Press Conference Tonight

Our parent company, Metaverse Media, will be having a press conference in-world at the Metaverse Media Building. A SLURL is available in the “Contact Us” page to the right.
The Press Conference will be about Metaverse Media’s latest project, called “Project Furry”. It starts at 8:15 PM SL time.

Advertise with us!

Second Life Times now allows advertising on our blog. Contact Simon Lameth or advertising@metaversemedia.port5.com.

Real-Life Realtors to learn to sell SL Real-Estate

Emeryville, CA (PRWEB) April 20, 2006 –- This July some 2,000 high-powered, real life real estate agents and technology executives will learn how to buy and sell virtual property in the simulated, online real estate market of Second Life. Second Life is a game-like world with its own property and its own currency, which can be converted directly to U.S. dollars.

At Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2006, a conference held July 26 to 28 in that city's Palace Hotel, Second Life's Vice President of Marketing David Fleck will present on “Virtual Real Estate: What must we learn from gamers, immersive online communities and their addictive, artificial worlds of ‘real’ estate?”

The Second Life property market is thriving–unlike most real world real estate markets around the country. Second Life's "population" has rocketed from 20,000 to 165,000 users in the past year, according to news reports. That has pumped up demand for virtual land and the houses, apartment buildings and palaces that go on it.

Second Life’s currency, Linden dollars, is directly convertible to U.S. dollars, so every piece of virtual property in Second Life has a hard currency value. (One U.S. dollar will buy about 250 Linden dollars.) Second Lifers spend about $2 million US dollars per month on virtual real estate and other goods in Second Life, write news reports.

One virtual property developer on Second Life, Anshe Chung (www.anshechung.com), reportedly earns a six-figure income (of real, U.S. dollars) in virtual-land transactions and styles herself as “your global leader in virtual real estate.”

“The best agents want to understand how value is created in the real world, real estate market,” said Mike Edelhart, CEO of Inman News. “Learning how a virtual world prices its real estate is one way of gaining insight into markets, pricing and the balance between supply and demand.”

ABOUT INMAN NEWS
Real Estate Connect is organized and produced by Inman News (www.inman.com),the nation's leading independent real estate news service and content provider. Inman’s clients and partners include 50,000+ Web sites and 250+ U.S. newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Washington Post, Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, The Wall Street Journal Online, CBS MarketWatch, and many more.

Inman News offers information-based products and services for real estate professionals and consumers, including Inman News Membership, Digital Media and News content for the Web, weekly in-depth Special Reports, and Real Estate Connect conferences and events. Additionally, Inman News’ video production division, Inman Stories, produces, markets and sells high-quality streaming videos marketed and sold within the luxury home marketing, neighborhood, agent/broker and corporate videos.

ABOUT REAL ESTATE CONNECT
Real Estate Connect (www.inman.com/connectsf) is the premier real estate technology conference and attracts the industry’s most influential decision makers, opinion leaders and technology experts into an active forum for discussion and debate. Luxury Home Marketing in the Internet Age is scheduled for October 15-17, 2006 at the Mandarin Oriental in Miami.

Fan Group Open!

If you want to be notified of new stories and SL Times events, Join the Fans of Second Life Times group in-game today! It's FREE!

Metaverse Media to help in making of Titanic 2!

Metaverse Media Executives have just finished signing a contract that will allow them to help in the making of “Titanic Two The Surface”. The movie is expected out Summer 2007.
You can find a trailer at the Official Site. Read on after seeing the trailer!

Linden Labs to remove dwell

From Phillip Linden:

“he past several months have seen a gradual decline in the value of the Linden dollar on the LindeX currency exchange. Most recently, the Linden Dollar has dropped in value by approximately 11% since mid-February. In response to this decline, and in keeping with our desire to maintain a stable currency exchange rate, Linden Lab has decided to discontinue the payment of traffic incentives to parcel owners. For the most recent month of March 2006, these traffic incentives totalled $4.7M Linden Dollars. Removing these incentives will reduce the amount of new money being created and should be expected to have a stabilizing effect on the value of the Linden Dollar. Following this change, we will continue to watch the economy and make further changes as needed.

We will also be posting a number of different economic statistics in the forums, for those who wish to follow the Second Life economy in more detail. Additionally, Robin Linden will be following up with detailed information and schedule about the traffic incentives.

