Nintendo reaches A$1.5 million ($1.3 million) out-of-court settlement with New Super Mario Bros. Wii pirate; case could affect release timing in Australia of future Nintendo titles.
Annual college hoops game, rhythm series, and Windows version of outer-space horror game all missing from Electronic Arts' 2011 release calendar; company mum on status.
Motorcycle and parts theft copybot outrage! by Coke Supply, Investigative Reporter [In this multipart tale of dark dealings in the Second Life motorcycle and parts trade Coke Supply delves into the shady activities of Black Lisle, AKA Biack Lisle, of...
According to previous figures from Linden Lab staff, fewer than 700 of 18.1 million registered Second Lifeaccounts ever participated in the official forums provided by the Lab. The partial closure of many of the most heavily trafficked areas of those forums when Lab announcements were migrated back out to the blog in 2006 did little to boost participation in the official forums.
The official vbulletin-based forums "did not scale" according to Linden Lab and were difficult to maintain, even for such modest usage levels as they experienced.
Herald news Idoru pseudonym sacrificed in free speech fight by Peter Ludlow (aka Urizenus Sklar), Herald Founder Sometimes we all have to take a stand. In this case Herald Editrix Pixeleen Mistral, facing an outrageous abuse of the DMCA by...
This week, in The Virtual Whirl, we're going to take a selection of reader questions that we've received in comments and in the virtual mailbag and do our best to offer up some useful answers. Join us as we whirl through the mail.
Second Life vigilante gang's coverup tactics questioned by Idoru Wellman, staff writer Responding to a questionable copyright infringement claim, last night Typepad gutted the Herald's coverage of the Justice League Unlimited with takedowns of disputed content from six stories. Was...
by Sigmund Leominster If you’re becoming jaded by the tales of the inconsequential status and activity of the Justice League Unlimited, which, as a group, must now hold some sort of record in terms of column inches in the Herald...
Embarrassed Second Life role-play superhero police force swings mighty DMCA hammer again by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk Herald coverage of the Justice League Unlimited has been edited by Six Apart staff to remove text and images which Six Apart...
BrainiacWiki papers claim Lab staff leaks to role play game cops by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk [UPDATE: portions of this story have been removed by SixApart staff in response to a DMCA copyright infringement claim - the editrix] A...
Cozy, classified relationship and implausible deniability by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk [UPDATE: portions of this story have been removed by SixApart staff in response to a DMCA copyright infringement claim - the editrix] Did Plexus Linden encourage Second Life's...
Second Life Superman's Abuse Reports indexed and regions ranked by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk [UPDATE: portions of this story have been removed by SixApart staff in response to a DMCA copyright infringement claim - the editrix] Sandbox superheros: Justice...
Real and imagined offenses against the laws of the Metaverse? by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk [UPDATE: portions of this story have been removed by SixApart staff in response to a DMCA copyright infringement claim - the editrix] Resident conflict...
Roleplay police recruit copies, distributes 1700-page wiki - JLU superhero threatens DMCA, legal action by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk [UPDATE: portions of this story have been removed by SixApart staff in response to a DMCA copyright infringement claim -...
Will role-play superheros' copyright claims trump free speech? by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affair desk [UPDATE: portions of this story have been removed by SixApart staff in response to a DMCA copyright infringement claim - the editrix] Typepad administrator Jen has...
(The Herald Editorial Staff wish to thank Daeynaries for the outstanding job she did as Post 6 Photographer during Timothy's vacation. We look forward to working with her again in the future). (Rhapsody Heartsdale is probably one of the funnest...
A number of you wrote in asking us about that yesterday, and we contacted Linden Lab for you to get an answer one way or another. That line of questioning bore some definitive fruit.
Have you taken a look in a mirror lately? You're a walking infringement... AnnOTooleInSL's Xtranormal.com video commentary on the Second Life Justice League Unlimited situation:
Q4 2009 - feeble growth after 2 quarters of economic decline by Jessica Holyoke Last week, Linden Lab released their fourth quarter 2009 and year-end results for the Second Life Economy. A few weeks earlier, Linden Lab released their raw...
"Get a life", "Get a first life", and so on, and so forth. If you're involved in virtual environments, you've probably heard this phrase a lot. Wagner James Au of New World Notes suggests that people who use those phrases are among the least likely to 'have a life' themselves.
Well, we'd say he's half right. It's more that the people you hear it from don't really have much of an idea of what life is all about and how it works. It's not an uncommon theme. Botgirl Questi points out that in order to see something more clearly, sometimes you have to look at it from a very different perspective.
This week, in The Virtual Whirl, we're going to take a couple perspectives for a spin, and talk about the meaning of life actually is, insofar as the phrase "get a life" is concerned.
In a move that will no doubt perplex, flummox and befuddle many media commentators and technology columnists who erroneously believed that Second Life was a Web 2.0 social networking tool, Linden Lab has acquired social networking site, Avatars United (and developers of same, Enemy Unknown AB). This also has the side-effect of shooting down any semblance of Wallace Linden's identity piece last week being an overture of a conversation, instead making it look like the usual introduction to a Linden Lab fait accompli.
