Text 100 does PR for companies wishing to take advantage of technology to drive their business. Recently, they've expanded their in-world headquarters to offer an Exhibition Space. To commemorate this event, Text 100 is opening the space up to game designers interested in showcasing their work. Additionally, they'll be offering their own game, Get Set: The Name Game. Look for details on this game in an upcoming post.

What I've seen of the build looks incredible so far, but one must travel there to get the full effect. Text 100 promises a rotating gallery of SL talent, so check back regularly!

SignpostMarv's SL Blog is hosting the transcript of last weeks Kuurian Expedition meeting. The meeting was hosted by Smiddy Smails and Gregor Kondo of Text100, and was held on the Text100 Island. The title of the presentation was "Who are the new publics of Second Life?" and it discussed new social groups that are forming as a result of having Second Life available as the interaction medium. While the transcript loses something compared to seeing it live, it is well worth reading if you couldn't be there.

As always with the Kuurian Expedition lecture series, the presentation was well done and interesting. The Kuurian Expedition is run by the University of Indiana's Synthetic Worlds Initiative, which is the brain child of famed virtual world economist Edward Castronova.

Sorry for the late notice, but if you are available at 1 PM SLT or 4 PM EST you will be able to catch the next Kuurian Expedition meeting in Second Life. The presentation in titled, "Who are the new publics of Second Life?" will be given by Text100's Aaron Uhrmacher and Georg Kolb. The presentation will look at the new populace being created by virtual worlds such as Second Life as citizens are able to communicate both online and offline as their physical selves or as virtual. It will also cover the various groupings that are formed due to virtual worlds and how they relate to each other and the implications of them.

Kuurian Expedition is a project out of the University of Indiana Synthetic Worlds Initiative. The meetings are always interesting and provide a glimpse of what is possible in distance learning in virtual worlds. If you have time swing by the Text100 Island at 1 PM SLT today.

I wrote some time ago that Text 100, the PR company which has moved into SL, had better get to know the community they have joined if they want to make a success of their business here. Boy are they off to a bad start with me.

They sent me a spam email to my private email address yesterday. Now, obviously, on your behalf I receive a lot of email. I am sent notification when someone makes a comment on a post, I receive tips from SL residents about stories I might like to cover. Those things are labelled with SL insider and I can recognise them instantly. What I don't expect to get is company promotional emails or SL Insider tips sent as spam to my own email.

Billing itself as the first PR company to have a presence in Second Life, Text 100 are to open an office on August 21.

Darren Barefoot has blogged about it, and posted a question on the forums about whether this is likely to be a positive or negative thing, and at present opinion seems to be divided about that. Without the obligatory pie option for an SL poll, I am not sure that the results can be accepted, however.

Darren has already identified himself as a reluctant resident, having tried SL once and rejected it, and so it is interesting to note that the media interest he identifies as hype has actually been loud enough to entice him back in. Perhaps that's why he needed to ask a forum question in order to find out what the residents think ....

The challenge for people from PR and advertising coming into SL is to understand the nature of the platform and to understand the community. It's confusing enough for an individual who arrives in SL for the first time, let alone for a corporation or company who need to get into the heads of the people who are residents on the grid. As I have said several times, it is a mistake to be in Second Life and yet not *of* Second Life. Residents can spot an alien at fifty paces.