We’re developing my.secondlife.com…your feedback needed!
Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 12:00 PM by: Jesse Linden[UPDATE 5PM PST: Thanks for the overwhelming response! We have met our group meetings quota and all the spots have been filled. I will continue to review the comments to this Blog post as well as publish the meeting results for further discussion soon, thanks again for your support.]
In an effort to make our Website more useful and easier to use, we will be undergoing a major redesign of www.secondlife.com in the coming months. As part of this project, we are building a set of Web-based tools to allow you to manage various aspects of your account, tentatively called my.secondlife.com.
These tools could include everything from organizing group memberships to editing your profile to browsing recommended in-world locations, all done via our site. It is our hope that these tools will provide you much greater flexibility and control over your Second Life experience. Our goal is to allow better integration of Second Life with the 2d Web and ultimately extend out to mobile devices and more.
While we are still very much in the early planning stages of this project, we would like to establish an ongoing collaboration with you, our Residents, in the design process. To this end, I will be holding a series of three in-world meetings, (at different times of the day to accommodate time zones) limited to an attendance of 15 avatars each, to discuss these tools.
If you are interested in attending one of these meetings with myself, Robin, and other Lindens, please email your avatar name and preferred time of day to: jesse@lindenlab.com. I will accept the first 45 people who contact me and reply with proposed meeting times. After these meetings, we will publish the results and create a space for ongoing public discussion.
It has been our experience that by working in concert with our Residents during this process, we are best able to ensure a design that works for all. Thanks again for your continued participation in helping us improve the Second Life experience and we look forward to hearing from you!
February 16th, 2007 at 12:16 PM
I would like also to be able to edit and look at the photos of my profile. It would be nice to see my pictures and edit in cause i want to add or change…while i have free time at my work.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:18 PM
I think you should hold some of the meetings on the tg too cause its not only the people on the mg who get ideas.
(I’m from the tg too)
February 16th, 2007 at 12:21 PM
Damn the website… who cares…. keep working on the grid guys, you’re gonna need it at this rate of expansion!!!
Please concentrate on the grid - in world performance and stability is better than pretty pictures on a web page.
More and more residents are joining, it’s snowballing, and the grid has got to be the main priority if it is going to survive!
Now, in other news…..
February 16th, 2007 at 12:23 PM
Ima kinda have to agree with the last 2 comments, why is work being focused on this when the grids are still complete crap to use most of the time?
But on a side note, can we make it like Opensource and be able to change the front page all together? Personal sidebars and the like?
February 16th, 2007 at 12:23 PM
I travel a lot, and while it is usually easy to access a web page on the road, it is hard to access SL. Anything you could do to allow IMs to be seen and replied to from a website would be extremely useful. Also useful would be the ability to view my inventory, and to deliver objects stored there to another AV’s inventory. This would be helpful when, as frequently happens, the server fails to deliver items purchased from my vendors.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:28 PM
focus on grid please, we will see later for a website thank you
*cheek*
February 16th, 2007 at 12:33 PM
Yeah, folks - pipe down and think a minute. I really don’t think you’d want web developers working on the grid.
Now, that being said, I hope they take a lesson from what happened to the LSL Wiki (may it rest in peace on its various mirrors). As long as they don’t end up nuking something that was working fine and had great content on it just to replace it with a bare bones husk of its former self, I think my.secondlife.com will be a fine supplement to the site.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:34 PM
You’re all idiots ;0
February 16th, 2007 at 12:35 PM
Please, please, please do not call any section of the website “my” anything.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:35 PM
are you guys (jon and the XO) really sure you want web designers working to fix the grid? :-O
February 16th, 2007 at 12:36 PM
SL’s stability is different for different people. I usually have no problems with SL (beyond the fact that the client is such a resource hog), and those problems that I do have are either subject to a beta viewer (see: First Look) or networking issues. Networking issues aren’t as simple to fix as “oh, we need more bandwidth, I’ll buy another line today.” LL’s admitted it, and has put out ads (even recently, check two blog postings back) for more employees to fix things. You don’t like the way SL’s structure is being run, apply for a position and fix it yourself, point someone who CAN fix it at LL, or shut the hell up and be patient. Software development, especially debugging an “always on” system, is a lengthy and complicated process.
I’d like to attend one of those meetings, but my school schedule would probably make that impossible. I’m swampped with programming work now that one of my group members (the other programmer) has decided to basically retake this term and isn’t coming to classes. Definantly something I’d like to see is a web based IM option to communicate with friends in world, kind of like MSN’s web messenger. This would allow those of us out of the house (like at work or school) to communicate with friends in world, and could be later expanded to allow web enabled phones the same kind of luxury on the go.
A means of inventory management through a web page would also be largely welcome. I know some people with tens or hundreds of thousands (ok, so only 100k+) of inventory objects who would like to reorganize everything but can’t or won’t because the client takes forever to load it all or they’re on SL to enjoy talking to friends, not reorganize their outfits. Being able to do this sort of thing out of the house (like on a lunch break, again at work or school) would probably be very popular.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:37 PM
The website seems to work ok, the grid doesn’t…
Since wednesday the 7th, I’ve noticed that the old ‘White Missing Texture Suit’ glitch has made a comeback. Still not as bad as it was before (end 2006), but still a noticable increase in missing textures on avatars (either the ‘white suit’, or grey)… :`( *Sniff*
February 16th, 2007 at 12:46 PM
Crashing constantly, being logged out, having to wait five minutes to get back in, notecards failing to load, money disappearing, vendors unable to register with servers, two different rental box systems buggered after the last update, the system telling you the money transfer was stale then taking the money with no goods or rental paid, lag everywhere, worse problems with 22-25k on than 30k, lag, thousands more noobs, memory leaks and temp file writing non clean up still not fixed, more lag, water still not fixed, offering tps from profiles borked, tps failing everywhere, yet more lag….
So what Second Life? Or is this your new master plan, hope everyone goes on my.secondlife.com and eases the load for five minutes till you let a few more underage noobs in…
“(at different times of the day to accommodate time zones)” - wooo eeee, at last an acknowledgement that the US now makes up less than a thrid of the population. What next? a rolling schedule for updates to accomodate Europeans?
Well obviously the Lindens were lying again, not everyone is focussing on networking and scaling issues, they’re looking to give scripters even more abilties and another pretty web site change, oh, and more load communicating with my.secondlife, along with more bugs, yipeee…
Don’t you guys ever listen? Everyone wants a solid platform that works before any new features. That means:
FIX THE BUGS
FIX THE NETWORK
FIX THE LAG
FIX WHAT YOU’VE BROKEN
Then you can start thinking of new “features”.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:47 PM
I agree with Jon Grommit for so far. In the coming time it will be more crowded here, for there is a lot of media attention for SL. First SL must develope to a a stable place where people (and don’t forget the companies) can move free without all the bugs. When the problems continue a lot of people will lose interest in SL and the hype will be over i a short time.
First it must be stable, than the time for extra things like blogs, msn like sites or something like that will come naturally. Also, a lot of people are sceptic by leaving there information in SL. They see it like a hiding place, where most of them can do things wich they can’t in RL.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:48 PM
While there definitely needs to be an increased effort to upgrade SL’s infrastructure, for better stability and performance, I do like this idea.
The biggest thing for me would be a tool for organizing my inventory. Heck, if I could have something as simple as a Windows Explorer type interface into my inventory, my life would be *SO* much easier - and I “only” have about 7K items in my inventory! Detection of duplicate items that are in different folders, particularly textures, would be a godsend.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:48 PM
Hi folks,
let’s have a deal, u concentrate about the grid and my company will do your website:-)
No, back to the topic. Some things usefull for the website should be a possibility to contact others on, while yourself are in trouble getting connected, maybe it could be usefull to sort the inventory by the side and maybe in several languages.
Keep on rocking - at the grid, not at the webpage
February 16th, 2007 at 12:50 PM
I’d love to see OpenID added to SL’s website, so we can use our SL identity easilly on OpenID enabled websites, SL related website developpers would love it .
February 16th, 2007 at 12:55 PM
AND which as been mentioned in other blog posts comments. There Lindens who work with the grid, and there’s Lindens who work with the website.
You don’t put the pilots do the cabin crews work and the cabin crews don’t do the pilots.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:56 PM
Yay!!
This can be pretty darn cool! Think we can get one of those meetings on the TG? (We are the future, btw :P)
PS: You shouldn’t whine about the grid unless you can fix it yourself. You can? Ok, please do: http://secondlife.com/developers/opensource/
February 16th, 2007 at 12:58 PM
Sounds like a great idea to me. I sent my name in and preferred time
Thanks for asking!
February 16th, 2007 at 1:01 PM
What Lee Ludd said. Those complaining about work on the grid should read The Mythical Man Month before assuming that throwing more bodies at fixing issues will resolve them quicker.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:02 PM
I’m sure the cabin crew sometimes do the pilots. >3
But guessing that you mean “cabin crew don’t pilot planes”, that’s true. However both suffer from the same lack of bandwidth issues, so input from one camp might be valued from the other.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:04 PM
I agree, Delu. This is a different team with a different mission. LL does need to fix the system, fix the issues and have the capacity for stable growth of the grid, don’t get me wrong. This is just not the right team to fuss at. It sucks. We know it. They know it.
For all of you asking for a more robust and/or offline IM tool, this might be the right place to voice your opinion. They are trying to make our experience better and give additional functionality. I for one am happy about this as it could give me more access during the day where I am behind a firewall and have a heck of a time accessing the grid.
Keep up the great ideas, Jesse.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:05 PM
To Feynt,
I won’t speak to networking/grid issues as I am not a programmer. What I am is a pr/outreach coordinator and I can tell you the cliche “Image is everything” is very real. What you are seeing is the backlash to the current image of SL, and even programmers need to be aware of it.
What it looks like to me is the directors at LL are out of touch with things a little. They are telling one department to start this project and not fully aware that their pr value is so low due to something else (the grid). Is that Jesse’s fault, not necessarily, but it is what is keeping this from being as constructive as they wanted. We have had to tell our directors that we should not do B until A is at least patched up a little if we want a valid response to our outreach. Sometimes they take our advice sometimes they don’t. I would not have even responded but the shut the hell up got me.
