Archive for the 'Community' Category
Friday, February 13th, 2009 by: Blue
[2009-02-25 @ 11:10 AM PST] The new blogs are UP NOW! blogs.secondlife.com (note the extra “s”, the singular will also redirect to the new blogs soon).
[11 AM PST] WE’RE SO CLOSE!
[8 AM PST] Pardon the mess, it’s temporary. We’re upgrading to our new blogs! Stay tuned…  -Torley
UPDATE – Due to some last minute technical naughtiness, the launch of the new blogs has been delayed to early next week.
I’m disappointed about the delay of course, as I can’t wait to get started blogging in earnest. If you are disappointed as well, I apologize. But you know the old saying: When life gives you lemmings, make lemmingade! And so without further ado…
Welcome to BLUE’S TOLD-YOU-SO COMPETITION where you can turn snark into valuable prizes! The game is simple. Just come up with the ultimate told-you-so to go with any event, whether it’s the delay of the new blogs, McCain losing the election, or your boyfriend getting towed for parking in a handicapped spot…it’s up to you. I’ll even get you started with an example:
Yoz: Hey Blue, we have to delay launch due to some technical issues.
Blue: Told ya we shouldn’t be using that Commodore64.
The best comeback wins one lucky resident a dream date with me, your pal Blue, to an exciting inworld location as part of my SL Travel Blog. Yes you heard right. Immortalized…on a BLOG. How can you resist? Just write your comeback on a notecard with the title TOLD YOU SO and drop a copy on me inworld. Even if you don’t win, a witty dis is its own reward!
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The Second Life Blog was once a place where the Lindens talked casually with you about policy, their projects, recent news, the future of SL, etc. Residents regularly told us that they loved having access to such broad insight into the company and frequent communication with the full range of Lindens. And Lindens loved the ongoing dialog with residents.
Over time however, as more Lindens came to participate, the blog got a bit manic. Some of you complained that reports of temporary performance issues would eclipse larger conversations related to long term plans and features while others believed that tutorials and opinion pieces were distracting them from the hard news of inworld issues they needed to know about in order to run their businesses.
In other words, we outgrew our single channel blog. It was no longer serving people’s individual needs. Perhaps worse was that the signal to noise ratio in comments had gotten bad enough that Lindens weren’t able to depend on them as a way to clearly hear the range of needs and desires of the community. As such we had to limit blog participation to a smaller number of Lindens on certain types of topics and move extended discussion to the forums.
We knew it was important to get back to using the blog as a key means of constructive two way conversation with the community, so we put together a shopping list of must-haves for a new blog suite which included…
- Individual channels of communication for each subject
- Numerous means of accessing channels (including RSS and email subscription)
- Discussion format sub-blogs for extended conversations with threading, voting etc…
- Private sub-blogs for communities working in Second Life (like educators and Solution Providers)
After comparing options, we believe we’ve found one that will best suit our ongoing needs. We expect that it will allow us to get back to the days when any and all Lindens could participate freely and hope that it will provide a convenient way for you to engage us on a wide variety of topics.
So we hope that you’ll join us here, on Thursday the 19th of February, for the launch of a whole new Second Life Blog, where it will be the good ol’ days all over again!
See you then,
-Blue
Posted in Announcements & News, Blog Improvements, Blogroll, Business, Community, Community Gateways, Concierge, Customer Service, Education, Enterprise, Forums, Land, Marketing, New Releases, Tips & Tricks |
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Friday, February 13th, 2009 by: t linden
SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN HEARTS..and other Happy Valentine’s from Linden Lab!
It’s Valentine’s Day and Second Life is aflutter with love! This year, in addition to the Kiss a Linden, Kiss a Volunteer event and an unveiling of a newly revamped Cupid Linden avatar, we invite you all to explore your world in search of the Valentine’s Day Golden Heart!
Here are the contest rules:
- Contest runs from 12:00am PST (midnight) on Friday, February 13 until 12:00am PST (midnight) February 15
- More than 1000 candy boxes are scattered around Second Life
- These Boxes are filled with candy hearts to collect and trade (including special edition Linden Lab hearts)
- Mixed in are 20 special boxes containing golden hearts
- Those who find the golden hearts will win L$5000 credit at Xstreet SL
- Search the world and find them all!
