Talks and Courses at the Design Museum

On getting back this evening from going to see The Rocky Horror Show currently touring the UK (and no, I didn't dress the part) I found an email waiting for me from Kate Allen, advising me of the following, that I thought I should mention to you, gentle reader, as it may stimulate your brain-buds:

15 - 24 June
For the duration of Architecture Week, the Design Museum in collaboration with sculptor Kate Allen - aka ‘Fraser Fonda’ - will share live online Second Life experiences with visitors to the Design Museum (London) via a screen in the café. Visitors to the café can view the places, buildings and events ‘Fraser Fonda’ attends including a series of special events between 3 -5pm each day. Click here to see details of the special events in Second Life between 3-5pm GMT (note it says GMT [actually BST] which is SLT+8).

Basically there's a talk a day. I reckon, what with the day job and all that nonsense, I may only actually make this Sunday's meeting. As for next weekend, I shall be up to my 'nads in mud and pear cider (festival strength) at Glasto!

+++
Another event to watch out for is The Guardian (or as we Brits affectionately know it, The Grauniad, owing to its reputation for typo errors) is putting on Secondfest in the near future. For all I know, you read it here first!

Masters of Digital Media Move House

One of the first academic sites I visited in Second Life, back in the days before I started this blog, was Great Northern Way Campus . GNWC is a collaboration between 4 Canadian colleges: The University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design. The Finning Tractor Corporation donated a chunk oif their site just east of downtown Vancouver, on Great Northern Way, and this is where the Real Life campus has taken shape.

GNWC came to Second Life in the second half of 2006. Using the services of Canadian master-builder Scope Cleaver, they erected a large, ultra-modern facility on one of the mainland sims (Erie , if memory serves). The build was tied in with their Masters of Digital Media programme.

Today, while pottering around my local neighbourhood in SL, I happened upon the island "University Project." I put 2 and 2 together, and made a calculated judgement that this was something to do with "projects" and "universities" (though perhaps, in the singular) and therefore could be interesting. An added bonus was the fact that I could actually get in.

It turns out that GNWC have de-camped from the mainland and now have a whole sim to play with. Scope's building has come over intact, but now new buildings are emerging. This is still early days, as you can see from the bottom-most photo, where the objects are still textured in "plywood", but it will be interesting to see how this develops. It must be a relief to get off the mainland!


If you've never seen around a Scope Cleaver building then can I recommend you pop along to see this one? I think it's just brilliant.


Finally, you might find this PDF interesting and entertaining.

Geek Meet - 16th June

Just an excuse to post some piccies - they've been scarce in recent days. This is the first of the weekly Geek Meets I've been able to make, arranged by 57 Miles of metaversed fame (well maybe not fame yet, but he's getting there!). 57 had arranged for representatives of 3 of the major technology companies in SL to come and talk to the group. So we had folks from IBM, Intel and Sun giving us a 5-10 minute chat, each followed by a Q&A. Doubtless some keen soul will post the transcripts, but I will limit myself to impressions.

The mighty epredator potato (God I'm embarrassed typing that name) of IBM is a long-standing evangelist for virtual worlds and gave us some useful insights into the whole shebang. He's been inworld a long time - and it shows. The presentations from Intel and Sun were interesting too in their different ways. For me, it seemed that Core, the guy from Intel, did not really have the full lowdown on SL - or maybe I don't - but I didn't feel his description of server virtualisation would advance SL's availability, stablity or scalability (OK, maybe scalability). Whereas, Klaatu from Sun - though he made some interesting interjections about load balancing - seemed to be there mainly to promote network.com, "CPU power on demand." Although greater brains than mine may find good uses for this facility in SL, I did not feel that the examples given would actually work. For example, "rendering of sculptured prims" was mentioned - yet this happens client-side, and would not benefit from a slow link to remote CPUs.

Damn! I meant to keep this brief! Anyway - here's some piccies. First up, some shady-looking characters! epredator, me, tara5 and Poinky.

And here's some other bods, followed by snaps of our 3 presenters: Epredator, Core and Klaatu.


The pink-faced fellow is VeeJay Burns of Mindblizzard. I think I prefer his non-photorealist face!

This was a well-attended meeting with the sim full. Get there early if you want to attend the next one!

Entropia Concurrency -wtf?

