Archive for the 'Announcements & News' Category
Friday, February 13th, 2009 by: Blue
[2009-02-25 @ 11:10 AM PST] The new blogs are UP NOW! blogs.secondlife.com (note the extra “s”, the singular will also redirect to the new blogs soon).
[11 AM PST] WE’RE SO CLOSE!
[8 AM PST] Pardon the mess, it’s temporary. We’re upgrading to our new blogs! Stay tuned…  -Torley
UPDATE – Due to some last minute technical naughtiness, the launch of the new blogs has been delayed to early next week.
I’m disappointed about the delay of course, as I can’t wait to get started blogging in earnest. If you are disappointed as well, I apologize. But you know the old saying: When life gives you lemmings, make lemmingade! And so without further ado…
Welcome to BLUE’S TOLD-YOU-SO COMPETITION where you can turn snark into valuable prizes! The game is simple. Just come up with the ultimate told-you-so to go with any event, whether it’s the delay of the new blogs, McCain losing the election, or your boyfriend getting towed for parking in a handicapped spot…it’s up to you. I’ll even get you started with an example:
Yoz: Hey Blue, we have to delay launch due to some technical issues.
Blue: Told ya we shouldn’t be using that Commodore64.
The best comeback wins one lucky resident a dream date with me, your pal Blue, to an exciting inworld location as part of my SL Travel Blog. Yes you heard right. Immortalized…on a BLOG. How can you resist? Just write your comeback on a notecard with the title TOLD YOU SO and drop a copy on me inworld. Even if you don’t win, a witty dis is its own reward!
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The Second Life Blog was once a place where the Lindens talked casually with you about policy, their projects, recent news, the future of SL, etc. Residents regularly told us that they loved having access to such broad insight into the company and frequent communication with the full range of Lindens. And Lindens loved the ongoing dialog with residents.
Over time however, as more Lindens came to participate, the blog got a bit manic. Some of you complained that reports of temporary performance issues would eclipse larger conversations related to long term plans and features while others believed that tutorials and opinion pieces were distracting them from the hard news of inworld issues they needed to know about in order to run their businesses.
In other words, we outgrew our single channel blog. It was no longer serving people’s individual needs. Perhaps worse was that the signal to noise ratio in comments had gotten bad enough that Lindens weren’t able to depend on them as a way to clearly hear the range of needs and desires of the community. As such we had to limit blog participation to a smaller number of Lindens on certain types of topics and move extended discussion to the forums.
We knew it was important to get back to using the blog as a key means of constructive two way conversation with the community, so we put together a shopping list of must-haves for a new blog suite which included…
- Individual channels of communication for each subject
- Numerous means of accessing channels (including RSS and email subscription)
- Discussion format sub-blogs for extended conversations with threading, voting etc…
- Private sub-blogs for communities working in Second Life (like educators and Solution Providers)
After comparing options, we believe we’ve found one that will best suit our ongoing needs. We expect that it will allow us to get back to the days when any and all Lindens could participate freely and hope that it will provide a convenient way for you to engage us on a wide variety of topics.
So we hope that you’ll join us here, on Thursday the 19th of February, for the launch of a whole new Second Life Blog, where it will be the good ol’ days all over again!
See you then,
-Blue
Posted in Announcements & News, Blog Improvements, Blogroll, Business, Community, Community Gateways, Concierge, Customer Service, Education, Enterprise, Forums, Land, Marketing, New Releases, Tips & Tricks |
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Friday, February 13th, 2009 by: t linden
SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN HEARTS..and other Happy Valentine’s from Linden Lab!
It’s Valentine’s Day and Second Life is aflutter with love! This year, in addition to the Kiss a Linden, Kiss a Volunteer event and an unveiling of a newly revamped Cupid Linden avatar, we invite you all to explore your world in search of the Valentine’s Day Golden Heart!
Here are the contest rules:
- Contest runs from 12:00am PST (midnight) on Friday, February 13 until 12:00am PST (midnight) February 15
- More than 1000 candy boxes are scattered around Second Life
- These Boxes are filled with candy hearts to collect and trade (including special edition Linden Lab hearts)
- Mixed in are 20 special boxes containing golden hearts
- Those who find the golden hearts will win L$5000 credit at Xstreet SL
- Search the world and find them all!
And, we have a second valentine for you….
We’ve made it easier to share the love with a new gifting feature on Xstreet. You can now send a gift directly to any avatar in Second Life. Here’s how:
- Go to Xstreet, find the gift you want and click on it.
- On the right, you will see box, “Choose Payment Method”
- When you click “Purchase as a gift”, write in the recipient’s name.
- Complete your purchase, and the gift will be delivered to the lucky Resident!
Take our Valentine’s Day Survey
In the future, we’ll be adding new features like registries, and we need your help! We’re sending an email survey to a select group of Residents to help shape these features. Take the survey and opt-in to a focus group so we can make this product serve your needs.
So send a little love this Valentine’s Day, and make this the year when you don’t have to say, “it’s in the mail”. Of course, you can always claim Friday the 13th….
Happy Valentine’s Day!
FINE PRINT
1. Eligibility. Contest is open to all Second Life® world Residents (“Residents”) in good standing, 18 and older as of the start of the Contest. Residents of embargoed countries, countries where such contests are not legal or where access to the Second Life world has been blocked or disabled, as well as Employees and affiliates of Linden Research, Inc. (“Linden Lab”), and their familiies are not eligible to participate. Contest void where prohibited. Subject to all international, federal, state and local laws. No purchase is necessary to enter and win
2. How to Enter. Between the hours of 12:00am PST (midnight) on Friday, February 13 until 12:00am PST (midnight) February 15, explore the Second Life world in search of up to 20 Golden Heart objects. Along the way, you may also discover other special edition Linden Lab Candy Heart boxes scattered around. Click on the Golden Heart to claim it!
3. Prizes. Total Linden Dollars (LS) awarded as prizes: L$100,000, to be awarded to twenty (20) Residents as (20) awards in the amount of L$5000 Xstreet SL credit, There is no monetary value associated with the Prize, and (as with all L$) no promise or guarantee of redemption of any or all L$ awarded. The prize is for entertainment purposes only. Note: you will need an active Xstreet SL account to claim your prize. Register here: http://xstreetsl.com/
4. Prize distribution: Gifts will be awarded by Linden Lab via email, inworld or by mail. Linden Lab will notify winners by mail, in-world or e-mail of procedures for redeeming prize. The prizes must be accepted as awarded and cannot be exchanged for cash or credit. Winners who do not wish to accept the prize as offered may opt to forfeit the prize. There will be no substitutions. Awards are limited to one award per each natural (actual “real world”) person.
As you’ll have seen me discuss before, we’re in the midst of a long term plan to improve the Mainland as a place to live, work and visit. To make this happen, we plan to act as a more proactive Estate Manager than we have historically. Part of that means addressing issues that have a significant and negative impact on the Mainland experience, like we did when we banned ad farms.
More recently, we began a conversation with you about how we should deal with the practice of commercial subdividing of parcels (land cutting) which is causing the Mainland to become increasingly fragmented.
You can read that original post here and look at the forum feedback that resulted from it here.
We asked for your feedback on the issue of cutting and had hundreds of excellent responses. This has really helped us shape our policy into something that we believe is workable and fair.
After carefully taking your considered feedback into account, we have decided that we will no longer allow widespread subdivision of land on a commercial scale on the Mainland.
The aim here is not to stop you using your land in different and creative ways. We agree with your comments that there are plenty of good reasons to own small parcels, and we have no desire to interfere with that. We are also not looking to take action against people who have bought small parcels in an attempt to gain prim allowance or to simply expand their holdings or use their free tier.
We are specifically talking about the small number of Residents who are cutting land into many tiny pieces for profit, and often doing so across hundreds or in some cases thousands of micro parcels.
We expect this change to affect only a very small number of Residents. In fact, although many of you own micro parcels, and usually for perfectly good reasons, the top ten micro parcel owners hold well over 50% of all the 16m parcels on the Mainland between them.
Your feedback was that this should be a simple ruling, enforced fairly and consistently. So we will be talking to those involved and working with them to end this practice. Thankfully, because we can clearly see who is involved using the data we have, we will not need to use Abuse Reports.
In addition to the above, we will be looking further into whether we need some cap or limit on the way that micro parcels are sold. The very high prices at which these parcels are listed is something that many of you have complained about. But we won’t action such a control without more discussion with you first.
So to recap:
- Large scale subdividing of land for the purpose of selling will be considered a violation. This is effective immediately.
- This policy is not intended to prevent you from using your land creatively or to penalize everyone who owns small parcels.
- This will only affect a very small number of Residents, for everyone else the only impact will be an improved Mainland experience.
- Our governance staff will be contacting those landowners that already own large amounts of fragmented land (micro parcels) to discuss next steps.
This year we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day by continuing our annual tradition by awaking Isle of View, it’s sister island Isle of ViewToo and Hugsville for Teens (on Teen Second Life) back from their wintery sleep.
We’ve got hugging & kissing booths where you can share your affections with both the Lindens and Resident Volunteers who’ve shown so much L-O-V-E to our community! (Don’t forget to snap a photo of the occasion!)
We’ve also got lots of freebies and other Valentine’s Day goodies — including T-shirts, Linden bear collectibles located at the booths, special limited edition collectible Second Life candy hearts and more!
On Valentine’s Day, Saturday Feb. 14:
- Volunteers will be around all-day for Kiss-A-Volunteer on both Isle of View and Isle of ViewToo
- Lindens will be on Isle of View and Isle of ViewToo from 7-9 AM and 5-7 PM PST for Kiss-A-Linden
- And for Teen Residents, Lindens will be present on Hugsville for Teens from 3-5 PM PST
Never met a Linden before, or would like to thank a volunteer personally? Come on over and enjoy the lovin’! Who knows, you might even get lucky and run into Cupid Linden who has an all new look!
Related Valentine’s Day Surprises Coming Later in the Week!
Watch this blog later this week for exciting information about the 2009 Second Life Valentine’s Day golden heart contest. This weekend your inworld explorations may lead you to discover a special golden heart, which contains a prize that will tickle your heart!
Hi Everybody,
I wanted to introduce myself, Judy Wade, or Judy Linden inworld. I’m the new VP of Strategy and Emerging Business. Inworld I look a bit like a green sea fairy, which is what I always wanted to be when I was 6. Little did I know that I’d be able to carry out that wish in my professional life oh so many years later!
I’ve actually been working with Linden since last April, essentially on a borrowed basis from Kapor Enterprises, Mitch Kapor’s investment fund. I came on board to help with the CEO transition from Philip to Mark, and stayed on to help the company with strategic planning.
I started my career at Hambrecht & Quist as a semiconductor analyst, and then spent most of the rest of it at McKinsey & Company, working in New York, South Africa, and San Francisco, for a lot of different kinds of companies– from mines in Colombia to Internet start-ups in South Africa to technology behemoths here in the U.S. I’ve always tried to spend a chunk of my time working in the non-profit space, and have a passion for education and economic development, as well as for Cal specifically, where I spent my college years.
But I’ve never worked with or for a company with such passionate ‘customers’, such amazing opportunities, or one my dad would instantly fall in love with (as he did once he was given a tour around the rockets at the International Spaceflight Museum inworld – he’s a 77 year old wannabe physicist). I am continually amazed at the creativity of our Residents, be they consumers, enterprises, or educators, and our strategic roadmap has to focus on continuing to figure out new and better ways to enable the creativity of existing Residents and attract new people to participate in this incredible ecosystem.
So what do we mean by strategic roadmap? Sounds like a lot of consulting jargon I’m sure. At Linden it is the process we use to help us prioritize where we put our resources – to better serve existing Residents and to grow our user base in high potential markets. Some of it has resulted in big investments in what I would call the ‘must-dos’, those things we need to do no matter what – increasing technical stability, scalability and predictability, improving the overall user experience so we continually delight new and existing users, and enhancing core products such as land and e-commerce (thus the purchase of Xstreet SL and OnRez). Other parts of this roadmap are about where we invest to grow our user base, including how we can better serve and grow our international markets, how we can better serve inworld businesses and land owners, and what types of ‘killer applications’ will increase user hours and attract new users. While we conducted a formal inworld survey last May to get input on these issues, and will launch another one soon, if any of you have ideas on the above, please send in comments here.
Now that I have officially joined Linden in this new role, I will continue to work with Mark and the rest of Linden on our strategic direction, as well as being responsible specifically for potential strategic partnerships, international strategy and market growth, and education. Most importantly, I look forward to continuing to help Linden nurture and support the amazing Resident creativity and activity that is Second Life.
To all my Second Life friends,
After nearly seven years, I’ve decided to step down from my role at Linden Lab on February 15. I’m planning to take some time to explore a few different avenues as I decide where, when and what the next chapter of my life will entail.
Watching the growth of Second Life from the early beginnings in Lindenworld to the unbelievably diverse, creative, vibrant community that exists today has been the highlight of my career. The people who built the world of Second Life are fantastic pioneers and I’m so proud to have been part of the genesis of this amazing experience.
I’ll be in Second Life as Robin Linden for the next two weeks, and after that as my alt, Taliesin Protagonist.
See you in-world and in the forums!
We have set ourselves a goal to create the most enjoyable Mainland experience that we can. As part of this effort, a few months ago we took action to limit Ad Farming (especially adverts that are intended solely to drive an unreasonable price for the parcel it is on; think visual spam) on the Mainland. The effects of that program and the response from the community have been overwhelmingly positive. We’re continuing our mission to improve the Mainland and wanted to present a new issue, discuss some possible next steps and elicit direction from the community about the best way to move forward.
Let’s talk about land cutting and why we feel this is an issue that needs to be resolved.
Land cutting is the deliberate chopping up of parcels into smaller pieces in an attempt to sell those pieces collectively for more than the value of the original parcel. Whenever you see land that has a grid of 16m parcels for sale that are all clumped together, or in a checkerboard pattern, then what you’re seeing is an example of land cutting.
To be clear, we are not talking about creating one or two small parcels for legitimate reasons or as part of your normal land management, we are referring to the commercial cutting up of land, usually for profit and on a larger scale.
This practice has a serious impact on the Mainland. Fragmented land is usually unattractive to look at which can lead to lower land values in the region. Rarely, if ever, do the segmented areas get consolidated back into large parcels, and if they do it typically causes more harm than good to local landowners.
Please remember that this issue only applies to the Linden Mainland, it does not affect the private estates.
In early February we would like to announce a policy that makes the deliberate and extensive cutting of land a violation, similar to how we dealt with ad farming. The owning of cut land would not be a violation (unless you cut it in the first place), rather it is the act of cutting it that would be the violation.
Before we do this, I’d like to canvas opinion from the community.
Here’s a list of questions we’d love to get your opinion on in the forums.
- Do you agree in principle that land cutting needs to be a violation?
- Are there any legitimate reasons for land cutting (excluding profit) that we should consider when setting policy?
- With land that is already cut up, but still mostly owned by the resident that cut it, should we ask that the land be joined back together?
Please join me in the forums to provide your feedback.
Finally, it has also been suggested that parcels of 64m or smaller have their sale value clamped to be no higher than the current average price per meter. This would obviously involve development work so wouldn’t be something we could deliver quickly, but I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 by: M Linden
Greetings all!
As those of you who follow Linden Lab have probably noticed, I’ve been expanding the executive team since I joined in May, 2008. Each hire has been focused on major initiatives within the Lab designed to make Second Life more reliable, more relevant and more usable.
We are reworking the user experience end-to-end. We started with the website (we recently launched a new home page which is the start of a larger redesign), are hard at work on the viewer and will shortly start redesigning the first landing locations for new users. Last week, we made two ecommerce acquisitions that will be more fully integrated into the Second Life experience as well. We have a new land store in the works. We’re developing a behind-the-firewall product for enterprise customers.
Put all these things together, and you will see we are intent upon making dramatic improvements to the Second Life platform and experience. At the same time, the team has been hard at work on stability and scalability. Last year, we halved the user hours lost to downtime in the second half of the year. But, with growth ahead, we have more to do and the team is hard at work on continued platform and network improvements to enable us to break peak concurrency records on a regular basis as we did this past Sunday when we hit 82,653. [As you know from FJ’s blog posts, it was “all hands on deck” this past weekend to ensure we delivered a stable experience to Residents. I watched the action on our internal chat channel during peak sessions on Saturday and Sunday as we broke our peak concurrency record without a hitch.]
All in all, we have a long list of ambitious projects on our “to do” list for 2009. To help us move the platform, product and the user experience forward, we’ve added two senior executives to an already excellent executive team:
Brian Michon (Michon Linden) will take on the role of VP of Core Development. Brian will be responsible for the voice, database and simulator infrastructure of the Second Life platform, scaling it to support our growth and our product expansion. Brian has over twenty years of technology experience with Fortune 500 companies. He joins us from Intuit, where he managed the development and operation of Web-based services and made popular products like TurboTax and QuickBooks easier to use and manage, both for organizations and individual consumers.
Judy Wade (Judy Linden) has come on board as VP of Strategy and Emerging Business. She’ll be responsible for working with the executive team in refining Linden Lab’s overall business strategy, including seeking out key partnerships to expand the capabilities of Second Life in key geographic and vertical markets. She joins us from Kapor Enterprises, the investment company of Linden Lab board member Mitch Kapor. Prior to Kapor Enterprises, she was a partner at McKinsey and Company, where she worked with a variety Fortune 500 companies, helping them define and implement significant strategic and organizational transformations across multiple sectors.
Brian and Judy join a stellar crew of Lindens on our executive team, including three hires I made over the past six months (in reverse order of appointment):
- Howard Linden, SVP Customer Applications, responsible for improvements to the Second Life experience and the development of new products and features that enhance the usability and overall customer experience of Second Life
- T Linden, Chief Product Officer, responsible for driving the product strategy for Second Life
- FJ Linden, SVP Global Technology, responsible for processes, systems and tools to maximize the scalability of Second Life’s network architecture
I’m really pleased and honored that we’ve been able to bring on such extraordinary individuals. Each is a great talent in their own right and together form what I feel is a superb team. Our ability to bring on such great talent is a testament to the power and potential of Second Life and to the wondrous content and experiences you – our Residents – have created.
I can tell you that going into 2009, everyone at Linden Lab is focused on making Second Life an even more important, more useful, more joyful experience for the Residents and we’re pleased Brian and Judy are joining us. Thanks to all of you for making Second Life what it is today. I look forward to all that we will accomplish together.
If you’d like post some questions, thoughts or congratulations on the Forum, you can do so here. I won’t be able to read and respond until after 5PM Pacific, but I’ll jump in then to answer questions.
Cheers,
M Linden
Before we hit the weekend, I wanted to update you on our progress on Grid stability. We have taken a number of major steps this past week to improve database performance, which included offloading high impact queries to slave databases, and completing a master database conversion on Thursday. These actions, along with many other performance tweaks, have significantly improved query response times and reduced load on the central database.
While I am optimistic that these measures are helping to stabilize the Grid, I also want to be ready for any event contingency. We have mapped out a detailed response, escalation, and triage plan across the entire company. One of the major changes for this weekend will be the corrective steps we take if the central database becomes overloaded and unstable. Past procedures were to almost immediately block logins, to allow for load to subside and protect the database from a complete crash (which is what happened last Sunday). This is a rather drastic approach to protect the database, and we’ve now put some “throttling” mechanisms in place that would be our first step to reduce load vs. blocking logins. Throttling literally means turning features and functions off, and potentially degrading in world experience. One of these throttles would disable group queries to the central database, and would cause group features to be unavailable during that period of time. While degrading the resident experience is not a preferred step, we believe that it is far less punitive than the drastic measure of blocking logins. So if some in world features are temporarily disabled, you would still be able to log in, and enjoy other in world features that do not tax the central database.
We have an entire support team that is standing by to react to any potential problem, and will aggressively communicate with the residents, through multiple means (in world, web, blogs, etc) to keep you informed of any problems and progress to correct. While I am optimistic that none of these recovery steps will have to be taken, I think it is very important to continue proactively reaching out to the resident community on our plans.
I’ll be in the forums later to answer questions, and continue to thank you for the very constructive and helpful feedback.
Hello!
On January 10th we announced the inaugural
Education Support Faire. The goal of the Faire is to bring together educators, academics, and students to explore the support mechanisms available to Residents who use Second Life to enhance real world educational efforts. Upon announcement, we had a great response from the educational community.
The Faire opens this Sunday, January 25th at the region Supporte, and will last through Friday, January 30th. A full list of individuals and groups with displays and/or presentations at the Education Support Faire can be found here. Thank you to all participants and attendees for getting involved!
In addition to booths and presentations that will highlight the support services offered by Linden Lab to educators, there will be the opportunity to learn more about 46 Resident-run Support Organizations that help educators succeed in Second Life . Explore the ecosystem of support opportunities with people from organizations like the New Media Consortium, ISTE, Languagelab, and the Discovery Education Network. Learn the best way to teach your students how to use Second Life from organizations like New Citizens Incorporated, Info Island, and Global Kids. Find out how people dealing with disabilities can access Second Life for educational purposes from Virtual Ability Inc. and the SLHealthy Wiki. And be sure to stop by between 9am-1pm SLT on Monday, January 26 to speak with Lindens who can help you learn more about what Linden Lab offers to educators in terms of support and strategies for success!
If you are interested in Second Life educational discussions, events, and updates and are not yet joined to the Second Life Education mailing list, please check this link for details.
Finally, we were given good advice from participants who plan to document their travels at the Faire throughout the week; if you plan to do the same using Twitter or Flickr, ‘tag’ the content with “sledfair09.” Using this common tag will make the content easier to search and share in the future!
We are very excited to see this next week unfold and we want to again thank the educators, students, and academics for your inspiring ways of using Second Life as an educational and collaborative tool!
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