Philip Rosedale is back as "Strategic Advisor"

[Tama Suki]

If I could ask Philip Rosedale for a change, I would ask him to totally change the marketing strategy. I don't understand why SL has to be advertised as a silly game to entertain only bored and wealthy elderly housewives who just enjoy chatting, treasure hunts, sex, shopping and wearing the latest fashion avatars. Come on Philip! Bring us back to the magic of the early days when SL was a research tool and a world where you could meet teachers and professionals. Above all, make a big investment to attract real artists and not people who think that importing a bad mesh with 5k prim cost is art.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Tama Suki

[Theresa Tennyson]

6 minutes ago, Tama Suki said:

If I could ask Philip Rosedale for a change, I would ask him to totally change the marketing strategy. I don't understand why SL has to be advertised as a silly game to entertain only bored and wealthy elderly housewives who just enjoy chatting, treasure hunts, sex, shopping and wearing the latest fashion avatars. Come on Philips! Bring us back to the magic of the early days when SL was a research tool and a world where you could meet teachers and professionals. Above all, make a big investment to attract real artists and not people who think that importing a bad mesh with 5k prim cost is art.

I would like to take the time to thank everyone on the forum lately who's been allowing me to practice my self-restraint so that I don't just post the first snarky reaction that pops into my head. There have been several people helping me this way lately, and their efforts at providing posts for me to jump at have been heroic.

[Tama Suki]

9 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I would like to take the time to thank everyone on the forum lately who's been allowing me to practice my self-restraint so that I don't just post the first snarky reaction that pops into my head. There have been several people helping me this way lately, and their efforts at providing posts for me to jump at have been heroic.

I have even read posts in which someone complains about the implementation of meshes and that according to him it would be better to get them out of the way and stay only with the native prims.
It is a speech that I have met often and that irritates me very much, but then in the end I have always chosen to respect that point of view even if I do not share it.

[Conifer Dada]

1 hour ago, Tama Suki said:

I have even read posts in which someone complains about the implementation of meshes and that according to him it would be better to get them out of the way and stay only with the native prims.
It is a speech that I have met often and that irritates me very much, but then in the end I have always chosen to respect that point of view even if I do not share it.

With a few more in-world building tools similar to what there are in Sketch-up, like 'draw' and 'push/pull', making your own stuff would become more popular - at least for things like buildings and furniture. It would still be difficult to compete with mesh for things like hair, loose-fitting clothing or cars though. Imagine if we were able to subdivide and sculpt prims - I don't mean 'sculpties' but actually manipulate the surfaces.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Conifer Dada

[Tama Suki]

49 minutes ago, Conifer Dada said:

With a few more in-world building tools similar to what there are in Sketch-up, like 'draw' and 'push/pull', making your own stuff would become more popular - at least for things like buildings and furniture. It would still be difficult to compete with mesh for things like hair, loose-fitting clothing or cars though. Imagine if we were able to subdivide and sculpt prims - I don't mean 'sculpties' but actually manipulate the surfaces.

We can only agree on this.
A more complex building system would be a great thing, to implement more tools and evolve the ones that already exist.
But there would be many more ideas. They could also evolve the photographic tool and make it an editor to create machinima, why not?
Just as I think it would also be appropriate to change the inventory system and make it more comfortable and intuitive.
Second Life has all the potential and experience to maintain its position as the best metaverse currently available.
I don't understand why they locked themselves in a corner and decided to survive this way. If they were waiting for the users to make it evolve, I think they have the wrong strategy and that the time has come for them to wake up and start getting serious.

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Tama Suki said:

Second Life has all the potential and experience to maintain its position as the best metaverse currently available.
I don't understand why they locked themselves in a corner and decided to survive this way. If they were waiting for the users to make it evolve, I think they have the wrong strategy and that the time has come for them to wake up and start getting serious.

The problem as I see it is that the Lab has a hierarchy of priorities to residents.

1. Land Barons

2. Creators

3. Consumer residents

Any upgrade that might put the regular residents in competition with commercial creators is shelved. In general the Lab simply does as little as it can to better the life of regular residents through potentially streamlining the workflows for much of inworld operability. Every feature they have brought in over the last few years has resulted in an increasingly steep learning curve for both new and even longer term residents. It is to be hoped that Philips ability to think outside of the typical Lab brain box might result instead in flattening that curve.

[Tama Suki]

5 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The problem as I see it is that the Lab has a hierarchy of priorities to residents.

