Joost & Second Life

I’ve been tinkering for a little while with these two  – Joost, beta Internet TV and Second Life, an online virtual reality classed as a massive multi-player online game (MMOG) which has been around for sometime.

I’ll start with Joost - it is an amazing Rich Internet Application – very swooshy…. what I’m uncertain about is the content – some pretty funny stuff, but fairly limited,  I gather more programming is coming.  I just invited three friends, I’d be interested in what they have to say….  no question a great UX – maybe the real problem is I’m not a huge TV watcher at the best of times and what I do watch may or may not make it to Joost – we’ll see.  Oh, just had a brilliant idea for them – allow me to watch my videos/dvds etc. through Joost interface – I can buy, categorize my own stuff – then I’ll get all the benefits of their interface with the content I want…(they probably already thought of this but I’ll write it anyway).

Second Life is quite a different story – I think I’m a little hooked – not crazy like hours and hours a day hooked, but find myself gravitating towards it more and more.  I’m think the idea of wandering around in a seemingly infinite space draws me in – I guess I like to watch what is going on in the world, so I’ve been doing a lot of watching and wandering.  It takes me back to a time in school when I couldn’t find a summer job.   I would get up in the morning, hop on my bike and head down to the waterfront and sit on a bench for a little while watching people and stuff and then grab a hot dog and head home, 1/2 a day down, and absolutely nothing was done, but I nevertheless soaked in 1/2 a day of nothing…  I’m not quite into interacting with people yet – in fact, if other approach me I take off in the other direction (so not like me in real life).

Anyway, I see some pretty neat opportunities for B2B interaction or for recruitment (some companies are already trying this) and forget webex, let’s do a Second Life meeting - and deal with ‘people’ not slides….