Developer Focus

Second Life: Sitting High on Capitol Hill

When the 110th United States Congress was sworn in, and the first female Speaker of the House took the gavel, Clear Ink was there to capture the historical moment. A Berkeley, California-based marketing agency whose political savvy rivals that of Beltway insiders, Clear Ink re-created Capitol Hill in Second Life and then video-streamed the live ceremony. The company even scored the only in-world interview with Martinez Congressman George Miller, whose avatar flew in for a chat. "In the spirit of Second Life, where it never rains and you can fly, the Congressional chamber had no roof," says Steve Nelson, Clear Ink's Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer.

The Teen Grid

Teen Grid gets a Remake

First, a little background...Teen Second Life opened on Valentine's Day 2005 with an initial population of 6 teens. Today the population of active residents (teens that have logged in during the past month and spent 1+ hour in-world) has topped 6500 with maximum concurrency peaking at just under 500. During the summer months, we can expect to see these numbers jump.

Tips and Tricks

As the Governance team at Linden Lab continues to design more ways for residents of Second Life to govern themselves, we will be focused on putting emphasis on the usage of Mute and Ban features, urging land and estate owners to use the tools we currently supply. BusinessWeek Online published an article this month titled: "Tip Sheet: When Griefers Attack!", which did a very good job in identifying feasible ways to combat harassment and griefing on the Second Life Grid. I urge everyone to check out the article as it gives other advice that residents can take in order to better control their Second Life experience by helping to minimize the griefing that takes place around them. Reporting someone for causing trouble is always advised, but muting and banning them from areas that you control puts stress on personal behavior and has an immediate effect on a griefers ability to influence your Second Life experience. So Mute and Ban those who do not treat you as you'd like to be treated, and start helping Linden govern the grid!

Second Life Turns Four!

As some of you may have noticed, our birthday is creeping up. June 23rd marks the fourth year of Second Life, and I think we would all agree that it's been a wild and fascinating ride. To commemorate our birthday this year, the Second Life Birthday Volunteers group (SLBV), comprised of Residents and Lindens, has decided to both celebrate and educate.

With so many new Residents joining our community, SL's rich historical roots have been overshadowed by the plethora of incredible content that Residents have created since those first few years. Many of us can't conceive of a Second Life pre-flexi prim, yet it wasn't long ago that flexi prims were just a figment of Yedwab Linden's imagination. Those Residents who don't recognize old builds or references to pivotal SL historical in-world events miss out on a crucial communal experience. Growing together as a community requires knowledge of and appreciation for those Residents and Lindens who've instrumentally shaped our world from the virtual ground up relying on imagination and tireless dedication. For this year's birthday, SLBV is recreating SL's past and giving us a glimpse into the future!

Second Life Birthday Volunteers, lead by SignpostMarv Martin, will host two sims, one PG and one Mature, for each SL year respectively. In other words, two sims for year one, SL01, two sims for year two, SL02, and so on. In addition, SLBV will host one sim that incorporates and represents the future of SL and the pre-2003 launch or beta Second Life. Each sim will display period art, builds, animations, gestures, sounds, scripts, stories, and the like. Once again, JayJay Talamasca will coordinate music for the event. SLBV will also host both audio and video contests for official birthday advertisements. For information on submissions, see https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SL4B_Ad_Contest.

We are calling on Residents to contribute! If you have an important build in your inventory, a ground-breaking sculpture, or a timeless SL memory, display them at this year's birthday. Visit https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Talk:SL4B_Portal and post your contribution to the wiki. And don't forget to include mature content! After all, what would SL's history be without bits and tricks? If you don't have any interesting items to show or stories to tell but would still like to participate, don't fret, SLBV will find a place for you!

Questions or comments?
E-mail SignpostMarv Martin at sl4b@singpostmarv.name

Civic Center

The Linden Lab Community Team, as indicated in this blog post, has put together a plan to deliver more local Governance control to the grid. Down the line, we'd like to deliver the chance for residents in Second Life to choose their own experience, and rolling out these types of projects is the first step in making that happen.

Name Dropping

This month Name Dropping and Linden Lab wants to drop a huge name, one of our own volunteer groups, Second Life Helpers. This is a group that breaks down into such a large number of tireless residents that its hard to bring up just a name or two. I think of all the times when Help Request was so overwhelmed by residents questions, when the ding, ding, ding of the Instant Messages coming in kept up a staccato beat to the flashing of the blinking tabs as hundreds of calls poured in. Never more then 4 or 5 Liaisons able to attempt to answer all the questions of anxious residents, when the times got really rough and the grid started to tremble from the load, the volunteers were there and we knew they would be.

We knew that Xandi Mars would drop whatever she was doing and tag up, that Barnzy Soyer, Gwynnie Boffin, and Patchouli Woollahra would snap on Helper titles and dive into the fray. We knew that Denise Collingwood, AKA Fool and Bellisa Dion would come into the Helper channel and ask what is the issue we're fighting? Don Misfit, Andy Rozier and Kitty Barnett would be there too, tireless all of them. As the time zones changed, the names too changed. Dote Dote Edison, Stormy Wilde, Ingrid Ingersoll and Ariel Otafaku all joining hands and linked through IM, helping to hold Help Request together. Boroondas Gupte, Bronnetje Orca, Jazmina Firefly and SignpostMarv Martin, the list goes on. How can I not name them all? Yet I can't, my space is limited

I can however say this. Thank you Helpers from the depths of my heart for your tireless efforts in Help Request. Thank you for your expertise and your thoughtful answers. Thank you for BEING there when you were needed most and thank you most of all for being a Second Life Helper.

~ Amber Linden

Know someone worth mentioning? Tell us!

As We See It

Missed Opportunities

In a time where Second Life has burst more energetically onto the so-called "mainstream media" than those facehuggers from Alien burst onto Sigourney Weaver, most of us are familiar with the usual news article topics. With all the talk about making a living in SL, it's not surprising the question "How do I get L$?" is so popular, with related articles ranking among our top Knowledge Base hits. Similarly, our passion for working on the scaling and stability challenges which affect us all is no secret.

Agree? Disagree? Let us know - send us your Letter to the Editor - with your Second Life username - and we will publish a representative set in the next edition of The Second Opinion.

Your Letters

We received several thoughtful responses to our opinion piece Education in Second Life. Below is a sample of the replies. Thank you for your responses!

Education in Different Forms

I saw the blurb on the Second Opinion web page about how important education is in Second Life. It talked about the importance of presenting education in Second Life about how to do certain Second Life things. I agree this is useful and helps the game. However, it seems to me that the Second Life platform presents opportunities for education about Real Life activities as well. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much more information is gleaned from actually being there? I suppose the opportunities relate more to some learning topics than others. Learning how to operate certain machines comes to mind. Learning how floor plans and furniture are laid out does too. I know you are experimenting with speech. When that is available, I can imagine any kind of lecture being available here, turning Second Life into an online university. People in my business have toyed with the idea of holding meetings in Second Life but we've been deterred by the difficulty of keeping conversations in private.

Anyway, I think this is a great environment you've built here and I see a great future for it doing these things and, I'm sure, many others I can't imagine.

- Zeus Chevalier