SL Mobile App Total Dowloads Reach A Million

 

 Linden Lab is currently talking about "A Big Year of Progress" for the mobile viewer in the official Second Life blog, from clearer pictures to in-app purchases to using the avatar starter pack via one's smartphone, and more. But in New World Notes, Hamlet Au mentioned another milestone. Linden Lab confirmed that the total amount of SL mobile app downloads has reached one million.

 

Hamlet had first guessed this by noticing the number of downloads on Google Play was 500,000. So he reasoned the number of those downloaded from the Apple App Store, which isn't pictured, was at least the same. In March, the total number was reportedly close to 300,000, and the total listed on Google Play was 100,000.

 

But this would be a guess until Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager confirmed the total number did pass one million.

 

As a reminder, Second Life has been downloaded on computers millions of times. 

 

Sources, Linden Blog, New World Notes  

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Second Life's Monthy Active Users Up From 600,000 to 620,000

 

In a recent article in New World Notes, Hamlet AU reported that Brad Oberwager, the head of Linden Lab, stated that the number of monthly active users had gone up from about 600,000 in October to 620,000. 

 

In an October interview Oberwager admitted that Second Life's monthly active users had dropped to 500,000 in 2024. 

 

Oberwager would go on to say they planned on doing things that would encourage more people to use the virtual world more often, such as hiring a Vice President of Engineering. 

 

Source: New World Notes

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

New World Notes Moves to Patreon

 

 Normally, The Newser doesn't write about other newsletters and newsblogs. And it's been a few months since yours truly last checked this one. But its just been found out that New World Notes, written by James Wagner (aka Hamlet Au), has moved to Patreon due to the platform it's based on shutting down. The move was made in September.

 

 

New World Notes is moving to my Patreon! I've been covering virtual world news and culture on my blog since 2006, but Typepad is shutting down on September 30. So New World Notes must move to another platform.

 

Patreon requires a subscription to not just post, but read articles there. Higher degrees of membership cost money. 

 

Hamlet Au was hired by Linden Lab as their "embedded reporter" in 2006 and remained there for a few years. He eventually left, but continued to write about Second Life and virtual worlds and tech in general. 

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Interview With Oberwager Reveals Reasons For Recent Layoffs At Lab

 

 Last month, Alexa Linden was laid off from Linden Lab, and there were stories going around that she wasn't the only one. In a recent interview Wagner Au conducted with Brad Oberwager, the head of Second Life, it was confirmed. 

 

At one point, Wagner asked Oberwager the reasons for the layoffs. Oberwager answered that this was in response to his conclusion that the Lab's support for it's content creators and residents was "antiquated" and lacking, "what happened was, we made changes across the whole organization, and some people got promoted, some people got moved into different parts of the organization, and some people,  we had to say goodbye to some people. And that's always unfortunate, especially when it’s folks that have been around for a long time. That's really tough"

 

Besides an emphasis on Engineering, Oberwager stated they were putting new energy in customer support, "We basically blew up all the formal titles and structure in how we provide support, and we formed two new teams...Resident success and Trust & Safety. And we're going to pour all of our energy into those two groups in terms of supporting [them]. So what's happened over time is Trust & Safety continues to become more important, not less… And so we’ve created this brand new Trust & Safety team that has tremendous autonomy and a very high bar of success."

For the rest of the interview, Click Here. 

 

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Reported To Be Investigating Charges Made Against Employees In Article

 

 In at least a few circles of Second Life's residents, there's been some discussion of an article written by a "Robert Bartos" with some serious allegations against a number of Lindens and Moles. Yesterday in New World Notes, Hamlet Au stated that "two highly credible sources" told him that the matter is now being investigated, "both the accusations themselves and whether they have defamatory intent. That's all that can be reported at the moment."

Two readers sent the editor a link to the article. But the more it was read, the more reason there was for skepticism. There wasn't much of any proof to the allegations. The author himself was unknown. 

Development on SL Mobile Viewer Reportedly Paused

 

Since at least January 2019, if not earlier, Linden Lab has been working on a mobile app for Second Life. In July, one that was basically a chat app was approved by Apple, though the Lab was waiting to improve some things before sending it to the store.

But according to an article in New World Notes, it seems work on the app has been postponed, possibly indefinately. Hamlet Au stated "A veteran Second Life insider" had send him a message, saying it was sent to him as one of the mobile app test group.

