My Top Ten Most Viewed Blog Posts During 2016

My Blog Views Stats 2011 – 2016

Here are my top ten most popular posts of 2016 with the most views. Thanks to everyone that has been following my blog this year and those that have recently subscribed.

My blog has been viewed 65, 779 times, had 37, 641 visitors, 515 likes and 225 comments. My blog now has 629 followers and earlier this year my blog surpassed 530, 000 total views for the first time. Hopefully more new blog records will be reached during 2017.

This is my last blog post of 2016 and I hope everyone has a great new year 2017. 

1. Project Sansar last updates from the 9th annual Virtual Worlds Best Practises in Education Conference 2016 – 899 views
2. Project Sansar Approximate Time Frame – 763 views
3. The arrival of a new Linden Project area in Second Life – 704 views
4. Latif Khalifa has passed away – Developer of the Radegast Metaverse Client, Singularity Viewer and Replex Viewer – 650 views
5. Second Life Statistics – September 2016 Update – 579 views
6. Second Life Grid Statistics Update – 533 views
7. A visit to Saint Michel – 503 views
8. Project Sansar will open “to the world in January 2017 – 495 views
9. Project Bento goes live on the Main Grid – 433 views
10. Ebbe Linden speech at VWBPE 2016 recording now available – 422 views

Stay tuned for new blog posts in the days ahead 🙂 

Happy New Year 2017

Press Release: Bay City New Year’s Prim Drop Event For 2017

BAY CITY, SL (26th December, 2016) – Citizens of Bay City, Second Life’s® city by the bay, will be marking the end of the year in fine fashion, attending the annual “Prim Drop” in the Bay city Fairgrounds in North Channel on the evening of the 31st of December. The party will include an hour-long set of DJed tunes presented by Marianne McCann, as well as fireworks and other festive fun. Food and drink will also be provided for all attendees.

The event is presented as an outdoor, high-class, wintertime soirée, and black tie attire and/or full dress is requested. All Second Life® Residents are welcome to attend and ring in the New Year with the Bay City community.

This will also be the last event within Bay City this year for donating to Child’s Play Charity (www.childsplaycharity.org) .  Child’s Play is a 501c3 non profit organization offers online communities such as ours an opportunity to help seriously ill children around the globe during their hospital stays with the purchase of games and gaming equipment.

As of the 24th of December, Bay City has raised L$151,408 for Child’s Play Charity through their annual silent auction and tree lighting concert, as well as other local events.

Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab® and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest group for Residents of Bay City.

For more information,  please contact Marianne McCann.

A look back at 2016 in Second Life – Year In Review

My 10th rezday – 31st October 2016

This is my special year in review post looking back at the biggest news, events and more during 2016 in Second Life. There have been so many good memories and some not so good ones during 2016. See the bottom of this blog post for month by month highlights of 2016. 🙂

Improved communications

I do think communications between the lab and the Second Life community have greatly improved during 2016 through various channels like the official Second Life blog, on the Second Life status grid reports page, via Twitter and inworld.

The lab have already posted their highlights of 2016 here including raising the land prims limit for the mainland/private estates, introducing the new horizons experience, adding 360 snapshots, extending Bento, adding new community gateways and much more.

New Horizons Experience

Improved grid status page

State of the grid in 2016

The amount of Main Grid regions and private estates have declined further during 2016 which is not good news but that’s what’s officially happening. I hope that in 2017 there will be some sort of region growth because that would be cool. The lab needs to work out and try to come up with workable solutions to stop the decline happening.

Back on 3rd January 2016

• Total number of Main Grid regions: 24, 886
• Private Estates: 17, 775 
• Linden Owned: 7, 111

As of 25th December 2016

• Total number of Main Grid regions: 23, 975
• Private Estates: 16, 792
• Linden Owned: 7, 183

There have been many well known places that have closed down this year in Second Life because of various reasons and some places managed to be saved.  Yay! 🙂

Mont Saint Michel

Insilico

Amazing Events This Year

There have been so many enjoyable events that have happened during 2016 including the Second Life 13th birthday celebrations, One Billion Rising, Lab Chat events, the VWBPE conference, Relay For Life of Second Life events,

Don’t forget the incredible Bay City 8th anniversary, BURN2 events, the annual faires and the list goes on.

Thanks to all those that organised and volunteered these amazing events this year. 🙂

Fantasy Fair 2016

Bay City Eighth Anniversary

Second Life 13th Birthday

RFL of SL 2016

London City 7th birthday

BURN2 2016 Festival

Sansar is almost ready 

There was huge interest this year for Sansar with hundred’s signing up for the Creator Preview and testing it out. The lab have released various interesting Sansar photos, demos and updates during the course of 2016.

Sansar is due to open to the public sometime in January 2017.

Some shocks in 2016

The big shock of 2016 has to be when Donald Trump won the US Election 2016 and will become the next US president from mid January 2017.

Donald Trump supporters area

Another big shock of 2016 has to be the terrible Orlando shootings earlier this year because that was really sad. In Second Life the community came together and raised L$ to support the victims.

