New Premium Membership Features
Linden Lab
on - last edited on by
Rand Linden
We’re Making Premium Better — Starting with Exclusive Gifts & Sandboxes
We’ve been working to bring more value and features to our Second Life Premium Members. Effective immediately, we’re adding new exclusive benefits: Premium-only Gifts and Premium-only Sandboxes — and that’s just the beginning! Keep an eye out for even more surprises in the future as we continue to enhance and expand our Premium Membership offering.
Here’s the scoop on what’s new right now:
Exclusive Virtual Gifts
Premium members will regularly receive exclusive virtual items that you won't find anywhere else. The very first gift is a stylish set of furniture crafted by Colleen Desmoulins of The Loft. The set features a sofa, tables, plants and lamps to enhance your home’s cozy factor. You can change the look of most of the furniture to fit your home’s unique style and decor — whether you live in a Linden Home or elsewhere.
This customizable furniture collection is the first of many Resident-created gifts Premium Members will be receiving regularly. Premium Residents can visit a virtual inworld kiosk to claim their gift now.
Premium-Only Sandboxes
Explore your creative side or just get down to the business of creating without the distractions of a more public space in one of the many Premium-only Sandboxes in Second Life. There are four new, exclusive Premium-only Sandbox Islands you can access right now to give you more room than ever to bring your creations to life. Members can visit right now.
Keep an eye out for even more surprises in the future as we continue to enhance and expand our Premium Membership offering. Of course, Premium Members still get their own Linden Home, weekly currency rewards, Live Chat support and much more.
For more information and details, see Premium membership in the Knowledge Base.
Mesh goes gridwide: Create, sell, buy & enjoy all-new things in SL
Linden Lab
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Today, mesh technology is available gridwide in Second Life. All SL users can now benefit from mesh technology, no matter what you do or where you are inworld.
If you shop, be sure to check out items built using mesh — they can sit alongside everything else you own and love in SL, but often look superslick, and may have greater detailing or design than a similar item built without mesh.
If you build, mesh is another option to help you access unlimited creativity. All the other traditional SL building options are still intact, we’ve just added to your toolkit.
If you sell things, selling objects created using mesh is one way to diversify your offering.
If you own land, well-made mesh objects can be used to increase efficiency and maintain optimum performance on your parcel.
Make sure you use the new Viewer to view and upload mesh objects correctly; older viewers will not render objects created with mesh correctly. Please check with third-party viewers; mesh support may vary.
A More Technical Look at Mesh
You’ve probably already seen mesh technology at work in modern video games, special effects and 3D animation. The term “mesh” refers to an object that consists of polygonal geometry data. That means it is extremely flexible — and it certain situations, it can be way more efficient than the existing prims and sculpties you’ll find inworld currently. Although existing building tools and techniques may still be the best choice in certain settings. You can talk with other designers about mes here.
Mesh objects are first created in external programs, such as Blender or Maya, (check here for more information) and then imported onto the Second Life grid. Once there, mesh objects can be manipulated in pretty much the same ways you would manipulate a regular old prim. Learn more about uploading your own mesh items here.
Língua portuguesa — Blogs e recursos sobre o Second Life
Linden Lab
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É novo no Second Life e fala português? Pode ser frustrante conhecer o SL se você não
fala inglês. Por isso, Tiamat Bingyi, residente do Second Life, junto com seus amigos da
comunidade de falantes de português, colaboraram para reunir alguns recursos úteis em
português que podem ajudar a quem é novo no SL.
Eis as recomendações:
Fórum oficial do Second Life
Esse é o fórum oficial do Second Life para a comunidade de língua portuguesa. É o lugar para
conhecer outros residentes em seu idioma!
Blog Mundo Linden
Liberato Lindman mantém esse blog, um dos mais antigos em atividade. Ele trata do SL em
geral e inclui tutoriais, machinimas, informações sobre a economia do SL, notícias sobre o SL e
a LL, compras, lugares interessantes para visitar, RPG e muito mais. O blog é bem organizado.
Blog LindenBR
Outro blog interessante, bem parecido com o mundolinden.blogspot.com.
Blog SL por Montekuri
Um bom blog com muitas ilustrações. Você encontrará muitos tutorais aqui — e eles são
ótimos! Aprenda como usar o SL e construir coisas, além de obter informações sobre
segurança, meshes, scripts, sculps e muito mais.
