The first part of the celebrations for Second Life’s 15th anniversary opened on Sunday, June 17th, when the SL15B Community Celebration regions opened to the public.
Events within the 24 regions will run from Sunday, June 17th through until Sunday, June 24th, with the Big Day, marking the original opening of Second Life to the public at large, far back in June 2003, taking place on Saturday, June 23rd. After the main celebrations, the regions will remain open for visitors from Monday, June 25th through Sunday, July 1st, although there will be no formal events during this period.
As befitting a 15th anniversary, the theme for this year’s community celebration is crystal, so expect to see a good few builds within the regions reflecting this – and possible watches and timepieces as well, given these are often gifts associated with 15th anniversaries.
Throughout the week of festivities, there will be much going on: music, dancing and performances at the various stages found within the regions; talks and presentations within the auditorium – including the now-familiar Meet the Lindens events, of which more anon, and some of the exhibits built be SL residents and found within the regions may also play host to events of their own.
The festivities bring together the use mix of resident-build exhibitions and SLB infrastructure builds – with the latter this year being provided by Mikati Slade – Cake Stage; Walton F. Wainwright (Faust Steamer) -Serpent Stage; Anthony (ADudeNamed Anthony) – Auditorium; Ancient Mole – Crystal Rotunda Stage and Welcome Area: and City Builder (Lim Pikajuna) – Stage North.
As well as these, there are special features, such as the Tapestry of Time, tracing Second Life’s History from 2003 to the present; people can also pay a visit to the original Cornfield – the Sin Bin of early Second Life, and tour Bear Island, which makes a return to SLB celebrations for all lovers of Linden Bears. Plus the ever-popular SLB Big Hunt and the pod tours and very much a part of the festivities.
This year, Meet the Lindens will talk place between Monday and Friday, at 14:00 SLT at the SL15B Auditorium. The participating Lindens this year include:
Xiola Linden – Monday, June 18th.
Patch Linden and Kiera Linden – Tuesday, June 19th.
Ebbe Linden – Wednesday, June 20th.
Grumpity Linden and Oz Linden – Thursday, June 21st.
Brett Linden – Friday June 21st.
Patch, Grumpity, Brett and Xiola – all taking part in this year’s Meet the Lindens at SL15B. Credit: Linden Lab
Where To Find Information
The best place to find information on all that is going on at SL15B is the SL15B Community Celebration website. Daily schedules will be posted there, together with news and updates. IN addition, you can view the daily schedules for the major stages and the auditorium via the following links:
On Monday, April 23rd, Linden Lab issued an infographic on the state of Second Life as the platform approaches its 15th anniversary. The last time the company did this was, I believe, for the platform’s tenth anniversary in 2013.
Both infographics obviously offer a potted view of Second Life which some might choose to take as spin – but casting the platform in a positive light is what PR is about. More than that, when all is said and done, the figures do go some way to showing the platform is still a vibrant place with a healthy economy and a (broadly speaking) positive engagement on that part of active users.
The “spin” element might be seen in elements such as the number of accounts created in Second Life: a total of 36 million between 2003 and 2013, and a further 21 million in the last five years (for a total of 57 million since 2003, when SL formally opened its doors to the public at large). These figures sound impressive, but when push comes to shove, “accounts created” is a pretty meaningless figure. What really matters is the number of active accounts operating within Second Life; and the fact is that over the years these have been dropping – perhaps not by the amounts some might think – although it is admittedly hard to pin things down to a precise figure.
Similarly, the number of new user registrations (400,000 reported in 2013 and 350,000 reported in 2018) doesn’t add up to a major indicator of SL’s health – but, in fairness nor do they indicate any kind of major decline, despite the 50,000 drop over the intervening period between the two infographics. But really, the issue with Second Life is not the number of sign-ups achieved, but the number of retained active users the platform obtains.
Side-by-side: the 2013 (SL10B) and 2018 (SL15B) infographics. But how useful are they?
Perhaps of more value, to a degree, are figures like the total hours users have spent engaged in the platform. in 2013, this cumulative total for 10 years was stated as an equivalent of 217,000 years; for the 15th anniversary it is put at 482,000 years. What these show is that while the number of active users engaged in Second Life may have shrunk somewhat (notably since its peak in around 2008), those still engaged in the platform are between them potentially spending more time logged-in to the platform than they were five years ago.
Why this might be is open to speculation; but one group of reasons could be that the time an effort Linden Lab has put into improving the overall Second Life infrastructure, making batter use of technology, improving the performance of much of the platform (simulators, back-end systems, etc.), and the work put into enhancing user-facing capabilities, which have collectively encouraged people to spend more time in-world now than five years ago.
This increase in time spent engaged in the platform has other potential benefits as well – such as in increased economic activity. This is somewhat indicated by the 2018 infographic, which indicates that Second Life creators and land holders cashed out some $67 million in 2017. During sessions such as Lab Chat, and other public meetings, it had been indicated that the amount cashed-out by users in 2015/2016 was around $60 million; so it would seem that overall, the SL economy is experience an upturn, albeit a modest one. The strength of the economy might also be indicated by the rise in the number of virtual goods for sale: 2.1 million in 2013 and a stated 5 million in 2018 – although I point to this increase with the caveat that items for sale doesn’t necessarily translate directly into increases in goods sold.
Given that the 2018 infographic would tend to indicate overall engagement in the platform among engaged Second Life users has increased, the economy has apparently undergone something of a growth as well, it’s perhaps understandable why – as per the recent town hall meeting – there is now a much stronger emphasis within the Lab to pro-actively try to grow the user base going forward – and some interesting approaches are being tried.
So, what of the issues of active user numbers and new user accounts? It is true that Second Life is experiencing shrinkage in the number of active users. However, a degree of perspective is required when discussing it. At its peak in around 2008, SL averaged around 1.1 million active monthly log-ins. Today, it is lower – but by how much? That’s a tough nut to crack.
One of the few sources of real data we have comes from the SL Statistical Charts Page put together many years ago the most respected Second Life blogger (whose insight is genuinely missed), Tateru Nino, which is still active today. Among other things, it provides a series of breakdowns of concurrent log-ins – current and over set periods of times. These tend to collectively show that by-and-large average concurrency is between 30,000 and 50,000. Even when taking the bottom end of this range as the daily “average”, it still yields around 900,000 active monthly log-ins. That’s just 200,000 from the platform’s peak.
Second Life average concurrency is around 30,000-50,000 per day, as illustrated by these two 14-day extracts from Tateru Nino’s Statistics Charts, deliberately collected just over a month apart from one another
Of course, it might be argued that some of these concurrent log-ins are alt accounts or possible bots and so “don’t count”. But how large a figure is that likely to be? It’s impossible to know. Some factor it as being more than one-third, which might not be a wholly unreasonable figure; however, a counter-point to this is that just because someone is logged-in on two accounts doesn’t mean they’re not actively contributing to things like the economy through both of those accounts; so while it might be argued such activities reduce the total user count, it may not negatively impact the platform’s economy. Similarly, and where there are no empirical numbers available, it is fair to say that bot usage today is a lot less prevalent than when SL was at its peak; thus while their influence cannot be completely discounted, they are likely to have less of an influence on concurrency today than a decade ago.
The most interesting aspect of the figures is perhaps those of sign-ups As noted above, the Lab notes a decline in monthly sign-ups of around 50,000 since 2013. Looking at Tateru’s data for 2011 (the nearest 6 month period to 2013 I have archived) and 2018, shows the average daily rare of sign-up hasn’t varied overly much across the years – although arbitrary daily figures can show more of a variation.
Sign-up across 2 6-month periods, in 2011 and up to April 2018. The averages for both are not too far apart
Both the infographic and Tateru’s stats would again point to the Lab’s optimism around growth, indicating as they do that while daily sign-ups have dropped somewhat over the years – Second Life potentially still generates interest, not all of which can be put down to existing users creating thousands of alt / bot account daily. The problem is, as noted earlier, getting more of those sign-ups converted to active, retained users.
