DISQUS

Lowell, I think each of the concerns you mention are valid. Whether or not there will be any kind of public objection to it will be another thing. Australia really needs a constitutional amendment that protects free speech on the internet. - maybe SL is the place to start that movement.

It's a lot different to when you could just IM any Linden that was online.

I think you can add to the list, the SL volunteers who were also available to offer help, they have been disbanded too.

Thanks for the nice write up Lowell. I''ve decided to keep the name "Armory Island" within SL, unless a real life company wants to buy an establish SL name.

The new store is on 1000 m2 in Clyde, which is one of the most established regions in SL. Any growth will be slow and steady, and our strategy is "expand, but real life comes first."

Dandelion, I think the idea of letting estate owners set script and rez permissions according avatar age or account type is certainly a good idea. Also as SL moves to open servers, sim owners will have even more choice as to how to control access and security on their land.

Thanks for the write-up Lowell. Also, I think a lot of companies from many sectors will be looking for skilled builders, scripters and other content creators. Either to build initial content or help maintain it later, and also guide them around Second Life. This would include how to make their parts of the Metaverse weapons free, if they choose to, or to choose the level of security they wish to have. As Dandellion says, there are parts of the grid that are weapons free, and that policy can be set (if they choose to) by the owner of the land.

Anshe has probably just been biding her time with her exchange. She has the resources and backing for her exchange to get big very quickly if she wants.

Yes, they are redundant, and I do not wish to discuss this. (Just being cheeky). I think one reason might just be time. The other reason is that the forum is not obvious. Maybe just slim down the number of forums, and maybe make them move obvious to see. I think an Aussie forum can work, you just need to find the right topics, the right target audience, and the right strategy. Ideally, it needs to be something people HAVE to read everyday - or in other words: it takes thought to post, edit, and go back to read what others say, so there has to be some value to the poster in posting and reading the forums. In other words again: make it in people's self-interest to visit and discuss.

I think Gary might be partially right with his comments on the seasons, that could be tested to see what effects they have on other users in the southern hemisphere.

However, I would still expect to see growth in the SL Australian population during this time, simply because the overall population is expanding too.

Needs more research.

Yes it does. I will be checking it out too when I have time.

I have done an about town summary for this financial week at http://slarmory.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/financ...

When it's all rounded up together, it makes for interesting thoughts.

I have found the last week to be very laggy, with inventory taking a very long time to reload. Maybe having to relog one or two times to get everything loaded.

I don't know if this is due to the connection from Australia to the US, or the LL servers themselves. The connection to the US seems to be okay when I test it using www.speedtest.net. Using the new Virgin G3 network, they give me a download speed of about 700 kbs. The latency is about .729 seconds, but that does not explain why it takes forever for inventory to come up.

I think its interesting to read this interview with WSE in the context of what is happening at Ginko Financial too. The Second Life Herald has a long interview with two "executives from Ginko at http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/08/gin...

One of them was Nicholas Portocarrero Ginko's the CEO of Ginko and the largest shareholder in Hope Capital (operator of the WSE). Through it all, he is still refusing to give financial statements of what is happening at Ginko. This as the Herald claims that Ginko owes 200 million Lindens ($US740,000) and can pay only 1 million Lindens per day.

More transparency, competence, and accountability should be demanded from anyone that wants to set up a financial institution. That demand can come from those that want to invest in these "institutions" in any meaningful way.

They have another version of the story where the writer admits later the problem at the ABC was a server error. The link on the Australian is: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,2...

Here's what the journo says at the start of that article:

"THE bomb hit the ABC's headquarters, destroying everything except one digital transmission tower. The force of the blast left Aunty's site a cratered mess."

Then she later admits:

"The ABC has discovered that its bomb was a computer server error that it was able to fix within a couple of hours."

Although even here she is still calling it a bomb.

At the end of the article it says:

Natalie O'Brien is a senior writer on The Australian.

HMMMMM.

Yep, I just moved back to Australia after a few years in Hong Kong. I have yet to pick a plan for Australia, but the prices seem much more expensive in Oz. A 12 month plan in Hong Kong with good speeds and unlimited downloads was $HK200 per month which comes to about $A30 per month. There was nothing known as shaping or metered usage either.

In fact, I'd welcome any tips as to the best plan for someone living in Melbourne using Second Life on a daily basis.

Traffic is probably not the best way to measure the popularity of a place or brand within Second Life - it does have it's weaknesses, so hopefully Lowell can find more indicative ways of measuring popularity and brands.

One thing though is that brands do build within Second Life too. For example, with Armory Island, we have engaged in a number of brand building exercises such as the SL Combat Expo, which we did in March of this year. Whilst this means we are not a major brand outside of SL, we are probably quite well known within SL. (Given that the number of Australian residents in SL is a few percent only, more SL'ers have probably heard of Armory Island than ABC or Big Pond).

Anyway, traffic while not perfect gives some indication, and there will continue to be some debate as to the best method of measurement.

Armory Island is owned by an Australian citizen. It's one of the most well known and most established weapons sims in Second Life. The Armory Xtreme sim is a joint venture involve Australian and American citizens.

If you want more info, you are welcome to IM for more details.