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Recap on the Second Life Enterprise Launch and PR Coverage

amanda@lindenlab.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:49:27 GMT

Launch Day Revelry

Last week's Second Life Enterprise launch put Second Life Work on the enterprise software map!

On Wednesday, November 4th at 9:00 am PST, our press release went out, the product information was pushed onto the Second Life Work microsite, and our blog post was featured on Second Life blogs. Then, at 11:15 am PDT, Mark Kingdon (SL: M Linden), Linden Lab's CEO presented at a mixed reality event at Enterprise 2.0 and Metanomics. He was joined by Neil Katz, an IBM Distinguished Engineer and a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, Steven Aguiar, Electrical Engineer at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), and Douglas Maxwell, Staff Researcher at the Center for Advanced Systems Technology (CAST) in the Combat Systems Department at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC). Of course, the entire event was moderated Dusan Writer who did an absolutely incredible job. We had over 150 people in the physical room and it was so crowded, that the Enterprise 2.0 folks streamed it live into the main lobby area for the attendees that couldn't get into the session. Additionally, there were several hundred people inworld at Metanomics, while another 2000 attended via the web stream, courtesy of Treet.tv. We had a very interesting discussion and it's well worth viewing the archive of the event.

Media and Analyst Highlights

On the PR front, we received incredible coverage around the globe and we've compiled the greatest hits below for your reading pleasure. If you would like to see all of our PR hits, here's where you can find the complete set: http://lindenlab.com/pressroom/news.

Before you dive into the list, I want to highlight an important blog post by Erica and Sam Driver at ThinkBalm entitled, "When is the Second Life Enterprise Beta Right for You?" In the article, they outline--in very simple terms--some important key points to think about when considering Second Life Enterprise for your organization. There's been some confusion out there about pricing, so I want to clearly restate the correct information from their post."...$55,000 as a one time up front cost on the appliance and software license for 100 avatars, plus an annual recurring fee based on the number of users licensed (starting at $175/user with discounts based on volume), plus any third-party applications or content and third-party custom development costs."

Press Highlights:

CNN, Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life
InformationWeek, Secnod Life Steps into the Enterprise
eWeek, Second Life Takes Virtual Reality Behind the Firewall at IBM, Navy
VentureBeat, Linden Lab Launches Enterprise Version of Second Life Virtual World
Fast Company, Second Life Finds its Second Life as a Tool for Virtual Workers
AFP, Second Life Creates Virtual World for Business
Financial Times, Linden Lab's Work-Second Life Balance

Blog Highlights:

Digital Trends, Second Life Gets Ready for Enterprise
RedOrbit, Second Life Targets Enterprise for New Service
Massively, Linden Lab Launches Second Life Enterprise Beta, Second Life Work Marketplace to Come
Dusan Writer's Metaverse, Sleek Second Life Enterprise and What it Isn't
3DTLC, Nebraska Roundup Linden Lab Launches Enterprise Beta
Pixels and Policy, Second Life Enterprise Provides Huge Step Forward for Virtual Business

Of course, this is just the beginning of the Second Life Work drumbeat. Next, you'll be hearing more about improvements that we're making to the main Second Life Work environment to make it easier and better for all organizations (big and small) to work in Second Life.

And, if you're interested in learning more about working in Second Life, or Second Life Enterprise, just visit our Second Life Work microsite or contact us and we're happy to answer your questions and help you find the right virtual work solution for you.

Announcing OUtopia - Open University's Innovative Experiment in Community

claudia@lindenlab.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:11:36 GMT

I spent a few hours of my Halloween this year in the UK at the Open University's party in a castle in Second Life. I had the Halloween honor of announcing the new name of the OU community village, chosen by the community itself--OUtopia. While OU community members were dancing the night away, one OU staff member, in an outstanding Trick instead of Treat, made the castle vanish suddenly, hurling us all to the ground scratching our virtual heads. Dancing resumed instantly with hardly a treat dropped. Open University understands the importance of nurturing community and is developing some significant expertise in that area. They do it in playful style.

I had an opportunity to speak with Anna a few days after the party.

Anna, I think your team at the Open University is an exemplar in growing and supporting community. From what I understand, your community has been an overwhelmingly successful aspect of the OU efforts in SL. What is your next step in community activity?

