We are Back! Upside Down

2011-The Story So Far…….

It’s been a while since we gave a full update on all PAL activities, but even though we have been quiet, the whole PAL team has been working behind the scenes gearing up for the much busier autumn/winter season in Second Life.

So in-between taking long beach holidays (Claus) surviving the London riots (Persia) and debating the future of the metaverse (Ryan)-what’s been happening?

I happened to read back interview I did for Avenue Magazine pg. 180-188 last Xmas, and was rather surprised to read how we have achieved -some but not all-of the objectives I talked about in the interview. However, I did manage to cram in a lot more about Pop Art Lab’s future strategies at a SL7B talk. I like to compare PAL to a soccer team: sometimes we score, sometimes we get the red card, but if we are able to bang in 2-3 fab goals a year we are satisfied!

One such goal was our ‘Giana Factory’ music video project which gained a total of 1.2MM impressions! That’s over one million web hits due in part to our strong promotional campaign in both lives and some great partnership working with the girls from Giana Factory, all the machinima makers who took part and the thousands of fans of Giana Factory. Have a look at the figures and if you wonder why Flickr is so low, well only 3-4 snaps seems to have survived and its now clear we need to get a good SL photographer to help us record all our in world events. But if you missed the show which included talks by Rhett Linden and Chantal Harvey, you can watch it at: Treet.TV.

Another surprise! By curiosity I went to Torley Linden’s new Cyberpunk Island. Well he had visited PAL some months earlier and had also made an interesting comment on audio streaming Jira “As a music fan, I want audio to fade in gently so my immersion is increased” (please consider vote on Jira too).
Ok we went to his sim and couldn’t help but notice a strong PAL inspiration there! It’s a pleasure to inspire Torley Linden, especially as I find his persona one of the most inspiring and cheerful Lindens ever! So, that was the first half of the year-and this is what we have planned next……..

We have finally managed to set up new show date for our long overdue Emma Acs Machinima Event.

August 19th 2pm PDT

Expect a lot more details posted on the blog and in our group in SL over the next few days.

Now some cool news from Linden Lab. Their new social media profile feeds is soon out of beta. I did some testing and it works fine already. It’s pretty much like making personal feeds in Facebook, Twitter or Google+ and ability to add SL location and send your updates synched into your networks.
Hopefully group postings will be added and then the fun starts!
To me this has been urgent ever since Pop Art Lab started. Everyone who’s been involved in management inside SL knows what a pain it is to manage note cards, access lists, promote event details or whatever…

1. Many SL’ers are active in social media on web as well
2. Management and archived information will be much more structured and accessible.

The whole PAL team views this new development as an extra channel to reach our inworld group, to receive feedback and to create an even stronger dynamic between Pop Art Lab and its many users.

It will be interesting to see the rollout and how this will be used by residents: on one hand, it might make diehard SL’ers even more dedicated (as they don’t need any Facebook or similar platforms to interact). On the other, the content creativity in SL will be more flashed outside with the ability to reach specific networks.

However I like see SL as just another social media platform (and in fact one with yet unseen opportunities). But so far there are obstacles and some prefer features in Facebook, others Twitter and so on. Even the TOS and branding plays an even bigger role hence FB and recent Google+ implications on identity! Let’s see….

We have many other up and coming projects on the boil including a new sim design that under development that will be revealed in the new year, we are now producing all POP VOX TV shows independently of Treet.TV (although they remain as a much valued media partner) so expect to see POP VOX undergo a whole image change. The thousands of CD releases that land on our desks every month are still being rifled through-and we will continue to play only the very best latest releases for your listening pleasure plus we will shortly be working with the arts community of SL once again on a brand new collaboration. Just watch this space!

/Persia Bravin and Claus Uriza