Second Campus

Media Grid call for participation: Immersive Education and Virtual Learning Environments

2007-06-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

BOSTON, MA - June 04, 2007 - MediaGrid.org launches the Immersive Education initiative with an open call to educators, students, and professionals who have experience using virtual learning environments or video game technologies (such as Second Life, Croquet, Extensible 3D [X3D], Panda3D, Quake, Unreal, Torque Game Engine, and so forth). Individuals and organizations can visit ImmersiveEducation.org to select the next-generation Immersive Education platform, contribute to best practices, and establish standards for virtual learning environments and game-based learning platforms.
From: http://mediagrid.org/news/2007-06_immersive_education.html

The Metaverse for Businesses

2007-06-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

The idea of a unified Metaverse may still be off in the distant future, but it looks like Sun Microsystems has come out with a solid intranet solution. They called their metaverse MPK20, which is an implementation of Project Wonderland. You can check out a tour here.

I built a copy of Project Wonderland on my PC and, after a few bumps in the road, finally got my server and client up and running. The first thing I noticed was the presence of non-player characters (NPCs). In every day Second Life its nice to know a real person is behind each
character but in education and simulations it would be more cost effective and consistent to have an NPC.

First, I must admit that I’m a Java guy so there may be a bit of bias with this being a 100% Java solution. The following is my review of Wonderland and its uses for Second Campus:

Pros

Open source server
Open source client
Customizable 3D objects are built in Maya, 3D-Max, etc*
Incorporated audio chatting
Audio is stereo and uses Doppler
There are sound proof walls
The entire server and client is 100% Java*
Java’s 3D rendering engine
Clients running x11 (Linux/Unix) can allow read or r/w views in world*

Interactive Applications

Java functions can be wrote on the backend to manipulate the environment*
Supports streaming content
The driving force behind this initiative is collaboration, telecommuting, and working
in different locations (Sun is currently using this with a team in Russia and others spread throughout the United States)
Supports NPCs

Which would be amazing for simulations and other educational activities

Cons

Only simplest level of client controls are built out
Would require a strong understanding of Java to extend the world
Only supports application sharing with clients using X11
There is no in-game scripting
There is no in-game building tool
The interface is industrial, clunky, and not appealing
The characters are strange looking and by default are limited on how they can
be adjusted
Features and improvements are slow going
Does not run as well as Second Life on lower end computers (CPU and RAM seem to
make a larger difference than quality of the video card)

*Denotes both a Pro and a Con

There are a few questions that I still have up in there air such as the maximum number of users per server and how easily one can update after they’ve tailored both the server and client. Wonderland would require a good deal of work from a team of Java developers to be Second Campus' metaverse and who knows what options we'll be presented with tomorrow.

Integrated Voice comes to SL

2007-02-28T14:12:00.000-08:00

I've been clamoring for this for a long time, and now it is here! And now I am bummed... For businesses and such it is great, for messing around, voice is definitely something that is a little personal to be giving away. Oh well, for better or for worse it is here.

Read the Linden Blog post [HERE] for more info.

Taking a Break

2007-02-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

Old Cliffordb will be taking a break for a few days and then next week I'm headed towards GDC in San Fran. I will try to post notes from the conference here for your review. There are several serious game sessions that look good. The mobile sessions look interesting too but most of them are so short that I don't see them imparting any real knowledge. It should be interesting, this is the first year I've been able to stay the whole five days and I'm excited.

So, check back next week.

Coffee Shop hits the Cubicle

2007-02-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

Interesting article about "co-working". I've used a few coffee shops in RL around my office and home as a virtual office and I love it. The idea of blending people together who are "floaters" into some sort of social environment is key. I love working at home but I find I'm more productive sometimes if people are around. Not even so much to interact with, but just to have in my proximity.

Anyway, enough about CliffordB. Check out the article [HERE].

HBO in Second Life

2007-02-28T11:04:00.000-08:00

Millions of Us and HBO are hosting a U.S. Comedy Arts Festival feed into Second Life tomorrow March 1st.

Read more about it [HERE].

Originally found on http://planet.worldofSL.com/

Technology in Education

2007-02-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

Daniel Livingstone's Blog Learning Games references two reports worth mentioning. One is a report from the New Media Consortium dealing with Educational Technologies coming into play. The other is a best practices manual for cooperation in education using virtual mobility...whatever that is.

Check them out.

[NMC Horizon Report]
[EU Report]

SL on a Phone?

2007-02-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

I've been fooling around with SMS and Second Life for a while in my spare time. Looks like somebody has taken things to the next level though. Read Technology Review's article on Second Life on a phone [HERE].

I just hope Second Life gets stable again so all this creative effort doesn't go to waste. I love Second Life, but
geez, lately things have been bad.

Second Campus Blogger Contributors

2007-02-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

For the Second Campus crew...it looks like you have to upgrade your blogger accounts if you want to post on the Second Campus blog now. See Cliffordb if you have any questions.

Game Tap

2007-02-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

Old Cliffordb has been pretty down and out lately so I haven't been posting much. There is still a lot of things going on with Second Life, but much of it not earth shattering. I would like to pass along one thing though. Our IT manager at work bought 7 licenses to Game Tap for his crew to research what makes a good game with. He gave me a license which was a nice gesture. I've looked at Game Tap for a while with skeptical eyes, but I have to tell you it is pretty cool. I'm an old school gamer, and the beauty of Game Tap is that they have some of my old favorites like Ultima III and Might and Magic II, as well as many newer games, some of which I was suprised to see on Game Tap so soon. The cool thing is that you download these games directly from Game Tap AND THEY WORK. Try downloading Ultima II from an abandonware site and getting it to boot up on a Windows XP or Vista machine. Good luck, it can be done but it is not easy. Game Tap handles that all for you. There is enough content in Game Tap to keep me busy for a long time. So thanks David for the license, and I highly recommend that every gamer checkout Game Tap if they haven't already.

Another Pro-Business in SL Article

2007-02-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

Check out the article [HERE].

Interesting Debate

2007-02-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

I've been quasi following this debate for a while. It is essentially a pro/con debate about Second Life's value for education in particular and immersive environments for education in general.

Follow the latest [HERE].

Another Gaming Report

2007-02-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

Another report sighting the potential of educational gaming in immersive worlds.

Check out the report [HERE].

Read Learning Game's summary of the report [HERE].

Second life Goes Prime Time

2007-02-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Electric Sheep Company aired a brief commercial that was shot in Second Life for CBS's Two and a Half Men sitcom. I believe this is a first for prime time. I'm going to past the code in...hopefully the video will show up :)

If not try [HERE].

P.S. Thanks Brent for letting me know you are viewing this blog!

Anybody Listening?

2007-02-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

Hi all, I haven't bothered to try to add any metric way of keeping track of how many views this blog gets. I do have a question though...is anyone reading this? Both for my own vanity's sake and to help me prioritize my work load...if you read this blog and find it useful, please let me know :) Thanks.

