Major Australian Internet Service Provider Telstra/Bigpond has expanded their already large Second Life presence, The Pond. Formerly weighing in at 11 sims, The Pond has expanded to 13, adding Pondagon and Pondi Beach.
Pondagon is designated for residential rentals (since The Pond opened up a rentals program a few months ago, it has proven to be very successful). Approximately half the lots in Pondagon were leased in the first 12 hours. Currently rentals in Pondagon are only open to members of the Friends of The Pond group, but that will open up shortly.
The Pond's three orientation sims have been converted to also support some rental-commercial plots, although at a slightly higher cost than residential.
Pondi Beach doesn't officially open until the beginning of December, so we'll be hearing more about that soon, along with additional plans for expansion.
1. It worried me when Telstra started this project that the people duped into it never left.
I went in for a few weeks to look and help and try and get people out into the greater grid and the overwhelming opinion I formed was that these people didn't want to pay for the bandwidth to leave what was given for free.
Could you imagine living your entire Second Life in an estate with only 13 sims and where radio wasn't allowed to be played for copyright reasons.
(I still shiver each time I hear Johnny Farnham's pressure on thinking of the "nightclub" jukebox with 4 songs on it on a video stream)
Posted at 11:42PM on Oct 18th 2007 by Jayden B