Second Life Main Grid Regions – March 2023 Update

Since the start of January 2023 it appears the Second Life Main Grid total size has slightly declined again according to the Second Life Grid Survey economic metrics (as of 19th March). The cost of living (higher inflation) could be affecting these grid numbers now and the stats could get worse/better in the months ahead.

Private Estates in Second Life have dropped by over 50 regions since January 2023. This decline could be worrying if this continues for the next three months. Hopefully we will see some positive net growth soon in Private Estates.

Linden Owned regions have been steadily been increasing this year. No major theme releases so far for Linden Hones (it’s been quiet lately). More Linden Owned regions are expected to arrive through 2023 over at the Bellisseria continent.

Maybe more growth could come from SL20B scheduled for mid June where I’m sure there will be more press about Second Life. SL Mobile launch later this year may bring in tons of new residents. The lab could help with land costings with more benefits for Premium Plus members.

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Second Life Main Grid size as of 19th March 2023.

• Total Regions: 27, 617
• Private Estates: 18, 324
• Linden Owned: 9, 293

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Second Life Main Grid size as of 1st January 2023.

• Total Regions: 27, 659
• Private Estates: 18, 370
• Linden Owned: 9, 289

Next update will be published in June 2023 on my blog to see what’s changed during the first 6 months of 2023.

What are your predictions for 2023 in terms of the grid region numbers ? Feel free to comment below.

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Virtual Verse One Still Currently Unavailable

Since the beginning of February 2023 Virtual Verse One formerly known as SLuniverse.com has been offline. If you try to visit the website it redirects to cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi.

The message says “This page is currently unavailable” then below that it says “If you are the webmaster for this site, please contacr your hosting provider’s support team for assistance”. Snapzilla (SL Pics) is not working either.

Back in early January 2023 Cristiano Midnight was recovering from a serious medical condition. The site came back online for a while and since the start of February 2023 it’s been not available again. Virtual Verse One Forums was used by alot of residents from the Second Life community featuring many topics to do with Second Life and the metaverse.

VirtualVerse.One (formerly SLUniverse) has an active Discord server here: https://discord.gg/0hljC7t3rCEdFMCA

I think many are hoping now that Cristiano is still in good health and that he will make a full recovery soon. When the time is right I’m sure Virtual Verse One will come back online again.

I hope Cristiano is okay and gets well soon.

Virtual Verse One Offline

I will post more updates soon on my blog if I hear anything newer.

SL19B Volunteers & Exhibitors Applications Now Open

On 31st March 2022 Linden Lab announced that SL19B applications for volunteers and exhibitors are open for those that want to take part in this year’s birthday celebrations. The theme for SL19B is officially Steampunk and as like in previous years it’s not necessary to build strictly to the theme but it is encouraged though. I’m sure it will be a great birthday celebration once again this year with loads to see and do.

Second Life officially turns 19 years old on 23rd June 2022. The SL19B community birthday celebrations take place between 16th June to 5th July 2022. Everyone is invited to come along and enjoy the party.

SL19B applications are now open for volunteers, exhibitors, performers and for the music fest. See application links below in the blog post to apply.

Here is the full blog announcement below…

Save the date! On June 23rd, Second Life will be turning 19! The 19th annual Second Life birthday celebration (SL19B) will be held from June 16th to July 5th. Get ready for three fun-filled weeks of live music, performances, shopping, and amazing community exhibits!

The theme for SL19B is Steampunk, but don’t let that make you feel limited! Just like last year, your exhibit does not need to stay in theme. Share your Second Life passions with us. Your interests. Your communities. Your world! Every year we celebrate because of you, the amazing and creative Residents who have chosen to call Second Life home. What has drawn you into this world, and what keeps you here? These annual festivities are an opportunity to show us what fuels your Second Life. Let’s celebrate that together!

If you would like to participate as an exhibitor with a presence at SL19B, then please fill out this exhibitor form no later than May 8th.

We’re also looking for volunteers to assist during the celebrations. We are seeking Residents with great people skills and a passion to share the best of Second Life to help us make SL19B a huge success! 

If you have the Second Life spirit and stamina to promote SL19B events and serve as a guide for huge crowds, we’d love for you to fill out the volunteer application by May 8th, 2022!

Over the next month, keep an eye on our blog for more opportunities to participate in the SL19B celebrations!

