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