Patch Linden Offers Hints of Mobile App On Flickr

 

 

 Patch Linden will be on the Lab Gab later today to talk about upcoming things from Linden Lab later this year. But he's been dropping hints about one thing that will be among them. On Wednesday March 8, he posted a picture on Flickr of him next to a barn, but there were some unfamiliar-looking buttons at the bottom, "What is this place and thing I'm in?"

Then the following day, yesterday on Thursday March 9, he would post a short video on Twitter showing his avatar moving, "And now we walk." The picture showed arrow keys on the screen.

By the looks of things, it seems Linden Lab's been working on a mobile app. Many of the people in Flikr and Twitter thought so too, "I look forward to SecondLife's return on iPad."

So how soon will it be ready? Patch may have a date today on Lab Gab.

 

Hat Tip: Pantera Północy (panterapolnocy Resident)

Bixyl Shuftan

 

SL Animation: "Walk In The Park"

 

 (Click here for the animation)

 From DeniseUnicorn Toonie, "Bixyl on SecondLife said that my hero walk reminded him of another famous walk. So I give you Denise doing the Amy Squirrel Walk in SecondLife. Squirrel, blue skirt, walkman with headphones, and a cartoon forest backdrop. (I know her arm clips. Blame SecondLife! Deal with it!)"

 

Twitter Checkmark

 

 I got this little item from Marianne McCann, a Second Life version of the Twitter blue checkmark.

 

 To those not in the know, the blue checks were added as a verification feature to Twitter for $8 US dollars a month by orders of it's new owner Elon Musk. One of the motives for this was likely to help stop Twitter from losing millions every day. But things quickly went awry as some quickly began using the feature to troll and impersonate people. It wasn't long before the feature was finally suspended. This hasn't been the only problem with Twitter as recently as advertisers have been leaving and a number of it's security, privacy, and compliance heads have quit. Musk as admitted that Twitter going into bankruptcy is not out of the question. What happens next? Time will tell.

Sources: ArsTechnia, CNBC, BBC News, Forbes, Business Insider, Engadget   

Bixyl Shuftan

Elon Musk Makes A Deal To Buy Twitter

On Monday April 25, Twitter announced it had reached a deal with billionaire Elon Musk for him to purchase the company for 44 billion dollars. This was the culmination of a series of events that began on April 4 when it was revealed he had bought 9.2 percent of it's stock, making him the largest shareholder. There was speculation that he would join the executive board. But instead he stated he had no intention. Instead on April 14, he announced he was offering to buy all of Twitter's stock. The immediate reaction of the board was to adopt a "poison pill" strategy, or limit anyone from owning more than 15% of the company. But apparently negotiations went on behind the scenes, and the board agreed to Musk's offer.

In a statement announcing the deal, Musk would say, "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."

With 83 million followers, Musk is already one of Twitter's most high profile users. He's also made some controversial statements. Reaction to news of the purchase had a political divide. Conservatives tended to view the buyout with optimism and cheers, many feeling Twitter has been biased against them and restricts free speech. Liberals tended to feel worry and concern, wondering if his efforts to encourage free speech might mean fewer filters against hateful rhetoric and what environmentalists consider mistruths about the climate debate.

Sources: BBC News, CNN, PR Newswire

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Linden Lab Founder Philip Rosedale Doing An "Ask Me Anything" On Reddit Today

 

Do you have a question that you've always wanted to ask Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab, and Second Life as well? Well, tomorrow may be your chance. On his Twitter, Rosedale announced he would be doing an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit.

 Join me for a @reddit_AMA on Feb 23 from 11am-2pm PT. Ask me about #SpatialAudio, #VR, virtual worlds and virtual economies, avatars, and … anything.

An "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit is "a scheduled question-and-answer session hosted by anyone from a high-profile celebrity to a regular person with extraordinary life experiences."

Hat Tip: Ryan Schultz

Trump Twitter Ban Raises Questions About Roles and Responsibilities of Social Media

 

It's been about a week since US President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. Trump has been a controversial figure in American politics, and his takedown from the social media platform was greeted with applause by his opponents and criticism by his supporters. But some, including people whom have been critical of Trump in the past, expressed concerns about him being removed. The head of Twitter himself felt while they did the right thing, the move could have repercussions in the future for free speech online.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

April Linden Announces All Sims Moved To The Cloud

 

It was just about a week ago in which it was announced half the sims had their data moved to the Cloud. So with all the time that had been done before, one would probably expect quite a bit of time before the other half were moved. Well, that's not quite what happened. Yesterday, Thursday November 19, April announced that all of the sims now had their data moved to Cloud servers.

The team just finished up moving all of the regions to the cloud! We did it, before our goal of Thanksgiving!!! Uplift isn't done, we still have things to move, but getting the regions done FEELS SO GOOD!

As April stated, this isn't the end of the work on the Cloud move. And there's still glitching going on. For instance, there were issues with group chat, teleporting, and reading the world map. But it is a notable milestone that hopefully will lead to an improved Second Life.

Bixyl Shuftan

April Fools In And Out of Second Life At A Glance

The April Fools joke article that we at the Newser pulled last Monday got a bit of chatter. Some loved it, "Hilarious!" Many just gave a chuckle or "laughing out loud." And some didn't like it, "Bix. Yur courting getting murdered here." Thank you all for the comments. For those who loved it, we'll try to be just as funny next year. For those who didn't like it, well, feel free to offer suggestions.

But this wasn't the only April Fools joke around, even in Second Life. Nydia Tungsten made an announcement that she would soon be doing a special calendar, but instead of her usual 12 pictures of anthro females it would be of the new Yinglet avatars. There were a few chuckles, and there were a few asking what a Yinglet was, but everyone quickly realized it was a joke. Marianne McCann of Bay City told me she'd made a joke announcement of leaving Second Life in a group IM chat. Draxtor Despress posted on his Twitter that he was leaving Sansar, followed later by "April Fool."


In the past, Linden Lab had done a couple jokes such as the "Rick Roll" and their parody of the "Mayhem" insurance commercials. But not this year.

In real life, there were some April Fool joke announcements. Probably the one that got the most chuckles was the one from McDonalds about a burger that was all pickles. One Australian city announced they were getting a drug-sniffing bunny on it's force. Australia's Twitter page made a joke image about a koala being born with leopard spots.

In the world of online comics, two I follow had a couple April Fool strips. In "Freefall," cartoonist Mark Stanley included a number of cameos with characters of several other strips. Those going to "General Protection Fault" found a parody of a default page that basically stated "if you can read this, the webmaster needs to get a clue." "The Belfry," which is a list of online comics, had it's page upside down.

With online games, World of Tanks and World of Warships didn't have the joke games they had in the past. But they did have a couple chuckles. World of Tanks had a joke video about the first tank on the Russian field, the MS-1, with the narrator praising it in ways that a used car salesman would be making notes of. For World of Warships, their April Fool was "Skipper," a matchmaking system to assist in making more compatable teams that was a parody of current dating software, "the socially-alienating swipe-based system behind today's hottest dating apps will be your ticket to the perfect team!" As in previous years, "War Thunder" had another April Fools game: "Earth Thunder." In this special game, players fought air battles in flying saucers shooting energy beams at one another over an abandoned city taken over by the aliens (video). Probably the joke game of War Thunder remembered the most was one of their first, the "My Little Pony" fighters in 2013. Years later, I still hear pony fans say they wish the company would bring it back.

So there's April Fool's 2019 at a glance. Hopefully you the readers had a lot of fun, and we'll be back next year with some

new foolery.

Bixyl Shuftan

Philip Rosedale Wants Help Getting His Avatar Back

Practically every resident who's been in Second Life for more than several years knows about Philip Rosedale, or rather Philip Linden as he used to be known inworld. Besides as the founder of Second Life, he was known for his unique look. His old prim hair was stiff and spikey, and he always had on a "Rocky Horror" t-shirt and a multicolored codpiece over his pants.

Philip stepped down as CEO of Linden Lab in 2008, though was interim CEO from June to October 2010, and stepped down from it's board of directors in 2013, leaving to concentrate more on his new virtual world High Fidelity. But apparently, one of his recent tweets suggests he's been having more interest in Second Life lately, appearing inworld in a regular account. And he would like some help getting his old look back.


Would someone be willing to re-make me my original SL avatar? I've been spending more time in SL lately (it's just so amazing and great) and I'd like my old look back. This vintage...

Philip got a large number of responses, some offering to help, others humoring such as one person who joked "I found your undies." It's also worth noting that Linden Lab had a contest for a new look for Philip while he was interim, the winning appearance announced in October 19, 2010. But he didn't have long to enjoy it as he stepped down the very next day.

Should Philip be sticking around for a while, it should be quite interesting, even if he's no longer a Linden.

Bixyl Shuftan

Furry Fashion Gets Aboard Twitter

For those who want to keep up with the latest the Furry Fashion store has to offer, they recently got a Twitter account. So one can find out about their latest deals, or the schedule of their Furry Fashion Lounge. One can find their Twitter at: https://twitter.com/Furry_Fashion .

"Direct Delivery" Marketplace Troubles and Rodvik's Response

Direct Delivery for the Second Life Marketplace hasn't gone the way Linden Labs intended. At first, it seemed to be a simple bug of gifts to others not always reaching the recipient. But apparently, it's much more.

Inara Pey noted a number of other problems, including, "Listings on Marketplace do not match the actual items," incorrect merchant information (products from one seller listed as belonging to another), "products from one merchant appearing in stores belonging to other merchants, items incorrectly priced," and "incorrect ratings assigned to products (G-rated items appearing as Adult, etc)" She also stated she was beginning to observe "rising accusations of 'theft' among merchants as they come across what appears to be their own goods being listed by others." Tateru Nino called the source of the problem a "unicode bungle," listed in the JIRA as "WEB-4587."

The initial response from Linden Labs was largely silence. Then a few days ago, Rodvik Linden gave a few answers on his Twitter account, pointing out an update on the commerce forum, "team has been crunching non stop to get those issues addressed. We will update as soon as we have a fix." Calling it "not an acceptable quality of roll out," Tateru Nino deadpanned, "perhaps is wasn't an acceptable quality of rollout, but it was the level of quality that we have become used to all these years."

The commerce forum update was further updated the next day, saying "two of the top three outstanding issues" were addressed

• WEB-4580: purchases are now delivered to recipients with the inventory name (which does not allow unicode characters). This will prevent future orders from getting stuck in the Being Delivered state due to this issue. In addition, all orders affected by this problem have been pushed through.
• WEB-4587: updates have been made to support updating store search results, which we will process over the next week; we continue to work on the issue related to mismatched data on listings. We do know that this issue has existed since September 2010 (during the migration from Xstreet to the Second Life Marketplace).


Hamlet's article on Rodvik's response drew some positive feedback from readers, mixed in with cautionary notes, "Wow, a straightforward acknowledgment, with no BS, no spin. … Kudos to Rodvik, may this act serve as an example for all of LL. This kind of forthcoming communication can make all the difference in the world in making SL live up to its full potential." the same resident also stated, "Whether it's truly accompanied by the promised action is a different issue … everyone should hold LL's feet to the fire on this regardless until it's fixed."

On the Linden forums, residents seemed a bit more critical, "And yet he can't even manage to post this timely info on his company's official website?" "Although it is refreshing to see a CEO like Rodvik use some of the other social media to communicate with the community, the flaw with Rodvik is that he seems to ONLY use non-LL official tools to interact with his customer base. "

Second Life Newser has yet to hear whether or not things have improved on Marketplace or not. But judging by some of the comments observed, some merchants and shoppers will be relying less on it.

Sources: Living in a Modem World, Tateru Nino, New World Notes, Twitter, Linden Forums,

Image Credit: Emilly Orr, Sera Lok

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: "Dash Deals," bargins on SL Marketplace Through Facebook and Twitter

Last week, Brooke Linden announced on the Official Blog that Second Life Marketplace was introducing an experimental program they called “Dash Deals.”


Everyone loves a great deal, right? So, we’re introducing a new test program called “Dash Deals.” During this test, we will be running one Dash Deal per week, for the next five weeks. Dash Deals will provide Second Life Marketplace shoppers with the opportunity to purchase a specific virtual item for 24 hours at a 50% discount or more. Hand-picked by the Linden team from Merchant submissions, these products highlight the creativity and variety of products available to Marketplace shoppers. We hope that you enjoy our selections and take advantage of the deals! And, if the test goes well, then you can expect to see more Dash Deals beyond the test period. Here’s How to Score a Dash Deal: We’ll alert Second Life shoppers when the Dash Deal is available on Facebook, Twitter, and in a weekly email. Just click on the SL Marketplace link provided, take a look at the Dash Deal item, and snap it up while it’s still available.


This is the latest in a number of ways Second Life has been trying to use the highly popular social media sites of Facebook and Twitter. In this case, using it to encourage the use of its SL Marketplace site (and buy more Lindens to use in purchasing items there. In my opinion, it has potential. Taking a look at the “Dash Deal” thread on the forums, some of the posters expresed skepticism about it, saying the email option would be no good to some as the first Dash Deal was good only for 24 hours, and some people didn’t get emails from Linden Labs until more time than that expired.

One poster, Shockwave Yareach, brought up this might do nothing more than annoy some residents, “Do most customers Like, Dislike, or have no opinion about being prodded over and over about sales, new products and the like? I personally do not have any sort of advertising for the simple reason that I'm in SL to get away from things like that which permeate every second of RL. I thus assume my customers likewise don't want to be bothered -- just sell them their gizmodo and let them have fun with it.”

In New World Notes, Hamlet Au had his own opinion, calling it a “Groupon-style offer (a deal-of-the day website)” that reflected “the current Silicon Valley craze for anything which looks even remotely Grouponic. It's a good move to better monetize Second Life's ecommerce site as the company moves away from its unsustainable land revenue model, but I definitely think it could be improved.” His idea of improvement, have people contact a number of friends to reach a minimum number set before the deal becomes active.

This reminds me of something I’ve seen in Second Life for a while. Many Residents have seen those boards in stores (the name escapes me) which promise a free item if a set number of people (one common number is 25, though may be more at popular places) click on it. I myself have been asked by a few lady friends to port over to one of these boards to click on it so they can get an item of clothing they feel is must-have. A tad annoying at times when you don't want to be bothered, but no arguing it draws shoppers, and money, to stores. I can see Linden Labs doing something similar, but on Facebook and/or Twittter instead of Inworld.

Sources: Second Life Blog, Second Life Forums, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan