Day: March 13, 2025

SL22B: theme, exhibitor applications now open

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

June 2025 will mark the 22nd anniversary of Second Life opening to public access – and as we’ve all come to expect, the month will mark the start of several weeks of events and celebrations running into July under the umbrella of the Second Life Birthday (SLB) otherwise know for this year as SL22B.

On Thursday, March 13th, Linden Lab officially announced the dates and theme of this year’s festivities,  and opened applications for those wishing to create and host an exhibition within the SL22B event regions.

Dates and Theme

This year the SLB festivities will open on Friday, June 20th, 2025 and will run through until Sunday, July 20th. The theme for 2025 is Myths and Legends, which the Lab describes thus:

It reflects the Second Life experience because we are all the heroes of our own adventures! The emphasis is on the characters and stories people create in SL both personally and within their communities. 

However, as has been the case over the last several birthday events, exhibitions are not confined to the theme itself, with the Lab additionally noting:

Share your Second Life passions with us. Your interests. Your communities. Your world! Every year we celebrate because of you, the amazing and creative Residents who have chosen to call Second Life home. What has drawn you into this world, and what keeps you here? These annual festivities are an opportunity to show us what fuels your Second Life. Let’s celebrate that together!
The SL21B Stonehold Stage, June 2024

Exhibitor Applications

The announcement also notes that applications for those wishing to host exhibits within the Birthday regions are now open. Those wishing to apply should note the following high-level requirements, and refer to the application form for a full set of exhibitor rules.

  • Applications will be accepted through until Monday, May 19th, 2025.
  • There will be both General and Adult rated regions available to exhibitors.
  • Exhibits do not have to be in keeping with the Myths and Legends theme, as noted above.
  • Exhibits must not be commercial in nature (e.g. no selling items, no tip jars or the solicitation of donations – this includes tip jars, etc., associated with any performers appearing within an exhibitor space), but gifts may be provided to SL22B visitors.
  • Exhibits to be presented within the General rated regions of the event must be in accordance with the General Maturity Rating (e.g. no nudity –artistic or otherwise–, no Adult animations and/or gestures, furniture, etc, must not contain Adult poses / animations, etc.).
  • Adult exhibitions and content are restricted to the separate Adult rated event regions and must conform to the Second Life ToS and the Second Life Community Standards.
  • Performances, live music and / or DJ events cannot be hosts within ant exhibitor space before Monday, June 30th, 20 2025.

Exhibitor Application Form.

Please note: All enquiries about hosting exhibitions at SL22B should be directed to Linden Lab, not this blog.

Related Links

Project Zero Update: Firestorm in your browser as well

Posted on by Inara Pey
From Friday, March 14th, 2025 (if all goes according to plan) Firestorm will be available as a viewer-in-a-browser option via Linden Lab

On Wednesday, March 12th, 2025, Philip Rosedale, the Lab’s Chief Technology Officer and Syntax Linden, the lead for Project Zero, the viewer-in-a-browser project, provided a special update to members of the Blogger Network on the status on the project, including the news that Firestorm is joining the project with “Firestorm Zero”.

Firestorm Zero

The release version of Firestorm will be available to users as a viewer-in-your-browser offering in collaboration with Linden Lab. All things being equal, it will be launched on Friday, March 14th, 2025, in addition to the current Project Zero offering of the Official viewer (see below for more on this) and has the unofficial title (likely to become official now!) of Firestorm Zero.

Audience

The primary audience for Firestorm Zero is seen as existing  and returning users  – the majority of whom already use Firestorm, and who might therefore find Firestorm Zero a more attractive option that Project Zero’s Official viewer.

Payment “Passes”

  • Unlike Project Zero, Firestorm Zero will be offered on a pay-to-use basis  from the outset, in the form of purchasable “passes”.
    • Passes will cost L$250 and provide up to 5 hours of use with Firestorm Zero (passes will not apply to the official viewer at this time, which remains free to use.
    • Passes will be available through a Dashboard web page “similar to how you purchase Linden Dollars”, once the service has been announced and is live.
    • Firestorm Zero passes will not be available via either the Project Zero website or the Firestorm website.
  • While the number of passes available at any given time may be limited, once purchased, they guarantee immediate access to Firestorm Zero without any of the waiting experienced with Project Zero.
  • With regards to the above, the idea of selling passes for Firestorm Zero is two-fold:
    • To test the waters on charging for the streaming service, to see how users respond to it, how they go on to use the service based on the fees charged, etc.
    • To offer the service at a price-point potentially in line with the expectation of the actual streaming costs coming down over time to match or come close to the cost of passes.

Additional Firestorm Zero Notes

  • The viewer is streamed at 1920×1080 (as with Project Zero).
  • Whilst this is the Firestorm viewer, it is being surfaced to users directly by Linden Lab. As such:
    • If a user has opted-in to MFA, they will be required to provide a token (again, as per the usual requirements).
    • The viewer will be accessible through a Linden Lab web page after a pass has been purchased, not through the Firestorm website nor the current Project Zero web page.
  • Once available, issues with Firestorm Zero can be reported through the Feedback Portal dedicated Firestorm Zero category.

Project Zero Update

Note: for a general overview on the Project Zero work, please see: Second Life in your browser: a new initiative from Linden Lab.

General Update Notes

  • As noted above, the Official viewer Project Zero option will remain available at no cost at present, through its dedicated website, and with individual sessions still limited to 1 hour.
  • Project Zero is currently provisioned out of Amazon’s AWS facilities on the US West Coast. However, Linden Lab is in discussion with AWS about offering Project Zero through UK and European end-points “soon”.
  • Work is continuing on the React / HTML updates to the viewer UI within Project Zero, but these are not ready for surfacing just yet.
  • IMs within the Zero viewers are now saved – however, local chat sessions cannot, at present, be saved.
    • More general work on Chat is being carried out to try to ensure chat messages are properly synched between different modes of access (e.g. between the viewer and SL Mobile).

More On Possible Future Fees

  • Currently, Project Zero is costing Linden Lab around US $1.75 per hour per user.
    • While there are expectations / confidence that this price will be reduced in the future, it still means LL are running the service at a loss at present.
    • Some of the ways these costs are likely to come down involve switching the service away from Windows machines to Linux systems (hence why at the week #10 CCUG meeting, Linux support was described as becoming “more and more of a forefront priority” with “internal dependencies on supporting it”), and in moving away from dedicated per-user hosting for the streaming viewer to more of a “shared tenancy” model.
    • It is the expectation of the overall cost eventually coming down to under US $1 an hour which has encouraged the Lab to settle on the idea of selling “passes” in conjunction with Firestorm Zero, as a means to test the water among users.
  • In terms of charging for the service in the future in order to cover costs, it was indicated that offers passes as a subscription perk of some kind (e.g. at a reduced fee(?)) might be considered.

New Users

  • The Lab has been seeing “hundreds” of new users per day come into to Second Life via the workflow that leads them to running Project Zero and the Official viewer rather than having to download and install the viewer.
  • New users have up to four hours for a session when accessing Second Life through the on-boarding process / Project Zero.
  • Those entering SL through the workflow / Project Zero who have responded to the Lab’s surveys have done so “very positively”.
  • However, it’s not clear how well these users are being retained beyond their first log-in, as this is harder to track, particularly as retention really needs to be measured in terms of multiple months rather than weeks.
  • As a broader note on new user on-boarding, LL is looking towards a “simpler” approach to the on-boarding process as a whole, including giving people the option of using Firestorm / Firestorm Zero as a part of the workflow.

General Notes

  • It was suggested that as there is no facility to save snapshots to a local disk in either Project Zero or Firestorm Zero, that those taking snapshots on either try the Save to E-mail option on the Snapshot floater (both Zero and Firestorm Zero) or Save to Flickr (Firestorm Zero) and – if post-processing is required, download the image from there.
  • Update: the issue of saving Preferences originally mentioned in this article was fixed on March 13th.