Reader Submitted: The Founder Returns

Nance Clowes sent in this screenshot of Philip Rosedale himself, formerly Philip Linden, the founder of Linden Lab, dropping in on the Second Life Birthday yesterday. The avatar was created on March 29 2013, quite some time after he stepped down as CEO. ""I just thanked him for making the thing that has enriched the lives of 10s of 1000s of people so much," Nance told me.

Miss Globe Universal Pageant, An Interview With The Chairman

To some, beauty pageants are old-fashioned reminders of a bygone era. Others see them as a chance for women to shine. In Second Life, every year there is the Miss Globe Universal Pageant. The pageant seeks to "empower women from all over the world, build the confidence they need in order to do their absolute best and help further build careers" and "challenges all women in every way and helps them discover new things during their journey's." Marcel Mosswood recently had a few words with its founder and Chairwoman, Rose Mikaelson (DjRoseAthena). Rose had a number of things to say about the upcoming event.

Read Marcel's interview in People.

Burning Man Founder Larry Harvey Dies

Many if not most Second Life residents are familiar with the annual Burn2 art and music festival. Taking place every year in October, it is an inworld version of the real-life Burning Man festival that takes place in the late summer every year. A week ago, fans of both the real and virtual festival received some sad news. Larry Harvey, one of the founders of Burning Man, had died. I had a few words with one Burner, iSkye Silverweb, about his passing.

Read more in Extra.

Real Life News: Net Trolls, Internet Ownership, and Bitcoin

There's been a few things going on in real life news that have some impact on us in Second Life, or are least of interest.

An online survey by Canadian researchers suggested that Internet trolls are "prototypical everyday sadists." (CNN) This is something that would come as no surprise to some Second Lifers whom deal with griefers.

Last week, the US Department of Commerce anouced that it was giving up its control over ICANN, the organization that oversees the Internet's addressing system (BBC) (Popular Science). With the NSA's relentless spying on people's use of what they've been looking at online, this might seem like good news. But some are wondering if this move could end up leading to widespread censorship by governments over what people can see online (Breitbart).

The big thing in the news lately though has been Bitcoin, which made the news in Second Life media last year. Late last month, Mt Gox, one of the leading exchanges for Bitcoin, filed for bankruptcy and confirmed that it had lost over half a billion US dollars worth of the virtual currency (Wall Street Journal) (BBC).The result has been a steep decline in Bitcoin's value that some are wondering may be permament. While this was still fresh in the news, Newsweek announced that  Satoshi Nakamoto, a 64 year old Japanese American was the creator of Bitcoin (Newsweek). But Nakamoto denies the story, saying he doesn't even own an Internet connection (Yahoo), and has moved to "clear his name" (BBC).

Since then, other events on the world stage have taken the spotlight off these events. But no doubt more is to come in the following weeks.

Bixyl Shuftan

Interview with Elenia Llewellyn, InWorldz Founder

Elenia Llewellyn, one of the founders of InWorldz, made news a few weeks ago when she took part in a discussion within Second Life to answer questions about the virtual world. Recently, she agreed to sit down with Second Life Newser for an interview. Here, she talks about her first experiences with virtual worlds, how InWorldz came about, and some of the challenges in running the place.

Read the interview in Other Grids and MMOs.

Interview with Michi Lumin

In Second Life, one of the oldest communities is Luskwood, which is also the location of the oldest furry avatar company on the Grid. The four whom started the place, and company, are known as the founders. And probably the most popular of them is the skunkgirl in the top hat, Michi Lumin. Recently, Michi sat down for an interview, and talked about a number of subjects concerning Luskwood, the Grid over the years, and Linden Lab.

Read the interview in People.