The Metaverse Blogger

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.

|Orange Island Concert|

|Orange Island environment|

“Orange Island was an experimental project aimed at getting a better understanding of virtual worlds. We wanted to learn about users and their cultures, content creation and collaboration, and the challenges of immersive, real-time social environments. Two years later, it’s safe to say that together we really did more. You and us played, explored, talked and created, we shared our passions and made many meaningful encounters. Because, as you know so well, there is no such thing as virtual memories – only real experiences.”

Orange Island has been highly praised throughout Second Life for creating and stimulating a community of “movers and shakers” who sought to push the platform to its limits. It has been the practice of Orange Island to hold virtual seminars, concerts, meetings, and a handful of other user oriented events.

The departure from Second Life and the conclusion of a legacy seems to weigh heavily on Orange Island staff, even if the specifics behind the seemingly abrupt ending are still unclear: “We hope you too are proud of what we achieved together. Thank you for creating Orange Island with us.”

While we in the ActiveWorlds community are somewhat unfamiliar with the feelings behind the departure of commercial parties from the platform (as there aren’t any to speak of in the primary platform run by Active Worlds Inc., in general), I can imagine it’s similar to the parting of a highly valued user run organization. One thing is clear, we’re sorry to hear that Orange Island will not be a lasting presence in Second Life, and empathize with our Metaverse kin. Here’s to Orange Island.

|Orange Island Rock Concert|

The Farewell Event

“We’ll be holding our closing event on Tuesday 29th September, to share our (and your) findings about virtual worlds… and beyond. We invite you to join us at 11 am SLT on Orange Island’s Lower Plaza Auditorium for a casual, open meeting with the team behind Orange Island and some insightful guests. We hope to see you there!”

For the full Orange Island blog post, click here: The Orange Island Project Has Come To An End