Canvas
Tipodean Technologies announces preview launch of Canvas, web-based viewer for Second Life and OpenSim; http://eicker.at/Canvas
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Gerrit Eicker
Second Life in a Web Browser?
Linden Lab confirms Project Skylight, tests for a Second Life Web Viewer; http://eicker.at/Skylight (via @slhamlet)
Gerrit Eicker
Metaverse: a Singular Entity?
Blechner: Metaverse is about allowing all different kinds of applications work together; http://eicker.at/z
Gerrit Eicker
Second Life: Educational Exodus?
Linden Lab cancels educational rebates for SL; http://j.mp/cgiFFv @Fleep: Are you trying to hasten the exodus to OpenSim?
Gerrit Eicker
4G Will Change Everything!
4G, 3.9G (LTE) to be serious, will give the Internet a boost like landline broadband did before; http://j.mp/9f0PEY
Gerrit Eicker
Business: OpenSim vs. Second Life
Korolov: OpenSim business roadmap, the past, present and future; http://j.mp/balwKd (via @kohdspace)
Gerrit Eicker
3D Internet?
Koehl: The Internet may never go fully 3D, but 3D environments are probably capable within 5 years; http://j.mp/bEzGm3
Gerrit Eicker
Second Life 2.0
Linden Lab released the final version of its Second Life Viewer 2.0, ending the public beta; http://j.mp/SLv20
Gerrit Eicker
Metaplace: Shut Down
Metaplace.com is closing on January 1, 2010: 70,000 virtual worlds will vanish from the Internet; http://j.mp/8dyizq
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Gerrit Eicker
Metaplace: “Over the last several years, we here at Metaplace Inc. have been working very hard to create an open platform allowing anyone to come to a website and create a virtual world of their own. – Unfortunately, over the last few months it has become apparent that Metaplace as a consumer UGC service is not gaining enough traction to be a viable product, requiring a strategic shift for our company. – We’re sorry to announce today that Metaplace.com will be closing to the public at 11:59pm on January 1st, 2010.”
VB: “The company says it will turn off billing immediately and refund any fees paid for virtual items or subscriptions in the month of December. Users will be able to retrieve some assets from their worlds so they can conceivably reconstruct them on some other platform. But there is nowhere for them to migrate the worlds to, as is. Users can capture their worlds with screen shots, data downloads etc., and they can commisserate at a forum site.”
MJ: “The biggest shame of it all is that Metaplace is an engaging, complex virtual environment that offered enormous content creation options. That this is lost when there are so many cookie cutter 2D worlds with limited creative options is sad, but the history of virtual environments is littered with examples of promising developments that didn’t reach their full potential. Metaplace is one of them now, but hopefully the technology behind it appears in another form in the future.”
HB: “When a platform disappears, however, it’s not just the content that’s at risk. If a company uses a virtual world in order to interact with customers or with a larger community, then that community vanishes as well – as is now about to happen on Metaplace. – Current Metaplace users will either move to other worlds or leave virtual worlds altogether. If they get new virtual identities elsewhere, they will most likely have new user names – making it difficult, if not impossible, to recreate the community of one social network on another network. – This will be the single biggest loss that comes out of the Metaplace closure.”
Gwyn: “Koster’s Metaplace had the advantage of at least having a solid technological platform – for the expectations generated in late 2007/early 2008. As for its business model… it was not clear. Everything was to be given away for free, except for some obscure licensing schemes, which were never the strong points. This is not surprising – almost all hi-tech virtual world start-ups keep giving everything away for free, and then suddenly realise they don’t have a working business model.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Building Maker
Google starts Building Maker, a crowdsourcing project to create 3D models of every structure on Earth; http://j.mp/PprGn
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Some of us here at Google spend almost all of our time thinking about one thing: How do we create a three-dimensional model of every built structure on Earth? How do we make sure it’s accurate, that it stays current and that it’s useful to everyone who might want to use it? – One of the best ways to get a big project done – and done well – is to open it up to the world. As such, today we’re announcing the launch of Google Building Maker, a fun and simple (and crazy addictive, it turns out) tool for creating buildings for Google Earth. – We like to think of Building Maker as a cross between Google Maps and a gigantic bin of building blocks.”
TC: “While Building Maker is definitely a fun tool, Google gets some benefit out of this. They are crowdsourcing building making to their users, in addition to doing this internally. Google is also crowdsourcing to help update Google Maps, letting users report changes to a particular location, destination or roads.”
RWW: “Overall, this looks like a very smart way for Google to enhance the 3D experience in Google Earth and it will be interesting to see if Google will also build more services on top of these 3D-rendered cities at a later point.”
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website video
Maybe – but I wonder where all the oblique imagery would be coming from? There are only so many oblique providers…
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Gerrit Eicker
Interesting question. User uploads. Google’s image databases?
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LL: “We will adjust how education and non-profit advantages are provided, effective Jan. 1, 2011. All education and non-profit private regions of any type, purchased after Dec. 31, 2010, will be invoiced at standard (i.e. non-discounted) pricing. All currently discounted renewals which occur after Dec. 31, 2010, will be adjusted to the new price at that time. To continue to provide entry-level, private spaces to educators just launching their programs, we will be providing Homestead and Open Space regions to qualifying organizations without their meeting the retail full-region criterion. Customer Support will be available to answer any questions that you may have about these changes.”
DW: “Yesterday’s announcement that the Lab was raising prices on education and non-profits has kicked in a sort of reflex instinct: maybe there is a strategy, and I’m simply too mortal to get it. – I have no idea why I’m doing this to myself again. I went through this for, hmmm, a few years I guess and it turned out that there wasn’t any sort of secret answer, there wasn’t much more than the Love Machine, and Mark Kingdon was brought in to answer the same question I had pounded my own head over: where are you trying to go, and how are you going to get there?”
MJ: “And rightly so, given the critical mass of educators that have generated significant outcomes for Second Life. In fact, it could be argued that it’s only the good news stories generated by the non-profits that have helped offset some of the negative aspects inflated by parts of the mainstream media and others. The comments section below the announcement is well worth a read: even taking out the initial emotion, the overwhelming attitude is that it’s time to downsize or move on. Of course, the migration to OpenSim grids is already well underway, for a range of reasons.”
AH: “Discounted Second Life virtual land will be phased out for non-profit organizations and the education sector as of January 1, 2011 according to this announcement by Nelson Linden. Reaction was predictably negative from those whose budget cycles do easily accommodate costs doubling with three months notice – in other words, essentially all non-profits and education. … Apparently Linden lab has written off the non-profit sector to concentrate on entertainment in Philip Linden’s walled garden of cyber delights.“