Over the past few days the gang over from Meta Magic Studio has been doing some exploration and testing of Linden Lab’s new viewer for Second Life®.  The “biggest” thing for us is the Shared Media which finally allows us to bring in interactive web pages and lots more media.  We will be doing additional testing so we can get a handle on all of the advancements.

What “Shared Media” means….

Shared Media makes sharing standard Web-based media in Second Life easy and seamless, and enables content creators to make more compelling, interactive experiences. Basically, Shared Media brings the Internet inworld. For the more  technically inclined, what this means is that you can now put media textures on any prim in Second Life. More specifically, the viewer uses  WebKit to create a fully interactive, dynamic texture from a Web URL. This even includes support for Web-browser plug-ins, like the Adobe Flash Player. Even better, it’s not restricted to just one piece of Shared Media in a region.

Testing interactive web site in Second Life

Next TechChat in Second Life

“Learn How to Keep Your Network SAFE”

This TechChat features Bill McGee, Manager, Security Solutions and Calvin Chai, Security Solutions Marketing Manager, both from Cisco. During this TechChat our speakers will discuss how a solutions-based approach to security, based on the SAFE architecture, provides more comprehensive security, better risk management, and tighter visibility and control of your network than traditional, siloed security products.
30 APRIL 2009 at 1200 PDT

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Tawni CiscoSystems  just dropped this info to Banana on their TechChat series.  Cisco does a great job with their TechChat series.  If you want to see it, please join them in Second Life.

Cisco EnergyWise – Improve Your Green Practices with Cisco EnergyWise
Date = April 14
Time = 8am SLT
Location = Bandwidth Stage, Cisco Systems Sim 4, Second Life

Meta Magic Studio will be there providing support.

Meta Magic Studio has two private sims in Second Life® versus having land on the Mainland. Los Arboles is what Linden Lab® calls a Full Region which means it is their highest performing sim offering.  We use this sim to demonstrate various builds concepts and some tongue in check salutes to the metaverse. Meta Magic Studio is defined as Openspace Region which in intended just to be a landscape sim with limited scripts and prims.

We have completely revamped Los Arboles for 2009, please stop by any time to visit.

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Today, Jan 27, 2009, Cisco® opened its Sustainability Center demonstrating its new EnergyWise Technology and their Networked Sustainability Network in Second Life®. This center is located at Cisco Systems Sim 2 and demonstrates Green technologies and products. The center was developed by Meta Magic Studio.

Virtually all large enterprises are conscious of the image they project, and corporate responsibility is an important part of that image. Green technologies represent an opportunity for corporations that extends beyond brand reputation and can affect overall profitability.

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On the 27th of January, Cisco will be opening its Sustainability Center in Second Life.

We have exciting news to share with you about how you can reduce energy costs and Greenhouse Gas (GhG) emissions using your network as a platform for change. We can all reduce travel and daily commutes by collaborating in virtual environments, but there’s so much more we can do in this networked world.

Source: Cisco http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds/comments/green_it_efforts/

Location: Visit the Sustainability Center in world via this SLurl.

In the next few days, we will post some comments on this very exciting development that we are working on for Cisco’s Virtual Campus.

The next Cisco Tech Chat will take place on February 3, 2009. If you want to see how to stage a Virtual World presentation, you need to check out one of Cisco’s Tech Chats in Second Life.  We at Meta Magic Studio provide support for these type of events.

Notes on the next event:

“Scalable, Secure, and Cost-Effective WAN Services with Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers”

This TechChat features Michael Weir, Manager, Enterprise Technical Marketing in Cisco’s Edge Routing Business Unit (ERBU), and Matthew Eubanks, Product Manager for Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers in the Edge Routing Business Unit. During this TechChat, Weir and Eubanks will discuss new innovations and solutions on the Cisco ASR 1000 Series routers, designed to address existing and future networking requirements.
3 FEBRUARY 2009 at 1200 PST

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Zee Linden has posted a blog today on Second Life useage over 2007 entitled Second Life Residents logged nearly 400 million hours in 2008, growing 61% over 2007.  It is showing continued growth both in hours of usage and peak-concurrency despite many so-called industry experts who have predicted its death.

Key results are:

• User hours increased by 61% over 2007, highlighting the tremendous growth rate in user engagement that Second Life maintained throughout 2008.
• User hours increased steadily each quarter, culminating in a record-setting 112 million user hours in Q4.
• Peak concurrent users were up 31% over 2007
• Land owned by Residents increased 82% over 2007
• Exchange Volume increased 33% over 2007
• User-to-user transactions in Q4 increased 54% over Q4 of 2007

Meta Magic Studio - Second Life - August 2008

Meta Magic Studio has owned the sim Los Arboles since December 2006. The sim is intended as a demonstration sim where we show case build examples including office spaces, amphitheater, theater, gathering spaces plus some other unique concepts that demonstrate prim usage and texture development.

The Los Arboles sim is a “standard” simulator offering from Linden Lab which they classify as a private region (island). From Linden Lab:

Private regions (Islands) are a great solution for large projects, community development and permanent event spaces. Private regions can be grouped, or joined together to create a contiguous space, so you can add to your land mass as your community and projects grow.

Linden Lab also offers Openspaces sim.

Openspaces (light use regions) are also available so you can add ocean or open park land. For more information, check out our Information on Openspaces knowledge base article.

While both sims are same in size (aprox 65K sq meters), their performance and prim allotment are vastly different.

At Meta Magic Studio, we wanted to easily demonstrate this to our customers, so we decided to purchase an Openspace sim and have it placed next to Los Arboles. We have called it Meta Magic Studio – heck, marketing is important!

The build here is more tongue-in-check than Los Arboles. We have textured the land with our logos and made purple trees.

Meta Magic Studio - Second Life

Started working in Google’s Lively yesterday so these are my initial reactions. In one word – disappointing.

In more words – Google has a long way to go, but some things they got right.

It is a 2.5D approach to interactive worlds. It is better than Active World but not even close to Second Life. I know there is the power of Google behind this so I can not dismiss it right away, but this thing needs help.

I have read were people said it was easier to navigate than Second Life, but my initial testing on 10 people showed similar problems. It is NOT intuitive. People with gaming backgrounds pick it up faster, but their reactions to the graphics is a barrier. Those with no / little gaming experience were happy with the graphics but left on their own, could not figure out how to move and interact.

Lively is a endless series of disconnected virtual chat rooms, each capable of holding up to 20 avatars at once. Rooms vary in size a little and can be listed on the website, or remain unlisted. This is not what I would expect, at least you need to be able to get 100 avatars into a room. My personal sim on Second Life has achieved 80 avatars before crashing.

I plan on spending the next few weeks in here, learning it and seeing what opportunities present themselves.

Initial Positive Feature: You can set up a room off of your website, so people do not have to figure out in world where you are.