New World Notes

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.

Get NWN's Virtual Worlds Expo Discount: 35% Off By 8/29

September 3 and 4, I'll be appearing on a panel and signing books at the Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles, which will also feature dozens of metaverse developers and media involved in one way or another with Second Life and Open Sim.  Since I'm a "media partner" with the conference, I get a special discount code for my readers:  enter "nwnvip" during sign-up and you get 15% off the registration price.  Do so by August 29, and you save an additional 20%, for 35% total off the price.  Go here to register.

Der Chronist der virtuellen Welt! (Ich bin ein Media Ho)

I was recently profiled by writer/photographer Julian Voloj for Switzerland's Tachles Magazine.  As you can see, it's a German-language publication, so I've no idea what he wrote about.  He did ask good questions-- no surprise, as he writes a Second Life publication of his own, 2Life Magazine, and is Kafka Schnabel in-world.  Even better, he was kind enough to let me republish screengrabs here for our many German-fluent readers.  Click each thumbnail to expand; if you feel inclined, give the rest of us a summary! 

Update, 6/24 : Solange Korobase generously sent me a very readable translation of the article.  Read after the break!

*Making of Second Life* InformationWeek Interview Online

My interview from last Friday with Information Week's Mitch Wagner is online at this site, available for streaming or podcast listen.  The sound drops out in places, but it's basically legible, and hopefully fun.  Thanks for all who came, and Mitch for being such a good host.  It's the first time I talk about Bebop Reality, Mirrored Flourishing, and Impression Society, concepts from the book I'll talk about in coming weeks.

Talking Metanomics

My appearance on last week's Metanomics show about virtual world journalism and entrepreneurship is available in many variations (video, audio, blog summary) here on the Metaversed blog, also featuring GreeterDan Godel and Urizenus Sklar.  Introduced by Onder Skall and ably hosted by Cornell University's Beyers Sellers, it was a pretty lively event, goosed as it was by Uri's sass.  While the video was professionally shot and edited by SLCN.TV, I'm not sure how visually engaging it is, what with four avatars sitting near motionless while our disembodied voices emanate all around us via telephone conference call.  (Why not shoot these things on dance floor, say, or a sandbox where a talented builder creates 3D objects to illustrate whatever's being said?)

China Tracy's Chinatropolis: RMB City Update

Behold, the SL log-in page as art emblem.  This is actually two pages from a physical book created by my friend China Tracy, the latest iteration of her RMB City project, conceived as a re-imagining of post-modern Beijing as a fantasia city that can only fully exist in virtual form.  It'll eventually be built in Second Life, but what began as a conceptual machinima is now a kind of builder's diary set to printed pages.  I contributed a short biographical sketch of Tracy to the project, but had no idea it'd be part of such a lovely package.  View more pages of the RMB City book on her blog, featuring imagery from her city, and photos from the roiling tableau of contemporary Chinese living that inspired it.  Warning: includes hot panda sex.

London Calling: Voices from the Virtual Worlds Forum

In between the jet lag and the serial hangovers, I did a couple audio London interviews during last month's VWF, hopefully worth a listen:

- With Chris Vallance of the BBC, in which I talk about SL history, the Lindens' dealing with policy changes, and more.  (Part of a much larger report with other subjects, including Fizik Baskerville of Rivers Run Red.)
- And with Mike O'Hara, in which I talk the future of SL, business applications of the metaverse, and so on.  (For Virtual Worlds BusinessCast , which has a great compendium of features.)

As with San Jose, one of the best on-the-scene blog reports is from Tara5 Oh of UgoTrade, who has a behemoth post featuring Cory Doctorow, a number of new SL viewers, and more-- totally must-read.

THE GUARDIAN ROCKS

Thanks to the lovely Mynci Gorky, who's acting as the show's master of ceremonies, I contributed a short article to accompany the UK Guardian's Second Fest, a massive three day concert starting this Friday featuring The Pet Shop Boys, Dub Pistols, Gilles Peterson, and a slew of other artists.  Gwyneth Llewelyn also contributes to the handy and extensive pre-concert guide.

HAMLET, SCOBELIZED

I was honored to be a recent guest on ScobleShow, the excellent vlogcast of gregarious technology mensch Robert Scoble.  We talked all things Second Life over a beer, and when we got through, wound up with an epic 90 minute conversation.  I hate watching myself on video, but I enjoyed doing it (Robert's a great interviewer and a lovely host), so hopefully it's a worthwhile introduction to SL.  (Regular NWN readers will already be familiar with some of the themes we hit on, but I suspect they'll find some new insights, as well.)  It's been edited into four parts:   

Me, my book, and working with Linden.
An SL tour, PG vs. Mature, and Tringo.
Poseballs, education, and open sourcing SL.
Tax revolt, relationships, virtual birth, memorials, and more.

If you see me repeating a sentence several times, it's because TV producers have conditioned me into doing that for editing purposes.  And if you hear me advising corporations who want to advertise in Second Life to "embrace the penis", well, that's just because they should.

REGARDING HENRY

MIT professor and uber academic of popular culture Henry Jenkins interviewed me last week on his indispensable blog.  We talk Second Life hype, Second Life hope, Julia Roberts (!) among other topics:  part one here, part two here.