Second Life Herald

Who owns the rights to pictures of Tiny avatars?

by Kris Dibou

As I was working on a story for the Herald (regarding a fellow who was writing a children's book on heart health) including illustrations make from screenshots of Tiny avatars in Second Life, I received this note from Ms. Wynx Whiplash, one of the creators of the Tiny avatars:

RFP asks developers to create a game for fun

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Friday, NASA released an RFP seeking a partner to help create a massively multiplayer online game to help teach science and engineering. The project has been seen as an exciting opportunity since it was initially announced in 2007 - a promised $3 million budget could have something to do that. The level of interest was such that rumors of over a hundred responses to an RFI issued in January of this year seem credible.

But joy in the metaverse development community was short-lived, after it was clear that NASA's MMO development partner is expected to create and maintain the MMO for free - or to use NASA's language a "non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement (defined as one with no exchange of funds)".

Broken Crayons: Was The Virtual Thirst Contest The Last Gasp of the Crayonistas?

by Urizenus Sklar

I don't know, I'm asking. I missed the event announcing the winner of the Coke Virtual Thirst Contest, and I don't know how that event went down. As I disclosed earlier I was on an advisory panel for Coke and the Crayonista marketing company where my advice -- 1 million L in prize money and that they protect the IP rights of the winner -- did not have uptake. I was also one of the contest judges. I'm guessing there were 80 to 100 entries and a lot of them were impressive and showed considerable effort. I don't know what participation levels they were looking for but they generated a nontrivial number of entries at least. Here is the eventual winner:

This seemed like a particularly important hypervent for SL because it involved a very serious new media marketing company working for a big time advertiser in Coke, and I felt they were making a genuine effort to figure out how to approach SL in a way that avoided the usual fare of ghost islands and empty monolithic buildings. How should we assess this effort: win? fail? learning and E for effort?

Meanwhile, for those of you who missed it, Crayon has relauched as a "conversational marketing company", or as one less charitable blogger put it: "gone out of business". Whatever you want to call it, Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Steve Coulson, Gary Cohen, and C.C. ("I'm done coloring") Chapman have all left Crayon. Whatever the future of Crayon in SL (if any), it seems like Joseph Jaffe hasn't given up on SL, claiming that the problem with marketing efforts in SL is not the medium of SL per se, but rather with the creativity of the marketing types. Well, maybe.

By Prokofy Neva, Kremlindenologist

[update: photo credit for the picture below - Tara5 Oh. The original picture and Tara5's interview with King Philip can be found here: here]

Mrs. Linden's little boy is growing up. The fair-haired, Donnie-Osmond-cute repository of our hopes and dreams, "El Chefe" who says we can "blame it all on him," is now honed into a competent media sound-byter and Customer Experience Specialist more caring than the finest call center has to offer. Back at Virtual Worlds 07, Philip blundered on stage with his architecturally-correct shock of hair, saying that gosh, he engineered this platform, and wow, all these people came on it and he didn't know what to do with them -- before rushing off to hobnob with Bill Clinton on Renaissance Island. We weren't impressed.

By contrast, at SLCC, his haircut was flat, with visible, no-nonsense bangs -- and he was oh-so-accessible. While Philip didn't give an interview to the Herald (they didn't ask -- they're too kool for skool now), he made lots of time for Reuters and hung in for the entire 3 days of the fanboyz gathering constantly chatting with residents. At his keynoter, he was all charts and graphs and apologies for poor performance and promising to do better, opening his modest corduroy college jacket to flash a t-shirt with the words MISSING IMAGE and saying "That's me, in the way."

Oh, to be sure, once the party got started at the exclusive Volunteer's gathering, Philip came sporting a transparent pearly-white golf shirt, which exposed what Ingrid Ingersoll immediately dubbed "The Phipple".

Moving the Slider

Still, we're a long way from SLCC 1, where the fangirlz got together to buy Philip a replica of his avatar's trademark rocker T with the gaping red mouth, and even sewed on a sequined crotch to some stone-washed jeans to mimic his scripted, blinging boxers. I got a glimpse of the awkward teenage Philip back then, seeing him blush when I said, with his risque outfit on, he needed to move the "package" slider.

