SL Video: "SL23B - Meet the Lindens: Second Life Product Team"

 

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 From Linden Lab on June 24, the Tuesday June 23 "Meet the Lindens" with Grumpity and Kiera Linden, "Second Life Sr. VP of Product Grumpity Linden and Manager of Trust & Safety/Customer Success Keira Linden answer community questions in this special "Meet the Lindens" event from Second Life's 23rd Birthday Celebration."

"Meet The Lindens" Today at 1PM SL time, Grumpity and Kali Linden

 

 "Watch the Product and Engineering teams in this pre-recorded session at SL22B on Tuesday, June 24th at 1pm PT! In attendance will be Senior VP of Product & Engineering Grumpity Linden and Director of Engineering, Web & Platform Kali Linden."

 

You can see the pre-recorded event in Second Life at 1PM SL time, or you can watch it on Youtube (here).  

 

SL22B "Meet The Lindens" Schedule

 

 On Monday June 16, Linden Lab posted the schedule for the upcoming "Meet the Lindens" events at the Second Life Birthday. They take place from Monday June 23 to Friday June 24, all at 1 PM SL time (4PM EST). 

 

The countdown to SL22B has begun, as we are just days away from opening day! Along with all sorts of live music and shopping events, we also have some special Q&A events that will take place at the celebrations in front of live audiences. Watch them with everyone at the SL22B Astral Athenaeum.

Monday, June 23rd at 1pm PT - Meet the Product Operations team live at SL22B! In attendance will be Senior VP of Product Operations, Customer Support & Trust & Safety - Patch Linden, Manager, Customer Success & Trust & Safety - Keira Linden, and Creative Producer - Izzy Linden.

Tuesday, June 24th at 1pm PT - Watch the Product and Engineering teams in this pre-recorded session at SL22B! In attendance will be Senior VP of Product & Engineering - Grumpity Linden, Director of Engineering, Web & Platform - Kali Linden, and Director of Engineering, Viewer & Server -  Signal Linden.

Wednesday, June 25th at 1pm PT - Meet the Founder of Second Life, Philip Linden, live at SL22B!

Thursday, June 26th at 1pm PT - Watch the Marketing team at SL22B in this pre-recorded session at SL22B!

Friday, June 27th at 1pm PT - Meet the Moles live at SL22B! The Moles are builders, scripters, and content creators employed by Linden Lab to work in the Linden Department of Public Works.  

 

 The events will all be at the SL22B Astral Athenaeum which is at the intersection of four sims. It is suggested people head to SLB Astonish (252/226/45), SLB Astound (21/232/45), and SLB Imagination (28/9/45). 

 

The Lab also reminded there's just a few days left to submit questions for these events. 

 

For more information, check the Linden blog. 

 

SL Video: "Second Life Community Roundtable - March 14, 2025"

 

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From Match 14, a recording of the community roundtable event that day. 

 

 

First SLB Linden "Town Hall" Today

 

 Today, the first of the SL21B Town Hall events takes place, with Grumpity, Signal, Sntaz, and Kyle Linden.

 

Attend a Town Hall with the Product and Engineering teams at the SL21B Aquatorium. In attendance will be Senior VP of Product & Engineering Grumpity Linden, Director of Engineering Web & Platform Kali Linden, Director of Engineering Second Life Server & Viewer Signal Linden, Senior Product Manager Sntax Linden, and Product Manager Kyle Linden.  

The event will be at the Aquatorium today, Tuesday June 25, at 1:30 PM SL time. The event will likely be shown on Youtube as well (https://www.youtube.com/@secondlife/streams).

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLB%20Mesmerize/88/164/24

Correction: Vic Morington is providing the Youtube.

EOTB: SL21B "Town Halls And Community Roundtable"

 

This week, and next Monday, the "Meet The Lindens (and Moles)" events will be taking place at the Second Life Birthday. Though this year they're called "Town Halls and Community Roundtable." The schedule was posted a few days ago on the Linden blog.