1. Land Barons

2. Creators

3. Consumer residents

Any upgrade that might put the regular residents in competition with commercial creators is shelved. In general the Lab simply does as little as it can to better the life of regular residents through potentially streamlining the workflows for much of inworld operability. Every feature they have brought in over the last few years has resulted in an increasingly steep learning curve for both new and even longer term residents. It is to be hoped that Philips ability to think outside of the typical Lab brain box might result instead in flattening that curve.

Perhaps this also explains the fact of that incomprehensible last choice they made and that really blew me away.
It seems like today to be a creative who produces enticing content you are forced to become an Avastar customer.
It is a strategy that I consider highly questionable and that does not reflect at all the philosophy with which Second Life was created.

[Aethelwine]

14 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Wow. So now the First Church of Rosedale has a verifiable Second Coming.

I wonder how he feels about his creativity here still being represented by a collosal replica of his pants just opposite the particle laboratory 

[Silent Mistwalker]

42 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

I wonder how he feels about his creativity here still being represented by a collosal replica of his pants just opposite the particle laboratory 

Thanks for reminding me! 🤣

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Tama Suki said:

Perhaps this also explains the fact of that incomprehensible last choice they made and that really blew me away.
It seems like today to be a creative who produces enticing content you are forced to become an Avastar customer.
It is a strategy that I consider highly questionable and that does not reflect at all the philosophy with which Second Life was created.

A dev brought this up yesterday in the Content Creators meeting. He said a the same time that they don't wish to alienate new users with content creation standards, they also are not in the mesh modeling business. This means don't expect mesh modeling tools and home brew standards to be dictated, maintained and built into the viewer. You're going to have to choose third party programs and/or addons to work with mesh creation or roll your own.

At least it sounds like they're going to be working on supporting popular standards and containers soon since Collada seems to have become a dead end for evolving toolsets, not like that hasn't been known for many years now.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Lucia Nightfire

[Tama Suki]

1 hour ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

A dev brought this up yesterday in the Content Creators meeting. He said a the same time that they don't wish to alienate new users with content creation standards, they also are not in the mesh modeling business. This means don't expect mesh modeling tools and home brew standards to be dictated, maintained and built into the viewer. You're going to have to choose third party programs and/or addons to work with mesh creation or roll your own.

At least it sounds like they're going to be working on supporting popular standards and containers soon since Collada seems to have become a dead end for evolving toolsets, not like that hasn't been known for many years now.

I'd hate to leave Collada but it's not important, one format is as good as another.
Honestly, I don't give a damn about the internal building tool and I don't consider external programs "external" but the only thing useful for creating content. Blender in my case and in most of the creatives who operate in the metaverse by importing contents and selling them because they have concrete value and in this way feeding that virtuous circle that is the SL market.
Put on the coffee while I open a beer because I think this is the right thread to say what I mean since I returned to SL after a few years of absence.
I was very excited and happy especially as I found out that they had implemented Animesh. An idea I remember after the mesh implementation was discussed a lot as well as Bakes on Mesh and we were all excited.
So I also found that they had also implemented a new, more complex system for the skeleton.
Fantastic! I can make the avatar move his fingers and stick a lot of things on him.
But then what do I find out?
I find that this new skeleton system is kind of a mystery with rotten links in the Second Life Wiki and after researching I understand that the only way to use it is to "subscribe" to a lobby called Avastar.
I don't care about the money, the thing that really irritates me is that they have created another dead end and that this time it is a very important structural function.

All my creations will have to undergo their trademarks. I can never be an independent creative anymore.

I hope I explained myself.

I must add that I am well aware that all the content I import here are under the Linden Lab brand. But I can also tattoo that brand on my forehead because I accepted it and I proudly speak about it IRL. Avastar I don't know what that stuff is and why it was sneakily implemented in that grotesque way and I don't want to belong to it.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Tama Suki

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

19 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

On 1/13/2022 at 2:53 PM, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

w00t. Philip's back.

Wow. So now the First Church of Rosedale has a verifiable Second Coming.

Call me a young metaverse creationist.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Prokofy Neva]

What I like about Philip is that he doesn't talk crazily and obsessively about the Unreal engine as salvation (and neither do actual creators and coders grounded in inworld reality). He fiddled with haptic gloves and "the Big Rig" ages ago, then fiddled with the haptic gloves again, and then said very honestly, we're not there yet. He used to say that Silicon Valley slogan "fail fast, fail often" but he wouldn't revel in failures and burned up VC cash, he reiterated and got customer feedback and tried again. How many of these tech titans are willing to do that? 

