Another 'M' Pep post!

4 months at the Lab
I recently celebrated my fourth month at the Lab and it has been a terrific adventure so far. As the leader of this amazing company, what have I been focused on? Leading the company’s efforts to make Second Life more relevant, more usable and more reliable.
How are we doing?

Good question M(ark) ......
First M sets out to let us all know how much better our inworld experience has been over the last month: "We wrapped up a very busy and productive Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere with great results to report." - umm maybe he should ask the Residents instead of the number crunchers? Up until the last 10 days I would have agreed with him, but I guess he is looking at averages.
"First off, each week since August 31st has brought a concurrency high. Yesterday, the peak hit 71,232 – that’s an increase of 6% in less than a month." I would love to know the ratio of actual users to BOTS!
"We simplified the registration process to make it easier for Residents to join, registrations are continuing at a healthy clip" See comment above.
"All are indications that Second Life is becoming more relevant, more usable and more reliable."
Great job 'M' except you are not listening to the actual people who use it, numbers cannot give you a complete picture as long as you allow alts/bots etc! But it certainly makes you look good to commerce looking for figures.
"First Hour Experience: Shortly after I started, we kicked off a project to reinvent what we call the “first hour experience” (our web experience, the viewer, and the way we acclimate and acculturate users inworld) for new users. We’ve made great progress and will be working with an award-winning interactive design firm to help us complete the reinvention and bring it to life. Yes, we are creating a viewer that is new user friendly! Stay tuned for updates."
Great idea - thanks to Dusan writer who came up with it a while ago, maybe you should look at some of the ideas that came up there? After all they were Resident created!
"We are now at a stage in our development where we need to add additional product strategy, product development and product management experience to help us better tailor our product offering for each of our key markets. We’ve found just the right person to lead this important transition in the company. His name is Tom Hale (he will be called T Linden) and he is a technology industry veteran, having spent the last 14 years at Macromedia and Adobe where he held a variety of product strategy, development and management roles. Tom joins Linden Lab as Senior Vice President, Chief of Product. Read more about T Linden here."
Congratulations to Mr Hale - I hope he knows what he has taken on!
"Linden Lab is buzzing with activity. We’ve just completed a major strategy project to define the areas of focus for the next 18 months and we are in the process of translating those strategies into tactical action plans." Again sounds good, but what strategies? What plans? Guess its on a 'need to know' basis and we the Residents 'don't need to know'?
"To support the strategic initiatives we’ve identified, we’ll be hiring 60-70 more people over the next several quarters. This is all part of our commitment to ensure Second Life remains the largest and most successful virtual world." More staff can only be a good thing, lets hope they can focus at some point on Resident experience!
On the positive side of things I would say it is good to see some improvements and see the areas where Linden Lab is focusing - all area's and in need of improvement.
The discussion is in full swing in the FORUM with 'M' actually clarifying some points there.
Although from reading the post I find it slightly condescending and half trying to convince us, as Residents, that things are getting better. I feel that Linden Lab as a company is pulling further and further away from the Residents, this has been happening for quite some time. It is good that they are utilising the forums a lot more but the place most of us go for information is the blog which is pretty much dead now.
As for Resident early experience the one tool that all newbies (and older Residents) need to utilise is Torleys Tutorials yet these have been shoved to the side and removed from the main blog where they should be! Bring Torley back 'M' - he is the one Linden that actually cares about Resident experience, shoving him to the side is paramount to declaring you don't care!
By Dana Vanmoer

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

Weekend Wanderings in Burning Life

Sunday was a good day to spend some time riding and flying around Burning Life.
We looked into nooks and crannies in several sims. We rode the sl green bikes that were available for anyone to use.
We found several very interesting builds.. Eye Ree was sitting in front of his build which was low to the ground with lovely little bubble signs showing symbols of our world , religious , happy face, and others. One can change the symbol by touching them.
We stopped to enjoy a Carnival that offered bump cars in a bath tub and other fun games. Farther down the road we were invited to enter a large luminous build, the Chakra Party, presided over by a large jovial Buddha. We were offered a note card which listed the seven chakras to read and meditate upon.
We crossed the road to look into an ice palace half sphere in which we found ourselves in a winter wonderland with snow falling softly around us. As we left there we looked into the sky we saw and a huge soaring structure and flew up nearly 300 meters to see the top. It was a burning man, smoking slightly. I do not think it is the official man to be burned and will have to find out more.
Next we tp’d to the Central camp site to see if we could find the answer but were distracted by a lively party going on in the tent. All the dancers were in flames and we joined them for a while and were enveloped in flames ourselves! It was a great ending to a wonderful visit.
There is so much to see and experience!!
Take some time to go but remember to go with as few adornments as possible for your own sake!!
By Gemma Cleanslate
At Burning Life 2008

PHAT CAT'S JAZZ CLUB TO BE SOLD ON EBAY

Second Life, Phatland, Sept 27, 2008
-- Phat Cat's Jazz Club, one of the most recognized venues in Second Life, is set to be sold by auction on eBay starting October 1, 2008.
This marks the most prominent auction of virtual property since the highly-publicized auction of Amsterdam on eBay in March 2007.
The owners of Phat Cat's have posted information about the sale at: www.phatcatsjazzclub.com
Among residents of Second Life, Phat Cat's has long been known as a premier destination for dancing, socializing, and shopping. The club's sumptuous virtual facilities were designed by Amethyst Jetaime, in an art deco style reminiscent of many real-life jazz clubs.
According to the Second Life In-World Travel Guide:
Phat Cat's … is one of the premier dance clubs in Second Life. The theme here is ballroom with many residents gracing the dance floor in beautiful flowing dresses and tuxedos. An element of romance is certainly in the air and, in fact, it was romance itself that helped to create this location … Phat Cat's is a wonderful and safe place to dance and make new friends. (By Sean Percival, published by Que in Dec. 2007)
Phat Cat's Jazz Club is owned by Jody Huet, Amethyst Jetaime, and Barbarella Noel. According to club co-owner Jody Huet: We have reached many of the professional and personal goals we held going into ownership, and we are moving to focus our attention on other projects. Phat Cat's has always been a magical place, where Second Life residents can find a luxurious escape from the mundane pressures of daily life. The club's hosts, hostesses, and managers work around the clock to create a warm and inviting environment where anyone can feel welcome. We can't wait to see that environment continue, even as ownership of the club changes hands. Going by Linden Lab's traffic counts, Phat Cat's has more traffic than any other jazz club in Second Life, once clubs that use camping (paying residents for their presence) are removed from the measurement. Phat Cat's has never used camping, robotically controlled avatars, or any other means to artificially inflate its traffic measurement.
According to the virtual world consulting firm KZero: The Phat Cats Romantic Ballroom is a great example of creating a genre-based venue in a virtual world with music (jazz) acting as the catalyst for popularity - Phat Cats is consistently one of the top twenty most frequented venues in Second Life.
("Phat Cat's, phat traffic", Aug. 15, 2007, http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=1030) Phat Cat's is famous for shopping as well as dancing. The Courtyard at Phat Cat's hosts more than 30 top designers of virtual clothing, including Details by Nonna Hedges, Styles of Edo, Apple May, Haute Couture, Alchemy, Head-to-Toe, Classico, Eros, Callie Cline, Zhao Shoes, Inca Temple, A La Folie, Fashion Fruit, and many others.

