The Viewer 2 Beta is finally here, and with it comes a whole host of amazing improvements and new features. There’s so much to be excited about that it’s impossible (and unnecessary!) to pick a favorite. But -- if I really had to pick -- I’d choose Shared Media, since I'm the Product Manager for Shared Media. So, let me tell you about it.
Shared Media Brings the Web Into Second Life
Second Life Shared Media, a new Viewer 2 capability, makes sharing standard Web-based media in Second Life easy and seamless. It enables content creators to make more compelling, interactive experiences. Basically, Shared Media brings the Internet inworld.
For the more technically inclined, what this means is that you can now put media textures on any prim in Second Life. More specifically, the viewer uses WebKit to create a fully interactive, dynamic texture from a Web URL. This even includes support for Web-browser plug-ins, like the Adobe Flash Player. And, you can place dozens of them on the same region. (We still don't know what the upper limits are. I'm sure that you'll let us know.)
A World of New Experiences and Businesses Possible
By seamlessly integrating the Web into Second Life, Shared Media unleashes a new wave of creativity and new business opportunities. Imagine the richness of a SL store with interactive signs and displays. Think about Flash-based games, theaters, and innovative Web-based services appearing inworld. Display your Twitter feed on the front of your house! (Okay, don't.) Build a HUD to read your email inworld. Interact with walls that encourage graffiti or use your signature to sign guest books. Educators and their students can now interact in even more immersive classrooms. For the enterprise community, online collaboration tools (such as Google Docs, EtherPad, Webex, and Acrobat Web Connect) combine with the power of Second Life to make working inworld much easier and more powerful.
You're in Control of Shared Media
Viewer 2 introduces a new UI for controlling Shared Media. Shared Media authors have the option to offer a 2D menu bar (similar to a browser-like URL bar) that will appear in front of a Shared Media object when any Resident mouses over it. Also, a new Nearby Media control will enable Residents to more easily control what media is allowed to play.
Web Skills Will Drive New Inworld Building Techniques
There are also new Second Life build features for Shared Media: assigning URLs to objects and faces, controlling auto-play, auto-scale, size settings, etc. With Shared Media, SL building now extends well beyond SL into the vast and varied skill set of Web development. Suddenly, skills like PHP, SQL, ActionScript, Apache and FMS can be used to create compelling inworld content. Flash and Flash Media Server (FMS) become particularly useful tools for creating animated, interactive Shared Media that can be kept in sync. Flash media server hosting services, such as Influxis, offer low-cost hosting.
Synchronicity is Content- and Context-Specific
Behind the scenes, Shared Media is different. Second Life always stays synchronized for all Residents. That is, the simulation takes place on our servers, and each person's viewer renders their perspective on that simulation -- everyone is looking at the same thing. Shared Media, on the other hand, can look different to different people -- sometimes. Everyone’s instance of the Shared Media is always presenting the same URL. However, not everything will stay in perfect sync unless the content is specially designed to do that. For example, a simple Web browsing session will keep the pages synchronized, but not the position of the scroll bars. We may both be looking at the same Web page on the same inworld object, but I might be looking at the top portion, while you might be viewing what's below the fold.
Consider a URL that doesn't always serve the exact same page, perhaps a Web page that displays a random background color each time it loads. If an inworld object's surface displayed that page, I might see a green background while you might see a blue one. Even more striking: if an inworld object's surface was pointed at a site with user login like Gmail, you and I could both log into it, and we'd be looking at our own inboxes, not at each other's.
What’s really cool is that sites that are specifically designed for synchronous collaboration, like EtherPad, for instance, will stay in perfect sync. So if it's the intention, it is possible to design content that uses a back-end server to stay perfectly synchronized in all cases.
In short, synchronicity is content- and context-specific, making possible a world of new applications and interactions.
We Look Forward to Your Feedback and Creations
With this release of Shared Media, we’re just at the starting line; we need your feedback. Please post your thoughts and experiences on Shared Media to the Viewer 2 Beta Forums. And if you build cool stuff and want to share it with us for inclusion in a Shared Media Showcase, please let us know in comments.
What about Java plugin support? Most (tm) browsers that support the Flash plugin also support other plugins implementing the netscape plugin api, such as Sun Java. But I can't get Java to work at all with SLSM.
A World of New Experiences and Businesses Possible
By seamlessly integrating the Web into Second Life, Shared Media unleashes a new wave of creativity and new business opportunities. Imagine the richness of a SL store with interactive signs and displays. Think about Flash-based games, theaters, and innovative Web-based services appearing inworld. Display your Twitter feed on the front of your house!
Ok, that's all the stuff I don't want to see here! I don't want to get pestered with flashy banner ads or other commercial crap from the web streamed into SL everywhere. I don't want to see YouTube in SL. If I want to see Flash movies, I use a WEB BROWSER! And most definitely, I don't want that Flash-based games, widgets and other botch social networks are flooded with in SL.
And most important: Is this thing safe at all? What happens if a griefer provides a malicious ad banner, website or Flash thingy via Shared Media? Do I now need to load security patches for SL every few weeks from now on as well?
The new search window displays only the top 3 listings by default. 20 years in the web-marketing arena confirms that users tend to use only what they see. The percentage of users who scroll or resize the window are in the low teens, those who browse to page 2 are in the single digits. Those who browse beyond page 2 for results are measured in fractions of percentage points.
Could you please make the default window size a bit wider to show more then 3 results? A bit taller would be better, and its own tab on the right even more so.
Being below the fold in search is nearly as useless as being on page 10.
Zi, for the new features the idea is to use Viewer 2! It has the new stuff and it's great! Might take a little getting used to it, but it's really worth it. Really.
In addition to the awesomeness we've shown above, if you're wondering, "So how do I get started with this? Is it easy?" are in for a treat — I've done a tutorial showing how you can make a Shared Media™ screen in SECONDS. Even if you're a newcomer to "building".
Yes, it's that easy... start watching @ 2:50 here:
YES THIS MEANS WE FINALLY GET YOUTUBE IN SECOND LIFE WITHOUT ANY CLUDGES... defeating the old way which I've personally been asked hundreds of times about. (You should've seen my excitement towards the Lindens who worked on Shared Media™.) R-E-L-I-E-F.
Sorry, Edelman, but I'm NOT going to use that thing. I want to have a choice, as I do now. I tried Viewer 2 for a few hours. It's bad. I don't want it. So ... when are the features available for 1.23.x?
Uhem no, thanks! I'd better stick with Emerald. It works, has USEABLE interface and I don't have the risk to encounter ad farms on every corner of SL...
I had given FreeTube TV free to residents for about a year now (must be the most popular youtube TV in SL since I got about 30.000 unique requests -per day- last time I checked statistics). Was a gift back to community from me.
I am happy to say that my TV will gradually be no longer need and better, faster and most easy to use methods will arise from using this type of technology.
LL should focus on Linux too (it's still lacking features) and the x64 platform.
Also, I think that there should be checkboxes to allow/disallow viewing of shared media textures since this can be potentially a security breach or the start of it.
Perhaps there should be a list of owners that could be allowed and new ones asked about being added before viewer loads the web page.
Not really. You, as product manager for Shared Media, may be interested in having that in the viewer. The question is whether Linden Labs had any real interest in making real improvements to the viewer and to its user interface. It looks more as if someone decided they wanted viewer 2.0 to be a web browser that happened also be how one could and might access Second Life.
@Torley: I already disabled it by sticking to Emerald. I know you Lindens put much effort in the new viewer, but from what I've seen so far, it's completely unuseable because of the user interface. Provide a clear, sleek and most important flexible and configurable user interface like in viewer 1.x and I'll give it a try. As long as viewer 2.0 comes along like a web browser and with gadgets making it look like a social network platform with a bit SL attached at the end, I will not use it. Sorry...
While someone might control what launch site is on the prim, can they ensure that for a presentation no one else can access links or buttons which appear on the webpage being displayed?
I haven't yet to see this, and the dropdown menu doesn't APPEAR to cover this.
Having this degree of control can certainly make this a powerful tool
I was more referring to a system like "allow shared media from resident X" before loading it, something like a "firewall" type of access list, proactively.
It basically works like browsing together with a friend on two machines on the same website. If it requires you to log in to a website for example, you will only see your own log in data, not the one of the other person, since you are doing the web browsing locally.
I know Zi, I am talking about IP <-> resident combination that could open the gates for DOS or other attempts easily from blindly using shared media.
What I'm trying to say is that perhaps all shared media should be "disabled by default for their owner and/or creator (?)" and before loading, a warning message with ACCEPT THIS RESIDENT'S shared media YES/NO screen popup.
Yes, Shared Media offers control over who can do what... granularity includes owner, group and anyone to "Allow Navigation & Interactivity" and "Show Control Bar". So, definitely, you can control who can do what :-)
I am very much impressed with the new viewer, more than i was expecting. The new UI is very sleek. It's going to take time getting used to the new way of navigating, but i think it's all going in the right direction.
