Tateru Nino
Articles by Tateru Nino
Second Life's Nascera now nascent
Nascera, which we know sounds uncomfortably like nasal and viscera jammed together in some rather bizarre agglomeration, is the name for the new continent which is hosting Linden Lab's experimental house and land incentives for premium Second Life users. The beta buildout is done and you can go see the results for yourself. Mind you, if you already have rented or owned land in Second Life, the Nascera offering really isn't for you. You, like us, really aren't the target demographic. Nor is anyone we showed it to, which is probably why they all made those nasty faces when we did.
Property, Second Life, backups and you
When we're logged into Second Life and discussing various products, items, goods and clothing, we'll often refer to owning something that we've purchased. It's a very natural sort of metaphor. We're not, however, under any actual illusion that we own the items in question. We read the Second Life Terms of Service when we signed up, and we're well-aware that we haven't been given ownership of the virtual goods we paid for, nor has any purchase taken place in the legal sense.
Long-delayed Second Life script-limitations back in the public eye
It's now just over one year since Linden Lab announced that they would be implementing a some manner of script limitations over and above those which are presently a part of Second Life as it stands today. It is just over eleven months since those limitations were rescheduled to go ahead in Q3 2009 – which time has definitely long passed. Nevertheless, the script limitations system is alive and well and coming up, apparently in 2010. This constitutes good news, very good news and not so good news (in roughly that order).
Why Second Life inventory transactions fail
Peter Stindberg of Babel Translations has put together an exhaustive accounting of how Second Life inventory items can be transferred between users and what the nominal success-rates of those transfers actually are. Some kinds of transfers will always succeed (except in unusual circumstances – which admittedly do happen). Others will always fail. Some ride the grey zone in-between. If scripted or non-scripted inventory transfers matter to you (and if you're a content-creator, a scripter or distributor, they probably do), it's definitely worth your time to check out Stindberg's very cogent analysis, which includes tips on how to mitigate non-delivery issues. 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.
Undead Second Life instant messages, not so instant actually
Within the last 24 hours, we've been getting widespread reports of Second Life instant-messages suddenly being delivered weeks after they were originally sent. Initially it seemed to be a single burst of such messages that were unclogged from some creaking subsystem and delivered in a bunch, but it seems not to be the case. We've experienced this ourselves over the last day now, with messages suddenly popping out of the Second Life grid, as if they were fresh and new. Initially it seemed that it was messages that had gone undelivered in the last five weeks, but we've just seen two that were originally sent, and apparently remained undelivered for over six months.
Is Linden Lab wasting its time on the existing Second Life population?
Going over the Second Life metrics that are available to us, it seems clear that this virtual environment has reached one of its most significant growth plateaus, and one that it doesn't seem to be able to push past. User-to-user transactions, active users, weekly/monthly logins, all remain very flat. All the while, more than 9,000 new user accounts are created on the service every day, though the retention rates appear to be extraordinarily low, making up only for what appears to be an almost negligible attrition in the medium- and long-term user-base.
Linden Lab to test new house/land incentive for premium Second Life accounts
While the growth of Second Life new-user registrations remains steady, as do active users, the number of premium accounts in Linden Lab's virtual world had entered into an accelerating decline, last time we had any data available to us. This is hardly surprising, as tweaks to the land-centric Second Life economy over time had largely eliminated the need for many users to have a premium-account. The Lab is announcing the creation of a new continent (name and location not known at present), which will contain a number of unfurnished homes on 512sqm parcels of restricted-use land that do not share a border with the parcels of other users.
Imprudence 1.2 viewer for Second Life
The Imprudence project has released version 1.2 of their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is one of our favorite after-market Second Life viewers, and after some months in beta (and a couple of false starts), the latest release version of this viewer is available. There are some user-interface changes this time around, the ability to backup and restore your own intellectual property, an improved radar/minimap, improved third-party simulator support, RLVa support, optional vertical IM tabs, double-click go-to and teleports, more world map data and a host of other tweaks and features.
Second annual Linden Prize announced
Linden Lab has announced that applications have opened for the 2010 Linden Prize, and submissions will be taken until 15 January 2010. The Linden Prize is awarded for Second Life projects that improve the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world. This annual award is intended to align with Linden Lab's company mission, which is to connect all people to an online world that advances the human condition. There are a couple of changes this year, one being that the $10,000USD prize will be definitely be paid in US Dollars, not in Linden Dollars, "with the aim of giving the winner some more options in the rough real world economy" according to a spokesperson for Linden Lab.
