Updates on Second Life

Body

This Thursday is U.S. Thanksgiving, so I the blogosphere is probably going to be quiet this week.

I found some interesting posts and articles on Second Life that might be of interest.

[Harvard Offers Classes in Second Life]

Benjamin Duranske of Virtually Blind writes:

The Harvard Extension School is running a course focused on virtual law with a Second Life component. Rebecca Nesson (’Rebecca Berkman’ in Second Life) is teaching the class. The lectures, which look fascinating, are available to at-large participants on Berkman Island [SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/113/70/24].

You can attend the lectures in Second Life on Monday evenings from 8:00-10:00pm EST (5:00-7:00pm SL time). Videos of past lectures are linked on the course’s web site, where you can also find the syllabus, a wiki, and more.

[Oh, It has losers...]

Roo over at Eightbar writes:

The US version of The Office (which does an excellent job of being almost as funny as the BBC version) is no stranger to life online. It’s fun to spot Kevin, Meredith, Creed, Roy, Pam all on MySpace, and Dwight has a blog. This week they dipped into Second Life. The very same week as CSI:NY; It’s all getting very mainstream.

Of course, the Office’s treatment of SL was as tongue-in-cheek as you’d expect…

Dwight:“Second Life is not a game. It is a Multi User Virtual Environment. It doesn’t have points or scores or winners or losers.”

Jim:“Oh, it has losers.”

Steve Nelson at Clear Ink, the team behind bringing the office into SL for the episode, has [written about the project] and carefully lists the locations and clothing used.

I watched this episode and loved how they were able to blend it in seamlessly without looking out of placeor awkward reference.

[A Press Conference in Second Life]

Matt Hamblen of ComputerWorld writes:

Cisco Systems Inc. has been staging virtual meetings between developers and channel partners in Second Life for more than a year, but this invitation was a first for me. So a presentation announcing the winners of a networking technology innovation contest -- inside a Second Life simulation -- seemed like the place to be.

I'm probably an SL noob (for newbie) by most standards, but I've spent enough time there to know most of the ways to move and how to search out islands and events.

In all, I would say the Cisco event sparked my interest in the SL virtual meeting format, but my attention was focused more on making things in SL work smoothly than on the material presented.

technorati tags: Harvard, Eightbar, The+Office, Cisco, SecondLife, Second Life, SL, ComputerWorld, Matt Hamblen