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For those who haven’t checked it out yet, now’s the time to get into Multiverse, the free virtual-world development platform, which has just gone from closed to open beta. “Register with the Multiverse Developer Program, and you will be able to access the downloads here,” according to a forum post. [Via reBang.] We blogged about Multiverse recently: could it be that an open 3D world development tool (albeit one intended mostly for game-making) will promote widespread adoption of 3D Web usage in whatever form, in a way that Second Life might have trouble doing on its own?

Business Week has an interesting article about the challenges faced by “real-world” businesses setting up shop in the virtual world of Second Life. The piece is perhaps the most forward-thinking of any that have appeared so far in the popular press, as it acknowledges that large corporate interests are beginning to view Second Life as a viable marketing platform (though one that still stands a chance of collapsing down the line). It’s nice to see an article like this quantify some of the work that’s being done: contracts to virtual world services companies are being let for anywhere from $5,000 to $400,000, according to the article, with some perhaps reaching as much as $1 million. It also doesn’t treat the virtual world as an “us and them” proposition, correctly so. The idea that there is a community of Second Life residents that are somehow separate from people who live in the real world is one that will have to go out the window if the virtual world continues to grow. It will still be possible to form communities on the Grid that are somewhat walled off from real-world concerns, but if you’re competing for business from “real-world” companies, you’re now swimming in the ocean, not the small pond that SL has been until now. (more…)

A new game company planning to bring free massively multiplayer online gaming to U.S. gamers is seeking to capitalize on the flood of press attention being devoted to the virtual world of Second Life in recent months. The strangely named OGPlanet will be offering “PC games built on a ‘Second Life-like’ model that lets anyone play for free, but offers players the opportunity to purchase game pieces, clothing and accessories,” according to a press release. OGPlanet’s first offering is Albatross18, a free massively multiplayer golf game with a unique fantasy twist in which players drink magic potions and meet various enchanted characters along the way. (Take care not to slice your shot into the troll trap!) Rrecently acquired by OGPlanet, the game lets players customize their avatars with clothing and equipment bought in the game, thus providing a revenue stream. All of OGPlanet’s games will work in a similar way, but if they’re hoping to capitalize on the strengths of Second Life, rather than simply the hype, they may need to take a closer look. (more…)

The real-time weather visualization system that Aimee Weber has been building for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association can now be viewed in the virtual world of Second Life, on »Info Island II«. This is pretty neat stuff, and a nice real-world / virtual-world interface and application. While at this stage it’s not as detailed or interactive as a Web-based weather map, it’s definitely worth checking out. As you can see in the screenshot above, it’s snowing in Wyoming and the Dakotas. More details on SL Insider.

While the complex artificial ecosystem of the »Svarga« sim in the virtual world of Second Life has gotten a lot of notice (and rightly so) as a robust simulation running in the virtual world, you may not have heard as much about the Terminus sim, where SL resident Luciftias Neurocam, a neuroscientist with an interest in self-organizing systems, has created a virtual ecosystem which, while not yet as complex as Svarga’s, comes complete with an open API that other residents may use to add their own species to the mix. So far, according to the project’s Web page, there are only 11 species roaming around (or standing still, in the case of the plants), but the project wiki’s developer resources pages seem to give fairly clear if basic instructions on how to create more, and there is even a bit of open-source code to check out. (Though the gridlouse is currently being “rebuilt from the ground up.”) (more…)

If you’re interested in finding out what’s happening in the 3D online spaces that make up ActiveWorlds, drop into the ActiveWorlds Expo this coming weekend, November 3-5 [via Virtual Worldlets]. Nearly three dozen exhibitors will occupy a virtual trade show floor, showing off models, textures, products, bots, builds, cities, towns, worlds and more. It’s an impressive event merely for the number of participants the show’s organizers have gathered, but it’s also probably a good way to get a look at what’s going on in another open virtual world platform. I suspect there will be some very interesting things to see there that most of us who spend our virtual time mainly in Second Life don’t already know about. I’m going to try to make it, but I’d also be interested to hear from anyone else as to what they find.

Hot on the heels of Destroy Television comes an announcement from virtual world branding and PR agency Rivers Run Red, which plans to launch a broadband television and content network in the virtual world of Second Life in November. Virtuallife.tv “will enable news, documentary and entertainment content to be distributed and shared across the entire virtual world,” according to a press release. It sounds an ambitious project, due to launch in early November on a 24-hour-a-day broadcast schedule carrying music, film, audio and text. More than 100 active channels are planned by the end of 2007, and the network, a Rivers property, plans to produce around 1,000 hours of original programming a year. There will even be content produced by the Second Life community, though quite what form that will take wasn’t clear from the release. (more…)

Destroy Television in Second Life (view larger image on Flickr)

If you didn’t show up to the Second Life Herald’s third birthday party tonight, you missed quite a show. Even if you weren’t in the virtual world of Second Life, though, you may have caught the bash on Destroy Television, the new service from the Electric Sheep Company’s spare-time dev pool, Sheep Labs. Check out the Destroy Television avatar in the screenshot above. She looks innocent enough (even though she appears to be mooning the camera), but Destroy is an avatar of unique stripe; she’s controlled for the most part by users dialling over to the Destroy TV Web site, where they can make her chat or walk around. All the while, she snaps a pic every 30 seconds or so and plugs it into her Flickr page. The result is a user-controlled photo documentary of what’s going on around Second Life. (more…)

Check out SLoodle, a new 3D online education system for the virtual world of Second Life, based on the popular open-source course management system known as Moodle. The project is integrating Moodle’s virtual learning environment into the 3D environment of Second Life, adding the 3D interactive capabilities of the virtual world atop Moodle’s course-managment tools. This sounds a brilliant idea to me. Instead of limiting yourself and your students to whiteboards, images and text, you can now offer fully interactive 3D objects, and let students build their own. Visit »SLoodle’s HQ« in Second Life, or get in touch with Jeremy Kabumpo (email jeremykemp AT yahoo.com) for more information.

The Second Life Herald, which gave me my start in virtual journalism, celebrates its third birthday with a party in the virtual world of Second Life this afternoon (or tonight, if you’re in Europe). Head on over to the _blacklibrary in »Hyperborea« at 2pm SL time (5pm Eastern) and party down with myself (i.e., Walker Spaight, the Herald’s current editor-in-chief), Herald founder and editor emeritus Urizenus Sklar, new Managing Editor Pixeleen Mistral, who has done a smashing job of breathing new life into the Herald in recent months, and other Herald correspondents and friends. (Unfortunately, I’ll only make the first hour or so of the party; real life calls, unavoidably, in this case. UPDATE: Real life cancelled! Walker parties on!) For the second year in a row, _blacklibrary proprietor Wandering Yaffle has been kind enough to host. So kind is he, in fact, that we’ll soon be setting up a new Herald HQ »in Hyperborea«, just across the way from the library. Last year’s party was a hoot, so be sure to join us.

Second Life resident Nobody Fugazi flags a press release from interactive ad agency Centric announcing the opening of its headquarters in the virtual world, at »Maui (252, 40, 23)«. It sounds like Centric already has interesting projects going: “One project, for a major entertainment company, integrates themes and prizing from a popular science fiction television series with a network of devices built in-world. Another involves bringing the work of a popular sculptor into Second Life.” The company’s Second Life strategy is to keep the virtual world green, by buying “small land parcels typically used for display advertising, combin[ing] them into larger parcels, and replac[ing] the display ads with parks. The only indication that these parks are Centric properties is a small, discreet monument.” Eight Centric parks are already set up or being developed, including one at »Eson (164, 222, 78)«. It’s not much of a bulwhark against the surrounding 16m3 plots, but it’s something. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to seeing which sculptor and which sci-fi series is coming into Second Life.

I haven’t to this episode of SecondCast yet (I had to miss the taping), but from what I’m told, the sparks were flying. Johnny Ming and Torrid Midnight co-host a discussion of the many real-world corporations that have come into the virtual world of Second Life lately, and the kind of press coverage they’re getting. Guests include Spin Martin, SNOOPYbrown Zamboni (aka Jerry Paffendorf of the Electric Sheep Company), and the most muckraking tabloid journalist in cyberspace, Urizenus Sklar, founder of the Second Life Herald, where he’s been kicking butt and taking names lately. And getting all hot and bothered about the hyperbole he sees in the mainstream media’s coverage of Second Life. It’s a bit of a pot and kettle situation, that, but Uri’s just doing his job. As is the press, which usually goes through a cycle of hype when exciting new things come along. That’s followed by a cycle of skepticism, and finally, if the subject lasts long enough, coverage settles down into something approaching balanced. The challenge for Second Life will be to keep growing long enough to reach the balanced period.

