2nd Annual Second Life Community Convention This Weekend

Organizers of the 2nd annual Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) have announced that the real-life event centered around the 'virtual world' MMO title will run from this Friday through Sunday, August 18-20, at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, California. The event will be emceed by Jerry Paffendorf of The Electric Sheep Company and Justin Bovington of Rivers Run Red, two companies servicing real world organizations who want to use Second Life, and "presents the unique opportunity for residents, friends, colleagues, and potential collaborators of the Second Life virtual world to meet and interact in the real world". Linden Lab's Massively multiplayer online (MMO) game Second Life is free to play, and allows users to create any kind of personalized clothing, vehicles, buildings and other objects, with the real-life equivalent costs being for virtual plots of land within the game or for buying in-game items and services. While during last year's inaugural event Second Life featured 60,000 subscribers, today the virtual world is approaching 500,000 accounts. Friday will see an opening party featuring live musicians and DJs from Second Life, and Sunday is set aside for Second Life residents to run their own sessions and workshops. For those who can not attend in person, there will also be convention activities inside of the virtual world that will be connected to the real life event. Saturday's panels include discussions on real life business in Second Life, managing successful community projects, sex and relationships in the virtual world, how to build and market your virtual brand, art, media, content creation, and more. Keynote presentations will be given by Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab and creator of Second Life, Cory Ondrejka, CTO of Linden Lab, and Mitch Kapor, President and Chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation and an early investor in Linden Lab. "Expanding to a full weekend allows us to celebrate more subcultures of the rich fabric which makes up the Second Life community,” commented event co-organizer Tim Allen AKA Flipper Peregrine in Second Life. “We're very excited by the enthusiasm shown by the residents who are keen on attending this year!" More information regarding this event, including how to register, can be found on the official website.