Tuesday, June 25th at 1:30pm PT - Attend a Town Hall with the Product and Engineering teams at the SL21B Aquatorium. In attendance will be Senior VP of Product & Engineering Grumpity Linden, Director of Engineering Web & Platform Kali Linden, Director of Engineering Second Life Server & Viewer Signal Linden, Senior Product Manager Sntax Linden, and Product Manager Kyle Linden.

Wednesday, June 26th at 1:30pm PT - Attend a Town Hall with the Product Operations team at the SL21B Aquatorium. In attendance will be Senior VP of Product Operations & Marketing Patch Linden, Support Operations Manager Keira Linden, Product Operations Manager Derrick Linden, and Creative Producer Izzy Linden.

Thursday, June 27th at 1:30pm PT - Attend a Town Hall at the SL21B Aquatorium with the Founder of Second Life Philip Linden interviewed by VP of Marketing Brett Linden. 

Friday, June 28th at 1:30pm PT - Attend a Town Hall at the SL21B Aquatorium with the Moles! The Moles are builders, scripters, and content creators employed by Linden Lab to work in the Linden Department of Public Works.  

Monday, July 1st at 11:30am PT - Attend our second Community Roundtable at the SL21B Aquatorium with Executive Chairman Oberwolf Linden and Senior VP of Product Operations & Marketing Patch Linden. Our Community Roundtables give you the opportunity to connect directly with our top executives, share your input, and discuss ideas on enhancing Second Life. This initiative represents another step in our efforts to improve our community interactions, ensuring that your voice is more directly heard and valued. 

Check the Linden blog for any last minute updates.  

SL Video: "Second Life Community Roundtable Meeting"

 

 

 For those who missed the Community Roundtable Meeting on Monday, here's a recording made by Pantera Polnocy. The Newser will have a review of it soon.

VWBPE Is Underway, "What's Up At The Lab" Takes Place

 

 

 Yesterday was the first day of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference. Three days of discussions and lectures, as well as a parade and party. Probably the best attended event was "What's Up With The Lab", hosted by Phelan Corrimal. The Lindens on stage were Grumpity, Kali, and Signal. More were in the audience with a couple on guard for any possible griefers.

The Lindens talked about a number of developments. These included the mobile viewer in development, currently in a "private alpha" version Premium Plus residents can get on a waiting list for, and PBR Materials, which allow for the promise of working mirrors. They would also take some questions from the audience, one asking if people unable to keep paying for Premium could just automatically be downgraded to a free account instead of being booted. 

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It is notable who wasn't there. Patch Linden has been a part of "What's Up At The Lab" events at the VWPBE for a while, but he wasn't on the stage this year. 

The VWBPE goes on until tomorrow, with the closing ceremonies at 6PM SL time and a dance party at 7PM.

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Lab Gab On Mobile Viewer Update This Thursday

 

 

 Last week, Linden Lab announced there would be an episode of Lab Gab on Thursday February 29, at 10 AM SL time. The subject: an update on developments on the Second Life Mobile Viewer. 

Interested in learning more about our Second Life Mobile app? Our development team is working hard to add new features and fixes to bring the best of Second Life to iOS and Android mobile and tablet platforms – it’s an entire virtual world in the palm of your hands! 

Second Life’s Senior VP of Product Grumpity Linden and Senior VP of Product Operations Patch Linden will be discussing the latest updates and future plans for Second Life Mobile ...

Residents are free to submit questions. Those interested need to fill out this form on Google Docs, "some selected questions will be answered by both Grumpity and Patch on the show." You'll need to hurry as it will close sometime tomorrow, Monday February 26. The event will be pre-recorded and presumably no live audience watching. 

