If you've come here through Typepad's Featured Blogs link (a very cool gesture on their part), welcome. Here's the quick pitch: New World Notes covers the user-created, 3D online world Second Life as an emerging society. Three years ago, Linden Lab, the company behind SL, contracted me to write this blog as their "embedded journalist", but I've recently gone independent to write a book based on my experiences, and the blog is now affiliated with Federated Media, the network behind Boing Boing and other Web giants.
If you're wondering how an entire blog could be devoted to a single online world, well, consider the folks who believe Second Life is a next-generation operating system, or suggests the very future of computing itself. To me, however, it's a microcosm of the real world and a collection of competing utopias and the most fascinating subject I've written about as a journalist. All this may sound intimidatingly high-minded, but fortunately, themes like these generally involve flatulent zombies, kidnapped monkies, and pretty much any variation of wonderfully strange that can be conceived of by a society of 175,000 itching to let their id roam free in a better world.
But really, the blog should speak for itself, so here's some recent stories to give you a sense of NWN. Some of these posts include a "SLURL", which is a direct portal into Second Life, so you can visit the locations I wrote about for yourself. (Think of them as 3D bookmarks that take you not to another Web page, but into the Internet itself.)
"Unimpeachable Offense". Political protest in a virtual world, or a clever virtual property extortion scheme? You make the call.
"The Skin You're In". A beautiful white woman avatar models the "skin" of a gorgeous black woman avatar, and inadvertantly finds herself in a virtual Black Like Me. SLURL to the Midnight skin here.
"The Second Life of Lawrence Lessig". The renowned law professor and author (whose thought had a profound influence on SL itself) appears in-world to discuss his latest book and autograph copies of the virtual edition.
"The Hiroshima Memorial of Snakekiss Noir". A Japanese sex worker re-imagines the unimaginable as an art installation in her spare time.
"Evolving Nemo". An ongoing experiment in artificial life, under the sea. SLURL to the school of clown fish located here.
"Watching the Detectives". Of unfaithful online world lovers and the private dicks that sting them for hire.
"Into the Arms of America". How an online world might quench the fires of worldwide anti-Americanism.
"A Lever to Move the Mind". Simulating the real nightmares of schizophrenia in an online world. SLURL to the UC Davis Medical installation located here.
"Man and Man on Woman on Woman". Or, boys who are girls who love boys who are girls.
"Furry Like Me". Learning about a unique subculture from the inside out.
Great post, James! Thanks for the guided tour. And we're always happy to tip our hat to great blogs...
Posted by: Harold | Wednesday, April 05, 2006 at 10:07 AM