The Metaverse Blogger

| Second Life Community Users |

The Connections Between Metaverse and Reality

Some of the Metaverse Blogger readership is probably familiar with my background in the studies and investigations of Architecture, Urban Planning, and I venture to say Place-making, all of which are topics that have dramatically been influenced by my having grown up in the Metaverse (specifically in Activeworlds). In many ways the parallels between the development of real world communities is particularly telling for virtual “Metaverse” communities, such as Activeworlds, Second Life, and countless others. While that may sound like a leap, both situations of “community” involve interactions and dynamics between real-life individuals who seek the same kinds of entertainment and activities real world community members seek in their day to day lives. This may in fact, have something to do with the reality that virtual communities are populated by real world people, who are also part of their own real world communities (in many cases by default, ie. I live in a city therefore I am part of my cities ‘community’ however loosely). Maybe.

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| Blue Mars Golfer |

Every so often a piece of virtual environment software pops onto the market that the entire industry hears about. Buzz words trickle down, people get pumped, and suddenly everyone is slamming the Blue Mars Online beta request list. But more often than not, there are other environments that slip by, unnoticed, even when they’re producing cool and worthwhile content. Do you know of any such environments? Are there any Metaverse realities that we haven’t covered here, that you’d like to regularly hear about? If so, let us know, and we’ll do our best in keeping track of these not so in the spotlight communities. Because after all, everyone deserves a little coverage here and there… No?

One of the biggest gripes coming from the Metaversians who use Macs is that a fair portion of our environments aren’t compatible with the Mac OS. On September 22, 2009, a bit of that changed as another “larger” player in the 3D virtual environment universe stepped up and released a Mac compatible version of their software. While it’s still in beta testing phases, and is only a “Lite” version, Vivaty has given the  Mac world something to be pleased about.

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Recently I decided to try my hand at a new aspect of the Metaverse Blogger: Podcasting! I played around a bit last night and created Episode #1 of the Metaverse Blogger Podcast. Let me know what you think. If it’s a hit, great. If not, I’ll see what I can do to improve it.

Episode #1

The aim of each podcast is to do a wrap up of the most recent events that have been covered here. Additionally, I’ll try to look a little more in depth at one of those topics, most likely a topic relating to my home-verse.  Feed back is as always, appreciated.

The End Of a Legacy

|Users gather for an in world presentation|

On September 25, 2009 highly acclaimed virtual presence in Second Life, Orange Island, announced that it would be holding its last event on September 29, 2009, as a final parting farewell to the Second Life platform. It is still unclear whether or not Orange Island will be moving onto a different platform, or if they’ll be ceasing to pursue their virtual presence altogether. The Orange Island project began two years ago, in 2007, when the UK’s fastest growing mobile technology company, Orange, entered Second Life to pursue an interest in virtual environment technology and its possibilities.

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