LINDEN RESEARCH, INC. TO BE ACQUIRED

[Mitch Absinthe]

On 7/10/2020 at 1:39 PM, Brett Linden said:

Good day, all!

Just jumping in to respond to a few of the comments...

A few folks are speculating that this is the end of SL and nothing could be further from the truth. Any talk of dismantling or radically changing the fundamentals of SL that we know and love is inaccurate. While we can't get into specific details about the deal itself, I want to emphasize the fact that this keeps Linden Lab as an independent venture led by two investors who have a great deal of awareness about what SL is and isn't. They are excited to join and help us grow both SL and Tilia while also respecting and recognizing the needs and sensitivities of the existing culture and community. 

I have seen acquisitions like this before in fact one was for the founders of the Internet. The original company filed Chapter 11 and Verizon was a leading force in this happening.  Nothing good ever comes from an acquisition SL will soon be history.. 

[Reese Wicken]

6 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

I'm just hoping the new owners don't read 90% of this thread. They'll think all we need is a few cages to throw down in. 

They'd make a killing if they sold tickets.

[FairreLilette]

45 minutes ago, ispdude said:

I have seen acquisitions like this before in fact one was for the founders of the Internet. The original company filed Chapter 11 and Verizon was a leading force in this happening.  Nothing good ever comes from an acquisition SL will soon be history.. 

That would be more to do with stock though.  If a company that is a stock trading company goes bankrupt, their debt is eliminated but the stock is worth zero.  If the company re-emerges from bankruptcy and wants to become a stock trading company again they have to issue all new shares and no old share holders receive any stock.  With it being Verizon, that's a publically traded company - it trades on the New York Stock Exchange.  So, that's a whole different ballgame as Verizon stock became the stock that was trading.  

Second Life doesn't have stock on the New York Stock Exchange.

I'm sure the investors are interested in Tilia.  I'm not sure why unless they charge a small fee per transaction for Tilia services.  Maybe Tilia will compete with Paypal, meaning be like Paypal (eventually)...?   I've read the "coding" for Tilia is exceptional.  No one has been able to compete with Paypal yet...maybe LL created something amazing in the coding or other geek words regarding Tilia which I don't know how to say as I'm not a computer geek.  

Edited July 12, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Rhun DeCuir]

5 hours ago, Anna Vanilla said:

In order to have good pixel sex you first play dress up; go shopping and doll yourself up and then go for sex

There's no way a healthy, young, able-bodied SLer who spends lots of money shopping to look pretty does it for nothing unless the person has some kind of condition or is an old fart

Everyone in my circle of friends in SL spends plenty of Lindens on their avatars' appearances.  Not one of them is here for "pixel bumping."  We, and I would assume the vast majority, are on SL for social and creative reasons.  I have one friend who is pretty much here to explore and admire what others have accomplished; and he has a gorgeous sexy AV   Personally, I have found that many of the people who are on SL solely for virtual sex are some of the most boring, rude, and ugly people in SL

In SL, as in real life, most people like to look good for themselves and those they love, not to run around humping everything that moves.

[Rathgrith027]

3 hours ago, Eseme Nova said:

They'd make a killing if they sold tickets.

Now I'd buy that for a Linden!

[Rathgrith027]

11 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

13-15 year olds are still allowed on the grid just with certain restrictions and must be part of an affiliated organization.

 

Honestly, I hold the opinion that the 'affiliated organization' section should be expanded to *all* minors. Those that are underage (as reported) are isolated to G-rated sims, restricting them from quite a lot of the non-adult content in SL because it's present on M-rated or A-rated sims. This turns most people away from accessing SL in its' full glory. I know if I was underage I'd have lost interest in SL by 1 year in at the most because of lack of stuff to do. That or well, I think those who've visited porn sites at ages under 18 before probably know the rest of that song and dance. (Hey, some of us have done it at one point or another.)

And from what I know, minors make up a extreme minority of SL residents, probably smaller than that of actual transwomen in SL (like myself). Why are we leaving a loophole in for what amounts to a extreme minority?
 

