How to discover the most photogenic Second Life destinations

When we launched the Koinup Places our goal was about giving virtual worlds people an effective tool to discover the most incredible and beautiful Second life destinations. Today, we are glad to announce that Strawberry Singh - one of the most cool Second Life blogger and also a brilliant metaverse artist (here, her koinup profile) - started to embrace Koinup Places to choose the locations for her amazing blog-photo-shootings. 
Strawberry uses to wear amazing fashion outfits, and by settings the shootings in original and unique Second Life locations, she create amazing stories for the blog.  Have a look at the latest Strawberry Post and teleport to the same location to enjoy the atmosphere.


There are various tools to discover outstanding places in Second Life, the most known is the useful Second Life Destination and we highly suggest to use it. But if you're looking for a complete user generated directory most focused on photogenic and visually appealing places, you can enjoy and browse the Koinup Places. Have a look at the most coolest places of the week

A New Photo Contest at Koinup

The team behind NeoVictoria, the well known Second Life Roleplaying Sim, is running an interesting photo contest on Koinup. Basically, the participants are requested to take photos that represent the spirit of this amazing sim and submit them to the group. In order to join the contest, it's enough to visit the sim, take some photos and submit the contents to the NeoVictoria group on Koinup. All the info, here! Good Luck!

Above a wonderful view of NeoVictoria. Snap taken by one of the first participants of the contest selena85

Koinup User of the week on Just Art is Piatto

Just Art - the Second Life art and entertainment blog - just picked the Koinup user of the week. According to the staff of Just Art the user of the week is the machinimist Piatto. It's a fabulous week for Piatto, if you consider that it was only some days ago that we nominated Piatto machinimist of the week on Koinup. You can read the story on Just Art and/or enjoy the amazing machinima of Piatto here.

If you would love to get considered for a mention on Just Art, join the Just Art group on Koinup, submit your best artworks (pics or machinima) to the pool and stay tuned with this blog or Just Art for the weekly announcement. Good Luck!

Koinup User of the Week on Just Art: Carlotta Ceawlin

If you are used to visit the top works pages on Koinup, then you should know the amazing gallery of Carlotta Ceawlin. Carlotta is one of the amazing photographers active on Koinup, she's especially skilled in landscape photography. The Second Life Art and Entertainment Blog Just Art selected Carlotta as "Koinup User of the Week". I invite you to read the story directly on Just Art and/or browse the stunning Carlotta's gallery here.

If you're wondering how to get considered for being "The Koinup User of the Week", read more here

Mistero Hifeng: Koinup User of The Week. On Just Art.

Just Art just went online with the weekly column: "Koinup User of the Week". This week Just Art highlight the job of the amazing artist Mistero Hifeng. You can read the story here and/or enjoy the Mistero's gallery here.

Contribute to the SL8 Birthday Party. Tell "What is Second Life" for you

Linden Lab some days ago announced the Second Life's 8th Birthday Party. This year’s theme is the “Magic of Second Life". So why not starting with telling what exactly is Second Life for you? The well known Second Life blog "The Honour's Post Menopausal View" just launched a project, that rely on Koinup as main platform. The project is about posting pictures that are your personal answers to the above question (What is Second Life for you)?

As Honour writes: "Think about what your Second Life is to you and then take a photograph of it. You have from now til June 15th to do the thinking, the photography and the submission"

In order to enter the pool, you must post the pictures on Koinup and add some specific tags to them. Read all the rules in the Honour blog

The pictures can be submitted in specific categories (Info here). All the pictures of the pool will be aggregated in a collective "universal" Second Life portrait.

Honour McMillan is going to apply to be exhibitor at the Second Life 8th Birthday Party and show off this project. Then, we invite to contribute to this interesting project and help to make it even more amazing.

Here the first answers. Now it's your turn. What is Second Life for you?

Koinup Partners with Just Art

There's a new interesting blog with the radar over Machinima and Art created/inspired by Second Life. It's called Just Art. The blog authors are some well known and so much appreciated machinimists and artists of Second Life: Bryn Oh, Colemarie Soleil, Persia Bravin.
Starting from the next week, Just Art will feature any week, a Koinup machinimist or artist/photographer within a special column dedicated to the Koinup community.