The recent announcement that Mindark had won the competition to build a new virtual world for China, using the popular Entropia environment has led to a lot of questions. Some, no doubt, have come from disgruntled competitors - but as I don't fit into that category I thought I would take a look at one of those questions, to try and understand what the heck is going on.

The press release for the Entropia win in China makes reference to a projected "7 million concurrent users", generating "over $1 billion annually in commerce." Given that Second Life struggles to support maximum concurrency of around 45,000, and with the projected numbers for Entropia many orders of magnitude greater, this begs the question:

"How realistic is the projected user concurrency for Entropia?"
Unlike SL, which provides regular updates of this information on its website and its client software, Mindark apparently keep this information under lock and key. However, some trawling of the internet has turned up an estimate of around 10,000 concurrent users from a total resident count of around 500K.

Virtual World News interviewed John Bates, Entropia Universe Evangelist, and David Simmons, MindArk’s Business Development Director. The subject of concurrency was covered during a wide-ranging discussion:

»Possibly the biggest advantage, though, is the size of the world. It can hold seven million concurrent users, and MindArk isn't worried yet about reaching the cap. "We’re not even speculating about maximum capacity," Bates said. "It’s not going to be tomorrow, but it will be very soon. We just hope technology will have gotten better. We anticipate it being the fastest of its kind." «

While admiring Mindark's ambition, one cannot help but feel that the case is being grossly, obscenely over-played. I am not privvy (who is? I wonder) to the underlying architecture of Entropia, and therefore cannot make assertions about its ability to scale. However, given that the hype is suggesting a thousand-fold increase, I would conclude that this degree of scalability is an unjustified assertion on behalf of the vendors. You may prefer the more pithy comment from 57 Miles at Metaversed (see the last sentence).

Brits: Book Early to Avoid Disappointment

Thanks to Matteo at Gabetti, who brought to my attention the following event:

Achieving Product And Branding Excellence In Second Life And Other Virtual Worlds
September 25 - 26, 2007 · Thistle Hotel Marble Arch, London, UK

Why should I attend?
Second Life, the 3D internet world inhabited by over 5 million residents, is fast becoming the place for companies to test products, launch ideas and even run their entire business. With realworld companies like Adidas, American Express, Coca Cola and Toyota all clamouring to set up their virtual “islands”, how are you going to compete in this world unless you move fast?

Announcing Europe’s first ever conference on virtual marketing – How to become a household name in a virtual world.

This one-stop-shop will get you started in the fastest and most cost effective way possible.

Showcasing the best corporate islands, plus a hands-on tutorial to show you exactly how it’s done, your time out of the office will be the most valuable you spend all year.

Who will I meet and who is speaking?
This event is being specifically researched and formulated with these attendees in mind:

• Heads of Marketing
• Branding Directors
• Creative Directors
• Web Directors
• Online Marketing Professionals
• Web Development Professionals
• Business Development Managers
• Heads of Online Commerce
• Heads of e-Commerce
• Heads of Virtual Marketing (or v-Marketing)
• Media Directors
• Heads of e-learning
• Product Managers

Don't miss this event because...
You will gain the hottest tips on how to:

• Understand Second Life and the real advantages it can give your company
• Put together the best business plan that your non-technical management board will respond to
• Utilise Second Life as a platform to test products before launching in the real world
• Deploy Second Life as a training and education platform for your business
• Turn virtual trading into substantial real world ROI

Places are limited and expected to sell out fast. For more information or to reserve your place, contact Carol James at carol.james@iqpc.co.uk or her avatar Alannah Mills in Second Life.

I doubt I can make it - but who knows? Maybe I can make the trek from the cold, wet wilderness of the North. I wonder if Nic from Kzero will be there?

An Italian Property Update

I made a fleeting reference to the Italian property company, Gabetti in early March. Today, I received a notecard containing some interesting updates. If I read the following correctly, they seem to be suggesting that the current Beta phase of their engagement in Second Life is due to last 5 months, with completion still some 6 to 7 weeks away. They set themselves a modest, not unrealistic earnings target for this phase, and seem to have exceed that not once, or twice, but eightfold! My hearty congratulations!

Project start date: March 8, 2007
Project end date (beta phase): July 31, 2007
Project business objective: 250.000 L$
Actual business level: +2Mo L$
Actual properties: +200K sqm

The card also contained information on upcoming seminars and conferences. It will be interesting to hear the outcome of these:

SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES
June 14 - Milan - Italy
Web 2.oltre conference - http://www.web2oltre.it
Our CEO Maurizio Monteverdi/Morris Gabetti will be interviewed by David Orban/Davidorban Agnon on the actual and future strategy of the Gabetti presence in Second Life.

