Today marks the last day for live performances at the SL13B community celebration event in Second Life. After midnight (SLT) tonight there will be no live performances until next year at SL14B (confirmed).
The good news is that the SL13B regions will remain open for viewing until the first week of July 2016. The sims are much quieter with less lag during the final week of the birthday celebrations.
Have you enjoyed SL13B Community Celebration this year ?
What would you like to see happen at SL14B in 2017?
For anyone that missed any of the special Meet the Lindens talks at SL13B this week so far here is another chance to watch them again. I have attended all of the Meet the Linden talks so far and I have found them very interesting to watch.
It’s great to see the lab being part of the Second Life 13th birthday celebrations more than before. It’s been confirmed that there will be more Lab Chats in the near future in Second Life. The talks have been very positive and fascinating this year. I would like to say well done to the SL13B team that have made these talks happen this year. 🙂
Pete Linden & Xiola Linden (23rd) along with Patch Linden (3pm SLT today on 24th) talk at SL13B will be uploaded soon on the official Second Life YouTube channel.
If you have attended any of the talks this year at SL13B what did you think of them ?
Today marks Second Life official 13th birthday and it’s time to party. It’s amazing to think that Second Life was first launched on 23rd June 2003 developed by Linden Lab and since then Second Life has transformed so many lives.
Today Second Life has 24, 479 regions which is equivalent to 1604.26 (km²) for the total area and it would take a long time to explore it all. From the total amount of 24, 479 regions there are 17, 430 private estates and 7, 049 linden owned regions. Since June 2003 there have been 46,487,996 signups for Second Life and daily max concurrency averages around 50, 000 mark.
I have been in Second Life for almost ten years and it’s been a really good experience since October 2006. I have met so many nice people over the years and explored so many amazing places in Second Life. I started blogging in 2007 since then I have enjoyed writing about events to the big news happening on the grid. Thanks for subscribing and reading my blog posts. 🙂
Second Life has changed in many ways since I joined and there is too much to list everything. With the introduction of Windlight, Mesh and Bento Second Life has improved so much for the better. I’m sure the next 13 years will be even more exciting with more new features and improvements being added to Second Life.
Time to party!
Check out SL13B section on the Second Life Destination Guide to join in with the party happening now. 🙂
Did you know ?
During the Alpha period between 2002-2003 the grid was known as Lindenworld then renamed to Second Life.
Check out my new snapshots from SL13B showing Torley, Brett, Ebbe, Oz and Landon during the Meet the Lindens series of interviews this week. The interviews have been brilliant so far from learning about their backgrounds at the lab, to finding out the latest developments on Second Life and Project Sansar.
On Sunday 19th June at 12pm SLT the SL13B Community Celebration officially opened and hundreds of residents packed the 17 sims. Live performances continue until the last day on Sunday 26th June. The sims will remain open until 7th July 2016.
Second Life officially turns 13 years old on Thursday 23rd June 2016. If you are interested in going to events at SL13B then here is a useful guide to get started. You really don’t want to miss the party this year. Everyone is welcome to join in with the birthday celebrations.
Linden Lab are sponsoring SL13B Music Fest on June 24th and June 25th at Stage Left. More more details see here. Last year was a huge success and hopefully the music fest will continue in future Second Life birthdays.
SL13B The Big Hunt
The big SL13B hunt returns this year with over 80 exhibitors with special birthday gifts. If you see a parcel displaying the SL13B Big Hunt logo then you are in luck. Check out the map below!
Spread the word about SL13B and enjoy the party! 🙂
Today marks SL13B Press Day where members of the press can get a first preview of the sims before the grand opening at 12pm SLT on Sunday 19th June 2016. Here are my first snapshots of the main attractions at SL13B and there is so much to see this year. 🙂
There are 17 sims to explore this year with around the clock live music plus a big hunt is planned and more. On June 23rd marks Second Life’s official 13th birthday and it’s now time to celebrate! 🙂
SL13B Map
Click the blue links below to teleport to the attractions at SL13B and enjoy! 🙂
There are now two days until the grand opening of SL13B Community Celebration gets underway. The sims are almost ready to host the biggest party on the grid. The final preparations are happening now until the end of the weekend,
The SL13B Community Celebration opens to the public at 12pm SLT on Sunday 19th June 2016. There will be 17 sims to explore, live music, a big hunt and more. On June 23rd marks Second Life’s official 13th birthday and I’m sure there will be many grid-wide parties happening across the grid.
This year the Meet the Lindens series returns with five days of interviews planned between 20th-24th June, The talks will be likely be held at the auditorium at SL13B covering topics from Second Life, Project Sansar to more general stuff. This is a great opportunity to ask your questions to the Lindens on the panel.