And, we have a second valentine for you….
We’ve made it easier to share the love with a new gifting feature on Xstreet. You can now send a gift directly to any avatar in Second Life. Here’s how:
- Go to Xstreet, find the gift you want and click on it.
- On the right, you will see box, “Choose Payment Method”
- When you click “Purchase as a gift”, write in the recipient’s name.
- Complete your purchase, and the gift will be delivered to the lucky Resident!
Take our Valentine’s Day Survey
In the future, we’ll be adding new features like registries, and we need your help! We’re sending an email survey to a select group of Residents to help shape these features. Take the survey and opt-in to a focus group so we can make this product serve your needs.
So send a little love this Valentine’s Day, and make this the year when you don’t have to say, “it’s in the mail”. Of course, you can always claim Friday the 13th….
Happy Valentine’s Day!
FINE PRINT
1. Eligibility. Contest is open to all Second Life® world Residents (“Residents”) in good standing, 18 and older as of the start of the Contest. Residents of embargoed countries, countries where such contests are not legal or where access to the Second Life world has been blocked or disabled, as well as Employees and affiliates of Linden Research, Inc. (“Linden Lab”), and their familiies are not eligible to participate. Contest void where prohibited. Subject to all international, federal, state and local laws. No purchase is necessary to enter and win
2. How to Enter. Between the hours of 12:00am PST (midnight) on Friday, February 13 until 12:00am PST (midnight) February 15, explore the Second Life world in search of up to 20 Golden Heart objects. Along the way, you may also discover other special edition Linden Lab Candy Heart boxes scattered around. Click on the Golden Heart to claim it!
3. Prizes. Total Linden Dollars (LS) awarded as prizes: L$100,000, to be awarded to twenty (20) Residents as (20) awards in the amount of L$5000 Xstreet SL credit, There is no monetary value associated with the Prize, and (as with all L$) no promise or guarantee of redemption of any or all L$ awarded. The prize is for entertainment purposes only. Note: you will need an active Xstreet SL account to claim your prize. Register here: http://xstreetsl.com/
4. Prize distribution: Gifts will be awarded by Linden Lab via email, inworld or by mail. Linden Lab will notify winners by mail, in-world or e-mail of procedures for redeeming prize. The prizes must be accepted as awarded and cannot be exchanged for cash or credit. Winners who do not wish to accept the prize as offered may opt to forfeit the prize. There will be no substitutions. Awards are limited to one award per each natural (actual “real world”) person.
Coming from Australia and working for Linden Lab in our San Francisco office, I am always keeping an eye out for the activities that are happening in my home country. My focus at Linden Lab is in the enterprise space, so I generally see the great work that has come out of several Australian corporations. This week, however, my attention has been focused on the amazing Second Life community that has rallied in support of the devastating bush fires that have hit Australia.
As many of you are aware, these fires are one of the worst natural disasters to hit Australia in over 100 years. In response, Residents have created several inworld campaigns to raise funds to donate to relief efforts, from donation boxes to concerts to vendors selling clothing to support the cause. There’s already been some great coverage of these efforts from outlets including Massively, the Metaverse Journal, and New World Notes.
Seeing Residents come together like this is another powerful reminder of the breadth and strength of our global community and another great example of how Second Life is being used in ways that can really make a difference in the real world.
I’d like to thank those who have initiated fundraising efforts or given their support to this cause. Please describe/link to your inworld relief efforts in the forums.
Chris Collins (AKA Logan Linden)
This year we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day by continuing our annual tradition by awaking Isle of View, it’s sister island Isle of ViewToo and Hugsville for Teens (on Teen Second Life) back from their wintery sleep.
We’ve got hugging & kissing booths where you can share your affections with both the Lindens and Resident Volunteers who’ve shown so much L-O-V-E to our community! (Don’t forget to snap a photo of the occasion!)
We’ve also got lots of freebies and other Valentine’s Day goodies — including T-shirts, Linden bear collectibles located at the booths, special limited edition collectible Second Life candy hearts and more!
