Infopirate.org

UK stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr will next month appear on stage in Second Life, the BBC reports.

The announcement cements Second Life's reputation as the happening place to be, if you happen not to have a sufficiently-stimulating place to hang out in the real world. The BBC notes that Duran Duran have already wowed the fans in the virtual world, while Reuters recently opened a virtual bureau there.

Yahoo has come up with a way to mix social networking with charities andnon-profits. Called Yahoo!For Good, it has partnered with 'charity aggregator' Networkfor Good and launched a personalized Charity Badge - for people to put ontheir websites, social networks or email. To promote the initiative, Yahoo! willmatch the amount raised by the user who generates the largest number ofindividual donations from their personal social network (up to $50,000).

The Charity Badge works by allowing website owners or social network users tocreate and publish a personalized badge (essentially a widget). You can even putit on your email signature. Withthe badge you can set up a link to your favorite charity, so that family, friendsand others in your social network can donate as well. Or you can simply copy thecode for an existing badge, that someone else set up for a charity. Check out the top10 badges to get an idea of how this works.

Glue is a new service by Squad that lets users publish and share content on the web using a mobile device or web browser. It allows you to upload photos, publish news and share your Glue on any website, blog, or community profile (ie: MySpace). You can look at it as a miniature news publishing tool. The way it works is simple: Create an account, add news, and do what you want with the content. Now, rather than Glue providing you with a website showing your content, it offers publishing options which you can use to get the content on your own website or profile. Available publishing options include: Flash, JavaScript, RSS, PHP, ASP, and XML. The Flash and JavaScript options are ideal for users that do not know how to program requiring you to only place a small snippet into your website. But for those of you who do know how to program, Glue is nice enough to offer complete code in PHP and ASP - great for developers wanting to integrate the content in applications. More on this in a bit. First, let’s take a look at what Glue has to offer.

It took about an hour before I finally switched from thinking that my initial experiences with Second Life were a waste of time — to actually finding them being productive in new ways.

I was one of a 3D flurry of invited "VIPs" on Friday to enter an IBM pavilion inside Second Life. With my unique personage avatar seated (took me five minutes to figure out how to sit down) in the front row I read a chat sequence as IBM executives (some virtually knee-deep in the stage) told of how we're at the beginning of something big … and Blue.

There was applause and some whistling. And there were some instant messaging conversations in the audience about what they had "seen" on the stage. It was not much different from the thousand other industry events I've attended since 1988 (once I was able to sit down). And this was all from my home office (and I was intermittently doing some other useful online stuff too, like email and calendar).

What was different is that I was a virtual arm's length from some heavy-hitting IBM talent and leadership, and I was able to communicate with them, and learn from them quite well. That is not always the case in the real world, where crowds, noise, location, and the competition can get in the way.

There is an egalitarian equalizing effect when your avatar IMs with another … even if you know who they are. There's a comfort level with being virtual, and the IBMers seemed eager to chat with lots of folks. I can see getting better access to executives and the creative minds at IBM in Second Life than I do in real life, and that's a good thing.