New World Notes

Seven Things To Know About Second Life From Last Week...

1. Linden Lab worth $658-700 Million, says research firm.
2. Drew Carey, TV star, acclaimed comedian -- patron of Second Life steampunk.
3. Second Life is what Twitter isn't: Unique, sticky, profitable.
4. The singularity comes to SLCC! (I.E., Ray Kurzweil to keynote at the Second Life Community Convention.)
5. Second Life's sixth birthday event was sparsely attended; NWN readers (including Dusty Linden) try to explain why.
6. A squat green alien, a moral panic, and several misunderstandings collide together on a virtual nude beach.
7. Australian avatars, relax: no known government plans to censor SL anytime soon.

NWN in Japanese:Other World Notes: Blue Mars とユーザーが生み出すコンテンツ

〈オリジナル英文記事〉最近の記事で、ニューワールドノート読者の何人かが、ユーザーのコンテンツ製作を認めている新仮想世界BlueMarsに対して懐疑的な意見を示していた。会社のVPであるJim SinkはSLを会場としたMetanomics showにゲストとして出演し、そこで彼が何を語ったかがここに記されている。

Continue reading "NWN in Japanese:Other World Notes: Blue Mars とユーザーが生み出すコンテンツ"

Open Forum: What July 4th Weekend Second Life Events Are You Attending?

What SL events will you be participating in this weekend, and when/where will they kick off? (For some ideas, Ms. Chestnut Rau has a great guide of upcoming SL events here.) Please post the details here, for possible highlighting in an update. Bonus if it's Independence Day related!

Koinup Photography Contest: Portraits of Virtual Water

Here's a fun photography contest for the Summer, sponsored by NWN partner Koinup: The H20 Contest. Take photographs on any Second Life sim, as long as it reflects the contest theme of water or H2O. Top three entrants split a L$18,000 purse, and get the chance to showcase their works at the Museum of SL Photography and the Orange Island Photo Gallery. Deadline is July 10 -- here's all the details for submitting an entry.

Tonight: Adult Content Community Celebrates "Zindrapendence Day"

Tonight at 9pm SLT, to celebrate their independence from the rest of SL, the Zindra Alliance, a community affiliated with Second Life's new Adult-rated content "Amsterdam continent" are having a "Zindrapendence Day" party. In fact, Alliance co-founder Jago Constantine tells me, "The theme is Banned On The Mainland, so come in something you couldn't wear to SL6B (remember that naked is not a costume!)" Give them your tired (of getting Community Standards penalties), your huddled masses yearning to breathe free (in public orgy rooms), they lift their [censored] besides the golden door, or something. Direct SLurl teleport at this link.

The Secret Treasure of SLsecret

Inspired by Post Secret and published every weekend, the SLsecret series compiled by Iris Seale of Shopping Cart Disco is a well-known guilty pleasure for many, a car crash smorgasbord of interpersonal drama, rancor, accusation, betrayal, and schadenfreude.

The real secret behind SLsecret, however, is why I still keep reading it: every now and again, you'll read a secret like this one -- perhaps from a chemotherapy patient, recently introduced to customized virtual hair? -- and discover, beneath the surface tension, the genuine and the profoundly moving undercurrent of Second Life. Image credit: SCD.

Suffering From SL Drama? Take It Out On a Drama Doll!

Suffering from some form of Second Life drama? Who isn't? Honour McMillan has just thing for you: Second Life Drama Dolls, which you can name after your favorite avatar antagonist. NWN Events writer Chestnut Rau has a full review: "The dolls are scripted to listen to you and then they apologize in really funny ways before setting themselves on fire, waving goodbye to you and disappearing," she tells me. Possible drawback: when they find out about it, the object of your doll derision may feel even more inflamed. So to speak.

Why Was SL6B So Sparsely Attended?

Daniel Voyager documented some interesting visitor stats relayed by Philip Linden during his closing speech at SL6B, Second Life's massive, official birthday celebration: "Over 17,712+ visitors have visited the SL6B regions since the gates opened on 23rd of June 2009. Since opening there have been over 23,662+ hours spent by Residents exploring the SL6B regions." That's quite an impressive number-- except when it's compared with the number of Residents who logged into the world over the last seven days: 580,094. So if my math is right, of all the half million-plus Residents who went in-world, only about 3% attended the official birthday, and those who did only stayed for just over an hour each. I'm genuinely perplexed. Was there an excess of sim downtimes in the regions? Did the hundreds of Resident-made SL6B installations (many very great) overwhelm potential visitors? Or still worse a possibility, is it just the case that vanishingly few active Residents consider themselves part of a broader world worth celebrating? Image via Nika Dreamscape's SL6B reporting.

Update, 6:25pm: Veritas Raymaker has some interesting thoughts from a SL6B participant's perspective, including: "If you think about it properly, the future of virtual worlds [this year's theme] will actually be likely transparently integrated into everyday life, much like the telephone and television are today. How does one then express this self-same transparency, by making it explicit in one's exhibit? There is a very big paradox here."

