Click here to visit the Crowdfunder page of Kirsten's Viewer, the popular third party Second Life viewer. Crowdfunder is a UK-based funding site, similar to Kickstarter in the US. As I noted last month, Kirsten's Viewer developer Lee Quick (Kirstenlee Cinquetti in SL) had to suspend development on it only because his partner Dawny Daviau has health issues, and Lee needed to find full-time work to support her. If this Crowdfunder initiative is successful, work on Kirsten's Viewer will be able to continue. This is also a bid to give Second Life users more say in the future of Second Life.
"I think this is a unique opportunity to put the power back into the Residents' hands," Lee tells me. "It's their world and imagination that bring life to the grid, something in recent times that seems to have been fallen out of favor. This project hopes to bring just a tiny portion of that Resident clout back into the virtual world!" I totally concur: If this crowdfunder is successful, it will help launch a new era of Second Life development that is more directly by the users, for the users.
I'm very proud that Lee and Dawny asked me to write an endorsement of this project; here's what I wrote:
"For over 3 years, Kirsten's Viewer has been one of the very best third party SL viewers, especially for artists who want to create high quality screenshots and machinima footage. Lee Quick is an incredibly talented programmer, often innovating and updating his viewer faster and more ambitiously than Linden Lab itself, while also being much more responsive to the thousands of users who love and depend on it. I hope they now support him and his partner Dawny, so innovations and updates to Kirsten's Viewer can keep on coming."
Still not convinced? Here's Lee's in-person pitch:
Go here to see the Crowdfunder page. Lee and Dawny aim to raise 25,000 Pounds British Sterling -- about USD$40,000 -- which will support the couple for a year while Kirsten's Viewer development continues. Also note that the more you invest, the more say you get in the viewer's coding. Invest 1000 Pounds, for example, and "You get to choose the features that get into the client for feature voting!"
Here's a cool widget you can add to your own site -- go here to get the code.
Updates on funding as milestones are hit!
What can we say!!
Just follow the links.....
Hope development can continue!!
regards
JoJa
Posted by: JoJa Dhara | Monday, October 17, 2011 at 01:15 PM
That's really awesome,
Posted by: Cube Republic | Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 08:56 PM