SecondLife - How To Make Money In Second Life

I’m very happy to announce that, as a core feature of the new Viewer 2 Beta, Second Life Search has been redesigned inside and out to make finding the people, places and content you’re looking for easier than ever before. We’ve revamped the interface, overhauled what’s happening under the hood, and refocused our work on Web-standard tools and methodologies that have not only improved our ability to bring you more relevant search results, but also made us faster on our feet as a development team. And, we’ve been building a first-class Search team–from Yahoo!, eBay, Google, and Amazon–to bring the best of search and advertising services to Second Life. We’ve been hard at work improving Second Life Search, and we’re excited to share some of the work that we’ve recently completed in conjunction with the new viewer.

Second Life Search, as part of Viewer 2, now includes:

• A New and Improved User Experience: The first thing that you’ll notice about search in Viewer 2 is that it’s got a whole new look and feel. We’ve reorganized the interface to be more intuitive and to use filtering and sorting techniques common to search on the Web. We’ve also cleared away some of the legacy UI found in Viewer 1.23 to create a clean hierarchy of information and actions. One of our biggest goals in this redesign was to make the search interface more inviting for new Residents while still preserving many of the search options that current Residents had become accustomed to. For example, in the Viewer 2 Beta,  there is now only one location for conducting a “Places” search (rather than a tab and a filter as found in Viewer 1.23), and that “Places” search can be filtered and sorted to achieve similar results as in Viewer 1.23.
• A Robust Search Infrastructure: We’ve also redesigned the search infrastructure to be more robust and nimble. These changes, although maybe not as immediately visible, are a major step forward as we work towards innovating more rapidly and being responsive to Resident feedback. Previously, Search was hard coded in the XUI language of Viewer 1.23; now, search uses HTML on top of Django Web services and can be developed independently of Viewer 2. This gives us greater speed and flexibility as we develop additional search features, advertising products, and bug fixes.
• Google Search Technology: As we all know, Google’s relevance algorithms are the defacto industry standard on the Internet. In Viewer 1.23, the Google Search Appliances (GSA) served results to the “All” and “Group” search tabs for years. For Search in Viewer 2, we have expanded our use of the GSAs, and they now provide the first set of results for most search types. (Advanced search users can still access Linden Lab’s proprietary search tools through category filters and sorts.) Google alone cannot provide the best results for Second Life Residents, however. So, the Search Team is continually adjusting how the GSAs work in order to provide the highest quality, most relevant results within Second Life.
  
• Enhancement to Classified Advertising: Second Life business owners can benefit from a significant change to classified advertising within Second Life Search. Now, we can place classifieds alongside more searches, and advertisers will have a better opportunity to be found by relevant buyers. In Viewer 2, potential ad exposure (i.e., the number of search requests that serve ads) will increase to 100% of initial searches, whereas in Viewer 1.23 classified ads were only shown alongside search results in the All and Group tabs.  Additionally, we have increased the number of featured classifieds from nine to 12 on the Search homepage (which appears when you click the magnifying glass or type CTRL-F).
  

The bottom line is that the new Second Life Search benefits everyone within the Second Life economic ecosystem–most importantly business and Residents–as it plays a crucial role connecting inworld buyers and sellers. The more that Second Life Search can help Residents, particularly new Residents, find compelling content, communities and experiences, then the higher the probability they will be come active, long-term Residents. Plus, more Residents mean more potential customers for inworld businesses.  So, go download the Viewer 2 Beta, try the new and improved Second Life Search and let us know what you think.

Searching Tips

To browse the features in the Find window (including Search, Destination Guide and Classifieds), click the magnifying glass icon in the Search field at the top right of the Viewer 2 navigation bar. To initiate a search, type a keyword in the Search field on the Viewer navigation bar.

Once you’ve initiated a search from the Viewer navigation bar, the Find window will open with an initial set of relevance-ranked results. You can then narrow your results with Category filters and organize the list with Sorting options. Your search terms are now carried from one category to the next, with no need to re-type!

