A Parallel virtual iSummit in the Metaverse

The fourth global iSummit will be held in Sapporo, Japan from 29 July to 1 August, 2008.

iCommons in association with Digital Garage, Creative Commons Japan and the City of Sapporo will bring together pioneers of the free Internet from over 60 countries around the world.

The iSummit '08 in Second Life is coordinated by David Orban, aka Davidorban Agnon, virtual worlds visionary.

Check out the event schedule

Click on the following link to visit the island: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Japan%20Sapporo/128/160/22/

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Dictatorship or democracy in virtual worlds

Why not just create a "democratic" game that has a constitution, full citizenship for players, and all the prerequisites for stable wealth? Such a game would be open source (so that other, interoperable "nations" could be established for you to emigrate to if you don't like the will of the majority in one game-world), and run by elected representatives who would instruct the administrators and programmers as to how to run the virtual world. In the real world, the TSA sets the rules for aviation -- in a virtual world, the equivalent agency would determine the physics of flight.

an article by Cory Doctorow from Informationweek

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Lively by Google

It's not a secret anymore.





The Terms of Service are not very surprising and generally look similar to Secondlife TOS.


Two the most important differences:

1. Lively doesn't have currency.
2. The content in Lively is mostly generated by vendors working for Google and a small number of trusted testers.


So it looks more like clone of IMVU (combination of "chat with friends" in cartoonish 3D) than Secondlife or the Metaverse.

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The Secondlife of Lawyers

There was a time when the most influenced lawyers like Lawrence Lessing and Richard Posner appeared in-world. What is more important they gave very interesting speeches regarding legal aspects of the Metaverse:



THE SECOND LIFE OF JUDGE RICHARD A. POSNER



THE SECOND LIFE OF LAWRENCE LESSIG




both likns from the New World Notes blog.

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