Fiat Brasil

Since the final quarter of 2006 we've seen about a dozen automotive companies enter Second Life. As was with the internet, the automotive industry has been quick to pick up on new technology, finding ways to promote their vehicles.

Early april 2007 I spotted a triple sim setup called Fiat Brasil, Fiat Adventure 1 and Fiat Adventure 2 which accidentaly had left its restrictions off so I could blog the first pics. It has been closed ever since. When I spoke to one of the reps of the Brasilian MDC vj arquitetura at the opening of the Paramount/V3 group Transformer sim in June she said it was bound to open in a week or two. Those two weeks have grown into two quarters it seems, not that I've been trying on a regular basis, but still, today was the first day I found it open for public.

Somethings get better with age, I guess. The build itself looks very neat. Here are some snapshots:

The main venue of this build is the Fiat factory in which you'll see (a representation of) te production process and assembly line. Notice the Picasso painting the new Punto...

At the end of the line the new Punto is ready for a testdrive. What I liked best about the sim the architecture and the small pits of humor put into the design. We've seen the production process before in Second Life (e.g. Ben & Jerry's) and we've seen racing tracks (e.g. Nissan) but one of the things that make this sim work for me is that Fiat let go conventional architecture in the decorum.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fiat%20Adventure%20I/194/87/64

Greenies out, purrsnickety in

A few months back we saw the alien arrival of the Greenies in Second Life, which was a very cool experience by Rezzable. One of the strong points about the Greenies is the avatar marketing bit. Avatar Marketing is mobile marketing as the avatars spread around the grid bringing your brand to the community instead of you having to organize event that will bring the community to your sim. Another cool MDC (Metaverse Development Company) which understands the value of this is the V3 group which brought us the hovering Orb and the Transformer avatars.

Avatar marketing is one, lifestyle is another. We've got some pretty weird people walking the face of the grid. Many subcultures like Goths and punks are present in Second Life and then there's the furries. Furries are animalish avatars, often furry skinned with long tails. These might be rather funny and adorable to the general public, but gets a little twist if you know there's quite a bunch of people out there in the Real World that have a furry fetishism too.

The Second Life Herald reports a new race has entered Second Life; the Purrsnickety's. Here's the SLH report:

"Yesterday Second Life witnessed the birth of a new race of virtual critters – Purrsnicketys. Their basic design is due to Phoenixxx Dragonash, who in RL is Ashley Speranzella-Evans, a free-lance fantasy artist.

They are built and scripted by our good friend and uber-elf Wayfinder Wishbringer. Below the fold are some screenshots and the purrsnickety propaganda."

(Pictures also from SLH)

From the purrsnickety note card...

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF PURRSNICKETYS!

(To give a Purrsnickety as a gift, please read at the bottom of this notecard)

In a world that has forgotten magic and rushes time, they live above the clouds. Dragon-kitties once chosen to be Guardians of the Earth and magic, they failed to protect it from man. They have become jaded and skeptical, and definitely have attitude. But they have not given up! They have returned to the earth to try one last time to bring back what has lost. Are they the scourge of the skies... or destined to become heroes? Purrsnicketys... adorably wicked.

Purrsnicketys are some of the most complex, heavily-scripted (but very low-lag), fun, tiny avatars ever!

INCLUDED:

• Purrsnickety Avatar (copy/nomod/notrans... copyable so you can pull a new one out of the box in case of inventory loss!)(To give a Purrsnickety
  as a gift, please read at the bottom of this notecard)



• A special Purrsnickety toy (an extra item specific to your Purrsnickety)



• Scripted wings open when flying



• Swishing tail* 72-function HUD, including...



• 68 custom sounds (no freebie sounds here!)



• 14 all-original animations (even the "tiny" animations themselves are new and tweeked), including:* Scripted tongue for cleaning



• Cat-like "run"* Fun "jump"



• Improved "sit" and "groundsit"



• Dance synchronizer (dance in time with your Purrsnickety friends!)* Cute. Real cute. (never underestimate the power of cute. Fells strong dragons and ogres and melts the hearts of warriors).

PURRSNICKETY CHARACTER INFORMATION:

PURRSNICKITY STORIES:

1. Baby Ree: Calico, curious, and pudgy.
   Don’t be fooled by the cuteness of this little baby she will sneeze fire on you
   if you aren’t careful. Likes buttercups and fireflies and her stuffed toy “Remmy”.