Virtual Worlds Review

2007-02-05T14:59:00.000-08:00

Virtual Worlds Review maintains a nice list of virtual worlds. I do not believe the list is complete, but it is still a valuable resource. Check out the list [HERE].

Second Life for Big Business

2007-02-05T09:29:00.000-08:00

This article is about a month old, but Lori Kremen highlights how big businesses are using Second Life. Check out the article [HERE].

Second Life, Darwin, and God

2007-02-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

Click [HERE] to read an interesting article about the evolution of Second Life.

Swedish Embassy in SL

2007-02-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

Sweden plans to set up an embassy in Second Life as an "information portal for Sweden."

Get the low down [HERE].

Vista Launch...in SL?

2007-02-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

Check out Coolzor's blog post to read about how Microsoft Vista was marketed recently in Second Life.

The post can be found [HERE].

Social Networking Blog

2007-02-01T17:14:00.000-08:00

Angry Beth, the maker of a very useful presentation tool in Second Life, has posted a great article about how social media is going mainstream.

Check out her post [HERE].

Christmas is Coming Early this Year

2007-02-01T16:55:00.000-08:00

A developer over at opensecondlife.com apparently has released a very early alpha on an open source SL Sim :) Awesome! Now we are talking... Of course more work will have to be done with this before it is usable, but it is a glimpse into the future, and a promising one at that.

Check it out [HERE].

2007-02-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

Michigan State University is apparently offering an MA program in Serious Game Design, which I believe is a first.

For more information about the program click [HERE].

(I found this on Bryan Alexander's Blog, which can be accessed [HERE]).

BK Scores Big with Games

2007-01-30T19:41:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure about the ramifications of this, but something tells me this is significant. Burger King allegedly boosted profits by 40% by adding some cheeky Xbox games to the menu (that you can buy for about $4 USD if you purchase a value meal).

Check out an article about this [HERE].

SL Job Finder

2007-01-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

Another SL first, finding jobs in SL. Check out www.sljobfinder.com.

Funny: Get a Real Life

2007-01-21T11:42:00.000-08:00

A satire website that pokes fun at Second Life can be found [HERE]. The site is pretty work safe, but not completely.

Second Talk

2007-01-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

I haven't been posting much, both because I'm busy, and because even though SL is growing like crazy, not to many earth shattering events are happening as of late. More and more companies are piling in-world, and more and more users from other nations ourside the U.S. are logging in, which is where I think most of SL's growth is happening right now.

I found one interesting application that I haven't actually tried yet, both because the SL grid is down and because Skype won't work for me behind my corporate firewall. The application is called Second Talk. It integrates Skype into SL, so it might be worth a look. We are still kind of racking our brains on what VOIP solution to use. Team speak seems to be the in-world favorite, we have used the gizmoproject with some success but it is an intrusive app that installs some software on your box that is constantly pinging a server somewhere. Skype looks really promising, especially the skype cast moderated discussions, but we can't access Skype here at work. Grrr...

Anyhow, maybe Second Talk is worth a look. You can check it out [HERE].

(I found this referenced on http://planet.worldofsl.com/)

Virtual Banking

2007-01-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'll just setup a site redirect to Tony Walsh's Clickable Culture Blog :) His latest article deals with virtual banking. Pretty soon in Second Life and other M.U.V.E.'s you will be able to more your virtual holdings to and from your RL bank account.

Check out the post [HERE].

More Ammo from Clickable Culture

2007-01-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

Once again the Clickable Culture blog proves itself out to be a valuable resource for those of us who are trying to convince management that the "game space" is a space that should be taken seriously. I believe involvement in this space may end up being necessary for the very survival of some academic and business institutions as they struggle to remain competitive as the demographics of their customer bases change and evolve. Check out Clickable's latest post that reveals some interesting stats on how important the game space is to the next generation.

Check the post out [HERE].

IBM to Build More Storefronts

2007-01-09T20:23:00.000-08:00

MIT's Technology Review talks a little bit more about what IBM, Sun, and Circuit City are up to. IBM looks like they are going to start building more virtual store fronts in SL.

Read the article [HERE].

Why You Should Care About Second Life

2007-01-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

Computer World's Angela Gunn posted a nice article explaining what Second Life is and why business entities should care about it.

Read the article [HERE].

Campus Technology Magazine Features M.U.V.E's

2007-01-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

Campus Technology magazine featured an article on M.U.V.E.'s - Multi User Virtual Environments and how they will impact education in the future.

Check out the article [HERE].

The Democrats Tap Second Life

2007-01-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

It looks like some members of the Democratic party are beginning to experiment with using SL.

Check out the details [HERE].

Second Life to Go Open Source....Kinda...

2007-01-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

Hackers and CopyBot wanna be's rejoice! Linden today will release the code for the Second Life client as open source. Read more [HERE].

Second Life Business Communicator's Wiki

2007-01-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

I scanned a lot of content today now that I'm back and I found some interesting articles, but nothing really all that new. I found one link of interest...the Second Life Business Communicator's Wiki...check it out [HERE].

Oh yeah...SL membership hit over 2.2 million by Jan 1st 07...not bad.

SL Tech Roadmap

2006-12-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

Clickable Culture went through and dug out some important facts from Cory Linden's tech roadmap presentation. You can view the Clickable Culture blog post [HERE].

Here are two of the biggies-

- In 2007 we can expect to see Firefox integrated....FINALLY, and in Q1 allegedly.
- SL plans to go open source next year. To me this leads to a lot of questions...But I'm excited about the possibilities.

If we can implement our own version of Second life on our own servers...wow.

The Good with the Bad

2006-12-19T10:09:00.000-08:00

The hype is here about Second Life, but again, what do the numbers tell us about Second Life's success? A Clickable Culture blog post shines more light on Second Life's user retention numbers. Essentially right now a lot of people are checking Second Life out, then moving on. Less then 10% of the user base stays after 90 days. Check out the blog post [HERE].

To me this sounds really bad, but I've got no metric to compare other micro payment games to. I have a feeling this low retention number is bad no matter how you slice it, but maybe not quiet as bad as it seems. Anyway, once again, more evidence that Second Life has issues that tend to point to it having an uphill battle to fight to remain viable over the next few years.

Not Just SL

2006-12-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

Clickable Culture has an interesting article about an in-game virtual company going RL public in the world of Eve Online. Check out the article [HERE].

Second Campus to Begin Dreaded 'Outsourcing'

2006-12-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

Originally we thought about using SL residents to create our virtual campus. We scrapped that idea as Second Life was such a cool project that there was a lot of interest and everyone on our development team was eager to jump on board and develop in SL. Well, with a bunch of new projects coming up and the danger of Second Life becoming the red-headed step child project we have decided to start recruiting in-world talent to create our virtual domains. I'm actually pretty excited, as outsourcing much of the building and scripting in SL will free up our development staff to start working on projects that desperately need to move forward. I think "crowd sourcing" to a user base of about 200,000 active users will produce much better results then what we can do on our own given our limited resources and time, and I've pretty much thought that from the beginning. But now we have about 2 guys that are SL gurus and another 3 or 4 of us who are near guru level in SL, and I think in crunch times those skill sets will come in handy. Also all of us learned a few things in SL that will translate to how we go about building other projects which will include non-Second Life virtual worlds, so the time was definately well spent.

IBM's Spin on Second Life

2006-12-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

Very interesting read. Check out CNET's interview with one of IBM's virtual pioneers [HERE].

Two Million

2006-12-15T06:34:00.000-08:00

It happened, sometime last night Second Life's total residence went beyond the two million mark. In my personal travels of late I am meeting a lot of new users from Spain, Romania, and other European countries, so it seems that Linden's gamble of opening up registration a bit to be more inclusive of other areas in the world where having a credit card is a little less common paid off. But before we get to overwhelmed with the two million mark, let's take a skeptical view of this number.

The total residents number is inaccurate. Many users have one or more alts, plus Linden has not disclosed that I'm aware of how long they keep inactive accounts around. There was also the password compromise issue a few months ago, that caused many users to have to create new accounts, so there might be a sizable glut of non-active accounts still counted toward the total residents that will never be used again.

The following list of numbers provided by the Linden's is probably a truer way of gagging SL's usage.

I'd say that the residents logged in over the last 14 days is probably the most accurate number to use for gagging how many people are using SL. Second Life has about 325,000 active users. Still an impressive number considering when we first started looking at Second Life back in March there were a total of about 155,000 total users. Also back in March at peak times around 6:30 PM SL time we would see concurrent usage hit just shy of 5,000 users. Now I am seeing close to 17,000 at peak times. Plus that number now doesn't really dip below 10,000, where in the old days late at night I would see SL usage drop down in the low 2,000's.

So, in reality what we are seeing with Second Life is a lot of hype, a lot of people checking out SL, and then a lot of people shrugging their shoulders and leaving. Not good. I think in some ways the hype has hurt the Second Life environment, as more people come in seeking money and fame, and this has hurt the "fun" element of Second Life. There are less and less fun things to do, I don't see as many role-playing groups active in SL as there where when the number of total players was less. Yet there is no shortage to malls and virtual strip clubs and casinos. Those only entertain for so long.

So, what has been the rate of growth for Second Life over the last year? I would guestimate that the true user base of Second Life has grown a little over 3x. Very, very respectable, but not 15x which some will claim just by taking a very cursory look at the numbers.

What does this mean for SL? Retention of the user base is a huge issue. Right now they have the hype working for them, but that will only take SL so far if the virtual environment doesn't keep people wanting more. We need more virtual amusement parks, more games, more mercenary groups, more fighting, more serious usage which will be totally dependent upon Linden getting the platform stable and adding a few more controls, and less lag. Else Second Life will be nothing more then a niche virtual environment that will be a foot note in history.

Second Campus gets a Hospital

2006-12-13T22:34:00.000-08:00

We will be adding a small hospital to Second Campus East that should be completed mid-January to demo some of SL's role-playing/scenario possibilities to our college of Nursing.

Looks Like IBM is Going Long on Second Life

2006-12-13T22:30:00.000-08:00

IBM releases a little more info about what they are up to in Second Life. One interesting tidbit is that IBM allegedly has about a 1000 employees that are active in Second Life, plus several thousand more who pop in now and again. Read the full article [HERE].

Reading Lindenese

2006-12-11T18:12:00.000-08:00

Clickable Culture has a nice blog post on how to read through "Lindenese" and really get at what is going on with Linden's Second Life numbers.

Check out the article [HERE].

Second Life makes American Airways

2006-12-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

Check out there in-flight magazine article [HERE].

Green Light

2006-12-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

We, at last, have a green light for a Second Campus early adopter program. Stay tuned for more announcements.

How is Second Life and Similar Tech Used for Education?

2006-12-05T13:13:00.000-08:00

We all know SL is great, I think on some level we all "get it" but don't know exactly what it is that we "got" when we think about using SL in an academic environment. Another article addressing this is a post on Harvard Law's blog about when online/computer simulations add the most value in educational use.

Check the article out [HERE].

Go Long, Go Short, or Go Home?

2006-12-05T12:58:00.000-08:00

Capitalizing on the recent phraseology of what is going on in the war in Iraq, here are a few interesting perspectives about if using the Second Life platform for serious use if viable. Read the Oddcast's "10 Reasons to Go Short on Second Life" article [HERE] and Chris Carella of The Electric Sheep's rebuttal "10 Reasons to Go Long on Second Life" [HERE].

Haven't found a Go Home article yet, but I'm sure they are out there.

And by the way, I like Rumsfeld.

Cliffordb Makes the Konstrukt

2006-11-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

Old Cliffordb's interview with Baba Yamamoto made the The Konstrukt online magazine.

Check out the latest issue of The Konstruckt [HERE].

Warning!!!

2006-11-29T10:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, this next article is related to some adult subject matter. I've been pondering addressing how the adult nature of Second Life will affect how it is used by "serious users" like ourselves (edu's, gov's, ngo's, etc...). Every decision maker who ponders the serious use of Second Life should be aware of the adult content that exist in the second life virtual world. The following Terra Nova "cybersexdaq" article is an funny eye opener about the adult nature of Second Life for the uninitiated. It doesn't have any pictures but has a few bad words, so I will call it semi-work safe. Check out the article [HERE].

Also please note, on our islands we have some controls in place (banning, freezing, controlling who has access to our Second Campus Islands, etc...) to keep adult activities out of our areas. Yet we can't keep students and faculty ON our islands...they can go off on their own time. Just as at home on the web people are free to do what they please while at work or at school they cannot. Perhaps Second Life will add additional restraints that can be tied to avatars (i.e. avatars that can only enter PG areas). But I wouldn't expect this soon.

SL First: Currency Speculation

2006-11-29T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, not really a first, but with this new currency exchange described in Rik Panganiban's blog [HERE] you can do Linden to Euro to dollar to whatever type of cash exchanges. Let the virtual speculation begin.

SL First: The First SL Millionaire (Besides Philip)

2006-11-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

Another post about Anshe Chung (yawn). Her virtual holdings make her worth over a million RL $$.

Read Terra Nova's spin [HERE] and the Anshe's press release [HERE].

The Numbers

2006-11-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

The following Second Life Insider blog has an interesting graphic showing the seemingly logarithmic increase of new user registrations for Second Life this year. Check out the article [HERE].

CopyBot and Intentions: Bad Baba

2006-11-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a transcript from some of the chat in the #libSL channel (IRC?...Doesn't look like an SL IM format) posted on Cristiano midnight blog. Baba Yamamoto graciously allowed me to interview him yesterday. He came off as just a programmer that was just figuring out how the Second Life communication protocols worked and he and his group had no malevolent intentions with CopyBot. Cristiano's post sheds new light on the libsecondlife.org mind set though, and it isn't all good. I understand programmers boasting about their creations, especially when they discover something as monumental as the ability to copy objects in game, but I think Cristiano's post puts things into context that at least the libsecondlife group had a clew about what they were unleashing. I also think it is ironic that someone copied the text of the #libsl chat and replicated it :) Check out Cristiano's Blog post [HERE].

