Lab Gab turns its attention back towards resident guests on Friday, March 13th, with episode 17 announced as featuring lucagrabacr, who has been involved in Second Life for almost eight years.
Luca is a content creator, although she is probably best known for her SL videos, many of which seek to positively promote Second Life to the world at large. Her interview comes on the heels of a forum discussion she initiated about SL Marketing which was mentioned in the Lab Gab segment featuring the Second Life Marketing team.
Luca is also the co-founder of the Virtual Existence Society, a non-profit group of like-minded individuals who find value in the practice of virtual embodiment and the philosophy of virtual existentialism who and want to preserve, and promote those things. As a part of this, the VES recognises those who contribute to the practice of virtual embodiment and the cause of virtual existentialism, and in 2019, I was honoured by VES bestowing me with an Amicus award. You can find out more about VES, including its structure on the Virtual Existence Society website, and visitors are welcome at the society’s in-world headquarters.
As this is a resident interview, there is no process for submitting questions, but do be sure to tune in via the usual channels: YouTube, Facebook, Mixer, or Periscope, at 10:00am SLT (that’s 5:00pm UK and 6:00pm Europe, due to the US having moved to summer time) on Friday 13th March 2020.
The 16th edition of Lab Gab was live streamed on Friday, March 6th, featuring three members of the Second Life Marketing team: Brett Linden, the Lab’s Senior Director of Marketing, Darcy Linden, Performance Marketing Manager and Strawberry Linden, who was also acting in her role as the show’s host.
The official video of the segment is available via You Tube, and the following is a summary of the key topics discussed and responses to questions. Note that this is not a full transcript or summary; I’ve tried to keep this summary to the core discussions on the Marketing Team’s work, so be sure to refer to the video as well. Also, items provided below may not all reflect the chronological order in which they were discussed, but have been grouped together where appropriate. Time stamps are provided for those wishing to jump to a specific point in the video, which is also embedded at the end of this summary.
Note that further information on the Lab’s Marketing work for Second Life can also be found in the official blog post, TheHeart & Science of Second Life Marketing, which is mentioned on several occasions during the video.
Brett Linden (l) and Darcy Linden (r) joined fellow Marketing team member Strawberry Linden for the March 6th edition of Lab Gab
Continue the drive for greater user acquisition (sign-up and conversions to retained users) and grow the active user base.
The retention focus is also on existing users – helping to keep them engaged and feeling a part of SL’s very broad “community”.
Helping the Second Life economy – highlighting and encouraging creativity in Second Life and the potential the platform offers in terms of creativity and potential income generation.
To re-energise the Second Life brand. The platform is 17 years old – no mean feat for any technology product / platform – but that longevity and history means that it’s important to keep SL relevant in pop culture, the media, etc., so the fact that it is still thriving is not forgotten.
General Marketing
[6:44-7:43] One of the major aspects of marketing material production has been SL related videos (e.g. in-house tutorials and videos exploring different regions in SL, plus the Made in SL series).
These have seen a dramatic increase in the volume of available videos for people to see through various channels and many of them have been localised into other languages for ease of digestion.
They also feed into market segmentation and efforts by the Lab to probe what resonates with users (potential, new and established) and generate greater interest / awareness in the platform.
[9:05-10:22] What is the target demographic LL looks at for SL?
LL has done analyses of audience segmentation, communities, themes, etc., and a lot of demographic data has been gathered in respect of this.
There is a lot of interest in the platform from the 18-24 year age bracket.
Conversely, with users who have spent 1,000 hours or more in SL, the age range is much broader (18 through to 60+).
Given the latter point, and that as a virtual world, SL allows people to do pretty much anything they want and be whomever they wish, the Lab focuses more on breaking age barriers, and focuses on the richness of opportunities and experiences available within the platform, rather than on specific age groups, and helping communities active within SL to grow, regardless of age, race, gender, etc.
[46:35-47:22] That said, campaigns that are targeted for older users are being developed.
[24:32-25:49] Where to SL ads go, and how are channels selected?
Ads go to all suitable channels across the web – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc., and more recently Twitter and other social media.
Videos go to You Tube and Facebook.
LL always willing to experiment with new channels – social media, for example, has given “very mixed results”.
All advertising is subject to analysis and time has been put into enhancing the tools available for doing to and which will allow LL to extend their reach even further.
Part of this drive also involves identifying active communities in SL that can be used as a focus for ad campaigns.
[27:23-28:52] and [37:50-39:48] Is SL marketing work being localised for languages other than English? Yes. The new user video tutorial series, for example, has been translated into around 8 languages. The same is also being done with SL ads.
The fact the active SL users rarely / never see on-line adverts for SL is testament to the targeted nature of the campaigns and that they are reaching the intended audience – people who are not active in SL.
Advertising specific to existing users (e.g. promoting events, etc), goes via different mechanisms.
Investment is being made in technologies and capabilities to extend SL’s reach via marketing and potential user acquisition.
Most tech-literate people have heard about SL, so a portion of the work is focused on piquing their curiosity to the point where they go from reading / hearing about it to actively taking a look.
Some of this has been geared towards encouraging former users to log-in once more.
