Second Life News & Events & Guides

Second Life,(Reuters) - Second Life users who frequently access the Internet from consumer-grade computers and laptops are about to find keeping touch with other avatars a lot easier.

Yesterday Linden Lab announced the launch of “SLim,” pronounced “slim,” an instant-messaging client that allows users to communicate with users inside Linden’s virtual world without running Second Life.

“When you’re running a system that doesn’t have a 3D card, SLim allows you to take your friends list with you,” said Linden VP Joe Miller. “Visually it looks a lot like other IM apps.”

Second Life only runs well on high-end gaming machines. On many computers, particularly laptops, the Second Life viewer software runs so slowly even typing can be difficult. Miller said SLim was designed to tackle that problem.

The software will tie to an avatar’s friends list of contacts, and users inside Second Life will be able to see who’s on SLim but not in 3D virtual space.

In addition to sending text messages in and out of Second Life (Second life linden) like AOL’s AIM or Google’s Gtalk, the SLim client will support voice-over-IP calls in a manner similar to eBay’s Skype.

One notable feature of SLim will be support for VoIP voicemail. Users who register for the service will be able to set up a voicemail greeting and accept VoIP messages of up to five minutes in length while offline, Miller said. Linden’s servers will email the voice message to its recipient as an MP3 file.

Miller said the service is expected to debut in a “First Look” version of the Second Life client software next week. Participation in SLim and voicemail will be on an opt-in basis, and users can set the destination email address for voicemail to a different address than the payment contact for their secondlife.com account.

The service will be available on all platforms which support Second Life, including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux environments.