New World Notes

Lauren Lamonica Explains How Second Life's Map Came to Be

Last week Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale announced the arrival of a greatly improved web map interface to Second Life, located at slurl.com.  It now features way more granularity, and runs off Amazon's S3 service. It's surely one of those development projects Philip mentioned wanting to do more of, when he stepped down as company CEO last year.  (He talked about it excitedly to a group of us at last weekend's "Molotov" screening.)  "It should be fun to explore the map: to look at what is near your home," as he writes on the official blog, "to drill down for more detail, to randomly surf around and jump to places that look interesting from the air."  

But why does the web map exist in the first place?  As it happens, my friend Lauren Lamonica has the story on her blog.  She helped run the Linden's marketing and develop in-world projects up until mid-2006, before going on to work at Millions of Us (where she put together Cisco System's virtual hospital), and elsewhere.  The map, she writes, was a way--

... to show exponential growth in content within Second Life without requiring that our one and only designer constantly snap and upload pictures in-world. Finally, it seemed that if we could convey that Second Life was a place and not a game, we would have a much easier time explaining the rest.

The map was successful in doing that, though she also notes that it did not improve new user retention. (I suspect it does more to keep established users engaged, and give them a sense of virtual world patrotism, so to speak, especially as they see their home country grow larger than others.)

Lauren offers some suggestions on improving the map's functionality, ideas that third party developers and API hackers could have fun with, as much as the Lindens.  In any case, it's a nice behind-the-scenes look at the Lindens' strategic thinking which went into making SL what it is now (for better and worse.)  Read it all here.  I'm hoping she shares more, because she has an interesting background in all this; before joining the Lindens, for example, she was a student of Randy Pausch, the beloved Carnegie Mellon professor who gave his acclaimed "Last Lecture" shortly before succumbing to cancer, and helped develop a virtual reality art installation with the Centre for Metahuman Exploration.

Rezzable Puts Second Life Culture on Real World T-Shirts

I love when metaverse culture makes its way into the real world in various forms, and the clever kids with NWN partner Rezzable have one of the latest iterations:  a T-shirt emblazoned with the Second Life command line, "/me <3 prim" in iconic form.  (Modeled at right by Rezzable's lovely SL producer Meral Crifasi.)  You can get a free copy of the shirt's SL edition at Rezzable locations, like Greenies.  [Direct SLURL teleport at this link.] Far as the cotton version goes, if you order it by February 5th, the London studio will cover the shipping costs.  All the real world ordering details you need here.  

Mixed Reality Machinima: Molotov Finally Meets the Creator

Last Saturday I drove cross town to catch the San Francisco Exploratorium's mixed reality presentation of "Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator"; my pal the director (and as Alva, the star) Douglas Gayeton was there to introduce the film and talk to the real world audience afterward, while the Exploratorium staff streamed a live video stream onto a large auditorium screen in Second Life, where maybe a couple dozen Residents watched.  This in-world activity was, in turn, broadcast back into the Exploratorium.

Of course, the HBO/Cinemax machinima itself was also streamed in-world, so both audiences could watch it simultaneously.  The real world audience could also watch the avatar audience watching "Molotov".  I imagine the experience was just as reality bending for the SL audience, since the video display they were watching included the screen which displayed them.

The Exploratorium attendees were an attentive but small crowd, and consequently, most of the questions during the Q&A session were relayed via chat IM from within Second Life.  Douglas was sure to point out "Molotov" co-star Orhalla Zander in the audience, the person who most introduced him to SL via his own avatar.  Then he told an amusing story: shortly after HBO purchased the broadcast rights, Gayeton realized that the network believed the movie was fictional, not a documentary.  To prove it was based on real Second Life events and characters, he had to fly to New York, log into Second Life, and introduce the HBO execs to Orhalla.

If you've seen "Molotov Alva", you know much of the story involves, as the title suggests, Molotov and hobo king Orhalla trekking across SL in search of the mythical individual who created all of Second Life.  That leads to a series of surreal adventures, and when I first watched the movie, I remember thinking, "Jeez I really hope they don't suddenly encounter Philip Rosedale sitting there, that would be too much."  I won't reveal who Molotov Alva decides is Second Life's creator, but I will reveal this: after the Exploratorium theater lights went up, Douglas Gayeton suddenly encountered Philip Rosedale sitting there.  (He'd heard about the screening at the last moment, Philip explained, and hopped on his motorcycle to catch it.) 

Gayeton/Rosedale photo by Laura Howard

Last Week in New World Notes...

• Iris presents Second Life styles for the Michelle Obama era of fashion
• Kirstenlee's acclaimed open source SL viewer-- now for Mac and Linux, and GPL compliant!
• Linden Lab acquisition virtual e-Commerce sites xStreetSL and onRez: the Numbers, Strategy, and Controversy 
• Geospatial mapping of Berkeley in Open Sim and Second Life 
• New World Notes in Portuguese: Porque é que ainda é difícil encontrar uma boa pele étnica para um avatar?
• Chestnut's weekly event choices (Ms. Rau's debut!)
• Second Life economy snapshot: 100,000 heavy economic users 
• New World Notes in Japanese: ニューワールドノート　日本語版:セカンドライフは、WoW、There、オアフ島を合わせた土地よりも広いのか？

Will xStreetSL Grow Second Life? Take/Re-Take the Survey!

