More SL14B Exhibits

The Second Life Fourteenth Birthday is over. But the sims remain up for viewing for another week. For the Newser, it's a chance to document a few more exhibits, as well as show you the readers what examples await you in the time that's left.

See the pictures in Places.

1920s Berlin Project's Eighth Anniversary Celebrations

History fans in Second Life should be happy to know that the 1920's Berlin Project is celebrating it's eighth anniversary. Jo Yardley, who runs the historical roleplay community, made an announcement on her blog.

I can’t believe that it has been 8 years since that evening in 2009 when I opened my club and had our first little 1920s Berlin themed party in a tiny skybox. I didn’t expect much of it, I had only been in SL for a week when I started building and I had no idea what I was doing. But the theme somehow managed to attract the right crowd and within no time a vibrant community of creative, fun, interesting and exciting people started to grow and populate my simplistic pile of prims.

It is impossible to explain how much the 1920s Berlin project means to me and I am always touched and excited to hear that it also means a lot to so many others.

Starting May 30 and ending June 6, there will be celebratory events daily, mostly in the early to mid afternoon, though a few are in the late morning or late afternoon. Tuesday May 30 was the dance under the Brandenburg Gate, followed by fireworks. Wednesday May 31 has children's events. Thursday June 1 includes the food festival with beer, sausage, beer, cheese, and more beer. Friday June 2 will be a celebratory dinner and live music at the Hotel Adlon. Saturday June 3 has the Miss Berlin Beauty pageant. Sunday June 4 has the opening of a new library and art venue. Monday June 5 has a pool party and a showing of the movie "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1931). Tuesday June 6 is when the normal rules about modern clothing and nonhuman avatars are relaxed (personal note: the only day I can get into the place with my normal look).

There is also a "My Favorite Spot in Berlin" photo contest, with a 2500 Linden prize (second place 1000 Lindens).

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/1920s%20Berlin%20Project/243/224/1929

Source: 1920's Berlin Project  

The Time Portal Community Hub

Gemma Cleanslate's latest travels took her to a place that can take visitors to other places representing different time periods, the Time Portal Community. Created by Jo Yardley, noted for her 1920s Berlin Project, the hub is for "time travelers and virtual history." Gemma used it to engage in a virtual history tour herself.

Read Gemma's article in Places.

Lindens at the Cake Stage

There's been a lot going on at the SL13B, and a little time to write it. One event that stood out was called the "The Roleplay Mashup Meetup," which took place on Monday. But for many residents, the name was a little confusing as it was intended as a costume party and not a roleplay, and to many the costume part got lost in that it was a chance to meet up with a number of Lindens. Some were Lindens whom were familiar faces, such as Xiola and April Linden. But others were less than familiar. There were also a few other notable personalities, and no shortage of avatars.

See the pictures in Events.

Ebbe Linden at the SLB

At 3PM SL time at the SL13B Auditorium all this week, "Meet the Lindens" events have been taking place. On Monday, Brett and the popular Torley Linden were interviewed. On Tuesday, it was the turn of Ebbe Linden, Ebbe Altberg in real life, the CEO of Linden Lab. The interview was carried out by Jo yardley, with help from Zander Green, with Saffia Widdershins taking questions from the audience. Yours truly was also in the audience, taking notes the best he could.

Ebbe at first talked about what he did before coming to Linden Lab, stating he had worked with "technologies that empower people," having worked at Yahoo. He described himself as being involved with Linden Lab since almost the beginning, a man he had known since college whom was working with the Lab had approached him "back in the day" when Second Life had barely started, eventually meeting Philip Linden. He got the overall concept of the virtual world, which was further sharpened by his oldest son becoming a user. He saw it as "an incredible opportunity for someone to go online and create ... do business." When he was approached with the offer to lead the Lab, it was an opportunity he couldn't turn down.

Ebbe Linden stated he wanted the residents of Second Life to be "passionate" about their virtual world. He was impressed with what artists and others were doing, and the "sheer complexity of user creativity," calling the place a "complex ecosystem." He called virtual reality a "huge opportunity," albeit one with a "huge number of problems to be solved." As none of the bigger corporations were involved, in some ways it was "uncharted territory." He gave praise to the builders and roleplayers whom were in "lots of communities" with "lots of reasons for being here." He emphasized the diversity of the virtual world where the residents could "learn from each other, share with each other ... incredible blend of things, awe-inspiring to me."

