Linden Lab launches Avaline

The Second Life Avaline service beta has come to a close, and the product is now launching properly. Avaline allows callers on a land-line or mobile to call a logged-in user within Second Life.

Connecting to your user of choice is as straightforward as calling into a teleconferencing system. You call an access-number, and then tap in the code for the user you want to speak to. They're notified of the call, and shown the caller's number and then may accept and be placed in a voice session with the caller. If the called user is not online, the call goes to voice-mail (available as an additional service).

Avaline subscriptions are paid in Linden Dollars, L$1500 (roughly US$5.60) per month if paid monthly, or L$1200/month (approximately US$4.50) is paid annually. Subscribers are then issued their access number that they can advertise for would-be callers.

Presently voice-mail is tipped to be L$500/mo (roughly $US1.80), but is currently being offered free for one year for those who sign up to the service by August 31, along with the first month of Avaline service free, and an in-world limited-edition collectible Linden Bear for the first 500 subscribers.

Avaline is currently only available as a local call in 10 countries, and then usually only for selected cities at present, but this is likely to expand.

We're not sure if Avaline is supposed to be pronounced av-a-LINE (as a compound term) or av-a-LEEN (as in the American name). Most users we've spoken to seem to assume the latter pronunciation.

So far, we've seen two people with Avaline numbers (admittedly, one of them was a Linden Lab executive), but we don't think we're really the folks the service is targeted at. Actually, we're still uncertain as to just who the target market is. How about you – are you planning to subscribe to the service?

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.