8 New “SL20B Peach” regions (1-8) have recently showed up on the map in Second Life south of the “SLB” regions. These new SL20B regions are closed for public access and are showing up as purple for now.
It’s expected the new “SL20B Peach” Regions will merge with the “SLB” regions within the next month or so as preparations for Second Life 20th birthday celebrations start ramping up.
It’s pretty exciting seeing the birthday regions coming together. There are other nearby SLB Planning regions etc nearby so maybe we might see some new visuals soon on the map.
First preview of the new SL20B Peach Regions location
New SL20B Peach Regions Arrive
I will post more on SL20B soon on my blog. Stay tuned for that.
On Thursday 17th March Linden Lab officially announced details for the upcoming 19th annual Second Life birthday celebrations (SL19B) which will be held from 16th June through until 5th July 2022. The theme for SL19B is Steampunk!. There will be “three fun-filled weeks of live music, performances, shopping and amazing community exhibits!” this year.
Applications are now open for SL19B Performers (apply before 8th May) and for those interested taking part in the SL19B Music Fest happening 16th to 18th June 2022 (apply before 10th April). Applications will open soon for Volunteers, Exhibitors and Merchants. The lab will announce those applications within the next month or so.
SL19B Logo
The full blog announcement about SL19B…
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. The theme for SL19B festivities is Steampunk! Get ready for three fun-filled weeks of live music, performances, shopping, and amazing community exhibits!
To get things started we are opening applications for Music Fest, to be held June 16th-18th. Music Fest will kick off the overall SL19B celebration with three days of live music performances featuring some of the most talented live musicians in SL! To sign up for a Music Fest audition, please complete this application form by April 10th, 2022.
We are also opening up applications for the general performance schedule. Why celebrate for one day when we can party for a week! We are looking for all types of performers to join the week-long festivities from June 19th-26th. Are you a DJ who can spin up a great party set or a live performer who can jam all night? You might be one of the grid’s amazing Dance companies, or perhaps you’re a Particle Performer? One of the things that makes Second Life so vibrant and exciting is the wide range of performers who share their talent with our Residents. Whatever your medium, we would love to hear from you!
While we encourage all interested performers to sign up, please note that it does not guarantee a spot. We will review all submissions and extend audition invitations via a follow up note in-world to the SL username that you provide.
Over the next few months, keep an eye on our blog for more opportunities to participate in the SL19B celebrations as an Exhibitor, Volunteer, and Merchant!
Please spread the word and if you can please participate in one of the biggest Second Life events of 2022. In the mean time planning has started for SL19B it appears. I will blog more on SL19B when new developments happen.
On Monday 14th March 2022 Mischievous Mole posted this group notice to the Second Life Birthday group inworld (8, 537 members) announcing that the lab are about to open up applications for SL19B (Second Life 19th Birthday). Mischievous Mole says it’s worth keeping eyes on the official Second Life blog in the next few weeks for more information including ways to get involved with the birthday celebrations.
Group Notice
Hello everyone!
I suspect people are starting to wonder what’s up with this year’s Birthday celebrations. Squeaky and I are deep in the planning stage and just about ready to open up applications. Watch the blog for information coming in the next few weeks for all the opportunities to get involved this year!
On the Second Life public calendar if you fast forward to June 2022 the dates for SL19B have already been officially confirmed. It appears that for the 2022 Second Life 19th birthday celebrations will take place from Thursday 16th June to Tuesday 5th July 2022.
SLB Regions
The “SLB” regions are still on the grid from last year it appears and they are closed for public access until June 2022. In the south east nearby there are four SLB Planning regions that are new which is interesting. I will be watching this area closely over the next few months or so.
Ideas
It would be great to see the return of meet the Lindens series and maybe have three weeks of birthday events and more regions this year. It would be good to see more press coverage about it around the world. I think having a planning SL19B and SL20B planning group would be most useful just like the weekly user group office hours.
This year’s SL18B celebrations will end next week on Tuesday 6th July 2021 when shortly afterwards the SLB regions will go offline for another year. This is a great opportunity for everyone to revisit the exhibitions and explore while the regions are quieter. The live events at SL18B ended on Sunday 27th June 2021.
This year has been very successful for the birthday bash from the music fest, meet the linden talks along with all the live performance events. The preview of the new Fantasy Linden homes theme region has pretty popular during the past few weeks. Hopefully for next year at SL19B and then for the big SL20B celebration it will be amazing once again.
The SL18B Shop & Hop event is still open until 6th July 2021 featuring 320 merchants across 16 regions. There are deals, discounts, new gifts and exclusive items around the shops over there. This is a huge shopping event featuring well know brands from across the grid.
For anyone that has missed any of the SL18B Meet the Lindens series episodes then here are all the catch up videos in full to watch again. The 2021 Meet the Lindens sessions at SL18B have been pretty popular this year and have all gone really smoothly without any major technical issues. Saffia Widdershins and Strawberry Linden along with the rest of the team have done a great job this week interviewing many well known Lindens/Moles.
Featuring Oberwolf Linden, Patch Linden, Grumpity Linden, Brett Linden and the Moles. I would imagine everyone will be back next year at SL19B scheduled for mid June 2022. The SL20B celebrations in 2023 will be huge as that would be a big important milestone.
All these episodes featured below are at least one hour to two hours long. Find out about the roadmap for Second Life, the next Linden Home theme, the passing of Ebbe Altberg, latest updates on the SL Mobile development and much more.
Live events at SL18B will end on Sunday 27th June however the SL18B regions will remain open until Tuesday 6th July 2021. There is plenty of time to explore the birthday regions and exhibits during it’s quieter days ahead.
Monday 21st June 2021 – Lab Gab SL18B Special / Linden Lab Leadership Team with Oberwolf Linden with Brett Linden, Grumpity Linden and Patch Linden
+ The Second Life Book Club with Draxtor Special at SL18B with Philip Rosedale & Tom Boellstorff
Tuesday 22nd June 2021 – Patch Linden – VP of Product Operations
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 – Grumpity Linden – VP of Product
Thursday 24th June 2021 – Brett Linden – VP of Marketing
Friday 25th June 2021 – The Moles – Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW)
Please spread the word about all of the SL18B talk sessions. Well done to everyone that made SL18B a huge success. Yay.
On Friday 25th June 2021 marked the end of the special SL18B talks. Saffia Widdershins speaks to a whole bunch of Moles during this episode. It’s a really interesting show with some history, current projects and whats to come. This episode runs for 1 hour and 52 minutes.
The Moles are apart of the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) focused on improvements on the mainland and across Second Life. The LDPW worked on the old Linden Homes which is now over 12 years old for Premium residents. They were widely popular, mostly prims and was cloned four times.
The Moles main focus now is the expansion of the Bellisseria continent which includes many theme types and covers hundreds of new Linden Homes. Bellisseria first formed back in April 2019 and now connects to the main landmasses. The new Fantasy Linden Home announced at SL18B will be released later this year and it will be on it’s sub-continent. The lab are still deciding where the place the new area.
There was talk about the games on the grid and the annual events that the Moles works on. The seasonal events include isle of view, Halloween, winter wonderland and the yearly birthday events. For anyone that is interested to apply to be a Mole – drop your resume notecard to Derrick Linden. More information here.
The Moles focus turns towards the expansion of the bellisseria continent and the Halloween event once SL18B ends early in July 2021. During the past year the Moles have been very busy at making Second Life more awesome.
Overall the Moles/Lindens do such a great job building new areas and organising events on the grid. There is still lot’s to look forward to including another 3-4 Linden Home themes and new various improvements over the next 12 months. Next year for SL19B in June 2022 it will be interesting to hear about all the changes made.
The SL18B talks this week have been most interesting once again and I guess there is loads of things to look forward to during the rest of 2021/2022. The attendance levels have been high this year inworld and on the live YouTube streams.
On Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Patch Linden (Vice President of Product Operations) appeared on the first Meet the Lindens talks at SL18B interviewed by Saffia Widdershins. The episode runs for almost 2 hours full of interesting discussion about Second Life, Linden Lab and current projects.
The main key points from the session…
Ebbe Altberg meant a lot to Patch. He was always fun to work with
The new Fantasy Linden Home theme will be released “soon” with the ability to choose from homes with open plans or with rooms. The Fantasy release will be on a sub-continent that will be part of the Bellisseria continent. There will be seasonal cycles and there will be at least 3 more themes to be announced
There has been no work yet on retiring the old Linden homes
The Moles are building the next two LH themes (one is in almost continent complete and the other one is coming along)
There will be a new user experience soon (within weeks) with a new region layout with new tutorials, new viewer and web based support
New starter avatars are being considered as the default new starter avatar (mesh/bento/bakes on mesh ready) & Ruth toggle between V1/V2
There have been increases in the LindeX and GDP
Linden Lab support have been enjoying the general turn around time for issues, enquiries and the satisfaction rate
Roadmap for the next 12 months…
Expansion work for Linden Homes including “V2” home type (the surprise)
New avatar work and the new user experience
A new possible game (mid-late next year)
New land products and new land prices possible
After 1 hour and 16 minutes the talk turns into a Q&A session which is worth a listen for anyone that has not watched this session yet. Some interesting things to mention here…
The Tapestry of Time region – The lab updates it yearly to come back with the annual birthdays. Bear Island makes a return every five years.
More groups – At some point
Underwater Linden Homes – Don’t know if the lab will tackle it
Adding Linden Homes to Zindra – Adult Linden Homes could be something to consider and think about
AWS – Performance gains, region border crossings much improved and there has been alot of upside to it
Barrier of content creation – Something the lab should tackle (3D Modelling etc)
Linden Lab railway across continents – Possible expansion of SLRR
Bellisseria airports – The lab do drop one here and there
Option for faster download speeds in the viewer / option for texture cache – Probably
Higher level premium – Premium Plus put on hold / No plans for move forward with it
Disney world regions – Would love to do it / It would be a significant partnership
Mermaid aquatic avatars for new starter avatars – Possible after the coming new starter avatars
More Prims – Have to look at testing it at Linden Homes and Private Estate offerings etc
Second Life in 18 years time – Patch sees it much larger, potentially being part of vernacular and regularly talked about. On all sorts of devices in 18 years everywhere we go. The sky’s the limit for us and Patch hopes to take it there.
The Meet the Lindens series continues until Friday 25th June 2021 with a variety of well known Linden/Moles. Stay tuned.
Brad Oberwager appeared on the special SL18B episode of Lab Gab along with the Leadership Team on Monday 21st June 2021. This was the first time that Brad Oberwager (Oberwolf Linden) talked directly the the Second Life community. I thought it was a great show generally speaking and it was nice to hear about Brad’s plans for the future of Second Life. It was good to hear that Brad has gone in-world with his Oberwolf Linden account at least a few times and he does have alt accounts. Brad alt accounts were not revealed during this episode.
Brad is the Executive Chairman at Linden Lab and is one of the three investors (J. Randy Waterfield and Raj Date) who acquired Linden Lab during mid 2020. Brad is taking basically a “four pillars” approach in terms of decision making from what is going to bring in new users?, what is going to make existing uses happier?, what will lead to more engagement? and what is going to offer Linden employees to be happier?. This is a interesting road to go down and hopefully will lead to Second Life becoming even more popular in the months and years ahead. Brad mentioned during the show that the long term success of Second Life will be through feedback like in the new user experience and growing the Second Life user base.
Patch Linden, Grumpity Linden and Brett Linden deal with the product decisions at the lab which are supported by the senior management team including Brad and his team. Apparently Linden Research is now owned by LLC company formed by Brad Oberwager and Randy Waterfield. He mentioned that Tilia was not in competition with Second Life and still has a future.
Brad did mention that he doesn’t expect to see change for change sake for Second Life in the short term however change will come over time. I just hope these future changes will be good ones for the Second Life community.
I hope that Brad and the leadership team will continue to invest in the Second Life platform and carry on the success that Ebbe Altberg managed to achieve over recent years. If the Second Life user base grows larger and the overall user experience improves within the next year or so that would be nice. I do think Second Life needs to be more in the press more along with more improvements being made. The Second Life economy is still going strong and hopefully that will continue.
This is a good start I think and it’s nice to hear Brad passion/energy for Second Life. He wants everyone moving towards a sense of joy and not fear.
There are many cool places to to visit this year at the Second Life 18th birthday celebrations. Here are some of the main SL18B attractions worth exploring to get started. Click on the SLURLs below to teleport different areas of SL18B. The birthday celebrations continue until Tuesday 6th July 2021 so that’s plenty of time to look around.
Today Linden Lab have released it’s exciting calendar of SL18B events in a blog post on the official Second Life blog about what’s planned for this year’s birthday celebrations. There is a Second Life birthday calendar worth checking out in the blog post where there is the ability to add the events to your Google calendar.
SL18B officially opens to the public at 9am SLT on Thursday 17th June 2021 over at the SLB regions. Patch Linden will be hosting the SL18B Opening Ceremony from 11am SLT at the SL18B Main Stage. It’s best to arrive early to have the best seat before the regions become full.
Lab Gab at SL18B live stream starts after Patch Linden opening address at 11am SLT where Strawberry Linden will be exploring SL18B
The Second Life Birthday Group will get early access to SL18B Shop & Hop from 9am SLT on 17th June
Linden Lab will be holding the SL18B Music Fest which includes three days of great music from a variety of talented performers around the grid. The SL18B Music Fest live sessions will take place on the SL18B Live Stage from Thursday 17th June to Saturday 19th June 2021.
2021 lineup:
Time
June 17
June 18
June 19
9am
SL18B Opens
Randy De Lucia
10am
KATIA
11am
SL18B Opening Ceremony with Patch Linden
SpiritLed
12pm
Seli Blackmore
Semina
1pm
Milan Zepp
Toxie
Skye Galaxy
2pm
Rogue Galaxy and The Tiny Rebel Band
Staring At The Sun
Fly Kugin
3pm
Oblee
Dandy Pianoman
Marqs DeSade
4pm
Maximillion Kleene
Mimi Carpenter
Dude
5pm
Erik Kottzen
Ruvilyn Gatchie
Effinjay
6pm
Joaquin Gustav
Wytchwhisper Sadofsky
Gabriel da Silva
7pm
Gabriella Rothschild
8pm
Kendall Jigsaw
Save the date for SL18B Music Fest 2021!
Meet The Lindens at SL18B
Meet The Lindens returns this year according to the Second Life Birthday Calendar with a great lineup of well known Lindens and from the Moles team.
Monday 21st June 2021: Lab Gab SL18B Special with the Leadership Team – 2pm SLT to 3pm SLT – Auditorium Option 1
Tuesday 22nd June 2021: Patch Linden (VP of Product Operations) – 1pm SLT to 2pm SLT – Auditorium Option 1
Wednesday 23rd June 2021: Grumpity Linden (VP of Product) – 2pm to 3pm SLT – Auditorium Option 1
Thursday 24th June 2021: Brett Linden (VP of Marketing) – 1pm to 2pm SLT – Auditorium Option 1
Daniel Voyager 