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Sam Landman of the Electric Sheep Company (who, as you know, sponsor this blog), just got in touch to let me know that NBC managed to get around 1,000 avatars into the 18 sims they’d mustered for the virtual tree lighting event they put on earlier this evening in Second Life to match the tree lighting in Rockefeller Center. NBC, as well, counted the event a success. Does that make it the largest single event in SL history? It very well might. Though if you know of a larger one, I’d love to hear about it — especially how it was pulled off. The Sheep had a last-minute scramble on their hands to pull off this one, due to unavoidable scheduling conflicts with the Wednesday update of SL’s software, which threatened to close the entire thing down, and the fact that Linden Lab has been unable to meet demand for new regions, forcing the Sheep to go to land baron, “business girl,” and virrtual millionaire (in US dollar terms, note) Anshe Chung to rent a bunch of sims. Look for more such events in future. “We were very impressed with how forward-thinking NBC was in using this medium,” Sam says. “They really get it. It would be great to see them leverage this to further build their digital media brand.” (more…)

Well, the There Film Festival, anyway. Check out “Wild Griefer,” the winning entry, by There.com resident Francis_7. The film is a five-minute music video based on a song by the same name, written by Thereians Banshee_Kate and Stungthumbz. And it’s all about griefing! (Of course, as There.com’s press release points out, “The lyrics and dialogue showcase There’s real-time voice chat feature, which makes it appear as if the avatars are speaking and singing without the need for editing or dubbing.” But that’s obviously secondary to the subject matter, needless to say.) Check out the rest of the winning entries on this long-loading Web page. And don’t forget to congratulate Francis_7, who actually won a hefty prize: a Sony MiniDV Handycam Camcorder, 90,000 Therebucks, and, last but not least (or maybe both) a There sweatshirt. Nice work.

At Tuesday morning’s opening session of Autodesk University 2006, CEO Carl Bass saved his best demo for last to present before a crowd of over 6000 Computer Aided Drafting and 3D modeling enthusiasts at the software maker’s largest annual event. While it had already been posted this past Sunday by corporate blogger Shaan Hurley, Bass’s unveiling of Autodesk Island in the online world of Second Life marks the day in history that the 800 pound gorilla of the CAD market brings its resources and user base to bear in its latest return to cyberspace, a term that reportedly it once attempted to trademark as its own.

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