CURRENT APPLICATIONS FOR SL19B:
Volunteer Application – Applications close on May 8th, 2022 
Exhibitors Application – Applications close on May 8th, 2022 
Performer Application – Applications close on May 8th, 2022 (Blog Post)
Music Fest Application – Applications close on April 10th, 2022 (Blog Post)

SL19B Regions Update

Work has already started over at the SLB regions to get the regions ready for the big event and it will be interesting to see the visual changes over the next few weeks/months. I will blog every so often when new developments happen. Stay tuned for that on my blog.

SL19B regions as of 1st April 2022

Please spread the word about SL19B.

2 months to GO!

Windows 11 Launch Day

Today (5th October) Windows 11 launches worldwide as a free upgrade for Windows 10 users. Windows 11 comes with many significant design changes along with new changes on how the system works under the hood.

Windows 11 should work with the default Second Life viewer, the latest Firestorm viewer and other third party viewers. It’s important to note that Microsoft will be rolling out Windows 11 in waves from now until late 2022+ depending on your device. It could be days, weeks or even months.

Microsoft will support Windows 10 until October 2025 apparently. There is no need to rush or panic into getting Windows 11 in the short term.

I would imagine within the next 6 – 12 months Linden Lab will update the System Requirements page where Windows 11 will be hopefully be added.

We will have to wait and see.

Linden Lab Introduces Multi-Factor Authentication

On Wednesday 22nd September Linden Lab announced an additional way for Second Life residents to protect their accounts. The Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is now available to all residents and it provides an extra level of security.

MFA is an industry standard and there is now the option to opt-in by visiting the MFA status page.

The blog post reads this….

Today we’re introducing an additional way for you to protect your account!

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is now available to all residents on their accounts. MFA is an additional step to prove your identity before gaining access to sensitive information or actions on your account. It provides an extra layer of security to supplement your username and password. Widely adopted by many products, MFA is an industry standard.

How does it work? You can learn more about MFA, find out what you’ll need to do, and activate it in the knowledge base article!

You will need to take action in order to activate MFA. It is entirely opt-in. Go to accounts.secondlife.com/mfa/status and get started!

Note: MFA adds protection only to your accounts.secondlife.com login. MFA does not affect how you log in to the SL Viewer. If you activate MFA, you should continue to change your password regularly and choose strong passwords.

In future releases we plan to extend MFA’s protections to additional pages on secondlife.com, the marketplace, and the viewer. We are also exploring an email-based implementation.

There is a useful FAQ on the MFA Settings page worth reading through.

MFA Settings

What is MFA?
Authentication is how Second Life knows it’s you attempting to log in, by verifying the username and password you provide. When authentication involves only a username and password, it is known as single-factor authentication. MFA adds another layer of security. MFA is not unique to Second Life. It is used by many products.

Why might I want to use it?
Activating MFA provides additional protection against unauthorized action on your account, such as changing your payment method, changing your password, or performing L$ transactions.

How does it work?
MFA requires an authenticator app on your mobile device which generates secret codes (called “tokens”). When you log in, Second Life connects to the authenticator app to make sure the token you provide matches the one generated by the authenticator app.
MFA adds protection only to your secondlife.com login. MFA does not affect how you log in to the SL Viewer (desktop app). Even if you activate MFA on your account, you should continue to change your password regularly and choose strong passwords.
MFA is opt-in. You are not required to use it. You can turn off MFA at any time.

How do I set up MFA on my secondlife.com account?
To turn on MFA you will need to:
Install an authenticator app on your mobile device. We do not supply this app or directly support any third party app, but we have tested Google Authenticator with this feature.
From your mobile device, connect the authenticator app to Second Life.
On secondlife.com, enter tokens that the authenticator generates.

We will take you through these steps in more detail when you set up MFA.

How will MFA change how I use Second Life?
After you turn on MFA, accessing secondlife.com will be a little different. Some pages may prompt you for a token in order to continue. Your browser will remember that you have been authenticated, but you will periodically be asked for a new token. If you use a new browser to access secondlife.com or you clear secondlife.com cookies, or if it’s simply been a while since you entered a token, you will be asked for a new token. You will never use the same token twice, so there is no need to remember it, write it down, or keep it secret.

If anyone has any problems then Second Life Support is the best way of resolving it before and after you turn on MFA.

In the near future Linden Lab plan on extending MFA’s protections to additional pages on secondlife.com, the viewer and the marketplace etc. Email based implementation is in the works apparently.

New Firestorm Release 6.4.21

On Thursday 29th July the Firestorm team released a new shiny viewer release 6.4.21.64531 which is now available to download. This new release includes loads of big improvements like mesh upload improvements, bug fixes, cool new features and much more. The full detailed list of release notes can be found on the Firestorm Change Log page. Here you can see the JIRA bug fixes, translations and known issues.

There is no need to perform a clean install with this release. Please note “Version 6.3.9.58205 will be blocked in 3 weeks, on August 18th. This will mark the end of an era for Firestorm’s legacy Windlight in Second Life, as 6.3.9 is the only version still running it”.

Under the hood the Firestorm team have added tons of new options in preferences from the new water transparency performance options, showing/hidng voice visualisers, new option to report the SLURL of the region you completed a teleport from, new fonts and there is more. This new Firestorm release brings it up to parity with the lab’s core code.

The new Linden Lab Guidebook for new users has been added in this release. Some new users once signed up go through the new welcome island which brings up this new guidebook. There is a online version of it here.

For OpenSim users the main things to mention is that the firestorm team have added “gridmanager” SLURL app command to add new grids to the grid manage via SLURL. The mesh upload analyse function is no longer blocked in OpenSim. They have improved VarRegion support for landmarks, SLURLs and Teleports etc.

Here are the highlighted new features and improvements…

• Enabled multithreaded image decoding.
  When an image is loaded from the network (CDN or region) or from cache it is in an encoded heavily compressed form know as jpeg2000.
  It takes a while to decompress these images before they can be used in rendering.
  Traditionally these were handled on a single thread, in parallel(ish) to the main thread, but still essentially one at a time.
  Firestorm 6.4.21 now adds support for doing this in parallel.
  It will (by default) check to see how many threads your CPU can support, that’s to say how many jobs it can run concurrently.
  From this it will create a pool of worker threads ready to decode images when they arrive.
  The more “concurrency” your machine supports the more images it will be able to unpack in parallel.
  There are a lot of subjective aspects to rendering, things should “feel” snappier but as we are dependent on so many things (disk IO, memory, GPU bandwidth, network fetch) it is not as straightforward as saying things are going to rez twice as quickly.
  But we hope you will experience a general uplift in quality.
  The setting is by default AUTO, this detects the concurrency supported and uses that as a guide. This is expected to work for the vast majority of systems.
  
  Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings → Image Decode Concurrency
  0 = Auto
  1 = single thread (old behaviour)
  N = user specified concurrency (don’t do this unless you really know what you are doing).
  Any users that have problems should that have problems should flip the setting to 1 for the old single threaded behaviour.

• Mesh upload improvements
  • The misreporting of “Material Of Model Is Not A Subset” has been removed.
    This means that you no longer have to keep a stray triangle for the purpose of padding out the materials in the lower LODs, most important in SL where those triangles are a significant driver of Land Impact.
    But more importantly this means that creators have a far less bothersome workflow when making meshes.
    Creators still have to ensure that all LOD models share the same set of top level materials but a true subset is now allowed.
  • Added 3 “quick physics” options. i) a physics cube ii) a hexagonal cylinder iii) an option to specific a user defined shape (perhaps an octahedron or similar, your choice)
  • Fixed the preview window ambient lighting so you can have a half way decent rendering of the target upload.
  • Faster mesh decoding cycle
    This won’t necessarily manifest as higher FPS, but it can result in dramatic improvements in meshes appearing fully formed and a general feeling of well-being (your mileage may vary)
    Please see Beq’s blog for more details: Summarising the next improvements to Firestorm Mesh Upload and Taming the mesh uploader – Improved workflow for builders coming to Firestorm soon

• Added support for clickable links to Preferences tabs and search terms
  This feature was mainly added to help Firestorm support when aiding users.
  Note these links will only function for users on Firestorm 6.4.21.
  • Getting a link to a search term (can be done on the fly)
    For a link to a preferences search term, simply perform the preferences search, then click the new “copy” link to the right of Preferences search, and paste it into chat.
    You will have a clickable link such as this: secondlife:///app/openfloater/preferences?search=local%20lights
    When a user on Firestorm 6.4.21 clicks this link, it will open the preferences floater already populated with the chosen search term.
  • Getting a link to a tab or subtab (has to be constructed)
    Links to tabs and subtabs themselves are tricker at this point. They need to be constructed and can then be saved and reused.
    Example link for linking to the voice subtab of Sounds & Media: secondlife:///app/openfloater/preferences?tab=audio&subtab=Media%20Voice%20tab
    To get the terminology to construct a link:
    Enable Developer > XUI > Show XUI Names
    To get the terms for the main tabs: Roll cursor over any of the left-hand tabs. At the end of the tooltip that appears, you will see something like “/vtab_controls/”. The term after the “vtab_” is the XUI name of the tab, in this case, “controls”.
    To get the terms for the subtabs: Roll cursor over any of the subtabs. At the end of the tooltip that appears, you will see something like “htab_UI Sounds Tab 1/”. The term after the “htab_” is the subtab name, in this case “UI Sounds Tab 1”.
    Insert those terms into the following syntax:
    secondlife:///app/openfloater/preferences?tab=[MainTabName]&subtab=[SubtabName]
    Test that the link works by pasting into chat & clicking it.
    If you wish to add these links to your Autoreplace, all ampersands must be replaced with &.

• Added the custom keymappings feature from the Linden Lab viewer
  You can now set your own custom key mappings under Preferences → Controls

• Added additional settings for “Show voice visualizers”
  Added an option to “Show voice visualizer over my own avatar” and an option to hide the voice dot over avatars and show only voice waves.
  Preferences → Sound & Media → Voice → Show voice visualizer over my own avatar
  Preferences → Sound & Media → Voice → Show the dot as part of the voice visualizer.

• Added an option to report the SLURL of the region you completed a teleport from in local chat
  Preferences → Move & View → Teleports → Report the SLURL of the region you completed a teleport from.

• Added new fonts
  Added Cascadia Code font both as an option for the UI and for the script editor.
  Added Deja Vu Sans as a fallback font for Linux to fix some characters displaying as boxes.
  Preferences → User Interface → Font → Font Scheme → Cascadia Code
  Preferences → Firestorm → Build 1 → Script Editor Font → Cascadia Code.

• Added the new Linden Lab Guidbook for new users
  Toolbar Buttons → Guidebook
  Note the Guidebook does not have a close button on the floater.
  You need to open & close the Guidebook using the toolbar button.
  The Guidebook can also be accessed in a web page at http://guidebooks.secondlife.io/welcome/index.html

• Added back the “Hover Tips on All Objects” option
  Preferences → User Interface → 3D World → Hover Tips → on All objects

• Made alert messages searchable and easier to use
  Preferences → Notifications → Alerts
  You can now set multiple alerts to show or hide, just select them with shift+click or ctrl+click and set them to the same value all at the same time

• Added search by UUID for legacy people search
  Search → People

• Added the ability to search for groups in contacts floater and search in the group titles window
  Comm → Contacts → Groups / Group titles
  CTRL+F will focus the search bar.

• Added options to auto-unmute Sounds or Ambient after teleport
  Preferences → Sound & Media → Sound → Automatically unmute after teleport: Ambient | Sound Effects

• Clearing inventory cache now also clears library cache
  Preferences → Network & Files → Directories → Clear Inventory Cache

• Added visible (rendered) face count to inspect
  Right click object → Inspect

• Added more information to the animation preview floater
  The animation preview floater now includes the following information:
  Priority, duration, Loop (yes/no), Ease in, Ease out, number of joints.
  Right click an animation in inventory or object inventory → Open

• Added new water transparency performance options
  Preferences → Graphics → General → Water Reflections → None (opaque), None (transparent)

• Joystick configuration improvements
  Added new Joystick monitor with 16 “LEDs” for the buttons.
  Preferences → Move & View → Movement → Joystick Configuration button.

• Added separate texture and asset cache sizes
  Preferences → Network & Files → Directories → Texture Cache Size, Asset Cache Size

• Added a new option to fix the Bento idle animation
  If enabled, Firestorm will run a default, priority 0 Bento animation that poses hands, wings, mouth and tail in a natural position when no other Bento animation is running.
  Preferences → Firestorm → Extras → Fix Bento Idle Animation.

