The Alphaville Herald

Virtual Worlds 2007, Report #2: How the Hair Holds Up

Prokofy Neva, Kremlindenologist So I walk into the 55th floor of the Millenium Hotel and I see it…The Hair. Our Hero’s Hair is Holding Up. Relieved, I shake Philip Rosedale’s hand and ask him how he’s holding up, but the message has already been telegraphed to me: gelled, sturdy, stellar, architectural — thank you very [...]

Virtual Worlds 2007, report #1

By Urizenus Sklar All quotes guaranteed to possibly be accurate. I climbed out my cab in Battery Park, eager to take in Virtual Worlds 2007 conference and hear the latest developments in virtual worlds. But what is this? The other taxis pulling up are not yielding scruffy game devs and virtual platform development geeks, but [...]

The Medicis of Second Life

The Magic World of Leo Burnett; Big New Tree of Media Life By Prokofy Neva, Virtual Corporation Watch The big corporations that have entered Second Life are a rough analogy to the Medicis of medieval Florence – avidly (avariciously) engaged in commerce, yet sponsoring art and architecture. I haven’t worked out all the analogies yet [...]

SCANDAL!!! SL’s Next Top Model… Has a Twin?

Copycat drama in the SL fashion world – SHOCK! by Tenshi Vielle, Fabulous Fashionista models from the “tilde” group BooBooKittie Haight, proprieter and brains behind Catwalk City, has a problem. Her brainchild, the “SL Next Top Model” (SLNTM) contest, has a competitor with exactly the same name plus a tilde: “ ~SL Next Top Model~”. [...]

Surface Tension

by Fiend Ludwig It is a pond and I live on the surface tension. I suspect that the same is true, too,For the New Priests:The blogger-kings and scripter-czars,The kulaks and uber-griefers and Linden-spawn.Drilling through the boundary at will,Extracting enrichment and inspiration.Submerging only if pressed, While the uninitiated drown amongst the choke of weeds. It has [...]

The Tale of the Duke and The Hunt

as told by Morgdah Graves[This story is told around the campfires in Avilion - the Editrix] There was this Duke of a large parcel of land, he had servants, slaves,women at his beck and call. He was known to be the hunter of all hunters.His great hall was full of trophiesThe trophies were of many [...]

On Board the Endeavour

[Editor's Note: The Herald HQ occupies a landlocked plot in Second Life's Hyperborea sim, so it was with great surprise that we found washed up on our non-existent shoreline a waterlogged book, in the pages of which we found a sketch of Tiny Newt's barque, the Endeavour, as well as the scrap of a diagram [...]

Plywood #72: Return of the Living Dead

Searching for Nirvana

God and the weather (channel) in Second Life by Jimbo Quality, on temporary assignment to the Herald spirituality extreme sports desk Jimbo Quality and friend [Editor’s Note: We had hoped feared that correspondent Jimbo Quality had been lost forever in his ramblings around the grid, until we received the following dispatch, scribbled on cocktail napkins [...]

Goons’ Ban Game – SL Relay for Life Fund Raising

Public invited to purchase words that may not be spoken – for charity0h d4mn 1t 1 h4t3 l33t sp34k by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk careful what you say Some of those that frequent Baku sim or hang with the W-Hat goons are known for a willingness to push the limits of community tolerance up [...]