NMC Campus Observer

Learn about ChatBridge: Interview with Chase Marellan

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Aug 7, 2008 12:01am

It has been a long time we managed an in world audio interview. Would you believe the dog ate my microphone? Hmmm, I did not think so. But when you listen to the audio (apologies in advance) you will see how rusty I am. Details on this part follow below.

I spoke briefly to Chase Marellan, who in real life is Nicholas Chase, programmer and author, and a principal at InterSection Unlimited, makers of a very interesting Second Life application called ChatBridge.

This tool has been used since June for the weekly Metanomics show, which is video broadcast from one sim in Second Life to several others (include Outreach on NMC Campus) as overflow viewing places.

In Second Life, ChatBridge is a small mic device, and what it does is to broadcast any local chat in one sim to all of the other sims, so there is a common chat area across all sites. This is much more reliable than the group IM channel the Metanomics folks used earlier this year.

But there is another more interesting feature- the ChatBridge also allows people to participate in that same chat area via a web site, not even logged into Second Life. So interested viewers can create an account at Metanomics and go to the live show page. There they can see the streaming view embedded in the web, and read and add to the chat going on across the Metanomics sites in Second Life.

This got me very interested in this web/Second life integration, and given the NMC in world conferences were large enough to have multiple sims, I was interested in how this technology might work.

So in this interview, Chase describes how ChatBridge works, where it is being used, and some other aspects of connecting the virtual and web worlds.

As a note, Chase is co-authoring a book due out soon on Platform Second Life:

This book focuses on the skills needed to build applications that connect real life and Second Life. This includes:

* displaying RSS feeds in-world and creating 3D displays with external data
* controlling access to your virtual presence based on a real-world database
* updating external databases based on what happens in the virtual world

Platform Second Life is aimed at developers building Second Life applications, from casual scripters trying to build a cool tool to enterprise-level coders integrating with their company’s legacy systems.

The book is not yet published, but a f ew chapters are available for purchase via the Manning Early Access Program.

So we do have an audio file to share, but its hard to listen to. The story is I use WireTap Studio to capture my interviews. When I upgraded to my new MacBookPro, the serial number got disconnected, and I did not dig it up in time for the interview, so I ran it in trial mode– completely forgetting in trial mode, you can record, but about every 15 seconds there is an overlaid audio of a sultry woman saying, “This recording was made in a trial version of WireTap Studio Pro” — how embarrassing! I promise to do better next time!

Interview with Chase Marellan 5:55 4.1 Mb mp3

Story filed under: Audio / Video, Studio NMC

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)