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Giulio Prisco of the IEET Declares Second Life Dead


Mecha Innis
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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

He didnt state the obvious which is that Lindens charges way too much for use of its world, does nothing to recompense customers who have been totally inconvenienced by bungles it admitted were its fault but used its weasley worded tos to dodge any responsibility for....in fact has no grasp of quality customer service at all or even who its main customers are.

 

As for sl being dead  - well look how much of the map is yellow and tot up how many people you see during an evening random exploring.

 

No point pointing it out though anyone should know that the people at Lindens dont take any notice of its customer base and the guy in charge is intent on using sl to satisfy his own agenda...

 

As usual though someone says sl dead and the equally pigheaded 'no it isnt -such and such said it was dead in 2006 - blah blah blah' brigade... who cant even conceive that things need to be changed to give sl a much need shot in the arm (and win back former members who cancelled membership payments after several years of avidly supporting sl ) start crawling out of the woodwork......

Yeah. $0 is way over my budget. That's price gouging for sure.

Deat, to a corporation, means that expenses have eclipsed revenues. When that happens, LL will be unable to maintain it's servers, and the grid will go down. I logged on recently enough to feel reasonably confident that it's still here.

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10s of millions of people worldwide play online 3D video games.


That defeats several of the concerns in the original post. Issues 1 through 4 are completely moot points when you realize just how common MMOs are.

Issue #5 however, wipes out almost possible advantage SL could have by being in the company of other 3D virtual worlds that have succeeded in becomming mainstream...

Many people think #4 is the issue... but the privacy concerns behind it are also upheld in many MMOs - without any harm. Companies like [comp] that have tried to force the [soc net] model of no-privacy have been forced, successfully, to back off by user revolts ([MMO]'s users went so far as to post pictures of the children of [comp] employees at their schools... to drive home the point of why privacy is needed - causing [comp] to back off overnight).

- And despite this, people flocked to [MMO], even moreso after [comp] backed off.

Meanwhile [soc net]'s assault on privacy has attracted negative attention on all fronts, to the point of legislative action in some countries and threats of such even in the [big nation] Corpratocracy.

 A small handful of... and I hate to use the word because its major fan uses it so wrongly so often... technocommunists in the  [tech place]  are waging an immoral war on privacy... It is -NOT- the public that wishes to end privacy... Far from it... Almost every move these evil actors make is met with great resistance by those hooked on their platforms... Its only a matter of time before all of this blows up on them.

 

The journalist's real problem is that he neither understands the virtual world idea that LLs put forth, nor the one that actually came about in the world, driven not by LLs, but by thousands of different MMOs defining what a virtual world would be after LLs dropped the ball.

- People have moved on. Both from the journalist's stone aged ideas... and from LLs. The MMOs have it, they have proven that people want 3D worlds on a 2D screen, and that most people have a computer that can do it. We're now just stuck waiting until the idea of user-created content swings back into popularity.

[soc net], evil though it may be - has proven that user created content is exactly what most people want.

All it takes is for a group with the managerial skills of the average MMO company to realize that the future lies in user content like [soc net], but served up with the same 3D and privacy their own MMO products currently offer.

 

SecondLife, and LLs, act as an obstactle. Making the MMOs think the idea can't work - because they mistake issue #5 for issues 1 through 4.

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Jonathan Sivocci wrote:

 

I do however think Lindenlab need to make the viewer easier to understand for new residents. I'm sure they have something in the pipeline altho when they will do it and how many bad updates later i have no clue, Lets just hope that LL keeps investing in new technology maybe a 3d viewer.

I suspect the real reason we see 10,000 signups a day (give or take) and only a few dozen make it inworld, is spam bots.

Running a forum for my company has shown me that if I make it look like a place people come to and communicate, give it good SEO for that, and then fail to lock it down against automated registrations, I can get about 10,000 to 20,000 new accounts added to my system -PER DAY- for a board with a legitimate userbase no greater than about 5000 to 10000. Something I was able to see quickly because my company knows who its real customers are, and the profile of likely new customers, pretty darn well. And because while I'm not a computer person, I see patterns easier than details - I can find the forest given one tree, and never quite realize I'm looking at a tree, and the pattern for us was obvious.

What I want to know is how many of the new accounts SL sees daily ever even bother to log in inworld...

Most of the spambots we got were sleepers. Made to hide in the database to triggered at later points when spam was sent out by their owners.

