SL Statistics for Mach 2008

Base on the official information from Linden Lab, we present an exclusive summary with the main statistics, on the Second Life.

• Total of hours spends by users: little more than 30.7 million hours, a growth of 9.5% in relation to February;

• Increase of the total population: they had been opened 408,499 new accounts, 3.22% increment, rising for 13,080,137 residents (historical mark, above of 13 million). However in percentile terms, it was to the worse mark of all times;

• Premium accounts: in March a fall of 1,656 accounts was registered , from 91,531 in February to 89,975 in Mach (-1.81%).

• Brazil active resident registered a fall of -2.22% avatars(about 575 residents less), finishing the month of March with 25,236 avatars active, and keeping 6ª world-wide position (with a representation of 4.64% of world-wide the active population in the SL).

In world-wide level the March month registered increase in the total active users (breaking the increase of fall in the last month), about 17,375 new users, what corresponds to 3.29% increase. The month of March closed with a total of 544,290 active users in the world.

• TOP 10, they represent 80% of all activity in the SL:

1º U.S.A. (194,899 active users) – same position as last month
2º Germany (44,908) - 1 position up
3º the United Kingdom (43,859) - 1 position down
4º France (27,130) - 1 position up
5º Japan (27,081) - 1 position down
6º Brazil (25,236) - same position as last month
7º Italy (23,577) - same position as last month
8º Canada (18,279) - 2 positions up
9º Spain (17,868) - 1 position down
10º Holland (17,202) - 1 position down

• Total area of grid (world-wide map of the SL) grew about 5.24% and it reached the mark of 1,093. 42 Square kilometers

• Total regions (islands) about 16,600 .

• Total L$ circulating in the system went up 4.9%, reaching the total mark of L$4.8 billion (new historical record, beating the previous month), equivalents US$18.4 active millions in the financial system.

• There was an increase of L$ trades in the official market (LindEx-Linden Exchange), from US$8.4 millions to US$9.1 million (8.33% growth).

• The Linden Lab invoiced US$ 884,000 in March, with direct sales of L$ (Linden Dollars), at LindEx market.


Analysis:
The Second Life is really an interesting system. If compared with a country in real world, it would be among the fast grown country. The growth projection for this year is 40% disrespecting the users with only one access, those that open account and never connect again.

This growth projection is superior of many countries in terms of USD$. Therefore 40% in revenue return is fantastic.

The growth in the indices of the virtual economy is more solid. This confers to the system a status of bank, as a result of more than USD$18 millions inside Second Life! This amount of money is equivalent to a GDP of USD$215 million /year. Corresponding to a developing country economy with a potential for grow and rising funds. An excellent scene for who knows what to invest in the world domestic market. Lands and commerce are the business investment suggestion.

With the contract of Mark Kingdon - career executive in the technology area - Linden Lab confirmed the changes in board. In terms of history, he has a background in art, economics, and business. he has been in successful and highly regarded leadership roles at two companies that are bigger than Linden Lab: PricewaterhouseCoopers and Organic. Kingdon is a weight name to conduct the critical internal changes in the company, moving away the possibility from an I.P.O.

The problem of retention of new users is critical in the Second Life. If it was not for the constant growth in North American users, the system would have a considerable fall in this month.

The constant instabilities had not been enough to knock down the volume of used hours. They grew about 10%. Could grow even more if, there wasn’t many problems in the Linden Lab servers this month. The installation of gravitational system Havok 4 is speculated to be the cause of server problem. In general terms, the perspective is very good for Second Life.

Dear reader, what is your opinion about Second Life business?

Based on: mundolinden.com
Translation and adaptation: Anna Avalanche

Sana Models fashion show

I want to congrats Sana Models and its President Keely LeFavre for the beautiful model show this week. The Sana beautiful models in the show were:

Incolumis Lancaster
Ken Poikolainen
Liane Maertens
Mimmi Boa
Mortimer Vhargon
Salvo Waydelich

Sana Models is a subsidiary of Sana Mall and in addition to be a newly formed agency it is available as a service to Sana Mall vendors. Basically, the vendors of Sana Mall are able to use the models in any professional manner that they require: billboards, logos, in-store modeling, fashion shows, etc. The show featured Sana mall vendors: Micro Dinzeo Underwear, Just for Him, and Safran’s - Which are men’s clothing stores. The famous Nicky Ree clothing design was also featured. This was a high quality fashion show.

After the show I interview two beautiful models, the top model prize winner Mimmi Boa and Liane Maertens.

