“Support the Japan Earthquake & Pacific Tsunami Relief with Linden Dollars”, a great idea from Linden Lab
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)
The dilemma of the two SLviewers
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*
Second Life Press Corps and the PR of the Lab
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?
Everything come… and goes
So i’m here, seating on a bench in an abandoned train station somewhere in the grid, with my friend Kevin, talking about this and that:
So yes, Kevin, it seems the Teens will be officially in the Main Grid… yes, we talked about this two years ago… no, i d0n’t think either this will change much, Linden Lab made some clear changes to the maturity levels of content and regions some time ago…
Oh, Kevin, yes… also heard something about the new CEO of Linden Lab… Rod Humble, right? Well, he comes from managing The Sims series in Electronic Arts and also he was part of the team who managed EverQuest so… maybe i think he can make some interesting things for Second Life, let’s see what happens with him… and let’s be patient, we all know the resident can be sometimes really demanding… Well, call me naive but i think things will go better from now…
The new web style profiles in Viewer 2.5 Beta… i think they should do some work on them, they places the side bar to reduce the windows in screen and now we need a giant window to check someone’s profile… and takes a lot to load compared with the traditional profiles! Well, let’s think it’s in Beta still and they will work on it… It’s nice, Kevin, we think alike about some things!
Oh, yes.. i met a man i like a lot! *smiles* Yes, but well, let’s see what happens with that, we met not much ago but i like him, he is just sweet, fun and really sexy! *winks* I’ll tell you more about him soon.
So, yes, Kevin, my friend, everything come and goes… life is nice, isn’t it?
Windlight® + Shadows in SL® = Ooooooooh!
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Shadows in SL combined with different Windlight settings produce some interesting effects. Colored shadows, different light feeling over avatars and objects, etc. Just wanted to show some of the options in the slideshow above.
It seems for the moment shadows are only working properly in computers (PC or Mac) using Nvidia graphics cards or the latest ATI graphics cards. To set shadows on in Second Life if your viewer includes them, activate Develop Menu (Ctrl+Alt+Q), select Rendering and activate Lighting and Shadows. Shadows are not working in all the viewers, i know for sure they work in Linden Lab’s SL viewer 2.3 and in the 2.4 Snowstorm experimental edition, if you use a TPV (Third Party Viewer), please contact the developer for more information.
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