Blog

Posted on

Diplo Foundation exploring “virtual diplomacy” in SL

Diplohq_001

The Diplo Foundation announces that they have launched a new Diplomacy Island in Second Life (teleport SLURL) to "explore new possibilities for diplomatic representation and interaction."  Based in Malta, but with a virtual network that spans the globe, Diplo has been a pioneer in using online tools to conduct research, trainings and outreach about international diplomacy. 

Tomorrow at 9:30AM PST, there will be an official inauguration of the new sim with a real world event in Geneva at the World Meteorological Organization as well as in-world on their island.  The programme is quite impressive, including Srgjan Kerim, President Designate of the UN General Assembly; Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director General of the UN Office at Geneva; Ambassador Walter Fust, Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; and H.E. Mr. Abdulla Shahid, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of
Maldives. Sounds like a very interesting event.

Here’s the full announcement…

DIPLOMACY GOES VIRTUAL
 
          INAUGURATION OF DIPLOMACY ISLAND
& VIRTUAL EMBASSY IN SECOND LIFE
           
   

        Organised by DiploFoundation in Partnership with
        Government of Maldives
        Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
        Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP)
   
 
         

         


         
            18:30, Geneva – 22 May 2007
         
16:30 (GMT),    New York (GMT-4) 12:30,     London (GMT+1) 17:30,
New Delhi (GMT+5:30) 22:00,    Beijing (GMT+8) 00:30 next day
         

         
  VENUE
 Place: World Meteorological Organisation
7 bis, avenue de la Paix, Geneva
Space: Diplomacy Island in Second Life (SL latitude/longitude: 150,191,26)
          

          PROGRAMME

  • Ambassador Fred Tanner, Director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy: Welcome Address

  • Dr. Srgjan Kerim, President Designate of the United Nations General Assembly: Address from the United Nations – New York

  • Mr. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director General of the United Nations Office at Geneva

  • Ambassador Walter Fust, Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation – Importance of Virtual Diplomacy for Small and Developing Countries         

  • H.E. Mr. Abdulla Shahid, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Republic of
    Maldives     – Official Opening of the Virtual Embassy of Maldives

  • Dr. Jovan Kurbalija, Director of DiploFoundation – Presentation of the Diplomacy Island

WHAT IS DIPLOMACY ISLAND?

Diplomacy Island
is the next step in over a decade of research and development in the
field of Virtual Diplomacy. Through Second Life, Diplo will explore new
possibilities for diplomatic representation and negotiation. Diplomacy Island
will be another channel for Diplo’s main mission to assist small and
developing countries to participate meaningfully in international
relations. Diplomacy Island includes the following “neighbourhoods”:

The Diplomatic Quarter
will host Virtual Embassies. Along with the Virtual Embassy of
Maldives, which will be inaugurated on 22 May, several other embassies
are under construction including embassies of Malta, Philippines and
Macedonia.

The Virtual Diplomatic Academy
will host sessions and panels related to modern diplomacy and themes
such as environmental diplomacy, energy diplomacy and cyber-diplomacy.

The Virtual Diplomatic Museum
will be more than a typical museum. Its main function will be to
highlight the relevance of diplomacy to modern society, as opposed to
the use of force. The Museum will present historical examples of the
success of diplomacy. Visitors will have a chance to communicate
“across time” with famous diplomats from the past including Talleyrand
and Metternich.

The Internet Governance Village
will host panels, round table discussions and conferences on two sets
of issues. First, of direct interest for Second Life citizens, the IG
village will host discussions on privacy, security, digital identity
and taxation in cyber-space. Second, the IG Village will promote
discussions on Internet issues and developing countries, mainly on how
to bridge the digital divide.

Cross-posted also at rikomatic.com.

Written by: rikomatic

Posted on

Cool new free SL module allows you to post a SLurl to del.icio.us

What will those crazy hackers think of next? Bill Hax (his avatar name) has created a very cool gadget called Yummy.

Yummy will allow you tp post a SLurl to del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/). It is available at the SLexchange

This gadget allows you to post a slurl of your current sl location to del.icio.us. You may optionally add a description and tags, and may mark the post either ‘not shared’ (default) or ‘shared.’ It must be attached to your avatar to function, and is invisible unless attached as a HUD. Like any script, Yummy will not work in “scripts disabled” sims.

