Posts tagged LindenLabs
Linden Lab Post- OpenSim & Interoperability?
Jul 18th
A bonus and rare two-post day here at MUVE Forward. The news of Linden Labs’ & IBM’s cooperative effort to teleport from the Second Life preview grid to a location on an OpenSim space has created excitement and raised more than a few questions. Brett Bjornson (RL: Brett Bixler, Penn State) asked several questions in a recent post that made a few thoughts gel.
Last week, Erir Reuters interviewed Linden VP Joe Miller (SL: Zero Linden) – Linden prepares for an OpenSim Future – to explore what Linden Lab’s strategy might be for the long term. After all, Linden’s current profit model is almost entirely dependent upon land sales and management; if they are actively pursuing interoperability and the increase of OpenSim within the market,
“Linden is banking on OpenSim to bolster its strong position in the virtual worlds industry.”
How will Linden maintain profitability?
Naturally, Miller provided vague answers at best, but according to Reuters, he suggested that Linden intends to provide search and economic and trading services, particularly if the $L can be maintained as the “gold standard” of virtual world currency. Plus, Linden Lab could assume administration responsibilities within the virtual worlds standards naming and communication protocols in a manner similar to VeriSign’s role in managing top-level internet domains.
I think the “very specific plans” Miller mentioned during the interview will be much grander and different than economic and trading services. I believe Linden Lab’s future profit model will include:
- Trust Certificates for OpenSim operators/owners. As noted by my previous post – OpenSim, SecondLife & Interoperability – the transfer of assets from Second Life to an OpenSim space will require a trust relationship between the two grids to ensure that content creators’ rights and control over their products are preserved. Based upon a 2005 blog post by Gwyneth Llewelyn which I discovered via a more recent post by Danton Sideways, I specifically asked Tess Linden (during Zero’s office hours on Tue, July 8) if it would be logical for Linden Lab to offer fee-based “trust certificates” to OpenSim owners; she indicated that it’s possible. I think it’s obvious.
- Establishing secure, enterprise virtual worlds for corporations. I perceived this to be a viable profit model for Linden Lab when it was announced in April that IBM and Linden Lab had established a private Second Life server behind IBM’s firewall. In my post A New Hype Curve for SL: Private, Secure Sims & Open Source, I described how I think this may occur, why it’s viable and what it would allow Linden to accomplish – specifically, open sourcing the server code.
- Providing business data integration services for Second Life and OpenSim servers. In addition to being ideally suited to support businesses as they engage virtual worlds, Linden is also uniquely positioned to integrate OpenSim/Second Life backend data streams and institutional business data. Services and products that help connect OpenSim to Active Directory or other data structures makes sense.
- Custom virtual world solutions. Out of the box isn’t always the best solution, and there’s plenty of room for consultants to offer services which customize OpenSim server code to meet specific business needs – perhaps beyond the integration of business data. Linden Lab’s experience in building Second Life in the first place places them at the top of this list as well.
What does this mean for education? I believe this answers questions regarding the long term viability of Second Life – perhaps not as a unique platform but as a type of virtual environment; the revenue streams I’m suggesting allow Linden Lab to actively pursue interoperability between the main grid and OpenSims, as I suggested back in April and as they are currently doing with IBM. For me, all of that suggests that the Second Life type platform – either Second Life proper or the reverse engineered OpenSim version – will continue to exist and expand. It makes educational ventures into Second Life more viable over the short term with some level of confidence that work done now may realistically be transferred to an institutionally owned OpenSim server that potentially integrates with other business systems.
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Loading ...SL Active User Population Stabilizes or Stagnates?
Dec 19th
Linden Lab released key metrics for October and November. New World Notes summarized and commented:
Second Life now has an active user base of 538,400, in-world an average time of 45 hours a month. Impressive usage rates . . . Less impressive, however, when you consider that SL’s active users were just under that 538K number in August, but slightly over that, in July . . . Second Life is now in a plateau phase . . . This despite explosive media attention in October, when the world was featured in two top rated television shows . . . The main reasons for this stagnation, of course, are obvious: constant system failures, a confusing user interface, and disorienting first-time visitor experience.
As an educator, I have a different view of it. I’m not as concerned about over the top growth rates; my financial bottom line doesn’t depend on it, and I’m selfish, so I see this as the population of SL stabilizing rather than plateauing or stagnating.
Perhaps — and this may be wishful thinking — the stabilization of 550,000 active residents coming in at an average daily peak of concurrent use at 55,000 will offer Linden Lab an opportunity to catch up on a few things. If the population and concurrent use stabilizes for a while, perhaps Linden Lab can spend time growing strategic resources to solidify core services: improve customer service and further reduce grid downtime. Not running behind chasing issues created by continued growth, Linden Lab could also then focus more coherently on long term strategic issues: scalability, interoperability, open source etc.
As New World Notes concludes,
. . . would that [plateauing growth] be that such a bad thing? The world remains rich in user-created content, grows increasingly picturesque, continues to prove itself as a prototyping platform for real world applications, and as such, will continue being a thought leader and influencer of the Net’s next generation as a 3D, avatar-driven medium . . . Or to put it another way: is there anything wrong with just being [similar in size to] Portland, Oregon?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Integrated Voice Chat in SL by Summer?!
Feb 27th
I’ll come back to this post with more details, but I wanted to note this as soon as possible. Reuters reported this morning (7:02am CST, about and hour and a half ago) that Linden Labs announced integrated voice capabilities will be launched on the grid within “the next several months.”
More on this (2:20pm CST) . . .
The Reuters article offers a few hints regarding what functionality will be available initially and how it will be provided; these insights may have implications for educators and educational institutions engaging SL as a learning environment.
First, at least it doesn’t seem as though the addition of integrated voice communication will create lag or system load issues.
. . . calculations to provide voice services take place on a separate server which should not contribute to lag or additional system load.
I believe this is critically important news. One of the fears many do or should have regarding the addition of new grid features is the impact they and their solutions have on system load and functionality. Certainly, Linden Labs considers those issues and plans accordingly, but their plans – as the contingency plan to ensure service during peak times illustrates – do not always keep educationally-centric users in mind. The integration of voice does not appear as though it will interfere with current real world educational uses of SL.
Second, there will be a voluntary adjustment period for educators since, apparently, implementing voice communications is a decision left to respective land owners.
Voice will be available on islands and parcels of land where the owners choose to make it available, along with group conference calls and one-to-one personal communication similar to Skype.
Not every aspect of a technology is beneficial. The addition of voice communication within a virtual environment will create additional administrative and implementation issues for educational institutions; making the voice communication an option which may be turned off or on by a landowner affords the educational community time to address increased threats to safety and privacy among other issues.
Finally, the technology, made possible by applications from Vivox and Diamondware, will allow coherent spatial communication.
. . . sound will come from the right or left stereo channel depending on where the speaker is located, and voices beyond a certain distance will not be audible. Indicators and animations will also reflect when someone is talking, and how loudly.
With sounds coming from spatially relevant directions, the learning curve for new users engaging SL as a learner communicating with faculty and peers will be reduced. This type of feature and capability is one that we’ve known would be included for some time, but its value should not be overlooked.
Of course, the benefits of adding voice communication to the SL learning environment may be innumerable; I’ve certainly addressed several here (1, 2, 3) that will be enabled or better facilitated by integrated voice communications. And, the Reuters article even describes the potential benefit regarding inter-language communication.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...SL Grid Strain – Linden’s Contingency Plan?
Feb 26th
Brett Bixler writing for the Penn State University Virtual Worlds Blog called this issue to my attention; I believe it is important enough of an issue to cross-post here.
Linden Labs’ official Contingency Measures to Ensure Service as Second Life Grows was published on the LL blog a little more than a week ago. In summary, when use peaks to the point of causing grid slow downs (typically on the weekends), the Grid Status will be changed to Restricted which means that only premium account holders, land owners or those that have purchased currency on the LindeX will be able to log-in. Users not meeting those criteria when the status of the grid changes will not be affected unless they log out; they won’t be able to re-enter the grid until the status changes back to normal.
Bret, I believe, accurately indicated in his blog that this Contingency Plan could have a disproportionate impact on education-centered users. If you’re using SL as a means of communicating with your students, you should consider and/or ask your students several questions… Do you qualify as a SL resident able to log on when the grid is Restricted? To what extent are you using SL for academic activities during weekend hours? Can your schedule be modified to engage class activities during SL’s non-peak hours? Is the $10/month for a premium account beyond your financial resources?
As Bret also suggested, you might consider posting a comment to the Official LL blog requesting they review their contingency plan and consider the impact it may have on educational endeavors; copying and pasting his comment may be an effective choice.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...SL Moves to Open Source
Jan 8th
This is by no means a scoop on my part, and it’s not specifically real life education in second life. However, the news that the Second Life client application is now open source and that there are plans for the server application to be open source in the future is extremely relevant to educators at all levels.
A quick, time-sensitive side note: Linden Labs has a Technical Town Hall scheduled for tomorrow, January 9th at 5-6pm CST to answer additional questions about SL Open Source; the Q&A will, of course, be in-world at Pooley Stage. Now, back to the importance of Open Source SL for educators . . .
First, Linden Labs is embracing the Open Source & Open Content movement. The Open Source/Content movement has been building for some time in the education market; it has not yet reached critical mass, and the full reach of the OS/C influence has yet to be seen or estimated. But, with an increasing number of institutions participating in the movement – MIT, Rice University, Berkeley and others – open educational content is becoming a reality. For Linden Labs, a large and somewhat influential player in the current proprietary market, to open source their client sets a precedent for others to follow, and it makes a proprietary interface open to modification by those striving to incorporate the technology into learning environments. If/when the server application is open sourced, educators and the general community at large will benefit further. Very simply, when large, profitable companies make their products more accessible and financially available to the general public, educators benefit.
Second, open sourcing creates opportunities for educational developers. A group on my mind currently that should definitely benefit and thrive from the Open Sourcing of SL is the Sloodlers (SL group). Sloodle is a modified version of the open source learning management system Moodel; Sloodle seeks to merge the existing learning management system into the Second Life environment, basically creating an in-world content management system for educators delivering instruction via SL which may also be mirrored via a traditional website. Given the Open Sourcing of SL, it should now be possible for Sloodlers to create, if necessary, a customized, open source version of the SL interface that can support learning more effectively than the original SL viewer. At the very least, the open source allows a better understanding of the viewer which will enable the creation of tools that further enhance the SL experience for learners.
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