June 19 - Turin - Italy
Mondi Virtuali conference - http://mondivirtuali.top-ix.org/
Matteo Penzo/Matteo Quadrifoglio and Marcello Merlo/Merz Vandeverre will showcase the backstage and the current results of the Gabetti/SL project.

June 22 - Milan - Italy
Virtual Worlds 2007 seminar - http://tinyurl.com/234ykk
The Gabetti/SL team will show case how's creating a business presence in SL, the speech will feature the presence of Carmen and Luciana Gabetti, two of our virtual agents.

Japan + NGO = Jango

A very (very!) short post this one. Resuming my recent riff on Japanese builds I went wandering among the scattered islands of the Great Western Ocean to see what took my eye, and found myself on Japan NGO. This island is very much in its early stages, so does not really give much information away to the visitor yet, though if you are Japanese you will already be able to get a good feel for its purpose.

At present there is a landing zone and a number of website URLs, though these are not yet active links. They all, however, refer to pages within the site http://voluntary.jp, which I take to be targeted at charities in Japan. Further into the island is a small seating area, with a couple of inscribed granite slabs - one in English, one in Japanese. Rather than transcribe (and translate!) the text - you can read it for yourself below:


And that's about it really. There's a number of buildings under construction - but it is too early to tell when the site will be complete. Let's say, a couple of months. :-)

A Visit to Virtual Mexico

After spending the weekend in the virtual Far East, tonight it was time to visit virtual Central Latin America - Mexico to be precise.

Rather than hack out some lumpen words of my own it seems reasonable to quote liberally from the many notecards that can be picked up here: "Visit Mexico and the Chichen Itza exhibit exist to raise awareness and promote preservation of this ancient world heritage site.
This exhibit attempts to convey an overall feeling of Chichen Itza; however, as a Second Life exhibit, liberties have been taken in creating a visually compelling display. Visitors can explore the ancient architecture on display at Chichen Itza by taking a guided audio tour from the back of a Mayan inspired butterfly or exploring on foot. If you choose not to complete the audio tour you can find information on Chichen Itza by exploring the site and accessing information kiosks placed at various points of interest throughout the exhibit."

"Chichen Itza is currently included in an international campaign known as the New Seven Wonders of the World. Using modern communications technology including the internet, the world’s population is joining together to vote. It is a goal of this project that at the New7Wonders Final Event on 07.07.07 Chichen Itza will be included in the Official Declaration as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World." If you wish to support this effort, there is a voting facility, after which you can pick up a free Mayan warrior and/or princess outfit - or you can vote online here.

As well as the main pyramid, you can visit the sweathouse, the Cenote ( water-filled, limestone sinkhole) and assorted ruins, waterfalls and forest walks, while dragonflies and humming birds flit about your head.

You can also enter inside the pyramid, where there's another pyramid! "It was common practice in Mesoamerican cities to periodically build larger and bigger temple pyramids atop older ones, and this is one such example. Archaeologists discovered a doorway at the base of the north stairway that leads to a tunnel, from which one can climb the steps of the earlier version of El Castillo inside the current one up to the top room where you can see religious Jaguar Throne, carved of stone and painted red with jade spots. The design of the older pyramid inside is said to be a lunar calendar, with the newer pyramid being a solar calendar."

It's an impressive and informative build.

SBB CFF FFS 4 SL

A number of travel organisations have now come to Second Life, but this is the first I've seen that uses quite so many 3-letter abbreviations: SBB CFF FFS. (though mercifully the island name has been shorted to SBB 1). The reason for the 3 sets of initials is easily explained. This is the Swiss Federal Railways (German: SBB, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen; French: CFF, Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses; Italian: FFS, Ferrovie federali svizzere). The nature of the company is apparent when you visit the island, though it is still very much at a formative stage.

You arrive on a station platform, with a carriage waiting for you to board. Adverts link to the railway website. Next to the platform is a sandbox area where you are encouraged to try your hand at making a model railway. Vending machines next to the sandbox supply track of various shapes on demand. Finally there is a terminal for requesting train timetables by use of the SL chat facility. The build is very much in its infancy, and this is as far as it goes at this time. Here are a few images to digest:


The texture used on the railway carriage is over-stretched, resulting in blurring of the text and the the transparant areas used for the windows.

