Vodafone Inside Out looks interesting, but one has to have limits!

Giggle, I’m posting this as something that might be interesting to people, and I’m not sure if I’m going to use this for myself.  Vodafone are trialling this new service that gives a HUD and prim phone for you to speak or text someone’s mobile out of world, and vice versa.  It’s funny how much SL becomes absorbed into us – those that have joined up and kept logging in, rather than being a bit confused by it all and never coming back.  OK, so I get pleasure from buying and wearing fab clothes, houses, plants, and building and landscaping.  The thing that really puts the cherry on top is that I have so many acquaintances, and a few important friends.  I have met three SL people IRL, and I have a few SL friends that I talk to on Yahoo Messenger.

The other night I was on my computer, and just starting to type an important RL letter, and an e-mail arrives with a “Bonjour” from my best friend Anna Zwiers.  So, I drop that and log in!  That was very worth it, and sometimes it’s good to have that contact to the real world, so that you can arrange to meet up, or say there’s this treasure hunt on that you should check out.  Well, Vodafone Inside Out looks like an interesting thing to keep us in touch across worlds.  Hmm, the only thing is that it’s free from in-world until March 2008, but then it will be about 300L per text message, which I currently calculate to be $1.43 or 69 pence for us Brits.  Seeing as I can get an outfit for that, it’s not something that I could see me using very casually.

I’ve hung out with a couple of people that have been in-world while in work, and wow I’ve got to say that it’s a dangerous thing to do more than exchange a couple of text messages in work.  In fact IRL, I’d probably be helping a manager to discipline that person who was exploring that dungeon while they were being paid to do work.  For me, that’s where it’s best to have a boundary, unless you happen to work for yourself and can be flexible in your home office.