Toyota Launches Marketing Island

Toyota, whose history in virtual marketing is already notable, has launched its own virtual island aimed primarily at a Japanese market (the site, thus far, only uses the Japanese language).

The island itself will be self-sufficient and boasts residential areas, a museum for automobile prototypes, a mall, and an event hall.

The technology uses the meet-me platform, a Japanese reality simulation game that some call a “G-rated” version of Second Life. Toyota is connected to the Tokyo meet-me, which was launched in December of 2007 specifically for a Japanese audience.

While the development of Toyota’s 3D presence through meet-me may seem a slight to Second Life, Linden still views Japan as a key market, according to an anonymous source reporting to the AP. The source said that “it plans to strengthen its Japanese services,” and notes that Japan lags behind only the US and Germany in number of hours spent in Second Life.

Virtual Worlds: The Future is in Video Games?

My first virtual world was SimCity. Stuffed at the bottom of a drawer somewhere is a printout of the city I created - printed on a dot matrix printer of course, and I figure I still have the MS-DOS floppy disks somewhere. And sure, it didn’t have avatars or presence, but it was the idea of interacting with a world that was persistent whether I was paying attention to the screen or not (when I’d get the right set of conditions there was nothing finer than to let the PC run all night and come back to find the city thriving), and that while it was run on code, the code formed a sort of policy backdrop against which you were still in control.

So the Second Life world comes along, and I had no idea what it was, booted it up expecting some sort of SimCity kind of thing (as I’ve said before, I stumbled across Second Life because it was in the top 20 search returns for Spore, and I was looking for the release date).

Linden Lab Clarifies Trademark Use

Now, why didn’t they do this in the first place?

Clarification here.

Thoughts? I don’t begrudge them protection of their trademarks. I took issue with how it was handled and the lack of clarification around why they put the protections in the terms of service, which seemed to suggest they might over-rule nominative fair use. Their current clarification seems reasoned, thoughtful, and should allay most fears, although sometimes poorly executed communication strategies leave a sort of bitter taste.

Ah well. Another day on the Grid. Better try to get on before peak concurrency and they shut half the features down.

Carbon Offsetting in SL

A Carbon Offset Exchange in the Vio sim has been set up in SL. For the cost of 400 Linden, you can offset your SL carbon footprint for a year.

And what exactly is the cost of your carbon footprint? According to the sponsor, 4Offsets.com, a Web site hosted on a server that hosts 150 other sites uses approxmately 0.01133 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

4Offsets.com also offers carbon offset purchase plans for your car ($40/year), truck ($60), and your homepage ($1). The company claims you can offset your page - be it SL, Facebook, MySpace, or Friendster - and it will be interesting to see if carbon offsetting became a trend in social networks.

The Garden of NPIRL Delights: Completion, May 14, Tear Down June 23

As usual, Bettina inspires over at Not Possible In Real Life, and this time has a canvas 4 sims wide. Donated by Rezzable, Bettina is sending the call out to her NPIRLers and others to join together into one creative force.

The idea behind the Garden of NPIRL Delights is a build festival, where the takeoff point is Hieronymus Bosch’s visions of humanity. Bettina and Rezzable want users to create their own version of Bosch’s Garden in a communal space in SL, using four sims to illustrate the Underworld, Earth and Paradise:

“If you were to journey into heaven or hell, what would this look like, and how might you make this as immersive as possible? Think Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” but with your own twist. And what are the earthlings doing that might force them into the depths of the underworld or paradise?”

Wishfest: Ongoing Flash/DIY performances

SL’s Solaris II island is hosting Wishfest, which needs a bit of explaining:

A while back, things called “flash mobs” were all the rage in the offline world. Friends would text message friends, who would all meet at a certain place at a preordained time. What happened at that place was spontaneous, sometimes outrageous, and sometimes extreme. Nudity, pillow fights, and zombie walks have all been known to take place.

Solaris II has taken this idea into the virtual space, arranging what it loosely calls “Flash Festival.” The idea is that someone streams audio and/or video through SL, a notice is sent out to their friends, and people are free to join in and leave as they like.

The thinkers over at Wishfarmers are behind Wishfest, and it is an ongoing event, so get going and create your own

Linden Lab Announces It’s Ready to Say They’re Not Ready Yet

Possibly distracted by having to go back and sort out the age verification system, or maybe it’s the roll out of a light weight client which they targeted for February, Linden Lab today announced that the fanfare they recently made about land price changes will be delayed now that they’ve realized that they weren’t quite ready to make the announcement yet. The technology isn’t ready, which, um, hasn’t stopped them before?

Edit: In all fairness, I’ll stand down from that comment. Far better to get it right than to launch something glitchy. Take your time. But I’d still suggest that next time you under promise over deliver - set a MAY date when you say land prices are changing, and then if you HAD delivered today you’d be heroes.

Oh dear. OK. Well, look. I’m tired of being negative. I’ve got my Lindens in hand for a big batch of clean sims and open sims and if I manage to hold onto it before the new land store is open I’ll be in good shape, but there’s a sale going on of a new set of Cel’s sculpted prims and I can’t miss it!

Stay tuned tomorrow when I get back to waxing philosophical or some such blabbing, it’s better to dream anyways.

Building a 3D World One City at a Time: Google and Microsoft Chip Away at a Global Build

Google continues to map its own 3D version of the world, one city at a time, encouraging municipalities to load up databases of buildings in order to gain the benefits of engaging the public in planning, fostering economic development, and more.

Their latest release of Google Earth includes a familiar sort of interface element to those used to the HUD based movement commands of Second Life:

The latest release also includes lighting, so that 3D landscapes can be viewed by time of day. Hardly Windlight, but adds depth and texture:

Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to play catch up to Google Earth in what seems like an ever escalating war to add the best features. Their integration with 3DVIA (similar to Sketch Up but from the same group who brought us 3D XML and Virtools) allows for more detailed texturing of models.

The metaverse isn’t here yet because your avatar isn’t allowed to enter.