Webware

Virtual world Second Life has put in effect some new measures to keep adult content away from users who might not want to run into it. Or fly into it, as avatars might do.

Later this year, parent company Linden Lab will create a standalone "continent" for adult content, and members who don't purchase private "land" will be asked to migrate there if they wish to partake in adult-related activities. Second Life is an 18+ environment already, but stricter age verification policies will be put in place. You'll need a "verified" account, either through credit card information or through Linden Labs' filtering system, to get into the adult "continent."

Members will be asked to start flagging content as adults-only as part of a new content rating system, which will start to roll out in an update to the downloadable Second Life client that will be available next week.

"The people that are on our mainland and in our estate, if they are going to engage with adult content, are being asked to do that in the adult content area," said Cyn Skyberg, vice president of customer relations at Linden Lab. "Private land owners will be asked to tag their searches for adult-related listings so that it goes into the adult filter."

So what does this mean for Second Life, which was briefly a marketers' paradise before swifty falling from grace in the Silicon Valley pecking order? Well, it'll help make it a friendlier environment for some of the new "residents" whom Linden Lab hopes to woo. The company is profitable, due largely in part to the sheer volume of virtual goods and transactions made on the platform by loyal users, and Linden Lab sees corporate and academic institutions as an area for future growth. Keeping porn in its place could be good for P.R.

"A portion of this will be perceived as definitely being more corporate- and educator-friendly because you'll have more control over the things you're experiencing," Skyberg said.

With Metaplace, almost anyone can build their own custom virtual world. Its tools make it simple to script any object with various actions. And every object and world in Metaplace has its own URL.

(Credit: Metaplace)

Why play someone else's virtual world when you can build your own?

That's the major premise behind Metaplace, a new browser-based virtual-world platform from, among others, former Sony Online Entertainment chief creative officer Raph Koster.

Built to run inside the browser on any Internet-connected machine, Metaplace employs a simple, 2D, Flash-based graphics system that fronts for a fairly sophisticated set of content creation tools and what may one day be a complex open-ended economy built around user-created content.

In fact, because of the 2D and Flash nature of Metaplace, it's easy to miss that the platform offers users some of the easiest virtual-world building tools that have ever been made available. And while Metaplace has been in closed beta since October, it is expected to emerge into a public and open beta period sometime later this year. See below for an invite to the closed beta.

The company, which was formerly known as Areae, raised a $6.7 million funding round last October, led by Charles River Ventures. In total, it has raised $9.4 million.

Rising to the top
Metaplace has a little something for everyone. For the casual users, it has any number of user-created worlds to play, and there's a basic central Metaplace world that is an easy gathering place. Each can be rated, and the highest-rated rise to the top, allowing users to skip messing around with the system's chaff and instead concentrate on the wheat. But for those who are interested in creating their own virtual world, Metaplace offers a cornucopia of tools and choices that make it quick and easy to get a brand new world up and running.

Of course, as with any user-generated content system, the good creations are far outweighed by the bad. As Koster himself put it, "There are more than 25,000 Metaplace worlds, most of them are empty and most of them are crap."

But if it sounds like Koster is bashing his own system, he's not. Rather, he's touting how easy it is for anyone to start a virtual world that itself can be accessed by anyone on the Internet in mere seconds. Indeed, it's not an exaggeration to say that just about anyone could have a rudimentary Metaplace world up and running in less than five minutes.

Metaplace, a company that plans on letting users build a virtual world and use social networking conventions to allow groups to enjoy them, announced today that it raised $6.7 million of funding in a round that was led by Charles River Ventures and Crescendo Ventures, as well as independent investors, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

Somewhat similar to Second Life, Metaplace creates an online virtual world for people across the globe to interact with. But unlike Second Life and There.com, Metaplace uses an open platform to allow users to create, build, and live in their own unique virtual world. The company claims that it wants its users to create a "network of worlds--from community to games to education to business" that will allow people to collaborate, socialize, and "conduct commerce" as they do in the real world.