Further Reading:

• Tom Hale’s Viewer 2.0 Beta Launch Blog Post
• Edelman  Linden’s Shared Media Blog Post
• Viewer 2.0 Beta Forum

Resources to Help  You Learn Viewer 2

• Viewer 2 Help Portal (links to everything below)
• Quickstart Guide (SL Wiki)
• Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)
• Release Notes (SL Wiki)
• Video  Demos (YouTube)
• SL Answers (SL Answers)

And, if something breaks or  you’re really stuck, then contact Support and we’re happy to help.

A  big thank you to everyone for your continued feedback and incredible response to the Viewer 2 Beta! Yesterday we released another update to the beta Viewer, and we hope you’ll keep that  feedback coming. We’re actively following your comments, ideas, and critiques in the Viewer 2 Beta Forum, PJIRA, and on Twitter (#SLViewer2). Your input is helping shape future Viewer releases and I want to personally thank you for your heartfelt and insightful feedback. If you haven’t downloaded the latest update yet, you can do so from this link.

For more detail on this latest update  to the beta, here are a few highlights:

Bug Fixes

• Upgraded the Vivox SDK 3.1.0001.8181 to address the three most common causes of voice  crashes
  
• HUD attachment points no longer extend off screen with the right Side Bar is opened. (VWR-16967)
• Voice notifications no longer steal keyboard focus by default. (VWR-17011)
• llInstantMessage now sends messages to the correct places in nearby chat (VWR-16988)
• ‘Allow Media to auto-play’ setting does not disable auto-play of music stream - Media streaming “enabled” check box, available in Preferences,  now functional (VWR-16985)
• Notification position now takes UI size into account and notices should stay on screen (VWR-17074)
  
• Viewer 2 frame rate has been improved (VWR-16976)

As always, if you would like to see additional details, then check out the updated Viewer 2 Beta Release Notes.

Resources to Help You Learn Viewer 2:

• Download  Viewer 2
• Viewer 2 Beta Forum
  
• Viewer 2 Help Portal
  
• Quickstart  Guide (SL Wiki)
  
• Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)
• Release Notes (SL Wiki)
  
• Video Demos (YouTube)
• SL Answers (SL Answers)

As a free bonus, we have added these 12 new avatars to everyone’s Clothing  folder in the Library section of your Inventory (check the Initial Outfits folder!):

• Female  and Male City
• Female and Male Designer
• Female and Male Goth
• Female and  Male Party
• Female and Male Rocker
• Female and Male Student

Before you begin playing with these new options, please keep in mind the most important rule of changing your appearance in Second Life: Always  save versions of yourself before wearing new shapes or new skins.

That said, feel free to go inworld, open your Inventory, and take a look at  your new free avatars, clothing, hair, skins, and accessories!

The official  launch of Viewer 2 and our new orientation experience brings with it a host of exciting improvements and new features for Second Life.  One of our favorites here at Linden Lab has been Shared Media, the ability to easily display and share Web-based, Flash, and other media on any object in Second Life. Part of the reason we’re so excited about it is not just because of what we’ve built, but because of the amazing things that Residents have created with it during the Viewer 2 Beta  period. If you haven’t yet checked out Viewer 2, download it now so that you can experience the wonderful creations that have been highlighted below by Brett Linden from the Destination Guide and Edelman Linden from the Shared Media team.

Shared Media Highlights Inworld

A capability that is new with Viewer 2, Shared Media makes sharing standard Web-based media in Second Life easy and seamless, and enables content creators to make more compelling, interactive experiences. Basically, Shared Media brings the Internet inworld. For the more  technically inclined, what this means is that you can now put media textures on any prim in Second Life. More specifically, the viewer uses  WebKit to create a fully interactive, dynamic texture from a Web URL. This even includes support for Web-browser plug-ins, like the Adobe Flash Player. Even better, it’s not restricted to just one piece of Shared Media in a region.

