Second Life - Success Secrets

Hermione's Evolving....

Hermione Watanabe, Virtual Wealth Coach, is getting the hang of the whole avatar shape, skin, hair thing now....see how she's changed from newbie to supermodel....

Now how much fun is that? 

                                                                             

Amsterdam Sells For US$50k In Second Life

Over at his "Reporting On IT" blog Michael Parekh reports.....

ON VALUING A SECOND LIFE BUSINESS

WHAT AM I BID?

As I've noted in a couple of recent posts (see here and here), Second Life, the open-ended, virtual online living service, has received much attention from the mainstream media.  With a registered user base of over 4 million, and concurrent users as high as 40,000, it's one of the largest such services to date.

One of the unique aspects of the service is that most of what exists in Second Life has been created by the users.  This includes most of the neighborhoods, activities, and businesses on the service.

So it's notable, when one of those private businesses is sold on eBay for $50,000.

The Second Life Bureau of Reuters reports on the sale of a relatively large private commercial development on the service:

"The Amsterdam sims, a popular Second Life destination with canals, houseboats, and a sexually explicit red light district, sold on eBay for US$50,000 on Monday, one of the largest sales of a Second Life business by a private developer. 

The detailed re-creation of the European city was put up for auction starting at US$20,000, but the property with acquired outright with a single bid at the higher price by eBay user nedstede2769...

Amsterdam was created by Stroker Serpentine (real life name: Kevin Alderman of Tampa, FL) from high-resolution photographs of the city. The adult content-filled area was among the most popular Second Life sites.

According to the eBay listing, rental space for merchants in Amsterdam has a wait-list several months long."

Creating, nurturing, sustaining and growing a business of any size in Second Life is a fairly challenging and daunting task.  And it's very much early days for these types of online activities.  So a transaction of this type is a milestone of sorts, a harbinger of more interesting things to come.

READ MORE BY MICHAEL PAREKH >>>>

WHAT AM I BID?

As I've noted in a couple of recent posts (see here and here), Second Life, the open-ended, virtual online living service, has received much attention from the mainstream media.  With a registered user base of over 4 million, and concurrent users as high as 40,000, it's one of the largest such services to date.

One of the unique aspects of the service is that most of what exists in Second Life has been created by the users.  This includes most of the neighborhoods, activities, and businesses on the service.

So it's notable, when one of those private businesses is sold on eBay for $50,000.

The Second Life Bureau of Reuters reports on the sale of a relatively large private commercial development on the service:

"The Amsterdam sims, a popular Second Life destination with canals, houseboats, and a sexually explicit red light district, sold on eBay for US$50,000 on Monday, one of the largest sales of a Second Life business by a private developer. 

The detailed re-creation of the European city was put up for auction starting at US$20,000, but the property with acquired outright with a single bid at the higher price by eBay user nedstede2769...

Amsterdam was created by Stroker Serpentine (real life name: Kevin Alderman of Tampa, FL) from high-resolution photographs of the city. The adult content-filled area was among the most popular Second Life sites.

According to the eBay listing, rental space for merchants in Amsterdam has a wait-list several months long."

Creating, nurturing, sustaining and growing a business of any size in Second Life is a fairly challenging and daunting task.  And it's very much early days for these types of online activities.  So a transaction of this type is a milestone of sorts, a harbinger of more interesting things to come.

READ MORE BY MICHAEL PAREKH >>>>

You Don't Need To See This In Slow Motion, Believe Me!

I laughed out loud at this brilliant posting by Warren Ellis on his "Second Life Sketches" section on the Reuters website.....

"Please Stop Doing That To The Cat" By Warren Ellis

It’s not often you come home to find people having sex in your house.

I bought some land last weekend to practise building on, because building is one of the central behaviors of Second Life and I should write about it at some point. So, during the course of the week, I’d spent a couple of hours constructing a simple underground bunker, associating sounds with flooring, erecting a blockhouse for a Stargate teleport mechanism and other basic things in order to get a feel for construction.

I went in-world on Sunday evening to pick up messages and to look for some music to stream while I worked. Materialising on my new land, I immediately noticed two pings on the “minimap” radar screen that’s placed in the top left of the Second Life viewer. There were two people on my land.

The house had been filled with dungeon toys. A couple of dozen of them. Sitting on a chair was a dominatrix with long dark hair, idly waving a riding crop.

This wasn’t particularly surprising, as I’d put the land up for sale — buying it had wiped out my Linden Dollar account, and I’m not especially attached to it. But they weren’t moving, which was odd. Flying around, I realised the radar paints were in the blockhouse. The exit from the blockhouse isn’t immediately obvious, so I decided to jump in, say hello, and lead them out if necessary.

The first thing I saw in the blockhouse was the avatar of a naked man strapped face-down over a piece of sexual apparatus that presented his backside. I then realised that the blockhouse had been filled with dungeon toys. A couple of dozen of them. And, sitting on a chair I didn’t recognise, was a dominatrix with long dark hair, idly waving a riding crop.

“Please be quiet,” she said. “We are busy.”

“Um, I don’t think so,” I typed.

“Go away,” typed the slave.

“I not tell you to talk,” the dominatrix tapped out.

Feeling more than a little stupid, I explained that they and all their objects had invited themselves on to my land.

“We will be done soon. Please be quiet,” typed the domme, whose name was Mastress and who hailed from somewhere in Germany.

I resisted the urge to pull a weapon and blow them off my land like an enraged farmer. Instead, I used the.....

Read more of this funny yet thoughtful post here >>>>

The BBC Wants Second Life Couples For Documentary

Over at one of the great fun Second Life Magazines PixelPulse Magazine (be warned - it's "adult" orientated) they report that the BBC is making a film about couples who met in Second Life....

"If your interaction in Second Life is taking on a substantial physical world component, specifically with regard to a relationship, perhaps you’d be interested in contacting Pearl Doherty of the BBC’s documentaries department. Doherty recently contacted me to ask if I might know of anyone who would be interested. The BBC’s Guy King also has been in contact:

The BBC is looking for people whose SL is having a dramatic impact on their real lives — particularly SL couples ready to meet up for the first time in RL. We are looking for people who will be happy to appear on camera in real life — we can film in any country, you need not necessarily be UK-based.

If it sounds like something you might want to do, you can IM Treacle Moo in-world (King at the BBC.) Or you also can send Doherty an e-mail at pearl [dot] doherty [at] bbc [dot] co [dot] uk, or give her a buzz at +44-208-752-6763. Doherty said the piece will be aired later on in 2007:

What we are making is a 40 minute television documentary for BBC2, one of the UK’s main terrestrial channels, and it will be screened towards the end of this year.

Read more over at PixelPulse >>>>

Yes, I'm Afraid So......!

So having set myself up a character, in Second Life called Hermione Watanabe (if you are interested....) my daughter Phoebe came home and wanted a go.  We didn't realise at that point that there is a Teen Second Life - which is where she's going to be hanging out from now on I can tell you!

So I let her set up a character and she spent hours fixing up her outfit (the tedious bit for me I have to say) before going for a wander.  Thank goodness I was sitting beside her because she immediately found the King King Mall which turned out to have a nudist beach attached.  Which in turn had some jacuzzi rooms where it was all going off big time on the sex front. 

I was shocked!  We swiftly turned off the sound (a bit graphic) and I escorted her back to the mall which was much more tame.

How and where on earth they purchased their custom made genitalia, I had no idea, but when I went back much later after P's bedtime, to check it out later - IN THE NAME OF RESEARCH FOR YOU LOT OBVIOUSLY - a rather attractive female came up and offered me breasts for free.  She must have felt sorry for me....

I kept my rather fetching t-shirt, shorts and long socks combo firmly on and flew off hastily - in the UK it was nearly midnight but in the USA it was early evening on a Sunday and that's obviously a VERY BUSY TIME for the swingers.

I did some research on Google this morning to find even Time Magazine is talking about having sex on Second Life.  Here's an extract from Joel Stein's recent venture into the sleazy world of Second Life  sex....