Second411, a Web-based search site covering items in the virtual world of Second Life, has sold its service to an anonymous buyer for an undisclosed price, according to a Second411 blog post put up early Wednesday morning. Does this mean more such deals are on the way? Second411 owner Hal9k Andalso found his new Fabjectory service, which offers real-world models of Second Life avatars (and which fabbed me my Walker Spaight avatar), was consuming all of his time, and put the service up for sale several days ago. No clue yet as to who the buyer was. But the sale raises an interesting question: With venture capital now poking around Second Life and virtual world services companies (more than one of the Big Three are said to have already won small first rounds), does this mean the market for investing in or acquisitions of third-party SL services is about to bubble up? (more…)

The UK’s enjoyably left-leaning daily newspaper, The Guardian, flags the emerging publishing and literary scene in the virtual world of Second Life in an article on the Guardian Unlimited site this week. The piece mainly revolves around Penguin’s entry into Second Life with the virtual sampler of Snow Crash they published a while back with the help of Rivers Run Red. The article, however, notes that Penguin is “now developing a virtual bookshelf of other Penguin titles for the Second Life resident.” The piece also flags what sounds like a nice build, a replica of the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris. The books on the shelves there apparently provide links to their counterparts on Amazon.com, although there are plans to publish original works by residents. The Grid is down for an update at the moment so I can’t give you a location for it, but I’m looking forward to checking this out and seeing how it matches up with the real thing — especially whether the proprietor will be offering young literary avatars a place to bunk in a threadbare upstairs room, as George Whitman, the real store’s proprietor, has long been known to.

Corey Bridges of Multiverse, the free virtual world development platform now in beta, sends along an article from TCS Daily that argues that 3D online worlds are the “Next Big Thing” and compares their history so far with the early history of Netscape. The Multiverse team, of course, is largely made up of Netscape alums, including Cory and Bill Turpin, who led the start-up company on which Netscape built its browser. (”This article’s a bit dense,” says Cory, “but it’s an interesting read. And not just because it’s favorable to Multiverse.”) From the article: “We are . . . on the cusp of the Next Big Thing and those who are ready for the transition to 3D virtual worlds will be far ahead of the game.” Good food for thought there. Recommended reading.

The Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog) are holding an event this Thursday and Friday, October 26-27, that will collect screenshots and text from the virtual world of Second Life for inclusion in the Yahoo! Time Capsule project, which will be sealed on November 8 and re-opened in the year 2020. That’s pretty cool (and Yahoo!’s Web site is cool as well). One thing strikes me, though. Why aren’t there 3D models being included in the time capsule? It’s not a particular failure of vision on Yahoo!’s part; it probably has more to do with the fact that there’s not yet a standard for such objects, nor can you export such information out of Second Life in a way that’s supported by the company and intelligible to other applications. Virtual 3D objects are not yet widely and easily manipulable, as, say, a chunk of html code is, or a jpeg file. The problem runs far deeper than the technological; the absence of a standard or other open system or protocol means that many people don’t think of the virtual world as just another part of the rest of their lives. When an online world can reach out to and communicate easily with many other online platforms, we’ll start to see more constructive attention being paid. It’s almost as if we’re now at 3pointD v1.0. Personally, I’m looking forward to 3pointD 2.0. If that makes any sense at all.

The Capozzi Winery is a new venture that’s been getting some press in places like the Wall Street Journal lately. The winery’s Pinotblogger site is chronicling “the long and painful processes involved in starting and building a family winery in the Russian River Valley.” But attentive readers of the blog will have noticed that a recent entry flags Capozzi’s plans to enter the virtual world of Second Life as well, with a virtual winery that will feature not only a scale model of the real thing, but also an avatar tasting room “where you can buy and drink wine (with entertaining results — though not the kind you might be thinking),” and “a series of kiosks/simulations that will guide visitors through an interactive wine-making process.” (more…)

Virtual Nissan Sentras

160 acres worth of metaversal motor city are being launched in the virtual world of Second Life, including four regions’ worth of Nissan driving action and a ten-region experiment in user-created car culture from General Motors’ Pontiac division. Both projects sound very cool, and though Second Life’s vehicles generally suck for much more than tootling around in (the platform runs on an outdated physics engine that Linden Lab refuses to update), each project is ambitious in its own way, and should add some entertaining features to the landscape of the virtual world. (more…)

As mentioned previously, 3pointD held its first Think Tank event last night in the new »Dirty sim« to discuss issues of sustainability as they relate to the broader metaverse. We had a gratifying turnout of 40+ people, with around half staying more than two hours until the proceedings were done. Thanks to everyone who showed up and contributed ideas, or just showed up to listen. A handful of really nice ideas came out of the meet. You can read a full chat log of the session, posted by SL resident, SignpostMarv Martin, but I’m going to sum up and extend a couple of the ideas that came up below. And look for our next Think Tank coming soon! (more…)