Linden Lab to raise Xstreet fees, loses vendors, products
This week, Linden Lab announced that it was going to start charging listing fees and minimum commissions on its Second Life Xstreet Web-shopping adjunct in the near future. Within hours, vendors took down thousands of products, many abandoning the service entirely in favor of alternative services. It's unclear just how many vendors have abandoned the Xstreet SL system, but it apparently was enough to temporarily overload the Web-sites of third-party sites such as Slapt.
Linden Lab to disband moribund mentor group
Yesterday at the morning Second Life mentors' meeting, Linden Lab staff announced that Linden Lab's sponsored mentor group, which had been functionally closed (in all but name) for approximately a year now, would finally be disbanded in practice. The move doesn't really come as much of a surprise to observers of the Lab's sponsored volunteer programs over the last eighteen months. Almost immediately more ex-mentor Second Life social groups than we could comfortably count sprang up, as people prepared to maintain their network of contacts without the overarching group umbrella. While there was surprisingly little actual yelling, some members of the organization feel the blame lies squarely at the feet of Linden Lab's CEO Mark Kingdon, though there's not a lot of apparent evidence to justify that.
Linden Lab partners with Dragonfish for non-US payments processing
Virtual environment operator Linden Lab has partnered up with 888 Holdings plc's Gisland/Dragonfish division to provide payment processing for non-US Second Life customers. A spokesperson for Linden Lab told us, "We're working together with Gisland on a cashier interface and other tools that will give Residents more payment options and make it easier for Residents to pay in a wider range of native currencies than they can now. Gisland will also help Linden Lab implement appropriate anti-fraud measures as we expand these payment options. In addition, Gisland will assist Residents directly with payment-related issues, including failed transactions." That last part is fascinating, as that would be something of a first insofar as Second Life payments processing goes, as is the tantalizing hint of expanded payment options – something that is of considerable interest to users outside North America.
Telstra BigPond to shutter Second Life presence in December
Telstra BigPond (a major Australian Internet Service Provider, with an approximate 50% market-share) has had one of the most popular corporate presences in the virtual environment of Second Life, even including a customer service center staffed eleven hours per day, five days per week. In a nation with expensively metered bandwidth, BigPond even refrained from metering a portion of the data sent to its customers from Second Life. All of this for what has basically been an experiment. That, however, appears to be coming to a close. BigPond intends to shutter its Second Life presence on 16 December.
Second Life Global Provider Program troubled?
Back in 2007, Linden Lab formed regional partnerships with companies to operate localized portals for the Second Life platform, called the Global Provider Program (also sometimes referred to by the Lab as the Gold Provider Program, though distinct from the Gold Solution Provider Program). Linden Lab identified three non-English regional markets that it felt were priorities for support and localization: Brazil, Korea and Germany. The first of the providers was Kaizen Games in Brazil, followed by Barunson Games (then called T-Entertainment) in Korea in October 2007. Bokowsky and Laymann might constitute a third partner in this program for Germany, but the the actual arrangement there isn't very clear.
Second Life's classless server scheme
Thus far, one of the key factors in Second Life performance has been the class of server hardware hosting the simulator. There are plenty of other non-server items that might contribute to perceived poor performance, of course, but server class versus server utilization is a pretty consistent factor. Traditionally, each class of server has a numerical designation and represents a certain basic equipment and operating system specification. In the past, some estate owners have opted not to upgrade to a newer class of hardware in order to avoid higher monthly fees. Now the server class system is coming to an end.
Leaked test feedback offers insights into Linden Lab design processes
Back, just before Halloween, a Linden Lab staffer accidentally sent an email intended for internal circulation to a mailing list containing quite a number of Second Life users. We were sent a copy a few minutes later, and the email was widely circulated among developers of third-party Second Life viewers by Halloween. What caught people's eye about the email was how harsh it was when it came to describing aspects of the upcoming Second Life Viewer 2.0 user-interface (the key feature of that software). It certainly didn't pull many punches leveling criticism at various design choices that were obviously in evidence in the evaluation version that had come up for testing. And for just that reason we are, after a little thought, rather heartened by it.
Second Life plateaus during Q3 2009
Linden Lab has released the figures for the third-quarter performance of Second Life. If you want the short version, it wasn't a growth quarter. Q3 2009 figures were not really very distinguishable from Q2 2009. There's actually nothing wrong with that. Growth plateaus are occasional and inevitable and generally represent a good opportunity for engineering and support to catch up a little with the service.
Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon: Part three - Open Source
Lastly, we turned our attention to open-source, third-party viewers, third-party simulators, and the original plan to open up the code to all parts of the platform. Massively: Back in 2005, Linden Lab announced their intent to open-source the viewer and a chunk of the server-side of Second Life. Now the viewer part has happened, but aside from various infrastructure technologies that were released, built in conjunction with IBM, there's been no sign of the rest. Is that still on the active agenda? We don't currently have any plans to open source the server code. We don't currently have any plans to open source the server code. I will say that I am a big proponent of an open development paradigm where we expose APIs and let the community create amazing new functionality. Apple has done this exceedingly well as has Facebook. Massively: Third-party viewers: Boon or bane? Why? Third-party viewers are a boon with a 'but...' A big 'but!' Having talented developers out there creating and integrating new functionality that Residents want and enjoy – that's a boon, for sure. The caveat, though, is that "bad actors" present challenges for us, since some can do things like enabling phishing or copying content without the rights to do so. Cyn recently blogged on what we're doing to address what is a real concern for the community. We're developing new guidelines and policies that will outline the standards third-party viewers must meet to connect to Second Life, as well as tools to help developers and the community comply with these guidelines, including a 'viewer registry.' Massively: Opensim's been gaining considerable traction in various quarters lately. Any thoughts? I see the virtual world through the lens of abundance not scarcity. The virtual world is going to be enormous and pervasive. There will be space for many players with very different propositions. In fact, virtual worlds won't achieve their full potential unless there are many players developing unique offerings for a wide array of users. My hope is that the major components of the virtual world will be inter-operable and we started to work on that last year with IBM. By necessity, we shifted our focus to more urgent projects this year, but hope to pick it up again in 2010. And there you have it. Certainly the reversal on opening the server code will come as a disappointment to some but now, just over four years after the original announcement, it can't really come as much of a surprise that it is not going ahead as originally envisaged. Will an abundance of platforms really be the rising tide that lifts all boats, or will it fracture a market that hasn't yet grown into a genuine abundance itself? << Page 2 of 3 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.
Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon
Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab's CEO, has been a bit of a mystery figure since his appointment about a year and a half ago. While he has not been uncommunicative, it's been hard to get a very good sense of the man at the helm of Linden Lab, his passions, interests and direction. We were very pleased, therefore, when he took the time to sit down with us and answer a whole grab-bag of questions, about himself, about Linden Lab, and – of course – about Second Life. Bear with us, because we've got a lot of ground to cover.
Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon: Part two - Second Life
Having learned something about the man driving Linden Lab and Second Life, we turned our attention to something dear to us all. Second Life, itself. Massively: Do you see Second Life as a virtual world, a virtual environment, or as a platform? Or more than one of these? Geography has meaning in Second Life All of the above. Second Life is a virtual world in that it is a destination to which people are drawn. Geography has meaning in Second Life. At its core, though, Second Life is a platform for expression, communication, creativity and commerce. The richness of Second Life comes from the enormous creativity of the Residents. Our job is to provide the platform and tools that make this magic happen. Massively: Here's the question of the ages: What are the Lab's goals for Second Life? We all assume that Linden Lab has clear goals for Second Life (actually, I think it's mostly an article of faith), but nobody seems to really be aware of where it's going, and many seem to worry that that's because they won't like the answer. Indeed, most addresses to the users lately usually include a "tough decisions... hard road... you're not going to like it" sort of disclaimer. Our mission remains what it's always been: to connect people in a digital world and in doing so, improve the human condition. For that to happen, Second Life needs to extend and enhance people's everyday lives. I know that sounds grandiose and mundane at the same time. But isn't that life? Heavenly and corporeal all at the same time? It has to be ... Internet easy. Intuitive. Second nature. In the nearer term, we have more 'concrete' goals that move us towards our ideal. First off, we need to make Second Life much more accessible to a wide audience. It has to be a delightful experience. Internet easy. Intuitive. Second nature. It also has to be a rational experience with great tools for finding and discovering the people, places and things that matter to you. And, it needs more social tools so you can connect easily with others. I think the "you might not like the changes ahead" meme is in reaction to the fact that the Second Life community is wonderfully, heroically, fantastically engaged and extraordinarily vocal. I'll never forget the self-immolating avatars during the Open Space re-pricing a year ago! By design, Viewer 2.0 isn't revolutionary. It is a clean-up of existing functionality (with a few new things added to the mix). But, it will spark a lot of debate. Some people love their pie menus! Even the smallest changes can create a stir while major changes like our Adult Only project can be explosive. Yet, many of these changes are changes that will enable Second Life to appeal to a wider audience, to grow, to prosper, and to achieve our mission. We're not trying to take creativity and expression out of Second Life. We are merely trying to create an experience that Residents can navigate comfortably. With ease. On their own terms. Massively: As a platform and as an economy it's hard to plan endeavors in Second Life without a roadmap of what's coming up and approximately when. So far, the only thing on that roadmap is Viewer 2009/SL2.0. The rest more or less consists of bite-sized vision-statements. Are there any plans for a roadmap(s) that users, developers, educators and businesses can use to plan? Yes. In the past, the company didn't publish roadmaps or issue a long-term plan. In fact, the work approach was more "wisdom of the crowds," more self-directed, more spontaneous. That approach created the staggering platform we know and love. As we move to the next level of growth, and we reach 400 then 500 people in the Lab, our approach to how we work will necessarily evolve. In fact it is evolving now. We have roadmaps and our work – for the most part – fits into a cogent long-term plan. We are starting to communicate our roadmaps more broadly, now, as well. For example, a few months ago, we held the first Solution Providers conference in-world, and shared a 'sneak peak' of upcoming platform improvements that relate to Enterprise. You'll see more sharing as we become more comfortable planning and more confident in our ability to deliver on our plans in a timely manner. Massively: The "first hour" of Second Life is probably pretty difficult, but the next five hours tends to make that first hour look kind of rosy by comparison. Whether we're talking about one hour or six hours, are there any plans or ideas you'd like to share about improving that period? The first five hours of Second Life are very difficult Indeed, the first five hours of Second Life are very difficult – worse than it is for the participants in Survivor! Our goal is to collapse that five hours of trial and error into a five minute experience that gives new Residents the life skills they need to explore and enjoy Second Life. Beyond making the viewer more intuitive, if we can quickly connect new Residents with new friends and new experiences, then the rest will take care of itself. In early 2010, we are launching a new entry path for the enterprise segment Over time, we'll develop unique entry paths for different types of Residents. If you are interested in role-play, there will be an entry path for you...if you are interested in starting a business there will be an entry path for you. In early 2010, we are launching a new entry path for the enterprise segment -- enterprise-friendly avatars, an orientation experience that's tailored for business, an in-world expo of the elements of Second Life that are essential for business...and so on. Massively: What would top your wishlist for Second Life (other than, say, a billion active users or fair treatment by the media)? What do you wish Second Life had that you think it could or should have, but doesn't yet? A super lightweight experience to complement the immersive one that let's people dip their toes in and see what it's like to attend a concert, go to a meeting, chat with a friend, etc. without going through the full registration, download, and orientation process. A Web 2.0 oriented data model with an array of APIs that expose data streams so that developers can create more apps for Residents to find, discover, connect, transact, share, create and build. Massively: The UI-revamp's a huge undertaking with at least as much potential to distress as it has to delight. Everything and everyone that refers to the UI is going to have to change their thinking – and in many cases, courses, tutorials, documentation and all sorts. Obviously that sort of change brings along both extensive risks and costs. What does the new UI bring to the table? What makes it a winner? All we know at this stage is that you and Tom have told us that it doesn't look anything like the builds we saw (shame, actually – I thought that it was proceeding on some quite promising lines) or that were shown at SLCC. First, to clarify: Viewer 2.0 is not going to look exactly like the pictures Tom showed at SLCC because it didn't have the polish then that it has now. But it is progressing in the direction you saw at SLCC. Viewer 2.0 is going to be significantly different, but it's not going to be a game-changer right out of the gate. I don't want to deflate hopes, but I want your readers to have realistic expectations. This is a very, very complex piece of software, and its evolution will be an iterative process. That said, the new viewer is a big step in the direction required to bring Second Life to a broader audience. Beyond the extensive clean-up and simplification of menus and floaters, there are three things I love about Viewer 2.0. One is the browser-like location bar where you enter a region name (e.g., p squared), hit return and voila you are magically teleported there. It is really slick and every time I use it I smile. Using a simple web metaphor that everyone understands makes Second Life more natural, more intuitive, more accessible. Almost Second nature. In addition, I really like the sliding side panel. Experience design is about big things, yes, but is really about many, many small things done extremely well. By consolidating things there that would normally appear in floating panels, we've de-cluttered the world-view. Finally, I really like the look and feel. It's more contemporary with a finer level of finish than we have today and the sound effects will be positively elegant. Experience design is about big things, yes, but is really about many, many small things done extremely well. We'll get there! Massively: We're noticing that Viewer 2.0 seems to be the preferable name to Viewer 2009. Does that indicate a change in the schedule? Astute question! We all figured it was bad luck to name the viewer after a date, so we are calling it Viewer 2.0. It feels right because it is a 2.0 experience. I use it every day and although there is much still to be done, I love it! [Although we note that that didn't bring us closer to knowing if the original Q4 target was still on the cards] << Page 1 of 3Page 3 of 3 >>