Looking Back At The Newser: The First Years, 2010-2013 (2022)

 

The Second Life Newser is a publication with quite a history, fifteen years. That's quite a lot to look back over. In 2022, Bixyl took a look at the Newser's first few years. Starting from a team of four reporters fresh from the recently closed Second Life Newspaper, the Newser would win the confidence of readers and advertisers alike and soon become a force in journalism covering the people, places, and events in Second Life (with occasional nods to our sponsors). But much of what it covered was a Linden Lab that seemed increasingly unable or unwilling to understand it's virtual world's users.

Read the 2022 overview of 2010 to 2013 in Extra. 

Looking Back At The Newser: The First Years, 2010-2013 (2022)

 

In a few days, the Newser will have an anniversary party to celebrate 14 years of reporting the news across Second Life. But one might ask how did things go when it first started? Well, we hit the ground running. Within a week, we had some BIG stories to report on, and the news kept coming. In 2022, we wrote on how it was for our first few years. Quite a bit had happened.

 

Read the article from 2022 in Extra. 

Looking Back At The Newser: The First Years, 2010-2013 (2022)

 

The Second Life Newser is a publication with a long history, twelve years. That's quite a lot to look back on. In this article, Editor and head writer Bixyl Shuftan takes a look at the Newser's first few years. Starting from a team of four reporters fresh from the recently closed Second Life Newspaper, the Newser would win the confidence of readers and advertisers alike and soon become a force in journalism covering the people, places, and events in Second Life (with occasional nods to our sponsors). But much of what it covered was a Linden Lab that seemed increasingly unable or unwilling to understand it's virtual world's users.

Read the overview of 2010 to 2013 (written in 2022) in Extra.

Looking Back At The Newser: The First Years, 2010-2013

 

The Second Life Newser is a publication with a long history, twelve years. That's quite a lot to look back on. In his article for today, Editor and head writer Bixyl Shuftan will take a look at the Newser's first few years. Starting from a team of four reporters fresh from the recently closed Second Life Newspaper, the Newser would win the confidence of readers and advertisers alike and soon become a force in journalism covering the people, places, and events in Second Life (with occasional nods to our sponsors). But much of what it covered was a Linden Lab that seemed increasingly unable or unwilling to understand it's virtual world's users.

Read the overview of 2010 to 2013 in Extra.
 

Whatever Happened to Linden Lab's Blocksworld?

 

Checking the Linden Lab website today, one will find Second Life and Tilia. But there's no sign of another product of theirs: Blocksworld. It made some news in 2013 when Linden Lab under Rod Humble bought the "mix of Lego and Minecraft" which was aimed at younger users on tablets. In a few months, it got some attention as it was doing very well. Since then, it mostly dropped out of sight, quietly remaining on Linden Lab's list of products as all others bought or developed by the Lab under Humble were sold or closed. But check today on Linden Lab's website, and one will notice it's no longer there. As it turns out, Linden Lab had closed it down in June 2020 with no announcement. So what happened to Blocksworld over time that got the Lab to pull the plug?

Read the story in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Top Stories of the 2010s: Linden Lab's "Shared Creative Spaces"

In recent days, Linden Lab made the decision to turn to "Plan B" for Sansar, meaning either selling it or finding a partner to keep it going. So why did Linden Lab put energy in something else other than Second Life? Actually, it's been doing so since 2011, when the decision was made to develop or buy other products as well. They hoped that they would bring in some extra money and one or more would be a big hit. But for all the Lab's effort, only one of these "shared creative spaces" would remain after a few years.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Commentary: Rod Humble / Rodvik Linden as CEO of Linden Lab

When it was announced in late December 2010 that Rod Humble would be Linden Lab's new CEO, the reaction from Second Life residents was overall positive, from some even enthusiastic. The year before had seen a number of setbacks for Linden Lab and the Grid. A third of the company's staff had been laid off in it's "restructuring." Popular personnel such as Blue, Teegan, Pathfinder, Qarl Linden and others were shown the door. Overseas offices were closed down, rerouting all calls for technical help to America, which gave some residents from outside the US the Lab was turning its back on them. The fifty percent discount for nonprofit and educational areas was suddenly ended, despite Philip Linden and Linden Lab long touting Second Life as a place for learning. It was announced the Teen Grid would be closing down, and people worried that this would soon mean censorship or residents getting arrested in real life due to angry parents. These and other moves caused the morale of residents to sink. Rumors floated around Linden Labs was looking for a buyer. Some thought Second Life was headed for collapse, one publication saying the virtual world was on it's "death throes."

Rod Humble's resume was an impressive one, having worked for over twenty years in the computer gaming industry. Among his roles were his work on the Everquest multiplayer online game, and working on "The Sims." In 2009, Edge Magazine listed him as #2 of its “Hot 100 Game Developers.” Philip Rosedale / Philip Linden, whom had been acting as interim CEO after the unpopular M Linden stepped down, stated, “Rod is a great new leader for Linden Lab. ... With Rod's fresh insights and deep experience in creating and leading the development of fun, intuitive, immersive entertainment experiences that have attracted massive audiences of loyal users, he's the right leader to understand what makes us special and bring the next level of growth to Second Life."

Rod Humble looked forward to the job, "Joining Linden Lab is a very exciting opportunity, ... . Second Life is unique: it sits at the intersection of virtual worlds, avatars, and human contact. The Residents and developers of Second Life have built something very special, I am honored to join the talented team at Linden Lab to help expand this new frontier." A few residents questioned if someone from the gaming industry was truly the right choice, Second Life being a "sandbox" which was open ended and most games having fixed parameters on what one could do. But most were happy with the Linden's choice for new CEO, feeling he could deliver Second Life a shot in the arm and not only halt it's decline, but set it on course to growth again.

Rod Humble, who became known as Rodvik Linden, gave the impression of wanting to connect with the residents. He spent some time inworld, building a little, and on some occasions interacted with residents, such as his appearance at the Second Life Eighth Birthday, and more recently his trips to Bay City and 1920s Berlin. He also strived to "put the Lab back into Linden Lab," and Second Life's grid would see a number of developments with the goal of improving user experiences, such as "Project Shinning." He also had Linden Lab both acquire and develop several products, such as the Minecraft-like "Patterns" and the kid-friendly "Blocksworld." Probably their most important acquisition was "Desura," a distribution platform with a focus on smaller games from independent companies, or "indie" games. For better or worse, Second Life would no longer be the only product in Linden Lab's line-up. While residents on the whole understood how a diverse platform would mean a more stable financial footing, some worried this was a sign of the Lab leaving them behind.

Residents were generally happy during Rodvik's first year, although some felt the Lab was slow to act on the Redzone controversy. But in 2012, some actions (and non-actions) began to raise a few eyebrows. Official Linden events such as the "Kiss a Linden" on Valentines Day and the "Winterfest" with its "Linden Snowball Fight" were gone. Even the Second Life Birthday was no longer being sponsored by Linden Lab, the statement from the company suggesting the various communities should hold their own celebrations. To residents, it seemed like the Lab was distancing itself from the residents, only occasionally emerging from it's "bunker" to make reports with no name attached. Third-party viewers found themselves under pressure from Linden Lab, ordering them not to include features not on the official viewer, even if it was being researched in beta, what some viewer developers saw as the Lab saying "screw you" and people worried some teams would leave Second Life. Indeed at one meeting when one viewer team member hinted about leaving, a Linden answered "don't let the door hit you on the way out." Project Shinning, while approved by those with newer computers, those with older machines often complained their inworld experiences were becoming slower and laggier, not better.

In 2013 came two changes to the terms of service that raised not just concern but alarm. In spring, Linden Lab ordered third party Linden exchange services to cease operations, saying only their Lindex could buy and sell its virtual currency. Residents expressed alarm, some saying the Lindex often took a long time to make its transactions, and some overseas would not or could not use it, and there was some talk among some people leaving. Linden Lab would partially reverse course, saying third party exchangers could sell Lindens, but only Lindex could buy them back. Then in the Fall, with no other announcement than residents being asked to sign the Terms of Service upon logging in, it was noticed that the ToS had changed in regards to content creators, some interpreting them as to say the Lab could sell residents' content at any time without any input from the makers or offer a cent in compensation. At least two texture websites stated their goods could no longer be used in Second Life. Some content creators stopped creating and stated they would make no more until the terms would change. A few would move to other virtual worlds, such as InWorldz, which between Project Shinning and the ToS controversy saw people from Second Life getting accounts, and raising it's membership to 90,000 on paper. Second Life now now had small but growing competition from other virtual worlds. Residents repeatedly asked Linden Lab to change this part of the ToS back, but although Linden Lab issued a statement saying they regretted the confusion, they would not alter the few lines that had caused so much trouble. At least one resident commented Rodvik was partially to blame, saying his experience in the gaming industry made him inflexible in dealing with a product in which his company did not own most of the content.

