Tag: Community Gateways

Firestorm Halloween Hunt to open Gateway

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Firestorm Gateway regions: setting for a special Spooky Hunt, but merchant assistance sought
The Firestorm Gateway regions: setting for a special Spooky Hunt, but merchant assistance sought

Firestorm will be opening their new Gateway regions to the public on Saturday, October 31st, with both a special Halloween party and the launch of their Spooky Nights Hunt, which will run through until Monday, November 30th.

The Firestorm Gateway is one of up to 20 new Community Gateways which will soon be opening as a part of a trial of a new Community Gateway programme initiated by the Lab, and  which I previewed back in September.

The idea is to allow communities and groups within Second Life to build their own gateways focused on bringing new users into Second Life and to help get them started. These gateways will include web pages to attract new users to them, which will include a registration API to allow those users to sign-up to SL and create and account without necessarily having to go through the central registration process at secondlife.com.

While the hunt isn't focused on encouraging new users into Second Life, the Firstorm Gateway regions, once officially opened, are itentded to help incoming users gain familiar with SL, gain support, and experience some of the activities to be found in-world, such as socialising, flying, boating and - as shown here - scuba diving
The Firestorm Gateway regions, once officially opened, are intended to help incoming users gain familiar with SL, gain support, and experience some of the activities to be found in-world, such as socialising, flying, boating, playing games, and – as shown here – scuba diving and underwater exploring

The Firestorm party and Spooky Nights hunt do not mark the official opening of the new Gateway programme as a whole – the Lab will hopefully be announcing this is due course. However, they do present the opportunity for Second Life users to explore the Firestorm Gateway regions, five of which will be featured in the hunt, which will also serve as the first event designed to attract new users to Second Life via Firestorm’s website.

A special stage area has been created for the party on October 31st, which will feature Mankind Tracer and Nance Brody, among others. There will be more details on this announced by the Firestorm team in due course.

The Firestorm Gateway regions also include areas suitable for intdoucing people to role-play, etc. - and you can explore them once the Spooky Hunt opens on October 31st
The Firestorm Gateway regions also include areas suitable for introducing people to role-play, etc. – and you can explore them once the Spooky Hunt opens on October 31st

The Spooky Nights Hunt will take place across the five activity regions of the Gateway, and it is hoped it will provide fun and interaction for both established and new users. Right now, and in support of the hunt, the Firestorm team are reaching out to Merchants who are willing to provide goodies as hunt prizes, with Jessica Lyon, the Firestorm project manager noting:

Although it is a Halloween hunt, the hunt remains open after Halloween. You can make a spooky gift or not.

If you are a Merchant interested in supporting the hunt, please hop over the Firestorm website and the Spooky Hunt application page for further information.

As well as participating in the hunt, newcomers and visitors will be able to explore all six of the Firestorm Gateway regions, which include an orientation region for people new to Second Life and a social area where people can meet and interact (and where questions on using Second Life can be answered). In addition, they’ll be able to participate in any of the activities offered across the regions. These are designed to present a broad feel for the things people can enjoy in Second Life, and include fly aircraft, sailing, jet skiing, scuba diving, playing games, etc. In addition, they can explore a simple role-play environment, or use the sandbox area to learn the basics of building.

The Firestorm Gateway opening will focus on a Halloween party of Saturday, October 31st, followed by a month-long Spooky Nights Hunt in the 5 activity regions of the Gateway

The Firestorm Gateway opening will focus on a Halloween party of Saturday, October 31st, followed by a month-long Spooky Nights Hunt in the 5 activity regions of the Gateway

One of the most important aspects of any Community Gateway is providing volunteers who are willing to spend time in-world providing help and support for new users as they arrive. If you would be interested in supporting the Firestorm Gateway by becoming a mentor there, please send a note card with your name and relevant background information (e.g. whether you have been a mentor in the past, experience in helping newcomers and users, etc.), to Jessica Lyon.

To keep up to date with preparations for the party and the hunt, as well as with further news on the Firestorm Gateway, keep an eye on the Firestorm website. I’ll hopefully have more news on the Gateway programme itself as it is announced by the Lab and / or more Gateways come on-line.

If you are participating in the Gateway trial programme, and would like your Gateway to be previewed in this blog, please use the contact form to drop me a line, or contact me in-world.

Community Gateways set for a return to 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.

There were two aspects mentioned during the talks which piqued my interest. One of them was the Lab’s use of new web landing pages – something I’ll be discussing with Peter Gray, the Lab’s director of global Communications, in an upcoming article.  The other was the potential return of the Community Gateway Programme.

For those unfamiliar with the latter, at one time the Lab ran a programme which allowed communities to connect to the Second Life registration pathway, enabling them to steer incoming users directly to their own orientation / support environment, and thus provide them with assistance and hands-on support in getting started in SL. The programme was discontinued in August 2010, with the Lab citing several reasons for doing so, including issues around scalability and management oversight, together with question marks around the overall effectiveness of the programme.

