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Friday, October 24, 2008

In-World News From This Steampunk Second Life

Protest I enjoy finding fully immersive Second Life blogs written from within the reality of an SL sub-community. One of the newest of these is Patent Pending, reporting news as it unfolds within Second Life's thriving steampunk societies. The latest entry: word of a protest by the ladies of Rivet Town, objecting to the recent imposition of long skirt regulations.

Speaking of which, I know of a few other active SL steampunk-themed blogs-- A Stroll Through Caledon, The High Tea & High Adventure Society, and The Journal of Dr. Darien Mason. What others are extant and entirely devoted to metaverse Victoriana?

Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 at 06:29 AM in SL blogger link | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

SL Musician? Crap Mariner Wants Your iTunes Links!

Here's a great gift-giving idea: Second Life blogger and podcaster Crap Mariner is collecting URL links to iTunes download pages for Second Life musicians, which he'll then embed in a wall of album covers in his clocktower. (And if I can nudge him, on his blog as well.) Voila, a one-stop shopping area for buying SL musician tracks with those iTunes gift cards that are so common this season. If you're a metaverse performer with songs to sell, go here for the details.

Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 at 02:11 AM in SL blogger link | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Lindens' Billboard Regulations Seem To Be Working, But Are They Enough To Make The SL Mainland Appealing? (Updated: Jack Linden Reports 90% Decrease Of Contraband Ads Since 10/1)

The Lindens' regulations on mainland billboards went into effect on October 1st, so last night, I took a short and random flyby across the continent, to find violators. As veteran virtual world developer Scott Jennings told me, such regulations, if not enforced, "merely reinforces a sense of bad governance."

Judging by last night's look, the regulations do seem to be in effect. Where it was once easy to find an "ad farm" after a few minutes of looking, it took me some concerted scouting, to find any. Over the course of fifteen minutes, I found three billboards, depicted here. However, they appear to be adhering to company land manager Jack Linden's expanded regulation codes-- if just barely. Those include prohibitions against ads "higher than 8 meters from the ground", for example, and the three I spotted look to be right at that very limit, or perhaps just above them.

Which brings us to what I think's a more pertinent question now: Are the Lindens' regulations enough to bring a sense of of order and beauty to the continent? Take a look at the ad above, and two more after the break, and decide for yourself.

Continue reading "The Lindens' Billboard Regulations Seem To Be Working, But Are They Enough To Make The SL Mainland Appealing? (Updated: Jack Linden Reports 90% Decrease Of Contraband Ads Since 10/1)" »

Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 03:36 PM in Linden Lab News & Analysis, Social Structures, Social Upheaval | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Lanna's List for October 23 - 29: Conference, Tour of the Dump, US Presidential Debate, and more...

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

The very interesting and compelling <head> Global Web Conference is taking place across the world from Friday, October 24th through Sunday, October 26th with various sessions streaming into SL by We Are Here. Over 70 Speakers from Aleks Krotoski (Guardian Newspaper) through to Dr. WooHoo through to Carlos Ulloa (Open Source project Papervision 3D). Friday's SL events which run concurrently include:

10 AM - Babbage Linden (Jim Purbrick - Linden Labs) - Virtual Conferences, Real People commodisation - Highlights and Q&A
11 AM - Lottie Messner & Steve Liddell (We Are Here) What can Virtual Worlds do for Web Developers - Open Session Q&A.
11:30 AM - Smily Raymaker live music in RL and in SL
11:50 AM -Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media) - Conversation with Aral Balkan - with Q & A
12:20 PM- Computer Sciences Corporation - Have you played atari today? Developing worlds for the video game generation.

People can also try their hand at the .net go-kart challenge between sessions. The person with the fastest time by November 1 will win a one-year's subscription to .net Magazine. In We Are Here (click here to teleport).

Also this week: Secondstock Music Festival, Art for Justice, Discussion of Digital Gender Freedom, and the Final Performance of the Wall V-2. All that and more, after the jump...

Continue reading "Lanna's List for October 23 - 29: Conference, Tour of the Dump, US Presidential Debate, and more..." »

Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 12:20 PM in Events | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Koinup's Top Ten Second Life Sites This Week

<p><p>&lt;p&gt;Koinup: Your &amp;lt;a href=&amp;quot;http://www.koinup.com/&amp;quot;&amp;gt;Virtual Life&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</p></p>

As selected by users of the virtual world social network (a partner to this blog), they are: the post-apocalyptic Hambone Slash, the racetrack/party site Telecom Italia 3, the surreal Horst Island, the coastal Tuskany III, the cartoon funland Polly Jean, the gorgeously seedy Lloyd, the beach boardwalk Clewis, the WWII battleship Yamato of Japan, the Halloween-friendly Raven Hollow, and this place above, Victoriana Harbour. (Clickthrough for images and SLURL links for each.)

Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 10:16 AM in NWN Partner News and Announcements, SL Builds - Spaces | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Open Forum: What's The Most Precious Item In Second Life?

This is New World Notes style correspondent Iris Ophelia posing with a pair of puppies from A.I.F., each costing L$700, about $2.60 USD ("Which I consider cheap," she tells me, "considering how much they do", which includes chasing a ball and taking a bath), and an avatar design called Sorrow Marionette from The Abyss, which will cost you L$3999, around USD$15, at today's L$-to-US$ exchange rate.

I show this photo as a way to launch our new search for the best in the metaverse: What's the most precious item in Second Life? Post your suggestions in Comments, following this general criteria:

- The item must be relatively expensive-- say L$1000 or above.
- It must be on sale now to the public-- in an SL store or e-commerce site.
- It must have been provably sold to several customers or more.
- It must be original to SL-- i.e., no blatant knock-offs of famed RL brands.
- It must be precious-- showing unique beauty, craftsmanship, innovation, and most of the other qualities we associate with valuable items.

The item you name can be almost anything-- clothing, vehicles, weapons, jewelry, art, housewares, magic armor, spaceships, and more. Much like Iris' search for the hottest male avatars of 2008, we'll select numerous semi-finalists from your suggestions, and put those up for a vote. And just in time for the holidays, Iris and I will feature ten of the most popular and acclaimed items.

Continue reading "Open Forum: What's The Most Precious Item In Second Life?" »

Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 01:11 AM in Open Forum | Permalink | Comments (34) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

New World Newsfeed: PARC Research On Avatar Perspective (And Collaborative Building) In Second Life

Recent dispatches from the outside world...

PlayOn: Collaborative building in Second Life

The legendary Palo Alto Research Center have been conducting studies in Second Life, and recently published some of their findings on their blog, PlayOn. To investigate collaborative building, PARC researchers observed teams of volunteers completing specific building tasks.

One of the interesting observations, however, wasn't specifically about building: Most SL users, they discovered, do not maintain the default camera position of looking over their avatar's perspective (or "in-avatar"). Instead, only 43% of their volunteers remained in-avatar, while 57% used their camera controls to move away from their avatar's position (or "in-camera").

What's more, this phenomenon changed drastically in direct relation to experience:

Continue reading "New World Newsfeed: PARC Research On Avatar Perspective (And Collaborative Building) In Second Life" »

Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 01:50 PM in Architecture, New World Newsfeed, Research and academia | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Viva La Vida Beckons: Interactive Cycle Of Life Art Installation Opens

You begin in a dark and red chamber, where two abstract and diaphanous figures greet you; touching a white palm print takes you into another corridor.

So begins Viva La Vida, a new virtual world art experience sponsored by Rezzable, a partner with this blog, created by AuraKyo Insoo, described as "journey of hope, love and salvation". Since I'm biased, I'll refrain from giving it a full review here, though I'm intrigued by Vint Falken's review. See for yourself, and report what your voyage through Viva does for you. (Direct teleport link here.)

Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 11:52 AM in Art projects in SL, NWN Partner News and Announcements | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Play With Vidal: Fresh Catches, Lively Banter With "7Seas Fishing" Casual Sports Game

Vidal Tripsa plays some of Second Life's most promising games

Title of Game: 7Seas Fishing (version 3)
Rating: **** (out of 5)
Genre: Sport/Casual
Summary: Dip your fishing line with friends or on your own to earn experience points and catch unique prizes.
Price to Play: L$100-250 for a rod, L$30 per 100pc. bait bucket
Estimated Play Time: N/A
Where to Play: Flotsam Beach (direct SLURL teleport here)
Developers: Seven Shikami, Jen Shikami & Meissa Thorne
Web Resources: 7Seas Fishing; list of 7Seas locations here

7Seas Fishing is a craze which struck the Grid earlier this year, and has since become a feature of communities as diverse as Edloe Island, medieval Avilion and Virtual Africa. Anyone can play, anyone can host their own games, and just recently the game was upgraded to an exciting third iteration, building upon and tightening up a feature set which caters to both solo play and competitions.

Continue reading "Play With Vidal: Fresh Catches, Lively Banter With "7Seas Fishing" Casual Sports Game" »

Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Directory of Art and Photography Galleries in Second Life (500+ And Counting)

Gallerychart Since May 2006 Sasun Steinbeck has been compiling directories of art and photography galleries in Second Life with an automated kiosk system, handily annotated with a teleport link. In her latest update, that list now includes 428 art galleries and 88 photography galleries. For SL's 500,000 or so active users, that represents roughly 1 gallery per 500 Residents. By way of (inexact) comparison, San Francisco's population is currently 764,000, and this directory of SF art/photo galleries taps out at around 100. Image: sl-artgalleries.blogspot.com

Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 08:36 AM in Art projects in SL, Web Resource | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

New World Notes

The world's longest-running metaverse news and culture site. By Wagner James Au, author of "Making a Metaverse that Matters"