A World of New Experiences and  Businesses Possible

It’s been a little over a month since we first unveiled the beta release of Viewer 2 with Shared Media. During that time, some Residents have experimented and created new experiences that utilize Shared Media’s unique ability to put media textures on any object in Second Life. There are interactive games, shared video screenings and other collaborative experiences starting to  emerge — and this is only the beginning!

Here are a few of our early favorites:

FLICKR  GETTR

Flickr Gettr is an immersive visual  storytelling environment filled with images queried from Flickr tags.  Residents can instantly change the visual experience by typing in a  keyword tag, which then pulls and displays a stream of related photos  from Flickr into Second Life. The project, created by SL artists Mencius  Watts and Taggert Alsop, was commissioned for installation by The Imagination Age and  Dancing Ink Productions,  LLC under the guidance of Rita King and Joshua Fouts.

“The Shared Media power of the Flickr Gettr creates an  immersive, collaborative environment in which cultural stories are told  through images,” says Fouts (known as Schmilsson Nilsson in Second  Life), a Senior Fellow for Digital Media and Public Policy at Center for the Study of the  Presidency and Congress.

“Shared media  opens up a whole new dimension in Second Life,” adds King, an  Innovator-in-Residence at IBM Analytics Virtual Center who goes by the  name Eureka Dejavu in Second Life. “I’m already finding a number of uses  for the technology. I am co-designing an Experimental Storytelling  Studio with the amazing production designer Richard Hoover in which we will use shared media to enable  us to create collaborative storytelling projects, participatory  marketing and awareness campaigns.”

I-ROOM 

At the Second  Life home of Open Virtual Collaboration Environment (OpenVCE), you can literally  stroll by walls of Shared Media that feature collaborative  implementations of Google Documents, Google Wave and even Adobe Connect.  OpenVCE operates a community support web portal linked to virtual world  spaces to support meetings, training and experiments, especially for  those involved in emergency response. It’s “I-Room” in Second Life  offers a “virtual space for intelligent interaction” through links to  external intelligent planning and team support knowledge-based systems.

OpenVCE’s Austin Tate, Director of AIAI (Artificial  Intelligence Applications Institute) in the School  of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, says that some of  the displays were previously only seen by individuals using separate  interfaces and tools. Now these can be more usefully brought directly  into the 3D meetings areas and virtual operations centers and shared  between participants. He believes that the new Second Life Shared Media  facilities represents a step up in the support that can be offered to  such meetings as it addresses more intuitive usability issues in Second  Life for collaborative teams. Some examples of the tools and displays  the OpenVCE.net team have experimented with are shown at: http://openvce.net/sl-viewer-2-shared-media-demos.

3D PANORAMA

Linden Lab’s own Torley  Linden has created an immersive 3D panorama using Shared Media.  Visitors to his island, known as Here, can grab their  own copy of the interactive project, which shows a scrolling 360-degree  screenshot of Second Life.

“Shared Media prims can interact with  the environment like any other, so it’s cool to roll them down hills,  submerge them in water, and layer them with textures,” says Torley.

FURNISHINGS OF THE FUTURE?

One of the more unusual early Shared Media creations is an  interactive couch, created by SL Resident Soy Nakamori, that actually  changes in design based on the choices made via a Shared Media color  prim picker. This experimental effort demonstrates new functionality  that might help shape and inform the next generation of virtual home  furnishings. Imagine a new generation of virtual goods with properties  that change and react to Web-based actions. This Shared Media couch only  scratches the surface of the possibilities.

MURROW  CENTER 3D NEWSROOM

The Edward R. Murrow College of  Communication at Washington State University is readying the Murrow  Center 3D Newsroom, sponsored by The McCormick Foundation.  This 3D training space uses Shared Media to power a series of  multimedia kiosks showing videos and lessons on best practices in  citizen journalism. The Center, slated to debut in late April, will also  contain an auditorium for classroom meetings and live presentations  (via a large Shared Media presentation screen) and a mini-museum  dedicated to legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow.

Got  a favorite Second Life spot that uses Shared Media? Tell us about it  in the comments or submit your own location to the Destination Guide  using the Submission  Suggestion Form.