Now, Philip is all delivery. He hung out at the workshops and stood around in the hallways after the talks to answer the most obvious questions, "Why is land so expensive?" in his earnest manner, which has now developed away from laconic California hippie or excited Tesla into something like that quintessential television newscaster's voice with the STRESS on syllables where YOU don't expect it (Corey Bridges of Multiverse does a wonderful imitation of that...wait...I don't think it's an imitation.) "Because we need to give YOU guys the TOOLS to manage the ECONOMY," he explains.

by Jimbo Quality

After my last article, I sensed that there was something missing from my campaign to become President of Second Life. I sensed that the people had expectations of me that I wasn't meeting. My team hit the streets and conducted extensive research to find out what my fellow residents want in their leader. [Don't be fooled, this just means Jimbo finally read some comments - the Editrix].

What I learned is that my people don't think I'm good looking enough to be President. It was a tough thing to hear, but I am nothing if not eager to please, so I set out to fix this. I decided to part with some hard earned lindens and go skin shopping.

I knew I would need help, so I asked our fashion writer, Tenshi Vielle, to help me. She was thrilled.

Tenshi is a very busy avatar. For what seemed like a month, maybe two, I stood by her desk waiting for her to return. Finally, I IM'd her and amazingly, she had just logged on for the first time in weeks! It was like fate had brought us together.

by Tenshi Vielle, Fabulous Fashionista

I never knew Tuesday nights were so busy in Second Life.

This evening held three very big events in ESC history. The NBA made its virtual-world debut on the T-Mobile sim, while the Aloft project held a second grand opening and took questions from the attendees, and Robert Redford's The Green presented itself on the Sundance sim.

Torrid Midnight was hosting the NBA Headquarters opening day party, assisting people with utilizing T-Mobile/NBA sponsored HUDs to shoot baskets for prizes. The NBA Store holds jerseys representing the NBA teams, available for purchase at a lean price of $100L. Everything was incredibly well built and extrordinarily scripted; one wouldn't, couldn't, expect less from the ESC.

The NBA Second Life Court, where you can equip your NBA HUD, wear your basketball, and shoot some pretty awesome virtual hoops

The Orignal Nissan Build has Become a Famous SL Marketing Flub. Is the New Project Any Better?

Readers may recall our criticism of the Nissan build last October. It was our view that the build failed to take advantage of the social nature of online worlds and also failed to show any sort of imagination -- a giant vending machine dispensed scale models of Nissan Sentras in a world of flying saucers, dragons, and yiffing little furries.

Now Nissan has teamed up with the Electric Sheep Company with a project that raises new questions. According to an April 25 press release from Nissan North America (NNA), their Altima Island will contain lots of strange new builds. Quoting our friend Giff:

More specifically, there will be a number of virtual contraptions designed and scripted by Kage Seraph, Kanker Greenacre, and Calum Clifton. The kicker is that NNA is open-sourcing the scripts:

Editorializing now, I think this is definitely a step in the right direction, in that it addresses the creativity issue. The problem is it only highlights the creativity of the Electric Sheep. What I want to know is what the *Nissan* engineers would come up with if unconstrained by the laws of physics etc. There are also worries about the social reach of this project. I wonder exactly how many people they think they are going to touch by open sourcing some advanced scripts. This smells a little bit like Nissan went to the Sheep, and said we don't want another disaster like the Sentra thing. That thought fell down the hole of the group techie-think at ESC, and out popped this idea: "We like to script so *everyone* must like to. Or anyway, the important people and non-idiots like to." On the other hand, maybe the new builds will be fun. And we are all learning here. Baby steps.

The NNA press release (which is way way over the top by the way -- "Nissan Pioneers the Second Life Universe with Unique Innovations" WTF???) is below the fold. (Hat tip to Dustin Dwyer at Michigan Radio.)

