beginner « Mo Hax

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Second Life, OpenSim, Which One First?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags beginner, comparison, ibm, lotus, newbie, opensim, secondlife, virtualworlds on March 15, 2009 by Mo Hax

I should also disclose that I do sell services and products in Second Life, though I like to believe my bias toward SL as a first user experience does not include that level of self-interest. You decide.

Because Second Life and OpenSim can use the same viewers this is easy to confuse. The short answer is start in Second Life on IBM or NCI for example and find a Helper/Mentor (such as someone from IBM Mentors group) or another friend to assist you.

Once you are fairly proficient in SL you will be better able to face the ‘alpha’ quirks of internal OpenSim-based grids (IBM Grid, Lotus Sametime 3d) and other very interesting external grids such as ReactionGrid.

Which one is which?

The longer explanation behind this recommendation starts by explaining how you may hear about each:

Virtual Universe Community – most meetings are held on IBM’s Almaden island in Second Life
Academy of Technology Conference – held in Second Life, a special behind the firewall setup (Nebraska)
IBM Grid / Homesteading – refers to the collection of experimental OpenSim grids completely within IBM, exciting innovation happening there
Lotus Sametime 3D – an applied use of OpenSim technology to integrate a SL/OS experience into Lotus Sametime, not connected to IBM Grid nor Second Life in any way

Ok, but why Second Life?

Working with the OpenSim team to bring people in introduced me, for the first time, to people who had never experienced any 3D world besides IBM’s OpenSim grid. Even if OpenSim ran perfectly, which anyone who has used it will tell you it does not, Second Life is still a better first time experience because of the breadth and depth of possible connections and interests the beginner is likely to make in Second Life v.s. any closed internal grid. Even the beginner with no interest in meeting anyone outside of IBM will likely meet more IBMers through SL than OpenSim (since that is where the 6000+ members of the VUC started out).

SL is the leading virtual world in the world right now and has been for some time. It behooves any virtual worlds newbie to know and understand it.

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Linden Labs Calls for “Business Orientation Locations”

Posted in Uncategorized with tags beginner, business, orientation, places, secondlife, welcome on January 30, 2009 by Mo Hax

Linden seems to be really taking some much needed action to promote business and generally more appropriate first experiences in Second Life. In a recent email to the SLDev mailing list the call for collecting good business oriented first entry points was made today.

Dear Solution Providers,

As we focus more on business use of Second Life, we are looking for business orientation locations in Second Life. Tell us about yours.

If you’ve built an orientation area, initial landing area with instructions, or created a HUD or other inworld orientation experience specficially for business users, we’d like to know about it. We are planning to create a business orientation tied to SecondLifeGrid.net’s “Join here” later this year that provides a more appropriate first experience for businesses, and are looking for examples and possible providers.

SurveyMonkey form

(Note: the survey enables you to list multiple sites but to only provide information about one site.)

The survey will be available until Thursday 5 February, 8AM PST.

For the Linden Lab Solution Provider Program Team – Glenn, Madhavi & Katrin

I cannot applaud this effort enough. I only wish I had more places to recommend to them. Thankfully I did have a company that I could find soon after my orientation island experience but so many do not. The IBM sandbox on IBM 6 is just a great place for anyone to start out.

Recently I have been disheartened by the griefing and chaos at the welcome hubs–which has always been that way. I even spent a weekend evening trying to ’save’ newbies from what should have been a safe haven. This move by Linden labs is a welcome move in the right direction.

Having said that the reverse problem should also be addressed. Avatars that never leave their corporate safe havens. Sure it is a scary SL world out there, but don’t forget to find your corner of the Second Life community outside or your corporate home.