You can submit your contents for consideration in the Just Art group on Koinup. The most interesting will be featured in the blog (at the moment, only Second Life photographers/artists/machinimists will be considered for the feature)

You can read more about the partnership on Just Art Post

COLORE group announcing a new Second Life photo contest

One of the most large community in Koinup "The COLORE" group is now announcing a new SL photo contest open to all Second Life members. The new themed contest is around the concept of: "feathers". The contest starting date is the 3th of November 2010 and the submission time will stop at 3th December 2010. The participants will be judged by the two admis of the COLORE group: LookatmyBack and Baroque.

In order to participate you have to join the COLORE group, submit your entries to the pool and post the url of submissions in the dedicated discussion thread


Above is one of the first submissions to the pool (that it happens to be one of the most coolest Koinup artworks ever, too (art by Sisar))

Discovering amazing Metaverse locations

There are at least two ways to discover amazing Second Life (and OpenSims) destinations. The first one is about subscribing to the well know Second life places directories as the Koinup Places or the Linden Lab Destination Guide. The other way is to follow amazing and prolific photo reporters. One of them is Rocapc.

Rocapc is a Koinup member since 2009 and in about one year he posted on his profile more than 2000 pics. All the images include slurls and complete information to visit the featured places.

Unlike other photographers, Rocapc uses to explore both Second Life and the Open Sims. So you can find valuable his stream, even if you're thinking to start exploring the most interesting areas of the OpenSims clusters.

Add Rocapc stream to your bookmars and/or add him to your friends on Koinup

A welcome to Avatars United members

We at the Koinup headquartier heard that Avatars United will be shutting down on September 29th. Avatars United - along with Koinup and Myrl (now dismissed, too) - has been an important web portal and social gateway, for virtual worlds members.

Linden Lab purchased Avatars United about one year ago and some days ago they took the decision to shut down the website. Many Avatars United members are now probably looking for a new home to share they virtual lives.....

We know that nothing will be quite like Avatars United in the hearts of its users, but if you're looking for another social gateway to share your virtual worlds experience, we encourage you to give Koinup a chance a shot.

While Avatars United was more about social apps, Koinup is definitely more focused on sharing contents, particolary images, art, machinima. According to many bloggers, Koinup is a Flickr meet Youtube social network devoted to virtual worlds.

On Koinup you can publish virtual worlds screenshots, watch machinima created by the most creative directors and enjoy wonderful digital art. Koinup is loyal home for more than 30.000 virtual worlds members. About one third are from Second Life, but we have thousands of members coming from all the virtual worlds (BlueMars, World of Warcraft, The Sims, Frenzoo, Twinity)

On Koinup, you can also join groups, take part in conversations and discover the most interesting virtual worlds spots to visit (mainly for Second Life)

If you're still feeling that you should continue to share your virtual life, then you can consider to join the vibrant community of Koinup

Japan Dream Kenjin Photo Contest

The guys behind the amazing sim Japan Dream Kenjin are planning a wonderful photo contest, that will fit the fine art taste of Koinuppers. The entries will be judged by a panel made up by Japan Dream Kenjin staff and some authoritative Second Life artists (Shoji, Bark, and many others).

The submission time will start on this 1st september, but you can join since today the Japan Dream Kenjin Photo Contest group and read the guidelines of the competition!

Bookmark the group page and start exploring Japan Dream Kenjin these days, to get familiar with such amazing place



If you're not yet a Koinup member, you have to signup to join the contest. While, if you're from Japan and need some help to get familiar with Koinup interface, the Japan Dream Kenjin blog has a useful tutorial for you

Come Meet Your Fellow Koinuppers InWorld- The Official First Meetup of the In the Eye of the Beholder Group

Well this is my first post on the Koinup Blog and hopefully I don't prove myself to be completely inept. I'm posting here to invite all of my fellow Koinuppers to the first meeting of the In the Eye of the Beholder group. It wasn't easy to pin down times that would work for everyone but I think we've gotten as close as we can. The feedback I got from all of you was so helpful and after much deliberation here is what I came up with..


Saturday June 19th 7a-10a slt and again at 6p-9p slt

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Historic Second Life Live Music Venue "The Lily Pad Lounge" Closes

The Lily Pad Lounge - one of Second Life's oldest live music venues - is closing and Clyde, the sim on which it resides is up for sale. A post from Your2ndPlace indicates that after seven years, founder and owner Drift Monde has decided to close the pond to new swimmers.

