This year’s Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference aims to focus on imagination. Themed Imagination Around the World, this free virtual event takes place in Second Life on March 12–13. Second Life is growing as a venue for education at multiple grade levels. According to Nielsen, Second Life is the second most popular PC game worldwide (behind World of Warcraft). Imagination is sometimes neglected in traditional education settings, but is actually IMO the most important area to develop. Without imagination and creativity what are we? The VWBPE 2010 committee wants to highlight the importance of stimulating the imagination as a means of “sharing knowledge.” Education in virtual worlds relies heavily on collaboration and communication, but would you say that it is more collaborative than traditional education? I guess the answer is, “it depends.”

In general I think that smart people will find ways to educate themselves. I’d like to see learning environments that give students the opportunity to specialize at younger ages. In other words I think it would be beneficial to gear high-school and even some middle-school students towards the subject areas where they excel rather than forcing everyone study every subject (even when they’re just not built for it). Each student might not be as well-rounded but as whole each generation still would be. There’d be more positive engagement and less dropouts. Virtual worlds may be a great resource for accomplishing this because of their ability to open the imagination and at the same time foster communication among like minds across the globe. Thoughts? Anyone planning on attending the conference?

Social Rocks.

The stage is lit—music has always been social, and the web continues to make it even more so. Communication is on the rise. People want to share and “everyone who shares is an influencer.” Music discovery is powered by your friends and by recommendation engines—the technology is only getting smarter, and, in their case, everyone who listens is an influencer. Web apps like Blip.fm and Twisten.fm rely nearly entirely on friend-powered playlists and realtime recommendations. Music streamers crave sharing, simplicity, and depths of controls for customizing their listening experiences.

Bloodred Erik Unedited by Luminis Kanto on Flickr

Shareability and community spin music in the social web. Pandora and Last.fm’s widely popular iPhone apps encourage users to share songs they like with their friends as they’re listening to them. Grooveshark’s web interface heavily encourages sharing, and its integration with Twitter via Twisten.fm and Tinysong have helped fuel its rapid growth in 2009. Nearly all of today’s free (ad-supported) streaming sites include links to purchase mp3′s via iTunes or Amazon. Vevo has them, but, YouTube—arguably the largest and most engaging music streaming site—does not.

The Delicious user base has a relatively high concentration of developers, designers, techies, nerds, etc.—individuals likely to have above-average internet savvy. As a group they are an acute filter for quality content. The chart below shows the popularity of the same music websites based on data from Delicious. You can see there is some divergence from the traffic heat map. The most notable difference is MySpace Music, which showed the highest website traffic, but shows the lowest Delicious rank. Pandora is the top-bookmarked music site on Delicious by far, with last.fm second, and Grooveshark climbing quickly. Pandora is also the top-ranked music site on Xmarks.

Musicians—many are at the center of the social mix lifecasting on Twitter, Ustream, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. They’re communicating like never before, and evolving the industry. Revenue comes in new forms. The urge to be “indie” is contagious. The amplifiers are on.

Mobility Rolls.

Seven of the top twelve are radio/streaming apps. But smartphones are not just for listening to music. Gigzee is an events app—a location-aware tool for finding shows/concerts in your area. With more people on smartphones, more people can take advantage of location-based services like this. Music creation apps like Virtuoso Piano, Drum Kit, freestyle, NLog Synth, Digidrummer, Looptastic, and Jamble Music Mashups are wildly popular. Every human is an artist in some way—as technology improves more people will find themselves creating, and collaborating remotely. Who’s at center stage now? Creative Commons-released music encourages open remixing via sites like JamGlue, ccMixter, Indaba Music, Jamendo, SoundCloud, and more. Maybe influenced by NIN, many musicians are releasing audio source files for open remixing, fan remix contests, remix apps, or fan music videos.

