New World Notes

Top New World Notes Posts for 2011 by Popularity

Here's a collection of New World Notes posts from 2011 which generated the most page views. Interestingly, the most read post by far was not directly about Second Life, but about Google's (ongoing) policy of banning pseudonymous names from its social network, a post picked up by Techmeme, which went viral soon after. Other posts exploded due to reader recommendations (thank you!), Tweets by follks like William Gibson, traffic from big sites like Boing Boing and Kotaku, and online communities like Reddit and Stumbleupon. I'm also grateful to see a nice mix of SL and non-SL posts being popular. As Linden Lab itself expands its development to other games besides Second Life, so, I suspect, will New World Notes.

Here's 2011's top SL-related NWN posts:

• Game God Will Wright Joins Linden Lab's Board of Directors!
• Interview with Rod Humble, Linden Lab's New CEO, on the Future of Second Life
• Second Life's Survival Seriously Threatened by Second Life Users' Hate and Fear of Change
• Newt Gingrich's Second Life: The Leading GOP Presidential Candidate Visited the Virtual World With All-Female Avatar Bodyguards, Suggested Congress Meet in SL Too
• Meeroos Starving Due to SL Griefers Selling Fraudulent Food & Linden Lab Closing Their Legitimate Food Source
• William Gibson Wants to See a Mixed Reality Photo Blog (Pictured above)
• The Myth of Second Life's Failure to Go Big: It Wasn't Lack of Practical Applications, But Poor Execution & Market Timing
• Felicia Day's Dragon Age II Character Tallis Needs a Virtual Fashion Makeover -- Here's How She Should Look!
• Why Second Life Can't Survive on Its Current Users Alone (And Why Only Mass Growth Will Save It)
• Linden Lab Adds Avatar Physics (I.E. Bouncing Breasts) to Latest Second Life Dev Viewer, Here's How to Get Them
• Virtual Pet Owners Now Hiring Virtual Pet Sitters

And here's most of NWN's top gaming/technology-related posts for 2011:

• Valve Writer Erik Wolpaw on Rick, Under-Appreciated Star of Portal 2
• NEA Now Awarding Grants to Gaming & Machinima: Huge Milestone in Recognizing Games as Art
• Google Confirms: Non-Real Name Google Profiles Risk Suspension (I.E., Google Still Doesn’t Get Social)
• Moral Revolution: About Half Who Played Deus Ex's Malik Mission Earned the Difficult "Good Soul" Achievement
• Bitcoin Can't Be Free from the Powers That Be, Because It Rides on Rails That They Control
• John Carmack on Euclideon's Unlimited Detail Demo, Notch's Reaction To It & Carmack's Own Plans for a Voxel Renderer

I'm probably missing a few biggies -- if so, please remind me in Comments!

Educational Project by Linden Alum Seeks Tax Deductible Donations for Civil Rights Mapping Project

Want to make a tax deductible donation before 2011 ends to an important non-profit educational project by a Linden Lab alum, partly inspired by a related SL project? Check out the Monroe Work 2012 crowdfunded project, led by my pal Ramzi Ramey, a much-loved Linden Lab staffer for the company's first eight years. Ramzi wants to create Creative Commons-licensed maps that will detail a tragic but important aspect of America's past and Civil Rights struggle -- our history of racist lynching, as documented by African-American scholar Monroe Nathan Work. Here's Ramzi explaining what he aims to do:

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Read and see much more here. Ramzi's avatar name in SL is now Noor Zaius, and as I suggested up top, he was partly inspired by Always in Season, an SL island which also highlights this dark history. As Ramzi tells me:

Survey: Which of These Simple Features Would Most Improve the SL Experience?

Last week I asked NWN readers to suggest simple but powerful feature improvements to Second Life, and got a bunch of great ideas. Here are my six favorites -- now you tell me, which is your favorite overall?

Online Surveys & Market Research

Before you vote, read the lengthier explanation fror each suggestion by the reader who made it, below. After New Year's day, I'll blog the most popular one, in hopes that the Lindens reading New World Notes feel inspired to add it to their development queue. (Though I hope they're already reading this getting ideas.) And thanks to Pussycat Catnap, Planter Leitner, Shockwave Yareach, Sera Lok, JubJub Forder, Flo2, and everyone else for their suggestions.

Top SL Sims This Month (PG & M Rated): Only 5 New Entries from Last Month

Courtesy Louis Platini's Metaverse Business, a Second Life/OpenSim analytics company that gathers publicly accessible in-world data for its clients, here are the top 25 PG and M-rated Second Life sims for this month (December 2011) so far, based on average visitors at any given time:

This chart is consistent with what an SL insider told me recently: 70% of SLers don't regularly explore SL, but instead, stay in their last logged in location. As you'd expect from that figure, almost all of the top 25 sims this month have remained consistent from last month -- only five are new from November, and almost all of them are holdovers from the top 50 for most of this year. I may be wrong, but I believe only one sim, noBrix City (SLurl teleport here) is entirely new to this list. (Hey, Lindens: How about a download option for all these sim regulars?)

Visiting President Obama's Hawaii Vacation House Via Kailua Beach (UPDATED With Actual Obama 12/26 Sighting!)

I'm at my family's home in Kailua, Oahu, over the holidays, which also happens to be where President Obama vacations, and I've been jogging and surfing by the First Family's beach house every day. Since this has little do with what I usually blog about, photos and info below the break.

Update 12/27: Now with 12/26 Obama sighting at the end of this post!

Exodus SL Viewer: Appealing Successor to Kirstens' Viewer

Exodus is a relatively new third-party viewer for Second Life, created by a team of gaming-oriented SL developers, and with the unfortunate discontinuation of Kirstens' Viewer, some well-known SL content creators are making an exodus to Exodus. (Sorry.) Here's top SL fashion blogger and photographer Strawberry Singh giving us her dulcet-voice introduction to Exodus:

Get Ms. Singh's full write-up here, and the Exodus viewer site and blog is here. Hopefully the Exodus team is able to keep production running, and doesn't run into real life financial woes that best the Kirstens' Viewer project. Also, I really really hope they make this the viewer's official theme song:

Please Take NWN's Survey on Paying to Stream Second Life!

Please take New World Notes' survey on how much you'd pay to stream Second Life (if you haven't done so already, or you want to change your answer. Results posted in the New Year!

Top Six Second Life News & Posts Last Week!

• Linden Lab To End Era As Second Life-Only Company In 2012
• Survey: How Much Would You Pay For High Quality Streaming of SL on Browsers, Phones, and Tablets?
• Top PC Games, October 2011: WoW Grows Audience, Second Life Doubles Share, 3 of the Top 10 are MMOs
• SL Machinima With Einstein's Official Avatar Depicts Results of Fundraiser for Real World Medical Research
• Kirsten's SL Viewer Development Ends Because 1000s of Its Users Declined to Help Fund It
• Thinking About Relying on the Marketplace for SL Christmas Gifts? Think Again. (Plus Five In-World Alternatives)

Get Great Second Life Holiday Gifts for Just L$100

Twisted Krissmuss 2011 is an SL shopping tour for folks on a budget who want to buy great holiday gifts on a low budget: All the items in this Flickr pool (featured in the slideshow above) are new, transferable (so you can give them as gifts) and are being sold for L$100 each. Go here to check out the whole pool -- SLurls and Marketplace links are usually attached to each pic. Hat tip: Ms. Gidge Uriza.

Have Yourself a Merry Little SL Steampunk Christmas Book

Ms. Kara Trapdoor has the info on a free new e-book for kids, A Steampunk Christmas, written by Sonicity Fitzroy (a RL author) and illustrated with SL screenshots, mainly created in the SL sim of Clockwork Kingdom. Some of the pics are a bit too darkly lit, but the expressiveness and compositions are really great -- especially love the one thumbnailed at left. You can read it online here, or go to Kara's blog for SLurls to get an in-world copy.