2. Bitters: Black, skinny and Melancholy. Always seems to have a rain cloud over his head. Loves,well he dosent’t love anything.. except for a rainy
   day and only because it spoils everyone else’s fun, maybe mud puddles. Older
   brother of Chitters.



3. Chitters: Pink, happy and talks a lot, though only the other purrsnicketys can tell what she is saying. Loves lollypops and unicorns and baking pies for the gang. Kid sister of Bitters and has a crush on Jeepers (but don’t tell him).



4. Creepers: Large, green and agitated. Loves dark damp places and mushrooms. Oldest and Leader of the Purrsnicketys, big brother to
   Jeepers. Arch nemesis: Mr. Wiggles the very elusive and clever mouse dragon whom Creepers can never catch.



5. Critters: Brown, sweet and earthy. He loves all kinds of creatures and can often be seen playing with the mice in the castle (in a friendly way) Likes walking in the clouds and strawberries.



6. Flitters: Yellow, scattered and artistic. He creates beautiful rainbows in the sky and paintings for the castle. Constantly looses everything because he is so focused on his art. He can be seen covered in paint muttering to himself in his room. Likes new paint brushes and dragon flies.

Transformer Barricade

Late last night (European Standards) Liam Kanno of the V3 informed me that the new Transformer avatar Barricade was out. When looking at the map I noticed the new avatar was in popular demand as the sim was filled to the brim.

Thanks to Liam I got my copy through express delivery.

The Transformer sim is a coproduction of V3 group and the Picture Production Company which I've blogged extensively last month.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sector7/147/76/163/

Transformers Exclusive

SundayI blogged on the arrival of the Transformers into Second Life as part of Paramount Pictures campaign to promote the new Transformer movie.




Tonight Liam Kanno of the V3 group was kind enough to give me a personal guided tour of the Transformer sim at Sector 7.

"This build was done by 12 members of the V3 Group team for the Picture Production company, for Paramount Pictures and took 2.5 weeks to complete. The day after the V3 Group completed the Die Hard 4 sim we moved on to this build."

Again we started on top of the dam, which is based on the Hoover dam in Nevada and sector 7 concept in the movie.

"We decided to used the default setting of the sim (The cloud cover) to mask the views since we couldnt create all of Hoover dam, we felt the fog and mist will help create a mood."

The build is impressive and complicated, nearly using all available prims. Was it just a coincidence that they’ve managed the build, or was it pre-planned, I asked.

"One of the tricky aspects of this build is when Paramount makes some of their pictures there is no master over arching seemless plan of layout... i.e. they would film the top of the dam and film the stairway scene in Hollywood and the elevator scene perhaps somewhere else and. yes. during the Bumbleebe Avatar contruction, we had to build that on one of our other sims but otherwise it was well planned.”

Through good cooperation with Paramount V3 managed to put it together in 2.5 weeks but
“In terms of the movie translation to 3d. when it comes to making a movie process seemless in 3-D there are alot of gaps therefore we have to use alot of creative licence to fill in the blank spots and get it approved by paramount. As we received assets from ILM and Paramount we got more accurate, but never had to do a rework. The discussion was mainly about... "How will the rooms be layed out., or how will we solve Bumblebees 16 foot height issue." and how do we put more emphasis on the Megatron room.”

The Megatron room is the press room where the movie junket with Michael bay and 4 of the other main talenSt from the movie took place (prerecorded interview can be seen on www.slcn.tv). Megatron itself is a little different from the original cartoon.

“yes, quite, we put quite a bit of emphasis on creating mood with sound . We had several builders in here create parts ranging from pumps to Megatron sculpties, to structures etc. The majority of it was orchestrated by Kelly Emms the V3 Producer.
Building megatron in SL is almost insanity due ot his organic design. We had to do a combination of 2d art with sculpties, and basic prims to give the presence of him and we put more emphasis on mood and lighting then hyper accuracy. Due to the time constraint we had to focus more on the mood but if we had an extra week. we would have finished him as a full prim sculpture.”

One of the hottest items in the build is the Bumblebee avatar freebee.

“We feel that the sim is just an anchor to a marketing campaign, but the Avatar is the viral aspect. Bumblebee was the first robot seen in the movie, and had the most human likeness. We are working on other avatars at the moment. Avatars are excellent marketing tools in SL since they spread quickly across sims.”

