Second Life community takes over theSixtyOne.com?
March 18, 2008 3:14 pm
Whomever thinks the Second Life community limits itself to forming groups in-world is severely mistaken: the Second Life group on Flickr counts 5,591 members. Those 5,591 are mostly what I refer to as ‘avatar accounts’: profile photographs are those of the Second Life avatar, the member name is often that of the avatar, bio-information is that of the avatar, and content produced is by the avatar… with some help of the puppeteer, of course. Sometimes ‘first life’ information is given out, but that is more an exception than reality. Networks like this also exist on Facebook (mine is quite confusingly for all parties, mixing SL and RL friens and family), MySpace, LiveJournal, Blogger and blogs in general - Zoe keeps track of over 500, but I would estimate their number to +- 1500, the least. And now it seems the SL community has ‘flash mobbed’ theSixtyOne.com: in a few days time, the number of ‘avatar accounts’ on theSixtyOne.com has become numerous.
What is theSixtyOne.com
TheSixtyOne.com is a music sharing service, where a bump is equivalent to a vote of confidence. Listeners bump songs they like as a way to express their love for it. They support AmazonMP3. A ‘buy’ button will appear on songs available on this service. No further ‘reward’ for artists scoring well is in place yet. Although there ‘level’ system does allows this. No integration with Facebook, … yet and no ‘musical map’, nothing learning from your preferences, yet. But it definitely has room to grow.
How does this ‘flash mob’ happen?
Standard networking. ;) I still like to believe we have a very creative community in Second Life. If there is anything appreciated, it it self-created content: be it builds, music, SL photographs, fashion, … . As within any community, you have tremendiously popular content creators, and sooner or later one of those joins theSixtyOne.com. That artist tells it to his or her friends, who then join the community service to vote - bump in this case - the artist’s work.
Eg.
Claudia Mantis IM - instant messages - Vint F.: Go and bump Nephie’s ass on thesixtyone.com.
Vint: Nephie’s ass? Will do!
*Vint joins the thesixtyone.com and starts bumping Nephie’s songs.*
*Vint browses some other Second Life ‘avatar accounts’ on SixtyOne, finds other SL musicians - already familiar or not - and bumps those too.*
(Mimi Carpenter, Raspbury, BabbleGrabble, Rich Palmer, Jeff Wyatt, Grace McDunnough, The Professor, DJ Doubledown, Jeremy ‘Frogg’ Works (Frogg Marlowe), …)
Other (Second Life) musicians will see those artists doing great on theSixtyOne, following their leads and joing TheSixtyOne.com too. Second Life fans will tell their friends to join, vote for their favourites, Second Life promo channels - mainly Group Notices - are used by the artists to go and vote, they link to their profiles from already existing ‘Avatar accounts’ on other community services, etc… . And the ball - or ‘avatar account’ growth - goes rolling. Impressive to watch.
On Flickr, the Flickr community was rather discontent with all those ’screenshots’ taken suddenly appearing in between their ‘real’ photographs and illustrations. On TheSixtyOne.com the blending seems to go naturally, with ‘avatar accounts’ bumping RL musicians and RL accounts bumping music that is posted by avatar accounts. Because there the content - music - is exactly the same for both worlds: there is nothing that distinguishes music made by a ‘virtual person’ from the RL equivalent. Both versions still needs a RL voice, RL sounds - be it electronically produced or not - and a RL sence of keeping tone. ;)
‘Influencial musical persona’
Funny is that you see a lot of Second Life’s ‘influencal’ persona regarding music re-appearing onTheSixtyOne.com, also there having a lot of influence: Crap Mariner, Dolmere Talamasca, Grace McDunnough, Sally Silvera, … .
Why use ‘avatar accounts’ and not their RL persona?
That’s an easy one: they alreay have their networks that are linked to their avatars - Flickr, blogs, in-world groups, … - they only need to ‘export’ those links to TheSixtyOne.com. If I would join up there with my RL name, hardly anybody would recognize me. Signing in with ‘Vint Falken’, it’s ‘Hi Vint, nice to see you’ all over the place.
