| QUOTE |
A version of the hit reality TV show Big Brother is to be staged in the online virtual world Second Life. Fifteen international Second Life residents will occupy a glass house on the site, with each one being voted off over a month until a winner remains. The final contestant will receive a virtual island within Second Life. Second Life was set up in 2003 and has more than 1.2 million registered users. It has its own economy, and the virtual currency can be swapped for real money. Paul Romer, managing director of Endemol Netherlands, said: "Big Brother Second Life represents a fantastic opportunity to amass knowledge of the virtual world. "In the future, we will use this experience to develop specific content for online communities." San Francisco-based Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, say the virtual world is growing by about 38% a month. Companies including Toyota and Reuters have set up virtual presences within Second Life. Story from BBC NEWS: |
| QUOTE |
| Second hype or second life? We should not underestimate the importance of the virtual world of Second Life argues regular commentator Bill Thompson Not content with occupying vast chunks of the television schedule for weeks at a time, Endemol, the company that produces the "Big Brother" reality TV programme, has announced that it will be hosting a special edition of the show inside the Second Life virtual world. Participants, or at least their online representations in the form of cartoon-like avatars, will be confined in a house with transparent walls, and the winner will become the owner of a whole Second Life island. This seems to be piling the self-referential onto the virtual to the point where it becomes impossible to maintain the suspension of disbelief necessary to survive in what has recently become the hippest and trendiest of online environments. For one thing, few of us are going to feel at all engaged with the trials and tribulations of a bunch of pixels. It might help if the people behind the avatars were forced to appear on webcam and remain in their homes for the duration of the contest to add some much-needed verisimilitude to the proceedings, but I doubt that this is the plan. Still, at least it will give the just announced in-world gossip tabloid newspaper something to write about. The "newspaper" is being set up by German publishers Axel Springer and promises "a colourful tabloid with snippets about show business and tales from the avatar world". It will be sold for Linden Dollars, the currency used throughout Second Life to buy goods. Social space Big Brother's arrival in a computer-generated world is of course completely ironic since, as I have pointed out previously, site owners Linden Labs already know absolutely everything that happens in their world because it exists in their servers. As George Orwell might have written, "if you want an image of the future imagine a bearded systems administrator examining server logs, forever". We're still at a very early stage in building usable and useful online environments so for the moment it's better to play, and to try for a second childhood rather than a fully developed second life online. Bill Thompson It's easy to dismiss Second Life as just another overhyped and inadequate online service, one that knows how to give journalists something to write about but is actually a distraction from the real work of building usable online environments. Technology writer Andrew Orlowski has written a series of scathing articles in which he calls it "Sadville" and lampoons those who have so little to do in their real lives that they find Second Life interesting and engaging. On the technical side, my hardcore gaming friend Simon simply can't work with the unwieldy user interface and finds the network lag that makes even the simplest scene stutter too infuriating for words. These criticisms are valid, but only to a degree, because there is something going on here, something behind the PR hype and the breathless reporting, and we should not underestimate the importance of Second Life as a space for social and technological experimentation. For one thing it has a good-sized user-base. Over a million people have gone to the trouble of downloading the multi-megabyte client before registering a username and figuring out how to dress and move their cartoon-like avatars around the fast-growing world. They may have experimented with different forms of clothing, worked out how to fly and even managed to make the mouse-camera work. Certainly, a large number of them are spending significant amounts of time logged on, and they are using the tools available to construct virtual environments that others find engaging and interesting. A small number are trading successfully, finding new ways to turn online activities into an income. Perhaps Axel Springer will even find a new way of generating revenue for the newspaper industry, and without having to buy a single roll of newsprint. Hippy hangout For me the really useful aspect of a virtual world will be if it can provide a single point of contact for all my many online activities. At the moment "virtual Bill" is scattered across cyberspace, with photos, blog entries, essays, videos, calendars and all the rest of my online life completely dispersed. It would be nice to tell people to go to one place - a virtual home - where they can see my favourite photos on the wall, browse through my blog entries on the desk and see my calendar and to-do list on the fridge door. But Second Life could offer a lot more. At the moment it is like a bohemian playground, a safe place where we can try out the technologies, improve the interfaces and figure out what forms of social relationship work online. It is a