Category: News-Opinion

Lab blogs on upcoming improvements for Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn Tuesday, October 20th, Linden Lab issued a blog post highlighting upcoming technical improvements to the service, particularly  viewer-side updates, which will shortly be making an appearance, or which are already available in the form of release candidate or project viewers.

Regular readers of this blog will hopefully already be aware of most of the improvements mentioned by the Lab’s post, as I’ve covered them through various updates and focus articles in these pages.

The first to get a mention is the Project Valhalla viewer, which introduces Chromium Embedded Framework functionality to Second Life to replace the ageing LLQTwebkit functionality, and which I initially previewed here. Commenting on this viewer, the Lab blog post states:

A new age of modern HTML5 content is upon us, and we’re overhauling the way shared media (aka “media on a prim”) works so that you can enjoy all kinds of modern web content within Second Life. Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is coming to replace the ageing QTWebkit framework. What you can now see in a Project Viewer is the latest released version of Chrome – so it will render all modern web technologies – like HTML5, CSS3, WebGL; has the latest security patches; and will be easy to keep updated to a recent version. What does this mean for your Flash content? What about QuickTime? They may still work, but because both can only be viewed if the user has correctly installed a 3rd party plugin, we can’t  promise support and you shouldn’t expect that it will work for everyone. Standard HTML5 is the way of the future and this Viewer will enable it for anyone. There are still bugs to squash, and we’re iterating quickly to bring you a smooth in-world media and browsing experience. If you have comments about this feature – please post to the forum thread about this topic – located here.

My own quick-and-dirty demo of using a viewer with the CEF code (in this case, the Black Dragon TPV, as I don’t have a video using the Valhalla viewer) to access WebGL content displayed both on prims in-world, and via the viewer’s built-in browser. The WebGL demonstrations are provided via David Walsh (with thanks to Whirly Fizzle for the link), and this video is intended to offer a simple overview of some of the capabilities, which as mentioned in the notes from the Lab are actually far more extensive.

The major take-away from the CEF introduction at this point is that if you make use of media within your products (e.g. TVs, etc.), or as a part of you in-world presence, now is the time to be looking to convert them to using HTML / WebGL, etc., testing them against the Valhalla project viewer, and reporting any issues / highlighting any concerns. The Lab is more like to address matters / consider changes while the viewer is will at project status, rather than when it reaches a release candidate status.

Also mentioned in the post is the new Notifications RC viewer and the Quick Graphics viewer, both of which are both available as release candidate viewers. The former provides a new front-end for handling incoming notifications (and which I previewed here). The latter provides both the new Avatar Complexity functionality (which replaces the old ARC / ADW) and the abilities to create, save and quickly re-use sets of your own graphics presets for use in different environments and settings. Again, I’ve previewed both of these here and here.

The notifications viewer offers a new way of managing notifications and is featured in the Lab's blog post
The notifications viewer offers a new way of managing notifications and is featured in the Lab’s blog post

Additional insight into Avatar Complexity is provided, both through the post and via a link to the Knowledge Base article on it. a request is also given that anyone who has general comments on the capability to please post them to the related forum thread (comments posted to this blog may not be read by the Lab).

Mention is also made of the HTTP updates which have been undertaken by Rider Linden (Project Azumarill) and which are also available in a release candidate viewer. This project builds on the foundations laid by Monty Linden with his HTTP work, further enhancing the use of HTTP capabilities to provide more robust communications capabilities with the simulators and back-end services. Finally – at least in terms of available viewers – the updated mesh importer viewer, recently promoted to de facto release status, gets a mention.

The Quick Graphics viewer allows you to create and save your own graphics presets to suit different requirement,s and which can be quickly loaded and used with just a couple of mouse clicks
The Quick Graphics viewer allows you to create and save your own graphics presets to suit different requirement,s and which can be quickly loaded and used with just a couple of mouse clicks

Also referred to, although it has yet to appear in a project viewer, is a further inventory related project. This is being led by Aura Linden, and the aim is to improve the overall robustness of inventory handling, the work being carried out in two parts, as I was (again) able to preview recently, courtesy of a Third-Party Viewer Developer meeting:

  • The first part will see the  removal of all of the old UDP inventory messaging paths used by the viewer which have already been replaced by more robust mechanisms, but which have until now remained a part of the viewer’s code – this aspect of the work should be appearing in a project viewer viewer soon
  • The second part will comprise a refactoring of the viewer inventory files and functions with the overall aim of making the code more readable and easier to maintain.

