Neumann is One

So a year ago this very day Jeremy Neumann set foot into a sparsely inhabited virtual world and planted a flag that implicitly said "The Penguins have landed." Since then he has spent plenty of time exploring, lots of time chatting and making new friends, a small amount of time building and dancing and pretty much a year annoying and ignoring real life friends and family:-( Oh yes, and emoticons have entered his day-to-day written vocabulary :-((((((((((

A year on much has changed - Second Life has experienced a full-on media furore and the world has grown from a population (registered accounts) of just over 200,000 to more than five-and-a-half million today. Other publishers have entered the world - in fact last weekend saw Second Life's first Book Fair, following swiftly on the heels of the London Book Fair. Huge multinationals including banks, car manufacturers, mobile phone networks and, just last week, Coca-Cola announced presences inside Second Life, some with greater or lesser success than others.

Penguin's Second Life strategy has been to take a measured and restrained approach to this exciting, baffling and rapidly changing online phenomenon. We began with the release of a special sampler of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, the book that inspired the makers of Second Life, and will this week be following up with the distribution of the Penguin Virtual Bookshelf - designed to adorn any 3-D virtual home - and containing samples of 10 hot Penguin titles including Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and works by William Gibson. Later this year we'll start bringing authors into Second Life for events including something that even now, jeremy neumann is hugging himself with excitement about. For information on any Penguin activities in Second Life keep an eye on this blog or join the Penguin Readers group inworld.

We also bought a small plot of virtual land under the gorgeous Hooper Bridge to develop for an inworld Penguin HQ. So much Second Life architecture is banal recreation of the real world it would be great to do something different and special here - after all, what are the point of doors when in Second Life one can fly? So if anyone has any great ideas for a Penguin build let us know in the comments or contact jeremy neumann in Second Life. We'll sort out a suitably otherworldly prize if we use your idea.

It has been an incredibly interesting, often fun and sometimes frustrating year in Second Life and one which has afforded us a good look at the ways that online communities develop and ways that we can involve ourselves and our authors in those communities. It is unclear what the future holds for virtual worlds, Second Life and, by extension, Jeremy Neumann - but later today he might be found under the Hooper Bridge, wearing his party hat and toasting his first birthday with a large glass of virtual bubbly.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

Comments

[Babu Writer]

The SecondLife Book Fair was a success thanks to the participation of real life publishers like Penguin. Thanks for mentioning the fair here. You might be interested to know that Babu Writer, along with her SL partner, Flyw Jie, had a booth there, to promote The Lemon Princess. And guess what? We won a $1000L award for best booth!!! Now all we need is a RL publisher. You wouldn't happen to know anyone, would you?