Join us at 3 p.m. Eastern time today when we'll be talking with my colleague, senior editor Andy Dornan, about virtualization and service-oriented architecture at the official launch of InformationWeek Live.

As Andy explains in our cover story this week, SOA will drive virtualization to the next generation. Until now, virtualization in the enterprise has been used for server consolidation, running multiple operating systems on a single hardware server. SOA can help break up enterprise applications into smaller components that can be run anywhere in the enterprise that makes sense. Andy and I will spend an hour talking about the benefits and liabilities of these two technologies that go together like milk and cookies. You can participate live, with questions and comments.

Here's how to join us: Just click on this handy-dandy badge when the show's ready to start, at 3 p.m. Eastern/noon Pacific today:

That'll take you to the InformationWeek Live page on the TalkShoe network, where you can listen to the call over streaming Internet audio and participate in the text chat. You also can find recordings of our first InformationWeek Livecast, recorded yesterday.

You can participate in the voice discussion by dialing (724) 444-7444 Call ID: 12478. You'll also want to visit the InformationWeek Live page to participate in the text chat backchannel for the show.

And, as a special treat for the InformationWeek community in Second Life, we'll be meeting to listen to InformationWeek Live in-world at the newly renamed Babbage Amphitheater on CMP1. If all goes well, I'll be logged in both to TalkShoe and Second Life and participating in the discussion in both places simultaneously. On the Internet, you can be in two places at once! That is, until your head explodes!

We had a dry run for this conference on Monday, and things went quite well. TalkShoe looks like a great platform for live podcasting, the interface proved very easy to use, and listeners reported that the audio was quite clear, both in the phone connection and streaming Internet audio.

We did encounter one major glitch: Unfortunately, my Internet connection chose launch time to experience its first-ever significant outage. I've been using Cox Communications for Internet access in my home office for about 10 years now; once or twice a year I've noticed outages lasting a few minutes, but this was the longest I've seen -- a full half-hour, starting near the beginning of InformationWeek Live. With that kind of extraordinary bad luck, I'm afraid to leave the house for fear of being hit by a meteor.

Fortunately, my phone connection held up without a glitch, and Alex and Michael kept me filled in on the discussion going in the chat channel, so I don't think my problem diminished the call at all for anyone else.

My colleagues John Jainschigg and Kim Smith of the CMP Metaverse business unit did a terrific job, on very short notice, of getting the audio from the TalkShoe event streamed into Second Life. John even built lifelike and highly realistic puppets of me, Michael, and Alex onstage:

Pretty good turnout in Second Life for less than an hour's notice.

Do you have any experience with TalkShoe? What do you think of it?