Help summary:

To post a slurl to del.icio.us:
/111 description, tag1, tag2, …

description (optional) can be any text EXCEPT a comma and tag1, tag2, etc. (optional) are single words to use as tags.
For example: ‘/111 Great store for clothing and hair!, clothing, hair, shopping’
The tag ‘slurl’ is automatically added to all posts.

To get help:
/111 help

To popup Yummy’s menu:
/111 menu

To launch your del.icio.us web page in your browser:
/111 www

To change new posts to ‘not shared’:
/111 private

To change new posts to ‘shared’:
/111 public

To change Yummy’s chat channel:
/111 chat channelNumber

Limitations:

Since LSL has limited support for non-text MIME types, errors that occur when posting a slurl to del.icio.us may not be reported. This is not something I can “fix” until Linden Labs chooses to provide this support. For this and other reasons, I’ve decided to provide Yummy for free.

That said, Yummy works just fine for me!

Notes:

Updates will be available for free. There is no auto-update function built into Yummy to keep the script nice and simple. If you would like an update, send me feedback (/111 feedback) with a short message like “Any updates?” and I’ll let you know if/when an update is available.

If you’re interested in the source code, drop me a line. Future versions will probably be “Modify” – the current version is my first script and I don’t like to release code before I’m completely happy with it 🙂

Release notes:

Rev. 1.0:
initial release

——————————

I hope you enjoy using Yummy!
– Biil Hax

Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie

Posted on

A nice directory of worksafe SL destinations: SecondLife with a purpose, other than the seedy kind

I found this site has reviews of sims and events that are the kind that our group is interested in. They are a good place to visit if you encounter a little skepticism at your organization when you are trying to preach the joy and importance of SL.

http://www.secondseeker.com/

They have a health and education category, but no nonprofit-specific one. Do you all think we could be their source for this category? I found this Charity Category and I wonder if there was some way that we could cross-pollinate our sites. Any ideas?

Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie

Posted on

Pride 2007 Festival coming June 24-30

Secondpride
PixelPulse Magazine sends out news that plans are underway for "Second Pride 2007" in Second Life, a celebration of diversity in sexual identity bringing together gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transexuals and queer-friendly straights from all over the metaverse.  Schedule from June 24-30, one centerpiece of the event will be a enormous virtual AIDS Memorial Quilt bringing together 720 individual panels.  Information on how to submit a panel can be found here.

Plans for the Second Pride Festival include art exhibits, dancing, musical performances, a theater troupe, vendors, games, and a museum highlighting the historical significance of Pride. To learn how you can help out, head for their Google Group.

Written by: rikomatic

Posted on

Reflections on Walk the World Fight Hunger Second Life Event


From Fight Hunger’s Flickr Stream.  More photos of real life and virtual world event here.

Susanne Thornqvst of Fight Hunger shared a report on the Walk the World Event on May 13th.  Rik Riel has blogged it over t here.

I did a follow up interview with Susanne to find out what they learned.

1.   What took place in Second Life for Walk the World on Sunday? 

On 13 May hundreds of thousands of people all over the world joined in an effort to raise awareness about child hunger and funds to WFP’s School Feeding Programme. This year we wanted to find new ways of spreading the word, and decided to also use Second Life. We had two walking paths on the island Dragon Moon for people to walk and we had live entertainment for 24 hours to cover all the time zones and reflect the events that were going on all over the world at the same time. Almost 400 avatars showed up and we raised over 1000 US dollars.

2.  What were the benefits to adding a Second Life component to the established event?

By adding the Second Life component we were able to reach people we would never have reached with our traditional events. Especially in the US and Europe were you have so many fundraising events, activities and walks for various causes it is difficult to gather and enthusiasm people to join, but in Second Life these activities are rather new and therefore people are eager to help and contribute.

3.  What was your strategy for promoting the Second Life component?

We mainly promoted the event within the Second Life community but also in various real world blogs. We also got some advertising for the Second Life walk thanks to being mentioned as a new approach in various newspaper articles covering the real world walks.  (Beth’s note:  Rik Riel has some tips about promoting virtual events)

4.  Did anything surprise you about the Second Life event component?

What surprised us the most was the friendly atmosphere and all people wanting to help us with our goal of ending child hunger, especially Ariel Finsbury, Nyna Slate and Demian Caldera who worked very hard to make the event a success.  We also had about 20 musicians who played live for us during the event, even though many of them live in the US were they the same day were celebrating mothers day.

