Prim Perfect is conducting a valuable Second Life user survey for SLers over 30, which to judge by the demographic data we have, is about 60% of the user base. There's a very likely reason for this, which I'll blog about in the future, but meanwhile, if you're Gen X or older, do check out Prim Perfect's survey.
I've always been curious about the real world politics of virtual world users, so this Election Day, let's talk Presidential candidates: Which US Presidential candidate do you want to win? I ask the question this way, so anyone anywhere in the world can answer, whether or not they can even vote in the race. (Though if you are eligible to vote, for God's sake please do.) After the race is decided, we'll tally up the all-important virtual world voting bloc.
Continue reading "Poll: Who Do You Want to Win Today's Presidential Election?" »
Update, 9/25: Please choose only the ONE option that is most important to you and ignore the instructions about choosing three. Due to blogger error, the format only allows for a single choice.
New World Notes began with in-world journalism from Second Life, but just as SL's creators are changing, so should NWN. Dear readers, please tell me the kinds of posts you'd like to read more of in the future.
Click here to take an important survey if you make and/or wear SL mesh (at the bottom of the post). Run by Nalates Urriah, it's basically surveying how well mesh clothes fit your avatar, and whether a single base shape for Qarl's Deformer, which Oz Linden has suggested, is sufficient for a fine fit. If you don't understand that last sentence without Googling around, probably best to skip this survey. If you understand it intimately, please click as soon as you can to take it.
Hat tip: Iris Ophelia, pictured above fully rocking mesh French fashion.
Last month I asked readers to vote on a simple feature or feature tweak that would greatly improve the Second Life experience overall, and here's the striking results: By a pretty wide margin, the plurality (almost 31%) called for making all SL viewers (including third party viewers) mesh capable. (Idea first proposed in this thread by Shockwave Yareach.) Personally, I'm pretty surprised: When mesh was first introduced, there were a lot of valid SL user concerns that mesh would hurt the economy, increase the technical spec requirements, and so on. Now, however, a significant percent want to obligate all SLers to have a mesh-capable viewer.
I sympathize with the desire to end a balkanized user experience where only some can see mesh, but I do think such a feature could be quite disruptive. "I have been trying to use mesh viewers for quite a while now," as reader Moni Duettmann wrote during the survey, "but none has worked properly yet. So should Linden really follow this 'suggestion', it would mean banning me from SL entirely." One possible solution:
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?
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.
Continue reading "Survey: Which of These Simple Features Would Most Improve the SL Experience?" »
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!
How much would you pay to stream Second Life from the cloud, if that removed most of the lag and loading problems associated with SL now, and you could get a quality SL experience on, say, your iPad, or a cheap old laptop? I've been wondering about this question in recent months, for at least two reasons: For one, leading cloud service OnLive just announced they'd start streaming on tablets and phones. For another, an insider recently told me why Linden Lab's experiment in cloud streaming Second Life last year (with Gaikai, to much acclaim), was discontinued: Too costly per user to be worthwhile. But it would probably not be too costly, if there was a market for paying for it as a subscription service -- hence, this week's survey question:
These options, I should say, aren't the only feasible price points, just several plausible scenarios. My real focus is to discern a market for cloud streaming SL, if the not-insubstantial price of streaming was passed on to the consumer.
Please choose one option, and encourage your SL friends to come by and do so too. Results soon!
Port Seraphine, a longtime SL shopping island owned and run by fashionista legend Nephilaine Protagonist, is closing next January. Neph, someone I've known and admired in both worlds since 2003, has run Port Seraphine (SLurl here) since early 2006, but now writes on SL Universe that "I don't really have the time or the patience to maintain a set of stores this extensive anymore, and if it's not fun it's not worth it."
Port Seraphine is not the only SL shopping mall that's closing or soon to close; many more have, as Prim Perfect reports in an extensive post, with the author pointing to the growth of the official Marketplace website as a likely culprit. As more SLers buy their avatar fashion and other virtual goods on Linden Lab's website, the reasoning goes, less will take the time to enjoy the full immersive experience of shopping in-world that SL shopping areas provide. Hence the non-scientific but still hopefully illuminating survey question above: Has the Marketplace changed your in-world shopping habits, and if so how? And please discuss in more detail in Comments.
Survey results published in the next week or two.
Continue reading "Survey: Has SL's Marketplace Website Changed Your SL Shopping Habits?" »
Mesh has been live in Second Life for about a month, so now's a good time to ask SLers how much it's impacted your in-world activity. Do you now use a mesh-enabled viewer? Do you buy mesh-based content? Click below to take a survey asking those very two things.
The idea for this survey comes from veteran content creator Damien Fate, who are among the many developers now making and selling mesh. So this survey, as he puts it, will provide "good figures for mesh creators to go by to see what share of the market can view their goods." So click below to take the mesh survey:
Continue reading "SL Survey: Do Use a Mesh Viewer? Buy Mesh Content?" »
