Ana Lutetia

blogging Second Life® since 2006

Avatars United

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Ana Lutetia | 4 Comments

A few days ago, Linden Lab acquire Avatars United and since then this has been the new SL hype. Everyday, more and more people create accounts there and find my old account. I joined in June 2008 when I discovered about this network… perhaps I read about it in twitter. I really can’t recall and if it wasn’t for LL buying it, I would have forgot about it. This is a nice move by Linden Lab because no one remembers SL profiles anyway…

AvatarsUnited-accounts

 

The most interesting feature of this network is the fact that is only for avatars whenever they’re from. I remember when I joined that they cleared stated that they didn’t want anything to do with real people but only with avatars. Another interesting thing is that you can unite with your friends from other virtual worlds or games and you can associate your Second Life avatar with your all your other avatars from everywhere.
Here’s some of the features, according to the official blog:

One of our priorities this year (and there are many, from making the experience more intuitive to reducing Lag), is to give Residents new and better ways to connect and share, through features like the following:
* Searchable profiles
* Friend and activity feeds
* Widgets and viral content
* Optional registration and sign-in using credentials from other properties (Facebook, Yahoo!, etc.)
* APIs that enable developers to create widgets, tools, and sites pulling from selected SL data feeds

One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was that after this, Linden Lab would acquire Plurk since the rumor is that it is used mostly by SLers and without SLers maybe it wouldn’t exist. Then I thought this was Second Life’s FaceBook and was pointed out that it is against the ToS to register as an avatar (in FaceBook).
As Prad Prathivi pointed it out, it still lacks some sort of avatar verification tool and my opinion it is a rather crude environment but you have a link to provide feedback. It would be great to also a widget to embed in the blog, to be able to upload videos, to have some sort of chat in it and, most important of all, it lacks a mute/ignore button or option. But fear not. According to M Linden, this is only the beginning:

Avatars United is just the beginning, not the end-state. Look at it not just as a destination site, but as the beginning of a larger social initiative. We want to create connections between these properties so that all can flourish. The ecosystem is powerful and the more interconnections, the better. AU has a nascent developer program. I’d encourage folks to start thinking about fun apps.

 

AvatarsUnited-AnaLutetia

You can find my Avatars United profile here. Feel free to add me!

 

Further reading:

 

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Comments

4 Responses to “Avatars United”

  1. MSo Lambert
    January 31st, 2010 @ 23:40

    I’m currently fiddling with the Avatars United OpenSocial API to provide an application which can also display your verified Second Life avatar name and rez date amongst other things.

    Verification happens in-world and displays accordingly on Avatars United.

    It’ll probably get obsolete when/if LL decides to integrate their own verification of some sorts, but still – it’s something new to play with :)

    I’d also like to add other SL related features after (if) the application gets accepted on AU. This is what I currently have: bit.ly/cqmYSv

    Hit me up on AU if you have any suggestions or concerns :)

  2. MSo Lambert
    January 31st, 2010 @ 23:42

    Oops, correct link below :)

    http://bit.ly/cqmYSv

  3. Tru
    February 1st, 2010 @ 10:33

    We haven’t ALL forgotten about SL Profiles….its really an awesome site, and so far, in comparison, AU is sadly lacking.
    But I’m signed up, just like the rest of the hordes lol, and I’ll wait to see how they expand and improve it :)

  4. Ana Lutetia
    February 1st, 2010 @ 17:45

    True! At least, both of us know what it is. ;)

    I want to believe that AU is just starting…

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