Metaplace is currently in private beta and has only allowed a few thousand people to use the service. But in the coming weeks, it will open the beta to more users in the hope that it will grow into a service that brings together the virtues of both virtual worlds and social networks.

Whether or not Metaplace can thrive where Second Life and There.com couldn't remains to be seen. The company's idea to create a virtual world has been done before and so far, competitors simply haven't been able to capitalize on a relatively inactive user base. Regardless, Metaplace thinks it will be different.

A decidedly tame video plays on the bottom of a pool in a Google Lively chat room called 'porn place.'

(Credit: Google)

Google is having to work to try keeping its Lively online 3D virtual worlds from getting a little too lively.

Despite some injunctions to the contrary, sexual overtones are creeping into Google's cross between a chat room and Second Life.

"We've received complaints about recently created 'sex rooms' in Lively, and we take these complaints seriously," Google said on its Lively group. "Our community standards prohibit sexually explicit images and rooms intended for sexual activity, even if virtual. When we become aware of 'sex rooms' that violate or Terms of Service, we'll work to remove them."

A little snooping around revealed some evidence of borderline rooms, but nothing as risque as shows in the more permissive realm of Second Life.

"So the girls are hidden in here," griped one avatar in one room called SEXY & HOT Monday morning. "Show up," ordered another. There wasn't much in the way of naughty pictures beyond the welcome screen, but some posters in the room linked to girl.cb-w.com, a Web site that sells a guide about "How To Approach Any Woman, Anywhere And Know Exactly What To Say To Get Her To Give You Her Number And Go On A Date With You - NOW."

Another room, called porn place, seemed fairly tame--even the YouTube video playing on the bottom of the pool. Other rooms were called Sexo Virtual, sexy babes, and BDSM Espana.

Google Lively's community standards prohibit nudity and sexually explicit material: "We don't allow nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material. This includes making sexual advances toward other users. We also don't allow content that drives traffic to commercial pornography sites or that promotes pedophilia, incest, or bestiality. Google has a zero-tolerance policy against child pornography. If we become aware of child pornography, the content will be removed and we will report it and its owners to the appropriate authorities."

Google wants to keep it clean for mainstream users, and users who violate Google's terms could find themselves banned from Lively and their Google account disabled, Google said.

"When browsing or searching for rooms, some Lively citizens come upon these rooms as the top results, which can erode their Lively experience...Lively is intended to be a place for Lively citizens to connect with each other and express themselves freely and in a safe environment," Google said.

(Via Google Blogoscoped.)

Google's Lively is a Web-based project similar to Second Life. This shows a re-creation of Google headquarters, complete with the T. Rex skeleton.

Update 8:17 p.m. PDT: Google amended one Lively detail: the application for MySpace is under development but not yet ready. Also, I corrected a name misspelling.

Google on Tuesday plans to unveil an online 3D social arena called Lively, the Internet giant's take on Second Life. But Google wants it to be part of your first life.

Second Life requires users to download and install a separate "client" software package that taps into the online world. Lively also requires a download and installation--Windows only for now--but then people can use Internet Explorer or Firefox to enter the virtual world.

"It's integrated with the Internet. It's not an alternate destination," said Niniane Wang, Google's engineering manager for the project. "Our intention is to add to your existing life."

Integration with the ordinary Internet takes several forms. For one thing, you can pipe in content hosted elsewhere on the Internet, including photos or videos. For another, you can embed your Lively area into your blog or, using widgets Google has written, on Facebook Web pages now and MySpace pages later. And you can e-mail your friends a normal Web address to get them to join.

With Lively, you can set up you own online spaces--rooms, grassy meadows, desert islands, or, in the demo version I tried, simulated Silicon Valley office parks. You can change the clothing or form of your avatar (that's your online incarnation, for those of you who missed the Second Life hype). And of course you can chat, do backflips, shake hands, and give high-fives.