9 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

There are definitely kids coming on SL and playing, only a couple of days ago I had to ban someone from my sim because when I asked them about their occupation they said they were in middle school, the occurrence that something like that happens isn't rare. I have a younger sister IRL who caught me playing and was very interested, we got her the sims. Kids do like the idea of playing in a virtual world, hence minecraft and the like are so popular

I understand that, and honestly I'd be open to the idea of bringing back Teen SL for those from 13-18 if it can be done so in a fashion that is profitable and not a piggy bank burner like Sansar was. But minors don't really belong here in an environment where they could potentially be taken advantage of if they're one of the (probably many who falsify their age.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Rathgrith027
Elaborate, Elaborate, Elaborate. And don't call me Shirley.

[Qie Niangao]

5 hours ago, ispdude said:

I have seen acquisitions like this before in fact one was for the founders of the Internet. The original company filed Chapter 11 and Verizon was a leading force in this happening.  Nothing good ever comes from an acquisition SL will soon be history.. 

Presumably this is about BBN. That's a very complex case of an "acquisition." When GTE bought BBN it merged the Planet division with its Internetworking division, which then had to be spun off to make the next merger (GTE and Bell Atlantic, forming Verizon) comply with FCC regulations (or maybe SEC, or both?). That whole bankrupt mess ended up in Level 3, while the rest of BBN (and its DARPA contracts) went private, including some funding by management. Years later, I gather they were bought and became a division of Raytheon.

I suppose every unhappy acquisition is unhappy in its own way, but telecom mergers have a lot of regulatory reasons to be unhappy, while mergers among military contractors tend to be happier. Neither of which, though, is particularly relevant to Linden Lab.

[Enigma Bombay]

1 hour ago, Rathgrith027 said:

And from what I know, minors make up a extreme minority of SL residents...

This holds true in my experience as well; sandbox mmo's like Minecraft & Roblox and battle royale games like PUBG and Fortnite attract a much larger group of under-18's than SL ever will. There's not enough to login and just *do* in SL. (Incidentally I have two kids now ages 19 and 21 who would not ever touch SL with a 10-foot pole and referred to it colloquially in their social circles as a weird online primarily sexually oriented environment which is the general rep SL has earned over the years - right, wrong or indifferent, that's how it be.)

SL was kind of my "gateway drug" for online gaming back in 2003, and I have logged in only sporadically over the past eight years since I have invested far more time and energy in other mmo's, fps's and moba's. I admit I am interested to see what happens with the new investment activity and though I don't spend much time here anymore, I'd be sad to see SL change drastically or even go poof.

[FairreLilette]

12 hours ago, Anna Vanilla said:

That was for the comment about adult content made prior to it

But you're right .. I should speak for myself

Yesh!  lol

But, anyhow, I was just "messing with you" because I believe the investors are interested in Tilia and maybe even for Tilia to be like Paypal.

Second Life, anyone could create another Second Life, or a Minecraft, or a yada yada...but no other company has been able to compete against Paypal. 

I had an Ebay business starting in the 1990's and pioneered Paypal.   There was one other company that attempted to be an internet money transaction liaison after Paypal and it failed miserably and went defunct.  So, this is my theory, that the investors are interested in Tilia.  I never thought it had anything to do with nor about "adult content" one way or the other but I see a lot of posts saying SL is going to go General...I don't think so.  I'd assume *if* it is Tilia the investors are interested in, it would spin off unto it's own service and be a separate entity like Paypal is.  I'm sure the content in general would be the gravy the investors are interested in.  

However, you'd be surprised how many actually love SL for the social and creative aspects which is why I came here.  Relationships, for me, are for real life.   Oh, and I think of the avatars as cool robots.  It's cool to make your own robot.  

Edited July 12, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Wulfie Reanimator]

25 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Second Life, anyone could create another Second Life, or a Minecraft, or a yada yada...but no other company has been able to compete against Paypal. 

I don't think that's right. 

There are many other money services similar to PayPal. I could probably almost count user-driven virtual platforms with one hand, and none of them can complete with SL in terms of size and economy. IMVU might, no idea. 

Edited July 12, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Supersatan3]

IMHO, SL has slowly been dying off since 2012. It is the firstborn child of a deadbeat dad that had no interest in rearing it. Said Dad had a second child with another woman and named it Sansar. I became disillusioned in 2009 when LL screwed me out of 50K Lindens. I only stay because as much as I hate the (lack of) customer service, there really is no substitute for it.