The »3pointD Think Tank« in the virtual world of Second Life held its first ever meetup last night, to discuss issues surrounding sustainability in the metaverse and try to dream up some initial projects people could perhaps push forward. As far as I’m concerned, the event was a smashing success. We had almost 40 avatars who showed up for at least part of the discussions, and more than 20 who toughed it out to the bitter end, over two hours later. A bunch of great ideas came up, which I’ll summarize later this morning, but for now I’ll just link you to the chat log posted by SignpostMarv Martin. Big thanks to everyone who showed up. It seemed like everyone who stayed to the end had a great time swapping ideas and being in the same place with a bunch of other people who were focused on similar concerns. I for one really had the feeling, which I get occasionally when at a good conference or real-world meeting, that there was a critical mass of thought power in the room that could dream up some great initiatives for us to take forward. I’ll highlight some of these in a follow-up post, as they don’t all appear in the chat log. [UPDATE: Read the complete wrap-up in this post.] It was also great to have a half-dozen-strong hard core of SL hackers hanging out in Dirty for another three hours after the meetup was over, talking about how to accomplish various things, rezzing huge clocks and megaprims and generally giving the place an air of usefulness. I’d love to have a scripting sandbox there or something, some way to make it a place that attracts metaversal “makers” (in the Phil Torrone sense) on a regular basis, but that’s a subject for another post. For now, thanks to everyone for making the historic first-ever 3pointD meetup a great success! See you next time.

Well, tonight’s the night. Around 30 people have RSVP’d for the 3pointD meetup in Second Life, on metaversal sustainability planned for this evening at 8pm 5pm SL time. If you haven’t already, just RSVP in the comments thread here and come over to »the Dirty sim« if you’re interested in what promises to be a fascinating chat about ways to make the metaverse a kinder, gentler, more sustainable place for all. See you there.

Download the new beta test client for the virtual world of Second Life and you can now browse the Web from a new “Web” tab in your profile, or load the Web pages that other users have set as their home page when you view their profiles. I even managed to search 3pointD from my profile page, though I was for some reason unable to even load the Gmail front page, and was not given an error message explaining why (though I was able to search Google for Gmail). You can also see new information on the client’s login screen (more about that in a moment).

Typically, the in-world Web functionality is quite clunky at the moment. There’s an “Open…” button which does not open the URL in your profile but launches your default browser app and takes you outside the world. There aren’t any error messages at the moment, as noted. And there’s an unexplained “Home” button that doesn’t take you to your home page, but sets the current page as your home profile page, it seems. Most annoying, the profile isn’t resizable, so dynamic widths on Web pages appear squished into a tiny column that you’re unable to expand. Still, it’s a start, and with any luck LL will set about tarting it up, explaining just what pages and protocols the browser supports, and writing some documentation. (more…)

The Shakespearean virtual world being built by Ted Castronova at Indiana University will run on the Multiverse platform, or so hears gamedev Raph Koster. Koster also links to a CNet story by Daniel Terdiman that sheds more light on MMO, which is to be known as Arden and is being built with the help of a grant from the Macarthur Foundation. Daniel’s interview with Ted goes into some detail about the characteristics of the massively multiplayer online game Ted envisions. Mystical bards, almost no healers, rare Shakespearean soliloquy drops, emergent governance entities — but no magical fireballs or storms. (Where’s our Prospero?) In any case, excellent stuff. It will be interesting to see what kind of research information Ted can wrest from his players (for that’s the plan).

Reuben Steiger’s virtual world services company, Millions of Us, has launched a new listening station in the virtual world of Second Life for Brooklyn-born “underground” hip-hop artist Talib Kweli, located in the company’s Millions of Us sim. Similar in nature to the one Millions built for Regina Spektor back in May, Kweli’s is a big Bed-Stuy brownstone, built out by SL architect Lordfly Digeridoo.

But as SL resident Tao Takashi points out in a BlogHUD post made from within the world, he was unable to find a link at the site to purchase a Kweli CD from Amazon or another Web-based service. Is there a missed opportunity here? It will be interesting to see what the Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog) do for their project for Sony/BMG, which, according to The New York Times, “has rooms devoted to popular musicians like Justin Timberlake and DMX, allowing fans to mingle, listen to tunes or watch videos. Sony BMG is also toying with renting residences in the complex, as well as selling music downloads that people can listen to throughout the simulated world.” (more…)

Second Life resident Rik Riel has a good wrap of a press conference today at which the Macarthur Foundation announced “plans to build the emerging field of digital media and learning, committing $50 million over five years to the effort.” Perhaps to show their seriousness, the foundation simulcast the press conference via Second Life. One of the first grants they’ve made is to virtual economist Ted Castronova of the Terra Nova blog (nice going, Ted!), to help fund his creation of Arden, a Shakespearean virtual world in which Ted will be able to conduct economic experiments on the unwitting population. More to follow, so get your grant-writing hat out of the closet and get to work.