According to Liane Maertens – also a Déjà vu Journalist – “was really a pleasure to model for Sana Model mall and agency and I wish to make more shows like this in a near future. KeeLy Lefavres is a very nice and friendly person. The clothes were not very difficult to match with the most different accessories and jewels.” Liane featured Safrans Micro and Nick Ree beach wear at the runway on the paradisiacal Sana beach mall.

Mimmi Boa is an Italian Model, Here curriculum include big model agency like Modavia Model, SL Supermodels. She has large experience in fashion shows, no admire that she won the contest. I found Mimmi very happy and satisfied about the catwalk. As she say: “I worked really hard to learn more and more every day. Is really amazing and I’m so happy and proud!” To Mimmi these last weeks are really incredible she was chosen as pre-finalist for Miss Universe 2009 and also won the rank of Top Model for Sana Modeling. Congrats girl!

I would love to have had the chance to interview all the lovely models on the show. Hope I have the chance next time. For those beautiful models that I didn’t interview, please feel free to add a comment about your impression and feeling of the Sana Models high quality fashion show here.

MFA - From Liane Maertens

This here I was invited as Moda model to participate at MFA showcase, and I got realy involved with the wonderfull and generous idea of the coordenations.
MFA started as a clothing fair called the Merovingi Clothing Fair on 2 sims, with the good feedback recived from the visitors and contestants among with some suggestions how to improve the show. One of these, where to not select fashion labels but to let people nominate themselves.
So the organization asked Second Life residents in January to nominate who they think should participate. Every Second Life resident was invited to nominate one (1) fashion company who only exist in Second Life, only Second Life businesses could be nominated. Fashion Labels that has a business registered in Real Life could not be nominated. in each 5 given categories.
Judging will be based around 5 categories:

1. Best Female Fashion Label
2. Best Male Fashion Label
3. Best Goth Fashion Label
4. Best Furry Fashion Label
5. Best New Fashion Label

Over 5000 nominations later, the top 5 nominees in each category has been invited to attend. The top five (5) labels that gets most nominations are offered to participate at the MFA Show-grounds. Here, they were offered a spot on the grounds where they could put on display there creations and offer visitors a chance to have a close look at there work before voting.

Last year’s show event helped to raise money for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, and this year the plan are make things even bigger, by raising money for Doctors without Borders and the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

This year the show is twice as big, spread on 4 SIMs in Second Life. In comparison to passed shows, the coordenation didnt hand pick designers, instead they left the Second Life community nominate and vote for those it thinks should be the winners. During the week-long event, visitors are offered to visit the show grounds and vote for who they think should win, in each of the categories. Each Second Life resident could vote one (1) time. Voters must had minimum 30 days old to vote.

Also this year, they award a brand new Apple iMac 20" computer to each winner, and an iPod Nano is raffled among those who nominate and vote!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Osmium/191/198/22

London School of Journalism

Morgue McMillan Public relation of the London School of journalism send me this important notice. It is nice to have a real life journalism school also on Second Life. I will be glad to have some articles of the students publish here. Congrats Morgue and all London School staff, professors and students.

This is a nice tip for those who want to be an journalism. London School of Journalism.

Established for over 80 years, the London School of Journalism provides journalism courses, freelance classes and creative writing lessons by distance learning.

The LSJ has been at the forefront of teaching journalism and creative writing skills for three generations, and continues to lead the way in developing new and effective teaching methods. It also offers 3, 6 and 9 month attendance postgraduate diploma courses in Journalism in London, and modular 24 month online distance learning postgraduate courses.

Although best known for its journalism courses, half of the students are involved in other forms of writing - short stories, novels, children's fiction, poetry, cartooning and English courses.

The presence of the LSJ in Second Life is one more step in the development of new teaching and learning methods. It took Titan Thorne and Indego Hax little over 3 months to build the sim, which includes a main building called the Student Union that contains a general public relations area with announcements as well as an amphitheatre and a club for dancing and events.

Furthermore the Learning Curve will provide the students with all the assets needed in SL and for their learning experience. The LSJ also plans to offer free lectures all throughout their distance learning programme every other week and will co-operate with the writing community in SL like The Guild of UK Writers, Written Word and INKsters as well as with Rockcliffe University.

For further information please contact Titan Thorne or Indego Hax in-world and they will be glad to answer any question, or visit the website of the London School of Journalism at http://www.lsj.org/.

The sim will open officially on April 26, 2008 at 10 am SLT (6 pm GMT) with a public lecture (it is a free event, but it is needed to contact Titan Thorne via IM to attend as it will be a group event), music and readings.

