Ebbe talks; there is going to be a monthly Question Time with Lindens (with video)

Tags

"second life", ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, interview, question time, saffia widdershins, sl12b

Together well known VR Tv personality Saffia Widdershins and I got to interview Ebbe Altberg, aka Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab and thus, boss of our virtual world.

After a rocky start (something always goes wrong when audio and video are involved in SL) we got started.

It was interesting to note that Ebbe had returned to using his original avatar and was no longer wearing a mesh body.
Thus allowing his face to actually move as he spoke.
He said that he had only worn the mesh body as part of a presentation but I wish I’d asked a little further, because I can’t help wondering if perhaps he didn’t like the mesh avatar very much, especially the fact that you can’t really open your mouth with those avatars.
A rather bad side to the ‘new’ mesh avatars Linden Lab announced a while ago.

Nothing much new was announced or revealed during the interview, if you’ve been keeping up with the news and especially if you watched the earlier Linden interviews, you’d known most of what was being said already, although here and there extra information was being added but generally Sansar is just in too early a phase to get into real detail.

I was too busy to make notes, so I hope I remembered (and read from others) the below correctly;

• In SL there will be more options to buy and own more kinds of land, I suggested something like this in my blog in this post (click to read).
• Land in Sansar will be cheaper, even free for new users.
• In Sansar LL plans to make money by putting a tax on sales and transactions in stead of land.
• If you can run SL on your computer today you should be able to run Sansar on it as well although this could still change and Ebbe isn’t promising that you won’t need a new computer anyway. Then again, in VR everyone always needs a new computer.
• Ebbe is proud of improving communication between Lindens and the SL residents.
• Ebbe was also proud of several improvements that were implemented since he became CEO.
• Ebbe repeated that he plans to make cashing out Linden dollars faster, right now it can take several days, the plan is to make it happen within 24 hours.
• Ebbe said he walked around SL12B and enjoyed some Techno music, which I find a horrific announcement that shocked me to my core, I didn’t think that was even possible 😉
• Ebbe almost always goes around Second Life as himself, not using an alt.
  He does not mind mingling and said that quite often people don’t even realise he is the CEO.
  Which I find odd but I guess not everyone follows the SL news and maybe not everyone gets excited when they meet a Linden, any Linden.
• LL will also continue making SL run better and media on a prim will also be improved.
• Second names will very likely not return to SL, but what names will actually look like in Sansar is not quite clear.
• As Danger Linden already said, there will be one main account and several co-accounts per user, allowing you to have alts but still share the same inventory and linden dollar balance.
• In Sansar, you will probably be paying for how much your sim demands from the LL servers, for instance if you don’t mind our sim being offline when you’re not there (for instance when you run a club thats only open in the weekends) or when you don’t mind visitors having to wait a little while your sim loads, it can be offline when nobody is there, bringing your costs down.
  If you want your sim to be online all the time, you maybe have to pay a little more.
  Which makes sense to me.
• There won’t be an Linden Lab run version of SL Go yet, no Linden Lab Streaming service, which is a huge shame.
  Ebbe explained that although they looked at it, but felt it would just be too expensive to run. I disagree, one of the SL Go people told me that although Onlive failed, SL Go on its own was very close to making a profit and that if they had realised from the start that their main target audience was the kind of SL user with an old computer and not the mobile user, they would have done better sooner.
  SL Go also showed us that people were willing to pay 10$ a week for streaming SL.
  And I also think that even in SL Streaming does not make any profit, or not much, it would be an important service that is good for SL, as it would allow people to see SL the way it should be seen and thus send out more high quality screenshots and videos into the world, giving SL priceless advertising.
  So I hope that perhaps someone at SL invites some of the ex-SLGo staff to have another chat anyway.
  Nevertheless, LL is looking into streaming Sansar, although again, this is something that isn’t happening any time soon.
• As Sansar won’t be open source (at least not for a while), there is no room yet for third party viewers, such as Firestorm.
  Which would be upsetting unless LL is implementing a lot of that what makes Firestorm the better viewer.
  But there will be room for add-ons, so I assume people will be able to create certain tools you can add to your viewer to give them more features.
  If this works, it would be really cool.
  Especially if people can create all sorts of applications for the official viewer that they can then sell on the Sansar marketplace!
  It could start a whole new industry.

