At the top of this article is a widget for the Koinup group Mainland Renaissance Project. This is the photo submission group for an in world/Web project of the same name that I am starting to celebrate the amazing things still happening on the mainland and to foster amazing public mainland uses of all sorts. [...]
It seems like everywhere you turn these days, there is another story about about old favorite sims that are closing or on the verge of doing so. In fact, New World Notes now has a sim deathwatch tag dedicated to this topic. This parallels what is happening outside of the confines of virtual space. I [...]
I recently read an interesting discussion of scale in second life (tip of the hat to Tateru Nino for pointing it out). This argument did something that most arguments about size in Second Life don’t accomplish. It gave me things to actually think about regarding Scale Inworld. It was refreshing not having to read through [...]
Often people (particularly people with little or no virtual world experience) talk about virtual worlds as things that take away from real life, but I’ve found at least one real world hobby thanks to a hobby I picked up in Second Life. This is a picture that I took with my digital camera from my [...]
I have decided to participate in the 30 days of creativity challenge this year. The challenge is very open ended. The pledge is to create something every day for 30 days, starting today. I remember when every day in virtual worlds was a creative day, and I want to recapture that feeling. I’ve decided to [...]
Once again, FaceBook seems to be cracking down on non-real identities. While I have a very different view on anonymity that I have not been shy about sharing, I do not begrudge a company seeking to enforce its own terms of service. Still, there does seem to be value in being able to create a [...]
Recently, two articles have been published about things that would help the virtual community and potential business opportunities for Web developers supporting the virtual ecosystem. Pathfinder wrote about OpenSim’s need for DRM-free content and Web sites that sell similar mesh items. Hamlet recently wrote a story about a Groupon-style deal for IMVU and suggested that [...]
Important questions that we seem to give up on after we’ve reached our comfort zone in the world(s) of our choice, but it defines our early days and helps bring us to new platforms to begin with. Because of my New Year’s resolution, I find myself asking these questions anew. How else am I supposed [...]
There has been a lot of buzz and speculation about the mass adoption potential inherent in bringing Mesh support to Second Life and Open Simulator. The thinking seems to be something along the lines of: Open Simulator + Mesh Import = Vastly Larger User Base Or perhaps the thinking is more along the lines of: [...]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/ / CC BY 2.0 Tateru Nino has a really good article on the affect of virtual venue vanishing acts on communities. It led to some interesting discussion in the comments, and got me thinking about the communities that I have seen survive venue disappearances. Since I think there are some actionable lessons for communities [...]
