SLUC: Intel gears up

Second Life Under Construction

After crossing the metaverse back and forth today, my eyes are really tired and I can't make sense nor sensibility from some of the things I''ve seen today. However, one thing that is clear is that Intel is gearing up. After Live without boundaries and Intel Ignites OCC there's a new Intel sim under construction in the Millions of Us archipelago.
But it doens't stop there! A new cluster is emerging...they're up to something...
Then there's SMI coming next to SUN and around Sheep Island there are a few interesting signs too, like Baseball, Bridge International to name just a few new projects.

Sundance For a Change

The Sundance Festival has found Second Life to be a new carrier to promote its movies. At first glance, there's nothing special about the build; a few brick and wood buildings in a forest. An empty cafe and a Movietheatre...

Well, nothing special, since the sim is cold and empty. I visited the website though and found out they're actually doing something there. A weekly series on the Green features many hot-topic discussions which are also blogged. Since a pic from that meeting is way more spectacular than the snapshots I took, here's one from their blog:Aside from the movies, Sundance Channel the Green focusses heavily on the eco-hype.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sundance%20Channel/140/91/49

Sony BMG

The Electric Sheep Company brings (well... brought a while ago) another big brand into Second Life. This time it's Sony BMG that's being immersed by the ESCapists. This time I'm impressed. The architecture is great and is slowly straying away from RL gravity rules.

The grand opening was October 19th, 2006 and featured a simulcast event with Ben Folds. Aside from the usual freebees (which in this case are about L$ 100) you can download music here as well.

The only problem with this sim is, is that it's called Media. It took me a while to find it. It certainly doesn't show right off that it's a Sony BMG thingy.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Media/122/125/49

MTV's Laguna Beach

MTV's popular show Laguna Beach was originally immersed by the Electric Sheep Company on a standalone virtual world, based on There technology. Due to popular demand the beach has been set up in Second Life as well.

After the L-Word this is the next major tv-shows to set up shop in Second Life. In an interview I did with Paul Verhoeven he mentioned that Second Life has a number of cost-reducing advantages, so we can probably expect more tv-sets to go virtual.

MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach: http://www.vlb.mtv.com/

The Second Life version: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Laguna%20Beach/128/128/0

New Architecture for Sun

Here's a short update on the Sun Pavilion I blogged about earlier. They've done some heavy redecorating and I really like the architecture!

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sun%20Pavilion/108/108/71

Adidas awareness

I'm just realising I left out an important blogpost. I've blogged Reebok and BBH earlier this month, but forgot to blog their neighbour, Adidas. I visited the sim, took a few snapshots but completely forgot to post it. There are two plausible explanations for this omission

1. It was way past bedtime when I blogged Reebok and BBH
2. The Adidas sim was just not good enough to be blogged.

Well, to be honest, I wasn't very enthausiastic about it. It was pretty much the same as Reebok, a shop with some shoes and nothing much of a so desired experience. When I think of Adidas I think of Steffi Graff sweating on Roland Garros or some other sporty event...

The reason I've added this post now is because there is something funny about Adidas. KZero blogged about brand perception in SL, based upon a research done by Reperes, a french market research agency (the one from the desing competition). The most remarkable result is that Adidas has scored highest with a 69% brand awareness.

Anyway, Adidas was brought to SL by the inevitable Rivers Run Red. However, it could be a German build as it is almost as white as the BMW and Toca Me designs.

SLURL:http://slurl.com/secondlife/adidas/128/128/0

Trimedia trial and error

"Trimedia Communications is Europe’s fastest growing Public Relations and communications consultancy." They have offices throughout Europe and thought it would be nice if their sim would have the same layout... Well I was there, didn't recognise it, but somewhere I saw a nice picture that proved Trimedia right.

The official press reading is:

Europe will be an island

Trimedia Communications opens a branch in "Second Life"

Trimedia Communications is the first European PR agency group that is opening a branch in Second Life. "The Trimedia World" mirrors the European Trimedia network and is designed to become a central meeting place, for everyone active and interested in PR and marketing in the virtual reality world...

