Second Life Absorption

Chupacabra dressed as Barack Obama, or mange we can believe in? #
Me as a kid http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/8668/adoptedas1.png #
info-4: Torley posted a photo: http://tinyurl.com/5ccynm #
Make a macro to save keystrokes sending SL postcards: Repetitive actions suck, especially when you can get.. http://tinyurl.com/5m5qpo #
Have you heard of Atomkeep for syncing your profiles across social networks? http://www.atomkeep.com/ #
what color characters we are! (SUPAR EDIT): Torley posted a photo:

»Watch them here! http://tinyurl.com/5abmv4 #
Amazing video game remixes by Hyadain — his Final Fantasy & Mega Man dance mixes are epic! http://www.youtube.com/user/hyadain2525 #
@PatchouliW: Have you seen UNBRANDED McDonald's? http://tinyurl.com/6klabf in reply to PatchouliW #
@Filterraum Nice Twixtor time-manip effects, but no, that SL 2.0 video isn't official/real. Note the lack of ™. Creative though. in reply to Filterraum #
@BlueLinden I want to have the mystery of the G-Man solved! Apparently, all Valve games for US$99: http://tinyurl.com/6eqoyc in reply to BlueLinden #
@krgaskins Do you have more total lives than a cat? in reply to krgaskins #
@SmileyBarry Yes, Snow let me know. I delight. in reply to SmileyBarry #
@dizzybanjo I am VERY HAPPY to hear this fact. in reply to dizzybanjo #
@pyrii I adore your CONCERN about what I miss. But in this case, no wai! http://tinyurl.com/6elazs =^_^= in reply to pyrii #
9 fine video tutorial QUICKTIPS for your delight!: Wondering about how to use fresh new features in Second.. http://tinyurl.com/6a4vlb #
Saw kewl red and yellow (special edition, apparently) M-Audio Axiom @ Guitar Center but can't find new info. Sounds like a new promo! #
What a smooth transition from Philip Glass to Muse's arpeggios in the new Watchmen trailer. #
who's here!: Torley posted a photo:

Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit Here. http://tinyurl.com/5tvhkd #
Second Life Bloggers Mix’n Match #1 posts are up!: Delightful topical contributions! Katt Linden volunteer.. http://tinyurl.com/58mpe9 #
Come hang out in Second Life with me now… http://slurl.com/secondlife/Here/62/55/47 #
Working on next round of Second Life video tutorial QUICKTIPS, they'll be @ http://secondlife.com/video soon! #
should be in a fairytale storybook: Torley posted a photo:

superb design Posted by Second Life Resident .. http://tinyurl.com/6z8r3l #
Who's your fave gestalt Transformer? I like Devastator. Great character design, color scheme, and component parts. Too bad he's kinda dumb. #
Thanx MoFuse for the iTunes gift card! I enjoyed taking your survey. #
@nik385 Yeah, you can mess with my landbox all you want. I'm an advocate of learning through creative chaos! Fingerpaints for terrain! in reply to nik385 #
@Filterraum This account is closed. Wha? in reply to Filterraum #
@rivenhomewood Yes! I'm in solidarity with personal branding! Being consistent and constant about who you are helps others remember you. in reply to rivenhomewood #
@morrisvig That sounds like it'd be an easy enough mod — and applicable in other controls too. Makes me think of some VST UIs. in reply to morrisvig #
@BlueLinden What other games are you looking forward to soon? I'm really curious about Mirror's Edge. in reply to BlueLinden #
@pixelq I'm with you there. No laws should reject or inhibit love. <3 in reply to pixelq #
@SonjaFinney Alas r8brain is Windows-only. I wonder what's its equivalent on Mac? Haven't done much sound conversion on Mac recently. in reply to SonjaFinney #
Need some land in Second Life to practice terraforming on? Try my landbox, mess up my terrain! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Here/181/120/33 #
Really beautiful, piano music I played while inspired… http://tinyurl.com/6b3xt2 #
In lazy we must: Someone can be “lazy” at some things which are considered to be low-importance or.. http://tinyurl.com/6j5ypr #
What is it called when you make your foot into a fist? #
“Hatch a scheme” sounds like it involves eggs. Which is, I suppose, a more tasteful visual image than placenta bags. #
Why hasn't electronic music advanced more?: by tombola2004
I took my exodus in 2004, when hyperacusis got .. http://tinyurl.com/6dw9xn #
Immersive experience: “AHHHH! I'm covered in it!” #
Can you believe this exists on Wikipedia? http://tinyurl.com/5dtk4c #
chillaxin' amidst chairsies: Torley posted a photo:

Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Olmstead. Vi.. http://tinyurl.com/3kr5xs #
Currently Browsing: http://mashable.com/2008/11/10/save-time-website-registration-profiles #
HOW TO: Save Time With Website Registration and Profiles @ http://mashable.com/2008/11/10/save-time-website-registration-profiles #
Torley's weekly Twitter for 2008-11-09:
Ooooh… Deus Ex 3 news brewing! Forums are buzzing! http://t.. http://tinyurl.com/5wdbg6 #

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addthis_title = ‘Torley%26%23039%3Bs+weekly+Twitter+for+2008-11-16′;
addthis_pub = ”;

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The first college fair on InfoIsland today was a great event! Thanks to Alice Burgess, Abbey Zenith, speakers (Stone Semyorka, Robby Kowalski, Sage Duncan, Vic Michalak, and Pathfinder Linden), colleges, attendees, and especially for the use of Info Island that made this all a great success.

There was a lot of great networking and I learned some great tips on selling the idea of using Second Life to administrators including that we’re actually saving them money!! (thanks Sage!) Presentations also included information on taking the leap of signing up for a course being taught in SL and what the benefits are (interaction, meeting people from all over the world, trying a different medium for collaboration and presentation, etc.).

Pathfinder graciously attended and spoke about several initiatives Linden Lab is doing to help support educators.
-features such as ‘admin accounts’
-more reliable regAPI
-’behind the firewall’ solutions from M Linden’s talk at a previous conference

Thank you Pathfinder, Claudia, and other Lindens! Presentation here: pathfinder-presentation.

Watch this site for further posts on the fair including machinima! Check out Flickr with the tag “infoislandcollegefair2008″ for photos.

Read more…

As you may know, on October 1st our new policy for Mainland advertising took effect.

Before the new policy, between 15%-18% of parcels were being used primarily to advertise, mostly on micro parcels. As of this post, that figure has dropped to 2% and is still dropping.

I’ve written before about our drive to significantly improve the Mainland, and one of the first areas you told us we needed to tackle was Advertising, in particular the
1000
practice of Ad Farming. After some great feedback from the community, I wanted to publish a short post to let you know how this is going so far. Remember, this policy was just concerned with Mainland, and does not relate to private estates.

The last few weeks have seen a huge clearance exercise take place as we have worked hard to remove advertising that violates the new policy. As a means to understand the impact of policy changes like this one, we have been running surveys of the most affected areas across the different Mainland continents. We hope that you have seen, as we have, a substantial improvement in a short space of time.

Clearly this is just a start, but it’s been a very positive one so far.

The Mainland is looking significantly better already and we’re committed to continuing this push to create the best experience we can for residents living on or visiting the Linden Mainland.

Filed under: Culture, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds

An old saying goes “There’s no such thing as bad press, so long as they spell your name right” which is normally attributed to P.T.Barnum, but there are a few quotes attributed to Barnum that weren’t his, so we’ll take that with a grain of salt. Right now, it seems more proper to say “There’s no such thing as bad press, so long as there’s a whiff of salaciousness about it.”

The mainstream media’s spent the last few days spreading around a story about a UK couple who are getting a divorce because the husband apparently won’t stop fooling around online. Maybe she was taking it too seriously. Maybe he wasn’t taking it seriously enough. Either way, it is serious enough now.

Now, much of the actual reporting about the couple, their situation, and Second Life (their most recent haunt) is pretty much utter tripe. Badly researched, poorly informed twaddle, really. But that doesn’t matter, because it is causing a bit of a veritable torrent of new signups to Linden Lab’s virtual world.

Continue reading Divorce news brings surge of Second Life signups

Divorce news brings surge of Second Life signups originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Repetitive actions suck, especially when you can get your computer

Filed under: Business models, Economy, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds

Much has been made of a statement recently by Linden Lab’s new CEO, Mark Kingdon, that ‘Premium subscriptions are immaterial in our overall business.’ You see, in a sense that’s pretty much spot-on. Unless a premium account owns more than 512 square metres of the Linden Estate (colloquially known as the Second Life Mainland), that account is either only very small revenue for the Lab, or actually represents an ongoing cost to them.

Linden Lab’s CFO, John Zdanowski said, ‘The revenue we generate from premium subscriptions is largely offset by the stipends we pay out to these account holders, so this decline doesn’t have a material impact on our business.’