Web on a prim just blew my mind. I think alot of peoples gripes with having web and flash inworld is based on a lack of vision. It's not going to be about just having adverts and web pages all over SL. People have to think about how web based functionality is going to enhance the resident experience in world. I'm excited at the prospect of building external web apps specifically to be viewed in SL that will only be fully experienced in SL.
Im interested in how i can make a shared media experience Sync between residents views. It has been suggested its possible if you know how, but there is no real SPECIFIC instruction on how to make that possible. Would be good to have a movie play that people can arrive half way through and watch, is that possible? need more details me thinks
It's all very new and hopefully by the time Burning Life comes round, lots of people will be using this new feature to awesome effect
Im interested in how i can make a shared media experience Sync between residents views. It has been suggested its possible if you know how, but there is no real SPECIFIC instruction on how to make that possible. Would be good to have a movie play that people can arrive half way through and watch, is that possible? need more details me thinks
You need to use Ajax and keep state of all connected clients and update each client so they all show the same realtime data. Nothing SL specific, only Web 2.0 functionality.
I love your enthusiasm and insight! Indeed, it's about how to use Shared Media to great things.
There's no totally simple answer to how to keep Shared Media in sync between resident views.
I'm fond of using Flash Media Server (FMS) to do it for Flash based media. It requires a little bit of scripting sophistication, but there are examples to follow, so it's not from scratch. influxis.com offers affordable hosting plans. Really, many, many technologies can get the job done, but the key is having a back-end server for maintaining state and doing message passing. And of course, careful consideration needs to be made to scalability.
I actually really like the SL Beta Viewer...although I was a bit skeptical at first. It takes some getting use to but once you get the hang of it then it's pretty easy to navigate. I am not to thrilled with the way the camera control are set up, but that is my only real issue with it.
It's funny how praising the new features gets you an "insightful" compliment, criticizing leaves you ignored. I think it's only legitimate to ask for the new features in the classic viewer, for the sake of those who can't stand using a web browser to access their Second Life experience.
Part of the fun is learning how to do new things like this in SL , Viewer2.0 will definately have breathed new life into a lot of creators, and caused headaches for others, but as im often told in the steampunk community 'change is progress', now if only LL would reduce island tier price
Web on a prim just blew my mind. I think alot of peoples gripes with having web and flash inworld is based on a lack of vision. It's not going to be about just having adverts and web pages all over SL. People have to think about how web based functionality is going to enhance the resident experience in world. I'm excited at the prospect of building external web apps specifically to be viewed in SL that will only be fully experienced in SL.
You are easily impressed and might not really know how spammers and advertisers work. Anything even *remotely* usable for spamming will be used for such, and now we have HTML on a prim, Linden Lab can't even ban the offending textures anymore, because once a person connecting from a Linden office comes near the prim, it will change to a harmless website.
All feedback is extremely welcome and valuable. No one is being ignored. Trust me!
Many, many person years of development effort go into creating something like Viewer 2.0. We think it's better, but we also respect choice. Remember - Viewer 1.23 is still supported and we've even Open Sourced viewer 2 (Snowglobe 2).
As such, it's entirely possible for the Open Source community to create a Viewer hybrid that adds new features to the old UI.
That said, I encourage everyone to keep an open mind about Viewer 2's new UI. Change is always hard, but there are many, many significant improvements.
For the record, I am not resistant to change. I am an early adopter. I enjoy new tech, new software, new stuff. New is good... when it is good. The new 2.0 viewer is not good. In fact, I cannot describe in words how much I hate the 2.0 viewer. Aside from being rediculously ugly and impractical, the performance was infinitely worse than any other viewer I have tried to date.
To those who are responsible for 2.0, be thankful that I am not your employer. You'd be unemployed by end of business today.
Darn... well, I suppose for rounded corners (like, for an interface for a hud) you could always make your webpage blend in with the background of a prim behind it... I guess it could work.
Many person years of work that could have been used better in giving us the new features in 1.23.4 and fixing a load of bugs at the same time. And yes, it's open source, but it also means that 1.23.4 derivates have to run after Viewer 2 and re-implement everything you decide to put in. Right now it's just a matter of applying the appropriate patches to the common codebase. In the future, 3rd party viewers will have to provide their own implementation of the user interfaces needed to access the new features.
That line of thinking only holds if you are under the assumption that Linden Labs only has one team, and all that team does is one thing at a time. It's just a guess, but a probable one, that those in charge of the UI are not the same people in charge of bug fixes (or even necessarily new features). If that is the case, then there was no 'time lost' doing anything.
That line of thinking only holds if you are under the assumption that Linden Labs only has one team, and all that team does is one thing at a time. It's just a guess, but a probable one, that those in charge of the UI are not the same people in charge of bug fixes (or even necessarily new features). If that is the case, then there was no 'time lost' doing anything.
