Tech -- Culture -- Humour
I’m encouraged by the work being done on an improved search interface in Second Life.
I’ve always believed one of the biggest causes of users giving up on SL is the hassle in finding anything in-world. Between Linden’s work and the ever-growing list of third-party SL viewers, there’s a chance SL may be user-friendly. I kid you not.
Are there additions to the search functionality you’d like to see?
Australian made comedy The Librarians makes it debut this week and there’s a tie-in event scheduled on the Melbourne Laneways section of ABC Island.
The full info from the notecard I received:
“DATE: Thursday November 1st
TIME: 7:30pm AEDT, 5:30pm (WA) 1:30am SL time (PDT)
The Librarians, is a new six-part comedy series from ABC TV, based around the highly-strung head librarian of an outer suburban Melbourne library.
This new social satire premieres on Wednesday October 31 at 9.30pm AEDT. Or if you can’t watch it live, you can view it online at http://abc.net.au/tv/librarians/from 10:00pm.
Then on Thursday night, in conjunction with the ALIA, Emerald Dumont – a librarian avatar from the Australian Libraries Building – will host a discussion.”
In the eleven months SLOz has been running, one of the most vexed questions about Second Life and virtual worlds in general in pornography. Our story on Linden Lab’s ban on ageplay is the most viewed story on SLOz and by an extremely large margin – its follow-up is also regularly read. The reason for the enormous number of views comes down to the venerable search engine.
Each day we get hundreds of views of the ageplay story, through people typing a bunch of terms into Google or other search engines. Some of the more common being used are:
– child porn
– virtual child porn
– preteen porn
– preteen panties
– beastiality
– virtual porn
– legal porn
– child panties
There are a bunch of other ones I won’t publish here, suffice it to say there are some sick people out there. What it illustrates is the universality of the issue across the internet. Linden Lab’s crackdown appears to have been effective in minimising overt ageplay. What it can’t do is minimise the significant demand for undesirable images nor the dilemma of defining what consitutes pornography or otherwise.
Where do you see this issue progressing in future?
There’s a superb retrospective on the venerable C64 here.Â
Find great articles on a variety of fun subjects such as the first computer made, and a computer buying guide. We also have info on the development of textbooks, as well as video games and a host of other subjects.
As promised, we spent a little more time checking out ‘Real Estate Life’, the island launched by the REA Group. There’s a lot of emphasis on space and it’s certainly not a build that has logo saturation – the main building certainly has its fair share but otherwise it’s an understated approach.
We caught up with Dave Platter, Corporate PR and Internal Communications Manager from REA to ask a handful of questions:
Lowell Cremorne: What was the impetus for the decision to develop a presence in Second Life?
Dave Platter: The web has changed a lot since we got started with our first site 12 years ago. SecondLife represents one possible vision of what the web of the future will look like.
We want to be a part of it so we could better understand how it works. That way we can apply the lessons we learn to our 16 real estate websites.
Lowell Cremorne: You’ve mentioned a primary aim is to engage with the SL community – how do you plan on achieving that?
Dave Platter: Launching the REA Group island is the first step. But in one sense it’s the least important of all. What’s really important is building relationships. So our next step is to spend more time in-world, using the island as a base and perhaps a place for meetings and events. We’re walking with baby steps and we will use what we learn from other Second Lifers to help us decide what to do next.
Lowell Cremorne: Do you have a timeframe for your committment to Second Life – are there success metrics that would lead you to leaving if they weren’t met?
Dave Platter: At this point the only thing that would cause us to abandon SecondLife would be if we simply decided there was nothing else useful to learn there. But, given the vitality of the community and the innovation the platform displays, there probably is a lot to learn in SecondLife.
Lowell Cremorne: Will the islands have any staffing?
Dave Platter: They won’t have full-time staff for now. It’s not a retail store or even an information booth, although there are some information screens. Rather than waiting on the island for people to drop by, we’ll seek out people, places and events of interest, and also sometimes we’ll invite others to come by.
It’ll be interesting to see how the island fares over coming months – there’s no shortage of near-deserted corporate presences around Second Life. If the enaggement strategy espoused is put into practice, REA may be one of the success stories.
The old saying ‘if it rains, it pours’ applies in Second Life this week. The Australian Internet Industry Association (IIA) is launching their SL presence tonight.
IIA Island contains a sizeable sandbox, cafe, freefall platform and assorted buildings. The launch is being held tonight at 6.30pm AEST. The plans for the launch are:
“Streaming music of original Aussie bands is being supplied by MP3.com.au. The artists will be in attendance (as their avatars) to support the launch and mingle with the guests. To coincide with tonight’s launch, a short legal forum will consider legal issues relating to 3D virtual worlds. Nic Suzor and Nick Abrahams are recognised legal experts in this area and have agreed to present at the forum in the Andrew McLaughlin auditorium commencing shortly after the 6.30pm launch.”
I was interested to note one of the key sponsors was Optus – a small foray into Second Life for Telstra’s largest competitor but at least a start.
It’s also worth noting that the AIIA (Australian Information Industry Association) launched in May in a more modest way. So we now have an IIA and an AIIA – and both demonstrate the increasing commitment of the IT industry in Australia to Second Life.
Back in July we reported that the REA Group(best known for the realestate.com.au site) had an island under development. The development is now complete and is called ‘Real Estate Life’.
We’ll do a more detailed tour of it later this week, but here’s what REA are saying their objective with the presence is to “learn from and build relationships with other in-world inhabitants and entrepreneurs”.
The build itself is described by REA:
“The island is relatively modest, with a small, inviting building, which includes a reception area, meeting rooms, a boardroom and large screens that provide information about the company’s websites.
The building sits on what is in fact the largest of four closely placed islands. Each of the other three has an outdoor gathering area for meetings and events.”
Watch for a fuller report later this week including an interview with REA about what they’re hoping to achieve. I’ll be surprised if there’s not some significant mainstream media coverage given the previous focus on virtual real estate in SL and the long timeframe since the last Australian corporation entered the fray.
One of the problems we encounter in this information age is the enormous quantity of information encountered each day and the danger of overlooking the bleeding obvious.
Checking out the home page of Second Life every now and then to see what is happening can throw up some interesting gems. If you’re like me that may be every blue moon, but this week I happened to notice over in the right side margin an item labelled; “Education & Non-Profit Organizations“.
A perusal of this link will show there is an enormous wealth of information, web and SL based resources for those interested in either setting up an educational or non profit presence in SL. Or for those looking into the opportunities that SL offers in various educational areas.
At the educational level a click on the More… link towards the bottom of the page opens the wiki listing a pretty full list of universities and other education providers in SL.
A quick scan down the list shows that the “Australian Film TV and Radio School: Sydney, Australia” but no others from our neck of the woods. Perhaps its time for someone from the Australian Universities we have featured here on SLOz to pay a visit and add their details…
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