Second Life and You Tube

You Tube is fascinating I suspect more so for its wealth of random ordinariness . Check out my selection of random videos from YouTube displayed using the Blogger widget.

And hows this for random. Yesterday I fired up an old PC and found a link in my web favorites section of Firefox. The link was to an experiment by a company called Daden LTD in about 2002 using Chatbots as online Reference Librarians - it was very raw. The Library world were horrified that this looked like the future and in many cases missed the point which wasnt about providing an online reference service but learning about how people interacted with chatbots and in particular how language was used ( I used to delight in asking the female chatbots for their phone number and trying to find out if they wanted to go out and see a band!!)

How does this marry into Second Life you wonder? Well when I clicked the link I discovered that Daden have developed somewhat in the intervening years and are now , among other things selling Chatbots and Virtual personalities (Price: From £3499 set up and £999 a year hosting and support ) and have made what looks like a lucrative business out of virtual worlds - they have an island in Second life. The link stored in my browser took me to a You Tube demo on aircraft tracking in second life.

What does this all mean? I am not sure, however two things come to mind. The value of being able to experiment and use that to innovate and develop products is still as important as the day man first experimented with the wheel. And it is highly unlikely that airline food will be any better in Second Life!