iconolith

Raving in Kaneva

OMG, the residents of Kaneva are raving lunatics - literally. I signed up for an account and revisited my profile to find 21 strangers had raved me. I think I missed something in that world and need to go back and explore further than the mall.

Virtual Performance Art

JustVirtual has posted  a fantastic recap of the ZeroG Sky Dancer’s performance, produced and directed by DanCoyote Antonelli the other night. By all accounts this even was a huge success - even in the face of a buggy grid upgrade just hours before. Great images!

Phillips Entering Second Life

Phillips Design is planing to develop a space in Second Life, in cooperation with the design studio Rivers Run Red, to present concept products to residents and gather feedback about them. They see this endeavor as an opportunity to interact and collaborate with consumers - an interesting proposition to say the least. To that end, I am curious how they may develop their future products to enable more seamless integration of virtual worlds, the traditional internet, and consumers’ digital identities into everyday appliances and objects.

The Value of Virtual Money

The folks at Terra Nova have figured the value of the inworld currency for a number of virtual worlds - and Monopoly and put it all in a nice little table. I feel I have to mention Monopoly separately as I have a hard time considering it a virtual world - by my definition only. I guess an argument could be made for it though.

Make Your Next Vacation Virtual

Synthravels wants to be your virtual travel agency the next time you plan a vacation. The company, based out of Milan,

“is the first organization to offer a complete guide service to all the people who want to make a tour in virtual worlds without knowing these new realities, even if they have never put their feet in these strange, synthetic grounds. The tours and the destinations are chosen by the staff of Synthravels, composed by programmers, architects, experienced video gamers.”

If you’re not sold yet, that is fine. This sounds fun, but maybe not inspiring…or relaxing. I mean, that is the main objective when you are planning a vacation, right? For those who have a more difficult time suspending your belief, I recommend you never try this. Virtual worlds, at this stage in their development, still require participants to have highly developed imagination, and let’s face it, there are some of you out there who are simply not very imaginative.

For all others inclined to adventure, exploration and discovery, this promises to be right up your alley, with an impressive list of destinations. From Albatross18 to World of Warcraft and 24 worlds in between they offer a view of these amazing environments that usually only the most devoted players would ever get to see.