Eagle-eyed (or given his avatar, should that be owl-eyed? :)) Daniel Voyager spotted a pointer that a degree of Facebook support is coming to the SL viewer for those who already have a Facebook account.
The new capability is called Second Life Share, which is being aimed at the viewer 3.6.6 code base (although it isn#t a part of the latest Materials RC viewer, 3.6.6.280797 released on September 11th).
When it does appear, the capability will be opt-in, an important point to remember. Nothing happens vis-a-vis the viewer and Facebook unless you want it to happen (and you have a Facebook account). It will apparently consist of a new viewer floater, itself comprising a number of tabs:
- Account Tab: will allow those with a Facebook account to connect their SL account to it for the purposes of posting from SL to Facebook
- Check-in tab: will allow someone to share the SLurl for their current in-world location via Facebook, together with a short comment on the location and a map image if they wish
- Status tab: will allow someone to share a text comment with friends via Facebook
- Photo tab: will allow someone to upload a snapshot to their FB account. As with the current Profile Feed option in the snapshot floater, the resolution of the image can be selected at upload (minimum 800×600), and an optional SLurl / comment can be included with the image.
Details on the capabilities are outlined in Viewerhelp on the wiki, which also references a new Knowledge Base entry, Second Life Share. Unfortunately, clicking the link generates a 404 error, and a search of the Knowledge Base at the time of writing did not yield and further relevant results. I’ve included the link here in anticipation of the issue being fixed by LL.
Whether the title of the new functionality is “Second Life Share” is indicative that it may be extended to include other social media options remains to be seen. It will also be interesting to see what it might mean for the future of the snapshot floater – if anything at all – if this is the case.
I’ll follow-up on this post once the new functionality is visible.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
This is rather good news; my partner & I use to upload ‘quick snapshots’ to FB, where we have the largest following from our friends (SL profile and Flickr being far less visited), but the fact that we have to take several steps for that purpose makes it cumbersome, at least when we’d like to post the capture ‘as is’, without any post-processing.
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Given Facebook’s totally NSFW love affair with the NSA, I think it’d be a good idea to provide direct NSA integration, perhaps even with an option to send virtual greetings to its “employees” (who should really go get a job).
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I wonder if this is why SLfeed is suddenly lacking sharing features?
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May well be. Or it may simply be that the Twitter integration on the the SL feeds was removed as it wasn’t really being used.
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As I had written before, the feeds are terribly lacking in content sharing capabilities, and I have some questions regarding the integration choices.
Before I talk about integration choices, I have some questions/observations regarding content sharing.
How about sending your friends that are in-world IMs even if you are not in-world? That would be a great idea for those cases when you simply can’t use an SL client.
You cannot unfollow a thread. This means you end up getting notifications about new replies ad nauseam, even long after you’re no longer interested in it. The only way to “unfollow” a thread is to delete your comment(s) on it, which is a potential drama generator. This “feature” has also (unsurprisingly) been exploited by feed trolls.
The character limits for the initial posts and the subsequent comments are way too low. In fact, the same goes for the descriptions of the uploaded snapshots. Here, Facebook offers much better potential for commenting, describing and narrating than the SL feeds do.
Notifications are dumb. When you receive a notification about a comment or a “love” on a post or comment you made or on an image you uploaded and go directly (i.e. without looking first at the notification and then clicking on the link accompanying the notification) to the page where the comment or image is, there’s nothing to tell the system that the notification should expire.
There’s no way for users to set the “maturity rating” of their profiles and content. Users should have the ability to determine whether their profiles are “G-rated” (“General”, i.e. suitable even for kids), “Mature” or “Adult” – and the same goes for their content (posts, uploaded images, videos etc). Instead, we have this “keep your material ‘General’” rule, which is pointless, is not really obeyed by anyone and is not exactly enforced.
There’s no capability to upload images from your local storage (hard discs, USB sticks, whatever). This practically means that all the hard work you might have done to enhance your raw in-world snapshots is missed. Oh, and the upload facility isn’t exactly reliable.
Embedding a video (from Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion etc) is impossible. This is a capability offered by practically all other social networks, but, oddly enough, is absent from SL’s feeds.
Finally, you cannot embed an image or a video in a comment. Another feature that is sadly missing from SL’s feeds.
Then, let’s talk about integration. The feeds aren’t even integrated with SL’s own web services! Why isn’t the dashboard integrated in the feeds? Seriously, when I’m not in-world and am using the feeds instead, to see if a friend of mine is online, I have to go to their profile or go to the dashboard? Isn’t that a little W. Heath Robinson (Rube Goldberg for US readers)? And also, did they get the synchronisation between friends list (feed’s friend list and in-world friend list) right?
Also, I find it odd that they chose to integrate the viewer with Facebook. OK yeah, Facebook is the de facto (for how long, remains to be seen) standard in social networks, but its reputation is now tarnished due to the whole NSA debacle and also its policy is 1500% against everything SL and similar virtual worlds stand for. Yes, I’m talking about the “real names only” policy, which many people (including me) have discussed numerous times. Why integrate the viewer with Facebook and not with Plurk, which is a lot more SL-friendly? Or Twitter? Or Diaspora?
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Ugh… Good article, horrible news for me. Thank god it’s op-in.
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Same thoughts!Being a beta tester for facebook circa 2006 up to 2008 for some strange reason i never used the account afterwords, ll!
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As the Labs flirtations with Facebook go, such as the competitions for which you needed a Facebook account to be able to enter, this is relatively benign. But I wouldn’t use it.
Also, while this doesn’t have the implications for security that being able to view web content with the SL Viewer does, it does have the same general problem of linking sites outside the control of LL with an SL account.
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Still, its nice to see a new feature even if some will not use it, i just hope that LL will only make it optional,, to many freaking tabs and bottons already on some that should be the less intrusive and clean, interface!
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You mean NSA support coming to the SL viewer
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This is another problem LL and any Usa company must know, USA services are not trusted anymore on cyberspace and as Sl is world wild product, with their user base spread over, with most its users being Brazilians or Europeans, the Nsa jokes are not jokes but real fear!
And knowing hoe many use Sl to fill their sexual fantasies, will this move be a warmless one?
I would care les about the Tos and much more about Rod Humble stating Sl is all about privacy and now this!
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This could be a really good thing for SL. Long long overdue.
As for the NSA comments .. really .. your SL would be of any interest to a NATIONAL SECURITY agency.
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Of course SL’s of interest to the NSA; where else are they going to go for their virtual fishing / boating / flying breaks?!
As to it being good for SL – well it might, especially for those who don’t have issues in linking RL / VW identities (and there are a good many), who can thus act as a conduit to attract others to the platform. Will be interesting to see how things develop, and whether other social media will also pop-up as options for people to use in the future.
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Never underestimate how weird an NSA agent can be. Or how paranoid. They can “detect” jihadist conspiracies in a toddler’s used diapers.
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Facebook have a pretty strict policy on using your real name and identity (many people who have Facebook accounts for their Second Life avatar are periodically culled when Facebook find out, and are living on borrowed time if they have not yet been).
So from this, we can only conclude that Linden Lab are once again eroding the whole immersionism that the name “*Second* Life” originally implied and pushing Residents yet further towards “Extended First Life”.
As Voaxeyr says, I’m glad it’s optional.
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Where is there any “pushing” of anything? Sorry, but the very idea is a nonsense in this regard.
Unless and until LL proactively insist SL users must have the likes of a FB account, then nothing is being eroded. Rather, those that have no objection about linking their VW and RL identities are being given greater freedom of choice to do so if they wish.
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Ok, perhaps ‘pushing’ was the wrong word. ‘Encouraging’, perhaps? ‘Facilitating’? ‘Endorsing’? I don’t know.
I just feel like there is a growing expectation that you shouldn’t separate you first and second lives, that’s all.
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My experience is that Facebook doesn’t find out about your not-exactly-real-sounding name on it unless you’ve been the subject of an “abuse report party”. Here in Greece, neonazis (who, ironically enough, rarely use real or real-sounding names for their profiles) have gamed the system in such a way many times.
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Nothing of this has to do with this new functionality but the fact that SLfeed was poorly done, worse implemented and it looks like, dropped!
And im glad that there are more options now and i don’t fear the ones that come thinking that Sl is a facebook fast virtual sex complement! I love quickies!
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You give me a stroke, this the most terrible news you can read.
you dont want that facebook disaster. it need to keep far from SL.
slFeed is already sort of monster to work with, and now
the split people only more with facecrap.
can someone stop this terrible idea ? asap.
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It’s optional. If / when the capability arrives, You. Don’t. Have. To. Use. It.
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Long ago deleted my Facebook account due to invidious extensions of their use of your data to third parties. You are the commodity remember, not the client.
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Yes, its optional. but one way or otehrway info about you end on facebook pages. but thats now the same. only think its getting quicker done if its direct linkable.
NSA is a real threat yes.
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I do NOT want anything from SL to show-up in the “open to the world” Facebook.
Facebook wants to be everything for everyone, and contain every bit of your private life, for the entire world to see. My usage of Facebook is very limited, and will remain totally separate from both my “Real Life” and my “Second Life”.
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I share Trinity’s view that this is a good thing, or should be, and is long overdue. I will extend all the comments by saying that if they have this deep of integration terms of sharing I will be surprised if we do not see the ability to sign in with Facebook.
My hope for this tool is that they make it extensible. Facebook is worthless to me, Google+ would be awesome. If someone could modify the api used so that other services could used that would be awesome.
As for the NSA, Facebook integration has so very little to do with it, they can already watch what happens on parts of SL if they want. anyone from a country other than the US, at this point with what we do know, it is likely that the US is just one that got caught.
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