Webpage to 3D space provider ExitReality has soft launched today via a cross promotion with CKE Restaurants (Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s) that will see the product promoted to millions via the Carl’s Jr website and through a MySpace advertising campaign. I originally sat down and spoke to the ExitReality team (the company has its HQ in London, but the dev team and CEO are in… → Read More
EA-Land, the service previously known as The Sims Online will shut August 1, despite a much hyped revamp announced late February. The Sims Online was generally regarded to be a failure for EA, with the company unable to turn the success of The Sims franchise into an online hit. The service wasn’t helped by a complete lack of customizable features (outside of the usual Sims customization… → Read More
HiPiHi, China’s answer to Second Life has opened its doors to the public with a beta test that includes free features. We first wrote about HiPiHi in August 2007 when the company called for the establishment of virtual world standards and interoperability. German’s are famed for their ability to clone sites, but the Chinese aren’t far behind; HiPiHi looks and feels like Second… → Read More
EA is relaunching The Sims Online as a free service with a new name and new features, including UGC, commerce and land ownership. EA-Land is the new, free Sims Online (TSO). The 12 different cities from TSO are being moved to EA-Land and the game area is being expanded to be “100 times bigger than the previous size of any city.” Existing TSO users will be able to purchase land in… → Read More
Linden Lab has announced that virtual banking within Second Life is to be banned effective January 22 after receiving multiple complaints by Second Life residents scammed by bank operators. Banking and associated services have become popular in Second Life over the last two years, with many offering ponzi style interest schemes that usually sounded too good to be true. Ginko Financial was the best… → Read More
The Electric Sheep Company, regarded by many to be the leading Second Life development company, has parted company with one third of its workforce (22 people). The Electric Sheep Company is best known recently for its work in creating the CSI:NY build in Second Life. The company offers its own Second Life browser “OnRez”, and provides services to companies looking to establish a… → Read More
Eastern European nation Estonia has opened an official embassy in Second Life. Estonia for those not aware of the country is a former Soviet Republic that this year is celebrating 90th anniversary of its initial independence, before it was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940. It’s bordered by Russia to its East and Latvia to the South, and became a member of the European Union… → Read More
I had the opportunity today to catch up with Chris Collins, the “Technical Assistant to the CEO” at Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life. A Commerce graduate from the University of Western Australia he started in tech, then like many locals (Vibe Capital, Mig33) headed off overseas. After working on his own startup 3 years ago in the Valley he fell in love with Second Life and landed… → Read More
Linden Lab released the WindLight First Look Second Life client Wednesday, the first serious release of Second Life that incorporates the technology Linden Lab acquired when it took over Windward Mark Interactive in May. We noted at the time of the acquisition that the technology would bring “better clouds and wind” to Second Life, but this was in retrospect an understatement. Having… → Read More
Rumors about a massive valuation of Second Life have been floating around Silicon Valley for months. The original rumors said the company raised a new round of financing at a valuation of somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. When I asked the company about it over the summer they said, on the record, that they had not raised new money, but declined to comment further. Another rumor… → Read More
Linden Lab’s Second Life has seen its fair share of controversies in the past; an FBI investigation led to a shut down of inworld casinos, some media reports suggested that Second Life may be being used as a training area for terrorists, and in July there was suggestion that Bestiality may be driven out of the metaverse by a crackdown under a new TOS that banned “Broadly… → Read More
Second Life is bracing itself for an influx of new members this coming week with the long awaited episode of CSI:NY does Second Life to be shown in the United States on Wednesday. The episode will see Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) entering Second Life to pursue a killer who has killed a Second Life user in a case of virtual stalking gone too far. CSI:NY fans will be encouraged to join Second Life and… → Read More
Christian Renaud, Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for the Cisco Technology Center will be launching a new virtual worlds tracking organization called the Metaverse Market Index (MMI) at Virtual Worlds Fall next week. MMI will be established as a not-for-profit organization that will define and track metrics across multiple virtual worlds. The problem is simple; there is little or… → Read More
Intel has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Havok , a provider of software and services used by digital media creators in game development. Havok’s 3D software powers online worlds including Linden Lab’s Second Life, as well as a variety of console games on Xbox, Wii and PlayStation. According to Intel, the acquisition will enable developers in the digital animation and game… → Read More
Things are changing in Second Life. The period of glee abandon in which companies joined Second Life, built giant edifices to their offline brands which no one visited, then ran away has passed. We are now seeing those who survived and new players in Linden Lab’s online world build something new, something perhaps more sustainable and in tune to user needs. On the surface it appears that… → Read More
Scion, a division of Toyota that sells “trendy” cars targeted at Gen Y in the United States, was one of the earliest companies touting its wares in Second Life. In 2006, Scion became the first car maker with a Second Life presence, offering residents customizable versions of the Scion xB. Fast forward nearly 12 months and many of the great and much hyped corporate outposts in Second… → Read More
China’s answer to Second Life, HiPiHi, announced at the State of Play V conference in Singapore Monday its intentions to work towards standardized 3D worlds, with an aim of eventually delivering interoperability between various platforms. HiPiHi said it would cooperate with “global leaders in the Internet and communication industry to establish a set of relevant hardware and software… → Read More
After the recent ban on gambling, Second Life residents have had reduced opportunities on where spend their hard earned (or bought) Lindens (the Second Life in-world currency). The world of share trading, regarded by some to be actually worse than gambling, has started to make its presence felt in Second Life. I went undercover (see picture) to see if good money could be made. First Impressions… → Read More
An ongoing investigation by the FBI into gambling in Second Life is believed to be directly related to Linden Lab’s sudden decision to ban all forms of gambling on Second Life. The FBI investigation commenced in April and was considering the legality of online gambling within the virtual world. The US Government prohibits most forms of online gambling. It was unclear at the time of writing… → Read More
Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, may be extending their crackdown on “Broadly Offensive” behavior to Bestiality, following attempts to remove virtual pedophilia (or Age-Play) from Second Life in March. The Second Life Herald (NSFW) goes on to ask whether consenting adults dressing up like animals and partaking in virtual sex with each other or with human shaped avatars (virtual… → Read More
The LA Times has an interesting article up on the failure of real life businesses in Second Life. The crux of the piece is that despite the hype, real life businesses are closing down their Second Life outposts due to little to no interest in them. The reasons for the failures are open to debate; from firms not engaging Second Life citizens, through to simply a lack of actual people using Second… → Read More
217 million people worldwide play online games, according to new figures released by comScore. The study took into account all sites that provide online or downloadable games but excluded gambling sites. The 217million users account for 28 percent of all people online. Yahoo! Games led the pack, attracting 53 million unique visitors. The fastest-growing Top 10 gaming property was the WildTangent… → Read More
A case of alleged copyright infringement in Second Life is heading to court. According to Reuters, Second Life entrepreneur Kevin Alderman, the owner of Eros LLC, a company that makes virtual sex beds, filed the “Eros LLC vs John Doe” lawsuit on Tuesday. Second Life user Volkov Catteneo is alleged to have copied and distributed the “SexGen Bed”, an item that sells for L$12,000… → Read More
The FBI has visited Linden Lab and their Second Life casinos in order to figure out just what that giant teddy bear — really a Japanese exchange student — and the fat man in Spokane who looks like a Suicide Girl and calls himself Wendy Wild are doing over at the roulette table. Yes. friends, some FBI agents want to know how online gambling in Second Life works and they won’t give up until… → Read More
Kaneva is a new social network that extends the concept of MySpace into a virtual world. Although you’ve been able to sign up for a 2D profile on Kaneva they recently opened the doors to their 3D world. The idea is that users can create personal profile pages in the 2D space, like MySpace, but also carry out the same personalization to their virtual world apartments. The social networking… → Read More
Second Life has had music, but has otherwise been rather mute. That’s all soon to change when Linden Lab rolls out a beta test for person-to-person speech. Like a lot of other in-game speech systems, you’ll need a headset, but Second Life will provide a different peer-to-peer chat experience than those World of Warcraft conversational gems. The new system will mimic speech in the real… → Read More
Darren Barefoot voices his dismay over all the Second Life hype by creating a very, very funny parody site called “Get a First Life.” The site describes itself as a “3D analog world” and suggests you “access your closet to build your First Life look.” My favorite line is “Fornicate using your actual genitals.” Hilarious. No comment from Second Life… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