Interview with Baba Yamamoto about CopyBot

2006-11-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

You may have recently heard about the CopyBot in Second Life. It essentially allows users to copy anything into their inventory with full permissions applied, or at least that is how the story goes. The CopyBot is causing mass panic among vendors in Second Life, who are worried individuals will use the CopyBot to copy their creations that took them many hours to develop and then resell them for almost nothing.

Well, my boss Ricardo Sprocket asked me to look into CopyBot today, and find out what exactly it could and couldn’t do. So I went to the source. I talked to Baba Yamato who administers the libsecondlife.org website. Libsecondlife is a code library that makes it easier for programmers to access what is going on under the hood with the communications protocol that Linden Lab uses to communicate between Second Life servers and the Second Life user client program. All code developed with libsecondlife is licensed under the open source BSD license agreement, so it is accessible and modifiable to a wide array of developers. CopyBot, a program that allows its users to copy any object in Second Life regardless of who created it and what the permissions are, makes use libsecondlife. Baba stated that the original creator of the CopyBot code never sold it in Second Life, but because the code is open source someone in-game has exploited the code to create their own version of the CopyBot which is now being sold in-game. Baba is familiar with how CopyBot works and tested out a version created by the original developer. I decided to interview him and see what his thoughts were on CopyBot. Here are a few things I learned from our discussion. And if you scroll further down you can read the entire transcript of our interview.

1) By analyzing and copying data from communications that go the Second Life client program back the the Second Life servers, you can copy anything, even entire sims. CopyBot can’t really copy an entire sim now, but the underlying way it copies objects could be used to do so. Even worse, there is no real solution for this without Linden reworking the entire protocol and essentially rewriting large chunks of Second Life. The metaphor here is similar to HTML and the web. People freaked about how you could view source on a web page and see the underlying HTML. Similarly by understanding how the Second Life communications protocol works you can view the code that describes objects and copy them, just like you can copy source HTML from web page.

2) You cannot copy scripts by intercepting communications between the SL client and SL servers. LSL scripts are never communicated to the client other then when they are being authored or modified and then only to the specific user’s client that is modifying them. Some good news.

3) The original CopyBot that someone created and is selling in game runs a script with a built in listener that listens for the command to quit. So you will start seeing in many areas quit commands showing up in the chat window all the time. This will work against the current CopyBot that some users own, but expect to see other versions that will ignore the quit command.

4) Part of the reason why the permissions on copied objects were lost was not a deliberate hack, but apparently the meta data about an object’s creator and owner is hard if not impossible to recreate by analyzing the communications between the server and the client.

Remember, when CopyBot copies things (as least as CopyBot exits right now) you are essentially copying prims and textures. There are already other programs that do similar things like Open GL intercept, so a lot of bad press that the libsecondlife is getting is unjustified. If it wasn’t the libsecondlife group that discovered how to do copy in-game objects it would have been another group. Linden Lab has known about this possibility for a long time. Baba and the rest of the developers for libsecondlife have been very open about what they have discovered and thought the SL community at large should know what they have discovered with CopyBot. The libsecondlife group has even pulled the CopyBot code from the latest code forks in their project listings on their website. Unfortunately there are other ways of going about finding the CopyBot code. And regardless, the Second Life protocol is there for anyone to look at and hack.

So what does this mean for Second Life? Well, it ultimately means that simple objects are going to be copied. Complex, scripted objects will remain viable objects to sell in the virtual world. A three prim couch maybe not so much. Is this a problem? Yes, just like it was a problem with initial web development where creators created something cool in HTML and Javascript, only to see their creations copied across the web.

Transcript.