Work is also focused on audiences who may not be aware of SL.
[32:22-35:23] What is happening with regards to more organic marketing?
LL wants to to curate, create or assist the SL community in strong word-of-mouth marketing, including high-quality social media content.
Also looking at possibly using non-paid product placement opportunities with established TV programmes and media channels to more directly pitch SL.
An example of this that unfortunately didn’t go ahead, was the potential for Second Life to be placed / referenced within the British-made Black Mirror anthology series.
Two core questions were asked on the subject of adult content.
Is there any work being done to promote adult content in Second Life, including LL working with adult content creators, bloggers, etc, plus placing ads on other adult platforms?
Yes, LL are cautiously looking at how to incorporate SL’s adult content into messaging. But there are major business implications / issues associated with trying to do so.
For example, industry “best practices” as defined by Google, Facebook, et al, tend to be conservative / limiting in what they will allow with advertising, which can impact both how LL can promote adult content and how effective any campaign might be given the restrictions other platforms have in place vis. adult content.
There are also serious consequences LL have to consider if they promote adult content through other platforms in the wrong way – such as losing complete access to a mainstream channel for advertising SL as a whole.
[58:15-59:24] The reason SL does not have a Twitch presence is because Twitch will not countenance any risk of adult content appearing on their platform. This is something the Lab is attempting to redress via discussions with Twitch.
Nevertheless, LL is testing more “provocative” messaging in some of their romance related campaigns – on of the more successful of their promotional campaigns in terms of click-through and possible audience capture.
Will adult content be promoted alongside / as a part of major SL events such as the SL Birthday, or promoting those adult regions that are thematically landscaped, or offering adult bloggers blog roll support?
For those logged-in to SL, either in-world or places like the Marketplace, it is possible to opt-in to seeing information related to Adult products, places, etc. via search, through the Maturity ratings.
There is also a Destination Guide category for adult content, allowing for the rules on image types, etc.
In terms of SLB and adult content, Marketing cannot speak for the Product Operations team, but how adult content might be handled vis-a-vis SL17B is something that is on Patch Linden’s radar (see also: Lab Gab #15 summary: the Moles, Patch SL17B and more).
A good part of the marketing work is not just running campaigns and hoping they will draw users, but actively monitoring campaigns – how well / poorly they perform – and carrying out a range of testing (from simple A/B testing through more complex multivariate testing) to provide direct feedback on campaigns allowing them to be constantly refined and improved.
Testing also encompasses all aspects of the user sign-up process, landing pages, etc., that sit behind ad campaigns (collectively the join flow that carries an interested party from an ad through the sign-up process and (hopefully) in-world).
This has resulted in upticks in both sign-ups and users arriving in-world.
Testing initiatives also extends into the active user base (e.g. the rez day e-mail campaign) to see how the Lab can more positively engage with its existing users.
In terms of further plans / activities related to user retention, TheHeart & Science of Second Life Marketing provides more information on what the Marketing team is and will be doing.
In terms of how existing users can help SL grow, the easiest, most effective way to it tell others about the platform, what you do, invite them to give it a go and be there to help them and help get them involved.
[25:50-27:22] Most SL ads focus on a specific genre / theme – so why don’t users following those ads go to a related sign-up process with suitable default avatars and arrive in-world at locations that reflect the theme of the ad?
Lab has run several experiments with community matching between ads and sign-in / arrival in-world.
However they are dependent on a wide range of factors (time taken to create the relevant avatar type, work with communities in-world to ensure incoming users get the support they need on arrival, resources available at the Lab to make them happen, etc.), and so they do take time to implement.
Currently, much of the focus at the Lab with SL is towards other areas / requirements, so such tests are currently on hold, to be picked up in the near future.
The aim is very much on having people to traverse a sign-up experience and arrive at an in-world location that meets their expectations based on the ad.
Additional Discussions
[5:17-9:04] Lucagrabcr initiated a forum thread on SL Marketing which is mentioned in the segment, with Brett specifically picking up on the idea of “spinning off” communities into their worn worlds (“Tiny World”, for example). In particular, while making it clear this is not on LL’s roadmap, the idea does resonate with SL possibly having the potential to offer white label services (e.g. “Tiny World, brought to you by XYZ, powered by Second Life”).
Offering the platform as a white label service is actually something I thought Sansar would have been ideally suited – and early in the platform’s history, Ebbe Altberg did point in that direction. Whether it was actually promoted that way, I’ve no idea. If not, then it might stand as a missed opportunity for that platform.
[16:02-18:55] and [30:30-32:21] Second Life has had something of a negative stigma in the media over the years. What is being done to reverse this?
Negative press must be responded to on many fronts. Much of what is being put out through social media, performance advertising campaigns, the video promotions, etc., will all combine to shift such negative perceptions where they occur.
The community plays a role in this through positive videos that are organically created by users, blogs and other resources that help present SL’s richness, etc. user generated videos are seen as particularly effective in countering trolling videos.
Lab is aware that more can be done to challenge perceptions and preconceptions, and again, they see telling the stories of those engaged in the platform as a means of doing this.
[59:28-1:00:22] Is physical world merchandise being considered as a means of helping to promote SL? Yes, but nothing to announce at this point in time, but a review of potential merchandise, vendors, etc., has been carried out.
The 15th edition of Lab Gab was live streamed on Friday, February 28th and featured as guests, Patch Linden, Vice President of Product Operations, and representatives of the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW), aka the Moles – Notta Mole, Alotta Mole, Squeaky Mole and Mischievous Mole. Together they discussed the upcoming SL17B celebrations, the Linden Homes and Bellisseria, the work of the LDPW and more.
A call was put to Second Life users to submit questions that could be asked of the group, and the the following is a summary of the key topics raised and feedback given. Note that items may not all reflect the chronological order in which they were discussed, but have been grouped together where appropriate. Time stamps are provided for those wishing to jump to a specific point in the official video, and the complete video is embedded at the end of this article.
[0:37-3:15] Each of the guests offers a brief introduction to themselves, their time at / with Linden Lab, and some of what they do.
SL17B – The Second Life Birthday Celebration, 2020
Theme: Vacations and Road Trips. Further details to come.
There will be more exhibitor parcels available this year (still the standard 32m on a side.
Buildings in keeping with the theme are welcome, but exhibitors are not restricted to modelling after it, but are encouraged to show their Second Life activities and what SL means to them, etc., either as individuals or groups.
Applications will open in approximately 2 week from this date, and it is important for exhibitors to give as much detail as possible in their submission.
There will be an SL17B shopping event to run in parallel with the festivities, and applications will open Soon™
There will be more cross-promotion between the SL17B festivities and the shopping event than last year, to encourage people to attend both.
The plan is to have “at least eight” regions in the shopping event.
Application for the various aspects of the festivities (Music Fest, exhibitors, shopping event, etc.), will likely open over at two week intervals, starting the with Music Fest application. Notifications of applications opening will be provided via official Second Life blog posts and through the Second Life Birthday group in-world.
Might the Cake Stage and Stage Left from the community-organised SLB events ever reappear?
Stage Left is still there, but has been renamed Main Stage.
The Cake Stage may reappear in the future, depending on how well it sits with a given SLB theme.
Will there be an Adult section at SL17B, so Adult content creators can participate and enjoy equal visibility? LL have considered this, and it may happen. However, there are logistics to be worked out – e.g. how best to handle different rating of content (Adult and Moderate / General) in close proximity to one another in a public environment). As such, a firm “yes” or “no” is still pending.
The fifth Linden Home theme was revealed / previewed on Friday, February 28th. The new theme – Log Homes (or lodge homes, if you prefer), comprises 4 styles of rural house style set within open landscapes and dirt tracks – see Previewing the Linden Home Log theme in Second Life for more details.
[21:48-22:48] Modifications to this theme mean that the total number of style that are available in the future may increase to as many as eight, with the mailbox rezzers updated to reflect this. A similar approach may then be taken with the other house themes.
How are themes chosen? Are there particular motivations, inspirations?
Patch believes the team responsible for Linden Homes is in tune with, and listiening to users and what user might want.
The new Log homes is seen as an example of this, being both something the team planned for, and something users requested.
Currently, the team has a “huge” list of potential themes, with the first eight either released or under construction and 2 more after those decided upon.
The new Linden Home Log / Lodge theme
Traditional Homes and Houseboats: Further releases of both being planned.
Campers and Trailers: it had been indicated that campers and trailer might be made available on 1024 sq m parcels as well as the current 512 sq m. Is this still being planned? Right now, the team hasn’t really found a way in which large 1024 sq m parcels and much smaller campers / trailers fit within the overall Bellisseria model.
Release schedule: while the schedule officially remains every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (holidays allowing), unofficially the team has started releasing one or more regions a day, depending on what is available.
Will there be more water regions around Bellisseria for sailing? There should be sufficient room for moderately-size vessels and sail boats to navigate between Joegeot and Sansara by way of Bellisseria. LL do not necessarily want to create large expanses of of water, but if there are issues, things might be revisited.
Is Bellisseria open for anyone to use, and are all avatar types welcome? Yes, the regions are open to everyone, only the homes require a Premium account. All avatar types are welcome, including child avatars, and subject to the normal community standards / terms of service.
Are there plans for a children’s playground in Bellisseria? Has not thus far been considered, but an excellent suggestion.
Will there be street names in Bellisseria? No. While it is a fun exercise to name the regions, all the names have to be checked for suitability, and trying to do the same for every street in Bellisseria would be too time consuming.
Region names come out of group meetings and idea pitching. Some of this may include names that are personal to the team.
Is there an opportunity for a city style of theme with apartments and commercial units?
This is been batted around by the team, but always tends to end up raising issues (how can you stack apartments in a parcel to ensure privacy and without having to constantly monitor LI use? What would the land layout look like with accommodation parcels vs. protected land to ensure the former have adequate LI? How can 1024×1024 parcels be arranged to allow town houses to sit literally side-by-side?
However, the idea is still being considered, with no promises.
How will Bellisseria expand given it now links to Sansara and Jeogeot? Options are open, including working with private estates to move with elsewhere within the grid, if this becomes necessary. Where new Linden Homes regions are placed may also related to the idea of linking continents together (see below).
Will LL provide rolling stock for the railway? Short answer: no, not for the foreseeable future.
How should Bellisseria covenant violations be dealt with? A) take the good neighbour approach and talk to the violator. B) if that fails, file an AR. It should be noted that if issues are noted directly by Lindens or the Moles, then will attempt to pro-actively resolve matters.
[39:45-40:50] What is it with the Back to the Future references that keep popping up? In short, a region on the Bellisseria continent is a partially-completed trestle bridge in homage to the bridge seen in the climax of Back to the Future 3. So, rail travellers beware! There is more to come around this and a storyline for it.
General Items
[18:01-18:35] With the Sansara-Bellisseria-Jeogeot link-up, are their plans to link all of the continents together? Maybe. There are more connections coming.
[21:07-21:45] Will Premium Plus offer larger land parcels than the 1024 sq m available to Premium members? There are plans to present a Linden Homes offering to Premium Plus members. This is not open for detailed discussion as yet.
[28:50-29:53] What is the 5-year plan for the LDPW? For the next three years: Linden Homes. Alongside of this are projects related to the new user process, Premium benefits, cyclical work such as the SL Birthday, a lot of marketing support work etc.
[31:27-32:19] When will the Second Life Rail Road (SLRR) get an overhaul? Maintenance of the Mainland SLRR system is constantly in progress. However, any larger-scale project depends on time being available & what is meant by “overhaul” – e.g. going through and updating the entire track layout would be a multi-year project, and so not currently on the cards. There are also some core differences in design with the Bellisseria system (e.g. tightness of the bends) that mean it is not 100% compatible with the SLRR.
[36:20-37:04] Will the old 512 sq m Linden Homes be refreshed? No. The intent remains that once a critical mass with the new Home take-up has been reached, the old Linden Homes mini-continents will start to be retired and removed.
[38:00-39:43] A discussion on what each of the moles would build if their had free reign to do so: pooled ideas were:
An amusement park – Moley World.
A water world / park.
[42:53-43:55] Are there plans to update the Mainland in general, e.g. high resolution terrain textures, improved landscaping, etc? Has been talked about; could be something that’s undertaken beyond the 3-year plan for Linden Homes.
The 14th edition of Lab Gab was live streamed on Friday, February 21st and featured as guests, Ebbe Linden (aka Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg) and Grumpity Linden, Vice President of Product, who between them discussed the Second Life roadmap for 2020.
As might be expected, a call to Second Life users to submit questions that might be asked of Ebbe and / or Grumpity generated a lot of feedback, so little time was lost in getting down to hearing their responses. Note that this summary may not reflect the chronological order in which questions were asked; however, time stamps are provided for those wishing to jump to a specific point in the video, and a complete video is embedded at the end of this article.
At the top of the programme, Ebbe confirmed Linden Lab is no longer “sponsoring”, as he put it, Sansar, and are actively seeking a new home for the platform.
So as you might have heard, sadly we have decided that we, as Linden Lab, couldn’t continue to sponsor the project financially, so we’re looking for a plan B for Sansar to continue. I can’t say much, but we’re having very interesting conversations with several parties to help that project move forward, which I’m really excited about. But no deal is done yet, so people will just have to be patient and see what happens with it, but yes it is true that Linden Lab going forward will focus entirely on Second Life and Tilia. I’m still busy making sure that Sansar finds a great home and that the great work that that team has started can continue.
– Ebbe Altberg
He went on to note that the company is continuing to work with those they have laid off to help their secure their futures, and that overall, Linden Lab remains in a strong financial position with strong confidence in the future, vis Second Life and Tilia Inc.
Cloud uplift is the term now being employed by the Lab to describe the project to transition all of Second Life to cloud-based provisioning.
This has been a long-term project, with considerable planning and preparation work having thus far been completed, and 2020 marking the time when the actual transitioning of services takes place (“lifting them to the cloud”).
The work is long-term not just because of the number of services that must be transitioned, but also the amount of operational / engineering requirements required to ensure that services that are linked by physical proximity and connectivity in a single hosting environment continue to function and communicate with one another when moves to an environment where they no longer share that proximity or direct line of communication.
There are a lot of perceived benefits from the move, most noticeably that hardware / infrastructure renewal will no longer be a significant factor for the Lab, while longer-term the grater spread of geographical options, hardware options, etc., may mean the Lab will be able to offer broader simulator products or reduce latency between physical groups of users and the servers they most regularly access, etc.
The downside of this is that for the time being, the focus for engineers and developers at the Lab is very much on the cloud uplift, and not on developing new features.
The hope is that his work will be completed by the end of 2020, otherwise the Lab starts incurring costs (e.g. Cap Ex costs) they’d prefer to avoid.
Once the transition has been completed, a further benefit could be with LL being able to experiment with different (and more recent) server types to help with simulator-side performance, and perhaps even offer different product offering based on different servers, with suitable price points (e.g. those running venue that have high numbers on attending avatars can opt to pay to have their regions hosted on very high-end servers capable of managing the script, etc., load.