As the Lab’s blog post indicates, this project further builds on the on-going work we’ve seen during the course of the last few months to improve inventory performance, reduce the number of inventory losses users may suffer, and provide assistance with inventory-related problems which affect things like logging-in to to SL.

Finally, the Labs blog post also reveals that Flash has now been removed from the secondlife.com website, noting:

Due to the numerous recent security problems affecting Flash, it has been completely removed from our website. A modern way to animate starter avatars in the join carousel and some other exciting news for registration is coming out really soon. Keep an eye out!

This announcement again signifies that while the Shining Project many have ended, and things may have been a little quiet of late, things are still being progressed. As it stands, the notifications updates may well be promoted to the de facto release viewer in week #44 (week commencing Monday, October 26th). In the meantime, the links below will take you to the latest (at the time of writing) versions of the viewers mentioned here and in the Lab’s blog post.  If you find any reproducible issues with any of them, please raise a JIRA, and remember to post any general comments you may have on the viewers to the official forum threads mentioned above.

Landing pages: marketing Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeDuring the SL12B “Meet the Lindens” presentations, mention was made a number of times about the new user on-boarding process, and steps the Lab are and would be taking to try to improve the overall experience for those signing-up to Second Life.

In particular, two of the talks touched on the Lab making use of new Second Life “landing pages” on the web, and the upcoming new community-focused Gateway Programme. The comments made were enough to pique my curiosity, so I approached Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global communications to find out more about both of these activities. As I covered the upcoming Gateway Programme  in September, this piece looks at the new “landing pages” on the web.

These are dedicated web pages for Second Life which operate alongside the generic landing page at secondlife.com, but which are used for focused marketing of the platform, by highlighting a specific activity or market vertical, such as education, VR, the global music community, business (affiliate programme), etc., as well as social activities, fashion and content creation, together with pages devoted to familiar topics such as vampires, breedables, zombies, etc.

A part of the education landing page, which includes links to details on the education discount, the SL education wiki,
A part of the education landing page, which includes links to details on the education discount, the SL education wiki and forum and two use case studies (Texas A&M and Nova Southeastern University, as provided by the Drax Files World Makers Series – click for larger view or follow the link

“We run ad campaigns, targeted with our ad partners, that point back to some of these pages,” Peter told me. “But not all of them at the same time. We also use ad networks to target people who share interests similar to those offered in the landing pages we bring them to.”

So, for example, the education landing page can be used specifically with a campaign focused directly on the education sector, and  also to promote Second Life more broadly to those who may have an interest in using virtual environments for educational purposes.

And were they yielding positive results?

“For the pages that we are running ads against, we’ve seen improvements in conversion rates compared to the old versions, Peter confirmed, without being drawn into discussing figures.

In exploring the pages, I did notice that while they were very content specific in their presentation, all of them nevertheless linked back to the generic sign-up page and it broad choice of avatars. I wondered if this might be off-putting to some potential market sectors. Those looking at the platform fora business or education use, for example might prefer not to have the vampire / zombie options displayed to their clients / students. So I asked if any thought had been given to narrowing the choice of initial avatar to more closely match the possible expectations generated by some of these tailored landing pages?

“We currently default to generic avatars to offer the widest choice,” Peter told me. “But if a user comes in from a vampire page, we try to direct them to those avatars. In the future, we would ultimately like to customize the new user experience all the way through the flow, based on interests.”

Former CEO Rod Humble once indicated he’d love to see more of the millions of users who signed-up to and then departed from SL make a return. Given these pages allow for targeted campaigns to be run, I asked Peter if they were playing a part in any such attempts to recapture former users, if indeed they were still being targeted.