Their virtual campus is here:

Virtual style? In another life

This is based on an article in the London Financial Times on the fashion industry and how real-world fashion companies are braving the virtual frontier. Also, this is part of my history inside the metaverse. I was surprised when I read a line about me on Fiona article. This is because I took part on the Lacoste contest. Below you can see my pictures. Well I didn’t win but I got media coverage.

The idea to publish this article is to show part of my history inside Second Life; Give a tip about business and brands on the metaverse - In my opinion this is a very new internet platform and real life companies aren’t using it very well; Also, introduce my new article about fashion tips and trends on Déjà vu magazine: Deja vu international.

Virtual style? In another life
Based on text By: Fiona Harkin

No longer the domain of tech-geeks and real-world businesses are vying for a virtual presence - especially fashion businesses. After all, think of all those perfect-bodied avatars to dress.

"Aranel is fun and spunky. She is happy-go-lucky and really easy-going but has an addiction to shopping for clothes." So reads the online description of one avatar beauty applying to take part in Lacoste's Second Life virtual modelling contest. The French brand has joined the likes of American Apparel, Reebok, Adidas and Calvin Klein fragrances in tapping the growing marketing potential of virtual worlds.

Unlike American Apparel and Reebok, Lacoste has chosen not to open a store in Second Life, but has instead launched a competition on its website, where players can upload images of their avatars to be judged in an online voting competition.

"By going as far as virtualising the product, Lacoste is demonstrating that an item of clothing is infinitely more than a piece of fabric," says Ivan Beczkowski, web consultant at BETC Luxe, which is behind the Lacoste project and sees it as a way for brands - even luxury ones - to reinforce their identity and engage the consumer.

"By becoming involved in Second Life, Lacoste is investing in this new virtual living space, a space that has become a powerful economic reality and a decisive territory for brand expression and expansion," adds Corinne Perez, managing director of BETC Luxe.

Well, she would, wouldn't she - though with avatars such as Anna Avalanche, pictured on the Lacoste website in a revealing Brazilian bikini, and Salvatoree Rossin with his steroid-pumped torso, it's hard to imagine the style of Second Life avatars fitting in with the clean-cut Lacoste image.

Still, says Sabrina Dent, alias Sabrina Doolittle, of Linden Lifestyles "Critically, there are no really effective advertising channels in SL, and therefore no in-game mechanism that allows a brand to dominate, no matter how much they spend. The playing field is still very even between real-world brands and in-world brands and, in fact, the real-world brands do a much poorer job of reaching consumers.

"Having said that, Second Life is a micro economy and there is no real-life brand that's here to make money. It is an excellent platform for building relationships, cementing brands and building consumer loyalty - yet few real-life brands are doing those things correctly in Second Life," adds Dent. "Take Lacoste. It has little or no in-world presence; it's just running a vapid photo contest on its website."

"Overall, I'd say, most residents are indifferent to the large companies that open outlets in Second Life," says Celebrity Trollop, Second Life's fashion oracle and the managing editor of online magazine SecondStyle.com. "Second Life is driven by the new and now. If you open a beautiful store like American Apparel, it will be popular for maybe a month, but as new content fails to appear, traffic and sales will quickly erode."

So what are the sartorial codes of the virtual world, and how can you win your fellow avatars' approval? "Second Life allows you to be a celebrity in your own lunchtime," muses Dent. "You can design the body you've always wanted, and indulge your fashionista fetish for very little money. You can be the most attractive, best-dressed version of yourself you can imagine."

It figures then that having achieved a perfect body, most Second Lifers choose to flaunt it. Cue an overwhelming array of bootilicious clothing and bare midriffs which would horrify real-life fashionistas. Second-Life style isn't about the latestPrada shoes and Louis Vuitton 'It' bag. Instead, there's an appreciation of technical craft, especially as anyone with Photoshop can be a virtual fashion designer. "There are some extraordinarily talented people in Second Life," says Dent.

Then there's Crucial Armitage, aka Peter Lokke. A former manager of a Pathmark supermarket for 16 years, he gave up his real- life job to further his career as a virtual clothing designer and land baron, with 70 stores throughout Second Life. One of the 35,500 players experiencing a "positive monthly Linden flow" in April, Lokke says he makes enough money to support a family of four.

"I believe the great majority of players prefer something a bit simpler with a touch of flair and sex appeal to it," Lokke says. " I never rush anything I make. It is this process that I think makes my items stand out."

