Today, we’re releasing Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0 Beta) on our Beta release channel. This is an exciting release for us for two reasons. First, this release marks the first Viewer download since we announced the Snowstorm Team at SLCC in August. The Snowstorm Team has been working in the open to share our design and development process and directly engage with open source developers. Second, this beta release also marks the beginning of a new approach to our release process. Since we kicked off Project Snowstorm, we’ve made the latest Development Viewer available to Residents nightly so they can see our day to day progress and try out new things as soon as they’re in a build.

In our Beta and Release channels, we will make Viewers available to you more frequently. Our plan is to update Betas weekly with new official releases happening every 3-4 weeks. This lets us get new ideas and features into your hands faster and it gives us the ability to react to your feedback more quickly.

This latest beta release of Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0 Beta), is mostly focused on bug fixes, but also includes some great user interface customization options. Here’s a quick run-down of what you’ll find in this release:

Many of these features came to the official Viewer through resident contributions, both directly by way of the Snowstorm team, as well as indirectly through past contributions to the Snowglobe project. Thank you to all of you who have contributed code, testing, and commentary. Please keep it up!

To view a full list of changes, see the Release Notes.

Download the Beta Viewer : Windows | Mac | Linux

Please note that, as always on the beta channel, we only support one beta viewer at a time. If you’re using an older Beta Viewer, then you will be asked to upgrade on your next login.

Thank you!

In January of this year, Linden Lab purchased Avatars United as part of our social strategy and a larger ambition to integrate powerful social networking capabilities into the Second Life experience -- to make it even faster, easier, and more fun to find friends, build vibrant communities, and share the richness of Second Life with fellow Residents inworld and friends outside of Second Life. We purchased Avatars United for its underlying social technology -- the ability to create social networks, communities and groups.

Examples of Real Estate Listings on Marketplace have been posted in all of the available categories on Marketplace.

Mainland         
Rentals     
- - undeveloped land
- - developed land     
Parcel sales     
- - undeveloped land
- - developed land

         
Private Islands         
Island Transfers     
- - Full Regions
- - Homesteads
- - Open Sim
Parcel sales
- - Full Regions
- - - developed land        
- - - undeveloped land                 
- - Homesteads
- - - developed land
- - - undeveloped land

The intention of these categories is to provide a free temporary solution for residents who found the XStreet Real Estate listings useful. We will not be migrating the current Xstreet real estate listings to the Marketplace.

In the examples posted, the shopper can purchase a free "token" that provides a Landmark to the land in world. The shopper then needs to purchase the land in world or arrange the transaction with the Merchant. The purchase of the token does not result in the ownership of the land. We are working to present the shopper with a notice in the check out process that makes this clear.

Note: The item listed must be listed as Free.

See an Example Listing

Sincerely,
Grant and the Commerce Team

Quick Links:

SL Marketplace Help Pages

Deutsch

Français

日本語

Português

Our first Release Candidate (RC) on the BlueSteel channel passed; it  has survived for 6 days without any bugs, so it will be deployed to the  Release channel tomorrow. The Release channel is the "main" channel that  95% of you are on right now. The day after tomorrow we'll then update  BlueSteel to the next Release Candidate.

I mentioned that we will  have up to 3 RC channels running at once (BlueSteel, LeTigre, and  Magnum). These first two projects are our transition projects, and so  they need to be done sequentially. After this next one leaves BlueSteel  we will then be able to start running parallel RCs. Expect to see  LeTigre start to get built out this week and Magnum the week following.

The schedule & info is:

• 2010-09-21, 6:00am: Deploy 10.9.10 to all of Agni (release notes)
• 2010-09-22, 8:00am: Roll our next RC project to BlueSteel (release notes coming)

Please take questions & comments to the forums.

The Second Life Railroad (SLRR) is upgrading the track, switches, signals, etc. Our first effort along those lines is the North Coast line, which runs from Crumbi to Spangle, with stations at PawPaw, Tussock and Melanthia. A small switching-yard is being laid out at Tussock, near the station; and PawPaw is developing into a junction with the Mountain branch line.

The platforms are in place at Tussock, but the Moles have yet to construct the station there.

Switches and the associated signals are pretty much complete along the line.

Try out your own train, or ride on someone else's train! You can find various railway vehicles by using the Search tool. All aboard for fun on the railway!

The SL Marketplace is almost ready to come out of beta and replace XstreetSL as the primary shopping destination for Second Life. The launch of this new virtual goods platform is laying the foundation for  the future of online commerce for Second Life and we will continue to build upon and improve the experience and offerings as time goes on. We have exciting feature milestones and future projects planned and look forward to our continued collaboration with the community to create an amazing online shopping experience. Here’s a peek into what’s ahead:

A Boxless Future
We are planning a new delivery service to make Magic Boxes a thing of the  past. Instead of delivering purchased items inside of Magic Boxes, they  will be delivered directly to a customer’s inventory without any need to rez before hand. This will solve a myriad of issues for merchants and create a much easier and seamless experience for shoppers.

Improved Gifting
We all know the importance of gifting and transferring items and recognize  the current issues around gifting and delivery. Our goal is to provide a  dependable and elegant solution for gifting that will include timed  delivery and the ability for Residents to accept gifts so they will never miss a delivery.

Better Merchant Tools to save creators time
Merchants have been asking for tools that allow them to spend more time creating  and less time managing listings. In the future we will be adding the ability for merchants to load images and listing descriptions in bulk, to combine color variations in single listings to simplify both search results and purchasing and to allow merchants to give other Residents permission to assistants working on their listings.

Features to increase sales
We have already heard positive feedback from customers saying that the new look and feel of the SL Marketplace as well as the ability to load up  their shopping carts is creating a better shopping experience, which is gradually resulting in increased sales for merchants. However, there is much more we can do to add value. Merchants can look forward promoting their items with coupons and an integrated advertisement portal. Also,  merchants and shoppers will be able to promote items on Facebook or Twitter automatically using their profile settings, which will create a broader audience for inworld shops and SL Marketplace items.

Wishlists to rule them all
Wishlist features that we are very excited about are lists that can include both  SL Marketplace and inworld items and lists that can be kept private for personal use or publicized on profiles for friends to see.

What would you like to see?
We hope that this glimpse of some of our future plans gets you thinking  about what you would like to see. We use your feedback to both build our  features list and to help drive feature prioritization. Other features  in the works that need your input include better reporting tools, new  ways to display images and a robust personal messaging system. 

We  are looking forward to hearing your feedback. Please share your comments with us, I’ll be out of the office for the next few days and reviewing your input when I return.

Sincerely,
Grant and the Commerce Team

Quick Links:
SL Marketplace Help Pages
Deutsch
Français
日本語
Português

The data migration planned to begin today has been moved to September 20th to allow merchants with duplicate listings to make updates. Merchants with duplicate listings will be alerted via email from Linden Lab.  Please be sure to check your email and update your duplicate listings as soon as possible to make the September 20th migration.

Note:  This migration will also include product reviews.

Thank you.

Brodesky Linden

Saving a couple seconds to do a task in Second Life may not seem like much — until you multiply that by dozens, hundreds, even thousands of times. Minor disruptions to workflow make for severe pain, I know! I've noticed many of the more effective paths have been stumbled across or discovered by experimentation, and while I heart serendipity, it tends to take too long to get consistent results, leaving people going: " AUGH! I wish I knew that earlier!"

I've been creating various "utility help pages" covering repetitive steps — I do the work so you don't have to — and my latest one, fittingly enough, addresses "Different ways to do the same thing" as this featured video shows:

• A new Resident looking to see if there's an easier way to do basic essentials like moving your avatar
• An advanced Resi making sure you have the bases covered
• In a situation that requires adaptation, like running the Second Life Viewer on different platforms (there's a link to PC and Mac shortcut key differences, too)
• Simply curious about what your options are, so you can make the best choice for your personal preferences

These types of questions come up so often in our forums and elsewhere, and if you spot a hot omission, go ahead and let me know in the comments, or add it to the wiki help page directly (login to wiki.secondlife.com and click the edit tab on the page — I made a video for this, too). Here's the jumbo link so ya can't miss it:

Different ways to do the same thing