What Do You Do With Your Second Life Community, When You Need To Leave SL?

Yesterday, longtime SL blogger Mygdala March announced she needed to take an indefinite hiatus from Second Life for a very important reason.

Actually, for two of them.

And though she plans to return after her babies are older, this respite means asking her "digital companions" (as she calls them) to accept her change in focus:

Some of you aren’t interested in my life outside of Second Life, and hey, that’s alright too. I totally understand that. This started out as a Second Life blog, and I do intend to keep it that way. But unlike real life, or first life, or whatever you like to call it, my Second Life can wait a little while.

Instead, she recommends SL friends stay in touch with her via Plurk and Twitter. If you've been in a similar situation, having to leave Second Life for awhile (or permanently), what did you do with your network of beloved avatars? Did you leave them all without any advance notice, keep in contact with every one of them, or something in between?

Drew Carey Blogs In Praise of Second Life Steampunk

Friday on New World Notes is devoted to SL Bloggers, and recent posts from the metaverse blogosphere. Today that means a long review in praise of Pandora Wigglesworth, the brilliant creator who's made everything from a Clockwork Brain to a Propeller Mouth. The computer geek into Second Life steampunk? Why, Drew Carey, beloved comedian and TV celebrity, who also hosted Reason TV's visit to Second Life last year. "I have a friend who thinks being on Second Life makes me somehow less of a man because all I do is shop and look for cool places like [Wigglesworth's] Curio Obscura," Carey writes. "He plays World Of Warcraft. As he said to me in an email, 'I go on quests and kill monsters all day. What do you do, change your shirt?' Ooooh. Good burn."

I found Carey's post via Charlanna Beresford, who uses it to wonder what it must be like to be a real world celebrity in Second Life: "I don’t think anyone would dispute that celebrities should be entitled to their privacy in-world. But think about it for a moment, to maintain privacy a celebrity might need to recast things about his/her first life identity." In other words, to maintain a successful Second Life, the celebrity must hide or even disguise their first life. (Unsurprisingly, Drew Carey doesn't seem to mention the name of his SL avatar.)

Chestnut's Choices 7/2 - 7/8: Particpate in Brooklyn is Watching Fest, Make Exploding July 4th Cakes, Attend St. Leo's Reziversary Party and much more

Chestnut Rau’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events…

One of my very favorite art projects in SL is Brooklyn is Watching (BIW), which consists of a series of related spaces for artists, audiences, and participants.  There is land in SL where artists are invited to leave work for one week and an alcove in the Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery in Brooklyn where the sim can be viewed. There are online discussion forums, a blog, and weekly podcasts. 

Beginning July 7th BIW will celebrate the Best of Brooklyn is Watching Year 1 Festival.  There will be artist talks, panel discussions and exhibitions of works that have been shown at BIW over the past year. Thirty of the best works were chosen via an open nomination process and they will be displayed through August 23rd.  Visitors can vote for the winner of the "People's Choice Award."  Please read more about the Best of Brooklyn is Watching Year 1 Festival at the BIW blog. Go on over to the sim, be amazed by the art and vote for your favorite!   In Popcha.  [SLurl teleport at this link]

NOTE: I will be on vacation without reliable access to the internet for the next two weeks.  Look forward to the return of Chestnut's Choices on July 30th.

Also after the break: Listen to new SL bluesman Mance Moonwall, Participate in SL's Iconic Snail Races, Catch Grace McDunnough's Musimmersion, Attend Art Openings for Monroe Snook, Feathers Boa, Layachi Ihnen and much much more...

Continue reading "Chestnut's Choices 7/2 - 7/8: Particpate in Brooklyn is Watching Fest, Make Exploding July 4th Cakes, Attend St. Leo's Reziversary Party and much more"

Linden Lab Worth $658-700 Million, 2009 Revenues Forecast at $100 Million - Analyst

Six years after the launch of Second Life and two years after reporting profitability from it, how much is Linden Lab worth? How does somewhere between $658-700 million sound to you? That's the opinion of NeXtUp Research, an analyst firm which recently published an extensive report on behalf of SharesPost, a new startup that handles the buying and selling of shares to a number of privately-held, pre-IPO companies. One of those companies is Linden Lab (here's their Linden page), and right now, SharesPost is listing 22 potential Linden share sellers -- and 35 potential buyers. (This after recent news that another firm had purchased Linden shares from an original investor.)

You can download the full NeXt Up report on Linden Lab from the SharesPost site after creating a free account. For a company analysis, it actually makes for interesting reading. (Even the Tea Crate Rebellion and the War of the Jessie Wall rate a mention in the company history section.) More salient to Internet business watchers, however, is the analyst's estimate of Linden's revenue and profit, with the former forecast to hit $150 million in 2011, and profit (i.e. "Net Income") to reach $35 million that same year. (See chart above.) NeXtUp uses these numbers and related virtual world business sales (such as Disney's purchase of Club Penguin for $350 million) to arrive at that half billion-plus valuation figure.

