Continued from Part 1

September

• LL announced Premium Memberships were getting an overhaul & then offered them at a conditional discount for a weekend; support items were added to the SL search, and they also issued a “casting call” for a new ad campaign which eventually lead to a so-so video

• Both Imprudence and Phoenix celebrated birthdays while Metabolt and Radegast issued updates – the latter featuring its remarkable 3D scene renderer; Firestorm, Dolphin and Catznip all gained mesh rendering
• With mesh in general, changes to the official Viewer started to appear, I interviewed the remarkable Claudia222 Jewell and looked at using the Beta grid in mesh content creation while LL downgraded the JIRA for a parametric deformer

• A new V3-based Viewer arrived in the form of Exodus, which also incorporated combat functionality
• There was sad news from Kirsten’s Viewer, followed by a ray of hope and positive feedback from the team
• September saw quite a build-up for BURN2, with announcements on the invited artists, land rushes & the main schedule while I managed to preview the sims at the end of the month; at the same time, LEA announced their participants in the Full Sim Art Series
• LL caused upset and consternation with not one, but two code breakages in the month, as well as upsetting merchants – all through potentially avoidable errors
• There was a fascinating presentation from the US Army on their use of OpenSim for non-military research
• We saw a lot of people get their pants in a paddy over region losses in SL
• After a light-hearted round of bantering on Twitter involving a number of people, I became an early recipient of Rodvik’s Pwnie
• Away from SL The Blu was launched as a Beta, and I dived in; while InWorldz hosted a major homes and residences exhibition

October

• Rod Humble shared a few tidbits on the official blog, prompting me to reply with some thoughts of my own; little did we know then just how close changes were – or how radical
• OpenSim beat SL to the line with NPCs as they and mesh rendering together with other goodies “officially” launched with the release of server version 0.7.2
• Thanks to an almost throwaway comment by Qarl Fizz (nee: Linden, if I may use that term, otherwise known as Karl Stiefvater) on Hamlet Au’s blog, Maxwell Graf put together a project to try to resolve the issue of getting mesh clothing to fit avatars, rather than vice-versa. This resulted in $5400+ being raised in 20 days, allowing the project to formally commence, and I took time out to talk to Max about it
• Also on the mesh front, Land Impact became official, and the V1-based Singularity Viewer gained mesh rendering
• The inaugural installation in the LEA’s Full Sim Art series saw Second Life literally go to hell as Rebeca Bashly’s stunning Inferno opened, as did LEA’s The Path, the first of four three-month exhibitions; LEA also announced a 20-sim deal with LL; at the same time, the absolutely stunning Through the Lens of Dreams opened at Art Screamer; I visited Postcards Home at Originialia and also attended Shenchai’s Library’s Halloween presentations of The War of the Worlds

• Code relating to Direct Delivery started arriving on the Main Grid and Direct Messaging came to Web Profiles and we had some reasonably good economic metrics for Q3; things then went somewhat awry with another grid-wide megaprim removal
• The Lab somewhat surprisingly launched a private region sale which, while not stopping the weekly losses of sims from the grid, actually did much to reverse losses to date; unsurprisingly, those who had made a big song and dance about revenue losses in September failed to comment on this reversal of their doomometers…
• The Adult Gateway situation continued to boil when a notecard circulated in-world revealing the winning bid while LL kept quiet in meetings; meanwhile, and in contrast to predictions that LL were trying to “kill” Adult content, the Adult Forum “went public“, joining a number of other moves through the year to make Adult content more visible & accessible
• Following on from September, Lee Quick announced a Crowdfunder project to try to secure the survival of Kirsten’s Viewer
• The marvellous Login2Life had its premier at long last, followed by a week-long free streaming on German TV channel ZDF’s website
• It emerged Will Wright had joined LL’s Board sometime in late summer