The Lily Pad Lounge has been a long standing live music icon in Second Life; many new artists got their start in the underground amphi-theater with Drift Monde patiently helping them learn the ropes.  Drift joined Second Life in November of 2003 and while her time in world has been declining, there is no denying the many hours she has dedicated to the emergent live music community.

Drift and Cua Curie hosted the very first "dual streaming" event with Astrin Few (Sam Hokin) and Flaming Moe (Brian Tervo) in February 2005.  Sam (in Wisconsin) sent his guitar/vocal stream to Brian (in Miami), who mixed in his sax, and sent the resulting composite stream out to listeners in Second Life, on the Clyde sim.   There is a YouTube video of the event and unfortunately Sam has disabled embedding but you can find it here.

COLORE. The most "colourful" and exciting group for metaverse talents

If you love artworks, photography and images of virtual worlds, you can't miss COLORE, one of the most active groups on Koinup. Founded by Baroque and LookatmyBack, COLORE is collecting some of the most beautiful Koinup pictures and breath taking talents. The group has been specifically launched to recruit artists, images and raise the interest for a Second Life art gallery, called "Colore Art Gallery", a lovely place in Second Life, where you can enjoy exhibitions dedicated to any creativity form, from photography to installations, digital sculpture and so on.

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Be a Newb, not a Noob

Are you a newb, or are you a noob? Newcomers to virtual worlds, social networking sites, or gaming platforms like World of Warcraft may not see the difference between the two terms. Besides, they are phonetically the same. What's the big fuss over a little "ew" or "oo"?

If you want to have a smooth start in a virtual world, educate yourself on the the difference between the two:

Newb is a newcomer who is lost, aimless, but polite, friendly, and willing to learn. Noob (or even worse, nOOb), is a newcomer who throws obnoxious, arrogant snarls at long time members or poor, unsuspecting newbs. They make mistakes without concern, and continue to do so despite the advice given to them by other members. Basically, noobs think they know what they are doing, but are usually just annoying other members.
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Lost World Contest: 5000L$ for Second Life photographers

Lost World team is running a memorable contest on Koinup to promote the re-opening of the amazing Lost World sim. Lost World is the brainchild of Lolmac Shan, and has recently undergone stunning renovation by Lolmac Shan, Iolanda Wiedman and Sebcaen Neox.

This contest is a celebration Lost World's beauty, atmosphere and imagination and the creators of the sim would be delighted if you can all participate.

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Starting in Social Worlds: Helpful Places

Walking into new virtual worlds can be an intimidating experience. After the sign-up process, you are thrown in to a new world in nothing but newbie attire. It is almost as bad as walking into a bar full of strangers with a big neon "Newbie" sign hovering over your head. Fortunately, most virtual worlds have helpful places where newbies can settle in and get useful advice. Here are a few places you can find help.

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Second Life Terms Of Service Changes

On March 30th, Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, made some substantial changes to their official Terms Of Service that have a strong effect in many areas of in-world activities - including Machinima and Photography. Some believe these changes are simply common sense courtesy, while others claim that TOS 2.0 is disabling the creative pool with their rules, which appear laden with gray areas.

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Join the SL inworld Koinup Group to stay tuned with Koinup events

The best way to stay tuned with the Koinup inworld events is by joining the SL inworld Koinup group.

There are often Koinuppers parties, built by the community and hosted in the most amazing Second Life sims. The latest Koinuppers parties in the BladeRunner City were a complete hit, with Koinup users from all the virtual worlds meeting together and having a lot of fun.

So if you wanna stay updated with these events and/or join them, the best way is to join the Koinup inworld SL group. To join the group, follow this link, open the Second Life client and join the group inworld.

Stories From The Machine Presents: A Woman's Trial - by Chantal Harvey

There are many things that can be said of virtual filmmaker Chantal Harvey. Prolific? Immeasurably. Creative? Without question. The encyclopedia of Miss Harvey's work is vastly diverse; From short corporate commercials and public service announcements earlier on, to bizarre comedic romps and short featurettes ripe with passion. More recently in her lengthy career - She has, perhaps, today more films of the Machinima genre than anyone else originating from her platform - over 150 at the time of this writing - and in that collective we bare witness to the evolution of a Machinimist. The volumes of work throughout her virtual life stand as a testament to the path she has walked, and where she stands today.

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