I just ran across an amazing new build called "Virtual Morocco" on the Casablanca sim (teleport SLURL). Created as an initiative of faculty and students at Johnson and Wales University in partnership with the Moroccan ministry of tourism, Virtual Morocco is one of the most immersive real world places in Second Life that I’ve ever…
Category: Virtual Worlds
World Vision Village comes to SL
Jas sends along some information about a new virtual initiative by the UK charity World Vision: Copper Industries have recently built a village in Second Life for World Vision UK, one of the world's leading development and relief charities. The aim of the village is to show some of the products you can purchase through…
Politics in Second Life: Time for the Virtual McLaughlin Group?
A number of real world political parties and politicians have in the past couple of months started exploring Second Life as a new medium for spreading their messages and garnering real world press. Most recently, the youth arm of the far right French political party Le Pen appears to be opening an in-world office, according…
Answer three questions, get L$ 6,750!
Troy McLuhan, of the SL Spaceflight Museum, has three pretty complicated questions about sim reservation. If you think you know the answers, IM them to him and you could get L$ 6,750 (about 25 US dollars) for your efforts. I have no idea, but thought I would pass it along. UPDATE 12/10/06, 1:18AM: According to…
Someday you too could pilot your boat through the black (Firefly returning as MMOG)
For those (like me) with dreams of hanging out with the crew of the Firefly, your chance may be coming. Fans of the short-lived but much beloved sci-fi TV series Firefly have been petitioning and lobbying the folks at Fox for the show to return, to no avail. But they will be somewhat relieved to…
Virtual yaks save real world kids!
I just got a notice from Kathryn Parsons about a cool virtual fundraiser for the UK charity Save the Children called the "Yak Shack." The idea is that they are selling, of all things, virtual yaks for L$ 1,000 each (about 3 bucks) which go toward helping real children living in poverty around the world. …
My friend Mensajero, the virtual panhandler
After reading about a homeless avatar begging in Second Life (Thanks, Hamlet Au , SL Insider, and my friend Tony) I decided to pop into SL to check it out. I tracked down the resident named "MensajeroDeLaPaz Jubilee" and got a TP to his location, appropriately enough, right in front of one of the NBC-sponsored…
Second Life: The Official Guidebook? What is this “book” you speak of?
Color me curious about the new book Second Life: The Official Guide, written by a number of notable bloggers and developers in SL, including Michael Rymaszewski, Wagner James Au, Mark Wallace, Catherine Winters, Cory Ondrejka, and Benjamin Batstone-Cunningham. While a dead trees static guide to a dynamic, constantly-in-beta virtual world sounds like a strange idea,…
FOREX /WCE shareholder meeting on Friday Dec 8
Attention, all virtual currency speculators! I just saw on the SL calendar that on Friday December 8 at 12PM SLT there will be a meeting for potential shareholders in the FOREX World Currency Exchange, that I blogged about last week. The CEO of the World Currency Exchange is listed as an "Adam Constantineau" in case…
Global Poverty Death Counter: good cause, shitty implementation
Let me start by saying that I am all for advocacy groups using virtual worlds to promote their causes. Virtual environments like Second Life are the newest forms of "new media" and as such should be certainly considered for use in political and awareness-raising campaigns. That said, I HATE the big billboard that the World…