A new arena is gathering steam and significance in the Brazilian Internet space: the football blogs. It should be no surprise given how natives are impassioned for the game, and how the latest results of the many championships become part of the casual chit-chat everywhere. Day by day, fervent fans are finding out that blogs and other media possibilities — podcasts, webcasts, foruns and chats — are invaluable tools to display, promote and exchange opinions about the many games, and also to express their passion for their favorite football club teams.

The most evident feature brought by the wave of new entrants in the sports chronicle on the web is the customized report and commentary produced by teams’ fans. Since TV transmissions of football games started in Brazil, referees are not the only ones to be sujected to biased scrutiny of the fans. The obligatory account of the games by speakers and commentators from major TV networks, regular owners of exclusive broadcasting rights, also suffer the sharp analysis — and fiery reactions — from the opinionated crowd of the many clubs’ supporters.

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I was invited to represent the Brazilian Ministry of Culture in the conference panel “Making the Local Global: Virtual Worlds, Migration, and Linguistic Diaspora” of an event called ‘Interdependence Day‘ in Mexico City. I’ve met a fine man called Joshua Fouts (Director, USC Center on Public Diplomacy) at the iSummit in Rio last year, and he was really excited about connecting the work we do at the cultural hotspots with virtual worlds. We’ve been exchanging messages since then, but I kept telling him that Second Life’s platform needed some developments in order to be included in our program. Still, they wanted to hear about what we’ve been doing in Brazil in terms of using technology to outreach and enhance cultural bridges.

I managed to make a video containing a message from Minister Gilberto Gil on the panel’s theme, and prepared myself to go to Mexico. But then, I was given the wrong information about the need for a Brazilian to have a visa in order to visit Mexico, and so I was stopped in São Paulo and was not permitted to fly to Mexico City. The solution at hand was to participate in the panel through Second Life, and it worked out pretty well as you can see below.

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 Prokofy Neva comments on the panel - Podcast by Metaversed [7:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The much heralded launching of the first Second Life national community happened this Monday, April 23, and Brazilians are getting ready to their outposts in a custom tropicalized virtual environment. The novelty is attracting the attention of users as Linden Labs makes its first attempt to scale and customize the environment to host non-English speaking cultures — and markets. The initiative is the result of the partnership with the local Kaizen Games, which has been announced as a Second Life Global Provider and part of the SL Grid. Bloggers are reporting.

Parece que finalmente a espera acabou. Não há mais notícias sobre prorrogação ou novos avisos de atraso. O Second Life Brasil vai mesmo ser inaugurado, oficialmente, nesta segunda-feira (23/04) com a abertura ao público da maioria de suas 23 ilhas temáticas, ambientadas nas grandes capitais brasileiras. No entanto, a Ilha KGBR03, considerada uma ilha de ‘instrução’, já se encontra aberta para visitação pública, contando com diversos residentes veteranos contratados para auxiliar os novos residentes brasileiros a interagirem no metaverso.
Second Life Brasil estréia finalmente nesta segunda-feira - Mundo Linden

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