5 Ways to Integrate Your Second Life into the Web

The gap between the 3D and 2D web is huge. Some things are simply better suited to 2D though, and recently I've been collecting and exploring ways that the two can work in tandem to produce something more powerful than trying to translate apps and concepts from one medium to another.

Here are seven ways you can integrate your Second Life into the 2D web. If you have more, please add them!

1. Virtual Presence Apps Using Twitter and Jaiku

A lot of Second Lifers are on Twitter.com (see my page here) It's a very neat way to keep track of friends,and to update those that aren't necessarily logged in. There are several Twitter apps, including SLTweets and Twitterbox. My current favorite is Squawk however, (Metaversed review here) which also supports Jaiku which is arguably a better, but less popular Twitter.

2. Inworld Blogging via BlogHUD

BlogHUD provides a nice looking graphical way (Heads Up Display) on the SL viewer where you can post pics, and blog posts to either the BlogHUD site, or as a pro user (will cost you $L900, about $3-$4) to any supported blog system. I've not used BlogHUD, though I do plan to review it at some point in the future. I do know that a lot of poeple love it though.

3. Bookmark Your Travels

There are two great apps for social bookmarking your travels in Second Life. Sloog, and Gridmarker. I recently reviewed Gridmarker and have to say that for me at least, it beats the pants off of Sloog. Sloog is much more popular though, so is a fair bit more useful as a way of discovering new places at this time. The idea with both apps is to wear a HUD that allows you to "bookmark" where you are, which can provide an RSS feed of your favorite places, or note a journey in Second Life.

4. Second Talk - Integrated Skype

Even though voice n SL may go live this month, the SecondTalk system which integrates Skype into 3D web will stil prove extremely useful. I dont have Skype running on my desktop (SL simply will not run on my Ubuntu laptop) but friends of mine asbsolutely swear by it.

5. Integrate Your Calendars

There are two cool calendar apps im aware of currently, though i suspect im missing some (so please let me know!). The first is from Mechanized Life, who produce some fine SL apps, including the CalendarCogs range which integrate the Google Calendar API into SL. The second is EventCal from Ordinal Malaprop who like Ali from Mech Life, specializes in integration apps. EventCal allows you to subscribe using any iCal compliant calendar app to event listings from the inworld calendar. I've not tried it, having only learnt of it while writing this article, but man, im all over that the minute this is done!

Have Cool Integration Apps to Share?

I know I have missed some, in fact there are probably quite a few, so if you have an app to share, please drop a link, or it's name in the comments below -- I would LOVE to hear about the apps you use, build or have heard about, so do tell...