Category: Musings

Speaking your Mind, a conversation with Brett Linden

Sometimes speaking your mind can land you in a lot of trouble, or it can get people to listen. My post “Not very early (or equal) access“, was one of those times. I had bloggers giving me positive feedback, that I’d said what they were thinking, then folk saying on social media I might have upset people.

My thinking was that someone had to say it and what’s the worst that could happen?

Fortunately in this case, it got someone to listen. This was not just anyone though, it had Philip Rosedale, Brett Linden and Brad Oberwager listening.

On Tuesday night (4pm SLT, Midnight for me) I had an email from Brett Linden inviting me to discuss the contents of my post in a Zoom call.

Obviously I replied immediately with my ascent. I knew if I left it until my morning, it’d be another 18-24 hours before it might get looked at, and this is part of the issue that needed discussing.

Brett had reached out to discuss further the points I’d raised in the post, which I was pleasantly surprised at. The main issue was that a couple of prominent bloggers appeared to have got early information about Project Zero, Second Life in a web browser. This as you can imagine, annoyed every other blogger in the Blogger Network and outside of it. I had it confirmed by Brett that, yes, they got an embargoed “advance briefing” before Christmas, but they didn’t have early access to the browser platform. Now rather than me trying to pick through facts made available to me, I’m going to quote from a follow-up email:

We try to engage and respond to all bloggers who reach out to us directly and we do separate meetings and outreach all the time to other bloggers either proactively or in response to their inquiries. Both Inara and Hamlet do in-depth daily “news”-style reporting on Linden Lab and as a result we are in frequent communication with both of them since they are publishing almost daily to a fairly large audience. While they did get (and honor) embargoed advance access to “Project Zero,” that was not meant in any way to disrespect or diminish how we view the importance of the larger blogger community.

To be clear, our outreach strategy on any news and information that we release will not always be the same – bloggers will frequently get early access but there will be times that we do not pre-announce some news and/or a major media outlet (e.g. New York Times, etc.) might also be the first to break a story.  I want to also acknowledge that as a business we make decisions that not everyone will always agree with – but I hope that the big picture and context of our commitment to more and frequent open communication and transparency isn’t lost in translation. In the last three months, we’ve made progress in holding more community meetups and direct one-on-one meetings, and we have several more lined up for 2025 — so this is an evolving process and we are learning as we get feedback 🙂 We will continue to try to be better at communicating and so I appreciate your candid thoughts on how we can do better.

It was a good conversation and I came away feeling that they really are trying to be better and their hearts are in the right places.

Something I learned is how many Lab employees make up the Marketing team, which includes all the Labs socials. I’d pictured something like the scene of a corporate office block, a sprawling mass of cubicles covering a whole floor, with Strawberry in a corner office. It’s actually just two of them; Brett & Strawberry and they’re only human.

If you think back a year or even just six months, these things didn’t happen. If you told me back then I’d have a one-to-one call with Linden Lab Marketing, I’d have been very skeptical indeed.

There’s a saying that comes to mind here “To respond is to give importance”. The fact they reached out and responded to me, a small blogger with minimal reach compared to others says a lot about their commitment to improve.

So the way I see it now, they’re making leaps and bounds in their communications with the community, there’s just been a couple of stumbles along the way. Which, after yesterday’s call, I’m more than happy to forgive them for and give them a hand up. Especially since the other stumble (the early release of financial numbers while the bloggers were under embargo) wasn’t actually on them.

With that out of the way, onto what else he had to say. With Philip now back at Linden Lab, 2025 is going to be focussed on “Putting the Lab back into Linden Lab”, as in a testing and experiments place where you try stuff to see what happens and if anything goes BANG or not. So far we’ve seen two ventures that are part of this initiative; AI Character Generator and Project Zero browser access, with varying results. (When a friend gets ejected and banned from a store group and region, because of the actions of their AI bot, in their absence, I’d call that a BANG for sure.)

There is another forthcoming Zoom meeting that is apparently going to be something big, because it’s not just the bloggers that are being invited. So anyone reading this, that’s previously received an invite to a Zoom call with the Lab, don’t ignore the next one.