Best new songs discovered by browsing
Rich Palmer - No Copy, No Mod (No Woman, No Cry parody, awesomly fun!)
The Professor - Looking for a CEO (Funny critic on the recent announcement that Linden Lab is looking for a new CEO.)
Jeremy ‘Froggs’ Works - Ain’t no woman (in SL) (Yeah, I do appreciate SL parody songs. ;))
Which SL musicians are on TheSixtyOne.com
If you hup over to Dolmere Talamasca’s profile and take a look at his playlist (below left corner) you get a nice idea which SL music artists are already to be found on TheSixtyOne.com: Astrin Few, BabbleGrabble, Beth Odets, Blues Heron, Bolug Frog, Charles Coleman, Cylindrian Rutabaga, DJ DoubleDown, Distilled1 Rush, EffinJ, Fable Sinatra, Fender Barbosa, Filthy Fluno, Forsythe Whitfield, Freestar Tammas, Frogg Marlowe, Grace McDunnough, Hali Heron, Hugh Dench, Jaycatt Nico, JooZz, JueL Resistance, Kaklick Martin, Kim Seifert, Kourosh Eusebio, Lyn Carlberg, Lyndon Heart, Mel Cheeky, Melvin Took, NANCE Brody, Neil Morrison, Nephie Eerie, Paisley Beebe, Pato Milo, Rain Vieria, Rich Desoto, SRV4U Conacher, Slim Warrior, Soundcircel Flanagan, Spence Wilder, TallGuy Kidd, Tallan White, Tette Merio, The Professor, Toby Lancaster, Virtual Live Band, Von Johin, Zaphod Theas, eyewall Paine, foxyflwr CureSLer. Yikes, that’s a lot, no? ;)
6 Responses to “Second Life community takes over theSixtyOne.com?”
I’m more of an “Under the influence” of SL Music.
I love how Rich DeSoto tells a whole new story in the bridge of No Copy No Mod at every live performance. He has taken a silly idea of mine to a whole level. Just can’t stop laughing.
Originally, “Lookin for a CEO” was meant as a parody of “Lookin For Mister Wright” to be covered by Grace McDunnough, but the Professor’s take has a cheerful Eric Idle/Neil Innes style to it that I like. (It was written within 30 minutes of the announcement, btw)
Hopefully, Fable Sinatra will post “Ruthed Boobies” (Parody of Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors”) and I’m working on a few more.
Yeah, I heard Weird Al on Doctor Demento in my teens, watched his videos on MTV. Guilty as charged.
Also, on the 61… let’s see… check Kaklick Martin/Bryan Baker. For both serious and SL-silly. I keep meaning to create a “RUTH RUTH WE’VE ALL BEEN RUTHED!” gesture.
Found it (Ruth, we’ve all been ruthed!) … héhé. Thanks!
Thanks much for covering this aspect of music promotion, Vint.
TheSixtyOne.com has definitely been a boost for many of us. I don’t get to perform or stay in-world in Second Life as much as I used to, so this is a great opportunity to stay connected and link up with other musicians and fans from the environment.
I certainly appreciate that people from all communities are able to come together in environs such as these. It helps us grow our networks, build a fan base, and of course, share the tunes!
/me toodles off to write new storyline for No Copy No Mod involving Vint’s blog…
Rich, there are many ‘music promotion websites’ like this. Or social communities surrounding them. Is the SL community bigger here compared to others or is it like this everywhere?
PS. /me toodles off to write new storyline for No Copy No Mod involving Vint’s blog… Is this a (original) trick to get me to come to your next in-world gig? :d
[…] we all know about TheSixtyOne.com’s Second Life community it’s time to look at who’s on there, how they are ‘received’ by the average […]
Music in SL continues to grow and spread into other areas of the intertubes. With any luck, SL will one day be a viable way for new acts to break into the mainstream, much as indie radio stations were years ago.
Though the Carter family never had to worry about getting Ruthed…
Care to comment?