In 2015 Linden Lab announced they would not be developing the “My Second Life” part of the Second Life Website any further.
I think this is a mistake and hope they will change their mind.
I have written about this before but after having FB block my account just recently and it’s been 2 years since LL stopped development, I thought I’d bring it up again.
I think there is a huge need for a social media tool for Second Life residents, a need that the current “My Second Life” (that name really doesn’t work), can’t fulfill.
So countless of us can be found on Facebook, where we find the tools we need even though we know we risk being spotted and have our accounts deleted.
MSL is more like Twitter than like Facebook I reckon, you see few posts with pictures or links and that is about it.
I must confess I never use it.
So lets imagine, Linden Lab FINALLY hires me because I am so brilliant and have answers for everything, am witty, polite, gorgeous and modest.
What would I do to improve MSL?
Integrated chat system
I would add the option to chat with other people via MSL, click their name, choose chat, little window opens and you can talk, in private.
I’d also, here it comes, connect this chat option with chat INWORLD.
Can you imagine?
You want to talk to a friend who is inworld in Second Life and just start chatting with them without having to start your SL viewer or even use a computer, as this would easily work from the browser on your phone or tablet.
Community Pages
I’d give every SL group their own page, a little bit like we now have Places Pages for each parcel.
If you have a group in SL, you automatically get a page.
Here you’ll find information, people can chat on the “wall”, share pictures and above all; there is an event’s calendar.
You and group admins with the right permission, can create events for your group (which generally is also related to a sim, club or community in SL) and all members get an invite, a reminder when the event is about to begin and can accept or decline the invite.
This way on your own page you will also see a calendar with all the events you’ve been invited to.
Now why would LL spend money and time on developing MSL pages?
I think that an improved MSL with some of Facebook’s best features added, would be a good tool to make SL even better.
It will make it easier for residents to build and be part of communities, stay up to date on events that are happening, stay in touch with friends and share their adventures.
They can even be active members of their inworld communities when for some reason their computer stops working (someone buy me a new one!) or they can’t be online (damn those pesky RL jobs), they can chat with friends, share pictures of events, invite friends to events, etc.
All those things that make communities work better an makes it more appealing for people to spend time in SL.
Just look at how much many SL users use Facebook and how many communities in SL have groups there.
There clearly is a need for social media tool with the options FB has but MSL is missing.
On top of that, we could perhaps even connect MSL with the Places Pages!
So please Lindens, take another look at My Second Life and consider adding a few extra tools.
Just a few improvements could be enough for many of us to stop using Facebook, google+, twitter, etc. and start spending way too much time on the SL website.
If you’ve been in Second Life for a while, sooner or later someone you know and/or care about will vanish from your virtual life.
They don’t say goodbye, they don’t leave a note, they don’t cancel their rent, they don’t clear their land, they simply never log on again.
There can be many different reasons for someone to just vanish like that, it could be something as innocent as being stuck somewhere during a holiday without internet and losing their rental and deciding they don’t want to return, maybe their computer breaks and they cant afford a new one or maybe they have gotten themselves into some drama in SL and decide that simply staying away is the best solution.
But it could also be something rather serious, they may be very unwell or even have died.
People sometimes don’t realise how much they mean to their virtual friends and community and have no idea how worried the people they leave behind may be.
And besides friends who will miss them dearly, there are also landowners, sims, shop managers, club managers etc, who are waiting for them to renew their rent or don’t know what to do with their stuff, upcoming events, etc.
So, after yet another person in SL simply vanished, I decided to write this blog with some tips, hoping it may avoid a few of these painful and confusing situations.
Please make sure there are is more than one way for people in SL to get in touch with you.
Get a facebook/twitter/other social media account and share your email address with a few of your friends, this can be an avatar only email address of course.
But also, if you can, find someone in SL you trust enough with some RL information.
Even if it is just one friend.
Having someone in SL who knows how to get in touch with you in RL can avoid so many problems.
And the more this one person knows, the better.
If you trust them enough, befriend them with your RL social media accounts or even agree with a close RL family member or friend that this SL friend can email them as well or befriend them on Facebook, just in case of emergency.
If something bad happens to you, your RL friends will probably leave messages on your RL facebook wall, telling you to get better or writing how sad they are you died.
If a SL friend sees this, they know enough.
If this is not the case, your RL friend or family member will still know what is going on.
And finally put all this in a tab in your profile.
Yes it will take up one of your very few Picks (let us have more Linden Lab!), but it could be worth it. It would be even better if Linden Lab gave us an extra tab in our profile that you could use to fill in this information. Of course you can also choose to use the ‘1st life’ tab for this, but most people like using that space to tell a little bit about themselves in RL.
Here is the tab in my profile, as an example.
At the moment it only has one name in it, my friend who also is connected with me via my RL Facebook account, who knows my RL email address, has my RL sister’s information, etc, etc.
I’ll add a few more friends, but I want to check with them first if they are ok with it.
If anything serious would happen to me, or something stupid like dropping my computer in the sea while sailing, my sister would know about it.
And once my SL friends got worried and contacted my sister, they’ know what had happened.
And if things were really serious, my sister also knows what I want to happen to my sims if I have died in a freak sword fighting tin opener accident during one of my RL time travel adventures.
Of course it is completely up to you how much you explain about why you can’t be online in SL, sometimes it is nobodies business.
But I think you owe it to your virtual friends and landlords to at least know you’re not dead and if you’re planning on returning.
So folks, please remember that even though you may not realise it or underestimate it, there are people in SL who very likely are desperately trying to figure out why you’ve vanished.
Be a pal, give them a way to find out!
When Facebook bought Oculus Rift, people laughed or got angry, wondering what kind of VR nightmare would be the result of such a match.
How would they combine social media and VR?
And could it one day become a threat to Second Life?
Yesterday at the Facebook developers conference a very impressive demonstration was given that showed some of what they have in mind.
To me it looks like a lot of fun, a sophisticated and even creative toy but not much more, not yet anyway.
But it shows a lot of potential.
At the moment we have avatars that are only hands and heads in a static, not moving 360° location.
But of course it will only be a matter of time before we can have these experiences in moving and fully interactive 3D locations and with complete and more realistic avatars.
I think I will enjoy this, I can see myself meeting my sister, mother or aunty this way while they are far away.
But with one click a then easily available and cheap 3D camera we can be with each other in the same location.
So will it threaten SL and Sansar?
Yes and no.
It looks like Social VR is going to work and be fun and for lots of people it will be more than enough, it will offer them a VR experience that is easy to use, they’ll enjoy and that will be all they need.
With many improvements and new options coming in the future in a way, it is competition for SL and Sansar.
But as long as they do not give us the amazing and unique freedom to create what we want and be what we want to be that we’re enjoying in Second Life and expecting in Sansar, Linden Lab doesn’t have to worry.
Social VR is going to lower the threshold for millions of people who right now are not (yet) interested in VR, it will be their first experience and maybe it will make them want to see more, experience more… create more?
The golden ticket remains the absolute freedom SL is offering us now, that is what makes it unique.
In short; until I can build 1920s Berlin in Facebook’s Social VR, I won’t be leaving SL.
During todays yesterdays (I fell asleep before I could finish this blog) ‘Meet a Linden’ talk at SL12B with Danger & Troy Linden, it was revealed that ‘My Second Life’ will not be “developed further”, mostly because a lot of time and work is spend on improving other things.
He said;
Its kind of a mess and it’s very difficult to maintain. Its usage rate is on the low side compared to other features.
So it may not be a popular answer, but no more improvements are planned on that.
I think this is a shame, I feel that it would be good for SL and in the future Sansar to create an active social media tool for our virtual world.
Everyone in SL knows the many issues we have with groups, group chat, having your account removed from Facebook, losing your pictures on Flickr, getting lost on Koinup, trying to keep track of what is being said on Plurk, dodgy online event calendars that are somehow never up to date, etc, etc.
But SL for most people is all about communication, after all, many of us are part of one or more communities.
Keeping them running, organizing events, staying in touch with everyone, keeping a nice record of what’s been going on, sharing pictures… it is all quite a big job and not being made easier by all the options we have but also lack.
