New World Notes

Holiday Thanks from the New World Notes Office

The balcony of the NWN office in Waterhead has become a cluttered mantle of holidays cards and gifts, everything from a horrible pun to a flying pig to (somewhat explicably) a sculpture of a guy sitting on a stack of rocket launchers (a self-portrait no less.)  I'm fairly sure many more cards and gifts have disappeared during numerous crashes and inventory, so rather than haphazardly thank some but forget others, here's a grand thanks to all who remembered Hamlet this December.

Second Life Events: Rik's Picks for December 27-31

Rik Riel's weekly round-up of upcoming SL events...

This has been a remarkable year for charitable and activist activities in Second Life -- from the record-breaking Relay for Life, to the progressive blogger convention YearlyKos coming to SL, to virtual  Venezuelan protestors storming the barricades. On Saturday December 29 at 8:30AM PST, activists and organizers across the political spectrum are invited to an "Empowerment Teach-In" on Commonwealth Island. Participants will learn invaluable skills for organizing a protest, discussion, social action, charity benefit, or Woodstock-like music festival in Second Life. Taught by experienced virtual activists Any1 Gynoid and Solidad Sugarbeet, you'll certainly leave with strategies and tips for event organizing into the new year. At Commonwealth 3 (click here to teleport.)

Also Coming Up This Last Week of 2007: A photographic tour of 1,500 meals, Argentinian pop, improvising Italian Christmas carols, invisible progressive rock on stage, remembering a Native American massacre, building boxes in the sky, oh, and Happy New Year!  All that and more after the jump...

2007 Predictions Recap: 4 Out of 10 Ain't Bad

I just launched an Open Forum for the future of Second Life in 2008-- go there to post your predictions.  I'll choose my favorite ten in a reader survey.

Before you do that, however, maybe you should check the predictions that were made for 2007.  Several were eerily on-target, a few more were near-misses... and the rest were inadvertent exercises in humility.  A round-up after the break.

Ophelia's Gaze: Iris' Top 10 Hottest Male SL Avatars for '07

Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL

The angelic Kate Amdahl started a heated debate when she proclaimed a dearth of beautiful men of Second Life. She rightly points out that options for male avatars can be very limited, leaving a lot of sub-par gentlemen strolling the grid. The truth is they're only recently getting the same kind of attention female avatars have been enjoying from Second Life’s fashion community since the world's beginning. But despite this, there are gorgeous male avatars with great style out there, and it’s time to give them some recognition (and some credit) for the work they’ve put into themselves!  As a bonus, most of the guys I've selected also offer their personal fashion tips for avatar men who want to look as good as them.

Open Forum: What are Your SL Predictions for 2008?

With the gifts opened, the eggnog drank, the feasts ingested, it's time to think about the future of the metaverse in the form of three questions:

- In 2008, what will the top Second Life-related headlines be?  (Suggest up to three.)

As we did last year, I'll put up my ten favorite headline predictions for a vote. (These can be in-world news, such as policy announcements or social changes, or news of Second Life as it relates to the outside world, such as in business, politics, or popular culture.) 

Image taken from Torley Linden's Windlight collection.

Update, 12/26:  Simplified the open forum survey by removing concurrency/active user questions for another forum, and making it one-three predictions.

Open Fields: Still Taking Team Heifer Donations, $95 Left!

I just heard back from AM Radio, creator of The Far Away wheat field, and the campaign to sell plots of that field to raise enough US$ to buy three cows for people in the developing world.  With $1405 raised thus far, he's just $95 (about L$25,000) short of that goal.  If you're looking to spread some holiday warmth, why not travel to The Far Away, and make a purchase?  "[T]he vendor is still on the wheat field," AM tells me. "You can now buy a boat, and a flyable plane will be ready soon."

To get there, click this direct SLURL teleport link.

Image credit: Bettina Tizzy of Not Possible IRL.

Some Christmas Machinima

Ravishal Bentham created this evocative bagatelle of the metaverse in yuletide, perfectly scored by Garibaldi; I especially like how the long shots vividly convey the skating animations and local lighting, transforming mere 3D graphics into a true wintry idyll.

The Giving Fields: Real Cows Purchased with Virtual Wheat

The Far Away is a field of wheat and a dreamscape Kansas created by the prodigiously talented builder named AM Radio.  Last September, he launched an inventive fundraising project built around it, one that makes a kind of allegorical sense-- he sold small plots of the Far Away wheatfield for Linden Dollars, then converted the L$ from those land sales to real cash, and in turn, donated that to Team Heifer, an innovative non-profit that helps people in the developing world by literally buying cattle and other livestock for them.  Bettina Tizzy has a full write-up of AM's groundbreaking effort (as she often does.)

AM Radio's goal was to raise $500 in L$ to buy one cow, but a couple months later, he'd sold enough of his field to buy two.  At the moment, he's among the site's Top Five donors (and yes, his avatar name is listed there.)  And if I'm reading his Team Heifer page correctly, he's just $95 short of his final goal, to buy a third heifer.  I'm checking with him now to see if he's taking more donations [yes he is! - HA, 12/25]; in any case, it's a project worth mentioning, if only to inspire future efforts like it.

Thinking about Second Life in 2008...

Last December, New World Notes readers made a slew of predictions for 2007, and later this week, I'll be checking to see which came to pass.  This December, we'll be doing that for 2008, so here's the questions to think about while wrapping gifts, spending time with family, and whatever else your inclined to do:

- In 2008, what will be the top three headlines related to Second Life?
- At the end of 2008, what will be the maximum concurrency?
-  At the end of 2008, how many monthly active users will there be?

Prepare to prophesy on Wednesday!

How to Supercharge Groups

Veryon Supercharge is rallying Second Life bloggers to campaign for expanding the limit of SL groups a Resident can join from its paltry 25.  To do that, you need to register that desire with the Lindens, and to do that, you need to log into the Lindens' user-unfriendly JIRA software development tracking system, and enter in your SL name and password for access. 

To vote for expanding the number of groups that can be joined beyond 25, click this link. Or just as good, click on Veryon's avatar to the left.

This is one lobbying effort I can get behind.  A 25 group limitation seems deeply arbitrary, and worse, runs counter to Second Life culture, which is comprised of hundreds of subcultures based on numerous affiliations (region, last name, SL interests, RL interests, role playing groups, etc. etc.), most of which depend on group communication channels, to thrive.  If you agree, click on Veryon.  Disagree?  Say why in Comments.

12/24: Bumped to keep the campaign fires burning.