Our next step is to give the community a stronger sense of ownership of the island, beginning with the opportunity to rename the island. This ties in with our name change from Open Life to Open University on our main region space. We're putting an infrastructure in place to enable more participatory management of the land. Initially, community members could build within their house or allotment spaces and organize activities, but management was done centrally by a few OU staff. We're now turning that over to the community and experimenting with governance. We're starting by creating a Community Council -a small group, with fixed areas of responsibility, initially appointed by management from volunteer applicants but possibly elected in future. A Village Rep will actively seek out opinions of residents and feed these back to the council. A Council Chair elected by the council members will organise Council meetings and pass info to/from management. Events Officers will plan social events and have SL permissions to set up objects/media in certain areas. There will be other supporting roles such as a Prim Litter Warden, and a publican for the Open Arms.

What outcomes would you like to see by giving the community more powers?

We're interested in open-ended outcomes. We're looking forward to seeing and learning from what the community does. For example, what if the elected council decides there should be no houses on the island. I think the only way community will flourish in the long term is if they have ownership. There is already a strong sense of this. The buddy board is a great example. These boards are just within the nOUbie Centre, which is where people land when they visit the core Open University island for the first time. Buddies are volunteers, and when they're online their board becomes active with their picture. If a visitor clicks on that picture, it sends an IM to the buddy, who will then teleport to the nOUbie Centre and offer support. People are very proactive in being buddies, responding to newcomers and wanting to bring them inworld with a positive start. Seeing this enthusiasm has encouraged us to give them total ownership.

One of the strengths we see being in Second Life is that an open island and open membership group encourages people to come in and become part of the community. People have registered for their first Open University classes after being a part of the OU community inworld.

Looking toward the future, what are some developments on the horizon?

In the immediate future, our new Vice Chancellor Martin Beam will be speaking on Open University island on December 16 about the future of innovation in learning technology. It will be a live inworld event, limited to 50 inworld visitors, which we will record and make available for download, possivly through iTunes University. We have lots of other plans for teaching and learning activities in Second Life – more news on this in the new year .

Anna, what would you say differentiates the Open University's work in Second Life from other academic projects?

We can teach subjects in Second Life. Several of our faculty are doing that successfully. But the thing that really works for us is the extraordinary way Second Life enables community. As the OU is primarily a distance learning institution we have to work hard to reach out to students in social spaces and help them find an identity as a member of our student body. Second Life has enabled us to do that with a new dimension on anything we’ve tried before, and I think it is the way that we’re embracing and exploring that which is different to the many other interesting teaching and learning projects going on both within our own university and the work of other academic bodies across the grid.

Thanks, Anna. Do keep us posted on how the next phase in participatory governance goes. We look forward to hearing your insights and emerging best practices.

You can download the Open University case study with a focus on community best practices here.

[Q&A] Why can't I put animations/sounds into a gesture?

torley@lindenlab.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:57:57 GMT

From various Residents in our reader mailbag…

Why doesn't an animation or sound appear in the dropdown list when you're editing a gesture?

Check if it has full permissions. Animations and sounds must have full permissions to be included in a gesture. This is because a gesture functions like a "wrapper" that references individual animations and sounds. If an animation was no-transfer but the gesture could include it, that'd be an unfair way to work around the creator's permissions. A similar case applies for non-copyable animations and sounds.

It's true you can't do much to modify animations and sounds after uploading them aside from renaming and changing their description, but the rule still holds true.

^ The above comes from the full, meaty, Gestures info-page, part of the wholesome Knowledge Base. Check it out to learn the broad strokes and fine details of making gestures!

[QUICKTIP] Teleport a bunch of friends at once!

torley@lindenlab.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:14:36 GMT

The following tip is deliciously extracted from our Knowledge Base on the Wiki — help you can make better! Learn more.

How do I teleport more than one Resident at a time?

This is useful for inviting a lot of people to a party you're hosting, exploring as a group, and more.

Go to Edit > Friends.
Hold Ctrl and click the Friends you want to teleport. If you select someone who's offline, the Teleport button is disabled.
Click Teleport.
Enter a message to let your friends why you want them over, and click OK.