Blog Avantasia
O Avantasia aborda as noções mais básicas do SL e inclui alguns tutoriais, notícias sobre
grupos brasileiros e outros interesses relacionados.
Second News! Brasil
Esse é um blog antigo sobre o Second Life. Muitos dos tutoriais são sobre versões antigas do
Visualizador do Second Life (V1.23 e anteriores), mas eles mantêm um fórum ativo sobre o SL.
Você também encontra informações sobre machinimas, fotosd e moda no SL.
Revista Innerworld
A revista Innerworld é uma revista eletrônica e um blog sobre o SL. Publica informações sobre
moda, criadores de conteúdo, lugares para visitar e design. Também há várias entrevistas com
residentes. A revista é bilíngue, em inglês e português.
Kurka’s Blog
Khrys Kurka mantém esse blog, focado em moda e itens gratuitos. Também apresenta tutoriais
e algumas dicas de segurança.
Turistas do SL
Esse blog é sobre os melhores lugares para visitar, mas também apresenta informações sobre
vendas e itens gratuitos. É muito bem organizado e tem um layout agradável.
Você tem um blog em português ou gostaria de recomendar um blog favorito ou recurso
útil da Web? Conte-nos sobre eles na seção de comentários abaixo ou visite o fórum oficial para se conectar e compartilhar seus favoritos com outras pessoas.
Obrigado a Tiamat Bingyi por nos ajudar a reunir essa lista útil de links e recursos! Visite o perfil de Tiamat no Second Life para saber mais sobre esse prestativo residente.
The Second Life Economy in Q2 2011
Linden Lab
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The Second Life economy remained consistent in Q2 2011. The highlights were strong growth in registrations, a steady Linden $ exchange rate with slight appreciation, and continued growth in Linden $’s held by customers –with most other key metrics within 1-2% of recent quarters.
For a definition of the metrics in this post, please see this wiki page. Click on each image below to see a larger version.
DAILY COMPLETED REGISTRATIONS
With the addition of Basic and Advanced viewer modes, plus an improved new user registration flow in early Q2, there was a sharp uptick in registrations that continued throughout the quarter. Q2 averaged 27.9% more completed registrations per day than Q1.
AVERAGE MONTHLY UNIQUE LOGGED-IN USERS
Average monthly logged-in users for Q2 increased 2.8% from Q1 2011. This chart is more comparable to industry standards for reporting size of customer base and will replace previous measures based on user repeat logins or time active.
USER HOURS
AVERAGE MONTHLY ECONOMIC PARTICIPANTS
Active economic participants were within 1% of last quarter.
AVERAGE EXCHANGE RATE
The exchange rate remains very consistent and strengthening slightly with a 0.4% appreciation in the L$ over Q1 and a 4.3% appreciation in the L$ over the same quarter last year.
*Note that the exchange rate is expressed in L$/USD, meaning larger numbers represent a lower L$ value and smaller numbers represent a higher L$ value. The average rate is calculated by dividing the total L$ exchanged through the LindeX by the total US$ exchanged through the LindeX in the quarter.
L$ SUPPLY
Money supply grew by 2.2% in Q2 from the prior quarter and 15.8% year over year, bringing the equivalent US$ value of all customer-held L$ to US$30 million.
*Note: From time to time we will change our reporting in order to provide the most relevant and accurate summary information for the use of merchants, landowners, content creators, and other participants in the Second Life economy. Q2 2011 is an estimate calculated based on different methodology versus previous quarters.
LINDEX VOLUME
Q2 LindeX volume declined 2.7% to US$30.6 million in line with seasonality. This is a strong 4.4% increase over the same quarter last year.
WEB MERCHANDISE SALES VOLUME
The volume of web merchandise sales grew by 4.9%when compared to Q1 2011 and by 38.1% when compared to Q2 2010.
WORLD SIZE
World size remained consistent with last quarter at just over two thousand square kilometers.
"I’ve been getting a lot of emails from people that know nothing about Second Life, but have somehow found my blog through various social networks, asking me for more information. Therefore I figured I would write up a quick tutorial for those interested in joining and looking for some free resources to kick start their inventory..." Keep reading at StrawberrySingh.com
August Update
Linden Lab
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This update brings a variety of features for you to check out, including upgrades to Profiles and the Viewer. The new features are part of our ongoing quest to create an excellent experience for you — whether you’re creating, connecting or exploring.