Source: Linden Blog

 

SL Video: "Second Life Mobile - June 2023 - SL20B Update"

 

 

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From Linden Lab, a five minute video with Grumpity, Mojo, and Patch Linden about the Lab's progress on the Second Life Mobile Viewer. It's looking like it's release won't be until 2024 as Grumpity was saying, "More features are coming in the next couple quarters as we work towards a beta." Grumpity was saying some of the latest work was about getting the viewer to unload old objects so new ones could be loaded as people move to different areas.

 

EOTB: Grumpity and Mojo Linden at The SL20B Arboretum (Pre-Recorded)

 

Tuesday, June 27th at 1:30pm PT - Watch a pre-recorded Lab Gab Special at SL20B with VP of Product Grumpity Linden, and VP of Engineering Mojo Linden. Grumpity heads up Second Life Product, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, a movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. With over twenty years of experience in the games industry, Mojo is an expert at building teams and launching groundbreaking games across genres that push the limits of their respective platforms. 

 

Watch it on the Second Life YouTube channel or at the SL20B Arboretum. 

 

From the Linden blog. 

At The VWBPE Conference

 

Today marks the third and last day of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference. There have been a number of discussions, and today a few more before the official close.

Among the discussions was one featuring Patch and Grumpity Linden, "What's Up at The Lab?"

Much of what Patch and Linden talked about was already discussed in the Lab Gab earlier this month, though there were a few additions, such as Grumpity Linden saying the beta release of the mobile viewer would be unlikely before the fourth quarter of 2023.

For the VWBPE conference schedule, check https://www.vwbpe.org/conference/vwbpe23-program .

Bixyl Shuftan

Details on March 9 Lab Gab "Roadmap" for 2023

 

 Last Friday's Lab Gab started with a video. Grumpity Linden, the head of the Product team, talked about the upcoming SL mobile app viewer, showing it off at the Kaleidoscope sim. "Yeah, it's true, it's so early, but we're super excited to share a first peek at something new, Second Life Mobile. Look it's me on my phone." She would say this wasn't the first time they've tried to build a mobile viewer, "because of course we want to have all the glory." But it was "the most exciting result we've seen so far." They were starting with the more difficult details, such as being able to view the "hardest" avatars and most detailed areas. Plus they wanted the app to work on all platforms, "And so it is with joy and trepidation that we share with you the early results of these efforts." They did say things were still very much a work in progress, so "you will see very little functionality or user interface for now." Still, she spoke, "it is a vibrant Second Life on Android and iOS."

Mojo Linden, the VP of Engineering who would later say he's been with Linden Lab for about a year and a half, would say that he was working with the development team "to make sure that the community can experience everything they love about Second Life while on the go with our upcoming mobile viewer," repeating they were starting with some of the more difficult details first such as full rendering of avatars and the full rendering of complex environments. The viewer is built on Unity and can use multiple mobile phone and tablet platforms, including Android and iOS. Mojo described himself as "blown away" by the ammount of detail they can get on it, saying they haven't had to "compromise too much on graphic fidelity." He did admit "there's much work to be done" before the mobile viewer's ready to be launched.

Patch, the VP of Product Operations, was next. "Imagine being able to connect to Second Life from anywhere, chat with your friends, visit your favorite inworld hangout spots, and later do pretty muchanything you do with the desktop Second Life viewer without being tethered to your computer. ... We can't wait to show you more in the coming months as our development progress continues."

The scene then changed to the three seated with Strawberry Linden, and would introduce themselves, Grumpity musing she had no real power but was still responsible for a lot ot things. Mojo joked he felt tlike the "baby" in the group. Later on, Grumpity would say she wasn't in her usual stick figure as it wasn't rezzing properly in the mobile viewer. 

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Questions about the mobile started 6:45 into the video. Mojo would state development started in October 2022, saying that using the Unity engine "really helped with quick progress and portability to IOS and Android." He was condident they would be able to make a mobile viewer that could show "Second Life in all it's glory." A beta version "with some limited functuality" should be released sometime in the second half of the year, adding "our play is to layer more features over multiple releases after that." Later in the video, Mojo would call being able to work on the mobile viewer "such an honor."

