Tech -- Culture -- Humour
Developer Estrelle Fauna of Big-Bit has posted on our discussion forum asking for Australians with building / scripting / programming / sales experience.
With the enormous interest in SL, Big-Bit have the need to expand their talent to deal with the large number of prosposals being requested by Australian organisations interested in what SL may have to offer.
Second Life, METAVERSE (01 February 2007)
Tretiak Media, LLC announced today that Cafepress.com will use its SLQuery platform as their search engine in the 3D virtual world of Second Life. By using the SLQ infoStation, a free public search and chat kiosk, residents of Second Life can browse from millions of products in the Cafepress.com inventory.
Search results are displayed in the virtual environment of Second Life by text and thumbnail images, so the initial viewing of products does not require the launching of an external web browser. Previous Second Life search systems lacked product pictures and only supplied limited text link results. This diminished the usefulness of a search within Second Life idea, and required outside web pages as support. The SLQ system keeps the user in Second Life and utilizes it as a true 3D internet.
This search feature is just the first step for the entry of Cafepress.com into Second Life. The next phase will be a virtual marketplace, that takes the Cafepress.com web storefront and brings it completely into the metaverse. Shopkeepers will be able to design and then sell their Real Life Cafepress.com products from Second Life, keeping the product creation process, purchases, and payment transactions entirely inside the virtual environment.
Until a Real Life teleportation system is developed, however, product fulfillment will continue to rely on traditional shipping methods. Second Life is already the perfect venue for the Cafepress.com community, which is very loyal and has many social events worldwide. As an extension of the Cafepress.com marketplace, it gives the several million active shopkeepers a new environment to network, learn, and promote their products.
Tretiak Media is also adapting its SLQ image viewing technology for use with its amazon.com search feature. The eventual goal will be to offer a prim-based internet search/browser platform. This system is just the start of future vBusiness initiatives to come.
The SLQ infoStation, SLQ infoHUD, and other infoProducts can be found on SL Exchange, SL Boutique , or in Second Life at: SLQ HQ
Had a very informative conversation with Emerald Dumont, an Australian in-world librarian. Emerald has been involved in the establishment of an Australian Library service in SL.
Established on Cybrary City in November 2006 it is being co-ordinated by Emerald, with another 14 Australian library folk joining in.
Emerald cites networking, fun, playfulness, a rapid increase in IT skills and a chance to learn a new interface as some reasons why she is there.
“There are over 900 librarians setting up services on the 7 islands around Info Island”, she said.
“Together we are grappling with customer service issues like whether doors discourage visitors – we are experimenting with removing them totally from our buidings. We are creating links to library resources outside second life, have RSS feeds and search engines available within our libraries, are holding author talks, staffing reference desks, creating displays and offering our libraries as community meeting places. We have even had historical figures, like Henry VIII, talk about their lives”.
Emerald would like to hear from Australians in Second Life about what they want from the library. “As well as providing information, I’d like to see it used as a gathering place for Australians who didn’t want to hang out in pubs. The top floor could be used as a community meeting room, as happens in real life libraries”.
Kathryn Greenhill, the real life librarian behind Emerald Dumont, is giving a talk about library services in Second Life at the National Library as part of its “Digital Culture” series. It’s titled “Flying Librarians of Oz: What’s all the fuss about Second Life and what’s it got to do with libraries?”.
FAST FACTS
Australian Libraries Building
Flying Librarians of Oz talk: 14th February 12:30pm, National Library Lecture Theatre, Canberra
More about the Australian Libraries Building: virtual.librariesinteract.info
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Students tend to use Google or Wikipedia as their first port of call in researching for information these days. Emerald’s library service could change this as more and more library and librarian services find themselves developing an SL service.
In fact, the idea of “Ask a Librarian” could be back in vogue with quality SL libraries like Australian Libraries Building and librarians such as Emerald being available to answer your query.
The issue of Addiction in Second Life has been discussed previously, but there’s a much wider scope in Second Life for the issue of health. Ask any health professional what their definition of health is and you’ll get a very different answer every time. The World Health Organisation states that: “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, and that’s as good a definition as you’ll find.
Even though health is so much more than hospitals, they deserve a mention. As of now, there are no Australian health services with a presence in SL, hospital or otherwise. At an international level, finding health services in-world tends to lead to things like Danvers State Hospital (pictured), which is offering themed rental like no other. There is also a real-life Danvers Insane Asylum and neither particularly help to remove the stereotype of mental health care options. Add to that groups like the Fake Doctors Association and the colourful side of the equation is well serviced.
Support for Healing Island (pictured) is a well known support service for anyone wanting to talk about an issue, but otherwise there’s very little around that I’ve come across as yet.
Is this due to lack of R&D funds for health services to investigate innovative ways of delivering health care or a general lack of awareness and understanding? The Education sector leads the way in this area, with health lagging, at best. The Australian scene is even less evolved and the University
sector will probably need to lead the way if any real progress is to be made.
One other thing – we love being proved wrong at SLOz – if you know of health services in-world that we’ve missed, we’d love to hear about them.
I don’t think the electrons had finished spinning when I received comments / emails from Sean FitzGerald and Decka Mah that there was indeed an Australian University that had an SL presence.
And what a presence!
The University of Southern Queensland in conjunction with the Queensland Government have an entire island in-world at SL.
Terra Incognita is a dynamic and intriguing mix of colour, sound and areas aimed at exploring online learning environments within the SL world. It is worth a look because it is currently setting the standard for showcasing Australian tertiary education in this new medium.
One of the striking features is the fact that the developer team, led by Decka Mah (aka in RL as Lindy McKeown) have gone for a design theme that does not mirror the RL USQ. This is something that the USA universities currently in SL seem to have done – Ohio Uni for example.
What will be intriguing to see over the coming year is how USQ makes use of this experience to enhance learning for it’s students and the teaching experience for it’s lecturers and tutors.
On another level the fact that the Queensland Government have backed this project examples the ideal of the “Clever Nation” ideal espoused some years ago.
A visit to Terra Incognita is well worth the effort. You won’t find it by doing a search in SL, as I found out… 🙂
Aus MacEd is a new site for Mac-based educators recently launch, and a pretty sight for sore eyes it is. Recommended reading if you’re part of the target group.
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