    After reviewing the current state of the SL Mobile Viewer and the helpful feedback from residents, we have decided to pause development on this branch. The team is actively working on a new direction to take from here. We should have some news on that soon.

    We’d like to thank you all for your time and feedback. It was very valuable to us! We will be closing TestFlight and the mobile regions on October 29th, 2021. Again, thank you for participation! Linden Lab

The source would also say of the development of the app, "It had been stagnant for months."

Hamlet messaged the Lab about the decision and is waiting for a response.

Stat tuned for more details

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Former Xiola Linden Joins Mixed Reality Startup

It's been about two weeks since Xiola Linden departed Linden Lab. According to New World Notes, already she's been hired. She's now at Ubiquity6, a startup tech company focusing on mixed reality.

Xiola told Hamlet Au she saw similarities between Linden Lab and the new startup,  "'Fun, energized, whip-smart, kind, thoughtful, and very diverse. That is something that was so important to me in my previous role, and I did not expect to find that kind of culture anywhere else -- I got lucky to have lightning strike twice in that regard. It's exciting to make new friends who are so enthusiastic about the incredible possibilities and potential of really compelling projects."

Uniquity6 has one product available: display.land , which it calls "a new digital canvas for creativity and shared experiences." How much we'll be hearing from them  in the future, hard to say. But Xiola's presence can only help them.

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Ebbe Altberg / Ebbe Linden Interviewed,

Recently, James Wagner/Hamlet Au , whom years ago was Linden Lab's embedded reporter in Second Life, gave an interview to the Linden Lab's CEO: Ebbe Altberg / Ebbe Linden.



The first thing Altberg talked about was his optimism about Second Life, saying it was "doing quite well, there's a lot of positive signs." It was making more money, and the number of Premium accounts was up, "We're very bullish about the long term health of Second Life. ... A very hardcore entrenched audience in there."

The CEO talked a little about how things were when hie first arrived five years ago, "when I came here, the users were a little bit angry, there was a disconnect between the Lab and the user base, the residents." He went on to say some of the Lab's policies at the time "didn't make much sense." Five years later, "We're psyched with what the Second Life team has accomplished," saying there were some good people among Linden Lab's employees.

Talking about the Lab's focus on continued revenue growth, saying too much had been charged for land, and they were taking steps for those with mainland property to get more for their money on it, as well as less costly private sims. But they had to make up for the lost revenue there somewhere. He added they were still working on their pricing strategy, hoping to take another step in a few months.

"There's no virtual world ever made that has the diversity of Second Life," Altberg would say, though saying this "incredible" diversity was a challenge to run, calling a bit like dealing with the different policies of cities and countries to "find the right balance." He also compared a resident looking for their place in the virtual world to someone moving to a new home in another city in real life, it's a lot of effort for someone to find the right community, find the right neighbors, find the right clubs, activities, and places ... it takes a lot of effort to be comfortable and happy with a place within your social circles."

The CEO also stated those who thought Second Life's residents were heavily into adult activities because so much of the sims were marked "Adult" were mistaken, "what's marked as an adult region is a completely meaningless metric. A lot of people mark their regions as adult because they (fear they) won't have freedom of speech, but they're not really doing ... what you consider adult activities there." It wasn't necessarily a warning that people would see things "that you will be shocked for the rest of your life." Of those who do engage in adult activities, he didn't see them as necessarily bad, "our job is to make sure things are done legal and healthy for the community." He did admit sometimes people do cross a line, "so obviously the banhammer has to come out sometimes. ... overall, it's not really a significant problem."

He also talked about the "massive effort" to move Second Life's data from servers in Phoenix to Cloud servers by Amazon, feeling it would probably take less than a year longer. As Sansar started with Cloud servers, that gave them some knowledge that helped with their move of the older virtual world's data there. He stated once the move was completed, people in faraway places such as Australia and Asia would better able to enjoy Second Life.

Hamlet asked the CEO about the three top mesh bodies being "horribly optimized" and causing a great deal of lag. The CEO answered what happens to the avatars was ultimately up to the residents, saying that was why they introduced the option to jellydoll high complexity avatars, hoping it would create a supply and demand issue that would pressure avatar makers to come up with less laggy avatars, "we can plead and beg, but ultimately users going to do what users going to do." He did say there ways always the option of giving sim owners the power to limit how complex an avatar on their land.