The overall growth of the Second Life economy continues to be very strong: For the first quarter of 2006, user-to-user transactions in Second Life totalled $4.17B Linden Dollars, an increase of 68% over Q4 2005. Currency purchases on the Lindex for Q1 2006 totalled $743M Linden Dollars, meaning approximately US $2.6 million dollars traded at average exchange rates.”

Boxing in Second Life

By: Areth Gall
Guest Writer for the Second Life Times.

Second Life Boxing Hosts Boxingmania 4!

Recently, the SL Times has been scouting out Second Life for unique forms of Quality Entertainment. During this search, Simon Lameth came across Second Life Boxing, also known as the SLB. Second Life Boxing was founded and is owned by Tommy Rampal. It is a group of professional Second Life Boxers that host shows and boxing matches in their North Paris Arena. They use an ‘Official Boxing Kit’, which is also available to the public in the form of a ‘Public Boxing Kit’. While this public kit is modified slightly and doesn’t come with the weapons that the official kit does, it still allows for complete boxing performance. Amateur boxers - boxers whom have not yet made it into the official league - can compete in the Open Ring which is hosted every Wednesday night. For more information about Second Life Boxing, job opportunities, or reports on past shows (including Boxingmania 4), you can find it at www.secondlifeboxing.com.

The boxing system works by allowing each boxer to train and earn stat points by leveling up. Stat points can then be distributed into strength, defense, and speed. Strength determines how hard a boxer hits. Defense determines how well a boxer can take a hit. Speed determines how fast a boxer can throw a punch after having punched. These three stats can make for quite a few varying and interesting strategies.

Second Life Boxing hosts shows on Fridays and Saturdays at 2pm SLT, in the sim of North Paris. These shows feature commentators and at least three different boxing matchups. There is no ticket fee. The show tries to follow a general storyline, with one match leading to another. However, the fate of each match is left completely in the hands of the boxers whom fight in it. There are no rehersals to practice how ‘real’ a punch is, or to make sure that a boxer knows to move out of the way at a specific time or cue.

Second Life Boxing held their fourth Boxingmania on Friday, April 14th, 2006. Boxingmania 4 started at 2:15pm with a Battle Royale. A hall-of-fame ceremony then followed, inducting retired boxers such as Raji Zuma and Paca Hannibal into prestigious rememberance. And then the real fun began.

The first match of Boxingmania plotting Areth Gall against Karen Fielding.
The second was Maylin Mfume against April Costello for the Woman’s Champion Belt.
The third was a ‘Four-Way Ladder Match and Junkyard Brawl’ featuring Beavis Tuppakaka vs ‘The Spanish Dog’ Dael Kamloops vs ‘The Rapmaster’ Carl Pierce vs ‘The Cyborg’ Sanct Draper. This match was for the Xtreme Champion Belt, and featured special rules. These rules were that;
Due to the Ladder Match, the only way to win a fight was to stand up top one of the three ladders placed, for a total of ten seconds.
Due to the Junkyard Brawl, everyday objects — stop signs, fire extinquishers, chairs, and tables, were encouraged to be used as weapons.
The last match was a ‘Electric Fence and Job Match’ with ‘The Gorilla’ Joey Gorilla squaring off against ‘The Monster’ Rob Bukowski. This match was for the Men’s Champion Belt, and featured a special electrified cage that ensured neither boxer could leave the ring.

The winners of each fight were Areth Gall, April Costello, Carl Pierce, and Joey Gorilla.

At the end of the show, the first of Aftertaste’s matches were announced. Aftertaste is the month of May’s big event. ‘The Cyborg’ Sanct Draper would be bringing Raji Zuma back into the ring. The two would be fighting against each other in ‘Sanct’s Arena’. And in Sanct’s arena, the stakes were much higher, and the falls were much, much harder.

Battlemania 4 was over, but so much more was to come.
For more information on matches, shows, and Second Life Boxing news, pleace check www.secondlifeboxing.com.
If you have questions or want to get into Second Life Boxing, feel free to stop by the North Paris Arena, located across from the North Paris Casino. Boxers are often there and can help to answer any questions you may have. There is also the SLB Amateur League Group which you can join under the find button’s search engine. Admission is free.

Downtime Yesterday

We experenced some downtime yesterday for some unknown reason. All posts have been restored.

ONLINE!

The grid has been re-opened 4 1/2 hours after crashing.

This has been breaking news from The Second Life Times.

4 hours and counting

We are at the 4 hour mark and counting.