[10:30] You: So mass chaos today huh?
[10:30] Baba Yamamoto: crazy
[10:30] Baba Yamamoto: people finally got together and came to our HQ to protest
[10:30] Baba Yamamoto: trying to explain open source to the average joe
[10:31] You: Well, I could act like a journalist if you want, and get your side of the story out. We have a blog at secondcampus.blogspot.com. I could post what we talk about there, and I will allow you to edit anything out that you want.
[10:31] Baba Yamamoto: Muahahaha
[10:31] You: But, that is just the journalist in me, if you would like to keep it on the down low, and just fill me in, that would be cool too.
[10:31] Baba Yamamoto: whatever
[10:32] Baba Yamamoto: i am trying to be as candid as possible about everything we do with libsecondlife
[10:32] You: Mind if I post then, it will elevate me to "SL journalist" status :)
[10:32] Baba Yamamoto: hshs
[10:32] Baba Yamamoto: Muahahaha
[10:33] Baba Yamamoto: whatever
[10:33] Baba Yamamoto: I'm not worried about it :)
[10:33] Baba Yamamoto: so what's your question?
[10:34] You: So, I know a little bit about libsecondlife. A library to reverse engineer the communications between the SL Client and the Servers written in C#.
[10:34] Baba Yamamoto: yes
[10:35] You: From what I understand CopyBot is a class that uses libsecondlife to capture communications to recreate SL objects locally, then upload them back to the server, copying them.
[10:35] You: And in the process, because you are going from unix to windows to Unix again, the copy permissions are lost.
[10:35] Baba Yamamoto: yes, it does this automatically but it's essentially an import and export routine..
[10:36] Baba Yamamoto: with little effort we could write the output to xml or another format and then interpret it again
[10:36] Baba Yamamoto: not even that, it recreates the objects manually
[10:36] Baba Yamamoto: we're not capable of setting the original owner name on the objects
[10:36] Baba Yamamoto: it's hard to retain metadata
[10:37] Baba Yamamoto: there is no system in place for it within the protocol
[10:37] You: So in essence the protocol itself is wide open enough to allow for copying objects, but not open enough to retain the meta data about who built the object and such.
[10:38] Baba Yamamoto: Linden Lab is working on such a system now
[10:38] You: So what do you think about a few sim owners closer down their shops and hiding everything from view so it won't get copied? Is that even really feasible with copybot?
[10:39] You: Or is this just mass panic.
[10:39] Baba Yamamoto: ... the best way to drop their sales to zero
[10:39] You: Yeah, which sucks, and I guess that is why everyone is in an uproar about copybot. I'm just wondering if this is all over blown.
[10:40] Baba Yamamoto: i would say so
[10:40] You: And again, I would look at this as a Linden Lab problem. You guys were just being good programmers and learning how things worked.
[10:41] Baba Yamamoto: I don’t see how a person making an imperfect copy which does not retain scripts or any other object inventory with no name or brand or well known location can outsell an established retailer no matter the discount
[10:43] Baba Yamamoto: they could give away full permission object but ... what good would that do them other than grief and i still doubt it could kill sales as most people are honest
[10:43] Baba Yamamoto: i guess that's my take
[10:44] Baba Yamamoto: and if they gain any notoriety at all, it's instaban
[10:44] You: Yeah, I think all the fears are over blown. I can see how some malicious people will run around trying to copy everything, but all they will get of any use are simple objects that are mostly available for free or easily recreated anyway.
[10:44] You: Yeah, with all the hopla right now.
[10:44] You: So have any of the Lindens approached you about it? I assume they have.
[10:45] Baba Yamamoto: thre is a system in planning now that could scour the grid and compare object signatures to one another
[10:45] Baba Yamamoto: and detect possible infringement
[10:45] Baba Yamamoto: signatures
[10:45] You: That would be one way to deal with things.
[10:45] Baba Yamamoto: but I don’t think the theft will become widespread and destroy incomes
[10:46] Baba Yamamoto: too much hysteria
[10:46] Lola Frederick is Offline
[10:46] You: So how are you doing? People harassing you and protesting all over the place?
[10:47] Baba Yamamoto: i get the odd hateful IM
[10:47] Lola Frederick is Online
[10:47] Baba Yamamoto: More and more i am getting IMs from people who say "i get it"
[10:48] You: Cool. I bet as clever people such as yourself explore SL and how it works there will be times where things like this come up.
[10:48] You: I guess it is just the evolution of how this world will evolve.
[10:49] Baba Yamamoto: It's inevitable
[10:50] Baba Yamamoto: THe reason I felt the news about this had to be spread was because suddenly our library does have the ability to easily copy anything.. This was always possible with Second Life but it's now much more exposed to automation like copybot..
[10:50] Baba Yamamoto: Some people blame us for even trying to understand the protocol because it exposes these things, but I feel that if not now some time later it will happen and maybe worse
[10:51] You: I agree.
[10:51] Baba Yamamoto: The way copybot works it's just not possible to protect against
[10:51] Baba Yamamoto: totally impossible
[10:51] You: Think Linden could do something like add encryption to data streams from the client to the server or anything like that?
[10:51] Baba Yamamoto: no
[10:52] Baba Yamamoto: encryption slows things down and the key has to be available to decode it
[10:52] You: Yeah, SL is slow enough already :)
[10:52] Baba Yamamoto: breaking encryption is a full time job for some folks
[10:52] Baba Yamamoto: there is no safe encryption scheme that could work for Second Life that would not grind it to a halt
[10:53] You: So, at least for now and the foreseeable future, the ability to copy will remain.
[10:53] Baba Yamamoto: as far as I can see.. it's not something that can be fixed.. it's a product of the technology
[10:53] Baba Yamamoto: same as the web
[10:54] Baba Yamamoto: we have to know how to display the content
[10:54] Baba Yamamoto: there were the same fears when people realized that HTML was not hidden on the server
[10:55] You: What about all the quit scripts I am hearing about? How do those work?
[10:55] Baba Yamamoto: the bots were created originally had an IM command to stop the program
[10:55] Baba Yamamoto: the person who sells it never removed it
[10:55] You: Yeah, I've heard the comparison. And it is a good one. Your objects ultimately are XML describing the object coming from a client to a server if I am correct.
[10:56] You: I've got the c# class and libsecondlife, don't have the in-game bot though.
[10:56] Baba Yamamoto: we do not have an xml schema yet
[10:56] Baba Yamamoto: but it would be trivial to write one
[10:57] Baba Yamamoto: we do have an xsd transform to convert from blender format dotprim
[10:58] Baba Yamamoto: any other questions?
[10:58] You: Two quick ones then I will let you go, and again, I totally appreciate this Baba.
[10:59] Baba Yamamoto: we have a new bot template up now called TestBot it's the basic bot which logs in and accepts teleports
[10:59] You: Cool.
[11:00] You: Just for the record, you guys were the ones who made the ability to copy objects with the protocol known so that Linden would understand about this correct?
[11:00] Baba Yamamoto: they knew
[11:00] Baba Yamamoto: linden always knew
[11:00] You: See, again, it is ultimately there problem just waiting to surface.
[11:01] You: er their.
[11:01] Baba Yamamoto: and we always knew... but with this code becoming public or even just having all the proper functions in libsecondlife it becomes a critical issue that the general user needs to know about
[11:02] You: Well, now it is public and known. Might change the way designers build things, buy an object that reses other objects, stuff like that.
[11:02] Baba Yamamoto: well eventually it wont matter.. there is no reason the entire simulator couldn’t be interpreted
[11:03] Baba Yamamoto: anything that is sent to the client can be interpreted
[11:03] You: What about getting at the scripts?
[11:03] Baba Yamamoto: no
[11:03] Baba Yamamoto: never the scripts
[11:03] Baba Yamamoto: If we ever find a vulnerability to access scripts it will not be like copybot.. because that is something that can be fixed
[11:04] Baba Yamamoto: scripts are not to be sent to the client
[11:04] Baba Yamamoto: it's much like PHP on a web page
[11:04] You: Gotcha, just then end result is sent.
[11:04] Baba Yamamoto: exactly
[11:05] You: Thank you Baba. I think I understand the issues with copybot now much better. I appreciate the time. And I owe ya, if ever you need a favor in game.
[11:05] Baba Yamamoto: ;)

Massive SL Shutdowns

2006-11-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

The CopyBot issues is causing a lot of store closures today. Go to the find and check out the popular places, many are closed. What does this mean?

Another Red Flag

2006-11-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

I hate it when I have to question the viability of our presence in Second Life. I've got a collection of thoughts that I would like to throw down, the pluses and minuses about Second Life, as well as thoughts of what the next version of the metaverse will look like. That will come later. But the next version of the metaverse might need to come sooner rather than later. I've known about an exploit for a while that allowed any user to copy anything in the game. Here is a sample blog post by a creator of items in Second Life. When you are trying to make a living or supplement your income and these exploits come up it must really be disheartening. SL Furs recent post showing disappointment and frustration in Second Life can be found and his/her possible abandonment of Second Life can be read [HERE].

They Just Keep Coming

2006-11-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

Now Dell has a virtual presence in Second Life. Check out the Cnet article [HERE].

Educators Explore 'Second Life' Online

2006-11-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

The classroom of the future isn't on a college campus. It's in the virtual world of "Second Life." - States Grace Wong. Read more at:

IBM and the Virtual World Space

2006-11-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

IBM is set to spend about 10 million dollars in researching business opportunities in the virtual world space in the near future. This isn't really new news, but is being reported a lot in the other blogs so I guess I will mention it. It does reinforce the fact that many RL companies are taking Second Life and other MUVE environments very seriously. Click [HERE] to check out the Reuters article.

Broadband TV Comes to SL

2006-11-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

Looks like the BBC's Channel 4 and the Sci Fi channel have just teamed up to broadcast a TV channel exclusively for viewing with in Second Life. Check out the article from the Guardian [HERE].