One of the hardest thing to put into perspective was the all-spark cube;

”The allspark cube was the most tricky since we recieved assets 1.5 weeks into the build and we saw that the allspark cube was huge in the movie which we could not recreate in SL since we try to keep certain builds within 64 meters so all parts draw in at the lowest setting so in order for us to make this space appear much larger, we made all the objects in this room 1/4 scale.”

There are a number of rooms inside the build that do not fulfill a utilitarian need, but help to create mood and give the impression of the movie. As the Picture Production company puts heavy emphasis on the "art of the film".

Hammer & Coop

Today seems to be an endless blogging day. Next to style is another Millions of Us creation called "film". Again, this isn't a complete build. More like an entire sim is used for a 1024 m2 build. However, it wasn't a total waste of time.

The sim is a sidekick in the launch of a new tv series, "Hammer & Coop" produced by MINI usa... Mini as in Mini-Cooper... the car. And yeas, after a shot at their website, I think I'd like to see a few episodes.

The build is small, yet of quality. The series look good, and I'm hoping to see more of the series immersed into this Second Life sim, creating a neat experience.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Film/97/180/30

Second Life gets style

Next to Microsoft is a sim that looks terribly underdeveloped running by the name "Style" I took a peek and... yeah I'm positive again. It must be some itch to get rid of the Visa taste in my mouth.

As I said, it still partly under construction -and they're subcontracting, but the basic setup is... stylish. The main building is build around a catwalk. Fashion will be this sims prime style event, but Aimee Weber, partly responsible for the build, also put in a lot of stylish furniture.

The downside is, it appears to be a house of fashion, main event a fashion show... but I couldn't find a schedule or billboard for the next event, and I sure don't have time to browse the classifieds for a fashion show.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Style/146/192/30

Microsoft defies challenges

Thursday May 10 (yes, that is tomorrow) Microsoft will officially open shop in Second Life. The sim's build has been completed about 5 months ago, but had restricted access up till now. We went in for a little preview. With many companies staging their opening this month it is a challenge to be on the good half of the charts, but Microsoft is up to the challenge. I'm a notorius *NIX fan, but have to admit the

On the sign you'll see about what Microsoft Island has to offer. Aside from their kick-off event and the sim experience there is also a supportive website here. What it basically comes down to is that Microsoft uses Second Life as one of their staging areas for a Visual Studio campaign themed "Defy all Challenges"

A nice feature is the Auditorium, placed inside a big ball that's hanging from solid beams and some craftly sculpted prims. There's no question on who's responsible for the build, since it is practically leaning against the MoU island, but upon entering the auditorium I immediately recognised the hand of this site's co0blogger Lordfly Digeridoo.

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

Aloft Revisited

One of the grand openings this month is not a newcomer to Second Life, but actually an early pioneer. Aloft entered Second Life mid 2006 with a rather static sim -which was not a deadly sin at that time - but certainly understood the principle of crowdsourcing much better than Visa (previous post).

They've received an enormous amount of input from visitors and redecorated the whole sim. Aside from a dominating Aloft hotel, there are many interesting fountains, gardens, beaches and other retreats that will keep you busy for a while.

You'd assume they're here to stay, but they're not. Aloft has received enough input for a year ;) Now it's back to the drawing table for them to transfer that knowledge into their Real Life business. Their grand re-opening is at the same time a say goodbye.

One last great crowdsourcing trick that will surely involve the community: They're offering their sim for a whole year. Tell them how and why YOU need the sim for a year, and it's yours...

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/aloft%20island/128/128/0

Virtual Banking (5): Hasta la Visa

The first weeks of May saw many new sims go public. One of them is Visa. At Ambling in SL and KZero's blog the reviews were not positive, so I decided to take a look myself. Ambling Aleister accused me earlier this week of being a bit negative about a particular blog I did, so I hoped I could return the favor. But Al and Big Nic didn't turn down their visa for this one for nowt.

At first entry, the design looks nice, yet too light. After a short walkway there's a couply of signs asking visitors to contribute their ideas to Visa's SL build. In the official press releases Visa put out a very enthusiastic crowdsourcing promotalk telling the world they are very into the interactive environment that SL is and that they're an innovative bunch.