Not Very Early (or Equal)  Access

Last night, Thursday 2nd January, there was a meeting between members of the Second Life Blogger Network and Linden Lab executives. I didn’t attend this meeting(although I did get an invite), but I’ve heard enough that I didn’t really miss much (apart from watching Philip Rosedale almost dancing in his seat with excitement apparently). This wasn’t because the topic of discussion (browser based access to Second Life) wasn’t interesting, more due to the fact there was a public announcement barely hours later.

When Bloggers are promised early/advance notice on upcoming features, maybe that notice should be more than a matter of hours? What good is advance notice if they have no time to prepare content before an almost immediate official announcement?

If I’d attended the meeting, it’s quite unlikely I would have got a post prepared with proper test screenshots and meaningful comment, between the time the meeting ended and the public announcement was published.

This brings up a equality (or favouritism) issue among the bloggers. It’s my understanding that at least one prominent blogger had published their post on the subject (which was quite lengthy and included screenshots) while the meeting was still in progress, strongly suggesting they *did* have much earlier knowledge than the others at the meeting.

It makes me again question how much respect the Lab has for the Blogger Network, or understanding of fast moving social media.

During the Zoom meeting held on 6th December we were told about the financial investment amount that the Lab had put into Second Life and were told categorically not to disclose those numbers, to my knowledge no-one did. We were led to believe there was going to be a “big reveal” of the numbers in the New Year, I also thought maybe it was a test to see if we would keep quiet/could be trusted. However on the 19th of December these figures became public, primarily via a store owner creator releasing it everywhere after a meeting with the Lab. The next day (in my timezone) we were emailed to say “yeah, you can talk about it now”, a bit late maybe? Were we an afterthought? At 4.46pm SLT, probably. Since Second Life is a global community, spanning many timezones, I have a suggestion:

If you have some news to be shared, specify a date and (crucially) a time at which the news can go public and also when the related public announcement is going to be made. The details of which should be communicated to all parties at least 72hrs in advance. Doing that would get around the issues mentioned and we could all be co-ordinated in our posts and announcements.

I believe Philip said they will look at a discussion on the platforms use of social media, but since I wasn’t present I don’t have an exact quote. I look forward to seeing what comes of that.

Bring your Alt to Life with the new AI Characters in Second Life.

So the clock said 23.44 and I was about to go to bed, when an email arrived. What’s this? AI Characters? I thought it was some kind of AI based avatar creation tool for new residents, but no.  It’s like the old SmartBots system but you control an alternate avatar account instead of an object.

As I read through the information I got more excited and couldn’t wait until the morning to let you know what’s coming.

It’s a web interface that lets you define personality traits, behaviours, ways of speaking etc, the information provided says, basically the more you put in here the better it works. Then further along the process you provide the name and password for the Alt you intend to control.

These are screenshots of the beginning of the process, which look very promising so far. Even better given the time right now, the pages seem to work on a mobile.

This is more than a ChatBot or Greeter though, as well as simple instructions like “follow me” (given by private IM or local chat), you will be able create more advanced commands for interacting with objects and the environment.

To me this could dramatically improve immersion in Roleplay situations, particularly for new arrivals to a location when no regular players are online, or an ever present barkeep for example. Maybe I’m hoping for too much, but from what I’ve read, hopefully not.

I’m going to have a more thorough look at this and share some more, but for now, here’s the link to the official Announcement.

Linden Lab, THIS is the kind of stuff you need to be briefing your Blogger Network on!

The Call…to Mobile and a note on Unity

On Friday night I was in a Zoom conference call between a collection of bloggers and Linden Lab Executives.

If you’d told me that 5 years ago when I started my little blog, I wouldn’t have believed you. So thank you Linden Lab for the opportunity. Brad Oberwager (CEO of Linden Lab) did say that they wanted our honest opinions, so here it is.

The focus was on the Second Life Mobile App and what’s on the horizon. There’s a lot to go through, so please bear with me.

I’ve addressed these not in the chronological order that they’re going to arrive, but roughly the order I think they should have, with their ETAs.

  • Address Bar – Q1 2025
  • Notecards – Not on the slides but Grumpity Linden said “Three Months Plus”
  • New account creation – December 2024
  • Persistent chat logs & Group Notice Push notifications – December 2024
  • Item level avatar editing – Early Q2 2025
  • Lobby – Q1 2025

Franky I think the app shouldn’t have gone to Public Beta until the first three were added, but they’re finally coming. Simply because if you told someone about the App, they’d go try it and find they couldn’t do much and delete it. Maybe a New Year big splash release with these features might have been better.

Address Bar: One of the major missing features in the mobile app is getting around. Currently in both the Alpha & Beta versions, you can only go to the Mobile Showcase locations and your Favourites (the ones stuck at the top of your desktop viewer). Fortunately this feature coming soon that will allow you to enter SLURL location addresses and also Share them using your device’s native Sharing system.

Notecards: One of the bloggers raised a question about notecards, particularly for CSRs (Customer Support Representatives) for creators. If a customer has a problem, they may send a notecard detailing the issue.

However on the mobile app there’s currently no way to open them,so the CSRs are tied to a PC in order to read the notes and respond. Grumpity Linden revealed that they are working on a way to read them. However it’s likely to be in a different way. Since there’s no access to avatars Inventory on mobile, the in-progress solution is to have the notecards read out in a chat dialog. This will be a great step forward for this group of Residents, but sadly they’ll have to wait a little longer. The timescale for this ability is estimated at three months or more.

Note: this was right at the end of the call, past the official end time, so several attendees had left and not many people will have heard the above.

New Accounts: Pretty self explanatory, despite the app not being targeted at new signups, this needed to be here at Beta Release. If people see screenshots or hear about there being this cool new app and they weren’t an existing Resident, they’d have been stuck.

Persistent chat logs: Peviously on the mobile app, if you log out and back in your conversation history will be lost. In an update this month, the chat history will be stored locally on your device.

Item level  avatar editing: Something that wasn’t mentioned much, but is featured on the presentation slides is individually worn items adjustment.

Lobby: Basically a holding screen showing you stuff while the world loads. They probably spent ages on it (speculation) but I don’t see it as a big deal. The only tempting point on the slide image is “Reach mid-tier and lower end devices”, perhaps this needs a little more emphasis, if the intention is to attract users with older tech.

Comment on Unity

A last point made by Philip Linden regarding a pre-submitted question. Paraphrased: “Now that Linden Lab have a working visual rendering engine on the Unity platform, will the desktop client move to Unity?” In short, no.

The reason for this is fairly simple, according to Philip: “The Unity engine can’t render as many avatars in close proximity.”

I know for a long time people have been harping on about this at Meet the Lindens events, now they have an answer and a reason.

Summary:

Well done Linden Lab, your mobile feature set is nearly level with the Lumiya Viewer (2012-2017 RIP), except with additions of Mesh & BoM but minus Inventory. I’m sure they’re sick of that comparison, but it was ahead of its time and is an unavoidable benchmark.

The Zoom call on Friday is likely to be the first of several to come. Perhaps this process of reaching out and connecting with Bloggers & Vloggers, allowing early previews, should have started before the Beta public release. That way the Lab may have been dissuaded from releasing an under-developed product.

So as I said in my previous post on this subject, do give it a go, but don’t expect too much yet. Then come back in a month and try again, it is after all still a Beta version.

Selling your Virtual soul for others gain

Back in 2021 I wrote a piece about Avatars as Brands, I’ve a few more thoughts on the subject.

With some input from Draxtor Despres, I came to the conclusion that the term “Brand” only applies once money is involved. However increasingly these days people are making “brands” of themselves in an attempt to promote themselves and be popular, but is that the right word? Maybe it is, but not in the same way as I previously meant it. While people mindlessly create social brands in an attempt to be noticed, they’re usually not receiving any financial gain for them. So what’s being sold, who’s gaining? The social platforms on which they promote themselves. I would say that what people present online as their “brand” is more of a “persona” than a brand, if it’s not an actual business. They just need to read a dictionary. I don’t mean that everyone creating personas are in the wrong, it’s the marketing industry that has led people to be using the wrong terms and encouraged them to become a brand and maybe even  an “Influencer” , where they sell their metaphorical soul to promote products they never use that they feature in their content.