Either you’re on an older premium account with a 500 Linden Dollar per week stipend grandfathered in, or you’re on a newer premium account with 300/week. There’s also a choice of plans, ranging from monthly to annual. Let’s take a look at the relative values.

Continue reading Premium accounts and the Second Life business model

Premium accounts and the Second Life business model originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wondering about how to use fresh new features in Second Life 1.21? What about time-honored techniques that are still relevant to this day? Or “featurettes” you'll benefit from, once you know about them?

I've got just the thing, fast 'n' easy videos to teach you:

Free yourself from a trap – When in doubt, teleport away!
Give inventory through Instant Message sessions – Has the added benefit of letting you drag-and-drop multiple inventory items.
Inventory goes to Trash when you're Busy – No! It's not gone! Just… fish it out.
Land terraform strength – Gives you more control over shaping your terrain like clay.
Moderate group voice & text chat – Block troublemakers! Hold civilized discussions!
Move contents from one object to another – Workaround for a kinda clunky process.
Script editor featurettes – Multiple-line identing, dynamic help lookup, and more!
Sit down to stop being pushed – One of those “Second Life you must knows”.
Turn off the typing animation – This used to be harder. Now, it's a simple Preferences option.

Remember!

Be sure to visit our Knowledge Base for more learnage!
Easy link to ALL the videos — share with friends: secondlife.com/video
You can also subscribe to RSS feed (MP4 links are high-quality downloads) or browse in iTunes store

I love to hear from you, so if you have curiosities, send me a direct message.

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Ftorley.com%2F9-fine-video-tutorial-quicktips-for-your-delight’;
addthis_title = ’9+fine+video+tutorial+QUICKTIPS+for+your+delight%21′;
addthis_pub = ”;

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China West is.. well, I don’t know what it is, but it looks pretty cool. It looks like a windy desert area in which there’s an archaeological dig going on. It seems to be a work in progress. Since II took these pictur
5a8
es a few weeks ago more structures, such as a giant dam, have been added.

One of the most interesting elements is the off-and-on sandstorm. It truly adds to the atmosphere. It makes you want to put on those desert robes and play Lawrence of Arabia. I know, it’s China. Work with me here.

I’m not sure if China West is intended to be a role-play area, a representation of a real place, or what. There’s no information to be had, but whoever built it paid a lot of attention to detail.

The China region next door is home to a large, detailed boat full of little details to explore.

I’m musical! Who knew?

Poke around and you’ll find stuff you didn’t expect, like a cubby hole with an interesting picture book. Or you might find this strange padded cell, where you can get squashed into this water tank. It was not comfortable.

Next to the boat is this dragon, which is just pretty damned cool.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/China%20West/58/190/44

As you may know, on October 1st our new policy for Mainland advertising took effect.

Before the new policy, between 15%-18% of parcels were being used primarily to advertise, mostly on micro parcels. As of this post, that figure has dropped to 2% and is still dropping.

I’ve written before about our drive to significantly improve the Mainland, and one of the first areas you told us we needed to tackle was Advertising, in particular the
1000
practice of Ad Farming. After some great feedback from the community, I wanted to publish a short post to let you know how this is going so far. Remember, this policy was just concerned with Mainland, and does not relate to private estates.

The last few weeks have seen a huge clearance exercise take place as we have worked hard to remove advertising that violates the new policy. As a means to understand the impact of policy changes like this one, we have been running surveys of the most affected areas across the different Mainland continents. We hope that you have seen, as we have, a substantial improvement in a short space of time.

Clearly this is just a start, but it’s been a very positive one so far.

The Mainland is looking significantly better already and we’re committed to continuing this push to create the best experience we can for residents living on or visiting the Linden Mainland.

Filed under: Economy, News items, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds

Linden Lab’s CFO, John Zdanowski is better known to Second Life users as Zee Linden, though we think of him more as a Zeno, after Zeno of Elea, who baffled, annoyed and amused pre-Socratic thinkers with a set of seeming paradoxes, many of which revolved around the adjustment of frames of reference and measurement — and, whatever their original intention — amply display the follies that arise from doing so.

You can pick up all of that from yesterday’s Q3 2008 world metrics from Zdanowski, entitled ‘Q3 closed on a high note with an unusually strong September‘. You might want to check September’s published figures against that report, and see if you agree with ‘unusually strong’.

Continue reading Second Life’s “unusually strong” September

Second Life’s “unusually strong” September originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.