Tag: SL Mobile

Second Life Mobile App enters “private” Alpha testing for Premium Plus users

Posted on by Inara Pey
SL Mobile, December 2023 – screen cap via Linden Lab

Update, December 13th: – the Lab now has an official blog post on the Alpha.

Linden Lab have announced – by way of a You Tube video (at the time of writing, I’ve not seen any official blog or forum post commentary  to accompany it) – the launch of a Second Life Mobile “Private Alpha” allowing Premium Plus subscribers to sign-up for the opportunity to take the app for a test drive and provide feedback to help with development.

Narrated by – I believe – user Boston Blaisdale, the short video (just over a minute in length) introduces the features and capabilities those accepted into the alpha will be able to try. These include:

  • See your avatar & edit appearance / change outfits.
  • Explore the world via the Destination Guide, mobile showcase, teleport, deep links, TP offers.
  • Interact with the world through a limited set of movements (walk, run, fly, sit, stand) and object interactions (touch, sit) – or park your avatar and explore via flycam.
  • Socialise and stay connected (nearby chat, group chat, IM, group notices, find contacts, inspect profiles).
  • Create and log in with a new account.

The app is currently available on the following platforms:

  •  iOS (minimum: iPhone X running iOS 16.6.1).
  • Android: mid-to-high-end Android device (comparable to Google Pixel 6 or higher) running Android OS 13 or higher.

Those participating on iOS will also require the TestFlight app for testing and feedback, whilst Android users will need to provide feedback through Google Play.

Premium Plus subscribers can find out more by following this Support Page link and (I believe) submitting a support ticket. There is also a link on this page to a FAQ  on the Mobile app. It is not clear if this testing is subject to any form of NDA.

SL Mobile, December 2023 – screen cap via Linden Lab

Commenting on more general availability for the app, Linden Lab state:

It’s still early days for our mobile app. Our mobile team has been hard at work building a mobile-centred design and foundational features so that we can all enjoy Second Life anywhere we want. We’re ready to share what we’ve built so far with our most dedicated residents and we ask for your help as we continue to develop this project through this early Alpha stage, but we do not have a date for the next phase of testing or full release at this time.

Using Premium Plus members for initial feedback is an interesting choice. On the one hand, it would appear to greatly limit the potential resource pool of people willing to work on the app and give objective feedback; on the other it does allow Linden Lab to manage the size of the pool of likely applications at this point in time. Whilst some might feel snubbed at the restrictive nature of this initial Alpha, it is probably worthwhile noting that the SL Mobile app has already had input from users and will continue to do so; so will hopefully include more broad-based Alpha and Beta testing using an expanded pool of users in 2024, as LL continue to develop the app.

In the meantime, here’s the video.

Second Life Mobile: Video update from the Lab, with summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
SL Mobile demonstration by Grumpity Linden – a screen capture from the June 2023 development video from Linden Lab

On Tuesday, June 27th, Linden Lab released a new video highlighting the development work for Second Life Mobile App. This video is embedded below, with what follows intended to form a short summary of comments made on the work during the SL20B Lab Gab session with Grumpity and Mojo Linden (and for which I’ll have a text summary available soon.

Key Points

  • Development work is continuing, with an emphasis on performance and rendering (for example: the capabilities of the hardware running SL Mobile is assessed to see if it can render with shadows enabled).
  • The user interface has been revised and improved.
  • The overall aim remains to provide an immersive an experience as possible, and provide users with an many of the capabilities found within the viewer as makes sense to include in a mobile device.
  • As it is, SL Mobile provides:
    • Chats and IM capabilities.
    • Friends on-line information.
    • Destinations / Places.
    • Teleport capabilities.
    • Groups and Group chat functionality.
    • High-quality rendering.
    • Avatar navigation via an on-screen joystick (only visible when in use).
  • Work will continue in adding features and capabilities and refining SL Mobile over the next two quarters.
  • The current time frame for releases is:
    • Limited “private” alpha testing towards the end of 2023.
    • Broader user beta testing in 2024.
  • Further news and updates will be made available as and when there are updates to share.
Rendering in the SL Mobile app / viewer – screencap via the June 2023 development video from Linden Lab

The Video

The new video – embedded below – provides insight into the work carried out since the last update / video released at SL19B, and highlights some of the purposes LL sees SL Mobile being put to.

