Second Life Viewer 2 Beta is Now Available

Linden Lab has released the Second Life Viewer, version 2, to the public. The software is still in beta, but it provides a brand new user interface and several new features. The goal was to create a viewer that is easier to use for new residents.

“We looked carefully at the experience design of other successful social media and technology platforms–such as the web browser, Facebook, the iPhone, Twitter, etc.–and the key elements that enabled them to reach mass adoption. You’ll see much of that thinking baked into new Viewer 2 experience design. Our primary goal was to create a more consumer-friendly viewer–an imperative to bring in a new wave of Second Life Residents.”

The new interface includes the following features.

• A browser-like navigation bar with forward and back buttons. You can even save favorites and review your teleport history.
• A sliding right-hand panel that surfaces the most frequently-used features and makes managing your profile, contacts, groups, landmarks, inventory, and appearance easy.
• Improved Search, powered by Google Search Appliance technology , makes it easier to find friends, places, and cool stuff to buy.
• A superior alternative to invisiprims for non-human avatars. In Viewer 2, a new wearable type, called Alpha Masks, allow you to “mask out” parts of your base avatar to make entire body parts disappear.
• And, you’ll enjoy the new contextual help to help you acclimate to the new viewer experience.

One of the most interesting new features, dubbed “Shared Media”, allows content creators to place Web pages, video, Flash content, and other Web-based media onto any surface in Second Life. This is something that I’ve wanted to see for a while now. It should make sharing presentations with others much easier, which is something that will please the enterprise and education markets. Linden Lab promises to publish a blog post tomorrow that focuses on this new feature.

To download the new viewer, visit the (redesigned) Second Life downloads page.

[Via Second Life Blog]

Update: 23 Feb 2010 18:04

This new Shared Media feature is great. In less than five minutes I was able to set the texture on two prims. One displays this Web site, and behaves like a mini browser that allows users to click links and scroll around on pages, and the other displays a YouTube video with the standard controls for play, pause, fast-forward, and rewind. No longer must I dedicate a parcel of land to a specific media source. Now I can have an infinite number of media sources playable by myself and others on the same parcel of land. This will revolutionize the way that people use Second Life.