Burning Life - Opening Day!!!

I was lucky enough to be invited to join the Burning Life Group before it was closed to new members so I have been visiting and watching the builds as they were completed.

It has been fun listening to the trials and tribulations of the builders in the group chat who have had disappearing prims and textures and missing co-builders.

I visited the community Center which was built by my friend Joao Mastroianni.

This is the place to go to find out information about the various sims and to find tp’s to them.

It is itself is a wonderful build, incorporating Burning Man symbols and pictures and is really the place to start your tour of the 22 sims filled with glorious imaginative art.

The theme of this year is "The American Dream" which seems to be a little out of context considering our universality here.

I have visited most of the sims briefly and what I have seen is so impressive it will be hard to describe it in words.

The last minute rush was on Friday to finish the work as some frantic last minute additions for the opening on Saturday.

Some of the exhibits you must experience for yourself to make your own interpretation of their meaning. Grab a snack and a drink of your choosing and get going.

There are plenty of outhouses so don’t worry about that!

I would highly recommend you prepare for your visit by finding the lowest prim hair and clothing you can and take off all your AO’s and scripts possible.

Those who attempted to go to the Hair Fair will know what I am talking about. The less baggage you carry with you the better off you will be!

You really have to make some time to visit this amazing event!

Those who envisioned their art and then prepared it have spent their last two weeks or longer working on their projects for your enjoyment as well as their own.

I will be writing about various builds that I found especially fascinating in the next week so watch for more about Burning Life.

To get to the Community Center and pick up your tour guide on your map go to Quad 85, 119, 24 and then roam!!!!!

By Gemma Cleanslate

On Assignment at Burning Life 2008

Cartoon of the day

by Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

Facebook ban on avatar names

Many people sign up for online social networks using their Secondlife avatar names and use these networks as a way to keep in touch outside of SL but beware 'Facebook' is cracking down on fake identities.
The Sydney morning herald tells the story of Sydneysider Elmo Keep (real name!) who was banned this month for violating their terms of service only regaining her account when she could provide government issued ID.
So beware if you have signed up with your avatar name especially if that name is in anyway unusual - I think I would be OK but many avatars names are very different - but then so are many real life names too :)
Dana Vanmoer
source: Reuters

Rezzable Search for the 12 best SL Machinimas

Rezzable is searching for the 12 best Machinimas made in SL.
From now till September 30th this blog is open to people nominating who -they think- is the best 12 to be represented in the upcoming Machinima Festival. Machinimas eligible for consideration are those that have been made between September 1, 2007 and September 30th, 2008 taken in Second Life.
So yes this means new, just released machinimas are eligible.
On September 30th, the nominations will be narrowed down to the top 24, where then voting will take place by YOU in deciding which 12 will participate in the festival.

Rolling Restart to deploy 1.24.6, Tue-Thu Sep. 23-25

If this is what you get when you log in don't panic:
There will be a rolling restart this week to deploy server version 1.24.6 to Second Life. Release notes for what is changed may be found on this page on the Second Life Wiki. There are no new features in this release, only bug fixes. The version that will be deployed to Second Life is currently on the Preview Grid on regions running the Second Life Beta Server channel.
The rolling restart will follow this schedule:
Wednesday, 8:30-10PM: a pilot group of ~3000 regions will receive 1.24.6.
Thursday, 5-9AM: half of Second Life will receive 1.24.6.
Friday, 5-9AM: the rest of Second Life will receive 1.24.6
Each region will go down for about 5-10 minutes once during the rolling restart. If your region stays down for more than 20 minutes, please contact support.
Discussion of this rolling restart can be found in this thread in the Second Life forums.

The rolling restart is to fix 2 serious bugs in the last deployment on the forums you will find some interesting discussion and its nice to see Prospero Linden responding reasonably to most of the sensible points on there.

UPDATE: "the server deploy has been postponed a day, and will start either Thursday evening or Friday morning."

Let us hope that the updates go smoothly - I know many have been experiencing an increase in crashes since the mono rollout - fingers crossed everyone.
Dana

Lavapit update

The lava may be bright -
Shame about the paramedics!
Click for full size

Fire Island changes hands

As many know Carter Giacobini bought Fire Island from Vito and re-opened it on May 22nd 2007 now begins the next chapter in its history with Carter making the difficult decision to step down as owner.
Beau Loring has bought the controlling share and will be managing Fire Island with his boyfriend Micha Fotherington.
This is a sad occasion for me personally as FI and Carter go together in my mind but Carter is not leaving just concentrating on other areas, in a notecard sent out Carter had this to say about his decision;

"Though I've sold my interest in Fire Island, I am not leaving. My bf Xavier Queler and I own 3 parcels on Fire Island South and plan on building a home fit for queens.
:-) I am also keeping controlling interest in Gatsby Heights and Moon Light Bay and am still the sole owner of Venture Magazine. I plan on spending more time on Gatsby Heights and taking Venture Magazine to the next level.
The time that I've spent as Fire Island's proud owner has taught me so much and I've created so many amazing friendships because of it. The community on Fire Island is - bar none - the best that I have ever known inside Second Life. As many of you know, this was the first place that I ever tp'd to when I learned how to work the search feature. When I bought it from Vito, it felt like I was coming home, again. Now, it's time for me to step aside and let the next chapter in this virtual institution begin.
Over the next couple of weeks, I will be assisting Beau and Micha with the transition. I want to ensure that everyone who owns property on Fire Island, wants to do business with Fire Island or has questions about Fire Island go to Beau Loring first. If he or Micha have questions, they will ask me, but my time for making decisions about Fire Island is now officially over."

RL RAIDER part 3

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experienced it’s first technical problem less than a day after becoming operational when a transformer failed. “This is arguably the largest machine built by humankind, is incredibly complex, and involves components of varying ages and origins, so I’m not at all surprised to hear of some glitches,” said Steve Giddings, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.(This was published in all the RL Newspapers, but it’s far from the truth).

Read Cova's continuing RL adventure in the EXTRA EXTRA section

Chat History?????

Surprisingly (at least to me) many people do not know that their chat history is stored on their hard disk even fewer know how to find it even if they are aware of it, so after trying to show a few people recently I have put together a couple of images that can help - its not difficult once you find it and for a lot of people it can be such a time saver!
The images shown here will open in separate windows so you can go ahead and click them for reference.
I did search for an explanation/tutorial on this subject but failed to find one so if anyone knows a link to one please feel free to post it in the comments.

First you need to have secondlife running and click 'Edit' [1] On the window that pops up click on the 'communication' tab [2] This is where YOU choose which logs are kept - some choose just whole session logging which keeps everything that appears in 'chat' - I personally keep all of mine mainly for reference but this is your choice - at the bottom of the window you will see a blue button that says 'Change Path' and next to that a line that will start with 'C:/' this is different for every person and usually includes the name of your computer you need to copy this to your clipboard (the easiest way is the highlight the entire address and press 'Ctrl and C' on your keyboard)

Next go to your start button and find 'my computer' or 'computer' for vista users

At the top of this window you should see an address bar similar to a browsers' - it should also begin with 'C:/' this is where you need to paste (click the cursor in the address bar, delete what is already in there and press 'Ctrl and V' together) the path that you copied from Secondlife should appear in the bar, click 'ENTER'.

