Linden Lab

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "22 Jan 2012." Visit inworld here.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Scorpion Nest 3." Visit inworld here.

What social networks, sites, or apps do you use to share your Second Life activities with others? Let us know here.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Playing with Projected Light," by Connie Arrida.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "NorthYard_009," by Darkyn Dover.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "..." by lindini2.

Thank you to all the residents who participated in the contest. If you submitted an entry or just browsed and voted on other people's entries - it was great to see all the work and pride everyone made and took in this Second Life Forum first! Congratulations to our winners and runner-ups! You will be hearing from us shortly! Here are the winners of the New Year, New You! image contest. Click the image to see a larger version of the entry. GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Areander Mint with "Getting older. getting wiser..." RUNNER UP: Valerie Inshan with "Past & Present" RUNNER UP: Lanie Windlow with "Lanie Windlow is NEW this YEAR!" RUNNER UP: Wildcat Furse with "Wildcat Furse (2012 - left/ 2011 - right) Congratulations again to everyone and thank you for submitting all of your amazing makeovers. For some it was about little changes, and others it was a complete transformation. Here's to all of 'you' - New and Old! If you want to see all the enties, go check out the thumbnail gallery.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "If Only I'd Thought of the Right Words."

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "In a Philosophical way."

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Eternidad_007." Visit inworld here.

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day "LoveJan2012." Visit inworld here.

Check out the Pic of the day, "#148," by Pelin Paelus.

Hi BixxiBunny The contest is open until January 18th, 12 Noon (PST). If you are logged into the community, you should be able to click here to find the contest page. Then click the New Entry button to upload an image. Thank you!

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "SL Wedding."

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Jan."

An Image is Worth a thousand words – and sometimes it can be worth L$5000, too! Out with the old and in with the new – show off your dramatic Second Life makeovers with a before-and-after picture that highlights a new look you will be rocking this year in Second Life. There will be one grand prize winner (L$5000) and three runners-up (L$1000 each). Think of all the shopping you can do with that kind of allowance! For all the details on prizes and how to enter, please read the "New Year, New You!" Picture Contest Wiki page. We’re excited to bring this new contest feature to the Second Life community, and we hope you enjoy it! How to participate: Take a before and after image of your virtual makeover and upload it on the contest page. It’s as easy as taking your before snapshot and placing it on a prim, then stand in front of it with your new look and taking another snapshot, or stitching together two images – one of you before your Second Life makeover, and one after. Save the image to your computer so you can upload your submission for the contest. How to vote: Entries will be posted from Jan. 11 through Jan. 18, 2012. You can vote at any time for your favorite, but you only get one vote. To vote for your favorite, simply hit the Kudo button on the page of your choice. For some tips on how to take good pictures in Second Life, take a look at the Knowledge Base article. Good Luck! May the best “New You” win!

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Veperella, SBCC_005."

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Kimono Dot_02."

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Don't tell me the sky is the limit, there are footprints on the moon!"

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day for Jan. 5, "I dunno."

Check out the Pic of the Day for Jan. 4, "Reward for Sami_002."

As we head into the new year, I’d like to share some highlights from 2011, as well as a glimpse of what’s to come in 2012. First, if you haven’t already, I hope you will explore our recently launched Linden Realms, the Lab's first-ever game prototype. For newbies, it is a very simple way to earn L$, so hop on over and start collecting gems. One of the key goals of Linden Realms was to learn more about what tools Residents could use to develop richer experiences in Second Life — and boy, did we learn a lot! In Q1 2012 , we will be releasing new tools used to develop Linden Realms, which will allow Residents to create even richer original experiences in Second Life. To prevent abuse of these tools, we will introduce a "creators" program in which verified members will be given access to these very powerful capabilities. In 2011, we also made strides to improve usability in Second Life. We launched a new version of the Viewer, which allows you to customize the user interface for a more flexible workspace with drag-and-drop buttons, among other key new features. The new Viewer also makes it easier for new Residents to discover essential, basic functions — so, with the simple click of a button, you can change your appearance, go to a new location, find inworld merchants or head on over to the Second Life Marketplace. Speaking of customization, since we deployed Mesh earlier this year, we’ve seen more than a 16 percent adoption rate. I expect this to continue to grow at a strong pace as more and more Residents take advantage of all the features available to allow you explore Second Life and create even more engaging, exciting experiences. This past year, we also improved the customer experience with expanded Premium subscription benefits that include virtual gifts, as well as exclusive areas where you can go and create. One of the other benefits of being a Premium member is ownership of a Linden Home, which I’m pleased to report has reached an historic high. For those of you who have enjoyed owning a Linden Home and are looking for a little more real estate, you can check out what is available on the Second Life Land Store and through private-estate purchases and rentals found through Second Life Search. In 2012, you can expect to see more value added to Premium in the form of additional features and content. If you are not yet a Premium member, you can sign up here! In 2012, the primary engineering focus of Q1 will be server side performance and fixing bugs. In fact, you may have noticed one upgrade deployed this week which should reduce the number of restarts and increase performance for all regions. This kind of work makes for a poor headline, but has enormous payoff for the customer experience. We will also continue to invest in and focus on our customer support, reducing response times and increasing satisfaction. For landowners, existing land tier pricing will not go up in 2012. In addition, our service and quality focus in 2012 also means that we will be delivering features and policies that we believe will significantly assist merchants and landowners in running a business more profitably. For creators our first new feature for 2012 will be pathfinding. Because worlds feel most vibrant when they are full of life, one of our next focuses for Second Life is the ability to make high-quality “life” within it. So in 2012, we will be rolling out more advanced features that will allow the creation of artificial life and artificial people to be much smoother. For starters, in Q1, we'll unveil a new, robust pathfinding system that will allow objects to intelligently navigate around the world while avoiding obstacles. Combined with the tools from Linden Realms this will make the polished creation of full MMORPG’s or people/animal simulators within Second Life easier and of high quality. In addition to delivering new features and increasing our support for Second Life, we will be launching some completely different products next year not related to Second Life. Some of them will be very experimental, but all will fit within our company’s proud history of enabling creativity, which I hope may interest some of you. Thank you again for being a customer have a great holiday and a Happy New Year! Português

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Moves like Jagger."

Check out the SL Flickr Pic of the Day, "Love."

Thanks Qie - Slight oversight. We added Adult forums to the right nav bar.