New Second Life Train and what a sweet ride...

The manufacturer of our island's train contacted me and asked to install new scripting that makes the ride much more realistic. The train now slows for corners, and for stops at stations. It glides across the tracks instead of the choppy ride before. And, the grand tour of the island now only takes 2.3 minutes instead of the 8 before.

Come visit by clicking the link:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wyoming%20Entrepreneur/174/37/23

Native American Art show Coming to Wyoming Entrerpreneur Island April 2010

Just finished a meeting in Second Life with a representative from the Wind River Indian Reservation, located near Lander, Wyoming.

We collaborated on a Native American Art Show project that will feature 17 Native American artists on Wyoming Entrepreneur Island, April 2010. The exhibits will likely stay for a few weeks starting at the first of the month. One example has been placed in the Old Faithful area and can be found by following this URL:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wyoming%20Entrepreneur/141/42/24

This will be our island roll out event, and, something awesome!!!

Rideable Horses and Driveable Stagecoaches

Now that most of the basic build of the island is complete (not all), it is time for fun things to do. I have added horse rezzers that allow any visitor to choose from among 11 horses, then cruise around the island on it. Visitors may also drive a stagecoach or an old farm wagon. The stagecoach carries multiple avatars including the driver. The horses allow double riding.

I have noticed a significant increase in the amount of people who visit the island, and an increase in the amount of time they spend here.

Second Life islands must have something to do, along with something to see.

Next steps for the island are adding events technology so classes and cultural events requiring audio, may be offered.

Interviewed by Second Times Reporter

Second Life has many things that real life has, including a weekly newspaper that can be obtained at kiosks throughout the virtual world.

The interview included questions about Wyoming Entrepreneur Island, who our target market is, what services we offer, etc.

One point that many do not understand about the project is that we aim to educate Wyoming entrepreneurs with businesses in the real world, not in any virtual world. Similar to taking a class online (although much more advanced), we will use the island as a platform to teach.

I currently have no interest in teaching others how to develop a business in Second Life. Second Life businesses are hobbyist at best. They do not support households or families. That part of Second Life, is indeed a game to me.

However, in time I believe real world businesses will use Second Life as "part" of their eCommerce strategy. Even Second Life itself still uses a website for advertising and selling products.

Myself being interviewed by a Second Life newspaper

Rodeo Comes to Wyoming in Second Life

One may now ride a bull in Wyoming and try to beat my score.

This is a low level interactive object but a small start to a much more interactive island. It is interaction with objects that will become the hallmark of this learning sim, along with quality learning activities.

The rodeo is located at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wyoming%20Entrepreneur/35/220/25

Today I tried the language exchange site for the first time, called Instituto Español. I spoke with someone from Arizona and another person from New York. Very nice to practice my Spanish a little. We used audio of course, although using text would also have been a positive experience.

Language exchange is one of the most successful educational efforts to date in Second Life.


Also, the train is fully operational although I can't say the same for Old Faithful Geyser. The latter is proving to be a real challenge.

Finally, wild-life has come to Wyoming!

Wyoming Entrepreneur Island on Cybergrrl Oh Show in Second Life

After watching many interviews in Second Life, someone interviews me (Bronco Skytower). Big thanks to Aliza Sherman for the interview and helping to promote our island.

Watch the video below:

Watch live streaming video from metaworld2 at livestream.com

Video: Old Faithful erupts against a Devil's Tower backdrop

Devil's Tower is finished, the train is proving challenging (but worth it) and Old Faithful is erupting every 4 minutes.

Made presentation to our Advisory Board yesterday, which seemed to be well received. These are important people in Wyoming.

Christmas break should lend some time to keep the work moving along and hopefully, I can take some building classes during this time, in Second Life of course, and become a decent builder. Takes times and effort though.

Enjoy the Video:

Train being installed Today

The train is being installed today, or at least the installation is starting today, on Wyoming Entrepreneur island. Quite a site with train tracks all over the sky and ground. Once operational, will carry up to 10 people and will travel around the island, stopping three times for loading/unloading.

Very cool.

