The Second Life sixth birthday is looming. What, I wondered, were the changes, for good or for ill, that made the biggest impacts upon the community of users, since the last birthday? While pondering this, I had the following thoughts: "Don't worry, users can barely remember what happened last week. 12 months down the track, they'll have forgotten the whole thing." We've all … [Read more...] about Second Life user retrospectives
Op-ed
A Second Life success story: NCI
It has been in Second Life for four years (having just celebrated its fourth anniversary), has over 150 staff, costs about US$13,000 each year to operate, holds 46,592 square metres of Second Life land (and rents quite a bit more), and is among the virtual environment's most well-trafficked organizations. It isn't one of those corporate sites you read about, though. It's a … [Read more...] about A Second Life success story: NCI
How Shadows Will Change the Way We Make Machinima
We're really pleased to feature a guest post from Ariella Furman (SL: Ariella Languish), who has been producing machinima for a number of years (you can view some here). When I used to take the train home from school everyday, I would admire how the lighting outside would seep over the windows, until they were a golden hue and it was too bright to see through them. It was like … [Read more...] about How Shadows Will Change the Way We Make Machinima
Incorporeal things and cognitive dissonance
Most of the things which touch our daily lives are incorporeal. It's been that way for so long that we've long since forgotten what it is like for it to be any other way, yet we're suspicious when new incorporeal things intrude on our lives. For many of us, money has been incorporeal for much of our lives. For your kids, probably for their whole lives. I rarely actually … [Read more...] about Incorporeal things and cognitive dissonance
Government’s National Broadband Network could be wasted
The Government has announced it will establish a new company that will invest up to $43 billion over eight years to build and operate a National Broadband Network, delivering 'superfast' broadband to Australian homes and workplaces. This Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP) plan (at least insofar as infrastructure technology is concerned), mirrors closely the plan and rollout done … [Read more...] about Government’s National Broadband Network could be wasted