This announcement makes me very happy.

Scion was our first big public launch (remember this goofy video that still haunts me?) and they’ve been an amazing client.¬† First we launched Scion City with customizable versions of all 3 of their cars.¬† Residents took them and created amazing mods.¬† Then we held the Chicago Auto Show in Second Life where they announced their new line of 2008 vehicles.

Now we’re about to kick it into high gear.¬† Over the month, we’re going to start allowing Second Lifers to open stores in Scion City.¬† We’ll also be busting out a few extra sims for folks to live on.¬† And making a 12 part machinima series chronicling the development of this society week by week. There’s a lot more, but I’m going to stop there for now.
Please join us on Thursday at 3 PM in Scion City where we’ll be unveiling the brand new Scion xB and talking more about the next year for Scion in SL.

I can’t stop watching this VIDEO of the event we did to help Scion launch their new line of 2008 cars. I’ve watched it 10 times now and it’s still hard to tell what’s happening in Chicago and whats happening in Scion City Second Life. The Scion guys are amazing clients to have because of the risks they take and how far they push the envelope. Enjoy.

I’m a big fan of The Colbert Report. Maybe it’s because of the style of humor that Stephen uses to poke fun at pundits, the media, and the establishment in general. Or maybe it’s because he supports the Ontario Hockey League, albeit rooting for an American team. Anyway, I don’t feel to bad borrowing a line from Colbert¬† “Who is talking about me now…”

Actually, in this case it’s really about “In what language are they talking…”, in my daily surfing of the web. Which means my spare time between midnight and one AM. I came across the following Russian blog post. Now, I don’t read Russian, but I can use Altavista’s Babel Fish to pretend that I can as well as the next guy. The article appears to be about the growing spending by Fortune 500 and Global companies to bring their brands and products into Second Life. Correct me if I’m wrong of course. In one particularly amusing translation mistake, I assume, they mention our clients Scion are selling their virtual cars for 300 dollars. I hope that’s a translation mistake, as the actual cost is L$300 or about one US dollar.

Now why does some random blog posting about Second Life in Russian matter? Because, according to Linden Lab’s latest numbers Russian subscribers make up¬† 0.11% of the resident population or about 4000 people. This is for a product that is only available in English and, let’s face it, has a fairly difficult user interface. So despite rather daunting odds, it appears to be confirmed that Second Life has indeed gone global. So that really leaves only one question in my mind: Why are the 400 residents from Barbados, surrounded by beautiful sand beaches, beach front bars, sail boats and yachts, diving getaways, and etc.., logging in?

Nice article today via Alex Veiga at the Associated Press.¬† The cool thing about the AP and other wire services is that you get to watch the same article get syndicated out.¬† This article on MSNBC has the goofy picture of me below — most of the others are just the article sans mug shot.

Another interesting piece¬† from David Kirkpatrick at Fortune via CNN Money in which Linden Lab CTO estimates that there are now 65 ancillary businesses like Millions of Us employing 350 people and serving real world corporations with projects totalling $10 million under development.¬†¬† I happen to think his estimate of the dollar value of projects underway is low, but it’s cool to see the overall size of the market.

Looks like Reuters (also picked up by Yahoo! and CNN) covered Scion’s ‘08 model lineup release this morning “Toyota launched a redesigned Scion xB and a new model called the xD in Second Life — an online community with 1.2 million “residents” — and at the Chicago Auto Show on Thursday, holding simultaneous press conferences in both the real and virtual worlds.”

I’m personally excited about the new xB and xD. Unsurprisingly, I love the styling of the new xB. It’s still has that iconic Scion boxy look, but now with a little bit more aggressiveness to it.

However, what I found most exciting about Scion’s support of Second Life is the potential that Second Life residents can influence potentially not only on Scion but Toyota. From the Yahoo article:

But Toyota Motor North America president Jim Press last year said he is not worried about Scion sales, calling the brand the automaker’s “incubator.”