At nine minutes, Strawberry brought up the price changes. The lower sim prices were talked about first. Grumpity would say since 2017, they've been working to lower the price of land and making it "more accessible for all our residents," saying it wasn't easy as Linden Lab's income had been built on land. So they had to find ways to make up for the income loss there, "We try to find the fairest way to do it ... and, um, we decided that Linden dollar fees were really the way to do it. ... We know your prices are going up, and our prices are going up, and the cost of everything up. ... We took as long as we could before raising fees. But it's happened. ... We're watching very closely to see what happens in the markets so far."

At just before 11 minutes, Strawberry would also bring up the new option to pay for a sim with Linden dollars. Patch called it an exchange being done "on the Lindex basically behind the scenes ... and so yes, the price is a little higher."

At just after 12 minutes, Strawberry brought up the concerns about bot activity. Patch stated the Lab has been working on a new policy, including some talk with lawyers, "We had to take some time and get it reviewed by our legal team ... that took several weeks to get all of the necessary reviews in place for it." Patch would say they were expecting to bring it out the following week (the week of this article). Grumpity would add they're planning on giving extra ability to estate owners to ban bots, "will be able to choose access levels for scripted agents going forward, and those should be rolling out soon." She estimate the time as "weeks."

Just after 13 minutes, the PBR (Physical Based Rendering) development was mentioned, that it will bring "more realistic lighting to Second Life," Mojo saying it brought that particular technology about ten years ahead from where it was, "It allows content creators to define materials based on how they reflect light in the real world." He added there was already a project viewer with the feature currently out and people looking at it and giving feedback, "We want to be sure we are not going to cause content headaches for people as we've been fixing bugs for quite some time." He wasn't giving a definite release date, "it might be another three months." When asked if people would beed higher-end computers to see the feature, Mojo would say no, saying they were working to better enable current computers to see the new featurejust fine. But if people had any kind of performance issues, they could simply "just turn off Reflections" to get lighting back to where it was. There will also be tutorial videos about it later. It was stated that while PBR puts Second Life on the way to having true mirrors, for the moment they're not around just yet, at least the (virtually) real deal, "You can sort of fake it now with PBR." The Lab plans on working on technology to allow mirrors next.

At just after 18 minutes, they talked about inventory updates. Grumpity would say one project they were workiing on was "Inventory Thumbnails." They would also add a single folder inventory view. Of updates to the viewer, they were working on an "emoji viewer" that Grumpity called "a third party contribution from Catnip" amd that they've been "trying to  make sure everything works." A project viewer should be availablt in "weeks."

Just before twenty minutes, Strawberry asked if there were plans to make Second Life "VR ready." Mojo's response was "probably not this year" saying the render rate would have to be at least around 60 frames per second. Of the possibility of a Linux viewer, Mojo did say there were internal tools that benefit from a Linux viewer. But for now what they have can run through Wine and Proton. But an outright official Linix viewer isn't in the Lab's plans for this year.

At 21:30, Strawberry brought up Marketplace saying there's been "a lot of changes." Grumpity would say a week earlier, the Lab released an update to Marketplace search. She would go on to say they were "taking your feedback, we're making changes." The fifty-page cap on search results has been removed. Strawberry asked about inworld office hours. Grumpty's response was, "We have user groups for all sorts of topics ... choose your favorite and come talk to us."

Just before 26 minutes, Strawberry would ask about the upcoming New User Experience (or NUX) avatars, which one was shown off at last year's Second Life Birthday. Patch answered they were "quite a ways along in their development." The avatars themselves are done, he stated, and the work at the moment was getting them a line of clothing and attachments. They will also be "PBR ready." The avatars, he reminded, were to help new users have "better simpler easier fun," and there should be an update about them soon.