The idea is to bring a better social dimension to online interaction, Wang said--something more sophisticated for expressing oneself than an emoticon on an instant-messenger status line.

"We think there is a desire to socialize in this way," Wang said, suggesting that's why Second Life got so much attention when it blossomed in popularity a couple years ago. "We hope this product will help them do that."

Integration with the Internet is indeed a significant departure from the Internet, but much of the Lively sales pitch will sound--how to put this politely--familiar to those who've already read virtual worlds press releases from years past.

I had a number of burps and hiccups using Lively in my demo on a somewhat elderly but by no means ancient laptop, problems Wang said weren't widespread. When it's working correctly, it took a little while to master the controls for moving the perspective and my avatar around.

After that, the novelty wore off even more rapidly than with Second Life. I'm sure it would have been more exciting with somebody else to talk to than a mock-up of Google's T. Rex skeleton, and perhaps if it were a room that I designed myself.

Don't get me wrong. I remain a believer, overall, in this form of online interaction, however socially stunted it may feel compared with, say, a singles bar. I just think the technology has a ways to go. I found Second Life more immersive, but even so, even the relatively crude communications enabled by e-mail and instant messaging did more to revolutionize my online social interactions.

A few other differences from Second Life: Lively doesn't have money. It's designed to be easier to use, with a drag-and-drop interface. And it's not programmable, at least yet, so you can only select furniture, clothes, hairstyles, and such from the prefabricated catalog Google supplies.

Money and programmability are both items the company is seriously considering, though, Wang said. A Mac OS X client also is a high priority, she added.

For years now, the popular virtual world, Second Life has been available only for PCs, Macs, and Linux machines.

There has always been talk about whether SL might ever make it onto consoles like the Xbox or PlayStation 3 and some scattered discussion about possible mobile phone implementations.

Last year, in fact, I saw a hack that allowed someone to access SL, albeit in a very, very superficial manner, on an iPhone.

But now, according to a press release I got Tuesday morning, a company called Vollee is planning on releasing technology that will make it possible to run Second Life on 3G handsets via Vollee's streaming media service.

I have to admit, I'm skeptical. Second Life is difficult to use, is very graphics intensive, and requires a huge amount of streaming data. To run it on a 3G network might work, I suppose, but it would depend entirely on that network staying up, staying high-speed, and on the device being capable of presenting the SL environment in a pleasing, useful manner.

Or not. I suppose it's also possible that someone could use Second Life on a handset and not need all the graphics. Essentially, it could be little more than a communications medium, allowing users to chat with their SL friends, to move around to various locations, and to do some small tasks. Would they be able to use the building tools? I doubt it.

Basically, this is a workaround. I haven't seen it, though, so I can't say for sure. But given the constraints that SL presents, I'm just not sure how well it translates, even onto a device with a big screen and a high-speed connection.

Still, it's noteworthy that this company is trying, and that it got someone from Linden Lab, the publisher of Second Life, to offer a quote for the release. That implies coordination between the two companies, and that always makes something like this more likely to have been thought out.

But only time will tell.

Update (5:19pm): I went over to the Game Developers Conference this afternoon and got a look at Vollee's mobile SL implementation. And I have to say, I was impressed.

While the mobile version won't allow users--at least at first--to conduct any kinds of transactions or to use the building tools, what they have got already is pretty cool.

Mostly, it's because what they've built is fairly smooth, and the look and feel is consistent with the original version, albeit much smaller.

But, for example, the graphics--say, when you're flying--look right, as it does when instant messaging with someone in-world or looking at your contacts list.

This is clearly the result of an actual partnership with Linden Lab rather than a do-it-yourself type of workaround, like the one I saw last year.

And while this is no substitute for a fully working version, it's certainly enough for what many SL users do on a daily basis.

WASHINGTON--Researchers Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators, and Dino Dai Zovi, turned their attention to Second Life during a Saturday morning presentation at ShmooCon, an East Coast computer hacking conference. The researchers didn't exploit a flaw within Linden Labs' Second Life, but within QuickTime. They showed how an attacker could make money stealing from innocent Second Life victims.