Note that elements such as the UI as seen in the video are subject to possible change as the product develops.

Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab
On Friday, March 10th, 2023, Linden Lab streamed a special session of Lab Gab featuring the Office of Second Life: Grumpity Linden, Mojo Linden and Patch Linden.

The session was built around announcements and updates relating to various initiatives and product developments. Note that the following is not a direct transcript of the entire session, but is intended to record the key points discussed.

For ease of reference, timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comment directly to be able to do so.

 Table of Contents

A Little Background

Grumpity Linden: heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. As the Vice President of Product, she is responsible for coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, and so on; work which can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.

Mojo Linden: joined the Lab in 2021 at the Vice President of Engineering, filling the shoes worn for so long by Oz Linden. A 20-year veteran of the gaming industry, he has been responsible for launching numerous games across multiple genres and platforms, and has a strong understanding of platforms, architectures, and product development and technical capabilities. In his role at the Lab, he has shown enormous openness and candour in seeking to increase the platform’s functionality and performance, and in pushing to expand SL’s capabilities.

Patch Linden: originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007. He worked across a number of teams within the company – notably within the support and product spheres, and is responsible for developing the Land Operations team, and more recently setting-up the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2019, he has been Vice President, Product Operations.

Second Life Mobile

[Video 0:00-4:42 and 6:36-7:57]

Grumpity Linden holds up a mobile ‘phone showing Second Life running on it using the upcoming SL Mobile capability
  • Built upon Unity.
  • Core development of this product began in October 2022, with the aim of gaining as high a fidelity of experience on mobile as is possible.
  • Works on all platforms – Android, iOS, tablets, ‘phones.
  • The product is still very much in development, with the focus having been on graphics fidelity, including full avatar rendering.
  • There is some way to go before the product is ready for release – work at the moment is on smoothing out some of the rendering edge cases before moving on to adding further functionality.
  • Initial release is planned for late 2023 with limited functionality, which will then be iterated upon to add more and more functionality and capabilities.

Land Pricing and Fees

[Video: 8:59-12:06]

  • See: Infrastructure Investment Update: Buy/Sell Fee Change and Land Pricing Effective Mar 6, 2023 – official blog post.
  • Grumpity re-iterated the drive (initiated by the late Ebbe Altberg, not long after he joined LL as CEO in 2014) to lower the cost of virtual land in SL – as had long been called for by SL residents – whilst also offsetting the lower land tiers through increases in fees elsewhere within the platform.
  • The fee increases  – as noted in the official blog post – also relate to increased costs LL has faced, thanks to the general economic situation.
  • The fact that the option for paying for land using L$ (restricted to Premium Plus subscribers and limited to one region only at the time of writing) is higher than the USD fee for the same is explained as being a combination of the facts that the L$ to USD exchange rate, the fact that LL have to do the lifting of conversion from L$ to LSD through the LindeX, and as such must participate in the SL economy.
  • It was also noted that paying in L$ means subscribers avoid being charged VAT / state sales tax / similar.

Bots and Policies

[Video: 12:09-13:05]

  • Most likely raised in relation to ongoing concerns about the amount of data being gathered by the BonnieBot system (which has done much to raise the visibility of bots (aka Scripted Agents) in general), and which has also seen some heavy-handed forum moderation on the part of LL. So details can be found threads  – see Has anyone else noticed the B[xxxx] accounts? Sorry. This is not OK. B bots profile scraping and Questions for the Lindens.
  • Whilst the BonnieBot website has take steps away from publishing information which might be regarded as being within Second Life under the expectation it is private (a point that Linden Lab seemingly missed in their initial responses to forum thread postings), the Lab has recognised the need for clearer / better policies and has promised to provide them.
  • These new policies have gone through the necessary compliance and legal reviews within Linden Lab, and will hopefully be published in week #11 (commencing Monday, March 13th, 2023).
  • In addition, a new set of estate / region controls are being developed to enable estate / region holders to better control the use of Scripted Agents within their land. These will be deployed “soon” – hopefully within weeks of this session being aired.