Near the very end of the interview Ebbe said that he really enjoyed the chat and that we should figure out a way to do something like this again.
This made me think back to an idea I had a few days ago and posted about here on my blog;

Second  Life Question Time (click to read)

I had discussed this with Saffia Widdershins before the interview and in a spur of the moment sort of thing, we decided to take Ebbe up on his offer and told him that we should have some sort of Question Time, but with Lindens.
Jokingly I suggested we could do one every week, but Ebbe thought that once a month would probably be better.
I replied that it was a deal, a verbal agreement and Ebbe agreed.

Afterwards, off the air, we briefly talked about this idea a little longer and it seems there really will be a Question Time show coming to Second Life.

So in a way, we had a little scoop after all.
I’m very excited about this because I feel it will make communication between us and the Lindens even better and there seem to be so many people with questions.

The idea will be simple; we invite Lindens (and perhaps one or two guests as part of a current SL related news story) and let the audience ask the questions.
Don’t start sending in questions just yet, we need to build a stage, find some space, set a date, etc.
But we will of course let everyone know when it is going to happen.

I’ll keep you updated!

You can see the whole interview here;

Second Life Question Time

Tags

debate, interview, Lindens, question time

As part of Second Life’s 12th birthday (aka SL12B) I’ve been enjoying a series of interviews with Lindens.

I sneak into the audience and sometimes even get a chance to force my own opinions and questions to the front in a subtle and ladylike manner… ish… sort of… shouting is involved…
You may have read my near- hysterical post yesterday about when Oz Linden announced 24 hour days are coming, partially as a result of my nagging 😉

Since Linden Lab opened their doors and lured kicked pushed enticed set free allowed the Lindens to go out into the wide open world again we’ve been seeing a lot more of them and generally people really like seeing, hearing and meeting them in the wild.
And you can see that in these SL12B interviews as well, when Lindens get on stage, regions fill up.

The interviews are very good, veteran interviewer Saffia Widdershins does her job rather well together with Elrik Merlin, Draxter Despres and others.
Yes, they’ll even let me on the stage to talk to Ebbe.
If you’ve got any questions for him, leave them in the comments section, I may be able to squeeze them in.
If not, make sure you’re in the audience and ask them yourself!

But no matter how much the Lindens talk, you always think of something to ask that doesn’t come up or that you only think about after the interview is over.
And it made me wonder if perhaps it would be interesting to have more chat shows like these.

And no matter how interesting the interview is, the interaction with the audience is often even more exciting.

In the UK there is a tv show called ‘Question Time’, a hand full of politicians sit on a stage while the audience asks them questions.
They can ask (almost) anything they want, several questions are handed in before the show starts but people can also put their hands in the air and ask something else.
You can imagine that these shows are very entertaining.
And of course the questions can get quite difficult sometimes.
As far as I am concerned every country needs a show like this, a place where the politicians directly have to respond to the questions of their employers; the people.

Picture; BBC

I started wondering if perhaps this would be something great to have here in Second Life.
Imagine, once a month (or more often?) 3 or 4 Lindens and 1 or 2 guests who for one reason or another have something to do with whatever story is in the news at that time, are invited to Second Life Question Time.
The public gets to send in their questions in advance, there is a host, someone like Saffia, Merlin, Drax etc. and together with the public, for one hour, there is a debate.
The news of the moment is discussed, the questions that were send in are asked and members of the audience with lovely ‘hand the air’ gestures can get to ask questions as well.

This is something I’d watch and I bet so would many others.
It would be the cherry on top of the whole new openness that has changed how LL interacts with the people of Second Life.
What do you think?
Do you like the idea, is it something you’d watch, do you already have questions popping up in your head?

Here is a video showing the UK Question time, not very exciting, but it shows you the general idea of what it is;

And to make up for that video, here is one mocking Question Time;

I will not buy an Oculus Rift any time soon

Tags

headset, oculus rift, virtual reality

So, the Oculus rift is finally going to be commercially available.

They are now available for pre-order  and will start shipping from March 28th onwards.

But… and here comes the sting… it is going to cost $599.

That is just too much.
And here in the Netherlands you’ll even be paying $750.
This does not even include their special controllers.

And that while Palmer Luckey himself only a few months ago answered a question by Road to VR about if the consumer Oculus Rift price would come in around that $350 ballpark target with;

You know, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. We’re roughly in that ballpark… but it’s going to cost more than that.

Must be nice to live in a world where $599 is roughly in the same ballpark s $350.

Either way, it seems they are selling them, lots of them.

But as excited as I am about all the new tech that is coming, I am not willing (or able) to spend this much on a headset.
Especially as I’ll also need to buy a new computer to handle VR properly as it doesn’t even work on my MacBook.