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

What appears to be one of the largest virtual land business failures ever threw residents of at least 8 sims out of their homes today - as the Azure Islands land company did a repo-man job on sims owned by Azure Islands but managed by lilly Margretts. Sources claim that Ms. Margetts had not made tier payments to Azure Islands for two months, and since the Linden Lab game gods are not known to extend more than 7 days grace on land payments it may not have been a complete shock that the land was seized and resold.

lilly has gone missing

The residents I spoke with had no warning of the trouble awaiting them, and had been dutifully making payments to Ms. Margetts over the last two months. Imagine their surprise when they found their land had disappeared overnight. Then imagine Azure Islands discomfort when no tier payments were forthcoming for two months. Then ask yourself why a game company in the virtual land business which touts Second Life as a real economy never seems to get around to making these sorts of transactions more transparent.

But the displaced residents had more immediate concerns, and after being turfed out of their homes, a group of ex-tenants did some collaborative sleuthing - and identified Azure Islands as the land owners and contacted Azure Islands land honcho Adam Zauis directly.

Feel the Pontiac Excitement Tingle in SL - sometime this summer

by Tenshi Vielle - Fabulous Fashionista

Pontiac G8, as viewed in the psychedellic shadow box on the Pontiac sim

Tonight, at about 6pm SLT, Pontiac gave the SL world the very first look at their new car - the Pontiac G8.
The G8 is a rear wheel drive performance sedan assembled out of Australia. Available in early 2009, the Pontiac G8 won't hit RL eyes until tomorrow at 3pm in Chicago. This roarin' vehicle sports a V8 engine with over 360 horsepower, and a four wheel independent suspension. There will be two models : a base model with over 260 horsepower, and the GT model with 362 HP.

[Is it supposed to be crooked like that? Or did someone rent it to Gideon Television? He usually wraps rental cars around trees. Too bad the body shops never really fix the frame right. - the Editrix]

by Fiend Ludwig

[We sent Herald reporter Fiend Ludwig to test-drive some Beemers in Second Life -- only to find the project could hardly get into first gear.
--Walker Spaight]

BMW New World: Dude, where's my SL car?

Another corporate sim equals another deserted island. This formula, oft trundled out by the not-so-mainstream media seems, in fact, to be true. Most of the corporate sims around Second Life are normally entirely devoid of other visitors. This was certainly the case when I had a look around BMW New World recently. Upon teleporting in, a chat script chimed, "Hi Fiend Ludwig, unfortunately we cannot welcome you personally right now. Please IM Munich Express with any questions you might have. Talk to you soon." Feeling a little smug, I posted a somewhat flippant report on my blog and thought no more of BMW and their New World.

Until Munich Express actually did IM me.

Designer copy victims banned from knockoff shop

By Seola Sassoon

News yesterday and this morning spread across my screen in the Sellers Guild chat channel about a 'new designer'. In fact, it wasn't a new designer, but an account with blatantly ripped items from many popular designers.

I teleported in to immediately recognize some Nyte N Day, ETD, and Gurl 6 designs - some of which I personally owned so I can tell in the details for certain - not to mention tens of other styles of recognizable clothing from the top designers in SL.

The avatar selling? Rach Snookem

I received this picture from a watchful consumer to show prim similarities.

Shockingly similar

by Gideon Television

I guess it was an innocent enough comment, right here on YesButNoButYes:

"Is there any sort of drug scene in Second Life for Gideon to explore?"

I'd been clean six months, but as soon as I read the words, the roof of my mouth went dry, and I got that weird itching between my knuckles, like cunnilingus from a thousand angry fire-ants. I knew I shouldn't, but I also knew it was too late.

I was going to have to go back. To score some Seclimineâ„¢.

by Gideon Television

On Saturday, I finished my last piece, just before deadline. "The Best Little Whorehouses in Second Life". Catchy. With a title like that, no-one would miss the irony. At least, not unless they were OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS.

By Sunday, the feces, as they say, had not so much hit the fan, as had ricocheted back into my face, adding a visceral edge to the shit-eating grin I was already wearing. Angry strippers, jealous husbands, enraged pimps - I was getting hit on all sides, even threatened with elimination from Second Life.

But this is a fair world, a civil and just world. A world where safety systems are enabled so that grievances can be resolved in a calm and resolute manner. And so I put that theory into practice.

I went shopping for the biggest badass gun money could buy. With pictures.

