- Mesh – The rollout and launch of Mesh was the most talked during 2011. Mesh went live across the grid on 23rd August 2011.
- Meeroos – Meeroos attack from unidentified griefers which caused alot of controversy and anger from the SL community.
- RedZone – This was big news when RedZone HUD revealed alt accounts, zf Redzone security was breached and the ban of zFire Xue from Second Life.
- Viewer 3 – Launched on 8th November – this was a major revamp of the user interface. V3 came with customizable toolbars, buttons, no sidebar and merger of Basic and Advanced modes.
- 42 groups limit – This was really good news when the lab officially raised the group limit from 25 to 42 in January 2011.
- Teen Grid merger – There’s been plenty of mixed views from the SL community about this during Q4 2010 and Q1 2011. Linden Lab merged the grids on 21st January 2011.
- Bring Back Last Name Options – Linden Lab removed last names and there has been buzz about bringing back last names since July 2011. Linden Lab are still reviewing this JIRA.
- Google+ & Facebook – During the first half of the year there were reports of SL avatar accounts being suspended and deleted.
- SLCC 2011 – The first conference where Rod Humble attended & again SLCC was full of announcements/updates.
- SL closures – ElvenMyst, Abbots Aerodrome, AM Radio sims were just some places that announced closure during 2011.
- 50% Premium membership – In the last few months Linden Lab announced that residents could save 50% on premium membership when they sign up (limited time offers). In September 2011 Linden Lab introduced new premium benefits to the SL community.
- Linden Lab communications – At the start of the year office hours were turned into user group meetings but there are fewer now than the start of the year. Linden Lab used Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and JIRA more frequently this year to communicate with the SL community. Since January there have been monthly posts on the SL blog from the lab.
- Second Life in the news during 2011 – List of news stories added by Linden Lab during 2011.
It’s amazing to think what has actually happened in 2011 as the year draws to a close. There have been many negatives and positives in Second Life this year and it’s going to be interesting to see what 2012 will bring us all. I hope you like my 2011 list of the most talked about news stories so far. 🙂
What other SL popular news stories of 2011 do you know of ?
Daniel Voyager 
I’d say the Project LR game beta and the subsequent launch of Linden Realms could be mentioned as well.
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I’m going to predict that the new ‘adult hubs’, while largely unnoticed outside of ‘that community’ will have long lasting and wide-scale impacts. 2012 story shaped by 2011 event though?
2011 also heralded the change to abandoned land no longer going into abandon, but going up for sale from gov. linden the moment the abandon button gets clicked.
– This has likely had a very strong impact on the land-merchant business model.
Firestorm finally ‘catching up’ with the official viewer for almost all features. December is going to shape out to be the practical death of version 1 viewers, shifting the remaining users down to just the ‘curmudgeony’. This will be a 2012 story, shaped by a 2011 event.
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How many that are regular users will waist time trying other then they beloved Phoenix?
And with Henry developing and showing all time that v2/3 features can be ported to V1 viewers, I have to really doubt about that!
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I would add the Justice League Unlimited scandal that went from Second Life Universe to Rodvik’s feed.
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@Hanno: Thank you and I will add that one when I do the year in review post later this month.
@Pussycat: I think there will be more adult hubs/regions next year and more community adult related events. Seems to be heading that way for viewer 1 and let the viewer wars start in 2012.
@foneco: Firestorm is the future and the firestorm team have done an amazing job this year. 2012 is going to be really interesting to see what new features the team will bring to Firestorm.
@Canoro: I didn’t hear about that one. 😦
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