Spaceship Suruga

I seem to be on something of a Far Eastern riff this weekend. Here's the latest in this medley of Oriental delights.

I reported a while back on Suruga Bank's then new island in Second Life (as well as name-checking Korea's Acid Crebiz), and have checked back from time to time to see if it was open. Last night, while rambling in the general vicinity I thought I'd give it a pop - and this time I was able to gain access. If you look on a Satellite Map view, the site looks completely black - and there seems to be a good reason for this. The entire site seems to be contained within a huge expanse of blackness. There is no terrain as such, rather a number of coloured discs and something akin to a space station, floating in space against a backdrop of stars. The effect, to my jaded eyes, was refreshingly new and exciting.

A teleport system will take you each of the 3 disks. On two of these you can watch videos, including (what looks like) an introduction to Visa cards and their benefits. I would like to know a bit more about this, since I am off to Tokyo at the end of the month, and have read that credit cards are not widely used for payment. The video goes some way to supporting this assertion, since it does seem to be "Credit Cards 101" - fun though! It made me chuckle a couple of times.

The main theme of the build is "d-labo" (dream laboratory) which links with this website. As far as I can tell, this ties in with the opening of Suruga Bank's new branch (if that is not too small a word) in the prestigious Tokyo Midtown tower. It looks like "d-labo" is either the project name, or the name of the company designing and managing the build in RL. Certainly the Second Life "d-labo" shows many of the features to be found in Real Life. The builders in Second Life seem to be the busy Japanese virtual worlders, Meltingdots (who offer their own portal into SL here). But enough of the blather - to get the idea of the place it is best to view the pictures:


The guy in the video is spouting the virtues of Visa cards.


I think the main aim of this sim is to promote Suruga Bank's opening in Tokyo Midtown. You may argue - largely successfully - that Second Life is not an ideal promotional channel. But be that as it may, I really like this build. It shows a lot of humour and imagination, while also looking to address the client's brief of co-ordinating the SL channel with other promotional channels. If some can explain to me the subtleties of the d-labo website, then I would be grateful!

Acid Crebiz is The Biz

Way back (in SL terms, at least) at the end of February I mentioned a guy/company that I'd spotted that went by the marvellously surreal name of Acid Crebiz. I have tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to gain access to their/his/her island and tonight I gave it another punt, more in hope than expectation. Well it seems that persistence eventually pays off. OK, much of the island is still "no access" but there's enough there to give me great optimism for the future of Second Life in Korea.

"What? Where's Korea come into this?!" Sorry, if you didn't follow the link above, Acid Crebiz is Korea's first Second Life development company. I assume the island and its new neighbouring sim "Korean Town 1" are intended to showcase their/his/her work. At the moment you might think there's too little to see, with most of the land closed off. But I have to say I think it's fab. OK... I'm a huge fan of detailed, 3D textures - and this island is full of them. I think the look and feel is fantastic - and a great advert for Acid Crebiz. Indeed, for those who care to give it a punt, I would be interested in yout views after comparing this with the Webstar island, blogged earlier tonight. They are quite different - but then so are we, the ramblers of Second Life.

But my main reason for posting this entry is so I can show you the island, and let you draw your own conclusions:




(though my piccies are a bit crap compared to the real thing)

Where Webstar Are

I went the the Southern Seas of Second Life for the first time in a while this evening and stumbled on the island of Webstar, belonging to Japanese 3d computer graphics and web design company... umm.. Webstar. They have a section of their website given over to Second Life, but not being a whizz at any Japanese alphabet* I can only surmise that they will be building on their existing strengths to offer construction and promotion services in Second Life.

The island is an eclectic mix of styles, ranging from beach huts, to an Indian palace and a glass and steel office box, replete with training centre. Then just to add a bit more spice, there is a small fun park with, it must be said, the accent on "park" rather than "fun". The island is well kitted out with meeting areas of all sizes, and at least one dance area. In fact, they've crammed quite a lot into this sim.


For a creative company I have to say I was disappointed. OK, the build quality is better than anything I can manage, but then that's hardly a challenge. But compared to other builders I thought the textures lacked depth and there was a general absence of flair. Also, aside from a link to the website there was little information to be had - well, none that I could find. This is not a brand new island, so any teething problems should have been handled by now. If they host events here - as seems likely - they do not choose to advertise them on the site. So I am left confused as to the purpose of the build, since I think it does no favours to Webstar.

