As some of you might be aware there’s plenty of blog press concerning Steelcase’s chair design competition in Second Life, so the obvious question is: Where are the Industrial Design blogs reporting about this competition? I can’t find any.

Meanwhile there’s currently an “Extreme Sports Equipment for the Year 2020” competition (Link) on the Product Design Forums, and Core77 is busy promoting a “One Hour Design Challenge” (Link).

Neither site mentions this competition. Neither of those competitions offers anything nearly as interesting as the Steelcase competition; regardless of whatever specific rules and guidelines come attached. And with Steelcase’s reputation one would expect student designers to be all over this competition. Apparently they’re not.

– Continue reading →

Via Media Bistro comes word (Link) that cyberpunk author William Gibson intends to rez inside Second Life as part of a marketing effort to promote his latest book, Spook Country. From the Media Bistro post:

Over the next few weeks, reports Penguin Digital publisher Jeremy Ettlinghausen, Penguin is planning a range of William Gibson activities in Second Life: screening his “fine and strange movie” No Maps for These Territories; Continue reading →

There is, apparently, an ever-increasing interest in all things Steampunk. I’ll confess my own affection for the stuff, but I’ve had an interest in such things since reading Jules Verne stories in grade school. Continue reading →

Via The Online Universities website comes word (Link) that The Art Institute Online has established a presence inside Second Life. No surprise here. But also no surprise is that so many other art schools have failed to establish a presence. This is especially odd considering the recruiting possibilities in a virtual space where there is so much emphasis on content creation.
Continue reading →

I caught an entry over on Virtual World News (Link) calling attention to a clip on C|Net (Link) that smacked of public relations bull. From the short write-up on VWN:

MTV announced its dedication to the idea of One Avatar, One World in Jeff Yapp’s presentation at the Under the Radar Conference.
…
As Yapp said, “We have fairly ambitious plans. We believe in one avatar, one world, the ability to take your avatar, your personality, that three-dimensional representation of who you are any where you want to go.”

Continue reading →