He says very practical, obvious things to the various furry geeks that talked to him in the welcome area: This is hard. It is always on. It is 30,000 simulators on XYZ with LMN performing ABC that you must turn on, and keep on, forever, many of them making a contiguous world. That's hard. $100 million dollars of software went into this world. Etc. Philip is an engineer with actual mechanical engineering experience and product creation experience unlike so many geeks who make apps or whatever but don't really build machines. 

To be sure, Philip's priorities are not going to be anything I'm interested in, like governance, the economy, fixing search, etc. But he has boundless enthusiasm and curiosity and perhaps the overall climate improvement and enthusiasm from the staff (if they don't resent his return, and I get the impression in fact they welcome it) will raise the general tone.

If Philip accomplishes one thing, he can get these Lindens back to saying "we" and really mean it as a collective or collegium, as they used to and not say "I' as a tyrant in this or that fiefdom they control. That will be very, very big.

I remember when I first met him in person, I told him I worked for an NGO at the UN. He said he didn't know what that was or what it involved, but he was happy to learn. Of course the "Two Cultures" of C.S. Snow play out here. Nearly 20 years ago when I had these conversations with Philip at various SL meet-ups, those two cultures were in the process of reversing and are now utterly and probably inevitably reversing. Silicon Valley engineers I find are generally pretty slight on the humanities, the liberal arts, the kinds of jobs people have who are not in their world and the institutions like Congress or the UN which they tend to dismiss as "broken" -- without realizing they themselves became broken by contorting their thinking to work with computers, and are they are busy breaking us all. The proposition that every field was about computer networking because every field got digitized has really been destructive.

One of my Metaverse achievement badges came when I took my copy of "The Society of the Spectacle" by Guy Debord (for whom I have little use) and got Philip to sign it -- there being no other thing to hand he could sign except his virtual world. Although he did once helpfully explain in detail using a paper napkin and some salt shakers why sim seams are hard to cross. I listened respectfully and was happy never to care about it again. It was hard, he did the things. He tried other things. Other people tried the things. It's not that vital, really. Governance and the economy are more important; if you have those, the rest will follow. And Philip actually had very good ideas about governance. He has a very good instinct for what hurts people and what doesn't, which is why he can talk so persuasively about how the Metaverse doesn't *have* to be a dystopia and hurt people. He changed the group tools from the abusive hippie commune they were in 2004 to what they are today, which is a functioning tool of business and socializing, even if parts of it is broken.

I wouldn't say he understood everything there is about governance because it wasn't his world. But it was absolutely crucial that he was willing to accept a Magna Carta of sorts. A group of the top land barons said they would take out their business unless the Lindens compensated them for removing telehubs. They also had a list of demands, including an ethics code for Lindens, which in fact was drawn up and still is in existence I believe. Not all the demands were met; some were. Few game gods or platform pontiffs would meet with users inside their world and change their ways. Our Lindens do. They changed two things recently that I documented in response to user protest, for example. Where else do you get that in the Metaverse? You don't.

In Fast Company's article, he says this:

“It’s possible to build a version of the metaverse that doesn’t harm people but actually can help with the problems we have now with divisiveness and misinformation,” he says.

So I suppose the forums aren't in the Metaverse or even planned for Metaversalization, but that's common, the forums are usually a separate game outside the world of the game.

 

 

[Persephone Emerald]

12 hours ago, Mollymews said:

this is pretty interesting, preferring to not use a Linden last name. I was reading last year some time about Mr Rosedale talking about his life experience and how since getting older has changed how he thinks about the world and his place in it. I hear this a lot from people as they get older - more experience, more wise, more everything. There is also a element of humility in this kind of reflection

a reflection/realisation/understanding that I am not god in my own eyes nor should I be in those of anyone else', I am just a man....

 

 

...and maybe will be true, Mr Rosedale will just be a ordinary person in SL with no Linden god powers. He just  be in and see SL in the same way that we see

 

I think it's more likely because he will not be an *employee* of Linden Lab, but rather an independent consultant.

[Persephone Emerald]

9 hours ago, Tama Suki said:

If I could ask Philip Rosedale for a change, I would ask him to totally change the marketing strategy. I don't understand why SL has to be advertised as a silly game to entertain only bored and wealthy elderly housewives who just enjoy chatting, treasure hunts, sex, shopping and wearing the latest fashion avatars. Come on Philip! Bring us back to the magic of the early days when SL was a research tool and a world where you could meet teachers and professionals. Above all, make a big investment to attract real artists and not people who think that importing a bad mesh with 5k prim cost is art.