Next door is the TVstation sim, but despite promises of a teleport it did not seem to want to allow me in. So I have no idea what it has to offer. In any event, here's a picture so you can stand a chance of working it out for yourself.


* A situation I need to rectify as I'm off to Japan in 3 weeks time for a holiday!

Playing a Cat and Mouse Game

I've collected a miscellaneous collection of stuff over the last couple of days, some of which I thought I would share with you - not that you'd necessarily find them interesting. First up, here is a friend of mine (in the middle) - no names, no packdrill - who has been well and truly "ruthed". This is normally a temporary state, where an avatar is not able to load its normal settings, and so defaults to Ruth - as it were the "Eve of Virtual Worlds". Perhaps because he was using the SLeek (character-based) viewer for SL, it proved to be a permanent state - at least on this visit to Second Life. His normal avatar is a sedate, white-haired, white-beared man of "a certain age and girth", so he may prefer being Ruth - I just don't know. Behind my friend is Kathleen Millionsofus, while trying to distance himself from this gender confusion is another good friend, VeeJay.


Next is another Firstlook (WindLight) viewer picture - this time of sunset near New Alville. The exotic floating structure isn't mine, but I like the piccy.


Finally, here's some snaps I took at Icarus. TerryAnn (and chums) has been working on a new holodeck room - for mice. In a twitter conversation regarding sleeping arrangements for these members of the family Muridae I had suggested a disused sardine tin. In the event, she was able to whisk up a rather impressive tuna can. The room has a number of fun features, including a picture depicting Schrödinger's cat, and the secret plans for getting cheese without being caught by the cat (peering in through the mousehole). The holodeck is a cool device - and even cooler in the hands of people who know how to use it. Here's a link to an earlier post I did on Icarus - it is a really nice place to visit, and is a great example of what SL residents are doing for themselves.




Now here's hoping that all of these links won't set off the Blogger cret-bots again.

Comcastaway on a Virtual Island

A version of this posting first appeared at 3pointD.

Comcast, the largest provider of cable services in the US — and one of the world’s leading communications companies, providing broadband Internet and a host of other digital services — have had »an island« under development in Second Life what seems like an eternity. I have tried on numerous occasions to gain access, since it looks rather intriguing on the Satellite Map view. Last night I gave it another go, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself standing in front of a teleport board, offering all manner of interesting pursuits. I had not picked up any hints that this site was due to open, and certainly the only other person present when I arrived was a developer, beavering away on various bits of fine tuning.

The build, from Millions of Us, is really too much to describe in one post — but I will give it a go. Most of the island is geared toward entertainment, with much for the seasoned traveller to try out. The main feature is a snaking tubular arrangement, which brought to my mind images of a particularly bizarre accident in a pipe factory. This turns out to be a raceway where up to four players can compete against each other, around three laps of the tubular track, in zippy little flying cars. Unfortunately, as a solo adventurer, I evidently didn’t count as a team and it flatly refused to rez me a race craft*. I had more luck outside, where I took the opportunity to ride (and repeatedly crash) a rather skittish jet-ski. Again, a track has been laid out to allow you and your friends to race these unmanageable brute. In subsequent conversation with Kathleen Millionsofus I whinged about the jet-ski and was informed that it had now been "de-tuned" to a level more suited to an old geezer like me.

My favourite spot has to be the pharmacy, with its whiff of 1950s shlock sci-fi movies and Little Shop of Horrors vibe. In the basement you will find a secret lab, where the strange brew “Faster” is whipped up. There are a number of amusing diversions, including “Around the World in a Minute”, that you might enjoy. You can also help yourself to a free labcoat and other mad professorial paraphenalia. To leave the lab you will need to pick up a (free) parachute, as you get catapulted some ridiculous height before gliding gracefully back to earth.

I have only highlighted a few of the points of interest, but there is also a display area, a meeting area and a viewpoint. I looked for the jet-pack station, but I was pushed for time and didn’t find it on my first trip. However, on a second jaunt I was able to grab a jet-pack. This, in turn, leads to the rezzing of a number of floating rings that you need to fly through. I assume there's some kind of points scoring involved, but I didn't spend long enough at it to find out.

