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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

A Second Life Publication

Contest winners are announced

Inside

CLUB REOPENS - PAGE 6

Sports A STAGECOACH Island resident makes a withdrawl from a Wells Fargo atm in order to pay for sun activities. Stagecoach Island is an educational tool developed by Swivel Media. - Courtesy Photo

SKEEBALL - PAGE 9

FYI Voting ends tomorrow in the movie trailer contest. Go to the Supernova sim for an exclusive viewing of the five entries in the Second Life Trailer Contest. LL strongly suggest residents consider originality, visual quality, editing quality, humor and/or coolness factor, and the highlighting of resident-made content, building, and socializing in their voting decision.

Index Perspectives . . . . . Page 2 Comics .. . . . . . . . . Page 6 Entertainment . . . . Page 6 Sports . .. . . . . . . . . Page 9 Classifieds . . .. . . .. Page 6

Web Poll Go to our website at www.metaversemessenger.com

to participate in our online poll. This week’s question: Should LL develop a Bill of Rights for SL residents? Look for the results from last week’s poll on Page 2.

About Us Volume 1, No. 6 Second Life The Metaverse Messenger Sido (169, 195) Rose from Ash Publishing

Free

Stagecoach Island tool rolls into Second Life By KATT KONGO Staff writer Philip Linden, chief executive officer and founder of Linden Lab, announced last week that Wells Fargo will launch Stagecoach Island, which he bills as “an immersive experience set in Second Life that teaches young adults how to handle their finances in an entertaining way,” this week. Linden said that Swivel Media, an experiential marketing agency, bought the islands for the Stagecoach Island project and paid Second Life developers to build the content and provide products for sale for Stagecoach Island users. Swivel Media founder and creative director Erik Hauser, himself a SL resident, said that he has known the people at Linden Lab for years and loves the platform. So when he heard that Wells Fargo was searching for a way to teach young people about money in a fun way, Hauser saw a real opportunity to create an educational game within SL. The islands are private islands and new users log directly into those islands. Much of the content, such as buildings and games, on the islands was provided by Bedazzle, who did a phenomenal job, said Hauser. Although the game is now in the stage of test marketing, Swivel will soon be dispersing multi-use codes for others to join in. Hauser said that the target

audience is in the age range of 18 to 24. Stagecoach Island players choose fun experiences such as shopping or skydiving and pay via their Wells Fargo account. Players can earn money by visiting the Virtual Learning Lounge and answering trivia questions about banking basics such as budgeting, saving and managing money, said Hauser. He added that they plan to add jobs and apartments soon to allow the audience to have additional types of fun. “This is version 1.0,” he said. Hauser calls the game “groundbreaking,” adding that no one has ever utilized the platform of SL in this manner before. “I’m proud to be a part of it,” he said. Hauser predicts that the many businesses will use this platform and others like it in the future. “We may be the first, but we won’t be the last,” he said. According to the company’s web site, Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $435 billion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance to more than 23 million customers from more than 6,000 stores and the internet across North America and elsewhere internationally. The site refers to Swivel Media as “the creative, full service experience marketing shop headquartered in San Francisco, CA.” The agency provides the highest level of creative and strategic vision to solve challenging marketing objectives, says the site.

"The Best of Second Life," a contest in which Messenger readers picked their favorites in a variety of categories, has come to an end. Katt Kongo, the newspaper’s publisher, said that the contest was a lot of fun. "Unlike many contests that only have one category to pick your favorites in, the ‘Best of’ is a type of readers’ choice awards," she added. Ballots for the contest appeared in the Sept. 6 and 13 issues, with the winners appearing in this issue. Readers voted by simply cutting and pasting the ballot into an e-mail form and sending it to BestOfSL@metaversemessenger. com. Readers were also able to writein categories that they felt were missing from the ballot and entering a vote in that category, said Kongo. The winners in each category will receive certificates, discounted rates on advertising in the Messenger, and an exclusive invitation to the “Best of SL” ball. To learn who won in each category of the contest, see page 6.

Messenger erects new office in old Sido location By GEORGE BACKBITE Staff Writer The Metaverse Messenger staff moved into a new, modern five story office tower on Sept. 17. The new structure replaces the previous single story wood frame buildng that previously stood at the site and expands the Messenger's land holdings from 512 to 4608 square meters. The new building contains about 18,000 square feet of floor space, said Messenger associate publisher Phoenix Psaltery, and includes executive, editorial, and advertising staff offices, a conference room, an InfoNET terminal (which is available for the public’s use), and a money tree for residents less than 30 days old. An open house is planned for the near future; however, those who wish to see the structure before the open house is welcome to stop by for a tour. The related photo can be seen on page 5 of this issue.

Burning Life crawls to an end until next year By KATIER REITVELD Staff writer Jeska Linden recently announced that Burning Life would be extended past its original end date, and though it’s now gone, it went out with a final event. A Burning Life crawl around the whole exhibition, lead by Hamlet Linden, took place on Sept. 14. Hamlet Linden said that "Burning Life began, appropriately enough, near the Burning Man; about 70-80 people showed up, I'd estimate, enough to lag us down to a super slomo crawl." The crawl then traveled a path from Burning Life sim to sim, with

Linden showing SL residents the wide range of thoughts and creativity on display and commenting on various builds. Linden said, "Everyone seemed impressed by the creativity at hand,” adding, "Most pleasing to me, most of the residents who came to the tour were folks I'd never met before." Though Burning Life is now over, it will return again next year. Burning Life is a SL event based on Burning Man, an annual experiment dedicated to radical self-expression and self-reliance. Burning Man takes place once a year in Black Rock City, Nevada.

BURNING LIFE ended this year with a crawl around various exhibits and builds in the six Burning Life sims. There yesterday, those sims (Burning Life 1-6) are gone today. - Photo by KATT KONGO.


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