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UK virtual worlds writer, Tim Guest, dead at 34
UK virtual worlds journalist and best-selling author, Tim Guest (also known as Errol Mysterio in Second Life) passed away last week at the untimely age of 34. Only recently married late last year, his wife found him dead of apparent heart-failure late last week. Guest's work in UK journalism and with metaverse development group, Rivers Run Red, straddled the period of mainstream awareness of virtual environments in general and of Second Life particularly. Guest's book Second Lives: A Journey Through Virtual Worlds was widely acclaimed as a full and frank view of the realities and the potentials of Second Life and other virtual environments, and his treatment of virtual environment topics in his journalistic career demystified the subject for many ordinary people. While we didn't know Guest personally, the industry will suffer from the loss of Guest's informed commentary and popularization of the medium. [via Sky News] Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Immersive Workspaces expands with Immersive Planograms
Rivers Run Red announced a new extension for their Immersive Workspaces enterprise-class virtual environment collaboration solution. Immersive Planograms is a 2D/3D planning solution giving brands the ability to plan and design effective product displays and store layouts using virtual world technology. With Immersive Planograms, Rivers Run Red presents brands and retailers with a persistent 3D environment they can easily design and manage through a web control system. Corporate blurb aside, Immersive Planograms is actually a very cool concept that is implemented in a very clever way. Essentially a Web-based schematic can be manipulated to reflect a store layout or a warehouse floor-plan or a variety of other designs, and the manipulations of the 2D schematic are reflected in the virtual environment. Knowing the Second Life environment as well as we do, we were actually pretty impressed with the simplicity and sheer ease of integration between the Web-control and the virtual environment.
Linden Lab sets sights on government
Not all that long ago, if you wanted a piece of Second Life Linden Lab would be just about the last organization to deal with you. Linden Lab was all about the platform. If you wanted help setting up shop, or a marketing presence, to the Lab you were no different from any other customer. Those days, apparently, are over. Linden Lab has partnered with Rivers Run Red, and is now in the business of marketing and selling solutions. While a jump in new sales and marketing staff (like European Marketing Director, Clare Rees) are now old news, Linden Lab has a new hire from Washington DC. That's Scott Sechser, former Operations Manager at the White House. That's the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW.
Linden Lab and Rivers Run Red launch Immersive Workspaces 2.0
Back in August, we talked about what we felt was an inevitability. A Second Life grid devoted to corporations and business collaboration, online 3D meetings and so forth. We figured that the agent-domain system that allows inter-grid teleportation would be a supporting factor in this effort. Also, earlier this week that the growing-yet-eternally-saturated Second Life economy would cause Linden Lab to announce a new revenue stream some day soon. That day is today. All these things, it seems, may have now come to pass. Rivers Run Red and Linden Lab (after a bit of a shaky time with their initial announcements for Immersive Workspaces 1.0), have launched Immersive Workspaces 2.0. The clean, sanitized, and focused leveraging of Second Life for your corporate collaboration needs.
3Di launches enterprise Opensim product
3Di, a Tokyo-based member of the NGI group who maintain a fairly solid Second Life presence, have announced the launch of an enterprise virtual worlds product based on the BSD-licensed Opensim, Second Life simulator workalike. 3Di Opensim (the base 3Di technology) is a reworked and extended version of Opensim, and as an enterprise solution is packaged with additional tools and support under the name 3Di Opensim Standard. 3Di maintain a separate project developing further extensions and enhancements for 3Di Opensim. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Kingdon's Second Life updates: What's missing?
New Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon is still making irregular postings to the official Second Life blog. It's all heady and exciting stuff, to be sure. Growth, focus on improvement of the new user experience, simplified registration, and so on. Yet something seems to be missing. What's missing is anything that excites you if you're already a Second Life user. There's plenty here to entice those who aren't already users, but if you're already one, there doesn't seem to be anything much in them for you to get excited about. Put together with some other pieces, however, it certainly creates an interesting picture about future direction for Second Life. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Rivers Run Red with Linden Lab: A Second Life for the enterprise
Remember back in August where we predicted that a corporate/enterprise version of the Second Life grid was more or less inevitable? Well, that appears to have functionally come to pass, though the details are still hazy. Rivers Run Red has partnered up with Linden Lab to provide a product called Immersive Workspaces to (what appears to be primarily) the global enterprise corporate market. Immersive Workspaces is a fusion of Second Life grid technology along with a blend of Second Life objects, web-sites and web-services, all apparently very tightly integrated. As a part of the partnership, each company may either individually or jointly sell and market each other's products, and Linden Lab has an exclusive license to Rivers Run Red's Immersive Workspaces product. For its part, Rivers Run Red will provide "product and content development services to Linden Lab's clients and developer community". Right now, the only known customers of Immersive Workspaces appear to be Unilever and Diageo. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Cinemassively: Rivers Run Red wins Webby Award for Coca-Cola machinima
In August 2007, Rivers Run Red released a gorgeous machinima of an event held in Second Life. Coca-Cola premiered "Happiness Factory -- The Movie", and a virtual Avril Lavigne attended. We must say that she's never looked better than in this video!Now RRR is possibly making machinima history by winning a 2008 Webby Award for Branded Content for their coverage of the Coca-Cola event. With this medium growing in popularity by leaps and bounds, we hope that more mainstream awards are won. Machinimators work too hard to not get recognition for their efforts! [Thanks, Justin!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Vodafone makes it easier to contact Second Life from the outside
Moo Money covered this story initially, and from Rivers Run Red comes the news that the beta for this service is being extended to March 31st, 2008. This means that you can still sign up for free, and experience what it's like to receive messages from your Second Life friends on your cellphone.Until we get the ability to IM someone in SL, this seems like the next best thing, though frankly, if I'm mobile, I'm probably not going to be texting people in general. I'm not one of those with my thumbs callused from frequent texting, but this could be useful for people on the go who have events to manage. Has anyone tried this? How well does it work? You can get more specific information from Vodaphone's site.Incidentally, I really like their commercial, which you can see on the site. Cute![Thanks, Margaret!]
Cinemassively: Remembrance Day in Second Life
Yesterday, Eloise Pasteur wrote about the British Remembrance Day being celebrated in Second Life. Today, I'd like to discuss the Machinima that was created in honor of it. It is a beautiful, moving tribute to the Royal British Legion that commemorates those that have fallen in battle.If you didn't get a chance to experience Windlight when it was in May's First Look client, you really missed out. You are able to remove the traditional clouds and replace them with giant masses that can span the entire sky. You can adjust the color of the sky, clouds, and water. A new addition is the reflection in the water, while another nice touch is the ability to change the texture of the water. Just about every aspect of SL's scenic environment is configurable.Rivers Run Red makes full use of these features, with sweeping scenes of gorgeous skies. On November 11th, at 11:00am GMT, you can visit these poppy fields to observe Two Minutes of Silence with others around the world. Don't forget to wear a poppy to show your support!
Remembrance Day to be celebrated in Second Life
Remembrance Day is the Royal British Legion's annual ceremony remembering those who have fallen in battle across the many conflicts Britain has been involved in over the years. It is marked each year by the wearing of poppies, a tradition that started in the First World War with the deaths on the fields of Flanders that grew huge crops of poppies. More recently, the nation largely observes a two minute silence at 11am on the 11th day of the 11 month - the moment that, in 1918 the armistice that ended the war was signed. This year, in association with Rivers Run Red, The Royal British Legion is bringing Remembrance Day to Second Life, with a rebuilding of the Cenotaph and a walk through poppy fields (SLURL) to reach it. There is also a machinima which Moo will be dicussing more fully in her Cinemassively column soon. The full details and press release are under the fold.
