When we announced that we would be closing Teen Second Life and bringing our under-18 Residents to the Main Grid, we also made clear our intention not to compromise the experience that teens have access to. Today, I’m happy share our plan to create rich and enjoyable Second Life experiences for teens, while keeping in mind their security and safety when joining the Main Grid.

A Rich and Secure Experience for Teens

Our goal is to provide a safe, secure, and rewarding experience to all Second Life Residents, no matter their age. Accordingly, we are putting safeguards in place on the Main Grid specific to the following teen age groups:

For 13- to 15-year-olds:

• 13- to 15-year-old Residents will be restricted to the estates of a sponsoring institution.
• These Residents will not have access to inworld search or our Web-based Marketplace.

For 16- and 17-year-olds:

• 16- and 17-year-old Residents will have access to all SL regions rated General (i.e., containing content appropriate for all ages), on the Mainland and private islands.
• These Residents will not be able to enter Moderate- nor Adult-rated regions, even if they have payment information on file and/or have used our Web-based identity verification system.
• These Residents will be able to communicate fully with and befriend all other users on the Main Grid. This includes local chat and IM.

With nearly 5,000 General-rated regions in Second Life, the area that will be accessible to our 16- and 17-year-old Residents will dwarf the 100 regions currently available on Teen Second Life, giving them far more space to create, explore, and experience their online environment and what they can do there.

Our 16- and 17-year-old account holders will also be able to communicate fully with all other users on the Main Grid (unless they have been muted or otherwise restricted). This was an important decision for us, and one we think will make Second Life richer for all Residents.

Welcoming Teens in the New Year

Bringing teens to the Main Grid is now less than two months away. We plan to shut down the Teen Grid and transfer accounts to the Main Grid in early January, once the holidays have passed. Here’s what to expect:

• When the teen grid closes, 13- to 15-year-olds will no longer be able to register for Second Life unless they are brought in through an affiliated organization. On the Main Grid, these younger Residents will not be able to travel outside the estates of their sponsoring organizations.
• 16- and 17-year-olds registering for Second Life will be directed to the Main Grid rather than to Teen Second Life.
• We will transfer all 16-17s remaining on Teen SL to the main SL grid, as well as those 13-15s that are affiliated with TSL Resident institutions. This includes all the inventory of those accounts. (The accounts of our other 13- to 15-year-old Residents will become inactive, but will be automatically restored when they turn 16.) All of the land on Teen Second Life will be transferred to the Main Grid. This includes teen mainland, teen private islands, and teen organizations’ estates.

At that point, Teen Second Life will be officially closed — but the experience of teens in Second Life is only just beginning. We strongly believe that teens have as much to contribute to the Second Life community as their adult counterparts, and we do not want to restrict the flow of ideas and information between the two groups. We all have much to learn from each other.

As we continue to focus on making the Second Life experience faster, easier, and more fun for all Residents, we’ve also made a number of improvements to search to provide teens with additional security and control. We look forward to seeing the new kinds of creativity and community our teen Residents will bring to the Main Grid. Welcome, teens!

When we announced that we would be closing Teen Second Life and bringing our under-18 Residents to the Main Grid, we also made clear our intention not to compromise the experience that teens have access to. Today, I’m happy share our plan to create rich and enjoyable Second Life experiences for teens, while keeping in mind their security and safety when joining the Main Grid.

A Rich and Secure Experience for Teens

Our goal is to provide a safe, secure, and rewarding experience to all Second Life Residents, no matter their age. Accordingly, we are putting safeguards in place on the Main Grid specific to the following teen age groups:

For 13- to 15-year-olds:

• 13- to 15-year-old Residents will be restricted to the estates of a sponsoring institution.
• These Residents will not have access to inworld search or our Web-based Marketplace.

For 16- and 17-year-olds:

• 16- and 17-year-old Residents will have access to all SL regions rated General (i.e., containing content appropriate for all ages), on the Mainland and private islands.
• These Residents will not be able to enter Moderate- nor Adult-rated regions, even if they have payment information on file and/or have used our Web-based identity verification system.
• These Residents will be able to communicate fully with and befriend all other users on the Main Grid. This includes local chat and IM.

