Featured News

Are you a Second Life blogger that is looking to expand your reach to a wider audience? If so, then you’ll want to consider opting in to join the new Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN). 

This new community initiative aims to promote high-quality, independent blog content to the Second Life community via high-visibility channels including the Second Life Community pages, social media channels and eventually the Official Second Life Viewer login page. Examples of the type of content we wish to promote include how-to tutorials, fashion makeovers and/or looks, community and event news and destination walk-throughs.

The Second Life Blogger Network aims to drive traffic directly to your own blog via summaries of and links to curated posts selected from participating bloggers including the use of a brief text intro using the opening sentences of your post and usually one related image from the post. Readers will be directed to click through a link that directs them to your site to read the entire article or blog post.

This is your opportunity to reach a wider audience for your own Second Life blog! Participation in this new promotional program is non-exclusive and free. We encourage bloggers to continue to also work with other community blogger networks (such as BVN*) and inworld groups for the promotion and distribution of their original editorial content.

Interested? Here’s how to participate:

1. Review the SLBN Terms & Conditions and Content Guidelines. This initiative does not aim to influence the editorial content of your independent blog, but we do have standards for the text and image content of those posts that we will promote. For example, images with nudity and/or copyright-violating content will not be considered for promotion. (Please note that there has been an update to the Terms & Conditions on September 28, 2021, under #2 Conditions.)    

2. If you want to participate, fill out the submission form and consider adding the optional Second Life Blogger Network badge to your website. You can grab the badge and learn about guidelines for placement here.

3. Once you have opted-in, you are eligible to participate! We will then watch your blog for consideration for potential inclusion in our curated Community News thread and social media channels. 

4. Linden Lab staffers will frequently review posts from participating bloggers. While not all of your new posts will be selected each day, we do aim to promote several entries during the week from the pool of participating bloggers.

5. Want to opt-out and no longer participate? Simply let us know by selecting the opt-out notification on the submission form and we’ll stop monitoring your blog for our curated news thread.  

6. Opting in does not guarantee that you will be featured. If you have further questions about SLBN, you can email editor@lindenlab.com. 

That’s it! Ready to get started? Check out the Community News blog to see examples of the types of independent blog content that we’re already promoting. We’re thrilled to already welcome bloggers Inara Pey (Modemworld.me), Sasy Scarborough (sasyscarborough.com) and Kess Crystal (theglamoursauce.com). Will you be next? 

We also spoke to Kess about her group, BVN and announced out Official SLBN on our live-streaming show Lab Gab with Xiola and Strawberry - you can catch the replay below.

* Note: The Second Life Blogger Network is not officially affiliated with the Blogger & Vlogger Network (BVN) of Second Life, but we encourage our community to check them out at bvnsl.com!

Have you heard the news? Second Life founder Philip Rosedale is back!

With today’s announcement about High Fidelity’s investment in Linden Lab, we’re excited to welcome back Philip Rosedale in the all-new role as Second Life strategic advisor. Philip is a recognized metaverse pioneer who led the early days of Second Life to help form and inform the now-mainstream concepts of virtual economies, cultures, and communities. In his new role, he will bring his vast virtual world experience and vision to help shape the future of Second Life. 

Philip will be joined by Linden Lab executive chairman Brad Oberwager in an exclusive “Lab Gab” community Q&A in the next couple of weeks – and we want your questions! To submit your questions in advance for consideration by both Linden Lab’s executive chairman and the Internet’s original metaverse pioneer, please use this form no later than midnight (Pacific) at the end of Sunday, Jan. 16.

This special edition of “Lab Gab” will be streamed on our socials in late January – so stay tuned to this blog and follow our social channels for more information!

UPDATE: We received hundreds of questions and Oberwolf and Philip have covered many topics in the interview. Watch this special pre-recorded edition of Lab Gab on Monday, January 31st at 9am PT on our YouTube channel. 

Happy new year!  We released a change this week that hopefully will help fight the winter blues.

Uplift has been an ongoing adventure for a number of engineering teams, but the goal of improving the SL experience for all residents has not changed.

Uplift brought in new hardware and the ability to reconfigure it quickly to react to changing circumstances. A few months ago, we quietly changed hardware configurations to provide better performance for the simulators, but our job was not done there.

After this upgrade our engineering teams dug deep into the simulator to modernize it and take better advantage of AWS capabilities. We referred to this as our “Tooling Update,”  which allows LSL scripts to run more efficiently. Regions with heavy script usage will likely see more scripts run and even some spare time returning to the simulator.  The release also includes a modernization of our compiler and supporting runtime.  Newer tools allows for better code generation and awareness of modern CPU designs.

While the news is mostly good, a word of caution that with more scripts running, other areas of the simulation environment may be driven harder.  Scripts that were already approaching throttles or other limits may find a throttle engaged; this also applies to remote services accessed via llHTTPRequest. We do see the possibility of revisiting these throttling limits as a result of these improvements. They could see higher request rates as scripts perform more work.  

We hope that you enjoy the additional script performance for your regions. Anecdotes from region owners on the RC channels before release were generally positive. We are keeping an eye on the data with expectations that these improvements are here to stay.  We hope that as the regions improve performance you will find ways to create and explore in ways that you could only dream of before.

SSL Support

Library upgrades include more recent SSL support.  Removal of old protocols and obsolete ciphers is underway and some new restrictions are in effect for llHTTPRequest, llRequestURL, and llRequestSecureURL functions.  With this release, SSLv3, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and related
ciphers are deprecated for these functions. This does not change the login service in any way.  These changes are restricted to simhosts.

We hope you benefit from this update!  As ever, we welcome your thoughts.

As 2022 begins, we are looking to set new goals and make Second Life Residents happier! 

Later today and in the following weeks, research@secondlife.com will be emailing thousands of Residents with an invitation to complete a survey and give feedback. Please keep an eye out for it, and feel free to share your thoughts on how to make Second Life a more pleasant experience for all. We’ve also been conducting qualitative research with a smaller group over the past few weeks. If you participated in that research, you are still eligible to take part in this survey.

Also, for Residents active on Flickr, the Flickr team is conducting its own independent research on the Second Life community. Flickr has sent some of its own users an email in the last few days asking for feedback and suggestions to make their website a more seamless and engaging experience for the Second Life community. The email also mentions 360 Snapshots and Flickr’s new efforts to help connect Second Life Residents on their platform. If you received this email, please consider participating! And if you haven’t already, make sure to follow our official Second Life account on Flickr and join our official Second Life Flickr Group. 

So check those spam folders and don’t hit the delete button. We hope you take this opportunity to have your voice be heard!

In other news, we are really excited to see the response from the community on Philip Rosedale’s return. We’ve received hundreds of questions from all of you and are including many of them in the forthcoming “Lab Gab.” We should be announcing the streaming date for “Lab Gab” with both Philip and Oberwolf in the next week or two. Keep an eye on the Second Life Public Calendar for the date!

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we have released new limited edition last names today!

The following valentine-themed names are only available until February 17th:  
Cupid
Lovely
XOXO
Desire
Enamour
Cuddles
Snookipuss
Schatzi

These names for Valentine’s Day are seasonal and may come back around this time next year, for a limited time.

The following is a screenshot of the full list of current last names available:

We have been very pleased to see the response to our limited edition last names. We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, most of the new names were chosen from there! 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!
 

We are going to be introducing an additional way for you to keep your account safe! When we detect that your viewer is being accessed from a new device, we’ll send you an email that looks like this:

          SUBJECT: Important: [FIRSTNAME LASTNAME] accessed Second Life from a new machine.

          Your Second Life account has been accessed from a new machine. If you recently logged in to Second Life from a new device you may ignore this mail.

               Account: [FIRSTNAME LASTNAME]
               Time: [TIME IN SLT, example 2022-02-11 09:09.00 SLT]
               Originating IP Address: [IP ADDRESS OF NEW COMPUTER]
           
          If this was you, you don’t need to do anything. If not, we will help you secure your account: What To Do If Your Account Has Been Compromised

We are pleased to bring you this industry standard to help protect your SL account. Make sure to verify your email address to receive these notifications.  

We recently introduced Multi-Factor Authentication, another industry standard, as another layer of account protection. Read about it at https://second.life/mfa 

UPDATE: This feature is available as of 2/28 for accounts with a verified email address.

Ever since Second Life’s inception two decades ago we have seen many local, state and federal governments impose new ways to collect tax revenue from internet-based businesses. The Wayfair Sales Tax case decision by the Supreme Court was when prior rules about sales tax really changed.  Since then, we have done our best to shield our residents from these taxes as long as possible, but we are no longer able to absorb them.

