Linden Lab has launched a suite of platform changes which effectively shift Second Life into Version 2.0, with further changes in the pipeline that promise to radically transform the virtual world, its culture, its ability to integrate with the wider digital landscape, and its ability to attract new users.
There will be heaps written about the centerpiece of this: a new ‘viewer’ (the software by which users access Second Life).
But perhaps the BIGGER attraction, in some ways, is the launch of Second Life Shared Media (SLSM) which will allow clickable, embeddable Web pages, editable documents (think collaboration on a PowerPoint or Word document), Flash, and other Web-based content. SLSM will significantly deepen the ability to collaborate, teach, train and create information-rich virtual environments.
Whether this also leads to rampant banner ads disguised as Web pages will partly be a product of how the Lab is handling parcel media and the number of SLSM objects that will load.
Where They’ve Been and Where They’re Going
Second Life 2.0 is the result of close to two years of work at the Lab. With the arrival of Mark Kingdon at the helm, Linden Lab shifted from, well, being a Lab into being a company that focuses relentlessly on product, user experience, commerce, monetization, and long-term strategic thinking – a radical shift from the evolutionary, open approach under Philip Rosedale and one which put the Lab, in some senses, “at war with itself“:
The war at the Lab isn’t a war between growth and stasis, between a “loose confederation of coders” and a tightly organized bureaucracy. It is the war to remember that the technology is in the service of people, with all their hopes and fears, their ambiguity and endless ability to say maybe.
It used to be that everyone in the world knew each others’ name, but now they barely know each others’ name at the Lab itself.
Working in a code-driven enterprise, there will be increasing pressure to systematize, to make binary, to aggregate and to create closed rooms in which the cipher-like code can scrape and direct and be free of governance.
So long as Mark Kingdon remembers that “compassion, (and) an artistic sensibility” are the bedrock upon which his “obsession with experience design” and “management…through substantial transitions” should be placed, then perhaps we’ll be able to resist the temptation to let technology itself bend the curve, to create walls and barriers and secret handshakes, and can model instead a vision of technology that is humane, and can be the playing field upon which we express our ambiguity and art.
This shift goes deeper, however, than rethinking the Second Life experience. There are early hints that this opens up a new front in which Second Life the world, Second Life the brand, and Linden Lab (the company behind it) may no longer be one-and-the-same.
Whether the shift from engineering-based to a more design-based approach, from evolutionary commerce to blatantly commercial, and from business-agnostic to business friendly will so overturn the in-world culture that the result is a diluted online experience remains to be seen.
I for one feel that what were once simply dreams of possibility are now reality. Which leaves me with the incredible opportunity to ask: “what can we imagine NEXT?”
What It All Means
In the coming days I’ll be posting observations about the new viewer and SLSM. But I’ll be focusing on its implications for social media, augmented reality, and narrative. So before I go down that path, take some time to have a look for yourself. Go grab yourself a copy, play around with it, and read what everyone else has to say about tabs and outfits, search and places.
And welcome to the new future. It begins now.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dusanwriter: Blogged: Second Life 2.0 http://ow.ly/1aqEU…
Awesome post. About time Second Life! Maybe it will be the metaverse after all (I’m skeptical) but this is a great step forward.
Minor note: missing an h in the “look for yourself” href. Not that we all didn’t figure out where to go
Id rename the move:
FROM AOL to NESCAPE : The Wait for Virtual Worlds Ecosystems Continues.
Its also funny how first YAHOO, then GOOGLE spent so much time telling us Microsoft was “bad” or “evil”. Why would I say this in terms of immersive media?
cube3
Great post! I think it’s becoming more universal. It feels familiar. I think the integration of websites on prims impacts all of us. I just keep thinking about the ways endless video streams can be used. In not only an artistic sense (did you see Thoth’s build on Reaction grid), but also opens doors to more customization towards how brands can present themselves.
Now you can say, “It uses WebKit, just like Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome browser, and Linden Lab’s Second Life.”
(Such sentences are fun because they group things that people aren’t used to thinking of together.)
Here’s a fun Flash-based website where everyone at the website can draw at once – I’m playing it in SL right now! http://colorillo.com/
[...] worlds blogger Dusan Writer said that the viewer is the beginning of a series of steps that “that promise to radically [...]
“But perhaps the BIGGER attraction, in some ways, is the launch of Second Life Shared Media (SLSM) which will allow clickable, embeddable Web pages, editable documents (think collaboration on a PowerPoint or Word document), Flash, and other Web-based content.”
Agreed!
“With the arrival of Mark Kingdon at the helm, Linden Lab shifted from, well, being a Lab into being a company that focuses relentlessly on product, user experience, commerce, monetization, and long-term strategic thinking – a radical shift from the evolutionary, open approach under Philip Rosedale and one which put the Lab, in some senses, “at war with itself“:”
Agreed!
“This shift goes deeper, however, than rethinking the Second Life experience. There are early hints that this opens up a new front in which Second Life the world, Second Life the brand, and Linden Lab (the company behind it) may no longer be one-and-the-same.”
I think that’s a good conclusion to draw.
And this is good business for anyone who ISNT working for LL how?;)
[...] Life Viewer 2 (Beta) Linden Lab launched Second Life Viewer 2. Everything you need to know: http://j.mp/SLViewer2 (via @GiannaBorgnine) [...]
Great post. I see the new media tools as the real SL revolution. This was the old linden promise to work better on sl browser.as far as i tested yesterday i saw tons of potential on this new view. Beta is up, lets see what general public has yo talk about it
The fun bit is thinking that hundreds of companies are developing photo-realistic, 100 MB-plugins for web browsers to deliver 3D content, crushing your computer while doing so, at the same time SL is simply making HTML/JS/Flash “just another asset” inside a virtual world.
But gosh, what an asset…
World-Wide Web, you’ll be assimilated. Resistance is futile…
i bet Tim O’Reilly has it up to here *raises hand above pink hair* with the use of this-and-that 2.0. it’s been like 8 years since he coined that term?
sl viewer with web on a prim is for sure cool, but seeing as the web has been around for a long time, is it that big a deal to have it in-world? 6 years to get it as part of the viewer is not, imo, something to spaz out about – it should have always been intergrated – might mean LL would be in a diff spot now. imagine twitter being only on phones (in effect, what a texting phone was), but twitter as a phone app, and then 6 years later saying “w00t! we now work with that thing called the internet”
while it is good to finally have web interface in the world and i am sure it was quite a feat to accomplish this – it is no pause to stop and say “imagine what we can do next”
what we could do next should be something new, not retrofitting something else – going to mars is new, fixing a faulty gas pedal is not
Ener, may not be something to “spaz” out about, but it sure is time,and if you think of the applications and creativity that can come from this new shared media, I mean I can sit there with a friend now and watch say MLB TV some baseball with someone across the country, or play a game of tetris with someone on the other side of the world, sure you can somewhat do these things on the web, but not with the social aspects we have here in Second Life, and I’m not even tipping the iceberg to whats possible.
[...] Dusan Writer: Where Is It Going? [...]
shared experiences like watching a movie or playing tetris are cool no doubt – XBox already allows that
but it’s not innovative – people will find innovative ways to apply it i imagine, but i just can’t spaz out and say LL is incredibly awesome for doing this