In a further more to sweeten Premium memberships, Linden Lab has announced that with immediate effect, those Premium members who have traditionally have had to pay VAT on their membership subscriptions will no longer have to do so.
The announcement is coupled with a reduction in the Monthly billing plan for Premium from US $9.95 a month to US $9.50, and reads in full:
Being Premium comes with many perks, including a weekly L$ stipend, more privacy with a Linden Home, exclusive gifts and experiences, and now, live chat with the Concierge Support team at Linden Lab.
If you missed your chance to take advantage of our recent 50% off monthly Premium Membership offer – there’s no reason to worry! Now, we’re reducing the standard cost of a monthly Premium subscription to just $9.50 a month. Enjoy all the benefits of Premium Membership for less!
We will also no longer charge VAT for Premium subscriptions. If you live in a region where VAT applies, this means an effective savings in some countries of more than 20% below what you would have previously paid!
VAT payment were introduced by the Lab in 2007. At the time, there was a widespread – and mistaken – belief that the Lab were having to pay VAT as a result of holding offices and European (notably Brighton, UK). Further misconceptions were voiced (and sometimes still are) about the Lab charging VAT “unnecessarily” on the grounds that they no longer have offices within Europe.
However, as Forbes noted in 2014 when changes were being made to the basic requirements, the EU has, since 2003, always levied VAT against the delivery of electronic services (which Second Life is) from non-EU countries, including the USA. The difference was that prior to 2007, the Lab opted to absorb the VAT charges rather than passing them on to their European customers – at last until things reached a point where it was no longer economically viable for them to do so.
With immediate effect, those Premium members previously liable for VAT on their subscriptions will not longer have the charge passed on to them by the Lab. In addition, the monthly billing plan for Premium is reduced to US $9.50 a month
With the announcement, it would appear that – in part – the Lab is once again willing to absorb VAT charges, and in doing so, offer a very credible benefit for EU members who may have been put off upgrading to Premium as a result of the VAT surcharge.
Speaking as an EU resident, I’m more than happy to see my annual subscription reduced from US $84.00 to the standard US $72.00. Together with the perks and bonuses recently introduced – such as the move of Premium live chat support to the Concierge team, this is precisely the kind of creative thinking by the Lab which could go some way to making Premium membership more popular among some sections of the existing user base.
On Monday, August 24th, I received a notice from Jessii2009 Warrhol announcing the launch of Team Diabetes of Second Life.
Founded by Jessi and Johannes1977 Resident, Team Diabetes is the official and authorised team of the American Diabetes Association in Second Life. Functioning as an advisory board, Team Diabetes of Second Life comprises members Jessii2009 Warrhol, Johannes1977 Resident, Emma Portilo, Veruca Tammas, Sandie Loxingly, Rob Fenwitch and Earth Nirvana, with Saiyge Lotus serving as special advisor to the board. Team Diabetes activities each year will be lead by a coordinator, with Jessii2009 Warrhol filling the role for the 2015 season.
Some 387 million people globally live with diabetes, and the World Health Organisation estimates that diabetes could be the 7th leading cause of death by 2030.
Team Diabetes of Second Life’s mission is to raise awareness of diabetes, promote greater understanding of the issues those suffering from diabetes face, and to raise funds to further research into cures for diabetes.
With the World Diabetes Day, founded in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation, occurring annually on November 14th, the official Team Diabetes of Second Life season will take place from November 2015 through to February 2016, with core events currently being planned comprising:
Off Season Event – October 1 to October 15, 2015 – Fall Second Life Showcase
Official Season – November 1 2015 to February 15, 2015
November 1 – Team Diabetes of Second Life Season Begins
Entire Month of November – National Diabetes Month and the Team Diabetes Red Hunt
In addition to these core events, Team Diabetes of Second Life are reaching out to communities, groups, businesses, organisations and individuals to hold fund-raising events of their own in support of the American Diabetes Association. To help with this, the team will be making a fund-raising tool kit available from September 1st, 2015, which will be available from their in-world office at Non-Profit Commons.
