Linden Lab/Second Life HQ by ilamont.com (CC)

Some things still amaze me after being a Second Life resident for the last 4 and a half years. Let’s say one of the workers of Linden Lab (knows by all the residents as Lindens because the traditional last name for Linden Lab employees) is fired, or decides to leave the company for any reason. Then a “choir” of voices raise, in Twitter, Plurk, blogs, Flickr, Facebook or in any social network related with Second Life in any way, and they even ask directly to Rodvik Linden (aka Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab) “Why? What’s happening?”.

And then i wonder: Why… you ask? Why is important to know about the personal or the corporative decision of a company when you are a simple costumer, not even a investor or stockholder? There may be two reasons for someone to stop being an employee of Linden Lab:

• He/she found a better place to work, or a better job conditions or simply a more interesting project for him/her.
• He/she was fired.

In the first case, come on, that’s great! I just can say “Congrats” and farewell. I just can wish the best for him/her and say “thank you” for everything. In the second case… well, in this case i can’t know if is great or not, since i can’t know the reasons but i’ll wish the best for him/her and say “thank you” for everything too.

I’m sure most of the people who seems to feel outraged when some Linden leave the Lab don’t know if that Linden was fired or simply decided to leave. And even in the case the Linden was fired i’m sure they don’t know the reason… maybe he was the one who was stealing the ballpoints, or maybe she was arriving late every single day… or even maybe there was no other reason than a corporative decision to close a department. In any case there’s no a single reason to feel outraged, except if that affects to the service that Linden Lab is providing to you, and of course, in the case you are have some kind of personal relationship-friendship with that Linden (nobody is happy to know a good old friend has been fired).

Don’t get me wrong, is not i’m happy when someone is fired, but i think sometimes a company needs to reduce the number of employees (and i’m sure that’s not a nice decision to take) and i think also some people in some cases totally deserves to get fired. In any case is a company decision and asking the CEO… well… seems pretty silly to me, unless you are a shareholder, of course.

And again i wonder: Why you ask? I have been talking about this with some other residents and it seems there may be at least three reasons: first, Second Life residents are passionate people, we love what we have in here, we love it SO MUCH that some may arrive to think that we actually OWN Second Life, and that means residents should have the last word over ANY decision and ANY change. Second, many Lindens have some like a “star status” and that can be a problem when they are not around anymore, even if it was a personal decision. And third, “evil corporation fires employees” is always a compelling story.

About the first, we don’t “own” Second Life. We are customers of Linden Lab’s services, we may like or not the changes on the services we are receiving, we can agree or not with the corporative decisions of Linden Lab, but we don’t own Second Life. As customers the only power we have is to stop buying the services but we don’t have power over corporative decisions unless we are shareholders, and even less if it’s the personal decision of someone to leave the Lab. About the “star status”, Lindens are only people who works in a company that offers services to us, they are not stars, they can be REALLY COOL people, creative and helpful but they are not stars, they are people who work for us as customers. And about the “evil corporations” well, that’s a real topic and not only affecting Linden Lab… and yes, some are pretty evil.

This is only my opinion, my point of view, and i would like to say again that i can’t never be happy when someone is fired… but i know the people who works in Linden Lab are talented, creative and good enough to keep me feeling i love to be a resident of Second Life and in the sad case they are fired i’m sure they will find a really cool work soon.

I blogged some months ago with the test i’ve been doing in the Beta Mesh Grid. The effect is just AWESOME! Really complex objects rezz just fast, way faster than sculpties, and the collision maps work just good as any normal prim. About the time of release in Main Grid Linden Lab said:

In July, we will enable a limited set of regions to use Mesh and will roll it out, in a phased approach, throughout August. By the end of August, everyone in Second Life will be able to import Mesh objects. Of course, if we run into unforeseen issues or bugs, then this time line will need to shift.

I’ll paste here also the video i filmed on my first visit to Mesh Beta:

Related articles

• SL Mesh, Update 3 (danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com)

LEA Theater (Outside view)

The Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) organized a big event about machinima, some like a festival, that will run starting today May 4th to December, the Month of Machinima (MoM).

Today in the LEA Theater (SLurl), in the opening of the event the screens were showing the entrants for May competition, a variety of films from the artistic to the humoristic and even the musical. MoM has its own YouTube channel so you can see some of the movies in it, but in order to see all the entrants is better you go to the LEA Theater and enjoy a bunch of really cool movies filmed by some of your fellow residents.

LEA Theater (Inside)

The LEA was created in 2010, actually for some event in SL7B (Second Life 7th Birthday) but for some reason it was sleeping since then. Probably that was caused for all the changes in Linden Lab, but it was a really good initiative and i’m happy it is back.

The LEA Committee are a group of really good and really well known artist who work in SL and it’s really good Linden Lab decides to support Art in Second Life with this, specially after they decided to not support Burning Life anymore.  In the last times the Lab seemed to be more worried about Merchants than about Artists and, under my point of view, both are REALLY important for what Second Life is and will be. Will speak about this last topic in my next show on Soup Radio and probably will also blog about it some time soon, so lets left the topic until i do it.

Now go to the LEA Theater and enjoy the awesome work of a lot of filmmakers of Second Life:

Also, if you want to know some more about the opening event itself (i was late, hehehe) you should read Inara Pey’s post about it, really interesting. Also Courtney Linden blogged about the event in the Linden Blogs.

And also i wonder… will the LEA organize and event called DaD, that would be pretty cool!

Japan Relief Linden Bear

The Lindens decided to create one of the famous Linden Bears to help Japan in this terrible moment, after the earthquake and the tsunami. Any Second Life resident can go to the Marketplace and get one of these bears, donating from 300 L$ to 3000 L$.

Let me repost the blogpost Kim Linden published in the Community web of Second Life:

Our thoughts today are with all of those who are suffering in the devastation caused by the earthquakes in Japan and the tsunami in the Pacific. We encourage all Second Life Residents to support the relief efforts however they can, and we would like to help.

We have created two special Linden Bears–one that is wearable and one that sits–which are now for sale in the Marketplace at several pricing levels: L$300, L$1,000 and L$3,000. Here’s the direct link to purchase them. We will donate all proceeds from sales of this bear to the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Relief efforts of the American Red Cross.

Please help us to support the relief efforts – buy the bears, and help spread the word in Second Life.

Additionally, we know that independent groups in Second Life are also planning to support relief efforts. For example, Radar Magazine in Second Life will be holding a month-long event and are seeking designers to donate virtual items (see this article for details). If your group is planning an inworld relief effort, then please share it in the comments here.

Thank you,

Kim

So you know… go to the Marketplace and help if you can.

Related Articles

• Japan Relief SL Teddy Bear (danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com)

I was checking Twitter lately and saw some people is speaking again about that “dilemma”… Should Linden Lab have only one viewer for Second Life, or to improve the usability is better to have two?

I think it was Anthony Hocken who restarted the topic, anyway this have been a topic long time discussed by a lot of people in a lot of places. Some people wonders (and for some comments by Rodvik Linden in Twitter that may be the way Linden Lab decides to go) if it would be better to have two kind of viewers instead of only one, one for basic users with a simple and improved UI and one for advanced users with all the options we have and maybe some more.

Even this may seem a good idea some people thinks that would keep the new users away from content creation since they would be used to a simple UI and may be scared to use an advanced one. One thing Rodvik Linden mentioned was the possibility of having only one viewer, but with a “switch” to change between both options.

Personally i think the two viewers option is not a bad idea. One of the big problems of Second Life is how hard the UI and the learning curve has been always keeping potential users away and making a lot of people create an account only to try it and never come back. Having a simplified viewer, or a web-based one, would be interesting to permit new users have a basic approach to Second Life and even to have access for SL from iPads, mobile phones or netbooks. This kind of viewer would permit also that integration as Facebook game some think is a good idea. I think having SL and Facebook together is not actually needed or even a good idea, but this is material for another blogpost.

Then, after this web-based viewer Linden Lab would have a really improved SL viewer (maybe 3.0?) with that “switch” Rodvik mentions. As now we have some menus as optional (Advanced and Develop for standard users) we would have a really improved and simple UI and at the same time the possibility to change to a more complex one but really powerful. And speaking about all this… please, Lindens… can you improve the building tool? Thanks!

