As a long time critic of Linden Lab’s lack of communication with the Second Life populace and their sparse use of their own blog for news, I welcome what looks like a resurgence in blog use.
Three recent posts have appeared, one once again highlighting the destination guide: Highlights from the Second Life Destination Guide – Jan. 31, 2013
Another exemplifies use of the Leap Motion Controller: Reaching into Second Life with Leap Motion
The third is an addition to the quick tips: Shopping in Second Life Video Tutorial
What I particularly like about the Leap Motion blog is what appears at the end of the embedded YouTube video:
Yes please! That is exactly the right place for people to be looking for Second Life news, my main criticism has been that there isn’t enough news!
I also like the fact that these three blog posts will appeal to different audiences, although there will be some crossover. I’m a big fan of the Destination Guide, although it does need to be updated regularly as places do disappear, but stay in the guide. The Destination guide is your what to do place, well it’s not the only one, but it is a good one. I’m also a big fan of the Ad Widgets you can use to display Destination Guide places, I’d love to see this extended to events.
Citysphere
Welcome to Citysphère, a new vision of Second Life. A city with 132 buildings distributed on a floating sphere, this mind-bending experience features three times the surface area of most sims and must be seen. For more information, and important Citysphere advice, go to bit.ly/RNdSf1. The exhibition runs throughout the month.
Visit in Second Life
Shhh!! Nightclub
A sexy, naughty dance club set in a library, of all places. Chock full of events every Sunday from 6-8pm, they also do specialty theme built events (car wash, trailer park, disco, saloon, beach party and more). And if that’s not enough, DJ Vixie Durant plays all the hottest club hits!
Visit in Second Life
The only minor issue of the latest Destination Guide post is that it’s very art centric. I support use of the arts in Second Life, but I’d like to see a bit more variation in themes in these posts, although I’d rather have the posts appearing with a lack of variation in themes than not appearing at all. Maybe Linden Lab are concerned about appearing to play favourites if they go to all sections of the guide.
The Leap Motion Controller post gives a very brief demonstration of using the Leap Motion controller … well you’d expect that! The controller allows someone to control avatars and objects in Second Life using their hands:
The video is brief, but it does it’s job well and doesn’t get too technical. This is at a very experimental stage and certainly not at a point where the average user will be able to get it working, which is something I’m not being critical of because I like the concept of an early look at something, it helps to get tongues wagging.
The third post about the Shopping tutorial quick tip has also taken onboard some commentary from the previous video:
Last time the video referenced the shopping tutorial video, but there was no link to it. This time the video references the buying currency tutorial, but includes the link to that tutorial in the video, so now all we need is the return of friendly greetings! Wait who the hell is doing the voice on that Buying Currency video? A relative of Rod Humble?
Overall, I’m cautiously optimistic that at least in terms of the blog, Linden Lab’s communications may be improving. Certainly with the quick tips and Destination Guide posts, these are blogs that can run and run, hopefully there will be more technology news too.