Cloud Party Customization For Avatars

Location: Shiny Canyon

I'd been away from Cloud Party for a while, but a conversation during yesterday's VWER meeting spurred me to log in during the meeting.

I'd heard of but not tried the virtual world's new customization features. At login, I found myself in a welcome area, and wearing a new basic avatar greatly improved from the one I'd driven before.

Cloud Party's little smart-phone icon was drop-dead easy to recall after time away,  unlike many aspects of Second Life's bloated interface. I did not recall how to get home, but a navigation app on the phone, much like a maps tool for a physical phone, got me to Shiny Canyon in one smooth teleport.

Back in my stylin' pad there, I decided to try the customization features now in CP. First, I found it hilarious that unlike SL, where most male avatars are hulking body builders, my CP avatar was a skinny white guy. I'm no Hercules in real life, but farm work has made me rather burly and skinnier in the middle. So I buffed CP Joe Essid out to match the actual one.

The process greatly resembled SL's customization features, one aspect of SL that I found students mastered quickly. One can also save outfits and looks, as in SL. The lag was negligible as I did all this from within Firefox. Soon areas of outfit creation will merit a spin. I do not know what "movement" does, for instance. In the hair settings, I rather enjoyed the "stubble" feature for the beard. With hair removed, the avatar got the same swarthy look as this blogger.

Enter, Guido... rather like me but younger. There is no geezer-slider in CP's custom features.

At the VWER meeting, educators were too quick to dismiss Cloud Party for its name and lack of community. I'm not so sure. Despite a name I don't like all that much, anything that runs this well in a browser merits a close look. And without Facebook logins as mandatory (I still use mine) and  a working virtual currency plus marketplace, this world deserves more press from educators.

I'll have to have a try with the in-world building tools, rumored to be difficult. I'll also have to see if the ability to connect islands to make contiguous regions exists, also as rumored.

Shiny Canyon will never be the same.

Linden Lab & Customers

 

Location: Bizarro World, Clearly

In what other community would rotten treatment be construed as part of a utopian dream? In reading recent posts about sim-closings over at New World Notes, I detect an evangelism that has all but vanished in academic circles whenever SL comes up as topic.

I'll keep an eye on Fearzom and my old parcel, maybe even do a walking tour since sim crossings no longer work well enough for a road trip. It's interesting what denial can do for a former darling of the mass media.

To quote a CEO in Bizarro World, "me lose customers and business! Company do great!"

PaperTab: A Tablet Made of Paper

Location: Looking for a piece of paper

Have a look at a promotional video about this prototype "paper" tablet.
Imagine the future of this in color; just keep the tablets away from the recycling bin!

An irony here: while virtual worlds such as Second Life stagnate, as evinced in my prior post, the mobile revolution, that these worlds so missed exploiting, thunders on.

Top-hat tip to Tristan Longino, who studied with me in 2001.

Nobody Home (Still) in Fearzom

Location: Fearzom sim, beside my old abandoned 1024 plot

After reading about the closure of two Japanese-themed sims, plus a string of comments about the mainland emptying out, I wondered about my old bit of mainland property. It was the last time I paid tier.

I'll try to post here, occasionally, about its fate. I think I let it go in March 2010, but I kept a premium account and bought a 512 to pay the Lab no more tier. At the time, my university had its own island and I did not need a 1024. I might have stayed, had I known that an exodus of educators, including us, would occur in the next 12 months. Now, according to Tyche Shepherd, "10.6% to 11.6% of Mainland by area is abandoned parcels" and the Lab owns 46.5% of the Mainland.

I rezzed at my neighbor's old plot. He ran a furniture store but  abandoned it too, driven out of business by Marketplace. I thought at first I was at my old home, but a quick check showed my land is still not reclaimed by Governor Linden. The former neighbors' plots all went up for sale in October of 2012 or January of this year.

I wonder how long it will take the Lindens to sell the land? To reclaim mine? Stay tuned, as I've a morbid interest in this topic.

Update: I recall, perhaps incorrectly, that a year ago abandoned land constituted about 9.5% to 10% of total. Not a huge uptick, but it's a troubling one for those still with an emotional or financial stake in Second Life.