Virtual Worlds Week: Second Life gets new Google-powered search engine

Stuart Dredge Virtual Reality
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Linden Lab has announced a new in-world search engine for Second Life, which aims to make it easier to find cool places and products within the world.

It’s using Google Search Appliances for indexing and search results, although before you get excited, that just means Linden has bought a licence to use Google’s technology – it’s not an actual partnership between the two firms.

The new search engine will cover land parcels, resident profiles, groups, wiki articles, events and some objects. Because the search results will be HTML pages, they’ll be indexable by external search engines, so Linden Lab is introducing various privacy options for Second Life users who don’t want their stuff to be included.

Second Life search engine announcement

Check out more Virtual Worlds Week posts in our Virtual Reality category

Stuart Dredge
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One thought on “Virtual Worlds Week: Second Life gets new Google-powered search engine”

  • What’s wrong with the Lindens’ search reform is that it destroys the integrity of the social-media search already established over some years in the name of becoming “like the web,” but doesn’t even integrate with the web, as it uses Google, but isn’t going to be in Google:

    http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/10/traffic-is-dead.html

    So whether you oppose Google or not, you will find this a half-way measure on either account.

    The worst thing about the new search is that it appears now to have removed the capacity to instantly teleport to a store, event, house, etc. Inworld, the interface enables instant travel. Now that the search will be located outside on web pages, numerous SLURL and map interfaces have to come up between the first impulse to travel somewhere, and actually arriving.

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