Blue Mars Meet Up Today at 6pm PST: Meet Iris, Me, and Blue Mars Bigwigs in the Welcome Area

Update, 8:30pm: Thanks to all who came (and many did.) Here's a glimpse from near the dance floor, Iris in hot pink, and me in steampunk-esque duds. (Yes, my avatar is very much a work in progress.) Not sure who the buff angelic devil bartender is, but he never filled our order.

Today at 6pm PST, Iris Ophelia and I will join a bunch of the Avatar Reality team for a dance-powered meet-and-greet social in the Welcome Area. Come hang out, give Mars-flavored dancing a try, chat with the team. Go here to download the free Blue Mars client, and see you in about 90 minutes!

Comments

[Trinity Dejavu]

"see you in about 90 minutes!" Yup .. Thats about the download time.

[Hamlet Au]

Actually more like 15-30 minutes, depending on your broadband speed. A few minutes if you have really good broadband.

[Aka Aya]

To much Blue Mars here. What a shame for this formerly good blog :-(

Is it really your interest or the money they pay you for the commercials?

[Loraan Fierrens]

So, for those of you who don't like the direction Hamlet has taken, I have a quick and easy solution for you: stop reading his blog. Oddly enough, actions speak louder than words, and if you stop reading his blog, that means there will be fewer impressions on the ads and fewer pennies in his account. Otherwise, your words say "no" but your actions say "yes."

Speaking solely for myself, which seems to be a lost art these days, I think his writing about Blue Mars is fine. For one thing, it's a sad day when people put on blinders and ignore what's going on in the rest of the world… especially when the "rest of the world" really means just the sad collection of virtual worlds that only a tiny fraction of the population really gives a damn about or even knows exists. For another thing, a basic premise of capitalism is that competition is good. A little pressure on Linden Lab might help turn Second Life into a better product. Likewise, a little pressure on Blue Mars might turn it into a better product. Who know, we might actually get a virtual world that people will want to use out of this. What a concept!

[Vera Mint]

I agree with Loraan. Although I find Blue Mars far too heavy for my computer (40-minute download*, then when I'm in it's too laggy even to let me build an av), I'm still intrigued by it. That's why I read about it.

* And yes, I have some darn good broadband.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

I did like the earlier post with the bag-headed dude. It gave me hope.

Then there is the winged wonder in Hamlet's pic here.

Perhaps Blue Mars can become as tacky and ridiculous as SL...oh be still my beatin' heart.

[Hamlet Au]

@ Aka Aya: Yes, I think Blue Mars has a very promising strategy for making 3D worlds with user-generated content mass market (which would benefit Second Life too.) If I was only doing it for the money, there's a lot of other companies that would pay me a lot more than a virtual world start-up. But then, that would also probably mean giving up New World Notes, and not writing about Second Life at all.

[Adric Antfarm]

Yes Loraan, were this not a Second Life blog I think we would all agree that's a wonderful thing until we recalled just how bad Massively makes that everything approach work. Also, why only Blue Mars when there is so much more out there as you say?

There is a direct link to Hamlet's Blue Mars content (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/blue-world-notes/) which oddly enough let's them avoid Second Life content even if we don't get the option on this side.

As for competition, it's just that. I don't want to hear about McDonald's when I am eating Burger King. It's not making anything better, it's annoying.

If this were a finished product instead of a long beta where any issue you raised is deflected with "well, it's a beta you know", I wouldn't mind it so much, but it is. The main people writing about Blue Mars never seem to be fans or users. They are land owners or embedded bloggers.

Word of mouth is a great way to get the buzz on new things. People trying to shape their personal benefit into buzz is honestly beyond the pale.

[Hamlet Au]

Adric, I've been writing about several other worlds and games on this blog besides Second Life for years:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/other_world_notes/
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/new-world-gaming/

You keep making assertions that aren't true (and not very civilly), which is your right to do -- if you want to make them on your own blog or elsewhere.

[Victor1st Mornington]

I have to agree a little with Adric...i find no way to filter out Blue Mars stuff and looking at the main page of this blog...its covered in Blue Mars news.

Blue Mars is totally and absolutley unintuitive for partially blind folks like me even though i have the system to run it therefore i have no interest in it since the developers have no interest in making Blue Mars accessible for the partially blind, however, if this blog which is one of only three SL blogs i read has turned into a big advert for Blue Mars then I guess i'll need to find another third blog somewhere else to read.

[Hamlet Au]

This week there were 25 posts on New World Notes, only 5 of which were specifically about Blue Mars, most of which were short links to the Blue Mars blog, for those interested in reading more, and short enough for those not interested to quickly skip. By contrast, my post on SL popstar Skye Galaxy was easily longer than all of those Blue Mars posts put together, as was my interview with Johanna Blakley talking about Second Life fashion. Chestnut's Second Life event guide and Iris' latest Second Life/Mad Men post were easily 2-3 times longer than all of them combined. I can guarantee you that's the ratio I intend to keep on this blog.

[Giulio Prisco]

I enjoy Hamlet's posts on Blue Mars. Actually, more than the posts about SL - I am beginning to find SL very boring.