Carey is pioneering a new business model for music. She’s cutting deals with the kind of partners musicians have traditionally shunned, pushing herself into new areas such as publishing, tourism and food and drink. … “A lot of big powerful music-industry executives made a giant mistake,” she says. “They gave the music business away on the internet. If they had just sat back and said, ‘Maybe let’s figure this internet thing out, it could be something cool,’ we could have found a way to distribute music online on our own terms, not somebody else’s. … Musicians have long promoted non-music products. The Rolling Stones marketed Windows 95 with Start Me Up. Michael Jackson did endless Pepsi promos. And rappers such as P Diddy and Jay-Z have moved on from name-checking other people’s fashion and luxury-goods brands in their songs to create their own brands, usually in partnership with their record labels, and promote them instead. But Carey is breaking new ground in three areas. Mariah Carey: The gloves are off | Times Online

The internet has leveled the playing field. It has proven that content is king, and that those who work hard at delivering content can build a following. Artists have channels with live streaming video content and direct connection with their fans through mobile applications. The same opportunities exist for everyone, and they’re almost all free. You may think that endorsements and partnerships are only for megastars—but I don’t. I believe that indie musicians with smaller niche fan bases can make the same types of product endorsement deals and partnerships with brands or services that the megastars can. The trick is finding the right brands and companies to match up with. But if you have—for example—a Ustream or YouTube channel that’s getting hundreds of views on a daily basis then I don’t think it would be hard to pitch to a company that relates to your audience. Ideally your audience would be a target market for the endorsed product or service. Think big but also think local.

flickr.com/photos/eyesofrc/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

There is no single exact solution for indie artists, but the best solutions revolve around leveraging social media and video streaming to maximize fan engagement. Visual content is a must. Video content is supreme. YouTube serves well over 1 billion views per day. Live videos are easy to stream with ustream.tv, stickam.com, or justin.tv and a decent webcam. For recording non-live videos I recommend HD pocket cameras like the Zi6 or Zi8, or smartphones that enable mobile uploads like the iPhone. Video is becoming more interactive by the second and mobility is always important. Each musician has their own unique style and identifying that will help you see opportunities. Keep an open mind and be willing to adapt.

It seems that we truly are at the dawn of a new era. Opportunities abound at every corner. Music is more alive than ever, consumers listen to more music in more ways than ever thought possible, artists interact and build connections with fans in new and unique ways, music and other entertainment content can be delivered via multiple platforms for a fraction of the cost of traditional methods, and artists can form business relationships with many different partners—including consumer brands. (Music Branding Gets All Grown Up | Talent Zoo)

A lot of businesses still don’t get the internet, but a lot of them do—these are the ones that you can work with. Realize that a band’s physical merchandise is a product line, and there’s nothing stopping bands from partnering with companies to sell their own non-music products. Smart companies would likely jump at the chance to sponsor bands that have built active communities around the internet and are accessible via mobile phones. They see the meaning in social media—for business.

The types of products that will work for indie musician endorsements will vary greatly and be determined by each musician’s personal style or brand. A middle-man service that helps musicians match up with consumer brands and vice-versa might be viable—don’t you think? It would probably be pretty easy for Google, Facebook, or MySpace to implement such a service. However I’m a fan of DIY and I usually like to cut out middle-men. I think the best approach would be to directly contact companies that you’d like to partner with. Don’t be afraid to fail. You can’t get anywhere without trying things. Remember to focus on the dopeness—see Part 1: Music Dopeness and Bands as Brands.

SpaceJunky performed a magical, energetic show and even launched a couple of new songs which hadn’t been heard before. Shakti wore one of B@R newest designs which is exclusively available here at the Island. Purple Tennyo it is a real danski free flowing design. SpaceJunky’s lineup includes Zaphod Rahja on guitar, Zavier Corleone on drummer, and Shakti Cianci on vocals.