By doing this you should find a folder with your SL name which you can open - if you have had IMs logged you will see a list of names of those you have spoken to if not you will just see a folder with CHAT this is your entire chat history.
You can also change where your chat history is saved to make it easier to find - I moved mine to 'my documents' - to change where it is saved open the place you want it to go to in 'my computer' and copy (Ctrl+C) the address in the top bar, go to SL again and click the 'Change Path' button [3] you can paste ['Ctrl+V] the address, be sure to click 'Apply' before closing the edit window.

I hope some find this useful - but please remember it is against the Secondlife ToS to copy conversations in Secondlife.

Dana Vanmoer

Sexgen Trademark weaves a tangled web

What a mess is the first thing that came to mind when I found out about the issues with 'Sexgen' and who owns what rights.
On Friday Stroker Serpentine went public with claims of trademark infringement for unauthorized use of the term 'SexGen' by Corsi Mousehold and her line of sexbeds.
Originally Serpentine worked with Briggi bard, a scripter and animator, to create the 'Sexgen' line of beds, after a disagreement between them Bard then started working with Mousehold, after a period of time wounds were healed between Serpentine and Bard and all three began working on the beds and selling them. ALL three sold the beds under the Sexgen name.
To get some sense out of the stories and rumours flying around I attempted to speak to those involved - unfortunately Stroker Serpentine was too busy to speak with me and Briggi Bard is reportedly away on vacation but I did manage to speak to Corsi Mousehold;

Corsi Mousehold: Okay. Look. This has taken alot out of me. I have told the story to them (The Herald) and you can feel more than free to copy what I told her but I really don't want to repeat myself in telling this story.
dana Vanmoer: I can understand that
dana Vanmoer: you must be exhausted from talking/typing today
Corsi Mousehold: You have no idea.
dana Vanmoer: To be honest i have read it all and i think unless bard (Briggi Bard) backs you up - it looks really bad
Corsi Mousehold: She will.
dana Vanmoer: seems strange to go public now when she is away
Corsi Mousehold: Would you like to see the contract I have?
dana Vanmoer: yes please
Corsi Mousehold: I know. Strokers the one going public. I am on defense.
dana Vanmoer: ok
Corsi Mousehold: There you go.

---

The image is not easy to read even when enlarged so I will copy some of the text here:

Andrea Faulkner: Ok... I caught up with Stroker... and I got a positive response... but he’s kinda dropping this in MY lap now so I’m trying to figure out which is the best way to do this for both of us
Andrea Faulkner: You get your bases from Briggi for the Diamond already right?
Corsi Mousehold: Honestly? My ideas for the best. We all sell everything ourselves. Because of what happened between Briggi and Stroker that is never goign to mend. ...Unfortunate but Meh. Nothing we can do
Corsi Mousehold: I have mod rights to Briggi’s stuff but I do not have full permission copies of everything yet.
Andrea Faulkner: Right... so basically you get your bases from Briggi..
Corsi Mousehold: We were in in process then this came up and went on pause.
Corsi Mousehold: But yes I get everything from Briggi
Andrea Faulkner: So... Stroker is essentially saying that yes, you can get Platinum bases from Briggi and sell them with his blessing
Andrea Faulkner: I actually thought you guys were selling them anyway
Corsi Mousehold: My long term goal is to be a little more proactive than reactive to the same end that Stroker is taking. I am goign to be going out to set up vendors in other peoples stored with basses in the beds. Basically everywhere and wiping MLP off the planet.
Corsi Mousehold: Briggi is I am not
Corsi Mousehold: Now I can
Andrea Faulkner: well... tell her... or I’ll tell her... copy this conversation, whatever you want... and tell ehr WE SAID you can sell them
Corsi Mousehold: I will fax the DMCA recention notice in a few miniutes

---

dana Vanmoer: I dont want you to repeat everything
dana Vanmoer: just would like you to know we do try to report objectively
Corsi Mousehold: In that, Strokers Buisness Manager Andrea Faulkner states that I can sell the Platinum. I really don't think I need permission to sell the Diamond animations I made.
Corsi Mousehold: The original file date on my computer is the 19th of June for the creation date of the file.
Corsi Mousehold: And the creation date is within one minute of the timestamp from Second Life.
Corsi Mousehold: No alteration timestamp.
dana Vanmoer: stroker could argue that it is not a direct conversation with him and he is not responsible for what his manager has told you
Corsi Mousehold: So unless Stroker wants to say that Andrea has no right to make a managerial decision ....
Corsi Mousehold: That would effectively fire her as a buisness manager.
dana Vanmoer: maybe so but still leaves you out in the cold because this is not a direct contract with stroker
dana Vanmoer: he could easily claim ignorance of that conversation
Corsi Mousehold: No but it is a direct contract with the buisness manager for Eros LLC
Corsi Mousehold: Doesn't matter.
Corsi Mousehold: All I really want is one thing. He's stated to me that he wants me out of the picture. Okay ... Fine.
Corsi Mousehold: Just stop selling my animations and I'll go.
dana Vanmoer: but that would mean you would have to stop using the sexgen name?
Corsi Mousehold: Okay.... Yes that is what I am trying to agree to.
Corsi Mousehold: But he's stating to me that he will not accept that.
dana Vanmoer: he wants to continue using your animations but will not allow you to use the sexgen name
Corsi Mousehold: He wants no negotiations. Just Corsi stops using the SexGen name and he keeps selling my animations.
dana Vanmoer: so he was happy for you to sell sexgen up until now
Corsi Mousehold: Yes
dana Vanmoer: what changed?
Corsi Mousehold: SexGen 5.04 Scripts that Briggi and I developed for Mono
Corsi Mousehold: We developed those. Briggi doesn't want to share them. I had 50 animations from the Crystal and we now could add that to the Platinum Diamond.
Corsi Mousehold: Titanium was released and ..... As they say ... Shitstorm
dana Vanmoer: so titanium has animations in from each of you
Corsi Mousehold: He attacked the Titanium in the SexGen Users group stating not to get it and not to get Mono Scripting
Corsi Mousehold: That's correct.
dana Vanmoer: why would he do that if he is partially responsible for it?
Corsi Mousehold: Simple. He does not have the 5.04 scriptset
Corsi Mousehold: We released Titanium and he isn't getting money from that.
Corsi Mousehold: I did.
Corsi Mousehold: Briggi did
dana Vanmoer: ah, i see
Corsi Mousehold: Cause I still split sales with her.
dana Vanmoer: ok starting to make sense
dana Vanmoer: does titanium contain animations from stroker?
Corsi Mousehold: Yes.
Corsi Mousehold: And they are in there because as far as I knew he agreed to let me sell it cause he was selling the Diamond animations.
dana Vanmoer: so actually sales should be split 3 ways
dana Vanmoer: you have all shared everything up until this titanium - why not share that also?
Corsi Mousehold: No Dana that's just it.
Corsi Mousehold: We haven't aplit sales since JANUARY
Corsi Mousehold: Lets recap. Readers Digest style.
Corsi Mousehold: Christmas sale comes around Stroker doesn't pay me for the Platinum Diamond he was selling. Not until we had to litterally bang on his door then he hands out 60K to Briggi to split which she does and he states he is splitting up with her. He is seling just the Magnum and we were to stop selling the Platinum.
Corsi Mousehold: We agree.
Corsi Mousehold: Two weeks later he starts selling the platinum anyway stating it was to recover costs from the lawsuit in 07 that .... EVERYONE heard about.
Corsi Mousehold: But he was not paying anything to Briggi. Tells her he wants her to do the same and not pay him.
Corsi Mousehold: We move on like this til June and he starts selling the Diamond Plus. But says nothing to me until I found out on the 16th
Corsi Mousehold: I go there and he is indeed selling my animations.
Corsi Mousehold: I confront him. We shouted back and forth and he stated it would suck if my animations ended up in a Bed in a box.
Corsi Mousehold: I have proof of that one too.
dana Vanmoer: "Further, we reserve the right to refuse business for any reason. Possible reasons include but are not limited to - underpricing, selling other items as SexGen which in reality aren't, beds used aren't of decent quality, etc. "
Corsi Mousehold: Where do you have that?
dana Vanmoer: its from a contact who is touch with stroker
Corsi Mousehold: Okay where is it in writing and when was it stated
dana Vanmoer: finding out now
dana Vanmoer: as i said i am trying to look into this from all sides
Corsi Mousehold: Dollars to Doughnuts bets he's trying really hard to back out of the way.
dana Vanmoer: :)
Corsi Mousehold: Cause the comments on the quality of the beds has been a recent thing. Up until now they've never said a damn thing and beds like these have been in my store for over a year.
Corsi Mousehold: Think abotu this.... If I am lying ...
dana Vanmoer: but i think he will have the law on his side and you will not have a legal leg to stand on
Corsi Mousehold: Why wait .... TWO YEARS to do any of this?
Corsi Mousehold: Honestly I am not going to guess.
dana Vanmoer: I am not saying you are but i think you are going to have a very hard time proving it legally
Corsi Mousehold: What I want is SIMPLE.
Corsi Mousehold: Let me take my animations .... And I'll go
Corsi Mousehold: If he stops selling them .... I am out of his hair.
Corsi Mousehold: THAT'S IT!!!
Corsi Mousehold: What kills me is in one breath he says they suck and in the next he refuses to remove them.
Corsi Mousehold: Things that make you go WHAT THE F***???
dana Vanmoer: yes understandable
Corsi Mousehold: I don't want this. I never wanted this.
Corsi Mousehold: But I'll fight for my shit.
dana Vanmoer: again understandable
Corsi Mousehold: One thing I DO have to comment that is absolutely batshit insane hillarious in all this.
dana Vanmoer: this contract only covers the platinum
Corsi Mousehold: He claims I am suppirting scat, Diaper play and Pedophilia ... And I can give abotu 500 witnesses in the FurNation community that know better. And He's the one with the Porta-Potty, Toilet, and dirty mattress.
Corsi Mousehold: Dana ... Do I need permission to sell my own animations?
dana Vanmoer: no you dont but you do need permission to sell them under the sexgen name
Corsi Mousehold: He is.
dana Vanmoer: he owns the name
dana Vanmoer: i really can understand your frustration here but on paper he has the right to say no you cannot use the sexgen name
Corsi Mousehold: And remember ... Andrea does state 'You get your bases from Briggi for the Diamond already Right?'
Corsi Mousehold: So she acknowledges that there is a Diamond Base for sale by me.
dana Vanmoer: maybe so but the point is on paper titanium is not mentioned
dana Vanmoer: (just playing devils advocate here)
Corsi Mousehold: (ANd very well there too)
Corsi Mousehold: Okay that is a valid point. However there is nothing in there that says I have to stay stagnant And I did say in there that I was going to take a more agressive standpoint from here.
Corsi Mousehold: Wouldn't that include releasing new product?
dana Vanmoer: also i am guessing you previously gave him written permission to use your animations
Corsi Mousehold: No. That's the fun part.
Corsi Mousehold: This agreement with Andrea served to allow him to continue to use the Diamond animations and I sell the Platinum
Corsi Mousehold: So the first Real non text document on record is the one I sent you.

Corsi had rezzed a copy of this Contract on a prim at her store which got a quick suspension (although the suspension only lasted a few hours).
Where will it all end? I should imagine that unless some agreement is reached which seems unlikely at the present juncture it will end in court. We will keep you updated.
Dana Vanmoer
Transcripts coded with Gwyn's colouriser

Cartoon of the day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

Introducing The PODEX

Podex is officially registered company specialising in exchange of Linden dollars.
We have been sucessfully operating on inworld market since May 2007.
We do not charge any extra costs for purchase of Linden Dollars. Customers are limited to 50 000 L$ per week.
Linden dollars are usually transffered to avatar's account the same day when the payment is received.
All personal data including avatar name is safe and used only in order to process orders.
Legality of transactions is verified by RISK API
All credit card data processing is done by international money transfer company DOT PAY.
Feel free to contact us inworld ( IM: Jacek Shuftan) or via our contact form..

Joining friends in SL just got easier:

Getting a Second Life Just Got Easier with Direct SLurl
"As we’ve discussed several times in this space, improving the “first hour” experience of new Residents is one of our primary goals. As our use cases and base continue to diversify, it’s important to begin tailoring the Second Life experience to the specific needs of our audience and reduce the time it takes to access and begin exploring the virtual world. One of the ways we can address this is to look at how first-time visitors are finding and accessing Second Life.
It’s with that mission in mind that we are launching Direct SLurl, an improved web address vehicle that enables first-time visitors to arrive directly at a location within Second Life, as their first location, by clicking on a Second Life URL from the Web, email, etc. Previously, all new Residents were directed to Help Island upon registration, where they went through orientation before they began exploring Second Life. In this new model, a first time visitor will be directed to www.slurl.com where, on that page, they click “sign up” and quickly register, download and login to the viewer, and arrive at their originally intended destination. A quick tutorial will open upon their initial arrival."

What this means is that your friends can skip help island orientation and join you at a specific location - they will still get a tutorial to help them get started.
Plus it will enable business meetings to get everyone together and orientate their members in one place.
This may help with large inworld conferencing and educational meetings as the company hosting it can then set up orientation themselves. With all their company in one place it certainly makes sense for conferences and businesses.
Dana

Gambling back in Second Life?

On September 11th, last week, the US House of Representatives passed Bill H.R. 6870 amending the UIGEA, the part of the Safe Port Act that forced Linden Lab to ban all gambling in Second Life in July last year. This new Bill states that the ban on internet gambling only attacks sports betting. Furthermore it appoints a commission that will determine further definitions of what constitutes internet gambling.

Last year, on July 25th 2007 to be precise, Linden Lab announced a change to its Terms of Service (ToS), banning all gambling for money in Second Life. Basically, any game of chance that involved L$ transactions were outlawed. As most of the people who are in SL for at least a year remember, this caused a huge uproar and large protests. Not only that, but the economy of SL also got a direct hit (see chart).

Now it seems that the House has un-done this ban, at least for normal casino games like Poker and Roulette and BlackJack and even including the good-old Sploder. As long as it doesn't involve betting on sports results, this bill makes it legal again.

But of course, the fans of gambling in SL can only call this a glimpse of hope, because the Bill hasn't changed into Law just yet. First the US Senate has to pass this Bill, and after that the US president (currently Mr. Bush) has to sign it. And after that, Linden Lab has to feel compelled to revoke their ban through the ToS.

So there are still a few heavy steps to take, but in general it seems that at least some people in the Land of the Free have come to their senses. And of course, with the commission in place, they still have the power to outlaw casino games again, but that is not expected because that is not the intention of this new Bill.

The SL Newspaper will keep an eye on further developments although it will probably take some time before we hear anything else about this. When it's time to start in-world protests to convince the Lindens to change the ToS again, we'll certainly let you know. Or protest AGAINST changing the ToS again of course, if you want to keep SL free of gambling.

New Rape Crisis and Counselling centre opens

Many have read what Penance has to say in our Redlight section, she has strong opinions and a lot of experience but what many do not know is that Penny along with other volunteers run the Rape and Counselling centre in secondlife. I asked Penny to tell me about it:

dana Vanmoer: So tell me about the rape center and how it came about in SL
Penance Sautereau: Well, one day my wife was asleep and I was feeling triggery.
This was about last august, early, No one in my list was on and I needed someone to talk to. So I searched for counselling or peer support for rape survivors figuring SL surely had something. I found all of three counsellors All of whom charged $1500L an hour. And over 60 rape fetish groups
Penance Sautereau: And I was horrified.
Penance Sautereau: So I built the original rape crisis and counselling centre in kot to put free counselling on SL, and to exist as a reminder that Rape is NOT sexy when it's real, and what these fetishists make a fantasy of is a horrific thing when it happens to you for real.
dana Vanmoer: How did you find people willing to help?
Penance Sautereau: Well, my first volunteer came after finding our classified ad and volunteered. One of my SL wives was the second, everyone else volunteered after finding the place, wanting to contribute to what they thought was an idea sl sorely needed
dana Vanmoer: What has the response been like?
Penance Sautereau: Well generally positive, no griefers. We've thankfully only had a few people come needing us. It's the sort of vocation where you're happier to NOT be needed.
dana Vanmoer: Does that make you feel it is not needed here in SL? Or do you feel its because its not known that the help is there?
Penance Sautereau: Well I suppose more advertising could help, but we're the only result in search if you type in "Rape Counselling" so we're not hard to find
dana Vanmoer: I guess its a matter of if you are looking for it you will find it
dana Vanmoer: Are you or any of the volunteers trained to be counsellors?
Penance Sautereau: I'm not, but we specify that up front. Three of my volunteers are actually rl trained and certified though
dana Vanmoer: Do you give those that come for advice information for real life help?
Penance Sautereau: Always. Virtual counselling seems a good start for many because it's less personal, not being truly face to face, but we always recommend towards rl counselling when they're ready
dana Vanmoer: anything else you would like to tell people?
Penance Sautereau: Don't bottle it up, it'll eat at you. If you have these issues you have to talk them out, work through them. Burying them only hurts you. And we're here to listen, and help if we can. And to all you men, remember NO really does mean NO.

What this shows is that the help is out there if you need it. As Penny said RL help is the best eventual solution, but Secondlife allows those that would like to remain completely untraceable the opportunity to get help that they may not do in RL through fear of discovery.

Thank you to Penance for letting us talk openly about a painful subject.

Chatlog colourised with the help of Gwyn’s Colouriser Script

'The Wall V-2 ~ The Director's Hack'

"The Cybernetic Art Research Project's (CARP) production of "The Wall V-2". In 30 shows we performed to 2200 avatars and raised over $L200,000 for charity. And had a blast of a time doing it!"
This weekend saw the release of two full length machinima's of 'The Wall V-2'.... The first is filmed and edited by reknowned SL machinimatographer Gary Hazlitt
http://www.justvirtual.com/
This one is filmed and edited by Debbie Trilling
Performed by The Cybernetic Art Research Project at NMC Campus West in Second Life in August 2008

The Wall was one show I enjoyed immensely and found used the platform to its fullest extent - machinima are great but do not show the full impact of what was achieved - but if you missed it then its great to be able to show it in part.
Dana

Eye on the Blog:

Just a short announcement that the Land Store will be taken down on Wednesday 17th September for an upgrade to version 2.01. It will be switched off at 9am PST, and all being well will be back up by 11am PST.
This update is specifically to add one new feature that we’re calling ‘Allow Neighbours’. This new functionality allows you to grant permission to other residents so that they can order islands alongside your own, something previously disallowed unless granted through support tickets. For more explanation we have posted a Knowledge Base article over here.
Jack Linden

The Lava fights back!

I was informed of a terrible accident at Boxapixels, the land owned by our friend Lord Leafblower, right next to our outlet there so I teleported over as fast as I could before the evidence could disappear!
It seems the lava around the 'Pit' has started to shift - I spoke to Lord Leafblower about the accident:
dana Vanmoer: what would you say was the cause of this accident?
Lord Leafblower: new physics engine? extreme gravity?
Lord Leafblower: hmmm
dana Vanmoer: nothing to do with substandard building materials??
Lord Leafblower: might be :D
Lord Leafblower: dont trust mega prims
dana Vanmoer: As the man responsible for visitors' safety what reassurance can you give that this is an isolated incident?
Lord Leafblower: watch where you are f***ing going - would be my advice :D
dana Vanmoer: that is not very reassuring
Lord Leafblower: nope =) but I will hire some noobs to shovel it up.
dana Vanmoer: Do you see any other parts of the landscape disappearing under the lava?
Lord Leafblower: maybe the sln shop, the lava is progressing in that direction.
dana Vanmoer: and you assured us it was safe this time !!!!!
Lord Leafblower: must have misunderstood me
dana Vanmoer: Do we get a refund if it disappears?
Lord Leafblower: no u have to pay to have it dug out
dana Vanmoer: This is sounding less and less like a good place to set up shop
dana Vanmoer: Do you have any details on the errrrm deceased? Had he been drinking in the club?
Lord Leafblower: I think he was flying after under the influence of the jack daniels available at the club. but I take no responsibility. Some people say they heard him shouting "screw you leafblower!!!" :D
dana Vanmoer: you think he was trying to get you shut down? A suicide mission?
Lord Leafblower: maybe was flying to the club and lost control. who knows. but he obviously has some pretty heavy-duty fireproof clothing on. gotta watch for the crazies.
dana Vanmoer: unfortunately not enough to save his life
Lord Leafblower: well he is poking out from the waist down, so maybe he is not brain dead.
dana Vanmoer: are you expecting the family of the dead man to sue?
Lord Leafblower: well its hard to tell - u know I went to welcome island, and there were thousands of his relatives. might be a cult or something. just keeping my eyes open for bland faced guys in white tees and jeans. :D