• Added additional inventory search filters
  At the top of the inventory floater to the right of “Filter” you will see a small eye button drop down.
  Here you can choose to filter inventory searches to include or exclude trash, library and links.

• Improved group moderator options
  Changed the toggle mute chat to explicit mute and unmute so accidents can no longer happen if more then one mod attempts to remove chat rights at the same time.
  Right click any participant in a group chat → Moderator Options → You will now see two separate settings for “Allow text chat” and “Forbid text chat”

• Added sun & moon position sliders to the EEP user interface
  For those of you that hated the EEP sun & moon positioning track balls, we have added Azimuth and Elevation sliders to control the sun & moon position when editing environments or using Personal Lighting.

• Mac viewer crashes are now handled by Bugsplat

RLVa Changes

Firestorm 6.4.21 has been updated to the RestrainedLove API: RLV v3.4.3 / RLVa v2.4.1.64531
Catznip RLVa 2.4.1 Release Notes

• Cleanup of Windlight lock-in (= force enabling + prevent disabling)
• Fixed @setsphere mode 2 causing black circle around avatar
• Refactored @sit=force to support @sitground=force as a synonym
• Added sat/unsat notifications
• Don’t expose owner names in sound explorer when under @shownames=n restriction
• Don’t expose owner names in area search when under @shownames=n restriction
• Fixed RLVa spheres issues when antialiasing is disabled
• Fixed @setoverlay can cause an infinite loop
• Switched to an expandable input editor for the RLVa console
• Fixed Unpredictable results occuring when both @setsphere and @setoverlay are set by the same object
• Added support for multiple overlays in the same linkset and support permanence in @setoverlay restrictions that aren’t currently active
• Fixed @sitground=force from an object holding the only @sit=n,unsit=n reports the avatar standing and sitting illegally
• Added @share restriction to block giving inventory
• Added @editattach to block editing attachments and @editworld to block editing rezzed objects
• Added @touchattachother exception to block touching a specific avatar’s attachments
• Fixed crash when @setsphere is issued with ALM enabled without shadows, ambient occlusion, depth of field, or antialiasing
• Fixed @setoverlay_touch stopped working with the introduction of @setsphere

OpenSim

• Added “gridmanager” SLURL app command to add new grids to the grid manager via SLURL
  We plan to deprecate the distributed list of virtual worlds in the grid selector. The list of grids is unmanageable, and frankly, a very poor way to discover grids.
  However, you need a way to get your grid added and to get your users to add you easily.
  A few releases back Firestorm added the ability to paste the grid URI into the login screen and this worked, adding itself to the grid selector for the local user.
  We have now added the ability to trigger this from a URI directly, this means that you can embed the login URI on your webpage and have the users click that to start Firestorm and retrieve the grid info.
  
  Summary of the function:
  You can add the grid using the secondlife:// URI scheme as follows: secondlife:///app/gridmanager/addgrid/<your grid URI>
  It is a URI and as such it will need to be encoded.
  Thus OpenSim grid owners will have to encode the login URI.
  So if you want to add http://grid.thesocialmouse.net:8002/ via the SLURL, it will look like secondlife:///app/gridmanager/addgrid/http%3A%2F%2Fgrid.thesocialmouse.net%3A8002
  You can add grids to the gridmanager via SLURL from the viewer login screen too.

• The mesh upload analyze function is no longer blocked in OpenSim
  The removal of the analyze function was an erroneous action taken a few years ago and was apparently at the request/instruction of an OpenSim person.
  Analyze has been re-enabled as the damage that comes from not having hull analysis available outstrips the risk of having it where it could be problematic to certain physics engines that are not implementing hull support properly.

• Improved VarRegion support for things like SLURLs, landmarks and TPs etc

• Removed Inworldz specific code because Inworldz is dead

Merged in the following updates from the Linden Lab viewers

6.4.13.555567 – Jelly

Release Notes: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.13.555567.html

Updates to Jellydoll behavior for better performance.

If an avatar is explicitly set to no render, or its complexity exceeds the chosen complexity threshold, it will be displayed as a Jellydoll.
Jellydolls are simplified human avatars, displayed in a uniform color without attachments, animations or other customizations.

6.4.14.556088 – Simplified Cache

Release Notes: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.14.556088.html

This version of the Viewer uses a less complex file caching system to save local copies of frequently used assets such as meshes, sounds and animations. There should be no user-facing differences and your Second Life experience should be identical to other versions.

