New Profile Options Coming And Media Pondering

This is a bit of a rambling post on a varitety of subjects, the lack of official music channels in Second Life, a new messaging feature via web profiles and some strange claims by Linden Lab over premium features, I’m blaming the hottest end of September since 1895 for this rambling!

As some of you may have noticed, I’m a bit miffed about the whole Spotify now requiring new users to have a Facebook account, largely because I think this is absolutely ridiculous. However where I do think Spotify have made a sensible choice is in making their offerings available to Facebook users. This may sound contrary, but it really isn’t, my criticisms of Linden Lab pushing Facebook have been due to Linden Lab seeming to push Facebook our side, pushing Second Life Facebook side makes perfect sense.

However the deal does raise the concept of media, Second Life is a place that is ripe for media, music, videos, live performances, they are all popular within Second Life and for bands looking to make a cheap promotion, Second Life seems a reasonable cost solution and yet, we don’t see much of it. However this brings me to another gripe, which is the lack of a decent API for advertising events, I love the showcase widgets we can create, I’d love to do the same for Events or get a  feed of some sort of events strream with a nice level of richness, but it’s not available.

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The Wonder Of You

TechRadar has a fairly balanced article regarding what happened to Second Life and where it’s heading, which you can read here. What I like about this article is that it doesn’t end by saying Second Life is going nowhere, it also has quotes from people like Tateru Nino and current Linden Lab CEO RodVilla Humble.

The article is realistic, there was too much hype, big brands thought they could come in, build something and people would come. I have long maintained that the big brands should have intergrated more, I understand that this is tricky in a user generated content world, they lose some control and maybe didn’t want their brand side by side with a store with a huge phallus on the top of the building (I saw stores like this when I first arrived and they made me cringe). However brands should have been looking to sponsor more gigs, sponsor art galleries, plant adverts in sims, generally engage with the Second Life public.

Then there’s the issue of the learning curve and whereas more experienced Second Life users find it hard to understand that the learning curve is steep, it simply is for many people. I joined Eve-Online earlier in the year for a while, they have superb tutorials, they email you with more tips when you’re new, Eve-Online has a steep learning curve too but they do try harder to keep new users engaged with those tutorials but in a user generated world where Linden Lab have less control than the creators of a world like Eve-Online, it’s harder to guide people.

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Stroker Pulls Out

Stroker Serpentine today confirmed rumours about his departure from Second Life, releasing his Sexgen V5 base as a full perms model for free in the process, you can pick the package up from his island, get them whilst they’re hot.

Cindy Claveau shared the news over at SLUniverse with a copy of a post to the Eros group inworld:

It’s true I am leaving Second Life. I have made many friends here and I hope that we’ll all be together in the Third Life. I am placing the SexGen base full perm to any who would like to use it in their builds. I’ll be closing the groups and returning my sim soon, so come and get it quick. Feel free to share it. It’s been a grand adventure and I wish you all the naughty fun you can have with it. Until then, be good to each other.

I personally didn’t know Stroker Serpentine, I know of him but I can’t say I’ve ever had any real dealings with him. However when I arrived in Second Life Sexgen was a big thing, which was reflected in news articles and documentaries over the years. There were controversial elements to the Stroker Serpentine Story, a dispute with Corsi Mousehold of furnation, a lawsuit with a copybotter and more recently a dispute with Linden Lab which has since been resolved. However love him or loathe him Stroker Serpentine generated a lot of publicity for Second Life.

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Save Rodvik’s Wall

So there I am stalking Rodvik’s profile when  I notice he’s into wargames and Russian history, which reminds me I need to catch up on this week’s episode of Spooks. I then go to his wall, where you know you might find the odd hello or something about his interests …. unfortunately you don’t find that you find an unholy mess of people using Rodvik’s wall as a discussion forum.

Now look, I know he appears nice and all that and he’s engaged with the community on twitter, in the forums, over at SLUniverse and commented on blogs but for goodness sake, a profile wall isn’t a place to discuss some of the subjects being raised there, he’s one man, he can’t fix everything and he’s not about to stop some commie plot from taking over a sim, well actually he comes not far from where the intelligence headquarters GCHQ are located as I recall …… hmmm! Anyway! He’s not going to fix all these problems!

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A Visit To Renaissance Island

At the weekend, at a bellydancing event, I bumped into someone from Renaissance Island, after a short chat I was armed with a few landmarks for this historical educational sim set in Tudor England. Now I’m biased about these things because I like this sort of stuff before I’ve even arrived.

Upon landing I found myself outside the Boars Head Inn and then promptly got confused as the notecard told me the inn was called the Figaro Inn, but we’ll forgive that.
Boars Head Inn

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