Sunday 9 March 2008

Style Magazine

There must be more Style Magazines knocking about the World's publishing houses than I've had hot dinners. Actually, on reflection, this statement is almost certainly a load of cobblers. However I will maintain that the principle is sound - ie: there are many magazines around the globe that share this title. Tonight, while having a general mooch in Second Life, I found one of them.

This one belongs to the famous Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera. The paper has been around since 1876, and has a circulation of over 600,000, but I don't know much about its Style Magazine, other than it has its own Second Life island and related website.

The island is quite an impressive construction, making extensive use of those fiddly shadow textures to enhance that 3D look and feel. It is a little hard to make out the overall shape of the place, and although it has been open since mid-2007, it seems to be in a state of flux, with new exhibitions being installed. There's a lot of arty stuff here - almost exclusively 20th Century (some more recent) and perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it's an Italian site, this includes a major exhibition on Futurism. The main exhibition area is given over to Cirque Du Soleil's Delirium show. It is a collections of stills and (in theory) some video of this "live music concert that pushes the limit of arena performance."

There's a lot more - including huge amounts of good quality freebies: clothing; accessories and furniture. There's also an opportunity to pickup some cool-looking radios, and participate in a design challenge, to design another radio to join the collection. If that seems like too much, why not vie to be Avatar of the Month instead? I am impressed with the range of engaging activities on offer here, along with a regular and frequent event schedule. The tie-in website also looks impressive, with a comprehensive range of topics. They seem to sinking a lot of thought and a lot of energy into this island, and I hope that effort is rewarded. Oh.. and although I've not had time to watch them yet, there is a set of movies on YouTube too.

Here's my photoset:

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