But is all this accurate?

Continue reading "Linden Lab Worth $658-700 Million, 2009 Revenues Forecast at $100 Million - Analyst"

Open Forum: How Do You Integrate Your Second Life With Your Offline Life?

NWN reader "Adam" has been part of Second Life since 2003, but recently, his real life wife, who hates SL, "accused me of spending to much time in this virtual world," he wrote in an earlier Comment thread. "I'd like to see a discussion on how to integrate one's real life with Second Life and help other family members understand what Second Life is and can do." How do you achieve that balance, and integrate your virtual community with your offline relations, especially among the people you love who may not understand?

Koinup's Most Popular Second Life Sims Last Week

Koinup: Your Virtual Life

Last week, members of the virtual world social network (and NWN partner) Koinup visited these sims in Second Life, maybe you should too:

1. Drowsy
2. Wretched Hollow
3. Mosh
4. Evil Grins
5. Acropoli(Depicted above)

The most photographed sims last week were the SL6B Portal, TEKKON, Ziost, and PEUGEOT. What sims are you most beguiled by?

Ray Kurzweil to Keynote This Year's SLCC

Here is extraordinary and transformational news: I just got word that Ray Kurzweil, the legendary inventor and futurist, will keynote this year's Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco, speaking on the benefits of virtual environments and virtual reality. "I think Ray Kurzweil’s speech will change the tone of this year's convention compared to previous ones," SLCC director Nexeus Fatale tells me, which is an epic understatement. Among the world's greatest technologists, Kurzweil has often spoken about Second Life in relation to the future of human society, in ways that stretch far beyond how we currently experience it. Here's a sample:

Generally SLCC is keynoted by one or more top Lindens; but this year, Mr. Fatale tells me, "we expressed an additional desire for speakers who could help drive a larger message concerning virtual worlds, and the sort of impacts Second Life has within this growing space. In our search, Kurzeil’s presentation on the next phase of virtual reality birthed the idea of securing him as a keynote speaker." It's a tremendous credit to Nexeus that he succeeded there.

Kurzwei's SLCC keynote happens on Friday, August 14th at 9am PDT, and will also be broadcast in-world. Go here for more details on the conference, including registration and logistics.

New World Newsfeed: No Known Australian Government Plans To Censor Second Life, Says Linden Lab

I've been deeply skeptical over recent rumors and half-coherent speculations that the Australian government plans to imminently ban Second Life from that country. After just receiving word from a Linden Lab spokesperson, I'm inclined to permanently file it in the nonsense bin:

"Linden Lab has received no indications from the Australian government that it plans to block Second Life and will keep our community apprised of any developments on that front," the Linden message reads. "In the meantime, we want to assure Australian Residents that Second Life remains accessible and functioning in your region."

This is not all that surprising: there's a number of Australian organizations, including several universities, with an official presence in Second Life, there's been several SL-based fundraisers to benefit various Australian non-profit causes (like this one), and coming soon, a feature film starring several of Australia's top actors which depicts Second Life in a positive/neutral manner, all helping to make it unlikely Second Life would thoughtlessly get classified without any further debate as a mere video game to be regulated under the country's existing laws. What is surprising (and disappointing) is how quickly and how far this rumor has spread already.

Image credit: Roadshow Films, from the upcoming Beautiful Kate, dialog embellished by Hamlet.

* Roughly translated (according to this Australian slang dictionary): "I am quite surprised to learn the information about Second Life censorship is cursed nonsense."

Alien Behavior: How Moral Panic Over Second Life Policies Confuse the Unitiated

Here's a fascinating example of user behavior, virtual world management policy, and moral panic all colliding together in an amusing if somewhat irksome way. Back in 2007, after some widely publicized cases of simulated pedophilia (or what's sometimes called "age play") were discovered in Second Life, the Lindens issued a policy forbidding the behavior (even among consenting adults), with a threat to ban violators from SL. While applauded by most of the community, this policy has also caused numerous landowners to employ draconian measures to prevent any perception that age play is tolerated on their property. This often means ejecting from their land not just sexual ageplayers from their property, but avatars who even seem underage, for totally non-erotic reasons -- women in "Gothic Lolita" fashion, for example, or adult Residents seeking to recapture an innocent childhood through roleplay. Or as we saw last weekend, even avatars under 4'9", spotted and then chased off a nude beach -- even if they happen to be squat green aliens without genitals. (See screenshot.)

