Universal Artists Hit Second Life June 25/26
Is a Southern Takeover of Second Life on the way? Hot on the heels of Warner Bros. launching Regina Spektor’s latest album in the virtual world of Second Life comes a press release from the Universal Motown Records Group promising “two first-ever virtual artist meet and greets which fans from all over the world can experience in real time.” The artists are hip-hop bad boy Chamillionaire, who will appear in SL on June 25, and frat-rockers Hinder, who will make their in-world appearance the next day. Given that Chamillionaire is a platinum-selling recording artist, this could be Second Life’s most attention-grabbing event to date. It also seems to mark the first ongoing commitment to a Second Life presence by a big real-world media company. But it raises some critical questions about the capacity of Linden Lab’s technology to handle the attention.
Universal’s presence in Second Life was built out by virtual-world services firm InWorld Studios. While the Universal “Soundscape” appears to cover only a portion of the world’s St. Martin region, [<-- SL link] it's a pretty nice build, featuring a concert stage and sound booth, VIP lounges, and scattered buildings with links to purchase the artists' albums on the Web and sign up for mailing lists. There's also a holodeck that serves as a tiny virtual world within the virtual world, a tray of free joints, and a magic mushroom dealer, which for 20 Linden dollars will soon have you swatting at pot leaves emblazoned with American flags, among others things. And of course, I can't resist the chance to show you my hallucination:
It seems like this place could actually be fun. The Universal press release, needless to say, doesn’t mention the ’shrooms. Nor does it mention the hot-or-not catfight voting booth in the Hinder outbuilding. The release does do a fairly good job, however, of describing Second Life to the uninitiated:
A user signs up to ‘Second Life,’ creates an ‘avatar’ or a 3D image of him/herself, dresses the avatar, establishes an identity, and then begins to live and interact within the world of Second Life. “Soundscape,” the first virtual music performance center/venue custom built for a major recording artist within Second Life, creates an exciting new music destination for fans of Universal Motown Records Group recording artists.
“Soundscape” is like a super-amped 3D website or webmall where a virtual 3D visitor can experience all the music, video, info, and swag shopping he wants, unattended, and without interruption or time constraints. But when Universal Motown and Universal Republic Records plan an event at “Soundscape,” the virtual venue then kicks into “attended” mode. Label and venue staffers close the doors and prep “Soundscape” for the event. The first two historic events are scheduled for later this month. Chamillionaire will appear at “Soundscape” for an hour-long meet and greet on June 25th and the very next day June 26th, the rock band Hinder will also appear to greet fans. Then on July 15th, music fans will have the opportunity to see never-seen-before, behind-the-scenes footage for Hinder’s new video for “Lips Of An Angel.” And on July 29th, visitors to “Soundscape” will be able to watch the full-length “Lips Of An Angel” video.
As far as I know, this is the first example of a really big media company actually using Second Life as a 3D-Web-like platform — i.e., a place where they can build out a persistent 3D Internet presence in the fashion they’ve been doing for years in 2D on the Web, a presence that’s not tied to an album launch or other real-world event but that will be available as a way to promote a series of artists over time. I do know that at least one other major media company has a virtual-world-related project in the works, and heard tell of another several months back, though I don’t know if that one got off the ground. Universal’s announcement will no doubt spur competitors into action.
One thing that’s going to happen as a result of projects like this is that SL’s technology will quickly be pushed to the limits, and we’ll soon get to see whether Linden Lab is up to the test. What’s going to happen in the last week of June, when hundreds or thousands of Chamillionaire fans sign up for their Second Life memberships and pile into the world — only to find that fewer than 200 of them will be able to attend the event? (SL regions hold at most 40-50 avatars at a time; areas built at the corner of four regions, as the Soundscape appears to be, can hold correspondingly more.)
LL’s business model will also get a critical test. At the moment, the company seems to add new land regions in some proportion to the growth in memberships. But as broad-based attractions like this crop up more frequently in the world, the ratio of landowners (i.e., paying customers) to basic (free) accounts is sure to fall. To support the new residents (those who stay, at any rate), LL will have to keep putting on more land, which costs them a great deal in server resources. But if most of them are Chamillionaire and Hinder fans, the company probably won’t gain paying customers at the same rate. MySpace can afford to support 80 million free accounts because they make their money on the periphery of the service, through advertising. Second Life, with its straight fee-for-service model, doesn’t have the same luxury.
Does this point toward eventual big changes in the virtual world? Linden Lab has surprised us before. But if things like Universal’s Soundscape do catch on and Second Life really does start to become the 3D Internet platform that some people see it as, there may at least be some refinement necessary to make the technology as robust as it needs to be. Possibly a lot of refinement.
Feeds
Other than DarkDharma, I don’t see the avatar names connected to this company such as to determine what kind of face/profile/track record they have inworld and on the forums (if any). Can you supply their avatar names? The names on their site you linked all appear to be RL names.
A very interesting fact about the Hinder build is that it is on the mainland. That means they didn’t go the more expensive and controlling private island route. That means in theory it has more fly-bys. I discovered it myself by flying by, wondering why all the properties around it in St. Martin’s were all devalued and selling for a song. Answer: a huge build with the word “club” essentially stamped on it and flashing strobe lights and pot in trays, etc. spelled “lag” and “griefing” to quiet residential types looking for white sandy beaches in St. Martin’s — so they fled. This is so interesting to watch how it will play out.
[…] 3pointD.com » Blog Archive » Universal Artists Hit Second Life June 25/26: Regina world looks cooler. I think. […]
>>Can you supply their avatar names?
Why? So you can’t start vilifying them?
What track record do they need other than to sign up to SL and start using it?
oh..I get it…competition!
doh…can start vilifying them might make more sense, given porkofy’s track record.
Hey all,
Anyone interested in finding out more about me or the SoundScape project should feel free to ask. I am open and available both in-world and via email (direlobo AT inworldstudios com). I may remember to check this space again but if you really want to contact me write to the email address.
>essentially stamped on it and flashing strobe lights and pot
>in trays, etc. spelled “lag” and “griefing” to quiet
>residential types looking for white sandy
He didn’t mention the scantily clad women in the Catfight display!
As for lag, we are hoping that the other residents will assist us in making our events successful and would like to openly invite all our neighbors to become regular attendees at our events. When there are no events I don’t see SoundScape causing great lag in the regions it inhabits - in fact, it should be mentioned that SoundScape sits on the corners of 4 sims similar to how the Pooley Auditorium is build (and others) to accomodate greater numbers, however, this also means that when there is no event the total burdon on any one of the 4 sims we occupy parts of will be minimal.
Dire Lobo
Dire, the greatest cause of lag in SL is merely avatars — piles of them. It’s not about what kind of audio and video systems you have, and what actually happens with lights or not — “club” is “lag” for people due to avatars.
You can only fit 30 really. So if 30 come to the sim to your one parcel, that means that any other people who own in that sim can’t even come home to their beachfront lovely condos. The sim is literally full. And you’ll find if you have 30 avatars dancing on your sim that the whole thing will start dragging to a standstill. That’s why I didn’t buy there, even the undermarket land, as cool as your build was, and I did enjoy it. It’s a problem on the mainland, and one LL hasn’t really wanted to solve.
Hmmm, well to be honest there’s been so much land turnover in St. Martin since a certain land baron gave up their bid to corner the seafront market, and dumped the prices - for a while they were prohibitively high - I hadn’t even really noticed - I saw a music venu installation starting up about the time we moved in, but it was a fair amount less attractive than what I see in these pics - I have noticed the sim has been laggier than it was, but there’s been more activity in general - anyway, actually being a performer in SL with a fair amount of background here - it does seem kinda like a cheap copout for a major label to use a small corner of what was originally shaping up to be a mostly residential sim - and (much as it pains me to use these words) Prok’s right about the limits - on a mainland sim you’ll be locking out resi’s at about 40 people in the sim, and it’ll be laggy as hell once you get about 30 there. If they really wanted to do this up they probably should have invested in 4 islands and shoved those together - that’d probably hold close to 300 if done right. Glad I don’t have a party on my beach planned those nights. Luckily for Universal, the usual resi load on that sim is pretty light, but I will be a bit miffed if I can’t get onto my land some night because there’s a big show.
Part of me is elated that some big labels are starting to use SL to promote their artists - it kind of legitimizes what I saw as a possibility back when I started - and the in-world music scene has exploded with some great acts that aren’t on the big labels - but I just hope it doesn’t kill the indigenous scene when the biggies roll in with the ability to stream to hundreds of folks at 256k, etc.
Kinda weird that it’s happening in my back yard, and I hadn’t even really noticed.
[…] more business-news from Second Life, as Mark Wallace from 3pointD.com reports, that Universal Motown Records Group launched their permanent residence ‘SoundScape’ within the virtual world. two major opening events are scheduled for this week, featuring meet-and-greets with platinum-selling hiphop-star Chamillionaire (june 25th, 1:00pm SLT) and rockband Hinder (june 26th). The SoundScape is a venue featuring a stage enabled for live audio- and video-broadcasts (screenshot by Mark), VIP-rooms and - of course - stores (cross-linked with the Universal-website). […]
[…] Something is happening on June 25th which is this weekend! The Universal Motown Records Group are bringing in two artists for a meet and great for their fans. I first found out about it from 3pointd.com and started reading up on it more. I also travelled to the place at St. Martin region and was impressed with the setup. The first artist on June 25th will be Chamillionaire which I haven’t heard of but I’m probably just too old now. I listened to the tracks they had set up and wasn’t my type of music I’d listen to but I know their are a lot of fans out there. The next day on June 26th the band, Hinder, will be in second life also. Their music is more my type of style so I was entertained when I was listening to their music.Here is the press release if you would like to read it for yourself. They are allowing 100 people into this event by using a trivia question. The first 100 correct answers will get their free tickets to the event. The “box office” opens on Friday morning at 9am SLT. This is actually an interesting idea because the fans should be the ones who attend the event. There will be a video of the event after for anyone who couldn’t attend. But 100 avatars may slow down the sim so I hope things will work out for them. Search for “soundscape” in the events tab for more info on this event. […]