New Terms For Google Play Could Complicate Development of SL Mobile Viewer

 

On August 31, Google announced new requirements for it's Google Play store. Specifically, these are API requirements (Application Programing Interface, programing that allows a piece of software to interact with other software). 

 

New apps and app updates must target Android 14 (API level 34) to be submitted to Google Play (except for Wear OS and Android TV apps, which must target Android 13 or higher).

 

Existing apps must target Android 13 (API level 33) or higher to remain available to new users on devices running Android OS higher than your app’s target API level. Apps that target Android 12 (API level 31) or lower ( Android 10 or lower for Wear OS and Android 11 or lower for TV OS), will only be available on devices running Android OS that are the same or lower than your apps’ target API level.

So what does this mean? Daniel Voyager felt it meant trouble for Linden Lab's Second Life mobile viewer, at least for the short term, "The lab will now need target new Second Life mobile app updates towards Android 14 (API level 34) to be submitted to Google Play for review etc. The lab will need to keep adjusting to upcoming new Android versions like Android 15 (late 2024) and Android 16 due to launch sometime in 2025. For older Android versions the lab have now officially confirmed they are looking into distributing APKs that will target older Android versions from the download page. There is always risk downloading APKs for any app and it might not feel safe doing this for a lot of mobile users.

 

Daniel would go on to say that when the Lab releases the mobile viewer to the general public, "it will be interesting to see how these new API changes impact those using older Android versions," and added it would soon give out updates, and instructions, to explain the changes.

Source: Daniel Voyager

Team Firestorm Not Planning On Making A Mobile Viewer

 

It's been a few days since Linden Lab announced their mobile viewer was ready and available for download. Soon after, Daniel Voyager asked on Twitter if Team Firestorm should also develop one. Firestorm's Beq Janus replied, saying they realistically could not.

While I like the idea and the confidence in our ability, the reality is that we do not have anything like the resources to take on such a project at this time.

Daniel also took a poll, asking if Firestorm should develop a mobile viewer. A small majority of those responding answered no, a few commenting this was too much to ask for them, "I say no, because the FS devs already have way too much on their plate right now. Especially with ongoing improvements to the PBR experience."

 

News and Commentary: Logins Slightly Down, Sim Numbers Slightly Up Over 2022

 

 During the Coronaviris/Covid-19 Pandemic, the number of people using Second Life rose. Linden Lab stated in April 2020 that signups had gone up sixty percent since it started. In June 2020, CEO Ebbe Altberg stated the number of active users, those who were logging in at least once a month, had gone up to 900,000, a one-eighth of an increase over the previous year. 

Since then, the Lab has been quiet on just how many are coming in and staying in. There has been some speculation that with the Pandemic over, people have been leaving once more. In an article by Daniel Voyager, he stated that the daily peak has gone down slightly, from 55,000 about a year ago to about 48 to 53,000 this month. Checking the Second Life Grid Survey, this was the case. 

So it seems some people are leaving, though it appears to be a smaller number than those who joined during the Pandemic. Some who came back are sticking around, at least for now.

Of the number of sims, things looked more encouraging according to Daniel. With the growth of Belisseria, it should be no surprise to most that the total number of sims has continued to go up. He reported the total number at 27,659. This is an increase of over 2000 from two years ago. What will surprise some is that the majority of these, at least from two years ago, were private sims, from 17,024 to 18,370. But it should be noted almost all this increase was in 2021. The number of private sims didn't change much in just 2022, an overall increase of thirty-eight. But the number of Linden-owned sims grew at almost the same number, 378 more in 2021 and 380 more in 2022. 

 

So the number of private sims is still growing, but it appears economic troubles such as inflation causing the prices of everything from food and energy to rise and cut back on the amount of cash available for entertainment is resulting in fewer people getting new ones. 

So what do things have in store over the course of 2023? Difficult to say. If inflation drops and the global economy avoids a recession, we may see a few more people logging in and more people getting private sims. But if we end up with 1979-1980 style "stagflation," the news over the next several months may have some sim closings.

Source: Daniel Voyager's Blog

Bixyl Shuftan

Daniel Voyager's Blog On Hiatus

 

Noted SL blogger Daniel Voyager hasn't been doing well. It's been several weeks since his blog, Daniel Voyager's Blog, published an article.  Taking a look at his Twitter, it seems he's been dealing with some real life issues that will take some time to resolve. In his last post, he expressed hope at being active again sometime in June.

Best of luck Daniel, and hope you'll be back soon.
 

Number of Sims Moved to The Cloud Passes 50%

 

Of the move of sim data to Cloud servers, a noteable milestone was achieved a few days ago, at least according to Daniel Voyager. In his blog, he reported that Stawberry Linden had told him that April Linden had told her that half the sims now had their data in The Cloud.

Hi Daniel, this is Strawberry. I have confirmed with our Sr. Engineering Manager, April Linden, that over half the regions in Second Life are now running in the cloud.

Since this was a few days ago, The Lab has no doubt continued it's work. How long will it take until the move is complete? Daniel Voyager himmself thought it would be "six weeks or so."

Source: Daniel Voyager's Blog
Image Source: Linden Lab

Details on Second Life Mobile App

For those of you waiting for Linden Lab to come up with a Second Life app for mobile devices, there were a few small bits of information made available. First, in the Technology section of the forums, there's a new sub-section: "Mobile." A thread soon started, and Keira Linden made a few comments.

In response to how much longer for an app for the Marketplace:

Marketplace does pose it's own set of challenges.  We have had (and will continue to have) many internal discussions about what features to introduce at what time and Marketplace did rank high on that list.  Right now, we're really focused on the social aspects like chat (both IM and group) and getting those right.

About an hour later:

I've got a little gossip, but not sure how juicy it is.  😆  Android app is in the works!  We went with iOS first because we have more Residents on iOS devices, not because we don't love our Android Resis too!  Release for an Android app is going to be a little delayed after iOS because we still have some backend work to do and (in case you hadn't heard) we are frantically working on this eency little project called UPLIFT.  🤣  But, we're still working on what we can along side iOS.  Once we have a beta version of it that we can open up for you all to bang on, I'll drop an announcement in here so you all can sign up. 

SL blogger Daniel Voyager feels this means sign-ups for a beta version of an SL mobile app will be "very soon." The full version of the app is not expected to be available until sometime in 2021.

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life Blogger Daniel Voyager on Hiatus

One noted blogger about Second Life, Daniel Voyager, will be taking a short break. A few days ago, he announced due to real life events, he would be taking a break until sometime "in early 2020."

I have decided to take a break from Second Life due to RL commitments. Everything is good so don’t worry. Breaks are good and everyone should take them once in a while. 

I have enjoyed blogging about Second Life during 2019 especially keeping track of the new continent. The lab and the Moles have done such a great job this year.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a happy new year 2020.

New Grouping of Linden Sims in Second Life Appears

Daniel Voyager reported on the appearance of a number of new sims on the map. The sims are currently under Linden control and closed to the public. Most are rated adult. He had gotten the information about this 60 sim area with a few nearby individual sims from Tyche Shephard. They are given the names HR Build, HC Build, and HIH Build followed by numbers or numbers and letters.

Daniel speculated that this region might be a new Linden Homes area, but the purpose of this new Linden region remains unknown, at least for now.

Cartoon of the Day: Daniel Voyager at Bay City

Taken at Bay City. Eventually it had to happen. Mentioning to my friend and landlady Rita Mariner that Daniel Voyager was around in his "Bugs Bunny" avatar, she showed up as Lola Bunny, his romantic interest in the movie "Space Jam."

Looks like "somebunny's" getting some attention. ;-)

Bixyl Shuftan

Sansar Open to Applications For Content Builders

In a recent Press Release, Linden Lab announced that it was now accepting applications from content creators to test out their next-generation virtual world under development, Project Sansar. Called a "Creator Preview," the Lab states they will began inviting over "later this summer" the first of those applying.


“Creating social VR experiences is too hard and expensive today, and that limits the value and growth of this incredible new medium,” said Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab CEO. “Creating your own VR experience shouldn’t require an engineering team, and Project Sansar will make that possible. Over the past few months, a small number of creators have already made an impressive variety of awesome social VR experiences with Project Sansar, from virtual versions of real-world locations to fantasy worlds and stylized game-like environments, and more. We’ll soon be ready for many more creators to join Project Sansar, and we can’t wait to see what people will create.”

The application itself is a short one, asking for name, email, any website, what type of content the person intends to create, what tools they use to make it, what computer operating system they use, what type of headset they use, if any, and if they use Second Life.

There have been only occasional  peeks into Sansar so far. On the Project Sansar News Facebook Page , one Israeli user posted two screenshots following a post by Daniel Voyager, which were later reposted on his blog,"On the right hand side there appears to be Sansar user interface buttons seen for the first time."