Overall, the current infographic reveals that while there is undoubtedly room to grow the numbers of active users, and despite the downplaying of monthly active users by some, Second Life is still a healthy platform for both users and the Lab when it comes to generating revenue – and the weight of virtual goods tends to point to the Lab’s hopes to re-balance their own revenue generation away from such a heavy reliance on land tier as having merit.
More to the point, it does demonstrate that, despite all the fears about the arrival of Sansar, etc., as Second Life approaches a celebration of it’s fifteenth anniversary, it still offers a richness and depth that can keep us all engaged with it.
On Monday, April 23rd, 2018, Linden Lab issued an invitation to live music performers to apply to be a part of the Second Life 15th Birthday celebration’s Music Festival.
2018 marks the fourth such festival the Lab has organised. It will be held as a part of the official Second Life Birthday celebration, taking place in mid-June 2018. For the successful applicant, it will be a paid event.
Since we started Music Fest in Second Life, we’ve held an audition showcase to highlight some of the musical talent in the Second Life community. Many of you have been performing for years in virtual venues all over the grid, and we’d love to have you come showcase your talent at the try-outs for this summer Music Fest. All genres are welcome! From bands to solo acts, rock and roll to electronica – we encourage anyone to sign up for consideration. The Second Life Music Fest is an opportunity to perform at one of the biggest celebrations in Second Life, and it’s a paid gig!
She continues:
While we encourage everyone to sign up, it is not a commitment on your part and does not guarantee a spot at the auditions. We will review all submissions and extend audition invitations via email to the designated contact. Each invited act will have a short audition time (5 minutes max) to play and leave an impression on a panel of judges made up of Lindens and Residents. This panel will select acts to be invited to perform at the Second Life Music Fest. Upon completion of a half hour slot at the festival, the designated contact for each act will be eligible for payment (subject to Linden’s terms and conditions).
The 2016 Music Festival auditions
Those interested in taking part are invited to complete the audition application form – and to do so no later than Friday, May 18th. The blog post notes that completion of the application does not signify a commitment on the part of the artist to take part, nor a guarantee they’ll be called upon to audition before a panel of judges comprising Lab personnel and residents.
Musicians who are selected to audition will receive word directly from the Lab via e-mail. Those successful in their 5-minute audition, as judged by a panel of Lab staff and residents, will be invited to perform a 30-minute set at the Second Life Music Fest, and (subject to the Lab’s terms and conditions) receive payment for doing so.
The auditions will take place on (times are SLT):
12:00 noon to 14:00 Friday, June 1, 2018.
18:00 – 20:00 Saturday. June 2, 2018.
The venue for the auditions will be announced in due course and all residents are invited by the Lab to attend the auditions as a part of the audience.
2018 marks the fifteenth anniversary of Second Life opening its doors to full public access. It’s a milestone year for the platform. This means this year’s celebrations are going to be special. Already the regions have been delivered to the grid, and work is in hand to build them out.
The Dates
This year, SL15B will run from Sunday, June 17th through Sunday, June 24th, inclusive.
The Theme
From the SL15BCC website:
As Second Life begins to celebrate its 15th birthday, our “crystal” theme aims to inspire residents to reflect both on the past and see into the future. The community is encouraged to use the crystal aesthetic and concept to creatively express their favourite SL features of the past while also looking forward into the future. The “crystal” theme allows for exploration of the tapestry of time that weaves together the past, present and future of Second Life.
Applications
On Friday, April 13th, the organisers opened the doors to applications from exhibitors, performers and presenters. Those wishing to apply for any of these positions are asked to read the General Event Policies for SL15B, and then proceed as follows:
In addition, bloggers and press wishing to get full access to SL15BCC to cover the event should complete the Press Access form.
Volunteers to help run the event are also being sought. If you are interested in helping with things as a greeter, stage manager, exhibitor assistant, etc., then please read the Volunteer Code of Conduct, and then complete the Volunteer Application form.
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