Anyway, to the post, I really like the idea of the IM type system for when not on-line. Or perhaps a way to shuttle it through existing Yahoo/AIM/MSM/Skype whatever, if that is at all possible?
Although the comment about don’t put anything with ‘my’ there made me laugh, I think this is a good idea. The ability to customize our ‘homepage’ would be nice.
Late
February 16th, 2007 at 1:09 PM
Great idea - the ability for each person to eliminate things that they don’t often use here will free up a lot of bandwidth, serving up only the information that each person needs. That’s a good thing.
Suggestions (that I’m sure you have already considered, so I’m just reiterating them here so you guys can feel smart for thinking of it first)…
Keep the SL Main Page for guests, and a customizeable default page for registered users.
To avoid overload from people that want it all on one page, make some of the higher bandwidth areas modular.
…and make it like a 3-D virtual world instead of a normal website! Yeah, cool! Oh wait, we already have that, nevermind.
It would be neat to eventually have a GoogleEarth-like tool for examining the world map. I’ll let you know if I figure out a way to do that, heh.
I would say count me as another vote for not calling anything “My” anything - or iAnything, or Xanything for that matter. But MySecondLife *does* a good job of describing “customizable SecondLife website” without typing so much. What about “MySL”
And as Bender from Futurama once said; “Wouldn’t it be better to weld everybody else to the wall EXCEPT me?”
February 16th, 2007 at 1:11 PM
Jesse,
See the post http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p=1411968&postcount=35 in the feature discussion forum. Particularly the proposal of a secondlife.com email address as a “premium” perk. This sounds like the right platform for such a thing.
zk
February 16th, 2007 at 1:12 PM
I love the idea of being able to do “Maintenance” work on my account like updating my profile or messing around with my pics and notecards when off the grid.
And yeah, I’d hate to see the mess SL would be in if a web design programmer was sat in front of a computer holding the source to the Grid and told to “Debug now!”
February 16th, 2007 at 1:15 PM
seems to me there are quite a few people posting here that do not understand blogging and sticking to issues at hand. This is not the place to vent your complaints, about unrelated issues, people. Wake Up, Read the title of the Blog, and the content of Jesse’s post, and comment about what he is attempting to accomplish. SHEEESH ! how much simpler can that be?
February 16th, 2007 at 1:16 PM
What Feynt Mistral said.
And, what Elanthius Flagstaff said. Especially what Elanthius Flagstaff said.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:16 PM
Please be aware this project will not be taking any resources away from scaling, grid stability or any other development work that will remain our top priority. However, it is part of our mission at Linden Lab to continue to pursue innovation opportunity where it may lie and this is indeed a chance to develop some really great stuff! So rest assured, we hear you and feel your frustration about recent Grid perfromance issues and will not be ‘taking our eye off the ball’ in any way.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:23 PM
Wow! That sounds really cool!
You should have a tool that allows us to edit our inventory while we are offline.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:24 PM
Mostly, I would like to be able to go through and organize my inventory while not in-world. But I do agree, more than one million newbies since I joined, and the lag is getting worse. I have never been happier than since I became a resident, but things have been difficult to say the least. I don’t mind the fact that fellow Avi’s are there only for the sex, but perhaps if there were another sex-world, it would ease the load for those of us who are there for commerce and the arts.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:25 PM
Every single time I read one of these blogposts, from an LL employee who is quite obviously excited about these recent and/or upcoming changes, I sigh.. But not because of the post itself.. No it’s because I know this poor man or woman is putting him/herself right in the crossfire with insults mainly being hurled at the employee as well as LL in general, for actually utilizing the fact that the team is split up into multiple groups, and making new things that will help people out..
Usually the comments just annoy me some, but there are some that make me angry, like when someone claims that nobody wants these features and that everyone wants exactly the same as he or she does. It’s bullshit, okay? Believe you me.. I can honestly tell you that in every single case I’ve seen, where someone has said that in a comment here, I’ve disagreed with the person, and I know of at least one other who disagrees just as much.
It’s true that bugs should be fixed, and that there has been multiple cases of load troubles, but if LL didn’t give a crap about it, would those problems even be fixed in the first place? Now, I haven’t had any real problems in-world in the past two months, but as Feynt Mistral wrote.. “SL stability is different for different people”, so I (as well as LL obviously) acknowledge that some people are having problems, but it’s obviously being worked on.. One of the major changes for me has been the render pipeline update, which is simply amazing for the world of SL. I can be in fully crowded areas, where I would get about 4-8 FPS before, and now get some 25-40 FPS. To me, that’s pretty amazing, and I congratulate LL for having improved my SL experience so incredibly much.
Then there’s the whole thing with giving scripters more options, and one of the most important ones, that some of you may not understand the importance of, is the conversion of the backend system, to use Mono. The impact on speed of scripts and everything related to scripts, will be unbelievable, and it will more than likely free up so many server resources, that overall performance is likely to improve there as well. But most who comment here seem to focus on the small picture, instead of actually looking at the different changes, and try and see how they could potentially be used to improve the experiences in other areas of SL as well..
Anyway, in closing I too would love some way of communicating with friends in-world in an IM-sort of way, or just as a messaging system, closer to forum PMs or emails, but either way would work just fine, and people would be able to utilize SL even better.. Even when unable to get on SL itself.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:28 PM
Jesse,
I think this is a great idea. I would like to be able to do group organisation and business chores off-world. This can only help to lighten the load on the grid and speed up work.
I look forward to hearing of your plans.
Io
February 16th, 2007 at 1:30 PM
Very good… I, for one, would love to be included in the planning process. I have emailed you. I love slartibartfast’s ideas. And I agree with Jordguitar that the inventory section is one part of the client software which really needs some attention. There are some real usability concerns which ought to be addressed there.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:30 PM
Hi - likely this isn’t the greatest spot for input, but here goes.
I would LOVE to be able to see how many $L came from objects set to a specific group over an X day interval.
So I could separate my content business from my land business and have a far better idea of what was going on.
Possible? Thanks for consideration regardless!
Desmond Shang
Caledon
February 16th, 2007 at 1:41 PM
I think it is a great idea, just work ont he grid at the same time! Make sure to include the TG!
February 16th, 2007 at 1:50 PM
JayR, maybe the reason some people “don’t stick to what blogs are for” is because we didn’t ask for the blog, don’t want a blog, and would much prefer a useable forum which is far more accessible for any kind of discussion. It works for almost every other game and community out there on the net, so why SL have chosen to be different still remains a mystery.
I do, however, agree with many people here that there are far more important things than adding more “shiny” by messing about with the website.
In all honesty, apart from the front page, ‘create a new account’, downloads and Lindex, does anyone ever visit the website for any other reason?
Broccoli
February 16th, 2007 at 1:51 PM
I am very pleased that the residents are being consulted..
But will there be more consultation than just 3 x 15 av inputs.
Can we have a genuinely monitored blog or method of allowing more than just 45 avs to have a say.
I appreciate that this will generate at a big response therefore more work for Lindens but SL has a big population, if you limit your hearing then you cannot reflect what SL residents are saying
Thx Quant
February 16th, 2007 at 1:56 PM
Thank you Jesse, for clarifying the essence of this thread and clearing up any misconceptions. Although it might have prevented some of the off-topic (yet valid) complaints if that had been stated up-front. Hopefully next time.
As for the valid complainers: please try to follow blogging etiquette by responding to the topic and not hijacking the blog for your own off-topic complaints.
Jesse’s asking for your input on how to improve the web site - for you. If you don’t have a good reply for that, then please don’t.
Now to get back on topic.
Personally, I would very much like to see a “My” Second Life that I could customize to my tastes. As for whether or not it says, “My.”, I don’t have any preferences.
Now if it were possible to somehow get my avatar’s name on the URL - ie: Rooke_Ayres.SecondLife.com, then that would make it truly personal and be way cool. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that LL wants to go into the domain naming business.
Another idea would be to allow us to customize it so we could have whatever SL links we wanted on the main page and maybe specify number of columns ( like my.Yahoo! ).
How about being able to put our favorite SLURLs on a favorites list?
February 16th, 2007 at 1:58 PM
I agree with all those who want access to our inventories via a website. That would reduce the load on data base issues if we could delete those items not required any more. And it would be nice to be able to upload from SL pictures taken inworld, and other useful items like notecards without having to log in.
February 16th, 2007 at 2:11 PM
I think there should be a disclaimer in all blog posts to explain to folks (in very, very simple words) that there is a big difference between web development and database administration, and that every single LL employee does not drop what they are doing when the web page is being updated. I am just astounded that after all this time, people still think that. Come on people, use your brains. Different employees have different specialties.
Anyway, I would love to see some inventory management tools.
February 16th, 2007 at 2:16 PM
Broccoli,
Yes, some of us do look at more than just the things you mentioned.
Did you know you can also check the Grid Status from there? (in 2 different places)
I’m always going to the Forums and Knowledge Base from there.
Every day I check New World Notes for updates on what’s going on.
Gosh Broccoli, you need to expand your horizons. There’s way more to SL than just new accounts (how many do you need?), downloads and the LindX.
February 16th, 2007 at 2:20 PM
DEF an interface to work with inventory would be absolutly fantastic, ID LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT
February 16th, 2007 at 2:30 PM
I’d love to see more controls on the website, especially for mobile devices, I’m on a Motorola Q Smartphone right now myself. There are a number of tools I would like to see, and of course do it all with CSS so it can be reformatted for mobile devices easily.
1. Ability to initiate a conversation with someone in world, even if only as crude as an email like system
2. Group management tools, invite/eject people, etc
3. Maybe some money tools, send Lindens etc
4. Land management toos would be great to, see the “About Land” tool on the web, change settings and return objects remotely
5. Inventory management, being able to organize your inventory and send items to others inworld
I’m actually a bit of a budding web designer myself with experience in PHP/MySQL, some Perl, some Python, and all the HTML extensions (DHTML, XML, CSS, JS, etc), as well as experience woth Flash and desktop and mobile platforms. Are you guys looking for people in this field?
February 16th, 2007 at 2:32 PM
With this and previous blog entries, it is clear Linden Lab is preparing itself for even more exponential growth than we have already seen. With an estimated 1 billion computers worldwide, even if only one half of 1% visit Second Life and at least start an account that would be 50 million accounts! ….imagine that!
Besides, I have always felt that the website does not convey the true diversity of Second Life. Rather than focusing on the avant garde within Second Life, I feel it would be more beneficial to show the growth and strength of communties and group activities. Those of us who have become commited Second Life enthusiasts continue to return because of the communities we have built and the relationships we have fostered. All of us are building a “Brave New World” together. And if we can encourage those with similar interests to join us, a new social revolution can begin.
I also imagine an introductory flash page before accessing the main page would quickly give visitors a concept of the purpose and activities of Second Life.
February 16th, 2007 at 2:42 PM
Totally agree with the need for an interface to work with inventory and I have noticed that every time SL crashes since I have been a member (ok ok only a bit more than a month, but I’m here nearly EVERY day ) one of the MAIN requests we get is to restrict in and out inventory transactions.
So knowing only enough about computers to be dangerous to myself and others, I follow the bouncing ball and think hmmmmm…. just may help the load problems then ??
and….one always feels so rude saying ‘go away please, I’m sorting inventory (again)’
February 16th, 2007 at 2:54 PM
i really careless about the website - its not broken, why fix it? however what i do care about and i can not emphasize enough is the broken grid/server/everything! for the past hour, i have been trying to move…in only short steps- not possible! 31K users online again - same ole same ole as usual, grid restart - no tp’s/ nothing is working! you LL’s are really getting close to the category of SOE who messed up a perfect game(swg)!
smedley and torres anyone?!
February 16th, 2007 at 2:56 PM
Inventory tool for offline work would be awsome. Also a way to IM friends that are inworld from web when like I’m offline somewhere that can’t run SL would be sweet.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:06 PM
inventory! inventory! inventory! please/thankyou it would be particularly usefull if objects could be seen and identified and/or if duplicates could be highlighted. is this possible?
February 16th, 2007 at 3:10 PM
This seems like a good idea on the surface, but haven’t we been having problems with the asset server(s) lately? Isn’t that what is causing most of the lag on the grid? So if inventory is editable offline, and that information has to come from somewhere, isn’t it just going to put more strain on the servers and lead to more asset lag in-world? You can’t say it’s ONLY going to load down the web-servers, as I said, that data has to come from somewhere.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:11 PM
If this project is successful, will LL be replacing the current profile window with this web interface in-world?
February 16th, 2007 at 3:26 PM
If I could do the “routine” stuff in SL - including managing my inventory, making payments, and carrying on out-of-character discussions - through an SSL-secured browser interface (or, even better, an XML API) instead of the increasingly fragile 3d client, that would be great.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:44 PM
Wanted:
OFF-GRID INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
—————————————-
The ability to use a web based system to organize inventory contents. rename items, move things from folder to folder. The added ability to initiate inventory (and money) TRANSFERS to other members of SL.. while I’m off-grid.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:48 PM
OOoh!
Automatic Transaction History Subscriptions
————————————————
The ability to flip a switch, and have your transaction history for the last month, emailed to you in either plain text (body of the email) or one of several formats (Excel, Comma deliniated, etc)
February 16th, 2007 at 3:49 PM
Sounds nice to have a web frontend to more management stuff.
wouldn’t it be cool if you could return objects from a webpage on your cellphone…
Just make sure we can get into the world and do stuff, or management tools aren’t useful
not having to go inworld could help with concurrency also, not in a major way, but a few more people not in world to change parcel settings…
the addition of web tools is a good thing
February 16th, 2007 at 3:49 PM
(Clarification)…
Sorry.. the ability to flip a switch.. meaning mark a checkmark on the website.. so that the system will AUTOMATICALLY email your selected format to you EVERY MONTH.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:53 PM
WOW!!!! What an awsome idea hope rosetta. Identify duplicates in the inventory! Imagine how many items could be eliminated (umm.. automatic?) if I could goto MySL.com and do a scan on my inventory (with filters) to find duplicated items and ‘click - delete’. Oooo.. and another (off topic thought) Put a Die on Date (DoD) tag function on items when created. Useful to clear things no longer useful after a certain date. ~~~visions of a lighter data base load ~~~.. Ok another thought (back on topic) Do you want a good website where residents can go and do a mutitude of account adjustments and that works quite well? LEAVE THE ONE YOU HAVE ALONE!!! But, if the ploy is to have residents fumbling aound out of world ‘building’ their MySL website so as to ease theload on the grid.. by all means go for it! Let ‘em configure font colors, frame placements, background images for EVERY stinking page there is, add visdeos and sounds!! hell yea.. keep em busy out of world for days and days!!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:55 PM
Yeah here we go, hassle the crap out of the Web team for the Grid teams problems, it really helps, NOT, why don’t we just move everyone including the cleaners onto the grid issues, or don’t let anyone else do anything else till you lot say it’s ok…………………….
Then you’ll whinge because no ones working on Havok 2, Linux or Vista clients………………..
February 16th, 2007 at 3:55 PM
@brocolli
quote:
“JayR, maybe the reason some people “don’t stick to what blogs are for” is because we didn’t ask for the blog, don’t want a blog, and would much prefer a useable forum which is far more accessible for any kind of discussion.”
Please don’t presume to speak for others. By “we” you mean “you” for the purposes of your post. Regardless of what you want or do not want as far as forums are concerned, many of us DO want the blogs, and DO want to stick to the topic. That you don’t want them, didn’t ask for them, and want some other sort of forum for a more free exchange of ideas, is all fine and honorable. You have that forum already at stratics. The Linden blog in no way should detract from that. If you don’t see value in it, don’t want it, then simply do not read it, and certainly do not comment in it. It is clearly not the forum for you. For many others, it has value. That value is diminished with off topic comments, complaints, gripes, etc. Why does this continue to be such a difficult concept to grasp? If it doesn’t suit you, don’t come here. It’s that simple. All that being said, this is not a “forum” anyway. So what’s the problem?
No offense intended here.. I just really have a hard time understanding why people continue to make this space their own personal soap box. If you appreciate the value of the Linden blog, then consume it and participate in it, within the realm of common sense and reason. If you don’t appreciate it, and don’t see any value in it, then you can simply refrain from reading it.
I apologize for my own off topic comment.
zk
February 16th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
Absolutely, inventory, inventory, inventory, INVENTORY. Give us a chance to get ours under control in an environment where we don’t have group IM’s, private IM’s, customers to assist, griefers to deal with, friends logging on and forcing our inventory to go back up to the top………….
We desperately need to be able to use the website for this!
February 16th, 2007 at 4:00 PM
I would very much like to take a part as that functionality would be very beneficial to those of use who check our “second life” via the web site from our RL hectic schedules and can not always log on to the grid. I can give you any time but it depends on the Day of the week for me.
February 16th, 2007 at 5:11 PM
Oh yes inventory management!
i cant do it with all the bugs in world its just way too frustrating…. folders staying open…
February 16th, 2007 at 5:24 PM
offline modeling app and scripting so you don’t have to be i world to make stuff would be a big help too!
Some people would pay for such an app!
February 16th, 2007 at 5:27 PM
I notice something here… right after Phillip Linden’s personal request blog for a special helper at LL, here on the official blog some new and unprecedented threads of new SL policy have appeared, threads which happen to also address many previous grievances from residents. I am sure glad that Philip Linden has made an appearance here.
Glad! Golly! Mr. Philip Linden! If results like this happen when you show up, Please! Show up more often! Anywhere! You are welcome here, and in SL too, as far as I’m concerned. In fact, if I meet up with you, I’ll fight off any griefer that attacks you in my presence, even if I get banned for it. (That Last was meant as a joke.)
February 16th, 2007 at 5:40 PM
I agree with the comments above— the ability to do uploads, create clothing, and organize inventory without being logged on to SL would not only be a major advantage to actually getting some work done without interruptions, but also potentially reduce grid load.
… and it would be especially welcome if web-based and Mac-friendly.
February 16th, 2007 at 5:55 PM
Here is my 2 cents -sure some are repeats but the scroll-factor is already… outtahand.
I agree with so many of both the blasts about the back-end and keeping clear on priorities- they are related technically. *But it is also vital to take some pressure off the grid, and continue innovation – everything does not have to happen live in SL – it must just appear to.
I can’t say enough about the lag-saving potential of customization – some of us are very frugal and don’t need to add to the load.
*Keep *premium members* in mind and give some perks – ex: SL email address, the ability to customize the interface(s), in-out world communications such as IM, and greater detail in email forwarding are all perks paying members deserve. Need to underscore that more distinctions need to be made for paid members – otherwise we start to feel like: what’s the point? So this is an opportunity.
*As for the website - please allow it to be seamlessly connected to in-world resources and experience - such as transactions, friends, IM, search/events, profiles, INVENTORY etc, and provide ways on both sides to enter the other, track history of stuff we do at say the SL- Exchange too.
*Naming/address issues - I like the suggestion for a short name like MYSL.com - beats typing a longer one anytime – tho it seems you are interested in using a sub domain in the proposal?… Just try not to create: http://www.anotherplaceyougottagotogettosecondlife.com
*INVENTORY management on the website would be a godsend and not to mention unspeakably smart! Inventory is one of pain points in SL - even the interface knows this ’cause it tells us so each day!
*Mapping =amen there and then some. this could be a new frontier for SL.
Overall I am saying that we need not think about this as in-world vs. out-world activity but as an integrated… realm that is the universe of SL.
Thanks.
February 16th, 2007 at 6:24 PM
if jesse linden can meet with only 15 people at a time I propose that 15 different groups are created. Members in each group select 1 person that will represent them when the meeting takes place. Each group has meetings at least once a week to decide what their representative will ask at the meeting with jesse linden. Than the LL creates a web page(blog) where all the SL users can vote on which of those requests should be implemented. Each request will be available for voting for only 1 month. If during that month it doesn’t have enough votes(or number of those that say NO to it is bigger than those that say YES) it should be removed from the voting page, and put on a page that contains other requests that didn’t pass.
February 16th, 2007 at 6:52 PM
I’ll add my 2 cents for the following suggestions:
* Ability to manage inventory off-grid
(SL client is a resource hog and takes FOREVER to sort
things IN-world…)
Even if all we can do is *sort*, it will help
LOTS in the long run.
* If you have “send IM’s to email” checked, STOP CAPPING
THE IM’S THAT ARE GOING TO EMAIL.
Or at least increase the limit of them. What is it
now, 5 or some equally pitiful number?
February 16th, 2007 at 6:55 PM
To: Tristan Debs
You’re right, of course. Appearance is everything in the business world. But the important thing to remember here is LL started with more nerds than PR types. If memory serves, the people who put up a good public face have only been hired on recently in LL’s history. There’s a lot of damage control to perform. ^.^;
There’s many ways in the computing world to fix problems, but usually only two or three right ways (sometimes only one). Choosing a path can close down other options. So when you’re picking a choice for an exponentially growing system to handle the strain you don’t deal with a few weeks or a few months down the road, or at least not JUST those issues, you deal with the issues that will arise in a year or two. Lots of careful planning and testing is required, or else SL could one day reach a point where they can’t segment the grid servers anymore to alleviate bandwidth problems. Or to the point where they can’t upgrade their database due to the sheer volume of data that can’t be converted. And so on.
As was said, the switch to Mono is likely one of those long term steps that will improve grid stability. Another could be this new website idea. It seems I picked the right two ideas to put forth too. ^.^;
If you don’t have to log in to message friends online, you’re sparing the asset server having to load your avatar, and the sim server because you’re not there to be managed. The inventory through the webpage idea may be a bit taxing on the asset server, but less so than having to log in to move stuff around. It’s also more system friendly because I’m sure we can all agree that web browsers are easier on your computer than the SL client. The most important thing about not having to log in however is less overall bandwidth usage for the grid. Any communication is done in small bursts to and from the web server instead of a constant stream of textures, sound, and avatar movements.
February 16th, 2007 at 7:32 PM
Definately need a better way to do inventory. I have trouble SEEING the folders, couldn’t it become a separate adjustable window?
February 16th, 2007 at 7:33 PM
An SLIM program was alraedy suggested for IM’s, but that’s what email is for too :p. And! It’s not that we want “Web Designers” working inside SL, it’s that we don’t want LL wasting time with “Web Designers” :p no offence to any WD’s.
Oh and, for the love of god name it SL Personal or something, not My SL…might as well steal myspace’s name and make it just as crap
February 16th, 2007 at 8:43 PM
Well since I couldn’t get online to get in on a meeting I’ll post my thoughts here…
#1 bring back the Linden Answers forum and ASSIGN 3-4 people to answer posts daily. It is scalable, just mandate some resources to it.
#2 Make policy to have ALL BLOG POSTS with comments turned ON! How can you possibly know for sure that an entry won’t cause someone to think of an important question….good bad or ugly EVERYTHING deserves to be heard.
#3 Get with the times, get about 100 employees for support to start an ONLINE SUPPORT CHAT. Most companies that I deal with have this, very quick response, and VERY useful for people who don’t want to waste cell minutes waiting on hold for support.
February 16th, 2007 at 10:19 PM
Good luck..hope it runs better then sl.
February 16th, 2007 at 11:44 PM
to everyone her who is telling LL to fix the grid ect…
do you think that everyone who works at LL has the knowledge or experience to fix the grid?
the people who will be doing the web redesign are not involved with grid maintenance. there is a team working on that. it’s like asking an electrician to fix a broken water pipe.
get off their backs, the grid is recovering, they are fixing it.
February 17th, 2007 at 6:16 AM
Chronic said it best. So much misunderstanding from folks not in the IT industry not understanding you can’t just take away from one area and put it in another area and have it work out. No web work fix the grid is nieve at best, but shows the very strong feelings people are having about the grid.
The truth is, the more we can all do on the web the less we are all doing in world so those that are in world have a better experience. I for one am moving as much development as I can externally. I would love to see an upload quota over the linden upload charge. The dilemma is that the whole point of SL to many is to get rid of their other interfaces to the net and collaboration in favor of being on SL. Perhaps this is where the angst about what appears to be promoting the web over the SL grid itself is coming from.
I agree with other posters that LL has serious _business_ issues in addition to the technical ones, failing PR, poor finance rules for in world, lack of sufficient venture capital, etc. Here’s to helping LL any way we can.
February 17th, 2007 at 6:20 AM
1. Organize inventory
2. give items to others
3. give L$ to others
4. customize the page.
5. search for friends via email address.
6. see which friends are online
February 17th, 2007 at 7:02 AM
I think including more and more HOLES for hackers to get our personal info is a mistake.
Id personaly like to see the website have NOTHING at all to do with my personal info and my second life account.
I think its a big mistake and will simply exploit more open doors for the hackers to get into and really take a dump on.
Thanks for thinking about security first hand before you started to think about makeing things able to be done from your website.
Second Life is second life and if you want to change your profile info and things like that LOG into Second Life and do it there.
This could be a HUGE problem if Linden Labs slips like they did with the last data base hack if everyone has forgotten.
Oh no problem lets not tell everyone for a few days and then just have them all change there passwords and say its fixed lol.
And im getting sick of the random post I read every now and then that says “Oh I have NO problems with Second Life it runs like a kitten for me” Your a *** Kisser thats all you are lol.
Second Life is running on borrowed time and when that tp works its just pure luck it did.
Id say that the system taking over 10 mins to log me out is NOT running like a kitten.
Anyway thats off topic.
February 17th, 2007 at 7:41 AM
In response to the “do you want web devs working on the grid”, I say this….
People who work on the grid are going to be pretty well informed, and can probably do web dev in their sleep. I mean, if you can write code for the grid, web dev is going to be a piece of p***. So I’d imagine that people may be “borrowed” to do that.
Secondly, who says their is an actual web dev department? Maybe everyone does a bit of everything.
Thirdly… web changes and the way in interacts with the grid (such as land, partners, etc) may require additional dev work on the grid that otherwise wouldn’t be need.
So….. can it!
February 17th, 2007 at 8:03 AM
INVENTORY CONTROL WHILE OUT OF SL WORLD
This would be a great feature to have and may also take some of the load off the grid since it is necessary to go in world in order to do mundane inventory cleaning. Please give the ability to delete, rename, transfer, move items around while out of world through the new website scenario.
February 17th, 2007 at 8:08 AM
As i read above: editing profile, uploading photos e.t.c. please more visible information especially for new (not premium user), otherwise fine SL.
February 17th, 2007 at 8:21 AM
*rolls her eyes and sighs sadly*
Web development people working on Grid development. Yeah, guys. When will you people understand that each person on the Linden team is not proficient at all aspects of Second Life and its underlying support structure? Do you want your automobile mechanic to cap your teeth? Do you want your dentist to do your income taxes. Do you want your income tax person fixing your leaky radiator? Please think before you bitch — and then pick a thread where your complaints are on-topic.
Speaking of which — back to the topic:
Sadly, my work schedule will make it almost impossible for me to commit to a specific time/date, so I won’t be able to attend one of those meeting, but I do have some comments I’d like to make, mostly re-iterating suggestions that have already been made.
Anything that can be done from a website that we normally do in-world would contribute to descreasing lag on the Grid. This is a no-brainer. Every single avatar in a sim contributes to “regional lag”. I would love to be able to sort through my inventory without using the SL client, which, because of the way it opens and closes folders without my permission is *not* an effecient way to perform this function. Responding to IMs through a website would be a wonderful addition. “My SL”? See the first line in my post. “My ” is a cliche so bad that it almost defines the term. I’ll also throw in my two-cents’ worth for offline modeling and scripting, as well as uploading and downloading files like textures and animations. Some of us would kill to be able to do this stuff without being in-world. The ability to work on large projects without dealing with the crowding at public sandboxes and the griefers that hang out there would increase our productivity enormously.
In fact, I see no reason that modeling/scripting/inventory management/avatar editing couldn’t be done from the SL client without actually going in-world to do it, and that’s a slightly off-topic suggestion I’d like to throw out. This wouldn’t be through a website, but directly through the SL client through a “connect but not render” feature. We wouldn’t actually be in-world, with access to the Grid, but we would have access to everything in our inventory, as well as basic building, scripting, and avatar editing capabilities (including the ability to upload/download files).
Basically, I support *anything* that will let us work without having to actually go in-world to do it, and the proposed website seems to me to be a good step in that direction.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:58 AM
The concept of my.secondlife.com is excellent. Would like server access to my inventory and profile to organize and edit offline. Many people have spare time out of world and would love this opportunity. Another feature might be IM access from my.secondlife.com to friends signed in and online.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:35 AM
[...] Jesse Linden posted a request for volunteers to participate in a usability review. While initially worried that Linden Lab were undertaking this [...]
February 17th, 2007 at 11:43 AM
The grid is down:(
What is happening?
Why doesn’t LL post a blog about it?
February 17th, 2007 at 1:06 PM
I don’t know about you guys but as a business owner who truly tries to maximize my advertising dollar, could use some new features that are almost just as important as the game itself being up to me. Most of them being transaction reporting, report downloads, and other business crucial data retrieval mechanisms. If we are going to build any types of interface for users of SL, please remember the business owner and transaction reporting. This is “real” money and I would like to have better access to all of it’s data.
February 17th, 2007 at 1:19 PM
I trust there are plans to give us an inworld browser that can access all the features of the enhanced secondlife.com site.
February 17th, 2007 at 2:49 PM
[...] selber denkt ständig über eine Integration von Second Life in das klassische Web2.0 nach: … control over your Second Life experience. [...]
February 17th, 2007 at 3:12 PM
I miss essential discussion about some ethical implications of Second Life. Potentially it could revolutionise global communication as did ear