September 2009 – Page 3 – AvatarPlanet Blog

Books for Soldiers

Do you have any books, DVDs, and CDs that you no longer need? Books for Soldiers is a non-profit group based in North Carolina that coordinates sending them to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Books For Soldiers’ Second Life site, BFS Airfield, is a classic World War II hangar and airfield. You can learn to fly a Second Life vintage plane on the airfield or you can go into the hangar, where you can waltz, tango, or slow dance on the dance floor, and sit at a bar facing a map of the world’s air routes in the 1930s.

Most importantly, however, if you wander outside to the other end of the airfield, you’ll find an anachronistically modern pavilion where you can learn how you can donate books to the troops. Second Life members can visit the BFS Airfield at slurl.com/secondlife/Nimbus/221/109/24. You can also join the Second Life Books For Soldiers group.

To learn more about how you can donate books, DVDs, and CDs to soldiers or make a tax deductible donation to Books For Soldiers, visit booksforsoldiers.com. You’ll find detailed instructions on how to mail these items to soldiers, forums, and a another website run by Books For Soldiers, collegeforsoldiers.com. You can also follow them on Facebook and MySpace.

Gamer

I don’t usually write about films, but the just-released film Gamer, in which much of the action takes place in online games, will be of interest to many Second Life residents.

Gamer was released last week. Directed and written by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, it is a fast-paced action film with the tag line, "In the near future, you don’t live to play… you’ll play to live."

Set in a future in which humans control other humans in online games, the latest of which is "Slayers", which updates the ancient Roman gladiator arena to an online world in which ordinary people can play out their most vicious fantasies using real life prisoners as avatars. As with the Roman gladiators, prisoners being forced to fight in this online arena will be given their freedom if they survive 30 games. The story revolves around the prisoner Kable. He has won 27 matches, and now seeks to gain his freedom by defeating the game itself.

I haven’t seen the film yet myself, but sadly, reviews for Gamer have not been great. In fact, I’ve found only one so far that’s positive. Based on the reviews, you’re most likely to enjoy Gamer if you love loud, action films with lots of violence, or if you’re a fan of some of the actors in the film, who include Gerard Butler, Amber Valletta, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick, Alison Lohman, and Ludacris.

A review in HollywoodReporter.com concludes, "The technical barrage of visual and digital effects, quick cuts and strobe lighting does produce something akin to the sensation of playing a video game. So why, one wonders, don’t potential viewers simply play one instead of watching this pale imitation?" Gamer’s website is gamerthemovie.com.

The review on SciFiMoviePage.com had similar thoughts about Gamer: "It’s an action flick directed by the guys who did Crank and stars Gerard Butler of 300! … So at a certain brain-dead teenager boy level we’re quite excited. After all, we liked Crank as much as the next guy. But come on! The whole futuristic blood sport thing is as old as science fiction itself!"

A review in Sonic-Cinema.com includes the line, "…this is head-exploding cinema, so long as you don’t really care about story, character, a sense of direction, or your ear drums."

Nick Schager‘s review in SlantMagazine.com concludes, "After over an hour of bludgeoning combat and facile commentary, the film momentarily comes alive when Castle performs a phenomenal taunting song-and-dance routine alongside his servile marionette goons to the tune of "I’ve Got You Under My Skin." Alas, it’s the only novel, lighthearted button the otherwise leaden Gamer pushes."

Michael Ransom has a more positive review on Collider.com: "It had some of the most entertaining and unique actions scenes I’ve seen in a while, and that’s coming from an ex-gamer. … I found this exhilarating to watch, because it seemed like Neveldine and Taylor finally broke the bounds of the typical action scenes I’ve seen coming out of Hollywood so often."

Trademarking Your Avatar

Can you trademark your Second Life avatar? Yes, you can. The legal website law.com reports that entrepreneurs in Second Life have been applying for trademark protection for their avatars and that the US Trademark Office has now issued trademark #3531683 to Alyssa LaRoche for her Second Life avatar, Aimee Weber, for "computer programming services, namely, content creation for virtual worlds and three dimensional platforms."

This picture shows the interior of the Bellevue Bar, one of Aimee Weber’s creations in Second Life. Second Life members can visit it at slurl.com/secondlife/Hawthorne/198/221/23. You can also visit a church next door that she has converted into a club.

It’s not only the rapidly growing volume of trade in virtual worlds such as Second Life that is leading entrepreneurs to trademark their avatars, though the numbers themselves are staggering. In August 2009, 1,244 Second Life users made US$1,000 or more in world (source) and user in world transactions are expected to total about a half billion dollars in 2009 (source). One feature that makes Second Life particularly attractive to entrepreneurs and creative people – and what primarily attracted me to Second Life when I joined in 2004 – is that unlike most other virtual worlds, Second Life explicitly grants all intellectual property ownership rights to the creators.

Lately a new reason has emerged: the potential for moving avatars between worlds. Currently, virtual worlds are totally self contained. The technology is different for each world, and in most worlds other than Second Life, an avatar created in the world remain the property of the owners of the world. However in 2008 Linden Lab, owner and creator of Second Life, working with IBM teleported an avatar from Second Life to Open Sim. As this becomes more commonplace, the value of an avatar will increase for business and creative people. Your avatar is your identity in a virtual world, just as your name is in this world, and anyone with a stake in the reputation of their avatar will need to be able to control imitations by others.

You can read the full law.com article here.

Internal Revenue Service in Second Life

You probably already know that some visionary employers are conducting business and even recruiting in Second Life, but you might be surprised to learn that some government agencies are doing it too, including the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The agency saves millions of dollars by recruiting in Second Life, Steven Rothberg writes in his CollegeRecruiter.com blog.

The agency’s IRS Careers Island in Second Life offers a variety of features, starting of course with job information, including both career and seasonal jobs, and IRS forms. However, there’s more, intended to keep visitors entertained.

The attractions include: photo pose stands, where avatars can stand in front of a variety of backgrounds and assume various poses for photographing. Another attraction is a racetrack, where visitors are given free motorcycles and sports cars to drive on an underground parking-garage style race track. I had some problems with the race track however. I had to try three vehicles before I could get one that worked properly. The first two launched me into the sky! You’re also permitted to rez your own vehicle. There is also a sandbox where for public use, a theater, and educational and career centers. One perplexing feature is a teleport sign with an option for teleporting to "Linux ?????? Ubuntu," If you click it, you end up at a teleport sign with nothing apparently related to Linux in sight. The sim has only been open since February, so there are probably still a few bugs to be worked out.

Rothberg quotes Frank Stipe, the IRS’ Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager, as saying, "In the physical world, we could spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on sponsoring a race car that displays our brand in a field of thirty or more other cars. In the SL virtual world, we have spent a few thousand dollars to build complete entertainment and communications venue that includes a race course. IRS branding throughout the venue not only displays our messaging, but it also instantly dispenses marketing collateral and links to our Careers web site.

"We are now entering the relationship building phase where we are reaching out to universities that operate virtual campuses in Second Life to market directly to their students by sponsoring student projects in Second Life."

Second Life residents can teleport to IRS Careers Island at slurl.com/secondlife/IRS%20Careers%20Island/121/126/701.

Burning Life 2009 Volunteer Jobs

Burning Life is built from nothing in a barren desert

Just like Nevada‘s famous Burning Man festival, Second Life‘s Burning Life festival is a completely non-commercial, non-paid endeavor, an organized magical city springing to life from a barren desert and then a week later vanishing without a trace.

One of the ways you can become involved in Burning Life 2009 is by taking a volunteer job there. Volunteering, both in the real world and in Second Life, can be enormously satisfying and is a great way to meet people. There’s a wide range of volunteer positions available, either preparing for the event, working during it (October 17-25, 2009), or in a year round position for this annual festival. You don’t have to make a major commitment. You can commit to working only as many hours as is convenient As of today, there are 25 jobs that require less than ten hours a week, 20 jobs that require a 10-30 hour commitment per week, and three jobs requiring a 30-50 hour commentment.

The jobs in this temporary city in a virtual desert fall into the categories of Administration, Art Department, Burning Man Regional, Communications/Publicity, Community Services, Department of Mutant Vehicles, Department of Public Works, Performance, and Rangers. The jobs available include Volunteer Coordinator, Porta Potty Artists, Linguists, Tour Guides, Costumers, Builders, Pyro Specialist, Lamplighter/Drummer, and Ranger. These are only a few of the jobs available.

If you’re interested in volunteering, be sure to first read the Burning Life Volunteer Rights & Responsibilities page. Additional training will be required for ranger positions. You can find the list of available volunteer jobs at the Burning Life 2009 Jobs Page and you can apply for a job here.

I’ll be writing more about Burning Life 2009 in coming days and weeks.

Lose weight by slimming your avatar?

Does your avatar‘s appearance influence your real life appearance? The August 2009 issue of Journal of Virtual Worlds Research contains an article titled, Does this Avatar Make Me Look Fat? that suggests it might.

Using a technique called "In-Avatar Interviewing," the interviewers’ avatars interviewed other avatars in-world. This allows interviewers to completely control not only the interview environment, but their own appearances, to minimize unintended influences on their subjects. It’s also considerably less expensive to conduct interviews in a virtual world rather than face-to-face.

The surveys are ongoing and the results reported in this article are preliminary, but it does raise the tantalizing possibility that changing your avatar appearance may lead you to make corresponding changes in your physical appearance.

There are of course limits. Having a furry avatar won’t lead to a person’s physical body growing a tail and furry coat, and building up those massive muscles favored by many male avatars will still take a just as much real world hard work as it will for anyone else. And so far, this research is too preliminary to draw any conclusions.

Burning Life 2009 teaser

scene from Burning Life 2009 machinima teaser

Back in 2003, a group of software developers in San Francisco were too busy creating a new virtual world called Second Life to attend something else they loved, the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, so they did something audacious. After getting permission from Burning Man organizers, they created their own Burning Man in Second Life, which they called Burning Life.

Burning Life became an annual tradition and in October 2009, Second Life will hold it’s seventh annual Burning Life. The following machinima created by Loki Eliot is a teaser to give you a taste of what’s to come during the week of October 17-25 during Burning Life 2009:

I’ll be writing more about Burning Life 2009 in coming days and weeks.

Michael Jackson’s Memorial Service in Second Life

While Michael Jackson’s friends and family gathered in California for his burial service, his Second Life fans gathered in Second Life to eulogize the performer and to celebrate his life.

The Second Life service may have lacked the well known names of mourners such as Reverend Al Sharpton and Elizabeth Taylor, but made up for it in the passion of its mourners, with frequent sobs and shouts of "I love you Michael!". It also had a mixed reality component that the California service did not: while their avatars sat in the Second Life service, many of the people behind the avatars simultaneously watched the California service on CNN.

Elite Runner speaking at Michael Jackson's memorial service in Second Life

Elite Runner eulogising Michael Jackson

The Second Life service opened with host MichaelJacksonWasA Wonder reading from "Magical Child’", written by Michael Jacksong and a prayer led by Genghis Roux

One speaker at the service, Morgane Batista, a native French speaker and resident of Quebec, spoke of learning to walk listening to Michael Jackson’s music and learning English watching his family movies. "His music made me laugh, smile, tease, cry, his music soothed a lot of pain in my life," she said, "Helped me go through my life. His heart is true and was felt. He was stronger that any person I know, I can’t imagine what it would’ve been to walk in his shoes, to see all what through he had to go through, the pain, struggles, the pure joy…"

.Another speaker, Elite Runner, spoke of the powerfully mixed emotions he felt when, on his daughter’s birthday, he learned of Michael Jackson’s death and he switched between BBC, CNN, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook trying to learn more.

Michael Jackson's memorial service in Second Life

The service ended with a celebration of Michael Jackson’s life as avatars of his Second Life fans danced to the music of DJSaitin Ansome.

The service is over, but the Michael Jackson Memorial location in Second Life remains. Second Life members can visit it by teleporting to slurl.com/secondlife/Sweety Paradise/139/238/21.

Metrotopia – City of Superheroes

On the roof of Metrotopia's Proving Ground Gym

Second Life‘s Metrotopia, City of Superheroes, is not like other cities. How could it be? It’s a city of Superheroes!

A city of superheroes should have a Museum of Superheroes, and sure enough, Metrotopia has one, a stately white-columned building. At the Museum of Superheroes, you can view pages from most classic superhero comix. The second picture shows the Batman pages. Other superheroes in the museum include Avengers. Justice League, Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, X-Men, and others. This is also where you learn about the machinima contest, with a top prize of L$50,000. Contest rules are posted outside the museum. Deadline for entry is September 22, 2009.

The museum, however, is not what makes Metrotopia interesting and fun. When you first land in Metrotopia, you are in a dark and menacing alley. Ahead of you, you see a door with the sign "Metrotopia… Do you have what it takes?" The door leads into a pitch black alley and two more signs, "Are you strong, honest, and brave?" and then "Are you ready to be a superhero?" Step through the sign and you are in the Costume Bazaar, an essential first stop. When you visit Metrotopia, you are expected to dress as Metrotopians do – as a superhero. At the Costume Bazaar, you can select from an array of cloaks, clothing, masks, weapons, and other paraphenalia that a good superhero or superheroine needs. It’s all free. Take your time and find the superhero wardrobe combination that makes your avatar a glorious superhero. After you’re satisfied with your appearance, venture out to take on the world.

Museum of Superheroes

There are three major destinations, each very different, in Metropia for you to visit among the several blocks of otherwise empty urban buildings. More cerebral superheroes might want to visit the Metrotopia Library, where you can choose from a wide variety of links to other websites that range from Second Life itself to research journals. There are two interesting constructs in back of the library, but true superheroes will forego the library and go straight to either the Proving Ground Gym or the Fight Club Dojo. Just make sure you first go to the Costume Bazaar first and get suitably attired and armed.

To fight in the Fight Club Dojo (shown in the third picture), you are not allowed to bring your own weapons – you can only fight with what you find there. It’s a fight to the avatar death. If your health meter drops to zero, you are immediately teleported home.

Fight Club Dojo

The Proving Ground Gym and especially its roof was my favorite part of Metrotopia. On the ground floor you see a box that both serves as a gift dispensor and as a teleporter. Touch it once to get your gifts, then right click it and click "Teleport" to go to the roof. If you enjoy photography, this is where the real fun is.

Most of the pictures following this article were taken on the roof, where pose balls allow your avatar to strike a variety of poses. Most are single pose balls, but in two places there are two pose balls next to each other. This allows you and a friend (or you and yourself if you have two computers!) to strike superhero poses together.

Metrotopia is a project of Roskilde University in Denmark. You can read their page about Metrotopia at www.ruc.dk/ruc_en/about/news/25082009, Second Life members can teleport to the Museum of Superheroes at slurl.com/secondlife/Research%20Island%20Denmark/9/6/26