So even though I’m grateful to Oculus for sort of kickstart the VR renaissance, I also think they messed up.
Not only because of the high price they are asking for it but also because I think they missed the boat.
All this has taken them so long, that the competition has been developing other headsets as well, cheaper ones.
The Oculus will not be as much a seller as it would/could have been at half the price.
I think this may even slow down the spread of VR.

If even someone like me, who is crazy about VR and wants a good headset so badly, thinks that the Oculus headset is too expensive and will just not buy one, imagine what the average gamer or potential VR user will think
And let’s not even think about .general gamers, museums, schools and regular folks will think about this ‘toy.
While they should have brought us a good but cheap Rift that everyone would have wanted to buy and thus make sure that VR headsets end up in as many households as possible.

Do they really think we all want or need those special headphones, a game, a remote and an x box controller?
Because we pay extra for those, maybe not much, but it adds up.
Did they really have to spend so much time to develop all these extra things and their special new controllers?
I personally think they should have sold a basic Rift before Christmas and then sell all that other stuff separately for those who want them.
Now they missed the holiday sales and ended up with a very expensive toy.

But Palmer explains;

To reiterate, we are not making money on Rift hardware. High end VR is expensive, but Rift is obscenely cheap for what it is.

— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 6, 2016

I think and hope that the competition will now step up and offer us a good VR headset for at least half the price.
Oculus may have just ruined the opportunity of a life time.

I am secretly looking towards the people at Apple.
We know they have been acquiring quite a few VR related patents and are working on something…
And at least if they build a headset it will work on my Mac…

Will you be getting an Oculus Rift?

Photo copyright; Oculus.

 

Ask Ebbe! Linden Lab CEO answers your questions

Tags

"second life", ask, ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, forum, questions

When Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab) did his interview at the SL12B celebrations with Saffia Widdershins and myself, we tried to get as many questions from the audience answered as possible but of course there is never enough time.

And some questions, although answered, keep coming back.

Today in an announcement you can read by clicking here, Linden Lab announced that they started a forum post that answered some of the often asked questions but they also opened up the thread to the public promising that Ebbe and other Lindens will keep an eye on it and try and answer as many of your questions as possible.

This is another great step to improving the communication between users and Second Life, as mentioned before, Ebbe also agreed to doing a regular question hour type show we hope to start working on soon.
So you can perhaps also ask him your questions in public soon.

Got a question for the Lindens?
Go check out the official forum thread by clicking here and ask away!

Ebbe answers your questions on SLUniverse forum

Tags

SL 2.0

Ebbe has logged onto the SLUniverse forum and is answering some of the questions Second Life users are asking him there directly.

You can read the actual forum post by clicking HERE and of course add your own questions.

I’ll be sharing some of his answers here and will be adding more as they come, so check back later as well.

Making it easy for people to bring their identity and social connections along would obviously make a lot of sense to do.

Don’t wait on anything. It will take a long time and then you can choose where to spend your time and energy.

Beta next year sometime.

SL will be here for a long time until we see how people decide between these worlds. Nobody here has even thought of talking about some shut down plan. Too far out to know. But we obviously plan to make something so good ultimately that you will prefer to go there.

I wasn’t really planning to talk about it at the TPV meeting but I’ve been talking to press this week where I do mention next gen platform, so I figured they might as well hear it from me…

I’m for freedom. I don’t want to moderate or control it (beyond making sure things are legal). And we’ll probably have ratings (G, M, A) or something like that so one can be “safe” if one does not want some kind of content…again, we’re creating something in the spirit of SL, but just want to make it much better…

We’re early in our discussions about business models but I’m thinking lower land tax and higher sales tax and ultimately aim to make things up with volume…(charge less to many rather than a lot to a few). This is possible with better tech and making something more people want to be part of.

Ebbe says yes to Linden Dollars and land ownership and sub letting.

Please wait several months…it’s too early to really discuss details. I’m just trying to calm things down a bit. For now we’re more or less just saying that we will work really hard to make a great virtual world that’s even better than the best one (SL) that exist today.

Cross-platform/device chat…yes.

We never stole your content to then sell and profit from it for ourselves. And we won’t.

Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey answers questions regarding Facebook deal

Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR, has spend some time responding to the generally negative reactions to the news of Facebook buying the company.

In general people seem to be very unhappy about the situation, many call Facebook evil… on Facebook.

The main problem people seem to have with this acquisition is that they don’t like Facebook, it is a company few of us trust, that has done some rather unpleasant things and has no connection whatsoever with proper gaming.

Personally I think that Facebook is just planning to get in on the action, Zuckerberg is very interested in where VR is going because he isn’t stupid and knows it is going to be big.

I feel that Facebook is already planning a VR world or platform, something like Facebook or Second Life and it makes sense to try and help Oculus to get bigger and better, faster.

I also think they are very interested in VR “television”, using a 360 degrees camera to allow users to be somewhere else, Live.

And although this could become a problem for Second Life, I doubt it will be a problem for VR in general.

Yes Facebook is only in it for the money, but there are many ways to make money with VR without having to actually take over the entire industry.

Zuckerberg said;

One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people.

Palmer Luckey has said that he would probably not be too excited about Facebook buying Oculus but he sold the company anyway and he has also said that he was sure that many people will change their opinion on this news within a year.

A lot of people are upset, and I get that. If you feel the same way a year from now, I would be very surprised.

What are they planning?

Of course the cynic in me is saying that we’re all just hearing the corporate PR talk from both sides but I also feel that Palmer really truly loves VR and is still idealistic about the whole thing.
I think that he tried very hard to make sure that Oculus will remain his baby and as independent as the deal allows it to remain.
In the end I think that the new possibilities of this deal and that it will make the evolution of VR go faster and become cheaper are the reasons that made him sign.
Not (just) the money.

Palmer said;

I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast.

I am willing to give Palmer the benefit of the doubt.

I think that it is too early to say what will happen.
I don’t like Facebook as a company but am not (yet) sure that they will cast such a dark evil shadow over VR.

Palmer Luckey has been answering questions and comments on Reddit

He started with posting his entire ‘The future of VR’ story there and then replied to the torrent of negative reactions.

I have just quoted a few of the more interesting things being said, but please feel free to go read them all here on Reddit.

You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift.

I guarantee that you won’t need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift.

I am sorry that you are disappointed. To be honest, if I were you, I would probably have a similar initial impression! There are a lot of reasons why this is a good thing, many of which are not yet public.

This deal lets us dedicate a lot of resources to developer relations, technical help, engine optimizations, and our content investment/publishing/sales platform. We are not going to track you, flash ads at you, or do anything invasive.

This acquisition/partnership gives us more control of our destiny, not less! We don’t have to compromise on anything, and can afford to make decisions that are right for the future of virtual reality, not our current revenue. Keep in mind that we already have great partners who invested heavily in Oculus and got us to where we are, so we have not had full control of our destiny for some time. Facebook believes in our long term vision, and they want us to continue executing on our own roadmap, not control what we do. I would never have done this deal if it meant changing our direction, and Facebook has a good track record of letting companies work independently post-acquisition.

There is a lot of related good news on the way. I am swamped right now, but I do plan on addressing everyone’s concerns. I think everyone will see why this is so incredible when the big picture is clear.

I am 100% certain that most people will see why this is good in the long term.

This deal specifically lets us greatly lower the price of the Rift.

‘Just promise me there will be no specific Facebook tech tie-ins.’
I promise.

1) We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of dollars. More news soon.
2) We can afford to hire everyone we need, the best people that fit into our culture of excellence in all aspects.
3) We can make huge investments in content. More news soon.

We now have the resources to put a lot of money into indie VR content, you will be seeing some good news on that very soon.

We have the resources to create custom hardware now, not just rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. There is a lot of good news on the way that is not yet public, so believe me, things will become a lot more clear over time.

We have had to answer to people since the Kickstarter, and even more so after raising two rounds of funding from investment partners to hire the people we need. This deal gives us more freedom to make the right decisions, not less!
Facebook has a good track record for letting companies operate independently post-acquisition, and they are going to do the same for us. Trust me on this, I would not have done the deal otherwise.

It is an acquisition, but we will be operating independently. Our ongoing relationship really is more like a partnership.

 

Lab Chat, a talk show with and about Linden Lab is coming!

Tags

ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, Lab chat, linden lab, saffia widdershins, talk show, talkshow

No matter how many blogs are written, interviews are done and stories are published, it seems that there are always questions about Second Life, Project Sansar and Linden Lab that people can’t find the answer to and want to ask.

During the 12th birthday celebrations of Second Life several talk shows were organised, well known VR TV host Saffia Widdershins and co-hosts interviewed several Lindens and it was very interesting to notice how many questions the audience had to ask if they were given the chance.
Clearly the people of Second Life have lots of things they want to ask the Lindens themselves and even though they sometimes show up on the forums and at inworld meetings, it seems that we do not all get as many chances to ask them things face to face as we would like.
So every time a Linden was interviewed there at SL12B, lots of people showed up and when the public was given a chance to ask their questions things often got very interesting.