Through the years, the Herald has discussed various open source alternatives to Second Life, including Open Croquet and MUPPETS, but we haven't yet looked at Ogoglio. In this interview, we talk to Ogoglio creator Trevor Smith, who explains how Ogoglio is a fundamentally different project from those that went before, in that in addition to being open source, it is entirely web-based, and relies on off the shelf tools (languages and protocols) that should be familiar to most web developers. Ogoglio spaces will thus be accessible via standard web browsers, and there should be an army of developers capable of developing such spaces.

Q&A below the fold.

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

New Second Life residents are enticed to upgrade their accounts to “premium†status with the promise that paying for a premium account allows purchase of virtual land. But in the official Linden answers forum, complaints about the difficulty finding discounted “first land†are rising as residents remind LL that promises of more first land “in a few weeks†last september are still not being honored for many new premium account holders. Why is there a land shortage?

It is possible that a corporate sim land rush is to blame. A quick look around the world map shows some interesting patterns. While it used to be enough for a corporate foothold to be a single spot in the metaverse - the fashion today is to create half a dozen or more sims - in many cases cookie-cutter identical. Cookie cutter corporate continents advance the business of push-media passive event consumption for Second Life tourists - but may come at the cost of in-world diversity and creativity as new residents who want to create something are squeezed out of the land market.

Maker claims 1000 Elemental vehicles distributed in 36 hours
Can established vehicle makers respond to viral vehicle marketing?

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

One of eight forms in the Element Multiform Vehicle

I was hanging around Sunset Beach when GuardianAngel Falken dropped by with a vehicle that “some cool nice dude†gave him - the Elemental Multiform Craft. At first it looked like a metallic oversized acorn, but as GuardianAngel put it through its paces, the acorn did a sort of transformers magic and became a car, speedboat, submarine, plane, airship, motorcycle, helicopter and hoverpod. Somewhere around the 4th magical morphing I knew I had to have one of these - I just bought a new katana last weekend, and when I’m not writing for the Herald or yacht racing I’ve been thinking of moonlighting as one of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAs) - from Kill Bill. I’ll need a good bike for that - and now I have one - for free!

Rather than try to entice Second Life citizens to an island or a vendor, Kage Seraph has his customers spread the world - and the product. To get your own copy, just find someone who already has an one and click on their Elemental. You’ll get a HUD that includes controls for rezing your own Elemental and customizing it. In other worlds - this is a fascinating case of viral marketing - and a über cool product to boot.

by Walker Spaight

So sedate and august a publication is the Second Life Herald that we'd normally take no notice of the smutty mutterings of the salacious classes -- but this is just too much. Attentive readers will recall the recent accouncement that German publishing company Axel Springer would launch what the Guardian idiotically called Second Life's "first tabloid." Now it's here -- well, almost. It launches December 21 as The AvaStar, and will be available not only on the Web but "through street vendors [and] self-service boxes" in-world as well, according to a press release. Which actually is great. Where competition is concerned, the Herald's official stance has always been, "Bring it on, biyatch." But this "first" business has just got to stop. A promised correction from the Guardian has not yet materialized, so it's clear that stronger measures will need to be taken. (One Song, are you reading this?)

There's also the issue of the AvaStar's slogan: "Your World, Your Voice." Who's going to be writing this thing, anyway? Will it be just another Web site about Second Life, similar to the BLingsider? The press release promises 30 pages a week of News, Business, Celebrity & Gossip, Style & Fashion, Travel and Entertainment, plus a weekly guide. (Are these paper pages or Web pages?) One of the most amusing aspects of this whole thing was the headhunter who tried to recruit me to write for the AvaStar. The email I received included these questions: "Could you please send me a short example of article about SL? What is your focus / experience / passion about Second Life?" If you can't answer these for yourself, Monty, you have no business at all launching a tabloid in Second Life. I ain't FIC for nothing, you publicitard.

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

IBM Circuit City prototype

IBM is expected to open it’s 12 island mini-continent in Second Life to the public in the next few days, apparently as part of the computer services giant’s initiatives in the 3D metaverse. The Herald managed to slip quietly onto the islands for a quick look around earlier today, and found a number of interesting sights to share with our readers, including an apparent partnership with Circuit City “to explore and experiment with how we can apply virtual worlds to their business†- according to a notecard that is automatically handed out as part of a train ride/tour of the space.