Virtual Big Brother to be launched in Second Life

2006-11-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

The TV show Big Brother is checking out Second Life for a virtual version

Check it out!

Attack of the Clones

2006-11-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

Today I became aware of two products that might compete with Second Life on some level. The first is the much talked about finally delivered metaverse project. They have been in development for a while and have finally gotten around to an open beta. You can check it out [HERE]. I have yet to fully evaluate it, but from my initial glance it looks like you can run your own server, which is nice. On the bad side it looks like you have to develop objects outside of the metaverse with Maya or Max (no built in building tools).

Another product that kind of looks like Second Life meets myspace is Kaneva. The world looks suprisingly similar to Second Life though much more limited as far as building and poses go.

Anyway, two things to watch. If we could find a product outside of Second Life that could scale to meet the demands of having 10,000 concurrent users on at once we would be all over it.

Business Week Article on RL Companies In SL

2006-11-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

A good article about what design studios are charging big companies to enter SL. Check it out [HERE].

FAS Report on Educational Gaming

2006-11-02T13:25:00.000-08:00

Wow, even the Federation of American Scientist are jumping on the Educational Games bandwagon. Check out the PDF [HERE].

SL First: Taxes

2006-11-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, Australia has the dubious honor of being the first nation on earth to tax virtual income. Check out the Second Life Insider blog about post about it [HERE].

D.C. Serious Game Summit

2006-11-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

The RL Cliffordb Hightower, Deap Tweak, and Jason Mowder were fortunate enough to go to the Serious Games Conference in Washington D.C. this past month. Here were a few of the notes I gleamed from the conference, for those who are interested.

Notes from the SGDCC in Washington ‘06

Successful Games

Modern game project groups usually contain around 70 people. Be prepared to hire big teams of diverse talent if you want to have the next WoW.
Typical successful MMORGing budgets are approaching 50 million. WoW had an initial budget of around 100 million. Be prepared to have to spend or raise large amounts of money to create a blockbuster game.
Successful games teams consist of a wide variety of talents including game designers, programmers, artist, project managers, etc… These groups all have different cultures and often don’t communicate well with each other. Teams that produce successful games learn how to work together to overcome these communication and cultural challenges.
Distribution is hard. Better to partner with a professional distribution house then go it alone.

Interesting Facts

Traditional entertainment like movies causes the body to relax, get comfortable, and brain patterns begin to resemble sleeping. Game play causes accelerated arousal, more intense brain patterns, and more engaged body postures. Do people learn more when they are passively or actively engaged? That wasn’t addressed but I can bet what the answer most of the time is.
Experiments have been done that show that gamers will use different parts of the brain if they believe that they are interacting with a “bot” or a person. Even simple things like a game where a player has to follow a ball around show that if the player believes the ball is controlled by another person the areas of the brain that typically light up during social interaction will show increased activity. Where if the player believes the ball is controlled by the computer, even though the ball moves in the exact same pattern, the areas of the brain that control social interaction will show minimal activity.
The more a game resembles real life visually, the more areas of the brain that are associated with social interactions will become active.
Professional distribution houses are constantly looking for quality commercial and educational games to distribute. They also have money. Black Board is looking hard for games to distribute to k-12.

Game Design

Games typically follow a pattern of players performing actions and receiving immediate feedback. This is “interactivity”.
Games typically have short term and long term goals. These long term goals are almost like chapters in a book. Most of the plot lines and rewards are given to players as they complete these long term goals. Completion of these long term goals give players a sense of accomplishment and reward, which encourages them to pursue the next set of game goals.
The short term goals are really breaking down the long term goal into manageable chunks so as to not overwhelm players.
Assume the right levels of gamer fidelity. Don’t assume that they should know background things that they may not, don’t plow them with information that they already know.

What Keeps Users Engaged

Player ownership of assets in game worlds tends to keep them around longer.
Social interactivity and grouping keeps players engaged. But you can’t do this with a heavy hand (see below).
The range of engagement of players is key. If players are over-challenged, they get frustrated and quit. If the challenge gets to easy players get bored. Also the challenges must very. The more variance, the more stimulation.
Unfortunately the more primitive the challenges are, the more stimulated players become. The more gamers “kill” the more exciting each kill becomes vs. the longer players meaninglessly wonder around the less stimulated they become.
Obviously a good storyline and a well built out game environment are necessary for success.
Having players involved in creating or being a part of the story line keep players engaged as well.
Players tend to like good 2.5D or 2D graphics over crappy 3D graphics.
Just-in-time instruction is very useful. Players often want to get immediately into the game, and limiting the “meta” information they receive about how to play the game to just what they need to know at a given time often keeps the game flowing and more engaging to users. Many newer games integrate game tutorials into the initial plot line of the game.
“Cheating” can be a useful tool in enhancing the players experience in the game. It is no accident that almost all modern games have cheat codes built into them. Also almost all modern games have extensive information about how to solve the games either online or in professionally published hint books. There are many different reasons why people “cheat” and the level in which they “cheat” at, but allowing some degree of “cheating” in the game can help less experienced gamers to get unstuck, allow gamers to “fast forward” past game spots that might otherwise cause them to get bored and drop the game, or to give players an entirely new dimensions of game play which keeps them engaged.
Games with too much cheating and obvious exploits quickly caused players to become frustrated and leave the game (a warning to Second Life).
There are different personality types in gaming. Some included killers, achievers, socializers, builders, explorers, etc… A good MMORPG will try to keep each player type engaged.
“Think outside the box…or rather think outside the game.” Don’t overlook tools outside of the game itself to make the game a success. Give gamers internet web sites, discussion boards, bling, toys, etc.. To give gamers the full emersion that they desire, even if those items end up not making to much money in and of themselves. This acts as an “emersion multiplier”.
You would think this would be obvious, but it isn’t. Good games research and know their audience and are constantly adapting to meet the gaming needs of their audiences.

Notes on Grouping And Socializing

Grouping is hard. There is something called the Halloween Effect (from the movie Halloween and the time period where trick or treating almost stopped because of an almost irrational fear people had of children getting poisoned candy). Some gamers expect their fellow gamers to really be serial killers and psychopaths. Thus there is usually some resistance to socializing and grouping within a game.
Because of the Halloween Effect if you get to heavy handed in trying to engineer social interactions as being necessary in games, users may drop the game. Yet at the same time grouping and social tools are one of the main sources of enjoyment for gamers once they get over their initial mistrust of their fellow gamers. So a well designed game will foster grouping and social interaction without appearing to force it on the game’s players.