If uniqueness and craftsmanship count, perhaps more luxury retailers should be getting involved? "The 'participative democracy' of the net takes nothing away from the magic of luxury brands as long as their appearances on the web show both understanding of this new world of expression and convey their extraordinary status," says BETC Luxe's Perez, referring to the Lacoste project. "I am convinced that internet users will appropriate and twist the codes of a universe that stays inflexible and formatted in reality."

But to what end? Accessto a niche group of online early-adopters with enough cash for the hardware needed to run Second Life? Dent is firm in her belief that Second Life has added value for a brand in witnessing the way players shop. "Anything I see in a high street or a Bond Street window, I can find a semblance of in Second Life, and it has its own couture brands, too.

"What I see an opportunity for, however, is smaller fashion houses trialling design concepts in Second Life. If you're trying to decide if a consumer group will prefer one pattern over another, Second Life shoppers can very likely provide you with statistics on that. And, with the correct market intelligence, design houses could also extrapolate data about price points - all with corporate anonymity."

Adds Trollop: "You couldn't ask for a better creative Petri dish to grow a market winner."
The bigger issue, then is how Second Life could change the way we shop in real life. It offers the opportunity to try before you buy. It fosters shifting identities, with avatars changing styles from day to day. (On the flip side, it could also lead to more demanding real-life customers.)

No wonder Aimee Weber, who built American Apparel's Second Life store as well as virtual versions of the company's real-life outfits, says: "I predict the real fashion world will have a season or two in the near future that will be advertised and heavily influenced by the virtual worlds."

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008


The complete article can be found here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/733d2398-05a6-11dc-b151-000b5df10621.html?nclick_check=1 or here: http:http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto052320070811047333

Please, leave comments of your thoughts if you wish. Do you think real life companies don’t know how to use correctly SL? Do you think that real fashion world will be heavily influenced by the virtual worlds?

This is my pictures for the Lacoste contest Fiona Harkin refer to.

Anna Avalanche Lacoste 01
Upload from Anna Avalanche

Anna Avalanche Lacoste 02
Upload from Anna Avalanche

Anna Avalanche Lacoste 03
Upload from Anna Avalanche

What is coming up next on Second Life?

This is a Reuters article: The last big feature: “HTML on a prim” by By Eric Reuters.

Speaking last summer at the Second Life Community Convention, Philip Rosedale pledged that stability would be Linden Lab’s top priority for the coming year, plus two major new features: the introduction of voice, now live in the virtual world, and the ability to access web pages inside Second Life.

Earlier this month, Linden took a major step towards realizing the second half of Rosedale’s wishlist with the release of a new test version of the Second Life software. Insiders call the long-awaited feature “HTML on a prim,” for the ability to display the language web pages are written in (HTML) on the basic building blocks of Second Life objects (prims).

What it means, to hear Linden Lab executives speak, is to allow people to share the any experience that can be had on the World Web Web, collectively through Second Life. “You can have the experience of watching a video — dare I say YouTube? — with other people at the same time,” Rosedale told Reuters last week in a Second Life interview.

The current test version has nowhere near that capability. Only one URL, or web page, can be used in a given parcel of land. Eventually URLs will be tied to virtual objects, a substantially more difficult task. But as a prototype the functionality works.

Rosedale, noting the shift in his Second Life usage towards educational institutions and non-profits, said he imagined the earliest uses of the new feature would lie in creating “virtual white boards” to share ideas between people in remote locations.

“Today, you have to take screenshots of your slides and upload them as textures, which normal people just aren’t going to do,” he said. Coding a presentation as a webpage is substantially easier.

Eventually, more capabilities will be added. “We’re shooting a lot higher then just ‘HTML on a prim’,” said Samuel Kolb, a Linden developer working on the project. “Anything you can do on the Web, you should be able to do within Second Life.”

Rosedale shied away from promising a deadline for the general release of the new feature, but when pressed said he hoped to have a first version by the end of year. “If you wanted to be all Steve Jobs about it, you wouldn’t say anything to the public until it was all ready and finished,” he joked.



What you think about this innovation? Had you hear about it? Do you think this will transform Second Life? Please leave your comment about this topic.

Tetê Espíndola, RL Brazilian singer show

EVAPORAR, Nature's breathing sighing within our souls...

Tetê Espíndola is a real life Brazilian singer noted for her creative compositions always in dialogue with the Brazilian musical avant-garde and from the mid-70s singing the importance of the environment, Evaporar (Evaporate) is her 15th record, full of poetry and songs of birds. She will present her new songs and perform LIVE at the Bradesco Cultural Center. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bradesco/23/62/27