Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: Linden Lab News & Analysis
-
UPDATE, October 11: Grumpity Linden reached out to me earlier today, saying Linden Lab does indeed want to discuss this news with me for the record, late next week. So stay tuned for that! I've received many multiple credible reports that Linden Lab has made significant job cuts to staff recently, and am reaching out…
-
Here's the results of my survey last week, asking if you experienced any motion sickness when visiting SecondLife.com's new-ish homepage. I posted that question after receiving some reports of people having that sensation, so was curious how widespread that reaction is. Turns out, a fair amount: Reaction was nearly evenly split, with 46% saying they…
-
I spent most of yesterday's Second Life update meeting from Linden Lab preparing to blog about the mobile launch, but I also took some rough notes on current progress/upcoming features announced by the dev team, including Signal Linden (Bennett Goble) a head Software Engineer at the company: PBR graphics improvements: The Lindens acknowledged user complaints…
-
Just announced at Linden Lab's town hall meeting for the virtual world's 21st birthday: Second Life for mobile is now officially in public beta, and is now available for all Premium and Premium+ subscribers. Go to the official site's new mobile page to get it, or find direct app store links below. Yes, at long…
-
In February I reported that Linden Lab was investigating allegations posted to social media regarding toxic internal company operations among some staffers, which the company publicly confirmed in March. Now Brad Oberwager, Linden Lab's Executive Chairman, has an update to those investigations which include strengthening regulations against sexualized age play, and policies around favoritism and…
-
Tilia, Linden Lab's spinoff company for processing virtual currency to real money payments in Second Life, Upland (more here), VRChat (more here), and other virtual worlds, was recently acquired by fintech company Thunes: To accelerate its growth in the United States and its presence in the fast-expanding online gaming market, Thunes, a global cross-border payments…
-
Update, 4/24: SL usage analyst Tyche just told me: "The last equivalent figure I have is from Jan 2021 where Premium mainland owners was 68,409." So I've updated the Premium estimate accordingly! In case you missed it, Linden Lab unveiled the latest update to its Second Life on mobile project last week (watch above), which…
-
Courtesy Convai,the AI company partnering with Linden Lab to bring helpful NPC guides for new Second Life uers, here's an in-world demo of Convai bots in action. It's an early prototype demo, so I don't want to judge too harshly, but I think Convai's "intelligent bots" will need to be deployed much differently to have…
-
Last month I reported that Linden Lab was investigating allegations posted to social media regarding toxic internal company operations among some staffers. Now Brad Oberwager, Linden Lab's Executive Chairman, is publicly confirming this, and reporting that the investigation is ongoing and expanding: I promise we hear you. We know you're angry and you're confused. We…
-
I blogged about AI-powered NPC conversations from startup Convai last year (see demo below), and today's there's news that Linden Lab will use this technology in Second Life: Convai has joined forces with industry giants such as Frost Giant Studios, Linden Lab, and Carbonated to integrate AI NPCs into their games. These collaborations underscore the…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 