Old Faithful Geyser finds its way into Second Life

A rough draft of a live Old Faithful Geyser is now active in our Second Life island. This is just one of many Wyoming world-famous landmarks that will soon debut at Wyoming Entrepreneur island.

The final version will be visually richer, and erupt more often.

Here is a link to the island:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wyoming%20Entrepreneur/128/128/26

University of Texas to Roll Out Statewide Second Life Offerings

Using grant funding, the entire University of Texas system is about to become involved in Second Life. Basically, the state's higher education system is going to have multiple Second Life islands to outreach the school's offerings in the world's best and most popular virtual world environment for adults. This involves 16 major universities each of which, is required by the state of Texas to have a Second Life representative.

At a presentation in Second Life today, the project lead did not give highly specific details of what "being involved" translates to. But, one may assume research, and teaching and learning will be at the core of all activities.

Read the BLOG article HERE.

This is huge and bolsters both a higher ed presence in Second Life and, solidifies the Linden Lab lead in the virtual world arena.

Spread the news...

Breast Cancer "Pink" event a Hit in Second Life

The Pink event, held October 16 at the Disney fan park in Second Life called Mouse World, was a hit and demonstrated the burgeoning power of virtual worlds. Money was raised for breast cancer research and awareness.

I recently read an article from the Journal of Information Systems Education (refereed) titled Extending the classroom through Second Life. The authors report a figure from 2007 that states "80 percent of active Internet users will have a virtual presence in the form of an 'avatar' in at least one virtual world by the end of 2011." If true, online 3-D virtual worlds will indeed become the second great Internet revolution, possibly as great in magnitude as the world wide web itself.

So what does this all mean and why is virtual world technology becoming such a sociocultural phenomena? Since the Romans introduced the concept of a world wide web by building their extensive road system, human beings have reached out with manifest destiny-like ventures to extend life to and beyond all possible borders.

Once we learned to use email we extended societal borders greatly but lost some human touch in the process. Now, we are claiming it back and virtual worlds is one way we are doing that. Nonverbal communication cues are part of Second Life and similar environments, unlike practically any other medium on the web right now.

This morning in Second Life I attended a live Folk concert broadcast from the U.K., then attended a class on basic building in Second Life, both broadcast in real time. These are great technologies that will eventually be present on Wyoming Entrepreneur island.

Stay tuned.

ReactionGrid and OpenSim, Far from Prime Time

While I believe strongly in competition, I also have some understanding of consumer behavior.

When I first logged onto Second Life I downloaded a file for a minute or so, then launched and was in-world within one minute.

Today I went to check out ReactionGrid and OpenSim considering there is some buzz in higher ed about them.

I had to download 2 files for ReactionGrid, neither of which were described well, and the list of instructions was outrageously long. Then, the system rejected my password after all that. So, okay, what a pain but I reset the password and the system then rejected its own password.

At OpenSim, I clicked on the download file, after confusing to non-existent instructions, and the file would not download.

With all its problems, Second Life is supreme and there is no close second, nor is there any evidence that a viable competitor is on the horizon.

Back to consumer behavior; consumers don't want or need a hassle or a bunch of geeky instructions. They want a product delivered, with the consumer in mind.

Anyone disagree or agree? Leave a professional, informed comment.

Terraforming in Place

The land is taking shape and tomorrow, some structures will arise from the dust. Very cool.

One may now see the major areas of our island.

Today I have been shopping a little for horses and trains. Our steam engine train will carry people around the island, past all of the attractions and locations. Horses are a little trickier. A good horse for a Second Life island, can be quite expensive. I would like our horses to be rideable without someone attaching them to the avatar, and, I would like them to return to their parcel once someone gets off, and start grazing. Plenty of horses, but a good one is so far is about L$10k which is too much.

Island Build Markers in Place

Met with our builder today for 90 minutes going over the artist's concept (ha ha, mine), resources for images of Wyoming, and some of the legal stuff.

She (our builder) has placed markers around the island in preparation for the build. When setting a timeline, and assuming we do not broaden the scope of the project, the initial build will be finished December 1, 2009. This will be Wyoming Entrepreneur Island 1.0.