Normally, long-time SLers would read about this instance of misapplied Community Standards policing with tickled annoyance, or affectionate frustration, or maybe both. But the thing is, last weekend the above screenshot wound up on the front page of Digg.com with 2500+ votes. (Which in my experience, roughly translates into several hundred thousand page views, if not more.) Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming reaction there, from readers who know nothing of this backstory, is confusion and contempt. And in this way, moral panic over a totally reasonable policy has led nearly half a million people to conclude Second Life is rampant with green alien discrimination. (And all the strangeness that seems to suggest.) Image source.

Open Forum: What Topics Do You Want To Talk About This Week?

This week, I want to experiment with posting an Open Forum thread every day, as a way of building up the NWN reader community, and our collective awareness of Second Life, OpenSim, and other immersive virtual worlds. With that in mind, what specific topics in those broad categories are you most passionate about discussing? (Making this, yes, an open forum on open forums.)

The Hidden Armies of Second Life

By one estimate from a leading member, roleplayers in the various Second Life military clans range in the several thousands, and count a couple dozen affiliations. (Some allied, others at a tentative truce, but many in fierce blood feuds.) Despite those relatively low numbers, the high attention to detail and the culture that's evolved around it is deep, detailed, and passionate. Via Nexii Malthus, here's a well-produced machinima from MJ Katsu that depicts one the leading militaries, Ordo Imperialis. Also: looks a bit like something Leni Riefenstahl would make, if the Axis was largely comprised of furries.

Second Life Tut Moves to OpenSim

After launching last April in Second Life, where it was acclaimed by educators, NWN partner Rezzable is moving their King Tut virtual exhibit to OpenSimulator, where it's being re-launched with new features. To access it, you need to create an account on Heritage Key, Rezzable's new Web 2.0-powered ancient history portal. (The specific OpenSim viewer they're using is Imprudence.) "I guess this will be one of the first major projects to target the general public using OpenSim," Rezzable CEO RightAsRain Rimbaud muses. I believe that's the case, too. Will be interesting to watch how it develops as an immersive metaverse experience wholly separate from Second Life. See for yourself by going here.

Second Life Is What Twitter Isn't: Unique, Sticky, Profitable

"Twitter is what Second Life wasn't," marketer Chris Abraham argued recently in Advertising Age, seeking to quell anxiety that the current media hype about Twitter means that it's inevitably destined to suffer the backlash Second Life did in 2007. Unlike Twitter, Abraham notes, Second Life is not "light, cheap, and open". That is, it requires a large client install, has relatively demanding hardware/broadband specs, and isn't readily interoperable between the web and most other applications.

Those are all valid points, but Anderson's assessment greatly misunderstands Second Life overall -- and in doing so, understates the potential pitfalls Twitter faces now in at least three ways:

Continue reading "Second Life Is What Twitter Isn't: Unique, Sticky, Profitable"

Top Five Things To Know About SL/OpenSim From Last Week

Rumors of Australian censorship of Second Life have been greatly exaggerated. Supporters (and relatives) of Iran's dissenters gather in SL and create an embodied version of their Internet support community. OpenSim adds a social network. Meanwhile, the Portuguese Presidency sets up in SL, while on the other end of the Portuguese-speaking world, Brazil loses a major SL portal. Also: セカンドライフのイラン人住民が抗議デモ中にSLから消えた

Open Forum: What's the Coolest Second Life Content You've Seen Lately?

An item, a place, an event, a game, a performance, anything Second Life-related: what's the Second Life content that's thrilled and impressed you most lately? Or as ArminasX Saiman calls it, the in-world wonder that causes a "Reset" click, reviving your excitement for being in-world?

Weekend Machinima: Tribe Islands' Endless Summer

Tribe Islands - A Thriving Second Live Community from Drift on Vimeo

Here's some fun and facile machinima viewing for the Summer: created by Ariella Languish, it's a tribute to the community of Tribe Islands (Kai Island, Cougar Caye, and Cape Shore), and the tropical paradise fun they've created there. Even if the beer commercial-esque visuals aren't necessarily to your taste, you'll admire Ms. Languish's great editing and inventive camerawork. Hat tip: Epredator.

Koinup Has Group Hosting SL6B Content/Recommendations

If you're looking for more a place to upload and view screenshots and video from Second Life's Six Birthday installations, virtual world social network Koinup (an NWN partner) has a group devoted to exactly that.

With 133+ works already there, it's also a good resource for finding SL6B content you might have missed otherwise: just scroll through a display of SL6B works, filtered according to the best-rated, and click the SLurl beneath the image.

Koinup also has a SL6B site of its own, by the way, showing off photos of the winners in their latest avatar beauty contest. [Direct SLurl telport at this link{.