They're made with automated registration systems that in the present day can even outguess many of those "type the letters in this picture" systems (I'm guessing the same way a scanner manages to understand the letters on the page you put on the screen to be scanned in: OCR).

- They'll run a few hundred thousand attempts per day against an SEO attractive system, hoping to get as many through as possible. Then they just seem to send out commands to a number of them every now and then to spam up info on forums, mailers, private messages, and so on - to put up things that will make their clients look to be related to the victim's system when searched for on google... Spam isn't there to get you to buy some 'personal enlargement device' anymore... but to fool google and bing so people can rate higher without having to pay an adwords campaign...

 

Short version: I don't think people are trying SL and giving up. I suspect that most real people who actually make accounts, actually try it, and actually stay. But that most accounts are not real.

 

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I'm really baffled as to why some people feel this overwhelming desire to protect a big greedy company like lindens when what they need is a good kick up the backside which makes em look at whats going on in world, how much it costs etc etc.... conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were - lag's apalling, tp failures are abysmal crashes are worse than ever.. Problems that were supposed to have been rectified havent ( border crossing is the most obvious example) and each new little technical whiz lindens add just screws things up a tad more. All topped off with a customer service headed by a few rude and useless indivuals those who are just to willing to quote tos even when a problem is one they generated and who like the late little lamented oskar linden felt that you ought to go down on bended knee because youre lucky enough ot be using sl - even if you are paying their wages.

I dont pay a membership fee anymore - if sl can keep loosing paying members because it chooses to believe a few  forum regs good luck to it....

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

Stull running ?..Is that sort  of almost running but only just .. normally I wouldn't go picking on typos but I think anyone declaring anyone else to be brain dead has to be so careful about what and how they type
:D

Alright. I'm brain challenged, but that's a whole lot better than being brain dead lol.

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Phil Deakins wrote:

I declare that anyone who says that SL is dead, is actually brain dead. They must be, because it's self-evident that SL isn't dead - it's stull running.

It's not dead yet. I would say walking dead would be a better analogy for SL. I liken SL to a zombie wandering around aimlessly mumbling "brains" whilst waiting for someone to blow it's head off with a double barrel shotgun.

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

Stull running ?..Is that sort  of almost running but only just .. normally I wouldn't go picking on typos but I think anyone declaring anyone else to be brain dead has to be so careful about what and how they type
:D

I think Phil meant to say skull running

like they went off their skull so now they just jellyhead. that happens quite a lot when you drink heaps on new years

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

I'm really baffled as to why some people feel this overwhelming desire to protect a big greedy company like lindens when what they need is a good kick up the backside which makes em look at whats going on in world, how much it costs etc etc.... conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were - lag's apalling, tp failures are abysmal crashes are worse than ever.. Problems that were supposed to have been rectified havent ( border crossing is the most obvious example) and each new little technical whiz lindens add just screws things up a tad more. All topped off with a customer service headed by a few rude and useless indivuals those who are just to willing to quote tos even when a problem is one they generated and who like the late little lamented oskar linden felt that you ought to go down on bended knee because youre lucky enough ot be using sl - even if you are paying their wages.

I dont pay a membership fee anymore - if sl can keep loosing paying members because it chooses to believe a few  forum regs good luck to it....

Still angry that Linden Lab won't pay up to cover those data overage charges?

Get over it - they're not required to.

This has been covered quite well the last time you complained about it - and at that time, you said you were going to leave.

Leave already.

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I don't think it's dead, but it's not growing as well. I think there's some data at other SL forums which shows that every month SL loses sims.

Less sims = less to do = less people = even more empty sims which will be closed eventually = etc.

SL won't really die anytime soon, but it may and it will become less interesting for sure.

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Maelstrom Janus wrote:

 conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were - lag's apalling, tp failures are abysmal crashes are worse than ever..

You say "conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were" -- as they were when?  

I'm not disputing it, necessarily, but I'm interested to know when things were so much better, in your view.   I must say I've been around for 5 and half years now, and I don't find myself thinking "things were a good deal better in ....".   

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Innula Zenovka wrote:


Maelstrom Janus wrote:

 conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were - lag's apalling, tp failures are abysmal crashes are worse than ever..

You say "conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were" -- as they were when?  

I'm not disputing it, necessarily, but I'm interested to know when things were so much better, in your view.   I must say I've been around for 5 and half years now, and I don't find myself thinking "things were a good deal better in ....".   

