Category: Social Networking

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MTV’s Catfish Seeking Second Life Stories

From the Linden Lab blog we have a rather curious post: MTV’s Catfish Is Seeking Second Life Stories. I’ve never heard of this show, which is not that surprisng as I can’t remember the last time I watched MTV, when I was a lad it was a music channel but it has morphed into something very different over the years.

Apparently the show brings together online couples who are meeting for the first time, which sounds rather iffy to me but if people enjoy it then more power to their elbow. I have to say that the application form for the show looks like it’s encouraging a drama fest with questions such as:

  • Do you have a secret or something to confess to your online partner? Have you made any fake online profiles? Please explain in as much detail as possible.
  • Do you have reason to believe that your current online crush is lying to you about who they are or what they look like? Please explain.

However some of the other questions look a little less drama laden:

  • If you were to finally meet, what are you most excited about? If you were to finally meet, what are you most nervous about? Please explain.

However as they seek links to social networking sites for the other person, I have a feeling this may be intended to be more catfight than catfish.

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Versu Debuts On The iPad

I have been checking the Versu website regularly for updates on Linden Lab’s interactive fiction venture from Emily Short and Richard Evans to see whether Versu was available. The site merely said “Coming Soon” but today I see a blog post from Hamlet Au over at New World Notes announcing that it is now available, but only on the iPad, although an Android version is promised.

I must confess to being bitterly disappointed to learn that Versu is a tablet app. I hadn’t noticed this in any of the previous articles about the product, although to be fair they were few and far between. Swings and roundabouts here, I wasn’t expecting much from Dio and that turned out to be surprisingly engaging for me. However having looked forward to seeing Versu, I am totally deflated. However it still looks like an interesting product and from Linden Lab’s perspective, they now have products available on the web, Steam, iTunes App Store with applications for desktops and tablets, so the company is covering more ground than ever before.

As well as Hamlet’s post there’s also an official press release from Linden Lab detailing the product and a video on the Versu website, which I’ll embed later in this post.

Versu launches with some stories, as you’d expect. Initially you will get:

  • An Introduction To Society – Designed as an introduction to Versu.
  • The Unwelcome Proposal – A scene from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice where you can change the outcome.
  • The House On The Cliff – An original playable ghost story from Emily Short.

They are bundled with Versu for free, another title “A Family Supper” will be available for USD$4.99. This is billed as a murder mystery by Emily Short and looks as if it’s the title that was erroneously put on the Versu website when details about the product were posted for a day or two at the start of the year.

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Suspicious Activity Detected On Twitter, Security Breach For Anshe Chung?

Two unrelated reports of possible security breaches, one at Twitter which is confirmed in a blog post and one for Anshe Chung which is uconfirmed but seems to be true, as reported by Shiloh Lyric over at SLUniverse.

I saw in my Twitter feed last night that people were reporting they’d received an email from Twitter informing them that their passwords had been reset, then others pointing to that Twitter blog post to confirm that this might not be a phishing attack. However even the existence of a blog post doesn’t mean it’s not a phishing email, so if you receive one, tread with caution. The Twitter blog post actually has some good tips on password securit, such as trying to make your password at least ten characters, use a mixture of upper and lower cases letters, numbers and symbols and don’t use the same password on multiple sites.

Twitter are also  advising people to follow the advice of the US Department of Homeland security and disable Java on their computer.. and then rewinding a little to tell people to disable in their browser.

The email on the Anshe Chung issue is interesting in some ways, because it was sent by Linden Lab and relates to Second Life passwords. However it should be noted that this is not due to a security breach at Linden Lab.

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Making More Plans For dio

Ok so I’m enjoying playing around with dio and The Search For Hod Rumble (see previous post for details) is well under way, whether it ever goes from private to public is another matter. My intention with this project is largely to play around with the features and get a good understanding of the platform whilst having fun at the expense of Rod Humble. However, even though I’m only at the start of my project, I have picked up some tips.

Plan your project

There are some really decent and very short tutorials on dio and they are well worth watching, this should help you with get started. However, whatever your project is, it’s worth planning and if you’re plan is interactive fiction, then you definitely need a plan. I advise using tools outside of dio to plan your project, a pen and paper will do along with some good old fashioned flow charts but planning works well, as I’ve discovered when I get into my project and realise I should have done things differently!

You’ll want a plot, then you’ll want a diagram of sorts, really, this is important, although you may have a photographic memory and not need plans and diagrams, for most of us, they are important. After a brief start you will soon realise you are losing track of your characters, rooms and paths if you don’t take notes. Do not be put off by this, taking notes is in the long term a good habit to get into anyway, as I discover the older I get and look back at my VBS and Powershell scripts at work or my LSL scripts in Second Life, where I thought I was too clever to need to comment on what I was doing! Bad move!

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Making Plans For Dio

Laval Industries today announced plans for dio. “We’re only making plans for dio, we only want what’s best for them, we’re only making plans for dio, dio just needs this helping hand” Laval Industires chief development officer told me in a top secret meeting today. Three interactive fiction titles are already in the works.

The Search For Hod Rumble

Hod Rumble, CEO of technology company Lendin Laboratories, has gone missing. Customers of Lendin Laboratories main product, Alternative Existence, haven’t seen hide or hair of Hod Rumble for months. In this compelling story you will get to choose a companion to help you in your search for Hod Rumble and this will determine which storyline you follow.  Companions include:

  • Former CEO and technology pioneer Philip Eladesor.
  • Blogger and author James Amadeus Oh
  • Industry superstar Harper Robins
  • Ace developer and producer Little Bo Bargrass
  • The Lord of Dee … this guy is like Hitchcock, he appears in all his own productions!

As well as different storylines determined by the character, plans are afoot for different storylines within the storylines “This is confusing us too” a developer at Laval Industries confided in me.

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