If the family of the poor unfortunate man would like any details they can contact us at our office at this location we would like to extend our sympathies and help if we can:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Boxapixels/129/44/22

Today in SL-newspaper

In our FINANCE section catch up with the markets for the last week with Redd O'Connell.
Bixyl attended the ODD ball in our EVENTS section and Song Bremer continues her Audacious exploration in the EXPLORE section.
Don't miss out on the weekends articles in the REDLIGHT section and EXTRA EXTRA

Frank Ambrose (FJ Linden) introduces himself on the Blog:

"Hello, I’m Frank Ambrose, the Senior VP of Global Technology, and I’d like to take this opportunity to let you know about some of the work we’re doing on the Second Life Grid.
By way of introduction, I’m a recent hire here at the Lab, having joined to lead our global technology team. Specifically I’ll be focused on grid infrastructure and our stability initiatives. As noted in the press release, I come to the Lab from many years at AOL (and prior to that MCI), where I experienced the kind of explosive growth, global scale and inherent stability challenges we face here at Linden Lab.
More than anything else, my tenures at those companies taught me the direct relationship between platform stability and user experience. I’m looking forward to applying that lesson, and a host of others, as we work to maintain, build and improve this complex virtual world. I am keenly aware of the pain that any service outage can cause and am both excited and confident that Linden Lab has focused the right resources to achieve this critical objective.

Given the complexities in our architecture, our stability efforts span many individual areas, most of which were detailed by Ian Linden’s May posting. Some areas will be addressed through short-term initiatives, while others will require significant re-architecture, software changes and new physical hardware. Throughout it all, we’re committed to making the transition to a more stable world as seamless and transparent to you as possible. To that end, members of my team will be using the blog regularly to provide updates on plans and progress towards meeting our stability goals."

Read the full introduction HERE

The main point seems to be that Linden Lab are working on stability - but we have all heard that before, right? So let's sit and watch the fun begin as the recent, fairly stable, grid gets pulled apart in the hopes of finding a long term solution.

"One of my initial observations is that many components of the infrastructure are “over engineered.” That’s not a criticism, its just a fact.

There are a lot of reasons for this and we’ve already taken steps to remove some complicated code that was deployed and contributed to some of our recent instability. It was designed with the right intentions, but just didn’t deliver.
Finally, I want to restate that we are committed to fix the grid. It’s my singular focus. But I also know that words are cheap and we need to start delivering on these promises.

If my days at AOL taught me anything, its to have a thick skin, and sense of humor. Whatever the comments may be, I’d much rather have an active group of passionate residents (frustrated as they may be), than a silent, disengaged group."

Great start FJ keep up the communication, good and bad news, and the residents will help you as much as they can!

Dana

Jack Linden 'Clarifies' the new Ad farming policy:

In a blog post on the official Linden blog Jack Linden says:
"In this follow-up blog post on Ad Farming, I will be talking about the new rules. As with my previous post, I’d like to then move the discussion into this thread on the forums so that as many of you as possible can give us your opinion over the next few days.
A number of you have raised concerns over going the formal license route, and we too have come to the conclusion that this isn’t the best option. So instead we are going to cover ad farming activities (and the operating of network advertising businesses) under our Terms of Service, specifically as Harassment under clause 4.1. By Networked Advertising, we are specifically talking about the use of multiple parcels, on multiple regions, for the primary purpose of advertising, usually on behalf of other inworld or real world businesses.
What does this mean? if you operate any such networked advertising business on the Linden Mainland, that breaks any one of the following rules or restrictions, we will consider it to be a Terms of Service violation leading to disciplinary action that can include account suspension and loss of land."

Seen by many as Linden Lab backtracking on the previous policy and again giving in to the large Ad networks on the mainland the new policy raises a lot more questions than it answers as can be seen from the Forum discussion.
Many are disappointed and confused by the lack of a clear cut policy, although this would probably be impossible to achieve or enforce anyway. Not defining an exact policy allows LL as always the option to take action without having to stipulate the 'why'.
It is to be hoped that this will wipe out the ugly sights on the Linden mainland but it is now looking less and less likely:

"We will allow no more than 50 advertising locations owned by a single individual, whether personally owned or via groups in which you are a member, unless you have written permission from Linden Lab to exceed this limit.Use of Alt accounts/groups to circumvent this restriction will be considered a violation.
In addition to the cap, we will allow no more than 1 advertising placement by an individual in any single region."

50 ads spread over 50 regions - with Linden Lab unable to trace alts this seems easily circumvented.
The policy also does not address the land extortion that has been going on for a very long time it is to be hoped that eventually Linden Lab will do something about this too.
The fact of the policy being created at all gives hope - but when up against some of the biggest offenders I can see no way for LL to deal effectively with them. They as always will find ways around it.
Be sure to share your opinions in the Forum, its the only way we really have of getting questions answered when a Linden condescends to join the discussion - but at least there seems to be some ears open since the last forum on this subject.

Cartoon of the day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

Legal Action against Frank Corsi of Central Grid

For the benefit of all of you who have taken an interest in the evolution and development of "Central Grid," I feel compelled to publicly announce today that I have retained counsel to initiate legal action against Mr. Frank Corsi for multiple acts of alleged misconduct, including but not limited to his continuing libel and slander of my good name and reputation.
Despite recent postings suggesting that I knowingly entered into a part ownership agreement with Mr. Corsi and others in the Central Grid venture, the truth is that my involvement with this project was based upon numerous false representations made by Corsi and others.
These false representations were specifically designed to induce me to invest my own personal funds in the Central Grid project. Once Mr. Corsi had control over my funds, he continued to engage in deceptive conduct.
While he continues to weave a story suggesting that I left Central Grid voluntarily, the truth is that I was used, manipulated and forced out, losing my investment in the process.
I left my part ownership position at Central Grid and DO NOT endorse it in any manner.
There is much more to be told and disclosed about this story and my role as a victim of Mr. Corsi's illegal conduct, but upon advice of counsel I am constrained to only report, for now, as much information as is contained in this statement.
Interested parties, however, should stay tuned for continuing developments regarding Mr. Corsi's activities, not only with respect to Central Grid, but also his notorious role as Jasper Tizzy in Second Life and much more.
I want to also take this opportunity to thank so many friends and supporters who have stood by me throughout this terrible ordeal, and to encourage others who believe they have been defrauded by Frank Corsi to come forward with their stories and join our cause to show those who would take advantage of others in the virtual world are subject to the laws of the real world and will pay real consequences for the damages caused by their greed.

Barb Newman-Zitka (Barb Carson in Secondlife)

Styles of EDO brings you a new place to explore and shop

Today for the first time the Public can join Edo Tone and Mami Jewel of Styles of Edo in enjoying their new look sim Tyche The beauty of the frame is only surpassed by the excellence of their design abilities, have a look in the EXPLORE section for more details...........

Dana

Looks like its gonna be a bumpy weekend for Residents!

