Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Virtual Harlem to Downsize

Virtual Harlem Talk
Location: SLED list

image: Bryan Carter presents about Virtual Harlem at VWBPE 2009

I'm sorry to see that once again, Linden Lab's pricing has led a colleague to reduce activity in Second Life. Bryan Carter, whose work I've praised here, noted in a post that one of the three islands he uses in SL will vanish after June 6.

One would think that, in light of Princeton's departure and moves such as Bryan's, that the Lab would come to see that gradually more and more of us are moving to OpenSim worlds where pricing is far lower. Those worlds do not yet enable builds as seamlessly as in SL, but that utility will come, and better premade content will as well.

In the interim, Linden Lab's latest advertising campaign encourages avatars to get married and post photos with their SL partners on Facebook. Good luck with all that. There may be a void still left from the end of The Sims Online, but I think that exodus ended years ago.

And best of luck to Bryan. I'll continue sending students to his two remaining SL islands as long as they are around, and to any OpenSim content he develops.

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