Miller and Zovi are both experienced with flaws within Apple products. Miller published the first Apple iPhone flaw shortly after its release. At last year's CanSecWest security conference, Zovi exploited a QuickTime flaw to win a "PWN to Own" hack-a-Mac contest. While Second Life does not install QuickTime, it invites users to install the player if they want to see multimedia files within Second Life.

What Miller and Zovi realized is that while direct communication between an attacker and a victim within Second Life passes through the servers at Linden Labs, multimedia objects are actually stored somewhere else. Hence, an object with a multimedia link could inject malicious code. In this case, researchers exploited a recent flaw within RTSP tunneling.

For their demonstration, they created "the most evil pink box you will ever see." They could have linked their malicious code to attributes of an avatar's hair, clothes, or anything else. They also could have buried the pink box underground or otherwise hidden it, but both researchers admitted they weren't very good players within Second Life.

Within Second Life they used a property that they own to demonstrate the exploit. Linden Labs sent a representative at the conference and a robot to the virtual demonstration site. The robot held a sign saying Hello to ShmooCon attendees watching the live demo.

In the demo, the researchers were able to show that their avatar became infected when it came too near the pink box. The code they used raided the avatar's Linden dollars and emptied the bank account. On the Internet, an attacker can get one dollar for every 275 Linden dollars stolen, so there is a financial incentive to these attacks and other future attacks. The attack demonstrated today works only on the property they own, and for the safety of others they put up signs perimeter that clearly stated a demo of an exploit was in progress.

To protect yourself while in Second Life, the researchers suggested either turning off multimedia altogether, or setting the multimedia preference within Second Life not to play streaming video when available, but to ask the user first.

On the heels of banking scandals in the virtual world Second Life, its publisher Linden Lab announced Tuesday that it is effectively banning in-world banks.

"As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest of any direct return on an investment (whether in Linden dollars or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter," Linden Lab wrote on its blog Tuesday. "We're implementing this policy after reviewing resident complaints, banking activities and the law, and we're doing it to protect our residents and the integrity of our economy."

The move comes after some residents lost money they'd entrusted to in-world banks like the now-infamous Ginko Financial last year. And the decision by Linden Lab is clearly aimed at restoring faith that some had lost in the stability of the virtual world's economy.

It also comes less than a year after Linden Lab banned casinos in Second Life, another move aimed at demonstrating that the economy is on the up-and-up and therefore not something that government officials should spend too much time looking at.

In the early hours after the Tuesday announcement, Second Life residents are mixed in their opinions about the banking ban.

"So the existing so-called 'bankers' and 'stock exchanges' can just take the cash they have collected and run, eh," wrote Second Life resident Ann Otoole in a comment responding to the Linden Lab blog post. "Glad I never fell for this scam, but a lot of residents are going to be hurt so maybe (Linden Lab) should seize the assets of these 'banker' accounts right now and then figure out what to do with the assets. The amounts of (real life) money involved is pretty high and it will be sad to see these people get away scott free with nearly a million U.S. dollars."

But others supported the decision and saw the benefits of removing a controversial element to the SL economy, which sees around $1.3 million in activity every day.

"Thank you for doing this," wrote SL resident Lukas Mensing in the comments section of the blog. "(It's the) first step to a real virtual economy."

Whether the move will stabilize the economy, or at least perception of the economy remains to be seen. But it's pretty clear Linden Lab had to do something to stave off criticism related to banks that have folded, taking residents' money with them.

But only time will tell whether the decision will have any meaningful impact. And for those residents who have used the banks for various financial purposes, it will be very interesting to see what alternatives they have available in the months to come.

We bet you know someone who does everything online, from banking to making friends, to kicking back. If you're stuck trying to find great gifts for the constant blogger, video vulture, or online socialite in your life, take a look at this virtual gift guide that shows you get it, and you care.