With nearly 5,000 General-rated regions in Second Life, the area that will be accessible to our 16- and 17-year-old Residents will dwarf the 100 regions currently available on Teen Second Life, giving them far more space to create, explore, and experience their online environment and what they can do there.

Our 16- and 17-year-old account holders will also be able to communicate fully with all other users on the Main Grid (unless they have been muted or otherwise restricted). This was an important decision for us, and one we think will make Second Life richer for all Residents.

Welcoming Teens in the New Year

Bringing teens to the Main Grid is now less than two months away. We plan to shut down the Teen Grid and transfer accounts to the Main Grid in early January, once the holidays have passed. Here’s what to expect:

• When the teen grid closes, 13- to 15-year-olds will no longer be able to register for Second Life unless they are brought in through an affiliated organization. On the Main Grid, these younger Residents will not be able to travel outside the estates of their sponsoring organizations.
• 16- and 17-year-olds registering for Second Life will be directed to the Main Grid rather than to Teen Second Life.
• We will transfer all 16-17s remaining on Teen SL to the main SL grid, as well as those 13-15s that are affiliated with TSL Resident institutions. This includes all the inventory of those accounts. (The accounts of our other 13- to 15-year-old Residents will become inactive, but will be automatically restored when they turn 16.) All of the land on Teen Second Life will be transferred to the Main Grid. This includes teen mainland, teen private islands, and teen organizations’ estates.

At that point, Teen Second Life will be officially closed — but the experience of teens in Second Life is only just beginning. We strongly believe that teens have as much to contribute to the Second Life community as their adult counterparts, and we do not want to restrict the flow of ideas and information between the two groups. We all have much to learn from each other.

As we continue to focus on making the Second Life experience faster, easier, and more fun for all Residents, we’ve also made a number of improvements to search to provide teens with additional security and control. We look forward to seeing the new kinds of creativity and community our teen Residents will bring to the Main Grid. Welcome, teens!

It has been several weeks since we announced that Teen Second Life, our Second Life grid for 13- to 17-year-olds, will be closing at the end of this year, and that we would be admitting 16- and 17-year-olds to the main grid. Today, we are excited to tell you that we will be able to continue serving all of the educational and not-for-profit communities of the Teen Grid, including those that serve 13- to 15-year-olds, without an interruption in service.

Since our announcement, we’ve been speaking with many people from the educational and not-for-profit communities in Teen Second Life to better  understand their needs and determine what measures would be necessary to create a safe, secure, and collaborative environment for their students and faculty. I’m happy to say that we are able to meet these needs, and allow 13- to 15-year-olds access to limited locations on the main grid, with appropriate controls for administrators. We will implement these controls and transfer these rich and exciting projects from Teen Second Life before the end of this year.

The 13- to 15-year-old students affiliated with these organizations will be unable to visit any regions except those of their hosting organization, and those accounts will not have the ability to search the Grid or to purchase items from the Marketplace. Unlike on Teen Second Life, adults that work with these students will now be a part of the broader Second Life experience, allowing them to bring rich educational content to their students. The ability to invite organization-approved guest speakers and other approved members of the community to safely interact these students will further enhance their learning experience. For more details, see the Teen Second Life transition wiki page.

We are happy to provide this support for the educational community in Second Life, and we look forward to the community continuing to create  innovative and exciting projects!

It has been several weeks since we announced that Teen Second Life, our Second Life grid for 13- to 17-year-olds, will be closing at the end of this year, and that we would be admitting 16- and 17-year-olds to the main grid. Today, we are excited to tell you that we will be able to continue serving all of the educational and not-for-profit communities of the Teen Grid, including those that serve 13- to 15-year-olds, without an interruption in service.

