The residents of Second Life may see less of marketers in their second lives: real-life businesses are slowly abandoning their virtual businesses.

 

In an investigative tour of the marketing islands - private islands are purchasable in-game - in Second Life, LA Times discovered that a lot of shops, like Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad, Sun Microsystems Inc., Dell Island and American Apparel are either abandoned or empty. Both in most cases.

It's believed that despite the efforts of real life businesses to make their presence known in the virtual world, local residents aren't all that much interested. Most of the popular activities in Second Life tend to focus on things you can't do in the real world. You can always visit a car shop in the real world, why do it when you're inside your 3D skin? It's not like you'll able to savor that new car smell.

Also, it's been pointed out in a recent article by Wagner James AU in GigaOM that while Second Life does have 7.9 million "residents," this does not reflect on the actual number of active players. In reality, the servers of Second Life only peaks at about 40,000 players. That's not a lot of people in marketing terms.

It doesn't work out in the end for marketers because they have to pay not only for their avatars' accounts, but for the islands that their shops will occupy and the design of said shops. The price they pay doesn't balance out with the actual advertising they could accomplish. On average, a real life marketing shop will only get 1,200 to 10,000 visitors in a week. On the other hand, local in-game markets aren't doing bad.

It has also been pointed out in the GigaOM article that Second Life will not be suffering should the corporations totally disappear off the face of the digital world. Corporations only account for about 6% (pointed out to be a generous estimate) of the 8,336 islands Linden Labs have sold. So even if Second Life will experience a void of real life marketing, this virtual world will still turn.

Lumines creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi has been tapped by Japanese ad firm Dentsu to create a Virtual Tokyo for Linden Lab's popular MMORPG Second Life. This according to the latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.

Mizuguchi was reportedly approached by Dentsu's Ken Aihara for the project. Although Mizuguchi initially refused, he said that the more he thought about it, the more it started to appeal to him. "My work all these years has been to entertain people through video games, but this Virtual Tokyo concept could be the next step and path."

The project will not be a total replica of Tokyo, though. "The Tokyo we are trying to create is based on the image of city. How do people in Tokyo perceive the city? How about foreigners? That's what we want to express," said Mizuguchi. Mizuguchi also stated that he plans to make Virtual Tokyo "like a museum of Japanese pop culture."

When Marc Bragg discovered a way to buy virtual land in Second Life at a cheaper cost than usual, he invested heavily in it to the tune of thousands of dollars only to find out one day that Second Life's administrators have cancelled his account. He didn't take it well.

Bragg responded by filing a lawsuit which cites Second Life's terms of service as unfair and "one-sided." To make matters worse for Second Life parent company Linden Labs, Chief Executive Officer Philip Rosedale was named the defendant. Linden Labs filed a motion to take Rosedale's name off the list but it was denied by Judge Eduardo Robreno last May 30.

As it stands, Robreno and the Pennsylvania court where Bragg filed the suit rules that the terms of service that Second Life mandates to its citizens are not legally binding, therefore Linden Labs does not have the right to cancel accounts of violators. Judge Robreno wrote:

Linden presents the TOS on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. In effect, the TOS provide Linden with a variety of one-sided remedies to resolve disputes, while forcing its customers to arbitrate any disputes with Linden.

A motion was filed by the Linden legal team to dismiss the case and have Bragg arbitrate with the company outside of court but the motion was also denied by Robreno. We'll update you on developments regarding this case as soon as news is forthcoming.

Second Life's rapidly growing community is getting a power boost to enhance the user-created world, as creator Linden Lab acquired the graphics technology from Windward Mark Interactive.

Aside from getting the five founders of Windward in their Boston office, Linden Lab  will also earn:

• Windlight - an advanced atmospheric technology, uses patent-pending algorithms that simulates light affected by real-world factors like dust and moisture in real-time
  
• Nimble - a realistic 3D cloud simulator using advanced physics models
  
• Other intellectual properties

Windlight will be open source and available to PC users immediately, with a Mac version to follow. This time around, we'd probably see hotter babes that would eventually get awarded on male-oriented magazines.

Both sides are excited about the acquisition. Linden Lab Founder and CEO Philip Rosedale said "We're excited to bring this technology to Second Life and pleased to have such a talented team of developers join Linden Lab." Coming from Windward's president Asi Lang, "It will be exciting to see how the Second Life community will further advance our technology when it is open sourced.”

Rally up, it's time to create the ultimate Second Life utopia!

Second Life players rejoice - all network issues have now been resolved as of 5:53 pm PDT Monday, with the some 400 regions that have been affected now back up and running.

Jeska Linden had explained in an earlier update that the main cause of aforementioned network issues were in fact connection problems between the Dallas and San Francisco locations of Second Life. Thankfully, whatever problems there were are now all fixed, and in a timely fashion too - so kudos to the Lindens for taking care of not only the game, but the players as well.

Other MMORPG managers, take note - THIS is how you should manage your games.

Thanks to a deal just recently signed by online voice communication service provider Vivox and software development solution provider Monumental Games, any game now developed with the Monumental Technology Suite will have a full-featured and robust voice communication solution.

 

The Monumental Technology Suite is a middleware solution for MMO developers to create a platform for vast online virtual worlds. Epic MMOs such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft usually don't come with their own online voice service, requiring players to provide their own third-party voice communication support.