This will be a fun place to come with friends and just play — perhaps one for the “Things To Do” group in Second Life. I don’t see much sign of Comcast branding, and the purpose is not clear, but it looks to me like Millions of Us may be applying some of the lessons learned from their successful Pontiac Motorati site to provide a community site in Second Life that tallies with Comcast brand values. This would certainly be a more subtle approach, and indeed has been confirmed by the builders, who added that the theme is linked to the current "Comcastic" TV campaign, featuring (I'm told) a shlock 50s sci-fi theme.

I assume we can look forward to an official launch in the near future.

* It turns out that this was due to incorrect land settings - and should now be fixed.

Old News From Me About Sky News

A version of this was first posted at 3pointd.

Sky News, the leading satellite news broadcaster in the UK, assisted by brand consultants and SL builders Rivers Run Red, recently launched »their island« in Second Life. I understand there were virtual queues of around 700 people trying to gain access to the function, which garnered a lot of good press in the blogosphere. The launch event was tied into a broadcast from the Guardian Hay Festival, an annual literary festival held in the picturesque and distinctly bibliophilic town of Hay-on-Wye. I tend to avoid such functions and their attendant lag, so I did not venture into the island until much later, once the fuss had died down.

Sky News are setting out to be the first real-world television news service to establish a permanent bridgehead in the virtual world, and thus steal a march on their opposition. Until now, UK television news and current affairs programmes have had only sporadic involvement in Second Life, most recently with the broadcast of BBC2’s “The Money Programme” (also managed by Rivers Run Red).

Anyway - what of the facilities? The bulk of the island is taken up with the virtual Sky News studio. While I am not completely au fait with a news studio, this one certainly matches my mental image of one. There are interview areas, a large presentation screen (a feature of the real-world Sky News studio), and a dais for the anchorpeople. Behind the scenes there are cameras, lighting and sound rigs, desks, autocues, mixer desks and all the other paraphenalia one would expect. The effect is very impressive, in that it looks like a well-rendered visualisation of a real world environment.

And here is the nub of my concern with this build. A lot of energy has been expended in mimicking the real world, but the actual interactive content is low. I could find just one set of Web links, to the Sky News weather Web site, while there is a video headlines stream, re-purposed from the Sky News Web site. Visitors can also cycle through a number of stock news backgrounds (”knife crime”, “education” and so on) on the large presentation screen.

Outside, there are a couple of mockup sets. The first is #10, Downing Street; the second, a cordoned-off police incident tent. I have no issue with the former, but the latter is in dubious taste. Indeed, that oday’s headline video on the web site featured just such an incident tent, but over the spot where a young woman’s body had been found.

In terms of freebies, the key item is a Sky News TV that you can take back to your virtual home, where it will deliver the headlines, showbiz news and weather. You need to have land rights as it achieves this by setting the “media content” field to the relevant Sky News (mp4) clip. These clips could do with a refresh as they appear to be a couple of days old, and not keeping pace with the Web site. The news TV is a cool idea, though I would have preferred it if it was written so as not to fiddle with the media settings on my land.

Rivers Run Red are promising that a lot of new features will appear in the coming weeks. According to Justin Bovington, CEO and Executive Creative Director, quoted on the Ugotrade blog: “A dedicated content team will be on hand for updates — just like breaking news it need to be a 24/7 approach. We’re going recreate scenes when needed. We could in the future reproduce courts etc.”

Given the metaphorical tumbleweed blowing through the site, and the general lack of further real-world involvement since its launch, I am having serious doubts about this. It has all the hallmarks of a one-off event, rather than an ongoing commitment. OK, granted the purpose is to serve up news, so the site characteristics are not key — but without regular traffic the Sky News TV sets will not get distributed, and the Sky “news how you want it” multi-channel initiative will have little impact on Second Life.

UPDATE 8th June:

On 3pointD Peter wrote: "
Aleister,

Again, I have to throw my opinion in here as well. I attended an event last night on the SKY sim, an inciteful and interesting discussion with the SKY Crime correspondent, Martin Brunt. This was excellent, as Mr Brunt took questions and gave us a tour of the SKY NEWS centre. As a Brit, who watches SKY NEWS a lot, it was a treat to get this first hand interation.

Does this start to answer your issue on sustainabliity?"

Answer: Yes. I am pleased that Sky News is showing a sustainable approach. It will be interesting to watch their presence evolve.