Serious Game Design

Interestingly, game design and instructional design are very similar. Instructional design and game design are all about stimulating an audience in such a way that they learn something. Various inputs, scenarios, information, etc…are all presented to that audience in an engineered way to get that audience to learn something. Gamers try to teach users how to do something that enables them to participate in some game play that they enjoy. Instruction designers try to teach students an academic concept. Different goals, similar if not the same methodology. If you realize this, it is easier to design serious games, as you are really designing educational materials using newer technology.
Games must be designed to meet specific academic goals. Many school systems have standardized testing requirements that they must focus their curriculum towards. The more a game can demonstrate a direct correlation to helping the students achieve higher standardized test scores, the easier it will be to convince the “gate keepers” in schools or colleges to adopt the game.
Many schools have equipment that is several years behind the bleeding edge. Your system specs for your games must be reasonable.
The amount of time players will be able to spend on your games is limited in an educational environment. Class time constraints must be considered.
Games must be considered in their educational context. Games must show that they both have or can be included in a larger educational framework. You must do work outside of the game including creating lesson plans that provide and educational context for the game and how it should be used, pre and post assessments, perhaps provide additional community tools where players and teachers can discuss the game, etc… Be sure to think outside the game.
In serious games, as with commercial entertainment games, you must research and know your audience and strive to meet there needs. With serious games you might have multiple audiences. One audience that must approve and continue to approve the use of a game in an academic environment, the students audience that must enjoy and accept the game, the teacher audience that will have to administer the game, etc… Each audience must be made happy for the game to be successful.
For selling serious games within your organization, it is proven over and over again that this is much easier to do if you if you can “convert” a local champion within the specific business or academic unit you are trying to have adopt your game.
Be careful about appearing “too sexy” in the beginning. It only encourages scope creep as your customer’s imaginations will run wild with the possibilities. Reveal what you need to in order to keep customer interest, but no more, else you will continuously make more work for yourself.
Again, this might appear to be obvious, but it is not. Subject matter experts must be included in creating the game. Without them it is really hard for game designers to wing it and meet the stated academic goals of the game.
Pre and Post assessments are critical. You must demonstrate that a game actually helped students learn. You build the greatest game learning tool in the world but if there is no way of proving it your game will not be adopted.

Books that Were Referenced in the Conference

Synthetic Worlds
The Attention Economy
Got Game
The Future of Work
The Media Equation

Selected Contacts

We met a bunch of people, many of whom expressed a desire to collaborate with us in some capacity if we are interested. Here are a few.

Eduteams

Helen ? Helen’s group does a lot in the UK with educational games in secondary schools. Her experiences and research are worth looking into.
http://www.eduteams.com/ and www.futurelab.org.uk/research/teachingwithgames.htm

Seriosity

Byron Reeves
Leighton Read

These two guys have a company called http://www.seriosity.com/ that is trying to build tools that exploit the psychological plumbing of game play to make business applications more engaging to next generation workers. They demonstrated an interesting beta tool that uses money to manage email glut. Each employee is given a certain amount of influence money that they are allowed to spend on emails. They try to buy other employee’s attention with the “serioso” currency by attaching so many bucks to each email in order to bribe the recipient to open it. The way currency is spent is tracked, which reveals a lot of interesting details about which employees are respected by their peers, which are not, who receives the most information, who is the key to actually reaching others, etc..

Chung-Ang University in Korea

Jong-Hyan Wi
Eun-Sok Won

These guys impressed me because like Helen in England because they made efforts to do research and assessments to show that games do in fact help people learn. Some of their work in the k-12 and the college levels are impressive. They are also spear heading the adoption of serious games in Japan, China, and many other Asian countries. They hope develop a global serious gaming initiative soon and seemed to be very open to our involvement if we wished to be involved. A back door for UoP into Asia?

IBM

Mike Nelson
www.eightbar.co.uk
http://www.gametomorrow.com/

According to Mike, IBM has about 250 people exploring Second Life in some capacity right now. Some internal job titles include “metaverse evangelist”. Mike might be a good person to contact if we plan to roll hard with Second Life.

Technologies to Check Out

http://www.vastparks.com/

Vastparks appeared to be a scalable Second Life clone that let you run your own server that in theory could support up to 1000 concurrent users.

Emergent Technologies

Tim Page

Emergent is behind the gamebryo game engine that has been used for games such as Oblivion, Civilization 4 , and other awesome games. He said a commercial license cost 150k, but because we are a University we would probably get a huge discount on that. If we do want to build our own multiverse, this engine is definitely one to check out.

Cryptic Studios

Jack Emmert
Crypticstudios.com

Jack’s company created the second largest North American MMO, City of Hero’s. He is an academic at heart, and might be open to collaborating on making us the next Second Life.

Scientists Say Video Games Can Reshape Education

2006-10-31T05:39:00.000-08:00

Check out this CNN article about how video games might reshape education. Check it out [HERE].

Cars, Books, Travel, Sloodle, and Banks Come to SL

2006-10-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, here is a break down of major comings and goings in SL over the last week and a half.

* There are now several Amazon affiliated bookstores in SL. Read a kind of negative blogpost about them [HERE]. Penguin Publishing is also dabbling in Second Life, you can read about that [HERE]

* A virtual travel agency now exists in SL (and other places). Check them out at synthtravels.com.

* Nissan and Pontiac jump into Second Life. Read about it on 3pointD.com [HERE]. You can check out Pontiac's front end to their SL Sim [HERE].

* A Moodle (popular open source Learning Management System) has been integrated with Second Life to form Sloodle. Read about Sloodle [HERE].

* The Wall Street Journal through its CareerJournal.com site has an article about Avatar Marketing that deals with Second Life [HERE].

* Meta Bank, dealing only in Lindens, is the first SL bank besides some SL Mafia groups loaning L's out that that I am aware of. Check out the Uvvy blog about Meta Bank [HERE].

Also, Business Week and the New York Times both had not to noteworthy articles on Second Life during this time frame.

The Original Sun and IBM Press Releases

2006-10-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

I was overwhelmed with work then I took a few days off for vacation so I missed a few important SL events. Here are the original SUN and IBM press releases relating to their jump into Second Life.

Wired in SL

2006-10-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

You may have missed the hard copy of Wired Magazine which featured an extensive article on SL last month. Wired seems to be covering SL both in print and on its Wired News website more and more now.

Check out the Wired's latest Second Life article that list "must have" items for your avatar [Here].

Infocyde and Second Life

2006-10-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

Infocyde is an information warfare concept...it is a state where an information receptor gets overwhelmed by so much information that it essentially ceases to operate. I feel like I am suffering from infocyde as I try to track Second Life as it continues to evolve. There are now about 40 blogs that I track, the SLED educational listserver generates about 30-100 emails a day, and there are numerous web sources that I check out daily. Let’s just say that Second Life, despite of its recent instability, is now growing at an amazing pace. Where a few months ago you might stumble across one or two new corporations or colleges coming into Second Life, that seems to be more of a daily occurrence now with no real signs of stopping. Reuters, Intel, IBM, SONY BMG, and other big name companies have all made their presence know in Second Life over the past two weeks. I think trying to keep up with it all in the 15 or 30 minutes that I task for researching SL each day would now be better spent focusing more on what happens in Second Life that affects Second Campus. We kind of slowed our roll a bit as Second Life became massively unstable for a few days and as we encountered a few internal hurdles. With how quickly Second Life is growing however, I think it is time that we got back on the fast track development cycle again. Second Campus is about 90% complete, with the remaining 10% of items (which are mostly mine to do) being minor tweaks here and there. So expect Second Campus’s Early Adopter program to roll shortly. Stay tuned.