If Toyota see’s Scion as an incubator and Scion see’s Second Life as a way to “connect with the trendsetters”, it only stands to reason that we all have an ability to influence not only where Scion goes but also Toyota with their product development. How exciting is that!?

Edit: Added link to CNN

Edmunds (via edmunds.com) is reporting some interesting news about Scion.

From the article: “The Scion xD, a compact sedan, is slated to replace the outgoing xA and is expected to hit showrooms in spring 2007. In an unusual part of the Scion reveal, the automaker will also stage a simultaneous press conference in Scion City, in the virtual world “Second Life,” to introduce the computer-simulated versions of the ‘08 models. The Scion unveilings will take place February 8. “

Eddie and Irina came out to Sausalito yesterday and made this cool podcast. We had a really fun time chatting about Second Life and delicious takeout from our local Indian restaurant, Avatars.

First off David Kirkpatrick, Fortune senior editor, published a piece about Second Life with the premise that Second Life is not over hyped, it’s important, and not going away.
The following quote really captures the power behind this medium “… one of the great things about Second Life is that whenever you are doing anything, you can see the other people who are nearby as well. This brings a dimension of social life - so elemental to how we live our lives offline - to the Internet in a way that up to now the Web has not. In Second Life everything you do is done in a social space, though you can get privacy if you want.”

But that’s not enough for a Friday! Gina Chon, of The Wall Street Journal, published today an article about Scion’s and it’s strategy to stay cutting edge. A part of that strategy is Scion’s entry into Second Life, which of course we have blogged about considerably here. The bulk of the article goes into the details of Scion sales strategy for the upcoming year and the challenges faced by an upstart brand when it has the potential to become to popular for its own good.
That all said, I can’t write about Scion and not post some of the latest virtual Scion that I have seen aroun Scion City.

You really come to appreciate the power of the platform when during your launch party, people already show up with customized cars. Congrats Dedric Mauriac for being one of the first to get their Scion xB modified!

We’re incredibly proud to announce the launch of Scion City tonight.

On Scion City you can not only buy customizable versions of real Scions but you can
also drive them around and (in the future) see the coolest user mods that the
community creates. You’ll also be able to check out a
broad range of cutting edge film, music and art that will be playing
in the city and showing at the drive-in.

Scion City is the product of many months of work by a very special
team of people. First, may I encourage you to pan your cameras around
this sim — you’ll notice some amzing lighting and an attention to
detail and nuance that is uniquely the work of Neil Protagonist. He
crafted the vision of Scion City as a dark and futuristic urban locale
and poured long hours into bringing it to life..

Like all big visions, this wasn’t a solo effort. Francis Chung,
creator of the famed Dominus, was the lead car creator and wrought the
xB as well as the customization system. He also drove a real xB about
as hard as any human ever in the name of research.·

The xA was a different sort of challenge and for
that, we called on the skills of Lucky Millionsofus. Lucky’s hard
work resulted in a fiery little package that’s easy on the eyes and
fun to drive. To get the job done, Lucky torqued prims in ways that
are illegal in most states.

Finally, the tC, the performance car in the Scion stable. Bill
Millionsofus did the honors here, and as you fire yours up, you’ll
hopefully appreciate the energy, devotion and attention to detail that
went into creating it.

What makes these cars cool is the degree to which they’re customizable.
Basic users (like me) can change the body color and rims with a simple HUD.
Intermediate user can create convertibles and weird mashups and
pre-painted panels. And for more advanced users, we’ve made ALL the Photoshop files
available here so you can rip your car apart, modify it, show it, and
sell it!

Finally pricing. Our goal was to make the cars as similarly priced to their Real World equivalents as possible — after much research ad argumentation we decided that L$300 was a good price for the Scion which in real life sell for about $13,800.

Our entertainment at the event came courtesty of Baccara Rhodes who has
coordinated the entire event. We’ll be treated to some really special
tunes courtesy of Komuso Tokugawa *The BOOGIE MAN*
and DJ Nexeus Fatale.