Developer Focus

Dublin: Creating Community One Pint at a Time

John Mahon, known as Ham Rambler in Second Life, created the popular city of Dublin. His company, PickSL.net [pronounced pixel.net], builds community-based businesses in Second Life.

The Teen Grid

Eye4You Alliance

Eye4You Alliance is the Teen Grid library project, founded by The Alliance Library System in East Peoria, Illinois. I interviewed real life librarian Kelly Czarnecki (Saryn Fanwood in Second Life) and teen developer Storm Basiat to learn more about how Eye4You Alliance is redefining libraries for digital natives.

Tips and Tricks

A little background...

Starting with an earlier issue of The Second Opinion, I posted my very first video tutorial. Despite my happy voice, this was borne out of SHEER FRUSTRATION. I found it difficult to understand some concepts effectively through words alone so I added pictures. But even with pix, a lot was missing. After all, there's a big difference between show and tell, as one of my fave comics illustrates.

RADIO LINDEN IS BEING REPLACED WITH PODCASTS!

In an effort to improve our communication to the users of Second Life, Linden Lab is retiring the musical format of Radio Linden and moving on to weekly podcasts. Once a week, residents of Second Life will be able to download Podcast episodes from Itunes to hear the Lab address various current subjects and matters of interest. Some topics on the 'cast schedule for coming months include: Open Source, our changes to Customer Service, and New Abuse Policies.

Some of the podcasts will be roundtable discussion where users will be able to call in to speak to the Linden employee who is hosting the podcast while some will be purely informational. The podcasts will also be available to bloggers for hosting and downloading. This way, they can be embedded within personal websites and blogs.

We make this change in an effort to both help the scaling of Radio Linden's current format, as well as improve access to the information for the users of Second Life. The Live Town Halls will still show up from time to time when needed, but the opportunity to reach more people with podcasts is one we just can't pass up.

The podcast team welcomes suggestions for topics that the community feels need to be addressed. Send your ideas to radio@secondlife.com.

Civic Center

If it Sounds too Good To Be True

The blog posting from January 17th, 2007 says it so well it bears repeating:

"Have you ever gotten an email from someone in a small nation on another continent asking for help in transferring a large amount of money to the US for which you'll be richly rewarded? What do you do? The answer is simple - you ignore it."

Name Dropping

This month we'd like to big up some notable Teen Second Life residents! Special thanks to TSL's very first Resident, Malarthi Behemoth, who graciously hosted, MC'd, and cleaned up after the TSL 2nd Anniversary party. A devoted naturalist,, Malarthi tirelessly works to preserve (read as: bites anyone who would tarnish) the natural spaces in Second Life.

We'd also like to that Katharine Berry who has created an effective system for tracking performance stats for the ~100 TSL sims. Displaying the comparative measurements in a series of web-based charts has already resulted in our ability to identify one item's brief autorez that was regularly and noticeably affecting one region's performance. I know that Katharine's tools will be of great help going forward.

My hat's off to the smart, tireless and downright cool teens working to make Second Life better.

Know someone worth mentioning? Tell us!

As We See It

Education is an essential part of the Second Life experience. Considering how new virtual worlds are for most of us, being able to find classes and learn new skills is critical. Whether you are brand new to the technology or an experienced MMORPG user, chances are you have something to gain from attending classes. Given that Second Life is a place where perpetual change is perhaps the only constant, there is a never a lack of opportunity to learn something new. Change is a fact of virtual life and with our tremendous rate of growth, providing access to in-world educational resources is critical for the success of our many communities.

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.

Your Letters

We received several thoughtful responses to our opinion piece: Linden Presence in Second Life. Below is a sample of the replies. Thank you for your responses!

Lindens Need Parties Too

New Years Eve I threw a party and, at the last minute, decided to invite all the Lindens. I sent out my notecard invitation to each of them not realizing what it would eventually lead to. Not expecting any response, I was at first thrilled to see several IMs pop up from Lindens but then upon opening them realized I was getting automatic "away for the holidays" messages.

- Hottie Something