Sometimes event's can be a real inspiration and last night's Manchester Digital seminar on Second Life certainly fired up our audience.
Delegates from the region's digital industries were given an insight into the business opportunities of the virtual world and also an exclusive preview of Second Life Manchester, a digital presence for the city which goes live next month.
The virtual Manchester is spread over four islands and in time will feature a variety of landmark spaces from the real city. It's a partnership between Urbis, MDDA and Clicks & Links and representatives from each were on hand to discuss their involvement and aspirations for the pixellated city as a visitor destination and location for some very real enterprise.
Vaughan Allen, Chief Executive of Urbis, opened proceedings with his vision to replicate their exhibitions and associated events programme for visiting avatars including the forthcoming 25th anniversary of the city's legendary Hacienda nightclub. Expect some virtual raving in the near future...
Vaughan was followed by Vin Sumner and Oli Aro of Clicks & Links who discussed the challenges of recreating faithful and fully functioning versions of the city's architectural heritage with a demonstration of the customisable cubes and spheres which form the building blocks of the 3D world. Laplander Oli's avatar was particularly Viking-esque but he's still saving up his Linden Dollars for one of those horned hats!
Interestingly, Vin asked for a show of hands on all those who were actively leading Second Lives and almost half the room responded positively.
Our audience was then taken on an avatar-guided whistle stop tour of the faux glass and steel Urbis, the customisable training shoe creator on Reebok Island, Dublin's Blarney Stone for a virtual pint and NASA's ersatz collection of real world rocketry.
Finally Dave Carter, Head of Manchester Digital Development Agency, raised some interesting points about the ethical and legal issues surrounding the recreation of a city in a virtual world and the potential infrigement of intellectual property rights in respect of buildings and other real world features.
SL creators Linden Labs have apparently already put a stop to naming digital locations after earthly places since 'Amsterdam' was sold on eBay for £60,000. Thankfully the team behind SL/Mcr have managed to secure Manchester UK for this project which will make it far easier for the virtual tourist...
It was a great night but I'm still out on this one. I think the whole thing looks clunky and blocky compared to the ever increasing sophistication of the visuals in today's video games. Maybe it'll catch up soon but as anyone in event management will agree, the hours we work make having a first life difficult at times!
SL/Mcr Urbis images courtesy Clicks & Links