As I mentioned in the Q1 2010 Economy Blog Post, we’re inaugurating a new regular featured post that we will share with you each quarter. While the economy blog post generally looks backward at the quarter just past, the Coming Soon post will look forward to the months ahead, and highlight some of the coming product releases. Just as M Linden kicked off 2010 with an outline of the year in his New Year’s Day post, we want to keep the information flowing. 

Our intent with the Coming Soon posts is to:

• provide Residents with early notice of changes we’re planning to the Second Life platform and experience 
• provide inworld businesses with an opportunity to see what’s ahead and prepare
• provide a regular forum where we can discuss what is coming down the pike

The Coming Soon posts will attempt to cover the most important product and feature developments that are on our near- to mid-term roadmap, although we won’t always be able to share every aspect of every project, and we’ll sometimes need to leave details to the official announcements. Instead, this post is meant give a general sense of the direction Linden Lab will be taking in the months ahead. As we develop new products, we will work with stakeholders as early as possible, then expand into beta tests, then broadly communicate about what we have planned via these posts.

Why Now?
Coming Soon posts are being inaugurated now for a number of reasons. The first is that we have lots of good things in the pipeline, so we’re excited to share what’s coming. The second is that we’ve received a lot of requests to share information about what we are going to ship. The third is that we are starting to innovate on shorter cycles, so we’ve decided to pick a regular time in the quarter (roughly 3-4 weeks after the close of the previous quarter) to share what we know. The final reason is that, as we get to be a bigger company, with lots of folks working on different parts of Second Life, our old model of sharing information mainly through Office Hours or inworld conversations is not meeting the need that the broad base of Second Life Residents have for information. Transparency has always been a fundamental value of Linden Lab, so we’re making this a regular quarterly feature.

So What Is Coming?
There are lot of new products and features that we anticipate in in the next few months. While nothing is ever written in stone (or, where Second Life is concerned, prims and textures), the following are some of the things we are working on. There will of course be projects we won’t mention here — and in some cases there may be projects we mention here that don’t end up shipping, for one reason or another. Our goal is to share with you what we know at the moment, in the hopes it will improve your experience of Second Life, and to update you regularly as to any changes. So here goes:

Second Life Marketplace Beta (Xstreet Redesign)
This summer will see the beta launch of a redesigned XstreetSL marketplace on a new technical platform. To be known as the SL Marketplace, the beta will feature a new look and feel, more in line with www.secondlife.com. More importantly, the SL Marketplace will have many new features for merchants and shoppers alike. The Commerce team is very excited to bring these new capabilities to Residents. For more information, read today’s blog post announcing the new marketplace.

Viewer 2.1
The Viewer team is already hard at work on the Viewer 2.1 release, which we anticipate will arrive mid-summer. Built on the Viewer 2 foundation, this new release is focused on increasing performance and stability, tweaking the usability of Viewer 2 based on Resident feedback, and introducing a few new features, mostly around sharing and social tools for Residents. Suffice to say that the team has been incorporating feedback from a variety of Residents, and we’re hopeful that we’ll make good progress with the 2.1 release. Those of you who want to follow the release as it evolves can watch the open-source drops, as we’ll be doing as much of the development as we can in the open branch of the viewer. (More info on how do that here.) The viewer team is making good progress and will be posting more detail about Viewer 2.1 in the next few days.

Search
We heard your feedback on Search in Viewer 2 loud and clear! We’ll be introducing many incremental changes to Search in the months ahead. We are focusing on Land and Event search first, as well as back-end upgrades to improve speed and relevance.

