Scientists in Second Life

So How Many People Actually PLAY Second Life?

Remember when you couldn't drunkenly fall out of bed in the morning without landing on some kind of Second Life news? Things were getting pretty serious for a while there, to the point where a lot of reports started spinning around that millions and millions of people were "playing" the thing. Millions? Really? Hardly. New Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has, in an interview with VentureBeat, laid out a new userbase disclosure model the company are working on for Second Life. They're not counting registered users as "users" anymore, because while over 15 million people have signed up for the service, nowhere near that many actually use it. No, the number of "simultaneous users" is around 68,000. That's it. 68,000. Sure, that's the number logged on at once, not the total number of "active" users, but the total can't be more than a couple hundred thousand. Chin up, Lord British, there's hope for Tabula Rasa yet!

Q&A: Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon on Second Life’s latest evolution [VentureBeat]

Former US Secretary Of State Albright Speaks In Second Life

Former US Secretary Of State Madeline Albright was streamed into a discussion in virtual world Second Life last night.

The Clinton-era appointee and former US Representative to the UN made the appearance to speak on (deep breath) 'the emerging global and transnational challenges of the 21st century and how the next generation of young leaders can contribute to developing innovative strategies to meet these challenges' (aaaand, exhale.)

The talk was part of an event to launch the University of Texas at Austin's new Master of Global Policy Studies degree course.

It's still no Second Life Presidential Campaign, but it is nice to see that people are still using SL for things other than Furry-on-Furry yiff-fests and flying penis griefing.

Madeleine Albright speaking at UT Austin and Second Life [The Click Heard Round The World]

Kimberly Jernigan isn't much of a dog person. Lions are more her speed. In fact one was her boyfriend. In Second Life, of course, but never mind, it felt real. And when the romance went down the crapper in their virtual world, it got even weirder in the real one. No surprise that someone ends up locked in the bathroom with their snout duct-taped shut. And probably not much of a surprise it wasn't either of the humans, but the dog.

Presidential Candidates Sticking To First Life

The Houston Chronicle wants to know why none of the US Presidential candidates (by which I mean the two that could possibly win - sorry, independents, maybe next time) aren't using Second Life in their campaigns.

If the computing media — not to mention Linden Labs themselves — were to be believed, we should be deeply immersed in our Second Lives by now. Companies are using it for press conferences, people are having sex inside it — Sweden even has an embassy in it, for goodness' sake. Although early in the primaries there was a flurry of SL activity, things seem to have quietened down.

The author believes that this is largely due to the difficulty in raising funds from within SL — it is difficult to check where donors are based, and many are from outside the US.

The Utility of Serious Games for Marketing

Google launched Lively today, a 3D virtual world that can best be described as the search and advertising giant's take on Second Life. Currently, the service is for Windows users only and requires Internet Explorer or Firefox, as well as a Google account, to take part in. We quickly downloaded and fussed about with Lively earlier this afternoon, a process that was rather simple, but did have a minor registration hiccup. It was also painfully slow on my Windows box, which is by no means state of the art.

Lively is already loaded with hundreds of virtual rooms of varying themes, not to mention thousands of furries, one of the stock avatars that one can then further customize. Navigating around the world, which also seems to feature some light game like elements, took some getting used to. The novelty wore of quickly for me, as chatting with strangers on the internet is more frightening than in real life, but we'll have to dig deeper to see what Google has in store.

We'll check back in with it soon.

Lively by Google [Lively - thanks, DaveKap!]

Second Life Celebrates Five Years

Linden Labs is celebrating the five year anniversary of the launch of their virtual world Second Life, and you're all invited, even if most of you won't come! In honor of this milestone, the Lindens will be holding a two-week long Virtual World Fair, complete with parties, roundtable discussions, and exhibits that highlight the genitalia perversion creativity of the world's residents.

Things kick off June 23rd with a keynote speech from Linden Founder and Chairman Philip Rosedale and newly appointed CEO Mark Kingdon, both of whom better have some pretty kick-ass avatars. If they don't have at least jet packs and glowing eyes I'm laughing them off the stage. Cue my character's temporary ban in 3...2...1.

Hit the jump for details on some of the milestones that SL will be celebrating, or visit the official site for a schedule of events.

And You Thought SL Was Bad - More Naughty Spore Creatures

Why is this Spore creature, crafted by PC Zone UK forum user Apophis_dd, so very happy? Perhaps because it's come to the humorous realization that despite how vehemently gamers rail against the supposed sickness of people who dress up like furries or cavort with unicorns in the virtual world of Second Life, given the right tools they have the potential to create things just as nasty, if not more so.

Perhaps he's just happy because he's named "The Humpasaur", which is what my close friends in high school nicknamed me in the fictional life I like to picture in my head where I had close friends in high school. Hit the jump for the full picture in all its NSFW glory.

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