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I missed the opening of this art show in the virtual world of Second Life, but it will apparently be up for a while, at the [KODE] Gallery in »SL’s Envy region«. It’s a solo show by Rio-based artist Löis Lancaster (aka Haemetz Mizser in SL), “a figurative digital illustrator in the real world, who is at the same time — and with the same body of work — an expressionist painter in Second Life,” according to SL resident Cobala Koba, who organized the show. Coincidentally, I’m headed for Rio this evening, to attend the wedding of a friend and to try to take a well needed break — although I’m already trying to set up meetings with various SL people there, so we’ll see. I’ll be away for a week, which means there may be some slow posting ahead on 3pointD. However, I’ve left the blog in the capable hands of our three contributors — Glitchy Gumshoe, Chip Poutine and Aleister Kronos — so hopefully they’ll be able to keep you entertained. See you soon.

The Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog) launched a new beta search service for the virtual world of Second Life today, at search.sheeplabs.com, according to Electric Sheep Christian Westbrook. What’s unique (as far as I know) about this service is that it doesn’t rely on users to manually list their products but instead spiders the SL Grid to automatically collect information about items marked “for sale.” (Read more about how it works on the service’s About page.) The service allows avatars to opt out of the system, or to list all items they own, and doesn’t crawl private islands. Results are returned with a teleport link, price, object creator and owner, and description. According to the Sheep, it also puts less load on the system than a single avatar, so it shouldn’t create much lag.

Having someone spider the SL Grid is something I’ve been looking for for a long time, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this works in practice. Having users manually list objects, as the many other SL search services do, is a far from comprehensive solution, but it’s been the best we’ve had until now. If all goes as planned, this should push SL search forward by leaps and bounds. (more…)

On my travels in Second Life I am constantly on the lookout for new, preferably innovative, commercial or educational islands. Often I find places so new they are not yet worth discussing, as the build has barely started, but sometimes I find places that have been around for a while, yet exist in some kind of virtual backwater. One such, and one I find interesting from a business model point of view, is »EduNation«. a private island sim owned by the real life company The Consultants-E. The aim of the island is to provide educators with an opportunity to explore the application of Second Life in education, and education in Second Life. (more…)

David Alexander of the environmentally minded Web site PlanetThoughts.org sends along the news that the Environmental Council of Second Life and virtual garden-supply company »Luna Bliss« are organizing a series of events this April 22 to mark Earth Day in the virtual world of Second Life. A full schedule will apparently be released on the site shortly, but “presentation and display topics include water resources, energy, global warming, tree planting, art, and much more. Fun events, raffles, and more.” Certainly a worthy initiative, so get your avatar’s green thumb on and see how you can contribute.

Preppy French fashioneers Lacoste have put out an open call for models from the virtual world of Second Life. From now until May 2, you can submit a photo and description of your avatar at the Lacoste Web site (warning: contains highly annoying Flash, resizing and unturnoffable music). Internet users will then have the chance to vote for the 100 most beautiful avatars, from which three male and three female avs will be selected by Lacoste to take part in a virtual photo shoot — and share in L$1 million. The winning avs will be featured on the Lacoste site and in a gallery in Second Life, starting May 17. Lacoste is already getting noticed for the program Women’s Wear Daily, while Amanda at PSFK finds the notion “pretty ridiculous and somewhat pointless.” It’s not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but I kind of like the idea. But what I’d really like to see is Lacoste extend their brand itself into Second Life, and let those SL models leak out into print ads in some form. That would be an entirely more interesting experiment.