As of now, Linden Lab states Sansar will not be available for the general public until "at the end of 2016."

For the Linden Lab press release, Click Here.

For the Sansar application, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Not Allowing Use of Linden Dollars in Other Virtual Worlds

About a week ago, Hypergrid Business reported that the virtual world Avination have announced that the transfer of Linden Dollars from Second Life to them "is no longer available, including payment for Avination regions" via ATMs in the virtual world.

“Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that any use of Linden Dollars in payment for currency of any other virtual world, or for external services which are not used in SecondLife is in violation of their terms of service,” stated Leonie Gaertner, an Avination spokesperson.

Daniel Voyager found a press release on the matter in his email:

Due to recent interaction with Linden Labs, we regret having to inform you that the transfer of Linden Dollars to Avination is no longer available, including the payment of your Avination sims via the Avination ATMs. Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that any use of Linden Dollars in payment for currency of ANY other virtual world, or for external services which are not used in SecondLife ™ is in violation of the TOS.

Avination Management has attempted to discuss this matter with Linden Labs by reiterating the importance of this option as well as trying to understand how this is a violation of TOS, but unfortunately these talks have since broken down.

Linden Labs’ Lawyers are adamant that these TOS clearly state that Linden Dollars cannot be transferred. This stance will not just affect us as at Avination but could also see far reaching consequences for other companies considering legal use of L$, including services like Shoutcast Stream Rentals and other services rendered outside of SecondLife. 

Unfortunately, for our loyal users and us this means an end to offering a fast and convenient way of exchanging Linden Dollars to C$. According to Linden Labs, users of SecondLife must cash out through LindeX before using the real currency to pay for services not rendered within SL.

We are sorry for the inconvenience this will cause you and please accept we have tried everything in our power to reach an amicable solution with Linden Labs.

Daniel Voyager called this "really bad news for the Avination community and this will effect them deeply."

Source: Hypergrid Business, Daniel Voyager's Blog 

Linden Snowball Fight: Pics and Video

 Second Life Newser wasn't able to attend the Linden Snoball Fight yesterday, but Daniel Voyager did.

Over 70 residents attended this morning for a massive snowball fight with the Lindens over at Winter Wonderland in Second Life. Many well known Lindens including Torley, Dee, Governance, Keira, Michael and many more dropped in to have fun with the community after many years of waiting. The event started around 10am SLT and ended after midday with a victory for the residents.

Daniel has more pictures of the snowball fight on his Flickr page.



(Click here if the video fails to play)

Images from Daniel Voyager, Video from "Nitwacket"

Statistics for Summer 2014

Daniel Voyager published a list of statistics a few days ago. They show a continued slow decline of the number of sims across the Grid.

The total number of sims is 25,836, down from 26,100 from three months ago, and 26,729 from a year ago.

The total number of private estates is 18,824, down from 19,080 and 19,645.

The total number of Linden-owned sims is 7,012, down from 7,040 and 7,084.

There were a couple positives in the numbers. The number of private estates grew by 24 in August and by 1 in September. But these obviously haven't been enough to offset the overall decline.

Of the concurrency levels, they've been reaching a maximum daily peak of 52,000, down from 56,000, and a low of 28,000, down from 30,000.The median daily concurrency has gone down from 42,000 to 41,000.

Daniel noted there have been a total of 10,000 to 13,000 accounts being created every day, estimating that the 40 million mark of the total number of accounts created will occur soon. However, only a small fraction of those accounts have so far seen a second day of use.

Daniel Voyager got the statistics from the Second Life Grid Survey, and Second Life Statistical Charts.

Ebbe Linden (Ebbe Altberg) Sits Down With Second Life Bloggers

On Tuesday February 18, Linden Lab's new CEO Ebbe Altberg, also known inworld as Ebbe Linden, met inworld with several Second Life bloggers. Pete Linden was also at the meeting. The bloggers were from left to right Saffia Widdershins. Daniel Voyager, Mal Burns (known as Aeonix Aeon in the past), Draxtor Despres, Inara Pey, and Jo Yardley. The meeting was a little more than an hour from 9:40 AM to 10:55AM SL time. Ebbe showed up as the robot avatar available to newcomers just starting out.

Most of the bloggers have already made their comments, Daniel Voyager (link), Inara Pey (link), Jo Yardley (link), and Mal Burns (link). Presumably Draxtor Despres will make his comments on his radio program later today (link).