We've written about Avatars United on a couple of previous occasions, but never really had much call to get involved ourselves. The social networking tool includes a large number of MMOGs and non-game virtual environments, being best known for it's strong application support of open-ended space-based MMOG, EVE Online.
by Idoru Wellman, Herald Education Desk On January 28, in what may be the first instance of a university course held inside Facebook, Northwestern University Philosophy Professor Peter Ludlow (known to Herald readers as Urizenus Sklar) recently attempted to hold...
Traditionally, Linden Lab'sblog communications have seemed to be reserved for things that had been finalized, were being finalized but already set in stone, or may not have been set in stone but gave that appearance by being nearly identical both before and after user-feedback. All this punctuated by a smattering of video tutorials, infomercials and statistics.
One of the matters of concern would be how event rules are actually applied this time around. If we were to divide events listings into quality events and spammy junk, quite a large number of the quality events don't actually comply with the posting rules - usually due to the number of events being held, and limits on the number of listings (or of listing changes) that the events system will tolerate.
[Regular Post 6 Photographer Timothy Morpork continues to gorge himself on the lido deck buffet while Daeynaries Lane keeps us stocked with Post 6 Models.] (So if you guys couldn't tell, I've been picking quite a few roleplayers from the...
SLebrity Children Found - Satanic Plot Possible by Pappy Enoch, Investigative Reporter Baby Philip?Now ya’ll thought—well, hoped—I might be dead, but I ain’t. I was just saving my strength and doing me some Woodward-and-Bumstead-style undercover reports on a terrible, awful...
Welcome to The Virtual Whirl, a new weekly Massively column covering virtual environments generally. The term 'virtual world' is slowly seeing less use, being supplanted by the more general 'virtual environment', but the world term still has a fair bit of life left in it.
Virtual environments covers a whole lot of ground. From William Crowther's original efforts in 1976 that based a game in a virtual version of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, virtual environments have been a part of gaming, artificial intelligence and behavioral research, modeling, telemetry and process control and more.
Nowadays we're seeing Second Life, Blue Mars, There.com, IMVU and others trying to find places in non-game contexts, like content-development and prototyping, publishing and performance, entertainment and social, education and business; efforts that are met with varying amounts of success.
OpenSim growth rates shame Linden Lab by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk Citing an annualized OpenSim growth rate of 177%, Maria Korolov predicts the OpenSim grids will overtake Second Life in early 2011 in an article in Hypergrid Business. Ms....
Registrations are presently open for SL Pro! a two day conference being run by Linden Lab for 'serious' professional Second Life content-creators to take place in late February this year, in Second Life itself, with a bit of help from NMC (the New Media Consortium).
Unfortunately, it's a conference with more than one track, where the two tracks generally have a fair bit of overlap, so that's a bit of an issue. The two tracks are building and scripting, each with eight sessions.
by Jessica Holyoke As previously reported, IslandLife, which looks a lot like Metaplace, has opened on Facebook. Metaplace is a virtual world that closed at the end of 2009. Metaplace looked a lot like Google's Lively, which also closed. What...
Linden Lab says it hopes to have a public beta of the Second Life 2.0 viewer in February, presumably targeting an official release in March. Given that the Lab wants to move forward with quarterly planned viewer releases, this means that the current Second Life 1.23 viewer will lose official support at approximately the end of June.
Linden Lab says it has already finalized features and the user-interface at this stage, and is not planning on making any substantive changes between now and release. Any work beyond bug-fixes and stabilization for the viewer is to be deferred to the mid-year 2.1 release.
That's a lot of work, especially as the data published in the quarterly/annual reports doesn't follow the same definitions as the ongoing statistical feeds or is not represented in them.
So we thought, well sod that for a game of soldiers. Instead, let's talk about the report's claim that the Second Lifeeconomy has grown 65% in 2009 over 2008, and why that's just rubbish.
Linden Lab turns a blind eye toward furniture store n00b sex shops by Senban Babii Second Life sex club owners are now playing a meta-game using faux furniture stores to circumvent the Mature and Adult land zoning rules and run...
Linden Lab's last CFO (Chief Financial Officer), John Zdanowski oversaw one of the largest growth periods in the history of Second Life. That growth came to a bit of a shuddering halt around the time of his departure last March, though we think that's just coincidental [We'll be looking closer at the 2009Second Life metrics later this week].
Throughout the comparatively flat second, third and fourth quarters of 2009, the CFO's chair has remained unwarmed, but Linden Lab announced today that the position has now finally been filled by Bob Komin.
[Serious business guyths.. Rach has one of the only AV's I've stolen outfits from. She probably has one of the best if not THE best selection of clothing, accessories, hair, and av customization items of anyone I know. I HAD...
Just lately, over the last month and a half or so, regular Second Life users will have spotted an increase in subsystem outages, including transaction failures, object and teleportation problems, and just general weirdness. Systems seem to be experiencing trouble that you could just about set a watch by.
Linden Lab's Frank Ambrose explains that that is to be expected and there's some more to come as some of the oldest pieces of the Second Life infrastructure are ripped out for replacement or relocation from their original site at the San Francisco data-center.
Kalel Venkman claims dozens of copyright takedowns -- says Chan community corrupts minors by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk According to correspondence provided to the Herald, Kalel Venkman claims to have succeeded with copyright complaints to several dozen web sites...
So, as you may recall last week Linden Lab responded about what appeared to be Second Life advertisements that capitalized on the recently-released James Cameron film, Avatar.