Viral marketing experts may not be immune to viral blogging

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

When Rik Riel cast a bogus blog entry into the metaverse blog-o-sphere last night claiming the Internet naming authority ICANN would be regulating names and addresses within virtual worlds - was he hoping to catch a marketing/new media expert? If so, December 13th was Rik’s lucky day as Daniel Davenport of THINK Inc - an interactive marketing agency - took the bait with this post at his “think d2c media: direct to consumer†blog.

Rule one for aspiring Second Life pundits burnishing their credentials by linking and quoting exciting new metaverse developments in the blob-o-sphere -- read the comments on the blog posts you quote - on the chance that someone is trolling for the uncritical.

The perils of punditry are clear after visiting Rik Riel’s blog where the headline screams “ICANN announces it now controls the virtual world as well as the web†and a faux press release - complete with a picture of internet saint Vint Cerf proclaims that the group managing web address/names will now be registering addresses and names for objects and avatars in WoW, Second Life, and other games. *cough* *cough* *cough*. Of course, the comments lead one to believe that things may not be so simple - or perhaps April 1 came twice this year.

concerned Duran Duran fans wonder if the show will go on

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Three and a half months ago - on August 9th - CNet reported the 80s pop group Duran Duran had discovered Second Life and was planning an “exclusive private island†and events - including a concert - in the metaverse. Keyboardist Nick Rhodes was reported to say the group was “thrilled to be the first band to become citizens of Second Lifeâ€, and the boys were “rehearsing now for our first concert there in the coming monthsâ€. But after gathering an SL fan group of 450+ avatars - including this writer - there is still nothing to see except press releases and a few builds which seem to be gradually decaying. Did the local music promoters nerf the planned events?

Is a former cornfield resident an alt for GeForce Go?

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

nimrod Yaffle's sister?

Reports at the Second Citizen web site forums indicate that CopyBot salesgirl GeForce Go may have had an alternate identity - the well known nimrod Yaffle.

These reports have raised some eyebrows since nimrod was originally one of the demonstrators of the CopyBot before its commercialization - I didn’t really believe that the CopyBot worked until nimrod cloned my avatar and several objects monday evening. In my conversations with both Mr. Yaffle and Ms. Go there was a common rhetorical thread that objects want to be free - because the Lindens have not secured the server.

The evidence presented in the Second Citizen forums consists of a series of screen shots from November 1 where GeForce Go posted to the Linden Answers forum, and an account named “Nimrod Yaffle†posted to the Second Citizen claiming that the GeForce Go alt was used because Nimrod’s account was suspended. [photos after the jump]

LL to address CopyBot rights management issues sometime next year?

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

the (now missing) GeForce Go removing Copybot vendor from Manitoba sim

“i will NOT be adding anymore products until LL amends SL to entirely negate copybot and similar technology - lip service to the TOS is not enough. second, i will not be the source of any more income to LL due to their sales of L$ that would pass through my store.†said Jacqueline Trudeau in response to Cory Linden’s attempt to reassure metaverse shopkeepers and content creators. Jacqueline Trudeau was one of over 560 citizens responding to the Cory Linden’s blog post in the wake of serious fallout from the CopyBot scandal.

To address the scandal, tuesday night Cory Linden declared that using CopyBot-like programs to duplicate copy-protected objects is a violation of the TOS. Shortly after this announcement, two citizens selling the CopyBot in-world - GeForce Go and Prim Revolution - no longer appeared in the find people tab - apparently having been banned for TOS violations. However, these action have not calmed the content creators of Second Life.

Content shall go forth and multiply

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Metaverse citizens who hoped to make a living selling objects may want to consider a different line of work - a new tool is making the rounds that makes it trivial to defeat Second Life’s copy protection of objects - as well as cloning one avatar’s looks onto others. How is this possible - and how will in-world content creators be able to sell their wares if object copying tools are widely available?

When Prokofy Neva broke this story yesterday it was evident serious damage might be done to the in-world economy - but the details of how the copying was accomplished were unclear.