Over One Million Second Life Users!

2006-10-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sometime early today or late last night, the number of Second Life registered users reached over a million. I'll post more about what that means, if anything, shortly.

Reuters opens virtual news bureau in Second Life

2006-10-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

Reuters opens virtual news bureau in Second Life [via]

101 Uses for SL

2006-10-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a great link provided by Dr. Megan S. Conklin about possible uses for Second Life. Check out the link [HERE].

Politics and Marketing: The UN's First Foray into Second Life...Kinda

2006-10-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

Aimee Weber (of Aimee Weber Studio) is working with the United Nations either on her own or with their blessing, I'm not sure which, to use Second Life as a public awareness vehicle.

Check out the Second Life Insider article [HERE]

Business: NYT Article on Selling to Avatars

2006-10-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

Check out the article [HERE].

Media: The Economist Covers SL

2006-09-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

The Economist, both online and print versions, recently ran an article on Second Life.

Check the article [HERE].

Related: Branded Virtual Spaces

2006-09-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

MTV is launching a Laguna Beach (reference the TV Show) branded virtual world based on there.com. Will this start a trend?

Check out the beta at-

http://www.vlb.mtv.com/.

Gwyneth Llewelyn on Castranova's SL Comments

2006-09-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

Interesting post about SL being the future of the web. I'm not sure I would go that far, but check it out Gweyneth's blogpost discussing Edward Castronova's comments on Terra Nova [HERE].

The original Terra Nova post is [HERE]

Pretty Cool: Fabjectory and SL

2006-09-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

Check out the secondlifeinsider.com's post about Fabjectory. Some interesting possibilities arise out of this if you think about it. Using SL or any OpenGL software to create 3D prototypes is finally here.

Check it out [HERE].

Latest Links from LL

2006-09-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Ottawa Citizen My avatar can't come to the phone right no...
Popular Science Your Second Life is Ready
eurekasa.it Suzanne Vega in videogioco online
Corante Digital Love in Second Life
Toronto Star Teens get a crack at Second Life
News.com My Avatar's So-Called Life
Emerce Presidentskandidaat voert campagne in Seco...
Seattle Times High-tech, low-tech, even edible art
Red Herring Second Life: Kissing virtual babies
Washington Post Mark Warner the Avatar
Huffington Post Presidential Hopeful Warner To Be Intervie...
Wired.com Second Life Gets Sexier
The Techsploder Scoble, PR and NOAA head to virtual worlds
Detroit Metrotimes Does Your Life Suck?
Business Week Online Starwood Hotels Explore Second Life First
The Age Never Trust a Man With Wings
Washington Post Hear the Music, Avoid the Mosh Pit
st.nu Duran Duran släpper ny platta
El Pais Web 2.0: Internet y más allá
News.com Second Life Becomes Real Life
Tech Republic Business consulting comes to 'Second Life'
News.com 'Second Life' brass show off ancient versions
The Age The Word
News.com A virtual world's real-world conference
The Phoenix Right-click to learn
MSNBC.com Will technology revolutionize boinking?

Personal space in Second Life

2006-09-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

Slashdot discussion about personal space and Second Life:

Link

Games: Wiki with a List of Games in SL

2006-08-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of many in-world Second Life games. Need something new to try out in SL? Check out the Game SLave Wiki.

Business: CNET's article on the Fort Mason SLCC

2006-08-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

Here is an article about businesses jumping into Second Life. It includes video (look for yourselves in the background) of the SLCC 06.

Check the article out [HERE].

SL First: Translator in Second Life

2006-08-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

This may not be the first, but it is the first in game translation device that I have heard about. It can translate up to 10 different languages, pretty cool.

Here is a link to Wagner James Au's low down on The Brother-HUD of Man.

You can also check out a video of it in action [HERE].

Info: Link to Mitch Kapor's SLCC 06 Speech

2006-08-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

Check it out [HERE]

SL First: Grid Marketing Comes to SL

2006-08-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

My friend Loas Wood setup the first grid marketing site in SL.

Check it out Second Life in Pixels [HERE].

Duran Duran in Second Life

2006-08-21T13:57:00.000-07:00

Duran Duran have bought an island! More details via the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5253782.stm

Government: NOAA 's SL Presence Described

2006-08-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Here is an article describing NOAA's presence in SL. Another big government agency takes the plunge.

Check out the article [HERE].

Tip: Working with Other Applications While Second Life is Open

2006-08-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

I found that going to the task manager and lowering Second Life's processor priority to below normal makes other applications a lot more responsive while you have the Second Life client open. I like to listen to Winamp while developing on Second Campus since while at work most of the streaming media stations in Second Life are blocked. Winamp would always fade in and out while I had the Second Life client maximized. Lowering the process priority on Second Life fixed not only my Winamp problem but other applications became much more responsive. The Second Life client continued to run without any real noticeable degradation in performance.

Education: Link to Info About the Gold Rush Game in SL

2006-08-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

The game Gold Rush is similar to that Oregon Trail game we all had to play in middle or high school. This is a great use of SL for I'd guess about the high school level.

Check it out [HERE].

Business: Documenting One Entrepreneur

2006-08-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

Check this out.

http://www.idealworldmovie.com/short/

Se Habla Segundo Vida

2006-08-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

Just to show that Second Life is a global phenomenon check out this link to a Spanish newspaper's article on Second Life.

Check it out
[HERE]

Technical: Some Good Articles

2006-08-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

SL Universe has some good links in their knowledge base on how to do some useful things. Note that not all the articles are up to date. Still worth checking out.

http://www.sluniverse.com/kb/

CBS Videos

2006-08-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a few videos about Second Life that appeared recently on CBS News's website. If you get through the first video if is followed by another that consist of an interview with the founder of The Electric Sheep Company, which is very active in Second Life. Worth a peak.

Check it out [HERE].

Having Linden Labs Setup Users

2006-08-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

It cost $150 per 25 custom avatar accounts to be created in Second Life by Linden Labs. All they need a spread sheet of email addresses and passwords to give each account. Plus they can give the accounts customized last names.

Just FYI in case we want to do this. The price has gone up, it used to be $150 for 100 accounts :).

SL and the Music Scene

2006-07-30T23:27:00.000-07:00

Ricardo Sprocket explores using Second Life as a venue for indie band promotion.

Momentum is Growing (Latest round of links from the SL homepage)

2006-07-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

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Article with some Interesting Demographics

2006-07-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

Quote

"Cory Ondrejka, vice-president of product development at Linden Lab, which owns Second Life, claims it has 330,000 users and is growing at 12% a month without any marketing. The demographics are fascinating: the average age is 33, half of users are women and a very large number haven't played online games before. He also claims that 60% of users create their own content compared with less than 1% of readers of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia."

Original Article is [HERE]