This made me think of a famous UK tv show called Question Time where regular members of the public get a chance to grill their politicians.
I love this show and I don’t even live in the UK!

So I thought that it might be fun to have a similar show in Second Life but with Lindens in stead of politicians and I wrote this blog about it (click).

Not much later I was one of Saffia’s co-hosts myself and we interviewed Ebbe Linden (aka Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab) together.
When the interview was about to end Ebbe mentioned that he rather enjoyed the chat and that we should have one more often.
This made me think back to my Question Time idea that I also had talked about with Saffia before the show.
And so the plan was made.
You can read how it all exactly happened in this blog I wrote about it (click).

So behind the scenes we’ve been working on this idea and now it is going to happen!

We’re going to try and keep it as basic as possible, just like Question Time, you ask the questions, one or more Lindens answer them.
The show will be recorded live in front of a studio audience and then broadcast later.

We will pick 4 questions from the SL forum but if time allows it, we will also open up the floor to people in the audience to ask theirs.
We are not selecting questions as a way to sensor out the negative ones or tricky ones, but to make sure things aren’t asked that are already common knowledge or should be if you bother to ask around.
Also it is sometimes important to give the Lindens a heads-up, just so they can bring some facts and figures with them or so they can make sure they have the latest news from their colleague working on that very subject.
And we also do this because not everybody is interested in that personal issue you have with someone else in SL regarding a dress you bought but somehow the texture didn’t look as good as on the picture, etc.
We want questions everyone wants to hear the answers to!
We also pick questions for technical reasons, we need to get in contact with you for the show, see if you’re willing to use your voice for the recording or if we need to read the question for you, etc, etc.

But remember, if we have time left, we will, just like during SL12B, take questions from the audience text chat.
So even if your question wasn’t selected, bring it along to the recording.

The show will be recorded Thursday, November 19th at 10:30am SLT at the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre, Saffia and I will be hosts and our guest will be Ebbe Linden — CEO of Linden Lab.

You can read the official Linden Lab announcement here (click) and leave your questions on the forum here (click), make sure to ask it by Friday the 13th (!!) of November.

The Lab Chat logo, made by Marianne McCann

Gachas banned in Second Life

Linden Lab announced a few hours ago that Gachas will no longer be permitted from midnight SLT on August 31st.
Here is the full official announcement;

Due to a changing regulatory climate, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to sunset a very popular sales mechanism for content in Second Life.  It’s widely known as “gacha”, and is defined by a chance-based outcome as a result of a payment.  
We know that creators plan their content releases far in advance and will need to re-tool their products, so to mitigate the impact to those affected, we are giving a 30-day grace period, until midnight SLT on August 31.  After that time, selling content via gacha machines will no longer be permitted in Second Life.  Enforcement won’t start until September 1; after that date an Abuse Report for “Gaming Policy Violation” will be the preferred method of reporting this content to Linden Lab.  
We will continue to allow any sales where a payment is given for a known item, which means that items that had been purchased as “gacha” will be allowed to be re-sold as long as the buyer knows in advance the item and quantity they will receive. We will, of course, still allow fatpacks, and any other currently-allowed distribution mechanisms. 
We did not make this decision lightly and we understand that it will impact creators as well as event organizers and certainly the shoppers! We look forward to fun creative ways of engagement that will come instead.  
We realize that this announcement may leave the community with questions.  This forum thread is going to be monitored and we will answer any related questions in there. 

I freely admit that I did not like the Gacha system, I often was frustrated by them, simply wanting to buy something to find that I had to spend ages playing to get what I needed, ending up with lots of stuff I didn’t want, etc.
But they are a huge part of Second Life and big business.

Mr. Moon & Vertiigo’s Second Life

Tags

mr. moon, vertiigo, youtube

Youtuber Mr. Moon has visited Second Life and made quite an impressive video about it with his old pal Vertiigo.
I have bumped into both of them a few times in games such as Rust, DayZ, etc, don’t ask what happened.
One of them may even have ended up in a dungeon in my castle, in a non pervy way of course, honest.
I may even have annoyed them with stories about Second Life, as I often do when playing games.
Because yes, I may be a fat old cat lady living in a farm in the middle of nowhere, I’m also a gamer and have been one since Pong.

