- Why Is IMVU Usage Slipping — And Will Second Life Share the Same Fate?
- A Coffee Table Book Devoted to Second Life is Coming Soon for Holiday Shopping — Here's a Preview from the Author!
- Watch: Philip Rosedale, Seamus "Father of the Xbox" Blackley, and Chet Faliszek (Portal 1/2) Endorse Harris/Walz
- Second Life Doesn't Have Official Discord Integration, So Peter Stindberg Created Bridging Apps. Up to 10% of Active SLers Already Use Them!
- In Praise of Siobhán Muintir, Queen of Curating Second Life Flickr Groups
- Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2024年9月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan
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After writing about reports that Linden Lab has recently made staff cuts in Engineering & Governance/Customer Support, company head Brad Oberwager reached out to me. A long, heartfelt Zoom call ensued. I'm still spelunking through our chat transcript, but I can say that we discussed those Linden job changes, rumors around them, along with updates to the mobile app, and how all this relates to the future of Second Life. That brought up some fairly fascinating and surprising revelations, some that may lead to community debate (as is inevitably the case), but overall I'd say are pretty positive.
All that's coming soon. Meantime, here's a special request:
If you value in-depth reports like this, please consider joining/subscribing to my Patreon. It's the main way I support New World Notes, and it's still not clear how I can continue NWN without growing that Patreon base. And along with other special benefits, members get early/exclusive access to in-depth articles I write. Like this one!
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Coffee Pancake, co-host of the largest Second Life-themed group on Reddit, recently noticed an odd trend in her subreddit related to IMVU users, and began investigating.
Her findings coincide with some data points I've been wondering about myself — IMVU has shed millions of monthly active users in recent years, with even website traffic from its official site slipping beneath Second Life. (Even though on paper, SL has about 500,000 active users, versus IMVU's 4 million or so.)
What's going on? Here's Coffee Pancake's observations around the recent decline of IMVU activity — which includes a hidden warning for Second Life too. – WJA
We're seeing an uptick in new users on the Second Life subreddit, some specifically mention having come from IMVU. There has been something of an exodus going on the last few years that might have stepped up in our direction lately. Curiosity got the better of me, so down the rabbit hole I went.* While I am not an expert on IMVU, I hope my observations provide an informed perspective, yet my impressions may contain mistakes and misconceptions (and I welcome any feedback).
For Second Life users unfamiliar: IMVU is a more socially focused platform, designed around a chatroom-based structure and social mechanics. A notable difference is that avatars can't freely walk and must instead pick from specific predetermined places to sit or pose, an open world skipped in favor of only hosting social destinations.
The entire platform is a series of chat rooms of various flavors, some made by the operators, most made by the users. There's shopping, mini-games, and an Instagram-style feed. Fundamentally, not much is going on aside from dressing up, posting and reacting to thirst on the feeds, hanging out, chatting, and engaging in many forms of roleplay. Family groups (including adopted child-like avatars) form a core social foundation with a range of themes and styles springing from that. This includes a considerable amount of adult and kink activity (with illicit 'market rooms' known for black market content), combat, furries, holding court, and the occasional coven for the obligatory vampires.
Basically, all the stuff we do [in SL], for all of the same reasons… with less walking. So, while their avatars do have legs, they don't get out much.
I've done some research into IMVU community spaces online, and the following issues are mentioned frequently:
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Welcome Haridsam Resident aka Hari Sutherland as the first Metaverse-level partner on my Patreon! He recently signed to launch the perfect project for holiday shopping: SECOND LIFE – The True Virtual World in Words and Pictures, a coffee table book set for release next month.
To be first to know when it's available on Amazon, follow Haridsam on his Primfeed.
"I see this volume as a celebration of all that's best about Second Life," he tell me. "My primary hope is that current residents will be reminded of, and in some cases discover for the first time, the beauty and wonder of our virtual world… Beyond that, I'd love it if people curious about virtual worlds and all the metaverse buzz and hype discover my book and find it intriguing enough to bring them into SL to check out all the possibilities it offers. The text portion of the volume is largely directed to that goal.
"Second Life is, in my experience, the best and by far the most realistic metaverse we have. It's my hope that, together, we'll continue to help it flourish and grow."
Hari shared these sneak preview pages from his book — along with some background on what brought him to Second Life, what inspired him to write it, and his own personal recommendations across the virtual world:
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Yanash Vaniva is a Second Life artist who has several exhibitions in-world, but she also shares her art on Flickr. I was drawn to this picture and not just because green is my favorite color. There is this fluidity in the air and his back curves with the wind. It’s even more striking because he is in silhouette. I can almost feel the air moving.
For more of her art, click here:
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The Discord Experts from Peter Stindberg is one of the very most popular new-ish Second Life brands in my reader survey, and that's no surprise: As the name suggests, it connects Second Life to Discord, the most popular messaging app for gamers worldwide. (Now with 150 million monthly active users, according to the company's own stats.) While Linden Lab hasn't yet launched an official SL-to-Discord API, Peter has been adding numerous bridging applications to his Marketplace, including the one above: An add-on which enables you to track visitors on your Second Life region from Discord.
Already quite popular (more info down the way), the Discord Experts brand began in 2019/2020 by happenstance, Peter tells me:
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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Jonathan Negru has an amazing album called Historic Imitations in which he recreates photos from history. I featured one of his photos in yesterday’s column. This is a recreation from a photo by Edward Sheriff Curtis taken in 1904 in the collection of Portland Art Museum. He even provides a link to where he created and shot the picture.
For more historic imitations, click here:
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Sanny Yoshikawa が、New World Notesのなかから、毎月おすすめのバーチャルワール
ドニュースを日本語で紹介 しますSanny Yoshikawa covers the monthly virtual world highlights from New World Notes for virtual Japan.
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I recently got a Pro account to SimilarWeb, one of the best (or least worst) web analytics firms, and almost immediately came across this surprising data point above: Traffic to Second Life's website is significantly larger than than to IMVU's site, with about 6.5 million visits last month versus 5 million, respectively. (SimilarWeb counts both from PC and mobile visits.)
This is notable, because the narrative until very recently is IMVU had far outstripped Second Life. Both launched at roughly the same time, but after releasing a mobile app and making mobile central to the experience, IMVU leapfrogged by 2020 to having 7 million monthly active users.
However, that's fairly drastically changed since 2024:
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 