The Times They Are a-Changin’
So, what does a million signups mean? It means that Second Life isn’t a game, or a platform, or a virtual world. It means that Second Life is one million flavours. Some of them are bitter; some of them are sweet, some are here to stay, and some are never coming back. Your vanilla or chocolate world is in there somewhere, in miniature. Like a snowstorm in a globe, if you guard it well, it will remain, but everything else around you is changing.
Embrace it.
When Tateru Nino took up residence 14 months ago the SL population numbered 42,000. Since then as informal leader of the thousand strong Mentor volunteer program Tateru has been on the frontlines helping new arrivals in the welcome area. She shares her thoughts on the influx of close to one million new residents over the interim in a these two posts.
NMK’s half day conference titled My So Called Second Life in Soho yesterday has generated quiet alot of chatter this morning. Holding the event within the spiritual home of the UK advertising industry shows that SL has jumped the shark. Alan Patrick and Roo Reynolds share their respective thoughts after the event.
Mike Butchers takeaway on the eventual merger of social software networks such as SL and MySpace may cause cardiac arrest among some longer term residents on first reading. What he is referring to is the fact that Linden Lab’s commitment to open source as outlined by Cory Ondrejka on lugradio - season 3 episode 7 - back in Jan 2006 continues apace. SL as a platform is getting ever closer which will enable a wealth of new services to be built upon it.
Coolz0r’s tour provides a visualisation of some of the RL organizations already in SL. I had a good chuckle at Gifs comment to the post. Many agencies are scrambling to setup a presence in SL after their clients have entered. The wave of new arrivals hanging out a shingle continues on a daily basis. Both old and new players such as advertising agency Centric announcing their arrival yesterday and New Marketing company Crayon launching today to name but two come in search of fame and fortune.
Tuning into the above and listening to a client in Taiwan recount how Monday’s Taipei Times piece on SL is all the buzz within business circles the immortal words of Bob seemed an entirely appropriate way to both open and close this post.