November

• The new Linden Realms game unofficially launched for Premium members
• News came that built-in translation would continue to be available (but would not necessarily be free); the snapshot floater would receive a nice overhaul and two new avatar attachment points officially arrived
• The new UI itself rolled out as an official release and a number of JIRAs suggesting improvements popped up, although a spell checker is already on the cards; while Web Profiles moved more towards Twitter with a new Trending tab that suddenly appeared
• I took the plunge back into the world of Premium accounts and got myself a Linden Home and looked at Premium Sandboxes – although the re-tread of the conditional Premium discount offer had nothing to do with my decision
• I also discovered Able Clarity’s single-prim work and fell in love with it
• Linden Lab officially engaged with the parametric deformer project; some saw this as a cynical move, to me it seemed the common sense thing for the Lab to do
• The new Adult Gateway hubs came on-line, and I had a chat with Serjourn Daxter about them.
• On the art front, I attended Tyrehl Byk’s amazing Catharsis and his phenomenal Particle Phantasmagoria; UWA announced a Vote And Win competition for their art competitions
• Firestorm 3.2 came out, and I took a look at the Android Mobile Grid Client for SL
• Kimberley Salzer left LL, promoting a lot of commentary on LL’s communications and other aspects of the company’s management

December

• Saw Linden Realms open up to all, although not without a slight problem, and it included some new elements

• Migrating from Phoenix to Firestorm, applying Viewer preferences across multiple computers and using lighting projectors got the Pey treatment
• I celebrated five years in SL as Inara
• There was a push on a number of blogs (including mine) to try to get more to fund Kirsten’s Viewer; sadly, the target wasn’t met
• The next Premium membership gift from LL arrived in time for Christmas, and Rodvik offered another Xmas present with news that last names would be returning and Rodvik’s December blog post, although communications elsewhere raised concern again
• In the Viewer stakes, Phoenix gained mesh,  Niran’s Viewer reached Beta and then final release status; both Dolphin and Catznip went FUI, and Milkshake arrived
• Frank Ambrose (FJ Linden) departed the Lab, sadly
• Mesh gave rise to a couple of articles in December as well, one on the misplaced idea that LL is somehow malicious, the other on perceptions relating to the suitability of mesh and it’s take-up on the grid
• December 23rd marked the first year since Rod Humble was appointed LL’s CEO, and he marked the event with a blog post

Destinations

2011 also saw me resume my travels around SL, some of which I blogged about over the course of the year. On the high seas I visited Black Spot with its pirate theme, and the 3-sim wonder of the SS Galaxy. Architectural masterpieces such as Alpha and Omega Points, Al Andalus Alhambra  and Mont Saint-Michel were all on my itinerary, as were photographer’s dreams like The Looking Glass, World’s End Garden and !Lost World! I also relaxed in scenic sims such as Calas Galadhon, took time to visit living museums including the International Spaceflight Museum and historical sims like the Duché de Coeur as well as a number of SL historical sites.

A Personal Perspective

Despite code breakages, cock-ups on the Marketplace, the angst and drum-pounding over region losses (Rodvik, if you’re reading this – that’s your Moria Moment, not the new UI 😉 ) and the like, I personally feel that 2011 has for the most part been on the “good” side of the balance.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing, but Rodvik has done much during his tenure over the last 12 months that I believe has been to the good of SL as a whole, and that while there are going to bumps and bouncing to come, the future is actually brighter now than, say, 12 months ago. Certainly, the company continues to report strong revenues ($75 million), and are generating good profits.

Like it or loathe it, there is no denying mesh is something users have been demanding for years and has at last been delivered. While the initial uptake may well be slow, I’ve little doubt it will make its presence felt in 2012. We have new tools for creativity coming on-stream, and unlike some, I don’t have a problem with LL positioning SL as a platform upon which games can be developed. Let’s face it, games are a large part of the SL experience – from role-play through combat to board and table-top games. I also don’t I don’t begrudge LL rolling-out and promoting the tools via Linden Realms or with their statement that access to the tools will be gated – although I do caveat the latter in that we’ve yet to see what the gateway will be, but I doubt it will be as hideous or segregating as some are already predicting.

For 2012 we’ve been promised lots: more efforts on performance and stability, yet more tools, the arrival of Direct Delivery, and so on. However, one thing I really would like to see next year is a resumption of direct, informative and open communications between LL and its users. Communications this year seemed to dry up faster than a puddle of spilled water in the Atacama.

