Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Remember Second Life's odd new homepage that debuted last month, inexplicably featuring a real life model depicting an elf? If you go to the homepage now without logging in, you'll see it's been updated with a minute+ video that still includes that RL model, but now, also her SL analog (above). The video also depicts several RL models "becoming" their avatars — a pretty good way of depicting one core feature of Second Life. (I'm still perplexed by the RL teaser last month, but let that go.)

I'm also glad to see so much emphasis on the new tagline — "Explore. Discover. Create." — which is also not bad for a tagline, even if it doesn't convey the full platform's potential. (What happened to "Play" and "Socialize"?) And the new video, while a big improvement, still doesn't actually depict the Create piece. How do you appeal to all the creators in, say, ROBLOX, who are reaching their early twenties and are potentially interested in a virtual world targeted at non-teens that offers a better revenue deal than ROBLOX's 50/50 split?  The video itself also seems rather dark (both visually and thematically) and a bit too self-serious for a virtual world popular with tinies and virtual Kim Kardashians.

Anyway, more screengrabs from the video below, which oddly isn't on the official YouTube channel yet… but maybe it'll debut as an actual ad on TV first?