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Well, it’s been a great run for our ‘Second Strife’ Second Life bashing. It was mostly due to the fact that finding fault with the platform, once touted as the second coming of the Internet, was as easy as gazing dreamily at Sun’s Schwartz’s ponytail (he’s so much more winsome than Scott McNealy - something reflected by Sun’s stock rebound over the past year).

However, Second Life has gone from being irresistibly kick-worthy to downright sad. Roving gangs are obliterating commercial interests. And when industry isn’t under attack its mostly due to the fact that nobody’s there. And that’s when the game is up - something that is happening with increasingly less regularity. Unannounced repairs took the world offline for a large chunk of yesterday leaving Second Life’s sex fiends and furry lovers relying on conventional ‘browser based’ titillation. That update came after another ‘rolling update’ the day prior to address bugs introduced in an earlier release upgrade. The future of e-commerce indeed!

So, its with this ridiculousness in mind that we close the book on our Second Life coverage. The Linden Labs project had promise, an incredible amount of press, and the hopes and dreams of dozens of shut-ins everywhere riding on it. But there comes a point when a company maneuvers itself into irrelevance - and that’s exactly what has become of the platform that we’ve come to love to hate.

Goodbye Second Strife. Hello World.

Just to prove that the virtual world of Second Life doesn’t already come with a big enough ‘NSFW’ disclaimer now comes Playboy. With its familiar brand of air brushed idealized beauty the first life media empire’s dominance of the second is anything but assured. As Wagner James Au points out on his New World Notes blog when everybody looks like Barbie and consummates like Anne Nichole Smith its hard to stand out:

Just a couple months ago, MySpace superstar and former Playboy Cybergirl Tila Tequila opened a mansion hangout in Second Life. And though she counts over a million MySpace friends, attendance at her SL crib has been scant; it’s consistently empty during peak periods, with Traffic registering in the low hundreds (i.e., a handful of daily visitors, at best.) Last year, the Suicide Girls launched an SL space of their own, and though the goth-punk babes are extraordinarily (and deservedly) popular on their own site (and again, were featured on Playboy’s homepage in 2004), visitors to their Second Life locale quickly dwindled, and within weeks, most of the dozens of Girls who had created an avatar lost interest with being in-world.

Debates on Tila’s crowd drawing ability aside, Wagner’s story further illustrates just what the priorities in Second Life are:

Ironically, the commerce of sexuality in Second Life was also a barrier, according to Lavonne. “If SL jobs were better and paid more, I’m sure many would be thrilled to play. The sexual aspect was a problem. Some girls mentioned how working at clubs they were expected to pretty much have cyber sex with ‘customers’ for tips, and that it wasn’t worth it.” (Virtual tips are rarely competitive to what a performer makes offline.)

So apparently not only are Second Life’s denizens after the byte-sized bump-n-grind: they’re also cheap. Will Playboy succeed with the Second Life crowd? Only a artificially enhanced silicon 8-ball can tell.

Recently, members for the technology press core were asked, by IBM, to attended a ‘virtual gathering’ in Second life. Second Life, as you may remember, is home to some of our favorite strip tease parlors and teledildonics experts - something that makes invitations to attend press conferences there all that much more strange.

Those fine folks at The Register thought it was a bit odd too. They sent back a retort of the finest regard - and posted it all for the world to see:

Fantasy and reality don’t actually combine well. Haven’t you noticed? Maybe that’s why marketing folk are so enthused about Second Life.
…
So what do I think of being briefed about your storage products in Second Life? Sure I’d like it, as long as the briefing takes place in this topless bar I’ve discovered in Second Life, where some of the avatars brief each other in outrageous virtual ways.

I love how this is IBM’s attempt at being ‘hip’ to the tech crowd. What’s next? The using the Web .0 Bullshitr for product pitches? If so, I personally can’t wait for my IBM shared peer-to-peer blogospheres.

