Schlagwort: second life

I’m back – well, sorta…

Since I’ve been away for a while from my time, now the time has come to write some new stuff. I just haven’t been much in a writing mood, that’s all, but still many times in Second Life.

Well, what’s the matter, then?

  • Teleports are still as unreliable as ever.
  • The usual avatar still has only the possibility to be member in 25 groups maximum. Way too low… there’s been some effort around to persuade Lindenlab to raise this number, but if it is going to be succesful? We’re going to see.
  • Virtual banks are no longer allowed in Second Life. A good move, especially after the bad example of Ginko Financial.
  • I still don’t see the open sourcing of the official server code, since this is the biggest source for revenue they have. It’s that simple.
  • I still wonder what’s the next big thing is going to be. Now that Havok4 is being tested and WindLight is still in the Beta viewers only, SL leaves much room for improvements.
  • There’s been no really important open source viewer or fork of it, now one year after the opening of the source code. Why not? Because the server is still closed source.

Cory Linden takes his hat

The pilot is leaving.

Cory Ondrejka aka Cory Linden, one of the longest running employees of Lindenlab and its chief technician (CTO) is leaving. Why? The reasons remain mysterious. Some speculate that he had different visions for the future of SL than Philip Rosedale has. What does this mean for LL? Well, many think that the company is in for a tough ride now and it’s going to be very hard to fill the gap Cory Ondrejka leaves, since he’s one of the few people who can still understand the big picture as it seems. So – we’re going to see.

Age verification finally coming to all of us

Age verification is finally going operational. First it’s going to be on a grid wide beta on the main grid, the impact of it is something to be checked out.

It’s unusual that a beta feature is going to be released on the main grid, but in that case it makes sense. I just wonder what took them over 7 months to get that feature ready; it’s something that’s going to make Second Life more corporate friendly in the future, that’s for sure.

Sing: land prices are going down, down, down…

The land prices have been going down, down, down over the last few months. Anyone who’s got a free parcel, either it is free for rent or sale, has quite some problems to find a new owner for it.

Also big players like Dreamland have lowered their prices to get new tenants or sell it. In addition the in world sales of virtual goods are not as quite good at the moment as they used to be, many people in this field are complaining about the lack of sales.

So how does it come? Well, the big hype over SL is over in most countries at the moment, it’s not so unusual anymore, now SL needs to show its value as a tool for whichever need. But end of the hype means also that the stream of newbies flowing into SL has ebbed down great scale.

So what’s next? I guess many landlords are forced to either sell their land now under value and/or just give up many islands. That’s what I expect at least. Not everyone has enough bucks in the background to overcome this time now.

I don’t expect Lindenlab to lower their own prices, though.