A Look Back at the VWPBE 2014

VWBPE Brings Out the Whos-Who in Virtual Education and Linden Lab

By Celene Highwater

The 2014 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference, better known as VWBPE, kicked off on April 9 to a packed house. The four-day conference is in its seventh year and is an annual gathering of virtual educators.

On opening day, which fell on April 9 2014, people started pouring into the VWBPE Central Auditorium two hours early to ensure they had a seat in time to hear this year’s opening keynote speaker who was none other than Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life.

Philip Rosedale, also known as Philip Linden stands behind the podium wearing his Second Life T-Shirt.

 "As a kid, I played with electronics. I tinkered, programmed computers, used power tools. I tried to build things from things I found around the house. I cut into my ceiling because I wanted my door to go into the ceiling like Star Trek. It was hard work.  Much harder to do than to imagine," He said when describing his childhood during his speech.

As the internet emerged, Rosedale explained that he had a desire to build a space "where we could all build what we dreamed."

 In 1995, he created Freevue, an innovative Internet video conferencing tool which was quickly sold to a company called RealNetworks. For a short time, he served as Vice President and CTO of the company. Then, in 1999, Rosedale left RealNetworks to launch his own company: Linden Lab. And as they say, the rest is history. Rosedale built a virtual civilization called Second Life, thus fulfilling his lifelong dream of creating an open-ended, online virtual world.

 "I was super motivated to build virtual worlds, not because they would be better games or social spaces. . .  I just wanted to build crazy stuff,” He explained.

In 2010, Rosedale left Second Life and worked on several projects including Coffee and Power, and Worklist.net before co-founding High Fidelity Inc. in 2013, to explore the future of a next-generation virtual reality system. In his speech he discussed the amount of time and devotion it takes to learn Second Life and the amount of mouse useage that is required. With the new virtual world he is building, Rosedale wants to eliminate the need for the mouse, opting for a more realistic-looking world where he says users will be able to more naturally interact with one another through facial and body movement.

This exhibit shows off posters from the Freedom Project, an art exhibition featuring work by disabled artists in Second Life.

Science Circle Discussion Panel.

Other events at the VWBPE included sim demonstrations,panel discussions, networking events, lectures, and a host of speakers including Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, David Gibson who is an Associate Professor at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and Dr. Larysa Nadolny, Assistant Professor at Iowa State University.

Celene Highwater

Editor's Note: This article intended for publishing at the Metaverse Tribune. But the publication ceased updating before it could go up. Now working for the Newser, Celene sent this over as a look back at this major event (Bixyl Shuftan's VWPBE pictures, Ebbe Linden's VWBPE Speech).

Some Events on the Day Philip Returned

On Thursday June 24, Philip Linden announced his return as interim CEO, M Linden stepping down. The immediate reaction by many, if not the majority, upon hearing the news was to cheer. Group chats were full of people happy to see him back, especially as it meant M was no longer in charge. In private chats, people were more likely to express some caution. But out in the open, it was cheers for Philip and jeers for M.

I heard an announcement about a parade being organized in Bay City, and went over. Arriving there, I saw a number had gathered already. Two people had on duck costumes that I had seen in pictures of the sim's parades. Not really avatars, but parade costumes, “Hey, you’re a duck!” A couple more arrived with tubas, another with a guitar, another came as a Greenie DJ, and others. It wasn’t long before the parade started, Welcome back, Philip!” But with lag hitting, keeping track of the line of people was a problem as they often appeared only as green dots on the radar and not on the screen.

At the same time as the parade, there was a Metanews Panel, which had started at 2 PM. The bulletin I got stated, “With the recent news that M Linden is stepping down as CEO and Philip Linden returning as interim CEO, we will have a panel discussion to discuss what this means for Second Life and it’s future. Join us today at 2PM as we discuss this breaking story. Panelists include Phaylen Fairchild, Chantal Harveu, and Saffia Widdershins.” The two others were Gianna Borgnine and SecondLie Scribe, a self-described “malcontent” of Linden policies.

One panelist admitted she was fighting the temptation to “stand up and riverdance.” “If this were World of Warcraft, the announcement of the change of the CEO wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal.” “Not everything Mark did was a total loss.” One thought Philip had put Mark in charge due to pressure from the board. One panelist had originally approved with Mark when he was first appointed as he seemed more approachable than Philip. Of what this meant for Second Life, they disagreed. SecondLie thought the company really needed to address issues such as content theft, or otherwise it would decline into a niche market within “eighteen months.” Others were more optimistic, one saying that the idea that SL’s best days were behind it was “bull***t!”

The Cutlass Club in Sunweaver Air was the scene of an impromptu party to celebrate M stepping down, with Shockwave Yareach as the DJ. A tombstone with a big “M” had been set up, along with a barbecue grill. It wasn't long before a crowd showed up, a couple people whom hadn't been there in a while. Shockwave's music was occasionally on the mark, such as the ‘70s song “M.” One girl was passing out “M” shoulder pets. Not eveyone there had harsh words for M Linden. A couple people felt he deserved better than the bad rap he was getting.

A few examples of what went on the grid the day Philip came back to his old position as the head of Linden Lab.

Source: Nikka Dreamscape's Journal

Bixyl Shuftan