NWN in Japanese : セカンドライフのイラン人住民が抗議デモ中にSLから消えた

＜オリジナル英文記事＞先週イランで勃発した大統領選に強く異議を唱える抗議活動が広まった時、私は、イランに住んでいるセカンドライフ住民を探した。昨年リンデンが出版した（上の）人口統計によれば、昨年の時点で100人を超える人がセカンドライフに定期的にログインしていた。その数は、今年はもっと増えていると思われるイランやペルシャを専門とするセカンドライフのグループは（下のように）沢山あり、その中でもメンバーが500人を超える最も大きい２つのグループ両方に登録し、グループIMで何度かむなしく「Hello？」というメッセージを繰り返してみたが、ほとんど何の反応も返ってこなかった。（最後に、一人のイラン人メンバーが答えてくれたが、海外に住んでいる人だった）

Continue reading "NWN in Japanese : セカンドライフのイラン人住民が抗議デモ中にSLから消えた"

Peter Stindberg's Second Life Dashboard Link

Want to check out the new Second Life dashboard, the social network-esque web tools the Lindens recently announced? It's in limited invite beta, but Peter Stindberg found a workaround link that will take you to your dashboard page (at least for now.) I just used it to log into my Hamlet Au dashboard page, and it's a pretty impressive start -- events, group info, blog feeds, friend activity, etc. all on a single page. Add a group chat function and a feed into Twitter and Plurk, and we'd really start to see something hugely useful.

Spread This SL Blogger Meme: Who Inspired Your Avatar?

What do Derek Jacobi, Lara Croft, Phileas Fogg, Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren, Diana Rigg, Dorothy Dandridge, Linda Carter, and Diana Rigg have in common? Those real and fictional personages inspired the avatars of these several Second Life Residents. "Who inspired your avatar?" is a meme started by aviatrix Ms. Zoe Connolly (pictured), and I'd love to see more Second Life bloggers join in; always fascinating to read how an avatar identity evolved. It's also a window into the real life person behind the avatar. Given that Racquel Welch and Sophia Loren haven't been well known since the 60s and 70s, for example, can you make an educated guess at the age and gender of the people who chose them as reference points? (Image source.)

Nika Dreamscape Explores SL6B To Find Great Sites For You

Looking for great SL6B sites to visit? There's over 300 installations celebrating Second Life's sixth birthday, which is more than enough to prove the community's user-created content aspect remains strong, but as is often the case, also enough to totally overwhelm. NWN readers recommended several sites, and fortunately Nika Dreamscape is also doing excellent advance scouting through SL6B, documenting noteworthy installations with descriptions and photos. Here's her look at the Polaris installations; here's her tour through Cyro. (Above: Nika's pic of Nebula West by whyroc Slade: direct SLurl teleport at this link.)

Remembering Michael Jackson With Machinima

DJ Doubledown Tandino found two Second Life machinima tributes to the late and legendary Michael Jackson. The first video shows a lot of love but perhaps much less polish. The second machinima, recreating the zombie-fied dance moves from Jackson's "Thriller" video, is a popular classic and it takes me back; it's the winning entry in a very early Linden contest (2004 I'm fairly sure) to show off the new customized avatar animation feature that had recently been introduced. I'm sure there are other such machinima tribute videos, or will be soon. If you know of any, please link away in Comments.

New World Newsfeed: Rumors of Australian Second Life Censorship Seem Way Too Rumorish To Believe (For Now)

Over the last 24 hours I've been peppered with links as here and here which seem to suggest the Australian government is imminently planning to block access to Second Life from that country. It has to do with a recent Aussie Communication Ministry proposal to filter the online distribution of computer games not rated acceptable for teen play. I'm far from an expert on Australian jurisprudence, but near as I can tell, any relation with this news to Second Life is highly tenuous and conjectural at best. Reading this editorial, "Confirmed: Second Life, online adult games to be banned outright in Australia" from a pop culture site called The Inquisitr, some have assumed the worst. Thing is, nothing in the editorial actually confirms anything of the kind, and the very second sentence compares the government administrator involved to Joseph Goebbels, which is such a ham-fisted violation of Godwin's Law, the only thing it really confirms is the author's own penchant for dubious hyperbole. The Syndey Morning Herald has a slightly more informative take, but again, all we have there is "an ISP engineer and internet filtering critic" speculating that the new regulation may "place a cloud" over online worlds like Second Life. (Not a ban, do note, just a state of regulatory limbo.)

I'm checking with some sources to see if there's any actual substance connecting these numerous leaps of logic. For now, though, it's likely there are several layers of parliamentary, buereaucratic, and technical implementation before any of this impacts Australian access to Second Life (if it ever does.) So until that happens, perhaps all this free-floating anxiety could be better spent elsewhere? Say, lobbying the Australian government to generally improve its tech policies?

Chestnut's Choices 6/25 - 7/1: Experience Grace McDunnough's Musimmersion, Celebrate SL's 6th Birthday, Meet a Guide Dog for Blind SLers and much more...