Except crowdsourcing does usually have an idea to begin with. Crowdsourcing is about getting usefull feedback on something. The way Visa is approaching this looks like buying a shop at Rodeo Drive and put an small note on the window asking people to tell the management what they would like to buy. Worse, it is like Microsoft asking YOU to build their new Windows version...and have you pay later.

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

Amazon moves upriver

The US based Amazon has been working on their presence in Second Life for several months. Aleister Kronos was one of the first to spot their presence at Ambling in SL, but now they're open. I think not completely finished yet, but we're getting there.

The surprising bit is that the sim feels Egyptian with a papyrus tourboat, resembling the ancient Egyptian boats that traversed the Nile... which off course is a totally different river than the Amazon...

When speaking to Jeff Barr, Amazon's sr. Web Officer he corrected me. It is an Amazonian buid and many of the same boats can be found at Lake Titicaca in Peru / Chile. The islands (there are two) are "Basically, to create a place where people can learn about the Amazon Web Services, and to hang out with other software developers in a friendly environment." Specific events aren't planned yet, but "I want this place to be hopping with activity. Count on weekly presentations and at least one meeting / hangout type of event."

Aside from the amazonic themed buildings, the sim is mainly dominated by a museum wherein Web and SL projects will be displayed.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Amazon%20Developers%202/216/182/40

Downsizing Big Blue

The Register reports that IBM could lay off upto 100,000 employees of it's total of about 350,000 and that this weeks 1300 is just a start. The mass lay off project is codenamed LEAN -which gives me the idea they'll try to run it LEAN and MEAN.

The question is, will they drop the masses, or are they going to outsource? A complete 100K lay off would give rise to speculations, perhaps even riots. Outsourcing, or transferring the labor to cheap labor countries (offshoring) seems a more likely scenario. IBM has been investing big time in Second Life collaboration research, having a very strong presence. Are these collabs so successful that they trust Virtual Worlds as their bridge to offshoring?

Anyway, Big Blue isn't getting leaner in Second Life, as on thursday, May 10th, will see the opening of a new IBM sim. This time it's the BeNeLux R&D

Virtual World, Real life Governance

Project Open Letter update

This weeks Town Hall meeting waspretty much all about the Project Open Letter. The POL has been signed by many respected virtual residents and is about one of the first complaints that's been taking serious by Linden Labs. The wrap up is that we're worried, and they're worried.

The POL names a few problems that need to be fixed and Linden addressed a few problems (here's A detailed response to the open letter ). They're gonna sort out the Inventory backup issue and devote 3/4 of their DEVmembers to scaling and stability.

The thing that bothers me is we're talking about issues, Linden is talking about bug fixes and patches (which don't always work - Perhaps Linden should call us for a little advice on how to perform structured testing (TMAP)) but no one is talking IT Governance here. Have we rooted out the source of these nuisances and is there an alternative to patching?

Some new and noteworthy tidbits are that Linden is considering opening up a server park somewhere in Europe to spread the residential load and segragation between basic and premium account members.

Intergalactic news

Here's some interesting news from other media

Second Life resident demographics

Both 3pointD blog and the Dutch webwereld report on the current statistics for Second Life. For the first time the US visitors were not the most active SL users, in march 2007 SL was visited by 207.000 US citizens, but were topped by the Germans with 209.000 residential immersions.
Numbers 3 to 5 are France, UK and the Netherlands. These figures were produced by a comScore research.

Based on the comcast publication, serious Dutch Press (Nu, De Pers and Elsevier) reported that about 9% of the Dutch have stepped into Second Life already. Linden Labs says otherwise, more like 2%). Anyway it would all wrap up to about 40.000 active Dutchmen in SL.

Hails from a different Galaxy

RuneScape, an MMORPG, reports that it has hit 1.000.000 (one million) subscribers. In the Wild Wild West only World of Warcraft can boast more subscribers. Of course, Cyworld Korea has many many more.

Thene there's news from yet another Virtual World, this time it's Entropia who's auctioning banking licenses. One of the most remarkable new bankers in Entropia is Second Life's inworld mega real-estate dealer Anshe Chung who acquired the licence for a lousy 60 US bucks. Superchung is perhaps one of the most cross-reality entrepeneurs at this moment, having commercials ties with IMVU and There.com as well.

update

Some of this blogs readers have pointed out that there was a serious error in this post. They're right. Chung purchased the licence for US$ 60,000 -and that ain't lousy anymore.

