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If tracking your rankings on Microsoft’s Xbox Live service isn’t doing it for you, you can now up the stakes at the Under Ground X-Change, a Web-based service that matches Xbox and PS2 players who want to bet on the outcome of their own matches. [Via press release. And follow this link if you don’t get the headline reference.] UGX servers will match players in a variety of games, and even adds a way to distribute winnings among members of a team. What it doesn’t seem to do is allow spectators to bet on the outcome of matches. That’s something that would drive pro gaming in this country in a much bigger way.

Tony Walsh has a nice article up on his site about Vivox, a VoIP company that has designed a very cool application that interfaces with Second Life. The Vivox voice app runs behind the SL viewer, but residents can initiate calls from within the world, either via a heads-up display or via Vivox’s phone booths. Calls can terminate either at a VoIP client or at a land-line or cell phone, if you belong to a service like Skype Out. You can also place a “microphone” in-world that will add Vivox-enabled users to a local voice channel; move far enough away and you drop out of the channel. Move into range of a different mic and you’re automatically added to that channel. This adds voice to the Grid in a really seamless and comfortable (and opt-outable) way. I met the Vivox guys at South by Southwest and was very impressed by what I saw. Tony’s piece gives a nice look at the company, its background and what they’re offering. And he claims it’s been edited by yours truly, though all I really did was look the thing over and tell Tony I thought it was awesome.

Second Life’s first voice-enabled Town Hall meeting, featuring Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale, is now available for listening or download at this link. Some highlights after the jump. (more…)

The dates aren’t official yet and could well change, but according to more than one person who’s in touch with the Electric Sheep Company (and who isn’t me), the 2006 edition of the Second Life Community Convention is now tentatively scheduled to take place around the second or third week of August, in San Francisco. (more…)

Walker Spaight takes the field of honor

Second Life resident Ordinal Malaprop has created a new dispute resolution tool for Second Life: a set of dueling pistols and a ring specifically designed for, as Ordinal puts it on her blog, “the settling of scores by the skill of arms.” The pistols are easy to use, can be loaded with a single bullet at a time (in proper yesteryear duelling fashion), and announce to all in the area who has drawn first blood. I’d love to see residents start using dueling pistols as a real dispute-resolution mechanism, but I’m skeptical that Second Life — or any other virtual world, for that matter — could support a system of ethics and honor that significantly surpasses that of the world around us. Still, these should be fun. Grab your own at Ordinal’s property in Theretra. [<–SL link] Pistols at dawn, anyone?

Jeff Jarvis points out a Wall Street Journal article describing a new initiative from ABC that will let viewers gather in online chat rooms to watch shows together:

On April 30, ABC will unveil a revamped Web site that will include a “theater” where people with broadband connections can watch free episodes of “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost” and other hit shows on their computers. . . . As part of an effort to engage the online community, viewers from around the country will be able to gather in “rooms” online to watch an episode of, say, “Lost” and chat about it. Disney will also promote the creation of fan sites for various shows.

(Via Glitchy.) (more…)

There’s a nice piece in the Columbia Spectator titled “Facebook Official,” all about how the “Relationship Status” field on Facebook profiles is affecting users’ offline relationships. This is another good example (see this earlier example) of how small things in software design can have larger social reverberations for the people who are using the tools.

The writer, Miriam Datskovsky, quotes the Urban Dictionary definition of the term:

Facebook Official
The ultimate definition of a college relationship - when on one’s facebook profile it says “In A Relationship” and your significant other’s name.

“are adam and courtney dating?”
“i don’t know, they’re not facebook official yet.”

(more…)