“We do continue to re-target lapsed and former users to encourage them to return to SL,” he confirmed. “For users that leave SL because they didn’t find the thing that interests them, these pages and ads may also help surface that area of interest and better funnel them back towards  SL.”

Overall, this is an interesting approach which tends to show that the Lab is trying different strategies and approaches in their attempts to encourage people into second Life, although It would be interesting to know more on the figures in terms of the retention (conversion) upswing mentioned when compared to the  older pages.

For those working with the Lab on the new (and still to be officially announced) trail gateway programme, the Lab’s targeted pages such as those for education, community and content creation might offer hints on how they might approach their own landing pages.

Lab launches 2015 Halloween Photo contest with L$19K prize pool

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeLinden Lab has entered further into the Halloween mood with a new photo contest, offering a total prize pool of L$19,000.

The competition, launched on Thursday, October 15th, runs through until 17:00 SLT on Thursday, November 12th and challenges residents to take a snapshot of their avatar in a suitable Halloween theme in Second Life.

Competition entries should be posted to the competition page in the Second Life forums, where they will be displayed together, and open to popular vote by other Second Life residents.

The blog post announcing the competition reads in part:

In Second Life, every day is an opportunity to dress up, but come Halloween time, Residents step it up and take it to a whole new level of fun and creativity. If this is your first Halloween in Second Life – or even if it’s your 12th – you are in for something incredible!

All over the grid, regions decorate, put together trick-or-treat style hunts, blast some chilling tunes for your move your avatar bones to, and generally run amok in the undeniable excitement of Halloween. We couldn’t be left out of the spooky shenanigans, so there’s a few official events you won’t want to miss out on.

Entries are limited to one per avatar account and must conform to the Second Life General maturity rating, as defined by the Lab’s Maturity Ratings guidelines. In addition, images must be submitted in a valid .jpg, .jpeg or .gif format(s) no larger than 20Mb and cannot have been submitted previously to any other promotion of any kind, or exhibited or displayed publicly through any means.

The prize pool is made up of the following individual prizes:

  • L$ 10,000 Grand Prize (estimated value at US$40.00)
  • L$ 5,000 First Prize –(estimated value at US$20.00)
  • L$ 3,000 Second Prize (estimated value at $12.00)
  • L$1,000 Third Prize (estimated value at $4.00).

The winners of the competition will be contacted no later that 17:00 SLT on Sunday, December 6th, 2015.

Please refer to the competition rules page for further guidelines / requirements.

P2P: Helping those with disabilities in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

It’s widely recognised that for many with disabilities, Second Life offers a major source of engagement, support and enjoyment which might otherwise be beyond their reach. As a result, there are a number of charities, organisations and support groups active within Second Life providing a wide range of services and support networks for those with disabilities and / or disabling illnesses.

One such group, of which I’m embarrassed to say I only quite recently became aware, is the  Pixel to Pixel (P2P) Foundation. Founded in 2009 by Jadyn Firehawk (also known within P2P as Pixel Falconer), it offers a unique service to Second Life users who in the physical world are supporting themselves purely through disability benefits.

“Second Life is a lifeline to many people with disabilities,” Jadyn says in discussing P2P’s function. “Some may live in social isolation, so SL keeps them connected with friends. Others may suffer a physical impairment, and SL gives them the virtual experience of full mobility and freedom.

“But there are costs associated with being involved in Second Life, and for those who are reliant solely on disability assistance programme benefits can struggle to meet those costs. So, the P2P Foundation gives direct financial assistance in the form of weekly Linden dollar stipends to people on disability, to help them enjoy their time in-world.”

Pixel to Pixel foundation HQ offering information, fund-raising kits and more
Pixel to Pixel Foundation HQ offering information, fund-raising kits and more

This stipend, L$500 (approx US $2.00) per week, may not sound much, but for someone who is living purely on benefits, it can mean a lot. As one participant states, “two dollars for me means a loaf of bread for a week.” So the stipend can lift the burden of choice, allowing the recipient to put it to use in Second Life – help cover their rent, upload textures, buy goods or clothing in-world, or spend it however they like, without necessarily having to draw on their physical world finances. As well as the stipend programme, P2P will occasionally award discretionary grants to recipient, so that they can start a business or pursue a major creative project in Second Life.

Because P2P operates purely in-world, beneficiaries can reside in any country around the globe, and their disability assistance can be either from their government or from a private disability insurance company. However, in order to be eligible for the P2P programme, applicants and recipients must be able to demonstrate, if asked, that they are on disability benefits. This is done by sending a copy of their disability benefits award letter (or similar document) to Jadyn via regular, physical world mail, with their personal identifying information blacked out and replaced with their avatar name.

The 3LI P2P donation Kiosk is available as a part of the P2P fund-raising kit available from the P2P HQ
The 3 LI P2P donation Kiosk is available as a part of the P2P fund-raising kit available from the P2P HQ

The money used to pay out the stipends comes directly from donations and fund-raising activities. These currently enable the Foundation to support 20 people in Second Life through payouts amounting to L$10,000 a week.  However, as Jadyn notes, there are a further 20 people on the Foundation’s waiting list – and it can take in excess of two years for someone to secure a place in the programme.

“People who are on disability and in Second Life tend to stay, because SL becomes such an important part of their daily lives, meaning that new slots do not often open up,” Jadyn tells me.

Currently, P2P can generally only take on new recipients as a result of others leaving the programme, such as by becoming self-sufficient through their own entrepreneurial activities in SL – hence the discretionary grants programme P2P operates, which can help facilitate this.

One way to increase the number of people the Foundation can support is through greater guaranteed inflow of donations. Anyone can help with this, simply by making a donation of any amount directly to Pixel Falconer, the Foundation’s donations account, or through one of the Foundation’s donation kiosks located throughout Second Life (see the list at the end this article for the current locations).

Businesses, venues and groups can also help with fund-raising by visiting the Foundation’s HQ to obtain a fund-raising kit, and then setting-up kiosks, posters, etc., in their store / on their land. The kiosks not only help with generating funds to run the programme, but also help raise awareness of P2P’s work. Jadyn would also be delighted to hear from any business, venue or group interested in organising and hosting a P2P fund-raiser.

The P2P Foundation gallery features the work of disabled artists, all of which is available to buy, the proceeds of sales going to the Foundation's work
The P2P Foundation gallery features the work of disabled artists, all of which is available to buy. The proceeds of sales going to the artists to help support them directly, although some may opt to share the proceeds with the Foundation

Two of the most effective means of assisting the Foundation is to either become a weekly / monthly donor, or by sponsoring P2P participant.

If you would like to become a weekly / monthly donor, you can do so by making your payments  directly to Pixel Falconer. Or you can also grab a donation kiosk and use it as a visual reminder to donate, rather than relying purely on memory to make payments to Pixel Falconer it might  also encourage your friends to support P2P!).

Should you wish to sponsor a P2P participant, either as an individual or through your business, please contact Jadyn Firehawk directly in-world.

Continue reading “P2P: Helping those with disabilities in Second Life” →

Valhalla: CEF comes to Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeUpdate, Firday October 9th: It was indicated at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday, October 9th that QuickTime media may still work on this viewer, rather than being disabled. However, this should not be taken to mean either QuickTime or Flash are to be supported by the by the Lab, and media creators should not rely on either Flash or QuickTime working correctly for everyone.

On Wednesday, October 7th, the Lab issued the long-awaited project viewer utilises the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) for media handling – and more – in Second Life.

The Valhalla Project viewer, which sees the viewer version number increment to 4.0, is intended as a replacement for LLQTWebKit, which has traditionally supported web-based media in Second Life.

The latter has been subject to increasing issues over the last few years, such as the libraries used within the viewer being out-of-date, and it being focused on both Flash and QuickTime, which have issues of their own.

As a result, the Lab started looking to replace LLQTWebkit with CEF a little over a year ago, and actually blogged about the change in July 2014 when discussing upcoming improvements to SL. At that time, it had been anticipated that a project viewer would be appearing “soon”.

