Click here to see video. From the Second Life Community Convention — film created by Thought Plasma.

There is a great article in this week’s Economist on Second Life. It contains, among other things, an interesting break down of the Web 2.0 Ad-driven business model vs. Second Life‚Äôs business model. It also mentioned some of the companies coming in to SL to create awerness of their brands or to hold events around their companies. Of course, I‚Äôm thrilled that it mentioned many of our clients, including Toyota, Sun Microsystems and Mark Warner.

We’re having a little party tonight to celebrate — starts in about 30 minutes on the Millions of Us sim. Here’s a link

OK, Now It’s Officially an Empire. I have to relish these moments of being a startup CEO in Second Life. Yes, we have all the typical startup difficulties , but every once in a while, it just gets easier. Just off the coast of Millions of Us’ Island, we now have a pair of sharks. . . . . with lasers. Mwuuhhaaaa!

Here in California, you’re not officially a tech startup unless you’ve spent some time in a garage. Millions of Us is not different — we started out (when the company was really just me) sharing some office space from friends. Then Chris Lassonde came on board and Bill Wrentmore (out of Austin) and Rodica Buzescu (out of Boston). So that’s 4 full timers and over 10 contractors — whew!
Back in July, Chris and I decided to start out working out of his garage until we had enough breathing room to have time to look for office space. We never really got that breathing room, but we did finally find a space.
Friday was officially our last day in the garage. While I’ll miss hunkering over that desk and shouting at the Dobermans to leave me alone, we’re very excited about the new office. It’s on Liberty Ship Way in Sausalito, about 50 yards from the beach. I’ll post pics soon and invite everyone for our Office Warming/ Launch party. As soon as we have some breathing room. . . . .

This was an interesting interview this morning on the Brian Lehrer show. (If the first link doesn’t work, try the second one — bottom of the page). I woke up early and got ready, realizing that bizarrely my interview was scheduled to follow a long-ish piece about bicycle safety in Manhattan. I’m not going to say that it was an easy act to follow, but. . . . . .

Kind of fun that I got a chance to give props to Q-Dot Bunnyhug’s SL Bicycle. Also amusing that the host gave Millions of Us credit for creating Second Life (I did correct him ;-))

Last night a meeting was held at the Learning sim by the Kuurian Expedition. The overall project was created by Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds, through the Synthetic Worlds Initiative. The expedition are a research group rooted at Indiana University.

Guest speaker was Amazon Web Services Evangelist and Scion afficionado (or at least RL user) Jeff Barr, aka Jeffronius Batra in SL. He is a tad busy with all those tubes over at Amazon at the moment, but found time to hit me with a rough transcript from last night. Email me at bryan [at] millionsofus dot com for a copy. In the meantime, enjoy this:

Jeff in SL: Do I spy a racetrack in the background? The Scion does in fact handle incredibly well, and I have been meaning to do the same.

Jeff in RL

Rik Riel has already posted his first thoughts about the event.

The Kuurian expedition is focused on a synthetic worlds initiative: that is, ” to promote innovative thinking on synthetic worlds” while “blurring the line between work and play,” which of course we are all for. You can also find them at World of Warcraft, “on the Silver Hand server, Alliance side.” To join, you must give the secret password to the guild officer by contacting them here.

By building guilds in a number of virtual worlds, the expedition makes its way through cyberia (nice), connecting with a number of people in a host of worlds and contexts along the way.

And though I am not quite sure to what liege they pay their tribute, they do indeed have a charter and abiding fondness for Scions, as they were on display last night.