Good Samaritan Group Gathering

It's only been about two weeks ago that the V3 group organised a major SL tech event, the ITE 2007. This time its.... The Good Samaritan.
This week sees the Joysco Convention Center filled to the brim with the latest inworld tech, and other exciting stuff, all sponsored by Sun Microsytems Joysco Studio Journey (Legendary Rock Band) AvaStar SLCN.TV Reallusion.

When you get into the Convention Center, you'll think you're immersed in the next IT event, but it's not. This Expo is Johnny Austin's idea, who wanted a place where the business and creative communities in Second Life could come together and meet each other and work together. .. And yeah, Second Life is filled with tech-savvy people, so small wonder Sun Microsystems digs this (since they're hot on community building). However, it's not all High-Tech, there's plenty of room for other things, like Education and Clothing.

One of the participants, Hyperstring.net commented on its blog that after building their own stand, they were asked by several other companies to do so. That's good spirit! Another participant, Meta Mart is releasing its long awaited new HUD, "We will be doing some demos of newly released 3'rd generation of Meta Mart ( yes by then we will release it :) ) and also of other items from Meta Mart, showing all the possibilities," says Robbie Kiama from Meta Mart.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Convention%20Center/124/83/32

SLUC: Lenovo Security Breach

I had barely logged into SL and opened the map to plot a course for today's travelling. The map scrolled past and the "Grey Square" of Lenovo appeared. I clicked it, just to have an orientation point and hit teleport, fully expecting to be handsomely told that TP was not allowed. But suddenly I was in...


The larger part of the sim is still in construction mode and seems to be made up of a central office that houses a giant computer which certainly has more detail than the huge Dell platform.


Surrounding the main building are a few office towers (still empty) and it looks like there's some room for partners. I can't say much of an experience yet, but it's still under construction. For now, we wait and we wonder...

"Lenovo Group Limited, formerly known as Legend Group Ltd and New Technology Developer Incorporated (SEHK: 0992) is the third largest personal computer manufacturer, and the largest in the Asia-Pacific region as of 2006. The company was founded in 1984 by a group of eleven engineers headed by Liu Chuanzhi in Beijing, but the listed holding company was incorporated in 1988 in Hong Kong. In 2005 Lenovo purchased IBM's PC Division. Its headquarters are located in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, the home of IBM's former ThinkPad group." (Wikipedia)

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lenovo/87/74/36

AKQA

AKQA is one of the many advertising corps that has invaded Second Life. They were here December 2006, although the sign says 2007

The bulk of the AQKA presence is their media room, a big ballroom with some nice photo's or models from their gigs, but that's about it. There's a big big big media screen, and some other rooms, but aside from the mainbuilding there's nothing at the sim, not even landscaping has been done. It's barren!

So who's AKQA, according to the Wikipedia: "AKQA is an advertising and communications agency originally founded in London in 1995 and focused on internet marketing. With the support of American investors, AKQA was able to expand internationally in 2001. It is most famous for designing the graphical user interface for the Xbox 360... ...The Orange Integrated Shop developed by AKQA won the CNET Telecommunications Sector Technology Project of The Year in 2006."

And it's a Millions of Us build.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/AKQA/155/30/25

Marvelling at Mirai

While looking around the Japanes block I noticed a sim called 'Mirai' at the very heart of the sim. I surely expected a company sim there, and the first building that appeared looked as lighthouse with an extended warehouse that had some crates next to it.

However, towering above was a marvellous palace, or so it seemed. I assumed it to be a great private mansion, but I did a little search on the Wikipedia and learned that Mirai was Japanese for 'Future', but also the name of an electronics corp. So there's the possibility that this too is a business sim.

Dutch laywers pursue Second Life

The Dutch lawfirm Faassen & Partners is to open shop in Second Life. It's not accessible right now, but appears to be in an advanced state of development.

"Faasen & Partners is an independent law firm with offices in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Faasen & Partners has a practice directed at listed or non-listed companies, public sector enterprises and governments. With a strong foundation in the Dutch domestic market, Faasen & Partners is considered a quality boutique firm amongst the large law firms. Our firm focuses on business advisory and transaction management, though we have also strong developed litigation skills in all areas of our practice. Our firm has a specific focus on two practice groups; (i) Labour and Employee Participation law and (ii) Corporate, Commercial and Finance law, which includes European and Competition law"

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Faasen%20en%20Partners/124/115/44

Another SLUC update:

Seems like Red Bull is ready to spread its wings in Second Life as well and I've just spotted a sim called Mercedes Benz Vans.

