Open Forum: What'll Be the Top Second Life News Stories of 2010?

We're days away from 2010, so as I have in years past, I want to gather readers' predictions for the coming year. I phrase the question like this:

In 2010, what will the top Second Life-related news headlines in the New York Times' Technology section be? (Suggest up to three.)

Next week, I'll put up my ten favorite headline predictions for a vote. Aim for predictions heavy on specifics, and news that's relevant to people even outside the SL community; bonus if they're written in the Times' wry-but-fact rich style!

Comments

[Tateru Nino]

"Whatever happened to Second Life?"
(regardless of how well it is going)

[Loki]

"With Linden Labs latest attempt at making Second life more 'intuitive' with the new SecondlifeGO viewer, is it 'to little to late' as the world moves away from complete immersion to augmented reality"

"Apple acquires Linden Lab and transforms SL into a proper intuitive experience. They Also drop the defunct Second Life and rebrand iAvatar"

"Second Life back on the hype wagon as new SecondlifeGo viewer is released with support for a streamlined embedded facebook app,Apple iSlate app and much more intuitive UI. But the biggest feature that is now drawing more than four times the users is the new profile features. Giving its users the ability to rate and share items, places and events via profile and group subscribing opens the virtual world up and brings it up to date with todays social networking..."

[Murphy Alderson]

SL on mobile devices,
importing mesh objects,
tier fee hikes,
ageplay (still),
increased fees for XStreet (again),
the general debauchery of SL portrayed in MSM since they only see the BDSM/rape/Gor/snuff/doclett sims (still).

[AnnOtooleInSL]

Linden Lab moves to bar all user to user transactions unless routed through xstreetsl.com so Linden Lab can begin collecting 30% royalties on every transaction. The exception is selected "partners" from the solution provider program will not be charged the royalties and will receive free advertising and favorable positioning in search.

Linden Lab begins charging 50% on converting L$ to USD. The exception is selected "partners" from the solution provider program will not be charged the transaction fee.

Linden Lab establishes a 10,000 max cap on resident inventory. The exception is selected "partners" from the solution provider program will not be subject to inventory limits.

Linden Lab raises the classified advertising fee to a minimum of L$5000 per week. The exception is selected "partners" from the solution provider program will not be charged for placing classified ads.

Linden Lab raises the show in search fee to a L$5000 per week. The exception is selected "partners" from the solution provider program will not be charged for listing places in search.

Linden Lab restricts listing products for sale on xstreetsl.com to selected "partners" from the solution provider program.

Linden Lab raises prices across the board by 50%. The exception is selected "partners" from the solution provider program will not be charged tier or sim setup fees.

Linden Lab publishes all real life identity information on the first life tab resulting in numerous murders of LGBT residents.

Linden Lab eliminates free accounts.

Concurrency drops to the number of people involved in "selected "partners" from the solution provider program".

Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler to star in the upcoming movie SLArmageddon in which the N'Avi from Pandora steal spaceships and invade Linden Lab and defeat the corporation.

:P

j/k

Actual predictions: Who knows? Kingdon is at the helm. No telling what he might try. They already began trying out ads on youtube but they should have hired an ad agency to do it. I doubt they got much in the way of results with that winterfest ad that makes no sense unless you are already a resident.

[Adric Antfarm]

Little Lost Linden will uncover the mother of all camping and find someone who cares.

Ann O'Toole's patience will finally run out and we get a taste of her anger.

A movie on the life of Second Lie starring Rob Schneider will be the PG-13 hit of the year.

[Troy McConaghy]

"Missing? Ann O'Toole Didn't Write a Cynical Comment Today"

"Sion Chickens Unionize, Demand More Feed"

"Virtual Land Baron Gets Real" (about Anshe Chung Studios' real-life real estate investments)

"SL Residents Paid to Own Mainland" (i.e. the price of mainland goes negative)

[Bixyl Shuftan]

"Veterans Holding Therapy Sessions on Virtual World."

"University Teaching Students Through Second Life."

"Second Life Begins Advertising Campaign"

"Is Freedom Bad? - Second Life's stagnant numbers in face of Blue Mars' rise spurs debate whether people online prefer limited freedom over adult content."

"Second Life to Merge 'Teen Grid.' - Linden Labs announced that Second Life and Teen Second Life will be combined. As a security measure, the 'adult verrification' rules imposed last year for those desiring access to 'adult' regions will be extended to all places over the 'PG' rating."

[Crap Mariner]

Hrm... not an easy one.

- Stroker's lawsuit settled, but content theft continues.

- Another major corporation pulls out. (Are there any left? Probably not IBM. Opensource isn't quite there yet.)

- Rep. Mark Kirk, the Deranged Dork From Deerfield, making it an issue in his Senate run.

