Day: August 25, 2018

UPDATED! The BBC Covers Decentraland: Virtually Making a Fortune?

I will hand it to the folks at Decentraland: for a virtual world that you can’t even visit yet, they are certainly attracting an awful lot of press attention (mostly for their expensive land prices). Today BBC decided to cover the platform on their Trending program.

Titled Virtually Making a Fortune?, the 23-minute BBC World Service radio program offers a good overall introduction to the Decentraland project, especially if you’re new to it.

BBC Decentraland.png

I am amused to note that the BBC used a still from the rather misleading “artistic concept” promotional video for Decentraland to illustrate their radio program. (You currently can’t do anything like what is pictured in the YouTube video on the platform.)

The program also failed to mention that you can already use platforms such as Sansar and High Fidelity to build VR-capable, fully-functional, visitable experiences at a much lower cost than Decentraland. As I have said before, spending a small fortune on 10 m-by-10 m plots of virtual land makes absolutely no sense when you can now build up to twenty 4 km-by-4 km experiences for free in Sansar, to cite just one example!

The program also goes into the whole idea that the company plans to build its virtual world and then withdraw, leaving Decentraland’s governance up to the resident landowners themselves. This is a somewhat fascinating but still-untested idea, which may not work out as intended.

UPDATE Aug. 27th: If you want to see some video with your audio, the story has now been placed on the BBC News website: The virtual land selling for millions.

Here’s a direct link to the six-and-a-half-minute news video (press F11 to see it full-screen on your monitor): https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p06j77zq/45275461

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Tommy and Emanuelle Full-Body Mesh Avatars by Altamura Are Again Available For Free!

UPDATE Sept. 28th: For a current, up-to-date list of free or inexpensive options for mesh avatar heads and bodies for female Second Life avatars, please see this blogpost. For a current, up-to-date list of free options for free and inexpensive male mesh avatar bodies, please see this blogpost. 

Damn, I just knew I couldn’t keep away from blogging! (I lasted 48 hours. So much for my holiday…)

If you missed the wonderful, well-made Altamura full-body male and female mesh avatars that were hunt gifts in the recent Men Only Hunt and Women Only Hunt, you’re in luck! Rumegusc Altamura has decided to make the former hunt gifts available as freebies right at the entrance of her store (see the red arrows):

Tommy and Emanuelle Altamura 25 Aug 2018.png

Now, in order to get these gifts, you must first join the Altamura Design/Mesh Avatar group, which has a L$50 group join fee. Frankly, you should join the group and stay in it, because Altamura often has extra-special deals on mesh avatar bodies and heads at various events. It is so worth it! You are never going to get such a good deal on a fully-adjustable mesh avatar body at that price anywhere else!

Don’t forget to pick up the four lipsticks for Emanuelle and the nose piercing for Tommy at the smaller signs located next to the freebie panels.

For all the details on the Tommy and Emanuelle bodies, please read my previous blogpost about them.