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JESKA DZWIGALSKI, M.A.
The MIT Technology Review article
Better Search in Virtual Worlds said
Second Life's new search tool helps users find 3-D
objects.
As Google's stock price can attest, good search engines are what make
the Internet useful and entertaining. But in virtual worlds, which are
made up of not text but 3-D renderings of people, places, and objects,
the search problem is harder. Residents of Linden Lab's Second Life have
long been able to perform large, general searches — for a listing
of a
Spanish-language event, for example, or for the location of a particular
group. But while it was possible, with a little effort, to find a shoe
store, there was no good way to locate a pair of red shoes. Since much
of the entertainment value of virtual worlds lies in creating objects
and trading them, that's been a frustrating limitation. But Linden Lab
recently released a new search tool that begins to address the problem.
Building on a commercially available platform from Google, the new tool
gives Second Life residents search results ranked by relevance, rather
than ordered alphabetically or according to how much traffic they
generate, as was previously the case. Jeska Dzwigalski, who is in charge
of community and product development at Linden Lab, explains that the
tool also allows residents to search much more specifically. In addition
to being able to search for objects, residents can now look for
information — about hobbies, for example — in each other's
profiles.
Dzwigalski says she expects that being able to search profile
information will improve Second Life's social features.
Jeska Dzwigalski, M.A. (aka Jeska Linden) is
Community and Product Manager at Linden Lab.
Jeska has worked for Linden Lab, the creators of the virtual world
Second Life, since the summer of 2004. Previously she worked as the Web
Integrator for Borders.com.
She is interested in virtual spaces, online community, identity, gender,
design, literary and cultural theory, and any space where
interdisciplinary topics merge together.
Her work at Linden has focused
on the new
user experience, feature development, volunteer management, and all
around Second Life Community advocacy. She earned her Masters in
Digital Media from the University of Denver, where she worked with the
cable news channel C-SPAN on an innovative distance learning program.
Jeska also previously worked at the San Jose Museum of Art, where she
helped to bring more technological interaction to the exhibitions. She
earned a dual BA in English and Communication from the University of
Detroit-Mercy. She's on the advisory board for the
Second Life Community
Convention and has presented at all of their conferences. She's also
spoken
at the NetSquared Conference (2006), the
Virtual Worlds Conference,
Games 4 Change Festival (2007), the 2006 Make Fest
during the O'Reilly eTech Conference, and the 2006 NetSquared
Conference.
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Jeska Linden, her second life identity.
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Jeska authored
God hangs out in Buffalo, N.Y.,
The evolution of Ani,
Long live mutants,
It's not so easy to be the teacher's pet,
Eye candy,
Ear Candy,
Something to believe in,
Surreal television still all the rage,
Justice dares to be blind,
Stripped-down and natural,
Take a walk with Tori,
Origin of evil,
Curling their way into your heart, and
Close Encounters.
Read the
full list of her publications!
Check out her
online photos.
Read
Logging on for Christmas cheer,
Web 2.0 business cards sport photos, avatars,
It's a nice day for an "EverQuest" wedding,
An Interview with Jeska Linden about Nonprofits in Second
Life,
Interview: Lust for Second Life, and
Virtual Worlds Conference: Community Management.
Print bio!
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