The meeting was a friendly one, with some minor disruptions reported due to some bugs. Jo Yardley wrote that Ebbe asked if this was normal. Questions (prepared ones) were asked, and Ebbe answered. Among the things discussed were the new user registration, of which Ebbe thought the one he went through was lacking and needed improvement. Of how it is now he stated he needed to know more before making a decision. He was interested in meeting up with the leaders of educational sims and communities. He also wanted to learn more about sports in Second Life. He felt Second Life was the beginning of something big, "I have a huge belief that Second Life is just the beginning of something that can be much, much, much bigger," and wanted it more accessible to users.

He stated people in Linden Lab were interested in bringing back the JIRA, and were looking for a way to do it. He had been a user of Second Life in its early days, as was his teenage son before he was booted due to his age and went to the Teen Grid. He understood that the mainstream media did not see Second Life like it used to, and Linden Lab had lost control of the image of itself it wanted to deliver to the masses.

The writers were overall impressed with Ebbe, and expressed cautious optimism about him. This included Mal Burns, whom has been quite critical of Linden Lab in the past, "... I do feel differently than I have about all other predecessors for a number of reasons. I get a different 'vibe' off of this guy. I’m almost willing to say that he 'gets it.' Almost ... " The biggest beef Mal had was the setup of the press meeting, eight writers each having been privately invited by the Lab. Mal thought this kind of arrangement was bad because it would encourage sucking-up among bloggers, and discourage asking hard questions and critical writing about problems about the Grid.

No one from Second Life Newser was at the meeting. Neither was Hamlet Au, Linden Lab's onetime imbedded reporter. 

Daniel Voyager has a transcript of the meeting available on request, as well as a number of pictures on his  (Flickr).

Bixyl Shuftan

Pictures of Bay City's Mole Day

Sunday February 2 was Bay City's Mole Day event, their day to celebrate the work done by the moles of Linden Lab's "Department of Public Works." While not all residents are too thrilled with the Lab, people have been happy with the moles and what they do. 

The Second Life Wiki describes the DPW as "is a program focused on improvements related to the experience of living on, or visiting the Linden Mainland. The LDPW will organize teams of Resident builders, artists, and scripters (the Moles!) to create new content on Linden Lab's behalf and to the benefit of all. Rather than divert company resources from areas of development that contribute to important issues like stability and usability, Linden Lab is choosing to go to the experts... "

"It should be no surprise that when it comes to creating compelling SL content, it's the Resident population itself that serves as the best talent pool. In order to hit the ground running, the LDPW has approached a number of content creators whose credentials are well-established, but from the start, its intentions were to makeapplication to the program open to all residents. So if you're a skilled content creator, please consider applying when the application process is open""

The party was from 1 to 3PM SL time. GoSpeed Racer DJed for the first hour of the event, with kid guitarist Christov Kohnke performing for the second.

Daniel Voyager wrote the event was attended by over 30 avatars at any one time, "Special thanks to all the Moles on the grid for making Second Life great every year with the new improvements."

First three pictures by Marianne McCann, the fourth by Daniel Voyager.

Bixyl Shuftan

Burn2: The Temple Burn

Burn2 is over. Sunday's Temple Burn marked the final day of the festivities, and as the building was burned for the final time came the last of the events. After that, there would be no more events, although the exhibits were up for a few more days. Gemma had a few pictures of the event, which was quite a show.

See Gemma's pictures of the Temple Burn in Events.

Scenes From Burn2 - "Where Pigs Fly"

While attending a party at Burn2, where DJ Quark was spinning the tunes, people began pointing up. I took a look, and there was this low flying pig just above with several people on it. But it didn't stay around for long. It soon picked up speed and sped away.

There's a lot going on in Second Life right now, so a full story will be in a few days. For more, you can check our Press Day article, or Daniel Voyager's Blog and his Flickr site.

Facebook integration Coming to the Official SL Viewer

Daniel Voyager reported last week that looking at the Second Life Wiki about Linden Lab's upcoming 3.6.6 viewer, it will have Facebook integration built in. The feature is called "Second Life Share."

The Post to Facebook window is part of the Second Life Share feature, which allows you to post to Facebook from Second Life. Second Life Share is an opt-in feature that requires your permission before sharing any information with Facebook.

