Linden Lab unveils Showcase
Leading user-generated online virtual world, Second Life, will receive a new feature known as Showcase, which will act as a 3-D guide to the Web site, creators Linden Lab announced Thursday.
In reaction to Second Life’s growing active user population of what Linden Lab estimates to be between 45,000 and 65,000 users at any time, the company unveiled Showcase to help Residents explore new user-created regions within the Second Life Grid platform. The new feature addresses the user-concern of what to do while in the virtual world, Brett Atwood, Web editor for Linden Lab’s Second Life, said.
“Its purpose basically is to connect the users to this cool content,” he said. “It’s a creative community, yet many of those communities remain unexplored.”
Second Life is an online 3-D virtual world created and owned by its users. According to Atwood, it is commonly used as a social networking outlet as well as an educational tool, including universities, museums, classrooms, and training sessions.
“I think Showcase represents a fundamental shift of how users interact with Second Life,” Atwood said.
The new feature allows Residents of Second Life to teleport to locations and cycle through Resident-created hot spots by providing Residents a way to search content using sub-categories like, music, hot spots, fashion, and arts and culture, according to Atwood. He described Showcase as the equivalent of a TV guide for the virtual world.
“Showcase is quality-controlled and editorially-guided for people to make and explore new content,” said Atwood. “No longer will these incredible builds be lost to the digital space. It’s a way to surface quality 3-D regions.”
Showcase features both Resident-created as well as mainstream commercial sites. Many large corporations are beginning to use Second Life as a promotional outlet.
Atwood said corporations like Nissan, Coca Cola, and IBM have taken traditional marketing to the 3-D space. He said in a 3-D environment consumers can interact with the product more than a traditional Web site. For example, on Nissan Island, Residents can view existing car models, view prototypes and use a test-drive track.
Showcase has been in development since late last year. While an in-world version of Showcase recently debuted, the new feature is still in testing, according to Atwood.
Previous to Showcase there was a similar feature known as Popular Places. Unlike Showcase, Popular Places was a non-editorial automated list of popular places in the virtual world. An algorithm kept track of the most popular places, but according to Atwood, Popular Places used an imperfect process.
He said Popular Places became manipulated by Residents who wanted to raise interest in their locations. Atwood referred to the practice as “camping.” Residents were leaving zombie-like avatars with no user controlling them at locations to increase the locations’ ratings. “Popular Places was clearly not achieving the goal,” he said.
Second Life is not positioned a game. According to Atwood it is positioned as a social platform. “It’s not about winning,” he said. “It’s about experiencing, engaging and learning.”
With 75 percent of its users living outside of the U.S., Second Life is not solely a U.S. phenomenon. Atwood said there are currently more than 13 million downloads of Second Life, and its grid is approaching the size of Denmark.
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Leading user-generated online virtual world, Second Life, will receive a new feature known as Showcase, which will act as a 3-D guide to the Web site, creators Linden Lab announced Thursday.
In reaction to Second Life’s growing active user population of what Linden Lab estimates to be between 45,000 and 65,000 users at any time, the company unveiled Showcase to help Residents explore new user-created regions within the Second Life Grid platform. The new feature addresses the user-concern of what to do while in the virtual world, Brett Atwood, Web editor for Linden Lab’s Second Life, said.
“Its purpose basically is to connect the users to this cool content,” he said. “It’s a creative community, yet many of those communities remain unexplored.”
Second Life is an online 3-D virtual world created and owned by its users. According to Atwood, it is commonly used as a social networking outlet as well as an educational tool, including universities, museums, classrooms, and training sessions.
“I think Showcase represents a fundamental shift of how users interact with Second Life,” Atwood said.
The new feature allows Residents of Second Life to teleport to locations and cycle through Resident-created hot spots by providing Residents a way to search content using sub-categories like, music, hot spots, fashion, and arts and culture, according to Atwood. He described Showcase as the equivalent of a TV guide for the virtual world.
“Showcase is quality-controlled and editorially-guided for people to make and explore new content,” said Atwood. “No longer will these incredible builds be lost to the digital space. It’s a way to surface quality 3-D regions.”
Showcase features both Resident-created as well as mainstream commercial sites. Many large corporations are beginning to use Second Life as a promotional outlet.
Atwood said corporations like Nissan, Coca Cola, and IBM have taken traditional marketing to the 3-D space. He said in a 3-D environment consumers can interact with the product more than a traditional Web site. For example, on Nissan Island, Residents can view existing car models, view prototypes and use a test-drive track.
Showcase has been in development since late last year. While an in-world version of Showcase recently debuted, the new feature is still in testing, according to Atwood.
Previous to Showcase there was a similar feature known as Popular Places. Unlike Showcase, Popular Places was a non-editorial automated list of popular places in the virtual world. An algorithm kept track of the most popular places, but according to Atwood, Popular Places used an imperfect process.
He said Popular Places became manipulated by Residents who wanted to raise interest in their locations. Atwood referred to the practice as “camping.” Residents were leaving zombie-like avatars with no user controlling them at locations to increase the locations’ ratings. “Popular Places was clearly not achieving the goal,” he said.
Second Life is not positioned a game. According to Atwood it is positioned as a social platform. “It’s not about winning,” he said. “It’s about experiencing, engaging and learning.”
With 75 percent of its users living outside of the U.S., Second Life is not solely a U.S. phenomenon. Atwood said there are currently more than 13 million downloads of Second Life, and its grid is approaching the size of Denmark.
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