Is Linden Lab Making an IMVU-Like "Second Life Lite" for Mobile?

Over in last week's post on how Second Life might find a new audience on mobile, New World Notes' super savvy readers are picking up clues and speculating that Linden Lab is going to -- or at least should -- create what I'd describe as a lightweight, IMVU-like experience for mobile.

Take it away, Pulsar:

They are making dedicated mobile-regions now (just instant messages, but they plan to add a 3D view later). Here is the opportunity to start a sort of new SL from ground up: mobile-avatars on mobile-regions; meanwhile you keep your account, friend list, chat, L$ etc, that keeps you on the SL grid. And you would still be able to use the old style stuff in the old regions as before.

Mobile regions may have a clear grand total upper limit in texture and polygon count, instead of an obscure and exploitable "land impact". And they could be on demand, cutting the costs.

A mobile avatar could be a single item or it could be customizable by replacing the body parts with dressed parts, as other games do. Not that pile of attachments on top of each other that you see in SL. You could still colorize the parts, change head textures etc.

This approach would also make sense from a technical perspective, as "0xc0ffea" explains:

SL isn't designed with a mobile device's capabilities in mind, not at all.

A full fat SL true mobile experience is not going to happen, even if one was created for iOS, it's not something anyone is going to want to use without tethering their device to the mains (and doing that obliterates battery longevity, leads to swelling, etc - hence some of the app store rules).

LL appear to be working on a different idea, avatars are loaded up on special 'mobile client only' regions with no attachments, no local build and no local communication. You can be next to hundreds of other avatars and never know it.

We can realistically expect a full suite of IM chat tools, friend lists and (big maybe) group chatter.

It's unlikely there will be a big local chat room with all the other nearby mobile users as regular avatars wouldn't be able to participate and you might never see the same person twice - it would also end up like twitch chat due to size of local population and be functionally useless).

A mobile avatar viewer is also a possibility and should IMO be a priority feature. We might not be able to see the world, but being able to see our own and other avatars would be a big deal, toss in some photo tools, selectable backgrounds and ability to play poses from inventory .. and we have a solid basis for generating social media content.

Again, this all sounds plausible, and similar to IMVU's approach on mobile... which turned an also-ran competitor with Second Life into a mobile-centric metaverse with 7 million users.

Comments

[maxwell graf]

I have an idea: No new pet projects that divert already limited resources and personnel from the product that they own that makes them most of the money they keep throwing away on pet projects. Channel what they would cost into the flagship product and customers they already have, maybe do marketing that the general public might actually see somewhere (something IMVU is kicking ass at right now without opening or starting a new anything).

[maxwell graf]

Additionally, if there is to be a mobile product, the one you described above makes it completely separate from the existing world and users. If one has to be developed, then at least make it possible to contact, chat or hang out with existing users in existing places within SL - with the caveat that those avatars and environments fall within the particular limits defined for such a purpose. Something like being able to chat or get messages from people in world or to go in SL to a place which is essentially a mobile lounge/room/skybox which has a different/limited feature set or that you can only enter when wearing a mobile-safe avatar, etc. In this way, they are not taking away from SL but adding value to it while opening up potential new users who may level up from mobile to the full experience.

[Wagner James Au]

IMVU is actually doing a lot of new stuff, the company rebranded and they just launched a new cryptocurrency:

https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2021/01/vcoin-ethereum-currency-blockchain-imvu-virtual-world.html

[maxwell graf]

^ I meant that they were not creating a completely separate product, but marketing the one they had, the one we know them for, the one that has kept them going for years. They were not like "hey, lets spend gobs to create/market a completely separate product from the one that made us all the money so far, siphoning off some of our existing customers and leaving the rest alone while we pursue new ones, because money!"

[sirhc desantis]

They still going to buy stuff? If so then Yay:) If not then here is my barren field etc