Covering the intersection of the public sector and the metaverse.
About Betterverse.org
Welcome to Betterverse.org, a chronicle of the evolving and innovative efforts to use virtual worlds to promote various real world causes and improve the lives of people all around the globe.
Right now I'm at the Nonprofit Commons weekly community meeting in Second Life. It's a really sweet and supportive group of folks from a wide range of organizations that gather to share news, new projects, requests for help, and new opportunities. At past meetings, I've found volunteers, learned about requests for proposals, got technical questions answered, and made a ton of friends. Where else can you be sitting at your computer and chatting with 40 other cool folks doing various public good projects?
The Nonprofit Commons meeting occurs every Friday at 8:30am PST at the Plush Nonprofit Commons amphitheater (click here to teleport.) Sponsored by TechSoup, presided over by the gracious and talented Glitteractica Cookie.
Over the past three years, I have witnessed all sorts of innovative uses of virtual worlds for public good, across a wide range of issue areas and concerns. But what does the future hold? In five years, what will be the nonprofit "killer app" in virtual worlds that really demonstrates their relevance?
Please fill out the poll above with your own opinion. And feel free to comment about your answer, or add a different one if I didn't include your choice.
A couple of months ago, I explored the "Traditional Marriage Support Center" in Metaplace, which provides information about the Biblical basis for marriage as being between one man and one woman. While I was exploring this space, I found out about the "MetaEquality Center," which has, as you can imagine, an alternative view of marriage and relationships.
I got a few minutes today to checkout the MetaEquality Center, and found it to be quite a compelling use of virtual space for information dissemination, civic action and emotional support.
I view machinima
(digital films created using a game engine or virtual world) as a
powerful and accessible medium for storytelling and artistic
expression. And despite its game-based roots, I think there is ample
evidence that machinima can be used to engage people on serious issues
and ideas -- whether its the upcoming US Presidential election or
climate change.
At Global Kids we run the Virtual Video Project,
which is all about youth creating machinima on an issue that they care
about. So we think about how to use this digital filmmaking format for
serious storytelling all the time.
I have been looking for a comprehensive listing of machinima films
that address a serious social or political issue, but so far no luck.
So here is my first stab at a list of "serious machinima"...
Welcome to Betterverse.org, a chronicle of the evolving and innovative efforts to use virtual worlds to promote various real world causes and improve the lives of people all around the globe. I have been wanting to start this site for a long time, after having witnessed for several years the growth of the "public good" sector in virtual worlds.
I recently developed a capacity building program for nonprofits interested in virtual worlds for Global Kids, which spurred me to finally launch this side project.
I may be porting over several older posts from my personal blog Rikomatic.com over the next weeks to start the conversation. If you or your organization would like your event, sim, or cause reported on, please contact me at rik@betterverse.org.
Global Kids, in association with the Markle Foundation,
organized a very successful simulcast of a talk by Beth Noveck, Deputy
Chief Technology Officer in the White House, into Second Life today.
The event exemplified some of what I love most about Second Life: how
diverse communities across distances can collaborate, engage in rich
discussions, and have shared, immersive experiences together.
For
once, I was not the producer of this event, but merely the in-world
moderator, passing along questions from Second Life to Ms. Noveck, who
was speaking from the Markle Foundation offices in Manhattan. My
colleague Krista handled the event producer role with enthusiasm and
attention to detail that made me proud, assisted by Joyce, Amira, and
Bing from my team at GK. I did my best to transmit to Ms. Noveck as
many of the excellent questions that came in from the virtual audience,
as well as provide a flavor of the rich discussion happening in-world
simultaneously during Ms. Noveck's talk.
Beth Noveck spoke eloquently about "Wiki Government"
-- the potential for social media to enrich and deepen our democracy,
to make our government more efficient and transparent. And it's clear
that Ms. Noveck gets what makes Second Life so powerful as a medium,
despite all its flaws. So it was a unique pleasure being among nearly
100 avatars listening to a representative of the Obama administration
talk like one of us about these social media tools.
The organizers of the Second Life Relay for Life report that they have successfully raised more than a quarter million US dollars for the American Cancer Society during this year's virtual fundraiser! Here's what they sent out this morning:
WE ARE MAKING HUGE, FAST, GAINS! Relay is now at 258,036.00 USD and
climbing! 260,000.00 USD HERE WE COME? COME ON RELAYERS - REACH!
REACH! WE CAN HIT THAT NUMBER AND THEN MY FRIENDS, WE REST! COME
ON! please. Fay
You can continue to donate in-world or online through today.
This morning, President Barack Obama gave an address in Accra, Ghana, which was simulcast into both the virtual worlds of Metaplace and Second Life.
I, like many other virtual world explorers, logged into both Metaplace and Second Life, as well as posting to Twitter, adding pictures to our Flickr photostreams and taking machinima video of the event. Just another day in the Metaverse.
All
told, about 100 or so folks across worlds participated in this
experiment, logging in from all around the United States, as well as a
few folks from Europe and Africa. It was one of these strange and fun
mixed-reality events where you
found yourself flipping between various windows the whole time,
listening to the speech while chatting with friends the whole time. So
much more engaging than watching it on CNN.
After
President Obama's speech, there was a virtual debrief with three
African experts: Ghanian musician DNA (Derrick Ashong), Ambassador
Kenton Keith and African studies Professor Timothy Burke of Swarthmore
College. People in Second Life and Metaplace could ask the speakers
questions as well as engage in back channel chat. I liked how within
Metaplace, you were watching a live video simulcast of the avatars of
the three speakers from within Second Life! Truly meta!
The event was co-organized by various virtual world developers and
activists including In Kenzo, Frans Charming, Tori Horton, Keith
Morris, Rhiannon Chatnoir, and many others that I'm sure I'm
forgetting. Amazing job, guys, on putting together this multi-modal, innovative event!
Today 15 teen machinimatographers in Global Kids' Virtual Video Project publicly premiered their film "Discovered"
before an audience of their peers, parents, teachers, and supporters at
the Sony Wonder Theater in Manhattan. It was great seeing their work
on the big screen and then watching them explain to the audience their
process from conception to final cut.
When I heard that our teens
had selected child sex trafficking as the subject of their short film,
I frankly was worried. How would they explore such a serious and
sensitive subject using the still rather crude tools of Second Life
machinima? I shouldn't have been worried. Our teen filmmakers did an
amazing job treating the subject matter respectfully and maturely,
while also creating an engaging story.
I hope their work moves and inspires you as much as it has effected me.
