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The 19th March brings up the one-year anniversary of the ABC’s launch of ABC Island. Launch night coincided with the screening of You Only Live Twice on Four Corners. Since that time, there’s been a steady stream of events, including a great number organised by the Australian community of Second Life residents who frequent the island.
ABC Island’s presence is a modest one when compared to the Telstra build, but it packs a lot of variety in the area it does inhabit. The Sandbox remains the most popular area, but themed areas like Melbourne Laneways provide a lot of ongoing interest as well.
There are also rumours of further expansion via another island. I caught up with Lisa Romano (SL: Lise Robbiani), the ABC’s Project Manager, Strategic Development for its Innovation unit, who wouldn’t confirm the rumours. We also asked her to confirm the original intent of the presence in Second Life. “The ABC created a presence in Second Life to learn more about virtual worlds so that it could understand how to create and present content and build a community in this rapidly growing three-dimensional environment. One of the ABC’s core principles is to reach audiences wherever they are and to pursue opportunities for innovation, so a new platform of this kind which shows strong audience growth and interest is worth exploring,” Romano said.
So after a year of effort in Second Life, has it been worth it for the ABC? Romano certainly thinks so. “We are thrilled with the response from audiences over the past year. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and we feel like the Island really offers a sense of Australian community based around content, creativity and innovation for both Australian and international visitors, mainly due to the dedication and enthusiasm of the ABC Friends Group.”
That same ABC Friends Group (of which I’m a minimally contributing member) is organising some anniversary events this week. There’ll be plenty of information in-world or watch this space for details.
What are your thoughts on ABC Island’s first year? Has it been a success? How do you see it evolving in the coming year?
You may or may not be aware, but early to mid March marks two significant Australian anniversaries in Second Life: a year since the Telstra BigPond and ABC presences in Second Life launched.
We’ll be writing more on both in coming days, but today I stumbled across another Telstra presence in Second Life. Two islands, Telstra Experience and Telstra Innovation aren’t part of the BigPond islands but they do come up in Second Life’s search functionality.
The Innovation island isn’t publicly accessible but I had a wander around the Experience island, and as the notecard offered on arrival says, it’s a replica of real-llfe Telstra Experience centres, one of which is nearing completion in George St Sydney. It’s very much an enterprise and government focus versus the BigPond end-user focus of the larger presence.
Because the build is a replica of a real-world one, it’s far from an immersive, creative experience, with standard corporate office-space containing multiple video viewing areas. My guess is it’s also being used as a prototyping tool for the real-life builds in Sydney and Melbourne. There’s nothing wrong with any of that and it does demonstrate the growing awareness by the corporate world of the utility of virtual worlds in non-consumer, non-brand awareness applications. I doubt we’ll see the islands launched with much fanfare, if at all. And that’s the way it should be.
The full text of the in-world notecard:
“The Telstra Experience Centre (TEC) is a new state-of-the-art facility built for our customers, now replicated in Second Life.
The TEC has been designed to provide business and government customers with hands-on experience with Telstra’s world-class technology, service and media capabilities. Customers will be able to see, touch, feel and use Telstra’s products and services. Most importantly, this centre allows customers to explore solutions using Telstra’s Next IP™ Virtual Private Network and Next G™ high-speed wireless broadband network.
This Telstra Experience Centre in Second Life is designed to give visitors a taste of what to expect from the RL centre. It also allows us to experiment with the use of Second Life for RL collaboration and projects across business and government applications.”
VastPark has been developing under the radar the past few months but today announced an upcoming stress test of the VastPark servers and browser software. April is touted as when the open beta will be launched and for the first time there’s been confirmation of future support for the Mac platform.
The full announcement:
“VastPark is finally going multi-user!
Getting very close to Open Beta
We are calling on you, our closed beta community, to help us. Did you know we’re planning on releasing our whole platform as an open beta in April?
Before we can release a number of our tools, we need to run a stress test to put our server and browser software through its paces; this is where you come in.
Come online
We need as many of you as possible to join us for the test. At the test we’re going to make some really cool announcements about VastPark which we think you’re going to love.
How do you get involved?
You will need to download the alpha version of the VastPark Browser (available the day prior to the test), and then join us during the test time.
The test runs at 5.30-6.00pm PST, Wednesday 19th March.
Have a look at the chart below for your local time:
San Francisco Wed 19th March 5.00-5.30pm
Austin Wed 19th March 7.00-7.30pm
New York Wed 19th March 8.00-8.30pm
Cologne Thurs 20th March 1.00-1.30am
London Wed 19th March 12.00-12.30am
Mumbai Thurs 20th March 5.30-6.00am
Singapore Thurs 20th March 8.00-8.30am
Melbourne Thurs 20th March 11.00-11.30am
Please add the local time for the test in your diary and if you can join us for the test. We will send out a reminder newsletter the day before testing. For any questions or comments, please visit our website forums.
Thanks for being with us during this next big step!
We look forward to seeing you online.
The VastPark team
We’ll say it one more time to avoid confusion: The software for the test is not going to be available online until the day before the test. We will send out a newsletter before the test to help remind you of the event. Right now, all the software is Windows only but we’re working on bringing VastPark to the Mac. Yep, we heard you Mac lovers and we hope to make announcements about this in July!”
As we’ve previously mentioned, SydSim is Telstra’s replica Sydney CBD that started development in November 2007. In December I was critical of the build’s nature.
I dropped in again this week and there’s been some significant progress i.e. a lot more buildings and other objects. It’s starting to show some potential although I’m still uncertain as to how engaging it’ll be. That will probably depend on the rental aspect – if the right sort of tenants move in then a momentum of its own will develop.
I contacted BigPond’s media contact for comment on the build’s progress but haven’t received a response as yet. What are your thoughts – is SydSim something you’d like to be part of or is it too much like a mirror world?
Controversial Australian Second Life resident LukeConnell Vandeverre (RL: Luke Connell) gave an update on the World Stock Exchange, which has been offline since January.
I wasn’t able to attend the live event due to its time although I was offered a preview over the weekend which I also wasn’t able to make. Nobody Fugazi from Your2ndPLace has a scathing critique of the information provided today: “this seemed like a monotone message of desperation with an Australian accent”.
I’m hoping to glean further information in coming days but it’s safe to say that WSE’s future is still far from assured.
Update: the Second Life Herald has also covered the announcement.
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