"I can't take much credit for Second Life. I've tried to do good things in the past couple years ... have had a good team with me."

Ebbe would then answer some questions. On Oculus Rift, Ebbe stated that integrating it with Second Life properly had been a "huge effort" as the virtual world hadn't been designed with it in mind. In contrast, Sansat had been designed with the virtual headset in mind. But he did say that some video cards had just come out that would be of help with using Oculus Rift in Second Life.

Asked about when proper mirrors could be available in Second Life, Ebbe stated he couldn't answer that question as there was no signs of the technical problems involved being solved.

When asked about recent fluctuations in the value of the Linden dollar, Ebbe answered the problem was between the users of Second Life and Linden Lab was staying out of it, at least for now, "we're on the sideline's watching it." He stated the Lab could get involved if it wanted to, such as increasing the supply of Lindens, "but we're trying to be passive and let the market go where it wants to." As to how it started, Ebbe felt as the number of users of Second Life had remained very stable, it was possible the value fluctuations could be related to some decisions made by Linden Lab such as discontinuing third party currency exchangers and the chance for residents to gain grandfathered pricing levels.

Asked about Sansar, Ebbe stated it would have a "different feel" than Second Life. While like Second Life there would be a great deal of freedom on what one could do, it was still under development and until it had been developed more, "we don't know quite hoe it's going to be. ... Sansar is not trying to be the same thing as Second Life. It's supposed to be a different product. ... For some, it will not be as good as Second Life." While there would be some "overlap" with what could be done in Second Life, there would be differences.

Asked about Sansar's avatar controls, Ebbe stated that they were still being worked on, "we can't fly, yet." But there was the option for either a first person or third person point of view. As now now, avatar customization options were very limited, but this too was still being worked on.

Ebbe was then asked if users of Sansar would have the option to chose their own names for their avatars, or would they be having to use real-life identities. Ebbe answered he was leaning to the latter, "I think what's best for Sansar is real names. ... anonymous identities makes things confusing."

After the interview was done, Ebbe got up, and those in the audience were invited to walk up to say hello, or pose for a picture. One girl posed in front of him with a "selfie stick," much to the amusement to a few.

On Wednesday today, Landon and Oz Linden will be interviewed. On Thursday, Pete and Xiola Linden get their turn. Finally on Friday, Patch and Dee Linden will close the "Meet the Lindens" events.

Addition: Inara Pey later put some transcripts of the event on her newsblog (here). Among what the transcripts shown was an important line of dialogue that I had missed.


Bixyl Shuftan

May 4 Lab Chat Videos and Transcripts Now Available

For those who missed the Lab Chat some days ago, hosted by Saffia Widdershins and Jo Yardley, along with Ebbe, Oz, and Troy Linden, there are now videos and a transcript of the event.



(click here if the video fails to play).

The videos, the above, part two, and part three, were posted by Linden Lab. Inara Pey provided the transcript, in addition to a summary of the event: "Lab Chat #3 in 10-ish Minutes."

Sources: Lab Chat Blog, Modem World.

Lab Chat in LEA4 on May 4

By Gemma Cleanslate

I was happy to be able to attend the latest Chat Lab at LEA 4 on Friday. It is good to see these discussions continue. Saffia Widdershins and Frau Jo Yardley hosted and presented questions that had been submitted prior to the event and then switched to the audience questions. You will be able hear the entire conversation or read the transcripts soon. This is just a teaser.The Lindens participating were Troy Linden, Oz Linden and Ebbe Linden. They tried to keep the answers understandable and not too technical although some was over my head. There were over 100 avatars at the meeting, including some other Lindens attending also: Xiola, Keira, Pete.

Saffia opened with the announcement that there the LEA(Linden Endowment for the Arts) land grant applications are open to creators who wish to apply.

Then they went directly to questions. The first few were about Bento, and involved the new processes of movements that will be up coming. Some creators are using certain moves in very creative ways as you will see. The lab is trying to incorporate suggestions of the residents into its development and are actually thrilled to see the residents being so creative. It sounds all very interesting and I hope to try the beta just to take a peek.

There was discussion of the current viewer improvements that they are working on. Another question was about uploading of mesh and how to make it easier to upload more than the present 8 faces at a time.

They moved on to Sansar and one thing I found very interesting is the goal of being able to accommodate more than 100 avatars at bigger events  and possibly concurrent across some worlds and are hoping that by the end of this year there may be some movement in that area. Right now the most work is going into testing for the fundamental and basic user experience to be sure it is the best it can be. Thousands of creators have asked to be in beta for Sansar and at this point hopefully they will be notified and admitted in July or August . They are looking for committed users to use the beta , and as they need to be sure the project is ready enough not to inflict “too much pain on the first users.”

It is great to hear the Linden Lab group so accepting to suggestions from the questioners who have good ideas to be incorporated. That is how we solve things here says Frau Jo.

Another interesting question was regarding some of the avatars who are begging in groups for 100 L for rent for example and the best way to report them. Reporting by AR  is requested, please, with all the possible information for the Lab to be able to make a decision based on what they are told. It is better not to flood with multiple AR’s because it slows down the process. It is the nature of the complaint that is the issue and not the number.

The Lab is not ready to discuss money issues in Sansar but it looks like there will be some form of coin like lindens but that is still ahead for decision making .One sad thing I heard is that Mac users will have to wait until  the end of the year or more before all the doors will work. Some more linden experiences on the way but not yet ready for prime time.  There is much information, some not understood by me, but they try hard to not make it too technical in nature. It is good  to see the Lindens back in Second Life working and playing with the residents. It is greatly appreciated that they are listening to the residents. The meeting with a couple of breaks lasted for almost 1 hour and a half and it was most interesting. There is  uch more discussion that you will want to hear for yourself. Watch for the announcement of the transcript availability.  https://labchatsl.wordpress.com/  is the place to find it and the past ones are there for you to check out while you wait. 

Gemma Cleanslate

SL Video: "Lab Chat - Episode 2 (Jan. 21, 2016) "

(Click here if the video fails to play)

Here's the video of last week's "Lab Chat," with Ebbe Linden, Saffia Widdershins, and Jo Yardley. Transcripts can be found on Inara Pey's "Modem World." Projects Bento and Sansar were discussed, among other subjects.

Linden Lab's "Lab Chat" Launches

Yesterday, Thursday November 19, was the first session of "Lab Chat," the new Q an A show organized by Linden Lab. The show started at 10:30 AM, taking place at the LEA Theater, and went "well over an hour." Jo Yardley and Saffia Widdershins hosted the show with Ebbe Linden.

Due to real life, none of the Newser reporters could attend the show. But Ciaran Laval was there, and wrote some about the event on her blog. She described it as going "quite smoothly, which was quite impressive with a four region setup that attracted over 150 people. The show launched on time, without any technical issues ... The questions had been selected from a pool of 46 questions submitted via the official Second Life forum."

Ebbe was described as talking "about land, commerce, Marketplace, experiences," and other topics. Of the Grid's land, of which there was a drop in sim set-up fees earlier this week, Ebbe stated that the Lab was continuing to look at options, but there were limits that could be done. Ciaran wrote that "reading between the lines," Ebbe was essentially saying there would be no drop in sim prices.

Ciaran reported there were a number of other Lindens there, "some lurking backstage where they were also joined by some of the Lab Chat production team, bloggers and of course residents who found backstage a less taxing location for their graphics stage than the main theater." She stated the team was "taking unscheduled questions and even asking their own questions."

The official page of Lab Chat (https://labchatsl.wordpress.com/) stated they hope to have a transcript of the event soon, and hope to have a recording of the event available by Tuesday.

Source: Ciaran Laval

Image Credit: Torley Linden

Eye on the Blog: "Lab Chat" Q and A Show to Begin Nov. 19

A few days ago on their official blog, Linden Lab announced details about a new show inworld in which residents will get the chance to have questions about Second Life and Sansar answered by individual Lindens. Called "Lab Chat," the Lab called it a "resident-driven" show done "in the spirit" of conferences such as those at the VWBPE and the "Meet the Lindens" events at the SL12B earlier this year.

In the spirit of the open Q&A sessions held at inworld events like the VWBPE conference and the Meet the Lindens series, we’re pleased to participate in a new Resident-driven initiative called “Lab Chat.”
Lab Chat is an opportunity for you to ask Lindens your questions during a live taping that will be recorded and archived for everyone to view. 

The first Lab Chat will be Thursday, November 19th, at 10:30am SLT at the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre - with guest Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab. 

Residents from the Lab Chat production team - Draxtor Despres, Gentle Heron, Marianne McCann, Elrik Merlin, Petlove Petshop, Inara Pey, Arduenn Schwartzmann, Aisling Sinclair, Devin Vaughan, Saffia Widdershins, and Jo Yardley - will pick questions to ask Ebbe from this forum thread - so be sure to get your questions into the thread no later than Friday November 13th, 2015. Authors of selected questions will be invited to ask their question live at the inworld show. Time permitting - additional questions from the audience will be answered.

If you are unable to attend the live show, a recording will be available shortly after the first Lab Chat wraps, so no one will miss out!

Inara Pey, a noted blogger whom is part of the production team, called her role "relatively minor ... producing transcripts of each Lab Chat session, which will be available, possibly with audio extracts, on these pages most likely on a forthcoming Lab Chat website." She stated it's hoped that Lab Chat will be a monthly series.

The location of the November 19, 10:30 AM SL time show will be at LEA3 (33/78/35 )

Second Life Featured on Dr. Phil

Second Life isn't featured in mainstream media as much as it used to be. So when it is, it's news. And when The virtual world was going to be mentioned on the "Dr. Phil" talk show, Linden Lab mentioned in on their blog.

Mark your calendars and set your DVRs: an upcoming episode of the popular daytime talk show, Dr. Phil will feature Second Life and some comments from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg (Ebbe Linden in SL). The episode is slated to air on Tuesday, July 14, and you can find your local listings through the Dr. Phil website. Be sure to catch the very beginning of the show - you won’t want to miss Dr. Phil controlling his avatar live on what’s very likely the largest monitor Second Life has ever run on (40 feet wide!).

And in the first few minutes of the show, Dr. Phil used "the very popular Second Life" as an example of how far computer entertainment has gone from the early days of Pong and Pac Man, "I can literally create an entire world for myself and meet other people, or at least their avatars." The audience chuckled as they saw his avatar somersault in the air and fly, "Let me see you do *that*!" He showed clips of his avatar flying around, with and without a plane, riding a "Tron" lightcycle, walking the streets of 1920s Berlin, and shop in a virtual store.

But the show wasn't mainly about Second Life, but rather, the story about one 23 year old young man whom had a severe gaming addiction.

The episode is focused on helping a young man who is sadly struggling with a number of problems, including an addiction to playing an online game. He’s not a Second Life user, nor is Second Life presented on the show as a negative experience. Instead, it’s shown as an example of how far digital experiences have come from the days of Pac-Man and Pong, and Ebbe briefly speaks with Dr. Phil about some of the incredibly positive ways Second Life is being used by people around the world - from education to entrepreneurship, creative self-expression, and more.

In addition to a number of Lindens who helped make it possible for Second Life to be included in the program, we’d like to give special thanks to Naughty Mole, Abnor Mole, Ancient Mole, Bat Mole, and Draxtor Despres for their help in creating Dr. Phil’s avatar and filming some inworld footage showing his explorations of Second Life.

Dr. Phil emphasized early on he wasn't slamming computer gaming in general, "I think they can be very good." But that it was the abuse of them that he was concerned about. Later in the show, he invited Ebbe Altberg (known inworld as Ebbe Linden), Linden Lab's CEO, whom was in the TV audience, a few moments to explain.

In her blog, Jo Yardley mentioned she had met the Dr. Phil avatar, concluding it was either him or someone from his TV show team. With the show not yet having been played, she had mixed feelings about Second Life being mentioned on his show, "I soon learned that Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab) was also interviewed by Dr. Phil and Ebbe knows how to handle himself when talking to the media. ... And with its several million users, it could be a nice bit of PR for SL.The first videos the Dr. Phil show has put online so far seem to share with the world that not all games are bad and Second Life seems to get some positive attention, being described as the good side of gaming. Still, I can’t help but be a little worried about how our virtual world is going to be portrayed to the media, will we be part of the problem, or part of the solution?"

Strawberry Singh described in her own blog about how she, Draxtor Despress, and Marianne McCann helped out Dr, Phil in his flying. She would later watch the episode in question, an update her entry

I watched the show and live plurked it all at this link. Dr. Phil didn’t say anything negative about gaming, virtual worlds or Second Life. He just said that it’s the ‘abuse’ not the ‘use’ of gaming that is dangerous. He also had some other gamers on, after Ebbe, that talked about how they have full, successful real lives but still balance a healthy gaming lifestyle along with their real lives.

So it appears Second Life's portrayal was short but positive. Hopefully there will be more and longer exposures in the larger media soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

"Something Amazing" And Other SLB 12 Exhibits

Across the Second Life Birthday grounds, there are many exhibits. Some stand out, due to detail, interactivity, or both. Bixyl Shuftan took a closer look at some which were recommended by others. In the case of one, "Something Amazing," the builder Kenny Luckless was interviewed about his exhibit.

Read more in Places.

Winter Wonderland: Four Sims Full of Fun

It's getting later in the winter season, but Gemma Cleanslate is still out and exploring for places where one can have fun in the snow. This time she checks out a place opened up by Linden Lab itself, their winter wonderland. There's four sims of various winter activities, such as snowmobiles. Not all the activities were planned, as she stumbled across a snowball fight. And there were the people she ran into, Second Life notables such as Marianne McCann and Jo Yardley, and various Lindens and Moles.

Read Gemma's story in Places.

"Massive Griefer Attack" Reported in Caledon

Jo Yardley reported yesterday of a "massive griefer attack" on the Caledon steampunk community sims, and other spots on the Grid. The above picture was taken with an SL Go viewer, "With my regular viewer I doubt I would have been able to even take a single step." The picture shows a mass of what one commentator called, "tortured torus prims," whose physics added to the lag.

One of the administrators of the Purrfection sims was called to deal with a reported case of griefing, but it was delt with in minutes.

Jo Yardley suggested the following responses to a griefer attack

1. Alert Linden Lab (if live chat support happens to be online…)
2. Go to a place in your sim that is HIGH up, most attacks don’t reach very high and with your draw distance set to very low, lag might be a lot less at high altitude, from here you can take further steps without drowning in lag porridge.
3. It is a good idea to create a landmark for this spot so you can teleport here from outside the sim.
4. In the region/estate window turn off ‘Allow Public Access’, this will remove all visitors and keep new people from arriving, giving you some peace but also keeps the griefers from returning.
5. In the debug tab disable everything, this may bring down lag as well and may stop the griefers toys from working.
6. Return the griefers objects.
7. Restart the region(s).

In most cases this will help, but of course it depends on the situation and the type of attack.

Judging from the comments, the attacks seem to be over, at least for now.

1920s Berlin Project Fifth Anniversary's Open House

Among the historical RP areas is the 1920s Berlin Project by Jo Yardley. Normally closed to nonhuman avatars, it was briefly opened to them in its "Open House" last Thursday as part of it's Fifth Anniversary line of events. Bixyl Shuftan took the chance to visit the place, listened to a few locals, including Jo, and took a few pictures.

Read more in Events.

New Mesh Default Avatars for Second Life Newcomers

Earlier this month, Linden Lab introduced new starting avatars for beginning Second Life users. Residents got an early peek when Ebbe Linden was in public as one while giving a speech for the VWPBE conference in April. Some expressed hope this would be an improvement for the newcomer experience with better looking avatars. Finally on May 15th, the Lab announced their arrival.


Today, we’re updating Second Life’s default avatar options with 24 brand new mesh avatars. You may have spotted a sneak peek at a few of these as Lindens tried them out recently, and starting today, you can start using them yourself! These avatars are designed to give new users a more appealing set of choices as they start their time in Second Life. Based on the most popular avatars picked at registration, these new options are much better-looking and take advantage of technology incorporated into Second Life over the past year (like fitted mesh and materials) for a more modern feel.

 To access these default avatars, one has to use the official viewer. So those who favor Firestorm, Singularity, or another third-party viewer will have to temporarily switch over. Under the "People" tab, one finds the selection of default avatars. The good news, these avatars are more detailed, the human ones more appealing and the monster ones looking scarier. For some reason, all the monster avs are listed as "vampire," even though they include a werewolf, a gargoyle, a zombie, and a monster hunter (human?).

The bad news, these avatars can't be modified. You can't change the eye color. You can't make the nose a little smaller. You can't change the hair color. contrast this with many MMOs such as Elder Scrolls or even the long-standing World of Warcraft in which players can modify their characters appearance, sometimes with lots of options and many degrees of variation. Even earlier newcomer experiences in Second Life invited and encouraged the new user to make changes to their avatar.

The old (human) default avatars are still an option, now listed as "classic." These are still modifiable. But assuming a newcomer chooses one of the new avatars first, it might be a while before they figure that out.

Jo Yardley had a few things to say about the new avatars on her blog. When they were just about to appear, she expressed hope they would help encourage new users to stay. But once they arrived, she had mixed emotions, "I ... fear a flood of new users visiting my sim, and then having to explain to them that they won't be able to dress their avatar in 1920s clothes because we don't have fitted mesh 1920s clothes as a freebie ... and having to explain to them how to completely change their avatar ... good idea to replace the old avatars, about time even, but I don't think it is a huge improvement to Second Life as a whole." Her idea of a better solution was instead of giving newcomers a choice of 36 avatars, why not allow them to create their own? "Creating, adapting, and customising your avatar should be fun and easy. Look at the game industry to see how they do it, and translate that to an avatar builder on the SL website. If others can do it, so can we."

Hopefully Ebbe Linden and the Lab are listening.

Top image from Linden Lab
Sources: Linden Blog, Jo Yardley's Second Life 

Bixyl Shuftan

April Fools Across Second Life

Yesterday's April Fool's prank article on the Newser got a number of comments both in the story's feedback section and on my Facebook page. It also got a few comments when I shared it with friends, "Bix ... just so you know, I'm gonna kill you." A SL Newser tradition that never gets old, and yes, the writer pulled a number of jokes on real-life coworkers that day as well.

But the Newser wasn't the only one pulling a prank. Far from it.

Gwyneth Llewelyn and Jo Yardley ended up pulling almost the same exact prank. With Facebook having recently bought Oculus Rift, suppose it went after Second Life next? That was the joke pulled by these two bloggers. Gwyenth did a fairly long article that looked believable, complete with photos.  Jo Yardley had an official looking picture, which was posted to both her blog and Facebook page, "Told you so." One woman commented, "I will have to wear a burka on stage now!"

The Second Life Enquirer decided not to go with a joke story, and instead tried pranking some residents inworld (link contains mature subject matter). The results were, mixed.

And as it turned out, Linden Lab itself got into the act. They announced an "Analglyph 3D Mode," in which viewers could supposedly get the illusion of a three dimensional view with disposable red and blue glasses like those used for 1950's 3D movies. The announcement stated, "While we look forward to bringing Second Life into the future with exciting new technologies like VR headsets, we also think it's important to balance cutting edge innovation with tried and true last-century technology." The last line, "at least on April 1st," would be when the readers would facepalm.

Inara Pey covered the joke announcement on her blog matter of factly, stating in the comments, "it shows the Lab's sense of humor hasn't totally died."

So Second Life had it's share of general foolery. There was plenty of it going around the Internet, such as World of Tanks and War Thunder, but that is for another article.

*Addition* The Green Lanterns also did a joke article, saying they'd just been given official enforcement powers by Linden Lab. 

Bixyl Shuftan

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

"What (Do) You Want to Ask Ebbe Altberg, New CEO of Linden Lab?"

It looks like Linden Lab's new CEO will be meeting up with one of Second Life's residents for a discussion, Jo Yardley of the 1920s Berlin Project, and more recently one of the people behind the Drax Files Radio hour. She posted about it on her blog, and invited readers to offer questions to ask (link).

I’ve been invited to have a chat with Ebbe Altberg, the brand new CEO of Linden Lab.

I have of course a big pile of questions and there probably is not enough time to ask them all, but I wanted to give the readers of this blog a chance to ask him some as well.

So, leave your question to mr Altberg in the comments section below and if I get the chance I’ll ask it.

So, what would you ask the new boss of Linden Lab?

1920s Berlin to Hold Fourth Anniversary Celebration

From Thursday May 30th to Sunday June 2nd, the 1920s Berlin Project will be holding special events to celebrate four years on the Grid. The following was on the 1920s Berlin blog:

On the 30th of may, 4 years ago I opened the first version of our 1920s Berlin sim, it became a much bigger success then I could have imagined and has managed to survive longer then anyone could have predicted. To celebrate the sim's birthday and how well the sim is doing in general, we’re having a few days of fun! The schedule may change at any time, but at the moment it looks a bit like this:

Thursday 30th May:
Keller party, small scale.
We’ll drink, hand out some freebies, dance, chat and invite everyone who wants to to get up on stage to tell about their discovery of Berlin, their life here, to perhaps sing, do a trick or show off another talent.

Friday 31st May:
The Grand Anniversary Dance at unter den Linden

Saturday 1st June
Relaxed Rules Day
11:00 Tea Dance
12:00 Pool party
14:00 Eldorado evening – Revealing new building

Sunday 2nd June
Kids Day!
Special class, playground games, football game

More things will be added and there will be a few surprises too…

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager