Longer excerpts of interviews with members of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Second Life that I conducted for my article on the church have been published. The excerpts include one interview that was cut from the final article.
The official word on voice in SL
Joe Linden has a post on the official Linden blog: Bringing Voice to Second Life «
For me, Second Life has always been more about human communication, collaboration, and spirit than about technology. When I talk to Residents about their experiences, one of the recurring themes is improving our communication methods. For so many, Second Life is a place to make and meet new friends and collaborate with others, whether that’s in a business, educational or purely social context.
Blah. Blah. Blah. Talk to the hand. I do not consider this a feature in my typical use of SL. The improvements in live entertainment do seem attractive, and I can see the usefulness for group events (like church services). But I don’t want to have to hear people blabbing when I’m in SL. The sound effects some bozos run are bad enough. I strongly disapprove of a new voice capacity being automatically enabled on the mainland.
I’m also very concerned about the effect on communication between people who do not share a first language. Written communication in a second language is often far superior to vocal communication. And then there are the deaf and hard of hearing. What happens when someone tries to use voice communication with them?
I guess someone will have to create a group that will provide a title “I can’t hear you.”
Things still screwed up
Although the official blog says problems from earlier today have let up, I’ve had repeated problems getting into SL this evening: long (10 minute) logins, hung logins, crashes in SL, buggy behavior.
Feedback group
You may remember a post on blog.secondlife.com a while back: We’re developing my.secondlife.com…your feedback needed! «
In an effort to make our Website more useful and easier to use, we will be undergoing a major redesign of www.secondlife.com in the coming months.
I was lucky enough to get into one of the feedback groups. Go take a look at the Linden blog post, and if you have anything you’d like me to suggest to my group, let me know in the comments here.
Go vote for Natalia
I use an RSS aggregator (Bloglines) to track quite a few SL blogs and websites. One of my favorites is Natalia’s Second Life Diary Blog. Natalia combines step-by-step tutorials (mostly female fashion), site-seeing, and delightfully low-key role-playing narrative. I encourage you to check it out.
And if you’re so inclined, vote for her in the Miss Second Life contest:
The Miss Second Life Finals is this Sun Feb 25, from 9:00am-11:00am SL/PST. If you are around a computer, please vote for me! The website is www.MissSL.com/gallery (The voting will be between 09:30am-10:30am SL/PST). Just select Rank 1st under my picture and click the Vote button. That’s it! You dont need to be in Second Life or even have a Second Life account to vote. But the votes *MUST* be cast between 9:30am-10:30am SL/PST to be counted! Thank you so much in advance! 🙂
OK, time for some meta rants
Official Linden Blog: Network routing issues being worked on.
No. Really? Dudes, get a grip.
And the Avastar reports that:
In an interview with PC Advisor, Joe Miller, vice president of LL, revealed the company is close to providing an integrated voice communcation system.
Let me just say, I do not want to hear the voices of crowds of people, and I don’t particularly want to use voice to communicate myself.
Real-life Boston meetup
There was a fun first meeting for our new Boston SL meetup tonight in Cambridge, hosted by Tuan and Chris of Useful Technology. Stay tuned for more activities! You can check it out at meetup.com
New elven sims!
I was showing around my friend nox tonight, and discovered that the Elven sim reorganization I read about in the MM (I think) is taking shape. There are now several ocean sims that are new. It’s going to be a nice big area. (The map slurl.com uses doesn’t show any of the sims, even the preexisting ones, yet.)
My cousin Hermione Fussbudget
Here are photos from my cousin Hermione’s visit to Caledon Victoria City. She had fun buying clothes.
Yes, it is a large image of the Queen, isn’t it?
Article on uuworld.org
I wrote the article now featured on the uuworld.org home page: Religious reality in a virtual world.
A dragon, an angel, and a bug-eyed monster sit down in a Unitarian Universalist church. No, it’s not the beginning of a bad joke. If you’re in the popular online world of Second Life, it may just be a few friends having a conversation.