6.4.17.557391 – Key Mappings

Release Notes: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.17.557391.html

A collection of custom key mapping features.

6.4.18.558266 – Maintenance Eau de vie

Release Notes: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.18.558266.html

Assorted maintenance fixes.

6.4.19.560171 – Love Me Render #5

Release Notes: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.19.560171.html

A collection of graphics and rendering fixes, a little like a weather report.

6.4.20.560520 – Viewer UI (including Voice update)

Release Notes: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.20.560520.html

In the first of several installments, we would like to introduce a small batch of hand crafted, artisanal, UI changes to bring harmony to your Second Life.

For more information about the UI changes, please read https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/471443-viewer-ui-enhancements/
For more information about the voice update, please read https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/8059-new-voice-improvements/

The New Welcome Island Regions

The New Welcome Islands

Linden Lab are currently working on the new user experience for Second Life at the moment which will be rolled out in the months ahead. All new residents joining Second Life today still go through the Learning Islands followed by the Social Islands. Soon new residents will most likely be sent though the new revamped Welcome Islands.

The new Welcome islands came online on 27th June 2021. I would imagine the lab will add a big cluster of these Welcome Islands at some point in the near future near the social/learning islands.

At first glance there new Welcome Islands main areas seem half the size of the current Learning Islands/Social Islands. I suppose the good thing is that the tutorials/orientation there will be pretty new and updated. At the moment there appears to be three Welcome Islands (Welcome Island, Welcome Island Build and Welcome Island QA). The Welcome Back Island region is linked with the Welcome Islands. These are closed to the public as the lab are testing them currently.

The New Welcome Island Guidebook

The new Welcome Island Guidebook is available to view by using the default Second Life official viewer (6.4.20.560520) which is apart of Viewer UI Project now. The new Welcome Island Guidebook covers the basics from how to move your avatar & camera, how to use nearby chat, IM and voice, interacting with objects, changing your avatar, avatar attachments and finding places to go. There is the ability to click next or back when going through the guidebook sections. There is a small toggle in the top right which brings up the Guidebook Menu to skip whole sections. There is a clickable image to return to Welcome Island which is not working yet.

The new Welcome Island Guidebook has alot of useful pages to click through with updated screenshots of the UI and the basics. The lab have not released any ETA for when the new welcome islands will open to new users.

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New User Experience In 2021

Current new user experience through the Learning Islands/Social Islands

My New User Experience Back In 2006

I remember when I signed up to Teen Second Life back on 31st October 2006 when I was 16 years old and I had to go through TG orientation island. After that I was teleported straight to the welcome area (Lewis) where I started my virtual adventures. There was actually a few Teen Help Islands back then but they were never really used/disabled access.

The starting point back then was through Orientation Island 5 and the Orientation Island TG was used as a overflow region. The TSL Volunteer Island was used for a few years for the TG mentor program but then the program was closed down. I know many started on Orientation Island followed by Help Islands then after that landing on various welcome areas across the main grid. Tutorial Island is still open which is a copy version of the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives.

I took this screenshot of the TG orientation regions back on 31st May 2008

The New User Experience Today

I know many started on Orientation Island followed by Help Islands then after that landing on various welcome areas across the main grid. Today there are just two existing Help Island Public regions which are open to everyone to revisit if they wish. Orientation Island Public is still open today which is near a welcome area called Waterhead.

Over the years the lab have rolled out many different new user experience regions from Help islands, Greeter islands, Discovery islands, Learning/Social islands and now with the new Welcome Islands launching very soon. Some methods have worked during the past 18 years and some have not worked well.

I think having a Welcome island is definitely a good thing for new residents joining Second Life and I hope at some point the lab will bring back the mentor program revamped.

The old new user experience regions

I will post more soon about the new user experience when further developments take place.

6th Annual Kultivate Spring Art Show Press Release

The 6th Annual Kultivate Spring Art Show takes place from 7th June to 13th June 2021 in Second Life featuring photographers, artists, live music and giveaways. Here is the official press release and poster. Feel free to share and pass around to promote the fantastic arts of Second Life.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

6th Annual Kultivate Spring Art Show

Dates: June 7 to 13, 2021

Location: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Water%20Haven/156/135/26

The 6th Annual Kultivate Spring Art Show will take place June 7 to 13, 2021 and will feature art, photography, live music, and giveaways! This event will feature both a juried and non juried competition component, where artists will compete for prizes in a variety of categories.

