response models; the thinking we’ve done about mediation; the different rhetorics of expression. We need to think about making critical anatomies of gaming; a Gates of Horn for Diablo; a Mirror and the Lamp for Quake. I admire the author (and his readers) very much for applying themselves to the project, to be sure, but it seems that the time has come for scholars of story to begin taking games and simulations more seriously. Soon, no one will.

Of course, we needn’t even think about the possible dissolution of the play frame, and concurrent intrusion of the real world: The Sims H&M Fashion Stuff expansion set shatters the play frame with VISA- and Mastercard-accepting glee. With a nod towards biological rhetorics of the ludic, it’s all about Play as Preparation… for shopping.

Must-Have Fashion Items for Your Sims from H&M! The popular European fashion retailer that is taking the US by storm with its trendsetting contemporary fashions is now coming to The Sims 2! Your Sims can choose from cutting-edge men’s and women’s clothing including dresses, jeans, and other outfits, complete with accessories—all inspired by real H&M designs.

A few years ago, during an unfortunate lapse in judgment, some academics were referring to experiences like this as “prosumer:” Essentially acts of creatively-empowered material consumption. The card-carrying Party-member in me was dubious then, and is even more dubious now.

I’m wary of the play value—and would be anxious about giving this to my neice, for example—but this is clearly the future of online retail.

FEATURES: The Go-To Place for Hot New Trends—Design your own H&M retail environment, or use new store-themed items to build an intimate H&M boutique for more sophisticated citizens.

Read more or buy it for your H&M-loving self.

http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2007/presentations

The men’s magazine Maxim has released its “Hot 100 List” for 2007, ranking what they believe to be the 100 most attractive women around. Interestingly, they chose to put a synthetic girl - a Second Life avatar, to be precise - at #95. Next to her entry, Maxim writes:

“Second Life—a 3-D virtual world that’s imagined, created, and owned by its online residents—was launched in 2003 and now boasts nearly five million inhabitants around the globe. Never taken part in the nerdfest? Isn’t she reason enough?”

Many people seem to think it’s absurd to put a synthetic girl on the list, but it begs the question - how real are the “real” girls, anyway? After any photo is edited, retouched, and digitally enhanced, that’s not a real human being we’re even looking at. It’s a digital representation of a human being, in the most positive possible light. Why, then, is that so different from an image of a Second Life female avatar?

Of course, some might point out that Miss #95 could in fact be a middle-aged man in a stained undershirt eating Cheetos in front of his computer in Topeka. But that would break the veil of suspended disbelief, so I won’t go there. Instead, I’ll share this link to an image of lovely, virtual, virtually lovely Miss #95.

Visit the SLCC07 blog.

SCOPE
The emergence of virtual worlds and Web 3.D change the way of
doing business. Web 3.D is the synonym for Internet-based virtual
worlds, where people can create own 3-D *virtual*
personalities. One of the most famous of these virtual worlds is
Second Life. It is undergoing an evolution similar to that of the
Internet in the mid nineties and it might impact profoundly the
way people cooperate, communicate, collaborate, and conduct
business. The recent entering of companies such as Toyota,
American Apparel, Nissan, or Adidas on Second Life is a first
indication for the upcoming role of this platform for the next
generation of conducting business online.

The conference provides a forum for industry, academia, and
government to present their latest findings in virtual worlds
like Second Life and the underlying technology to support these
applications. Therefore, we invite contributions (research paper,
working paper, work-in progress) from a broad spectrum of
disciplines including economics, management, business, marketing,
finance, information systems, and computer sciences.

IMPORTANT DATES
- Submission Papers: June 1, 2007
- Notification of Acceptance: July 1, 2007
- Final Paper Submission: August 1, 2007

TRACK TOPICS
The track focuses on but is not limited to the following topics:

- Product Testing in SL
- Image, Branding, Advertising in SL
- Marketing in Second Life
- Selling, Cross-Selling Real and SL
- Intellectual Property, Copyright, Trademarks in SecondLife
- Business Planning for Non-profits in SL
- Promotion, Fundraising Tool and SL
- Customer Integration and SL
- Technology & Business, Strategy in SL
- Financial Systems, Investments, Currency Exchange in SL
- Emerging Media Presence in SL
- The Future of Second Life and Beyond
- Second Life as a Web 3.0 Technology

SUBMISSION PROCEDURES
Submissions should describe original research work not submitted
or published elsewhere. The author is responsible for
correspondence, including the author*s name, mailing address,
telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address has to be
identified. One of the authors of each paper must register and
present the paper at the conference. Submitted papers will be
double-blind reviewed and evaluated on significance, originality,
quality, and exposition. They should clearly establish the
research contribution, methodology, finding its relevance to
Second Life. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference
and published in the Conference Proceeding. Best papers will be
published either in a book or the Journal of Electronic Commerce
Research (JECR). There will also be *Best Paper Awards*.

In order to have your proposal considered, please submit it no
later than 1st June 2007 to mfetscherin@rollins.edu using the
following guidelines.
- Follow the *Guide for Authors* from the Journal of
Electronic Commerce Research
(www.csulb.edu/journals/jecr/s_g.htm)
- You need to submit the file as a Microsoft Word-Format
file
- Your email should use the subject line “SLCC Business
Track”

LOGISTICS & TRAVEL INFORMATION
The event is being held at the Hilton Chicago and the hotel
rates with our block are $159 per night before tax. We are all
very excited about SLCC 2007, for more information please visit
http://slcc2007.wordpress.com.

TRACK CHAIR
Marc Fetscherin, Rollins College, USA
Christoph Lattemann, University of Potsdam, Germany
Peter Lokke, CEO Crucial Armitage Inc., (Crucial Creations
(SL)), New York, USA

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Carsten Holtmann, Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Germany
Susanne Robra-Bissantz, Universität Nürnberg/Erlangen, Germany
Günter Müller, Freiburg, University, Germany
Guido Lang, University of Bern, Switzerland

FURTHER INFORMATION
More Information and details at the conference website on
http://slcc2007.wordpress.com or
http://secondliferesearch.blogspot.com/
General inquiries and requests about the track: *Business in
Second Life* should be sent to mfetscherin@rollins.edu