SL Designers, IP and Knock-off’s

The Second Life Herald is reporting that there’s been a rather big incidence of IP theft in the designer clothing world today. Which is something that every business has to deal with at some point – you live with the people in the same busines, make strong ties, and fight on common goals (such as IP theft). You just make sure you’re doing it better than the others.

What did made me raise an eyebrow in the interview was this quote: “I’m just glad nobody cares to buy crap knock-offs.” I hate to disaapoint, but in the digital world of SL, there’s no such thing as a crap rip-off. If you make a digital copy of something, then it’s identical. In some cases here they’ve not managed to get the texture ID from an object so they’ve had to use their own – and yes, that is crap in the screenshot on SLH – but let’s not kid ourselves on the quality here.

Where the Designers can win, is in sticking together and getting the word out when this happens (but please stay civil and not descend to the mob reaction we had at the release of Copy Bot), and in providing a full service. For example always making sure people can get in touch with them, hiring people to man the shops at busy times, giving yourself a web presence at SL Boutique and SL Exchange (at a minimum). People will pay extra for that.

As to the copiers, if there’s an easy route to money, people will always try, but it’s the backend stuff, the support, the extra personal touch, that will provide the true value.

Second Life Land For Sale

One of the thigns that really helped me settle into Second Life was having a place to call home – somewhere I could do some of my own building, hang out, play around, and generally call my friends around. I’ve moved on a bit since then, and have a number of plots around the world, so I’m no longer in need of my Island Plot.

Which means I’m selling up. It’s a lovely, almost square plot on the Azure Islands (SLURL, visit it and have a look). It’s 728 prims, 2896 sq, and a touch over a 1000L$ a week tier. You don’t need to have a premium SL account, as you pay the land tier to Azure ISlands directly. They maintain it, the protected land alongside it so no-one is building next to you, and it’s a gorgeous space. I’ll even let you keep my apartment building!

IM me some sensible offers in game or to cardiemahoney@gmail.com.

[Gallery Update] The Wet Nurse 2.0

Second Life, as you know, is a place where you can eally let your imagination go, and my exploration of some of the more clinical aspects led me to a dark tower where I can only assume some evil scientist has decided that what the SL world needed was a milking machine – and what the machine needed was a test subject. Me and my ‘up for anything’ attitude promptly stopped by his office to see how it all worked…

The full version of this set, with 28 pictures, is now available in the members section of my website. Why not take the free tour of the site before you join and get instant access to this and all the archived galleries for $15.

Dear Swedish Embassy in SL People…

…what a great idea, but do one thing, m’dears. Rather than copy the existing design of the US Embassay, go find a young student architect in Sweden and comission them to make a kick-ass designed futuristic building that screams “cool!!!” at me?

SLNN Charity Calendar Now Available

Marvel Ousley (from the Second Life News Network) dropped me an email to give me a quick heads up on the SLNN Charity Calendar (and she sent this last week and I’m only now gettig round to writing about it – apologies Marvel). It’s to raise money for Zafu Diamond’s Support for Healing Island.

Buy a Virtual Calendar, and Help Save a Real-Life Support Group

SUNSET BEACH — Employees at Second Life News Network, SL’s daily news Web site at www.slnn.com, have traded their suits and ties for speedos and bikinis to pose for a charity pinup calendar. Proceeds from the calendar will benefit Support For Healing, a Second Life island that helps residents who suffer from depression, alcoholism and other illnesses, and offers community outreach programs. The group’s creator, Zafu Diamond, lost his real life job recently. Efforts have been underway to help him keep the island’s programs going.
Staff and management of SLNN, who usually dress quite conservatively, thought of the idea in December, and even bought new skins for what they deemed as a worthy cause.

The calendar is available at the SL News Network headquarters (SLURL) and are$L300 each, 10 for $L2000, and 20 for $L3000/ They’re also available on SL Boutique.

