Second Life

By SLHamlet Today (November 8) at 4 PM SLT/Pacific, virtual goods expert Susan Wu will be the guest on SmarterTechnology's Second Life show, where she'll speak on "The Internet Economics of Vampire Fun". Fast Company named her one of 2009's 100 most...

By SLHamlet SL fashion designer Sasy Scarborough has a long and tormented post on the heartbreak of content theft, sent to me by my style columnist Iris Ophelia. Here is Sasy talking about one of her regular routines, tracking down stolen content,...

By SLHamlet Chestnut Rau's real life owner is under the weather, so Chestnut's Choices won't be running this week. If you know about excellent Second Life events happening from today until next Wednesday, please post details in Comments. Don't forget to include...

By Iris Ophelia Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL I've decided to give you a pretty pic up top because it's going to get real ugly after the jump, believe me. There's been a lot of...

By SLHamlet The United States Army is funding a Second Life project to develop a virtual environment therapeutic space for amputees, through the auspices of Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) of the US Army's Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC)...

By SLHamlet Bettina Tizzy has just announced she's suspending her NPIRL blog, the leading voice for art created in Second Life and other immersive virtual worlds. She is not departing from SL or her role as metaverse art maven, however, just reportedly...

By SLHamlet The New York Times has an interesting story on a topic most of us would rather not discuss: What will happen to your virtual assets after you leave the material world? In the case of Leto Yoshiro, an avatar whose...

By SLHamlet My challenge to other SL bloggers: If content theft is pervasive, why does in-world spending continue to rise (fascinating conversation in the Comments)? IBM and Nokia Developing Augmented Reality Conferencing System in Second Life Second Life Tells Twitter: Enjoy the...

By SLHamlet Recently virtual community visionary Howard Rheingold described Second Life users as "a tiny cult following", which he clearly didn't mean pejoratively (Howard's an early supporter of SL), but in the sense that it's still relatively small, and the platform awaits...

By SLHamlet Philippe Pascal, partner of the metaverse company SnowCrash Digital (he's ppmediadev Blinker in SL), suggests Second Life entrepreneurs have a beta release of their products: Based on their feedback you can decide if the product is ready to go, or...

By SLHamlet PESD Island" is a blog devoted to an island in Teen Second Life, where the teacher Norma Underwood (Noreen Strehlow IRL) blogs her experiences educating a group of kids in SL. "I work with inner city youth who do not...

By SLHamlet Here's a simple challenge for fellow Second Life bloggers. Here are the most recent economic numbers for in-world spending, as compared to previous quarters, going back to 2006: In this chart, where is the evidence that in-world content theft is...

By Iris Ophelia Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL It's not the first time that I've said this, and it definitely won't be the last, but Halloween is definitely the fashionista's holiday. In particular though, it's...

By SLHamlet My RSS feed reader is overflowing with Second Life blogs, literally displaying thousands of posts I haven't had a chance to read yet. Which have you come across lately that definitely deserve a look, and why? (Yes, self-promotion is fine.)

By SLHamlet This is a lovely Second Life rendition of the "Princess and the Pea" fairy tale from Toxic Menges, and it answers two questions: "Can you create high quality narrative CGI animation on a low budget?", and also, "What kind of...

By SLHamlet Due to the popularity of last week's "Top Three Things I Look For In a Second Life Blogger's Post", I'm going to try an experiment inspired by one of my favorite TV shows, Kitchen Nightmares. Here's how it works: If...

By SLHamlet Got a question about Second Life, virtual worlds, this blog, and other related topics I haven't discussed before here, but should? If you're curious, ask me here in Comments, and I'll answer if I can.

By SLHamlet SL Fashionista Hybrid Ansar recently challenged her fellow style bloggers thus: [F]ind or make a big girl/big guy shape... and style it so it's super cute! Now this is quite a challenge, for the avatar women of Second Life are...

By SLHamlet Strange Pixels is an SL fashion blog devoted to styles with a fantastic edge, and answers the burning question, "Where can vampires, cyberpunks, space commandos, elves, and succubi getting ready for a night on the town go to get the...

By SLHamlet It's SL Blogger Friday on New World Notes, and to start, let's talk about new Second Life fashion blogs. What are your favorites? (And yes, you can mention your own.) I'm particularly interested in blogs which cover virtual fashion with...

By SLHamlet Somewhere in Santa Monica, a young woman Tweets about a rite of virtual passage. Unplanned avatar wardrobe malfunctions are not an uncommon occurrence, if one doesn't carefully watch what is being attached and subsequently un-attached to one's avatar. I accidentally...

By SLHamlet Music and avatar-driven dancing are central to the Second Life experience, but because the process of initializing a dance is so cumbersome, especially when you're doing it with a partner, they don't always sync up. Bettina Tizzy has word (and...

By SLHamlet As a perusing of the ongoing New World Tableau series will show, a lot of Resident artists who use SL screenshots as their medium often process their images through Photoshop. The challenge is often figuring out how to use it...