3pointD.com

This in-world collaboration tool for the virtual world of Second Life has been around for a couple of months at least, but 3pointD contributor Chip Poutine just flagged it to me, and it looks so cool I thought I’d flag it here. Its name is self-explanatory: “communal writeboard.” Created by SL resident angrybeth Shortbread and described on her blog, “the main ideas behind its design are to have a slideshow presenter that anyone can add or remove pictures from, plus a range of overlay tools that can be used to annotate or point to areas of interest within an image. These overlay tools can also be used to create simple mindmaps or visual polling events.” (See a shot of the overlay tools after the jump.) (more…)

An interesting article in MediaWeek wonders whether MTV Networks might have plans to build a MySpace-like social network out of various properties it’s acquired lately, including things like Xfire and Neopets. While MTV’s still-in-alpha Virtual Laguna Beach isn’t mentioned by name in the article, it can only lend more weight to the theory, despite the fact that it doesn’t have much of a social-networking component — yet.

The MediaWeek writer doesn’t seem to be reading 3pointD, or he might have made more of the following, which is buried toward the end of the piece: “Rumors persist that Viacom is cooking up a social networking play of its own—perhaps melding that trend with the virtual reality phenomenon. [MTV Networks president Michael] Wolf wouldn’t get specific, but hinted something was in the works using avatars (virtual representations of people).” Taking Virtual Laguna Beach into the social networking space could be quite interesting. That’s one feature Second Life and other virtual worlds could benefit from, if you ask us.

I’ve had a ton of stuff to transcribe and clean up from notes I took at the Second Life Community Convention last weekend. The latest is this keynote speech given by Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale, in which he explains some of his personal motivation for setting out to build a metaverse, and talks about the early days at Linden Lab and the moment at which user-created content became the watchword of his virtual world. “As a kid, I was really into the way things worked. I was just always dreaming up things to do,” Rosedale told the crowd. “I always wanted the world to be LEGO somehow.” The real world isn’t all that LEGO, but the virtual world of Second Life arguably is. (more…)