Beta Technologies Blogs

Let’s face it: we all were newbies once. While some of us might have immediately plunged into a creative spree like never before, and just remembered after two months that our avatar was in its newbie clothes that they started with, this is hardly the case of the majority of new users…

Sooner or later — often sooner! — a new user will know that they need money. They might have read magazine ads telling them how successful business in Second Life® is. They might have browsed through blogs and forums, catching numbers here and there, on how much money is being transacted in SL, and how some content creators and live music performers make a living here. They might even have come to a conference or two at the Beta Business Park and listened to people talking about their business experience in SL. Or they just looked up on the top of the screen where it says “L$0″ and wondered how to get more.

No matter what the reason was, usually rather early in the process of getting acquainted with Second Life, one of the very, very first questions asked is how to make money in SL (often seconded by “will you give me some L$?”). Unless, of course, you just came in for the dating

Traditionally, the usual answer you give to an intelligent new user is that it’s “as hard as to make money in the real world”, and follow that up with a comparison with making money from Web design. Some helpers just take the trouble to describe what you can create, from buildings to clothes, from scripting to animations, and patiently explain how you develop a brand in SL, make it a successful, and retire on a Caribbean island (even a virtual one!).

The casual user, however, is not interested in how to make money that way. They want to make money fast. They know they’re unskilled, so they hardly expect to become the next super-architect or boots designer in SL, but they still want money. Quickly. Painlessly. Without an effort.

At this point, most helpers just shake their heads and sigh.

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Read the rest of “How do I make money?” (2,051 words)

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© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: money, second life

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I was surprised (again!) today by the power of social networking tools, in this case Facebook.

Some months ago, for the 10^th June, Portugal’s Day, Beta Technologies sponsored an event in Second Life for the Museum of the Presidency of Portuguese Republic.

This event was the recriation of an exhibit that the Museum was opening in Lisbon, called “Portugal 12-21 – Identidade” (Identity) – the idea was to feature 10 major pieces, each characterizing each century, from a volume of songs in the ancient Galician-Portuguese language to a Euro coin.

Beta Technologies offered to make the modellation of one piece for the exhibit. The dramatic quality of this led me to pick it:

Cristo Monte Iras - Click the image to see more photos

This piece is a 14^th c. Crucified Christ, called the Cristo de Monte Irás, belonging to S. João da Ribeira Church in Santarém . It is actually a composite piece, the 14^th century statue being mounted on a 18^th century cross. It is a very wonderful Gothic piece, with all the emotional intensity that the style was able to express. The finality of the Dead Christ is so expertly rendered in the long, dropping arm and hand, and the ivory has been exquisitely carved and painted to depict bones, muscles, wounds. It is a very excellent and unique work or art, and I am very proud that Beta Technologies was able to sponsor it.

I want to thank again Damien Fate (the creator of the famous Loco Pocos avatars, plus many other incredible things!)  who used his amazing technique, which can only be called true artistic technique, for producing such a dramatic piece.

But… these were old news. This piece was made in June, after all, and I thought it would have been forgotten already in the big dynamism of Second Life. But today it was seen again, through Facebook! Thanks to Rui Lourenço, who organized the whole SL project, for posting about it, and making it known to his many hundreds of followers all over the world! )

Unfortunately, I don’t have permission to reproduce the photos of the original in this blog, so you could see how Damien’s work is true! This piece – and the amazing exhibit – can still be seen in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alma/118/108/34

I was fiddling here with my blog backoffice, trying to get things right – I must explain that I am generally a bit blog-adverse, so this is a new tech of sorts to me – things don’t just come easy, and I’ll apologize straightaway for some instability on the appearance of the blog, as I conclude that widget X is useful and that I need more categories… I am sure everyone must have passed through the same!

At least I know a basic rule: always have the backoffice in one tab and the blog in another, so that you can see what is happening on with the final result.

And as I was checking the final result, I felt that people may be a bit staggered by the blog… What’s this?! Doesn’t this woman work in Second Life?! Where is the stuff about SL?!

… well, the stuff about SL will no doubt get in here in its own time. But working in SL doesn’t necessarily mean that you breathe SL.

The work that I do in SL is architecture, grossly speaking. Architecture is an art, which means that it is a speculum mundi:  it holds a mirror to life. So this means that a good deal of my day is spent … looking at life, wherever it is. Researching. Reading, because reading is a gateway to the thoughts of other people. Seeing scores and scores of images. Thinking about what I meet, relating, making connections. Because that is what architecture really is: the greatest of arts, the art that connects all the others, and creates space for people in an amazing web of knowledge, experience, living. All that I see will no doubt resurface at some point in my work.

So… this very confused blog is a window on my work, indeed. It just isn’t all about prims and textures, same way as being a chef isn’t all about knowing how to turn on the oven. It is also not just a window on past or present work: it’s a magic window that lets you see the future.

After some thinking about this, from now on, I have split my usual posting between my other blog (Gwyn’s Home) and the corporate blogs here at Beta Technologies.

When I started blogging about Second Life®, my original purpose was quite naive: create a place where starting residents (newbies!) could find some information about Second Life. It was supposed to be a sort of “guide” — but a guide written by someone who was actually also starting her first steps in Second Life! Each time I figured something out, I would immediately blog about it (well, I had far more free time for blogging, that’s the simple truth!).

Soon, however, I found out that there were far too many “beginners’ guides” out there (my personal blog still gets lots of queries for “tutorials” or “free scripts” or “clothing templates!”), and I should just turn to something else: discussing the implications of living and working in a virtual environment.

That did, indeed, capture my attention for the past five years.

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Read the rest of My new corporate blog (1,830 words)

© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beta technologies, corporate, gwyneth llewelyn, second life

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