Profiles
It’s easy to forget about RL for a while, socialize as your unique SL identity, and share what you love about Second Life when you’re part of SL Profiles. Connect with other Residents and explore Profiles using whichever identity you choose. You can add your interests, tweet your favorite locations and form friendships with other Resis, as well as continue the conversation through Facebook, Plurk and other social sites.
As always, we value your right to network under any identity you like — and SL Profiles lets you do just that. Your SL Profile name and identity can be whatever you like — let your imagination run wild! Update your status, share your location and comment on friends’ posts. You’re in charge of how you connect and how much of your RL identity you share.
Spend some time exploring — there’s a ton of ways to customize your settings for a rich, social SL experience. You can edit your Profile at any time — and there’s a spot for your real-world info, too. Customize your settings to optimize your Profile.
The Recommendations tab lets you know which Residents might make good friend match-ups for you, and the more interests you add to your Profile, the more recommendations for potential pals will pop up. You have the option to add your recommended connections to your friends list right in Profiles, and you can contact them right away through instant messaging — or just have fun reading the profiles of like-minded Residents.
Updates to the Viewer
We’ve made big changes to the Viewer Login Screen.
- When you open the Viewer, you’ll get a peek at what’s happening inworld. Check out the latest Destination Guide Editor’s Picks and stay up-to-date on SL news with a direct link to the blogs. Want to chat? “What’s Hot Now” reveals the most popular locations — click, log in and start socializing! Get started right now. Just click on any one of the images before logging in, and you’ll start your SL experience at that location.
- You’ll also notice some changes relating to Region Environment Settings. These give region managers the ability to customize environment settings — like atmosphere, sun, time of day, and cloud coverage. Visiting Residents will automatically see those settings, unless they’ve already chosen to use a personal override. For example: a Gothic castle might have a gloomy, spooky environment — and a tropical island might be bright and sunny. This feature is sometimes referred to by its previous moniker, Windlight Environment Settings. Check out the Knowledge Base for more info.
- For greater discoverability and to provide you faster access, you’ll find the Search Button displayed along the bottom bar in the Viewer.
- Another new feature gives parcel owners greater control, including the ability to hide avis, avatar activities and conversations from everyone outside a parcel and vice versa. You also gain the ability to restrict sounds emitted by avatars on the parcel.
- We expect to release the next version of the Viewer toward the end of August.
Meanwhile, we continue to work on the issue of full compatibility with Apple OS X Lion — we’re currently testing out compatibility issues. Many Residents have chosen to wait on upgrading their versions of Mac OS X so they can continue to go inworld. Check out more details here, and join in the conversation.
More new avatars
We’re proud to introduce the latest members of the SL family — a new troupe of human avatars. Last month, we rolled out our line of robot, animal and vehicle avis, and this month we’re adding to the new selection.
Avatars created by: Adam n Eve
The newest group of human avatars includes a spectrum of ethnicities, and complements current inworld trends — Steampunk, anyone? You can try them out by going to the Library folder in your Inventory and choosing Clothing > Initial Outfits. These guys (and gals) have been designed to optimize loading time. We considered various benchmarks, including Avatar Rendering Cost. We worked with Adam n Eve to craft detailed textures that emphasize aesthetic beauty. This balance provides a good starting point for customizing your look, and serves as an example for creators of how to make inworld items look good — and also load quickly.
Second Life is about creativity, diversity and communication — and this new pack of avis gives you a greater range of personalities to try out. They’re also completely modifiable.
Payments
It is our goal to continue to improve our payment process in order to make it easier and worry-free. Starting this month, Residents will begin to see improvements in usability including simpler layouts and flows, and we’ll be working on making the system even easier over the next couple of months. We’re also working on a new-and-improved way to offer local currency options. If you are currently part of the Local Payments beta there are no changes just yet.
Mesh is in production
We’re still accepting volunteer regions to receive mesh support here. If you just want to experiment with mesh creation, the same link will provide you with the steps you’ll need to take to get involved, and locate a mesh sandbox to work in. We’ve started to roll out mesh to regions across the grid via our release channels, and it will soon arrive at a region near you. While it’s being deployed, mesh objects are supported — but not all viewers will display them, and not all regions will fully support them until the rollout is completed. Also, we know there are going to be questions about some concepts being introduced with mesh, and we’re working to help explain them — more to come on that topic in the near future. The mesh forum is a great place to see and read what others are doing, as well as ask questions.