Since about Christmas (just after previews showing the blue-skinned Na'vi began to become available to the general public) IMVU started running some blue-skinned ads of its own.
It was when we saw the blue-avatared IMVU advertisement that sprung up during the same period that we inevitably started thinking about Sea Monkeys.
There's more similarities going on here than just the visible, so let's rummage around and see if we can't find one of the old advertisements in our files.
Raph Koster's shipwrecked crew selling cabbage, farming supplies in FB avatar deathworld by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk Raph Koster: "We're not talking about overall plans yet... first we learn" Game god survivors of the Metaplace world's apocalyptic loss of...
Alphaville Herald's Walker Spaight's secret alt is new Linden "Conversation Manager" Special to the Herald by staff reporter Idoru Wellman Wallace Linden shocked the metaverse with a tell-all Linden blog post acknowledging his close ties to the Alphaville Herald and...
Well, it's been a long time in coming, but it is finally just around the corner. Back in October, Linden Lab added a facility where Second Life users could flag the accounts of their scripted agents (commonly called 'bots'). That was in October and the flag itself has had no effect so far.
However, along with the search update on Wednesday, 20 January, user accounts (whether they are actually scripted agents or not) who have chosen to turn the flag on for their account will no longer count towards the per-parcel traffic data generated by the system.
The Second Life user-concurrency and user-to-user transaction figures took a bit of an unexpected jump this week, rising sharply after a year of relatively little motion. Through 2009, user-concurrency has been on a slight, though not terribly significant decline, while user-to-user transactions remained flat and rather unexciting.
The sudden rise coincided with an advertising campaign by Linden Lab, where James Cameron's Avatar and Second Life were rather strongly linked in a series of banner advertisements run on YouTube and as a part of Linden Lab's affiliate program.
[I came across Orchid's avatar in Midian city, and then again at CARP. I instantly fell in love with her av's face!! I love symmetrical faces and well designed shapes, and HERS fit right in with post 6! I kept...
There's no doubt in our minds that virtual environments are here to stay, for a significant fraction of the foreseeable forever. Love them or loathe them they're in their third decade now, and like the Web, it's now more a matter of how they fit in to the rest of the world, rather than if they do.
In education, virtual environments are now a part of an educator's toolbox and as education continues to combine, refine, and recombine tools, virtual environments will find increasingly better, more effective uses in education. There's no doubt about that among educators, even if the technologies aren't ready for widespread educational uses today.
Linden Lab's systems administrator, Charity Majors has been with the company for a while - since 2004, in fact - but we've not heard much from Majors previously. That's a shame, because Majors' latest post detailing the process behind the recent Second Life central database upgrade is a real treat. We've not seen its like for a couple of years, sadly.
It's really rather a pity that Majors isn't writing blog posts on policy and economic metrics, because Majors puts almost all the other Linden Lab bloggers to shame for precision and clarity.
Kalel Venkman now playing whack-a-mole with file sharing sites by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk The leaked Justice League Unlimited "BrainiacWiki" papers have been yanked from 5 file sharing sites - an apparent coverup attempt by embattled JLU loyalists wielding...
It's always enlightening to hear from Frank Ambrose at Linden Lab. His posts about Second Lifearchitecture, when they appear, are generally packed with information about upcoming plans, pending architecture changes and more. Clear, to the point and generally very few signs of spin (although a bit of distressing a tendency to type 'LAG' in all-caps). Overall, it's what we like to see more of.
In a similar vein, there's a notice from Liana Linden about some late-January upgrades to the Google appliances that handle much of Second Life's search infrastructure. There's a few additional benefits in the wings there, to be sure, and well laid-out.
It's comments about the Second Life being "deserted" or "a ghost town" that really throw muddy thinking into sharp relief. Specifically the muddy thinking of the people who tend to use these sorts phrases in connection with Second Life.
On one hand, they tell us that Second Life users are lifeless shut-ins who are wasting their lives online in Linden Lab's virtual environment, and then on the other tell us that the place is a deserted ghost-town that nobody's using. Well, you can't have it both ways. Fact is, neither statement is true, so it really isn't either way.
Reuters has closed its Second Life bureau after more than two years of in-depth coverage on the virtual world’s business and economy. Our technology team will continue to cover Second Life on Reuters.com.
Please explore this archive of our ground-breaking Second Life coverage.
SECOND LIFE, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Will the marketing of real world brands in Second Life find a second life?
Maybe. Nestea, a Coca-Cola brand, announced today it’s sponsoring Second Life’s “Junkyard Blues” venue.
Neither Nestea nor Junkyard Blues’ owners were available for immediate comment. But a visit to Junkyard Blues shows a “Sponsored by Nestea” banner over the main stage. Don’t try clicking on the banner though — it’s non-interactive.
The sponsorship, while modest, represents an affirmation of Second Life as a continued destination for real-world companies to market their goods. A recent survey by BusinessWeek ranked Coca-Cola as the most valuable brand in the world.
Nor does the choice by Coca-Cola of a Second Life blues venue seem coincidental. Last month, Second Life bluesman Von Johin signed a record deal in what’s believed to be the first virtual musician to break into the real-life mainstream.
Coca-Cola was among the companies that made a strong entrance into Second Life during the first wave of corporate marketing with a “virtual thirst” campaign. However in recent months, the company has stepped back its Second Life profile, taking the virtualthirst.com website offline.
Many Second Life users cherish their avatar identity so highly they sign up for other online networks, like LinkedIn or Twitter, under their avatar name. But Second Life enthusiasts who register for Facebook under their avatar name should watch out: the Syndey Morning Herald is reporting Facebook is terminating accounts it suspects don’t represent real-life names.
The SMH follows the story of Sydneysider Elmo Keep, who got banned from the site with no warning when Facebook officials suspected her name (which is real) was fake. Only by supplying copies of government-issued identity documents to Facebook was she able to get her account restored.
Valleywag has video of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg laying down the law. “You can’t be on Facebook without being yourself,” Sandberg says. “We kick you off.”
How many Facebook users are registered under their Second Life name, and could be banned at any moment under the policy? It’s impossible to tell, but even a casual search reveals that there could be more than a handful.
The latest poll average at RealClearPolitics has Barack Obama up 2.5 points over John McCain in the tight race for the White House, at 48.1 percent to 45.6 percent. But if the election was being held today in Second Life, Obama would win in a landslide.
Researcher Andrew Mallon of the Social Research Foundation, known in avatar form as Andy Evans, polled over 1,000 Second Life residents about their usage of Linden’s virtual world. But while he had an audience, Mallon threw in another question:
In the upcoming election, who do you plan to vote for (USA Citizens), or prefer (International residents)?
Among American citizens, Obama beats McCain handily in the unscientific poll.
Candidate
Respondents
Percent
Obama
224
45.6%
McCain
102
20.8%
Undecided
79
16.1%
I don’t plan to vote
29
5.9%
I prefer not to say
29
5.9%
Other
28
5.7%
491
100.0%
Among Second Life’s large population of non-American citizens, the preference for Obama is even stronger.
Candidate
Respondents
Percent
Obama
330
57.5%
McCain
41
7.1%
Undecided
41
7.1%
I don’t plan to vote
109
19.0%
I prefer not to say
37
6.4%
Other
16
2.8%
574
100.0%
Mallon’s poll remains open to the public until September 30, at which point he’ll publish his data about Second Life usage. Second Life residents can take the poll by clicking here.
SECOND LIFE, Sept 11 (Reuters) - OpenSim remains in pre-release and the interoperability standards to allow avatars to travel between virtual worlds are still being drafted. But that’s not stopping entrepreneurs from creating a fledgling industry around what’s to come.
Enter Metaverse Ink, which its creators say is the first search engine to find objects on both the Second Life Grid and in OpenSim worlds.
The product presents both a vindication and challenge for Linden Lab. OpenSim-using startups demonstrate the enduring faith of many in Linden founder Philip Rosedale’s vision for virtual worlds. But Metaverse Ink is also a competitive threat. In a July interview with Reuters Linden VP Joe Miller named “search services” as a potential revenue stream for his company in the coming age of interoperability.
Traditionally within Second Life, as residents grow more adept at building content they form in-world businesses and sell their creations to other users. Linden Lab frequently touts the number of users with a positive currency inflow — over 61,000 according to the latest statistics — in its marketing.
But with OpenSim in the works, some of Second Life’s most talented programmers are beginning to form businesses that compete directly against Linden Lab.
“Linden Lab’s search is bad, it’s like AltaVista in the old days,” said Metaverse Ink co-founder William Cook (Second Life: Felix Wakmann), a computer science professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Cook and co-founder Cristina Videira Lopes (Second Life: Diva Canto), a computer science professor at the University of California at Irvine, have designed a series of automated programs, called “bots,” to search through both Second Life and OpenSim. The results of their searches are indexed and made searchable to users, in much the same way Google does for the World Wide Web.
To date the MI database catalogs over two million virtual objects, spread over 100,000 regions.
Problems with Linden’s built-in search functionality have been ongoing, and this isn’t the first time a third party has tried to create an independent virtual worlds search engine. A similar attempt to index Second Life by the Electric Sheep Company last year was abandoned after a protest campaign by Second Life users over privacy concerns.
MI says their product respects user wishes. “We’re only publishing things marked ‘for search,’” Lopes said. “These bots can ’see’ everything, but not everything should be seen.”
Cook said his new company isn’t yet looking for venture capital, and is currently focusing on attracting users beyond MI’s current average of about 900 a day. A third MI partner from Techcoastworks, a California-based incubator, is helping to commercialize the product.
But Cook, a serial entrepreneur, has worked with VC firms in the past, having raised US$60 million for a previous start-up from sources including Benchmark Capital, which also funded Linden Lab.
Lopes said MI is the first company to be indexing OpenSim worlds for search. But how does she feel that Linden Lab has said search is an area it wants to explore in the future?
Lopes paused. “Well, we’re doing it already,” she said.
SECOND LIFE, Sept 7 (Reuters) - As they have every year for four years, the Second Life faithful tore themselves away from their computers for a weekend of real-life travel to celebrate Linden Lab’s virtual world at SLCC, the Second Life Community Convention.
But this year far fewer of them came out.
SLCC was in Tampa this year, and some said hurricane fears were keeping people at home. Others blamed a sluggish real-world economy and rising airfare prices. Event organizers said only 400 people attended SLCC this year, half of last year’s attendance in Chicago.
