blog.msurveys.com

I recently experimented a little with libsecondlife (the open-source, reverse-engineered Second Life library) together with IronPython, a .NET Python implementation. It worked almost straight out of the box, even on Mac OSX on my MacBook Pro (via Mono).

Using the same survey backend code I used for my experiments with inanimate survey objects inside Second Life and the semi-human modified Second Life viewer, this let me quickly write a Python-powered bot that logs into Second Life, and then responds to avatars chatting to it. Unlike the Second Life client modification I created earlier, this is purely a bot, so there is no human intervention at all.

If you watch the video below, you'll see me come up to the bot girl, and say hello. She responds to me, and tells me she'd just love it if she could ask me some survey questions. As instructed, I reply with the word "survey", and she starts asking the survey questions (after doing a backflip out of sheer happiness that I will take part in her survey!). The survey technology here is identical to the previous examples, linking to GMI's Net-MR survey back-end. At the end of survey she blows me a kiss and pays me a Linden dollar (a bit stingy, I agree, but the kiss makes up for it).



Nothing too earth-shattering here, reusing much of my previous prototypes, but I think quite a nice example of the kind of thing we can do in Second Life to provide engaging and fun survey experiences. Also note some of the typing animation that makes the bot seem that little more real. I came away thinking I've made someone happy (even though I could see Belle's debug stream on my other screen) :-)