LINKS OF THE WEEK!

Welcome Aussie Resident Chage McCoy to the Second Life blogosphere. He begins his blog with a slew of posts, including this pugnacious one on the ever-debated Resident meritocracy that's come to be known as "the Feted Inner Core", or FIC:

[The term was coined] to describe the 'Inner Elite' of SL. However, the interesting twist is that being FIC is not something you choose, it is how others percieve you... Personally, my view is that FIC is a figment of the social caste's imagination. If they cannot get what they want, in the classic tradition of blaming someone but themselves, they look towards the only other people around-- the Content creators. If something goes wrong, its caused by the FIC. If a Linden does something that negatively impacts their experience, it's the FIC's fault...

Version 1.6 of the Second Life viewer included support for streaming Quicktime video into the world. This has launched several new kinds of social events, including short movie festivals and MST3K-style screenings of horrible government-produced films of the 40's and 50's. Meanwhile, the urge to export video produced from within the world continues. Master SL machinima maker Jack Digeridoo just announced plans to start video blogging:

[V]ery soon I will try streaming Jack's POV:TV to the public. This will be a channel dedicated to movies made of Second Life footage and when I'm [online].. I will run a live feed of me playing in world. A Second Life reality TV show if you will.

Meanwhile, over at the Second Life Herad, there's an interview with Icon Serpentine, who's already amidst production of an ambitious, episodic series of short movies that he plans to shoot before a live Second Life audience.

Gwennyth Llewelyn has another thought-provoking entry, which begins with this smart insight on the subterranean growth of Second Life:

[G]oogle-wise, my SL pseudonym is more "famous" than my real life self, which is weird, since my real life e-mail address has been on the Spammers' lists since 1995, I think. But weirdly enough, the tiny tiny community of Second Life® seems to attract much more attention than anything else in the Internet. I wonder how that can be. It's certainly an uncanny thought. Then again, I guess that you get much more hits by searching for "Marylin Monroe" (2,820,000) than for her real name, "Norma Jeane Mortenson" (only 3,210)...

After some thought, I've decided to start adding Resident-run Second Life wikis to the left column (scroll all the way down). I've mentioned Pirate Cotton's Game SLave resource wiki before; now comes Eggy Lippman's SL History Wiki a marvelous attempt to set the collective memory of the world into a collaboratively created form. There's already lovely nuggets of history, including some screenshots of Primitar, Linden Lab's first attempt at an avatar from the early early Alpha-era.

Closer to home (like, fifteen feet away from where I write this) veteran Internet guru/entrepeneur Reuben Steiger recently joined the Linden Lab staff, and started a blog of his own here. It joins the roster of Linden-published blogs on the left, and it's a fascinating mix of thoughts on technology and the future, and updates on the Second Life projects he's helping foster, such as Cristiano Midnight's wonderful Snapzilla.

Update, 4/20/05: I am compelled by incomprehensible subterranean powers to now include this link into this roster. I for one welcome our Feted overlords!