When ‘My Second Life’ was first introduced in 2011 I was quite excited, I hoped that it would replace all or most of the tools I use a lot to keep the 1920s Berlin community going.
But alas, I was soon disappointed and stopped using it a long time ago.
I think that if LL developed it further and make it more like a, let’s not hide it, Facebook clone, a lot more users would start using it.
The best thing about this kind of social media wouldn’t just be the chance to chat about what you’re doing, gossip and sharing pictures, but the ability to manage and run your SL communities and social life.
One of the most important things I need, and yes, I only speak for myself, as I always do, as I’m self obsessed, or should that be Berlin obsessed?
The most important options any social media can offer me is that of meeting a community online.
What we need in ‘My Second Life’ is groups.
Imagine having a group for your SL community, one where all the members can post stories, questions, pictures, etc.
There is space for photo albums, so you can share and keep all pictures people post of a certain event in one place, there is room for posting comments and respond to them, perhaps there is even a chat window.
But maybe even more important; there could be a shared events calendar.
With an active community it is always difficult to keep track of who is organising what, where and when and avoid events being organised at the same time.
It can also be complicated to make sure people find out where to look to stay up to date.
Right now we use Facebook, google calendar and an inworld board for this and still it doesn’t always work.
I’d love the ability to start group pages, with a event calendar, chat wall, pictures albums, etc.
One that those who join get (inworld) notifications from (if they choose to) when something new is posted or when an event is about to start.
An easy way for me to reach everyone who joined even if I myself can’t go inworld for one reason or another.
Imagine if this page was also representative of your group, something you can stumble upon in search and learn about the community and sim even before you join it inworld.
Maybe it could eve be the portal to your community, almost like a webpage for your sim.
Welcome to our 1920s Berlin site, here you see some pictures of events, here you see what we’ve been talking about and here is a big button that will allow you to install SL and teleport directly to a stool by the bar, schnaps is ready.
I’d love to have a more active personal page, with more options, to be more like… here it comes again; Facebook.
In short, I’d love to stop using Facebook and Google calendar, Google+, etc, and swap all that for a place on ‘My Second Life’ with more options.
I think it will be a good thing for the communities, events, etc.
I’d love to be in contact with my SL communities even when not inworld.
See at once glance what events are scheduled for today, see what people are talking about, etc.
Now, if LL wants to make me really happy, they would add more in-out world interaction.
Imagine if you could, on the 1920s Berlin community page in MSL also see a window with the inworld group chat… live!
Or, and maybe this is only for sim moderators or admins; a current list of who is actually in that groups sim at that very moment.
Even allowing you to eject and ban someone from there, all without even logging into SL.
More than once I’ve received a frantic IM from someone in SL asking me to take care of a griever ruining an event, but not being able to do something about it for precious minutes because I had to go get my other computer, wait for it to boot up, wait for SL to load, wait for everything in SL to load so I could make a snapshot of the griever in question, etc.
Imagine being able to write a message on your group page in MSL and it goes out to all members inworld!
We could stop using the expensive and not always trustworthy inworld mailing services!
Imagine being able to see your friends list there and send them an IM that, if they are online will receive inworld in a regular chat window and they can respond to.
You could have a regular chat while they are in SL and you are in RL.
I think if we had tools like these, MSL would be open in a window on my screen all the time and I’d post there several times a day in stead of once every few months, like I do now on MSL.
And yes, I know Herr Linden, that will be a lot of work and there is plenty to do already at Linden Lab.
But I bet that once MSL starts offering more option and freedom, a lot of people will start using it much more and improving communication, strengthening communities and bring more people to events.
If it has enough options, thousands of us can stop using Facebook with fake accounts, Second Life has almost 370.000 likes on Facebook and I reckon a lot of those come from ‘fake’ accounts, at risk of being deleted by Facebook at any time.
Places like SLUniverse are very active, have over 25000 accounts and people spend lots of time there having all sorts of discussions, even if they don’t spend much time in SL any more.
I think that with a few extra options MSL could become a much used and popular tool, one you’d check several times a day, somewhere you go to chat and see what is happening even if you can’t or don’t want to go inworld.
Letting it slide and stay as it is will be, in my eyes, a mistake.
