Archive by Author

It Has To Be Said: Why does Second Life Need Social Media?

Please define your virtual social graph to help the Lab gain ad revenue by Jessica Holyoke When the Lindens talk about expanding residents' presence with Social Media, I have to really ask why?  At my closely guarded age, I use Facebook a good deal.  It helps keep me connected with classmates who have moved great [...]

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Bill Gurley Discovers Virtual World Bean Counting

Why there is a difference between the provider and the consumer by Jessica Holyoke Over on  above the crowd blog, Linden Lab board member Bill Gurley talks about a sit-down meeting with Jeff Grabow of Ernst and Young.  Presumably this was in a real office and not in an immersive workspace premium collaboration solution.  In [...]

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It Has to Be Said: It Has to Be Said

by Jessica Holyoke Over the months that I have written editorials in the Herald, I have typically labelled the Op/Ed.  Traditionally, Op/Ed means Opposing Editorial.  Someone writes something in opposition to the stated views of the Editorial Board.  However, the Herald does not use an Editorial Board to provide a view point to the community, [...]

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Second Life Economy: Weak Growth in Q4 2009

Q4 2009 – feeble growth after 2 quarters of economic decline by Jessica Holyoke Last week, Linden Lab released their fourth quarter 2009 and year-end results for the Second Life Economy.  A few weeks earlier, Linden Lab released their raw economic data for the previous year. Included in the raw data numbers were the missing Positive [...]

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Op/Ed: Facebook, IslandLife, Second Life, Lively, Metaplace – Why Worlds Fail

by Jessica Holyoke As previously reported, IslandLife, which looks a lot like Metaplace, has opened on Facebook.  Metaplace is a virtual world that closed at the end of 2009.  Metaplace looked a lot like Google's Lively, which also closed. What does IslandLife in Facebook and the failure of Lively and Metaplace mean? Consider one world that hasn't [...]

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Script Limits Coming to Second Life

by Jessica Holyoke In the Official Linden Blog, Babbage Linden outlines one of the goals for the next release of the Second Life viewer, soon to be followed in the third party viewers, the concept of script limits.  Instead of asking people to look at their avatar rendering cost as a way to reduce lag [...]

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Opinion: Public Spaces

by Jessica Holyoke The Swiss recently passed a referendum that banned the building of minarets in their country.  As discussed on Slate, part of this is because the Swiss, like most European countries, are worried about Islamic extremism.  Especially as Muslims in Europe do not integrate to the same extent as Muslims in the United [...]

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A View from the Back: The Hard Alley Protest

by Jessica Holyoke As previously reported, as part of the 16 Days against Gender Violence, a variety of groups, SL Left Unity, Feminists, and Stop Violence Against Women, (disclosure: I am a member of the latter two) descended on Second Life perennial popular area Hard Alley in order to protest the rape role play on [...]

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Opinion: I’m a PG

by Jessica Holyoke When the creation of an Adult Content policy first started being discussed by the Lindens, a campaign started saying "I am Adult Content."  Residents were up in arms about losing their access to Adult Content.  And it has happened more than once since I have become a resident here.  But if everyone [...]

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Less Equals More for the Restrained Life Viewer

Better bondage in Second Life by Jessica Holyoke When you hear about a new Viewer, usually you hear about the new things you can do with it; it will run faster, it can encypt your IM's, it can make your boobies jiggle.   (And honestly, I would be worried about a company complaining about not being [...]

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