This years participants artists are: 4pril Resident, Amanda, Angel Heartsong, Anouk Lefavre, Cutewillow Carlberg, Dandilyon Jinx, Dawnbeam Dreamscape, Deynira Yalin, Elise Sirnah, Eucalyptus Carroll, Eve Petlyakov, Jamee Sandalwood, Johannes Huntsman, Kacey Macbeth, Kapaan Resident, Klint Kord, Lena Kopiak, Matt Thomson, Myra Wildmist, Ohara Takamori, Phoenix, Roxcee Resident, Sabine Mortenwold, Sandor, Sevant Anatra, Sheba Blitz, Slatan Dryke, Tempest Rosca, Vanessa Jane, Veruca Tammas, Viktor Savior, & Vita Theas.

The following live vocalists and musicians will provide entertainment throughout the art show:  Mimi Carpenter, Abby Jaidov, Lyric Serendipity, Rapid Randy, Bubbles Song, Suzen Juel, Ziggy Sixpence, Jackie Lefko, Dee Timeless, Thunderfoot, Aislen Sings, J Lively, Sarita, and Sam Qenda.

About Kultivate:Kultivate  consists of Kultivate Music Management, Kultivate Magazine, and the Kultivate Galleries. The goal of Kultivate is tosupport art, culture, photography, music, and fashion. Kultivate Magazine is proud to be the media partner and primary sponsor of Team Diabetes of Second Life, an official and authorized team for The American Diabetes Association

For More Information:
https://www.kultivatemagazine.com/6th-annual-spring-art-show/
www.kultivatemagazine.com
www.kultivatemusicmanagement.net

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

MONDAY, JUNE 7:
-8am slt – Art Show Opens
Daily Giveaways: 10 Backdrops
-3pm to 4pm slt – live musician Mimi Carpenter
-4pm to 5pm slt – live musician Abby Jaidov

TUESDAY, JUNE 8:
Daily Giveaways: 10 Slideshow Frames
-3pm to 4pm slt – live vocalist Lyric Serendipity
-4pm to 5pm slt – live vocalist Rapid Randy

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9:
Daily Giveaways: 10 Pose Packs
-3pm slt – live vocalist Bubbles Song
-4pm slt – live musician Suzen Juel

THURSDAY, JUNE 10:
Daily Giveaways: 10 Giftcards
-1pm slt – live musician Ziggy Sixpence
-2pm slt – live vocalist Jackie Lefko

FRIDAY, JUNE 11:
Daily Giveaways: 10 Giftcards
-6pm slt – live musician Dee Timeless
-7pm slt – live musician Thunderfoot

SATURDAY, JUNE 12:
Daily Giveaways: 5 Inverse Skyboxes
-5pm slt – live vocalist Aislen Sings
-6pm slt – live musician J Lively

SUNDAY, JUNE 13:
Daily Giveaways: 2 Inverse 3D Environment 360 View Skyboxes
-1pm slt – Awards Ceremony
-2pm slt – live vocalist Sarita
-3pm slt – live vocalist Samm Quenda
-1130 pm slt – Art Show Ends

Come and join in today! 🙂

Ebbe Altberg Has Passed Away

I am deeply shocked to hear the sad news about Ebbe Altberg CEO of Linden Lab has passed away. Today Patch Linden posted this tribute blog post named Remembering Ebbe. My deepest condolences to all who knew him.

The cause of Ebbe’s passing has not been made public according to various sources. The last public appearance of Ebbe was earlier this year at OZ Linden retriement gathering event.

Ebbe Altberg became CEO of Linden Lab back on 5th February 2014 and changed Second Life for the better in my eyes. Ebbe brought more transparency between the lab and the Second Life community. Ebbe had good communications going on via Twitter with the residents of Second Life. He attended VWBPE many times over the years and other big events. He participated in Lab Gab many times, launched his own Linden Bear in 2019 and had many great memories with the community.

First meet and greet with Ebbe back on 18th February 2014. Ebbe said this back then “Second Life is just at the beginning of something huge and he hopes to make the online world more engaging and more social. He wants Second Life to be more appealing to a larger audience and to have a massive scale of users using Second Life in the long-term”. 

