When I saw the title of this article, I thought "Oh, New Delhi has a sim to itself, just like Amsterdam and the like." But no, instead, it's a sort-of-fluff piece about how the majority of India's SL users are from New Delhi.
At the risk of sounding boorish: So what? Is that really a fact strong enough to carry an entire article? The rest of the thing is mostly outsider information about SL and LL, with a bit more about India thrown in. Honestly, the whole thing has me scratching my head -- and I've been recently flea dipped, so I know it's not parasites. I mean, Go India and everything, this is no slur on New Delhi by a longshot, just ... huh?
A while back, I heard about a convention that would be similar to SLCC, but would take place in Amsterdam. To my knowledge, nothing ever came of this, but now there is one in Berlin, Germany. Are they one and the same? No matter, because there are bigger issues to take up with this endeavor.
I have actually just learned that there are *two* conferences in Germany in September. Why did these two organizations not get together to plan one big conf? This seems to be a situation where greed and glory are the motivating factors.
It just doesn't seem like that attractive of a conference...
Virtual worlds division of Dutch media company Boom BV, 3Dutch.com, have announced that they have purchased Amsterdam from Stroker Serpentine.
Stefan Waydelich, an avatar of a Boom BV representative said "We acquired Amsterdam to gain experience with the virtual 3D environment on the internet which is a completely new addition to our existing internet activities. With the acquisition of Amsterdam, we can expand and built[sic] further one of the most exciting and entertaining platforms already out there on Second Life."
The sale of sim Amsterdam by Stroker Serpentine to would-be new owners the Nedstede Groep, has fallen through due to differences over intellectual property rights and obligations in the contractual stage. The new buyers apparently did not fully understand the intellectual property rights situation with the established tenants.
Serpentine told us, "Basically the buyer's attorneys thought they could get full exploit rights to all the content on the sim ... animations, textures and scripts ... we said no ... every Merchant/Builder/Scriptor will retain their own rights." The buyers wanted yet more surety from tenant-renters in the Amsterdam sim which impressed nobody, "They also wanted contractual agreements from the Merchants that they would remain after the sale."
Serpentine feels that this is Nedstede Groep's loss, and will be offering Amsterdam for sale again quite soon. Stay tuned.
If you catch this post's title's reference, then you and I are already great friends. Regardless, something unprecedented happened on the 4th: London's Knightsbridge neighborhood, Amsterdam, Ibiza, Tokyo, and other regions were swamped by floodwaters, staged by Adventure Ecology, an organization committed to managing the emerging world ecological challenges.
Avatars handled the situation well, according to all reports, adjusting to the situation and speaking with Adventure Ecology members about the RL dangers of global warming. Of course, while this might have been a fun idea to generate conversation, it pales in comparison to any RL flood, where one cannot simply fly up out of the water's reach, cannot simply move belongings around by clicking and dragging them, cannot easily repair the sometimes devastating damage that flooding can effect. If those residents who experienced this event emerge wiser and more able to handle a RL flood, then it will all have been worth it.
On a side note: Welcome to Second Life, new owner of Amsterdam!
And I don't mean with a talking penis, either. Wired Magazine's sex columnist Regina Lynn had the opportunity to speak with Stroker and ask him something that we talk about in the podcast: who bought Amsterdam?
Stroker also talks a bit about his other work: Eros, and Strokerz Toys. I'm really interested in what's going to happen with Amsterdam now that it's been sold, and I hope to talk with Stroker myself and delve a little bit more into what went into his offering it for sale.
[UPDATE: having issues; working on it!] In the category "It's About Time", Second Life Insider is proud to bring you our first podcast: On the Inside, Episode 1!
This will be a recurring feature, every couple of weeks at first, featuring an interview with a prominent resident or associated media figure, and discussion of recent news stories. For our inaugural 'cast, we spoke with Nethermind Bliss, one of the coordinators of the upcoming SLCC 2007. I'm joined by Aimee Weber and moo money, and a blast was had by all!
Please feel free to drop your comments and questions; if we like them, they could get a mention on our next episode! Enjoy!
Get the podcast: [RSS] Add the SLI Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically [MP3] Download the MP3 directly
26,899 new signups bringing us to 4,896,019 signups total. The five millionth signup is expected in 2 days, 19 hours at the current rate of signups.
A peak concurrency of 36,214 at 3:13PM, and a minimum concurrency of 17,486 at 1:16AM. Average concurrency for the day was 25,937.
A rack of 160 simulators was taken offline for an unexplained network upgrade, from 4pm to 6:30pm. We don't know if the matter was cabling, network cards, router, switches or other. Residents report generally improved performance in those sims subsequently.
The sim of Amsterdam has come up for sale on the auction block at eBay. Starting bid, 20,000 US Dollars, or for 50,000 USD you can own it outright, this second. I wouldn't wait though. Sim Amsterdam is the very definition of hot property, in more than one sense.
The whole move comes as a bit of a surprise, so the first thing we did was grab the legendary Stroker Serpentine for a quick chat, and to make sure that it was a legitimate sale, rather than a fake or a prank. Serpentine confirmed that it was indeed on the level.
Created by Stroker Serpentine, and his able partner Fyre Raine, sim Amsterdam started out as a single sim, that has since grown into a network of 11 sims, with no apparent end in sight. One of the first things that really stands out about Amsterdam is the attention-to-detail. It feels very much like a real place, with signage, advertising, imperfections and litter.
Benja Soon said it made him miss the real Amsterdam, and lauded the accuracy of the design, "If the map went two more blocks to my right, I could visit my old apartment."
Within a week of it opening the stores were already beginning to fill up with hopeful sellers, and the streets and skies started to fill up with visiting avatars. Throughout 2006 the inhabitants, visitors and vendors of Amsterdam have refit and reinvented themselves again, and again. Amsterdam is always busy. In fact it is one of the busiest places in Second Life. Not just because of the realistic feel, but because of the undeniably mature atmosphere. (Mature content below the fold)
Picnic is an annual tech event hosted in Amsterdam, with a focus on cross media content and technology. This year's guest speaker list includes such luminaries as Craig Newmark, of craiglist.org; Dr. Michael B. Johnson, Moving Picture Group Lead of Pixar Studios; and our very own Philip Rosedale.
Alice over at Wonderland has compiled an impressive document of her notes on Philip's speech. It's not verbatim, she avers, but it's pretty darn close. Take a look and see which bits match up to your experience.
When I saw the title of this article, I thought "Oh, New Delhi has a sim to itself, just like Amsterdam and the like." But no, instead, it's a sort-of-fluff piece about how the majority of India's SL users are from New Delhi. 
A while back, I heard about a convention that would be similar to SLCC, but would take place in Amsterdam. To my knowledge, nothing ever came of this, but now there is one in Berlin, Germany. Are they one and the same? No matter, because there are bigger issues to take up with this endeavor.
Today in Second Life we had:
