As the new month arrives, Linden Lab appears to be kicking-off a number of outward initiatives.
Splash Screen Images Updated
First comes the latest set of secondlife.com splash screen images, which match the current masquerade banner theme on the SL Marketplace. This time there are three images in the set, which have been supplied by Strawberry Sigh and Winter Jefferson, Whimsy Winx, and Sissy Scarborough and Mel Vanbeek respectively.
New secondlife.com splash screen image
Remember that in order to see the new images, you’ll need to log out of secondlife.com.
WhatIs Page Re-vamped
In keeping with the use of user-generated content, the What Is Second Life webpage has been given a revamp. For those unfamiliar with the WhatIs page, it has been the page that tries to explain Second Life (no easy task in and of itself), and is accessible from the link on the secondlife.com splash screen, or at http://secondlife.com/whatis/.
Previously, this page played host to the Linden Lab created video promoting Second Life:
In the new layout, WhatIs replaces the LL video with a selection of user-created videos intended to help showcase Second Life to the novice / potential user, complete with an additional JOIN NOW button that takes people to the sign-up page.
Also included is the What’s Hot section of the Destination Guide, while in the What Is section, there is a link that displays the most recent posts to the my.sl social feed (or if you are an existing user and already logged-in to secondlife.com, to your own my.sl feed page).
Part of the new WhatIs page
E-mail Campaign
LL look to be trying to improve their outward communications, with the launch of an e-mail campaign designed to encourage people to follow the Second.Life account on my.secondlife.com (my.sl for short). This account promises to be a provider of up-to-the minute news, etc., with the strapline: Be the first to know. Breaking SL News and More. Get the latest community updates, beta invites and more, without leaving Second Life!
This is interesting as it more-or-less amounts to the first “official” statement from Linden Lab on the subject of how to keep abreast of news from the company since Amanda Linden infamously announced the launch of the Lithium “Community Communications Platform” (which runs the current blogs and forums) – and then told users that to keep up with LL’s news on SL, they should go visit Facebook…
E-mail announcement
The thing I am having trouble understanding is where are the “community snapshots?” When I click the link in the e-mail all it does is take me to my dashboard or the secondlife.com page. And as nice as it is to see Strawberry and company’s images there, they don’t really qualify as community snapshots. A little insulting to call them that, really, if that is what the email is referring to.
Updated: The “snapshots” referenced in the e-mail are actually the splash screen images, so as per the article, log-out and log back in to see them.
I just watched the “What is SL”-videos…and now I doubt if it will be lure many people into SL.
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I watched 3 videos: 2 of them were (good but) dark, morbid – horror, gor and violence came to my mind. Not showcasing a world where I’d like to live. (Again, the vids are great, but somehow not ‘inviting’ to visit the world).
The 3rd video showcased a sci-fi city. Also very well done city and video – but the one who enters SL with THIS video/graphics in mind…will be deeply disappointed after seeing the actual in-world graphics
Yes, more consideration has to be put into the selection of the videos. It’s something I raised when discussing the page with LL, and it was actually indicated to me that future selections would be better curated. What would be good to see is a general, open call to video makers to produce “showcase” videos.