The magical Bus Stops of Second Life

Bus Stop is a promising new service, opened to all land owners, and aiming to help residents discover new sims. What’s the difference with the likes of TeleportMe and Rezzable, asks the learned reader. Well, it’s simplicity itself.

If you see a bus stop in a sim, all you have to do is click on it and you’ll get a teleport to a random place from the Bus Stop database. No hassle, no looking at websites, no arguing with friends over the destination. Click, TP, explore. Repeat until it’s 5 in the morning.

I’ve met with the bus drivers, Wimpie Halderman and Impress Allen, long-time partners in crime. They started working on this project almost on a whim. Wimpie, the scriptmeister, says it all started with a joke. “I built a bus stop to have a place to sit and chat with a friend, and then somebody remarked on the fact that I had nowhere to go to.” That was two months ago. The service was launched in mid-June and there are now 55 stations for you to stop at. Two more are added to the list every day on average.

Impress Allen is in charge of sales and communication. He says he believes in the project because most people just hang around their homes. Bus Stop provides them with a nice travel opportunity with no effort involved. Owners will get to show their sims and increase their traffic. It’s win for everybody.

Bus Stop has a few interesting features. There is a Twitter account, that you can post on from any stop in SL (handy to let your friends know where you are), a HUD that tells you if there is a stop in the sim you are in (and that can TP you to it), and a dedicated calendar. If you own a bus stop, you can register an event, and when the time has come, all the stops will blink to let everybody know something’s cool is about to happen. They will even offer a teleport when clicked.

Over the last few weeks, Impress and Wimpie observed the birth of a community. People will spontaneously meet at the Central Station in Virtual Holland (where the original bus stop is) or at an event and take the magical bus together. “I was supprised when I saw it worked,” laughs Wimpie.

So how do I get these fine people to install a bus stop in my sim, you ask. That’s the catch – you do it yourself. Wimpie is an open source can of guy. Get the Bus Stop box from any station and put it wherever you want. The team will make sure you’re not a spammer, that your sim has no adult content and that you don’t have more than two stops on it. When asked if all this checking isn’t too much work, the team says they hope to get an Abuse button soon.

To grab your own bus stop or just hop aboard to adventure, visit the Central Station or our brand new stop on Orange Island. Feel free to let us know where you’ve rezzed yours in the comments.

See you on the bus!

July 8, 2009 at 10:26 pm | Uncategorized | 7 comments

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