The statistical mark of 10 million residents in Second Life has been reached today. No big fanfare nor press message at all, this shows the shift from promoting Second Life to promoting the grid. Heck, the number of residents isn’t even been shown on the first page of the website anymore for quite some weeks.
There is now a blog from Charity Colville in which she tells her side of the story about “The rise and fall of Phat Cat’s”. The events around Phat Cat’s have been going on for quite some time now, I still wonder that they haven’t come to an end, yet. In the end it’s a story you cannot find out on your own, if it’s right or wrong, so it’s about whom you believe more.
Metaversed has been running an article about a LL-function that has been disabled by the Lindens without notice and has broken many seats and other sitting furnitures. Ouch. It has been undocumented, but widely used all the time, the Lindens considered it a hack instead. And, oh well, one of the residents even got wind before it happened weeks ago and told them that it’s a bad idea at all. No reaction. Bummer.
[Mehr]You can read this on the blog of Second Life now:
Linden Research, Inc., Philip Rosedale, and Marc Bragg have agreed to settle the “Bragg v. Linden and Rosedale” lawsuit currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The parties agree that there were unfortunate disagreements and miscommunications regarding the conduct and behavior by both sides and are pleased to report that Mr. Bragg’s “Marc Woebegone” account, privileges and responsibilities to the Second Life community have been restored. For the benefit of the Second Life community, the Parties have mutually agreed that the terms of their resolution shall remain confidential. The Parties ask that this confidentiality be respected.
So this is lawyer speak. What does that mean in real speak? Something like this from Lindenlabs point of view: we would have lost the case! So better agree to restore Braggs’ account and properties in world and see if this is enough for him to drop the case before our roof really starts to burn and we’re losing big money!
[Mehr]Microsoft has reacted to the demand on the market and now has created two new options for purchasing XP:
So the market has spoken and the market doesn’t want Vista. It’s really easy. Is there a greater way to admit that your software is bad and that you’re not content with its sales pitch?
…too many residents would try to cashout all of there L$ at the same time? Would Lindenlab still be able to pay them? Or would the value of the L$ go down so quickly it wouldn’t hurt LL at all?
Just a funny thought that popped up into my mind after reading an article about a similar problem - bonus mile programs of airlines.
Many good going clubs are living on the presence of some live staff, mostly a host, better going clubs also a live dj from time to time and a security officer.
In many clubs I can always here the slogan “Please don’t forget to tip your host - we’re working hard…” - this is nonsense. The work of a host is no hard work at all. It’s mostly greeting people, something you can do with some good macros at east. Perhaps just also looking if the people behave, and if not, ejecting or banning them as last measure and that’s all.
This is a kind of job, that’s quite easy to do and which I also appreciate, but it’s no hard work at all. I almost cannot stand this saying anymore.
It seems that Lindenlab introduced today a new version of their ToS according to their blog. This means, if you want to continue to play SL you need to agree after the next login in the client to them. There should be a dialogue box with the new ToS in it and you can either agree or disagree.
Well, in reality the dialogue box on my client looked like that:
This is something that shouldn’t happen. I could have agreed to it that way. After a restart the client showed the new ToS correct.
It’s nothing new, but today I’ve taken a look at the police blotter after a while. Seems the Lindens are really serious on their no gambling policy now.
For example you can read there things like this:
**Date:Monday, September 17, 2007Violation:Terms of Service: GamblingRegion:De CampionDescription:**Operating a casino.**Action taken:**Suspended 14 days.
**Date:Monday, September 17, 2007Violation:Terms of Service: GamblingRegion:DeepscaleDescription:**Operating a casino.**Action taken:**Warning issued.So no one can’t say he hasn’t been warned, yet.
When new people come into Second Life, it is always the same: learning how to use the client, learning how to get skins, shapes, clothes and such and learning how to get money. Many just camp somewhere to get some money, some are using the Lindex to buy it and others think that they need a job and ask everywhere for it.
But do you really need a job to get money? No. You can use Second Life also with just freebies, you don’t need to have a home at all and many people when they work in a job work for ridiculous small amounts of money. Some then consider already 300 L$ per hour a high payment (something aboth 1 US$) and work and work and work their ass off…
Not using their brains at all. You would never work for those small amounts of money in RL, but in SL - it’s no problem for many people at all. That’s always amazing to see. If you want a job, fine, but then you should do it because you like it. Otherwise there are better ways to get money, if you really need it, just like buying it somewhere or starting your own business.
There’s been a drastic change to the website of SL: you can see a new graphic and link to a site called “Second Life Grid”. It seems that Lindenlabs doesn’t want to rely any longer on land sales alone as main source of income and is now starting to market their grid more for certain 3rd parties, which is a good move to me.
It’s giving some insights in what the grid can do, about the dimensions and so on and on. The website is clearly targeted on corporate viewers, no doubt about that, and telling about how others use it and how you can participate with it. There are the old target groups like Education and Non Profit and Solution Providers, but there’s a new target group, Global Providers. To cite the site about them:
The Second Life Grid Global Provider program is designed to assist international online communities in creating their own presence on the Second Life Grid. This program has significant requirements, obligations, and program fees. It is only available to operators of existing online communities outside the United States.
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