The SL Herald in their inimitable style discuss some criticism being leveled by big business at SL. Quoting a Forbes article titled 'Sex, Pranks and Reality', the SL Herald summarise the corporations shutting up shop or thinking about it. The prize quote from the Forbes article comes from Wells Fargo's digital agency: "Going into Second Life now is the equivalent of running a … [Read more...] about Some big guns take aim at SL’s usefulness for business
Op-ed
The city sims – where’s Melbourne?
Knightsbridge, Liverpool (recently relocated from a mainland sim to an island) and Amsterdam are just three cities that have their SL replicas, of varying accuracy and purpose. Other city areas replicated include Times Square in New York (currently in development) and Paris (circa 1900). They all have their appeal, but I'm wondering when someone will take on an … [Read more...] about The city sims – where’s Melbourne?
Business headcount – a different perspective
Over at New World Notes, Hamlet Au discusses SL as the great equaliser for businesses of all sizes - that the relatively low traffic to large corporate sites (as a proportion of overall traffic) and the relative ease of content creation means that smaller operations including individuals can punch well above their weight on one of the more even playing fields. It's analogous … [Read more...] about Business headcount – a different perspective
Criticism of Second Life – same old, same old
Jokay Wollongong provides an interesting story on an education symposium she attended and she made one point around how online learning guru Stephen Downes reeled off the usual litany of criticisms of SL, ones we all experience: lag, lack of interoperability with other virtual worlds and the issue of boundaries/rules in a metaverse context. All totally legitimate criticisms and … [Read more...] about Criticism of Second Life – same old, same old
Loneliness rather than community in SL?
Warren Ellis is featured on the Reuters site talking about the contradiction of a virtual world groaning under the weight of its popularity whilst that same world contains massive tracts of regularly uninhabited buildings. If you avoid the casino / nightclub / sex club areas then odds are you aren't going to see great crowds of avatars. It's a result of the current challenges … [Read more...] about Loneliness rather than community in SL?