Tip: Unsolicited teleports can be rude. You should be familiar with who you're teleporting and reasonably believe they're pleased to TP over, as abusing mass-teleporting is disturbing the peace per our Community Standards.

Alternatively, you can mass-teleport with Calling Cards. This is somewhat inconvenient because you can't see if someone's online unless they're in your Friends list. However, you can sort Calling Cards into folders, while you can't do that with Friends.

Click the Inventory toolbar button.
Open My Inventory > Calling Cards folder.
Hold Ctrl and click the Friends you want to teleport. As with the Friends list, they must be online.
Right-click and select Offer Teleport. Unlike teleporting via the Friends list, you're asked to specify a different teleport message for each recipient.
Enter a message to let your friends why you want them over, and click OK.

As with a single-avatar teleport, each person can accept or decline your teleport request.

Introducing Second Life Enterprise, Now in Beta, and Second Life Work Marketplace

amanda@lindenlab.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:07:03 GMT

We’re Listening

Over the last few years, the number one request and core business requirement of many of our enterprise and government customers has been the need for a behind-the-firewall Second Life solution. The extra layers of security and administrative control in a stand-alone product would allow these organizations to explore virtual work as a powerful and effective collaboration and communication tool—if it was available. We listened. Last year, Mark Kingdon (SL: M Linden), Linden Lab’s CEO, announced that we were working on a behind-the-firewall solution in response to customer needs.

Ready for Work

Today, we’re excited to announce the beta launch of Second Life Enterprise, formerly known by our internal code name “Nebraska” and now known as SL Enterprise. SL Enterprise is the most secure, content-rich, and flexible enterprise-ready virtual workplace solution available today, built on the world's leading 3D virtual world technology platform--Second Life. The SL Enterprise solution enables large organizations to bring distributed colleagues together into a persistent branded immersive space to collaborate, meet, learn, and prototype new offerings, while cutting travel costs and working greener. Customers including IBM, Intel, Case Western Reserve, New Media Consortium, DefenseWeb Technologies, Northrop Grumman, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and many others, are maintaining and growing their presence in Second Life while also working in the SL Enterprise environment for certain uses that require higher levels of security and control.

Product Detail

Ok, let’s talk nuts and bolts for a minute. The solution itself runs 8 regions simultaneously while storing over 25 additional regions that you can take up and down in a flash. With 8 regions, the system can support a maximum of 800 avatars. From a user perspective, SL Enterprise feels exactly like Second Life with all of the benefits including a 3D rich immersive environment, spatial voice, text chat, and the LSL building environment. But, you can use real names and connect those users directly to your network directory. Oh, and let me croon about the control panel where administrators use a web-based dashboard to manage users, regions, content, and systems—complete with backup and recovery, LDAP integration, and bulk account creation. The solution comes standard with 7 pre-built regions and 10 multi-cultural SL Work avatars with business attire and accessories included.

Deck Out your Workspace with Content

What about content, you ask? Great question. There are three ways to create or bring new content into the SL Enterprise environment. First, the solution has the same rich LSL building tools as Second Life so creating new content within the solution is easy. Second, if you own the intellectual property rights in content you created in Second Life, then you can transfer that content into the SL Enterprise environment. Now, you’ll need to affirm your IP ownership prior to moving any content—you must identify the Second Life names of your employees who created content for you, and if you wish to transfer any content created by a Resident who is not your employee, you must provide Linden Lab with a signed written permission from that Resident content creator. (So for SL merchants, those who purchased your content within Second Life cannot move it to the SL Enterprise environment without your express written permission. But, keep reading because there’s a business opportunity for you….)

Coming Soon! The SL Work Marketplace

And, there’s a third option that we’re very excited about. Today, we’re also announcing the Second Life Work Marketplace, set to launch in Q1 2010. The SL Work Marketplace will be the first virtual world application and solution marketplace in the world. It will allow large organizations to download entire regions of collaboration tools, meeting and event solutions, training solutions, work avatars, business-oriented environments, and much more, into their stand alone SL Enterprise environment and make enterprise-wide use of that content under an organizational site license. For Solution Providers and content creators, this opens up a whole new market for work-related content. Initially, we’re only accepting content from Gold Solution Providers and Recommended Application Providers, but we will open up the application process to a broader audience soon.

