Sunweaver's Get A Present From The Landlady

 

 

Christmas came a little early for the residents of the Sunweaver community. Rita Mariner, the leader of the community and the landowner, had a present for the renters there. She went and paid those living there a free month's rent. 

Merry Christmas to the "Sunnies."

Eye on the Blog: Linden Lab Wants Your Spooktacular Halloween Screenshots

A couple days ago, Linden Lab posted on their blog asking residents for their spooky pictures. Reminding readers that October is not that far away, it invited readers to share Halloween-themed Screenshots on it's Flickr page.

One of Second Life Residents’ favorite holidays is coming up at the end of next month - but that doesn’t mean we can’t start celebrating Halloween now! We’re already seeing a ton of spectacular haunts being submitted to the Destination Guide, and now we’re looking for some of your great inworld images! Share your Halloween themed images, and your work could be featured in an upcoming email or banner campaign - with your avatar name credited of course! Do you like to dress your avatar up in costumes - travel the haunted spots all over Second Life, and generally run amok during this time of year? Why not show off your fun with images? Share your pic on our Official Flickr Page with the tag “SLHalloween2015” so that we can see all of your amazing works. You may submit as many as you like between now and September 28th, 2015. We’ll showcase the chosen image(s) in an email to Residents, as well as in some banner campaigns. We’ll let the chosen image creators know via Flickr and ask for an avatar name for the credits.


The Lab asks that all screenshots submitted be appropriate for all ages: no "bits" showing or suggestive poses, that the images are scenes that could easily tell a story, and that the pictures are free of texts and logos.

This is not a contest, rather an opportunity for readers to get their names an images publicized, and perhaps have the pictures be part of a Second Life advertisement (no pay though).

The blog entry in full can be read (here).

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Also this week, Linden Lab asked residents to update their payment information, saying they were transitioning into a new credit card payment system.

Second Life is transitioning to a new payments processor for credit cards. If you use a credit card for Second Life payments and have not added or updated your billing information since July 7, 2015, we strongly encourage you to re-enter your information to avoid any potential disruption of services. If you use PayPal or Skrill for Second Life payments, no action is needed.


To change one's payment info, logon to secondlife.com, click "Account," then "Billing Information," then under "How You're Paying" click to add a credit card, Paypal account, or Skrill account.

The Lab did state there may be "small authorization charges made to the credit card associated with your account." They went on to say this was "common when new payment procedures are initialized," saying they were to "confirm the validity of the billing information on file."

To read the blog post in it's entirely, (click here).

Eye on the Blog “On the Road to Local Payments”

In March 28, questions were raised about Linden Lab’s “Local Payment” system. Bugs were preventing some European residents from making their payments, putting their premium status, and their sims, at risk of cancellation. About a month later on April 29th, Linden Lab finally admitted there was a problem. F J Linden posted the following:

We recently began beta testing a new system that enables our international customers to use local currencies and other local payment methods when purchasing Linden dollars and conducting other financial transactions with Linden Lab. ... Based on our beta testing to date, we’ve learned a lot and discovered a few issues that we want to change and improve. So, I wanted to share our progress and what to expect as we roll this capability out to all international users later this year.

F J Linden assured that these “recent billing issues” would not affect their account status, and the Local Payments system would be accessible “in all supported viewers.” He also acknowledged a “need to make the Local Payments system easier to use:”

On the usability side, we have beta tested local payments with new and current international customers and we’ve found we need some additional usability work to ensure that purchasing Linden dollars (and other transactions) is an easier, intuitive experience. While we are doing that, we will not add any new or current Residents to the beta system instead they will stay on the standard payments system. But if you have already been using the local payments beta version, then you will continue to do so while we continue getting ready for a wider roll out.


F J Linden stated they would be ready to open the system for more International residents in “late July.”


In the forum thread, most of the responses were favorable, though one lady wished her country’s money was on the list of those the Local Payment system could handle.

For the blog post in it’s entirely, Go Here.

For the forum thread, Click Here.

The Return of "There?"

Longtime users of virtual worlds may remember “There.” Founded about the same time as Second Life, it didn’t do quite as well despite promoting itself as family friendly and full of games. In March 2010, “There” closed down citing lack of funds due to the lasting recession. A year later, the company behind it Makena Technologies is considering relaunching the virtual world as “There2.” On the website, one can find a link to a survey.


This is just a survey to see if there's enough interest, financially, to re-open what we're calling for now, "There2". ... "There2" would be a PAID service. There would be monthly charge for everyone, except people with lifetime beta accounts. ... "There2" must be an 18+ site. One of the biggest expenses was supporting a PG-13 environment. This does not mean we would allow pornography, hate speeches, or copyrighted materials-- we just won't be responsible for people under 18 using the service.


Makena CEO Michael Wilson published the survey results on his blog “I Am So There,” and about 80% of the 2400 who answered were willing to pay at least $10 a month to be able to get to There2. He also answered a few questions. Asked about avatars with corporate brands on them, they would come back as ordinary as the sponsorships were gone.

It should be mentioned that Second Life began without the option of free accounts, those coming about later when the Lindens wanted to expand their population. And of course it was officially adults only until a few months ago. It’s interesting that returning as “There2,” the virtual world is making a big departure from it's days as being teen-friendly, and going to policies Second Life put aside.

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Questions About Linden Lab’s “Local Payment” System

Checking Tateru Nino’s “Dwell on It” blog, one of the Second Life blogs I peek at on occasion, I found a little bad news. It seems some sims owned by Europeans are at risk of vanishing. The problem, Linden Lab’s new “Local Payment” system. According to her post on the matter, the system is buggy, a number of people with premium accounts not able to make their payments. And when landowners ask that their sims not be taken down, the answer they get is, “I cannot assure you of this at this time.”

Tateru’s post got a number of replies, some saying they too have been having trouble with the “local payment” system. Checking the Linden Blog, there was an official post that the system had problems, but assured they were fixed. That wasn’t the opinion of at least one person in the forums.

As Tateru put it, it’s near the end of the month, and not a good time for silence from the Lab.

This news comes at a time in which some Second Life friends of mine have been “testing the waters” in alternative virtual worlds such as AVN and Inworldz. If anyone ends up losing sims because of bugs in the new system, some may just resettle in one of these worlds.

Bixyl Shuftan