Filed under: Odds and Ends

Today in Second Life we had:

• 32,528 new signups bringing us to 10,585,610 signups total.
• A peak concurrency of 50,872 at 3:30PM, and a minimum concurrency of 27,105 at 1:05AM. Median concurrency for the day was 39,968.
• The Grid Stability Index for the day was 1.84 (lower is better).
• Famed teen resident Katharine Berry turns her back on Second Life.
• Akela rounds up some of the best Halloween Haunts in Second Life, while Moo brings you an excellent list of Halloween freebies and cheapies!
• It turns out that screen legend, and deft comedian Stephen Fry has a Second Life too.
• A Second Life grid backbone service failed causing some users to have login problems.
• Group IMs have been identified as having some ongoing issues.
• Hamlet Au wants to know what you think about the quality of Linden-to-resident communication.
• The 18th episode of SLI’s very own podcast, On The Inside, is available now with Ansel Gasparini, the author of Second Life: A Guide to Your Virtual World.
• Accounts and Inventory on the beta-grid is being wiped and reloaded from the main grid, there are several upgrades, and improvements to Havok.
• Grady Booch rocks - but then again, he always has.
• DJ Nexeus Fatale gives back to the community.
• slscout.com launches a new social networking site for Second Life.
• Moo provides a quick primer on encoding video for Machinima.

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Filed under: Linden Lab, Op/Ed

I’ve been reading about the resident survey that Linden Lab has been randomly sending to Second Life residents via their client. I was surprised to find it on my screen the other day. It asked the question, “Is your Second Life experience getting better or worse?”

The brown noser in me immediately wanted to answer “better”, but when I thought about it, it hasn’t gotten any better. As you can see by my answer on the right, I chose the simple response that the grid seems to be buckling under the large amount of logins. I don’t know if this is the real cause of the problems, but we’ve had more inventory loss, texture issues, and transfer problems than ever.

Did you receive the survey? How did you/would you answer? Leave a comment!

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Filed under: How-To, Machinima

While it’s Halloween and we’re embracing our fears, I’d like to chat about encoding video. When you look at all the setting choices that you have, it can be downright intimidating. I recently had the chance to speak with the wonderful Machinimist extraordinaire, Paul Marino, about this very topic and he set me straight.

There are a couple of programs that you can use to encode SL-friendly Machinima. The first being Quicktime Pro. It runs roughly 30 USD and gives you some quick and easy options. Since I’m running the Ed Wood Festival this year, I’m using it to re-encode every video in Quicktime MOV H.264 compression with AAC 48khz, Stereo, 160kbps audio.

Another handy program is something that Frank Dellario, ILLBixby Cerveau of the ILL Clan, recommend. It’s called Super C, because it has the copyright symbol after Super. It’s totally free, but can be daunting because of the sheer amount of options in it. It also has a hard to find download link, so keep your eye out for it.

Do you have a program you’d like to recommend, or specific settings that you like to use? Leave a comment!

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Filed under: News

slscout.com is the latest SL-focused social networking site, and it’s got all the right elements: embedded videos, forums, etc. Even better, they’re holding a contest right now wherein users can post their favorite photos, have them rated by other users, and possibly win the First Prize of 25,000L!

Join up today!

(Thanks, Johnvan!)

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Filed under: News, Events, Odds and Ends, Arts and Culture, Live Performance

Nexeus Fatale, DJ Extraordinaire, has hit upon a great way to give back to the community. His ‘DJ For a Cause’ mission is to donate his DJ services to anyone, individual or organization, who fits the requirements: Their event must be philanthropic in nature (such as fund raising) and has to embody the Holiday theme of giving to others.

I see this as a great way to promote SL’s philanthropic nature, which is embodied in its residents. These days, most of the press goes to sensational events, and not enough to the altruism that I see so often in-world. Nexeus is on the right track with this, and hopes that others will follow this example. You can read more of this here.

(Thanks, Nexeus!)

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Filed under: News, Odds and Ends

This is your moment of WTF? Dorling Kindersley, who many of you may know through their wonderful Eyewitness Series of illustrated reference books, have created a new game in Habbo Hotel to promote a new Christmas book called Do Not Open. Apparently it’s going well, attracting over 1,000 players in its first week.

However, DK is calling this approach the ‘Second Life For Teens model’ — but they’re not using Second Life to do it! Couldn’t they have called it the ‘Virtual Worlds For Teens model’ instead? Not to assume too much about the intelligence of the average member of the public, but I can see people getting confused about this quite easily. And it begs the question: Does DK have an interest in SL at all?

(Via The Bookseller)

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Filed under: Odds and Ends

Grady Booch might not be a household name, but he’s the Chief Scientist for IBM’s Rational Software Corp. unit. In a recent interview with Computerworld, Booch has held forth on a number of topics, including his take on SL. His approach to explaining the value of SL to himself is practical:

“IBM has 50 or so islands that we own [in Second Life]. We’ve derived business value by using it internally. I can look at the lectures I have done and say, “I have saved IBM money.” Certainly the company saves huge costs on employee travel and accomodations by holding meetings in SL. Why isn’t this being trumpeted more often as worthwhile to the average user? He has a bit more to say, so go check out the rest of the interview.

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Filed under: Events, Odds and Ends

Tech Digest does a good job here of highlighting 20 trends gleaned from their recent trip to the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe, and they go like this:

1. Shedloads of virtual worlds will be launched in 2008
2. Teen-focused virtual worlds are huge
3. Brands still get it wrong
4. There’s a problem with communication
5. There will be big growth in corporate use of virtual worlds

… and 15 more. It would be boorish and redundant to list all twenty here, even without explanation. You’ll simply have to trust me and go check out the list yourselves.

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Filed under: News

This Tech Digest story has it that TokyoZERO, in a partnership with a company calling itself Sun (though not Sun Microsystems, as that’s not their logo), are apparently working on a way to get SL on your cellphone. Or perhaps not you, but the Japanese. Now, we’ve been on this before. Is this any different? For that matter, has anyone tried this other service, and does it work? I can’t imagine shoehorning all of SL’s features into a cellphone, no matter how advanced. There are some things that just need a mouse and keyboard for a fully realized experience, and SL is one of them.

Someone who reads Japanese: please look over this site and send us some answers!

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