Can We Insure Your Inventory in Second Life

Now that my plea of “is there a standalone IM client for Second Life” has been answered, I’ve been thinking about what else the coders could do now that the client has been open sourced and we can see what the client can see. I think it’s time that we get some hard data on missing inventory issues – if we can get evidence on the issue, then not only can we presetn it to Linden Labs, but the rest of the world – now they’re taking an interest in SL maybe they can help?

How about a program that logs into Second Life for you, takes a snapshot of your inventory, and also a snapshot of your transaction history (well the SL website can do it, why not a third party app?). It can then see, since the last login, what you’ve bought, what you’ve given away, and what you still have. Anything that doesn’t have a a valid audit trail can be then brought to your attention for an immediate investigation. YOu’ll know what’s gone missing, and when.

And if you want to go all starry eyed for the future, maybe then some entrepeneur can come along, take that information, and work out a way to do a third party insurance system again everything in your inventory?

[Gallery Update] There’s Nothing Quite Like a Hot Rod

So I’m scouting for some locations in Second Life to do some sets, and I’m lokoing for another nice fifties diner (one of my weak spots) and I pull up in my Domus Hotrod. Fortunatly for you, my iPod Shuffle decided to start playing Pat Bennatar, Van Halen and Jane Wiedlin; so there’s me on top of the car, rolling over the bonnet like a bad Bon Jovi video!

The full version of this set, with 32 pictures, is now available in the members section of my website. Why not take the free tour of the site before you join and get instant access to this and all the archived galleries for $15.

Can I Have an IM Client Please?

Yes I know it kinda goes against what I mentioned in my last post, but now the Second Life viewer is open source, and all the strokey-beard types can do their programming thing, can I put in a request? Can I have a standalone IM client, that’s like MSN Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger that runs o my PC as a standalone app? So I don’t have to log in with the 3D client and I can still chat even when the rest of the office is looking over my shoulder.

Please?

With a cherry on top?

I’ll take pictures for you…

Second Life and Having Meetings and Conversations Web 2.0 Style

I touched on this briefly but sitting for coffee this morning, Second Life’s new commuincation style struck me. Yet again it was on the Crayon island – which isn’t that surprising as they have a delightful build on their own island, and have been promoting the island as a meeting place since they went public. I do put my head around a bit (and the second ‘organised’ meeting of morning coffee is happening at 6am SLT this Thursday), and what [shouldn't] surprise me is the ease that conversations can happen.

And I think that this is one of the strengths of Second Life. It would be incredibly easy, using tools such as Yahoo! Messenger , for me to have a conversation with Marilyn. And with Cleon. And with the ‘newbie’ jsut out of camera shot. But how would this have worked using just the IM tools? Well it wouldn’t have. I would have had three seperate chat windows open, and there wouldn;t ave been any of the introduction of people. This morning’s mix of conversation would not have happened.

Second Life changes that. I know some people glorify it as a chatroom with graphics, but it’s more than that. The social angle here shows that. A way for people to mix. To interact with people in a much more ‘real’ way than the aforesaid chatroom. The ability to size someone up from their avatar – come on, we all do it, if you see someone in the Phil Linden jeans and white tshirt you’re thinking ‘newbie’ and almost straight away you’re wary. Problems with lag, asset servers and suchlike aside, this is what makes Second Life a window on a new world.

Postscrtipt: Uri Sklar over at the SL Herald I think has his RL persona seeping through in his comments on the power of virtual worlds and their meeting spaces. Worth reading.

[Gallery Update] The Avenues and Alleyways

Ah yes, it’s just like Grease – the soft and innocent Caride gives way to tight leather jeans, vest top and busteries in the sort of darkened alley where you’d expect to find the sort of girl your parents warned you about. And I have to sya, I’ve bookmarked this Alley and could well visit it later for a bit more fun.

The full version of this set, with 30 pictures, is now available in the members section of my website. Why not take the free tour of the site before you join and get instant access to this and all the archived galleries for $15.