New World Notes

May 1st: Industrial Rockers Redzone Host Music Fest in Second Life's Post-Apocalyptic Wastlelands [SLANE]

Tomorrow starting at 2pm SLT, UK industrial group Redzone are hosting an 8 hour live music extravaganza in the famed Second Life sims called The Wastelands. Persia Bravin of SLANE (Second Life Arts and Entertainment) has all the details on the show, the band, and the post-industrial sims. Click to read more! - Hamlet

Seeking Second Life Advertising Exec for New World Notes

I'm looking for someone experienced in advertising in Second Life (or someone experienced with online advertising who's also experienced in Second Life) to represent New World Notes with SL businesses. Pay will probably be on commission, and considering NWN gets about 200,000 yearly readers, it could be a cool opportunity for a savvy entrepreneur. If you're interested, IM Hamlet Au, or email me: hamlet at secondlife dot com.

Second Life Style Blogging for Men: Flaming Crotch Edition!

Gentlemen, if Galliano Boucher's fashion suggestions are too tragically hip for you, you can always take a tip from Winter Jefferson, and get yourself a styling ensemble that shoots fricking fire from your crotch and nipples. You're welcome.

Great Advice on Listing Your Marketplace Items

Mistletoe Ethaniel has extremely useful advice for writing an excellent Marketplace listing, an introductory copywriting guide that's helpful not just for selling Second Life items on the official ecommerce site, but any kind of item on pretty much any online platform. Don Draper would approve. (Then have another scotch, and drunkenly read the post to Peggy, who'd thus be late for a date with that pot smoking Village loser who'd promptly dub her a Good Weimar German, but you know, in a flirty way.)

$35K Contest for Virtual Art on Human Nature

Secondlife Arts Exploration has news on a contest sponsored by Art Magazine and award-winning composer Justin Lassen challenging people to express human nature ("a set of inherent distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that all humans tend to have") with 2D or 3D digital art, with $35,000 in prizes for the best entries. The blog, by the way, is the home for contributors of the NWN column Second Life Arts and Entertainment [or SLANE], and you'll see a lot of new posts in addition to what they blog on New World Notes. So check them all out here.

Second Life Style Blogging for Men: Hipster Edition

Galliano Boucher runs a very beautifully illustrated fashion blog highlighting styles for the hip and fashionable male avatar, a rare thing to find in the huge, female avatar-dominated SL blogosphere. Hat tip: Vaki Zenovka.

Second Life Mesh on the Main Grid by May or June?

Nalates Urriah, whose blog is probably the best web resource on Second Life/OpenSim viewers, believes Second Life's long-awaited mesh feature will be added to SL's main grid very soon. Her reasoning: "Once the mesh viewer works well with the VS2010 compiler and the main SL grid (AGNI) the mesh code can be combined with the main viewer, which is a huge step closer to mesh release. At that point it will become part of the main viewer and probably appear as a Beta viewer version. So, I see this as a big step indicating we are close to mesh release on the main grid. I’m still thinking late May early June." Maybe so. Read more here.

Beautiful & Surreal SL Avatar Enhancements

This is a surreal and beautiful fashion prop from Tableau Vivant, a new brand from Aida Ewing and M4ri1yn Magic which Ms. Strawberry Singh blogs about here.

In Boston Tomorrow? Catch a Free Show by 3 SL Stars

If you're in Boston tomorrow (and don't you wish you were), there's a free live music show at Boston City Lights with Funkyfreddy, TwinGhost, and Tamra Hayden, a RL Broadway star who I profiled on NWN a couple years ago. Click here for the Beantown rundown. Hat tip: Ayesha Lytton.

Blogging About Second Life's Breedable Animals

I'm always watching for when a particular Second Life phenomenon becomes popular enough to inspire its own enthusiast blogs, and it's no surprise that breedable virtual pets, an extremely popular offering in SL which is now actively promoted by Linden Lab, has its own fan blogs.

Take this one: My Second Life (with Pets), by Aywren Sojourner, who owns (and blogs about) KittyCats, Papillon Butterflies, Precious Dragons, Rovees, and once owned Amaretto Horses, Ozimal Bunnies, and Wildwood Kitties. And, of course, Ms. Sojourner is totally on top of the craze for Meeros, a race magical, face punchingly cute creatures that recently came out of Beta and have since been generating quite a bit of buzz. Here's her latest post of Meeros, which are now reportedly starting to give birth.