Virtual Worlds – Page 150

Scepticism about Second Life – a healthy dose

April 29, 2007 by Editor Leave a Comment

If you’re an avid reader of everything SL, it’s easy to end up with a very skewed view of SL. The mainstream media tend to either get extoll the ‘wow’ factor of business in virtual worlds or focus solely on the ‘dark’ side of SL.

Scepticism is rarely employed in a discplined way however some methodical scepticism on SL can certainly be found at Second Life Safari, part of the Something Awful site. If you’re starting to get a little rose-coloured in your view, then a healthy dose of new reading may be in order.

At SLOz our view has always been that SL is one damn interesting phenomenon, but one that requires an investigative rather than closed mind.

Filed Under: General News, Op-ed, Virtual Worlds

LukeConnell Vandeverre – postscript

April 28, 2007 by Editor 8 Comments

The response to our interview with Hope Capital’s LukeConnell Vandeverre has been significant and on the whole very critical. A few days ago I sent LukeConnell an IM offering a follow-up interview as an opportunity to address the serious allegations being made about the WSE and the World Trade Centre deal.

Today I managed to catch-up with LukeConnell via IM to again offer the forum for a reply to allegations. I stated that a key theme throughout the response to the story was the concern around his qualification to run Hope Capital and the allegations of fraud.

His response was (published with permission):

“Forums are almost always the main hang out for rumours, slander, false and misleading information”

He then requested that a further statement be added to this article:

“There have been a small group of individuals making serious false allegations about the World Stock Exchange and are working to create rumours in order to create downward pressure on all shares in market. The malice (sic) intent of such claims is very clear. It is to be expected that such actions would be taken by certain members due to either: an IPO not Approved, intention to start a competing exchange, losses due to poor investment decisions or jealousy”

The story of financial security in SL is obviously not over and it’s an issue we’ll continue to follow closely.

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Virtual Worlds

Content creators rejoice – sculpted prims a reality

April 28, 2007 by Editor 1 Comment

As announced on the Official Linden Blog, sculpted prims are now a reality. What this essentially means is that the limitation of the current shape options is now gone. The best explanation of what this means has been provided by Torley Linden on YouTube:

Linden have also provided a high-res version here

A discussion topic on sculpted prims has been started on the SLOz discussion forum

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds

Corporate backlash, Australian style?

April 27, 2007 by Editor Leave a Comment

Hamlet James Au from New World Notes is interviewed by Henry Jenkins and one key point raised was Au’s assertion that:

“For the most part, there is no tension, because the native participatory culture hardly knows the corporations are even there, or care all that much that they are. Residents have scant or limited interest in their ‘colonization’ “.

In an Australian context this claim doesn’t ring true for me – the small active Australian population means that we well and truly notice the corporate presence. I’d even go as far to say that primariliy due to Telstra’s presence, a significant proportion of Australians actually owe their existence in SL to effective corporate promotion. This makes the dynamic very different and is likely enhancing the level of feeling either way in regard to the increasing presence of business. Although there’s not being any significant backlash against Australian corporations to date, you can be sure that most Aussie residents of SL know of the corporations who are there.

Au is dead right that business in SL is only one facet and that creative individuals are the lifeblood of any virtual world experience. For better or worse though, the two aspects are intertwined in a sigificant way now.

Filed Under: Business, Op-ed, Virtual Worlds

SMH story on SL

April 27, 2007 by Editor 4 Comments

The Sydney Morning Herald ‘s Michael Dwyer has written about his experiences as a new avatar in SL and he’s a sceptical resident after spending a number of hours in-world. He also raises an issue that crops up constantly – the weirdness of those first number of hours and uncertainty on etiquette etc.

Not a mention of the education opportunities in SL and lot of focus on sex, so situation normal really.

Filed Under: Australian News, Virtual Worlds

ANZAC – Ataturk Memorial

April 26, 2007 by Editor Leave a Comment

A simple memorial for both sides of the Gallipoli conflict can be found on the Iaconelli sim.

We have no excuse for promoting this landmark the day after ANZAC day aside from ignorance of its existence.

Check it out in-world

Filed Under: Australian News, Landmarks of note, Virtual Worlds

Milia 2007 – Second Life developments

April 25, 2007 by Editor Leave a Comment

Gary Hazlitt has posted on his blog some vignettes from his attendance at Mip TV / Milia 2007.

Gary’s posting contains some interesting insights on marketing in SL and future developments including some fascinating statements made by Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale.

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds

Light at the end of the tunnel for lag?

April 23, 2007 by Editor Leave a Comment

There are growing reports of Linden Labs opening up their servers to open source. New blog ‘LA 2nd Life’ run by Australian, DanteJones Laszlo, outlines nicely the upsides of non-Linden Labs owned servers.

Whether open sourcing solves some of the greater underlying architectural issues is debatable, at least in the short term. Aside from lag, the deal breaker for a lot of SL users is the inablity to have more than around 100 people on any one sim at one time. Solve that and SL will truly come into its own.

Filed Under: General News, Open Source, Virtual Worlds

Hope Capital – the debate continues

April 22, 2007 by Editor 2 Comments

Cyberland CEO Shaun Altman has responded in detail to some claims made by Hope Capital CEO LukeConnell Vandeverre during our interview on Friday evening.

Additionally, World Stock Exchange non-executive director, IntLibber Brautigan has waded into the debate backing the Hope Capital CEO and calling into question Altman’s motives and alleged the involvement of Anshe Chung.

SLOz has placed an enquiry via Anshe Chung’s website asking for confirmation of any shareholdings in regard to Hope Capital.

Our objective in covering this story is transparency given the centrality of stock exchanges in the financial life of any world. Virtual money or not, financial security in SL is worthy of ongoing scrutiny. We take no position on the character or motives of anyone, we just report events that occur.

Filed Under: Australian News, Business, Virtual Worlds

Aussie population update – 8000 on the horizon

April 21, 2007 by Editor 6 Comments

Meta Linden has provided an update on SL metrics. In the past month, Australia has had significant growth to 2.43% of the overall SL population:

1. As at 31st March there were 3,177,434 unique residents (up half a million on the previous month)
2. Ten percent of that is 317,743. (the ten percent rule is the rough guide on active users)
3. 2.43% of THAT is 7721.

As we stated last month, we expected the Telstra and ABC launches to have increased the aussie population significantly and that’s indeed occurred with a jump from 1.48% to 2.43%. The figure of 7721 is probably a little optimistic but the trend for Australians in SL is certainly one of growth. Our prediction for next month is continued growth but at a reduced rate as the BigPond influx gets well past its peak.