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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…)