7 hours ago, Tama Suki said:

We can only agree on this.
A more complex building system would be a great thing, to implement more tools and evolve the ones that already exist.
But there would be many more ideas. They could also evolve the photographic tool and make it an editor to create machinima, why not?
Just as I think it would also be appropriate to change the inventory system and make it more comfortable and intuitive.
Second Life has all the potential and experience to maintain its position as the best metaverse currently available.
I don't understand why they locked themselves in a corner and decided to survive this way. If they were waiting for the users to make it evolve, I think they have the wrong strategy and that the time has come for them to wake up and start getting serious.

The simple answer to most of your questions here is *money*. Every business needs to be profitable in order to survive. I'd say being profitable should be the # 2 priority of every business after the #1 priority of being safe an legal - so they don't get shut down by regulators. # 3 might be to be ethical, but ethics are a tricky area sometimes. Being innovative or customer focused is great, but mean nothing if the company gets shut down for lack of funds or legal problems. Thus Linden Lab has continued with a clumsy, glitchy platform because they rightfully loathe the idea of breaking existing content and losing many of the paying users they already have. I think it will take a surgeon's touch to excise the buggy parts of SL, rather than a butcher's chop. In the meantime, those "bored and wealthy elderly housewives" are keeping SL profitable and alive.

[Tama Suki]

5 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The simple answer to most of your questions here is *money*. Every business needs to be profitable in order to survive. I'd say being profitable should be the # 2 priority of every business after the #1 priority of being safe an legal - so they don't get shut down by regulators. # 3 might be to be ethical, but ethics are a tricky area sometimes. Being innovative or customer focused is great, but mean nothing if the company gets shut down for lack of funds or legal problems. Thus Linden Lab has continued with a clumsy, glitchy platform because they rightfully loathe the idea of breaking existing content and losing many of the paying users they already have. I think it will take a surgeon's touch to excise the buggy parts of SL, rather than a butcher's chop. In the meantime, those "bored and wealthy elderly housewives" are keeping SL profitable and alive.

I am an idealistic optimist by nature and I am so fascinated by the culture of the United States that I believe that before the right rules you have listed there is the most important: # competition.
You will see that the "bored and wealthy elderly housewives" will get used to it after a few complaints, they will have to do it anyway otherwise their alternative will be to post gifs of kittens on Facebook.

[animats]

We do have more of a sense of where LL is trying to go since Mojo Linden came on board.  It's to move SL in the direction of being more alive.

• Better performance. There's some slight progress on speeding up the viewers.
• Facial expression tracking. That's on the 2022 roadmap.
• Now, with Rosedale on board, better voice chat, using the High Fidelity spatial audio technology.

SL looks dead compared to most virtual worlds. Fixing that now seems to be a priority.

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by animats

[Mollymews]

47 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I think it's more likely because he will not be an *employee* of Linden Lab, but rather an independent consultant.

yes this is the most straightforward explanation

what I wondering about is inworld god status both thru Linden last name and/or Linden godmode powers

should Philip Rosedale on his Rosedale last name not have godmode powers then I think that this is significant

a person who has direct input into the strategic direction of Second Life not having (nor seemingly wanting) god status. So the statement - I am just a man

 

[Lucia Nightfire]

35 minutes ago, animats said:

We do have more of a sense of where LL is trying to go since Mojo Linden came on board.  It's to move SL in the direction of being more alive.

• Better performance. There's some slight progress on speeding up the viewers.
• Facial expression tracking. That's on the 2022 roadmap.
• Now, with Rosedale on board, better voice chat, using the High Fidelity spatial audio technology.

SL looks dead compared to most virtual worlds. Fixing that now seems to be a priority.

 

It's going to take far more than what LL has on the 2022 roadmap to bring SL back from the dead.

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

It's going to take far more than what LL has on the 2022 roadmap to bring SL back from the dead.

There are 10+ items on that list but only several being worked on currently. It would be a miracle if they actually got even the ones they are currently working on to be finished before the end of the year, never mind all all of them.

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Tama Suki said:

I am an idealistic optimist by nature and I am so fascinated by the culture of the United States that I believe that before the right rules you have listed there is the most important: # competition.
You will see that the "bored and wealthy elderly housewives" will get used to it after a few complaints, they will have to do it anyway otherwise their alternative will be to post gifs of kittens on Facebook.

