On August 21 2010, I had been logged into Second Life and I suddenly got an instant message (IM) from friend Spurt Renoir. Used to chatting to people who are also logged into SL and using the IM system, I didn’t think anything of it, except that Spurt wanted to say “Hi” and catch up on some news. Then he said to me “Guess where I am?” So being in a witty mood I answered “In the loo with a newspaper and a cup of tea!” “Nope, think higher” Spurt replied. Well I thought for a second and said “On the roof fixing the tiles, with a can of coke!” I was wrong again, at which point Spurt suggested “Think about 30,000 feet higher.” “Go on” I said “tell me!” And he did, “How cool is this …… on a jet plane” he answered. Yes Spurt was on a real jet plane, not a Second Life plane but an American Airways flight and he was on his way from Miami to New York.
This is possibly the first time that someone has communicated whilst travelling by plane to someone who is logged into SL and using the SL instant messaging. Spurt was using ‘Sparkle IM’ on his iphone and American Airways supply a wifi service called ‘Gogo Internet’ in-flight. Amazingly it only cost Spurt $7.50 to use the wifi service during the entire flight. I was really impressed, there were no delays in the responses when we were chatting, and it was hard to imagine avatar Spurt’s real persona was travelling on a jet aircraft and finding it so easy to communicate with me in SL. Is this a first? Well I’m not sure, but it is amazing and a feather in American Airways, iphone's and Sparkle’s caps for such a brilliant service.
Spurt has sent me the above picture of how his avatar might look sitting aboard the American Airways flight! Thanks Spurt!