3pointD.com

Lifecrawler is a new service that looks like it will offer residents of the virtual world of Second Life the chance to stream their virtual activities to a Web site, among other things. There’s not a lot of text on the site, so it’s hard to tell exactly how the service will work, but it appears it will offer two components: a window you can drop on your Web site that will stream your SL activities to the Web, and a metrics system that will give you information about visitors to your SL plot of land and what they’ve been getting up to there. All you can do at the moment is sign up for email updates, but it looks like a very interesting service. (more…)

If you dig the suspensful thrills of novelist Dean Koontz, then log in to the virtual world of Second Life tonight at 6:00pm SL Time (9:00pm Eastern), for the premiere of Bantam Dell’s Authors in Second Life series (which we stumbled on last month). Koontz will read from his upcoming book, The Good Guy, then take questions from the audience. (Ask him about Odd Thomas, which sounds like it has more to do with the virtual.) Audience members will also have a chance to win a first edition of The Good Guy, which they’ll receive two weeks before it hits store shelves. (more…)

Marketing man and podcaster Greg Verdino reports that the virtual world of Kaneva, which 3pointD covered in detail recently, is about to go into open beta on Monday, March 19. Get your media ready, kids. Kaneva gives members an apartment where they can upload photos, videos and other content to share in a 3D social environment — as close to a 3D MySpace as I’ve seen. It’s a potentially powerful idea, the ability to be present in the same space with the people who are viewing your content, but it remains to be seen how it takes hold. Two pre-emptive feature requests: (1) At present, you need to upload your content to the Kaneva site, and then link it in the world. I’d love to see the interactive picture frames and televisions in Kaneva be able to pull content directly from Flickr or YouTube. (2) I’d also love to see that content become clickable, so that you could see a photo on an apartment wall and click through to the Web page where it’s taken from. Neither of those things is possible at the moment, but Kaneva hinted to me that something like this might be coming. We’ll see. It’s a very interesting place nonetheless. Feel free to send word of your impressions once you get in next week.

French electro-groovologists Air are bringing their new album, Pocket Symphony, to the virtual pocket world of Second Life, according to a press release. (This is cause for great rejoicing around the offices of 3pointD, where Air is in heavy rotation.) “On the occasion of the release of their fourth album, ‘Pocket Symphony’ [which came out last week], French band Air opens »a listening room in Second Life«. In this 3D rendering of the album’s visual art, you will be able to sample the 12 tracks of Air’s ‘Pocket Symphony’, watch the video of the album’s first single ‘Once Upon a Time’, as well as a short documentary about ‘Pocket Symphony’, get information about the upcoming Pocket Symphony European tour dates, access the band’s weblinks and subscribe to Air’s newsletter.” Sounds like a nice full-function fan site within Second Life. There have been major label projects like this in Second Life for almost a year, but there seems to have been a lull recently. Nice to see them coming back around, as this kind of social media sharing is one of the things a 3D virtual world is best at. I’m still in Texas, so I can’t check it out, but I urge our listeners to dial over to the »Air listening room« and start listening.