SL Living Expo 2023 Opens 3rd March In Second Life

Visit the new upcoming 2023 SL Living Expo Relay For Life mega event which officially opens to the public on Friday 3rd March through until Sunday 12th March 2023. This event will be replacing the Home and Garden Expo apparently.

There is loads to look forward to including a art walk, decorating contest, music & performances, fun and games along with a vehicle show. Lindens will be at the SL Living Expo with some new special exciting events including bowling with the Lindens, dinner with the Lindens, Linden Auction Items and much more.

It’s not known if we will hear more about the Premium Plus Linden Homes at the SL Living Expo but it would be nice to hear the ETA on them. During the concierge user group meeting last week one of the Lindens mentioned that Linden Lab is actively working on the 2048 Linden Homes and they have some neat features. Guess the Moles/Lindens are sorting out some bugs/technical issues.

SL Living Expo is one of the Mega Events of Relay For Life of Second Life, which is part of the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life fundraising.  The SL Living Expo strives to bring together how we live, work and play in Second Life while raising awareness and funds for the American Cancer Society. 

Spread the word about the new SL Living Expo starting this weekend. Yay.

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Linden Lab Update On Bonniebots

On Friday 3rd February Linden Lab posted a statement on the situation with Bonniebots on a number of threads on the Second Life Forums. Linden Lab will be making adjustments and changes very soon to address the issues.

Linden Lab have locked and shut down a number of forum threads relating to Bonniebots.

Here is the full statement by the lab below…

We know there has been quite a bit of discussion about Scripted Agents/NPCs lately. Linden Lab is committed to continuing its excellent track record of keeping your personally identifiable information safe and secure. We understand that there is a certain amount of information a “bot” service has been collecting and displaying on their third party website that is causing unease in our community, and we’re working on the best way to address these concerns.

Linden Lab is having conversations with the parties involved, however this should not be taken as an endorsement of any sort. We have spoken several times in an attempt to get a full picture of the situation. These discussions have been mutually beneficial, and will help us as we look to update our policy on Scripted Agent/NPC operation in Second Life.

We recognize the need for improvements in specific areas, so in the near future we will be making adjustments to policies where needed. We have seen many requests from the community with a wide array of suggestions, and we appreciate all earnest and civil engagement. Internal discussions will continue beyond the Scripted Agent/NPC Policy, and any programmatic changes will be communicated as those roll out.

Thank you to everyone who engaged in this topic and added your voice. While we have had to shut down several discussions that became unproductive, we have welcomed feedback through support contacts and have been using this feedback to inform our decision-making. We are listening, and are working to make sure that Second Life is a welcoming and engaging world for all our Residents (and their automata).

What do you think about Bonniebots ? Feel free to comment below.

Second Life Regions Report 2021 To 2023

Good news to start 2023 of with is that Second Life has been positively been growing since 2021. During the past few years Private Estates have increased by at least one thousand regions and Linden Owned regions have increased by at least 500 regions.

Hopefully region growth will continue though 2023 and I will be blogging any major changes during the yeah ahead. Stay tuned for those updates in (March, June, September and December 2023) on my blog.

Below are the region counts from 2021, 2022 and now 2023. More growth in 2022 it appears and hopefully there will be growth in 2023/2024. It’s not known if 2023 will any easier than 2022 was with the cost of living going up globally (risk of another recession). We will have to wait and see what happens.

Total Regions

• 3rd January 2021: 25, 555
• 2nd January 2022: 27, 231
• 1st January 2023: 27, 659 – (1812.66 KM)

Private Estates

• 3rd January 2021: 17, 024
• 2nd January 2022: 18, 332
• 1st January 2023: 18, 370

Linden Owned

• 3rd January 2021: 8, 531
• 2nd January 2022: 8, 909
• 1st January 2023: 9, 289

All data supplie via the Second Life grid survey.

New Grid Statistics 2023

Second Life Main Grid size as of 1 Jan 2023

Ownership	Total	General	Moderate	Adult	Offline	Total Area (km�)
Total	27659	2580	17254	7821	4	1812.66
Linden Owned	9289	1583	7299	407	0	608.76
Private Estates	18370	997	9955	7414	4	1203.90

I will be blogging about Second Life user concurrency levels from 2022 shortly.

Sign Up For The Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter

On Wednesday 16th November Linden Lab announced news about the Second Life Weekly Newsletter for the latest Second Life breaking news, events, videos and exclusive virtual experiences delivered directly to your email inbox. It takes only a few seconds or so to subscribe. Once signed up you will see the “Success! You’ve been added to the audience” message.

It’s a good way to keep informed on what’s going on from the lab. There are many Second Life bloggers that cover the news and I have listed some in my blogroll on the right hand side.

Here is the full blog announcement about the weekly email newsletters.

Are you looking for a way to stay informed about all the latest destinations and events happening on the grid? Do you want Second Life breaking news delivered directly to your inbox? Signup for our Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter! 

For a while now we’ve been sending a weekly email to a small group of our most active Residents and the clicks show that many of you enjoy receiving these exclusive updates directly in your inbox. If you have not been receiving these weekly emails from us, now is your chance to sign up for them! You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link at the bottom of any email.

Our newsletters usually include some of our latest videos of the week along with links to different events or destinations and an image from one of our Residents that is selected as the Fresh Look of the week!

For a chance to have your Destination featured, submit it to the Second Life Destination Guide.

For a chance to be featured in Fresh Looks, submit your image to the Official Second Life Flickr Group! Did you know we just hit ONE MILLION IMAGES AND VIDEOS in the group? All submitted by our wonderfully creative Residents!

Email isn’t the only way you can stay on top of all of our latest news. You can also follow us on various social networks along with keeping an eye on our community blogs.

Will you be signing up for the weekly newsletter ?

Linden Lab Updates The Terms And Conditions

On Tuesday 25th October LInden Lab officially announced some new updates to the Second Life Terms and Conditions via the Second Life official blog.

Its worth reading through the terms and conditions page if your not familiar with it and feel free share it with others.

Whats New ?

1. “We clarified certain functions associated with the LindeX as well as the terms applicable to orders placed on the LindeX”.
2. “We added a section describing the terms applicable to your use of Stored Value Accounts, including your relationship with Tilia LLC”. 

The next update will take place on 31st October 2022. If you decline the changes then you have to close your Second Life account down.

Here is the full blog post with the new changes below.

From time to time, we make changes to Second Life’s Terms and Conditions in order to improve the documents, update and/or clarify policies, and keep the Terms current – all of which assist in governing your relationship with Linden Lab. Our next update will take place automatically on October 31, 2022.

Here’s what’s new in this update:

We clarified certain functions associated with the LindeX as well as the terms applicable to orders placed on the LindeX.

We added a section describing the terms applicable to your use of Stored Value Accounts, including your relationship with Tilia LLC. 

By continuing to use our services after the changes take effect, you agree to be bound by those changes. No further action is needed from you to accept such changes. However, if you would prefer to decline them, then you will need to close your Second Life account prior to October 31, 2022.

Here is the Second Life Terms and Conditions page.

Announcements Expected At Today’s Lab Gab With Patch Linden and Grumpity Linden

Starting at 10am SLT/PT today on Friday 21st October 2022 there will be a special live Lab Gab episode hosted by Patch Linden (VP of Product Operations) and Grumpity Linden (VP of Product).

There will be at least a few new announcements apparently during this live session about upcoming features for Second Life. Spread the word 🙂

Submit your questions on the form here.

Tilia Announces Investment From J.P Morgan

Linden Lab made an official announcement on Tuesday 18th October about Tilia managing to secure a new strategic investment from J.P Morgan Payments to help “further enhance Tilia’s current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanding pay-out currencies and support services”

“Virtual economies represent a huge financial opportunity particularly for game, app and virtual world developers,” said Brad Oberwager, Executive Chairman of Tilia LLC.“

• See the Tilia press release here about the new investment

See below for the full blog announcement on the via the official Second Life blog.

We’re excited to share with the Second Life community some news about Tilia LLC, the all-in-one payments platform that powers the metaverse. Tilia was originally built and continues to support the Second Life economy.Tilia today announced that it has secured a new strategic investment from J.P. Morgan Payments. In addition to the investment, Tilia is also working with J.P. Morgan Payments to further enhance Tilia’s current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanding pay-out currencies and support services.

What do you think about this new investment?

New Premium Levels Coming Soon

Linden Lab are working on new Premium levels after the successful take-up of Premium Plus. The lab are looking to deploy the first of Premium levels by the end of 2022.

The news came from this week’s web user meeting for reference. Watch the whole meeting here including other Second Life project updates too.

The lab will be making a formal announcement about the new Premium levels (side versions) and what’s included by early November 2022 at the earliest depending on progress of course. In 2023 there could be multiple subscription levels and options to pick from.

Generally speaking more news about Premium levels should be announced by the start of November 2022 (it could be pushed back).

Keep a look out on the Second Life blog and via inworld user group meetings.

2022 Halloween Shop & Hop Opens Thursday 6th October At 9am PT

Halloween is fast approaching!

This year’s 2022 Second Life Halloween Shop & Hop event will be opening to the public at 9am PT on Thursday 6th October through until Tuesday 1st November 2022. This is a multi-region inworld shopping event.

There are over 320+ Second Life content creators participating this year across 16 regions. Come and celebrate Halloween through October featuring amazing gifts and much more. This is a great opportunity to discover interesting brands offering loads of cool stuff.

Visit the Second Life Halloween Shop & Hop regions here.

Forsythia

Halloween Shop & Hop 2022 regions

Please spread the word 🙂

Second Life Premium Plus Members Who Use SpeedLight Get More Benefits

Breaking News

On Tuesday 4th October Linden Lab officially announced that Premium Plus members who use the SpeedLight to access Second Life will now get more benefits.

The new benefits include the following…

• Unlimited online time at SpeedLight
• Advanced 3D World view
• Prioritised support (tickets and live chat)

Having unlimited online time sounds pretty good along with advanced 3D World View with more support. The Speedlight mobile app has been around for awhile now and its already proving popular with the Second Life community.

The Speedlight app is on Android and IOS along with the web browser version. In corporation with Linden Lab – v25 (September 2022) update:

The Speedlight mobile app is already popular with many of our community members since it enables Residents to stay connected with Second Life while on the go, and now Premium Plus subscribers get access to additional Speedlight benefits: no online time limitations along with prioritised online support. Now you can enjoy Second Life on your mobile devices (or in a web browser) with the freedom to stay connected as long as you like! To get these benefits, all you need to do is access Second Life using SpeedLight with your Premium Plus account

“SpeedLight is free! The only limitation is 6 hour online time (you can re-login immediately). The additional Gold facility adds unlimited online time to your avatar”.

“SpeedLight features:- Second Life search- friends list- local chat, group chats, IMs- IM autoresponder- group management- inventory management- L$ transactions history- and other Second Life featuresGold (premium) features:- advanced 3D- unlimited online time- mass IMs- message templates- mass messaging”.

Please spread the word and give it a go on the SpeedLight app. Feel free to post your views in the comments section below.