Linden have released further trend information on the Linden exchange rate since 2003. It seems the Linden performs against the US dollar at around the same rate as the NZ dollar. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

As reported on another blog, Mia Farrow will be speaking in SL on the situation in Darfur .

If you’re interested in poverty or conflict in Africa, this may be well worth seeing. It’s occurring on the 9th January.

Claudia Linden’s post on the official Linden blog shows the level of interest in SL from the education community. This was a focus of the report on the 7.30 Report last night , where a Sydney University group were utilising SL as a teaching tool.

It seems self-evident that a formal presence in SL from an Australian university can’t be far off.

Linden Labs have released the December issue of Second opinion. The new Civic Center section looks further at self-governance issues in SL. It’s encouraging to see the wider strategic view of SL continuing to be discussed whilst the day-to-day issues and infrastructure are addressed.

At present I think Linden are a duck – calm on the surface but one mad pair of legs swimming underneath. At least the duck’s eyes still have their focus.

The issues facing Linden Labs were never starker than today’s Town Hall .

The Town Hall started 10 mins late due to repeater issues, and the issues weren’t able to be resolved. This resulted in a significant number of people either getting nothing from the Linden repeaters or intermittent, garbled sentences. So apologies, but no live transcription here I’m afraid. It also begs the question that if a live text chat can’t work, then the graphical issues are a much larger step beyond.

One piece of good news for anyone interested in working for LL is Cory’s assertion that: “we are a very distributed company already and want to become more so.” – so working for LL outside of the Bay area is an increasing possibility.

After Cory Linden’s introduction (which wasn’t heard by me and many others), the questions started flowing in.

An excellent post at Gigagamez explores the facts and figures commonly touted by SL propoenents and critics alike about SL’s reach. Take the time and give this a read.

The frustration with ongoing stability issues with SL seems to be growing. The huge growth in membership would test any company’s resources and although nothing much is given away by Linden Labs about their infrastructure expansion plans, it’d be safe to assume they’re madly trying to adjust to the growth.

 All that said, even the most die-hard user is going to get a little fed up with regular downtime for something they’ve paid for. Yes, there’ll be lots of threats made – “I spend $xxx a month and I’ll leave if you don’t fix it!!” but the reality is only a small percentage will actually leave. The issue is,  5% of 16000 users may be considered ok, but what happens when there’s 100 thousand users?

Fellow SL site Second Seeker is reporting that the Support for Healing island is in financial trouble – the island provides support for people with depression of other mental health issues. Help if you can!

The number is noteworthy in at least a symbolic fashion. The reality is that a busy ‘day’ in SL at present is 16000 people, but the huge number of registrations in the past month alone has to bode well for the future. Assuming the infrastructure catches p to the growth of course…

A fascinating discussion on SL as one of many multiplayer experiences can be found at raphkoster.com – if you’re interested in sociology (and who wouldn’t be!) then have a read through. The premise of the article is that SL residents could perhaps learn a lot of useful lessons from other MMOs.

Ethnocentrism is an issue i both SL and RL – I actually believe the ethnocentrism that occurs within SL is pronounced. I mean, this site essentially exists to spport one group within SL. Is that a bad thing?