Notably absent from the conference were any real-world businesses from outside the virtual worlds industry, or the consulting firms that only last year built Second Life presences for real-world brands. “We invited the Electric Sheep Company and Rivers Run Red, but both apparently decided they didn’t want to attend,” said SLCC organizer Peter Lokke (Second Life: Crucial Armitage).
“In terms of external business use of Second Life, what we see now isn’t marketing but businesses using Second Life for things like training and meetings,” said Linden Lab’s Glenn Fisher at a panel on SLCC’s sparsely-attended business track. Unlike last year’s conference in Chicago, most of the discussions revolved around issues of relevance only to in-world L$-based enterprises.
Fisher argued businesses were still using his company’s virtual world despite the lack of attendance at SLCC. “Businesses are keeping it quiet because they see being in Second Life as a competitive advantage.”
Second Life founder Philip Rosedale kicked off the event at a Saturday morning breakfast where he was received with warm but not ecstatic applause.
“Last year when I was here I had the ‘Missing Image’ T-shirt,” Rosedale said, alluding to his apology for bugs at SLCC 2007. “I think we made pretty good progress.”
The Second Life community has its own ideas. New Linden CEO Mark Kingdon followed Rosedale and asked the crowd: “We’re working hard to improve stability. Are you seeing that?” But Kingdon’s question was met with a stony silence from the crowd.
A handful of sessions about open source attracted large crowds with people sitting in the aisles and standing in the back of the room.
But the breakout star of SLCC was the burgeoning virtual world educational community. Second Life’s teachers ran three tracks simultaneously all weekend and held an extra full day of sessions on Friday before SLCC formally started. The educators had their own parties, programs, and event name (”SLEDcc”), acting as a conference-within-a-conference.
While the interest of real-world companies and the consulting firms catering to them has waned, most attendees weren’t bothered. Talks formal and informal ran all weekend, with attendees bragging to each other about scoring invites to the exclusive Linden Lab corporate party. And on Saturday night, Second Life dressed up for a night of kinky fun at Kevin Alderman’s (Second Life: Stroker Serpentine) annual “Leather & Lace Ball.”
But even Alderman’s masquerade ball reflected the more modest nature of SLCC this year. Fewer partygoers dressed up in costume than last year, and there was nary a furry in sight.
Nicolas Barrial (Second Life: Nick Rhodes) claims to have been among the first 1000 users of Second Life and the first French national with an avatar. He traveled 14 hours from Paris to Tampa for the event.
Barrial reveled in the chance to link with friends old and new. “First and foremost, SLCC is like a family gathering,” he said.
A year ago at the Second Life Community Convention in Chicago, Reuters asked: What will the next year bring in Second Life?
Some of those predictions didn’t come true. Jeska Linden’s hope for open-sourced servers didn’t happen (although OpenSim is doing something very similar), and Izzy Linden’s prediction of 20 million avatars didn’t materialize (total registrations just topped 15 million). Other forecasts, like whether Second Life residents enjoy better sex or a more stable environment than they did a year ago, remain a matter of personal opinion.
But with an eye towards the future, once again Reuters asked SLCC: What will the next year bring in Second Life?
Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life.
“More use of Second Life to support education and business collaboration.”
Dick Dillon (”Coughran Mayo”), Addiction Recovery Professional
“OpenSim is a reality which is coming. The Second Life Grid isn’t the only place avatars will hang out.”
Chadrick Baker, virtual worlds consultant, former Linden Lab employee
“It depends on what Linden does! I see Linden having some serious competition.”
“Phoenix Linden” (declined to give real-life name), Linden Lab employee
“We’ll go six months without a central server crash.”
“We see virtual worlds going in the same direction the World Wide Web did. A company like Reuters will be able to host its own virtual world without relying on Second Life.”
Peter Lokke (”Crucial Armitage”), SLCC Chief Organizer
“There’s a lot more competition in-world. People aren’t going to be making as much money in Second Life as they used to.”
Chris Collins (”Fleep Tuque”), SL Education Track Organizer
“The development of the metaverse moves as slow as molasses. I don’t expect much change at all.”
When a question was asked on Saturday about poor Second Life performance on the Apple Macintosh, Philip Rosedale leapt up from the SLCC audience and took the microphone.
“We’re serious about support for the Mac,” Rosedale said. “But we’ve had our problems with Apple.”
Linden employee “Phoenix Linden” joined in, saying Apple doesn’t release information about their proprietary video card drivers in a timely fashion, making it hard for Linden to keep the Mac version of the viewer running smoothly.
Rosedale said Linden had done a good job with the Mac viewer despite the difficulty working with Apple. “We have access to crash rates,” Rosedale said. “Crash rates on the Mac are the same as on the PC. Frame rates too.”
Linden Lab and OpenSim developers shared the stage at an SLCC panel called “Open Software For Open Worlds,” and said there was nothing in the works to support spending Linden dollars anywhere but on the Second Life Grid.
During Q&A, Mike Lorrey (Second Life: Intlibber Brautigan) told the panelists he thought Second Life’s “killer app” was money — Linden’s own virtual currency and residents’ ability to start a Second Life business and turn a profit.
Could the Linden Dollar ever come to OpenSim worlds? Linden’s director of open source development Rob Lanphier said he had no idea how to make that work.
“We’re not going to pretend we know how to export that in a way that protects Second Life’s economy,” Lanphier said. “I can’t project a timeline.”
