VISUAL STUDIO ISLAND -- Last week, Microsoft made its entry into the virtual world of Second Life with a new building dedicated to their Virtual Studio software for programmers. The launch party, which packed the sim, featured a special egg hunt that still goes on. Visitors must find an egg and crack its code to find the next one. There are grand prizes for those who find all ten.

”They’ve given me some land to the west of here, because I’ve beat the challenge,” Alonzo Karas, one of the eager egg hunters, said.

Eld Merlin and Smaug Fitzcarraldo are two other hunting for prizes. But, says Merlin, there’s an extra benefit: ”I came to Second Life just two days ago, so the egg hunt has been a nice way to find out about the place.” Merlin read about the egg hunt on a Web site, and decided it was the excuse he’d been looking for to finally launch his Second Life.

The California content creation firm, Millions of Us, hired well-known SL architect Lordfly Digeridoo to build the glass blue Visual Studio building. Although it looks spectacular, visitors were puzzled over its function. Asked what the building had to offer him as a programmer and user of Visual Studio, party guest Darren Sonic answered: "A t-shirt.”

Egg hunter Fitzcarraldo is also a little confused as to what the building is for. "It’s spiffy, but there’s nothing to learn from it that I’m aware of.” Merlin, a former Visual Studio user, said the building was nice, but was more concerned about what the clue ”South Side, Cool Dark City” tried to tell him. ”That was the worst one,” Karas said, and offered Merlin a little help.

There is still time to join the egg hunt. It starts in the Visual Studio building ’s lobby.

Sonic, who was on hand to talk about how he uses Microsoft Visual Basic, described the software as a set of development tools used for application development. "It offers the capability of developing software using VC++, VJ++, Visual Foxpro, Visual Basic and Visual Interdev."

Ruben Steiger, Millions of Us CEO, says they have ”no plans as of yet” to initiate virtual branding in SL for additional Microsoft products.