Teen Second Life

On my little post last month showing old and new SL maps, information came to light in the comments that shocked me just a little. Even though I have no one on the Teen Grid I do wish them well, and see that walled garden as a prototype for the Geezer Grid (my imaginary virtual utopia full of people who miss the early days of SL). Without permission I'm copying the comments here:

What's even more amazing is that the current TSL map is smaller than the Main Grid 2004 map, with only around 203 as of December 1st,2008. It is really cool how Second Life has exploded with land. I can only hope that the OpenSpace increase doesn't kill off too many of those islands.

If one looks at the jira report by Katharine Berry (of AjaxLife fame), two things stand out: it was first reported in July 2008, and the number of comments indicate a great deal of teeth-gnashing is going on globally. Simplified, the issue is that no one outside of the United States can create a TeenSL account. No one - for six months. It would be understandable if people think LL doesn't care about TeenSL and that it's headed for oblivion.

/me is a bit shocked.

*That isn't quite correct, I think. As the teen grid has grown it has gone beyond the ability of one person to manage all facets, and settled into a decentralised model.