PBR – Physically Based Rendering and Graphics

[Video: 13:10-18:00]

  • (Note: this topic is also covered within my Content Creation User Group meeting summaries.)
  • In brief: PBR essentially models the flow of light within computer graphics in a manner which mimics light reflections on surfaces in the physical world.
  • It represents a significant technical step forward in graphical rendering for SL (in the order of 10 years).
  • The core of this work is to support a new approach to material maps / surfaces either directly on products development for SL by content creators or which can be used on suitable objects within Second Life, which give they sense of physical world lighting and reflection.
  • In particular, it draws on the Khronos glTF 2.0 specification, and allows creators to more readily use a range of tools supporting that standard (including Blender) and also contents libraries, etc., in support of their work.
An Intel-developed scene imported by Nagachief Darkstone and WindowsCE to demonstrate reflection probes (note the reflections on the knight’s armour – these are not generated by attached environment lights but by a reflection probe within the building structure. Image courtesy of Rye Cogtail
  • Also included in the PBR work is reflection probes – which in simple terms enable light sources to generate reflections of an in-world scene on suitable surfaces (i.e. those using the materials system).
  • None of this work does not necessarily mean users need higher specification computers in order to view it; however, reflection probes can impact system performance, so the viewer will include an option to enable / disable these if they prove to be a performance hit for people.
  • Demos of the PBR work, including an imported Sponza scene, can be found on the following regions on Aditi (the Beta grid):  Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • The PBR viewer itself – required to see the content on Aditi, is (at the time of writing) still in the Project Viewer stage (so not ready for use as a primary viewer!) and is available through the Alternate Viewers page.
  • The next stage of the project is to provide support on Agni (the main grid) and promote the viewer to Release Candidate status, both for more widespread testing, but there is no set time frame for this to happen.
  • This work does not mean LL are investing in a new graphics engine – this work, and the recent performance improvements work has been on updating and enhancing the existing graphics engine to better support users and what might be regarded as recognised graphics standards.

Mirrors in SL

[Video: 16:23-17:26]

  • The PBR work takes SL some way towards provisioning real-time planar (that is, flat) mirrors.
  • Once the initial PBR work has been deployed, LL plans to start work on offering planar mirrors in some capacity.
  • Further details on this can be found in my 2023 week 7: SL CCUG and TPVD meeting summaries: Mirrors! article.

Graphics API

[Video: 17:27-18:00]

  • While the graphics rendering engine is not being changed, per the above notes, the graphics API will be changing.
  • As OpenGL is going increasingly old (and has been deprecated by Apple), plans are in hand to move the Graphics API to Vulkan (and MoltenVK for Mac).
  • This switch will further enhance SL’s graphics capabilities, and work on the switch-over should commence later in 2023.

Viewer Updates

[Video: 18:00-19:50]

Inventory Updates

  • (Note: Updates on the progress of the Inventory work can generally be found in my TPV Developer meeting summaries.)
  • Work is in progress to provide updates to Inventory management, some of which are designed to help with avatar customisation.
  • The first part of this is to provide an “Inventory thumbnails” capability – offering a thumbnail image of items in Inventory.
  • Alongside of this will be a single folder Inventory view.
  • These are not seen as major gamer changers, but rather quality of life improvements for new and existing users.

Emojis

  • LL is still working on integration the Catznip Emoji code contribution to all emojis in chat and IMs.
  • A project viewer for this should be available in “weeks”.

Linux Support

[Video: 20:48-21:30]

  • The current stop-gap for Linux is running the Windows viewer through Wine or Proton.
  • The need to provide direct Linux support is recognised, but updating the tools to make this possible is not on the roadmap for 2023.