Rolling Restart to deploy server version 1.24.5, Wed-Fri, Sep 10-12
We will be deploying server version 1.24.5 to Second Life this week. This version includes no new major features, but fixes bugs with the current 1.24.4 server that is on Second Life. More details of what’s been changed can be found on the Second Life Wiki’s release notes page for 1.24.
This rolling restart will follow our usual three-stage deploy:
Wed, 09/10, 9pm : A pilot group of ~3000 regions will be restarted.
Thu, 09/11, 5-9am : Half of Second Life will be restarted.
Fri, 09/12, 5-9am : The remainder of Second Life will be restarted.
As with all rolling restarts, each region will receive warnings starting 5 minutes before they are restarted. No region should stay down more than 10 or 20 minutes; if your region stays down longer than 20 minutes, please contact support.
Further discussion of the 1.24.5 server deploy can be found in this thread in the Second Life forums.

Server Crash Affecting Logins
[6:59 AM Pacific] One of our main infrastructure servers has suffered a crash. This will result in various in world problems as well as failed logins. Our technicians are working on damage control and we hope to have things back to normal and logins fully restored shortly.

Prospero Linden
The problems we had before (an hour or two ago) were not due to the rolling restart. A technician in our datacenter hooked up a cable, and somehow a network loop was created. We figured out what was going on pretty quickly, and asked them to disconnect the cable. In the mean time, however, there was a fair amount of chaos. We're not sure exactly how the cable was connected incorrectly...............
In case you didn't see it on the status blog -- we're postponing this morning's rolling restart, as we have one more bug fix that's going to go in. Assuming all goes well, we'll redo the pilot roll later this morning, and then will do a Thursday Night / Friday Morning half-and-half roll of the entire grid.

9.11 Events today:-

9.11 Never Forget
On 9.11.08 At approx 8:30 AM Eastern Time
"9.11 Never Forget - A Memorial in Second Life"
will take place in Second Life at the New York, NYC Sim at the World Trade Center Memorial. This event will be hosted by Melody Regent and her staff at Regent Estates. All are invited to attend and be a part of this very special day of remembrance in which the names of all of the almost 3000 people who perished in the terrorist attacks of 9.11.01 will be read by residents from SL Fashion, Music, Art, Builders, TV, Bloggers, Podcasters and others who have donated their time and efforts to take part..
The "9/11 Firefighters Memorial Wall in SL" by Second Life builder "Talin Sands" will be unveiled.
If you miss the 8:30 AM reading of the names you can still stop by the sim later in the day when it will be replayed again throughout the day on the music stream.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/New%20York%20NYC/173/157/21
------------------------------------------------
"Tribute in Light: A 9-11 Memorial in SL (Cetus)

(CETUS) - As night falls in Cetus this Thursday, September 11, "Tribute in Light," a replica of the glowing light beams that shone in RL New York in 2004, will glow brightly in the skies over Cetus Gallery District during a 24-hour memorial event and fundraiser to honor the firefighters, police, and emergency workers who gave their lives or were injured in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
The light towers were commissioned by Cetus founder Xander Ruttan, and constructed by Zachh Cale of Cetus-based Zachh Cale Gallery along with help from Supremious and Sensuous Maximus of SL's Builder's Brewery, based on the DIXON Perfect sim.
Interestingly, the 9-11 tribute isn't the only connection Cetus has with Ground Zero. The Beauchamp Building in Cetus, an iconographic structure due to its central location, height and distinctinctive bell tower reminiscent of the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C., was conceived by Ruttan and built with a RL architect whose projects include rehabilitation of one of the buildings badly damaged when Tower 2 fell.
A daylong series of events will occur in Cetus to mark the 7th anniversary of 9-11.
For a complete lineup of the day's speakers and performers, contact event organizers. CONTACT: Hope McAlpine, any1 Gynoid, event organizers,
or Xander Ruttan, Founder, Cetus Gallery District
------------------------------------------------

What were they thinking?

In this SL economy, why would Hellespont Hoorenbeek actually buy a couple of regions and set up a new residential community?

Find out in the EXPLORE section

RUNWAY Magazine Hits Milestone

Since launching their first issue in March 2008, RUNWAY Magazine has made its mark on the fashion industry in Second Life, distributing over 40,000 copies of their August 2008 issue alone.

Find out more in the DESIGN section

Emilin Nakamori’s Physical Machines

Emilin Nakamori had a few things to say about her "Physical Machines, " and her hands-on research into the limits of Second Life physics.

Continued in DESIGN

2008 Hippo Award Winners Announced:

Today on the Blog - Rob Linden presented the awards at a mixed reality event that linked an inworld gathering of nominees, attendees of the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, FL, and others tuning in via audio stream. See the wiki for the full text of his presentation and a review of the last year’s highlights.

What are the Hippo awards? :

"The annual Linden Lab Innovation Awards -- aka the Hippo Awards -- acknowledge excellence in developing the Second Life platform. The awards highlight open source community members who have made the biggest impact on the quality and advancement of the Second Life Viewer and the Second Life experience for all."

The winners this year were:

Best Documentation are Asuka Neely and Gally Young.

Best Issue Tracker Organization is Harleen Gretzky.

Best Working Group Organization is Tao Takashi.
Best Code Contribution goes to the contributor of the voice lipsync feature, Mm Alder.

Best Community Influence: Lex Neva.

The 2008 Hippo Award Contributor of the Year is Michelle2 Zenovka.

Please join Linden Lab in thanking these contributors and the open source community for their work to improve the Second Life experience for everyone.

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

Sloodle browser breakthrough

Malcolm Crowe ( in SL: Malcolm Glasgow) has developed an interactive web browser which uses a special inworld mouse to enable interaction within secondlife. It not only allows one user, its also possible for several avatars to collaborate and interact opening up a host of possibilities.
"To drag the virtual mouse, you have to hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard, then click and hold your left mouse button on the arrow pointer, and move your mouse around. If the pointer disappears, then let go of the mouse and Ctrl key, and it will soon re-appear. To click the virtual mouse, simply click on the red button attached to the pointer.
Data entry occurs using ordinary text chat: URLs to visit can be specified on channel 2, and form data can be specified on channel 3."
Crowe developed the browser and mouse as part of an international collaboration between the University of the West of Scotland and San José State University they have also developed a quiz hud which will allow 3D interaction with surroundings.
"The quizHUD is a free, open source educational tool for Second Life. It primarily consists of a HUD (heads up display) object which you 'wear' on your user interface in Second Life, and separate website software which you use to administer the system."
Crowe does warn that the system is still in developement and open and free sourced - it still has a few bugs but it is a far greater improvement on what was previously possible.

More information on the Sloodle can be found HERE and on quizHUD HERE .

Lindens move on ad-farms

"In this blog post I will be talking about Ad Farming. As with my previous post, I’d like to then move the discussion into the forums so that as many of you as possible can give us your opinion.
Please keep in mind that this post is about the Linden Mainland, and does not apply to private islands where the estate owners choose how they wish to run their own estates.

The good news therefore, is that Network advertising (Ad Farming) will no longer be permitted on the Linden Mainland unless you have a written agreement with Linden Lab (essentially meaning a license to advertise). Anyone currently operating such a business inworld will need to remove their adverts by the 1st October 2008."