It’s going to be interesting to see exactly what LL are going to present to the world in terms of new products. Of course, the doomsayers have already used LL’s pending diversification as yet another hook on which to hang their end-of-the-world pronouncements. So, here’s my prediction for 2012: All predictions of SL’s forthcoming demise will be comprehensively proven wrong.

Again.

Happy 2012 to one and all!

Well, another year has passed, and with it a lot has happened throughout Second Life and the other bits of the metaverse I poke my nose into. Here the first in a two-part (yes, that much really happened!) highlights of the year as seen through this blog.

January

• We had speculation / expectation / concern about the formal “arrival” of Rod Humble, who would be officially taking up the post of CEO from the start of the year
• His first official post was a little muted – but unsurprisingly so given he’d barely sat down at his desk
• Linden Lab started moving user Profiles more effectively into the web environment – something that was bound to get people worked up as it developed
• Teen Grid closed down, something that over time proved to be a bit poorly thought-through and carrying potential for issues
• Esbee Linden announced she’d be leaving the Lab
• We had the first real hints that the native prim size would be increasing once mesh rolled-out “in the future”
• Blue Mars indicated a significant shift in focus
• The month ended, for me, with a remarkable report from the BBC on the medical use of virtual environments.

February

• Firestorm’s first public outing and an initial hint of what this new Viewer could be
• Kinect started being used with Second Life
• Megaprims mysteriously vanished from the Main grid, only for them to pop back again later. Someone push the wrong button?
• Rod Humble had his first formal meeting with residents
• Battlestar Galactica’s SL DMCA resolved
• Metaverse Exchange suddenly vanished and Apez was sold off
• Amanda Linden announced the new Community Communications Platform (driven by Lithium)
• Viewer 1x and Snowglobe officially vanished from the SL Viewer download page
• The RedZone situation started its ominous rise

March

• The new Community Communication Platform launched in what felt like a re-run of the JIVE blog / forum launch from a couple of years ago
• zFire Xue was banned from Second Life – although this wasn’t the end of the RedZone affair for some. Linden Lab then slipped up themselves over matters related to privacy
• The Basic mode of the Viewer was launched, as part of a strategy to fast-track elements of Viewer development and Jeff Petersen joined Linden Lab as Bagman Linden
• Hamlet made an interesting statement on Second Life which I didn’t personally agree with. This lead me to a raft of musing on collaboration and marketing.

April

• The Direct Delivery system beta cranked up, with little or no info on what it would be involved; merchants wanted to know more before signing-up, but were faced with having to sign-up in order to do so – a classic Catch-22.
• I wondered about the role Machinima could play in marketing
• In-world(-ish) we officially gained bouncing bewbs and bums
• The official SL sign-up pages received an overhaul, and lead to something of a significant increase in initial sign-up in the coming months, with an average of 16,000 per day. Speculation on how many of these were new users (as opposed to multiple alts) and new users who returned to SL ran through most of the rest of the year, as at the same time, it was noted that concurrency was dropping

• We also had updates to the Web Profiles, and during a period that was increasingly marked with little or no real direct communication from Linden Lab through their own channels (as opposed to Twitter, etc.), FJ Linden finally took the bull by the horns and gave a much-needed update on the subject of local payment methods

May

• I had some thoughts on Direct Delivery – or at least, preparing for it
• LEA kicked-off the Month of Machinima
• Linden Lab announced further capabilities for web profiles and promised further information on the roll-out of mesh capabilities on the Main grid
• The month also saw the start of some odd statistics begin to emerge about SL
• There were concerns over a Viewer security exploit risk and, later in the month, a possible privacy leak in Web Profiles
• Oz gave a stark but fair warning about V1 Viewers – although when it was given, I’m not sure all of us recognised the resourcefulness of some V!-based TPV developers. I certainly didn’t
• May also saw the end of a real-life era which prompted me to make a rare rl-related post together with something of a follow-up later.
• With Facebook booting SL users left and right, I took a look at 2ndHub, Second Friends and Moolto
• Towards the end of the month, LL gave visible response to on-going pleas for something to be done with Search in Viewer 2 with the launch of the Search Project Viewer.

June

• Brought news that mesh would be rolling into the Main grid starting in July, together with news that mesh uploads would be gated. This was somewhat diluted by yet more privacy concerns
• I decided to leave these worries behind by following up a May end return visit to InWorldz with one to Avination

• In the LL personnel stakes, Blondin, Amanda and Courtney left and Esbee returned
• On the Viewer front, Linden Lab released the Windlight Project Viewer, the Phoenix team released a Firestorm Beta, and Kirstenlee released a 3D version of Kirsten’s Viewer, all of which prompted me to think of what I’d like to see in my ideal Viewer – if only I’d known what the rest of the year would bring!
• Mid-June was taken up with the Second Life 8th Birthday celebrations, which I covered at considerable length and also mused upon. Pete Linden helped mightily in getting me in the right mood for things. Rodvik also did some musing of his own as well.

July

• SL Age Verification process was given an overdue overhaul, and while it may be ego on my part, I like to think I may have contributed a little to the decision for LL to do so
• I couldn’t help but pass comment on the fall and rise and fall of sims in SL, particularly as others were making a song and dance about losses. Sadly, the parody didn’t quite work, then I got a little philosophical about the idea of shared creativity
• We had more updates: Web Profiles, Firestorm, Rainbow Viewer and more info on the gating of mesh uploads, and towards the end of the month, news that the roll-out of mesh support on the Main grid was due to commence “in days“
• Tateru Nino also picked up on the fact that LL were looking for a Senior Software Engineer, Mobile – the first indication of things to come elsewhere
• Rod Humble talked to The Mark & prompted me to get philosophical on the matter of identity
• Privacy matters (of a slightly different kind) continued with the appearance of parcel privacy settings on the Beta grid
• With the imminent arrival of mesh, I pushed out the first couple of articles on mesh and the Viewer and mesh itself.
• Away from SL, InWorldz to a major step along the road to maturity, with a joint venture announcement, and SpotON3D launched its Viewer-in-a-browser plugin that would go on to generate a lot of controversy
• I rounded-out the month by looking at three popular text-based clients for the metaverse: Libretto, Metabolt and Radegast.

August 

• Phoenix 1.5.2.1185 came out
• LL sought more volunteers for the Mesh Live programme
• Jacek Antonelli announced she would be stepping down as project lead for Kokua / Imprudence
• Fredrik Bjork, known to all as Fredrik Linden,who worked on the social aspects of web profiles departed LL
• We saw closure of a sort with RedZone
• LL did themselves no favours where Meeroos are concerned and more bad news came later in the month when  Grendel’s Children announced they were reducing their sim holdings by 50% as a direct consequence of CS issues
• No a brighter note, the new Viewer log-in screen launched, which, while lacking a couple of things, proved to be a good step forward
• The SpotON3D plug-in situation worsened as plans to patent were announced – with people losing patience particularly after a meeting in SL went nowhere
• Avination confirmed were in discussions with Havok, the providers of SL’s physics engine
• SLCC-2011 kicked-of and I got to work trying to cover as much of the event as I could, with a slew of reports and summaries. Rodvik’s presentation in particular pushed up interest levels with comments on what would be coming down the road SL-wise, and the fact that LL would be launching new products in the not-too-distant future
• I came away from SLCC with a renewed sense of excitement – and something of a renewal of faith in LL
• LEA announced the Full Sim Art Series
• Mesh rolled out across the rest of the main grid with LL appearing to offer a related region setting – only they weren’t; and I celebrated with a few of my favourite mesh videos without forgetting the promise of prims before giving “Viewer 3” a quick road-test
• V1 proved it was far from dead with both Astra Viewer and the Cool VL Viewer getting mesh rendering support
• Controversy beckoned with the Adult Gateway RFP
• The month closed with Simon Sinek getting me thinking  before trying my hand with SLiteChat

The first eight months of the year were pretty amazing for me where this blog is concerned. At the start of the year, month page views were around 1,250 a month. By July this had risen to over 6,000. That so many people were prepared to read my ramblings was genuinely humbling. Little did I know what was to come!

Continued in Part 2