SL and VR

[Video 19:56-20:47]

  • VR still requires a consistent 60 fps left eye / right eye), and for many; the feeling at LL is that  SL is not there yet even with all the recent performance improvements.
  • Various initiatives – adoption of Vulkan, the Puppetry Project – should help improve things further,  and LL might reconsider VR headset support in 2024.

Marketplace Updates

[Video: 21:33-24:52]

  • Marketplace Search was updated with significant changes to ElasticSearch (the underpinning Second Life and Marketplace Search) – see: We’re Improving Marketplace Search. 
  • This was a large update (lifting the search engine from version 2.3 to 8.4, and did involve some issues on deployment, which are being addressed – see: Updates to Marketplace Search.
  • Further fixes and improvements to the update will be deployed in due course, the first of which will be Boolean searches.
  • A fix for Featured Lists not updating correctly is also due to be deployed “soon”.

New User Experience (NUX) Mesh Avatar

[Video: 25:49-27:46]

A preview version of the new, single mesh (head-to-toe) avatar, which will use by mesh clothing and Bakes on Mesh, and be open for creators to design clothing and accessories
  • That said, the project has taken longer to develop than had been anticipated.
  • There will be a dev kit for creators wishing to support the NUX Avatars. This will be launched ahead of the release of the new avatars.
  • The entire system is intended to be “PBR ready” in that PBR materials may not be included in the clothing and accessories released by the Lab, but the items will be capable of supporting the use of PBR materials on them.

Linden Homes Update

[Video: 27:30-28:09]

  • A full update will be coming soon.
  • The first range of Premium Plus Linden Homes is nearing completion.
  • Updates and expansions to the current Premium Linden Homes – like the Victorian – are being prepared.

Second Life User Group Meetings

[Video: 24:54-25:47]

Closing Comments

[Video 28:10-End]

Everyone is pretty much having fun with the SL Mobile project, and hopes were expressed that a “blooper” reel could be made available. It was also indicated that news on the theme for the 20th Second Life Anniversary event (SL20B) will be made available in due course.

July 2021 SL Web User Group summary: mobile and new user experience

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, July 7th, 2021.

These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found at the end of this article, and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.

Web Properties Updates

  • Operating system updates are still on-going; the tools work has been continued through the last month as a well.
  • The Land Store has had some cosmetic updates.
  • World API and Map:
    • There has been some work on the World API to make it faster.
    • Searching for an empty string on the Map should no longer generate an error message.
  • New user sign-up: two small improvements:
    • E-mails are now validated when entered during the sign-up process.
    • The viewer download link no longer opens a separate tab to display the download button – on sign-up the browser is now directed to the download page / button.
  • Marketplace improvements:
    • Work has started on updating to the new Second Life blue logo.
    • Test deliveries have been fixed so they no longer generate an error message.
    • There have been updates to search / keywords to better match the maturity of words against the maturity rating on the item. This was largely due to some creators were adding punctuation marks into their adult item descriptions in an attempt to get around the maturity rating and have the item show up in results where the user has otherwise restricted what they want to see to General / Moderate.
  • Premium downgrading:
    • Until now, if a Premium user decided to downgrade their account from Premium to Basic and then changed their mind, they would have to contact support to cancel the downgrade.
    • It is now possible to cancel a downgrade request directly from the website without any need for Support intervention.

New User Experience

See also: Poking at the new Welcome Islands.

  • The new Welcome Islands that form a part of the new user experience are now undergoing A/B testing alongside the existing Learning / Social Islands and monitored against Firestorm’s Community Gateway for the next month or so.
  • These islands are used in conjunction with the Guidebook that is now part of the official viewer (and starting to be included in TPVs).
  • There is a “Welcome Back Island” that is physically identical to the Welcome Islands, but which is open to general visits for those who are curious.
  • During the A/B Testing, the Lab will be particularly looking at the numbers of retained users who come through the various points of entry (Welcome Island, the Learning / Social Islands / Firestorm Gateway) and how each performs.
  • If the Welcome Islands / Guidebook prove to be successful, then the Guidebook will likely undergo language localisation to make it more useful. In the meantime, and during testing, there could be smaller changes to both the Guidebook and the Welcome Islands (e.g. the station for new avatars may undergo further updates and offer a “newer” selection of avatars).
  • Both the Welcome Island regions and the Guidebook have been developed as modular units, allowing both to be revised / updated.

Mobile Update

  • The iOS version has now been accepted by Apple.
  • HOWEVER, it is not currently publicly available through the Apple Store, as the Lab is working on the first set of updates, which they want to incorporate before the app is made generally available.
  • At the moment, the iOS version is in testing with some 40 or so users.
  • The Android version remains somewhat behind the iOS version and won’t be appearing in the short-term.
  • As has been repeatedly indicated, the client will initially be a communications companion and will not include any 3D world rendering – this is on the roadmap (assuming the interest / use of the mobile app warrants the additional development work), but is “way down the line.”
  • Those using the app will be logged-into dedicated “SL Mobile” regions for the purposes of communication. Obviously, if the app reaches the point where it is rendering the world, this will all change. However, until then:
    • These regions will not be accessible to anyone not using the SL Mobile client.
    • Those using the App will not have a physical presence within the regions.
    • It will not be possible to engage in local chat within the regions – although obviously, IMs will be possible, and the ability to use Group chat will be added.
  • Again, the initial purpose of the App is not to offer a fully-function alternative to the viewer for people on mobile devices; rather, it is intended to provide a means by which people can stay in contact with those they already know / need to contact (via search) when they are unable to make use of the viewer. Although again, functionality will be added as time goes by to move it beyond this initial use-case.

In Brief

  • Marketplace Requests:
    • Bulk image uploads for listings: this has been requested numerous times, and a feature request Jira has been asked for, so it can be logged.
    • Store block list (feature request BUG-230941): the ability for users to compile a list of MP stores where (for whatever reason) they do not wish to shop, and have them excluded from Search results. This is actually something the Marketplace team have been discussing as a general idea.
    • “Discount linking” for listings: the ability for creators to offer links between listings in their own store to give shoppers a discounts.
      • Example: a creator brings out a completely new version of s product (rather than an updated version) – they could use the “discount linking” to allow those who purchased the “old” version at a discounted price).
      • Example: a creator could offer a discount on a new skin or make-up kit for a specific mesh head within a their range of head products, rather than for all of the heads they sell.
      • This is something that, if submitted as a feature request, would receive consideration by the Lab.
    • Variant listing: Keira re-iterated (as per my June meeting summary) that the Lab is considering variant listings (e.g. a single listing for multiple colour versions of the same item). However, this is unlikely to be something that is implemented before 2022.
  • Search: an upcoming project is that of Search, encompassing how it currently functions, how the Lab would like it to function and how users expect it to function. This will then hopefully lead to improvements being make to Search, although this may not happen until much later in the year or until 2022.
  • Broken Support links: some of the pages on the dashboard at secondlife.com (e.g. Billing Information, Account History/Statements) have a broken Help / Support links due to a missing “secondlife.com” in the URLs. This is a known issue.
  • Last Names:
    • The Premium account SL Birthday themed Last Names will be shortly be withdrawn from use and replaced with a new selection of Last Names, possibly within the next week or so. After this, next update to Last Names will likely be timed for Halloween.
    • Feature request BUG-230299 asks for the current Custom last Name programme (US $500 annually for a dedicated last name) to be made more broadly available, if on a more limited basis (and presumably a lower price-point) for those who wish to have a dedicated Last Name for their “family” / community / group. This is something that the Lab is considering, but it is unlikely that there will be anything to announce on it, should it move forward, until some time in 2022.
  • Grid-wide user experiences: there has been some further internal discussion on these at the Lab, but right now, they are a long way down the list of priorities.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, August 5th, 14:00 SLT.

