Thought I’d post a note on a couple of Second Life articles I stumbled on from a British site. Normally I would just post them in Delicious, but I thought them important enough to post here.

Despite the title “The Phony economics of Second Life” is a thoughtful piece on the economy of Second Life. It echoes some of my own misgivings about making money in SL.

“The latest figures show that there are less than 50,000 of these premium accounts. So, only a fifth of Second Life’s returning users have a premium account that lets them fully participate in its economy. With around 15,000 concurrent logins, it is possible to speculate that there may be as few as 3,000 paying customers online at any one time (although this figure would rise if they logged on more frequently and for longer than those with free accounts).

Linden Lab itself estimates the number of “in world business owners” by counting those with a positive monthly cashflow. There were over 21,000 of these last month. For more than 11,000 of them, however, their positive cashflow came to less than US$10. And this is before Linden Lab’s charges were applied to their account.

So, from the three million residents who, we are told, are living the dream of a virtual economy, we arrive at a figure of around 3,000 economically active users at any one time – most of whom are turning over only a token sum.

This is a far cry from the predictions of the business journalists.”

I’m not sure where they are getting those figures. I guess I’m one of the lucky 3000 players who is actually making money in SL. I’m not making enough to quit my job or anything, but I make enough to pay for the annual SL premium account and hosting for this website, and have lindens to blow on Tringo.

I think that the authors other interesting point is that attendance in SL is not good enough to warrent the recent advertising boom in Second Life. With a limit of 100 people (and even that results in horrible lag) the recent trend towards “launch parties” and “virtual concerts” are weak. I have to agree, if you want to use SL as an advertisement platform, “events” are not the way to go.

A better way to go is to use SL as a “3D website”, and then advertise it on your own site. I like exploring some of the weird islands. I recently found 30 identical islands sponsored by Showtime, where you can see episodes of The L Word. Its designed for people who have never been to Second Life before. (Note: Showtime and MTV are owned by the same company, the latter is using There for show promotion)

Should forms of “fantasy virtual sex” be deemed illegal?

The second interesting article at the register is interesting for completely different reasons:

Dutch demand ban of virtual child porn in Second Life
By Jan Libbenga
Published Wednesday 21st February 2007 16:45 GMT

The Dutch prosecutor’s office is considering legal actions to test the law against child porn in the popular virtual game Second Life. With no clear litigation, it is difficult to act against perpetrators.

Kitty Nooij, who is in charge of the sex offences portfolio at the prosecutor’s office in the Netherlands, told Dutch news show Netwerk that she will try to bring cases to court so precedents can be set.

Linden Lab’s Second Life is an online digital world with almost three million “residents” claimed by the company. Some areas of Second Life allow adult members to have virtual sex with others who pretend to be children.

Experts, such as psychologist Jos Buschman of the Van Mesdag clinic in Groningen, say Second Life is “by definition a school for paedophiles”, despite the fact that adult members like to roleplay as children. Second Life requires all players to be adults.

Virtual child pornography has been a criminal offence in the Netherlands since 2002. However, there is no litigation related to virtual sex with virtual children. Today, at least four political parties in the Netherlands demanded a ban on virtual child porn roleplay.

Discussions about virtual child porn in Second Life already started three years ago with the introduction of an avatar called Sasami Wishbringer, who has the body of an eight year-old. Lately, there are more serious reports about adult players with child avatars soliciting (paid) sex.

Last year, Robin Harper, Linden Lab vice president of community development, wrote in a posting on the official Second Life forum, that “if Second Life has evidence of child pornography or abuse that involves children in the real world, it will act to protect the child and notify the authorities”. However, virtual roleplay is allowed.

Second Life maintains a seperate server for teens 13-17 and no one under 13 is allowed. So on the main grid, everyone is adult (or at least claims to be) so if there is simulated pedophilia going on it is between consenting adults pretending. As gross as this is, it should not be illegal.

Yes it is possible to make your avatar look like a child, its possible to look like anything. Yet this activity is very rare, so rare that I have yet to see it, and I like hanging in the seedier areas of the grid too. Most “sex clubs” would frown on such activity anyways, so it would be limited to private residences.