Leading OpenSim developer Adam Frisby disagreed with Lorrey on the importance of virtual currency to the Second Life experience.
“Money doesn’t belong in the core [OpenSim] product build,” Frisby said. “Better to ask again in six or nine months.”
So what has Second Life founder Philip Rosedale been up to since handing over control of Linden Lab to new CEO Mark Kingdon four months ago?
Hanging out, mostly. “I’ve had a really relaxing summer,” a broadly smiling Rosedale told Reuters.
Rosedale had just come out of the morning breakfast at the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, where he praised Kingdon’s leadership of the company he started. But Rosedale was quick to add he wasn’t done with Second Life or Linden Lab. These days, he’s concentrating on two projects: Working on improving Second Life’s user interface, and efforts to spread Second Life technology to developing nations.
But Second Life fans shouldn’t expect interface problems to be solved soon. “Look at Lively or Vivaty, they’re dealing with the same thing. This is a hard problem,” Rosedale said. “If there was a trivial solution, we would have done it already.”
SECOND LIFE, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Second Life users who frequently access the Internet from consumer-grade computers and laptops are about to find keeping touch with other avatars a lot easier.
Yesterday Linden Lab announced the launch of “SLim,” pronounced “slim,” an instant-messaging client that allows users to communicate with users inside Linden’s virtual world without running Second Life.
“When you’re running a system that doesn’t have a 3D card, SLim allows you to take your friends list with you,” said Linden VP Joe Miller. “Visually it looks a lot like other IM apps.”
Second Life only runs well on high-end gaming machines. On many computers, particularly laptops, the Second Life viewer software runs so slowly even typing can be difficult. Miller said SLim was designed to tackle that problem.
The software will tie to an avatar’s friends list of contacts, and users inside Second Life will be able to see who’s on SLim but not in 3D virtual space.
In addition to sending text messages in and out of Second Life (or to other SLim users) like AOL’s AIM or Google’s Gtalk, the SLim client will support voice-over-IP calls in a manner similar to eBay’s Skype.
One notable feature of SLim will be support for VoIP voicemail. Users who register for the service will be able to set up a voicemail greeting and accept VoIP messages of up to five minutes in length while offline, Miller said. Linden’s servers will email the voice message to its recipient as an MP3 file.
Miller said the service is expected to debut in a “First Look” version of the Second Life client software next week. Participation in SLim and voicemail will be on an opt-in basis, and users can set the destination email address for voicemail to a different address than the payment contact for their secondlife.com account.
The service will be available on all platforms which support Second Life, including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux environments.
SECOND LIFE, Sept 3 (Reuters) - IBM, a company long at the forefront of exploring the business applications of virtual worlds, announced on Wednesday it has added support for 3D chat to its Lotus Sametime instant messaging software.
Users of “Sametime 3D” who are collaborating on a business document will be able to meet in a variety of virtual worlds, with IBM’s software handling the logins transparently, said Neil Katz, a company spokesman who worked on the project. Platforms supported by IBM include OpenSim, SecondLife, Forterra, and ActiveWorlds.
Katz said IBM will initially be working with select customers to test the new software’s capabilities, before rolling it out to the mainstream.
IBM foresees uses for corporate 3D chat such as walking customers through the replacement of a computer part by rezzing a 3D model. The Sametime 3D integration also smooths the process of importing data from an application such as Powerpoint into a virtual world.
While reliability issues have plagued virtual worlds such as Second Life, corporate applications may be made to run in a more stable manner, particularly using OpenSim.
“We’re creating a room with 20 or 30 users, we’re not building a persistent virtual world with thousands or hundreds of thousands of concurrent users,” he said.
SECOND LIFE, August 26 (Reuters) - The real-world economy may be slipping into recession, but the global slowdown isn’t impacting Second Life. According to recently released company statistics, Linden Lab’s in-world economy is larger than ever.
Over 61,000 avatars earned more Linden dollars (Second Life’s in-world currency) in July than they spent. That’s a 5.7 percent month-to-month gain in the number of profitable in-world businesses and the most on record.
User hours grew for the fourth consecutive month to 34.7 million in July, also a new record. However, the user hours number may be unreliable given the proliferation of computer-run avatars, or “bots,” throughout the Grid.
Economic activity grew briskly. Over US$9.5 million was traded on the LindeX, a 5.5 percent gain from June and a new record. User-to-user transactions in July stood at L$8.4 billion (about US$31.3 million), a 7.3 percent gain from June and the most currency transactions since the gambling ban in July of last year.
The sole dark spot for Second Life was the continuing decline in premium accounts. Linden shed an additional 1,410 premiums in July — over 45 a day and the seventh consecutive month premiums declined.
The principal benefit of a premium account is land-ownership privileges on Second Life’s mainland, where avatars have neighbors and enjoy a sense of community. Linden Lab has been unable to grow the mainland for three months due to weak demand, but private islands have grown to occupy 1.7 billion square meters, an 8.7 percent gain from June.
In recent months Linden Lab has announced a series of beautification and zoning initiatives in an attempt to restore user interest in the mainland.
SECOND LIFE, August 21 (Reuters) - Browser-based virtual world Vivaty, currently accessible through Facebook and AOL Instant Messenger will be embeddable by users on blogs and pages throughout the Web within the next two months, CEO Keith McCurdy said this week.