At MilitantGeek we’ve made much of Second Life’s foibles. It’s not so much because the idea of a rich, user created virtual world worthy of comparisons to Neal Stephenson’s metaverse is a bad one. Rather, its because Second Life is not that world.

It would seem that Second Life’s own users are beginning to agree. In the past week they’ve banded together to demand that the world be fixed so that its… um… usable. The online petition includes such audacious things as:

• Inventory loss
• Outages of friend lists (similar to your IM contact list)
• Build tools that don’t work
• Commercial transaction failures

Ouch. Second Life advocates like to champion the user-built features of the virtual world. However these glaring problems demonstrate just how dependent on Linden Lab the users really are. Until Linden Lab can deliver on its gigantic economic and cultural promises we’ll continue to point out the platform for what it is: a lousy 3D Myspace wannabe masquerading as the future.

Jason Calacanis is a pretty outspoken guy; something that leads him to say some incredibly dumb things. Perhaps that’s why he’s adopted an ‘email only’ interview policy. Email gives him a chance to see the questions first, quietly reflect, carefully balance prevailing opinions, and then say his dumb stuff anyway.

The policy, however, seems egregious to the Wired staff. In a post by Dylan Tweney he refers to the fat blogger as ‘cowardly’. He then rambles on in what’s supposed to be a hilarious recap of Wired’s technical (or lack thereof) prowess.

*sigh. Email was so 1999. If they really wanted to do a cutting edge interview they would log into second life, dress their avatars as furries, and head over to the IBM island. I hear its pretty empty. That way Calacanis could have all the privacy he wanted… to continue to say something dumb.

There are a laudable group of environmentally conscious folks that have banded together in the virtual world of Second Life. Their purpose is to raise awareness of environmental issues. However, they’re apparently not aware of the detrimental effects that the sexual deviant’s playground produces.

As the impeccable Tony Walsh states in an open letter to the Second Life Environmental Council:

What is the environmental impact of an expanding virtual world served from thousands of high-end computers to hundreds of thousands of high-end computers around the globe? Although computers are getting more efficient as time goes by, Second Life isn’t getting any smaller: Ironically, a Brazilian version of Second Life is due to launch April 23, 2007. If Carr’s math is correct, Brazilian Second Life users will be doubling their average energy consumption.

I’ve reviewed your group’s Events Calendar for Earth Month / Earth Day, and I don’t see any events devoted to looking at the ecological impact of the platform from which you’ll be talking about ecological impact. That seems a bit like organizing a drive-a-thon for pollution reduction without examining the emissions of cars. Clearly you know cars aren’t an appropriate vehicle for pollution reduction: Is Second Life an appropriate vehicle for Earth Day events?

Oh snap! Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to destroy a tree in real life by planting a fake one in game. Oh the irony!

Oh, poor Second Life. First the media sees through your artificial scandal meant to ‘legitimize’ your virtual economy. Then you offer people the chance to keep their own last names - for the low, low price of $50 a year. The best Second Life news of the week, however, had to be that famed teledildonics expert Fo3 qDot Bunnyhug is leaving Second Life. For all the single-mother brothel owners and naked streakers that Second Life provides some problems can’t be overcome. For Bunnyhug, these issues are technical - not moral. He’s moving on to Open Croquet which, unlike Second Life, is open source and completely distributed.

My prediction? Open Croquet has languished in obscurity while Second Life’s inferior, closed platform got all the press. With an expert in exciting your naughty bits with naughty bytes now in the OC camp we may just see a migration. Either that, or a confirmed sexual deviant got tired of frame rate sputtering and world crashing when trying to do a furry.

Ah, here I thought the virtual bordello was righting its ways by having companies like Coldwell Banker overprice imaginary property. Then the Dutch go and launch a city hall in game and the fine residents of Second Life don’t disappoint:

During a news conference in Second Life, two punk-like characters disrupted the presentation of a Zoetermeer city official, Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported Wednesday. One of the avatars stripped naked, according to the report.

“A city employee hurriedly removed the virtual rioter from city hall with a click on his mouse,” the paper reported.