Altberg called getting Second Life's overall user retention rate going up and continuing to go up "the toughest goal we have." Mentioning that Second Life has a number of games, he mentioned the possibility of introducing a quest.

Of the upcoming iOS viewer for handheld devices, the CEO stated this would not be a true independent viewer, but a "companion." He had no idea at the moment when they might be available.

The talk soon turned to Sansar. Altberg stated the reasons for it's low numbers was that it was still a product very much still in Beta. He went on to say they could have continued to develop it in secret, but wanted to get feedback from those that were using it, "some great users whom have been persistently with (the Sansar team) through this journey." Hamlet asked the CEO why VRChat was so popular in comparison. Altberg answered it was because of the creativity of the avatar makers, which allowed for plenty of roleplay. But in Sansar, a content creator could make money. They can't do that in VRChat. So he was confident eventually Sansar would do better than it's rival. When asked about Second Life residents who questioned why the Lab was investing so much in Sansar, Altberg responded that Second Life had both a larger team and a larger operation budget than Sansar.

Two beautiful products, I love them both for different reasons. ...I hope they're both successful for a long, long time."

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Return of Last Names "Later in 2019" According to Ebbe Linden

Recently Hamlet Au interviewed Ebbe Altberg / Ebbe Linden. Linden Lab's CEO had a number of things to say (which I hope to write about more in depth later this week). On the issue of last names for accounts, which at a Town Hall meeting the Lindens stated would probably arrive sometime in Spring 2019, Altberg stated a different date.

There are some more back-end changes to SL which need to be made before Last Names can make a return (actually, it's really name changes that are the hard part), but we are working on it and hope to have it ready later in 2019.

So it seems once again, the date for last names has been pushed back, this time possibly to December.

Bixyl Shuftan

Viewer Developer's Remarks on Resource-Intensive Avatars Sparks Debate

If there's a universal complaint among the residents of Second Life, it's the lag. The slowness in our viewers rendering images of objects and avatars. Except perhaps for those with the most top of the line computers, everyone gets it. But what opinions differ on is what causes it. Over time, people have pinned blame on things from blingy jewelry to breedables to poorly made objects. But last month in New World Notes, an interview with the creator of the Black Dragon Viewer suggested that some of the more popular mesh avatars were actually particularly bad causes, being so resource intensive, they would slow everyone around them. This caused quite a bit of debate about solutions.

Read more in Extra (note, links to NSFW images).

Sansar Numbers Averaging Less Than 50 Users A Day

When Sansar was finally released several months ago. it initially got a number of curious lookers. But most were disappointed, and stopped coming. It still has a few advocates such as Draxtor Despress, and as his Hoverderby video earlier this month shows there's still groups of people who have fun there. But how many use the place on a regular basis? It turns out the number is surprisingly small. A recent article by Hamlet Au stated data provided by Sansar user Gindipple shows the next-generation virtual world's concurrency numbers averages just ten to fifty users a day!

"It's pretty obvious there isn't much growth right now," Hamlet quoted Gindipple, though the Sansar user remained optimiastic "I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it was set to win the game. So it's got a ways to go yet. They've been a bit slow on development, but there is some recent indications that they are starting to focus some on what I feel is important, allowing us programmers to create rich interactive scenes."

So why aren't people using Sansar? It's no big secret that Linden Lab has been looking beyond it's existing virtual world for users, "casting a wide net." But as the numbers show, it's failed to get more than a tiny number. So are practically all virtual world users in Second Life? Perhaps not as statistics about VR Chat show even after going down from a high of 20,000 users during the "Ugandan Knuckles" meme, this other next-generation virtual world still gets several thousand users a day.

Still, even the successful VR Chat is behind Second Life which after fifteen years still has tens of thousands of people online at any given time. With only one Sansar user for about every several hundred Second Life users, it's clear where Linden Lab's future, at least for the next decade, lies.

Sources: New World Notes, Steam

Bixyl Shuftan

Number of Second Life Users Down to 800,000, But ...

Earlier this month, Backchannel Magazine wrote about the Creations for Parkinsons area, a article that Barbie Alchemi mentioned in a press release. The article gave it's population, or user base, estimated to be at 1.1 million in 2006. In 2013, Linden Lab claimed an active user base of one million. And today, Backchannel stated "An estimated 800,000 users are active on a monthly basis," saying they were told by Linden Lab. While there are a total of almost 50 million accounts according to Daniel Voyager's Second Life Statistic's page, it's not clear how many are alt accounts.

