One thing that Draxtor Despres has exemplified so well in his opening episode of The Drax Files is how well video can be used to promote Second Life. The question therefore must be, where Draxtor Despres leads, can Linden Lab follow?
Let’s rewind a little first, Linden Lab, in association with The Linden Endownment For The Arts, used to run a an official month of machinima. The playlist can still be viewed on youTube. Whereas this playlist has many films, they are films first and Second Life related second, that’s no bad thing and is a good demonstration of machinima in Second Life, but it doesn’t do what Draxtor has achieved with his mixed real person virtual person production.
On their blog, Linden Lab give a lot of time and space to the Second Life Picture Of The Day. There are some stunning images on there and a picture can speak a thousand words, it’s good promotion but it doesn’t get behind the person or the place in the way that Inara Pey and Honour McMillan do…. they’ve both blogged about the University of Western Australia’s machinima contest, with one million Linden Dollars worth of prize money, including a top prize of 200,000 Linden Dollars. I have a pub to go to and beer to drink, I don’t have time to be sidetracked like this! Go read Inara or Honour for more details.
Where was I, oh yes, telling the story of the person behind the images. Linden Lab did try and get something like this going with some blog posts, Strawberry Singh was one of the guest bloggers, writing a post about twelve months ago, but the concept didn’t really gain traction. Highlighting the difficulties Linden Lab face regarding editorial content on these issues.
One challenge that Linden Lab face that, with all due respect, Draxtor, Honour and Inara don’t face, is that of editorial impartiality, if Linden Lab feature one resident, lots of other residents will complain.
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