McCurdy also said Vivaty is internally testing the technology on the Firefox web browser, and expects to announce official support for Mozilla’s browser “in the next few weeks.” Presently Vivaty only runs within the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser on Windows.
There’s no timetable at present to extend support for Vivaty to the Macintosh, he said.
While every virtual world is scrambling for users and attention, the competition closest to Vivaty may be Lively by Google. Like Vivaty, Lively is a browser-based virtual world embedded in IE. Vivaty and Lively launched on the same day.
McCurdy said Google’s presence only validates Vivaty’s idea. “Before we launched, people asked: Why be in the browser?” he said. “After Google launched — or echo-launched — we get almost none of those questions.”
“Their product looks very different. They have a cartoon look, we have more of a Sims look,” he said.
Vivaty’s goal is to allow avatars to create a virtual space that ties into the rest of their web presence. Already users can hang a virtual picture frame on their wall, and have it display images from a Flickr account. Tighter integration between Vivaty and Facebook (already a partner) and Twitter are all in the works.
“People will have a lot more ability to pull stuff in from the rest of the Internet,” he said. “Brands love that.”
Coke Zero and Target are early Vivaty branding partners. “Second Life has brands coming into Second Life, but then they’re locked in,” McCurdy said. “We turned that inside out.”
Embedding a Vivaty scene on a corporate web site is more attractive to advertisers, he said.
Further expansion of Vivaty Create, a user-generated content tool, is planned. McCurdy doesn’t expect problems with pornography or griefing. “We’ll have people who will check content, and you’ll have the community check content,” he said.
But while McCurdy wants to further open up his virtual world to outside developers and add more avatar customization, he doesn’t see that as Vivaty’s draw.
“We’re not trying to be a 3D modeling program,” he said. “We’re erring on the side of simple, easy-to-use, and mass-market.”
The newest destination for talent scouts looking to sign fresh acts is Second Life.
Boutique label Reality Entertainment has signed popular Second Life musician Von Johin to a record deal. Wagner James Au runs a lengthy interview with Johin, who performs weekly shows in the virtual world.
For the most part, however, he no longer has any interest playing live in person. “This is more fun,” he says, referring to his virtual stage. “No gas costs, no travel, worldwide audience, exciting new people, no smoke, no drunks on the road, no hassles.”
But what does “sign a record deal” really mean in 2008? The Metaverse Journal takes a contrarian approach to the news: “Any individual can now publish their music worldwide on iTunes using services like TuneCore for the princely sum of US $9.99 per year.”
Regardless, any deal can only be seen as encouraging news for Second Life’s burgeoning music scene.
In This Issue: SLCC 2007 and Het-Grid | Civic Center: Casinos Away | Name Dropping: Robbie Dingo | As We See It: New Features vs. Bug Fixing: A defense of features | Your Letters: SL Voice: Another Valuable Choice | Developer Focus: Real Estate in Second Life: Coldwell Banker Enters the Market | Teen Grid: Interview with Katharine Berry | Tips & Tricks: Don't Miss the Active Speakers Window | Fab Five: Outstanding EDU Spots | Best Bets: Romantic Spots
In This Issue: Virtual Fundraiser | Name Dropping: Second Life Birthday Volunteers | As We See It: SL Voice - Another Valuable Choice | Your Letters: Missed Opportunities | Teen Grid: Second Life Best Practices in Education | Tips & Tricks: The Public Issue Tracker | Fab Five: Sculpted Prim Contest Winenrs | Best Bets: Nashville's Blurbird Cafe & The Avastar!
In This Issue: Second Life Turns 4! | Civic Center: Local Governance Control to the Grid | Name Dropping: Thanks are in Order | As We See It: Missed Opportunities | Your Letters: Education in Different Forms | Developer Focus: Second Life: Sitting High on Capitol Hill | Teen Grid: Teen Grid gets a remake | Tips & Tricks | Fab Five: Five Outstanding Environments | Best Bets: Live Music Venues!
In This Issue Radio Linden Is Being Replaced With Podcasts! | Civic Center: If It Sounds Too Good To Be True | Name Dropping: Thanks are in Order | As We See It: Education Is An Essential Part Of The Second Life Experience | Your Letters: Lindens Need Parties Too | Developer Focus: Dublin: Creating Community One Pint at a Time | Teen Grid: Eye4You Alliance | Tips & Tricks: Knowledgebase | Fab Five: Role Playing Games | Best Bets: Voice in Second Life: Beta Test Opens!
