Tag: SL News

SL Q3 metrics summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
C & TM Linden Lab

On Friday October 14th, Linden Lab released their Q3 economic figures. The data presented is a mixed bag.

On the plus side:

  • Completed registrations remain strong – LL put it at around an average of 16K per day; the graph suggests the average might be slightly higher
  • Average number of monthly users logged-on rose very slightly (by just under 0.4%)
  • The number of economic participants rose by around 12,000 and the Linden dollar appreciated very fractionally
  • Web Marketplace sales grew by 2.78%

On the minus side:

  • User hours have declined by a touch under 2%
  • LindeX trading suffered a slight drop
  • The overall growth in Web Marketplace sales has slowed significantly
  • A total of around 20sq km of land was lost to the grid.

So, the downward slide in user concurrency has reversed itself very slightly; but the flipside to this is that people are still appearing to spend less time in-world per head than previously. This is something that LL have been trying to get their heads around for several months, and which Rod Humble mentioned it as a point of interest when speaking at SLCC 2011, when he pointed out the demographic for new sign-ups is somewhat younger than has traditionally been the case of SL.

Alongside this is the thorny issue of user retention. Sign-ups, overall concurrent users and user hours online don’t actually equate to this – and we’re not getting any kind of indication at all as to what is happening. How many new sign-ups are translating over time to retained users? Part of the problem here, of course, is actually defining what we all mean as being “user retention”.

Within the Lab, retention is clearly tied closely to engagement. As such, the Lab have indicated they are working on a number of initiatives aimed towards people engaging more directly with the platform in shorter time periods than might currently be the case. Again, at SLCC 2011 a number of Linden Lab employees spoke to this, including:

  • Colossus Linden, who indicated that currently, it might be several weeks between someone joining SL and actually engaging with the economy in terms of buying L$ – and that LL are looking to reduce this to a matter of days
  • Durian Linden pointed towards LL developing more in the way of “directed experiences” in order to get incoming users to more rapidly engage in aspects of SL such as building and creativity.

Certainly, it’s hard to argue against these approaches. At the end of the day, obviously, the more a user is actively engaged in the platform, the more they are likely to stick around and grow within it.

So there is work to be done, to be sure. However, taken as a whole, the Q3 economic figures as presented do suggest that SL continues to be relatively stable. Obviously, it would be nice to see more some definitive signs of growth, and the fact that these figures fail to demonstrate this might explain why they were slipped quietly out late on Friday afternoon…

Direct Messaging comes to my.secondlife.com

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab, again with little or notification, have added a new feature to my.secondlife.com – Direct Messaging.

The new feature allows you to send personal messages to your friends via your and their Web Profiles. These messages do not appear on your own Feed or that of the friend you are messaging.

Here’s how it works.

Sending a Direct Message

Log-in to your Web Profile at my.secondlife.com and click on your Inbox (/mail) tab and click on the MESSAGES tab at the top of your inbox (if necessary) to display your direct messages.

Web Profiles Messages tab

Now click on the NEW MESSAGE button – this will open a page requesting the name of the person(s) to whom you wish to send a direct message (they must be on your Friends list). Enter the name in the format first.last – or simply click on the desired name from the list that is displayed as you type. Finally, enter the message itself in the box provided and click SEND.

Note that you can also use the People tab on your Web Profile and then scroll through your list of friends, select the person you wish to DM then select Send a Message from the “Pen” button on their Web Profile page. However, the above option is somewhat quicker.

Receiving a Direct Message

Web Profile Inbox notifications

How you receive a DM depends on whether or not you are in-world.

If you are not logged-in to SL at the time a DM is sent, notification is only received by your Web Profile in the form of a numbered icon appearing in the Inbox tab (see right).

Note that this is the same icon that is displayed when receiving other notifications via your Web Profile as well, so it may not always be indicative that you have received a DM.

To view any new DMs you have received, click on the Inbox tab to open it. New DMs will be displayed directly on your Messages Tab with the text in bold (see below). Note that if you have received multiple DMs from a single person, only the last DM they have sent will be displayed on the Messages tab.

Incoming DMs – displayed in bold; click on sender’s name to view

To view and reply to a message, click on the name of the sender. This will open a further page. Note that the DM may be displayed on its own (if it is the first you have received from the sender), or as a part of an ongoing exchange, in which case the entire exchange will be displayed, with the most recent DM at the bottom, together with the option for you to reply (below).

A DM Exchange
  • Tip: If you are exchanging a number of DMs with a friend, click on the page refresh option of your browser each time the Inbox notification appears – this will refresh the message list & display the new incoming message on your screen (clicking the Inbox tab itself will take up back to your Messages tab, requiring you to click on the sender’s name yet again to open the DM exchange and view their most recent comment).