I actually take exception to your use of the term "bored and wealthy elderly housewives". I don't think you actually understand this demographic that dominates SL. I think RL women are the biggest spenders of money in SL, as well as the majority of SL creators/merchants. As such, we drive the SL economy to a large extent and shouldn't be trivialized. The RL women of SL come from a wide range of ages, from collage age to working age to retired, and I don't think many of us are actually wealthy by US standards, but more often middle-class. We're wealthy enough to afford a a decent computer and internet access, but not wealthy enough to be able to afford servants or even going out to expensive restaurants all the time. Second Life lets middle-aged, middle class women relive their youth in the form of sexy avatars with nearly unlimited access to new clothes and etc., but free of all the social messiness of real life. For what we would spend for one outfit or one trip to the beauty parlor in RL, we can enjoy this fantasy world for months in SL. Those who have the talent and drive for it, have harnessed our fantasies to make their own RL money, as well as to exercise creative drives that may have been limited in their RL jobs. Some people will always be content to repost gifs of kittens on Facebook, but for those who want a bit more, there is SL. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

41 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I actually take exception to your use of the term "bored and wealthy elderly housewives". I don't think you actually understand this demographic that dominates SL. I think RL women are the biggest spenders of money in SL, as well as the majority of SL creators/merchants. As such, we drive the SL economy to a large extent and shouldn't be trivialized. The RL women of SL come from a wide range of ages, from collage age to working age to retired, and I don't think many of us are actually wealthy by US standards, but more often middle-class. We're wealthy enough to afford a a decent computer and internet access, but not wealthy enough to be able to afford servants or even going out to expensive restaurants all the time. Second Life lets middle-aged, middle class women relive their youth in the form of sexy avatars with nearly unlimited access to new clothes and etc., but free of all the social messiness of real life. For what we would spend for one outfit or one trip to the beauty parlor in RL, we can enjoy this fantasy world for months in SL. Those who have the talent and drive for it, have harnessed our fantasies to make their own RL money, as well as to exercise creative drives that may have been limited in their RL jobs. Some people will always be content to repost gifs of kittens on Facebook, but for those who want a bit more, there is SL. 

She knows.  For someone who has claimed several times that they are only here to spread peace and harmony, she sure does slip a LOT of insults into her posts.  This is her newest insult.  You are the first to call her on it, but we all noticed.

[kali Wylder]

I remember one of the reasons I came to SL was because I read about Philip starting SL after an experience at burning man.  I wanted so badly to go to burning man but my health couldn't handle the festival in a desert.  Then I heard their was virtual burning man in SL and I made an account.

I like the way Philip thinks.

Edited January 15, 2022 by kali Wylder

[Tama Suki]

5 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I actually take exception to your use of the term "bored and wealthy elderly housewives". I don't think you actually understand this demographic that dominates SL. I think RL women are the biggest spenders of money in SL, as well as the majority of SL creators/merchants. As such, we drive the SL economy to a large extent and shouldn't be trivialized. The RL women of SL come from a wide range of ages, from collage age to working age to retired, and I don't think many of us are actually wealthy by US standards, but more often middle-class. We're wealthy enough to afford a a decent computer and internet access, but not wealthy enough to be able to afford servants or even going out to expensive restaurants all the time. Second Life lets middle-aged, middle class women relive their youth in the form of sexy avatars with nearly unlimited access to new clothes and etc., but free of all the social messiness of real life. For what we would spend for one outfit or one trip to the beauty parlor in RL, we can enjoy this fantasy world for months in SL. Those who have the talent and drive for it, have harnessed our fantasies to make their own RL money, as well as to exercise creative drives that may have been limited in their RL jobs. Some people will always be content to repost gifs of kittens on Facebook, but for those who want a bit more, there is SL. 

Unfortunately, the bored and wealthy elderly housewives plus a few old pain in the ass ultraboomers and a large group of pseudo sexual maniacs are the ones that set the trend. The problem is just that. SL has transformed from a fantastic new world full of opportunities into a gray nursing home. I really hope that the competition from other new metaverses can stimulate some changes otherwise I think we are going towards extinction.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

17 minutes ago, Tama Suki said:

Unfortunately, the bored and wealthy elderly housewives plus a few old pain in the ass ultraboomers and a large group of pseudo sexual maniacs are the ones that set the trend. The problem is just that. SL has transformed from a fantastic new world full of opportunities into a gray nursing home. I really hope that the competition from other new metaverses can stimulate some changes otherwise I think we are going towards extinction.

there's no problem with having virtual worlds deticated to sexy times,  hell it's lots safer here than out there. least out there if some one lies you can still catch things, here, if they lie,  it's just that a lie and I dont have to risk my health for it.  god I sound pitiful, but it's the truth.