But the Obama speech will be accompanied by a virtual event discussion, which will feature musician and activist, D.N.A.,, Ambassador Kenton Keith, and African historian Professor Tim Burke. The guest speakers will be talking about the speech and its broader implications.

Although Barack Obama is arguably running the most Web-savvy Presidency since the emergence of the commercial Internet, the use of virtual worlds by the U.S. government predates his arrival in the White House. In fact, the United States State Department has been hosting virtual events for the last three years as part of its own public diplomacy push. (more…)

The Chelsea now exists in Second Life, offering virtual world rooms for rent, live events, and sporting “Bring back the Bards” signs. On one recent evening, three hours of scheduled live music was followed by another unscheduled performance.

Nearly every wall, staircase, and even the occasional ceiling is adorned with artwork in Second Life’s Hotel Chelsea. It’s a pleasure just to wander the hallways and climb the stairs. Most of the rooms are rented, but some are still available. (more…)

Beach parties were popular and Key West Resort and Marina threw a fantastic one. There was a huge turnout to the beach stage. DJ Moonmaiden Horner got things rolling with a two hour set of summer songs. Jen “The Dealer” Noel took over the stream for the last two hours with beach music and rock. The crowd was treated to two fireworks displays.
Club Neptune

Club Neptune came up for air for the holiday, moving the party from underwater to a floating party deck. The party continued all afternoon, culminating in a performance by JazzMan Correia that thrilled everyone. He performed The Star Spangled Banner a capela, starting the stream before he arrived at the venue. He performed for more than an hour and finished amid Neptune’s fireworks. (more…)

Holding true to the program’s format, the Second Life graduation ceremony offered graduates the opportunity to obtain their degrees in the same fashion they earned them: online.

Complete with digital caps and gowns, the avatars of approximately 40 graduates walked in procession on the college’s virtual campus. (more…)

The online gaming market began with single player and simple games and went on to encompass complex games, involving multi-players, creating, in the process, virtual communities.

Jekyll in real life wants to be Hyde in the virtual world. Very often, the real person behind the virtual persona is never revealed. The virtual avatar is often not linked to the real person, and it is more a fantasy of “what if.” This is a major challenge to advertisers, since the revenue model of online markets depends on advertising and subscriptions. With a low subscription to attract audience, and advertising revenues not really taking off, game providers need to become innovative.

Online gamers such as Second Life, Sim City and others have started taking these gaming platforms innovatively forward, selling their platforms and tools such as 3D animation to marketers across the world. Unlike communities evolving on their own, the innovative use of applications and platforms require additional software work and customisation to suit the needs of the real world companies. (more…)

In March, Linden Lab VP of customer relations Cyn Skyberg introduced a policy change that would see Adult-only activities and content in Second Life moved to a separate continent. “The core goals of this initiative are to improve Second Life for everyone — by giving Residents more control over what they see, and by providing the best available method to make Adult content accessible only to those who ought to (and who desire to) access it,” the post said.

Second Life watchers reacted strongly. Web site Massively.com wrote, “this is certainly one of the most — perhaps the most — far-reaching and profound set of changes to Second Life since 2003.” (more…)

Human-computer sexual interaction - whether using interactive stimulus-toys or engaging your `virtual self’ in fantasy romps with mythical creatures - is slowly gaining in popularity, but as the line between the real and virtual experience blurs, sex educators are faced with some tough ethical questions.

Emerging technologies offer individuals greater access to diverse sexual practices, says sex educator and online columnist Cory Silverberg, who spoke this past week at the annual Guelph Sexuality Conference in Guelph, Ont.

Those new technologies encompass everything from having cybersex on websites such as Second Life - where the user creates an avatar or `virtual self’ - to the more hands-on approach of experimenting with `teledildonics,’ the latest technological twist in virtual jollies. (more…)

For many of us, the ever-increasing count of American and Iraqi dead has been a central fact driving our political lives since it became clear that Bush was intent against all reason on pursuing a preemptive misadventure in Iraq. It is what drove us to the blogs, to march and to protest, to speak out.

For those in Red States, where opportunities to voice opposition with any real effect have seemed too few and far between, few examples of principled dissent have been more inspiring than that of Sgt. Marshall Thompson, who–on his return to Utah from a year in Iraq as an Army journalist–undertook to walk the state’s length to talk with everyday Utahns about war and peace. The award-winning 2007 documentary A Soldier’s Peace by Kristen and Marshall Thompson chronicles his remarkable 500-mile journey into activism. (more…)

Another big bank is the subject of a depositor run amid charges its chairman has run off with customers’ money. Thankfully, this scandal is taking place in Eve Online, a space-age virtual reality created by CCP, a games developer and Iceland’s coolest company. But these troubles in the ether may offer some valuable lessons for earthly banking and regulation.

Eve is one of the more successful multiplayer online games. Some 300,000 people — as it happens, nearly equal to the population of Iceland — pay $15 a month to navigate characters that pilot intergalactic spaceships, manufacture and trade goods, mine resources and enter into big alliances, or bloody battles, with one another. (more…)

2007 was the year that Second Life, the virtual world started by Linden Lab, seemed to explode: Jay-Z held a concert there; politicians gave stump speeches; and businesses rushed to establish their own branded hang-outs. And then the buzz died.

But Second Life might have a few surprising second acts through the work of Eric Gordon, a professor of new media at Emerson College, and Gene Koo, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. They recently won a MacArthur grant for using Second Life as a tool for community-led urban planning. (more…)