Wyoming Entrepreneur Island 2.0 build will take place in 10 months from now and include much more interactive objects on the island that teach entrepreneurs business basic through fun activities and games.

Will Second Life be replaced by a Competitor?

There are never guarantees in business. Well, unless a business stops marketing... You get the picture.

Linden Labs product Second Life has competition brewing and making progress. Seemingly the new and sustainable frontier of virtual worlds is higher education, whose momentum is only growing. Using peer-reviewed academic journals as an indicator, there is a lot of research and interest in academia, even though "some" of the seniors and older boomers in higher ed are sure this is a passing fad. Kind of like...automobiles.

Back to the lack of guarantees in business, a competitor can take advantage of the king/queen of any market by preying on a product's weaknesses. Let's face it, SL is not intuitive, but it is powerful. It is hardly free to own an island, yet higher ed gets one for half price.

In the list below are some of the major players in the virtual world arena, although there are certainly others. Of note is OpenSim which is open source, and ReactionGrid which is going head to head with SL for education and business marketshare. Perhaps one of SL's competitors will keep better check on much of the anti-social behavior and sexuality found in Second Life, which steers quite a few people away. And again, the complexity issue must be overcome.

Anyway, the worlds below are interesting. Although not competing with SL's adult grid, check out Indiana University's Quest Atlantis. This is what the site says: Quest Atlantis (QA) is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-16, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. Participation in this game is designed to enhance the lives of children while helping them grow into knowledgeable, responsible, and empathetic adults.

ActiveWorlds
http://activeworlds.com/

Forterra
http://forterrainc.com/

OpenSim (open source)
http://opensimulator.org/

QuestAtlantis
http://questatlantis.org/

ReactionGrid
http://reactiongrid.com/

There
http://there.com/

Sketch of Wyoming SBDC Island: Wyoming Entrepreneur

I think we have a working draft of the project. There are some interactive elements here. The island will feature different parts of Wyoming with emphasis on the Yellowstone environment and some desert.

We will have fishing and kayaking on the Green River, climbing on Devil's Tower, an old steam engine train to see it all, mineral pools, Old Faithful Geyser and Lodge, horse riding, Teton Mountains, and a few other things.

Focus of course is on teaching and learning about entrepreneurship in Wyoming. I present this concept to our builder Monday, October 4th in a web conference and a visit to the island.

Initial Build Finalized, Links to Free Consulting and BLOG in Place

Finally have signs on the island with links to free consulting and this blog. Not much on the island yet so the signs stand out.

Our design is finalized so construction of the island features and structures will begin in October, months ahead of our original timeline. Getting a good start is...good!

Wyoming Entrepreneur Group & an Airplane

Nervously, I started a Second Life group today. I say nervously since once you start a group, you have 48 hours to get someone to join, or you lose your L$100 and you can never use the name again. Worst of all, it takes 12-24 hours before you show up in any searches, so that does not leave much time.

Luckily, I am a member of the Wyoming Residents group and invited all of them to join the Wyoming Entrepreneur group.

We now have 5 members which is one per hour since I created the group.

This will be useful as we try and tie our community into this project through communication and who knows, maybe even a little Wyoming volunteer building labor (hint-hint, I know you're out there).

We bought a plane!

That's what you do I guess: buy a plane. And yes, it flies very, very well. What a way to travel the island.

Feel free to try it out and here is the SLURL to the island:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wyoming%20Entrepreneur/117/110/24

Thar be land ahead! Wyoming SBDC has a Secone Life Island (kind of)

A unique fixer upper? Well, they are all when new and besides, we have an experienced and talented Second Life builder on the schedule. No, not me! But I will get there.

These shots may not be inspiring, but considering the journey I have taken they are awesome!

Thanks to the Wyoming SBDC State Office for support and vision.

And now the real work begins. We are looking to have a working model March 2010 and launch the island officially May 2010. I love exceeding timelines but we'll see.

Linden Verified Island Name - Getting Closer

Good news as Linden Labs sent me an email confirming the name of our island which is of course: Wyoming Entrepreneur.