Linden Lab Registers SLim Trademark; New IM or Lightweight Client to Come?

Linden Lab has applied for the trademark for SLim, reports Massively. The trademark may not come to anything more than preparation, but it covers instant messaging and "Electronic and digital transmission of voice, data, images, signals, and messages." At the beginning of the year, Joe Miller, Linden VP of platform and technology development, discussed plans to develop and test a new lightweight client for Second Life, focusing on text chat and communication instead of the full graphical interface. It sounds like it could eventually be called "SLim."

If approved, the mark will cover

IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Instant messaging software; communications software for electronically exchanging voice, data, and graphics accessible via computer, mobile, wireless, and telecommunication networks; computer software for processing images, graphics, audio, video, and text; computer software for video and audio conferencing; file sharing software.

IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Electronic and digital transmission of voice, data, images, signals, and messages; e-mail and instant messaging services; communications by computer terminals; electronic exchange of voice, data, and graphics accessible via computer, mobile, wireless, and telecommunication networks; voice over IP (VoIP) services; video and audio conferencing services conducted via the Internet, telephone, and mobile devices.

"SLim" with "SL" in upper case as an abbreviation for Second Life, and "im" in lower case as an abbreviation for instant messaging.

There have been several third-party efforts, from individuals to the ngi group, directed at making it easier to interact with users in Second Life without logging in to the full virtual world, so there's certainly a community demand for a more lightweight interface. With the increasing number of options to serve that need, it looks like their could possibly a homegrown solution as well.

[via Massively]

Comments

[csven]

Joe Linden mentioned SLim a few days ago during a talk in Second Life, and iirc, he stated we should expect a first look in a couple of weeks.