- Something about Skye Galaxy/Sean Ryan/Apollo's Child and a debut album, music in SL.

- A Blue Mars piece that does a compare-contrast of features and progress with the two platforms.

- A SL Enterprise piece that focuses on the difficulty of using the platform, not the benefits.

- A profile on Dick Dillon (Coughran Mayo) and the work he does.

-ls/cm

[Daniel Voyager]

Here are my Second Life predictions for 2010

http://danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/second-life-2010-predictions/

[brinda allen]

Hmmm....I think I'll go play the California Lottery...I'de stand a definite shot at winning that before figuring out Linden Lab.

[Jovin]

It seems that the BBC, after getting the current state of SL so wrong, now thinks we don't exist at all - even if it predicts massive growth in virtual goods during 2010 : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8425623.stm

[Nexus Burbclave]

@Brinda the lottery probably also gives better odds than applying for a vendor space at the Linden mall :)

My predictions:

"Linden Lab receives charter for LindenBank. New bank to offer financial services inworld, virtual currency management services for other worlds" Mind you, I've been expecting this announcement since the inworld banking rules were first announced and it hasn't happened yet. Mindark has done this since that time with Mindbank, so the proof of concept exists.

"Second Life on your smart phone? There's an app for that"

"Second life purchases Apez.biz, metalife, slapt.me for undisclosed sums. Sites to close immediately.

CEO Mark Kingdon remarked 'We are commited to making Xstreet the best, most relevant ecommerce site for our users. This seemed like the best way to achieve those goals going forward'"

[LittleLostLinden]

In 2010:

Second Life Bot\Camper conspiracy finally disclosed!

Bots and Campers are now a true TOS violation and they can actually be reported by users and not relied upon for Linden Labs to take care of at their own discretion.

A TRUE cleansing occurs of all Bots\Campers.

Linden Labs daily concurrent logons fall from an average 71,000 per day to 48,000 reflecting actual real people using the service.

WindLight2 is announced!

The daily concurrent 48,000 rises to become a new record of 122,000 daily concurrent users in Q3 as hardcore gamers migrate to the platform enticed by the wicked eye-candy and better in game sub games comparable to commercial stand alone game products.

First Hour is improved immensely with free new houses, UI is tweaked, and pointers to exciting things to do is given to First Hour users.

Hamlet Au's vision of SL mainstream footprint takes hold and daily concurrent numbers increase without bots or campers to 164,000 concurrent in Q4 due to the cold weather returning and widespread adoption caused by an SL movie tie-in with the long awaited Neuromancer being released in theatres earlier than expected in Q4 2010.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037220/

[Kanomi]

* CIA Accuses Employee of Passing Defense Secrets to Mysterious 'Furries' Group

* Cursory Article About Virtual Worlds Mentions Second Life, Lingerie in Same Sentence

* Internet Study Group: Notecard Spam from Second Life 'Slowing Internet to a Crawl'

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Educators continue to migrate to Reaction Grid slowly, and at least one university, siting lower costs, leaves SL to partner with Microsoft in Reaction Grid.

[Cube Republic]

1) Mesh penis is released
2) Mesh vagina is released
3) Mesh babies are made

[Csteph Submariner]

I guess my forlorn hope for funding wasn't strictly on topic then.

Ok, how about:

Native support for uploaded MP3 audio and MP4 video of arbitrary length. New LSL functions to support working with both.

Probably another triumph of hope over experience. A guy can dream can't he?

[Csteph Submariner]

The asset server becomes self aware.

[Arcadian Vanalten]

You mean it's not, Csteph? I swear, the one that my stuff is on has a mind of its own, and it's a vindictive one at that.

[Neptune Rebel]

I made the list once before so I got to try again!

1) Second Life First to Comply With New Federal Regulations

This is assuming that Congress decides to act upon the FCC report that came out recently.

2) The Future of Fashion isn't Fabric, It's Second Life

3) A "Second" Education: Universities Offer Degrees in Second Life and Virtual Worlds

[Delinda Dyrssen]

Crap Mariner open a wedding chapel on Edloe for Robots. First wedding is Copper Robot and Botgirl but Copper Robot gets cold feet and leaves Botgirl at the Alter. Crap closes down the wedding Chapel and says.. well maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

[Crap Mariner]

There has only been one partnership ceremony on the Edloe sim that I know of, and that was in my original clocktower and without my permission.

I waited for the ceremony to complete before turning off Safe mode and machinegunning the entire wedding party.

-ls/cm

[Arwyn Quandry]

Linden Labs Drops Teen Second Life, Educators and Children Cry Foul

[Mitch Wagner]

Delinda - LOL.

Crap - You're such a sentimentalist.

[Coughran Mayo]

Crap, it's September and they haven't called yet!

Thanks for the thought though!

Dick/Coughran