For anyone that missed the latest episode of Lab Gab featuring SLEA then here is the full episode above. Strawberry Linden talked with the SLEA coordinator Tansee, Patch Linden (VP of Product Operations) and Brett Linden (VP of Marketing).
There is a tour of the SLEA regions featured in this episode. The episode runs for 57 minutes and 30 seconds.
About SLEA
The Second Life Endowment For The Arts (SLEA) is opening with a bang at midnight SLT 1/1/2021. Use the SLEA experience to visit 9 regions of diverse creativity representing the many levels of virtual art in SL, including 2 & 3D, Theater, Literature, Visual, Machinima, Art Education, and Media Art. Cost-free grants are awarded! For more info, visit: slendowmentforthearts.wordpress.com
The big news from Epsiode 3 is that the launch of the new SL Blogger Network (SLBN) will either be announced later on today (26th September) or tomorrow on Friday 27th September on the official Second Life blog. Details will be released on the requirements needed to join SLBN along with terms and conditions. This will be one centralised place where everyone can find SL bloggers.
Kess Crystal talked about the history of the blogger network and ways they help bloggers connect with the Second Life community. Sounds very interesting indeed and this is a great opportunity for all bloggers to reach a wider audience.
> This will be a Opt-In
> Basically It’s going to be a feed, where bloggers can sign up and the lab will put your blog on a list. Hopefully there will be categories for the different types of blogs etc.
> The lab have said they will take the first couple of sentences of the blog post and the image. People can then click through to the full blog post. Content will be on Second Life social platforms. Phrase 1 starts this week.
About
Are you a Second Life blogger looking to expand your reach to a wider audience? You’ll want to consider joining the new Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN). This new initiative will promote high-quality independent blog content to the Second Life community.
Are you excited about the new Second Life Blogger Network ?
Check out the latest new interview with Ebbe Altberg CEO of Linden Lab talking about the future of Second Life and Sansar. Wagner James Au interviewed Ebbe Altberg for 45 minutes at Linden Lab HQ in San Francisco in March 2019.
They chatted about efforts to grow new user growth, land discounts, the upcoming mobile companion app, cloud deployment, improving performance and much more relating to Second Life. With Sansar they chatted about the low usage numbers since the beta launch, Sansar’s long download times and efforts to optimize Sansar.
It’s incredible to think Ebbe Altberg has now been with Linden Lab for over five years and he has achieved a great amount over the years from reducing land costs, the roll out of Mesh, Bento, Animesh, improved the communications with the community, improved the experience for premium members and much more.
Some highlights that I found most interesting,,,
The new IOS mobile companion app is being worked on. It’s going to be focused on being connected with friends, chat, shopping, customer service and more. The lab are not considering it to be a viewer in the short term.
New pricing options/discounts are coming soon (within next few months)
Lot’s of new features (EEP) for Second Life (within weeks)
Second Life is targeted to move completely to the Amazon cloud within the next 12 months (early – mid 2020)
The premium subscriber base is growing
The lab are focused on continuing revenue & user growth for Second Life.
The lab are now interested in growing the concurrency levels and retention rates
There are no plans to force migrate Second Life users to Sansar
There are more people working on Second Life (130+) than Sansar (70+)
There is work to continue to reduce Sansar long download times
Sansar is still in beta and still in pre-launch mode
The lab are shipping big updates every month
For more specific highlights from this interview see here.
Within the last hour Linden Lab have announced a new travelogue video series which will be highlighting incredible experiences, places and events created by the Second Life community. These short quick previews will last around 60-90 seconds each apparently.
Second Life Destinations is a new weekly video travelogue series that highlights some of the incredible experiences and events created by Residents within the virtual world of Second Life.
In this series, we’ll highlight different places focusing in on the beauty and imaginative possibilities in no more than 60-90 seconds so that you can get a quick peek at the creations and communities inside each virtual space. At times we may even speak to creators of theses spaces so they can shed some light on what inspired them. Look for each new episode on our blog and social media channels, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
I like the sound of this new video series showcasing the very best in Second Life. This looks like a new marketing campaign to advertise Second Life to a much larger audience. I think this new travel series will become even more popular in the months ahead with more inworld spaces being shown.
#3 The Pen in Bay City has been showcased this week – (see video above)
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 theirhighlights 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
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 🙂
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! 🙂
Today Ebbe Linden CEO of Linden Lab demonstrated virtual reality using Sansar on stage during Wall Street Journal’s Live conference in Laguna Beach, California. This is the first video demo of Sansar (1min/51secs) showing new footage of the next generation platform due to open to the public in January 2017.
In the first video demo of Sansar Ebbe Linden is showing the audience how easy it is to grab things and move virtual furniture using with the Oculus Touch controller. Ebbe Linden talked about how users will be able to create, buy and sell virtual goods within Sansar. Ebbe said that food is a tricky thing in VR and that there will be a currency/marketplace.
Ebbe Linden finishes by saying that Sansar is now in the creator preview phrase and that hundreds of creators have been invited so far and the roll out will continue right into Q1 2017.
There are now less than three months to go until the launch of Sansar!
On 27th March Luca Grabacr uploaded a 40 seconds video called Second Life Short Teaser | Worlds Within Ours on YouTube. This short teaser video is targeted towards people who have not yet joined Second Life. Luca has uploaded videos in the past relating to Second Life, see here.
Luca writes this in the info section…
I intend to use this video for a Second Life Facebook group’s teaser video, but might as well post it here so more people would be able to watch it. As usual, this Second Life video is targeted towards those who aren’t a Second Life user yet. So show this to your non-SL user friend and see what they think!
If you enjoyed the teaser video share it with your non-SL friends to get them interested in joining Second Life today. 🙂
On 17th March 2016 Linden Lab released a new video via the official Second Life YouTube Channelshowcasing bars and pubs in Second Life to visit inworld. Great places for hangout, live music and for live DJs.
The Blarney Stone (Irish Bar in Second Life) and Toby’s Juke Joint (one of the oldest clubs in SL) were featured in the new video. The video runs for 1 minute and it’s worth watching if you want to grab a drink with friends.
Late last night Ebbe Linden CEO of Linden Lab attended this year’s 9th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference in Second Life. The recorded video runs for 58 minutes with new updates on Second Life and Project Sansar. Ebbe answered many questions during the session along with follow up questions.
I missed the live session yesterday due to it being so late for the UK but the good news is that the full recorded video is now available for those that missed Ebbe Linden live speech.
Here are the bits I found most interesting from watching the recording today. I did notice there was fewer audience members in the crowd this year compared with previous VWBPE conferences for Ebbe. I would imagine this is due to the bad timing of the session or perhaps it’s because interest has dropped for some reason.
Second Life
Second Life performance is continuing improving, quality and stability is improving
Linden Lab are working on new avatars, new web on prim
In the pipeline: improved registration api coming, improving the time to redeem money
Linden Lab are working on a Oculus Viewer working with Second Life & Graphics Viewer
Community Gateway Program is proceeding, unknown for ship date, work to be done with registation api. Progress is going well and some have had beta access. The lab are doing simple contracts.
Ebbe says he doesn’t know when he will remake his avatar or making bears for people
Project Sansar
Now over two years into Project Sansar
Since August 2015 there have been a handful of users working on it
The lab are focused on creators for the rest of the year
May or June for the lab to start accepting applications (hundreds of creators/users by the end of the year)
General availability at the end of the year
Second Life and Project Sansar are separate products
Invitation only and the lab have hand picked skilled/experienced users
In May or June people can request entry online
Age range will be 13+
There will be content ratings (adult content) at some point in the near future
Project Sansar will be made for PCs, Windows, Oculus & the Vive
Mobile versions Project Sansar planned for Android and Apple IOS (2017+) – Streaming version solutions being worked on. Mac support later on.
Goal to be crossed platform for Project Sansar
Project Sansar money exchange may be launched. Transfer between SL and Project Sansar.
From June 2016 people can sign up to Project Sansar and the lab will pick experienced/skilled users
Third party tools will be supported, common file formats will be used, layer tools, original content tools over time
Still pictures of Project Sansar released during the last few months showing what’s possible
Project Sansar is still work in progress, still looking for answers in some areas
Between now and June 2016 the lab will be revealing more of Project Sansar in action and more pictures
Q3 more will be revealed then more over the months after
Special thanks to Mal Burns for uploading the recording. 🙂
Daniel Voyager 