SecondLife - How To Make Money In Second Life

Linden Lab and OpenSim developers shared the stage at an SLCC panel called “Open Software For Open Worlds,” and said there was nothing in the works to support spending Linden dollars anywhere but on the Second Life Grid.

During Q&A, Mike Lorrey (Second Life: Intlibber Brautigan) told the panelists he thought Second Life’s “killer app” was money — Linden’s own virtual currency and residents’ ability to start a Second Life business and turn a profit.

Could the Linden Dollar ever come to OpenSim worlds? Linden’s director of open source development Rob Lanphier said he had no idea how to make that work.

“We’re not going to pretend we know how to export that in a way that protects Second Life’s economy,” Lanphier said. “I can’t project a timeline.”

Leading OpenSim developer Adam Frisby disagreed with Lorrey on the importance of virtual currency to the Second Life experience.

“Money doesn’t belong in the core [OpenSim] product build,” Frisby said. “Better to ask again in six or nine months.”

Original post by Eric Reuters

So what has Second Life founder Philip Rosedale been up to since handing over control of Linden Lab to new CEO Mark Kingdon four months ago?

Hanging out, mostly. “I’ve had a really relaxing summer,” a broadly smiling Rosedale told Reuters.

Rosedale had just come out of the morning breakfast at the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, where he praised Kingdon’s leadership of the company he started. But Rosedale was quick to add he wasn’t done with Second Life or Linden Lab. These days, he’s concentrating on two projects: Working on improving Second Life’s user interface, and efforts to spread Second Life technology to developing nations.

But Second Life fans shouldn’t expect interface problems to be solved soon. “Look at Lively or Vivaty, they’re dealing with the same thing. This is a hard problem,” Rosedale said. “If there was a trivial solution, we would have done it already.”

Original post by Eric Reuters

So what has Second Life founder Philip Rosedale been up to since handing over control of Linden Lab to new CEO Mark Kingdon four months ago?

Hanging out, mostly. “I’ve had a really relaxing summer,” a broadly smiling Rosedale told Reuters.

Rosedale had just come out of the morning breakfast at the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, where he praised Kingdon’s leadership of the company he started. But Rosedale was quick to add he wasn’t done with Second Life or Linden Lab. These days, he’s concentrating on two projects: Working on improving Second Life’s user interface, and efforts to spread Second Life technology to developing nations.

But Second Life fans shouldn’t expect interface problems to be solved soon. “Look at Lively or Vivaty, they’re dealing with the same thing. This is a hard problem,” Rosedale said. “If there was a trivial solution, we would have done it already.”

Original post by Eric Reuters

The newest destination for talent scouts looking to sign fresh acts is Second Life.

Boutique label Reality Entertainment has signed popular Second Life musician Von Johin to a record deal. Wagner Jmes Au runs a lengthy interview with Johin, who performs weekly shows in the virtual world.

For the most part, however, he no longer has any interest playing live in person. “This is more fun,” he says, referring to his virtual stage. “No gas costs, no travel, worldwide audience, exciting new people, no smoke, no drunks on the road, no hassles.”

But what does “sign a record deal” really mean in 2008? The Metaverse Journal takes a contrarian approach to the news: “Any individual can now publish their music worldwide on iTunes using services like TuneCore for the princely sum of US $9.99 per year.”

Regardless, any deal can only be seen as encouraging news for Second Life’s burgeoning music scene.

Original post by Eric Reuters

SLNN.com carries an interview with Linden VP Joe Miller which says the reported “SLim” offering is only weeks away.

Miller, as quoted by SLNN:

We’ll be launching a beta First Look, something we call ‘SLim,’ which is a very thin client that is designed for you to stay in both voice and text contact with your friends list. If you want to participate in a meeting but can’t actually run the SL app to do it, you’ll be able to do that with our thin voice communication client. It will be in First Look in a couple of weeks.

Miller goes on to talk about connecting both individual and group Second Life accounts to external phone numbers, complete with voicemail:

This will work two ways: you’ll be able to sign up for an access number that will give people who are outside of SL (perhaps on a cell phone) the ability to reach you in-world. This is distinctly separate from the ‘SLim’ communication client.

The other capability is the ability to associate a standard telephone number – PSTN number – with a group, and that number can be used by a number of folks to join a group conversation for the purpose of meeting from outside of SL as well.

If you attempt to reach someone who is not in-world, you’ll have the opportunity to leave them a voice message.

While the prospect of SLim coming in a few weeks would be welcome, Miller’s hope for a Second Life to PTSN connection in the “near future” may be a long ways off. In a December 2007 talk in Second Life quoted by Information Week, Miller said Linden hoped to implement voicemail in the first quarter of 2008.

Original post by Eric Reuters

It’s getting to be a familiar story. In June “Jack Linden” said Linden was freezing additions to Second Life’s mainland until July. In July Jack said “the previous decline in average Mainland price per meter has halted,” but that there would be no new land until August. And just last weekend, Jack had this to say:

…after reviewing the current market, we are remaining unchanged on Mainland supply. There will be no new whole regions offered at auction.

Until now, Linden’s business model had been a simple, and profitable, one: An ever-increasing avatar population had an insatiable appetite for land, and the company had both a monopoly on the land supply and charged monthly fees to landowners. The principal challenge for Linden was to figure out the pace at which new land could be introduced, minding both Second Life’s ability to scale and prices in the avatar-to-avatar land aftermarket. When Linden said it was freezing the land supply in January, prices spiked, prompting the company to begin new land rollouts in April, reaffirming the premise of an ever-increasing demand for virtual land.

So what’s going on? A few contributing factors:

• Linden’s customer base has been shrinking for six consecutive months, and the total number of mainland-owning premium accounts is smaller than it was a year ago.
• A migration by Second Life veterans to private islands and budget “Openspace sims”, which takes them out of the mainland market and depresses prices
• OpenSim. OpenSim evangelists insist — sometimes in heated tones — that their project will only bring new interest and users to Second Life. But in the short term, as Second Life’s all-important power users create OpenSim virtual world grids on their home PCs for free, at least some of them may scale back on charge-incurring Second Life land acquisitions.

We’ll be keeping an eye on whether land prices in Second Life begin to tick upwards under Linden’s extended supply freeze. If prices don’t rise, Linden will find it difficult to grow Second Life — or its bottom line.

Original post by Eric Reuters