Off course, there's a lot more in the official release, mainly saying that a lot can be done at the island, but I haven't noticed. My friend Aleister blogged this build last month and had the feeling it was still incomplete. A month later, it still looks like it's missing a beat...

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Trimedia%20World/2/2/101

Mazda's Failure to Launch

Mazda is adding another virtual promotion to the growing line of car manufacturers in Second Life. Since Toyota made a big launch in 2006 and Pontiac is praised everywhere for its crowdsourcing Second Life is hot amongst the iron-horse producers.

So we've had Toyota, Pontiac, Mercedes, BMW, Nissan (and probably one I've missed) and Fiat under construction, you might have thought Mazda has had enough time to look at their peers and learned something from them, for good or for bad.

The presentation of the Mazda Hakaze at Nagara island was...well... a bummer.

"Dagger rose. Silence. He sat and Barthelmess rose. He sat and Lundquist crossed to the podium. Still silence. A Mazda video played, then stopped and started again. Later another started. Neither video played to completion.

Suddenly the Mazda Hakaze appeared on the oval, which had now risen a bit from its previous ground position. It’s a cute little car, has a bit of a smiley face front and I expected cheers, comments, anything. Silence..," said SLNN reporter Sarah Qi (read full article here). Mazda had been using group IM's to keep the gathered press up to speed, but had failed to tell them to use the group audio channel.

Nagara Island is little more than a beach with a few roads to drive on. It appears Mazda bought the island in Januari 2006 and started building in February. Three employees have been inside SL but didn't bother to look beyond the borders of their own sim. Mazda plunged in without proper market research. They could have gotten away with that in early 2006, not in 2007!

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nagare%20Island/128/128/0

Beta Technologies

Beta Technologies is another of the early Virtual Contractors in Second Life. They've got a wide range of skills to help build your presence in SL, ranging from 3D content design, real architecture, programming, web and logo design, video and audio production, production of textual content, project planning and management, as well as consultancy, marketing and promotion.

Among their builds are Xerox, the Scandinavian Saxo bank, Cleveland Heart Clinic and Sunbelt Software. This list reminds me that I have to visit the Xerox build, as I've already blogged the other ones.

Beta Technologies is one of the many succesfull projects by Eggy Lippmann who joined Second Life in 2003. One of the feats on his palmares is the foundation of the Second Life histori wiki. For more information on the various projects of Eggy, you might wanna look at his wikipage.

Blogstats April

Well, I've started this blog in February, but only got serious somewhere this month.
The first 10 days of april saw an average of 5 visitors a day, the last 10 days an average of 146. So it's been a good month :)

Here's where our visitors came from:

1. Netherlands
2. Usa
3. Japan
4. Italy
5. Singapore
6. Denmark
7. Canada
8. United Kingdom
9. Australia
10. Belgium

Our top referrers:

1. Ambling in Second Life
2. Google
3. Technorati
4. 3pointD
5. Secondlife Blogo

Fasten your Sunbelts

and buckle up for a ride on the Sunbelt sim. Sunbelt is the software corp that keeps the bad guys out...

"...Sunbelt Software has created a presence (Sunbelt Island) for our communities to meet, discuss computer related issues, attend events and lectures, have parties, or just have fun exploring this exciting new world.We built several areas you might want to visit; Sunbelt's corporate headquarters has been rebuilt in Second Life, we have an auditorium, several fun games to play, a gathering area for parties, a partner pavilion and a product awareness island. We also created a Second Life 101 'primer' for people completely new to this new world, called the 'welcome area'.

The nice bits about this sim is that the circle from their logo returns in various settings, e.g. the walkway round the pond, the terraces in the auditorium etc. A few nice gimmicks are several spyware suits in pricedraws and a few virtual software selection wizzards.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/sunbelt%20software/123/131/68

Anyway, as I was running my PC unprotected at the moment, I thought it would be fun to sign up for the price draw, and well, here it is. I won... Within a day I'm the proud owner of a 20 (US) dollar counterspy software suit. Can't wait for mcAfee comes to town since I need a new antivirus too.

