Pioneer Pioneering in Second Life

Japanese home electronics company, Pioneer, was the destination for today's promenade. I recall that VeeJay covered this site a while back, but I didn't get around to visiting it at the time, forgot about it, and only (re-)discovered it by accident, while browsing the map for somewhere interesting to go. Actually, I am not sure that this sim gets into the "interesting" category - as we shall see...

The Pioneer Corporation has been producing home entertainment products since 1938, and is perhaps best known for its speakers and hi-fi systems. In recent times it has embraced digital technologies, such as Blu Ray DVD and HD TVs. The island in Second Life is primarily aimed at promoting lines that are unique to the Japanese marketplace, such as the 'Kuro' home cinema system - or 'systems', as there are 4 such systems in the range. You will also find a stand for their Pure Malt speakers(!) - whose cabinets are made from 50-year old whiskey barrels. These have been sold in Japan for years, but have been available internationally for about a year now.

The principal feature is a roadway that twists and turns around the island, and that is intended to pull the site together and provide it with some sort of coherence. You can rez a car if you want to drive round the island (and/or race your mates) - but I don't feel the roadway helped much.

You arrive at a reception building, where you can take a short tour of the Pioneer museum - in effect, a less-than-thrilling tour through the history of the company. After this, you can make your way outside to avail yourself of the charms of the 'Pioneer Resort Island'. The largest building is the 2-floor, cylindrical tower promoting their audio-visual treats, in the form of the Kuro range and Pure Malt speakers, mentioned earlier. You can rez a tour balloon, but this is neither comprehensive in locations visited, nor informative in any language. If you choose to walk, there are some show-houses, where you can see the Kuro home cinema in situ. Apart from that. there's a couple of camping areas - one in the Blu Ray dance arena, and one on the beach itself. Freebies are available in the form of T-shirts and Kuro home cinema packs.

Here's a selection of pictures for you to peruse:

Is this site any good? To be diplomatic, I think it is rather 'disappointing'. It has limited content, the interactivity is dull and lifeless, and the whole place feels rather disjointed. It is very much like most company promotional sims - and like most such sims, is unlikely to show any return on the investment. Incidentally, I gather from the comments on the Mindblizzard post, that the site was not even promoted in Japan.

So to conclude: despite the title of this post, this is far from being a pioneering build.

IEEE - A Work in Progress

I dunno about you, but as a fairly seasoned Second Lifer I have got used to an oddly high incidence of odd coincidences in SL - "Synchronicity" was Jung's rather elegant term for it. So, in a spirit of community and collaboration, I offer you "SLynchronity" - thus far without the trademark - for your free use and enjoyment, to describe this effect. In my last post I gave you a view of the current state of play with my company's island in Second Life. I touched on a couple points - one: I had not blogged about an island for a while, and two: I expected the company island to go through a couple of reconstructions before we felt it was complete. After posting that entry I decided to rectify point one, and set about finding a sim that looked promising. I quickly found IEEE and, as you will see, had a SLynchronous moment relating to point two.

But first, a little about IEEE - or "Eye-triple-E". The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers sounds like it would not be out of place in the steampunk world of Caledon, the name reeking as it does of hot engine oil and Tesla discharges. In fact, the institute rightly describes itself as "the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology." Its vision is that "IEEE will be essential to the global technical community and to technical professionals everywhere, and be universally recognized for the contributions of technology and of technical professionals in improving global conditions." It is perhaps the world's pre-eminent standards body for all standards pertaining to technology today. Since my RL self works in Information Technology I was rather pleased to find them in Second Life... and even more pleased to find the sim (soon to be 2 sims) open to visitors.

Shortly after I arrived, while I was snapping some photos for this post, I was joined by Buildit Nikolaidis (Kyle Nikolich in RL), the builder of the island. We had a long conversation, during the course of which it became apparent that we shared a lot in common. Buildit is the sole builder for the island, at least for the present, and (coincidentally) many of his experiences matched my own. I was not surprised to learn that the island was not officially open. In fact, given his workload, he is not expecting to have a public launch until, say, June this year. The main reason for this is that he is about to embark on a major reconstruction of the island. In fact, this will be the fourth - and hopefully last - reconstruction (see point two above). As I say, I was struck by the synchronicity of this, given that I had been writing about this topic scarcely 30 minutes earlier! Perhaps the main difference is that Buildit is, thus far, keeping the sim open - so hopefully you can always pop in for a chat yourself.

Since the sim is due for reconstruction I won't say too much about the current build, other than to mention that I did find the hidden room! IEEE are using the site for internal meetings from time to time, and have dedicated various buildings for different teams or groups within the organisation. More will come with the second sim, now delivered, but as yet not built. It will be interesting to see how this build unfolds, as IEEE have eschewed the use of an established build company in favour of a self-build approach. Buildit certainly has the skills to pull it off.

Finally, here's my small portfolio of snaps:

Toshiba Image Festival

Scant pickings tonight, as I surveyed the broad Western oceans in search of something bloggable. At least, that was until I spotted Toshiba. Now it may not always be the case that an island belongs to the company whose name it bears, but this one does. The sim belongs to the Toshiba Corporation, the giant Japanese electronics firm,and appears to be associated with a marketing initiative called A New Digital Odyssey. I take it the prime reason for this is to promote Toshiba's range of HD products, including DVD recorders and TVs, including the Regza, featured in this site.

As part of the initiative the company has commissioned a set of CGI animated movies, depicting an enormous, sky-borne sailing ship, that goes by the name of (ta-daaah!) A New Digital Odyssey. At the beginning of October the company extended their campaign by opening an island in Second Life, though aside from this post I have not come across any decent references to it. The centrepiece of the build is, not surprisingly, a 190-metre recreation of A New Digital Odyssey. As in the CGI movies it is accompanied by flying pink elephants, and overall looks quite stunning. At ground level there are several buildings - some in the form of delicate towers and spires, others are modern, faintly militaristic, metal shells. There's also some wildlife down there - cute giant frog-like critters.

You can pick a free jet skateboard thingy and zoot across from the arrival point to the ship. This is actively encouraged. given that large pinky arrows point you in that direction. Once on the ship you can avail yourself of a rubber rescue raft, should you so choose, before proceeding below deck, where you will find the Image Festival. As part of the Regza promotion, you can view CGI movies from a number of different film makers. There are still some "coming soon..." but there are enough screens to keep you interested. Here's my photos:

The sailing boat:


The view from terra firma:


Frogs, pink elephants and a movie:


Maybe I blinked and missed it, but I found no information on the island at all; no URLs, no notecards, nada. Not exactly a great way to promote your products! I was also expecting to find out more about the festival - but it seems this boils down to the selection of (admittedly interesting) movies already onboard the ship. It seems to me that Toshiba have rather mucked this up. I love the ship (at least from a distance) and the various critters and buildings - they all show an almost classical Japanese anime combination of fantasy and whimsy that can make you go "Wow!" and smile at the same time.

But as a company promotional build it does not really make the grade, for the simple reason that it tells you next-to-nothing about the products being promoted! Also, there seems to be something of a disconnect between the various marketing channels, the web and SL, which seem to be blissfully unaware of each other - and this is compounded by evidently poor communication about the sim to the outside world. All these things could be addressed, but it is a shame to see an interesting and amusing build going to waste.