• When: October 3, 2009 at 3:00 PM PT
• Where: Second Life » Metverse Island

Above: SpaceJunky and Metaverse Island
Below: A video taste of SpaceJunky. [url]

Click to play

Above: A closer look at the architecture on Metaverse Island. VirtualMusic.tv/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

• When: September 18, 2009 at 7:00 PM PT
• Where: Second Life » SpaceJunky Island » Planet 7

Above: The Newly Renovated SpaceJunky Island

Description: On September 18th the Australian band SpaceJunky will have a big celebration at Planet 7 on SpaceJunky Island. The whole sim has been redesigned as a beautiful floating crystal city and SpaceJunky will perfom a concert at the main stage at 7pm. There will be other events that night too, and special freebies from the stores—including fashion designs exclusive to the island from Bare Rose and Solanges.

Source: spacejunkyinsl.blogspot.com

Cosmic Vision Music Video

Cosmic Vision is a music video featuring Shakti Cianci—from the band SpaceJunky—at the piano. It is from her solo, piano meditation album, “7 Tears of Tara”, by Crystal Gypsy. The video features a cameo by Avenue CEO Rusch Raymaker, as well as other AlphaCrew members.

SpaceJunky: RL Band in SL

SpaceJunky is a real-life band who have been performing live shows in the virtual world of Second Life. SL is about creating your dream, and the ability to creatively visualize a music concert is wonderful, as you can do things here you cannot do in RL.

All three members have major touring and recording credits to their names. Tania played keyboards on tour with Kylie Minogue, and cowrote the title track for Grammy-winning album Lesson of Love. Dan and Luke have toured and recorded with major artists as well. SJ‘s first album—Resident Alien—was recorded while they were all together in the USA and Australia with Grammy-nominated songwriter/producer Rafe Van Hoy. With the band living on different continents in different time zones, SL provided a way to perform simulated concerts and promote the album—available on CDBaby or iTunes.

Shakti discovered Second Life in 2006 when she came back from Tibet, where an oracle there told her SpaceJunky would be heard by many people and the album would be successful. When she came back she was researching an ancient Tibetan symbol and came across a blog called the Flying Monks here in SL who were rebuilding monasteries destroyed in Tibet during the cultural revolution.

SpaceJunky’s music is about cosmic unforeseen forces that connect people through energy and intention. They are a rock/pop band with a positive message of searching for cosmic truth and seeking to lengthen the space between thoughts. The band provides social entertainment by interacting and emulating what a concert by SpaceJunky might be like in RL. SL is about creating your dream, and the ability to creatively visualize a music concert is wonderful, as you can do things here you cannot do in RL. As Shakti says, “SL is a physical manifestation of a non-physical realm”, very Buddhist as the Dali Lama would say.

SpaceJunky Live in SL at JCNY in 2008. Photo by Izzy Cole. All rights reserved by Izzy Cole and SJ.

SpaceJunky have a production crew who help bring the concerts alive: Tommy Parrott (Lighting, Stage, and Pyrotechnics), Izzy Cole (Tour Photographer), and Bella Dutton (Virtual Music Publicist).

The concert performances in Second Life have complex, programmed equipment, such as pyrotechnics, and a custom-made, one-of-a-kind, lighting system by JB LiteSource. The realtime lighting effects for their shows include particle effects and a custom stage which looks like a spaceship. June Dion from Bare Rose also creates custom designs for Shakti to wear on stage—the most recent one being inspired by a Tibetan goddess for their SLB6 performance where they were invited to close the show.

Through the band’s growing popularity SpaceJunky have been featured on CNN International for new technology, and were approached by Sony Creative Software to do an Acid Planet remix contest for their song Gravitational Pull, which was brought into SL and Sony gave away a lot of RL prizes at the concert at SpaceJunky Island. They were also featured on the SL home page for being the first band to ever be featured on SL with audio. They have had RL radio play from the largest radio stations in Italy—including Radio Imago—as well as magazine covers, YouTube fans, and product endorsements.

The band have their own SpaceJunky Island which is featured in Showcase under Music, and designed by Shakti along with Dannon Robbiani, one of SL’s top builders. It is also home to their state-of-the-art Amphitheater built by Tommy Parrot. SpaceJunky’s popularity continues to grow. The strength of the band continues to change with new technology and new ventures that they are currently working on—including possible upcoming RL concerts. Stay tuned at alphacrew.ning.com.