In-world notification

DM in-world pop-up notification

If you are in-world when a DM is sent to you, an additional notification will be displayed in your Viewer (see right).

In-world, notifications appear as a pop-up with a link to the message itself. Clicking on the link will open your Web Profile in either your Viewer’s browser or your default web browser (depending on your Preferences) and display the message and reply option as shown above.

Notes:

  • When viewing a Direct Message from in-world, you may have to additionally log-in to your Web Profile – once you have done so, the message page will automatically be displayed
  • Some V1.x Viewers garble the incoming notification, for example: “xxxx  sends you a messagehttps://my.secondlife.com/inbox/messages/4e948648ab2a18000100d6” – note the lack of any space between “messages” and the url. This causes the link to fail when clicked. If this happens, delete the extraneous “message” in front of the “https” in the browser’s address bar.

The Delete Button

The Direct Message option includes a button to delete exchanges. This is useful for removing old conversations, but should be used with care.

If you delete an ongoing exchange, the other side is not informed of this by default. They will only find out you have left the conversation when they:

  • Either refresh the page, which will display a message that  informing them you have left the conversation
  • Or they return to their Messages tab, where they will see your name now has a strike-through, indicating you have deleted the exchange.

Similarly, if the other side of your exchange deletes it, you will not be informed until you either refresh your page, or return to the Messages tab.

Note that in either case, messages can still be sent by the party who has not deleted the conversation. However, the messages will not be delivered or any notifications given.

Once a conversation has been deleted, the NEW MESSAGE button on the Message Tab must be used to start a new exchange.

Useful Addition

While this feature doesn’t (yet?) allow for direct DM-IM-DM exchanges to take place, it nevertheless adds another layer of communications options to SL users, and could prove especially useful in enabling conversations between friends when one or other cannot easily get in-world while avoiding the lag created by e-mail. It will be interesting to see if further enhancements are added along the way.

“Login 2 Life” to be streamed for a week

Posted on by Inara Pey

Note: I have now posted a review on Login2Life following the streaming by ZDF.

Login2life premiers on German television at midnight CET on the 17th October, and will be streamed via the broadcaster’s – ZDF – website for one week following the premier.

Commenting on the decision to stream the film for a week, Draxtor Despres, who both wrote the music for the film and attended a talk about the film at Nonprofit Commons on  Friday 7th October where he could announce the news, said, “It will premiere 10/17 midnight on ZDF & stream via their website for one week all over the planet [no geo-blocking YES YES YES].”

Login2life, directed by Daniel Moshel, follows a group of people who spend a good part of their time in virtual spaces. Notable among them are Gentle Heron, Stroker Serpentine and Jaynine Scarborough, who have all been deeply involved in Second Life. The film also profiles several World of Warcraft players.

Rather than a themed documentary with a central narrative arc, the film might best be described as a series of vignettes, moving through the lives of those involved, examining how and why they engage in virtual living, and how the virtual environment can augment and enhance their real lives in a wide variety of ways. In doing so, it steers well away from the stereotypical views on virtual worlds and particularly Second Life, and instead presents a compelling series of insights into a wide variety of subjects: dealing with disabilities, life, love and so on.

An an excellent review over on Betterverse, demonstrates why this is a must-see film.

Related links

With thanks to Rik and Nonprofit Commons.

Adult Gateway RFP winner announced – sort-of

Posted on by Inara Pey

In August this year, Linden Lab announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) to run a new Adult-oriented Gateway for Zindra and Adult-related activities in Second Life.The closing date for proposals was the 12th September, with an announcement due at the Adult Content User Group meeting held on Monday 3rd October.

Only it wasn’t – the reasons given at the meeting were that Viale Linden needed some extra time to work things out and get some preparation work done.

However, some people seem unwilling to wait, as there is a note card doing the rounds that reveals that the winning proposal for the Gateway is apparently from Freedom Continent. This is a group of some 16 private island sims, all themed around adult activities and which include Thunderbird Island (Jennifer’s Jewelry), Blacksilk (The Blacksilk Academy), Damsel, Bondage Ranch, Bondage Playground and Slaver Bay among others, and which includes brand names such as Latex Station, MoDesign, and Think Kink.

The notecard itself reads in part:

“At a meeting on monday the 3rd October Linden Labs [sic] announced that a single organisation had won the contract to build, run and expand an Adult Gateway in accordance with well established principles. While it has not yet been officially announced, the organisation who obtained this contract is called ” The Freedom Continent “. This is an established complex of 16 sims, mostly adult, working together to bring a better sense of reliability to adult users in SL. They have in place a well established management system and many years of experience in dealing with adult content. The freedom team are looking for mentors who understand the problems in dealing with adult content users and work with the team to build a good sound adult mentor group who will greet and teach new users as they appear. The Mentor group, The Adult Grid Mentors, will form the backbone to the group. This mentor group will be the official mentor group for the new adult gateway and has the full support of Linden Labs [sic].”

Precisely what form the new Gateway will take remains to be seen, although four sims are on offer for actually hosting the Gateway – these being the four used to host ZExpo 2011 earlier in the year. As a part of the arrangement, the group managing the Gateway regions will also have exclusive use of the name “Zindra”. Reaction to the news of the selection – assuming it is accurate – has yet to be gauged, but is likely to be interesting.

Update: October 7th

Commenting on questions raised as a result of the note card circling in-world, Peter Gray, Linden Lab’s PR Manager stated, “There is a leading candidate, but we’ve not yet finalised any agreement or announced our selection. We hope to be able to do so soon.”

Mesh clothes: a way forward?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Mesh is here, as we know, and not entirely without problems. I, and many others, have commented on the fact that is it not easy to adjust mesh clothing to sizes that ideally fit individual avatars. Maxwell Graf was well aware of this problem, and put forward a solution via JIRA SH-2374 back in July, proposing the use of a parametric deformer.

Downgraded

As I reported on the 27th of last month, the JIRA was downgraded in status to Someday / Maybe – which came as a blow to a lot of people.

To be sure, Max’s solution was by no means easy in terms of coding – as he has always been the first to admit – the algorithms required to make the system work as presented would require considerable changes within the Viewer itself; and this clearly involves a cost element. As the current take-up of Mesh within SL is relatively low right now, that cost element, it would seem, is something the LL find hard to justify at this point in time, given what else they can potentially achieve elsewhere for effectively the same cost.

Nor, if I’m to be totally honest, did LL ever commit to making mesh suitable for all market opportunities – something I commented upon way back. Nevertheless, the fashion market in Sl is big, and LL cannot be unaware of this fact (they did host Fashion Expert Days last month) – so one might have thought they’d be aware of pressure to provide a means of clothing resizing for the advent of mesh – or at least to be prepared to be honest on the limitations.

In this regard, it has to be said that Linden Lab didn’t help themselves in the matter at all. Even after the initial roll-out,Linden staff were talking – albeit cautiously – about the limitations of mesh as a clothing medium and about Maxwell Graf’s idea  – and the appearance was that things were being earnestly looked at. Then the JIRA was downgraded without any commentary whatsoever from the Lab, leading to upset and consternation – a situation that was the same right up until yesterday, when Charlar finally commented on the JIRA thus:

“Hi everybody,

“First, because we’ve wrapped the Mesh release 2 project, we’re moving items into other backlogs. We don’t have any subsequent dedicated mesh project planned so all remaining items, including this one, will end up on our general viewer or the server backlogs.

“This does not mean anything as extreme as some residents have assumed. The fact that the backlog is called “someday/maybe” means that it’s something we want to do, but can’t commit to a timeframe yet.

“We did some investigation into the problem that Maxwell’s solution attempts to solve. We’re doing some more research and prototyping, trying to find a solution that might be faster/easier to implement. We have Top People on it…

“…I can’t promise anything – we might come back and say ‘no’, we might say ‘yes, but later’ and we might say ‘here’s what we doing’. We might say something i haven’t thought of yet.”

It’s not the most positive of statements, but at least it demonstrates that this issue is possibly not a dead horse. Why then, couldn’t the message be communicated earlier? Even a simple, “This is the situation, we’re thinking it through and will get back to you one way or another”, would have been preferable to what appeared to be an attempt to simply ignore the JIRA before quietly moving it to an inert status.

(On a wider front, I’m looking at Charlar’s comment as meaning the “non-trivial” Mesh update he mentioned at SLCC 2011 is now going to be delayed  / scrapped given he states: “We don’t have any subsequent dedicated mesh project planned“.)

Alternative

However, it now seems that matters are moving on through other means. When Hamlet Au reported on the downgrade on the 30th September, Karl Stiefvater, formerly known as Qarl Linden, dropped a comment into the feedback that at first appeared a little tongue-in-cheek:

“Anyone wanna fund an ex-linden to do it?”

