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The German magazine “Der Spiegel” (English translation via Google) has opened up an own avatar for media coverage in Second Life. This is after “The Avastar” and Reuters another major media player - well, at least in Europe - joining this world. The main usage seems so far to report Second Life and make some entries in a blog actually.

The avatar him(her)self is named Sponto; no surename given in the article so far. It’s a rather nice read about the impressions a newbie can get out of SL and seems to be the first in a series of entries. They even opened up a German forum on their website to discuss SL, well, we’re going to see how it is going to develop.

Yesterday, 1/27/07,  Philippe Borremans wrote in his blog an article about the arrival of the Front National (FN), a right-wing party from France in SL and the possible implications of this move.

He’s musing about the implications like this:

Well, both Le Pen, the head of the party and some of its members have been condemned in court because they made negationist comments about the holocaust. But I guess that doesn’t count in a virtual world.

Wrong; depending on the country it can count. Very much so.

How will anti-racist organisations react ? Do the same, set up a presence in Second Life and take the political battle online ? Does this mean that what is considered as condemnable by law in the real world is not in a virtual one ?

Good question;  but after some investigations you should already know the answer. Yes, those organisations are - or at least their supporters - are online too, and yes, they take this battle online. Very much so.

This is about a place called “Sinner’s Paradise” in the region called Wales. It’s a private island with two adjacent regions - Wales and Wales harbor.

It’s a very nice and romantic spot, great landscape, many different places to enjoy and discover. Short: one of the better sex places in SL, and quite a popular one, too.

But what comes, when you are successful in SL? Right, griefers. They had their own share of griefer attacks and tuned down all bells and whistles now to get rid of them.

But what also comes? Well, of course much traffic. Sinner’s Paradise has no money paying chairs whatsoever, it generates the traffic on its own. Good for the place and also for the store. But, there was a big problem in earlier times: the entrance area, where all people landed, was way too small. So it god crowded very fast and the people were bound to move on.

In this article I am referring to a posting from today in the blog Valleywag about the virtual economy in Second Life. Actually Valleywag themselfes are referring to a bigger article from Randoph Harrison. It’s not the first nor surely the last article Valleywag is posting against Second Life, but one of the more interesting ones. And since it was featured today on the front page of Slashdot, thousands of people of not even more read it.

The article in Valleywag is a very opioniated piece of writing, again. The article from Mr. Harrison itself is more serious written, but they are both referring to the same fact and most of the article in Valleywag is just a big quotation from Mr. Harrison, anyway.

So, to cut it short: Mr. Harrison thinks that the economy in SL is just some kind of big, overhyped pyramide scheme. Why that? Because on the ond hand it’s simple to make Linden dollars in game but he thinks it is real hard to convert them again into real dollars after that.

Today I stumbled about this nice quote on a notecard from Remus Zaoh:

It is amazing to me how few SL residents attempt to market themselves in-world when nearly every article written in the mainstream press focuses on Fortune 500 companies setting up shop in SL. IBM, among others, is convinced that SL and streaming 3-D technology represents the future of the Web as we know it. That being said, in my estimation we truly are pioneers in the dawning age of V-Commerce.

Guess what? He’s right. Most media coverage just is about the companies, that’s all and not so much about the residents actually. So we are going to see where this development leads us. Some just feel the old spirit perhaps like in the old days when the WWW gained ground.

But still consider - the WWW is more like print media. SL is a 3D environment, so both have their niche.

Well, it is an update - again. The downtime got - again - extended from 5 to 8 hours. If you rely on doing business in SL, those times are always not for you.

But this could be hopefully one of the last updates they have to take the whole grid offline while doing it. The changes the programmers from LL are implementing are allowing better ways to update in the future.

Hopefully we’ll see them soon!

Today I want to write a little bit about the difference between building things in real life and in Second Life.

Building things in real life, for example a simple chair, can be hurdlesome. First you need the materials to build it, namely wood and at least some glue. Second you need the right tools to achieve your goal. Third you need knowledge and experience how to do it and a certain amount of time to actually build one chair. The more chairs you build, the more time you need. Please notice, that the important fact is that this is linear. For example, if you need in the average 45 minutes to build one chair, then you would need 7*45 minutes in the average to build seven chairs. And last, but not least, if you never build a chair before, you need to make some research first actually how to build it and of course the time it actually takes to build it has also some value.

Don Alphonso, a well known German blogger (mostly he blogs about startups, which he often criticizes and wrote articles at DotComTod and BooCompany), wrote an article about SL (German only) in general yesterday at his blog.

To sum it up: he thinks that SL is overhyped. Not only overhyped, but actually some kind of virtual trash can, in which a whole industry throws herself out of free will. First he criticizes the press coverage from LL about the 2 million inhabitants in SL. Well, old story.

Then he criticizes the press coverage about Anshe Chung and her being the first virtual millionaire. Well, it is actually one thing she didn’t deny in an interview. The other thing he brings in as negative example is the griefer attack on her when she gave her interview to CNet. Articles about it are here and here, the video has been already removed on Youtube, but it’s still available on other places in the web. He is of the opinion that no one working in public relations with a little bit of brain left would really make such things in SL, especially when everybody can film it.

I’ve found a bounch of pyramides near a good frequented club, and this time the text in the pyramides still worked.

So, just for the reading pleasure (and to be complete) - here is the text:

Dear Moneymaker,

So, you want to make money, and lots of it.

You have come to the right place.

It is really simple :

1. Right click on the pryamid and choose “pay”.

2. Pyramid will appear in your inventory. IMPORTANT: The Pyramidt you get has not been validated, and will not work yet!!!

3. Drag and drop the Pyramid on the ground near the original and touch your copy .

4. Click yes to the money question which will activate the Pyamid. (If you do not press yes, the object will not work, this is needed to distribute the money that will be payed to the object).

5. If everything has been done correctly, the following text will apear above your object:

   [Mehr]

• CNNmoney.com has an interesting interview with John Zdanowski about the Linden Dollar. It’s from the 8th December 2006, but still worth a read.
• Also in CNNmoney.com, from the 10th November 2006 actually: “No, Second Life is not overhyped.”
• Packagingessentials.com - I am linked there as an “expert source” under the category “3d graphics”, “virtual reality.” Well. A big welcome to all readers from over there!
• An older report in the German magazine “Focus” named “Neue Freunde, guter Sex, echtes Geld.”
• More to come next time…