Eight hundred thousand seems small compared to Facebook, which Backchannel stated as having close to two billion users. World of Warcraft, which came around about the same time as Second Life has sometimes been used as a comparison as to how virtual reality hadn't quite caught on the same way as massive multiplayer online games, boasted a total of 100 million accounts (in 2014) with up to over 12 million active players. But it didn't last, and it's numbers of active players dropped to 5.5 million in late 2015 when it's owners announced they would no longer be publishing reports of active numbers. It's probably safe to assume it's dropped further.

Hamlet Au suggested recently in New World Notes that this lower number of active users may not be what it seems at first. Talking with Peter Gray (Pete Linden), he was told, "We've made a number of optimizations to our user acquisition efforts to get more qualified traffic ... As a result, though the total number of monthly actives has come down, the number of paying SL users has held steady."

In layman's terms, Pete Linden says the Lab has changed their advertising to get people more likely to stay and spend time and money in Second Life. Hamlet went on to say he's felt it's more active users numbered closer to 600,000 for some years, "So most likely, dropping from 1,000,000 to 800,000 reported users isn't so much a loss of actual people as a trimming of marketing fluff."

What do you the readers think? Have you noticed fewer people coming in, or has the number of those people leaving been replaced by new users coming in?

Sourcres: Blackchannel, Daniel Voyager, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Commentary: Of Sansar, Ebbe Linden, Hamlet Au, and "Complete Geekdom"

If the Newser's predecessor paper, the Second Life Newspaper, and the self-described tabloid of several years ago, the Alphavile Herald, were "arch-rivals," then the relationship between the Second Life Newser and that of Hamlet Au's "New World Notes" can be described as something of a friendly rivalry. We've occasionally poked fun at Hamlet, such as when he got stuck in a Japanese schoolgirl avatar and couldn't get out. But in the end, he's respected as a journalist with a good record.

Still, his comments on Friday, shortly after he'd given his newsletter's appearance it's first big change in years, left me with a chuckle. Of the recent article on Sansar in Upload VR magazine in which Ebbe Altberg/Ebbe Linden was interviewed, near the end the article talked about how they were trying to make Sansar more user-friendly than Second Life, which even it's core users acknowledge has something of a high learning curve, "Enabling people ... to create amazing content, while still keeping the interface intuitive and user-friendly for the average consumer. That’s something that Second Life never quite achieved, but in building Sansar, Linden Lab is determined to draw lessons from its predecessor."

“We learned some positives but also a lot of ‘that’s not how you do it’ from Second Life,” said Altberg. “So we’re having a much more user-centric approach from the beginning, and try to make sure we stay away from the territory of complete geekdom.”

So as a joke, Hamlet suggested tongue-in-cheek, "This should actually be Sansar's unofficial slogan: 'Avoids Second Life's Complete Geekdom.' "

Hamlet was trying to be funny (Hamlet being a ham?), and some of those responding also made crack comments. A few weren't laughing, "the best proof yet they have no clue who their customer (base) is!" Me, I simply responded in kind, "Staying away from geekdom? So instead of Star Trek and anime fans, it'll have rednecks drinking beer and waving Confederate flags?"

What Ebbe was trying to say was that Linden Lab was trying to make Sansar easier to use, though as Hamlet pointed out, he could have done a better job of doing so. If Second Life was ever in "complete geekdom," it left those days long ago and became filled with people such as war veterans, housewives, farmers, and others whom don't exactly have a reputation for being part of "geekdom." Of course, some farmers can be a *lot* smarter and tech-savy than "city slickers" give them credit for.

Still, if Hamlet Au and Ebbe Linden wish for Sansar to be less "complete geekdom" than Second Life, perhaps they should invite content creators to start making Confederate Navy Jack banners and cans of Budweiser with drinking animations.

Bixyl Shuftan

Pauline Oliveros, Elecrtonic Music Pioneer, Passes Away. Performed in Second Life in 2007

(Click here if the video fails to load)

Hamlet Au recently announced the passing of Pauline Oliveros, a musician whom had done music for many decades and was noted for being a pioneer in electronic music. Second Life was among her experiments, and performances. In this video taken in November 2007 by Hamlet, she performs with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse Group. Her avatar was named Free Noyes.