How many monthly active users will Second Life have at the end of 2009?  I posed that survey question a couple weeks ago, before news of Linden Lab's acquisition of xStreetSL and onRez broke.  It's quite possible the integration of xStreetSL into the official webpage will influence the number of regular Residents.  I'll announce the finally tally next week, so if you want to change your vote (or register your opinion for the first time) before then, go here to take the survey.

Five SL Bloggers Respond to Linden's xStreetSL Acquisition: Monopoly, Good Business, Bad Site, Bye Bye Land, Malls?

The Lindens announced their acquisition of the virtual e-tail site xStreetSL only days ago, but it's already featured on the official homepage.  (Provided you're logged onto the site, that is.)  Reaction through the Second Life blogosphere has also been immediate, and widespread.  Here's a small sample of commentary:

Metaverse developer Caleb Booker is jubilant at the news, describing it as a moment where the Lindens start treating their company like a business.  "Up to this point every virtual world on the web except Second Life has had a means to purchase virtual goods in a central marketplace," he writes on Business in Virtual Worlds. "It has actually been yet another barrier to entry for newcomers when they log in, say 'OK where do I buy stuff?', and the answer has been 'Oh, you kind of look around.'"

Second Life businessman Peter Stinberg, who made up to five figures in revenue from sales on xStreetSL and onRez, isn't happy with the move:  "From a business person's point of view I am not too happy about this turn of events," he writes for Rez Magazine. "The reason behind this [purchase] is most likely the wish of Linden Lab to control the largest third party currency exchange... buying OnRez and SLX borders to a monopoly, and I firmly believe that monopolies are bad."

Rezzable Launch Party Tonight: RL-to-SL Avatar Models

Tonight at 5pm SLT in Crimson Shadow, NWN partner Rezzable is having a party to launch their Immortals line, avatar skins, hair, and other accessories created with an interesting twist I plan to write more about soon:  they're directly based on two real world models from Europe, Mary Mayhem and December.  During the party, Rezzable's selling these ensembles at a special discounted price, and giving away L$15,000 total in prizes.  (L$7500 goes to the female avatar guest who's the best Mary or December lookalike; male avatars have a chance to win L$7500 by coming the "best arm candy".)

More details here, direct SLURL teleport link to the party site here.

Second Life Firefly Roleplayers Have Their Own Blogosphere

I know there's an active group of Residents who've created a mini-Firefly world, so they can roleplay in the universe improvised around Joss Whedon's cult sci-fi TV series.  (Here's a NWN glimpse of Washtown, a Firefly-themed settlement, from 2006.)  So I wasn't particularly surprised to stumble into a blog called the Blackburne Observer, a newspaper reporting roleplay incidents in another Firefly-esque frontier outpost of the same name.  (In current events, civic leaders are concerned about a rash of extremely hot, extremely lethal warbots from the Wastelands showing up on town security cameras.)  What surprised me was how I found the Observer-- from a Firefly-in-SL news aggregation site, Cortex News Service.  Judging by the roleplay community's homepage, there's over a dozen such blogs, so I suppose there's a need for a central news site to keep track of them all.

In other news, the official Firefly virtual world, announced for development on the Multiverse platform back in 2006, shows few signs of appearing online anytime soon.  As the delay continues, I imagine even more impatient fans will migrate to Whedon-esque frontiers in Second Life and OpenSim.  They're already developing such a rich ecosystem of their own Firefly stories and content, even if the authorized Multiverse version eventually launched, it's likely many fans would find it boring. Image credit: blackburne-observer.blogspot.com

Aretha Franklin's Inauguration Hat Flies Into the Metaverse

Keeping with the Second Life fashion industry's fine tradition of quickly recreating prominent real world styles the moment they cause a stir (no matter how dubious), Chigadee London of Couture Chapeau is already selling a L$1 version of the gargantuan bowtie hat Aretha Franklin wore at President Obama's inauguration. Shauna Skye of SL Fix has the details. All respect to the Queen of Soul and Ms. London, but if anyone asks me for styles befitting the new era, I'm steering them towards Iris Ophelia's Michelle Obama-esque ensembles.

How To Play Second Life Like an Old School MMORPG

Can't convince your WoW-obsessed friends to try out Second Life, because it's not a traditional MMORPG? It can be played as one, as it turns out, you just need the proper guidelines. Let Orchid of SL Revolution show you how, with her special manual that begins from the earliest levels, up into the more challenging quests:  "Now you’re ready for a little PvP (SL Relationship). This level, though it seems short and easy -- ends up in a small scale war which can lead to a huge mob raid (bringing friends into your breakup) which might cause you to have to respec (delete everyone from your list and start again)."