Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
Canary’s list of anxieties Second Life™ residents has as items 3 and 4 a fear of losing their SL inventory and that they won’t be smart enough to use Sansar… See: Are Second Life™ residents anxious about Project Sansar?
I covered the loss of inventory in Second Life: Sansar Separation Anxiety. I think this fear is mostly imaginary. But, the issue is hard to define as there are types of loss to consider. It also requires a presupposition or two to think you’ll lose your inventory.
I suppose in a digital world whether or not the sky can fall is a programming choice. Whether you believe the sky is falling in a metaphorical sense is another matter and a personal choice. Canary Beck has published a list of 10 things that are causing some SL’ers anxiety. See: Are Second Life residents anxious about Project Sansar?
I disagree with lots of things Canary thinks. That doesn’t make her wrong and I’m not necessary correct. But, our different viewpoints should prompt readers to think.
Canary has a nice summary of the First Lab Chat meeting. See: The Linden Lab Chat summarized in 7 minutes. It is a 5 to 7 minute read. This one is like 2,700 words. At 200 to 250 words per minute that is 11 to 15 minutes read time. Way less than listening to the 90 minutes audio of the meeting.
I put my thoughts at the end, page 4.
The meet makes it clear, at least to me, that the Lab is working to promote Second Life™. They are spending ad money and actively working to figure out what works best with new users via A/B testing in SL. They say they are making small advances at several levels.
When asked about gateways, Ebbe tells us that the current ‘beta’ (?) gateways are not producing any better results than the Linden Welcome and Learning Islands. We don’t know much about the current gateways. We do know Firestorm has theirs in place. But, some concerns about the current gateway API they can use has stopped them from pulling their promotional trigger. To me that calls into question the importance of a statement that no gateway has outperformed the Linden entry points.
I’ve been swamped with work this week, which is good. So, I haven’t had time to enjoy Seccond Life™ or keep up on the goings on. Today I’ve taken some time to catch up on the new Firestorm Viewer release 4.7.5. The announcement is here: Firestorm Update 4.7.5-47975.
Inara has her review here: Firestorm 4.7.5: something for everyone.
Hamlet posted an odd one… Mid-Week Open Forum: Say Anything About VR, AR or SL. The post is obviously to encourage input from readers and see what’s on people minds, which isn’t odd. At least that’s what I infer from it. The odd part is in the comments. But what are people thinking and saying? And are these people exemplary of who is reading Hamlet?
First the comments then I have some push back.
Linda Evans thinks the decline in SL regions is due to Ebbe Altberg… really!?!
Tuesday, 11/10, the Lab posted Introducing Lab Chat – A New Q&A Show in Second Life.
It seems on November 19 @ 10:30 AM in the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre Ebbe Altberg/Linden, the Lab’s CEO, will meet with residents for a Q&A session. The Lab is proposing that this be a regular event. I suppose like the Linden Monthly Meet Up.
For many this is exciting. Ebbe can speak without inhibition. He is the one that decides what is confidential and what is ready for public consumption. So, we often get new information from him. He will be answering resident questions at this first Lab Chat. There is no word on whether or not he will be a regular participant, we can hope.