Blogging is a bit like this sometimes,depending on your platform. Lately I’ve done several posts featuring a particular Second Life creator’s products. I’m not affiliated to them (or any stores) as regular readers will know. I purchase the items myself, which is fine. Although after the fourth post in a month, I did start to question myself. Then on top of that something happened that made me reconsider this approach and my blogging practices. If you think about it, I purchased items from that brand, spent time on staging photos and a credits list, to show off that brand’s merchandise. So the creator actually benefits twice, the item cost and free advertising. Put like that it sounds kind of daft. In this case it’s the brand and ultimately Linden Lab that benefits not the prompting platform, this blog. Although obviously I do have some more nice clothes too.

The Second Life economy and technology has changed over the years however. Whereas once you could have brought a full outfit, made of clothing layers and prims for about $400L, that amount might now buy you a part of the outfit, like a set of Mesh PBR-Textured gloves or shoes (the more time and skill required to make modern clothing items raises the prices). So whereas once the price of an outfit could have been shrugged off because the equivalent amount of cash wouldn’t buy you a cup of tea in real money; now it’ll cost you two expensive coffees and maybe a piece of cake. Which is why I didn’t purchase a number of recent releases from that store and will be a lot more selective in my purchases generally going forward.

Read the previous post on this topic: Avatars, Brands & Personas

Header image via MidJourney (AI has occasional uses.)

Second Life Mobile for All

Last year I signed up for the Alpha Testing programme for a Second Life mobile app, restricted to Premium Plus subscribers. It was pretty flakey back then. But fast forward to Thursday 14th November and it’s now been made available as an open Beta for every Second Life resident and works pretty well.

So should you download it? I’d say Yes, but limit your expectations. This is not a desktop equivalent or replacement, more a companion app. You can walk about, change between saved Outfits and Teleport to your set Favourite locations and a few specific places. Chatting in groups and nearby chat works well enough and you can pay items such as rent boxes or shop vendor boards(making a use-case). Streaming music as you may find playing in a club is a feature too, but I’ve not tried visiting such a location on the app yet.

I have been giving the latest version of the Android app a go and it’s a great improvement on the early Alpha builds. One thing I’d definitely recommend when first trying it out is make sure you have a lot of space! It can take a while to get used to the controls and you don’t want to be stuck in the corner of a sky box while you experiment.

I used my homestead Bloodrose Bay simply because that’s where I happened to have been last. It turned out to be quite a good choice. The buildings I have set out are spacious inside and there are some with and without doors to enter. There’s also what’s often the bane of SL exploring..spiral stairs, indoor and out.

While this all looks pretty good for a mobile viewer, nothing apart from the trees have PBR (Physically Based Rendering) textures. Hopefully Linden Lab will get their shiny new texture system to work in their shiny new app.

The unrezzed white things down there are trees with PBR textures.

Screenshots taken on a Google Pixel 7 using default app settings.

The aim of the app is to try and bring back old residents that have left SL, because “It’s not on mobile” is apparently a reason many no longer log in. I wasn’t amongst the bloggers invited to a Zoom call with Linden Lab executives (Edit: turns out they sent the invite to a different email address, so I’ll be watching out for the next one!) to discuss/announce all this, so I’m going on quotes from a couple of people that were:

I’m impressed with what Linden Lab have created and would have been great all round, if it weren’t lacking PBR support. However the target audience (old users that haven’t logged in for ages) are unlikely to have any PBR clothing in their inventory anyway.

PBR clothing is just blank without any fallback textures. Which is the way many creators are going.

Link: Official App Promotion Page with Downloads

What’s PBR: Second Life Wiki

What’s in another Name ?

I just changed my Second Life Last name, from Bloodrose to Nightwish.

I may have got a little carried away at the fact one of my favourite band names became available to choose from. I’m now sitting thinking more about how this will impact things.

I updated my Display name to show “Ava Nightwish Delaney” inworld, as per my previous post on this subject. Most social platforms let you update such things fairly easily (except Meta,so I don’t use theirs) thankfully and I don’t use too many, compared to some bloggers.

How long will I keep the name, I’m not sure yet.

The Last name I really want is Delaney, but I can’t see that happening.

Update 17/11/24 : I kept it for about 48hrs. Fortunately having Premium Plus allowed me to change back pretty painlessly. Another lesson learned.

Real Steampunk

I’m breaking from my norm today and including some Real Life in my post. Last weekend I was at a Steampunk Festival, a real one, near where I live. It was the first time there’s been one near me, so it’s the first one I’ve attended too, it was amazing.

People went to so much effort with their costumes and some fun entertainment. I only attended for one afternoon but there was events running the whole weekend, so next year I’ll be attending more.

(Yes, that is a lifesize Dalek and a TARDIS in the corner!)

Event Website: Isle of Wight Steampunk Festival

In Second Life meanwhile the steampunk themed Engine Room event had opened the day before. So inspired from the Festival I went on a shopping spree and put together this outfit to put myself virtually into the header photo of the actual event.

Outfit Credits:

Engine Room Items from:http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Syndicate/172/189/28

  • Outfit: Wicca’s Originals – Raili Outfit (PBR)
  • Hat: [piXit] Wind Me Up Hat (Add)
  • Hair & Goggles: Sintiklia – Hair Destiny – Blondes&Reds
  • Leg Belts: Tentacio Joly belt leg black
  • Backdrop: What’s Lost Spirits – ETHEREAL WORKSHOP

Other items:

Got Blog! Ava’s Chronicles

On Friday night I got a message from Gogo (Gorgeous Aurelia) on Discord saying “You’re tagged!” followed by a link to her entry for a Blogger Challenge. She challenged me and several others to complete this challenge, so here I go:

“I am participating in the Got Blog! Bloggers Challenge, you can find more information on this at https://sasyscarborough.com/2024/08/09/got-blog-bloggers-challenge/.”

Like Gogo, I now challenge Daniel Voyager, Isabelle Cheren, Melyna Foxclaw and Inara Pey to complete this thought provoking exercise. Four fellow Bloggers I have great respect for, I know some are very busy, but it would be interesting to read the answers.

When did you start your Second Life Blog?
2019


Why did you start Blogging in Second Life?

I wanted to tell the story of my Second Life. It grew to include explorations, roleplay stories and occasional musings on virtual worlds.

Do you feel the Blogging community in Second Life has changed since you started Blogging, and if so, in what ways?

I found people were using Flickr as a blogging platform, which is for digital photography or digital art and no-one liked that being pointed out to them. Granted the work some people do to their SL photos with image editors does elevate some of them to art. Sticking a credits list on a photo though doesn’t make you a blogger, it makes you a diligent photographer in the same way writers should state sources. Blog is after all a shortening of “web-log” :

“Informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts).” Wikipedia


Do you think that Bloggers have a positive impact on Second Life culture and community, and if so, do you have any stories about that?

Definitely. Anything that promotes our virtual playground of Second Life is positive.


Are you approachable as a Blogger by content creators that may have interest in you as a Blogger for their Brand/Store?

I feel I am approachable, but it never happens (so maybe I’m not?) and I stopped applying to stores a long time ago. Sadly your worthiness as a blogger is often judged on the number of Followers you have on Flickr, Instagram or other social media. My blog isn’t about shopping, so it doesn’t bother me a great deal. Invitations or recommendations of places to explore are certainly welcome though.

Do you have any tips or tricks that help you with the Blogging process that you would like to share?

If you’re at a large shopping event and see something you like, don’t buy it right away. Screenshot the item/booth with gyazo, then open the World Map,copy the location SLURL and paste it into the Notes section of the screenshot and move on. When you’re done you’ll have a galley you can browse through to choose which items you might go back for, with the exact location of where they were in the notes. This also helps with preventing impulsive purchases that you regret later!

Have you yourself ever benefited from another Blogger’s post, such as learning a new skill for Blogging, or Second Life functions that you may not have known about?

Isabelle Cheren was an influence on me early on in my blogging journey. We did a collaboration once that is still a fond memory.

What kind of Blogs appeal to you as a reader, and what would you like to see more of in the Second Life Blogging world?

Stories. I like good stories or at least creative descriptions. A storyline that spans a series of posts and images shows imagination and creativity.


Do you Blog content that you yourself would wear/use always, or do you blog content that is expected of you to blog due to commitments to stores/events?

Usually I feature items that I do use. Since my blog is mostly about places, items featured may not be new anyway. The exception to this is Fantasy Faire,  (a Relay for Life charity event) when I will feature as much of the Creators content as I possibly can in the 3-week long event.

I have no commitments to stores, so I don’t have any blogging obligations.

Do you feel that imposed time limits, and a set amount of content featured changes the way you blog content, and does it feel less authentically you?

Definitely. One of the things I love about blogging for Fantasy Faire is that they have no requirements other than Quality.

Once you start throwing in “x items in each  post,x posts over the event ” it’s not fun, it’s a task. Even other RFL events have started doing this, so I don’t apply even though I may have blogged that event previously.

Do you use Social Media, and/or other platforms outside of your Blog/Website to promote the content you have shared?
I went through a stage of having an account on every social platform, but that didn’t last long, they didn’t interest me.

I use Flickr for creating albums of blog snapshots. I have Twitter, but prefer Bluesky and Primfeed, but I’m not very active unless I’m sharing blog posts.

Do you pay for any aspect of your blogging other than the clothing or items in your images, such as Website Hosting, Photoshop etc?

Domain names & Web Hosting

WordPress Jetpack services (providing backup and security for my site)

Flickr Pro (but cancelling)

Gyazo Pro

Do you think that Stores/Content Creators should have a Website/Blog for their Brand?

I think this depends on the scale of the store. Creating items to sell in Second Life is no longer as simple as it used to be, the amount of time creators spend making stuff is considerable today. Maintaining a website is also time consuming, so it depends if they have time for both. I would say that if they don’t have a site, a  Flickr account (or now possibly Primfeed) for promoting their content is a minimum.

Do you have any suggestions for Content Creators/Stores to consider, when it comes to their Bloggers, and Bloggers that they may want to have Blog for them?

Remember that bloggers aren’t employees, they’re giving up their free time to promote your products because they like them.

Do you have any advice that you can give other Bloggers that may be new to the experience, or even advice/wisdom that you want to share with the Blogging community as a whole, new or old

Event & Store blogging is basically providing them with free advertising. The “free” items they’ve given you to blog haven’t actually cost them anything except the L$ of a single sale, which when converted to currency won’t even buy you a cup of tea or coffee.  For which you must spend some hours intigrating them into an attractive post. So remember blogging is meant to be fun, choose carefully who you want to work with. Don’t put yourself in a position where you’re blogging stuff you don’t like to meet a stipulated quota. That’s not fun.

Do you have suggestions for which Blogging Platform to use, and why you chose it over others?

I would definitely recommend WordPress over other platforms, preferably self-hosted on a Domain if you can afford it. You may find if you set up your site on wordpress.com then start paying for features, you’re just as well paying a dedicated hosting provider. Fortunately WordPress sites are easily moved. However you choose to use it, the WordPres networking features of liking, following and commenting is one of the platforms greatest strengths, because it’s so widely used.

I would discourage using WIX. If you buy a domain through them, that’s all you get. You don’t get domain email accounts without paying extra which are then outsourced to Google Workspace anyway. Domain email comes as standard with any other host. You also can’t move a WIX website to another hosting provider if you wanted to. You could transfer the domain address, but you’d have to build a new website from scratch. Also the ToS got updated to allow them to scrape your content to train an AI.

What do you enjoy and are most passionate about when it comes to Blogging

Exploring and photographing locations new to me, perhaps making up a story to go with it. Along with the fun of putting together an outfit that suits the location.

Well that’s my attempt at this challenge and it certainly was that! I’m sure some of my comments may not go down well, or seem opinionated, but that’s what they are, my opinions.

Primfeed.com – A Flickr replacement for Second Life?

For some years now the once-ubiquitous image hosting service Flickr seems to have been gradually trying to squeeze Second Life content out.

With changes to policies relating to free accounts ability to have private photos and no longer able to include links to Second Life Marketplace or Store locations, it being seen as Commercial Use.

While not being able to have many images marked as Private is an inconvenience, not being able to include store links without a Pro left many SL Flickr “bloggers” (Flickr is an image hosting service not a blogging platform) stranded.

Timeline of changes:

  • 1st November 2018 – 1,000 image limit announcement Source
  • February 5, 2019, photos and videos over the free account 1,000 item limit will be at risk of deletion
  • 17th March 2022 – only allowed 50 private photos Source
  • 1st May 2022 – Free accounts not allowed Moderate or Restricted images.Source

That last point is a big issue because a lot of SL content is of an adult nature so many images of the virtual world don’t meet the requirements of Flickr’s “Safe” rating. It resulted in a bit of an exodus of SL residents from the platform.

The intention was apparently to make Flickr an archive of safe content “forever” and aimed at photographers rather than images from platforms like Second Life. Of late Flickr seems to have been enforcing the rules rather indiscriminately, resulting in at least one large inworld store setting their entire image catalogue to Moderate to prevent any issues. This of course inconviences their customers, who now need a Flickr account to view the images.

On 17th of May I heard about a proposed alternative to Flickr especially for Second Life residents. The name for this new site: Primfeed.com

It’s creator, Luke Rowley (also the founder of easyblogger), says that the platform will offer:

  • Original quality picture, up to 8k.
  • No issues with Marketplace or in-world links. – Adult content allowed.
  • Maturity ratings, General, Moderate, and Adult for posts as Second Life, allowing you to specify what type of content you want to see in your feed.
  • An AI tag to specify if a picture is modified or generated by an AI. – The social media will be dedicated to Second Life, thus content not related to Second Life will be heavily restricted, but not totally.

Also unique to the platform is that it will be linked to your avatar:

“Your account on Primfeed will be linked to a Second Life avatar, and you will have only one account per avatar, to prevent imposter, and fake accounts.”

In the list of features above, Luke says there will be a tag for AI generated content, however in a later X Post (Tweet) he suggested AI generated/enhanced product ADs will be banned.

Those could be seen as two separate issues, but I see them as one, they’re aspects of the same issue. If it’s going to be a Second Life focused platform that’s what it should be, no AI content. AI generated content has its place, such as a fun header of this post or specific audiences and markets, but on a Second Life specific image gallery isn’t it.

I believe in this time of an obsession with AI everywhere, the initial stance on AI content on the platform will have a dramatic effect on its overall success. Saying “No” from the outset may provoke some negative feedback to start with, but I believe in the long run it will lead to a more SL-Relevant content collection.

The site is currently still under development and looks very promising so far and comments on social media certainly seem to reflect that opinion. Many people, including myself, are very excited about this project and waiting eagerly for its launch at the end of June.

There is a preview video of what the site may look like at this link on X (which totally refused to Embed here.)

If you’re interested and want to make a suggestion or offer ideas, you can use this form.

Update 10th August 2024: The platform launched with allowing AI content so long as it was tagged as such. I guess this is a reasonable compromise, because trying to keep the content out altogether would be a moderation nightmare. At launch it wasn’t possible to filter this content, but it has now been added. You can opt to show “AI Content” and “Render Content” as well as obviously Maturity ratings in your settings. Lots of other improvements have been made in the short time the platform has been running and it’s quite an impressive achievement. Signing up with your Second Life avatar account makes it very easy to get set up quickly. If you have at some point changed your avatar name, you may find that your registered account shows the original name (mine showed AvaDelaney Resident), you can fix that by clicking a board inworld to update it.

Currently content on the site isn’t visible without a Second Life account, I can see this as both good and bad. Good in that the platform is kept SL focused, but possibly bad because it can’t be used to attract new Residents. However since that is not the point of the site, it’s not much of a downside. Given the actions of Flickr mentioned above, primfeed does seem now, with it’s updates, to be the much needed alternative platform.