Overall the news conference was very chaotic. Various avatars talked at the same time, making it impossible for the city official to respond to questions. After a few minutes, the event was ended, to be continued in the real world, the Algemeen Dagblad said.

Despite the disturbances, Zoetermeer officials are pleased because of all the publicity around the city’s Second Life presence. Zoetermeer invested about $33,000 in the virtual building, but got publicity worth multiple times that, it said.

So, a town pays $33,000 for pixels, has streakers cut their event short, and their community looks ridiculous. Sounds like a publicity win to me.

Tony Walsh, from the excellent Clickable Culture blog, has word that debate of infinitesimally ridiculously proportions has erupted in Second Life. The cause? Who has the true right to do a virtual world ‘Next Top Model’ competition. As Tony points out:

When I first heard of the “SL Next Top Model” competition underway in Second Life, I immediately searched the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office database for existing trademarks under the “Next Top Model” banner, given the prominence of the America’s Next Top Model TV series. Unsurprisingly, there are 4 trademarks logged in the database under that name for services including “providing entertainment information concerning television program via global computer network.” I’m no lawyer, but I think there’s a good chance that the unauthorized Second Life “Next Top Model” competition infringes on the real one.

That hasn’t stopped the intellectual fireworks from popping:

Ms. Hoyer declined comment at this time, complaining that it was too late an hour for an interview. I did, however, get a few -very staggered- remarks from her.

Jada Hoyer: and I did not attempt to highjack anything
Tenshi Vielle: Alright, then why is your event, under the same name, separated by two single tildes, registered after the original groups were formed?
Tenshi Vielle: After the original idea was formed, etc?
Jada Hoyer: the original idea was Tara Banks
Jada Hoyer: lol
Tenshi Vielle: mm-hmmm… but I’m talking the SL edition
Tenshi Vielle: Did you bother to ask permission of Ms. Banks to use her name?
Tenshi Vielle: Did you contact Bankable Productions?
Jada Hoyer: I better take this babyphat outfit off huh
Tenshi Vielle: If it’s on your SL body, you may as well, it’s direct copyright infringment.
Tenshi Vielle: I just can’t fathom… I heard through the grapevine that you are “prepared to fight this” … how are you planning on fighting for something that isn’t even yours? … that you didn’t bother to get permission of the original parties, to use their name and idea? Did you even ATTEMPT an email to them?

After that, Ms. Hoyer fell absolutely silent. I told her I would report her silence as a “decline to comment”. So, guys - you heard it - or didn’t hear it — Jada Hoyer declined to comment. She also, however, stated that I had to “come at” her “correct”, by which she meant that I must interview her in person. “What kind of reporter wouldn’t?” she asks. The kind that works in SL, honey.

Ms. Hoyer began pasting our IM conversation to her friends. How do I know this? She mistakenly pasted me another copy of our conversation. Brilliant move. “F*ck you,” is her parting shot.

Tony ends his piece by stating how rampant copyright infringement is within the world. He laments how it is only a matter of time before before the world gets Viacommed. We could only be so lucky.

Ah, Second Life - that game/not-a-game which has captivated the hearts of brothel running single mothers and Martin Luther flying saucers the world over. Nearly buried beneath the news of Viacom’s GooTube shakedown was word that Second Life is going to Japan. Japanese companies are already starting to worry about performance (via Mainichi via Gizmodo):

The Japanese version is on the way, but the American subsidiaries of automakers like Toyota and Nissan have already put cars on the market in the virtual world. They do it for promotional purposes, but performance in the virtual world is said to reflect performance in the real world, too. If a Japanese language version starts running, more Japanese companies are gonna get involved… This is the first large-scale online game where real money is involved. It’ll be interesting to see whether the cops will be prepared to deal with disputes that have occurred within the game. I can see all sorts of social problems coming out of this.

Personally, I think their concern is misplaced. If Furries are bumping and grinding in Second Life what will the Japanese version bring? Tentacle pr0n?