There’s a long piece in today’s New York Times about the virtual world of Second Life and the fact that real-world corporations are increasingly making their way there to explore promotional and other possibilities. Not a bad read, though of course it raises the question of how much value we bloggers can add while people like the Times and Reuters (not to mention CNet and Wired News) have their eye so closely on SL these days. Sharpen your keyboards, kids.

Tony Walsh flags an interesting new service called Synthtravels, “The 1st online virutal travel agency.” It’s just what it sounds like, a service that offers guided tours of virtual worlds — rather than just show you some screenshots, you create a character in the world, and Synthtravel’s guides show you around. There are about 20 virtual worlds listed, from Second Life to World of Warcraft to something called ROSE Online, which I’d never heard of before but which seems to be a kind of anime EVE Online or Freelancer, if Freelancer were an MMO. You can also offer your services as a guide. No indication as to whether the tours cost money, but I’d assume they do. Cool service, and just in time to capitalize on the huge influx of visitors that will probably result from the huge outpouring of press from these places recently.

The virtual world of Second Life passed a milestone today, as the number of registered avatars passed the 1 million mark, driven by a spate of media mentions over the last couple of weeks. Note, though, that this is only to say that a million unique avatar names have been registered. It doesn’t really give a clue as to how many people have visted the world, nor to how many use it on a regular basis, since many people run more than one avatar. The economic statistics page is more revealing, showing that 139,963 avatars have logged in over the last 7 days. But even this figure overcounts the number of people using SL. (I have logged in two or three different avatars this week, for instance.) Still, it’s a notable event. Congratulations, SL!

IBM’s eightbar blog flags a very nice new in-world Second Life application, developed by SL resident Turner Boehm (who I think is an IBMer), that automatically models the links and nodes of a complex system using SL objects. The picture above shows multiple interconnecting software systems represented by an automatically generated set of prims, based on information stored outside SL. This kind of visual display of information can be very important in making it easier to grasp and work with complex systems, and this is just the kind of thing that SL does well. I’m thinking this could turn into a very useful app for those working with datasets — such as certain kinds of maps, traffic patterns, software systems in development, many other things — that are difficult to represent clearly in 2D. Nice work.

According to a recent post on the official blog of Linden Lab, makers of the virtual world of Second Life, the company is again reducing the weekly stipend that premium users receive just for having an account. (The reduction only applies to accounts created after November 1; current premium accounts are unaffected.) The reduction is an attempt to control the growing money supply in Second Life, which seems to lead not so much to inflation but rather to constant downward pressure on the L$-US$ exchange rate. Resident reaction has been mixed, but stipend adjustments are one of LL’s only tools for managing the economy. As the number of registered users continues to grow, rapidly approaching a million, the company is more or less forced to continue to add new land (i.e., new servers) to the grid, or risk a situation in which the platform cannot support all of its users. But gauging the state of the SL economy remains difficult. While LL has taken to releasing more economic data in recent months, much of its figures are still vague as to methodology, and several important metrics continue to go missing.

Wired magazine, of course, has gotten in on the flurry of media entries to the virtual world of Second Life. Check them out in the Millions of Us sim (the build was done by Reuben Steiger’s virtual world services company, Millions of Us) and take a read on the Wired travel guide to Second Life that I helped put together, along with James Au, Wired writer Jeff Howe, UK games journalist Jim Rossignol and a couple of others. It appeared in the October issue, but it’s only just now available on the Web. (Slightly odd that Wired and CNet both have their sites on the Millions of Us sim. My understanding is that at least the CNet side felt quite competitive with Wired in the run-up to these launches, working hard to get their site launched first.)

The 3pointD meetup we’ve been planning to hold in the virtual world of Second Life on October 22 (at 5:00pm SL time) is beginning to take shape. There have been plenty of great comments on the various aspects of metaversal sustainability that we could discuss, and at least 15 people have RSVP’d. (If you’re interested in attending, please leave your SL name in the comments here, or Instant Message me in-world.) The meetup will take place in the new Dirty sim that 3pointD is now occupying along with Johnny Ming and a few other similarly nefarious types, so we should have room for plenty of flapping gums. I’ve given a bit more thought to what / how we might discuss, and how to end up with some material we can post on 3pointD for all the world to ponder, all of which you’ll find after the jump. (more…)