Tourism Victoria or the City of Melbourne (not sure which) has set up a display on ABC Island in Second Life which replicates (sort of) the look and feel of Melbourne’s laneways. Lots of stencil art, posters, cafes, etc. They even have the triangles from Fed Square floating in space. Not much to do though. And no-one to meet me when I got there at 2pm on a Friday. So while it seem like they have spent a bit of money on the look, the experience, at least when I went there, was pretty dull.
It reminds me of the talk Gary Wiz (aka Wiz Nordberg in SL) made last night at MODM about how corporations tend to fuck it up when they go into SL because they seem to forget that SL is about relationships and experience and not about pretty things to look at.
I’ve got some additional screenshots of the Melbourne presence in SL on my Flickr.
It could even have been set up by Sydney’s Lady Mayoress (although I’m sure she doesn’t use that title) Ms. Clover Moore, who has been banging on for the past 2 months about how Sydney should be more like Melbourne – lively laneways, quirky bars, etc.
She wants the NSW Liquor Licensing laws to be liberalised to make it happen.
Yeah, I stumbled upon that yesterday too, while properly checking out ABC Island. There was nobody else around, in fact not many anywhere on the island. They need to host a gathering or two in the area I reckon.
I agree, it’s all about interacting with others, and facilitating that, not just buildings and land. I don’t see why that’s so difficult to get, it’s not exactly a new concept. Surely it wouldn’t be that difficult to organise regular events to get people there, and going back for more.
I wonder how many people would show up if they promoted an event or two through Triple J, JTV, Rage etc. Maybe they have, but I haven’t seen anything. Just a thought.
Seems you didn’t check properly at all, jjprojects, or you would have seen the notices in the Sandbox welcome area about the regular events.. ABC have done well with a limited project budget to host events (CSIRO scientists giving multimedia presentations with chat for recent examples).
The Sandbox on ABC Island is a regular hangout for groups of aussies and others building and interacting very sociably, at all times of the day and night!
It was setup by Multimedia Victoria. Juko is right there was an event last Thursday night. Heaps of people when I was there.
thanks for filling us in with more info Juko and Brownlow.
When I walked around the Laneways site the day after the launch it was a ghost town. And there was nothing there that I could see which told me anything about Melbourne at all. Do you know what their plans are for it moving forwards?