Of all the games I’ve played and still play, of course none have gotten as much attention from me as Second Life.
It is where I hang out daily, meet my friends, spend time in the world I created in stead of some world a game developer imagined, even manage to make a little bit of a living there but above all, it just allows me to experience things I just never get to do in any of the games I play.

It is always interesting to see a relative newcomers experiences in the virtual world many of us have become so familiar with.
It is always annoying to see someone have a better computer and less lag than me though.

I’ve been trying to get LL to get more youtubers into trying SL, they can get you the kind of publicity you can’t buy!
Mr. Moon for instance has over 400K subscribers, his video has had over 60K views.

Of course they mostly hang out in dodgy clubs, ugly old sims, meet horrible rude people, there’s some hanky panky (thankfully blurry) and they do a fair bit of swearing.
Just so you know.

It’s funny though.

But underneath all that there seems to be a genuine curiosity and admiration for what they find during their exploration.
At the halfway mark the video changes, Mr. Moon chats with long term Second Life residents, asking serious questions, getting serious answers.
He starts to see some of the things that make SL great and wonderfully describes them.
He is talking to an audience of gamers, many of whom will have no interest in SL or look at it with certain preconceptions, but I reckon he got their attention.
He shows SL looking good, visiting wonderful spots with graphics settings set to high.
Anyway, it may bring some new people to SL, which is good 🙂

But I hope Verts & Moon come and spend more time in Second Life and make more videos.
If I bump into them I won’t lock them in a dungeon, again, I promise.

Enjoy;

Linden Lab begins inviting creators to Project Sansar this week!

Tags

creator preview, project sansar, sansar

Linden Lab today announced that they are going to start sending out invites to people who have applied to be part of the Creator Preview this week.

So if you’re one of the people who have filled in the application form on the Sansar website, keep an eye on your mailbox!

I don’t know about you but my bags are packed.
Regardless of how enthusiastic you may or may not be about Project Sansar, I doubt there isn’t anyone in SL today who isn’t at least a little curious to what the lindens have been creating in their laboratory.

Over 6500 people have applied for the Creator Preview and a select group of creators who’s skills best fit the current capabilities of Sansar but who, I guess, are also the kind of people who will be able to build a few impressive experiences.
After all, Project Sansar will be mostly empty or filled with Linden created objects and it would be nice to have some user created experiences ready to show when this new virtual world goes public next January.

Addendum;

Inara Pey discovered that Linden Lab has decided to stick with the original name of Sansar, which for a while was just the working title as Project Sansar.
I assumed LL would think of a new name and only picked Project Sansar as a placeholder but started to think they might stick with Sansar last April as I mentioned in this blog (click).
Because I felt Peter’s answer to Inara’s question was a bit too vague (and because I’m just stubborn), I decided to ask as well, just to be sure;

Well that is pretty clear.
I am not sure I like the name, it is short, easy to remember and on google generally helps you find this new virtual world, it is not very descriptive, unlike Second Life you don’t immediately get an idea of what Sansar is.
Of course if you google the meaning you will find that it fits rather well.

The full press release;

SAN FRANCISCO – August 31, 2016 – Linden Lab® today announced that the first invitations to the Sansar™ Creator Preview are being sent this week. Select applicants will be invited to create their own social VR experiences with the new platform, slated for public release in early 2017.

Sansar will democratize VR as a creative medium. It will empower people to easily create, share, and ultimately monetize their own interactive social experiences that can be enjoyed in VR with head-mounted displays like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, as well as via PCs and, later, other platforms. Sansar enables professional-level quality and performance, while also solving the complex engineering challenges that have previously made creating and publishing social VR experiences an extremely complex and costly endeavor.

“Since opening applications for our Creator Preview, more than 6,500 people have applied to use Sansar to create their own social VR experiences,” said Bjorn Laurin, VP of Product at Linden Lab. “To start, we’re inviting a select group of creators whose skills and projects are the best fit for Sansar’s capabilities today. As the platform matures, we’ll continue inviting more and more creators up until public release early next year. Feedback from this early community will help us improve the platform, and they’ll create a range of incredible social VR experiences that everyone can enjoy at Sansar’s public release.”

To apply to the Sansar Creator Preview program, visit www.Sansar.com.

I myself hope to be invited and get started on a little idea I’ve had for a while; an embassy for Virtual Time Travellers, in short a place for people who use VR to enjoy the past.

On top of the news, LL also uploaded 4 brand new Sansar Screenshots to Flickr;

Image courtesy of Linden Lab

Image courtesy of Linden Lab

Image courtesy of Linden Lab

Image courtesy of Linden Lab