sandpit, a place we can all come to play and explore. That means we should expect it to change, and change frequently. One of the minor irritations I find with the service is the number of times I try to log on and get a message telling me I have to download a new version of the client before I can do so. But this is in fact a good sign and shows that progress is being made. The real danger is that current ways of working become embedded in the interface even though better alternatives are discovered, simply because users would be unhappy if things changed too much. But site owners Linden Labs may have realised this already. One option would be to learn all they can from the current interface and launch a new site - Life 2.0, perhaps - sometime next year, without making any effort to take Second Lifers with them. After all, when the virtual worlds go mainstream the last people you want are the old hippies and early adopters who believe that they are the only ones who truly understand what's going on. We're still at a very early stage in building usable and useful online environments so for the moment it's better to play, and to try for a second childhood rather than a fully developed second life online. Story from BBC NEWS: |
| QUOTE |
| 'Worm' attacks Second Life world Virtual world Second Life had to close its doors for a short time on Sunday after a worm attack called grey goo. The self-replicating worm planted spinning gold rings around the virtual world, which is inhabited by more than a million users. Players treated the attack with a mixture of mirth and anger. "Can this game get any more unpredictable and exciting?" asked one user, Loretta Lurra on the official Second Life blog. As users interacted with the rings they replicated, resulting in a slowdown on the servers used by Second Life's creators Linden Lab, in California. Second Life has become one of the most talked about developments in cyberspace in recent years. You are selling a service which you can not and have not been able to provide Second Life resident Companies are taking note of these digital realms, 3D worlds populated by onscreen representations (avatars) of real life people, as they gain more and more popularity. Adidas, Reuters and Channel 4's Big Brother are just three real world commercial enterprises setting up business in Second Life. Second Life has a population of more than 1.5 million and Linden Lab, its creator, says it is growing at about 38% every month. The inhabitants can buy and sell virtual land and objects for real money and in any 24-hour period as much as $690,000 can be spent. Recent controversy But the grey goo attack and recent controversy over a tool called copybot which can be used to replicate people's virtual wares without paying for intellectual property rights is beginning to sour some people's opinion of the world. One user, Marzipan Maladay, wrote on the official Second Life blog: "Congratulations Linden Lab, you've finally done it. "I'm selling my land since I haven't been able to use it for nearly a month. I'm sure I'm not alone in declaring that this is last month you are getting [money] out of me. "Maybe you can con the new people into believing that this is a great thing but you can't fool the people who have been here any length of time. "You are selling a service which you can not and have not been able to provide." Some users are angry because the copybot tool can be used to make replicas of objects created in the virtual world and sold by some users in their virtual shops. The shopkeepers pay a monthly fee to Linden Lab for the virtual land where they keep their shops. Copybot was originally intended to be used as a tool by Linden Lab to find vulnerabilities in the virtual world but it has since been modified and spread to other users. Linden Lab has promised it will release tools to protect people's virtual assets in the first quarter of 2007. Advises residents "Like the world wide web, it will never be possible to prevent data that is drawn on your screen from being copied," the company wrote in its official blog, advising residents to sue those who are copying their wares. Other users are unhappy that Linden Lab continues to offer free accounts to people, who are portrayed more as sight-seers than real residents and increase the load on servers, diminishing the virtual experience for everyone else. "Stop admitting new residents to Second Life until you get adequate server power," wrote one resident on the official blog. Users complain that the virtual world becomes unusable once 15,000 people - a fraction of the overall residents - are logged on simultaneously. No-one from Linden Lab was immediately available for comment. Story from BBC NEWS: |
| QUOTE |
| Virtual Big Brother is unveiled Big Brother maker Endemol is to launch a virtual world where people can take part in familiar games and shows. Three dimensional worlds such as Second Life, which allow people to create online versions of themselves, have built up a large following. Virtual Me will allow these avatars to compete in online versions of Deal or No Deal, Fame Academy and Big Brother. Endemol and computer game company Electronic Arts said the site would be launched "in the coming months". Bosses at the two firms said it was a concept that bridged the divide between traditional TV and video games. "With Virtual Me we are at the forefront of a new, hybrid form of entertainment that takes gaming beyond the console," said Gerhard Florin, Executive Vice President and General Manager of EA International. "Endemol is a great partner to help us bring together the best of TV and video games for an offering that can appeal to mass market audiences and change the face of entertainment." Story from BBC NEWS: |