From Linden Lab on June 27, the last of the "Meet the Lindens" events of the SL23B on Friday June 26, "Members of the Second Life Studios team answer community questions in this special "Meet the Lindens" event from Second Life's 23rd Birthday Celebration"
From Linden Lab on June 25, the Meet the Lindens event on Thursday June 25, "Members of the Second Life Marketing & Growth team answer community questions in this special "Meet the Lindens" event from Second Life's 23rd Birthday Celebration"
From Linden Lab on Wednesday June 24, the "Meet The Lindens" event earlier that day, "Members of the Second Life Engineering team answer community questions in this special "Meet the Lindens" event from Second Life's 23rd Birthday Celebration"
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."
From Linden Lab on June 23, the Monday June 22 Meet the Lindens event with Philip Linden, "Second Life founder Philip Rosedale (aka Philip Linden) answers community questions in this special "Meet the Lindens" event from Second Life's 23rd Birthday Celebration."
There were a number of questions and statements sent by residents ahead of time, as well as those brought up by people in the audience. Philip Linden (Philip Rosedale) did his best to answer them.
During the celebrations, there will be a series of Town Hall events
where you can meet the Lindens and Moles as well as our second Community
Roundtable with Second Life Leadership – all held live at SL21B! Here’s
your chance to meet and interact with executives from Second Life as we
celebrate 21 years of Second Life!
The founder of Second Life Philip Linden and Executive Chairman
Oberwolf Linden will be among the participants, which also include many
leading executives and team leads from Second Life’s Product,
Engineering, and Product Operations departments.
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.
A large number of you attended the Tilia Town Hall
last week. Aside from the many questions you had about how Tilia
affects Second Life L$ and monetary activity, privacy was a common
concern. Grumpity asked if I would answer a few of the questions about
Tilia privacy and security which surfaced in the town hall and in our
forums.
There were four sample questions and four lengthy answers.
Where did the Tilia team come from? And why should I trust Tilia with my personal information?
Soft answered, "The Tilia team is made up of people you previously knew as Linden Lab employees." He called the team "passionate about privacy and security," and that many had alts in Second Life and knew many of the residents there. They also promised, "the
information you store with Tilia is never provided to third parties for
purposes such as marketing, " and We
won’t even provide that information to the US government unless we are
compelled to do so through a legal process such as a subpoena or a
search warrant."
Does Tilia change how my information is secured?
In short, yes. Soft stated, "Figuratively speaking, we locked the old vault inside a bigger, stronger vault." Of the 'new vault,' it "uses modern algorithms to encrypt sensitive information in a way
that would require both enormous computing power and an enormous amount
of memory for an attacker to crack… if they could even get a copy of the
encrypted data. These algorithms are specifically tuned to defeat
expensive decryption acceleration hardware." Their existing encryption technology was called "industry standard at the time."
It sounds like a lot has changed at once. Aren’t large changes risky?
Soft answered, "Tilia was designed with security and privacy as its primary considerations." They had people, "some of our key privacy and security practices and procedures," and that they pay a security company to attempt to hack into their servers to test the m.
What does Tilia mean for Second Life privacy and security in the future?
"We have many plans for Tilia," Soft stated. They are in the process of moving "additional forms of information ... Now that we have a new privacy and security foundation, we can extend the amount of information that enjoys this level of protection. If it pertains to your real life identity, we believe in leveraging Tilia protection wherever possible." It also mentioned their goals were ensuring, "compliance with upcoming privacy and security regulations."
To check the blogpost in it's entirely, Click Here.
There are no additional fees for having to use Tilia, aside from the Inactivity Fee.
The Inactivity Fee applies only to those whom have a US dollar balance
in their account that remains inactive for 12 months or longer.
The changes for personal information requirements apply only to those who cash out Linden dollars for real world currency.
For those whom use Linden dollars only for Second Life, there is no change.
Tilia is not needed to buy Linden dollars with real world money.
Tilia will not replace Paypal, though the Lab is working on enabling it to work directly with banks in the future.
Of the reason why the Lab needs the additional personal information, they cited, "The ID verification requirement is
necessary for compliance with U.S. money transmitter laws and
regulations, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the Prepaid Access Rule." As residents continued to ask questions, the number on the FAQ has been growing. It probably will continue to do so for at least another day or two.
About two months following their Town Hall event with CEO Ebbe Altberg/Ebbe Linden, Linden Lab will be having another. On the official Second Life blog a few days ago, it was announced that there would be a Town Hall event on Thursday November 15. It will take place 10 AM to 11 AM SL time. Speaking will be Oz Linden (who is called Linden Lab's "Director of Product"), Grumpity Linden (Senior Director of Engineering), and Patch Linden (Senior Director of Product Operations).
Collectively, these three have over 28 (!) years of experience working
on Second Life and work closely with all the Second Life teams to
continue to improve this platform that we’ve all come to love.
They are some of the biggest stakeholders in the direction of the product development roadmap each year, and know the product inside and out!
People with questions they would like answered by these three are invited to post them in the Town Hall Meeting forum thread, and do so before November 9. The Lab will chose which of these questions to answer during the event.
Several issues were discussed. On the issue of last names, Ebbe backed off a bit from Linden Lab's earlier commitment for the option of them to return for newer accounts by the end of the year, "Maybe we'll get that done this year. ... We don't have an exact date or time."
Someone asked why the grandfathered sims from 2016 weren't included in the land tier cut in June this year. Ebbe responded that those taking part in "the 2016 buy-down" benefited if they kept their land for six months or longer, and while grandfathered land might not be as cheap compared to retail as in the past, it was still cheaper. Ebbe went on to say that Linden Lab would likely lower prices again sometime in the future, they were still waiting to see how much of an effect their last price cut had, "when and how much is still undecided." He did say when they did cut them again, they would likely raise other fees to make up the difference. Ebbe went on to say that they preferred that sim owners hang onto their land for a while.
On the issue of why spend so much time with "backwards compatibility?" Ebbe answered it was to avoid breaking things and"When
you have an economy in which people buy things ... and then the things
they paid money for stop working, people get upset."
On the issue of future transparency on economic data, would the statistics about Second Life once reported by Linden Lab earlier in it's history be done so again, such as the number of unique 30 day logins, Ebbe answered that they had started to publish again some statistics that they had been quiet about foa while, but, "We probably won't restore all." He went on to say the Lab wants information that helps create business for Second Life, and some info wouldn't be in their best interest if revealed. "It's a balancing act."
On Animesh, Ebbe stated, "Animesh around the corner. ... a few bugs away." On environment enhancements, "possibly in weeks." Of the next Gridwide experience, Ebbe wasn't sure if the next one would be finished before the end of the year. On Linden home improvements, he hoped to release them, either all at once or in stages, later this year. Of plans for Marketplace, upcoming changes included options for "wish lists" and "favorite sellers." Gachas might also be more clearly identified on the Marketplace, "maybe."
The new SSP region was asked about, someone asking, "What does SSP stand for?" Ebbe just joked about it, suggesting the "P" stood for "Plesiosaur," a flying dinosaur. Someone also brought up the empty gaps in the Second Life map, asking why they couldn't just put water sims between them. Ebbe responded, "we can't afford to put water sims in all the blank spaces between sims, and some private island owners might not want us to."
The last twenty minutes were a "Casual Q and A" with questions from the audience. Ebbe stated some questions were best left to Oz and Grumpity Linden, "The more specific you get, the more you lose me" Someone asked if Linden Lab could come up with 24 hour support. Ebbe answered no, "I don't think you would be willing ot pay for that service."
Someone asked if the Lindens personally use SL? Ebbe answered, "I rarely have time to use it like a proper user" as he has ten hour work days. He did say of Second Life, he will "drop in now and then ... get inspired by the stuff you all do." He considered himself more of a "test user" there. Of Sansar, he spends "99%" of his time there in a VR rig, "That's the killer feature for me."
Ebbe Linden wants to speak to you and answer your questions. But you'll have to send them in advance. And it appears he'll be speaking to you from another inworld location.
In the official Second Life blog on Friday April 13, there was an announcement that the CEO of Linden Lab, Ebbe Altberg, or Ebbe Linden as his avatar on the Grid is named, would be speaking to an inworld audience at a "Town Hall Event" as an early part of the fifteenth anniversary celebrations of Second Life.
To
kick things off, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg will be holding two “Town
Hall” chat sessions on April 20th at 9:30 a.m. (SLT/Pacific) and 1 p.m.
(SLT/Pacific). Ebbe will be sharing his vision for Second Life in 2018
and beyond, as well as taking questions from the community. Got a
question for Ebbe? Post it in the Community Forum thread “A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg”
in advance of next week’s meeting. Questions will be selected from
submissions for as many as can be answered in the time frame. To join
either meetup, head over to oneofthese Town Hall Regions in Second Life on April 20.
As the Linden blog states, Ebbe will not be taking questions from the audience, but they are being taken in advance. Users are invited to ask questions in this forum thread. The Lab will select which of the questions will be used in the Town Hall event.
The post stated three locations for the event. So this strongly suggests Ebbe will be at neither place, but that instead he will be at a third location inworld to answer questions while the audience sees his broadcast, like at the VWBPE Conference last month. It also stated that this would be just one of "numerous appearances." So expect more Town Hall style events, presumably some during the Second Life Birthday. But there may be some in the weeks leading up to the anniversary event.
Linden Lab also stated "In the coming months, we plan to hold additional conversations and meetups directly with many of our communities ...." The community they listed was Bay City, though they also brought up "Firestorm users/developers," as well as the Second Life media group "Designing Worlds."
On Thursday March 15, Ebbe Linden (Ebbe Altberg) spoke at an event for the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference. This was the fourth year he had done so. Unlike the first two times, he did not speak live in front of an audience at the conference, but did so in a livestreamed interview in front of a small number of people. Also there answering some questions was Bret Linden (Bret Atwood).
Ebbe described the topic of education as "core to the idea of what Second Life is." Sansar was mainly focused on "revenue and user growth. And so education would be a tough area for us to spend money on ..." but still wanted educational areas to be part of their new virtual world. Ebbe brought up places such as the Apollo Museum and virtual replicas of an ancient Egyptian tomb. Of ease of use for the disabled, Ebbe conceeded that, "Sansar actually has a ways to go, and might actually be way more restricted with accessibility for some time to come, compared to Second Life."
Ebbe stated that Linden Lab was still putting money in Second Life, "we’re still really serious about our investment in Second Life, and the team is very motivated and dedicated to get growth .... So it’s not something that we’re just letting run its course or milking for revenues, or anything like that." He admitted that the price of virtual land was high, and would shift revenue from Second Life away from that and toward other fees, comparing them to "consumption taxes." He went on to say that this shift would benefit nonprofits as they would be paying less for land, of which they already get a 50% discount.
Of the topic of building in Sansar, Ebbe stated that unlike Second Life, Sansar builders would have to continue to rely on third-party platforms, "because we have to do so many things, we chose specifically chose not to focus on the creation of original content, if you will. There’s so many great third-party tools ..." Sansar also differs from Second Life in that if no one is visiting a region, after a few minutes it shuts down. If someone wants to visit it, it only takes a few seconds to turn it back on. He wondered if it might be possible to do something similar with Second Life someday.
Improvements in Second Life itself would include animesh and weather control. Ebbe also hinted there would also be better ways to combat griefers. Some questions were asked after the stream was done. Of the Teen Grid, Ebbe stated there were no plans to bring it back, though the issue could be up for discussion "later next year."
Just a reminder that the "Lab Chat" Q&A discussion, where Ebbe, Oz, and Troy Linden will be answering questions from the residents. The third event of it's name, it will be taking place in the LEA Theater at 10:30 AM SL time today. For those who can't make it, there will be recordings and transcripts made available later
It’s nearly time for another session of Lab Chat - an opportunity to have Lindens answer your questions during a recording session taped in front of a live studio audience.
This will be the third Lab Chat - and
we have some special guests lined up for you. Joining Ebbe, we will
have Oz Linden and Troy Linden available to take your questions about Project Bento and other Second Life development topics!
As Director of Second Life
Engineering, and Senior Producer of Second Life respectively, Oz and
Troy are two of the best people to ask about the development process,
Second Life roadmap, and features for Second Life.
Residents from the Lab Chat production team will select questions to ask Ebbe, Oz, and Troy from this forum thread - so be sure to get your questions into the thread no later than Friday April 29th, 2016.
This time, the Lab Chat recording
will be an hour-long audio-only session, but you’re invited to join the
studio audience at the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre where additional audience questions will be answered.
An audio recording of the show will be available shortly after Lab Chat wraps - so stay tuned! We’ll see you on Friday May 6th at 10:30am SLT. Don’t forget to add your questions to the forum thread and mark your calendars to join us!
There will be a question and answer meeting between Second Life residents and those who have also expanded to InWorldz.
This meeting will be held on November 30, 2013 at Noon SLT on the Second Life Grid. Seating at the meeting is limited because of the Sim limits. Please contact Nydia Tungsten to let her know you would like to attend. There will be a live video stream of the meeting also at .....
For all interested parties please contact Nydia Tungsten for the landmark and further instructions on how you can attend and ask questions. We hope in light of the many changes recently, many of you will attend.
Warm and Best Regards!
Meeting Sponsors are "White Vixen Enterprises", "The SL Newser", and "SL / IW Connection Centers Group"
**This is not a political meeting. This is a meeting for residents by residents who are interested in expanding their business and recreation to include an open grid.
