The money to support interesting value-add SL projects isn't a bad suggestion. We already know that the lindens are looking to further support in world orientation and training folk, having realized that the residents do it a lot better than they can. I expect announcements on that front fairly soon. As for how else that could play out it would not surprise me if the lindens started actively funding in world actitivies. This is likely on two fronts: Firstly they realize that some of the groups which do the most for SL are getting fatigued from finding ways to generate cash for land as they expand, so devoting energy and resources to fundraising which would be better spent supporting the SL community and improving experience (which is their main focus). Secondly, they print their own money, so can distribute the cost of providing this community support (linden dollars and land) across the entire sl community. In world support groups really do work in an economy where the linden dollar is about the same value as the italian lire - a buck gets you a LOT of them. So for the cost of a single staff member at LL they could easily provide tens of sims worth of land and millions of lindies in support for folk who pretty much do it full time for free now (if not actually paying for the privilege of working!) I strongly suspect the lindens are moving towards this model of community support. But maybe not what Mitch would announce.... As for RegAPI - it's not so sexy but very much required. Nothing has happened on that front for a while.... however.... RegAPI is right smack bang in the middle of the cross worlds work that IBM and LL have been collaborating on. Perhaps we haven't seen progress on it yet because the IBM folk took one look at it and said "this is borked and kooky and needs refactoring" - highly likely. The IBM project is about making SL tech regular enough to survive off LL's grid, so I'd be surprised if they didn't have a hand in where RegAPI went at this point, given that they'reprototyping intergrid travel and registrations MUST be a part of that equation. RegAPI however isn't sexy enough on it's own I think to get Mitch in front of the whole of SL talking about it on it's own.... he'd have to explain too much and get too geeky for a general keynote address.