In This Issue SECOND LIFE GOES OPEN SOURCE! | Better World: Never Underestimate the Value of a Virtual Yak | Civic Center: The DMCA and YOU | Name Dropping: Thanks are in Order | As We See It: Linden Presence in Second Life | Your Letters: Diversity and an Open Community | Developer Focus: Cybraries: More than Just an Online Library | Teen Grid: Private Islands: Teen Grid Style | Tips & Tricks: Knowledgebase
In This Issue --> The Winter Festival: Join Us In Celebration | The Teen Grid: Campus Visit | Name Dropping: Teaching Others | Developer Focus: Infinite Expression | Civic Center: Bigger and Better | Tips and Tricks: Torley's Video Tips - Take Two | As We See It: Diversity and an Open Community | Your Letters: Growing the Community
In This Issue --> End Real World Hunger in SL? Help the UN | Virtual News: Now Read This! | The Teen Grid: Checking In | Name Dropping: Welcoming New Friends | Developer Focus: Need Advice? | Police Blotter: Renewing Customer Support | Tips and Tricks: Advanced Snapshot Magic | Editorial: Growing the Community | Your Letters: Serendipity in Disaster
In This Issue --> Burning Life: Burn Baby Burn | Global: We're Going International | Teen Grid: Claudia's Tour, Part Two | Name Dropping: Beyond Helpful | Developer Focus: Goin' Fishin' | Police Blotter: Alt Accounts and Griefing | Tips and Tricks: Account Security | Editorial: Serendipity in Disaster | Your Letters: Blog Your Way to the Future
In This Issue --> Second Life Movie Trailer Contest Winner: Second Life - Get One | Developer Resources: Learn How to be a Developer Superstar | Teen Grid: What Ming Chen did on his Summer Vacation | Name Dropping: Superstar Groups | Developer Focus: Architecture and Second Life | Police Blotter: Disclosure!! | Tips and Tricks: Lateral Features for Better Second Living | Editorial: Blog the Way | Your Letters: Open Channels
In This Issue --> Trailer Contest: Call for Entries | Spreading Hope: Second Annual Relay for Life | Teen Grid: Teen Grid Fly-Over | Name Dropping: Thanks are in Order | Developer Focus: Coming Soon - Second Life Developer University | Police Blotter: Disturbing the Peace | Tips and Tricks: Taking Snapshots | Editorial: Welcome to the Free Press | Your Letters: How Much Growth is Enough?
In This Issue --> Second Life Community Convention: Register Now! | Call for Entries: Submit Your Art | Teen Grid: Making Learning Fun | Name Dropping: Helping Residents Find Their Niche | Developer Focus: American Apparel Breaks New Ground | Police Blotter: Assault | Tips and Tricks: Creating Machinima | Editorial: How Much Growth is Enough? | Your Letters: Open Channels
In This Issue --> Radio Linden: Its Live | Teen Grid: Earning Money | Name Dropping: Who Let the Dogs Out? | Police Blotter: Indecency | Editorial: The Evolution of a Self-Sustaining Economy | Your Letters: Linden Subsidies
In This Issue --> Teen Grid: First Anniversary | Developer Focus: Marvin the Robot Comes to Life | Name Dropping: Stroke Support, Helping Partners | Police Blotter: Intolerance | Editorial: Linden Subsidies | Your Letters: Bush Signs in SL
In This Issue --> The Second Opinion Gets a Facelift | Getting Creative: Study The Artistic Promise of Digital Life | Name Dropping: Do Unto Others | Police Blotter: Getting Terminated | Developer Focus: Attach a HUD | Editorial: A Sign of the Times
In This Issue --> FREE Account Giveaway | In-world Video Simulcast on Second Life Website | Cory Doctorow Book Signing | SL in the Press | New World Notes
In This Issue --> Coming Soon: Mozilla-powered web browsing in Second Life | Hair to Share: Big hair and big hair discounts | Breaking into the Game Industry with Second Life | SL in the Press | New World Notes
In This Issue --> Private Detectives Come to Second Life! | Numbakulla Adventure Game | Developers Corner: Export Poser Animations | SL in the Press | New World Notes
In This Issue --> Resident Profile: Chip Midnight, Master of Skins | Snapzilla Conquers Second Life! | Movie Magic - Stream Quicktime Movies into Second Life | GDC: Post-Party Report | SL in the Press | New World Notes
In This Issue --> Fall Fashion | For Sale! | Bush vs. Kerry | Philip Linden's Blog | New World Notes
11-9-6
This is going to be my journal of my doings in Second Life®. If you don't know Second Life is a virtual world, technically a MMORPG (Massively Multi-user Online Role Playing Game). I've heard stories of people quitting their real job and just surviving on the money they make in Second Life®. Now that's something that gets my attention. Not that I want to quit my job, but I like making money. I think there has to be a way to make some money off this site since so many other people are doing it. If Scion has a car dealership in this world, selling 3d models of their cars and Lexus is considering it, then I have to think that there can be some money made here. My plan is to create some 3d applications and sell them through a kiosk based store. So I never have to be there and as long as I make more money than my monthly charge, I'm in the gravy.
So I created my character yesterday and of course I had to give him a mohawk. You can really chose every aspect of the character to customize, from the angle of the eyebrows to the amount of wrinkles in their pants. There are a lot of people selling virtual clothes and people offering to make the avatars (that's the character that represents you on the screen) look just like you or anything else you like. I've also heard that there are people that are walking around looking like a T-Rex but I haven't seen that yet. I have seen elephants for sale here. I don't know what I'd do with it but I'm thinking about it because it sounds pretty cool.
So I'm thinking of all the ways that I can make money in this virtual world and I've got a few good ones. I was amazed at all the porn related shops that there are, so I don't want to milk a dead cow so I'm not going down that road, but I did have to investigate it and people are actually paying for sex in this game. Not for real world sex but for cyber sex with 3d characters. I couldn't believe it when I stumbled across a section of town that was filled with escorts! So I had to check it out. I wasn't looking to have cybersex so I was able to talk her down to 100L (1 cent US) to have her play the lapdance animations and the blowjob animations.