[FairreLilette]

8 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I don't think that's right. 

There are many other money services similar to PayPal. I could probably almost count user-driven virtual platforms with one hand, and none of them can complete with SL in terms of size. 

Such as what other money services?  There are those who have tried, they all failed as they cannot gain the confidence share.  I know I was with Ebay for 17 years with my own business.  If another money service pops up, it died very quickly.  I remember the first one that came along after Paypal about 20 years ago or so, it took me two days to figure out how to do the transaction.  That service completely died and went away.

As far as my saying "anyone can create" another "Second Life", another "Minecraft", another "Yada Yada", they could as there are tons of MMORG's, new ones popping up every day.  I get them in my feed.  One looks amazing with a very realistic dragon.

As far as Second Life content, I'd say it's the best I've seen but I haven't joined that other one to have a real good look at that dragon - it looks as good as something from a movie.    

And, the "user-driver" content isn't what it used to be and is kind of a myth.  Some of the content is corporate made now.  

Edited July 12, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Wulfie Reanimator]

10 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Such as what other money services?  There have those who have tried, they all failed as they cannot gain the confidence share.  I know I was with Ebay for 17 years with my own business.  If another money service pops up, it died very quickly.  I remember the first one that came along after Paypal about 20 years ago or so, it took me two days to figure out how to do the transaction.  That service completely died and went away.

As far as my saying "anyone can create" another "Second Life", another "Minecraft", another "Yada Yada", they could as there are tons of MMORG's, new ones popping up every day.  I get them in my feed.  One looks amazing with a very realistic dragon.

As far as Second Life content, I'd say it's the best I've seen but I haven't joined that other one to have a real good look at that dragon - it looks as good as something from a movie.    

You can't really compare Second Life with just any MMORPG. These are two very different genres. The crowd that's interested in MMORPGs does not inherently care about SL, even if SL looked and ran just as well.

Second Life is in the same genre as, say, IMVU and Roblox. (Sansar and VRChat are their own VR-genre but are no match anyway.) They are sandboxes where users create and share the content using built-in features. The quality of that content at any point in time doesn't define how "good" the platform is. 

Edited July 12, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[FairreLilette]

4 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

You can't really compare Second Life with just any MMORPG. These are two very different genres. The crowd that's interested in MMORPGs does not inherent care about SL, even if SL looked and ran just as well.

Second Life is in the same genre as, say, IMVU and Roblox. (Sansar and VRChat are their own VR-genre.) They are sandboxes where users create and share the content using built-in features. The quality of that content at any point in time doesn't define how "good" the platform is. 

I don't care about all that....there's tons of MMo's and MMORG's and we all know that.    

I wanted to know what other payment services like Paypal you are talking about.  

Edited July 12, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Rex Cronon]

when will the new owners to be, do the following:

1. publish a written statement about what their vision of sl future is

2. do rl interview where they introduce themselves and answer questions

3. do at least one in-world town hall meeting

ps

doing the above would be a good way of stopping rumors and fears from spreading...

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

I don't care about all that.  

I wanted to know what other payment services like Paypal you are talking about.  

Off the top of my head:

• Klarna
• Skrill
• Venmo
• Cash App
• Google / Amazon / Apple / Mobile Pay

Others that seem to be widespread: (I found so many more but these stood out)

• Payoneer
• Stripe
• Square
• FastSpring

Edited July 12, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Off the top of my head:

• Klarna
• Skrill
• Venmo
• Cash App
• Google / Amazon / Apple Pay

Others that seem to be widespread: (I found so many more but these stood out)

• Payoneer
• Stripe
• Square
• FastSpring

Now, if only new owners create a cryptocurrency (to go with Tilia)..so we can finally have BLOCKCHAIN IN SECOND LIFE!!!1!!1!

 

[FairreLilette]

13 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Off the top of my head:

• Klarna
• Skrill
• Venmo
• Cash App
• Google / Amazon / Apple Pay

Others that seem to be widespread: (I found so many more but these stood out)

• Payoneer
• Stripe
• Square
• FastSpring

I've heard of one of those.  How much market share or user confidence they have is another thing altogether.

I've heard the Lindens did create some kind of amazing "coding" for Tilia.  

I don't think investors are here because of a "sandbox" as you eluded too.  Most sell-able items are mesh and imported now anyways.  Sandbox stuff doesn't really sell.  

Edited July 12, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Eggy UwU]

I'm seriously concerned about this. SL has been a great resource for me to meet new people and to motivate my creativity for the past two years. I just hope things don't go too south bc of this. Gonna try to remain optimistic.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

32 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I've heard of one of those.  How much market share or user confidence they have is another thing altogether.

How many games have you heard about that are similar to Second Life?

32 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I don't think investors are here because of a "sandbox" as you eluded too.  Most sell-able items are mesh and imported now anyways.  Sandbox stuff doesn't really sell. 

I tend to agree but... SL has (2018) around 500K monthly active users. Roblox has (2019) 90-100 million. Monthly.

I can't actually find a report on SL's revenue, but Roblox is estimated to have annual revenue around 400-440 million USD.

These virtual sandboxes are not numerous, but LL certainly has competition on both fronts (Tilia and SL).

Edited July 12, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[FairreLilette]

2 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

How many games have you heard about that are similar to Second Life?

I tend to agree but... SL has (2018) around 500K monthly active users. Roblox has (2019) 90 million.

I can't actually find a report on SL's revenue, but Roblox is estimated to have annual revenue around 400-440 million USD.

These virtual sandboxes are not numerous, but LL certainly has competition on both fronts (Tilia and SL).

I still don't think investors are here for Second Life content, and look at the figures you have 500K monthly users compared to Roblox which has 90 million.  Well, for one thing, Roblox works on way inferior devices.  If SL were to run on inferior devices, the avatar quality would suffer greatly and we'd have to be legless or look like a box to run on a phone.  There already are enough of those.  So, SL has the best content to me but it's not easy to run without lag.  But, it's still gorgeous, just gorgeous...just to have a home here.  

I think Tilia is going to start providing a payment service with a fee through SL and probably Sansar too.   

I'm not saying I'd leave Paypal as I've been with Paypal for about 20 years, but I have pioneered many things, so I might consider having a payment service here, especially if there were an incentive in my favor to do so.  

But, this is all a wait 'n see thing anyways.  

I'm not nervous about it though and I would hope others will give this some time to find out what it is all about.

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

53 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Now, if only new owners create a cryptocurrency (to go with Tilia)..so we can finally have BLOCKCHAIN IN SECOND LIFE!!!1!!1!

Hold up... Wasn't that Upland?

Quote

Blockchain game developer Uplandme has teamed up with Linden Lab’s Tilia division to enable digital payments in the Upland virtual property trading game.

[Nextio]

I think most people will move to OpenSim if SL ever shuts down.  Some creators will move too, which will ultimately determine if SL continues in OpenSim, or not.

All i can say is, prepare for instability in the upcoming weeks and months.

[Supersatan3]

25 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I still don't think investors are here for Second Life content, and look at the figures you have 500K monthly users compared to Roblox which has 90 million.  Well, for one thing, Roblox works on way inferior devices.  If SL were to run on inferior devices, the avatar quality would suffer greatly and we'd have to be legless or look like a box to run on a phone.  There already are enough of those.  So, SL has the best content to me but it's not easy to run without lag.  But, it's still gorgeous, just gorgeous...just to have a home here.  

I think Tilia is going to start providing a payment service with a fee through SL and probably Sansar too.   

I'm not saying I'd leave Paypal as I've been with Paypal for about 20 years, but I have pioneered many things, so I might consider having a payment service here, especially if there were an incentive in my favor to do so.  

But, this is all a wait 'n see thing anyways.  

I'm not nervous about it though and I would hope others will give this some time to find out what it is all about.

I remember when Nissan used to have a sim here, and gave away free cars. A few other RL companies did too, but didn't know how to use the SL market and left. Also, LL competing with their own customers by giving away free homes to Premium users probably didn't help either. As a former landlord I was kinda pissed about that. I stay because of people like Bryn Oh.

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

15 hours ago, ispdude said:

I have seen acquisitions like this before in fact one was for the founders of the Internet. The original company filed Chapter 11 and Verizon was a leading force in this happening.  Nothing good ever comes from an acquisition SL will soon be history.. 

Al Gore filed Chapter 11?