On Valentine’s Day, Saturday Feb. 14:
- Volunteers will be around all-day for Kiss-A-Volunteer on both Isle of View and Isle of ViewToo
- Lindens will be on Isle of View and Isle of ViewToo from 7-9 AM and 5-7 PM PST for Kiss-A-Linden
- And for Teen Residents, Lindens will be present on Hugsville for Teens from 3-5 PM PST
Never met a Linden before, or would like to thank a volunteer personally? Come on over and enjoy the lovin’! Who knows, you might even get lucky and run into Cupid Linden who has an all new look!
Related Valentine’s Day Surprises Coming Later in the Week!
Watch this blog later this week for exciting information about the 2009 Second Life Valentine’s Day golden heart contest. This weekend your inworld explorations may lead you to discover a special golden heart, which contains a prize that will tickle your heart!
Ok, I admit it. When I first joined Linden Lab to head up Enterprise Marketing three months ago, I wasn’t 100% convinced that working in virtual worlds really works. I mean, intellectually, immersive environments make perfect sense. We’ve all heard the key messages and I’ve been hard at work writing them. Meeting in Second Life allows global and mobile teams to collaborate in ways that aren’t possible other ways—improves efficiency, creativity, communication, and keeps travel costs in check. But, seriously—does working in the virtual world work?
My first official meeting in Second Life was an important and jarring experience for me—waking me up to how powerful the medium really is. The meeting took place in the Isabel conference room, here at the Battery Lab. The physical conference room—Isabel—has a virtual counterpart that is an exact replica—Virtual Isabel. A camera in Isabel captures what’s happening in the room and displays it in the virtual space. Simultaneously, the participants in Virtual Isabel are projected on the wall of physical Isabel. The result is a seamless experience—two conference spaces, one real and one virtual, merge into one. At first, it was a bit strange, but then I became absorbed into the discussion and the lines between the physical and virtual spaces blended. Then, in Virtual Isabel, I saw someone floating outside the window with a box on his head. What was my first reaction? I looked outside the physical window of the conference room to see if there was really someone floating outside. My colleagues caught me—in a completely confused state about what’s real and what’s virtual–and we all burst out laughing. I learned something very important that day. The virtual medium is extremely powerful and the ‘sense of presence’ is real—and that’s the magic ingredient that makes a meeting truly productive.
 Virtual Isabel To that point, I believe that the only good alternative to virtual meetings is a face-to-face meeting. It would be a hard to argue the teleconference calls or WebEx can create as immersive an experience. I mean, how many wasted hours have we all spent staring at a Polycom or ‘multi-tasking’ (i.e. barely tuning into the meeting) during a WebEx presentation? Don’t remind me.
Video conferencing is increasingly being used as an immersive meeting technology, but there are some psychological aspects that limit its potential. Caleb Booker recently blogged on this very topic. He posits two very interesting theories. First, usually when you’re in a video conference, the camera is zoomed in on the speaker and—unconsciously—we pull back because we feel we’re in a conversation with a ‘close talker.” (Anyone remember that Seinfeld episode? A classic.) He makes the case for virtual worlds and says, “The entire virtual world phenomena works because it accomplishes one simple thing: the perception of space. This is one of the most underestimated and wildly powerful tools of the past decade. Without even needing 3D glasses, a virtual space moves another person’s “presence” to a comfortable distance while still creating a sense that you are somehow physically together.”
His second point is even more compelling. As you know, there are three types of learners—visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (or experience-based). The virtual world is a perfect mix that accommodates all three. He says, “Visual folk can look around the room to ’place‘ the voice they’re hearing or the text they’re reading (critical for them if they want to remember anything that happened!). Auditory people can just sit back and chat, occasionally glancing at the typed text. As for the kinesthetic people, well, they’re in absolute heaven.”
In fact, there really isn’t any other collaboration platform that can successfully do all three for distributed teams—except for a physical meeting. And, with travel budgets completely decimated these days, the luxury of a physical meeting is no longer a viable option for day-to-day interactions.