Today, the Herald was contacted by an anonymous source with detailed information on how the Lab’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) system may be bypassed due to the design of the Second Life software - given the help of some some tools developed using the libsecondlife libraries. Although we were unable to directly verify all the claims of our source, we did see a demonstration of much of what is described below in-world, and it appears that it may only be a matter of time before similar copying tools become more widely available - bypassing LL’s object copy protection. Based on what we have learned, it appears that there are two distinct methods for overriding Linden Lab's DRM controls - one based on altering messages sent from the Second Life Client to the server, and another based on capturing the prim descriptions sent to the client for drawing the object and transforming these into "create object" commands which are then sent to the server. What follows is an interview conducted today with AA (Anonymous Avatar).

Why reverse engineer when you have the API handed to you?

by Isaiah Truth

When the Herald broke the news that LL had given an inside tip to a special developers' list enabling some to get an unfair advantage in purchasing the dwindling supply of low cost private islands, a chastened Philip Linden said he'd never do it again.

"We probably made a mistake there, trying to get feedback. We should just tell everybody everything," Philip said in an interview with Reuters, adding "the lesson learned here is, don't do that — just announce everything completely broadly."

If the buzz on the grid is true, however, El Presidente is having trouble breaking his habit of blessing select insiders. This time, according to highly placed sources, it is not a short list of insider landowners who are benefiting - instead The Lab has favored one development beta buddy above others -- the Electric Sheep Company (ESC) -- with a special client programming interface or API - effectively giving the Electric Sheep a two month lead on developing a customized user interface.

Second Life content creators plan to break out party hats and hooters to celebrate

by Pixeleen Mistral, Virtual E-commerce desk

Saturday night, SLBoutique notified sellers that the web-based shopping mall is dropping its sales commission to zero - metaverse content creators who sell their virtual wares via the http://www.slboutique.com/ web site will net a few more Lindens as they troll the virtual e-commerce seas.

When asked how SLBoutique will cover its server expenses, Jade Lily told the Herald, that there would be for-fee services, “such as the ability to purchase advertisements in order to increase exposure of our sellers' products.†. Ms. Lily continued, “If I sell clothing on SLB, in the future, I'll have the ability to purchase a spot on the homepage that everyone will see when they visit SLB, thus increasing exposure to my products.â€.

Pr0n on a prim coming soon?

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Suitable for wrapping fish - the Herald on a prim

Jeffronius Batra told me he planned to start selling HTML-on-a-prim once he “figures out the mechanics of selling things in SL†when I called him from Joe’s Bar in Athabasca. Athabasca is a gritty mainland sim with furniture stores and rotating prims offering loans from a “bank†that charges 6% interest - per week. Two doors down from Joe’s Bar is where Mr Batra - an Amazon.com developer - has an HTML and text-on-a-prim demonstration, and a metaverse classroom for Amazon’s S3 web offerings. I felt instantly at home. Athabasca is a classic working-class SL neighborhood with an urban dynamic unlike the distant island sims where glossy corporate PR campaigns launch and then soon fade from memory. Is it surprising that this is where some of the more interesting work in SL is being done?

A special profile to benefit the American Cancer Society, by Walker Spaight

Chance Takashi

"This is The Observatory, my first big build in SL," Chance Takashi tells me when I meet her in the Caledon Highlands. "Or anywhere, really." It's an interesting addendum: the metaverse, for Chance, is broad enough that a "build" could exist in any number of spaces, virtual or real. But SL is where Chance landed, early in 2006, a refugee from World of Warcraft's level grind, and it's in SL that she plans to make her mark.

When I land at Chance's steampunk getaway, I'm immediately relieved. I'm here to get to know Chance not because I'd heard she'd be interesting, but because she's paid for my time. She hasn't paid me, of course -- the Herald stoops, to be sure, but never that low. Instead, she was the highest bidder in an auction to benefit the American Cancer Society as part of the Second Life Relay for Life held recently in the virtual world. Chance's bid of L$11,525 -- just under US$40 -- earns her a glowing profile in the Herald. Fortunately, it's one that's well deserved.