Funding the Dream

As Second Life's popularity is growing, the tale of Linden Labs gets bigger and bigger. Phil Rosendale must be living the American dream. It''s the typical American IT story of a guy (just like Bill) starting up in a garage and shooting millions a year after.

But there's a step -or perhaps a giant leap- to be made from having the idea to actually making it true. It needed time, but it also needed money to develop and buy the necessary hardware.
One of the things that struck me lately was a sim -deadcenter mainlaind- named Omidyar. It's an ocean but carries the SL logo. A quick search brought me to the Omydyar Network.

"Omidyar® Network is a mission-based organization established by eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar, and his wife, Pam. Since 2004, we have made both for-profit and nonprofit investments to advance our mission, and we are currently expanding beyond investments to include public policy and other areas that enhance the organization's reach and impact."

A reliable source informed me today that indeed they are one of the leading investors in Linden Labs. Thanks Omidyar for funding another addiction ;)

The road to Web 3D

Earlier this week I made a blogpost of the Business Week SL special. Here's another article (read the full version here) that discusses the future of the internet and NVE's (Networked Virtual Environments a.k.a. virtual / immersive worlds) in general.

"All these developments have one thing in common: They suggest that before long, the Internet of the future, and the vast wealth of information and services on it, will look different: slicker, more realistic, more interactive and social than anything we experience today through the Web browser. "Three-dimensional virtual worlds will, in the near future, be pervasive interfaces for the Internet," says Bob Moore, a sociologist who studies virtual worlds at Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, the legendary Xerox (XRX) lab in Silicon Valley."

It's an excellent article that really gets you going, written by Robert Hof.

Kula Chess

"It's time to wage war! Get on your battlesuits, cry havoc and prepare for battle..."

No this time it's not about an MMORPG or a virtual Star Trek roleplay sim but it's good ole battle chess gone virtual. However, in this game you don't move the pieces, you are one of them. Put on a pawn suit, a bisshop or knight's suit and walk onto the grid and be immersed inside the game of chess...

If you're in for a game, then TP to Kula:

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kula%204/139/215/24

Cisco Community Center

Triggered by one of the things I read earlier today about Cisco, I decided to go in for a look.
Cisco has got 4 islands, actually I should say sims. The sims are a terraformed like a cluster of smaller islands with gazebo's and nice bridges crossing the waters

Cisco's really getting into community, also giving some room for their partners if you're able to read the signs below. Trust me, there's a lot of different areas, no real events or fun thingies, but plain old community building and collaboration.

I like the build, the general setup of different islands, quite open but with a sense of privateness. The architecture is a little simple though.

SL Merger: Dropzone & Virtual Holland

There has been a continental drift in the Holland sector of Second Life as ING's "Our Virtual Holland" and Talpa's "Drop Zone" have merged to form what may be the beginning of a new continent... but are a fair mass at 17 sims right now.

Word of Mouth

Well, here's a few items from other blogs with the latest SL updates.

Sculpted Prims

3PointD, Metaversed and the Gridblog all spend a few lines on Tao's scoop on the new Sculpties. Here's Lordfly's comment:
"According to Tao Takashi, who has the scoop, a new prim type, “sculpties”, will be on the preview grid either today or Monday (my guess Monday). Cubesque is still counting down, but it’s kinda anti-climactic now :D Apparently Cube Linden is down in Georgia giving a talk, hence the latest message on the website. Still, fascinating stuff. I can’t wait to play with virtual putty."

The 3PointD blog is a little more extensive:
"More importantly, it means that SL objects are suddenly a lot more interoperable with objects and shapes from other worlds and modelling programs. According to the Second Life wiki, “We provide an exporter for Maya, and hopefully exporters for 3ds Max, Blender, and ZBrush will be available soon. We also have plans to provide a sculpt editor within the Second Life viewer.” The wiki doesn’t say where this Maya exporter is available, but according to Tao Takashi, it may be in the next preview build of the client, due shortly"

Sunny Worlds

Then there's Aleister who has a nose for good news that gives a little insight at Sun's plans to compete bringing us a story from Informationweek on this:
"Sun Microsystems put the spotlight on its next-generation technology and showed off research projects that ranged from faster switches and more efficient servers to 3-D virtual workplaces in an open house for analysts and reporters. Among the projects that would wow even a nontechnical person is Sun's MPK20 virtual workplace. Sun has built a client called Project Wonderland that handles the graphics rendering and provides the controls for moving an avatar through the make-believe world.

