New World Notes

What Are Linden Lab's Plans to Create a Sansar Community?

Last week's post on the potential for cannibalization of Second Life by Project Sansar provoked a lot of passionate and occasionally over-heated commentary, with my favorite insight coming from Argo Nurmi:

"After listening to the podcasts, what struck me was the way Ebbe described the [company's ideas on community. For the technical things in Sansar I heard detail and concrete approaches. I take that to mean Ebb and his team have done a lot of thinking and decision making here. But, responding to a question on how they envision a community working, the language turned high level and abstract. It's what you expect if not much time has been put into building a vision or thinking through the details. The Lab can be forgiven for being immersed in designing an improved rendering engine. But it's disappointing that Ebb, as leader of this Sansar vision, doesn't have much to say about what their future community will be like. This caused me to wonder about what they have in mind for their future community. Could it be saying that an SL-style community isn't in the cards for Sansar? There will be some kind of "social experience," yes, of course, Sansar is a social network. But, very possibly, the SL experience we all know will not be a part of it.

I can't speak to Project Sansar's plans as yet, but as someone who helped Linden Lab with Second Life's launch, I can definitely say the company put a lot of thought into fostering the early community:

Tango Red, A Free Curvy Avatar Shape from Ample Avi for Peace On Earth Hunt 8 (NWN Partner News)

This year, Second Life's Peace on Earth Hunt is celebrating its 8th birthday, and NWN sponsoring partner Ample Avi happens to be celebrating its 8th year participating. 

In case you're unfamiliar, Ample Avi is a brand specializing in curvy, full-figured and realistically-proportioned avatar shapes, and they've been a proud sponsor of New World Notes for over a year now. The Peace on Earth Hunt is of course one of the largest and oldest grid-wide freebie hunts in Second Life, which occurs every year in December and features free goodies from countless virtual world content creators. Even better, Ample Avi designer Xme Xue tells me that the POE hunt doesn't have any decoy objects as so many hunts do, so you won't be tearing your hair out in frustration if you decide to participate.

Ample Avi's offering for this year's hunt is Tango Red, a plus-sized shape with one of the sweetest faces on an Ample Avi shape to date. You'll be able to snag her 100% free from the POE globe starting December 1st (a.k.a. tomorrow!) only at Ample Avi's main store location in Pryeri. [Teleport link] Just be sure not to drag your heels, since the Peace on Earth hunt only lasts until the end of the month.

If you'd like a little more information about the Peace on Earth hunt then be sure to visit their Flickr, or if you'd rather take a look at Ample Avi's product line to see what you're in for with the lovely tango Red, then check out their storefront on the Second Life Marketplace.

Top Three New World Notes Posts from Last Week!

• 11% Surveyed Interested in Buying Second Life's New Discounted Islands
• Linden Lab CEO Acknowledges Project Sansar Will "Cannibalize" Second Life & Risk Both Worlds
• Watch a Neural Network "Walking" Through Amsterdam

New World Notes' Thanksgiving Week Open Forum

Thanks to all my New World Notes readers and your passionate, opinionated and (generally) civil conversations in Comments. Who and what are you thankful for?

11% Surveyed Interested in Buying Second Life's New Discounted Islands

Here's the results of last week's survey, asking whether Linden Lab's new island set-up discounts have inspired SLers to want to buy a new island:

Of the 140 who took the survey, only 11% said they were "Much more" or "somewhat more" likely to buy an island under the new pricing structure. This 11% might not seem like a lot, but that's roughly the percentage by which Second Life's landmass is going away every year. So if that sliver of potential customers does indeed pony up for a sim, and are willing to pay the monthly tier year after year, this setup discount will have been worth it.

Sony Hints at Developing VR Headset for Its Smartphone

From Sony's own blog, on the upcoming Xperia Z5 Premium:

We also believe Xperia Z5 Premium is capable of offering the clearest, sharpest Virtual Reality platform – we’re working on a few things here internally, so stay tuned for more news soon. Xperia Z5 Premium will start rolling out from November – if there’s anything else you’d like to know, feel free to drop a question in the comments below.

My question is: So does that mean you're developing a "clip on" VR headset like Samsung has? If not, why else would you say what you just said? On yeah, one more followup:

Battle Scars: Fashion SL Fashion Blog & WindLight Resource

Battle Scars from Jay Tedder Murs is a spectacular fashion blog, full of creatively composed and beautifully lit fashion spreads with an emphasis on male fashion, but that's just the start. As Cajsa Lilliehook tells me, "You can download his WindLights.Easiest to follow the tag Battle Scars:Windlight."

Linden Lab CEO Acknowledges Project Sansar Will "Cannibalize" Second Life & Risk Both Worlds

Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg was refreshingly honest in the first episode of Lab Chat last week (which Canary Beck nicely summarizes here), and at about 30 minutes in, acknowledges that Project Sansar will probably cannibalize Second Life:

"The cannibalization effect is obviously real and all I can say to that is that it’s better us than someone else. Because it’s going to be someone, someday.”

I'm not even sure that last assumption is correct, because virtual worlds with a strong community can thrive for quite awhile -- Ultima Online is still online after nearly 20 years. Anyway, the real revelation comes immediately afterward, in which Altberg says there's a possibility that Sansar cannibalizes Second Life enough to cause the SL economy to "implode", while the launch of Project Sansar somehow goes wrong. And then, says Altberg:

"Now you have two things that don’t really work rather than one thing that sort of works. [But] I don’t see if we have a choice."

Like I said, it's admirable for Ebbe to state the risks up front and give it straight to the Second Life community like that. Because he's very right that the risk is high:

Last Chance to Take NWN's SL Island Discount Survey

That is: Do Second Life's new sim setup discounts make you more likely to buy a new SL island? More background on that here, and you may also want to read this too. If you've already registered an opinion but have since changed your mind, I believe you can re-vote.

Watch a Neural Network "Walking" Through Amsterdam

What you're watching below is more or less an AI walking through the world for the very first time and describing what it sees:

NeuralTalk and Walk from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.

Specifically, this is the NeuralTalk program, which creates machine language-driven captions of pictures, now connected to a webcam by Kyle McDonald: "I'm walking around with my laptop open pointing it at things," McDonald explains, "hence the shaky footage and people staring at themselves."