Mesh Public Beta
We’re happy to announce that we anticipate launching a beta test of mesh imports in Q2 2010. While we’ve publicly announced that bringing files into Second Life from standard authoring tools like Maya, 3D Studio Max, and others is on our roadmap for 2010, we’re pleased to be able to put it in Residents’ hands sooner rather than later. The beta will likely be limited to the Beta Grid, and to a special beta version of the viewer, but this is a very exciting development. This capability is a dramatic advance for Second Life content creators, as it opens up the door to more tools, more content, and more builders. We are very conscious of the potential issues around this capability, such as its impact on performance, the impact on current inworld businesses, and the large amount of content outside of Second Life that will be making its way into Second Life, and we’re working hard to make sure that none of those issues will be showstoppers. Mesh has been in private beta since the beginning of the year, which has provided us with a great deal of valuable feedback, and we’re super excited to take this next step. Stay tuned for more details from the Content Tools team in the next few weeks.

Relaunch of Avatars United
We acquired Avatars United in Q1, and since then the Avatars United team has been hard at work building up the scalability and feature set of the site. Our ultimate goal is for Avatars United to function as a set of social tools for Residents, including Web-based profiles for Second Life avatars and Second Life groups, and tighter integration between the site and the Viewer, and between the site and secondlife.com. Because the social experience is so critical to Second Life, we plan to launch a new, beta version of Avatars United, and ask for your feedback as we evolve that part of the service over the following quarters. We would like to see the site become a social hub for Second Life users, but we want to know your thoughts about lots of topics: what information you want to share (and not share), features you’d like to see (and wouldn’t), and concerns you might have about privacy or the promotional tools of Avatars United. We hope to launch this new beta test of Avatars United by the summer.

Havok 7 and Server 1.40
Server 1.40 is primarily going to roll out the Havok 7 Physics Engine. The Havok 7 engine will provide some nice performance enhancements, but the work is foundational as we look ahead into later in 2010 and 2011. Also in Server 1.40 are web services that will make the integration between the Second Life Marketplace and the inworld Second Life experience smoother than it is at the moment. We anticipate shipping Server 1.40 by summer.

And More!

Howdy! Esbee Linden here, your friendly neighborhood Product Manager for Viewer 2. Last year, our product and engineering teams went heads  down with our design partners to rethink the viewer new user experience, the result of which was Viewer 2. Thank you to everyone who has  downloaded Viewer 2, tried it out, and given us so much thoughtful and constructive feedback! 

We’re seeing great Viewer 2 adoption –  over 400,000 downloads so far! Viewer 2 is working well for new Residents, but many existing Residents are finding that it doesn’t meet  their needs — yet! We hear your concerns and now we’re turning our focus to your requests — the upcoming Viewer 2.1 release will address some of your most consistent and pressing feedback. And it’s always  important to remember that we celebrate viewer choice. Viewer 1.23 continues, and there are additional choices in the Third-Party Viewer Directory.

And we’re already looking to Viewer 2.1, scheduled to roll out  this summer (that is, summer in the northern hemisphere). Our engineering teams are focused on a few areas: usability, performance, and key new features like improved avatar  customization and snapshot sharing via social networks.

Usability Enhancements
We’ve been following Resident reaction to Viewer 2 very closely since its  release, and have noted a number of things we want to improve in  response to your feedback. At the moment, we’re hoping to get the  following features and changes into the Viewer 2.1 release this summer.  While we may need to change course on some of these (and will keep you updated if we do), here’s a look at what we’re planning:

• Adding individual volume controls for Shared Media objects.
  
• Customization of the bottom bar, so that you can quickly access the features and functionality that you use most often.
  
• Updates to the camera and movement controls, so we can allow you to pan and orbit your view of Second Life at the same time.
  
• Adding the ‘Build’ option back to the right-click context menu.
• Fixing the bug where CTL-ALT-F1 does not hide all the Viewer UI as it should. This fix should solve a lot of problems for our machinimists and photographers.
  
• Adding a preference that allows users to control whether the Side Bar opening resizes the world or slides over it.

Better Performance
We’re continuing to make performance and stability enhancements as well. Our data on Residents using Viewer 2 indicates that a large number of people are running Second Life on lower-end machines. After reviewing the data, we’re optimizing performance for all types of machines, bringing  performance benefits to all users. We will also be making some rendering updates to improve the performance of texture downloads, which will also help SL run more smoothly on older computers.