These days, I’m spending at least 2-3 hours a day in Second Life, meeting with my colleagues distributed all over the world—collaborating, brainstorming, learning, and decorating my new office space in LindenWorld. Using Second Life as an enterprise solution is helping us get our enterprise solutions to market smarter, cheaper, and faster than we might otherwise.
Ok, I’m the Marketing gal who drinks my own Kool-Aid—true. But, I’m also a believer, and if you’re not already—you will be, too. Just try it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Did you ever wonder why so much of the architecture in Second Life seems to strive to model reality? David Denton did, and his work on LOCUS in Second Life seeks to go beyond replication to explore new possibilities for expression that can only exist in a world without weather, gravity or budgets.
Known as DB Bailey in Second Life, David set out to design a place which allows “each building to have an individual architectural expression, working together as an aesthetic whole”. Currently located on the region known as Cetus Institute, eventually LOCUS will be housed on its own island.
LOCUS takes the approach that architecture in a virtual space should reflect the unique character of that space, while fostering a sense of community. In that regard, it’s possible to walk together throughout the space along tree-lined boulevards. At the same time, vertical signs hover above, providing orientation for airborne avatars.
It’s not surprising that such a creative place would attract a community of artists and designers. There are exhibits by individual artists, galleries and design showcases, and clearly the range of artistic involvement will grow. As Denton and his partner, Alex Noble (Happiness Merryman in SL) describe their goal:
The overall direction for the project is to create a community of design oriented entities, each connected to its Internet website, drawing traffic to and from the websites and Second Life. LOCUS will be a colony of virtual versions of websites that would encourage the meeting and interaction of website visitors. The intention is to strengthen the connection between SL and RL as well as to promote the sales of RL art and design services through the SL venue.
LOCUS is still in development, but stop by — there are already installations by well-known real life artists Robert Wilson and Daniel Maltzman, and showcased Second Life designers such as Eshi Otawara, with more to come. Or take the elevator up to the top of the tower (originally built for Burning Life), which features music by Second Life’s own Dizzy Banjo.
Feel free to discuss in the forums. I’ll join you there.
Hello!
On January 10th we announced the inaugural
Education Support Faire. The goal of the Faire is to bring together educators, academics, and students to explore the support mechanisms available to Residents who use Second Life to enhance real world educational efforts. Upon announcement, we had a great response from the educational community.
The Faire opens this Sunday, January 25th at the region Supporte, and will last through Friday, January 30th. A full list of individuals and groups with displays and/or presentations at the Education Support Faire can be found here. Thank you to all participants and attendees for getting involved!
In addition to booths and presentations that will highlight the support services offered by Linden Lab to educators, there will be the opportunity to learn more about 46 Resident-run Support Organizations that help educators succeed in Second Life . Explore the ecosystem of support opportunities with people from organizations like the New Media Consortium, ISTE, Languagelab, and the Discovery Education Network. Learn the best way to teach your students how to use Second Life from organizations like New Citizens Incorporated, Info Island, and Global Kids. Find out how people dealing with disabilities can access Second Life for educational purposes from Virtual Ability Inc. and the SLHealthy Wiki. And be sure to stop by between 9am-1pm SLT on Monday, January 26 to speak with Lindens who can help you learn more about what Linden Lab offers to educators in terms of support and strategies for success!
If you are interested in Second Life educational discussions, events, and updates and are not yet joined to the Second Life Education mailing list, please check this link for details.
Finally, we were given good advice from participants who plan to document their travels at the Faire throughout the week; if you plan to do the same using Twitter or Flickr, ‘tag’ the content with “sledfair09.” Using this common tag will make the content easier to search and share in the future!
We are very excited to see this next week unfold and we want to again thank the educators, students, and academics for your inspiring ways of using Second Life as an educational and collaborative tool!
The world of Second Life is full of creative, innovative people from around the world, and the educators who teach and work inworld are no exception. Every semester hundreds of students participate in unique learning projects in Second Life. We’d like to highlight a few of 2008’s projects that we can all learn from and enjoy.
Second Life Education blog
Visit the Second Life Education blog (SLed blog) to read about many more great education projects from 2008.
Interested educators are also invited to join the SLed email list.
Hotel & Tourism Management – PolyU Resort Island
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University used Second Life for orientation for 400 freshman students.Over the course of three weeks, the inworld orientation program consisted of 7 individual learning activities: learning styles, multiple intelligences, active learning, academic honesty, classroom etiquette, citing references and hotel room design. They also held 3 competitions – parachuting, through the hoops and a fashion show, as well as 8 live sessions on learning challenges, plagiarism, library and open Q&A, finishing with a dance night and fashion show.
For details of the program see the Hong Kong Polytechnic University web site
Creator: Paul Penfold [RL] Paul Allandale [SL]
SLURL: HKPolyU Resort/121/167/26
Virtual State Fair (Morrill) and Virtual County Extension (Morrill2)
The Virtual State Fair is home to the Cooperative Extension System, a collaboration of over 70 colleges and universities in the USA, providing educational outreach to communities and individuals via a network of county-based educators. Originally agricultural, the programs have expanded to include a broader range of topics such as personal finance, parenting, disaster preparedness, natural resources, and more. The Virtual State Fair offers a combination of entertaining activities and useful information for the general public.
College faculty, researchers, and educators are meeting regularly to collaborate on projects both in Second Life and real life. Second Life projects under development include family caregiving, turf grass, and integrated pest management. Classes on consumer education topics will be taught by extension educators’ inworld during 2009.
A short video of the Morrill islands can be seen on YouTube.
Creator: LuAnn Phillips aka Thynka Little
School: Cooperative Extension System
SLurl: Morrill/128/128/24
Republica Dominicana Virtual
The Republica Dominicana Virtual project brings virtual worlds to the Dominican Republic. Several universities participate in the project including: students and faculty from the Technological Institute of the Americas (ITLA); the philosophy department from the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo (USAD), oldest University in the new world; and the virtual headquarters for Funglode (Foundacion Global Democracia y Desarollo) hosting art gallerys, various historical landmarks, and a library.
Creator: Jan Herder aka Pausanius Raymake
School: Funglode (Foundacion Global Democracia y Desarollo) of the Dominican Republic
SLURL: Ontos /82/114/23/
Counselor Education in a 3D Virtual Environment
Victoria L. Walker – PhD. Candidate at Regent University – built a counseling training facility in Second Life providing student counselors a location to practice and develop their counseling, interviewing, and diagnosis skills with avatars that display many of the physical and emotional features students may encounter once practicing in their communities. The inworld counselor training simulates the features of a community counseling facility or a school counselor’s office while providing instructors with access to observe without distracting the student counselor or the “client” avatar during sessions.
Creator: Victoria Walker aka Zeana Tammas
School: Regent University
Really Engaging Accounting
At the University of Central Florida, Steven Hornik aka Robins Hermano uses Second Life to teach a financial accounting course, and hopes to publish data he feels is among the first statistically significant empirical data showing a relationship between student engagement using SL and student performance. The course uses Second Life to help students learn the basic concepts of accounting through nontraditional methods.
The reason behind the project is simple, to engage the students in what is normally a very non-engaging course. Taught since the fall of 2007 when class size averaged 250, this fall class size was close to 900 students in one section, with 75-80% of them completing assignments inside of SL.
Creator: Steven Hornik aka Robins Hermano
School: University of Central Florida
SLURL: Teaching 4/68/158/22
The Hopkins Tibetan Treasures Multimedia Archive Project – The WylieWriter
Write Tibetan in Second Life. Tibetan presents a challenge for Second Life educators because of the complex way Tibetan words are written. This project allows Second Life educators to overcome the challenges of translating Tibetan words and write in Tibetan with the help of a proprietary system called the “Wall of WylieWriters”. This innovative teaching tool enables students and teachers to interact in Tibetan language classrooms in Second Life. Developed by Wamlabs of Shipley and the Eepaw Shop of Smoky. The project name refers to Wylie, the standard Tibetan transliteration method.
Creator: Bill Magee aka Wam7c Macchi
School: Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taiwan, Funded by the Taiwan National Science Council.
