Virtual gigging?

10 March 2006

Always on the lookout for new venues, I stumbled across this intersection of real and virtual life at Vivisecting Media:

An example James used was of fashion designers. Some players of Second Life began creating custom fashions in the game and then selling them from stores they built in the game. Here is were it gets interesting, you can turn around and sell Lindens (the money) in the open market for real money, right now the rate is about 250 Lindens to $1 USD.

At this point some of the designers are making about $60,000+ a year just selling their online clothes. In fact, some of the designers have been approached by real life clothing companies to take the online fashion into “analog” forms.

Are there virtual concert halls in Second Life? There must be dance clubs with electronica and pubs for meeting and chatting. What are the possibilities for gigging “analog” musicians?

I’ve avoided MMPOGs as one life is often enough. But I might have to break down and get a trial membership to look into this. If I don’t report back in a week then send a rescue party.

Comments

  1. Actually, this is one topic that James Au brought up at the CC Salon. It ends up that you can use Shoutcast to host live concerts that are then streamed into the game. One of the tales he told us was about a homeless musician that started couch surfing at a friends place and at that time the musician was introduced to Second Life. As the story goes the musician set up a vitirual tip jar that people could tip Lindens in and he makes about $80+ USD a gig now, gigging out 3-4 times a week.

    One technical challenge that you (or anyone looking into this) is that Second Life does not provide the Shoutcast hosting. I haven't fully researched it yet, but from what James mentioned in a conversation after his presentation is that the person providing the show will need to provide all the Shoutcast bandwidth. Anyway, something to think about for sure...

    halon Mar 13, 00:53

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