However, there have been repeated calls from within the community for the Lab to bring the programme back, and this now appears to be what is happening, initially as a test to see how things go.

The community Gateway Programme, discontinued in August 2010, allowed communities to connect to the registration path and bring users directly to their own orientation / support areas - such as Help People Island (which itself discontinued in 2011)

The new programme is designed to allow communities and groups bring users into Second Life, present them with help and support in getting started, much like the original Gateway programme, and hopefully present them with interests and activities to keep them engaged with the platform. These gateways will include web pages to attract new users to them, which will include a registration API to allow those users to sign-up to SL and create and account without necessarily having to go through the central registration process at secondlife.com. Additionally, if they wish, those running the gateway can provide dedicated links for downloading a viewer (official or TPV).

I caught up with Patch Linden on the matter at the end of July, to find out some more. “We are bringing back Community Gateways as a test, based on the positive feedback and indicators of success they had in the past,” he confirmed with me. “We have 20 Gateways with whom we’re currently in discussions, but we’ve not decided on all of the programme details yet and plan to take an organic approach to re-establishing things.”

Did this mean those involved in the new programme would be able to bring new users directly into their experience, I asked, or would they have to go via the current sign-up page, and have new users connect to them via the existing Learning Island / Social Island portal system?

“We’d like to allow gateway creators to help bring in users,” Patch replied. “The idea is that the new registrant would begin their time in SL in the experience that matches their interest, instead of Learning Island.” He paused and then added, “However, adding Gateways to the end of Learning Island and/or Social Island are still being considered.”

Communities and organisations within SL have attempted to offer guidance to new users, including the UWA, with their education-focus guidance for students and teachers arriving in SL - find out more about it here
Communities and organisations within SL have continued to offer guidance to new users. The UWA, for example, offer the SL Educate orientation, designed by Carmsie Melodie and focused specifically at students and teachers arriving in Second Life. You can read more about it here

A look at the Firestorm Gateway

One of the groups involved in the new Gateway Programme is the Firestorm team. Together with a number of other groups offering new user orientation facilities, they participated in a 6-week experiment run by the Lab to monitor how new sign-ups faired as a result of passing through their orientation process, and gather comparative retention data. Following this, Firestorm were one of the groups invited into the upcoming new Gateway Programme.

“The Gateway idea is mostly based on a single region,” Jessica Lyon, Firestorm’s Project Manager said as she and Ed Merryman gave me a tour of their new user experience shortly after I’d talked to Patch Linden. “But you know me :). I wasn’t satisfied with one region – if we were going to do this, we wanted to do it right!”

The result is that the Firestorm Gateway comprises six regions in total, including the original Firestorm Support region, which has been re-purposed to fit with the Gateway approach. “One of the new regions is going to be a Firestorm Orientation for new sign ups only,” Jessica continued as we explored, “it’ll be a similar to our current orientation island.”

Firestorm are participating in the new Gateway Programme, offering an experience focused around their self-help orientation island
Firestorm are participating in the new Gateway Programme, offering an experience focused around their orientation island

The rest of the regions offer an assortment of facilities and activities intended to help new users get better acquainted with Second Life, using the viewer, and participating in some of the activities they can find during their in-world travels. A staffed support area provides practical help and support, for example, while users can also enjoy activities such as jet skis, sailing, boating, and flying within the regions, or try their hand at a scuba diving adventure.

There’s also an amphitheatre (under construction at the time of my visit) which will be used for events focused on new users, viewer Q&A sessions, and so on, while social areas around the island will offer new users the opportunity to relax and meet with established SL users as well.

Firestorm also aim to help people discover popular activities such as flying, boating, and boating in Second Life
Firestorm also aim to help people discover popular activities such as flying, boating, and scuba diving in Second Life

To help draw users to the experience, Firestorm will also be remodelling their website, allowing it to be linked to the Lab’s user registration process. Thus, people visiting the website will be able to sign-up to Second Life, select their avatar, download the Firestorm viewer and log-in directly to the Firestorm new user experience, reflecting Patch’s view that new users should be able to directly reach the experience which interests them. Other participants in the Gateway Programme will be able to offer similar sign-up / log-in capabilities for people to reach their experiences as well.

As noted earlier in this article, the new Gateway Programme isn’t quite ready for launch at present – but it will be soon. When it does so, the Lab will be publishing more information on it, including participation guidelines, and I’ll be offering a follow-up to this article at that time.

Similarly, the Firestorm regions are ready for opening just yet; when they do, I’ll be bringing you a in-depth review of the facilities and Firestorm’s approach to the new user experience.

My thanks to Pete Linden, Patch Linden, Jessica Lyon and Ed Merryman for their time and assistance in writing this article.