Currently, there are no plans to make private regions an on-demand service in the cloud (that is, only spinning up a region when there is one or more avatars in it).
This is primarily because of the persistence model around which Second Life has been built, and the expectations of some of the operations services have around this.
However, at some point after the cloud migration, it might be possible for LL to offer a kind of on-demand private region product with a suitable price-point.
It is currently in internal alpha, and does *not* have 3D rendering but does provide chat, group chat, IM, and other core communications capabilities, although additional functionality may be added over time.
Development will be iterative, and there will be opportunities for users to help test the app when it is ready to be public-facing. The exact mechanism on how this will work is still TBD.
There is no formal ETA for the app, but the hope is some form of (closed?) alpha testing period may be made available in the next few months (or sooner).
[54:28-55:15] The focus is on iOS, with the hope that once done, it will not be a major effort to port the app to Android.
Premium Plus is the upcoming new Premium subscription offering that will sit “above” the current Premium, and jokingly referred to as Premium Plös (“ploos” with a French sounding accent).
No formal release date as yet – as LL prefer not to commit to specifying dates so as not to disappoint should things get delayed.
It has, however, been stated at the monthly Web User Group meetings, that Premium Plus will not be released until some time after Name Changes has been implemented – so it is in the Soon™ category .
When introduced, it will have a pro rata option, so existing Premium users will have any remaining balance on their subscription at the time they upgrade credited to Premium Plus.
Premium Plus will have a range of additional benefits – most of which are still TBA. However, it will mean Name Changes will be “around” US $20 cheaper for Premium Plus members (so if the Name Changes fee in US $39.99 for Premium, Premium Plus many only have to pay US $19.99).
Focus at present is on putting in place the coding and updates required to support multiple Premium account levels.
Lab will continue to add value to both Premium Plus and Premium.
A lot of work has been put into the Marketplace in responding to a lot of long-standing feature requests, etc, from users and in dealing with some of the low-hanging fruit of MP fixes, etc.
More work is planned, but again, the cloud uplift project – which includes the MP and all of the other Second Life web properties – is the primary focus at the moment.
In terms of questionable content on the MP (e.g. the mis-selling of No Copy items), this isn’t an issue that can be solved via any automated means, and is thus resource intensive and does require the support of users in flagging items, etc.
However there are plans to replace / update some of the existing processes around these issues, so that issues can be more readily reviewed and dealt with.
LL are conscious of being vague on matters like this, but feel they need to be, as saying too much publicly could open the door to those less-than-earnest actors trying to circumvent actions that might otherwise impact them.
Ebbe, Strawberry and Grumpity (+cats!) in Lab Gab episode 14
A major cause of performance issues is sub-optimal content that the viewer has to deal with when rendering (e.g. poorly-designed mesh, heavily tortured prims, sculpties, flexies, etc.), and which impact performance.
There’s not a lot that LL can do about this, other than appeal to content creators to consider performance when designing their models, and to region creators to do likewise when designing their regions and the impact overly complex content or the over-use of unique high-resolution textures has on the viewer.
In time, the more powerful server options that will be available for running simulators once they have been transitioned to the cloud may help improve server-side performance (e.g. thing like script processing, etc.).
In the future, more work may be put into providing better tools to help creators ensuring their content is more performant.
As an aside, and as reported in my CCUG summaries, work is already in progress to provide creators and user with better means of understanding the impact various content is having on their system’s performance – remembering that it is the *viewer*, not the simulator , that does most of the heavy lifting.
Elsewhere there have been subtle performance improvements:
A move of Marketplace infrastructure to a new environment means page loading times are measuring an 11% improvement; changes made to the asset services have improved inventory stability.
There are currently simulator updates that are being / about to be deployed across the grid sever channels that should see improvements in region crossings (updates on server deployments can be found in my weekly SUG summaries).
Last Names competition has seen EIGHT names (rather than the originally stated five) selected to go into the first list of last names that will be available when the service is deployed: Conundrum, Dismantled, Huntsman, Littlepaws, Nova, Ravenhurst, Wumpkins, Yeatley.
These are the only names that will be in that first list, and the winners will be informed via e-mail.
The time taken for the project to be implemented is due to it touching every aspect of SL, and thus requires careful implementation and testing.
Rather than using a credit card or similar to pay for a Name Change, Premium members can opt to use a USD dollar balance in the Tilia Wallet, including by converting L$ to USD via the LindeX. Note that anyone who has not previously held a US dollar balance associated with their account will have to accept the Tilia Terms of Serivce, but no identification documents need be submitted, unless any remaining US dollar balance is to be cashed out.
As per my CCUG summaries, the are around a dozen remaining rendering bugs to be resolved, but the hope is the deployment is now weeks rather than months away.
There will still be changes in how some region environments are seen in an EEP viewer compared to a non-EEP viewer, but the decision has been made to deploy rather than constantly trying to strive for a like-for-like look in all cases.
There is a pending rendering / graphics project that is held-up by EEP, partially prompting the desire to get what is available deployed.
Will be covered more in-depth in a future Lab Gab segment with the Lab’s marketing team.
