The more astute among you will have noticed a new ad to the right of the posts: it's for the upcoming Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo, which runs October 10 and 11 in San Jose. All manner of industry leads will be there, with many of them speaking, including Adri Saarinen from Metaversatility; Corey Bridges from the Multiverse Network; Giff Constable from ESC; Edward Castronova; Jeska, Robin, and John Zdanowski from LL, and a bunch of other MMO players.

I plan on being there as well, so anyone in the area or already planning on going to this event, drop me a line and let's have our own mini-SLCC right there in SJ! For those of you planning on going but without your ticket yet can take advantage of this great discount code when registering online. The code is VIPATTENDEE, and it will save you 10% on the registration rate! You can check out more information at the conference website.

I'm excited; are you excited? I can't wait to meet representatives of MMOs that I've made fun of! If I don't return from this event, you all know why!

(Thanks, Tim!)

Welcome to the sixteenth episode of On the Inside, Second Life Insider's Official Podcast!

This episode features our interview with Frogg Marlowe and Jaycatt Nico, popular in-world musicians. We talk about being (or not) Furry, Sean Connery and Michael Jackson, and nuns on fire. As always, feel free to leave your questions and comments!

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Metaversatility and AMD bring us the AMD Summer Tech Mixer, an event on AMD's Dev Central island on Sunday the 29th from 1-4 PM. From the press release:

"The event will feature keynotes on AMD Careers, AMD's connectivity outreach initiative, 50×15, and a half hour panel discussion on open source coding and LibSL. The three hour mixer will be Dj'd and Mc'd by Doubledown Tandino featuring Slim Warrior so come out to AMD Dev Central for an afternoon of fun, swag, discussion, and music!"

The panel discussion will feature Marc Millar of AMD, John Hurliman of LibSL, and Jonathan Freedman of Pleiades. I know many of the people involved; go check this out!

(Thanks, Adri!)

Finding men's clothing, hair and accessories can be tough. Really tough. Finding things of good quality, even tougher, and then sifting through those offerings to find something you genuinely like, that appeals to your particular sense of style and taste - well, that really rates right up there in the toughness stakes.

Thus the need for a crack team of one to search high and low for the highest quality manly items, and allow you, the reader, to select the things that tantalise you most. Hopefully the crack team isn't actually on crack, or you'll just have to take your chances with the picks. Either way, here are some of their results.

[UPDATE: Experiencing technical issues; working on it!] [UPDATE 2: FIXED!] Welcome to the fifth episode of On the Inside, Second Life Insider's Official Podcast! This episode features our interview with Adri Saarinen and Peter Newell, co-founders of Metaversatility, Texas's coolest MDC. Aimee Weber co-hosts with me, and we discuss the challenges of developing for SL, There.com, and Hello Kitty buttplugs. As always, feel free to leave your questions and comments!

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[MP3] Download the MP3 directly

Welcome to On the Inside, SLI's official podcast! This episode features Haver Cole and Saeya Nyanda, interviewed by me and moo Money, with Adri Saarinen as our silent partner. This episode also introduces the new OTI theme song, which I created myself, so be gentle with your criticism; it's my first time. Hey, I'm a singer, not a songwriter.

Please feel free to drop your comments and questions. Enjoy!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to On the Inside directly in iTunes (MP3)
[RSS] Add the SLI Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly

As brilliant plans don't always have a way of working out, I left for Austin quite late on the 9th. Not much was happening yet in the world of SXSW. Check-in took place from Noon to 8pm, but I was on a mission that could not be stopped. I was after the Nokia N800 tablet.

I arrived at 8:30pm after a two hour drive into Austin. I met up with BuhBuhCuh Fairchild and we immediately headed over to CompUSA to get the glorious device, which would later turn out to be downright awful. When we returned, it was time to party.

Word on the street was that the place to go was The Blind Pig...

In other mixed reality news, San Antonio based content company, Metaversality, is throwing a bash in Austin at Mozarts Cafe. Popular Second Life musicians Frogg Marlowe and Melvin Took will be performing before a live audience of residents. The party begins at 2PM CST and ends around 7PM CST, at which point we'll be going bar hopping!

The confirmed attendees so far are Adri Saarinen, Peter Newell, Haver Cole, Zabitan Assia, Dragontat Zagato, moo Money, Troy Vogel, Moira Stern, Ute Hicks, Memory Harker, Euterpe Roo, Katt Kongo, and many, many more!

• Who: Metaversality
• What: SLTX Meetup
• Where: Mozarts Cafe, 3826 Lake Austin Blvd, Austin, TX 78703
• When: Saturday, February 17th at 2PM CST
• Why: Do you really need a reason to meet your fellow Second Lifers?

The Foundation for Rich Content (FFRC) has announced the availability for 3 new grants, to be awarded to proposals that celebrate diversity and richness of content and events in SL.

There is one grant for 50,000L and two for 10,000L, with the proposal submission dates running between February 15 and March 25, Noon. Persephone Phoenix will be the submission contact. You may find specific submission guidelines at the FFRC Grant Announcement page. If you've had an idea in mind that's just crazy enough that it might work, now's the time to get it down in writing, and send it in on the 15th!

(Thanks, Adri and Peter!)

There's a new player in town, brushing up against Metaverse Development Companies like Electric Sheep Company and Rivers Run Red: Metaversatility! I'll let the press release speak for itself:

San Antonio, Texas, December 11, 2006 – As virtual worlds receive more and more serious media attention, it has become apparent that development and service companies are needed to build virtual spaces and brands. Metaversatility, Inc. was formed to meet this need. With five founding shareholders, Metaversatility brings a unique blend of skills and experience to the virtual world development sphere.

Metaversatility founders Adrienne Haik (known as Adri Saarinen in Second Life), Dr. Aaron Delwiche, Peter Haik (known as Peter Newell in Second Life), Dr. John Plevyak, and Matt Daly represent a combination of creativity, experience, and academic credentials. Other team members include Rebecca Small (known in Second Life as Haver Cole) as client liaison, Brian Hayes as sales and business development, and Inga Munsinger Cotton as general counsel. They are well prepared to serve the needs of both traditional and exclusively-virtual clients.

Metaversatility offers a full range of metaverse services that spans multiple virtual worlds. Equipped to work in Second Life, There.com, Multiverse, and Open Croquet, Metaversatility also keeps a close watch on developments in other virtual worlds as they emerge. Metaversatility specializes in promotions, branding, and application development as well as metaverse orientation and business strategy consulting. Recent clients include Creative Commons, PopSci.com, the Metaverse Messenger, ICANN, SL Bank, and Dublin in SL.

While excited about the possibilities of the broadening metaverse, the Metaversatility team is also concerned with the social and cultural implications of this expansion. As long-time metaverse residents, they feel it is vitally important to maintain the freedom of imagination and intellectual development virtual spaces often represent.

Metaversatility Inc. is incorporated and headquartered in the state of Texas. For more information about Metaversatility, the team, services offered, and a portfolio of work, visit http://www.metaversatility.com.

Congratulations, Adri and Peter! This couldn't have happened to nicer folks, and I look forward to seeing what you bring to SL!

There's a lengthy interview/overview of Will Wright in the New Yorker called 'Game Master', which is a worthy read for any who are interested in the man, the myth, the legend. It's getting a mention here for Will's take on SL:

"I think what you're going to see now on Second Life is people who will start to develop games - someone will invite other people to kick a soccer ball around, and it will go from there."

This reminds me of the post I did on the abandoned soccer stadium Adri Saarinen led me to one day ... maybe it's already been tried and fell apart. I wonder what Will would say about that?

Another article on SL that has nothing to do with sex, hooray! The San Antonio Current has run a piece on the recent Jonathan Coulter concert. The focus is on the concert itself, but also features mention of an interview with Adri Saarinen, one of the chief architects of the event, though most of the interview is not transcribed.

An interesting aside at the end of the article mentions a relationship between SL's evolution into a viable tool for commerce, and the emergence of the Internet as the same in 1994. It's a short piece, but worth the time.

(Thanks, Adri!)

This has nothing to do with my earlier post, for those of you scratching your heads, or the head of a friend. Adri Saarinen pointed me toward this beautiful stadium in an Italian-themed sim called Parioli. As you'll see from this and the following photos, this place is just begging to be filled with cheering fans and world-class athletes. There are even sky-high seats for those who wish a bird's eye view of the action. However, there is no action.

The lingering scoreboards seem to suggest that there were once players, but they've since abandoned this gorgeous place; why? Adri maintains that there was once an attempt to construct a futbol league, but it scattered to the winds. Does anyone know anything about this? Adri and I played one-on-one futbol with a ball she'd rezzed for the occasion and it was a metric tonne of fun! Just imagine it with a whole team, and you've got the makings of hilarity. Let's bring it back, people!

More photos after the jump!

After managing to get back in-world, no sooner had I begun a pick-up game of one-on-one soccer (or Futbol) with Adri then I got the notice from Harmony Linden that the grid was experiencing some issues concerning a self-replicating object. She says the creator has been identified, and that LL was at work on the issue.

From the official Linden Blog: "This has caused problems wth rezzing items, teleporting and slow log-ins."

More and more lately these are beginning to feel like End Times to me, but then, I love Epic Drama. More on this story as it develops. As a related note, here's a bit of history for those of you who might have missed it the first time: this links to an issue of The Escapist, with an article about a similar attack.

[edit: 'Object' misspelled in title; blame my eagerness to get this story out! -- Akela]