Every resource thrown at such a craptastic project like this horrible new viewer is a resource that coule have been better spent elsewhere. For example, FINISHING THE EXISTING VIEWER.
Windlight is still only half-implemented. Dynamic lighting is only half implemented. Physics is only half-implemented. Nearly every major feature release in the last 3 years has been half-assed. So what does Linden Lab do? Create a new viewer with NONE of the fixes people have been screaming YEARS for.
It's no wonder that the business world doesn't take Second Life seriously when the Lindens don't either.
Many, many person years of development effort go into creating something like Viewer 2.0. We think it's better, but we also respect choice. Remember - Viewer 1.23 is still supported and we've even Open Sourced viewer 2 (Snowglobe 2).
As such, it's entirely possible for the Open Source community to create a Viewer hybrid that adds new features to the old UI.
That said, Iencourage everyone to keep an open mind about Viewer 2's new UI. Change is always hard, but there are many, many significant improvements.
I want to try to provide positive comments. The new functionality is welcome, but the ergonomics of the user interface are poor. While the folk who put their hearts into the new UI are probably the nicest guys in the world, I'm afraid it's not up to industry standards. I believe the best way forward is to outsource future viewers to 3rd party designers and concentrate on server-side development
I would like detatcability of some of the things that are in the side menu, also, build/edit will be very difficult if you want to make a new shape while in a build box in one click, means ya have ot go into edit, and switch it over ot build, not crippling, just a little odd.
Having the tabs stuck in place and cannot be moved around anywhre else is a little limiting. Maybe have two modes for this viewer.
A the feature that really interests me is the alpha skin layer, it was badly needed.
My Gawd people.. you haven't even fixed the secondlife website to accept a single login across pages (Dashboard to Xstreet, for example).. you should have spent your time on fixing what's already broken instead of creating more things for everyone to hate Linden Labs for.
Single sign-on work has been underway for a while. The blogs & forums will use the new system in approximately a month or so, and the Dashboard (and the rest of sl.com) is currently being worked on. More information in this JIRA issue: WEB-1311
Do you think so? It feels like an in-house project to me. Lots of good intentions from lots of nice people - but sort of isolated from the world, making basic design mistakes, trying hard to reinvent the wheel. It reminds me of young writers, full of enthusiasm (good), not without technical competence, but lacking literary and worldly experience.
While one can sometimes edit a B paper up to an A, it is almost impossible to edit a C paper up to a B. I'd give the new viewer a C+.
My Gawd people.. you haven't even fixed the secondlife website to accept a single login across pages (Dashboard to Xstreet, for example).. you should have spent your time on fixing what's already broken instead of creating more things for everyone to hate Linden Labs for.
Single sign-on work has been underway for a while. The blogs & forums will use the new system in approximately a month or so, and the Dashboard (and the rest of sl.com) is currently being worked on. More information in this JIRA issue: WEB-1311
This is the perfect example of what I am talking about. Single sign-on should have been implemented immediately upon implementing the various services. Users should never have had to log in multiple times to access Second Life web services. The integration of various services should have been seemless.
For all of the human hours put into this project I would have thought a bit more thought would have been put into it. I would have thought maybe even a small survey ( which everyone hates surverys but this might have helped) asking people what features they like in the current viewer and what they would like to see in a future viewer. For one, I personally do not like the concept of it looking like web pages. If I want to browse the web, I'll browse the web. If I come on SL to build or relax I dont want to have to mess with browser-like interfaces. As for not liking change, I love trying new things and experimenting. BUT....when something looks, and feels the way this new viewer does, it's a huge dissapointment and leaves an ache in my stomach because I know that it will be shoved off on us in an eventual update that we've got to take. I think if some of the developers would remove themselves from wanting to have all of the touchy feely stuff and put things in that users can reliably use and have residents feel confident that it's a good product they'd be a lot better off.
I do like the concept of being able to use Flash viewers in world. I've hoped for that for a while as it may very well be useful. I guess that's probably the glimmer of hope out of all of the rest of the poorly thought out viewer.
For this to actually come off and a majority of residents to like it there's got to be a whole lot of re-thought and some changes. I do suppose people do have other choices such as other viewers or not using SL at all, but I'm sure that's not the intention of the group that's releasing this BETA. I would hope that alot of the feedback, no matter how positive or negative ( people sometimes get a bit reactionary but have good intention) it may be put forward, is looked at and digested fully and some changes to the version 2 implimented to enhance residents experience on SL.