I'm the same way about the issues he describes.  SL is overall running better for me than it ever has and I've been here since 2007.

Granted I have a better computer now but it's a far cry from high end.  Only a GTS 250 GPU.  But I have less lag, fewer crashes and 95% of my TP's take under five seconds.

I'm not saying there are never problems, but overall I'd say I'm trouble free 95% of the time.  A few things in that 5% of the time I  consider show stoppers, like SIM crossings, but othewise it's been pretty good.

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Innula Zenovka wrote:


Maelstrom Janus wrote:

 conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were - lag's apalling, tp failures are abysmal crashes are worse than ever..

You say "conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were" -- as they were when?  

I'm not disputing it, necessarily, but I'm interested to know when things were so much better, in your view.   I must say I've been around for 5 and half years now, and I don't find myself thinking "things were a good deal better in ....".   

agree

is way better now than in the olden days

linden made heaps of fixes in last year for stuff that been broken since forever. the moles done amazing stuff all over. lots of creators/designers are way more sophisticated skillswise than ever before and make amazing stuff

+

about linden not listening. I made two BUG reports since the new reporting system. I get help to completely fix both times within 2 days. on old jira i still had one from 2007 unresolved lol before they dump it

+

on the downs

linden could blog more tho i think. or even have guest bloggers like they said but never did

and they could look at tiers. on the starter level at least. like Linden Home or 1024m mainland tier for premium signup

and the marketplace kinda suxs as well. but that a web thing and not inworld so i dont really care personally about that bc i think web marketplace suxs anyways even if it worked good (:

 

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Innula Zenovka wrote:


Maelstrom Janus wrote:

 conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were - lag's apalling, tp failures are abysmal crashes are worse than ever..

You say "conditions in sl are nowhere near as good as they were" -- as they were when?  

I'm not disputing it, necessarily, but I'm interested to know when things were so much better, in your view.   I must say I've been around for 5 and half years now, and I don't find myself thinking "things were a good deal better in ....".   

The conditions described are much better today than they were in 2007. In terms of stability, region crossings, failed teleports, and most other technical respects, SL has improved vastly since the worst parts of 2006-2008. I remember at the worst when entire weeks would go by where teleporting to another sim was impossible.

Even so, I honestly would not entirely dismiss the article posted by the OP. While I wouldn't say SL is "dead", I would say that it's best days appear to be behind it, at least in terms of potential, growth and profitability. A lot of the reasons for this given by the author are the same complaints heard by many who've tried SL and quit over the years.

 Are these simply unresolvable challenges? Or is LL really just overlooking the obvious?

 

 (Spoilter alert! It's the second choice!)

 

 LL makes me think of a game developer that only hires programmers. They tackle some amazing challenges in terms of the technology, but they make extremely basic mistakes when it comes to design and presentation. Decent starter avatars, better camera placement, better restrictions on resource use and a better designed UI to make all the important aspects of SL easier for users new and old alike to dive into would all go a long, long way towards making SL thrive far more than it ever did even during the hype bubble around 2008.
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Meh, SL's dead......again????????? Please take a number wait in the 'Prophets of Dewm' queue. On the upside, this could go down very well with the Vampire roleplay community, what with SL being the only genuinely undead space on them thar intertubez.

In other news: I'm working my way through my listings for 2013 and am up to mid-May at the moment. Mind you at a maximum of 5 events listed per 24 hours it'll take a while.

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Penny Patton wrote:

 

 LL makes me think of a game developer that only hires programmers. They tackle some amazing challenges in terms of the technology, but they make extremely basic mistakes when it comes to design and presentation. Decent starter avatars, better camera placement, better restrictions on resource use and a better designed UI to make all the important aspects of SL easier for users new and old alike to dive into would all go a long, long way towards making SL thrive far more than it ever did even during the hype bubble around 2008.


Add into that mix better (or any!) advertising.  I read a couple of months ago (might have been in Merchant Forums) that LL recently hired a new head of marketing; however, it appears the marketing thrust has been for Patterns and not SL.  By contrast I see ads for WoW and other MMOs at least several times a day when I surf the web.

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I don't think the problem is lack of advertising, Czari.   LL's problem has never been attracting new sign-ups particulary; it's always been, and apparently still is, persuading people to keep on returning to SL after they've created the account and taken a brief look round.   That's where the difficulty is, for reasons Penny recently discussed in her blog.

 

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