More Personalized Emails
If you’ve unsubscribed to optional news and promotional emails in the past, you can now resubscribe to emails by category. It’s important that you enter the email address that’s connected to your SL account. These subscription options don’t affect the emails you receive for transactions, instant messages from friends and/or customer service responses.
Have fun,
Linden Lab
July Update
Linden Lab
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It’s shaping up to be a hot summer here in San Francisco — er, at least at Linden Lab! — and July brings a lot of exciting updates — including great news for all Residents who’ve experienced issues with Group Chat lag, awesome new avatars, sweet new features in Profiles and much more!
Non-human avatars
A longstanding question about the default avatars that the Lab provides is “Why do they only offer humans?” Well, fret no more! Check your Library > Clothing > Initial Outfits tab in any Viewer and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover 36 new default avs! We worked with three amazing creators and focused on balancing visual appeal with diversity and efficiency. We think you’ll find that this fresh batch of avis is far more performance-oriented than our previous defaults — and a heck of a lot of fun.
Animal series by Damien Fate
Robot series by Renn Yifu
Vehicle series by Xenius Revere
For Residents using Basic mode, the new set of avatars will soon appear in the avatar selector. In a short time, they’ll be available at registration as well. You’ll be tempted to choose your favorite. Try out Second Life as a robot, a dragon — or even a sports car!
Group Chat Lag
Here’s a little something about that right royal pain, Group Chat Lag. You know how it is: you’re inworld, having a ball chatting with a group of friends, but the chat shows up with words missing or in the wrong order. It’s like a bad roommate, always hanging around and making a mess, interrupting your conversations and ruining your jokes! Some of your friends won’t even try talking while that loser’s around, knowing that their impeccable comic timing will come out looking like free-form poetry.
Except, for some reason, we don’t see that dude around much these days. Was it something we did?
We’d say that we’ll miss the old Group Chat Lag, but that would be a total lie. Instead, as the saying used to go: “door Don’t let the hit you in the butt on the way out.”
Profiles
We’re working on improved functionality and features for Profiles, a great way for you to express your interests, share your favorite activities, communicate your unique personality, and meet other SL Residents like yourself. Some of the cool things we’re adding will include a “Pages” feature that lets you add pages to your profile for different topics, interests, regions and other fun stuff. As always, you control the level of privacy for your account — you can adjust precisely how much information you choose to display — or keep private!
You can look forward to a feature that will allow the option of auto-posting to Twitter and Facebook— as well as a new activity stream, including a summary of your friends’ activities. This will allow you to check out what posts or photos your Second Life Friends have commented on, notify you when a friend changes their profile pic, and more!
We’re also working on integrating additional social-network identity — including popular sites like Plurk, Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr and Foursquare — so you can streamline your SL social networking, all fine-tuned to share just as much or as little as you prefer. You’re in the driver’s seat, but we’re glad to be along for the ride!
Marketplace
For all of you who love shopping for new gadgets, outfits, avatars — and everything else under the sun! — we’ve implemented some changes to our Marketplace hat will enhance your shopping experience and make the process go more smoothly. One of the coolest features we’ve been working on is Direct Delivery. We launched the Alpha phase of Direct Delivery in early June, and the participating merchants have been giving us some great feedback! What’s next? More focus on improving Direct Delivery, and working with Beta Merchants on the Alpha platform.
We’ve been working on an API for third-party viewers to use to support listing items on the Marketplace, and continue to gather feedback as we develop that capability. Beta Program participation has been opened up for third-party viewer developers and vending system developers, and our primary focus has been on bringing Direct Delivery to market.
Promotional Emails
On the promotional email front, we’ve improved the functionality of promotional-email subscription preferences. To unsubscribe to any promotional email, just hit the “unsubscribe” link in the message, and you’ll be able to choose the type of emails you want to get from Linden Lab — instead of “all-or-nothing.” This feature allows you to opt-in to messages you’d like to see more of — and unsubscribe from those you don’t! You’ll still receive other messages, like inworld notifications and Marketplace emails.