It seemed the man whose arrival was greeted with cheers was now being seen, at least by some, as part of the problem.

In the midst of this were stories going around of some henious griefing incidents, such as the sim-crasher attacks on the Junkyard Blues club, with Linden Lab doing next to nothing about them. Indeed there were rumors that the dismissal of one Linden was because a griefer had complained, and so others were afraid to act. Fortunatetly later in the year, the Lab appeared to be doing more about griefers.

In contrast to M. Linden's departure, Rodvik's announcement was greeted with surprise, and maybe a little sadness. That there was no announcement for a week until Rod Humble himself told others did raise a few eyebrows, but the big news was that the head of Linden Labs for three years was gone. On a thread in the official forums, residents time and time again wished him well with whatever endeavor he was headed to. Of his performance, some thought he did great, a few thought he did poorly, the plurality seemed to feel he did an overall good job with some setbacks.

I think he did a good enough job considering the circumstances and the state of SL when he took over. When he was hired I would not have believed he would take the company as far as 2014. For a while there he seemed to breathe a bit of life and drive back into LL even if it was partially focused on products other than SL. Unfortunately LL and SL in particular needed someone to do more than just a "good enough" job. SL needed a visionary that would revitalise, if not revolutionise the whole product in order to regain the mass appeal we experienced during the boom years. Rod completely failed to deliver there. I wish him the best of luck.

And so Linden Lab's third CEO heads off into the sunset, leaving behind a virtual world no longer on the brink, but whose long term problems remain.

Other Comments: Daniel Voyager, Inara Pey. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Breaking News: Rodvik Linden Leaves Second Life

After more than three years as CEO of Second Life, Rod Humble, known inworld as Rodvik Linden, has announced he will be leaving his position and departing Second Life. The date in which he left was sometime last week.

On Facebook, Rodvik wrote, “Its been a great 3 years! All my thanks to my colleagues at Linden Lab and our wonderful customers I wish you the very best for the future and continued success! I am starting-up a company to make Art, Entertainment and unusual things! More on that in a few weeks!”


Rodvik Linden is gone from the Linden Lab's staff page at http://lindenlab.com/about . It is not yet clear who will replace him.

It was announced on Dec 2010 that Rod Humble would be assuming the role of CEO of Second Life. He took the position a month later. At the time, he was known for being a success in the gaming industry, such as "The Sims."

Details are still comming in on this stunning news.

Image Credit: Marianne McCann

Interview with Rod Humble in SF Gate

SF Gate has an article with pictures of Second Life throughout the years, with a link to an interview with Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble by Benny Evangelista. Humble answered a number of questions. When asked about the hype surrounding the Grid several years ago, he admitted, "it probably had too much publicity at it's peak," and added it was now overlooked too much. Among his goals for Second Life was to reach out to those who tried Second Life but didn't stay and get them to return. When asked "Is there going to be a Second Life2?," he seemed to be saying there would be in the future, "it's not going to be for a few years, but it'll be something next gen."

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

SL Video: "The Drax Files - Episode 7: Rod Humble"

Click Here if the video fails to load.

In the latest of Draxtor Despres "Drax Files,"he interviews Rod Humble, the CEO of Linden Labs.

*  *  *  *  *

"I have no idea why it's magic but it is!" Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble says about his company's core product - the vast digital sandbox known as Second Life which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.

With over 1 million active monthly users and annual user-to-user transactions of 500 million US$ in virtual goods and services Second Life has outlived many prestigious game titles and once relevant social networks in a highly competitive market.

In this special episode of the Drax Files Mr. Humble theorizes on the secret to SL's longevity, marvels at the beauty of community driven markets and ponders the empowering properties of avatar-based interaction.

Many thanks to all the wonderful extras who helped populate and color the crowd scenes. Please identify yourself via the comments and let us know who you are by including the timestamp. Special thanks to Marianne McCann, Elicio Ember, Kayle Mazerath, Pygar Bu, Scott Rolfe and Rynn Verwood who created a lasting image in fascinating impromptu fashion: "My Avatar is Me!" - download the music here https://soundcloud.com/draxtor/little... AND please support the show by grabbing the official SL merch https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/... - transcript of the interview/outtakes are here http://joyardley.wordpress.com/2013/0... & some more words by yours truly in re why what and where is here http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/...

*  *  *  *  *

Rodvik had a number of things to say. Among them, He gets fewer death threats than some gaming communities, saying only one Resident made a threat against him.

*Addition*  For a transcript of what Rod Humble was saying, check  out Jo Yardley's blog.

Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble Visits Bay City, 1920s Berlin

Daniel Voyager was on the scene when Bay City had an unusual guest: The head of Linden Lab Rod Humble, also known as Rodvik Linden.

Rodvik Humble who is CEO of Linden Lab today came inworld for about half an hour to hang out with SL residents in the Weston region in Bay City. A large crowd formed around Rodvik within minutes and had a interesting discussion. The reason that Rodvik Humble came inworld will be revealed soon. Wooooot!!!!

Bay City wasn't the only place Rodvik stopped by. Jo Yardley of the 1920s Berlin Project documented his dropping over there as well.

I had invited Herr Humble for a free tour of the sim a while back and was told he would be dropping in today. It was great to finally meet his avatar in person. The welcoming community of 1920s Berlin was very excited to have him as a guest and we all hope his avatar will come more often.

Rodvik Linden is not known to visit the Grid often, at least not recently. Earlier in 2011 not long after becoming CEO, he did make an effort in "getting immersed in Second Life" and he did make an appearance at SL8B. Since then however, Rod hadn't been noticed. Do these visits mean the head of the Lab will take the time to visit inworld more often. Time will tell.

Sources: Daniel Voyager, Jo Yardley.

Oculus Rift VR, By Philip Rosedale's New Company, Coming to Second Life

Jo Yardley, the lady known for her work on the 1920s Berlin Project, had a few things to say about something on the more futuristic scale of things: Oculus Rift.



Last month, Second Life's creator Philip Rosedale, who has moved on to found a new start-up company called "High Fidelity," announced "a new kind of virtual reality platform" called Oculus Rift, a "high field of view, low latency, consumer-priced virtual reality head-mounted display." Although the company's primary interest seems to be 3-D gaming, Halmet Au reported that Linden Lab was interested in this technology, with "several Linden staff … working on integrating Oculus Rift with Second Life in an *unofficial* capacity."

Jo states Oculus "truly is a game changer," "I can already imagine myself walking around those dark narrow streets, looking up, down, around me. Finally being able to see my city trough my eyes in stead of the eyes of my avatar. … It could give SL an enormous boost, put it back in the view of those who might have forgotten about it, and it could show off a whole new side of the OC."

Chatting with Rod Humble, Jo quoted him as saying, "Hopefully we will be sharing some vids within a few weeks then get into testing after that. I don't want to overhype this BUT SL+OR is like having dinner with Stefan Zweig and Peter Altenberg."

Hamlet Au called integration an "enormous gamble" that he earlier doubted the Lab would undertake. And in one article Jo Yardley linked to, the writer felt OpenSim would get it first. But it looks like Rod Humble, noted for his experience in gaming, will be having Linden Lab work on it.

Sources: New World Notes, Jo Yardley's Second Life

Bixyl Shuftan

BREAKING NEWS: Disney Buys Second Life

* Update - April Fools *

Late Sunday, March 31st, Linden Lab made a stunning announcement. In a press release, they stated that they had sold controlling ownership of Second Life to the Walt Disney Company. It is believed the negotiations were conducted behind the scenes over several months.


"Linden Lab is pleased to have Second Life in the hands of such a prestigious company," Rod Humble stated, "We were happy to run the virtual world we created a decade ago. But as a maker of shared creative spaces, we need to be able to focus on new products. With Second Life being run by Disney, we can devote more time and effort to applications and platforms for today's market."

Disney has been active with online virtual worlds before. It's Internet division, the Disney Interactive Media Group has produced the "Virtual Magic Kingdom" and "The World of Cars Online." Both efforts were considered less than successful and were closed down.

There has been no official statement from Disney, although former president of Disney Online Jake Winebaum, who was involved in the negotiations, wrote on his blog that Disney plans "sweeping changes" to the virtual world, "The company is determined that Second Life and its residents are properly Disneyfied." All sims will be given General/PG status, and all adult content is to be removed from both the land and personal accounts. All human avatars are required to have underwear permanently fixed to them. While nonhuman avatars can still be nude, they must be completely covered in fur, feathers, scales, etc. with no "bits" showing. Adult animations will also banned.

Winebaum stated that there were some concerns about copyright violations. So Disney planned to suspend content creation "temporarily" until a new system could be developed that would ensure "no resident could expose Disney to a lawsuit." Of music and other media broadcasted inworld, "Only those owned by Disney and it's associated companies will be permitted." DJs and theater owners will need a license to continue to play.


For more on this stunning development, Click Here.

Linden Lab Buys "Blocksworld" IPad Game

Last week on January 24, Linden Lab announced they had purchased the iPad game "Blocksworld." Described on it's own website as a "mix of Lego and Minecraft," the Linden press release described it as an iPad game in which players use cubes, wedges, rockets, wheels, motors, and more to easily create 3D models of anything they can imagine - from race cars to animals to robots and more. These models come alive with realistic physics simulation, and users can play, interact, or even explode their creations. As with Linden Lab's Creatorverse, Blocksworld allows users to share their creations with others to explore, play with, and remix to make their own.

CEO Rod Humble was quoted in the statement, "Blocksworld is a great fit with what we do at Linden Lab. It's a very user-friendly complement to our portfolio of shared creative spaces, We're happy to have the Blocksworld team join Linden Lab and are looking forward to bringing Blocksworld to the App Store worldwide soon!"
Boldai, the team behind the game, is based in Sweden. On the website, they stated Blocksworld was developed at the University of Linkoping.

It's notable that in their press release, Linden Lab called itself not just "the makers of Second Life," but "the makers of Second Life, Creatorverse, Patterns, and other shared creative spaces." Some established residents of the Grid, already feeling the Lindens are leaving them behind, might consider this statement further evidence that they are.



Hamlet Au in New World Notes suggested that the purchase was motivated by predictions of tablets outselling desktop computers within two years. Ciaran Laval on her blog felt Rod Humble was continuing to move Linden Lab forward, expanding it and making it known for more than just Second Life.

For the complete Linden Lab statement: Click Here. 



Hat tip: Xymbers Slade, images from blocksworld.com

Bixyl Shuftan

A Look at Linden Lab's "Patterns"

Last week, Linden Lab revealed two of the projects they were working on, "Creatorverse" and "Patterns." Seeing the pictures and description of Patterns, some dismissed it as the Lab trying to rip off Minecraft without coming up with anything original. Just after the announcement, gaming Internet magazine IGN published an article by Anthony Gallegos in which he looked at the game and had a few words with Rod Humble about it. His observation was that it was "dramatically different" from the familiar sandbox game.

Rod Humble admitted Minecraft was an influence, "So the notion was you take a very simple 3D Creation tool you take that lovely elegance of the resources that's in Minecraft, and them make the whole thing have physics from the ground up." In both, one has an avatar in a world gathering up resources. But in Minecraft the avatar builds tools which it can use. It doesn't in Patterns. Nor are there monsters and hot lava to make survival a question. The world itself is different, alien looking compared to the familiar grass, trees, and hills. And instead of cubes, the world is made up of triangular tiles, as is the avatar.

What can one do with the triangular tiles? They can be used to create three dimensional blocks. And these blocks can be used to build larger structures. The tiles can come from a variety of materials, wood, stone, clay, etc. And the hardness and weight of the cubes can have an effect on what one can build. Physics and gravity matter here much more than Minecraft. If one keeps extending a horizontal column of blocks, it will eventually break and fall. And a mostly stone column with a clay base will break sooner than a clay column with a stone one.

When working with the world, sometimes the physics acted in ways that surprised the Linden team. The Lindens are hoping to get users on board to continue to see what can be done with the place, as Humble stated in the video trailer from Linden Lab, he wanted "creators in from the earliest possible moment." A few days after the  IGN article was published, Linden Lab began taking pre-orders for the game's "Genesis version" for $9.95. The page stated those buying would be "entitled to have your name featured in the credits of the game in version 1.0."

Hamlet Au commented that  in giving an advance peek to IGN, it looked like Linden Lab was aiming at gamers rather than users of Second Life as more likely to give Patterns a try. He also states he managed to get in touch with Minecraft's creator Markus Persson. Of Patterns, he thought, "Looks great."





Once again, Patterns Genesis can be pre-ordered at: http://buildpatterns.com/buy/.

Sources: IGN, New World Notes  

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Reveals Two New Products Outside Second Life, Website Changes to Reflect Scaled-Back Mission

Yesterday on September 18th, Linden Lab announced two of the four projects outside of Second Life they've been working on. The one that was described with the most detail was "Creatorverse," an application for the iPad.

Become an inventor as you design unique creations and then set them in motion. You’ll never know what to expect as you watch your creations bounce, roll, tilt -- or even accelerate on the screen. Let your creations come to life as you play with different joints, forces, motors, and teleporters and then watch what happens next. From the simplest bouncing ball to an elaborate pinball machine, the possibilities for tinkering are endless on Creatorverse.

In their press release, Linden Lab stated it should be available from the Apple App store in a few weeks. There's also a video narrated by Rod Humble (see below), "Here at Linden Lab, we make shared creative spaces." He touted the ability to upload creations for others to use, and edit into something different.

The second thing Linden Lab announced was a 3-D environment named "Patterns."

Imagine a 3D Universe of creativity ...

Explore caverns and valleys, while you harvest substances with real world densities. Build large scale structures that reach the sky or bridges that traverse chasms. Challenge real-world physics to see which creations will tumble -- or withstand -- the power of gravity.  It's your universe to shape.

"Patterns" bears a resemblance to Minecraft, though there is the promise of gravity having an affect on what's built. Creatorverse drew some comparisons to a program called "Crayon Physics Deluxe," with it's brightly colored shapes. Prim Perfect called it "very firmly targeted at the tablet market."

Reaction to these products seems mixed. The thread in the official forums is short with a few posts expressing cautious optimism.  The SL Universe thread did as well. Those commenting in response to Prim Perfect and Hamlet Au in their articles were less cheerful. Crap Mariner commented until Linden Lab found a way to make money off the, "your SL tax dollars are paying for others to play Gummy Minecraft and Crayonland." Shockwave Yareach commented of the two, "One is a clone of Crayon Physics Deluxe, which was sold more than half a decade ago. And the other is a clone of Minecraft."

The same day these new products were released, Hamlet Au noted something interesting on Linden Lab's website at http://lindenlab.com/. There were the words Rod Humble used in the earlier video used as a slogan, "Linden Lab, maker of shared creative spaces." He noted how different it was from the old mission statement, "It is our mission to connect us all to an online world that advances the human condition," saying they had become much more modest in this respect.

Hamlet Au called this "A second life for Linden Lab" No longer do they have the idea that they should be "building the metaverse," he felt. Instead, they would be in multiple projects while not loosing sight of Second Life, making products that would allow users to express their creativity. How successful they'll be with these first two products remains to be seen.

Image source: Linden Lab

Sources: Prim Perfect, Linden Lab, New World Notes 

Bixyl Shuftan

Breaking News: Linden Lab to Make Main Grid Unuseable for Viewer 1-Based Viewers, Setting Up Separate LUsR Grid

Update *April Fools*

In a move that's been rumored of since the development of Viewer 2, Linden Lab has announced it will no longer continue to keep Second Life's Main Grid accessible to Viewer-1 based viewers, "It's been over two years since the last version of this viewer was released. Continuing to support it has been holding back the Grid," CEO Rod Humble stated in the official blog, "and continuing developments in technology are threatening to render Second Life behind the times. Residents whom do not adopt more recent Viewers will find themselves having more and more difficulty getting about the Main Grid, eventually unable to access it at all."

However, Linden Lab is giving those still insisting on using the old Viewer 1 and third-party viewers based on it's technology a continued means to access Second Life. It plans to set up another grid separate from the main one. Residents can freely move between the two, provided they are using the correct viewer. Some items in their inventory will only be able to work properly in one grid, such as Mesh objects. Residents can move their private sims and mainland holdings to the Viewer 1 grid as well, for a fee.

Linden Labs has designated the new Viewer 1 Grid the Low Use Resident Grid, or "LUsR" Grid. It is also referring to residents who will be exclusively using this grid as LUsRs, "Should a resident desire to drop their LUsR status, all they have to do is start using the proper viewers and they will be able to travel about normally and not be confined to the LUsR grid as LUsRs."

To read the official post on the Linden blog, Click Here.

Commentary: Linden Lab Is Destroying It's Newfound Trust

Longtime users of Second Life are all too familiar with the days of M Linden. Before him, Second Life was truly seen as "Your World, Your Imagination." But then, Linden Lab began making a number of questionable moves that didn't seem to make any sense, except possibly for short term profits at the expense of long term, or just made no sense at all. People began to have less and less faith in the Lab to run the virtual world in a competent manner. The doubt was to the point among some as to question any new move Linden Lab would make out of fear they'd just screw it up and end up making the Grid worse off.

Following the layoffs in 2010, people could be forgiven for saying Second Life was going downhill and headed for shutdown. The return of founder Philip Linden briefly raised hopes, but they soon fell again with more questionable decisions such as the Teen Grid merger and the end to nonprofit discounts. Residents were less eager to invest as before. People began to check out the alternative worlds and in a few cases move and all but leave their former virtual home behind.

Then came Rod Humble, and with his competent record, residents began to think maybe just maybe the Lab was starting to get serious. In contrast to many Lindens who seldom used their own product, Rodvik Linden as he came to be known, was willing to spend time inworld and see what he could do with it as a run-of-the-mill resident. Things were far less than perfect, as the decisions about the teens and nonprofits were not reversed, but residents began to feel the Lab was starting to get it's act back together. The Lab began to work on viewer developments, and work on ways to entertain new and old residents alike such as the Linden Worlds game areas. And with bringing in "gaming god" Will Wright, people began to think Second Life had a bright future after all.

When Linden Lab announced in December it would soon be working on new products besides Second Life in December, a few people expressed worry that it was about to all but ignore the Grid or even close it down altogether. Had the announcement been made a year earlier, that might have been the general consensus. But people were more confident, beginning to invest more despite the bad economic times in real life, and some of the people whom had left to other virtual worlds were supposedly coming back under new account names. The Linden's move was instead seen as no big worry at worst, and at best an opportunity to attract new people through publicity if the new product turned out to be a hit. As the end of February neared, residents in general were fairly confident.

What a difference a week makes.

First the Lab announced changes to their third-party viewer policy. The biggest change was that no longer would they allow them to make features they didn't have. Rightly or wrongly, the official viewers have a poor reputation among many residents, and this was seen by some as basically a power grab. Linden Lab, they charged, was willing to kill further innovations of the viewing experience out of embarrassment of most residents using viewers other than their own.

While this news was still fresh in people's minds came two more developments. First, despite committing itself to do so earlier, Linden Lab stated they would not be giving newer accounts last names after all. The responses were of disappointment and grumbling, people not buying the Lab's explanation that this was too difficult to pull off. As newer residents have reported feeling left out because their single name marks them as "newbs," Linden Lab's claim of concerns over "bulling" by official viewer users by third party viewers are probably looking pretty hollow to more than a few.

Then came word about Linden Lab's quarterly economic reports of Second Life. There would be no more. As Hamlet Au, the one time imbedded reporter of Linden Lab put it, "This is bad." When most companies stop doing so, this is a sign of trouble. And as Tateru Nino reminded, they have been cutting back on their reports for some time.

Linden Lab, what is going on?

For businesses, trust is a valuable commodity. Trust that you will honor your commitments. Trust that you have the competence to run your business and manage your product well. It cannot be gained quickly or bought, only slowly earned over time.

The trust people had, it took a year for you to rebuild. And now in a week, you've wrecked it.

Once again, residents are distrusting your competence and your intentions.

Once again, residents are having doubts about the future of Second Life.

Once again, residents are hesitating about committing their time and effort into the Grid.

Once again, people are using your name as a curse: "to pull a Linden" meaning to take a great product and drag it into mediocrity.

And don't think what goes on here won't haunt you. When you try to sell your new products, people will ask what else you've made, and then ask, "Second Life? How has that been doing lately?"

How will you answer them?

Bixyl Shuftan

Breaking News: No Return for Last Names

Some sad news for Second Life's more recent residents hoping to have their accounts get a last name like those who came earlier. Linden Labs won't be bringing back surnames for new accounts after all.

The news was posted by Linden Lab CEO Rodvik Linden in the Second Life forums, "when it comes to last names, I have spent a lot of time going through all your comments and chatting with the team here. I learnt a lot. Firstly, as I already knew identity is very important, and the last name issue is extremely polarizing. What I didn’t know was how big a negative impact it used to have on new users signing up (the data is startling at how much friction it added). Folks just wanted to create their own name; they became even more annoyed if there was a pre-done last name that could fit but that had already been taken. The namespace hijacking issue was not solved by pre done last names."

"...if we couldn’t figure out a way that was a win/win for folks who want complete freedom vs. a list of last names, we wouldn’t do it. We couldn’t, so we wont."

"Thanks again for all these comments and discussion. It’s a pity that the first one couldn’t come up with a clean solution that solved all the world’s problems (or cats’ problems) but it was valuable nevertheless."

The forum post didn't allow for comments, but there was a link to Rodvik's profile posts, where residents posted a large number of replies. Naturally, there were many disappointed people. Rodvik had suggested the possibility of adding the option of a hyphen, but residents commented that was a poor substitute.

Prim Perfect already has an article on the matter, "the Lab has just blown off one way that could have given a greater degree of engagement and building community – without costing residents money."

*Addition* In Hamlet Au's article, he supports Linden Lab's decision. But most of those commenting on it were either outright opposed or skeptical, which seems to be the general feeling.

Linden Lab Acquires Game Studio LittleTextPeople

On February 16th, Linden Lab announced they had bought the game studio LittleTextPeople, a maker of interactive fiction adventure games. The press statement informed, "Linden Lab will grow its digital entertainment offering by launching several new stand-alone products this year. Now part of Linden Lab, the talent and technology of LittleTextPeople will support the development of these new forms of interactive entertainment"

“It’s an exciting time to join Linden Lab as they prepare to roll out entirely new types of social experiences and products,” said Emily Short, Chief Textual Officer of LittleTextPeople. “We look forward to building tools and technology that will allow people to create their own stories in interactive mediums that have never existed before.”

“LittleTextPeople brings a depth and breadth of AI and interactive story development expertise that is a great fit for Linden Lab as we launch multiple new products,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “The result of this investment will be a new type of digital entertainment that modernizes the novel as a shared story-telling experience.”

LittleTextpeople was c0-founded by Emily Short and artificial intelligence specialist Richard Evans. Evans was on the team of the Sims 3 game, and worked on the game Black and White, "LittleTextPeople explores the gameplay possibilities of nuanced social interaction. The company’s core technology is a simulator able to model social practices and individual personalities. Combine the simulations with the expressive freedom of fiction and the result is gameplay that more closely resembles the rich emotional dialogue of a novel, rather than a fight scene in an action movie."

Blogger Tateru Nino, a fan of Emily Short, commented, "this is actually where I start bouncing up and down and going “squeeeeeeeeee!”" Techcrunch.com stated, "Humble’s smart move to diversify the company shows his understanding that the world is not the same as when Second Life launched almost a decade ago. ... the mobile and social game ecospheres have evolved, which while less flexible than the Second Life sandbox are drawing the attention of legions of gamers." Hamlet Au thought this acquisition was what Rod Humble meant in December when he talked about Linden Lab branching out into new products, "What this means in terms of actual products to come from the marriage of Linden and LittleText is still unclear (and insiders were mum when I asked them last year), but given the background of Evans and Short, I think we are bound to see some very innovative products soon." Of Richard Evans and the Game "Black and White," Hamlet wrote about them after the game came out.

So just how soon will Linden Lab come up with these new products? Time will tell.

Sources: Linden Lab, Techcrunch.com, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan