Live from Barcamp – Day 2 – Session 2 [for me] Second Life

Presenter – Michael Ivey

Blow by blow – sort of: What is the value? Michael finds that using 2nd Life makes for richer distance communication, as an alternate to just chat or other non-visual communication.   Virtual marketing — Nissan had virtual cars to drive around and they came out of a giant vending machine.  Other product placement.  This has been the main area of business, at least big corporate business.   Companies that are using 2nd Life for event-oriented and entertainment tie-ins.   What about training?  Thinks it would work well for training.  Distraction- potential is high – but there are options for locking down sessions and shutting off IM and things.  There.com – had non-localized content.  Second Life is only localized content – everything is tied to the parcel – very spatial.  How do you make something more realistic in 3d?  Better modeling that is camera responsive is possible but difficult.  XML-rpc can interact with objects – requires permission.
Got some show & tell — saw how to build a basic primitive.  talked about different small ways to generate Linden dollars.   Michael’s wife brings in enough lindens through her knitting shop and other 2nd life entities to offset their monthly spend within the environment.  Cool stuff.