It could be a very powerful and much wanted service and I am sure we will also want/need something like this for Sansar anyway, so working on this now will also be useful for the future.
The full Danger & Troy Linden interview;
I tried to post this to MSL, but it wouldn’t let me.
The whole debacle with Facebook being nasty to people who don’t use their real name has made me think about the use of social media in Second Life and the communication tools Linden Lab has given us.
I think these can be improved and it may also remove the need for us to use Facebook at all.
At the moment most of us use Facebook or other social media to stay in touch with our Second Life contacts and communities because it is just too cumbersome to do this inworld, because it is impossible at that moment to start up the SL viewer or because the Second Life communication tools just aren’t good enough.
I use Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Hippogroups, email, Google+, Plurk, etc, etc.
Sometimes we have to talk to people in SL quickly, just a short message, we just want to look at something, read something, quickly in and out.
That is not how I would describe my SL experience.
Starting up Second Life for me means having to get my SL laptop, turn it on and start up a viewer, SL doesn’t really run on my 5 year old macbook I use for everything else and SLGo takes time and makes me use the official viewer I don’t like.
And of course once your SL viewer starts you have to wait for the world to rez, you may be bombarded by IMs from other people, get reminded of other jobs that need doing, etc.
Imagine the situation; there is a big event in 1920s Berlin and I want to make sure everyone knows about it.
I set an event on the facebook group’s calendar, I set it on the google calendar, I send a note to the group inworld, I send a message to my hippo mailing list, I stick posters all over Berlin, I send a message to group chat and finally I send a message to the region…
Phew!
And all the time we’re hoping Facebook doesn’t delete our accounts.
Because replacing a Facebook account with a Facebook Page account means you lose a lot of options, including the ones we use most.
Good or bad, Facebook is the easiest and most versatile tool for us and the one we use the most, for serious important stuff but also for quick little chats, for sharing a funny 1920s themed story, event pictures, etc.
We don’t have to tell Linden Lab that, they know, they use Facebook and they have a Second Life page with more than 360.000 ‘likes’.
It would be fantastic if there would be just one place on the internet where we can do all this.
Some people think that Facebook is enough because we already use it, but because most of us use it with a different name than the one we use for our real life, we already have to log in and out when we have to switch accounts.
A while ago Linden Lab gave us mysecondlife, a good idea but not quite enough to replace all the tools I mentioned above.
For starters, I keep getting logged out by the Second Life website, which is a good security measure but not very handy if you want to use a website for social media, it is not uncommon for people to have their Facebook page online permanently.
And as the name suggests, its a very personal page, a place where you share your stories and your pictures.
But we use Social Media much more for community things, for groups activities.
There used to be something called ‘Avatars United‘, it had many of the options we need but was bought by Linden Lab, eventually shut down and incooperated into the Second Life website, but without many of the options the original version had.
What I would love to see is for Linden Lab to improve and expand the mysecondlife experience, give it more options like Facebook offers.
Make it the one stop website for all our Second Life related out-world activity.
Not just have our own page but also a page for every group we have in world, or maybe even let us build pages for groups we create outworld.
A place where we can upload all the events pictures (into separate folders), have a calendar we can use to set up events, invite all the other members of the group, share links, etc.
And who knows, maybe even have it connected to inworld groups.
Let us send messages, notecards and event announcements to groups in-and outworld via the website or the other way around.
This will allow Second Life users to stay more connected with their virtual lives even if they are not able to actually log in or if one day they lose interest in Second Life, they might still keep using the website to stay in touch with friends and who knows, this may one day make them decide to return.
It would be swell if we could abandon Facebook and Google+ and be happy using ‘Second Life Book+’ for that.
Go to the Second Life website that won’t log you off, where you can check each group to see what is going on, set events on the calendar, share pictures, see who else is online and chat with them, regardless if they are in Second Life or just online on the Second Life website, regardless if you are behind your power computer at home or on a bus using your tablet o mobile phone.
Improve the connectability and interaction between virtual reality and reality, make the barrier between Second Life and Real Life smaller.
Have you got any suggestions or ideas?
Please share them in the comments section below.
I know that a few Lindens follow my blog and are interested in hearing your opinions.
Jo Yardley's Second Life 