Second Life – Page 250

September 7, 2011September 7, 2011

Avatar Appearance And Perceptions

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has a blog post regarding a competition to design an avatar of Albert Einstein, the winning avatar will be used in Second Life to promote fundraising for the Institute of medical research Israel-Canada. Now if you’re interested in entering an avatar you need to get your skates on because the closing date for entries is 11:59pm eastern time on September 9th. There are three prizes available, USD$1,500 for first prize isn’t a bad offering at all. The full rules of the competition can be found here.

The competiton is for a good cause and has an element of fun but it’s the choice of such an iconic image as Einstein that interests me because earlier I was reading an article at Mediashift regarding how avatars appear having an impact on your own actions, the article cites a book by Professor Jeremy Bailenson and Jim Blascovich entitled Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds, and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution .. which is quite a mouthful, the article can be read here but includes claims that taller avatars can out negotiate smaller avatars and taller avatars give people more confidence for thirty minutes after they log off in real life.

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September 3, 2011September 3, 2011

More Options Could Help Premium Membership

New Premium Features have been introduced for Premium Members, as announced on the official Second Life blog, which you can read here. The features include sandboxes for premium members only and some gifts exclusive to premium members.

I am a premium member but always have a bugbear when it comes to premium membership that people who are estate owners but not premium members should be taken into consideration. They don’t get the stipend and they don’t get a Linden Home, but they can buy an island, now considering how much they pay for their island, I think they should be included in perks such as these new ones and I asked that in the comments …. and got answered indirectly by Tateru Nino! Tateru’s blog post on the new premium features includes this comment:

“While it says premium only, Linden Lab spokesperson, Peter Gray, assures me that these two benefits are also extended to non-premium, ‘concierge’ customers.”

Good to see that response. However I think it’s a sign of getting old that I’m not up in arms about the free advertising for The Loft. Colleen Desmoulins has a highly regarded store there but these freebies do compete with other furniture makers and this is wonderful advertising for Colleen, usually I’d be all disgusted of Tunbridge Wells over this, but I’m not, maybe I’m used to it now, or maybe it’s because Rodvik is a Villa fan, whatever the reason I’m not too bothered about it.

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September 2, 2011September 3, 2011

JLU – Responses, Criticism And The Phantom Zone

The fallout, criticism, claim and counter claim from JLUGate continue to ripple through the Second Life Blogsphere and Forumsphere …. I made that one up!

Tracer Graves linked to a petition in my recent blog post on the JLU issue, the petition can be read here. Whether you agree with the petition or not, it’s worth reading as it has some background as to why this issue has blown up.

The JLU have made an official response on to the allegations on their site, which you can read here. This is an important development because JLU have been quite quiet in official mode, GreenLantern Excelsior has been making a lot of comments, he’s made some here too which I’ll come to later but he has never claimed to be an official spokesperson. This is an official statement.

GreenLantern Excelsior was interviewed by Prok, which can be read here.

The Alphaville Herald have an interview with the Prime Minister of Antiquity who explains why he regrets asking the JLU for help, which can be read here.

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August 30, 2011August 30, 2011

Grendel’s Children – Birthday Parties, Mesh And Downsizing

Grendel’s Children are in the news for their decision to downsize, now you may never heard of Grendel’s Children, or visited, but trust me this is a big Second Life brand and was one of the first places to appear on the revamped showcase. Prim Perfect, Tateru Nino, Daniel Voyager and New World Notes have all covered this story, there’s good commentary there, I decided to ask about a couple of other things whilst I had the ear of Toady Nakamura.

Now I’m sure there will be speculation about the reasons for their decision to downsize, but Toady Nakamura of Grendel’s children contacted me to assure me that this is due to frustration with support and that it is nothing to do with the inworld economy:

“Our sales are solid. We downsized due to frustration with Lab non response to fixing sim problems. We sold and got rid of the problem as it was taking too much time from staff making avatars.”

Well having the ear of Toady I decided to get some more information, namely birthday parties and Mesh!

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August 30, 2011August 30, 2011

When Did Will Wright Join The Board Of Directors?

Whilst reading the epic JLU thread over at SLUniverse, with one eye open because it’s such a busy thread, my skim reading found its way to a conversation about Rod Humble (Linden Lab CEO), where someone thought Mr Humble created The Sims, however Stroker Serpentine corrected this person, pointing out that Will Wright created The Sims, and also pointing out that Will Wright is on the Linden Lab board of directors ….. WAIT! When did this happen?

Now I don’t know what the board of directors do, obviously some important stuff, possibly in the super secret hidden bunker of Linden World, but more likely in an office or the odd email or telephone call, the real impetus behind Second Life is from the management and staff, we don’t hear much at all from the board of directors, but they must do something!

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