We lost some great talent during 2016 

Sadly a few well known residents that I knew in Second Life passed away during 2016. If anyone knew anyone else that passed away in Second Life during 2016 – please let me know so I can add it below!

• Ladyslipper Constantine – Involved with Virtual Ability events, Virtual Worlds Best Practices education events, One Billion Rising, BURN2 events and she was involved in past Second Life birthday celebrations
• Latif Khalifa – Developer of the Radegast Metaverse Client, Singularity Viewer and Replex Viewer

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Here is a month by month highlights during 2016 on what happened in terms of big events and news. All links below are from my blog posts 🙂 

January 2016

• Lab Chat epsiode 2 was aired
• Project Bento Filming Party took place
• My visit to Eclipse Beach Island

February 2016

• Linden Lab announced a Leap into Love Second Life snapshot contest 
• A new video was released for One Billion Rising in Second Life
• Drax released a special Project Bento video via The Drax Files
• The 8th annual Home & Garden Expo opened

March 2016

• A new article was posted on readwrite.com about Second Life & Project Sansar
• Ebbe Linden attended and gave a keynotes speech at VWBPE 2016 about Second Life & Project Sansar
• A new short teaser video was released featuring Second Life
• Linden Lab releases new video on Bars & Pubs in Second Life

April 2016

• On April fools day everyone got rick rolled by Linden Lab
• The first annual Windlight Magazine Spring Art Show for 2016 opened
• The 2016 Fantasy Faire opened
• Linden Lab opened applications for Project Sansar

May 2016

• Bay City 8th Anniversary took place in Second Life
• The 11th Raglan Shire ArtWalk opened
• Project Bento went live on the Main Grid

June 2016

• Ebbe Linden was interviewed at the Augmented World Expo 2016
• After the Orlando Nightclub Shooting inworld there was a kiosk setup to support the victims
• LibVLC replaced QuickTime media plugin in the Second Life project viewer
• SL13B Community Celebration opened its doors & Second Life officially turned 13 years old

July 2016

• 500, 000 blog views milestone was reached on my blog
• My visit to Wilder Beach in Second Life

August 2016

• Linden Lab posted a blog post about recent Second Life developments during 2016
• Windlight Magazine announced a name change to Kultivate Magazine
• Ebbe Linden confirmed Project Sansar will open “to the world” in January 2017
• Linden Lab announced first invitations to Project Sansar

September 2016

• Pete Linden confirmed Sansar would be the official name of the next generation platform
• Linden Lab added ten new fantasy starter avatars in Second Life
• London City turned 7 years old in Second Life
• Sansar Creator Preview invites being sent out on a rolling basis

October 2016

• Lumiya Viewer introduced taking/sharing snapshots and much more
• Linden Lab added new Linden Project regions
• BURN2 2016 Da Vinci’s Workshop opened
• Linden Lab announced 360 snapshots
• Ebbe Linden showed off the first demo of Sansar
• Reached my 10th Rez Day in Second Life

November 2016

• Linden lab increased the prim allowance in Second Life
• Second Life community in shock after Donald Trump won the US Election 2016
• Ebbe Linden showed another demo of Sansar at WebSummit
• 60 new Horizon regions added north of the Zindra continent
• Mont Saint Michel returns in Second Life
• Lumiya Viewer added support for Google Cardboard
• New Second Life Grid Status Update Service Goes Live

December 2016

• Project Bento became part of the Second Life default viewer
• Linden Lab increased full private regions prim limit to 30, 000 prims
• My winter visit to the SS Galaxy Cruise Ship in Second Life

2017: the year ahead

I hope everyone has enjoyed reading my blog posts during 2016 and I am looking forward the blogging more in 2017. I will be covering Second Life, Sansar and OpenSim next year. Wooot! 🙂

I hope 2017 will be a good year 🙂

Happy Christmas To All My Friends :)

Wishing all my Second Life friends and my all my blog followers a very happy Christmas.

Have a wonderful day 🙂 

Some winter snapshots at SS Galaxy Cruise Ship in Second Life

Check out my new winter snapshots taken at the well-known SS Galaxy Cruise Ship in Second Life. The ship looks incredible today and it’s great to see the SS Galaxy Cruise Ship still on the grid after various problems in recent years.

if you have not yet visited the SS Galaxy Cruise Ship in Second Life it’s one of the most detailed full featured cruise ship spanning over three regions. If you love adventures in Second Life then I highly recommend you do this cruise ship experience. 🙂

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SS Galaxy Cruise Ship

Lindens Vs Residents Snowball Fight 2016

On Monday 19th December starting at 10am SLT this year’s Lindens Vs Residents snowball fight will get underway at various winter destinations in Second Life. It’s going to great fun this year so get your snowball weapons and lets win!

The Lindens will be dropping into these destinations during the day, see below for times and locations.