Maxwell Graf, unsurprisingly, given his involvement in the issue, has taken Karl up on this offer. As reported in PrimPerfect today, Max has set up a project to enable Karl to develop an alternative solution for the issue of resizing mesh clothing in SL. Max explains it thus:

“I have established a fund on the website http://www.indiegogo.com [a leading international funding platform] for this project. You can go there and read about the project and use the secure transaction methods to contribute to hiring Karl to do this project. Our goal is US$5400.00, $5000 of which will go to Karl, and $400 of which will be used to pay for the project and website fees. No amount of donated funds will be for my personal profit or use.

“The direct link to the project fund site is here: http://www.indiegogo.com/Mesh-Clothing-Parametric-Deformer-Project

“There is no fixed amount for donations – contribute what you can. That’s the beauty of a project like this. Small amounts add up!”

The project has 61 days in which to raise the $5400 in order for it to happen. This is a not inconceivable amount, although the question will inevitably be asked “What will it give us?” Max doesn’t shirk on the answer:

“To be clear, this will not solve every problem with mesh clothing. It will not create a layered hierarchy system of deformers as mentioned in the JIRA. Once the work is done, mesh clothing will not suddenly work perfectly for you, or work in the official LL viewers (unless they put the code in).”

What the project will potentially give is:

  • A working version of a single mesh deformer in the Snowstorm open source client
  • The ability for mesh clothing items to adjust automatically to fit an avatar’s size and shape without the need to use alpha layers to hide body parts
  • Less complexity of sizing considerations for clothing designers (no alpha maps, rigged adjustment, multiple sizes, etc.).

The finished code, presented as a part of the Snowstorm project, will be available to any third-party Viewer developer / team wishing to adopt it – and will obviously be available for Linden Lab, should they fail to define  / agree upon their own alternative to the original deformer suggested by Max.

Karl, as Qarl, is no stranger to mesh in SL – he developed much of the original code prior to departing Linden Lab, and he was responsible for the sculpted prim. As such, he is ideally suited to developing the code in question.

Not Ideal

This is not an ideal solution – again as Max clearly states. It doesn’t solve problems relating to modifying mesh clothing, etc. It does, however, overcome the immediate issue of fitting mesh clothing by default and it does – and pointed out above – reduce the overall complexity of mesh product creation for clothing makers.And at this point in time, many are of the opinion that something is far more preferable to the “nothing” Linden Lab may yet opt for.

Even so, there are questions that will be asked about the project as it stands – perhaps the biggest being, “What if Linden Lab do in fact come back with a solution of their own in Charlar’s promised two week(ish) time frame?” Will this project press ahead? Will it be cancelled? What of the money raised to date if that happens?

Clearly part of the answer to all of these questions will depend on precisely how effective any alternative presented by Linden Lab is, and the timeframe they assign for its implementation. As such, it is possible that some who might otherwise fund this project may await further feedback from Linden Lab, through Charlar or otherwise – and given the overall funding timeframe for the project, this shouldn’t impact it that badly.

However, given LL’s reticence to address this issue – or even (until yesterday) give direct feedback on concerns – one cannot fault Max or those following his lead for taking this route. Indeed, one could say kudos is due here for taking this particular bull by the horns.

Note: at the time of writing, $705 had been raised for the project. This represents some 13% of the total raised in just 9 hours.

Updates

  • 6th October, 13:30 BST: the project total stands at $2,150 – almost 40% of the required $5,400, raised within 24 hours
  • 7th October, 23:00 BST: the project total stands at $2,728 – just over 50% of the required total, raised in 48 hours
  • 8th October, 23:00 BST: the project total has passed through the $3K barrier
  • 19th October, 19:30 BST: the project stands at $3,787, just over 70% of the required total
  • 20th October, 23:55 BST: the project has broekn through the $4,000 barrier in just 15 days with a total of $4,223, just over 78% of the required total

PRIM_PHYSICS fix on RC channels

Posted on by Inara Pey

According to Andrew Linden, commenting on what has become something of a heated JIRA, SVC-7305, a fix for the PRIM_PHYSICS breakage was rolled out to the three main RC channels (BlueSteel, Magnum and Le Tigre) today.

The breakage, which impacts the PRIM_PHYSICS parameter of llSetPrimitiveParams impacts a wide range of scripted moving objects in Second Life and has caused considerable consternation amount content creators. With vehicles, animals and other items effectively broken, they’ve faced either having to wait for the issue to be sorted and / or re-scripting their products while still having many hundreds – if not thousands – running amok or stalled around the grid – something that apparently left one creator of automated scripted vehicles stuck with a three-day account suspension.

If all goes well – and initial feedback so far is that the fix is working on the Magnum and Le Tigre RC channels without incident – then the fix should find is way onto the rest of the grid during the main updates next Tuesday (assuming one of the RC channels gets promoted to the main release channel at that time).