Dutch Reallife Real Estate immersed

As often is the case, it was Aleister Kronos who pointed me towards the new sim webbatach stating it had something to do with the town of Koolhoven. The town name was totally unfamiliar to me, so I went in to see what it's all about.

It turns out to be that Koolhoven is the name of a new residential area on the borders of the town of Tilburg in North-Brabant (it seems like Brabant is really going into SL as there are sims called Tilburg, Eindhoven and Brabantstad).

So the sim is an impression of the new residential area and has been set up by the participating Real Estate brokers. It will give (potential) buyers some time to get the look and feel of the home that still needs to be build. A great thing really if you have mod-rights to the house so you can do some decorating yourself, change the color of the ceiling, adding a new wallpaper etcetera, and of course, move around with your furniture to see if it all fits in.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Webattach/134/123/30

S@SL update (2)

Yesterday saw the third in a series of workshops held by Sogeti. Due to fantastic weather the crowd was a bit smaller than usual (about 30 professionals) and a few clients.

This time, Damanios Thetan from Damancorp got into advanced building mode working miracles with the torus prim and threw in a bonus session on advanced (clothing) texturing and avatar design.

GMI Second Life survey

A large market research agency, Global Market Insite, conducted the largest SL surveys last month (close to 10,000 respondents).

The prime result of the survey was the finding (contrary to earlier surveys) that "Second Life is a burgeoning market for real-life brands and product promotion. Fifty-six percent of users believe Second Life is a good promotional vehicle. Only 16 percent say they would not be more likely to buy or use a brand that is represented in the Internet-based virtual world. "

Executive Summary

• 50% between 18-29 years old
• 67% Male
• 51% Married
• 38% University Undergraduate
• 27% Universtiy Postgraduate (master & doctorate)
• 60% Employed (full time)

Branches

• 12% Student
• 12% Retail
• 10% Computer industry
• 8% Banking

(Off all branches, 25% are employed as IT Professionals)

Educational Level

• 27% Management / Sr. Officers
• 25% Professionals

More stats can be found at Wagner Au's New World Notes blog.

NBA Slamdunks SL

Today the NBA slamdunked Second Life with the grand opening of the NBA Jam Sessions. The sim is mainly aimed at the Road to the 2007 Finals, but has some nice feats for basketball fans, like the hall of fame and the video center.


SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/NBA%20Jam%20Session/83/148/41

Second Life Under Construction

Other construction news from this region:

1. Terra Incognita (tv show)
2. BNP Paribas (banking) under construction
3. Agape (NGO)
   
   

Project Open Letter

A little while ago a few respected residents of Second Life expressed their worries about the current State of the Virtual Union... well, at least the stability of Lindens' SL Platform after the 1.5 Client version showed severe bugs. 57 Miles from the Metaversed blog perfectly describes the current status of the proposal

Linden to Respond to Project Open Letter

"As residents continue to stamp their feet about persistent problems with the Second Life grid, Project Open Letter, a public whine fest of tearful demands not only gains momentum with bloggers and press, but will now get a public response from Linden Lab, makers of the besieged virtual world. Look for Linden to either grovel, fawn or play the "this post is so long you'll never read it game" in official response later in the week..."

Linden Labs has not been very active to resolve issues in the past, but this letter may push them somewhat, so do read and sign the Project Open Letter

The MindBlizzard Crowd

A little earlier I gave you some clinical stats on april's visits to the blog, here's a more personal touch:
When I was checking some things I noticed the MindBlizzard blog was mentioned at the Spotfire site... good to know :)

Aside from that some people like to keep stats of where Business Week is mentioned, this past week I scored 2 points. And there's Reuben Steiger, CEO of Millions of Us who reacted to my blog on his 2007 predictions for Second Life and Paul Verhoeven who turned out to be a well metaversed SL-savvy director and kind enough to take half an hour to sit and have a chat with me on his new movie Black Book and auditioning in SL.

In the past month I've gotten to know Aleister Kronos, who's employed at a competing corp, a passionate blogger at Ambling in SL and 57 miles, professional bloggernaut at Metaversed. A month blogging like a lunatic earned me some nice friends, some scoops, some sleepless nights and some nice credits.

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.

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

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...