Second Life Messenger is ready for beta testing

SL Messenger, a new stand-alone IM (instant messaging) client for Second Life users, is ready for beta testing. The application allows a SL resident to exchange IM's with their friends who are in-world without having to actually log into the Second Life fat client.

As the number of end users of virtual worlds like Second Life grow, I think that there will need to be more and more in-world / out-of-world communication tools.

I built this primarily because I didn't always want to log into second life, but often wanted to chat with my friends there. It's not really practical to keep the Second Life client running all the time (in the way that one might be running yahoo messenger or msn messenger all day) because of the bandwidth it takes and its tendency to crash.

To request an early copy of the beta, you can download it from http://www.zenentrepreneur.com/slm_download.htm. Or if you have trouble, please email riz@alum.mit.edu. The client is free and available to all users of second life. Once the beta testing is done, a general release will be available. It is currently available for Windows only, though other platforms may be released in the future.