SL Education Roundtable (SLER)
Hosted by Montclair State University, SLER’s mission is to provide a roundtable setting for interested parties to discuss various topics relevant to furthering the use of Second Life for education. Roundtables occur weekly and often have up to 50 participants. All are welcome to attend, whether presenting or just sitting in to learn about new possibilities Transcripts of past meetings are available in the Library Building just outside the CHSSSouth Amphitheater inworld.
Creator: AJ Kelton aka AJ Brooks
School: Montclair State University
SLURL: Montclair State CHSSSouth /128/156/22
Happy New Year! I hope that one of your New Year’s Resolutions was to finish and submit your Linden Prize applications, because time is running out to be one of the top ten finalists we’ll announce, able to show the world what hard work, inspiration and creativity can achieve in Second Life. Finalists will see their projects appreciated and utilized by Residents, written about by bloggers and press, and be eligible for the Grand Prize of $10 thousand US dollars.
Yes, the deadline of January 15 is almost here, so whether you’ve been procrastinating, gathering your documentation, or finishing up those final touches, it is time to get cracking. And if you think a friend with a wonderful project may not have applied, suggest they do so! All the application information is still here at the Linden Prize, and the forum is open here.
We’ve added two features for our Residents who are more comfortable in other languages than English.
- Need help translating your application into English? Right now you have help in German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Polish, French and Italian. Thanks to your fellow Resident Translator volunteers and Lexie Linden, you can check the Linden Prize Translation Project to submit your application.
Now, a personal message: Some of you might be thinking, “Nah. Linden Lab would never consider my little project.” For example, I happened to talk the leader of an inspired project that supports servicemen and women in a way that’s uniquely Second Life. But that leader hadn’t considered applying for the Linden Prize.
“Wow!’, I thought, ‘That’s exactly the kind of project that the world needs to hear about!”
So, if that scenario describes you—or your modest friends– take the next week to apply for the Linden Prize. When you see your project announced with the rest of the Finalists, not only will you able to see the project you care about receive well-earned recognition from a much larger audience, but you will be teaching us all about what hard work, inspiration and creativity can achieve in Second Life.
What a way to start 2009!
Applications due January 15th 2009
Applications must be complete and submitted no later than January 15, 2009.
Announcement Dates
The Winner and Finalists will be announced no later than April 30, 2009.
Linden Prize Criteria
We have several core principles that will influence the choice of the 10 finalists and the winner.
- Work in Second Life that also achieves tangible, compelling results outside of Second Life.
- Distinctive, original work using Second Life that clearly demonstrates high quality, execution, function, aesthetics and technical sophistication.
- Work that has the capacity for inspiring and influencing future development, knowledge, creativity, and collaboration both inside and outside of Second Life.
Links
The Linden Prize
Linden Prize FAQ
Linden Prize Application
Linden Prize Application Translation Project
We have all experienced the sometimes strange and mind-bending intersection of real and virtual in Second Life. Just before Thanksgiving I had the opportunity to attend an exhibit at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which features a build in Second Life called Dante Hotel on an island known as Hotwire.
The SFMOMA exhibit intends to “examine how artists have engaged members of the public as essential collaborators in the art-making process”. The corresponding exhibit in Second Life displays the archives of a remarkable artist and film maker, Lynn Hershman Leeson.
 Viewing the Dante Hotel in Second Life from SFMOMA Lynn rezzed in Second Life in 2005 when Henry Lowood and others at the Stanford Humanities Lab suggested Second Life as an appropriate place to migrate some of her archived projects which were housed at the Stanford Library. Her goal was to make her history accessible digitally, and the project came into being as Life Squared.
Maybe because it felt so familiar to my experience as an avatar, I found the Roberta Breitmore story, showcased in its own room at the Hotel, to be especially intriguing. For years Roberta Breitmore was a “private performance of a simulated person”; a fascinating exploration of what it’s like to express yourself, even partially, through another personality. You can meet the latest incarnation of Roberta at the Dante Hotel in Second Life, where she is currently serving as a guide for the SFMOMA museum attendees. (more…)
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