SLim?

So supposedly SLim came out today -- but I can't seem t' find the installer. Anyone know where it is?

It did?

Yup:

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/09/linden-lab-laun.html

Not only that, but these were announced today too:

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/09/ibm-takes-lotus.html

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/09/rivers-run-red.html

Big doings, I s'pose.

It apparently has been on the download page for long enough to be picked up by Google, and then disappeared.

If only they could add a word that starts with E to the end of the name.

Ya, I spotted that as well. Wonder what happened.

SLim - Earth

My best guess is that it has to do with the new rolling restart.

Perhaps they just rolled it back cos they found some bugs lol

Aren't they showing off SLim at some VW conference. Perhaps they stuck it up for download in order for the Lindens at that conference to download it for the demo?

Matthew

That would only make sense if the demoing involved downloading and installing it in full view of the audience, which I find a bit unlikely. Otherwise, there's a million ways the Lindens at the conference could get it without exposing it to Google.

You know that, and I know that, but do the Lindens

Seriously thought, I could quite imagine a phone call such as

Linden One: look this is really embarrasing, but the flight lost my luggage which had the USB key with the SLim installer on
Linden Two: don't worry. we'll put it up somewhere for you to download (background murmuring), Linden Three tells me that the easiest place would be the normal download page - if we are quick and remove it afterwards, no one will notice...

Matthew

According to this, it will be developed, no details on when it will be available: http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/17751/second-life-chat-crosses-to-real-life :


"Linden Labs has announced SLim, a lightweight client that will enable instant messaging and voice chat between the real world and Second Life.

At this week's Virtual Worlds Expo, Linden Labs, the creators of the popular virtual world Second Life, announced a new instant messaging and voice client that will let Second Life residents communicate with the Second Life world without the significant overhead of the full-blown Second Life clients. Dubbed "SLim," the application will enable users to chat with their Second Life cohorts, breaking down some of the barriers between Second Life and, well, real life.

The SLim client will be developed by Vivox—the same folks who provide the technology for Second Life's in-world voice chat feature—and while essentially no details have been released, Linden Labs says the client will be able to run on "any" computer, will provide real-time "presence" updates of in-world friends and contacts, and will enable users to leave voice mail for offline friends.

"With Second Life becoming integrated into more aspects of our Residents' daily lives, we saw a need to expand the world beyond its borders, enabling constant connection regardless of location," said Linden Labs VP Joe Miller, in a statement. "In addition to all the enhanced communication benefits, SLim also helps solidify the value proposition of Second Life for enterprise use by providing a highly powerful VOIP and instant messaging client."

Although voice chat hasn't enjoyed uniform popularity among Second Life users, Linden Labs claims to have become one of the world's largest VoIP providers since launching voice chat a year ago, with residents logging more than 8.5 billion minutes of talk time.

Linden Labs hasn't offered any details on when SLim might be available, and there are no indications SLim will interoperate with major instant messaging services like MSN, Yahoo, or AIM."

Or hadda add more bugs.

Off-hand, does anyone know the source of that 8.5 billion number? I'm curious, because while I always have voice enabled nowadays, I don't really use it. I've also known others who've had it on but did not know it.

Does it count these users, much like the old count of residents includes alts, bots, and abandoned accounts?

Tateru pointed the way

http://www.massively.com/2008/09/03/hands-on-the-second-life-slim-client-is-here/

http://secondlife.com/SLim/

Hmmmz now thats more likely

you have to use caps for the SL in the URL or you get a 404 error:

http://secondlife.com/SLim

I'm guessing it's about as accurate as the purported user base numbers and the whole "Let's default Voice to enabled!" probably helped inflate it a great deal.

When LL first made voice on the default I asked in the blogs if it was to inflate the voice usage stats. Whenever LL has rolled out the various voice usage stats (whether it is number of minutes of voip or percentage of LL residents using voip) I've asked how that figure is calculated and whether it includes those who don't use voice but just have it enabled in the client (for various reasons including that in order to see who is using voice you need voice enabled).

No-one from LL has ever responded!

Matthew

Seems like th' lack of response really does answer yer question, huh?

boo-hiss. No Linux.

From what it sounds like, yer not missin nuttin.

Saw the demo of SLim(tm) about 2 hours ago. It's basically an instant message client for Secondlife. You can see your friends list and you can send messages back and forth between in-world and out of world.
The demonstration also mentioned that voice message would be able to be sent off-world.

What I find strange is that the SLim windows client is a 16mb download, complete SL full client is around 32. It's just an IM client? seems excessive.

Mmmm, so as well as downloading the SLim client you also need to download a special version of the SL client *and* create a new SLim account, and even then you can't talk to anyone unless they are also running the special SL client (not sure if the also need to create a special SLim account).

SL Messenger, Second Messenger (search SL Exchange) or SLeek (and the original SLIM which came out nearly 18 months ago, but whose developer left SL due to health reasons) all seem far better options.

Indeed given the rigmarole of special SL clients, having to create a new account and getting your friend to also download and install the special SL client - just creating a skype account with your avatar name and getting your friends to do likewise is probably just as easy!

Matthew