The integration of Vivox Precision Studio into the suite gives the development platform an edge over other engines and middleware solutions provided for MMO developers today, although it is unclear whether this integration will set licensing and development budgets back. Rik Alexander, CEO of Monumental Games, said:

Our players, our licensees, and the market in general all expect integrated and enhanced voice communications in the next generation of MMO games. By partnering with a sophisticated market leader like Vivox, we can develop imaginative and innovative next generation MMO games and provide unique gameplay, communication and community experiences for the long term.

Vivox voice technologies were utilized in Linden Labs' Second Life, which also sports the company's virtual existence within the game.

Linden Lab's Director of Community Affairs Linden Lab's Director of Community Affairs">Daniel Linden has a seemingly friendly reminder to all residents of Second Life. It's about making good decisions at choosing your passwords. We say "seemingly" because we thought that it's one of those things that goes without saying.

We wonder if there's a problem in the virtual world, somewhere. Speaking of which, as you know, virtual worlds are not free from these attacks. Fantasy-based MMO video games are prone to spams, glitches, hacks, and whatnot.

On the other hand, attacks are more direct in SL because of its very own nature - simulating real life. It should be remembered that it was just a couple of weeks ago when most of these issues were resolved. Daniel Linden made the announcement sound like a passing thought, even suggesting residents to consider the month of May as "Strong Password Month."

He then went on and encouraged all residents to change their passwords right away. We hope this is not their way of saying that a security compromise occurred. But just the same, it's a good advice and no harm will happen if you follow it. So for what it's worth, go ahead and change your passwords.

The MMORPG Second Life's publisher Linden Lab held a virtual town hall meeting in Second Life in response to the stability, inventory loss and build tool problems that players have been complaining about. Linden Lab's CTO Cory Ondrejka answered questions regarding this problem from users who attended the said meeting.

One of the residents asked a significant question: "Where does stability and performance fall in the priorities for (Linden Lab) development. There is a problem literally every other day and it seems like there is very much room for improvement in this regard." Ondrejka answered that 69% of the development staff are on scaling and stability and the number is still growing. So does this mean that the problems of Second Life will be addressed immediately? Ondrejka:

The answer, of course, lies somewhere in between. We are working to fix bugs and enable incremental improvement. At the same time, we are building the foundations for the next-gen architecture that will radically improve our ability to scale.

A very safe answer from the executive, a bit elusive, but safe. He also spilled the beans on some of the new features that they have been working on such as the new search system which should make it easier to find things in-world and help solve the spam problems in the game.

It should be noted that the residents were pretty hostile in the meeting, so props to Ondrejka for keeping his cool under such a situation and to Linden Lad for acting upon the problem quickly.

Information Week's Cary Doctorow muses in his lengthy article if it is indeed possible for a complete democracy to exist in MMOs. It's not just that namby-pamby "what the masses say goes in terms of game-rules" and what not, but a game where in-world property is really yours.

In his effort to highlight that difference - the difference between being a citizen in a world, and being a customer, Doctorow notes several in-world incidents in MMORPG worlds, and how people are treated as entities in the opposite end of a business deal instead of a citizen with rights and co-ownership of the a game world.

The Gay/Bi/Lesbian/Transgendered-friendly guild shut-down in World of Warcraft was noted, the "Dentara Rask pro-piracy anti-merchant EVE Online economy crash" was detailed, and most amusingly he notes that even Second Life isn't safe from this phenomenon. Yes, you can get rich in SL but, if you lose an argument with the company running Second Life, your Linden Dollars are gone. The only stable wealth in Second Life, is the wealth you take OUT of the game.

But would a democratic virtual world be the solution to the possibility of poor treatment from game owners? Doctorow thinks that while it can solve that problem he doesn't believe that it would be plausible. The reason? Running things yourselves, the responsibility, sort of takes out the FUN of it all, which is the point of getting into all these MMO worlds.

Personally, I'm thinking that maybe it's like communism: people have to go against human nature to make the utopian dream of a true democratic MMO work. But that's just me, and I'm just a nobody who's overdosed on caffeine.

Anyhow, Doctorow's piece, while lengthy is an awesome read, and if you feel like getting more detail about his musings, feel free to head to it via our "read" link below.

NASA is headed towards new territory again. This time not in space per se, but it's geared towards becoming a more transparent agency through its upcoming CosmosCode project.

CosmosCode aims to recruit volunteer programmers who can write code for future space missions. As a matter of fact, meetings are regularly in session at the CoLabs Island in Linden Lab's Second Life. The island is named after NASA's CoLabs Entrepreneur Outreach department.

Essentially, what the program does is that it forms a small base community interested in what NASA does and competent enough to write code which can be used in real projects. Participants from all age groups and locales have so far shown a positive response.

NASA contractor  Cowan-Sharp said "CosmosCode is ... allowing NASA scientists to begin a software project in the public domain, leveraging the true value of open-source software by creating an active community of volunteers."

This is a ground-breaking step for the same agency which has been rumored to have developed space weapons in the Cold War, faked lunar landings and many other dark dealings.

"CoLab is building an infrastructure to encourage and facilitate direct participation from the talented and interested public in NASA's projects and programs," says 28-year old CoLabs project manager Robert Schingler.