The best way for users to help with new user retention is a) bringing friends into SL and spending time with them, getting them engaged and making friends; b) offering support and friendship to newcomers.
There has been some success with recent attempts to re-introduce new user mentoring.
LL has also invested a lot of time in bettering understanding the traffic coming to SL, allowing for more refined approaches to user acquisition.
There is a firm belief within LL that SL’s user base can be grown.
[53:54-54:25] There are roughly 5,000 new accounts logging-in to Second Life every day.
Other Items
[8:30-10:30] Will LL resume issuing economic stats for SL?
The reports were stopped many years ago. Currently the focus is on the cloud uplift, and this together with the work on projects the Lab does have in-hand or planned, means there are no plans for the present or foreseeable future to re-implement reporting economic stats.
However, it might be possible to implement some form of “spot” economic reporting via one of the official blogs.
[20:00-23:00] Does Linden Lab manipulate the LindeX L$ exchange rate?
Short answer: no, they do not.
The most LL do is sell into the market if there is a genuine need for L$, but even then, this is kept to a minimum both in terms of frequency and amount.
[52:02-53:52] There will be a blog post (/ series?) on how the LindeX works, etc., appearing in the near future.
[35:55-] Account security and two-factor authentication (2FA)
Yes, there are plans to introduce 2FA.
The first step is providing notifications of possible attempts to wrongfully access your account. This is to be rolled out in the near future. However, notifications will only be sent to verified e-mail addresses (see: Important: verifying your e-mail address with Second Life).
The next step will be to disallow unverified log-ins from unfamiliar locations until verification is given.
There are some complexities in implementing 2FA as a result of SL’s age and design, but these are being worked on.
There are no near-time plans to revive the work on supporting VR headsets in SL.
The requirement for 90-ish fps throughout for a really smooth experience is considered as mostly beyond SL’s reach due to the nature of the content.
However, once the cloud uplift has been completed, and after the major rendering / graphics overhaul has been delivered (e.g. 18-24 months hence), the question of VR support in SL may be re-evaluated.
The Second episode of Lab Gab streamed on Wednesday, September 11th, hosted by Xiola and Strawberry Linden, and featuring special guest Reed Linden.
Running to just under 44 minutes, this was an informative segment, although there were a number of questions asked that where outside of Reed’s specific remit and which he was only able to answer in general terms (Land, Linden Homes, pricing, etc.). Most of these are not summarised below, and I refer people to the embedded video for comments.
About Reed Linden
Reed Linden, aka (at present) Penguin Fabuloso, has been with the Lab for just over eight years, having joined in August 2011. He started in the support team, serving there for three years, then moving to the Engineering team for a time. While there, Grumpity Linden, Director of Product for Second Life, selected him to join the Product team.
As a Product Manager, Reed has particular responsibility for the Lab’s Second Life web infrastructure – the Marketplace, Profiles, main domains like secondlife.com, and so on). He’s also been involved with Bakes on Mesh, and has knowledge of account management (including Premium), billing, and – given his time there – support.
Reed Linden (c), flanked by Xiola (l) and Strawberry (r)
He views his progress through the Lab as uniquely reflective of the manner in which knowledge of the platform is distributed: those who potentially know the most about SL are the users who put it to work every day, coding, building, uploading, texturing, creating, and so on. The next level of knowledge below that is the support teams who handle hundreds of user requests on a daily basis, and get to use the broad spread of the platform’s tools and capabilities. Then, after support come the engineering and product teams, who have sharply defined focuses on Second Life.
From this is should come as no surprise that he sees the community as his favourite aspect of the platform, together with the manner in which it can bring people together from around the world, and help them find a voice or outlets or connections – and even to find love. In this latter regard, he reveals that not only have SL residents built their physical world relationships out of a Second Life meeting (a-la the Love Made in SL series), but also that some LL staff have met their physical world partners through SL!
Web Properties – Project and Updates
As a part of his web infrastructure responsibilities, he has been running the work to bring Profiles back into the viewer. This involves two key elements:
Moving user profiles back to their own floater in the viewer, rather than pulling in the web profile. This element of the work is currently available for testing in the Legacy Profiles Project Viewer, which can be found on the Alternate Viewer Page.
A further aspect of the work is to move Profile Feeds into a dedicated tab within the Profile floater.
Left: SL Profiles will be returning to a dedicated floater (rather than using a panel to display the web-base user profile). In the future, Profile feeds will also become a part of this floater with their own tab. Right: recently delivered to the Marketplace (among other updates) is the ability to list all the gifts you have received (MP → Account Name → My Account Page → Received Gifts)
Reed also highlighted three recent updates to the Marketplace:
Notification of purchase – when you visit a Marketplace listing for an item you have previously purchased with the account you are using, the date purchased is displayed at the top of the listing.
Some of the upcoming Marketplace features touched upon include:
Optimising the Marketplace for mobile use.
Purchase notifications: store owners will receive a viewer notification of purchases made through their Marketplace stores. This will be an opt-in capability, so as to avoid those with popular brands from being constantly spammed with purchase messages.
Refunds: the ability for Merchants to offer refunds through the MP is being looked at.
Continuing work on quality-of-life capabilities within the MP, together with bug fixes.
Search is being strengthened right across all of the Lab’s web properties.
For the Marketplace, this will include listing top-selling products first within search results
Better granularity on searches will potentially be supported, together with better filtering
There are also projects in progress or on the horizon related to improving the Destination Guide and for Events (this has been mentioned in one or two technical user group meetings, but again without specifics being given).
Bakes on Mesh
As a Product Manager, he is very pleased with the take-up of Bakes on Mesh (BoM) – as is the Lab.
LL have been tracking take-up among mesh head / body makers, etc., and the gradual adoption of the BoM viewer code by TPVs.
There is an unofficial list for BoM support (last updated at the end of August) which may help those interested.
The hope remains that BoM will encourage more lightweight content in terms of graphics resources (e.g. less complex Mesh heads and bodies, plus the ability to bake down multiple textures into a single composite).
General Q&A
As a hobby, Reed enjoys painting model miniatures (D&D being specifically mentioned) and building dioramas.
Work on an iOS client was re-iterated. No new updates, as this is not one of Reed’s areas of work, so those interested can refer to a summary of comments by Kiera and Oz Linden on the work (including a link to a transcript of the comments), and my July mini-update on this project.
Last Names: yes, still being worked on, but a complex project. Again, see my June update, which includes the most relevant comments from LL.
Feedback
An informative segment, with Reed providing a lot of hints – he touched very loosely on possible new Premium account options, for example – as well as outright information for those who do not attend the various in-world user group meetings or follow summaries of said meetings as provided on this blog and others of a similar nature.
Some of the questions did hit on the issue of keeping people aware of a specific guest’s area of expertise; even when warned Reed is not directly involved in viewer development, land management, etc., a number of questions on those subjects came up (and were dutifully asked). However, these fortunately did not interrupt the overall flow of the session to a great degree.
Voice quality continues to be an issue; I assume the participants are using the SL voice binary rather than hooking Skype or an alternative service into the mix. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed once the upcoming voice update viewer goes into circulation and Lab staff can use it.
No details on what the next segment will be about – so it’s a case of watch the official blog posts.
On Friday, June 28th, 2019 at the SL16B celebrations, the last of five Meet the Lindens sessions took place at the SL16B Auditorium. This was a special session, featuring as it did members of the Linden Department of Public Works – aka, the Moles.
A veritable host of Moles surfaced for the session, along with Patch Linden, comprising Abnor Mole, Naughty Mole, Squeaky Mole, Missy Mole and Alotta Mole, all of who can be heard in the video. They were joined by Glowing Mole, Quartz Mole, Spiffy Mole, Lost Mole, Squishy Mole, Glamorous Mole, Ancient Mole, Garden Mole, Paranor Mole, Shimmy Mole and Magic Mole.
Meet the Moles: front row (l-to-r): Abnor Mole, Naughty Mole, Saffia Widdershins, Patch Linden, Squeaky Mole, Missy Mole and Alotta Mole, all of who can be heard in the video. Behind them (l-to-r) are: Glowing Mole, Quartz Mole, Spiffy Mole, Lost Mole, Squishy Mole, Glamorous Mole, Ancient Mole, Garden Mole, Paranor Mole, Shimmy Mole and Magic Mole. Screen capture via SL4Live – TV
The nature of the event, with so many people available to answer questions makes producing a summary a little difficult; instead, I offer an outline of what the Moles are, and the feedback of the key speakers on how they became Moles, and notes based both on comments during the session and the LDPW wiki page on how to become a Mole. For the rest, I recommend watching the video in full!
Who or What the Moles?
As surprising as it may seem, lot of SL users are not aware of what or who the Moles are.
Officially called the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) the Moles are SL residents from all over the world who have either applied to the Lab, or have been asked by the Lab, to work as paid freelance contractors. The LDPW is specifically geared towards enhancing the Mainland, as noted in the official wiki page, but they actually do a lot more than this.
The Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) is a programme focused on improvements related to the experience of living on, or visiting the Linden Mainland. The LDPW will organize teams of Resident builders, artists, and scripters (the Moles!) to create new content on Linden Lab’s behalf and to the benefit of all.
Today, the nominal “home” of the Moles is Meauxle Bureaux, where you can – among other spaces – visit Ye Olde Abner Mole Pub
The LDPW initially formed in 2008, and so is now in its eleventh year, and many of those involved in the programme today were recruited back then. The team is managed be Derrick Linden, the Product Operations Manager for Second Life, who reports into Patch Linden, and the team includes a number of Linden staff as well, including Guy Linden, Madori Linden, Kona Linden and Izzy Linden.
Within the Mainland, the Moles are probably best known for their infrastructure work – the roads, the railway lines, general continent layout, and all the many elements thereto. There have also been responsible for the development on Mainland projects such as the infrastructure within Nautilus City and, perhaps more particularly, the development of Bay City – which in their honour hosts an annual Mole Day festival.
The Horizons Experience (November 2016) built and scripted by the Moles
Most recently, the Moles have been responsible for – and perhaps most visible with – the new Linden Homes continent, Bellisseria. They also produce the infrastructure for Lab-led events, including SL16B, the Lab-run shopping events, the town hall meeting spaces. But they also do far more than this, and work in many different areas, for example – and as a short list:
They produce content such as the Premium gifts.
The build and script the Lab-provided games such as Linden Realms, Paleoquest, Horizons and the grid-wide Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glytches – all accessible via the Portal Parks.
Their work is often used as an example of what can be achieved in SL, particularly with regards new functions and capabilities.
They work with multiple teams at Linden Lab, such as Marketing and the engineering team (Moles participated in projects such as Bento, for example, producing test content used in the development of Bento capabilities and in testing the Bento skeleton).
Helping with QA activities.
As residents, how much time Moles spend on their resident / personal accounts understandably varies in accordance with the work they’re engaged in. Some of the longer-serving Moles perhaps tend to focus predominantly on their Moles accounts / personas, while those who have more recently joined the team might spend more time split between their personal accounts and Mole accounts.
As freelance contractors, Moles also get to pretty much choose their hours of work – providing tasks are completed on time. An advantage here is that as the Moles are based around the world, some projects can at times move forward on something of a round-the-clock basis.
Over the years, the Moles have to deal with a with a lot, starting with selecting their Mole name. For this, they have to put forward three preferences, and either are award the one that’s available, or get to pick from those that are available – although there can be opportunities for them to change their names. They also have to deal with the more unusual in Second Life, as Abnor Mole explained:
With the games, we’ve had a lot of people who try to find a lot of creative ways not to play the game as you’re supposed to … In the Paleoquest game [in which tasks must be completed against the clock] … at the end, where you’re supposed to take a giant swab and you have to go and find the dino DNA, and you do that with the giant cotton swab … we found that somebody was going around and they would always find the “good poop” to swab the very first time, and we were, “how are they doing this?” And we’re looking and we’re looking and we’re looking, and finally we realised there was a time stamp on the creation of the object that was a little bit different on the “good” ones … they had gone that deeply into it to tell that that was how to do it [find the right item and complete the task]!
– Abnor Mole on one of the weird things Moles sometimes have to deal with
Cape Ekim is an oft-overlooked Mole surprise in Second Life – although as it is on an “old” Linden Homes mini-continent, it might eventually disappear as those mini-continents are retired
How Did You Become A Mole?
Abnor Mole: read about the formation of the LPDW in 2008, put in an application – back then this could be done via the Second Life website (and later the wiki), was interviewed by Michael Linden, who at that time managed the LPDW, and was accepted – so has been a Mole for 11 years. Among his many roles as a part of the team, he produces some of the videos associated with the like of the Paleoquest game.
Naughty Mole: was approached by Jack Linden (who used to manage the SL land team) as the LPDW was being formed with the aim of improving the Mainland, and he asked her if she’d like to join. One of the first projects she worked on was Barney’s Bay.
Barney’s Bay, one of the first LDPW projects, and which also includes one of the first examples of trying to add a little “history” to the world in SL, with a statue dedicated to Captain Bernard “The Navibator” McSchnott (you can read how he got his nickname by visiting the statue! Note that like many LDPW locations across SL, Barney’s Bay is a destination you can also visit when playing the grid-wide Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glytches (read here for more on this)
Squeaky Mole: is one of the “youngest” Moles, having joined the LDPW just over a year ago. He was “discovered” as a result of exhibiting at SLB, and the Lindens visited his region after which he received an invitation from Patch to become a Mole – and initially thought it was a joke!
Missy Mole: is also one of the “younger” moles, having joined the LDPW on June 28th, 2018. Also like Squeaky, she was approach by Patch to join the team, specifically in taking photos in support of Marketing work. She and Squeaky are two of the Moles who have done a lot of the work on SL16B.
Alotta Mole: like Missy, was approached by Patch as a result of his in-world photography, and joined the LDPW initially in support of Marketing work.
What Does It Take To Become A Mole?
Drop your resume (note card) on Derrick Linden or in-world or to Patch Linden. Include your areas of expertise and any links you have where the Lab can see examples of your work (in-world, Flickr, You Tube, etc).
Fully rounded content creators are encouraged to apply, but the Lab will also accept specialists.
Be outgoing, communicative, willing to work within a team.
Have a genuine passion for SL.
Remember, it is an actual paid job, and is treated as such. You will be interviewed, you’ll be expected to have a résumé (c.v.), and be able to demonstrate your SL-related work.
Everyone on the team has their specialities, what they’re strong with … we do have Moles who specifically do scripting; we have moles who specifically so mesh content work and texturing or just texturing; we have Moles who do texturing and photography; we have Moles who do sound work, animation work. So, if you can think of each thing, or each area you can do content creation work for Second Life and in Second Life – we pretty much have to cover every single one of those areas, and in some of those areas we need more than one person.
There’s folk that specialise in terraforming, folks that do region décor work [trees, road, etc] … people who have got an eye for putting that stuff together and out there, being good with Land Impact … maybe they don’t have a lot of capability in making that stuff, but the other people in the team that make that content do that for them, and then they’re the ones that carry through that next step.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 