MPK20 is built on top of the new version of Sun's open source Darkstar gaming server. While Wonderland does the graphics rendering, Darkstar handles everything else, such as load balancing, managing game state, and voice communications. For storing avatars and other game objects, Darkstar uses the Berkeley DB database, another open source project."

Cisco

Another scoop-dog, 57 Miles, bloggernaut at the Metaversed blog dug up some more intel at the Informationweek site and here are a few lines by Mitch Wagner, author of the article:
"just got off the phone with Cisco -- we ended up talking for a couple of hours about how Cisco is using Second Life for business-to-business communications. Turns out that quite a few Second Life users are network engineers. These are Cisco's customers, and Cisco is aggressively using Second Life to communicate with them

Cisco has a few hundred employees in Second Life. They have several sims that they use for user-group meetings and meetings among their own international staff. They do customer education and training in Second Life, get feedback from customers on products, and do presentations using PowerPoint, video, and streaming audio. They hold events that combine people in the real world with avatars in Second Life -- a type of event that Second Lifers call "mixed reality."

The real value of Second Life for Cisco is the opportunity for spontaneous customer interaction, said Christian Renaud, chief architect of networked virtual environments for Cisco. "It's like a birds-of-a-feather session that goes on 'round the clock," he said. He routinely encounters customers in Second Life who want to talk to him about their needs and what they want Cisco to do. "I bump into customers and partners multiple times a day in Second Life. In 11 years at Cisco, walking through the parking lot in San Jose, I never get people come up to me and say, 'I'm a Cisco customer, have a second?'"

Entertainment

New World Notes has a nice little article on carting in Second Life

Getronics

Another step in the internation IT competition has been set as Getronics is prepping for SL presence. As with Logica, it's primarily a one man action by an SL-digging employee. However, what I could grasp from the notecards is that Getronics is picking up the bill for the island.

As you'd expect from Getronics, the building style is kind of cold and towering, at least 8 floors are to be utilised in this huge building. I wonder what they plan to do with the rest of the island.

For now, the structure has been set, the floors themselves are empty yet. One detail was a nice personal touch, a butterfly garden. The garden has the setup of a small canteen


Finally, there's a sticky wall at the first floor where GP leaves a few building notes for us to see where he's going.


I'm curious to see where this is going. My boss has been afraid of big IT companies in the Netherlands to announce their presence is SL, while we haven't. Sogeti has been active since late 2006, having its own island and training about 50 employees to work in SL. So we keep telling him; "hey we've got more presence than any of the others, we don't just wanna put down an office and proudly shout wer're in too. We want more"

The Metarati

Well, I did a short blogpost on the Digerati... but they're all 80's guys. Their time has gone. The days of the Digerati are gone, this is the time of the Metarati...

I wonder who they are

update

Since the term is being rapidly picked up by several blogs (a.o. 3PointD, UgoTrade, Electric Sheep Company, Metaversed), Wikipediasites (3pedia and Wikipedia) and numerous Twitters entries, here's a link to the nomination site: http://www.metarati.org.

Content at Second Life

Here's the latest news on Dutch corps coming to SL. Finally I get the chance to publish the pictures I took two months ago in a sneak preview...

And yay.. it's another Lost in the Magic Forest production.

Rotterdam, 26 April 2007 - Dutch employment agency Content goes Second Life. Dutch employment agency Content, one of the biggest in Europe, opened an island in Second Life. Content sees Second Life as an important platform for dialogue and crowdsourcing. Furthermore, Content will offer both real jobs as well as Second Life jobs on the island. Virtual branding agency [Lost in the] Magic Forest was responsible for the design, working closely together with internet agency Evident.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Content/128/128/0

The Digerati

Who are the "digerati" and why are they "the cyber elite"? They are the doers, thinkers, and writers who have tremendous influence on the emerging communication revolution. They are not on the frontier, they are the frontier.

