RL/SL instant-messaging weeks away: report
By Eric Reuters
SLNN.com carries an interview with Linden VP Joe Miller which says the reported “SLim” offering is only weeks away.
Miller, as quoted by SLNN:
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.
Miller goes on to talk about connecting both individual and group Second Life accounts to external phone numbers, complete with voicemail:
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.
If you attempt to reach someone who is not in-world, you’ll have the opportunity to leave them a voice message.
While the prospect of SLim coming in a few weeks would be welcome, Miller’s hope for a Second Life to PTSN connection in the “near future” may be a long ways off. In a December 2007 talk in Second Life quoted by Information Week, Miller said Linden hoped to implement voicemail in the first quarter of 2008.
