Tag: SL News

Linden Lab issue Adult Gateway RFP

Posted on by Inara Pey

Que Niango, fresh from the Adult Conent User Group reports that Linden Lab have issued the following RFP:

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Linden Lab’s Adult Gateway Proposal

Goal: Enable the adult community to develop and quickly iterate upon a Zindra welcome/gateway experience for Residents interested in exploring adult content.

Situation: With “Zindra” as a primary search terms for adult content in SL, people are more likely to find and start at the current Zindra sim today as a result of its top search ranking. Unfortunately, the current Zindra region experience fails to encourage curious Residents to explore further.

For a number of reasons, it appears unlikely that a successful gateway experience could be efficiently developed and managed as a collaborative effort among Linden Lab and the Adult Content User Group (ACUG) using the existing Zindra region.

The Solution: A Resident controlled group will assume complete control of a prominently promoted Zindra/adult gateway (comprised of four regions).  The ZExpo four regions present a relatively easy way to setup Resident group ownership of the adult gateway experience. Upon conclusion of ZExpo 2011, these four region will be reassigned to a new group. This new group would be required to make tier contribution (setup fees waived) in exchange for group governing powers along with the exclusive use of “Zindra” name to guarantee top search ranking and Linden Lab’s active promotion in the Destination Guide. As the single mainland gateway for adult content, these regions would offer a unique opportunity to channel qualified Residents into high-quality, adult-related experiences.

Details:

  • Resident group to receive full group ownership of the four ZExpo mainland regions.
  • Group must contribute tier and pay $195/month for ea of the four regions or $780/month.
  • Use of Zindra name will be reserved exclusively for four regions, guaranteeing top placement in search.
  • Linden Lab agrees to promote four new “Zindra” regions in Destination Guide, as well as work with the group to promote the regions in additional marketing channels.
  • Linden Lab’s promotion contingent upon the group providing a positive experience for all Residents interested in adult content and reserves the right to cancel promotion at any time and may take actions in accordance with its Terms of Service and related policies and procedures.

Open Call for Proposals

Linden Lab will accept group proposals from all interested parties through September 12th, 2011.  Send proposals to community@lindenlab.com with title “Adult Welcome Proposal”

Proposals should include the following details:

  1. Proposed group members responsible for tier – max of four member (1 for each of the 4 regions). Please include links to each profile i.e.https://my.secondlife.com/Viale.Linden
  2. Answer the question: how will you develop and manage a good, compelling gateway experience for all residents (new and existing) interested in adult content? 
  3. How will you promote adult venues within Second Life ~ mainland and private regions?

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This RFP may appear novel, but it is entirely in keeping with Linden Lab’s desire to help promote sustainable communities within Second Life, as outlined during Viale’s Linden’s presentation (video) at SLCC 2011. Even so, one cannot help but wonder at how practical it will be; the Adult Content User Group at times appears to be very divided. As such, it’ll be interesting to see how this approach is going to be interpreted and what comes out of the actual implementation once the new tier group has been formed.

LL Affiliate Programme: Linkshare

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab provide an Affiliate Programme that allows anyone with a blog or website to promote Second Life via ads created using destinations contained within the Destination Guide. These ads can be placed within websites and blogs, and commission is earned based on the number of people using the ad to click-through and join Second Life (registrations made within 30 days of the initial click-through).

Note: the Affiliate programme also utilises the Google Affiliate Network via an AdSense account. This article only relates only to the use of the Linkshare Affiliate Network.

Affiliate programme button

Whether you are a Second Life user with a website / blog who wishes to promote SL, or whether you have a specific in-world Destination you would like to link to the Affiliate Programme, the steps for using this capability are more-or-less the same:

Select an entry / your own entry in the Destination Guide
  • Sign-up to the affiliate programme (LL will get back to you on the status of your application within 5 working days)
  • Once you have been approved, pick the Destination Guide entry you wish to use within your website / blog (if you wish to use your own destination, and it is not already included in the Destination Guide, please also refer to the Destination Guide FAQ)
  • Click on the Create Ad Widget and compose a promotional advert based on the Destination you’ve chosen
  • Include your unique Linkshare encrypted ID (from Linkshare)
  • Copy the generated code and embed it within your website / blog.
Embed code in your website / blog

Notes

  • Not all requests may be accepted into the programme
  • The Second Life Affiliate commission totals are tabulated every month. Linden Lab pays the Affiliate Network for all qualifying referrals. The Affiliate Network, in turn, distributes these commissions to all qualifying affiliates
  • I cannot answer specific questions on this – I’m just reporting on it!
  • The Affiliate Programme FAQ provides further information
  • The Create Ad widget FAQ provides specific information on using the widget to set-up an ad.

Get set for Viewer 3.0

Posted on by Inara Pey

It appears that Viewer 3.0 is about to arrive on our doorsteps.

Now, before you all start jumping up and down, it’s not another new version of the Viewer – well, not exactly – nor is it in any way an admission that Viewer 2 has “failed”.

Rather, it is all part of the arrival of mesh across the Main grid and not indicative of any major overhaul of the Viewer.

Opensource Obscure was the first to notice the change, and his digging got the following comment from Oz Linden, “the transition to the version number of 3 points to support the introduction of ‘import of 3D models’” (i.e. mesh).

Interestingly, the version number is on the latest development Viewer (3.0.1 (238085), dated 9th August) which does not support mesh; whereas the latest mesh project Viewer issued earlier the same day retains a 2.8 release number (2.8.2.(238103)).

Speculation is that the new version number will be officially announced at this weekend’s SLCC, ahead of the planned completion of mesh roll-out, which is due at the end of August.

Addendum

At 14:48 PDT, Linden Lab announced a Beta release of “Viewer 3.0.0” with mesh support was available for download and trial.

Playing with prims: the new 64m limit

Posted on by Inara Pey

We’re all aware that mesh is chugging down the road in Second Life. What some haven’t twigged to as yet is that with it is coming a new maximum prim size – 64m on a side.

Now, the ability to rez and size prims to beyond 10x10x10 has long been a feature of other grids, and the fact that we’ve not been able to do so within Second Life is simply down to constraints placed on the system by LL rather than any inherent issue with the grid itself. This has traditionally left us with the thorny issue of mega prims, which, as well as being the subject of much heated discussion over the years within the Lab as to whether or not they should be allowed, are saddled with limitations – as anyone who has attempted to stretch a mega will know.

So, what does the new prim size mean for mega prims once it is rolled out? Well, pretty much the same as it does now:

  • Any “legally cut” mega (i.e. those created using the exploit Linden Lab allowed a few years ago when building the likes of Nautilus / Bay City) that are sized within the 64m limit can be safely cut,  tortured and stretched as per a “normal” prim, without it demonstrating any “snap back”
  • Any mega over 64m along any axis can he cut and tortured, but will snap back to 64m when stretched, but can be resized to anything under 64m

Of course, it also calls into the question the need to continue to carry vast stocks of pre-cut megas between 10 and 64m on a side in your inventory (or indeed, within a repository external to your inventory) – which is also to the good.

Overall, the behaviour is pretty much as one would expect, and in some respects nothing to write home about. That megas coming in under the 64m limit can be stretched without snapping back does mean that those who have used them in builds shouldn’t need to go around replacing them all with freshly-rezzed prims if they don’t want to. However, be careful with mega prims created using any skew (usually 0.79) to achieve the final shape, and for some reason these can exhibit a .05 to .1 degree rotation when linked with “regular” prims that have been enlarged.

That said, there are potential benefits to revisiting and revising some builds that use megas. Often it is necessary to compromise in the use of megas and “regular” prims to achieve a desired result. Providing things can be kept to within the 64m limit, this is no longer necessarily the case, as the images below demonstrate.

Built with megas & “regular” prims: 633 prims
Revised with the new prim size: 134 prims recouped

Of course, there are still some limitations – you can’t hollow-out a prim beyond 95% and nanoprims still require a lot of cutting and slicing of small prims, but on the whole, this is a step forward for traditional building in SL. What is a shame is that there doesn’t appear to have been any upward shift in the calculation for determining the maximum prim linking distance.

If you want to have a play with the new prim sizes ahead of the mesh roll-out you can. If you join the Mesh Volunteer Group, you can access the main Grid mesh sandbox area (Surl), which supports the new prim size if you use a suitable Viewer, currently comprising:

Or you can try either the Beta grid mesh sandboxes or, if you know someone on the Main grid who has a sim involved in the Mesh/Live Volunteer project, you could ask them if you could use some space to fiddle with prims.

Objects created using the new maximum prim size *can* be rezzed elsewhere on the Grid – but cannot currently be resized in any Viewer. Regardless of whether or not the Viewer you are using supports the news prim limit, if you attempt to resize a large prim on a non-mesh enabled sim, it will snap back to the 10m limit until such time as mesh is fully rolled-out.

Redzone: closure of a sort

Posted on by Inara Pey

As headlined by Tateru Nino, the RedZone farrago both returns and gains a measure of closure.

Michael Stefan Prime (Aka TheBoris Gothly and Zfire Xue) – identified as the man behind the RedZone tool by other SL users – has been remanded into the care of US Marshalls and a four-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to four out of seven charges of parole violation, specifically:

  • Associating with Shawn Cahill, a three-time convicted felon, in violation of standard condition 9 that he not associate with any person convicted of a felony.
  • Failing to allow the U.S. Probation Officer to inspect any personal computer owned or operated by the defendant in violation of the special condition directing him to do so.
  • Failing to notify the U.S. Probation Officer of all computer software owned or operated by the defendant in violation of the special condition directing him to do so.
  • Beginning employment without prior approval by the U.S. Probation Officer, working for cash, and engaging in employment that did not provide regular pay stubs in violation of the special condition directing him to do so.

Interestingly, as recorded in court documentation, the prosecution moved to dismiss three other violations when Prime pleaded guilty and waived his right to any evidentiary hearing relating to the four charges above. The three additional charges comprised:

  • Committing the criminal offence of Possession of Stolen Property 1st degree on or before March 23, 2011, in violation of the general condition that he not commit another federal, state, or local crime.
  • Committing the criminal offence of Trafficking in Stolen Property 2nd degree on or before March 23, 2011, in violation of the general condition that he not commit another federal, state, or local crime.
  • Associating with Shana Bobo, a three-time convicted felon, in violation of standard condition 9 that he not associate with any person convicted of a felony.

The first two of these charges relate to earlier convictions against Prime, although it is the third charge, relating to one Shana Bobo, that is liable to generate further speculation among SL users who have followed this case and the entire RedZone situation, given Prime’s involvement with a female SL user at the time of RedZone.

Details of the original case against Prime, which lead to his imprisonment and eventually the violation of the terms and conditions of his parole as a part of the entire RedZone affair, can be read on-line.

There are still issues surrounding this entire sorry affair – not the least of which are vulnerabilities within the Second Life software environment and the fact that four months down the road, Linden Lab still have yet to incorporate the Media Filter code that is readily available in all responsible TPVs, which can warn users of a potential threat to their privacy.

However, as far as RedZone itself is concerned, this will hopefully see closure brought to that particular sorry affair without people feeling the need to dig further into this individual’s past and engage in trial-by-forum, which came to undermine much of the good work carried out to try and stop such exploits and identify in-world sims where people could find themselves open to data-scraping by the RedZone tool.

“Social” web profiles live today

Posted on by Inara Pey

At the start of July, I reported on the development of the new “social” web profiles. Linden Lab have confirmed that the new profiles will be officially live from later today.

In typical LL form, the news was not broken via the LL website – although we may yet get an update there at soe point – but rather via the LL Twitter feed, @my_secondlife:

The new web profiles bring a number of interesting features to your profile pages at http://my.secondlife.com, including a Feed capability that allows you (and those to whom you allow) to make comments on your “Feed” page & the home page of your profile.

This system is interesting, but not without its limitations at present. One of these is that in order to see someone else’s comments made to their own profile, you need to Friend them first. This means that any content creators using their Feed to make product announcements, etc., are going to be getting a lot of Friendship offers – which could be irritating in the first pass, and lessen the overall impact of the service. That said, Fredrik Bjork (Fredrik Linden) has indicated that features that will allow “non-user profiles” for stores, etc., will be added in time.

One thing that has been added since I first looked at these features is Twitter integration: if you have a Twitter account, you can make a comment on your Profile feed and have it appear on Twitter. Similar integration with Plurk has been promised.

I’m still not totally convinced as to how these new features will be received by users; I rather suspect that those of us already using the likes of Twitter are probably not going to be greatly influenced by the initial offerings – and may not even be tempted away at all, for reasons Tateru Nino explains very succinctly.

Nevertheless, keep an eye on your web profile and see what you think when the new options are live.

ADDENDUM – 26th July

  1. For those wishing to opt-out of the new FEED option of web profiles, you can now set your FEED privacy to NOBODY – meaning no-one can see your feed or comment on it. Go to http://my.secondlife.com/first.last  – log-in if required, then select SETTINGS on the left of the window, then click the PRIVACY tab and set FEED to NOBODY in the drop-down list of options.
  2. Plurk integration is now available.