Second Life Trials Voice Chat


second_life_logo.jpg The popular, virtual reality site "Second Life", run by Linden Labs, will shortly unveil a new limited service beta trial in which they will give users the option of chatting up other avatars with voice instead of text.

Prior to this announcement, Second Life users wanting to communicate with one another have had two basic choices: text chat (either personal or in a group setting) or the use of third-party voice applications like Skype.

Linden Labs  has teamed up with VoIP technology partners Vivox and DiamondWare to engineer the service, which goes live on March 6 for a limited group of users. By the end of the month, Linden Labs hopes to extend the feature to all Second Life inhabitants.

Second Life's new integrated voice chat feature will offer a group mode that lets users hear voice conversations in their immediate proximity, and personal and regular group voice chat, where users don't need to be near each other to have a conversation.

After There.com added voice chat to its site in late 2003, many Second Life users have been clamoring for the same feature.  And after seeing users add Skype and other applications like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo into the site, Linden Labs apparently got serious about development.

The plan is to initially provide voice free of charge during the beta. Down the road, Linden Labs is considering limiting the offering to mainland property owners and island owners who pay a $295 monthly maintenance fee, and charging users living on the wrong side of the virtual train tracks an additional fee or making them upgrade to the current plan.

It's clear the site is at the very early stages of incorporating real-time voice chat, and it will be interesting to see what emerges from the user community and how people incorporate it into their virtual business and personal lives.

Since Second Life has become a bona fide marketplace, where buy/sell transactions occur on a constant basis -- and we're talking real money made here, not Monopoly currency -- I'm particularly interested to see what intrepid developers come up with.

How about virtual phone companies, including virtual payphone, mobile and landline services. Or community-wide news and radio "channels".

Just as long as it's not some virtual telemarketing business that calls me during virtual dinnertime...







 
| 1 Comment | 0 TrackBacks

Listed below are links to sites that reference Second Life Trials Voice Chat:

Second Life Trials Voice Chat TrackBack URL : http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/31962

Around TMCnet:

1 Comment

Everyone must been heard or used mig33 application before, right? For those who haven’t tried out their services, you can do so by visiting to their website at www.mig33.com You can get Instant Messenger, cheap calls, SMS and chat room from mig33 application through your mobile devices. But there are much more you can find out from this application because mig33 has made an unprecedented breakthrough for their new website and new features for the application. Did you guy out there heard of Ajax Chat, Scrap Book, Picture Sharing, Picture Sharing and VOIP Toolbar? Yes, that is the new features that we can find out from the website and mig33 application. Surprisingly, we can use their services not only from our mobile device but as well as from your PC.

Recent Comments

  • JuddyB: I agree with you 110% ! I was at Crown read more
  • Meridian Electric: it will be very much useful for all. read more
  • adapter: If you need a new battery or adaper, I suggest read more
  • VoIPMan: hey, I like your profile. Please check out my blog read more
  • Jason: I found your post when googling for Skype Spam (looks read more
  • AG: Very complete. I kind of like that. Its nice to read more
  • Elij: Hi its interesting to go through your site which really read more
  • B: Currently running Vista on 2 PC's, my development laptop at read more
  • Michael Caspar: Couldn't agree with you more about the CFL pricing for read more
  • Helpful Guy: You will find reasonably priced ones at IKEA read more

Subscribe to Blog

Blogroll

Recent Entry Images

Around TMCnet Blogs

Latest Whitepapers

TMCnet Videos