New World Notes

Survey: Which New-ish Second Life Brand Interests You Most? Choose Aardvark, [ADD], The Discord Experts, Dope Pixels, Limited Addiction, Luova, Manikin!!, NeutralTones, RudeGirls Shapes, or Star Quake Shapes & Beauty

Take survey on desktop/laptop PC with mouse or tablet for best results

Thanks to readers who recommended their favorite new-ish Second Life brands over the last few months! Now please take this survey to choose the brand you'd like to see featured in a New World Notes post. Use a laptop/mouse for best results, and first check out all the brand links and descriptions below.

In alphabetical order, they are: Aardvark, [ADD], The Discord Experts, Dope Pixels, Limited Addiction, Luova, Manikin!!, NeutralTones, RudeGirls Shapes, and Star Quake Shapes & Beauty.

Again, info and links to all of them below. If the survey results are close, I may cover the top two-three, so please be sure to share this survey far and wide!

Survey Results: Nearly Half Experience Motion Sickness Visiting Second Life's New Homepage

Here's the results of my survey last week, asking if you experienced any motion sickness when visiting SecondLife.com's new-ish homepage. I posted that question after receiving some reports of people having that sensation, so was curious how widespread that reaction is. 

Turns out, a fair amount: 

Reaction was nearly evenly split, with 46% saying they felt motion sickness "a little" or "a lot" when visiting the Second Life homepage. (I'm personally in the "little" category.) If you haven't visited the homepage lately, you can check your own reaction by using a browser that doesn't have your credentials pre-cookied (as that might take you right to your account dashboard) and go here. 

The new homepage is a cool montage of fun, fullscreen video with quite a lot of panning and zooming:

Does SecondLife.com's New Homepage Cause You Motion Sickness?

Note: Survey may require mouse or trackpad

Here's an easy and (hopefully!) fun survey question to end the week:

• Go to the new-ish SecondLife.com homepage through a browser you don't usually use with your existing SL account.
• Does it make you feel motion sickness? Answer the survey question above!

Again, for the full effect, visit the homepage in a browser window that doesn't have your account info already cookied. 

Survey Results: Second Life Community Strongly Agrees with Anonymous Creator's Acerbic Rant About SL Economy

Here's the reader response to that widely-discussed rant from an anonymous SL creator on all the challenges plaguing the Second Life economy. With 247 responses -- quite a large sample, as these things go -- a strong majority of 57% said they agreed with the essay, Strongly or Mostly. (Contrasted with just 16% in the Mostly Disagree or Completely Disagree camp.)

Personally I had expected the reaction to be much more evenly mixed; though to be fair, questions like these probably have a natural bias toward the negative. (If everything's going fairly great, why spend any time complaining in an online survey?) 

If you missed it, read the whole essay here, where the unnamed creators inveighs against entitled customers, exploitative event owners, and lax bloggers; evidently, it all struck a chord among the SL community. While some of these complaints hold true in most other realms -- offline, we come across entitled customers quite often at our local department store! -- I think it fundamentally points to a need for more growth among the SL user base, so that there are other internal markets beyond high end mesh fashion, which comprises the majority of the Second Life economy.

As reader and creator Peter Strindberg puts it in comments, offering some advice as well:

 

SLer Survey: Firestorm's PBR Upgrade Generates Firestorm of Mixed Reactions

Here's the results of my survey on the PBR upgrade in Firestorm, which brought in 177 responses. (A pretty large sample size, as these things go.) Asked how it's changed their overall Second Life experience, a plurality -- nearly 1 in 3 respondents -- chose "Much worse than before". That's compared to 20% who said Firestorm PBR has made their SL experience "much better".

Overall, the reaction is about evenly split between the Somewhat/Much Worse camp (45%) and the About the Same or Somewhat/Much Better (42%).

My initial read of these results is there's a hiccup of adjustment as SLers get accustomed to the virtual world lit by PBR. More on those later, but meantime, here's some readers' decidedly mixed reaction to the PBR update:

Second Life Merchants on the State of the Virtual World Economy in 2024: How Many Earn Good Revenue, Use Gen AI, Suspect Oligopolies & More!

As promised, here's some of the top highlights to my Patreon subscriber report on the Second Life economy in its 21st year:

With one hundred and eleven SL merchants responding to my survey, this overview of the Second Life economy represents a sizable slice of the most financially successful content creators in the virtual world. 

Over 40% gross $10,000+ a year from their SL content (above)

Over 40% of merchants report grossing $10,000 or more per year from their SL content (a good side income hustle for most people), with 1 in 6 of them grossing over $50,000 a year or more -- an income level that would put them well over the median income of US workers. (In 2022, individual median income in the US was just under $40,00/year.)

Nearly all merchants are small, 1-3 person operations

Asked, “How many people, including outsourced and part-time staff, help run your SL brand and its events/services/sales/etc?”, an incredible 93% of SL merchants surveyed said they were tiny operations of 1-3 people. 

By contrast, only 1% -- literally one person, in this survey -- answered that they have a team of over 20. While there are frequent whispers that Second Life’s top brands have huge teams of outsourcers creating content for them, that situation remains relatively rare.

Next: How many merchants are preparing for SL mobile? Using generative AI?  Or suspect the economy is an oligopoly?

Survey: How Has PBR in Firestorm Changed Your Second Life Experience?

Now that PBR graphics are officially part of Firestorm, the most popular Second Life viewer by far, please take this survey about how that's impacted your virtual world -- use a mouse/trackpad for best results.

Survey reactions published on New World Notes later this week/early next!

Survey: How Often Do You See Second Life Content Promoted & Advertised Using AI-Enhanced Imagery?

Here's a survey asking how much (or how little) generative AI programs like Midjourney and Leonardo AI have penetrated the Second Life economy. (Take with a mouse/trackpad for best results.) In the last couple years I've started seeing SL images heavily upgraded with gen AI, but I'm specifically referring to advertisements or product displays for SL content that are clearly leveraging that technology.

As an example of what I mean, check out the image below, widely shared across SL-themed social media), showing a fashion item as advertised on social media, and how it actually looks when worn in-world:  

Survey: When Will You Buy the Apple Vision Pro?

Now that Vision Pro is open for pre-orders, it's time to survey New World Notes readers, who are surely early adopter/hardcore fans for cool VR/AR devices. 

But does that mean they're lining up with credit cards now? Take the survey above, and explain your answer in Comments! (By the way: Respond to the poll on a PC/Mac for best results.)

 

PBR Survey Results: Nearly Half of Second Life Users Waiting for PBR to Work in Firestorm & Other Third Party Viewers!

Here's the results of our survey on PBR in Second Life, and they may be surprising: While over 1 in 4 are excited by what they see with physically based rendering... nearly half (44%!) are waiting for PBR to be integrated into Firestorm and other third party viewers.

Firestorm alone is the most popular viewer among active SL users, far outstripping the official Linden Lab viewer, and as cool as the PBR reflective surface effect is, the plurality are preferring to wait until Firestorm has it.

The good news is the volunteer team that services the Firestorm project announced PBR integration is coming back in August. The less good news, as one reader notes, is it may take awhile for Firestorm to glitter with PBR: