This week, we cover the final installment of our summarized history of Second Life and Linden Lab (check out the first installment or the second, if you missed them). It's only possible to cover a tiny fraction of the events that took place in the space we have here, but the highlights paint an interesting picture.

We'll be working our way from 2008 to June 2010, and looking at what future directions we expect from there.

Continue reading The Virtual Whirl: A brief history of Second Life, 2008-2010 and beyond

The Virtual Whirl: A brief history of Second Life, 2008-2010 and beyond originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's been quite a year for Second Life, through 2009. This or that media outlet still pronounces it to be dead, though it is quite a bit less common than last year or the year before. After five years of obituaries with no sign that they're any more credible now than they were before, a number of routine nay-sayers have turned their attention elsewhere, writing obituaries for Facebook and Twitter.

From a business perspective, Second Life seems to have had a good year. No major growth, but no major declines either. There's a minor decline in concurrent users over time, though it's hardly become a significant data point. Still, we're very much looking forward to the metrics and time-frames that Linden Lab will use in coming weeks to announce 'strong fourth quarter growth.'

Continue reading Second Life 2009: The year in review

Second Life 2009: The year in review originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Rezzable Productions, developers and maintainers of a set of among the most successful public art and entertainment areas in Second Life have announced that after months of planning, they're shutting down their Second Life operations this month and moving their operations to Heritage Key.

Heritage Key brings history to life on Rezzable's own OpenSim-derived installation, and custom viewer. It's all Second Life-derived tech, but that's what Rezzable knows best.

Continue reading Rezzable moves on from Second Life

Rezzable moves on from Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Hosted by Rezzable Productions in Second Life in conjunction with NPIRL, the garden is an art show, with over a hundred content creators. It has art over four simulators, and up to 3,000 metres above the sims. Some of the creators have provided freebies -- such as free avatars.

Light Waves has produced a puzzle -- a hidden sculpture; there's live concerts and DJs playing throughout; a sandbox with tutorials and a building mash-up and more. To see everything here could take you quite a while. It's running until 23 June, which doesn't leave you a lot of time.

Gallery: Second Life Places - The Garden of NPIRL Delights

Continue reading Second Life Places: The garden of Not Possible In RL delights

Second Life Places: The garden of Not Possible In RL delights originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Virtual world build/art fan-group, NPIRL (Not Possible In Real Life) are opening a huge Second Life art show today (Friday, 16 May) in conjunction with metaverse development group Rezzable Productions. More than a hundred content-creators, artists, architects and scripters are involved

The show runs all the way until 22 June (the day before Second Life's fifth anniversary) and will be holding numerous events (including live-music and tutorials) through the four sims allocated(Rezzable Create, Rezzable Design, Rezzable Discover, and Rezzable Explore) in which are depicted Paradise, Earth and the Underworld.

Spectacular, surreal, varied, complex, crowded, disturbing and delicious. It all starts here.

Garden of NPIRL Delights opens originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 16 May 2008 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.