Business-Friendly Mainland

One other important thing to note: The Enterprise Team is not just working on SL Enterprise and the SL Work Marketplace. We’re also hard at work making improvements to the main Second Life environment—to make it easier to use and useful for organizations using Second Life today and for those that will be joining in the future. We’ll have more to share on some of those improvements in the coming months.

Learn More

In the meantime, you probably have a million questions and we look forward to answering them in future blog posts and in our upcoming office hours (days and times posted to the left). But, before you dive in, I wanted to share some materials that will hopefully anticipate a few.

Pricing begins at $55,000 USD. If you’re interested in learning more about SL Enterprise, then contact us and let’s explore how the solution can dramatically improve your internal collaboration and communication and decrease your travel costs.

Please join us in discussing SL Enterprise!

Winterfest Brings Holiday Joy, Fun and a Helpful Hand

communities@secondlife.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:03:38 GMT

Hello all,

The holiday shopping, decorating and entertaining season has arrived and that means it’s time for us all to get ready to decorate, attend wonderful parties and spend time with family and friends. In Second Life, the holiday season means Winterfest – wonderful winter-themed events from snowman building contests and ice skating to holiday markets full of dazzling treats and decorations for the holidays. For merchants, it’s the perfect time to create some new winter holiday merchandise and get involved in Winterfest festivities.

Winterfest Activities and Events – Something for Everyone!
-- Winterfest Shops & Land Auctions
-- Snowman building contest
-- Ice Skating and Bonfire under the stars with live music
-- Residents vs. Lindens Snowball Fights
-- Second Life Community Sponsored Events Calendar
-- Flickr Group to showcase Resident images of winter

Winterfest and Xstreet SL
This year, we’re excited to announce that Xstreet SL will join the Winterfest by rolling out new, winter-themed categories for all the creative items you’ve been dreaming up for the holiday shopping season.

New Winterfest Categories--
We've also added 13 new sub-categories to our Winterfest section to make the shopping that much easier and more fun. Here they are:

APPAREL (clothing and accessories, avatars, tattoos, costumes)
DECORATIONS (tree decorations, candles, menorah, kinara, bells, party decorations, fireplace stockings, snowman building, etc.)
GREENERY (trees, garland, flowers, plants)
GIFT BOXES (ribbon tied boxes, gift bags, bows)
TEXTURES (snow, ice, gift wrap,etc.)
GESTURES
FOOD & DRINK
CARDS & INVITATIONS
MUSIC
SETS (environments for land, parties, in-door scenes, etc.)
SCRIPTS (AOs, HUDs)
SPORTS (skiing, sledding, ice skating, hockey, etc.)
OTHER

To ensure shoppers see your Winterfest items, please place them in one of these 13 Winterfest sub-categories. Also, if you have listings in the Christmas, Chanukkah, Holiday base categories, please take time this week to move those listings to the appropriate sub-categories. We'll be clearing out these base categories next week, so if you haven't moved your listings to the sub-categories by then, we will move them for you.

Winterfest Spotlight Promotion
In September the Fall Fashion Lookbook made its debut, October brought the 2009 Halloween Spotlight and now we’re excited to announce the Winterfest Spotlight. Having listened to your feedback on the first two promotions, we've decided to stick with an open submission process for all merchants.

If you wish to participate-- please click here to submit up to 10 Xstreet SL Winterfest listings (must be appropriate for all ages). Deadline for Submissions is 12:00 PM (Noon) PST Wednesday, November 11th. We'll be reviewing all of the listings submitted that follow the criteria listed on the submission page, and select a variety of merchants and high-quality merchandise to include in the spotlight. Don't forget that presentation matters! Please review the specifications for listings in the submission form before submitting your best winter-themed items.

A Helpful Hand Makes a World of Difference
While we can’t release the details in this blog post, we can tell you that Xstreet SL will be offering some exclusive, custom made items that will benefit (100% of all proceeds will be donated) an international non-profit organization. Stay tuned to learn how you can help make a difference in someone’s life this holiday season.

Bundle up, grab some hot chocolate and get ready for the wonderful experience of Winterfest!
-- The Commerce Team

[XSTREET TIPS] Depositing fund$ into an inworld terminal (so you can buy awesome stuff)

torley@lindenlab.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:59:20 GMT

Do you like shopping? 'Cuz I sure do. Teaching you that OBEDIENT CONSUMERISM IS GOOD might be all Big Brotherly in another world, but since Second Life's inworld content is almost entirely created by your fellow Residents, shopping at the Xstreet virtual marketplace is more like supporting a homegrown artist a la Etsy. Even if said content creator's products and service are incredibly professional. (Best of both worlds combining creative intimacy with electronic convenience, huh?)

ANYWAY… as compelling as a litter of kittens, this is one in a series of tips I'm doing about how you can make the most out of Xstreet. Buy what you're looking for, have fun, and be a little crazy with what you discover. Since I'm the watermelony dude who's revising our Xstreet help files while shopping all the merry way (gotta know your product, yes?), it makes sense.

Before you can ever buy something on Xstreet, you NEED MOOLAH. You can deposit Linden Dollars or US Dollars. For now, and for your security, your inworld and Xstreet web L$ accounts are separate. This means you need to find a legit terminal in Second Life, deposit L$ into it, then shop away! So how the heck does that happen? You can do it in a few minutes, it's E-A-S-Y. Watch this video.

Stuff mentioned:

Now's your turn in the comments. The topic du post is XSTREET, so hit me up with questions about this, or observations, tips & tricks, what-have-you-nots. If you're hungry for more shopperlicious discussion, head to the Commerce forums run by my helpful colleagues Pink, Siz, and Colossus Linden. I hang out there sometimes and most certainly am reading your posts. Hehee.

BUY BUY BUY SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE BUY AWESOME STUFF TO ENJOY AND SUPPORT THE SECOND LIFE ECONOMY HELP FIGHT BOREDOM TODAY!

Meet Teeple Linden

courtney@lindenlab.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:25:53 GMT

Time to meet another Linden in our series! Introducing Teeple, a hard-working, inworld-clubbing, Bach-loving member of the Customer Relations/Support team at Linden Lab. Enjoy, everyone!

Linden Name: Teeple
Team: RESI
Position: Supervisor
Years in SL: 5
Hometown: Born in Baton Rouge, now living in Phoenix

What kinds of stuff did you do before joining Linden Lab? I retired from IT in early 2001. I took a two-year sabbatical, which involved a lot of flipping the TV remote, walking downtown for coffee, and thinking "wow, this is some fun I'm having now." So I got a part-time gig in a customer service call center to keep myself from going completely stir crazy. The IT/customer service mix turned out to be fortuitous when I applied to the Lab and was accepted as a Liaison.

What's a typical day for you at Linden Lab?
I try to spend at least 30-60 minutes before I log in on catching up on email and organizing my daily planner. Once in, I spend a goodly amount of time in chat and #irc, working with RESI and other departments. A typical day will involve an inworld meeting, a voice conference or two, ongoing chats, and working with escalated tickets from our Support portal. And email, email everywhere.

When you're not working, what's your favorite thing to do inworld?
I like to sightsee, and I love to go clubbing. Occasionally, I'll do a little scripting project for somebody, but nothing heavy duty. And I shop way too much.

Why did you choose this particular look for your avatar?

It wasn't really conscious. I just started refining my look, tweaking over time, and finally wound up looking like this, and just sorta stopped. Well, that plus the fact that I look exactly like my avatar in RL. Flawless skin, perfect physique; you couldn't tell us apart if we walked down the street together.

If you could fly in RL, where would you go first?
Wow, a few contenders here, but I think Hungary would win as my first stop. I visited an inworld photo exhibit organized a couple of years back by a Hungarian cultural rep group, and the snapshots of the architecture and countryside were thoroughly captivating.

What album/song is in your playlist rotation right now?
BWV 538, "Dorian Toccata," played by Christopher Herrick. What immensely powerful and uplifting music. I've always had a thing for Bach organ music, and Herrick is my favorite contemporary performer. I grew up as a huge Virgil Fox fan, but I have to be in the mood to listen to him these days. I do take breaks and listen to other random stuff. I'm a big Loreena McKennitt fan. When I want more contemporary stuff, well, that's what inworld dance clubs are for. :-)