However, a number of other projects served to stall the work on CEF; most notably the change-over to the new tool chain and build process for building the viewer. Understandably, this caused the Lab to hold off from making large-scale changes to the viewer code until after they were confident of the builds using the new tool set, and this inevitably pushed a number of project back – including the CEF work.

Commenting on the CEF project during the TPV Developer meeting on Friday, September 25th, Oz Linden indicated that the release of the viewer was finally on the horizon, and confirmed that when issued, it would not support QuickTime and would have Flash support disabled by default (see update at the top of this article).

Loki eliot has been poking at the new viewer, including visiting a virtual world from inside a virtual world when he logged on to Sine Wave's Gojiyo, which is now being promoted as a part of the sinewave.space "federation" of virtual worlds (see my article here)
Loki Eliot has been poking at the new viewer, including visiting a virtual world from inside a virtual world when he logged on to Gojiyo, which is now being promoted as a part of the sinewave.space “federation” of virtual worlds (see my article here)

The Valhalla viewer, version 4.0.0.305703, is liable to remain a project viewer for an extended period in order to allow  the CEF capabilities to be thoroughly tested, and to ensure content creators who make web media systems (TVs, etc.) and those using in-world media capabilities, have plenty of opportunity to update their products / systems as and where required. Commenting on the status of the viewer in the release notes, the Lab also states:

This is the first iteration of a Project Viewer – which means that while a lot of the problems facing the old MOAP implementation should now become a distant artifact of the past, we are still cranking through the many new issues with our CEF-based solution. See a bug? If you don’t see it filed already – file a Jira! We look forward to your feedback. Thanks!

There are a number of known issues already with the viewer, which are worth noting here as well:

  • Mac issues:
    • Search window crashes
    • Mac keyboard issues can prevent logging in
  • The in-viewer destination guide doesn’t work under chrome
  • Drop down lists do not work in internal web browser or MOAP
  • Profiles and marketplace are asking for a login each session

WebG and HTML support within the browser potentially offers some interest means of more interactive media elements within Second Life. Draxtor and Loki have been playing around with the new viewer and some of the more interactive elements, and have produced a short demo video. Loki has also been playing with the viewer more extensively, and you can read his thoughts about it as well.

 

 

 

Be a part of the Lab’s Creepy Crawl for SL’s Halloween

Posted on by Inara Pey
The March 25th meet-up at Meauxle Bureaux
The March 25th meet-up at Meauxle Bureaux

The latest in the Lab’s renewed social meet-ups in-world with residents is currently in the planning stages. Given the time of year, the Lab have decided to mix the Halloween season into things and hold a “travelling meet-up”, as a blog post from Xiola about the “Creepy Crawl” explains:

A-haunting we will go! This year we’re going to take inworld meetups and Halloween shenanigans and mix them together for a frightful mashup of mind-blowingly fun times. But – we need your help to make it happen.

Are you interested in hosting a stop along our Second Life Creepy Crawl? We’re looking for spots that will have music, are appropriate for general and moderate audiences, and don’t mind having a few Lindens and Residents dropping in all at once to dance and hang out for a bit.

The return of the SS Galaxy to Second Life was marked by an impromptu get-together with Lab staff - now you can play host with your venue / location, as the next get-together takes to the road
The return of the SS Galaxy to Second Life was marked by an impromptu get-together with Lab staff – now you can play host with your venue / location, as the next get-together takes to the road

The date for the event will be – naturally enough – October 30th, 2015. The full details for those just wishing to hop along and join the fun will be announced in due course. However, for those who wish to offer their venue / place as a possible stop along the way, there are some simple instructions to follow, as Xiola goes on to explain:

  1. Make sure your place is listed in the Destination Guide – here’s how to submit.
  2. Hop over to this form and fill it out before October 20th – we’ll start selecting the venues after that!
  3. Keep an eye out for an email and/or notecard after the 20th to let you know if your venue was selected.

So, if you fancy hosting a little Linden Halloween fun, make sure you get your venue in the DG (if it isn’t already) and fill-out the application form.