Growing the Community
Second Life achieved a major milestone this past month as we reached our millionth registration. Over two hundred thousand accounts have been created in the last two weeks alone. Premium membership soared nearly 20%, and thousands of new basic accounts were opened around the world, with >50% increases in people arriving from Turkey, India, Portugal, Israel, China, Singapore, Colombia, Hungary, Romania, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Peru, Chile, Croatia, and Taiwan, among others.
As exciting as it has been to welcome so many new people and see how the world is transforming before our eyes, there have of course also been some growing pains. The Orientation Islands are full. Volunteers from the Mentor and Live Help groups are challenged to keep up with the influx. Our Linden staff strives to answer as many questions as possible and to maintain a dialog, but at times there is only time to listen and not always time to respond immediately.
We are taking the opportunity to think up new ways to connect that will hopefully meet expectations while being more expeditious and stable. Our values haven't changed. We continue to believe in free expression, tolerance, creativity and community as the foundation for building the world. We are committed to revamping customer support services, rationalizing and improving our communication systems, improving orientations and help for newcomers, offering greater direction and help for volunteers, and supporting liaisons with specialized training. Be assured we're vigorously pursuing these changes to ensure that your Second Life continues to be a first class experience.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know - send us your Letter to the Editor - with your Second Life username - and we will publish a representative set in the next edition of The Second Opinion.
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