Snowfight Event Schedule

• The Arctic Express: 10am to 10.30am SLT
• Kate’s Whirl: 10.30am to 11am SLT
• Winter Ice Christmas Festival 2016: 11am to 11.30am SLT
• Frisland: 11.30am to 12pm SLT
• The Snowball Showdown: 12pm to 2pm SLT

Mark this date, time and locations on your calendars. 🙂

4th Annual OpenSim Community Conference 2016 Is Happening Now

OpenSim Community Conference 2016 Now Open

Today at 7am SLT this year’s OpenSim Community Conference got underway and over the course of this weekend (10th – 11th December) will be featuring keynote sessions, presentations, social events and much more. Last year there was more than 500 attendees with more watching via live video streams and it was a huge success.

• Hypergrid Address: http://cc.opensimulator.org:8002/

The 2016 OpenSim Community Conference is organised by AvaCon and Core Developers of OpenSimuator. The conference takes place on the OSCC Conference Grid and everyone is welcome to attend.   

About OpenSimulator 

OpenSimulator is an open-source platform that supports the creation of collaborative, immersive, distributed and social 3D virtual environments over the Internet. OpenSimulator software is now the basis for many virtual world “grids” of varying sizes and purposes.

OpenSim Conference Regions Map 2016

Useful Conference Links 

• Full Program Schedule
• Login Info
• Watch Live Coverage Here
• Follow the conference via Twitter

Linden Lab Increases Full Private Regions To 30, 000 Prims

Today Linden Lab have announced starting today full private region owners have the option to upgrade to 30, 000 prims which is very good news indeed. Upgrading to the new 30, 000 prims limit will cost $30 USD per region starting today. 

There will be a additional monthly maintenance fee* of $30 USD so please keep that in mind too. It’s worth pointing out that the upgrade must be maintained for at least a month and downgrading to 20, 000 prims will be a one off charge of $30 USD.

For those interested in having 30, 000 prims upgrading is rather simple just submit a case through the support portal under the case type of Land & Region > Land Impact Change Request.

Here is the blog announcement in full: 

Owning land in Second Life has never been more valuable, and now is a great time to get your own space or expand your current land holdings.

We’ve recently rolled out increased Land Impact for all regions, and last week, Full Private Regions went up from 15,000 to 20,000 prims – a 33% increase, at no additional charge!

Starting today, Full Private Region owners now have the option to upgrade to an even more impressive 30,000 prims! That’s an additional 50% more room for creating, decorating, designing your own store –  whatever you can dream up!

Upgrading to 30,000 prims costs $30 USD per Region and will incur an additional monthly maintenance fee*. For additional information about Private Region management and this Land Impact upgrade program, please visit our Knowledge Base.

To request an upgrade, please submit a case through the support portal on the Second Life website under the case type Land & Region > Land Impact Change Request.

With the recent increases in land prims across all regions in Second Life it would be great to see now Private Regions start to increase again on the grid. In recent years there has been a steady decline in Private Regions due to various reasons but perhaps now that may all now change for the better.

Project Bento now part of the Second Life default viewer

On Monday 5th December Linden Lab announced that Project Bento is now live on the main grid and it’s now part of the Second Life default viewer at long last. This is one of the biggest updates to the Second Life avatar has ever had on the main grid. Christmas has come early 🙂

It’s almost been a year since Linden Lab first introduced Project Bento back in mid December 2015 and so much has been improved during the past year. Interest in Bento has grown over the past year and that’s always a good thing to see.

Linden Lab is proud to announce that Project Bento is now part of the default Viewer! Bento is probably the single most extensive update to the avatar skeleton ever, and as a result of countless hours of testing, updating, reconfiguring, testing… you get the picture, we are now live!

Now everyone can enjoy the extra bones creators have taken advantage of to bring you true quadrupeds, winged avatars, fingers, facial expressions and more.

For those that don’t know already Project Bento adds over 30 bones to the avatar’s face, hands, joints and attachment points. Today Bento provides more realistic improved facial expressions, animations and a better range of avatar body types than ever before.

Firestorm has plans for Bento to be integrated into the viewer at some point in the near future (no ETA yet). Hopefully other third party viewer will integrate Bento very soon. There are many opportunities and possibilities using Bento in Second Life going forward.

If you are interested in Bento download and install the latest official Second Life viewer (version 5.0.0.321958). Learn more about Bento here.

 

Linden Lab announces Second Life Skill Gaming applications will reopen on 3rd January 2017

On 1st December Linden Lab posted a new blog post announcing that Second Life Skill Gaming Applications will reopen on 3rd January 2017 for those wanting to become authorised creators or operators of Skill Games in Second Life.

There are now five more weeks to go until applications will reopen again. Back in 2014 Linden Lab announced that gambling is strictly prohibited and that it’s a violation of the Second Life Terms of Service.

The lab mentions in the blog post that “games of skill are legally permitted in many jurisdictions, and we’ve seen that many Second Life users are interested in playing such games for Linden Dollars“.

What is allowed ? “Skill games that offer Linden Dollar payouts are allowed in Second Life, but each game, its creator, its operator, and the region on which it is operated must be approved by Linden Lab.”

For more information on Skill Gaming in Second Life there is a useful FAQ to check out.