Chestnut Rau’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events…

By now most every one has heard about the Second Life 6th Birthday party which spans 20 regions and celebrates "The Future of Virtual Worlds."   SL6B is enormous and the sheer number of events is overwhelming.  There is live music spanning every genre from folk and indie to marching bands.  You can find talks and presentations on everything from the new adult continent to fashion.  The Party began on June 23rd and runs through June 30th with a closing speech by Philip Linden on June 29 at 11am.

How can you find out what is happening and when?  How can you track down the exhibits that interest you? A full calendar of events containing more than 400 events can be found here.  You can sort the events by date/time, location and type of event by using the handy drop down menus at the top left of the calendar. If you want to search for exhibits that interest you go here.  This page has the same handy search function and exhibits can be searched by type from enterprise, to education to visual arts, science and fashion.  The main landing point is in Paradox.  [SLurl teleport at this link] 

Also after the break: Participate in a Tiny Dogfight, Attend a Live Play, Listen to a panel discussion on the future of education in virtual worlds, and much much more

Continue reading "Chestnut's Choices 6/25 - 7/1: Experience Grace McDunnough's Musimmersion, Celebrate SL's 6th Birthday, Meet a Guide Dog for Blind SLers and much more..."

Educating Tut: Rezzable's Tutankhamen Exhibit As Educational Resource

Second Life's immersive King Tut exhibit opened a few months ago, and while I admire it quite a bit, this blog is also a partner to Rezzable, the UK metaverse developer which created it, so I'm a biased observer in this case. That in mind, I asked Ignatius Onomatopoeia, an educator who uses SL as a teaching tool, if he thought Tut could be a useful pedagogical resource for him and his colleagues. I was expecting some casual comments, but instead, he's responded with copious notes, including assignment suggestions and.an annotated tour. Still better, fellow teacher Viv Trafalgar created a gorgeous, graphic novel-style illustrated exploration, which begins here, and continues here.

Second Life's Iran Vigil Adds Presence and Shared Space and Embodiment to Uprising's Internet Support Community

Here's a few glimpses of yesterday's Second Life vigil for Iranians killed in the democratic uprising, taken from my brief visit. Lasting longer than 90 minutes, reports attendee Laraa Short, about forty people ultimately showed up for the vigil. No one there was reportedly from Iran, but some have family members who are. It wasn't only a time for mourning, but coordinating and growing the nascent "Support Iran" group which organized the event. What we're seeing here, then, is an immersive offshoot of the informal Internet community that has sprung up in the last couple weeks in random, often unexpected places -- on Twitter, in YouTube comment threads, on blogs like the the Huffington Post, and more. While those asynchronous communities mainly express their support through text, or simple gestures like changing one's Twitter avatar to green, this new Second Life adjunct brings 3D and real time to the experience, adding a sense of shared space and embodiment to this community's shared values.

As that suggests, more vigils are planned today, at 2:00pm and 7:00pm SLT -- direct SLurl teleport at this link.

Other World Notes: Blue Mars and User-Generated Content

In a recent post, several New World Notes readers expressed skepticism that Blue Mars, the upcoming virtual world, would allow user-generated content. Company VP Jim Sink was a recent guest on the SL-based Metanomics show, and here's what he said then:

We wholeheartedly embrace user-generated content. All of our tools are free to use and anyone can become a Blue Mars developer. But user generated content on its own won’t make Blue Mars a success. The real trick is to create a system where the very best user generated content can bubble to the top and to provide a platform where developers who create excellent content can be rewarded for their work and can be confident that piracy will be effectively managed.

Full transcript here; from Sink's description, content will be created offline, and thus, not dynamic, collaborative content created in-world a la Second Life -- but user-generated content all the same. And when you think about it, outside the sandboxes, how often in Second Life do you actually see dynamic, collaborative content creation? Most SL builds remain so static for so long, the technical means of their creation are almost beside the point. In any case, my own 2008 feature on Blue Mars is here. Image credit bluemarsonline.com.

Philip Linden Returns To Mapping Second Life With Snowglobe Viewer

Better, faster, more zoomable World Map & Mini-Map in Snowglobe Viewer from Torley on Vimeo

Only last Tuesday, I was talking about Philip Linden's obsession with creating dynamic maps of Second Life, for the web and for the viewer, even long after the introduction of point-to-point teleportation in late 2005 made SL maps much less meaningful, beyond their symbolic, almost patriotic value. (When you can instantly teleport from one side of the grid to the other, the broader geographic layout of the world quickly starts to seem arbitrary.) With impeccable timing, Snowglobe, the product of Philip's open source viewer project, has just been released. And as it happens, its main upgrade is... a greatly improved map display. Which may seem like an odd feature to focus on first. Then again, if you still saw the service you invented as a country, you would want a map that displayed the entire kingdom, and revealed in all its details the full toil that had gone onto making it.

New World Newsfeed: Brazil Game Portal To Drop Second Life (But How Will That Affect Brazilian SLers?)

Abril: Second Life fecha as portas no Brasil (Portuguese)

Kaizen is a major online portal for Brazilian gamers, and up until very recently, acted as the Lindens' Second Life outreach in that country, which counts a large portion of the active metaverse population. (According to the Lindens, 65,797 Brazilians logged into SL last May, which would constitute roughly 8% of the total active user population, making it the fourth largest user group by country.) According to the above report, however, Kaizen is dropping Second Life from its offerings, and iG, a company that maintains Second Life's Mainland Brasil entrance, ended it contract with Linden Lab last March. None of this means, however, as the headline above translates, "Second Life closes the doors in Brazil." At least according to the Lindens, who I contacted earlier this week:

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Second Life Vigil for Iranians at the Mosque of Al Andalus -- Today at 12:30pm SLT

Today at 12:30pm SLT (i.e. Pacific time), there's going to be a Second Life vigil for Iranian dissenters killed in the regime's post-election crackdown, including Neda, the young woman brutally gunned down last weekend. The event was put together by the temporary "Support Iran" group, which you can also join, and it's being held at the Al Andalus mosque (pictured above, with Decimal Zsun, who arrived early for the event): direct SLurl teleport at this link.

Since the vigil is happening at a virtual mosque which numerous Muslims in Second Life include in their religious observances, the organizers suggest you dress respectfully and appropriately. Female avatars, for example, are encouraged to wear a headscarf in the mosque -- there is a free dispenser outside the door. However, as the event notecard reads Ninlil notes to me, that's strictly an optional choice: "If you choose to honor this request, you may find your experience enhanced." (Thanks to Brian Sapphire, Jas0n Althouse, Ninlil Xeltentat, and others who alerted me to the event.)

Koinup's Most Popular Second Life Sims Last Week

Koinup: Your Virtual Life

Looking for Second Life regions to visit? Here's the sims most frequented by members of NWN partner Koinup last week:

1. Drowsy (Featured on NWN here)
2. Bitterblue
3. Mosh
4. Oritz
5. Wiles (Depicted above)

The most photographed sims include two from Second Life's 6th birthday celebration. They include SL6B Futurist, Wretched Hollow (depicted below), Evil Grins, and SL6B Uplink.

Authority Denied: What an Anthropologist Learned About Linden Lab From the Inside

Back in 2003 when I became the Lindens' embedded journalist in Second Life for a few years, reporting on the rise of a new virtual world, another writer also embedded himself, but facing in the other direction: Thomas Malaby, Assoc. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, who started coming into the Linden office as a kind of embedded anthropologist, studying the rise of an Internet startup company. His observations are now in book form, Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab and Second Life; I started the first few chapters recently, and it's intriguing reading. It's a book from the academic press, so don't expect light beach reading; that caveat aside, it's another essential thread in the story of Second Life, and the people who helped make it possible in the beginning. Julian Dibbell, who's eminently qualified to know, calls it "the most enlightening portrait of the high-tech workplace since Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine", which are props of the highest kind.

So what's the most unexpected thing Professor Malaby learned at Linden Lab? At news of the book's release, I e-mailed him that question, and got back this:

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Lainy Voom Archives Great SL Spaces With Machinima

Blackspot - Historical Ships and Adventure from The VBA on Vimeo

A couple months ago, machinima auteur Lainy Voom quietly launched an ongoing project with Gala Charron: the Virtual Build Archive, a growing compilation of great Second Life spaces, documented with machinima narrated by Ms. Charron. (Above, one of the latest videos, featuring Blackspot, a cove for authentically produced tall ships.) As with everything Lainy shoots, these are some visually arresting and gemlike videos, and the narration should further inspire you to visit and explore first hand. Though they may not know it, Lainy and Gala's Archive tracks nicely with a Stanford project funded by the US Library of Congress to document and archive virtual worlds, so they'll be remembered over the years. As we saw recently, obsolescence can suddenly come to even the best places in Second Life. See them all here.

Wiki List of Real World Trademarks in Second Life (Officially and Unofficially)

Here's an important but so far very rudimentary addition to Second Life's official wiki: a list of real world trademarks known to be in SL, either officially, as part of the trademark holder's presence in SL, or unauthorized and unofficial. Given the ongoing disputes over which trademark belongs in what category, and the lawsuits which have been threatened over them, it would be highly useful to see this wiki page further developed and maintained. It's not an easy task, however. Right now, for example, the page categorizes trademarks in only three ways: "Companies who have licensed trademarks in SL", "Companies that have no interest being involved in SL", and "Companies being possibly infringed upon". But where to put, say, "Companies who have licensed trademarks in SL, but are also infringed upon by content creators using their trademarks in unauthorized ways"? That's a fairly common occurrence, too. Or "Companies who originally licensed trademarks in SL, but since abandoned their presence, making the trademark status of their remaining content in Second Life highly ambivalent." Am I missing still other categories? Via Gwyn.

Portugal's Presidency Debuts in Second Life (Updated)

Tonjampae Amat reports on Portuguese culture in Second Life

Update, 3:30pm: Added photo of the President Silva, after the break

Portugal has a well known natural aptitude for new technologies (the high mobile phone penetration rates, the success of the electronic traffic system of Via Verde, the immense popularity of the children's computer Magalhães). It is not such a big surprise, then, that the Portuguese President, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, evidently became the first head of State in the world to make a speech that was broadcasted to citizens and communities through Second Life.

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*Beautiful Kate* in Second Life: Coming This August, Drama With Oscar-Nominated Star Featuring SL

Courtesy of Australian-based movie production/distribution company Roadshow Films and metaverse developer Lowell Cremorne, here's a glimpse from Beautiful Kate (IMDB info here), a new movie starring Bryan Brown and Oscar-nominated Rachel Griffiths. As you might have discerned, Second Life has a role in the story about a young woman with a dark secret. However, it's just a background element, and according to Lowell, who has an extensive write-up on the production here in the Metaverse Journal, Second Life is depicted not as a weirdo freakshow, but more accurately, as a fun, Internet-based social medium. The movie was directed by Rachel Ward, who previously had a successful run as a leading woman in numerous 1980s Hollywood movies, and transitioned nicely to the other side of the camera. (Ms. Ward conceived the Second Life dance party that Lowell and Encore Design Group put together in-world.) Lowell tells me the movie is set for an international release August 6th, so it's likely to screen in major US cities then or soon afterward.

Metaverse LaLa: Los Angeles-Based Second Life Artists Seeking Mixed Reality Gallery Space

Brookyln is Watching, the New York art collaborative that created a mixed reality portal linking Second Life to a Williamsburg art gallery, brings us news that several Los Angeles-based Second Life artists are looking for a space to create a similar cross-world platform in LA. Among them is Douglas Story, the man who makes marvelous metaverse flowers, and pictured here, Gracie Kendal (Kristine Schomaker IRL), a talented abstract expressionist who compares Second Life's art community to that of New York in the 1950s and Paris in the 20s. Any ideas, Angeleno readers? Contact information and more here. Image credit: www.kristineshomaker.net

OpenSimulator Gets Web-to-World Integrated Social Network

OSGrid, billed as "the largest free-to-connect OpenSimulator grid", added a fully integrated social network to its metaverse earlier this week. Elgg looks and operates in a very similar way to Facebook (check out Elgg's friend update stream at left), but as described by lead developer Adam Frisby (Adam Zaius in SL), it takes over a lot of the functionality that in-world groups use: "[I]f you have a group 'inworld'," explains Adam, "the exact same data should be used on the website. Join a group on the website - it should show up in world." Anyone in a large Second Life group, notorious for their frequent chat failures and other communication lapses, will probably recognizes how powerful this functionality can be. Imagine getting in-world group notices on the web, without having to log into the world and arduously drag the info from your archive.

"It’s more of a presentation layer," Adam explains to me by e-mail.

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Last Week in Second Life and OpenSimulator...

Someone figured out how to move whole Second Life builds to OpenSim nearly intact... actually, someone else did, too. Meanwhile, the world's Iranians either left Second Life recently (or in of light recent events), were blocked by their own government. However, the US Navy not only managed to set up a forward operating base in the metaverse, they're flourishing in it, too. On the other side of the grid, a wonderful storybook land opened to all. Is it any surprise that Second Life is among the top ten most played games/worlds in the US? Or for that matter, that individual Lindens would sell their shares of the company to an investment firm?

Also, if you're feeling forward enough to show the world both sides of who you are, I'm still looking for mixed reality profile photos of NWN readers.

Weekend Open Forum: What SL6B Exhibits Should We Make Sure To Catch?

Next week Second Life celebrates its sixth birthday, and I've been painfully slow to follow all the activities and exhibits planned. (Then again, I usually space on real world birthdays too.) There's over 300 SL6B exhibits listed here, based around the theme of "The Future of Virtual Worlds". One of them is featured in the machinima above, Loki Eliot's ambitious time-traveling information kiosk. What others should we make an effort to visit? Post descriptions and SLurls in Comments. (Yes, rampant self-promotion encouraged.)

NWN in Japanese メタバースの覚せい剤工場：RL警察関係者の為に作られた３Dシュミレーションドラッグ工場

<オリジナル英文記事>セカンドライフリージョンより、かなり高いところにある、The Unknownと呼ばれる空に浮かぶ小さくて暗い島は、覚せい剤工場を建てるには思いもよらない場所だ。もしもあなたが、気球に乗ったドラッグディーラーのロールプレイングをしていれば別だが－－または今回のように、覚せい剤工場がどんなものか知る必要がある人の為に、SLをシュミレーショントレーニングの道具として提案しているメタバース開発者である以外には。

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