questions about welcome areas

I seem to remember seeing a thread about this recently, but can't find it.

I appear to be out of the loop- I try to go through the sign-up experience every few months to stay current on how the Lindens are handling new residents- today I went looking for the "join a community" program, and it seems to be gone.

what is the status of all the welcome area projects that were implemented or in development- or rather- where do I find that information?

my company is currently working with SL Hobos to develop an orientation experience, but I no longer understand what the options are, besides having avatars spawn from our own website.

anyone can point me in the right direction?

thanks a lot. LtB

Blue Linden is probably your best source of info on that sorta thing..

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/VTeam_Office_Hours

The new linden infohub projects at Helfell, Hyannisport, and Hau Koda are shuttered, with no "current" plans to revive them. No new LL-owned infohubs are currently in th' works



Which would fit the Community Gateway Program, which seems to be what LL wants people to use in lieu of increasing their own stake in member orientation and retention. Here's what little I could find on the SL blag.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/12/09/gateways-into-second-life-by-glenn-linden/

There never was the promised follow-up post, but I also found some relevant information about the Community Gateway Program at

http://secondlifegrid.net/technology-programs/custom-virtual-world

Mari

Or you could ask Marianne.

/me snickers

I just found out last night that the Hyannisport sim-sized hub had been sold to or given to a group of ex-Lively users. It is no longer Linden Land at all. The Helfell hub has autoreturn off and is accumulating junk, but still shows as owned by LL.

I also know a number of people who invested in property near those canceled hubs feel (rightfully so) that they were misled by Linden Lab. It is an unfortunate situation all around.

I checked and it appeared to not be an option as of Sunday. I think it is probably temporary and related to the new Big Spaceship designed front page that was recently implemented.



NCI and Caledon have developed an Orientation Island (Caledon Oxbridge) for the "join a community" program. The last thing we heard from LL is that we should have newbies spawning there sometime this month (January 2009).

Caledon Oxbridge is open for anyone to use however, and contains a complete Second Life orientation walk. Feel free to send new residents there if they need general help.

/me points to her plot in Bay City, and notes it is just down a ways from where "Hub Island" was supposed to be.

ah, thank you all so much- this has been very helpful, so far...

if only everything were that easy.

Here, use this...