linden labs

Linden Lab, makers of 3D virtual world Second Life, have announced a new roadmap for tiered support following the recent removal of the unscalable live help system. The system seems sensible, with reasonable assurances of support for free and basic accounts for avatars caught in a tight spot, such as account creation issues, failed logins and similarly critical, technical issues. Paid accounts get a little more, including a live help chat with a support team member. All of this sounds great, and would appear to address scaling issues as Second Life moves forward, but I wonder how it fits into their stated intention of open sourcing the server technology as well as the already OS'd viewer. If Linden want to ultimately step away from central governance and hosting, why are they ramping up support?

Perhaps this is one of the areas they see themselves operating in post open sourcing. Philip Rosedale, Linden's CEO has already said that they see inventory management as an area Linden, possibly among a few other trusted organizations, would manage as the grid moved outward and forward, so why not support?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Linden Lab, makers of Second life, amidst a multitude of minor bug fixes, today released code that addresses the problem of "notecard spam". Many residents of Linden's virtual world are constantly bombarded with unsolicited notecards, simple text files that can contain links and landmarks as well as graphical textures and landmarks from unthinking or unscrupulous Second Lifers. The optional 1.15.1 viewer update also fixes a number of minor annoyances and usability enhancements including new IM shortcuts, better inventory sorting and improved bug reporting.

Shane Kim of Microsoft Game Studios recently let slip that the software giant have been talking to Linden Lab, makers of the virtual world of Second Life about the possibility of allowing millions of Xbox 360 users to  access the growing Metaverse via their uber popular game console.

In an interview at the launch party for Halo 3, Kim said "I've spent some time with the Linden Lab guys [developers of Second Life]. To try to build Second Life on Xbox Live" -- Somewhat confusingly he also mentioned Youtube and Facebook in the same sentence.

Nothing more was said, but it does hint at the possibility that MS' strike back and Sony's Playstation Home, a virtual world remarkably similar to Second Life, might be to team up with Linden rather than reinvent the wheel.

Thanks Mike!

Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life have announced plans to expand into Seattle, Boston and Brighton in the UK according to the linked Seattle PI story.

"We're thrilled to announce our regional expansion into cities such as Seattle," Catherine Smith, Linden Lab's director of marketing, said via e-mail. "It has always been our goal as a company to decentralize, both physically and with regard to our computing platform. Seattle is home to a rich, creative community of developers and thinkers, and we're looking forward (to) establishing a presence in the area."

Being a Brit, I'd be really interested to know why they choose Brighton!