About the American Diabetes Association
Established in 1940 and celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2015, the American Diabetes Association is working to both prevent and cure diabetes in all it forms, and to help improve the lives of all those affected by diabetes. It does this by providing objective and credible information and resources about diabetes to communities, and funding research into ways and means of both managing and curing the illness. In addition, the Association gives voice to those denied their rights as a consequence of being affected by diabetes.
Kess Crystal recently dropped me a line about MadPea’s 2015 Celebrity auction – with the news also now appearing on the MadPea blog; my apologies to Kess for my tardiness in getting this article out.
On September 27th 2015, the MadPea team will be running an auction in support of Feed A Smile / Live and Learn in Kenya – and right now they’re asking for support from folk across SL to make it happen, buy donating their time, interest and talents.
The focus of the auction comes by way of Feed A Smile. You may recognise the name from things like The Drax Files World Makersepisode #16. At its heart, Feed A Smile, organised and run by Brique Topaz (Brique Zeiner in the physical world) provides nutritious warm lunches for over 400 children every day, paid for entirely from donations to the project. Over a third of the money directed at the programme comes from donations received within Second Life.
Help build a school in Kenya “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela
Feed A Smile is a part of a larger organisation run by Brique, Live and Learn Kenya (LLK). Right now, LLK is engaged in an ambitious project, and that’s where MadPea – and all who are willing to help – come in, as Kess explains via the note and the blog post:
They are currently in the process of building a school in Nakuru. The first classroom and staff office were opened in January but there is a long way to go with each classroom costing around 19,000 USD to complete. More information about the programme and the credentials can be round on the Live and Learn in Kenya Website.
Maybe you’re a photographer that could offer a portrait or a one-to-one tutorial of your work? A prolific blogger who could share your knowledge with another resident? A store owner or creator willing to give a demonstration or create a unique product. Maybe you’re a DJ or Live musician willing to give an hour show to a winning bidder. The options are endless and you get to choose what you give.
The first element of the school opened in January, and LLK were there to celebrate with the first young students
The first elements of the school opened in January 2015, and work is continuing – and there is a lot still to do. The aim of the auction is to raise L$1.2 million (approx. US $4800 / £3057 / €4229) to help further the project.
The auction will actually be preceded over Friday 25th and Saturday 26th September 2015 with a live music and entertainment event being scheduled to run through to the start of the auction on Sunday, September 27th, and which will take place at a specially built area at !Exodus! Rock Club.
I’ll have more news on the actual event schedule and venue nearer the dates. In the meantime, if you would like to help with this auction by donating your time and abilities so people can bid for them, head on over to the LLK website and read more about the project, and then complete MadPea’s auction joining form over on Google Docs.
The plans for the completed LLK Nakuru school (click for full size)
This is an opportunity to make a real difference in the real world, as Kess and MadPea note:
We’ve seen recently with The Lexi Project just how phenomenal the generosity of SL’rs can be and how we can make RL changes to people’s lives when we work together. Please nudge your favourite SL Residents to join us by asking them to complete the joining form!
If you are a musician / DJ and are interested in helping support the live entertainments associated with the event, please Kess directly at kess-at-madpeagames.com to register your interest.
Previously appearing on a roughly quarterly basis, these offers / drives seem to have switched to bimonthly events since April 2015, which aligns them nicely with Halloween and Christmas for the purposes of gift-giving.
Of particular interest to Premium members is the “even better support” mentioned in the headline, which the post expands thus:
Starting today, Premium Members can now receive support by live chatting directly with the Linden Lab Concierge Support team. This is the same team of Lindens that Estate owners speak to when they need help, and now all Premium Members have access to this level of support.
For those not already a Premium member, the discount period runs through until 08:00 SLT on Monday the 24th of August 2015.
Note that the discount is only available when signing-up to the monthly billing plan, and is only applicable to the first month’s payment, reducing it to US $5.00 (+VAT, if applicable). Payments thereafter revert to the usual US $9.95 (+ VAT, if applicable).
This marks the second time the discount has been applied to the monthly billing plan, the first having been in April 2015, with the June discount offer switching back to the “traditional” quarterly plan. Whether this means we’ll be seeing the offer alternate between monthly and quarterly plans with future discount offers, or whether the Lab is simply gauging which generates the greater interest, remains to be seen.
Th obligatory Sansar promo image 🙂 (please can we have some new ones?) – Linden Lab
On Tuesday, August 18th, and running a couple of weeks behind schedule – such is the way with new projects – the Lab has officially announced they’ve invited a small number of content creators to try-out their Next Generation Platform for virtual experiences, currently code-named Project Sansar.
The announcement, which appears a press release on the Lab’s corporate pages, reads in part:
Slated for general availability in 2016, Project Sansar will democratize virtual reality as a creative medium. It will empower people to easily create, share, and monetize their own multi-user, interactive virtual experiences, without requiring engineering resources. The platform will enable professional-level quality and performance with exceptional visual fidelity, 3D audio, and physics simulation. Experiences created with Project Sansar will be optimized for VR headsets like the Oculus Rift, but also accessible via PCs and (at consumer launch) mobile devices. Users can explore and socialize within Project Sansar experiences through advanced expressive avatars, using text and voice chat.
Drawing on more than 12 years of unique experience running Second Life, the largest-ever user-created virtual world, Linden Lab will make it fun and easy for Project Sansar users to create social VR experiences, eliminating the complicated challenges that today limit the medium to professional developers with significant resources. Project Sansar will allow creators at all levels to focus on realizing their creative visions, without having to worry about issues such as hosting and distribution, multi-user access and communication systems, virtual currency and regulatory compliance, and other challenges associated with creating, sharing, and monetizing virtual experiences today.
As has been widely reported, the initial testing will be focused on Autodesk’s Maya® software for content creation and upload to Sansar, although the Lab have also announced that they intend the platform to operate with a wide range of content creation tools such as such as 3D Max, Sketchup, and Blender, with file format support for OBJ and FBX, and others.
Sansar alpha testing is focused exclusively on Maya – however, the Lab intend the platform to support a wide range of 3D content creation tools as work progresses
During the alpha, the invited creators will be encouraged to “use each other’s games and other invented environments, trade feedback, and tweak their own work.” They’ll also have to be patient, with Ebbe Altberg having previously warned they may face having content deleted, removed or otherwise altered as the Lab continued to adjust, change, tweak (and bash?) what is still a very new platform that has a good way to go before it reaches something ready to have a lot of people pile on to it and play with it.
That said, if all goes according to plan, the alpha will slowly be opened out over time to include more creators, the Lab’s own announce noting:
In the coming months, Linden Lab will welcome additional creators and content partners to Project Sansar as new features are added to the platform and testing expands.
The emphasis on “content partners” is mine, as I do wonder precisely what it means for the direction Sansar will be taking, particularly given the differentiation given the term from “creators”. More thoughts on that to come.
In the meantime, The Verge has been quick off the press in following-up on the Lab’s announcement, with a short piece entitled The VR successor to Second Life is inviting its first testers, which is in some ways an unfortunate title, as it does carry a certain implication that Second Life is perhaps no more. This view is perhaps further enhanced by the use of the past tense when referring to the platform, even though there is a nod to the fact that Sansar will run “alongside” SL.
For those wishing to catch-up on what I believe to be the core statements and information around Sansar, as gathered from cited sources, please refer to my July Sansar Summary.
Also, be sure to take a look at uploadVR’s very excellent conversation between Nick Ochoa and Ebbe Altberg on Sansar, which I reviewed at the start of August, and am embedding here again for reference.
Bright Canopy, the new streaming service, which allows users on low-end computers to access both Second Life and OpenSim has announced it will officially launch on Saturday, August 29th at a single monthly subscription price, which for the first 90 days (at least) will be $17.00 a month.
The service, which was established by SL users Bill Glover and his wife, Jeri (known in-world as Chaos Priestman and Beth Robbani respectively in-world), arose directly as a result of the May 2015 closure of the SL Go streaming service provided by former on-line streaming games supplier, OnLive. What’s more, and on a personal note, I’m pleased to be able to say that this blog had a hand in bringing things about – although my involvement as a beta user hasn’t been as extensive as I’d hoped.
Let’s just do it ourselves! You really got me thinking. I’d can launch a service right now if I get enough folks for Beta.
Bill and Jeri Glover: heading the Bright Canopy team, and long-term Second Life users
Things further progressed when I wrote about Nebadon Izumi’s work in getting the viewer and OpenSim delivered over AppStream. My article prompted Nikola Bozinovic, founder and CEO of Frame, a cloud-based service focused on delivering Windows applications to users, to suggest his service could be used to deliver Second Life through the cloud.
Bill and Nikola quickly got their heads together, and within 24 hours, they had their own proof-of-concept running, delivering the official SL viewer over Frame via Amazon.
Bright Canopy streams SL and OpenSim directly to your web browser, offering those on low-specification computers to enjoy the full graphic richness of both platforms with (allowing for network vagaries) low latency – note the data, bottom left (via Bright Canopy)
Not long after that, and with the support of SL and OpenSim users, a small alpha test commenced, which expanded to an invite-only pre-launch beta, which again in turn gradually opened its doors wider and wider as time as progressed and issues dealt with.
Nikola Bozinovic, founder of Frame, who extended an invitation to try his service as a means of accessing Second Life (and other grids) from the cloud – and thus paved the way for Bright Canopy to deliver
While operating as independent companies, the synergy between Frame and Bright Canopy has been impressive, with the former working hard to ensure the latter can provide a scalable, robust service, as Bill has worked to ensure the viewer behaves itself when streamed and can support the services users expect – notably voice.
“Frame is excited to provide infrastructure support to make projects like Bright Canopy scale globally,” Nikola stated during the official launch announcement. “Bill has captured the imagination and the energy of the Second Life community. We’ve been impressed by the cooperative and open approach of the Bright Canopy team.”
One of the core benefits of running with Frame, is the company has an established track record in delivering Windows applications over cloud services (indeed, in June 2015, Frame closed a further US $10 million round of funding, such is the scope of interest in their approach). This means they have the technical expertise to be able to help Bright Canopy scale over time, and to offer the kind of delivery speeds users expect (local network vagaries allowing). The company already has a global presence itself, notably utilising Amazon’s backbone, with points of presence across the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.
Initially, Bright Canopy ran using only Frame’s presence in California. Even so, and for many in the USA and Europe, results were impressive. Later, Dublin was added to the mix, offering greatly reduced latency to beta users in Europe. With the launch on August 29th, Bright Canopy will additionally leverage Frame’s presence on the US East Coast to again enhance the service.
One of the key aspects of Bright Canopy being partnered with Frame is that the latter already has multiple points-of-presence with Amazon around the world – so Bright Canopy can leverage these as global demands requires. At launch, Bright Canopy runs out of California, serving the USA, and Dublin, serving Europe
The new monthly pricing plan, which will completely replace the hourly plan used during the beta period, has initially been set at US $17.00 a month for the first 90 days. However, Bright Canopy warn that this may be subject to increase – although they hope very much to avoid this.
The problem here is that Bright Canopy is currently being provisioned via Amazon’s Spot Instances. Normally, these are the most cost-effective way to deliver a service, but they have lately been subject to an insane bidding war, resulting in massive price spikes.
This means that Bright Canopy need to watch the situation very carefully, as Bill explained in the launch announcement:
Our early bird price is going to be an experiment for 90 days. If you’ve been following the blog, you know we’ve seen price fluctuations on the back-end, and we still need to watch actual usage of the service. $17 is a sustainable price if the instance costs return to their typical, historical values. It is not a sustainable price with the current spike in instance price. We may need to get creative with how we split instances, or we may need to raise prices. We intend to remain transparent as always and will keep you posted. Our goal is to continue to maintain a sustainable, affordable service.
If a price increase is required, it will be announced when Bright Canopy have had an opportunity to assess the best way forward, and with sufficient time for users to determine how they’d like to proceed.
In a further more to sweeten Premium memberships, Linden Lab has announced that with immediate effect, those Premium members who have traditionally have had to pay VAT on their membership subscriptions will no longer have to do so.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 