I think Ebbe was the best CEO Second Life ever had after Philip Rosedale departure. It’s going to feel strange now without him not being around any more.

Ebbe understood Second Life and made a huge difference in so many ways. Like bringing in Project Bento, Mesh, EEP, annual snowball fights, attending big events, reduced mainland costs, launched the second generation of Linden Homes and so much more.

As many know he worked on Sansar for many years while managing Second Life on the other hand and believed VR was the way forward.

The blog post reads this…

Hello, Community of Second Life

Second Life found new highs in 2020 between a worldwide pandemic taking grip, through the times of a tumultuous leadership change in the United States, and during movements of civil changes that will forever live in history books.  Second Life provides many with the comfort of a normal that continues to exist for all of us, where many use it to escape real life pressures, stressors and day to day challenges. In Second Life we can be our ideal, our best, celebrate all that is good across the world together.  Sadly we have also seen some people go, and they will never be forgotten as they touched us, gave us their best from their hearts, minds and souls – this thing called real life sometimes knocks on our door and makes a call.   

This is one of those calls.

Ebbe Altberg started with Linden Lab as our CEO on February 5th, 2014.  He took the helm of the company and immediately went to work on reinvigorating our spirit and culture.  Ebbe brought a profound openness, and transparency in his operation which was key and that had many effects on all of us internally, and externally.  Lindens were encouraged to be part of the vibrant community in Second Life, to participate in and to cherish it as part of our daily duties.  Ebbe also worked internally on embracing all aspects of Second Life, learning about its many nuances to understand impacts of decisions we make; while being sensitive to those and utilizing all of our resources, which firstly included you, the community, and many of us who are deeply embedded in Second Life.  Ebbe’s goals for Second Life included promoting Second Life as the world’s best virtual world, community and platform.  He also sought new adventures in building next generation products.

As I am here before you today, it is with profound sadness that I share with you Ebbe passed away yesterday evening restfully and surrounded by the love of his family. 

I commit to all of you to carry forward with our mission of making Second Life the biggest, best, most vibrant virtual world that there ever can be.  Together, myself, Grumpity, and Brett, along with Oberwolf at the helm and the entire team, our mission is clear.  To grow Second Life and to ensure the Residents in Second Life continue to be respected and happy.
 
Rest in peace Ebbe, our fearless, kind, loving, gentle leader, and friend.

Rest in peace Ebbe. You will be deeply be missed.

Second Life won’t be the same now.

(Ebbe Linden: 2014-2021)

Second Life Mobile App For iOS Not Ready Yet

During this week’s Second Life web user group meeting Keira Linden said (+4 minutes) that the Second Life mobile app hasn’t gone to the app store just yet for approval because the lab are still working on it. The lab are now spending their attention on Second Life 18th birthday celebrations which will open in two weeks time. Apparently there will be new last names announced soon and some of them will be referencing to this year’s birthday theme which will be time limited editions.

The web team at the lab have been working on the following during the past month…

• Upgrading internal tools work including the payments system
• Cleanup of the cookie footer on the Second Life webpage
• There was a issue with buying Linden Dollars using non-us currency – fixed pretty quick
• Fixed the issue with quick fill on the Second Life marketplace
• Added the updated the Second Life logo on more pages
• Minor text cleanup and fixed some formatting errors
• Added some fixes for control panel on the old Linden Homes
• Most of the past month the web team has been in the new work flow process on getting projects done including the backend systems

After 5 minutes the Keira opened the floor to questions. Some general interesting points mentioned after this point…

• New categories are coming within the next three months or so for the Second Life Marketplace
• Second Life JIRA is the best place to report bugs, ideas and feature requests for Second Life (the lab look at this every week)
• Skill Gaming user group is in the works
• No updates on Premium Plus yet > the lab are still thinking about it > revisiting it in the next few months
• Meet the Lindens series to be confirmed for SL18B
• Grid scope experiences – the lab are still thinking about it
• Large scripts – not on the radar yet
• Some further fine tuning still do for AWS

About Web User Group Meetings

“The Web User Group meeting is a monthly, public meeting intended for discussion of issues around our Web properties such as Marketplace, Profiles, Place Pages, Search, etc. Keira, Spidey, Grumpity & Reed Linden are the moderators. Please bring your questions & requests.”