Archive for December, 2006

What is the True Growth of Second Life?

By Prokofy Neva, Virtual Estate Desk The real numbers of Second Life’s growth are constantly presented, corrected, misrepresented, and hotly debated. That’s because there are different factions and interest groups that have different things they want to achieve by reflecting the numbers. For some, growth of land ownership is significant; for others it is greatly [...]

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$655,000 Spent in 24 hours, but is it 80% (illegal) Gambling?

A few weeks ago, we reported an experiment by Anonymous, in which he wrote a script that allowed him to pass money back and forth between two avatars for an hour and a half. In that amount of time he was able to move the equivalent of $1 million US between his two avatars, and [...]

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Zee Linden Statistics Spinning Revealed

By Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk Today, Zee Linden released a set of eagerly awaited statistics on the Second Life economy that paint a cheerful picture of premium account growth with month-on-month growth running around 8 – 10% and showing a 15-30% growth rate in the last three months. However, Zee Linden only calculated the [...]

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Is First Land for First Time Buyers?

by Seola Sassoon In recent weeks, first land has been extremely scarce and I wanted to find out why so many new residents couldn’t get first land. I spent 3 weeks, daily, searching for first land, to no avail. My first encounter was what drummed me to this issue. I saw a single parcel for [...]

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A Visit to Le Pen’s Headquarters in SL

When we recently posted a story about a group associated with the French National Front Youth opening an office in Second Life we didn’t have any pictures yet. Well we can’t have *that*. Managing Editor Pixeleen Mistral and Urizenus Sklar went to visit the HQ and encountered another visitor who was happy to give us [...]

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Other Worlds?

Power Trippy sculpture by Sabine Stonebender at the Linden Office in Kirkby. By Prokofy Neva, Department of Rumours, Speculation, and Inside Dope for Inside Dopes It was the great and wise Aldo Stern, originally of the The Sims Online, who once said, “Second Life is not a product in transition; it is a transitional product.” [...]

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Time for the Simethicone

By Prokofy Neva, Attendant, Ambulatory Pediatric Care UnitSecond Life experienced what Jeska Linden called “strange hiccups,” this evening, with teleports going haywire, profile strangeness (?), and inventory erm…”not loading,” as she explained. Another word for that is *missing* — a word that apparently is on the list of taboo words for the Blob.But many of [...]

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Another SL First? French Extreme Right Political Party Opens Office in Second Life

French National Front allegedly opens SL offices. Can a visit from Le Pen be far behind? Well, we’ve had our share of nazi’s and skinheads and whatnot in Second Life, but I do believe that if this is not a hoax it will be the first outside extreme right — some would say Fascist — [...]

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Reality Check: Philip Admits to Wu that SL’s Got no Flow

For the first time Philip uses the C word: “clunky”. Is the Endgame near? I always wondered who was first going to pop the bubble. Not to show *us* that something was wrong, but to get Philip to admit to us that there was something wrong. I’m glad it was Susan Wu. It seems like [...]

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Stroker Serpentine – Post 6 Man

[Editor’s note: This week we have a special treat - our Post 6 Man is Stroker Serpentine - a legendary and historic figure in Second Life, as photographed by another legend - Marilyn Murphy - the photographer/visionary behind Players, SL’s in-world erotica magazine.] I came to Second Life kicking and screaming. I really enjoyed my [...]

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