As of March 31, 2022 we will begin charging sales tax in the U.S. For the time being we will charge taxes only on recurring billings, such as premium subscriptions and land fees. The amount of tax charged will be communicated clearly in the receipt or invoice.

We will continue to absorb the taxes at point-of-sale purchases such as one-time L$ buys, first-time premium subscriptions, and name changes. At some point in the future we will need to begin passing those taxes on to you. We will make another announcement when those charges are phased in.

Your individual charges will be determined by your local jurisdictions. There are more than 13,000 sales and use tax jurisdictions in the United States, with great variation in their rules and tax rates. Tax amounts are also affected by other factors such as the type of goods or services being purchased. To determine the charges, we will be relying on an automated third-party system which closely tracks local tax laws, so the tax amounts are always up to date.

This is news we don’t enjoy sharing, but for the health of the business and of Second Life, we can no longer continue absorbing these tax burdens.

Thank you for your understanding and your continued support of Second Life.
 

We have been very pleased to see the response and feedback for last names. Thank you for all the suggestions sent in for future last names. 

Today some of the older last name options were removed and the following new ones were added from your suggestions:
Foxpaws
Captain
Starchild
Blep
Grumpypants
Jackman
Kiko
Norbert
Ayashi
Corvinus
McGregor
Marques
Rizzo

Here is the full list of current last names available:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, the new names were chosen from there!

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

Linden Lab strives to make positive change in the world by helping people connect, discover themselves, and grow both personally and financially. Ultimately, we build and support communities. Therefore, it is especially shocking to see the actions in Ukraine, to see the unwarranted attacks on people – on communities. We are heartbroken and horrified by the situation in Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis it has perpetuated. We are a proudly diverse team, and many of us have ties to these events - historically, emotionally, professionally, and socially. Our products reach worldwide, and many of our partners and customers are directly affected by this crisis. 

As a leadership team, this crisis has challenged us to better define and embrace what we believe to be the core principles at Linden Lab – our TAO so to speak.

Specifically, our TAO says:

MAKE CHANGE ON A GLOBAL SCALE

Our work brings people together, builds communities. Our work helps people understand who they are, helps them be better. Our work brings empathy, helps people see the world through others’ eyes. Settle for nothing less than changing the world for the better.

We intend to live up to this principle, and while there is much work to be done, we are starting with: 

• Providing financial support for humanitarian crisis aid through a donation to the Red Cross Ukraine and HIAS
• Supporting independent journalism in Ukraine through a donation to Keep Ukraine’s Media Going
• Supporting free speech in Russia through a donation to Meduza and OVD-INFO 

Effective Monday, we will be further supporting our eligible Ukrainian-based community members by granting them a temporary 30-day moratorium on recurring account fees such as Premium Membership and Land Maintenance fees.  We will review this again after 30 days and assess what we can do as next steps where necessary. We invite any of our Ukraine-based community members to contact support with any specific questions they may have.

Finally, we encourage our community to look at ways that they can help show their support. It is heartening to see the Second Life community come together to support each other with numerous inworld events and helpful initiatives that bring us together as a force for good in both the physical and virtual worlds.

Happy April Fool’s Day! The following Limited Edition last names are available until April 15th:

Joker
OwO
UwU
Hoax
Quirky
Shenanigans

Here is the full list of current last names available:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, the new names were chosen from there!

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

We are pleased to announce we have added MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) protection to the Viewer. Recently we added MFA to web login. Now it works with Viewer login as well.

To start using it, you will need to enable MFA for your account on this page: https://accounts.secondlife.com/mfa/status 

For more info about how our existing MFA works, see Introducing Multi-Factor Authentication for your Second Life Account and the Knowledge Base Article. 

You will need to download and install an MFA-enabled Viewer: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.5.5.571282.html 

When you try to log in with an MFA-enabled Viewer, you will be prompted to enter a token from your authenticator app. If you have chosen to save your password information, a valid token will be saved for 30 days.  After 30 days your next login attempt will require another token.

For now, if you try to log in with a Viewer that is not MFA-enabled, nothing will change, and you will still be able to log in without a token.  However, if you have opted in to MFA then a token will be required for all Viewer logins beginning in the near future.