Second Life Chat Crosses to Real Life

Linden Labs has announced SLim, a lightweight client that will enable instant messaging and voice chat between the real world and Second Life.

At this week’s Virtual Worlds Expo, Linden Labs, the creators of the popular virtual world Second Life, announced a new instant messaging and voice client that will let Second Life residents communicate with the Second Life world without the significant overhead of the full-blown Second Life clients. Dubbed “SLim,” the application will enable users to chat with their Second Life cohorts, breaking down some of the barriers between Second Life and, well, real life.

The SLim client will be developed by Vivox—the same folks who provide the technology for Second Life’s in-world voice chat feature—and while essentially no details have been released, Linden Labs says the client will be able to run on “any” computer, will provide real-time “presence” updates of in-world friends and contacts, and will enable users to leave voice mail for offline friends.

“With Second Life becoming integrated into more aspects of our Residents’ daily lives, we saw a need to expand the world beyond its borders, enabling constant connection regardless of location,” said Linden Labs VP Joe Miller, in a statement. “In addition to all the enhanced communication benefits, SLim also helps solidify the value proposition of Second Life for enterprise use by providing a highly powerful VOIP and instant messaging client.”

Although voice chat hasn’t enjoyed uniform popularity among Second Life users, Linden Labs claims to have become one of the world’s largest VoIP providers since launching voice chat a year ago, with residents logging more than 8.5 billion minutes of talk time.

Linden Labs hasn’t offered any details on when SLim might be available, and there are no indications SLim will interoperate with major instant messaging services like MSN, Yahoo, or AIM.