5.  Based on your experience, what advice would you give to others doing an inworld fundraising event?

We were completely new to Second Life, and we could never have done it without the help of our wonderful volunteers. So my biggest advice is to gather a group of dedicated volunteers that knows about Second Life and they can give you advice on what would work or not in Second Life. It also helps to be open minded to new technology approaches and using your imagination.

6. Do you think based on your experience and the results, you’ll continue to have a Second Life Component? 

Yes we will definitely look into having more activities in Second Life! Our list of ideas just keeps growing! We would like as many people as possible to join in and Fight Hunger in the world, and Second Life is excellent for community building and reaching a new audience.

Written by: kanter

Posted on

Report on “Fight Hunger: Walk the World” event on May 13

Susanne Thörnqvist sends us a report on the
“>”Fight Hunger: Walk the World” event on May 13. She comments that “the event would not have been possible without the help of our wonderful and dedicated volunteers in Second Life and all the musicians who dedicated their time to play live for us.”

Number of people attending: More than 380
Funds raised during the 24 hours event:

  • Funds raised from donation boxes 244,379 linden dollars
  • Shoe sales 2000 linden dollars
  • Total donation boxes and shoe sales 864 USD
  • FightHunger.org donations to Second Life walk 162 USD
  • Sponsored walker 34 USD
  • Click-to-feed 30 USD
    Total amount raised 1090 USD

    Explanation click-to-feed: We had 155 clicks, meaning that our sponsors will provide a meal at school to 155 children, for a cost of 0.19 USD/child/day.

    Pictures of the event at http://www.fighthunger.org/en/wtw07/2l/second_life

Written by: rikomatic

Posted on

Eventful

Eventful is a social networking site that allows loose or formal groups to create gatherings. Groups can be based on physical location, interests, subjects, and events.

You can create groups or join groups that you have interest in. You can search through the many groups that are available through a system based search engine.

To use Eventful, you first need to set up a user account. To register, click on the top right register link. Registration requires an email address, username, password, zip code, and year of birth. You must accept the terms of service. It takes about a minute.

Once you have registered you can begin to create and/or join groups. To join a group, find a group you are interested in. Towards the right top corner of the screen, you will see a button labled "Join this group". Once you are a member of a group you may post events to that group.

Eventful also allows you to generate a "widget" that you can post on your own site. This widget will pull an RSS feed from the group you are interested in and display those results on your site. From that widget you can subscribe to the RSS feed or pull data directly into iCAL.

We’ve integrated a widget into this site to follow events from the nonprofits in secondlife members.

Written by: Creech

Posted on

Free avatar makeovers for cancer survivors

The Metaverse Messenger is proud to host Digital Do Overs: Survivor Edition

What is it?
In partnership with SL Relay For Life, the Metaverse Messenger Fashion Angels will be hosting 4 makeovers over the next several weeks of in-world cancer survivors. Makeovers will be chronicled in the M2 and featured in our weekly paper.

Why?
In addition raising funds for the its life-saving mission, RFL aims to educate it’s community on the many services and offerings of the American Cancer Society. Through these makeovers, our goal is to honor and pamper in-world cancer survivors and raise awareness for the ACS program Look Good, Feel Better, which educates women who have lost hair due to treatment how to apply makeup, wear wigs, and do things to become more comfortable with their appearance during their fight with this terrible disease.

Who do we need involved?
We are looking for four cancer survivors with current SL avatars that are in need of a makeover. Still got that “newbie” look? Then we need you!

How much time is involved?
If you are chose and agree to participate, expect to spend about 3 hours over the period of a week with your assigned Fashion Angel.

1. “Before” photo session
2. Interview to understand your desired style and look, and learn more about you, your story, and your involvement with the ACS
3. SHOPPING!
4. “After” photo session

If you are interested in nominating someone, please send *IN A FOLDER TITLED DDO NOMINATION* a snapshot and a quick notecard about the person nominated to Madison Donnelly by Monday, May 21st.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

Yours in the fight,
Madison Donnelly
Fashion Editor
The Metaverse Messenger

Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie