New World Notes

Lanna's List for August 21-27: Steampunk Space Party, WoW Machinima, Tiny Empires, and more...

Charlanna Beresford’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events…

Hair, hair and more hair! If you love shopping for hair, then you’ll be as happy as a kitten with a ball of yarn for the opening of the 3rd Annual SL Hair Fair on Friday, August 22. The SL Hair Fair runs until September 7th and will give you an opportunity to find fabulous styles from nearly 90 designers spreading across four sims owned by NWN’s partner Rezzable.  There will events, prizes, freebies and dollarbies offered throughout the course of the Fair.

There will also be opportunities to support Locks of Love, an RL organization that donates wigs to children who suffer hair loss due to cancer, burns, and other conditions.  There will be donation kiosks around the Fair, and each designer will also donate 50% of proceeds from one style to Locks of Love. In Rezzable Create (click here to teleport).

Also this week:  Final performances of the Wall V-2, panels on SL community-building, mashup dance party, and a fire in my kitchen!  All that and more after the jump...

Survey: Is Your SL Business Experiencing a Downturn?

Online Surveys & Market Research

To judge by the Lindens' official economic stats, the second quarter of 2008 saw a slight decrease in total SL-based businesses with a positive monthly Linden Dollar flow-- i.e. entrepreneurs bringing in more L$ revenue than they spent on land and other expenses.  It's the first decrease since such data was gathered.  Anecdotal reports persist, as do theories why-- for whatever reason, in the last few months, Residents simply spent less in-world currency.

But raw numbers are slightly misleading; left unclear is whether this reflects a general downturn, or a hit on specific sectors of the economy.  Hence this survey.  If you have a business, answer the above question; if you chose Yes, answer the question below:

At The Crucible, The Ancient Sim Of Endless Storm

When you're at the Crucible, be sure to wear something warm, because you're bound to feel a subconscious chill.  (Even if you visit, as I did, with a sunny San Francisco in the windows outside.)  At the Crucible, it's eternal midnight, it never stops raining, the waters are always churning with foam, and your best source of illumination are the sheets of lighting that cause the water and the clouds to glow a milky white.  I first got wind of Crucible from this powerful New World Tableau by Solange Korobase, and the moment I had a chance, I went to look for myself.  (To travel there yourself, here's a direct SLURL teleport link.)

The creation of Cuwynne Deerhunter, Crucible is easily among the most vivid and realistic enviromental simulations I've so far seen in Second Life; for that matter, I'm inclined to rank it among the upper ranks of online worlds in general.  It's actually just a smaller part of an equally atmospheric whole, "the third piece of a three sim set of 'ancient ruins' sims," Deerhunter tells me, then proceeds to give me a glimpse of its place in the larger picture: 

But Is It Art?

In his latest wanderings through the metaverse, Garth Goode came across this profound piece of abstract expressionist art, calling to mind the greatest works of Jackson Pollock or Wassily Kandinsky.

Or something.  Maybe it just represents the latest unforeseen consequence of open source code and social engineering.  Which come to think of it, is another kind of impromptu expressionism.  Click through to see.

Help Wanted At Greenies (Alien Uniform Required)

NWN partner Rezzable is looking to hire music DJs and hosts to help run their groundbreaking, two-sim Greenies playspace, in exchange for Linden Dollars and Rezzable freebies.  You probably have to wear a lime green outfit with a great bulbous head, but then, babes seem to dig them.  Vint Falken has all the details here.

SLURL vs. GVURL -- New Metaverse Land Mapping And Teleport System Vies With Lindens' Own Web-to-SL App

Besides the utility of making it possible to turn virtual X,Y,Z location coordinates in Second Life into an active web link, I've never been totally happy with the Lindens' SLURL widget, which has few features beyond that. 

The alternative?  Perhaps this: Metaverse blog AltoXeno has a provocative review of Gridaverse, which not only offers web-to-SL teleportation on an interactive web map of the Second Life grid, but it's claimed, will eventually offer that function for OpenSim grids, as well.   

Madcow Serves: Master Sculptor Opens A Shop

Madcow Cosmos is an acclaimed and unparalleled maker of incredibly complex, gigantic, fantastic skeletons of creatures that never existed (except maybe in a previous, unknown epoch of SL.)  In real life, he’s a young chef based in the Northwest, and had no experience with 3D creation platforms, before learning to create in Second Life. “I build for the pure pleasure of building,” he told me once. “A thousand fantasy novels, science journals, and images are always floating around in my head and I try to release some of them through the creation of art.  I really can't stop creating even if I wanted too.”  Now, Bettina Tizzy has news that he's opened up his first store, with some freebie items too.  Come to Madcow's-- a billion fever dreams served.

Ophelia's Gaze: Five Fave Prize-Winning Outfits From CSR

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

If you've seen anyone running around covered in colorful cards lately, they're probably after a few of the prizes in the Creator Stamp Rally, going on until August 31st. The rally is an ingenious marketing strategy by a group of twenty SL content creators (including some of my favorite Japanese designers) that encourages participants to check out some unfamiliar shops, and it seems like everyone is picking up at least one card (or in my case, all twenty).

You can buy a specially marked item at a participating store to receive a stamp card, then attach it and go to all the other participating stores, touching the stamper displays to 'stamp' your card. When your card is full, you then exchange it at the CSR 2008 headquarters for a prize of your choice.  (And they're really fab, like Mina Jun's beautifully made crying skin, at right-- scroll down this page to look at the full selection.)

So CSR 2008 is a great way to earn some really unique gifts, but it's not easy to pick out what to buy first to get your stamp card. In fact, if you're new to the event, it can be downright frustrating finding out what is and isn't eligible. 

That in mind, I've picked out a few of the must-have items from these stores, which each come with a stamp card to get you started.  Keep reading for my favorite five card-qualifying finds-- and as a bonus, a chance for five readers to win a free, fully-stamped CSR2008 card for claiming your own prize!

近刊―「セカンドライフ 仮想コミュニティがビジネスを創りかえる」（日経BP）はSecond Lifeストーリーの決定版

Here's kanji-fied thoughts on SL from Umihiko Namekawa, the fine gentleman who authored the introduction to my book's Japanese language edition.  Namekawa-san is also a translator for TechCrunch's Japanese edition, and wrote the intro to this book on social media, so I'm fortunate to be in good company.

How To Run A Large Second Life Event

The Immersive Life blog has a nicely comprehensive post on "Managing a Large Virtual Event in Second Life", much of it based on the author's experiences helping run the huge Peace Fest featured last week in Lanna's List.  Lots of handy technical tips, and subtle anti-griefer counter-measures, such as: "Check for unusual names with numbers such as 'sean874902 Hax' and for birthdates within a few days. These may be disposable alt accounts that griefers will use for an attack." Image: slpeacefest.wordpress.com.