I don’t think that last option would keep new users away of content creation, i know people who were SLusers for the last 4 years and never created a simple plywood cube even they had the ability to do it in the viewer. The ones who would be interested in content creation would click the “switch” for sure and will experiment. At least is what i think… and you? *points at the comment section below*

We all know Linden Lab uses to manage their Public Relations in… let’s say interesting ways. One of those “interesting ways” is a group called Second Life Press Corps. For those who don’t know it, is a group managed by Pete Linden to connect with SL bloggers, informers, writers, TV-machinima creators, etc… Some like a press club. The group is not “Open” but theoretically everybody would join following the instructions included in the group chart:

This group will be used by Linden Lab’s PR team to share announcements, invitations to inworld press events, etc.
To request an invitation, please email pete@lindenlab.com with the following information:

• Your Second Life name
• The outlet (blog, magazine, TV show, etc.) that you work for – please provide the name, URL, and a brief description

Note: To be admitted to the group, the outlet you work for must be in compliance with our trademark guidelines: http://secondlife.com/corporate/brand/

So if you want to join, you know what to do. I’ve been member of this group for a year or so, and it was pretty silent until a month ago or so, i presume that’s related with the changes in the PR team of Linden Lab, well, in the full Lab. Sincerely, never thought to blog about it, because of this silent, but after reading this interesting blogpost by Chestnut Rau possibly it was the time.

I’m not an expert in PR, but i understand the Lab wants to control who has access to some information, or at least who has it first. Let’s see an example, today there was a Meet and Greet event with Rodvik Linden (Rod Humble), new CEO of Linden Lab. The PR team of Linden Lab sent a notice in the Second Life Press Corps group, and i think only inside this group, asking the members to send a request by email to be in that meeting. Initially i was supposed to be out today and i didn’t send the email (Chestnut Rau was in the Meet and published a transcription *good work*).

I’m trying to be neutral and just to tell the facts, but is hard not to express an opinion about that matter. I presume Linden Lab wanted to introduce the new CEO to the “inworld press”, and that’s nice… i also presume they wanted to do it in a “safe environment”, out of greefers, excessive lag… maybe excessive criticism too? It’s nice the CEO connects with the residents, is even important since those residents are also customers, but i wonder if that could be done in a different way not so… FIC, not so “VIP club”. Maybe is just i’m missing the times when we had those Town Hall meetings with the Lindens to talk about things…

Anyway… what do you think?

Last week Linden Lab opened the beta for Mesh upload for Second Life. Mesh Import allows you to bring models into Second Life from the many popular 3D tools such as Blender or Google SketchUp (both totally free), or Maya™ (incredibly expensive), using the COLLADA file format. You can find more information about Mesh and everything related in the SLWiki.

So decided to visit Aditi (the Second Life test grid) with the Mesh beta viewer and took a look at the models some residents made. As you can see even a full avatar in the beginning! To make Mesh understandable, and correct me if i’m wrong, it is something… similar to sculpties. Is a way for the client to model a 3D object. It is more complex someway that sculpties, but it loads MUCH faster and permits higher complexity or detail. This new tool will change how SL looks, as sculpties did. Will change the places, clothing, avatars… everything. And the best about it is there are free tools any resident can use to create mesh objects. I didn’t tried to create and upload something, but i saw the beta models of some residents and they are amazing as you can see in the video.

At the same time i saw that test viewer permits shadows in my Mac!!! And that was a surprise, because i think is the first time they work, even in the actual Viewer 2.2 shadows are not working in my computer.

It was pretty easy to set, you can see it in this image. Only select “Lighting and shadows” and it works, as easy as this. Anyway, don’t try to use AntiAliasing at the same time or it will crash.

Used shadows on during the recording of the video and you can see it doesn’t affect too badly performance. Anyway, before anyone gets too excited, after having a chat in Plurk with other Mac users it seems this is only working in Macs with Nvidia graphics cards, not working in ATI ones (someone commented it would work in the latest ATI cards).

I think is important i paste some info about my computer:

• Apple iMac
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHz
• 4GB RAM
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GS 512MB

Just hope to see shadows working for all Mac users soon, some days ago Strawberry Singh blogged about it and linked some interesting Plurk discussions.

For almost four years i’ve been Raul Crimson, and i will be Raul Crimson for a long time (i hope). And i know this may sound kinda silly, but i’m sad about that Display Names thing Linden Lab is working on (read more in their blogpost).

I understand this feature may be useful for a lot of people, but at the same time i’m not happy about how Linden Lab is planning to implement the feature:

• Your actual name will become your username with a period between, so Raul Crimson will be raul.crimson.
• Anybody can use any Display name and change it once a week, so anybody can be Raul Crimson as display name and the option that Linden Lab offers me if someone uses my display name is… change mine to another one.
• “Real” Usernames will be hidden by default.

There is something i find… funny. In the Wiki about this new feature says you can keep your actual name… but also anybody can take your actual name too. That’s what i don’t like at all.

Names are something related to identity, Raul Crimson is a way to identify me and i feel it only identifies me, not anyone, only me. The only thing i say is, ok, go with this feature, i’m all for new things and i’m sure a lot of people would find this useful and interesting, but please, make the direct transcriptions of usernames (like Raul Crimson to raul.crimson) only available to the username owner, so only me can be Raul Crimson.

So… what do you think about this new feature?

I was not a big fan of Mr. Kingdon, i think his view was not as passionate as Philip one, maybe was more about marketing than about community, and even i’m sure he tried his best to make Second Life a better place (or maybe only a better business) he had some… let’s say wrong (or “non popular”) choices or issues: SL Enterprise, the ban of freebies in XStreetSL, Zindra, Avatars United…

Anyway, i think those were not “bad” decisions themselves, but all of them together made a lot of residents be against him and his management. Of course there is also Viewer 2.0, but i’ll talk about it later. It seems sometimes we like to make M look as the Devil, but i’d like now to make some positive comments about M’s management:

In the time Mr. Kingdon was CEO of Linden Lab i think performance and stability has been better and better. Of course that means generally and sometimes is understandable a system so complex as the Second Life Grid has some problems.

Viewer 2.0 is a good product, works pretty good, has less problems with memory use that Emerald or any 1.23 based viewer and has some really cool features. And even you don’t like the UI (i like it personally even it can/should be improved) you can always use alternative viewers based in 1.23 UI.

I’m saying all this from my experience and point of view and is possible someone doesn’t agree, specially about Viewer 2.0, but i think is a question of preferences and nobody HAS TO use it, is an optional viewer.

And i needed to say all this because i’m tired of negativity, of “Second Life is crap”, of all this shit. Is difficult to find positive comments sometimes about Second Life, specially from the residents. Some of the SL residents seem to be incredibly reluctant to any minor change and they will complain about anything in any case (I still remember people complaining about Windlight), and to those who always complain i ask… if Second Life is so crappy and they have nothing positive to say about it why are they still in it? Why are they just complaining and complaining and they just can’t make or say something constructive? What are they doing to make Second Life better?

Criticism is good, it is even needed, but not empty one. Some people who doesn’t like the viewer is creating cool viewers with different features, that’s constructive criticism! Of course most of us can’t create a new viewer, but we can point what we don’t like, suggest how we think it would me and keep loving what we deeply love in this virtual world, say i like this and i dislike that.

As always i don’t pretend to tell people how they should act or react, i just express what i think, so feel free to comment and share also your point of view… and about Philip… welcome back home, Phil!

Image by Daniel Voyager published under a Creative Commons license.

Second Life is supposed to be a world “built by its residents”… and it is, even the “government” (in this case Linden Lab) promotes some works, some like other governments do. They do it with the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW from now) and the team of residents who build the projects are The Moles and since they are residents i presume this way Second Life remains as that “world built by residents”…

The first work by the LDPW was Bay City, this was a quite huge project, and under my point of view is a really good work, if Linden Lab wanted to “dignify” the Mainland with a project then this was good, land in there is INCREDIBLY expensive.

The there there was urban, a city full of channels of water, bridges, a port, industry… including public transportation (tram and water-tram systems).

Other big projects were Nautilus (ancient mediterranean culture themed), Zindra (the Mainland area dedicated to Adult content), the Mainland sail sims, the Linden Homes sims… and i presume they are planning some more.

But their work is not only about this kind of themed communities, also they are developing roads in Mainland (in the top picture walking around one of the newest roads) and working a lot lately in the SLRR (Second Life Railroad) and a ferry connection between two “Maritime stations”. But loving as i love railways i’ll write a special post about the SLRR soon.

Knowing the chaos the Mainland became when Linden Lab decided to “leave it for its own” i think this LDPW is a really good project, first for Mainland residents, making their neighbourhoods better and keeping the value of the land, and second for all the residents, providing nice places to hang out or explore. Possibly the land auction system was not really smart and caused the prices of land to raise due speculation, specially in Bay City, but i really hope Linden Lab learned about it and the new projects would have better ways to “distribute” the land.

Photos by me, Shadoe Landman, Wildstar Beaumont and Alpha Auer, all published under Creative Commons license, follow the images links for more info.