A number of Second Life users post pictures of their activities on Facebook. Facebook is a little less than happy about some Second Life users using their SL names as their profile names, in addition to some residents refusing to use the service to due being concerned about the social network's privacy policy and other reasons. So the relationship between residents and Facebook is occasionally a bit strained. But with so many Second Life users using Facebook, an example of this being the official Second Life Page having 321,075 "Likes" at the time of the writing of this article, it's a feature that promises to get much use.

Hamlet Au remarked this kind of feature should have been installed much earlier, "six years ago was actually the time to do this, but better late than (never)."

Source: Daniel Voyager's Blog

Bixyl Shuftan

SL10B Statistics and Comments

Daniel Voyager had some statistics about the SL10B published on his blog. While there have been no numbers for the number of visitors (for SLB6 more than 17,000 residents dropped in at some point while it was open), it does say over 640 were present at the moment of the grand opening. For the 22 sims, there were 375 exhibits and five stages, with 470 applications submitted by performers and among the staff, 115 alone were registered as greeters.

Click Here for the whole list, along with a link to statistics of previous SL birthday celebrations.

The Second Life Wiki has a "History of Second Life" page. It's from Linden Lab, so there's no mention of the adult content protests and the 30% layoffs. Click Here.

Of Second Life's future, Daniel expressed optimism, "I think we will see more new technology introduced from Linden Lab in the coming years making Second Life more realistic, faster and better improved."

Hamlet Au of New World Notes also had a few comments about Second Life, a few which made it to a SF Post article, and more in depth on an article in gigaom.com. Hamlet felt the biggest mistake Linden Lab made with the virtual world was "it ignored what the overwhelming majority of residents were actually doing." While it was pushing things like an "Enterprise" version for businesses to hold meetings, it paid little attention to the roleplaying and other gaming, fashion and shopping, adult activities, and other things which were drawing residents. It might have a second chance to get the larger public's attention as technologies like Oculus Rift make it much easier to use. Another thing that got Hamlet's attention, people with physical and mental disabilities were using Second Life to interact with others in ways that would be difficult to impossible without it.

What do you the readers think? What has Second Life done right, and wrong, in it's ten years, and how do you see it's future? Will there be an SL20B?

Bixyl Shuftan

Sources: Daniel Voyager, Hamlet Au

More on the SL10B

There's more going on about the SL10B than we have time to write about. Fortunately others have been.

Daniel Voyager has made quite a few posts on his blog about the Grid's anniversary celebrations. From Press Day, to Opening Day, the Cake Stage, the History Walk, Maps of previous Second Life Birthdays, Bear Island and the Cornfield, the Pod Tours, and the Clanis Telihub. He's also taken quite a few screenshots on his Flickr, with one set for SL10B photos.

Mona Eberhardt has also written a review of the SL10B. Not everything was fine and dandy about the event, she felt. She noted a number of exhibits that were little more than advertisements and how a number of builds were just copies of what was built the last year. But there's no shortage of great and unique builds, such as Qwark Allen's telescope (left).

Crap Mariner also came out with his "Brutally Honest SL10B Sim Tour."

The Linden blog had a few announcements. The Linden Lab Destinations Guide now has a SL10B section. This can help you pick and choose individual exhibits.

Linden Lab has also made a game just for Premium members, The Magellian's Grid Scavenger Hunt.

Magellan Linden has uncovered an evil scheme by mad Doctor Talpa, to build some form of mind-control machines and take over the world. Magellan is busy building a machine to counter this scheme, but in the meantime YOU are needed to gather materials and components -- and to destroy any of Talpa's machines you can find.

Linden Lab also release an infographic about some impressive statistics about Second Life. Among them, stating more than three billion dollars worth of transactions have taken place over the past decade. The claim that 36 million people signed up, though, isn't quite the complete story as not everyone stayed. They did state one interesting bit of trivia, "the most purchased items are womens hairstyles."

Longtime residents may remember when companies left and right were making a presence in Second Life. While most of them have left, there are still businesses who see money to be made here. Alienware is doing a cross-promotion with Linden Lab with a contest, with a computer as the prize.

To help celebrate Second Life’s tenth birthday, we’re running a co-promotion with Alienware , the pioneer in specialty high-performance PC gaming systems! From now until July 17, 2013, Second Life users can enter to win a brand new Alienware 14 laptop!

The events at the SL10B go on until Sunday, and the sims will stay up for another week. So enjoy them while they last.

Image Credit: Daniel Voyager, Mona Eberhardt, Linden Lab, Alienware

Bixyl Shuftan