Search functions remain knackered

It’s the equivalent of a city’s mobile phone network going down – the ‘Search Places’ functionality remains dysfunctional in SL.

Taking a positive slant to an otherwise frustrating issue, let’s look at the mobile phone analogy a little further. With no phone coverage, you actually have to talk to people a little more – admittedly they may be people you’d prefer to only intereact with via a digital signal, but the process of actually talking to them face-to-face may be character building. Hell, your in-world neighbour may be your future spouse and you’ve never noticed them previously because you’ve been off searching for the latest communal hotspot. Between the teleport issues and search issues, Linden may actually be making the world a happier place.

See – I’m an optimist.

When are Australian companies going to take the plunge?

There have been numerous stories in the past year about corporations developing presences in Second Life. The most well known ones are Reuters, Adidas, Nike, Pontiac etc.

I keep waiting for the first aussie company to take the plunge. I know I’d buy a Mambo shirt for myself in-world, and even like to offer a VB or XXXX to guests. Anyone out there got any inside information or predictions on which companies will be first in the pool?

Kevin Rudd avatar contest

I’d like to announce the Kevin Rudd Second Life Avatar contest. Whoever can design an avatar that looks the most like Rudd, wins a lifetime subscription to this site, worth at least fifty cents!

Anyone game?

Rudd vs Beazley and SL

This may seem a bit of a stretch, but Monday morning at 9.30am the Federal Labor Party caucus will choose its leader. It got me thinking around the Australian political scene and whether SL could play a role like it did in the recent US mid-term elections. I can’t imagine Beazley thinking that far outside the square, but maybe the Rudd / Gillard team might?

Given we tend to follow the USA in so many ways, then in-world electioneering may not be too far off. Or am I being just a little bit optimistic?

The horror week continues for Linden

The past couple of days have seen near continuous issues for Second Life. At time of writing, there’d been yet another update from Linden on the problems. Over the past twelve hours there’s been consistently high numbers of people logged in, coinciding with the US weekend load, which can’t be be helping matters.

On the positive side – disappearing Linden Dollar balances, disappearing water and other issues are not tending to create ongoing problems. I had a zero Linden balance on one login which was remedied the next login – similar to older issues in the same vein.

Landmark of the Week

Check it out in-world

Second Life income taxable in Australia?

Reuter are running a report that the Australian Tax Office has ruled that profits made in-world will attract a tax liability. Quoting a Fairfax newspapers article, there’s also discussion by Reuter’s of the UK investigation into the issue of tax liability.

So we’re assuming this means that if you are making serious money in SL, then registering an ABN may be worth considering. If you are making more than $50 000 Australian, then it’s another ball game again. The Australian Tax Office has all the fun detail on the tax system.

Aussie landmarks appearing as Second Life locations

Whilst looking for a location for SLOz’s new in-world location, I came across sims with the names of Boggabri and Toowoomba. Neither looked much like their counterparts of course, but I’m wondering what the impetus is for those names being selected…

Version 1.1.3 of SL is released

Linden Labs have released the much awaited update to SL and the initial response has been… well… a lot of queuing to actually get back in. Linden are asking people to wait in queue and eventually they’ll get in. Another example of SL and the real world merging!

Any reports of usability of 1.1.3 gratefully accepted.

Staking the Claim

SLOz is the first Second Life news portal aimed at informing Australian SL users on events in-world, real world issues impacting on SL and pretty much anything else SL related. If you have an event you’d like to promote, contact me. Not interested in promoting new Casinos or Free Sex Communities however.

The plan is to provide at least one news story per day. In the short term the emphasis will be on non-Australian content but as Aussies start promoting themselves in SL then that will become the focus.

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