Virtual Society censorship, philosophy, secondlife, virtual economy, virtual sex

There seems to be a growing evil trend in Second Life. More and more “popular” places are disabling scripts as a way to cut down “lag”. I understand their reasons for it. Supposedly reducing lag makes the experience better, but they cant be more wrong.

SL was built on customizability and creativity, and disabling scrips on your land all but kills that customization and creativity. If you own a club, and disable scripts, no can bring outside animations or chimeras for customize dancing, no one can use animation overrides to look cool, they are stuck using the ugly default ones. No one can launch particle effects to liven up the atmosphere. Basically you are stuck using what the club gives you. That defeats the whole purpose of SL.

Turning off outside scripts on your land is a major turn off to the coolness factor.

As a scripter/animator, I find this intolerable. If I cant play and show off, I do not feel I have a reason to go.

A Survey of outside script policy at the “Most Popular Places”I use quotes, because popularity in SL is meaningless, most popular places get there by using camping chairs, which brings an audience, but offers no meaningful content.

A Virtual Festival – No Scripts
Amsterdam – No Scripts
Bad Girls – No Scripts
BHE Welcome Center – No Scripts
City of Fortune – Scripts camping chairs
Club Arsheba – No Scripts
Club Extreme – No Scripts
Club Sin – No Scripts
Dragon Fly Oasis – Scripts Camping Chairs
Elements – No Scripts
Hedonism – No Scripts
Ice Dragon Playpen – Scripts
ILHA Brasil – Scripts but my Portuguese is rusty
Neva Naughty – No Scripts
Nude Beach – No Scripts
Ocean Casino – Scripts Camping Chairs
Odds&Ends – Scripts camping chairs
Parrot Head Cove – Scripts camping chairs
Sexy Land – No Scripts
South Beach Miami – Scripts Camping Chairs

So basically, among the most popular places in SL the only one worth visiting is Ice Dragon Playpen, especially if you are a Tringo addict like me.

Virtual Society secondlife, Virtual Society

Here are some interesting stories about two of Americas biggest newspapers refocusing their business from print to online

NY Times publisher: Our goal is to manage the transition from print to internet

Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” he says.

Sulzberger is focusing on how to best manage the transition from print to Internet.

“The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we’re leading there,” he points out.

The Times, in fact, has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to go along with its 1.1 million subscribers for the print edition.

Sulzberger says the New York Times is on a journey that will conclude the day the company decides to stop printing the paper. That will mark the end of the transition. It’s a long journey, and there will be bumps on the road, says the man at the driving wheel, but he doesn’t see a black void ahead.

Los Angeles Times adopts new Internet strategy amid competition

The Los Angeles Times, one of the major daily newspapers in the United States, announced on Wednesday a new strategy to put more up-to-the-minute stories online in an effort to make the newspaper’s website a primary vehicle for delivering news.

The announcement follows an industry trend in which newspapers are shifting resources and energy to the Internet, where revenues are growing, and away from print editions, where ad dollars are shrinking.

The new initiative is designed to expand the audience and revenue generated by the newspaper’s website, latimes.com, according to editor James E. O’Shea, who said the newspaper is in “a fight to recoup threatened revenue that finances our news gathering.”

Under the strategy, the website will lead with breaking news to provide readers immediate access to multimedia content as stories develop, while the newspaper’s print edition will focus more on editorial analysis, broader investigative reporting and exploration of trends.

So is this the future? Newspapers the thing of the past? Instead of people reading big papers, people are reading the screen on their portable web device?

I’m thinking yes.

Metaverse News future, Media

There is a cool new internet radio creation site called FineTune that allows you to create playlists and share them with your friends. It basically allows you to program your own internet radio station. Rules are simple, must have at least 45 songs, and no more than 3 from any specific artist.

Yes there are other sites that do the same thing like Pandora, or Launchcast, or Music Match, but this one is actually free. Check it out before it catches on too big.

Metaverse News internet radio, Media