Around 27:30, Strawberry brought up Linden Homes. Patch stated there would be some information coming soon. They were working on the homes for Premium Plus resident accounts, which were "nearing completion." They were also working on expansions and additions to current themes, Victorian being named. Of Second Life's upcoming 20th anniversary celebration theme (which was announced Thursday March 16), Patch would only say "It's really, really, really big" and that they would have an announcement soon.

Before the Lab Gab ended, Patch would say they might make a "blooper reel" of errors made during the filming of the movile viewer video.  

Bixyl Shuftan

EOTB: Lab Gab This Friday With Patch, Grumpity, Mojo Linden

 

 

 This Friday, Patch Linden and two others from Linden Lab will be speaking in an Episode of Lab Gab. The topic will be upcoming changes and other plans for 2023.

Want to learn more about upcoming Second Life features, changes, and our roadmap for 2023?

Second Life’s VP of Product Grumpity Linden, VP of Product Operations Patch Linden, and VP of Engineering Mojo Linden will be in a pre-recorded Lab Gab on Friday, March 10th at 9am PT. 

As this is a pre-recorded video, questions will have to be sent in advance. Those having questions are asked to fill out a Google-document (link). The deadline to submit a question is tomorrow, Thursday at 9AM SL time, and there is no guarantee of it being accepted for answering.

The show will be at Friday, March 10, at 9AM SL time. It will be on the official Second Life Youtube channel (link). 

Linden Lab Explains "February 1st Outage"

 

With the scale of the disruptions on Wednesday February 1st, it was likely Linden Lab would find themselves obligated to their customer base, the residents, to try and explain what happened. It turns out they made a statement about the "Recent February 1st Outage" the following day in the "Tools and Technology" section of the official blog. 

This Wednesday, February 1st, was a rocky one for Second Life, especially for regions on our Release Candidate (RC) channels. As with many large-scale services, we experience service interruptions from time to time, but yesterday's problems were unique and noteworthy enough that they deserve a sincere apology and more thorough explanation. 

 

The Lab stated the main cause was "a bug in object inventory behavior that was introduced by new code" saying the bug, "caused some objects' scripts to enter a non-running state."

RC rolls are regularly scheduled for 7AM Pacific (SLT) every Wednesday. While conducting one of these deployments, we received initial reports of issues relating to script behavior at 8:30AM. We immediately started investigating, and by 9AM it was clear that we needed to stop the roll, because the issue was pervasive and clearly related to the new changes. As we do in these situations, we declared an “Incident” and an Incident Commander took charge. 

By 9:30 we started a rollback, reverting the affected simulators to their previous version. We also evaluated what additional actions we would need to take, as it was unclear that a rollback alone would start the scripts which had stopped. This quickly proved to be the case, and we came up with a new plan - one that would ensure that scripts would perform as expected going forward, but possibly undo the changes our residents had been making since the time we had introduced the bug. Although this meant more downtime, it prevented further content loss, and proved to be the best way to put the grid back in order. The team came up with a quick, clean, and efficient way to achieve this and get everyone back on track. 

By 12PM the decision was made to take this direction. By 1:15PM the code was complete, by 1:40PM we confirmed that it worked. By 2:25PM all regions were brought back up.  

The report in full, signed by Grumpity Linden "and the Second Life team," can be found (here).

"I’m grateful to know that while we may make mistakes, we will not sweep them under the rug, nor look for someone to blame - we will come together and make it right."

EOTB: Lab Gab Tomorrow, 10 AM

 

Yesterday on the Second Life blog, it was announced there would be an episode of Lab Gab tomorrow, Friday October 21. The event takes place at 10 AM, and will feature Patch and Grumpity Linden. The notice stated "They will make a few announcements about upcoming features."

The Lab also invited readers to send questions over, using this link to a Google doc. 

 

The event can be seen on Youtube. As with other Lab Gab shows, no location is given for residents to drop over.  