The digerati evangelize, connect people, adapt quickly. They like to talk with their peers because it forces them to go to the top of their form and explain their most interesting new ideas. They give each other permission to be great. That's who they want to talk to about the things they are excited about because they want to see if it plays. They ask each other the questions they are asking themselves, and that's part of what makes this cyber elite work.

See: Edge

Price Waterhouse Coopers

Price Waterhouse Coopers is the next serious consulting corp that has an opinion on Second Life: The virtual world of the internetplatform Second Life is getting more real for many companies. Small and medium sized businesses are getting interested in the millions of dollars that are spent in Second Life. The biggest mistake you can make is by considering it the next internethype. Second Life is an economic reality with many opportunities"

"Second Life's biggest win is that it can offer an extra dimension to your webproposition", say Ilja Linnemeijer and Ronald van Tongeren, PWC's media and telecom consultants, "By being present in such a platform you connect your business to a portal that's accessible for everyone"

Their conclusion is a little strong "You have to hurry. This is the time in which this alternative economy is getting shape and everyone is taking in positions. Think about what these developments mean for your organisation before it is too late."

update:

You can find the whole thing here. I'll warn you upfront, nothing new or visionary to be found.

Arbo Concern

The Dutch Arbo Concern, a company in sickleave management and workcondition regulations, opened up in Second Life in February 2006. It's goal is primarily limited to virtual meetings and workshops.

Arbo is the Dutch term for work-condition related law and regulations. "An Arbodienst has the image of a dusty and bureaucratic organisation," says Arbo Concern CEO John Frank, "but we're a young, dynamic company. Second Life is an excellent platform to support that. Websites are static, Second Life gives us the opportunity to interact with customers."

SLURL http://slurl.com/secondlife/baekga/80/230/80/?title=Arbo%20Concern.

Emerce on Second Life

Emerce is a source of inspiration for Dutch innovators. The magazine (part of the VNU group) is considered to be one of the leading business publications when it comes to new technology. When it comes to Second Life, Emerce was one of the first magazines in the Netherlands to pick up the trends with reports starting back in summer 2006.

In September 2006 they opened up shop in Second Life as well, at the Emerce island. The island is dominated by the old Van Nelle (coffee and tobacco) office in Rotterdam

As for publications (in Dutch)

• Emerce opens up shop in Second Life (september 2006)
• Second Life a marketing paradise? (june 2006)

Other Second Life publications by Emerce: here

Quarter Bet Watch

In search of some statistics to support a viable business case I searched the web and came across a 2006 prediction by Reuben Steiger, former Linden Lab evangelist and now CEO of one of SL's most succesfull contractors, Millions of Us.

His best bet for 2007:

Well, right now (april 2007) is 5.6 million registered users, so he's only off by 2 million. In the graph you´ll see a conservative guess (blue) and a wild guess (red). There should be a (green) factual line added that picks up momentum december 2006 and aims (hence no longer factual) for 7.5 million by July 2007.

Gartner says 80% will use Virtual World in 2011

One of the potentially hyped quotes from the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2007 I mentioned in the blog 2 hours ago was a bold statement:

“By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a ’second life,’ but not necessarily in Second Life,” the company said on Wednesday in a statement released during the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in San Francisco.

Let's hypothesize on that. Let's assume the economics for Second Life are a market average. There are now about 6 million Second Lifers, spending 1.5 million USD a day. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, there were about 330 million active Internet home users in March, 2007 (monitored in 10 countries).

330 Mi beats the current 6 Mi about 55 times, extrapolate that to the daily turnover and in 5 years we'll have a virtual market valued at 65 Mi. USD daily and an annual turnover of about 25 Billion dollars, not counting a rise in active internet users ;)

Let's assume Linden Labs will be the sole survivor. Now they're at 8 GB data traffic per second and 8,000 server. Let's do the math: In 2011 Linden Labs will have to deal with about 500 GB per second Data Traffic and 500.000 servers. I'd say.... Let's invest in ISP's and Serverfarms :)

1.5.0 (2) Client released

WOW - I'm in. It took some time though as I -and more immersive junks with me experienced several difficulties logging in with the new client. First to cry havoc was 57 Miles from the Metaversed blog. Here's what sucked"

"Well, it's back to 57 channels and nothing on...

Same here, first word I get is that my "new and improved client" can't connect to the version manager, well that sucks..If this were true, that would definately be deplorable, deploying a new version before letting the system know that there will be a new client....
Anyway, news I get now is just that "it's unable to connect and we all just have to take a peek at the status page"... as if that one isn't virtually dead while everyone is downloading the new improved not workable 1.5 client :)

Cheers, VeeJay"

But hey, I'm in so I gotta checksum to do to see if my inventory is still complete.

First spotted errors:
- IM friendlist doesn't come on
- Friends tab doesn't load
- Group IM errors are supposed to be fixed, however, whilst testing it shows:
"[13:56] Starting session with Mind Blizzard please wait." and then it's stuck. After a minute it's done though. So it's probably fixed, just humongously laggy

Update

Okay, humongously laggy might be an understatement. I've been immersed for about 30 minutes now and my friendlist and group members still haven't loaded.

The funny part is... everything's logged, last login, title but names... well... they're gone!

Virtual Traffic Jam

Second Life generates 7GB-8GB of traffic per second, and is currently supported by 8,000 servers. "When people see the broader architecture, they'll understand that's... it's Web-like. It's scalable," said Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2007.

I did run a hosting sideshow at one time in my life (am still running a webserver with the full-monty somewhere) and discspace isn't the issue, hosting prices are basically determined by datatraffic nowadays. A regular European ISP will charge you about 1 euro per GB of datatraffic. So 8 euro's per second, 1,680 per minute, 100K per hour and 1.2 Million dollar per day.... I think they're getting quantum discount ;)

Right now, just at the end of the maintenance window, the Traffic Jam is actually happening. There's a new client version (1.5) that's been massively downloaded. The Second Life site is virtually dead right now.

Everything under control

Everytime the grid is down for maintenance it's a nuisance for the virtual junks. Another hour wasted! Okay, usually Linden schedules maintenance and takes its time to do a few fixes. Probably a good thing.

I work as a project manager for a large IT company. I haven't tried selling the Linden message to them when we are to do some maintenance. I doubt they'll appreciate it, but in the virtual world it's common practise it seems. Let's face it, this is no Old School IT Governance, this is the flow of the new digerati generation.

Blarney's Simulcast

Tonight's a night for dancing in Dublin's Blarney Stone pub. Another episode in their Simulcast series draws a crowd as Al Hofman climbs the stage.

Al's performance was great, and I've heard many guitarists in my life. Between his songs he spoke in a soft voice, not much of a talker, but his music speaks for him. The crowd certainly loved it. For those interested, here's a pic from the preference settings for optimal sound. Let's meet again in Dublin :)

If you'll check the Second Life events, you'll find Al to be a regular performer at various clubs and events.

Elysian

Down in the Electric Sheep Company area an island called Elysian attracted me. I didn't recognise it as a corp name, so I figured it must be private. Judging the location, I expected some link with the ESC.

Turns out it's the home of a UK based Architect (Real Life one) who also did gigs for various ESC projects and other contractors. I must say I was impressed by the architecture.

NBA baseball hits SL

Neighbouring STA travel and UGS Innovation are 4 sims under construction:

1. NBA Courts
2. NBA Jamsession
3. NBA Arena
4. NBA Orientation

(listed in order of completion as far as I can tell)

Unfortunately, they're not acessible right now, but surely worth keeping an eye on.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/NBA%20Courts/129/130/65

Wishfarmers

After I visited the Kelly Services Island, I thought to take a look at the website of Wishfarmers, the builders who did the Kelly gig to see what they're about and what they've done so far. Below is their own introduction...

Wishfarming is an art: The art of re-inventing creativity in a new space called the metaverse. The Wishfarmers offer our proven ability to design and implement groundbreaking solutions for projects in SecondLife and other virtual spaces.

We’re natives, and we’re restless. We know and protect this “new internet” as well as you know your own business. And we denounce works which fail to enrich them both.