Introducing a New and Exciting Era

I am very excited to announce some very exciting news - or two pieces of news, each as exciting as each other!

Firstly, as part of ongoing efforts to focus on improving your Ordinal experience, I am pleased to announce that I have taken up the position of Community Engagement Operative with Linden Laboratory. Please look out for me under my new name, Ordinal Linden, and I would love to see any of my readers at my office hours, which are scheduled for five hours before you wake up on any given Wednesday.

To set a good example, the Laboratory and I have agreed that I shall be entirely going back on what I have previously said and offering all of my items (apart from the free ones of course!) for sale on Xstreet only. Obviously it would be unethical for any Linden to make any money from inworld businesses, and I would certainly not want to be the first to do so - all profits from Ordinal Enterprises sales on Xstreet will be donated to a fund for Second Life entrepeneurs, maintained by my brother Cardinal Linden (now in the Finance department).

Secondly, I am thrilled about the new initiatives that I will be involved with as part of Linden Laboratory, and I would love to share one of them with you here!

One of the things we have been working hard on here at Linden Laboratory is the group experience in Second Life. Today, we're proud to announce an important step forward as we continue to improve the group experience for Residents; it's simpler, linearer and integrateder with Viewer 2, and provides us with a robust and flexible platform to build on.

The new Second Life Groups 2.0 system is based on a robust and flexible system that will allow even more goodness in 2010 and beyond. Here are some of the key highlights.

• Improved group management tools. With Groups 2.0 you can manage groups and membership of them entirely from the web, without having to log in to Second Life at all - and confusing functions like land, attachments and build permissions have been cut out, so that anyone can start a group. You and your group members will have a streamlined interface to view announcements, and you can now send pictures and video as well!

• Improved group chat. In Groups 2.0 you can have 100% reliable individual chat whether you are in SL or not. Open a browser window either inside or outside SL, and talk to your friends! Group messaging in general is far more speedy and reliable.

• Updated currency options. You will now be able to buy Linden Dollars with Farmville credits. A full amalgamation of your L$ and Farmbook accounts should be taking place by Q3 this year. It might be advisable to start a farm now if you do not already have one.

• You won't have to wait. Linden Laboratory is already trialing the new Groups 2.0 system, with events such as the Valentine's Day 2010 hunt. Migration of all existing groups into the new format is taking place as we speak and will be complete by the 31st of April. After this date, all of the Second Life 1.0 Groups will be removed, so you'll never accidentally carry out an old group operation.

I am sure that you are all as excited as I am by Groups 2.0, and can't wait to try the system out - you'll be happy to hear that you can set up profiles and groups right now by logging in at the Groups 2.0 homepage. (You may have to set up another account at the moment, but rest assured that we will be making sure there's a single sign-on for all these services as soon as possible.)