Sunday, July 01, 2007

Normal blogservice after 17:00, London time

Those living on Mars will be unaware that today is the Awards Ceremony for Blogpower and not only for them. I counted and almost half the people roaming about in Tom's condominium in Second Life were non-Blogpowerers.

That's as it should be.

If you were at all involved in the Blogpower Awards, you really should try to be there, especially if you're not a BPer. Let me take you through the steps and hope it makes it easier for you:

1] I have a dial-up connection and frankly, it gets me in to see the Awards and meet people but not a lot else - tours of the facility are a bit difficult, for example. You need a good but not a fabulous connection to start with, for platform stability.

2] If your connection is all right, then what is Second Life? It's a virtual world of "resident communities" like any city and Tom Paine owns a huge property there, ideal for entertaining - bars, balconies, dance floors, swimming pools and so on. To visit us, you need to do a simple registration.

3] Go to this address first and get yourself in. Don't be put off by the "gaming type" characters you see. They need:

a. E-mail for confirmation and no other true info;

b. You to choose an avatar or human form of your choice to use as "you" inside. This can be as flattering or as accurate as you like. Three minute process.

c. That's it. You're in.

4] To reach us personally, this is the direct link. [It's a huge city with thousands of residents.] You'll see, on the middle to upper right of your page, the panel "teleport". Click and that takes you direct to the Awards floor where everyone is.

5] Once you "land", you do so on a Welcome mat and you need to start using your arrow keys on your keyboard to get off this mat so the next person can arrive. Sometimes there will be delay of up to a minute. Don't worry.

6] You're now on a giant parquet dance floor and the other bloggers you know from the blogosphere are there and you can communicate by either IM [personal one-to-one] or chat [which everyone is using]. You'll find these buttons lower left. This is real world communication, as if we'd all come in from the Americas, Europe, Oceania and so on to the one room at the one time. It's amazing.

7] Of course there's far more to do and see and modify than that but there's little time today for that. You should use the arrow keys and get yourself into a place on the floor and we'll come to you. We're looking out for you. I'll be there about 30 minutes before and earlier in the day as well.

8] Once you're in place, you can start exploring your menu panel below and on the right you'll find Inventory. Look through it. About halfway along the panel below you'll find Fly. Only do that if you're confident. There's also a Snapshot facility for you to take instant photos of the event - it's also on the lower panel.

Do please visit us and don't be put off by the registration and orientation matters. It's well worth the initial three minutes if you would like to talk to other bloggers directly. Today's a golden opportunity for that.

17:00, London time.

Link to register here.

Link to reach us here.

No comments: