New World Notes

Launching This Saturday in Second Life: A Massive Education Campus Bringing Together Many Projects Into a Shared Serendipitous Space -- UPDATE: Added Teleport Links for This Weekend's Opening

UPDATE, May 20: Bumped up post for the weekend launch. Teleport to the welcome sim here. SLurls to the Eduverse sims up now are:

• Science Circle: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/72/129/30
• Virtech: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtech/127/126/31
• Community Virtual Library: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cookie/201/212/21 
• Mayo Clinic:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mayo%20Clinic/121/170/34
• Whole Brain Health:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inspiration%20Island/82/100/23
• University of New Mexico (at Rockcliffe): http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rockcliffe%20Village/48/42/23

In the first flush of general interest in the Metaverse, literally hundreds of colleges and universities opened up a virtual campus in Second Life -- up to and including Harvard -- but most of that enthusiasm has drifted away in recent years.

Starting this Saturday at 11am PT, however, a group of dedicated educators are soft launching a new Second Life-based project with the help of Linden Lab: The Virtual Worlds Education Consortium: Click here to teleport. 

Unlike that previous era, where universities each had their own isolated (and usually empty) SL campus, these educators are creating an expansive, shared campus:

"[S]o that there is always something going around, green dots on the map, people come to check something out, see something else nearby, etc.," as VWEC member George Djorgovski (a professor at Caltech), explains it to me. "This alone can help the groups already in SL, increase the collaboration and resource sharing, etc. "

 

And they have strong buy-in from Linden Lab:

Now Open: New Bryn Oh Metaverse Art Experience, Inspired by Life Under Quarantine, Subsidized by Canadian Government

Oh, Canada: Home to great government-sponsored healthcare, and now, noteworthy metaverse art. 

Click here to teleport to Immersivist, the Second Life sim of longtime metaverse artist Bryn Oh, whose new experience, "Lobby Cam", is brought to us by the Canada Council for the Arts. (Watch the mixed reality trailer above.)

"When applying for a Canada Council for the Arts grant you are competing with a wide range of artists across the country trying to convince jurors that your proposal is important to support," Bryn tells me, explaining how she got the grant. "In this case I wrote why virtual art is unique and important right now and would send them the script, art samples from the current work but also from previous grant works from the Ontario Arts Council. They look at your budget, support material and so forth. Then it takes four months to find out if you get it as they go through all the applications."

So take that all as a tip for other artists who want to work on metaverse platforms.

As for the inspiration for "Lobby Cam":

I'm Giving a Webinar on the Metaverse Next Week Friday -- Register to Attend Live for Free!

Click here to register for free to attend a Zoom webinar on That M Thing in a conference hosted by Canadian non-profit org CPAC (Chinese Professionals Association of Canada), which kicks off April 29 at 6:30pm PT. I'm preparing a slide deck now covering a range of topics, including how to define the Metaverse, Second Life's role in shaping it, mass market and niche use cases, and common misconceptions around the technology.

Is there any particular topic around virtual worlds and the Metaverse that I should also cover? If so, please suggest in Comments below!*

Watch: SeraCast Announcing a New Easter Egg Hunt & Much More SL Fun

New video from SeraCast to watch over the weekend: "This week's highlights are a massive giveaway for early access to a the huge Legacy Spring Fair and a further contest for winning Legacy bodies coming on Sunday," Del tells me. "We also discuss the new SL University and Del has a conspiracy theory on an expected ramping up of new residents and the onboarding of them." They also discuss my posts about coming regulation to metaverse platforms, and the saving of the Tempura sim.

More highlights:

Watch: New SeraCast With Del & Kess, Featuring Seraphim's New In-World Event Launching Today, Literally Called FUN

Here's the latest episode of Seracast, the fun and chatty YouTube vlogcast hosted by Del and Kess, co-founders of Seraphim SL. The top highlight of this show is the launch of Fun -- yes, literally called that -- an event full of, as Del puts it, "Truly just stuff that's fun and gives us a good laugh... we don't want to show you because that just makes it more fun." 

Fun is open now for, well, fun, on Seraphim's official Second Life sim: Click here to directly teleport.

Many more highlights from this show include: 

Watch: New SeraCast Featuring the Love to Ukraine Benefit & a Lelutka Head Giveaway

Here's the latest episode of Seracast, the fun and chatty YouTube show hosted by Del and Kess, co-founders of Seraphim SL (a proud NWN content partner). The ladies highlight Love to Ukraine, a major Second Life fundraiser with funds going to reputed NGOs helping people in that war-wracked country -- click her to teleport to the event.

More highlights from Ep 3:

Now Open: The Fifty, Second Life Sales Extravaganza Featuring Ukrainian Creator Loki & Other SL Stars

Click here (or the logo at right) to teleport into The Fifty, a new month-long event from Barb*, founder of the legendary Fifty Linden Friday group. (Back-up sim here.)

While FLF is built around deep discounts on SL style and housewares  -- here's my post on its fascinating economics -- The Fifty is focused on premium content from star creators at regular prices.

"FLF Events has several fun, seasonal events where everything is L$50," as Barb puts it to me.  "The bargains are awesome, but I wanted to try something at regular prices, with a really tightly, thoughtfully curated lineup."

Those celebrity creators include Loki, who is also among this list of Ukrainian citizens that the SL community is rushing to support during their time of crisis. (Loki's Marketplace page here.)

There's many other stars on hand, Barb adds, some of whom don't usually do events like this:

Starting This Weekend in Second Life: Halloween Fun Fundraiser to Benefit the American Diabetes Association!

Click here to teleport into a Second Life event with some Halloween month thrills for a great real world cause: Helping people with diabetes. More info and events on the Scare Me Silly site:

The 6th Annual Scare Me Silly Event in support of Team Diabetes of Second Life will take place October 15 to 22, 2021 and will feature shopping, a hunt, art, live music, contests, giveaways, tricks, treats, & more!!

100% of the funds raised during the extravaganza, Team Diabetes of SL Marketing Coordinator Jessii Warrhol tells me, go directly to the American Diabetes Association: "Funds are donated via an official avatar to our online donation and authorization page." That page is here.

RSVP Here: Join Matthew Ball INSIDE the Metaverse for a Virtual Fireside Chat With The Washington Post's Gene Park & Me -- October 21, Noon PT

Click here to RSVP for a Metaverse-based fireside chat happening October 21st at Noon PT with analyst and VC Matthew Ball, who has perhaps done more than anyone else to convey the value of virtual worlds and metaverse-related technologies to mainstream business audiences in recent years. Hosted in Breakroom, Sine Wave's metaverse platform for real events, this is also (I believe) the very first time that Matthew will discuss the Metaverse within a metaverse, in avatar form. 

My co-host for the event is The Washington Post's Gene Park, who along with covering the game industry for the US paper of record, also wrote one of the earliest in-depth articles on the new metaverse era for a major publication.

More details on Breakroom's event page. And as a warm-up to this literal (virtual) fireside, here's my series of posts analyzing Matt's epic Metaverse Primer, along with video of my last Breakroom fireside chat, with Philip Rosedale and Adam Frisby:

As Fifty Linden Fridays Launches Its 12th Anniversary Party, Its Founder Tells Me How an Internet Meme Led to One of Second Life’s Largest Groups

Barb photo by Catalina Staheli, edited by Kreao Kujisawa

Click here to join the 12th year anniversary of Fifty Linden Fridays, one of Second Life’s largest in-world groups. Expect a massive crowd, however, because with 52,530 active members, roughly 1 in 10 of SL’s entire user base is a member of FLF. 

Founded and still managed by an SLer named OMGWTF Barbecue -- or just “Barb” to those who know her -- this celebration is quite a culmination for a young woman who, back in 2006, joined Second Life simply to have some rude fun. 

Hence her notably wacky avatar name: