Which companies have a presence in Second Life at the moment? Check out this map.
If you’re in marketing, you need to ask yourself: what do they know that you don’t? And, if you’re on the side of the fence that says that Second Life is a waste of time/money/energy, then answer this question: what data do you have to justify that position that you think these companies *don’t* have?
Tonight Jono and Beti (host of TPN’s Health and Fitness Podcast) celebrated the opening of their new store XERO, a very cool tech store at 106 Elgin Street, Carlton.
I presented them with a very wonderful opening night gift – an original copy of Heino‘s ” Halli, hallo, wir fahren” album.
Now… I think everyone at the opening, including Jono, thought I was taking the piss. But really… as everyone in Germany knows, Heino is a complete L E G E N D.
Perhaps it is true that I only paid $1.00 for the copy that I gave them but that is a BARGAIN. It is currently for sale on Ebay for EUR$20.00!
Anyway… if you’re in Melbourne and you want to check out some cool geek stuff, including the Nabaztag, pop in and see Jono and tell him Cam sent ya.
UPDATE: Jono just sent me this. I suspect it was made with Comic Life.
http://www.stopbigmedia.com/files/whack.swf
Personally I think the best way to whack Murdoch is to compete with him, out-innovate him.
Well today I learned a few lessons in Second Life.
About three weeks ago, I rented my first land in Second Life with the idea of experimenting to see how TPN could use it to spend more time with our community. I rented the land from an avatar called Rich Bulloch (who also apparently goes by the avatar Dog Fargis). We paid six months in advance and it wasn’t a lot of money – about L$20,000 for six months (about US$80). After about a week on our first block of land, Rich sez he has a bigger block, a whole island, we could rent for a bit more L$. I asked Rich if there were any “gotchas” on the new island and he said it was “low prim” (1874). Being a complete n00b, I asked him what the practical implications were of that and he told me it limited what we could build. It was twice the prims we had on the previous block however, so we upgraded.
The first thing I learned pretty fast is the real implication of “low prim”. We ran out of building room pretty fast. Everything you want to build on your real estate in SL requires “prims” or “primitives”, like building blocks. And when you use up all of your prims, you can’t build anything else – buildings, chairs, etc. So we figured out pretty quickly that we were going to have to move again.
Little did I realize how soon….
This morning I found out that Rich Bulloch, who was renting the land himself from a Gigs Taggart, is behind in HIS rent and as a result, I’m getting evicted from my island. Gigs claims he hasn’t heard from Rich is over a week and Rich is way behind on his rent. So Gigs is evicting us! We can rent the land ourselves from Rich but he wants US$114 a MONTH. Remember I’ve already paid Rich about US$150 for SIX MONTHS. That’s a pretty big rental rise and way more than I had budgeted for.
I tried contacting Rich myself but his profile said he hadn’t been online for a week. So I IM’d the R & A Realty Group, Rich’s group of tenants, and asked them if Rich is a scammer. That started a slanging match between a few members of the group until I finally got a private message from one of Rich’s friends, telling me it was all a very big mess, that Rich wasn’t a scammer, that it was all her fault, involved “mafia stuff”, and that Rich would refund my money by Wednesday. I told her that even if it wasn’t Rich’s fault, he should get in contact with his tenants and explain why they were getting evicted. I paid him money in good faith, not I’m getting kicked off my land. I gave her my email address and asked her to pass it onto Rich.
A few minutes later I got an email from Rich saying:
well i tell ya what i will get you in the next few days all the proof that it was paid that is how i paid threw paypal but i did cancle that account afterwords but i have spoke with paypal and they are gathering the info where i did pay him i will make sure you get copies of that also they will be faxing it to me within 48 hours and i will make sure you get copies of it to post with your blog if you would like gigs is saying something deffernt and i will not fight with him in world i am letting sl take care of that issue for me and paypal for charge back
Okay, so… I may see my money back (not that it was a lot of money) and there are some lessons learned.
1. Second Life needs a good way of reference checking who you are dealing with. Ebay has a pretty good (though not infallible) rating system. These things may already exist. If they do, I’m not aware of them and it would be good to have them built into an avatar’s profile for handy reference. Rich’s profile in SL was only a month old when we rented from him. Probably should look for someone with a longer track record?
2. I deliberately jumped into my first land rental without ANY research, knowing I might get hurt, but wanting to learn. And I’m a big believer in LEARNING BY DOING, as long as while you are DOING you minimize your downside. This time I’m going to do some more research before we get new TPN land. I’m talking to people like Duncan Riley and Jeremy Chase (from the Second Life mafia, as heard on G’Day World #105). Duncan sez we should buy our own land, not rent. Sounds like a good plan, if I can afford it.
I want TPN HQ to be a place where our audience can experience and experiment with Second Life, learn the rules, find their Slegs, in a safe and encouraging environment. So I’d rather I learn these lessons and be able to pass them on. I’m fairly resilient. 🙂
Bye Bye for now TPN HQ. 🙁
The nice folks running Podcamp Perth have invited me over and so it looks like I’ll be there from about the 26th of Oct until the 29th. I’m trying to talk Rich into putting together a few people to do a day trip to Margaret River on the 29th. I’ve heard lots of nice things about it.
So I’m looking forward to seeing everyone over there. I haven’t been to Perth for years and years. Should be fun. What is there to see and do over there anyway? Is Bondy still around? I might try to get him on the show.
Another screengrab from my birthday party in Second Life last night. This, I might add, was totally spontaneous. A few of us were sitting around chatting and I went and found a cake. Then I twittered that we were eating birthday cake in Second Life – suddenly, a dozen people showed up. Twitter & Second Life make an interesting duo for spontaneous meetups.
