DISQUS

gee...I thought the killer app was Second Life? It's hard to keep up with Mitch Kapor really %)

but wasn't this always what attracted people initially to Second Life? What about all the professional women (and men being inworld women) that rp'd being female prostitutes inworld? Maybe business is on the up for them?

I am not sure you have the core issue right. From my discussions with various techie types there is no specific coding that would allow for a direct mapping of a region to a core. A CPU in fact does not get arithmetically more powerful as there are more cores--ie a quad core is not 2x as powerful as a dual core. So it is unlikely that a quad-core, dual cpu machine would effectively handle 8 regions under the same code that is running 2 regions on a dual-core, dual-CPU class 5.

In fact it would seem odd to map a Region to a core when in fact the usage on Regions is not flat, but more bursty depending on load. For example--why leave a core processing unit idle when there is no contention for processing. So if everyone is at a party on part of the CPU, then why reserve processing for empty "habitations".

In fact Linden has envisioned a more dynamic virtualization for Regions, but as usual started it only and not carried it along. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/AWG_Virtualization.

I am pretty sure (but actually don't know 100%) that the Region code hits the CPU and the core is an internal CPU tool that increases parallelism of processing and pushes more work through the CPU. The whole reason that Intel started the core technology was that it could not increase CPU speed cost-effectively and parallelism was next best thing.

Also on the LL website they say that a Class 5 is a dual-core, dual-CPU and they run two regions = 1 region per CPU.

I would also doubt that even LL is dumb enough to lease a server for more than 12 months at a time. I think running 10,000 and more servers already puts them in a good enough negotiating position. I would see it more likley that they are rotating the older machines into grid services rather than hosting even voids.

Mass Amateurization is really xlent phrase! It must be a friend of UGP = user generated porn. We see that making engaging content is 1) more complex and harder to deliver 2) that promoting it over the noise is also really a big effort. Virtual world stuff also needs to be refreshed a lot as you have fewer visitors spending more time in a place. UGC does not work as seamlessly inworld as it does on web atm.

Anyway, really interesting post! Check some of our spots in SL: http://rezzable.com/virtual-worlds . We are focused on entertainment.

Land crisis or confidence crisis is sorta the same issue. "We're on it" is positive, but committments would be more encouraging than more promises from LL.

Issue on Land sales is: the SL land mass grew more than 35% in the last 2 months--the grid was already empty and now is even more so. Isn't the point of the virtual world to meet other people? So we hear that there were some new land sales--from education mainly (and lot of broke Phds and more broke students scavenging free stuff--come the Dump sim btw)

So lot of activity at LL land store--but who is going buy sims for the rest of 2008? Education sims are a lot cheaper than the ones we buy and their tier is also less.

250 staff at LL--working harder for less revenue? Maybe they all gonna become Phds also?

ps--and Laetizia--you right, there is no land, no water--only neighbors and landlords. You can go to 4000m to avoid the neighbors at least unless you must see the "water" and "sunset"!

Nice piece! Thanks for interest in our areas and gettng Pav to talk sense!

list of our areas and links inworld http://secondlife.rezzable.com

and don't miss out on the free skins from L'Oreal... http://glamshine.rezzable.com

Cu on the grid!