On the release notes page for the Second Life Project VLC Media Plugin/4.0.6.316258 viewer there is an update on QuickTime which is very important. Recently Apple confirmed they will no longer be releasing any more security updates for the PC version going forward.
This latest Second Life project viewer now uses LibVLC replacing the original QuickTime media plugin for Windows versions of Second Life. This is a reasonable path forward and I think it will be interesting to see how LibVLC performs in the months ahead.
As many know already QuickTime in Second Life uses media types like MPEG-4, MP3 and MOV. In the near future the OS X viewer will be updated to LibVLC so stay tuned for that.
Release Notes
Apple recently announced that they are no longer supporting QuickTime for Windows and most importantly, will not be providing security updates going forwards. We use QuickTime in the viewer to play back media type likes MP3 MPEG-4 and of course MOV.
This viewer replaces the QuickTime media plugin for the Windows version of the viewer with one based on LibVLC (https://wiki.videolan.org/LibVLC/). The OS X viewer is unchanged since Apple will continue to support QuickTime there.
Eventually, as part of the update to 64 bit versions of the viewers, the OS X viewer will also be updated to use LibVLC (QuickTime APIs are Carbon and not available as 64bit).
On the Second Life Marketplace there is a distributable version of the Support the Victims kiosk for free (L$0). It’s really sad news to hear about a gunman attacked a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on 12th June 2016 that left 49 people dead with a further 53 people injured.
Total Amount Raised So Far
As of 5.15am SLT – Tuesday 14th June 2016
Linden Lab have posted a blog post on 13th June 2016 in light of the recent tragedy mentioning that Casper Warden of CasperVend has kindly set up a kiosk to collect donations to support the victims of this horrible attack. If you are interested you can rez a kiosk on your land for free (all networked) and they will show the grid wide total every five minutes. All proceeds will be added to the donations total.
The Second Life community comes together in incredible, compassionate ways that serve as a badge to show what amazing, diverse, and accepting communities we have all over the grid. Love is love is love is love is love.
In light of the tradegy that struck Orlando nightclub, Pulse this past weekend, Casper Warden of CasperVend has set up a kiosk in his mainstore to collect donations for the GoFundMe set up by Equality Florida to benefit and support the victims of this horrific event.
You can donate to the GoFundMe directly if you choose, or donate inworld at the kiosk Casper Warden has set uphere – which has already collected an impressive amount of L$s which he plans to donate to the GoFundMe.
If you would like to add a networked kiosk to your own location inworld that will get added to the donations – you can buy one off the marketplace here.
Help donate today and support the victims of this horrible attack.
My last Second Life statistics blog post was published back in early March 2016 where I mentioned that Linden Owned regions increased slightly with private estates declining yet again. All statistics used in this blog post are from the Second Life Grid Survey for reference.
Since March 2016 Private Estates have declining further and Linden Owned regions have dropped again. Since the start of 2016 Second Life has lost 299 regions so far and if things don’t change soon then I would imagine at the end of 2016 the total amount of Main Grid regions will most likely drop down to the 23, 000 mark. It’s hard to tell if Project Sansar will have an impact on the grid numbers. The public launch of Project Sansar will be the end of the 2016 / early 2017.
In the graph below there have been some weeks with net growth for private estates which is good to see. It would be nice to see more net growth in the months ahead for Private Estates.
Weekly net change in Private Estates since the start of 2016
Second Life Regions
On 3rd January 2016
Total number of Main Grid regions: 24, 886
Private Estates: 17, 775
Linden Owned: 7, 111
On 6th March 2016
Total number of Main Grid regions: 24, 693
Private Estates: 17, 568
Linden Owned: 7, 125
YTD Private Estate Net Loss: 207 regions (1.2% down)
As of 5th June 2016
Total number of Main Grid regions: 24, 526
Private Estates: 17, 476
Linden Owned: 7, 050
YTD Private Estate Net Loss: 299 regions(1.7% down)
Daily Concurrency
Check out these graphs below showing the daily concurrency trends from 2009 to 2016. As you can see there have been a steady decline in daily concurrency since 2009 with various months being more than the others. Back in 2010 there was a lot of interest for Second Life with more residents logged in at any given time.
Maximum Daily Concurrency: 50, 000 – (average)
Minimum Daily Concurrency: 31, 000 – (average)
Click the graphs to view them larger.
Second Life Signups
As of 7th June 2016 there have been 46, 296, 629 sign ups for Second Life to date. On average there are between 10, 000 to 12, 000 new sign ups every day for Second Life.
The next Second Life Statistics will be published in September 2016.
Daniel Voyager 