THIS is on the SL front page??

I like the streaming video idea. I really do. But...

People have been using it to show off lewd animations, play obscene/suggestive sounds, and just be generally annoying (particuarly with audio). And this is on the FRONT PAGE of the Second Life website, where the Internet public gets their first impression of the game.

Am I the only one irked by this?

Either the region being viewed should be faithfully moderated whenever the stream is active, or the stream shouldn't be made so accessible to the public at large. How can this kind of thing possibly be good for Second Life PR?

True, some moderation is a good idea.

I'm not even sure this is going to get a new user excited about SL. I find the still pictures more exciting and generally more sophisticated.

Still, I love the video. It's like a low bandwidth client

Wish it was high above ahern or something. People would probably fly up though to get close

Not to worry! For now it's streaming video of a frozen Second Life with an error dialog box in the corner! The problem has taken care of itself.

Must.. get.. more.. RAM!

Heh heh.

Yeah, maybe not such a great advertisement for SL, eh?

http://reuben.typepad.com/reuben_steigers_weblog/2005/06/video_from_a_vi.html

This from Reuben Linden may give some insight.

the video stream was showing the sl birthday party down in the bethel area for a while and the land's music stream was playing music with language like "mother fucker" in the PG sim. This land was in the name of a group made for the birthday events, founded by a Linden liaison, with at least one other Linden staffer as a member.

during my brief stay there i heard people talking about how it appeared there was no longer enforcement of PG rules and one could get as raunchy as they like.

it seemed pretty irresponsible to me for the linden staffers who are officers of the group to not see to it that an event held on linden land respect the rules.

Well said Beatfox. Personally, I doubt I would have joined SL back in December had I seen this video. It's a platform for people showing off and its boring. Why can't we see something of the different sims, buildings, gardens etc?

Alexa

I agree that people showing off is boring but the novelty will wear off soon.

ROFL its a new toy.. LOL they were playing with it.. LOL im sure they will get over it in a few weeks.. maybe.. LOL

I see a black screen.

Turned off now Catherine - you didn't miss much lol.

Alexa

Took them long enough. This was suggested in 2003. I even told them exactly how to do it
/13/c2/5670/1.html

I gotta admit, if I was a newbie I'd find the streaming thing a bit of a letdown.

It's like some chaotic silent movie that doesn't look cool at all.

Best to stick with the still photos, LL. That being said, it would have been cool to hook it up to quicktime and have in world repeaters for town halls.

We need a Hamlet-cam.

i also had a negative take on the video when i watched it. but then in some thread here so many were applauding it and were so generally positive i felt like scrooge at xmas for seeing it as an appaling display for newcomers to witness.

i think for pr purposes they need to have a nice scripted set of scenes showing interesting people doing interesting things?? i may not have a good clue here, but watching that video made me wonder what i have liked about sl all these years.

marilyn

isn´t it a lil contradiction in terms when you actually use the term "motherf*cker" in your posting? in a forum where pg rules apply? just curious...

Absolutely Marilyn. Of all the fantastic things in SL to do and see, why choose a few avs showing off in front of the camera. I just can't agree with those who think this is a good advertisement for SL, not for adults anyway.

Alexa

Put the camera in Jessie.

This is a test. This is only a test. It will round through various contest submissions and other resident produced videos once the kinks are ironed out. All of that will be screened and approved. You may now return to your regular SL programming.

I think it would be better to have an invisible roaming camera that goes through the PG areas randomly. This way people won't know it's there ansd we will see how the game works as people move about in their normal manners.

I think they should pay me to be their permanent camera person.

It really needs a human touch. Putting down a visible unmanned camera anywhere attracts morons. A camera operator would be able to adjust shots so as to miss these morons. And of course a human can seek out and shoot the most interesting things around the grid.

I guarantee you before the week is out the live feed will consist of people dancing in front of the camera wearing sandwich board adverts. Prolly noobs being paid to do so.

Oh. And actually I can't view the stream from anywhere. It just comes up blank *shrug*

I can't view the video stream, either, because I have Windows Media Player 10 installed, and it won't let me install WMP 9 since a newer version is already on the computer. We use version 10 for our mp3 stuff, and I don't want to uninstall it and reinstall version 9; so I'm out of luck on seeing the SL streaming video, too.

I do agree that the Lindens should pay closer attention to what the camera is broadcasting to the "outside world."