Second Life Pros

June 18th, 2008

Sardigna at the 15th Quadriennale in Rome

The 15th Quadriennale in Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome) starts today.
SARDIGNA is there with the work named “Joker was here. You’ve been chosen” by artist Giuseppe Stampone.

The critical part of the 15th Quadriennale has been entrusted to a Commission of five curators and art historians: Chiara Bertola, Lorenzo Canova, Bruno Corà, Daniela Lancioni, and Claudio Spadoni.

They have chosen to focus on the 1990s-2000s years, and to devote particular attention to young and mid-career artists who started to gain notice during this period. It is therefore a Quadriennale that is particularly focused on emerging art, which offers a panorama of some of the most representative artistic experiments and pursuits of the past twenty years.

Around one hundred artists were invited, some of whom are already acquiring international exposure. They are all participating with a recent work, in many cases created specifically for the occasion or in situ. Visitors are offered an opportunity for a stimulating exploration of contemporary creativity, ranging from traditional genres - drawing, painting, sculpture - to photography and video projections, including installations and environments that involve the visiting public.

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June 18th, 2008

Mainland supply on hold until july

[news source]

Linden Lab decided to put on hold mainland supply until July.
This is their comment (bold is mine):

“The average price per meter is the key metric we observe to decide levels of mainland supply. It takes account of all resident-to-resident sales per day, but excludes a number of data items such as zero value sales (when friends swap land around), Governor Linden sales (including Auctions themselves) and all private estate sales.We also measure sales by groups and those by individuals separately although at the moment the average price for both is similar (group sales being as much as L$1 per meter lower on average).

It will be no secret to those that have bought or sold land recently, that the average price of mainland has been falling. In 2007 we managed the price down slowly from a high figure of L$12 per meter to a more reasonable L$6 to L$8. It then rose a little as we reached March of this year before falling consistently since then. In recent days we have seen it dip below L$6 per meter which we feel is a little low.”

and again:

“At Linden Lab, we respect the investments you make in Second Life land and are sensitive to price fluctuations related to our auctions of new land. To allow the market to absorb the land recently added to the grid, we will be suspending whole region auctions for the next four weeks after which we will review the situation again (on or around the 11th July).”

Well, despite my recent critics, it seems that they are trying to do their best to help land owners.
This is a good signal. Hope they keep this attitude.

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June 17th, 2008

Public Calendar for Linden Lab

I’m reading it in my RSS feed reader, even if the post has been somewhat deleted from the blog… anyway:
“Ever wondered how to find out when the next Linden Talk or Event is? Ever wondered how you would find out about a Linden’s Office Hours?
Well we’ve set up a calendar just for you! Linden Lab now has a Public Events calendar that everyone can access and see when and where a presentation or talk is going on. We’ve also added in Linden Office hours to make it easier for you to attend.
You can view this calendar here.
To add this calendar to your own Google Calendar account, please add the following email address: PublicEvents@lindenlab.com and watch the awesome tutorial put on by our very own Torley Linden regarding office hours. Fun and informative!
We’ll see you in Second Life!”

Take note, folks!!

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June 16th, 2008

Weblin, the universal avatar application for the web

[thank to Travis for the news source]

Weblin is an avatar that allows you to communicate in real-time with other weblins on any site as you surf the Web.
Weblin lite is a tool that allows Web surfers to make themselves visible to other users by assigning an avatar, or “weblin” to depict a user at the bottom of a Web site.

The new lite version is browser-based, eliminating the need to download any software.
Future versions of Weblin will allow you to liberate existing avatars from other virtual worlds including, Second Life.
For more details, click here for the press release.
It seems interesting!

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June 15th, 2008

Second Life, where do you want to go tomorrow?

It’s sunday, a day with few slow news on virtual worlds.
The expanded time leaves space for thinking.
Today I’m thinking, in fact, on the future of Second Life.
I’m trying to figure out where SL is going, and if that direction is the one I wish.

I think that Second Life has huge adoption barriers, that block a great mass adoption in the world; also, the framework is not easy to use, and it exposes its flanks to critics. In general, Second Life should evolve, as a service.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The focal point is that Second Life, in a few years, will be part of a huge virtual “cloud”, in which different virtual worlds will exchange informations, avatars, services, objects. Virtual worlds will witness something similar to what it’s happening today for Data Centers: the emergence of “clouds”.
I can also guess that a standardization will come, sooner or later. They need it, in order to survive. Otherwise, another company will enter the market and kill Second Life.

What are your guesses? Your fears? Your suggestions?

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June 14th, 2008

Microsoft on OpenSim

Good news for OpenSim: Microsoft, according to its SL developer Zain Naboulsi, is going to offer some volunteer development work for OpenSim. This could be the start of a precious partnership, don’t you think?

I strongly believe that OpenSim is the way to go, and I’m convinced that Linden Lab, and Second Life, will be the first beneficiary. It will help them remember what open source is, and weigh their decision on it.

Here’s the whole interview.

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June 13th, 2008

Message in a Second Bottle

[news source]

This is soooo cool! For Second Life’s 5th anniversary, the metamusicians Dizzy Banjo and Lillie Yifu have created a huge bottle: you can fill it with text or audio messages, even if Dizzy prefers audio because “…it will play intermittently as part of a fun interactive sound and music installation…“.

The messages should try to answer the following questions:
What does Second Life mean to you?
How has your Second Life affected you?
What hopes do you have for the future of SL?

If you are not familiar with audio recording and uploading, Dizzy prepared this YouTube tutorial that explains everything.
Do it, before June 18th!

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June 11th, 2008

Limited interoperability between Second Life and OpenSim

OpenSim is an interesting project, an open source server to host virtual worlds.
From the wikipedia page:
“OpenSimulator uses libsecondlife to handle communication between the client and server, so it is possible to connect to an OpenSim server using the Linden Lab Second Life client“.

Second Life and OpenSim can now enjoy a limited, yet very important, interoperability.
This is so important because OpenSim is forcing Linden Lab to think about their open source policy, in a way or another.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think that going open source is always THE only answer; some companies, such as Linden Lab, are at risk, and they can’t simply go out, open their code, and hope for the better.
Still, they need to focus on their strategic view, which of course implies going Open, sooner or later (like Facebook).

Otherwise, users (and businesses) will find better platforms, and migrate there.

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June 11th, 2008

Web pages on SL objects!

I wasn’t aware of it, neither, but it seems that Second Life can now support active and live web pages on SL objects. When “web on a prim” was released three months ago, it could only serve static pages. That was something, but still…
To be honest, I think that having this integration between the web and SL is useful ONLY if you consider it a temporary solution: in the future, Second Life must evolve into something that doesn’t really need the web; it could be with a new set of programming APIs, or with an extension of the Linden Scripting Language. But it HAS to evolve.
We hope it will do so!

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June 10th, 2008

Atlantikà Show on Sardigna Island

Sardigna is proud to invite you to ATLANTIKA’ in Second Life.
The show will open today, tuesday june 10th, at 21:30pm italian time (12:30pm PST).

Visitors will be able to admire the Anatolian, Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman and Catalan vestiges of its rich past.

With Barumini, a nuraghe fortress on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, Sardinia questions its prehistory, especially the imposing vanished civilisation of the Nuraghes, which seems to have played a major role in Mediterranean Antiquity.

The exhibition has been part of the international symposium “Knowledge of the Ancient World: Where Were the Columns of Hercules?” by UNESCO.
The symposium, based on Sergio Frau’s book “The Columns of Hercules: An Investigation”, was focused on the ideas of real and imaginary boundaries and borders that nurture our vision of Antiquity.

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