With the new higher-priced, lower-specification Second Life void simulator packages coming up in the first week of January, we've been expecting a sudden decline in simulator numbers as customers shed their virtual land holdings. From the first of December to midnight on 22 December, we saw a net reduction of only 1,535 which was far from the sorts of numbers we were expecting so late in the month.

I can add details: For a year and a half, I reported under the byline "Eric Reuters" in Second Life, before settling in at my new home here at SAI.

So what happened? Is Second Life dying? No, but the buzz is gone. For all the sound and fury over recent price hikes and layoffs at Linden Lab, Second Life has a community of fanatically loyal users. Since Linden Lab derives its revenue from user fees, not advertisements, Second Life is much more likely to survive the Web 2.0 shakeout than most other startups.

I contacted freshly minted Linden CEO Mark Kingdon for his comments about the protest. In a statement provided by his publicist, Kingdon told me, “We understand that this price adjustment will affect businesses and other projects of some our Second Life Residents,” and emphasized the cost increases were only directed at select landowners, who have until January 2009 to adjust themselves to the new rates. “To be clear,” Kingdon continued, “this price adjustment affects only a portion of land in Second Life; it does not apply to private islands or regular mainland property. We made this change to ensure an optimal Second Life experience for all Residents.”

One wag in our office says “Second Life is the Gopher of virtual worlds; it looks so good because there is so little else to look at.” That will not remain true; there is no doubt a WWW for virtual worlds out there. On other Second Life fronts, I went to visit the ibiblio homestead on SL today. It was gone. We must have had a subsubsubsubprime morgage the invisible second hand of SL economics moved swiftly and our building was no more.

Employees choose which projects they want to work on, and bonuses are assigned by a system called the “Love Machine,” which lets employees praise their co-workers for completed tasks.

Money Island: 136,000. Sexy Beach: 133,000. The Sears store on IBM's Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke's Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27.

The First prize of £1,000 was awarded to John Blyberg [38] of Ann Arbor District Library [39] in Ann Arbor, MI. His entry, Go-Go-Google-Gadget [28], showed how simply library information can be integrated into the personalised home page offered by Google

tremendous graph showing growth of facebook, tailing off of myspace, and low level flatline of second life.

Maybe, but I can only manage what I can measure. And in terms of things that I value, such as links, smart comments, traffic to my blog, etc, the SL appearance might as well have never happened. It didn't leave a ripple in the world I live in (AKA Real Li

Second Life, Boulder CO, NOAA. A blog.

Cisco officially launched in SecondLife today, and I was lucky enough to get there in time for the event at Cisco Systems (132,132,34) within SecondLife. I'll cover what was said, then talk about my take on things.

My role with the SL Herald as a journalist is within the “magic circle”—or rather at the edges of it. We sometimes step outside and then go back inside because it’s more interesting to see what’s happening at the edges.

Proving that Second Life is indeed a reincarnation of the Wild West, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) was literally blown off the face of Second Life Tuesday by “miscreants” according to The Sydney Morning Herald

pr relating to an event that hr block did just before tax season ended with a disco in second life. would love to know the cost per acquisition in this campaign.

survey of use of sl in education

Below is the full text of the letter being sent to Linden Lab out of concern for ongoing stability problems that are worsening as Second Life is experiencing massive growth.

As a media developer, I see Secondlife as the new Medium of the future for Marketing and Branding. I can effectively promote Plentyoffish.com with my Metaverse Presence Marketing Skills

second life comes to twitter; and vice versa. "flying through info island looking for a cup of coffee".

Cahill saw a bleak future, but he felt powerless to stop them. So he detonated an atomic bomb outside an American Apparel outlet. Then another outside a Reebok store.

As political officer for the Second Life Liberation Army, Cahill is passionately co

Adam Pasick, 31, is the Reuters bureau chief in the virtual world of Second Life. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he is a technology and media writer. His coverage of Second Life for Reuters has been mentioned by hundreds of "real-world" media outlets, and a

"how do you hit people?"

@cshirky: backlash from the educational world about second life and its costs as compared to open croquet (and remembering that VRML was something once upon a time)

SL as a web conferencing tool, not the way you look at the whole internet; too slow.

siklos penned an anti-LinkedIn, anti-Second Life piece for the NY Times; this 10 yr old story hints at why he wouldn't want to upload all his contacts to some social network site

boring Sears showroom in SL

several large, elaborately produced commerical parts of second life are entirely devoid of life. so much for that expensive marketing budget.

clay shirky neatly dissects second life.

mixed reactions to the library in second life.

real estate prices are going up in second life.

adam reuters = adam pasick, from ann arbor

reuters reporter in second life grew up in ann arbor

on managing the money supply in second life. viz. castronova

2yo Wired article on teaching SL in class

political activist puts up hundreds of billboards in Second Life. Anti-social "griefing"? Or is this just one more way of turning SL into just the 3-D intraweb and not someplace special and magical

linden labs changes in-game physics, and a game that depends on some fiddly details of how objects move stops working

virtual worlds sites