Her friend Jeremy Turner had this to say on Facebook, "Many composers (even the greatest ones) usually have a peak period before stagnating and burning out. Pauline was exceptional in that her creative output never stagnated. ... Her ideas never became dated over time and were continually on the cutting edge of technological developments... In this century, she will likely be remembered for her telematic performances on Skype as well as her virtual compositions and performances for (and with) the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse in Second Life... Pauline will indeed be seen as a role-model for generations to come."

One Early User of Sansar's Comparison to Second Life: Tourist Park To A Home

"It's like the difference between Disneyland and your hometown."

From the very beginning, Second Life residents have wondered what experiences in Sansar, or "the next generation virtual world" as it was called at first, would be like. At first, we had only the word of Linden Lab, whom were basically saying the place would be "so good, you will gladly give up Second Life for it.." More recently, they began saying this new virtual world would not be for all residents, and there were some screenshots. But it was only a few days ago in which the viewpoint of someone other than an employee of Linden Lab was available.

In New World Notes, Hamlet Au wrote about an interview with a "longtime Second Life user and professional developer" whom was willing to talk with him about his/her experiences in Sansar.

SL and Sansar are different animals. Neither is better than the other at everything. There are things that I wouldn't dare to do in SL that might fit in an Experience or set of experiences in Sansar (especially ideas that in SL would require severe tier upkeep because of land requirements), and there are things I could do in SL that I probably will never be able to in Sansar if they opt for a conservative toolbox of functions. It's like the difference between Disneyland and your hometown.

Why did he/she describe the difference like that?

Sansar is Disneyland. Great attractions, shiny things all over, modern technology seeping out of every Experience in the hands of competent Creators... Potential for a vast range of sized Experiences ranging from intimate comedy club settings all the way to potentially a small stadium, without the restrictions of altitude or sim width/breadth of SL. If Linden Lab keeps putting their nose to the grind and makes reasonable decisions, the worst that can be said technically of it is that it was a competently executed system for supporting creativity. 

But living there might be tricky: Experiences currently seem very locked down, with interactions with physically enabled objects in an Experience the only way to leave any sign you were there. Unless you publish an experience, you're basically stuck as a tourist. Whether you're okay with being absolved of all creative power outside of a reserved sandbox that nobody else can interact in by your side at the moment is really a personal decision (I honestly hope that some work is done to allow for collaborational Experience design by the time Sansar goes gold - it would allow for teams and larger-scale experience builds, and might take a little of that issue away.)

Second Life is your hometown. The posters on the wall that are still there are kind of tacky, your fellow residents are occasionally problematic, perhaps to the point of blocking and booting. Every step and gaze will always feel clunky with what few tools you have to move yourself and the camera. The rent (if you have land or adverts in-world) is potentially insane if you have more than a quarter sim. And occasionally you will look out the window of your diner and be greeted by disembodied dongs flying past en mass chanting offensive memes. 

But every sandbox is a potential explosion of creativity when the right residents are standing it it, even if they only use canned sculpties or parametric prims for building, and unlike Sansar right now, it's a lot easier to find a community to belong to in-world at most times of the day.

So from the point of many older residents, Sansar seems like a great place to visit, but without being able to build they wouldn't want to live there. It seems Linden Lab is trying to attract a different crowd, more interested in bells and whistles than taking the time to build things.

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Questions Concerning Sansar and Real-Life Names Continue

By Bixyl Shuftan

I may not have erred so much after all.

It was about a week ago in which I wrote an article about Ebbe Altberg / Ebbe Linden's appearance at "Meet the Lindens" at the Second Life Birthday. Not having a recorder, I took handwritten notes the best I could, and from what I had heard, it seemed Ebbe Linden was leaning towards, though not necessarily strongly supporting, Sansar requiring it's users to go by their real life names. As it turned out, I had missed a few lines of dialouge afterwards in which he stated he favored users retain the ability to go about anonymously. And so I retracted that part of the article.

Hamlet Au, whom had put his spotlight on my article over the issue, wasn't yet ready to call the matter settled just yet. He did get in touch with Peter Gray (Peter Linden), who stated no, Sansar would not require users of Sansar to use their Real-Life identities. But his enquiries to Ebbe Linden went unanswered. Going by the line I had missed, "do I want that people in Sansar should be able to walk around anonymously? Absolutely!" That line certainly sounds like a desire to continue to use online pseudonyms.

But what about the line "But I think what would be best for Sansar would be real names, and then the ability to have personas underneath that." And then there was his earlier comparison of Second Life, which he called on "the far spectrum of the anonymity side," and Facebook, which he called "probably the most successful real system on planet Earth," which relied on real names. this was followed by his saying "we're trying to think of ways of potentially mixing these models."

So what he could have been saying is that Linden Lab is thinking of a system for Sansar in which users can go about inside the virtual world using inworld pseudonyms, but requiring the use of real-life identities for signing up for accounts to go on there.

Hamlet Au had five questions he wanted Ebbe Linden to answer:

1. Will Project Sansar only require users' real names to be registered with the company and by default, only be known by the company (in normal circumstances)?

2. Under what circumstances will Linden Lab reveal Project Sansar users' real names to authorities?

3. Under what circumstances will Linden Lab reveal Project Sansar users' real names to other users?

4. In Project Sansar, will displaying real names in a user's publicly viewable account be opt-in, or opt-out?

5. In Project Sansar, will Facebook Connect or other linking with a user's Facebook account be mandatory?

Hamlet Au went on to comment, " At this point, I think the only thing we can be sure of is Sansar will require users to register their real names internally on the system, but still allow some level of anonymous and/or pseudonymous identity and activity -- but how much, and with whom, and in what contexts, are not yet clearly laid out. At the same time, it's also clear Linden Lab's CEO has a personal preference for making real names primary -- but how that will actually be implemented is still unclear."

* * * * *

Of my less than completely accurate statement, I have yet to see where anyone truly slammed me for it. At most, what was stated was, "this isn't exactly what he was saying." And Hamlet Au upon hearing the news found what I thought was being considered hard to believe, but chalked it up to a misunderstanding such as possibly a "telephone error."

Talking about the matter with friends, everyone who had an opinion felt I was overreacting upon realizing the error I had made. Several expressed skepticism with Sansar even after my correction, but for other reasons such as being unable to move anything over there, concerns that Linden Lab might take the opportunity to correct what it saw as "mistakes" it had made with Second Life by not allowing or restricting certain abilities and freedoms. One commented the only thing I did wrong was that it was an accident, thinking it would do the paper good if I did an "National Enquirer" style story once in a while.

No thanks. Aside from obvious fictional stories like the "Tales from Podex" and the April Fool articles, we'll be sticking with the truth. We always have. And considering certain characters over the years such as zFire Xue, Flashdust Lamington, and Monkey Wonder, concerning Linden blunders that helped sink the SS Galaxy and the Steelhead Estates, and more recently the antics of political groups, Second Life journalists don't need to make things up. Eventually controversy appears on it's own somewhere.

In any event, it's a relief to hear that my journalistic instincts really were pointing in the right direction.

Sources: Hamlet Au, Inara Pey

Bixyl Shuftan

More on "Sansar" as the Code Name For Linden Lab's Next Generation Grid

It was a few days ago on May 5 that Linden Lab announced the code name of their next generation virtual world still in development: Project Sansar. There's been some conversation here and there about it, such as the SL Universe forums, and New World Notes. Hamlet Au didn't like the name, "Sansar seems like such a silly name. I'm personally inclined to keep calling it Second Life 2 for now." It did remind him of two things. One was the name of the largest mainland continent in Second Life: Sansara. The other was Philip Rosedale's original idea for Second Life's name, "Sensarra."

Strawberry Singh posted in Twitter that "Sansar" was an actual word, meaning "world" in Sanskrit. It was also brought up the name could easily be twisted around in mocking ways, such as "Sexar." Adeon Writer explained a couple other meanings, "Sanasr is Turkish for Ferret. It's also some term for reincarnation. So reincarnated ferrets. And since the most important question to ask in a virtual world is 'Can you be a ferret?' I think the name is perfect."

Canary Beck in contrast to Hamlet Au thought the name was a good one, giving "Ten Reasons Why Sansar Would Be A Good Name For The Successor to Second Life." As listed, "It's unique, the dot-com TLD looks easy to acquire, it's easy to type and pronounce, it's easy to remember, it's short, it feels right, it's protectable, it carries no baggage, it's a place, not a life, it's exotic and visually extendable."

With all these in mind, I keep going back to the Turkish meaning of the word, ferret, and have this mental image of the new world being populated by masses of ferret Tinies, all doing the "Riverdance."

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Hamlet Au (James Wagner), the head of New World Notes, has been quite a rival for the SL News audience, at least in the past. Lately though he hasn't been reporting on Second Life as he once has. In April 2011, we both dropped in on a Japanese charity event, and to my surprise he was in the Japanese schoolgirl avatar. He told me he was testing the "basic mode" for newcomers on the official viewer at the time, and he somehow got stuck as a girl due to a glitch. My response was over a minute of laughing gestures, "Oh you are SO cartooned!"

So after three years, here you go Hamlet.

Bixyl Shuftan

Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden) No Longer on Linden Lab's Board

Hamlet Au of New World Notes reported yesterday that Philip Rosedale, Second Life's founder and also known here as Philip Linden, confirmed that he was no longer on Linden Lab's board of directors.


"I left the board around the start of the year [as] I was starting High Fidelity, but on great terms -- both Mitch [Kapor] and Linden are both investors in High Fidelity, and I'm still a big shareholder in Linden."

No longer on the board, Rosedale "no longer has any more input on company management decisions, overall direction, or policy formation." Hamlet saw this as a milestone in the history of Second Life as it means for the first time, "no Linden board member has direct day to day experience with Second Life as a product or personal memory of it's development of its hardcore user base." Most of it's current board comes from the gaming industry, which "suggests a very different direction for the company" than it's founder. "Veterans of the traditional game industry tend to take a very aggressive view on intellectual property," Hamlet noted, suggesting that might in part explain the recent Terms of Service controversy.

While he still has shares in Linden Lab, this news means the last "old hand" has truly left. How this affects the residents remains to be seen.

Source: New World Notes

More On The ToS Content Creator Rights Controversy

By Bixyl Shuftan

In the past few days, there have been more reactions to the revised Second Life Terms of Service concerning content creator rights. On Saturday October 5, Bryn Oh, a well known artist in Second Life known for her work on "The Rabbicorn" and other exhibitions, resigned from the Linden Endowments of the Arts' committee.

As it stands now I don't feel comfortable luring artists into creating content for Linden Labs who can pretty much do whatever they want with it.  I will take the risk with my own content but I wont encourage others to do so.  ...  Linden Lab could scoop (your content) up and put their money behind it, while you struggled to promote it from your basement.  The TOS ... is just another indignity artists and thinkers must suffer, and I don't want to be a part of it.  ...  I don't honestly believe Linden Lab would do these terrible, immoral things yet they have not explained anything to the community.  They have not said "Oh hey I can see how it looks alarming but really we just need that wording to help us market the product easier etc ect.. and we needed to add "sell" and "re-sell" to the wording for this reason.."  Do you want to sell our content through Desura your new digital distribution acquisition as some have speculated?  If so then explain and share and you might have a willing partner.  But right now there is a lot of speculation, distrust and no clarification.

Bryn Oh felt for now, the public should continue to watch and see. After that, "If in a few weeks they still have not addressed the concerns from the community, then perhaps it's time we preserve our avatar names in other virtual worlds as well." Bryn had accounts in both Cloud Party and Inworldz, "Perhaps spend an hour in a different virtual world each week. Hopefully it is all just a big misunderstanding and we can we can be reassured that our ideas and content are safely our own."

The following day, another artist became involved in the controversy. Johnas Merlin stopped work on his exhibit at LEA26 due to the new ToS. The reasons weren't specifically because of ethical questions, but the "new Terms of Service … make it illegal for me to use some of the content I had planned to use." Johnas has not yet decided whether or not to keep making art or other goods in Second Life.

Last week, New World Notes started a survey for content creators, asking those responding if they had stopped creating or selling content. Of the 266 people who answered, 121 or 45% answered "yes" compared to the 113 or 42% who answered "no." Hamlet Au remarked the results "suggest concern over the ToS which is actually affecting user behavior. Often a Linden Lab policy change causes drama and protest, but has little impact on activity. Apparently not so in this case."

Hamlet asked the Lab two weeks ago if they planed to change the words in question of the ToS to ease the content creators. He has yet to receive an answer.

Sources: Bryn Oh, Ziki's Blog, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan