The search is on!

Meta Mart’s metaHUD v4.1

by Surfdaddy Orca

Second Life (SL) developer Robbie Kiama’s company, Meta Mart, released version 4.1 of their versatile metaHUD this August. Meta Mart’s metaHUD provides unprecedented search and feedback capabilities for SL:

• Add your favorite locations to a common database
• Mark favorite locations
• Add pictures to locations
• Teleport to any location
• Search locations added by everyone else in the database
• Tag and rate locations you find for future reference
• Share your comments with other metaHUD users

Like SL Browser (reviewed in the July/August edition of The Sun), metaHUD provides rapid search capabilities using the SL Chat Box. For example, you enter /8 coffee mugs to get a listing of locations related to coffee mugs. Click on a location of interest to preview it and, if interested, teleport to it.

What distinguishes Meta Mart is the ability to share information with a community of metaHUD users. As you discover new locations, you can tag and rate them so that they become available for all metaHUD users. Both your ratings and your comments are available to all users during future searches.

Using the metaHUD, you can view places by Categories—for example, the latest Meta Mart locations, “HOT today” locations, popular locations, and/or your favorite locations.

Meta Mart is like SL Exchange in that you can buy items directly through Meta Mart once you set up a Meta Mart account and deposit Linden dollars into it. Since the metaHUD is attached to your avatar, there is no need to teleport to a SLX-like terminal to deposit or withdraw Linden dollars. You can manage your account from any location.

The ability to tag and rate sites is a major step in the direction of a transactional, eBay-like feedback system that gives you a sense of a vendor’s reliability and whether you can trust this vendor’s products and services. Linden Lab would do well to evaluate metaHUD’s feature set in this area.

Meta Mart distributes metaHUD for free and encourages partners. To obtain both a free HUD and partner kit, IM Robbie Kiama or visit The Seventh Sun Plaza, Second Oasis (240, 155, 21)

During a recent GridTalk (a weekly business technology meeting co-sponsored by Dr. Dobb’s Journal and InformationWeek), Jeska Linden mentioned Linden Lab’s desire to improve SL’s search capabilities with a “Google box” (rather than the current MySQL-based search interface). Until this capability (combined with a rating feedback system) becomes part of the standard UI, you will do yourself a favor by trying Meta Mart’s latest metaHUD.

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