On Wednesday July 2nd, the Lab issued a call for creators to apply for a beta test of the Experience Keys (also referred to as Experience Tools) project.

As I explained in my overview of Experience Keys / Tools, this is a new permissioning system which allows people to create an activity (initially restricted to region / estate level for private islands / estates and parcel level for mainland) such that anyone wishing to participate in it need only give a single confirmation of their wish to do so, rather than having repeated requests for permission pop-up on their screen whenever something wants / needs to interact with their avatar – such as teleporting their avatar to the next location in a hunt or quest, or when wanting to attach a gun or piece of equipment to the avatar as a part of a game.

Experience Keys are the latest addition to the Lab’s Advanced Creator Tools deployed in August 2012, and which in turn grew out of work first put to use in the Linden Realms game.

A video helps explain the concept from a user’s perspective.

While the video focuses on using Experience Keys in games, they could conceivably be used in other activities as well: hunts, puzzles, tours – any immersive experience which may otherwise require users to repeatedly give assent for some action to be taken with their avatar.

The Lab is now seeking SL creators willing to join a beta programme and use the new Experience Keys to build a range of “experiences” within Second Life, as the blog post explains:

We used this technology when creating the Linden Realms game, and we’re now ready to start putting this tool in the talented hands of creators in the Second Life community. Experience Keys is a powerful tool, and we need to be sure we test and roll out the feature carefully, so the first step will be a limited beta, then the viewer and server releases shortly after.

Creators wishing to participate in the programme should send an email to slexp_beta@lindenlab.com with “Experience Key Beta” as the subject along with the following information:

The experience name.

What genre does it fit in?

A brief description of the experience

How would your customers benefit from Experience Keys?

As noted in the announcement, a more public beta in which users can try out experiences using an Experience Keys project viewer will follow-on from this initial call.