Search
Later this month, the new Search functionality that was included in the most recent Viewer release will go live as the primary Search experience for all Residents. Every search on the Secondlife.com website and in the Legacy Viewer “All” and “Groups” categories will use the new back-end technology, and will benefit from the improved result relevance. Viewer users will not only get the updated results — they’ll also be able to take advantage of all the exciting features we've included in the new Search interface, including easier searching for Events, Land Sales and Rentals, and Classifieds. If you haven't explored Second Life with the new-and-improved Search functionality yet, download the Viewer and take a look!
Let us know what you think! Share your experiences with these new features in the Technology Forum. And, don’t forget to hit Twitter — follow us @Secondlife and tweet using the hashtag #secondlife. Now, go explore Second Life, tap into your creative side — and make something incredible!
Cheers!
Linden Lab
Second Life Community Convention 2011! Registrati
Linden Lab
on - last edited on by
Rand Linden
Oakland city skyline at night. Image courtesy: thedude.com
The 7th Annual Second Life Community Convention 2011 will take place at the Oakland Marriott City Center in Oakland, CA from August 12-14, 2011, and registration is now open! Linden Lab is a sponsor of this great event that is offered to you by the amazing AvaCon organization. Read about them here!
The following article courtesy of: slconvention.org:
The Second Life Community Convention is three days of exciting activities, events, musical performances, machinima screenings, panels, workshops, and much more that showcases the abundant creativity of Second Life Residents.
Don't Just Attend — Be Part of the Convention
The Second Life Community Convention is more than just what is planned — the convention is also what you want to make it. Don't just attend — share something with the community!
Submit a Proposal
The Call for Proposals is up, and with five new track themes and fun presentation formats, you have the opportunity to share your hard work and creativity with the community that will most appreciate your efforts. Don't want to give a full presentation? Consider doing a Speed Sparks session of 20 slides in five minutes to share the gist of your idea in a fast paced presentation style that was a huge hit last year!
Be a Staff Member, Track Leader, or Volunteer
There are a few Staff and Track Leader positions open, and if you want to help run the show on the ground in Oakland or inworld, you are invited to join the team. It's easy to ask "Why don't they do X?" but the real fun comes when you help make it happen! Apply for a Staff or Track Leader position, or be an Oakland volunteer or Inworld volunteer today!
Sponsor the Convention
If you have a product or service and want to get your message out to the most enthusiastic Second Life Residents, or if you just want to show your support, there's no better place to spread the word than at the Second Life Community Convention. There are many levels of sponsorship, so it's more than affordable to help support this nonprofit, community produced event - become a sponsor!
Organize a Social Event
The convention has a light schedule on Friday, Aug. 12th to make sure there's plenty of time for socializing and networking, and to give you the opportunity to organize your own fun events. Check out the Social Events & Mixers page to organize a social event or outing for your friends and communities. Need ideas for things to do? There is a terrific guide of things to do In & Around Oakland to help you get started!
Planning Your Trip
There has been lots of hard work this year to help keep the cost of the convention affordable, and there are a number of resources available to help you plan your trip.
Reserve Your Room at the Oakland Marriott City Center
The convention will be held at the Oakland Marriott City Center in the heart of downtown Oakland, CA — just a ten minute train ride from San Francisco. The best room rates ever have been negotiated! $109 a night for up to quad occupancy, and free wireless internet access in guest rooms. You must be registered for the convention to receive the group-rate discount, and you will receive the link to reserve your rooms in the email confirmation you receive when you register for SLCC. Note that lunch on Saturday and Sunday is included in your convention registration, as well as free wireless internet access in all convention spaces. If you need information about flying, driving, or taking the train to SLCC, check out our transportation guide to get all the details you need to get to the convention.
Budgeting & Sharing Expenses to Reduce Costs
There is also a guide to help you budget for your trip. Visit the SLCC General Budget page to see a breakdown of convention expenses, a general budget guide to help you estimate costs for travel, and tips to help reduce the overall cost of the convention. If you're interested in sharing expenses on hotel rooms or travel, you can also find information to help you coordinate Finding a Roommate or Carpool.
Program Information Coming Soon
More details will be announced soon about the program sessions and keynote speakers in the coming weeks. SLCC is going to be a fun and thrilling three days of sharing, learning, and networking with Second Life Residents from around the world!
See you in Oakland!