June 2021 SL Web User Group summary with video

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021. These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found at the end of this article, and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.

Web Properties Updates

[Video: 0:18-3:20]

  • Most of the month has been spent on implementing a new project workflow, for which the primary focus has been on the back-end systems, as per previous reports (post-uplift work, etc.), most of which has been non-user visible. Members of the team should start pivoting towards other work now this is drawing to a close.
  • Payments and Purchases:
    • Work has been carried out on the payment system – but no specifics supplied.
    • The issue with non-US Dollar purchases of  Linden Dollars some experienced at the end of May has been addressed.
  • Web pages:
    • The Cookie permissions banner common to SL web pages has been reduced in footprint size (when displayed), so as to be less intrusive.
    • Further web pages have been updated to use the “new” blue SL logo rather than the older green one. This is low-priority work, so is only being addressed when pages still using the the older logo are worked on for other reasons.
    • Web page “control panels” for the original Linden Homes received assorted fixes for issues.

Marketplace

[Video: 3:29-3:57 + as indicated by timestamps]

  • No updates on any significant Marketplace projects.
  • The issue with Quick Fill failing to pull-in the correct information on the non-English tabs for items has been addressed.
  • Planning / discussions have started with regards to allowing variants in product listings  (e.g. a single listing for multiple colour versions on an item, which currently each have to have their own listing).
    • This is only preliminary discussions and planning, not actual work to implement.
    • The hope is the work can be formally kicked-off as a project later in 2021.
  • [6:27-9:27] Keyword searches: reports that Marketplace keyword searches are failing to return expected results, prompting the question whether anything has been changed. The short answer is, not as far as is known.
    • If there are specific examples that can be cited where this is occurring, the request is for them to be reported via the Jira.
  • [15:01-15:25] the Marketplace  team are also working on ideas for additional MP listing categories. Again, no specifics, but additional categories may start to appear some time in the next 2-3 months.

Mobile Client

[Video: 4:05-4:18]

  • The iOS version still has not been passed to Apple for further evaluation, as it is still being worked on by LL.
  • Android: nothing to report.

Name changes / Last Names

[Video: 4:20-5:15]

  • June will see a further set of Last Names made available.
  • Some of these will be a general refresh of the available names (e.g. new names replacing some of the less popular names currently on the list).
  • Some of the new last Names will be themed after the Second Life Birthday and its  (somewhat generic / bland) theme.
    • As with the April “limited edition” names, these will only be available through the period of the birthday and will then be removed from the list.
    • At the time of writing the list for these “special” names was still being refined.
  • All of the updates will be blogged when they become available later in June.

In Brief

  • [36:18-37:04] Premium Plus: no  significant news, other than still under consideration, but is very much in the “thinking about it” arena, but may be revisited in the “next couple of months”.
  • [38:54-41:00] User-defined grid-wide experiences + larger scripts:
    • Grid-wide experience by users are still under consideration, but no real movement either way on possible implementation or not.
    • Offering larger scripts is something the Lab have discussed in the past, and is something the might be offered in the future, once everything is bedded-in to AWS, but nothing planned for the immediate future.
  • [15:31-23:31] A general discussion on how the marketplace works, various behaviours and feature suggestions (e.g. bulk upload of product images, dynamic keyword – so a creator can specify a set of keywords across their listings, and can then change / remove words dynamically on the basis of how the perform),  with the latter again referred to Jira feature requests.
  • [24:00-27:32] a broader discussion on how to put ideas to LL and where / how creators can make contact with LL. The former remains feature requests through the Jira. The latter is best achieved through LL user group meetings.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, July 7th, 14:00 SLT.

May 2021 SL Web User Group summary with video

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021. These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found at the end of this article.

Web Properties Updates

[Video: 1:04-9:18]

  • General post-Uplift internal work is still continuing, but the end is coming into sight. Most of this work in non-user visible.
  • There is also some back-end / infrastructure changes in progress, which are again not visible to users, but are intended to “help in the future” in terms of deploying new feature,  etc.
  • Housekeeping work on tools related to the lab’s management of the Marketplace and other web properties has been continuing.
  • The revamped secondlife.com splash / join / login screen was revamped in April, and has been receiving a lot of (not always positive) feedback on the use of a person, rather than an avatar. My personal take on this is that:
    • a) The image is taken from the upcoming broadcast advert for Second Life, and thus is part of a broader strategy rather than a standalone decision, which some people seem to be missing.
    • b) Why not use a “real” person? After all, a good part of Second life is about setting your imagination free, so to me the image speaks to that and offers an enticement to click to find out more.
The secondlife.com splash page was updated in April, gaining a fair amount of attention in the process.
  • An issue with people receiving e-mail in a foreign language if they’d previously followed a link to an MP listing in that language has been fixed.
  • The issue of people being randomly logged-out of the Marketplace whilst browsing, trying to make purchases, etc., should now be fixed.
  • The April “limited Edition” Last Names  (the OwO and UwU names) have been removed from the Last Names list. These apparently proved to be very popular, so the Lab is considering more such “limited offers” on names with a specific focus (these two having appealed to the furry community in particular).
  • The What’s Hot part of the Destination Guide has been revised so it actually lists places where avatars are actually at when the section is being browsed.
  • Keira Linden is putting together a plan for Marketplace updates based on feedback from merchants / users. This work will not be immediate, but will be commencing at some point in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future. Those with specific Marketplace feature requests in mind are asked to check the Jira before filing, as a fair number are already recorded and Accepted.

Mobile Client

[Video: 11:58-12:24]

  • iOS Version:
    • The App still did not make it back to Apple in April for their testing as a result of LL’s QA finding more issues that needed to be addressed internally.
    • The hope is to get it back to Apple Soon™.
  • Android: nothing to report.

Place Pages

[Video 37:50-52:40 (text chat)]

  • Place Pages have been around for some four years now (see: Linden Lab announces Second Life Place Pages available).
  • They have not received a lot of TLC since they, and it is hard to determine how well they are used (I did provide a short tutorial on setting them up  in 2018 after some updates had been made – see:Tutorial: creating Second Life Place Pages, for whatever that is worth).
  • There is interest at the Lab in probing hold well they are used, and how they might be improved (one issue with Place Pages is that while they have a search capability of their own, they aren’t actually referenced by any of the other common search tools, such as web search in the viewer, which tends to limit their visibility). Some suggestions are made in chat during the meeting.

In Brief

  • Names Changes / Last Names: it is possible that thought may be given to how the Premium member Name Changes / Last Names capability might be enhanced.
  • No further updates on Premium Plus, other than it is still percolating in the background.
  • The question was asked why LL originally stopped allowing last names in SL.
    • The short answer is that studies of users sign-ups revealed that having to pick a first and last name as part of the sign-up process resulted in a high volume of potential users failing to complete the sign-up process – possibly because people didn’t like being limited in their choice of last name.
    • The decision was therefore taken to remove the last name selection process and introduce Display Names, they idea being people could quickly sign-up with an account name of their choice, and then use Display Names to freely create their preferred avatar name.
    • OK, so it wasn’t quite such a short answer…
  • Further language localisation of properties such as the Marketplace is being considered.
  • The ability for a single account to hold multiple Marketplace stores has been the subject of multiple requests over the years (see feature request BUG-226927, for example). Whilst not on the Marketplace roadmap, Keira indicated a willingness to explore the idea.
  • Jira status “Ready for Development” – this started appearing in a swath of bug reports and feature requests fairly recently (both those in progress and those that many have been completed). It appears to be related to a issue with the cloning tool LL uses when producing a duplicate of a report from the public Jira to their internal Jira,  and does not indicate a new workflow status for any given bug / request.
    • In fact, some reports said to be displaying a “Ready for Development” status appear to have reverted to the more usual “Accepted” in the last 24 hours.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, June 2nd, 14:00 SLT.