WOLPERTINGER -  Joe Linden (Joe Miller in real life) recently met with a group of 42 residents at a Train for Success session. Joe is Vice President of Platform and Technology Development at Linden Lab.

The hottest news concerns a new release that will be coming out shortly called “SLim,” (Second Life instant messaging).

“We’ll be launching a beta First Look, something we call ‘SLim,’ which is a very thin client that is designed for you to stay in both voice and text contact with your friends list. If you want to participate in a meeting but can’t actually run the SL app to do it, you’ll be able to do that with our thin voice communication client. It will be in First Look in a couple of weeks,” Joe said.

The client will give users an IM client that runs on any machine, whether it is an older computer that cannot handle SL or one that is behind a firewall and prohibited from accessing SL. 

In parallel, Linden Lab will also be delivering some additional capabilities in the near future.  

Individuals will be able to receive outside calls within SL. An access number will be assigned to each avatar.  

Joe explained:  “This will work two ways:  you’ll be able to sign up for an access number that will give people who are outside of SL (perhaps on a cell phone) the ability to reach you in-world.  This is distinctly separate from the ‘SLim’ communication client. 

The other capability is the ability to associate a standard telephone number – PSTN number – with a group, and that number can be used by a number of folks to join a group conversation for the purpose of meeting from outside of SL as well.”

Voice mail capabilities will also be coming to SL in the near future.  “If you attempt to reach someone who is not in-world, you’ll have the opportunity to leave them a voice message. 

That voice message is opt-in, so if you choose not to receive voice messages, you can certainly turn that capability off.  If you want to receive them, you’ll get that voice message via e-mail, which can be a separate e-mail address you reserve for that purpose.”

Twitter functionality will not be added in to the new SLim client.

The weekly Train for Success sessions by the Gronstedt Group bring together training and communication professionals globally to explore how leading corporations are transforming workplace performance with virtual worlds.  Contact Anders Wildcat for further information.