Since our announcement, we’ve been speaking with many people from the educational and not-for-profit communities in Teen Second Life to better  understand their needs and determine what measures would be necessary to create a safe, secure, and collaborative environment for their students and faculty. I’m happy to say that we are able to meet these needs, and allow 13- to 15-year-olds access to limited locations on the main grid, with appropriate controls for administrators. We will implement these controls and transfer these rich and exciting projects from Teen Second Life before the end of this year.

The 13- to 15-year-old students affiliated with these organizations will be unable to visit any regions except those of their hosting organization, and those accounts will not have the ability to search the Grid or to purchase items from the Marketplace. Unlike on Teen Second Life, adults that work with these students will now be a part of the broader Second Life experience, allowing them to bring rich educational content to their students. The ability to invite organization-approved guest speakers and other approved members of the community to safely interact these students will further enhance their learning experience. For more details, see the Teen Second Life transition wiki page.

We are happy to provide this support for the educational community in Second Life, and we look forward to the community continuing to create  innovative and exciting projects!

It been a summer of major change here at the Lab and  I wanted to give you a quick update on how we’re tackling a top  priority–platform enhancements that improve grid performance.

An Introduction to HTTP Assets
Last  week, we enabled grid-wide changes that represent an important first  step towards more effectively managing asset requests out of the  simulator path, and distributing certain assets (like textures) to an  “edge” infrastructure (like a Content Distribution Network or CDN). Internally,  the project is called HTTP Assets and includes a series of initiatives  that are intended to optimize how we manage, distribute, and store  assets on the grid to enable higher performance, reliability, and rez  times.

The HTTP Assets implementation accomplished two important objectives. The first was to move texture requests from a UDP protocol format, to TCP.  Using TCP, will increase reliability of proper receipt of those asset  requests; UDP is not designed as a reliable messaging protocol and is  used where dropping packets is preferred over the need to wait for all  packets to arrive.  The second was to reduce the need to have the  simulator directly managing asset requests. In the past, the simulator  would handle all requests from the viewer back into the inventory data  bases and asset complex, then back to the viewer. Needless to say, this  is not the most efficient or fastest way to deliver those assets to the  viewer. Now, the simulator will only be queried to provide a redirect,  so that the viewer can fetch the asset directly from a front end web  proxy to the asset system servers.  Ultimately, the simulator will be  completely removed from this path and the viewer will be querying  directly to the asset proxy server.  If you got a little lost, here’s a  visual of what the asset request process now looks like now, in two  steps:

Step 1:

Step 2:

 

OK, So Why Does This Matter? 
Well,  from a performance standpoint (translation – lag), you should begin to  see better texture download times. Reducing our dependency on the  simulator for these requests and eventually directing them to a services  layer will also improve the reliability of those requests.  Keep your  eyes for a blog post in a few weeks from Xan Linden, who runs the  Systems Analysis team, that will quantify those performance improvements  with hard data. He’s been a Linden for a long time and is a wealth of  information on the history of our codebase and infrastructure.

One More Big Performance Improvement Now Available in Viewer 2.1
Here’s  an interesting fact. Did you know that textures and objects represent  about 90% of downloads to the Viewer? That means that any Viewer bugs  that hamper the performance of textures and objects make a big  difference when it comes to lag.

I have good news to report. We found and corrected a bug in the latest version of Viewer 2.1.  (This particular bug has been present for a while and also exists in  the 1.23 code base.) The bug was related to object retrieval, and was  causing object requests to bypass the cache and constantly make requests  for those objects to the asset system. Generally, most residents  frequent the same regions, and the objects in those regions are cached  locally so that they can be downloaded very quickly, improving overall  rez time. It’s only when objects are changed (not very frequent), or  when you visit different regions, that a request for objects are made  back to the asset system. So, download Viewer 2.1 and you should notice an appreciable improvement in performance.

More Goodness on the Horizon
Soon,  you’ll be hearing from Xan on performance data, Jack who will give us  his perspective on HTTP textures from more of a product perspective, and  also Vogt with an update from Support.

My team and I look forward to answering your questions and hearing if you feel the impact of our recent changes.

 

FJ Linden