Schedule for Second Life Improvements: Mono, Lightweight Client, Open Servers, HTML

Linden Labs has outlined its schedule for the deployment of Mono, opening the server architecture, and “HTML on a prim” adding a lightweight server to the mix for next month.

Joe Miller tells Information Week that Linden Labs are preparing to launch a lightweight viewer for Second Life in February. His interview nails down dates which, in combination with Philip Rosedale’s promise for “HTML on a prim” by May 1st, further confirm a sense of the tactical roll-out of technologies:

February: Lightweight Client
Miller tells IW that the lightweight client will include text chat, instant messaging, and voice communications. My issue with a light client and Web-based interfaces to SL (see my post on Movable) is – well, you may not be in world but your avatar is, and tends to stand there slack-jawed or with half bended knees. Any lightweight client should at the very least include a “choose pose” button so you don’t look ridiculous or worse, like a bot.

Having said that, a Lightweight client that extends basic text and IM chat to include voice communication sets SL up to be – wow, a competitor to MSN! Skype! But it also offers a wider range of options for in world meetings and collaboration. I’m sure I’m not the only one who logs into SL and simply uses the IM function for long stretches while I work on other stuff. And for conferencing, it would give ‘casual’ participants in SL more options for attending in-world events. If the client is distributed the right way, new users can have the option for a “light install” for the purposes of chat, voice and text around a project, and might be then encouraged to upgrade later.

What might be more interesting is if the Lightweight client also supports lightweight devices – iPhone client anyone???

This Quarter: Mono Deployed
“In another architecture change, Linden Lab is deploying Mono as a foundation for running the Linden Scripting Language. LSL is the language used to control behavior of objects in-world. Mono is being deployed this quarter, starting on the beta grid. Mono will allow scripts to run up to 700 times faster than they now do, theoretically, although in practice performance has been 100 to 200 times faster than current rates, Miller said. The goal of the Mono deployment, as with the Havok 4.6 rollout, is to make Second Life more predictable and stable.”

April: Open Source Server
Per the AI article:
“Miller said Second Life in 2009 will change from one grid to multiple grids. Linden Lab said in April it plans to open-source the Second Life server. The company open-sourced the client a year ago. Next year, users will be able to run their own Second Life servers, optionally behind a firewall or temporarily, for an individual event. Residents will be able to bring the same identity with them from one private Second Life grid to another.“

May: HTML on a Prim
Rosedale promised the ability to display HTML Web pages on a prim by May when speaking with Reuters from Davos. As commented in the IW article:

The inability to display HTML in-world is a fundamental problem with business and education in Second Life, making it difficult to display presentations in-world. Developers have to resort to cumbersome workarounds and a single page of a presentation can take up to a minute to come into focus in-world.

One of the appeals of Croquet and Qwak are their ability to embed Web pages. This really will go a long way to improving the ability to deploy projects, educational events, and branded spaces. It will also go a long way to increase the number of billboards. Not such a bad thing necessarily, because theoretically you could link in HTML on a prim to Google ad sense, if the in world pages have the ability to click out and launch a Web browser. From a branding and sales perspective, this might go a long way to assuring advertisers and retailers that SL isn’t a walled garden, and can be sold on it on the basis that 3D spaces compel brand experiences, and that in-world Web pages facilitate the link to the overall marketing plan, Web, and e-commerce sites.

A Note of Caution
Arrival on the Beta Grid doesn’t mean arrival on the Grid. Frequent complaints about early deployment of improvements leading to buggy, crash-ridden experiences – all the more reason to proceed with caution. But this is a fairly aggressive schedule for the first quarter of 2008. Miller also touched on wanting to improve new user retention rates from the current 90% attrition.

I love this line (emphasis added):

And Linden Lab is working on several measures to improve customer retention. Currently, about 90% of people who try Second Life give up on it quickly. Anecdotally, that’s pretty similar to the retention rate for most Internet activities, but Linden Lab would like to do better. They have regular, weekly focus groups of average consumers brought in off the streets, to test Second Life usability, Miller said.

The article also didn’t do anything to clear up my confusion over the company’s long-term strategy. Whenever long-term vision or intent is discussed in these forums, the talk always turns technical. As in this article, Miller was asked what about Second Life beyond the immediate tactical and technical improvements, and his response was “we will be more than one grid”….which still doesn’t strike me as filling in the blanks of the last half of the Linden mission statement:

To connect everyone to an online world that improves the human condition.

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