Grumpity Linden is the "VP of Product." Patch Linden is the "VP of Product Operations," and the most visible Linden since the passing of late CEO Ebbe Linden.

Announcement: "Meet The Lindens", Grumpity and Mojo Linden

 

Thursday, June 23rd at 2pm PT - Meet the Lindens with VP of Product, Grumpity Linden and VP of Engineering, Mojo Linden. Grumpity heads up Second Life Product, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. With over twenty years of experience in the games industry, Mojo is an expert at building teams and launching groundbreaking games across genres that push the limits of their respective platforms. Watch it live on the Second Life YouTube channel or live at the SL19B Arboretum.  

• LB Exhilarate
• SLB Wonderous
• SLB Fascinate

 

More on Facebook And Meta And Virtual World Plans, Grumpity Linden's Interview

 

It's been a few weeks since Mark Zuckerburg announced the company behind Facebook would be changing it's name to Meta. Since then, there have been more developments, and more people commenting. Among those with something to say was Grumpity Linden, or Anya Kanevsky in real life. She was interviewed by a magazine, and had a few things to say about Facebook's plans and how they related to Second Life, the existing virtual world.
 
Read the story in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.
 

EOTB: "SL18B Talk Show Specials"

 

From Monday to Friday at the Second Life Birthday, there will be discussions at the auditorium at the Second Life Birthday. These are a special Lab Gab, a special episode of the Second Life Book Club, and four "Meet the Lindens" events.   

Monday June 21

8AM SL time: The Second Life Book Club - "Special with the founder of Second Life Philip Rosedale, and Professor of Anthropology at UC Irvine Tom Boellstorff. They will be talking about 18 years of Second Life!" SLB Awesome (31/232/23) (Youtube link)

2PM SL time: Lab Gab  - "SL18B Special with the Linden Lab Leadership Team" (Check here) 

Tuesday June 22

1PM SL time: Meet the Lindens with VP of Product Operations, Patch Linden - "Patch works to bring the best of product and support-based decisions on a daily operational basis to the virtual world platform for Second Life, while maintaining oversight on how all of the various teams within Linden Lab can best work together for the highest good of the Residents and the business." SLB Awesome (31/232/23) (Youtube link) 

Wednesday June 23

2PM SL time: Meet the Lindens with VP of Product, Grumpity Linden -. "Grumpity will speak in-depth about several Second Life initiatives including recent efforts focusing on growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach." SLB Awesome (31/232/23) (Youtube link) 

Thursday June 24

1PM SL time: Meet the Lindens with VP of Marketing, Brett Linden - "Brett will speak on recent acquisition and retention efforts for Second Life including advertising, public relations, content strategy, and social media." SLB Awesome (31/232/23) (Youtube link)

Friday June 25

1PM SL time: Meet the Moles - "The Moles are builders, scripters, and content creators employed by Linden Lab to work in the Linden Department of Public Works" SLB Awesome (31/232/23) (Youtube link)
 
To check the Linden blog post in full, Click Here.
 

Special Lab Gab on Monday June 21

 

Yesterday, Linden Lab announced on the official blog that in ten days, Monday June 21, there will be a special "Lab Gab" as part of the Second Life Birthday mega-event. This one will feature the leadership team.

During the SL18B celebrations there will be a special edition of “Lab Gab” featuring several executives from the Linden Lab leadership team. Now is your chance to share your thoughts and ask questions directly to the leadership team!  

Residents were invited to submit questions in advance for the event (link). Residents have until Tuesday June 15 to do so. 

While the announcement didn't mention names, it showed a picture of Patch, Grumpity, and Brett Linden. Respectively, they are the VP of Product Operations, Director of Product, and the Senior Marketing Director. Since the passing of Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab has not yet announced a new CEO. 

The SL18B runs fom Thursday June 17 to Tuesday July 6.

Source: Linden blog.