Read the full blog post HERE or join the forum debate HERE

"No more spinning, floating cubes, no more unsolicited notecard givers, no more improper use of ban lines."

Cartoon of the day

Picture taken by Dana Vanmoer

Click for full size

Groups, groups, damn groups!

'Groups exist in Second Life for many reasons. Most of them are social, but there's so many unique variations. Whether you're running an in-world business, being a Volunteer helper, enjoying random titles above your head, or just have a common interest with others, groups help Residents come together.'

So often have I heard and understood the call for us to be allowed more than 25 groups I thought it was time I had my say;

I fully understand and sympathise with anyone owning a business that is placed on different lands - like a shop owner - needing a group for each place he/she wants to rez objects. With griefing, setting land to group build is one way to protect it, and I advocate doing so on any land you own, but the problem is the group limit.

I know myself that I often have to leave one social group so I can set up a new place for either my business or for the newspaper office.

Lets look at other reasons for being in a group:

Business - As stated above mainly for ability to rez objects, but also to establish pecking order in your own business. To update consumers and notify then of upcoming events/new products and to let others know your business exists.

Roleplay - A lot of roleplayers need the groups to be assigned roles within their community.
Social - To keep in touch with like minded people maybe in the same community or having the same interest, to announce parties, events, and chat with friends.

Discussions - To be able to have open debates and informative discussions, help others and obtain feedback.

Organisation - Allowing organisers to communicate with each other while setting up events and getting feedback for idea's that have been proposed.

Privacy - To set access to land to a limited group of people.

There are probably many other reasons for being in a group but these are the main ones leaving out the ability to build/rez, the main object of being in any group is Communication!

It allows everyone to communicate with those of similar interests with each other and to generate discussion and feedback - doesn't it?

There we come to the crux of the group problem - sure we can use notices to inform but you can no longer chat or join in a discussion - why? Quite simply group IMs have not worked well for quite some time.

I remember once keeping a group chat open for 4 hours as the subject was enthralling and people came and went with their opinions, arguments ensued, and the debate raged on - could anyone honestly say they can do that now?

Even given that you can stay logged on without crashing for that length of time the group chat function simply crashes "ERROR connecting to group" or the chat lag is so bad your comment comes up at a completely irrelevant point in the discussion (which can be quite amusing at times but definately not useful).

The group limit has led to a spate of solutions - one system is the Artizan subscriber and mailbox system that you only pay for once and has an easy set up that allows you to send notices, notecards and objects to all those who subscribe to it for as long as you wish, another Subscribomatic, is one in which you pay a continuous server subscription for the ability to send messages to those who join your group.

This is one way of communicating with a group instead of using a precious group space needed for rezzing/land permissions. Many inworld businesses now offer this option to their customers, we at sl-newspaper now offer the Artizan solution to allow those with limited group space to keep up with what is happening (join up at our main office).

There is another benefit to this system and that is that you are no longer subject to what has become known as chat spam, the point of being in a group is to communicate - this often gets taken advantage of by people trying to promote their own services and can be a source of irritation to many in the group when they are bombarded with information and advertising they are not interested in, and let's face it the constant advertising can actually disrupt any reasonable conversation going on at the time and drive away those who are interested in your group - so using a subscriber system cuts that out BUT it also stops any kind of two way communications. So think about what it is you need before you decide which system is best for your business.

My opinion is that group instant message is at best barely functional at worst a great source of irritation to many, is it any wonder Residents are looking outside SL for a solution - like forums and chat rooms.

Isn't it amazing that Linden Lab who advocate Secondlife as a communications tool cannot find a way for its residents to connect with each other without leaving Secondlife to do it?

Many find running a browser and SL difficult at the best of times and with sim limits and lag communicating to a large group of avatars is fraught with difficulties. The time is ripe for someone to step in with a communications tool that will work within SL and allow us to communicate with large numbers of Residents at the same time, an Instant message system that actually works! (Well we can dream).

We do need more groups for rezzing/land permissions, especially those in business, BUT that aside Linden Lab needs to make the communications WORK before adding to a broken system.

Today Linden Lab have launched 'SLim' as a solution to off world to inworld communications but this does not answer the problem of INWORLD communications problems - it will involve running a seperate client to allow communications with those inworld or with inworld friends lists:

'Today, we’re happy to formally announce SLim, a lightweight, voice-enabled instant messaging client that will allow you to communicate with your Second Life friends without logging in to the full viewer. While the viewer will still serve as the primary communication engine when you’re inworld, having SLim installed will enable you to connect with friends whether or not they are actually inworld.'

It is definately NOT the answer to inworld group communication issues!

Dana

James gets up close with the readers....

and the crew!!!!

Find out more about what happened at last nights launch party in the EVENTS section

Welcome back! It's Party Time!!!!!!

Well firstly We apologise for the delay in getting us back - but we hope you will find it was worth it!
Have a look around sl-newspaper and discover the new way we are bringing everything to you. Above you can find the navigation - all main news sections are on buttons - other information can be found in the text links beneath them. Each section also has a short description in the header to give you some idea of what they may contain.
Along with the new look newspaper we have 3 new vendors for you to use at home or in your shop/club/mall.
These vendors reflect our new style - but don't worry if you prefer the older versions they will still work and are still available. Click the box cover on the left to go get yours from SLeXchange.com or pick them up inworld at our main locations. All of our vendors are free and copy, transfer enabled so you can rez however many you want to and also give to friends.
With the help of ArtiZan and the personal help of Zanara Zenovka we also wish to help you free up group space by using a subscriber group instead. This will enable us to easily keep you up to date and let you know of our events without having to take up a precious group space.
Find them in these locations:
Sunrise Fair
Head Office
Zurich City
A single click will join you up and then you will free up one more group!

Finally IT'S PARTY TIME!
Join us tonight to celebrate with a fun, sexy and adult party at the Playboy Mansion - I will put the Landmark here BUT be aware it will not work until 2pm SLT tonight!
Playboy Mansion
We will be entertained with a special selection from DJ Qwark Allen to keep us in the party mood - its a pool party so come 'dressed as you are' or 'DARE to bare'!
Hope to see you all there!!!
Feel free to let us know what you think of the new look in the comments here!!!!

JamesT and Dana

Sci-fi Author Larry Niven & Artist Michael Whelan Appear in Second Life

Science-Fiction fans had a treat when author Larry Niven and artist Michael Whelan appeared via their Second-Life avatars at the Writer's Convention and Fundraiser in Monogram Tria at 11 AM SL time on August 30th.
Taking place at the Monogram Virtua Convention Center, the event was held to raise funds for Alzheimer's research.
They offered a poster/wallpaper for charity, and answered questions from the audience.
Niven and Whelan's virtual selves, LarryNiven Magic and MichaelWhelan Xue, were posed seated at a desk, signing copies of artwork.
The art of Whelan's was the picture used for the cover Niven's book "Integral Trees," with the signatures of both the artist and author.
For a donation to the Alzheimer's Association, one would get a copy, and a notecard for where to download a computer wallpaper version for one's computer.
CONTINUED IN M.A.C.E.........