Linden promoting primfeed

[Coffee Pancake]

 

Linden official marketing prim feed is dumb.

It's the truth social of Second Life marketing. The whole thing is hidden behind an insane double membership requirement. Readers must be both members of Second Life and Primfeed in order to simply view content. It's worse than being paywalled, except there is also a paywall.

The whole point of promoting Second Life on social media is that it advertises Second Life to others, reminding old users what they are missing out on, and showing off the platform to new users with the best marketing possible; The kind made by actual users of the service.

Second Life content self promoting Second Life on social media dies down this one rando's members-only-rabbit-hole.

We are a small community, we don't have the bandwidth to post everything everywhere or be active in every space all the time.

 

Platform growth is not achieved by being insular.

Platform growth is not achieved by encouraging the userbase to be insular.

Platform growth is not achieved by preaching to the choir.

 

Yes, real grown up open social media is messy and might result in push-back and negative engagement beyond a brands control. Yes, that happened recently and Linden did the worst thing possible and disengaged. You don't see Subway disengaging and their disasters aren't made up easily debunked b******.

Grown up social media also comes with substantial legal overhead that aims to protect users of the service. Prim feed is subject to all these laws in all the different jurisdictions and will fold the instant a case shows up in any of them (and it inevitably will, social media is messy, remember).

All our eggs in a singular individually owned basket.

By all means pick a preferred social media platform to lean in on and encourage users, but please pick one that's open to an audience beyond our own membership.

 

Yes, Twitter and Flickr have problems, the best course of action to fill that void would still be an official Second Life mastodon server. Owned and run by Linden Lab. Connected to the wider fediverse and integrated into the viewer to replace feeds. A massive amount of zero effort Second Life content would be broadly accessible to a wider fediverse community with a high level of tech literacy and geek culture. These are literally our people.

[discussionbot]

Why are Linden Lab promoting a separate business from an anonymous SL resident?

Last I saw there were still some critical unanswered questions around transparency, data compliance, privacy, and undisclosed use of other services from @Tjay Wicken, @Bartholomew Gallacherand others.

Not sure if I’m entirely comfortable using a service that will handle sensitive data and believe their promise of it not being sold to a 3rd party when their use of undisclosed services has already been shown. Do we just trust a fictional avatar with a made up TOS to use it as a serious service now?

[Rick Nightingale]

20 minutes ago, discussionbot said:

Not sure if I’m entirely comfortable using a service...

I'm entirely sure that I'm uncomfortable doing so; and won't be doing. Even if the original intent is benign, this is the Internet. Information is like gold but more easily stolen.

Edited August 18 by Rick Nightingale

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Platform growth is not achieved by being insular.

Platform growth is not achieved by encouraging the userbase to be insular.

Platform growth is not achieved by preaching to the choir.

Good points all...

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yes, Twitter and Flickr have problems, the best course of action to fill that void would still be an official Second Life mastodon server.

 

AAAAAND they go "boom", quietly.

 

[Eddy Vortex]

So my typist visits the Primfeed site to collect an inworld code in order to create an account. My typist simply visiting Primfeed would have his IP address logged by the site owner/creator, a fellow SL resident, not a Linden Lab staff member.  Some of us pixelated avatars prefer leaving no traces of ourselves in the meat popsicle world.  

I am not comfortable with that.

[Persephone Emerald]

If you don't like it, don't use it. 

I like that it's a social media option specifically for SL, that's not just for gossip. We have Flickr for sharing pictures (which costs if you want to show any less than a bikini). We have Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, YouTube and X for promoting SL events & shops in SL. All of these are owned by outside entities with their own rules.  

I'm not going to pay to use any social media. I'm going to share as little RL info as possible. I do not think SL should encourage us to link SL identifying information with RL identifying information, but they already promote the use of Facebook. CasperVend was created by a SL user & eventually purchased by LL. I hope the same could happen with PrimFeed. I'd rather have a social platform controlled by LL than by some other entity.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

I am enjoying posting and viewing pics there. I also use the official feeds. I like the security options for the feeds. You can choose who sees it -no one, friends only, SecondLife residents, or public. I've never gone full public there. My main account is viewable by SL residents. My alts are locked down to either "no one" or friends only. 

If Primfeed decides to open to full public viewing just for public advertising, I'm out. I prefer to share with other SL residents only. Who wants random non-SL people looking and commenting if they have nothing to do with actually being in SL? Troll dream! Spammer dream! I have $50,000 in a off shore account. Just click this link.

[Istelathis]

I don't see what the big deal is, they have a mastodon account, twitter, facebook, probably a ton of others..

🤔

.. one sec

Could it be...

https://myspace.com/second-life/

No way!  LMAO, okay I wonder if this is actually linden lab.  

 

Edited August 18 by Istelathis

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yes, Twitter and Flickr have problems, the best course of action to fill that void would still be an official Second Life mastodon server. Owned and run by Linden Lab.

LL has always promoted projects by residents that they felt were worthwhile. Including snapzilla, Cristiano can comment but i think it was well received by the lab. LL took a stab at having a social feed of their own and it didn't get off the ground. This fills that void.

Also, if you've ever had a corporate job, you will understand that bandwidth for projects is a huge problem. This is a win-win for them. 

[Istelathis]

1 hour ago, discussionbot said:

Not sure if I’m entirely comfortable using a service that will handle sensitive data and believe their promise of it not being sold to a 3rd party when their use of undisclosed services has already been shown. Do we just trust a fictional avatar with a made up TOS to use it as a serious service now?

I think the only sensitive data they have is your IP address which connects to your Second Life avatar.  The only way I could see this being a problem, is if you wanted to have multiple anonymous Second Life accounts, they then could tie them all together, but even then they don't know your real life identity, all they have is an IP address, and the accounts you use the service with.  Even the pro membership is paid through Linden Dollars.

If anything, I feel more comfortable with Primfeed because it requires a Second Life account to participate, meaning that you are much less likely to have your data accumulated by third parties, unless primfeed is selling that data, which is almost entirely useless.  The only data they have, of mine, is a few screenshots, and a little itty bitty amount of text.

 

Check this out for comparison.

Courtesy of : https://www.perplexity.ai/

Almost all data accumulated on these forums, I have more concerns with posting here, than on primfeed.  It would be easier, for people to get information regarding what I leave on this site.. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I hope the same could happen with PrimFeed.

I'd like to see this too, but with some reservations. I remember how badly they botched up their acquisition of Avatars United, and their implementation of the MySecondLife feeds.

Primfeed works remarkably well, and is getting improvements literally weekly. I dread to think what LL would do with it.

[Love Zhaoying]

I think all the "SPAM" Ads in the PrimFeed stream will limit its audience.

..unless PrimFeed added some way already to reduce that?  Since each and every post could be an "ad"..?

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

 

Linden official marketing prim feed is dumb.

It's the truth social of Second Life marketing. The whole thing is hidden behind an insane double membership requirement. Readers must be both members of Second Life and Primfeed in order to simply view content. It's worse than being paywalled, except there is also a paywall.

The whole point of promoting Second Life on social media is that it advertises Second Life to others, reminding old users what they are missing out on, and showing off the platform to new users with the best marketing possible; The kind made by actual users of the service.

Second Life content self promoting Second Life on social media dies down this one rando's members-only-rabbit-hole.

We are a small community, we don't have the bandwidth to post everything everywhere or be active in every space all the time.

 

Platform growth is not achieved by being insular.

Platform growth is not achieved by encouraging the userbase to be insular.

Platform growth is not achieved by preaching to the choir.

 

Yes, real grown up open social media is messy and might result in push-back and negative engagement beyond a brands control. Yes, that happened recently and Linden did the worst thing possible and disengaged. You don't see Subway disengaging and their disasters aren't made up easily debunked b******.

Grown up social media also comes with substantial legal overhead that aims to protect users of the service. Prim feed is subject to all these laws in all the different jurisdictions and will fold the instant a case shows up in any of them (and it inevitably will, social media is messy, remember).

All our eggs in a singular individually owned basket.

By all means pick a preferred social media platform to lean in on and encourage users, but please pick one that's open to an audience beyond our own membership.

 

Yes, Twitter and Flickr have problems, the best course of action to fill that void would still be an official Second Life mastodon server. Owned and run by Linden Lab. Connected to the wider fediverse and integrated into the viewer to replace feeds. A massive amount of zero effort Second Life content would be broadly accessible to a wider fediverse community with a high level of tech literacy and geek culture. These are literally our people.

I am a highly qualified "fan" of Primfeed. Qualified because I recognize that there are issues, especially around things like data, but on the whole, it's a pretty impressive platform.

Like you, I don't like the fact that it has no outward "face" -- one of the reasons I like Flickr is because I've actually connected with some RL photographers through it. I do find it rather ironic that you'd tout Mastodon instead, which I find an enormously confusing platform, and which seems to be largely invisible to Google search. It's got, what, 10 million users or so? Better than Primfeed, obviously, but hardly a massive public presence in the social media world. (In this context, I'll just note that the vast majority of people have no idea what a "fediverse" is, nor will many of them care. If they're "our people," we are pretty largely unaware of them.)

If your complaint is simply that LL shouldn't be endorsing a platform that doesn't reach a wider public, well  . . sure, I guess? It's still a useful and enjoyable platform for users though.

If, on the other hand, you dislike Primfeed itself because it's not public (and yes, I wish it were too) and hence not serving as effective marketing for SL, I'd respond that maybe LL should do its own damned marketing, and that it's hugely unfair to blame a private individual for not undertaking it for them.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

9 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I think all the "SPAM" Ads in the PrimFeed stream will limit its audience.

..unless PrimFeed added some way already to reduce that?  Since each and every post could be an "ad"..?

 

This actually IS one of my primary complaints about Primfeed. Lots of ads, and it's heavily dominated by bloggers, most of whom are also de facto advertisers for in-world creators.

A simple solution, though, is not to follow such people.

[Extrude Ragu]

Ugh social media.

The world is too divided right now to have social media. Go on twitter, nothing but right wing politics. Go on mastodon, nothing but left wing politics. Politics, politics politics politics.

Its all so tiresome. I don't want to think about politics, or pick one of your sides. I just want somewhere to share the cool thing I made on SL.

I don't want to see your trans flags, I don't want to see your gun emojis. USA Flags, Ukraine flags. I genuinely dont care. I don't want to know.

Does anyone else remember the Internet before people started inserting their ideology symbols into their display names?

Maybe the problem is nobody has anything better to share than politics because nobody actually does anything interesting themselves.

I like the concept of Primfeed because it manages to be interesting and not about politics. Maybe LL can't reach a new audience of people on Primfeed but at least they can reach me because I can tolerate prim feed enough to see whatever LL has to say, which is more than I can say about other platforms.

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

Who wants random non-SL people looking and commenting if they have nothing to do with actually being in SL? Troll dream! Spammer dream! I have $50,000 in a off shore account. Just click this link.

What makes you think those things can't and wont happen on a closed social network.

SL users are, all by themselves, more than capable of being absolute nightmares .. often more so as they're protected by a pseudonymous identity intrinsic to both platforms.

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

A simple solution, though, is not to follow such people.

A simple solution is for the promotionally inclined to be less up front with their intent. All your feed-friends are spammers, or will be once the promotional meta game shakes out.

For just one example of this astro turfing meta game, on Reddit, we had rental organizations fielding dozens of sock puppets. Several well known SL land businesses would randomly post about or bring up land in threads, pounce on anyone asking about land, even arguing with each other about which land was better. The only solution was to prohibit the discussion of property rental entirely and use automod to blacklist all mention of certain rental companies.

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'd like to see this too, but with some reservations. I remember how badly they botched up their acquisition of Avatars United, and their implementation of the MySecondLife feeds.

Primfeed works remarkably well, and is getting improvements literally weekly. I dread to think what LL would do with it.

That would be absolute folly.

Worst case outcome : Linden Buy prim feed. It becomes the defacto standard, platform entrenched, way to promote everything everyone does in SL. The rest of the world are already routinely surprised we still exist, how bad do you think it will get if all outward facing SL user activity goes dark.

Best case outcome : Linden buy prim feed, and close it (before a competitor desiring easy access to SL's user base does).

Does that sound backwards? The business needs for growth are often counter to end user needs.

 

This is also not the same outcome as Linden operating a mastodon server with a functional account automatically generated for all SL users who could also then connect with and follow people on other mastodon instances. This would make SL users a major presence in the fediverse as a whole.

Edited August 18 by Coffee Pancake

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

A simple solution, though, is not to follow such people.

Hmm..when I tried early PrimFeed, it didn't only show you who I "followed". I liked that, just didn't like that it was mostly ads.

Similar to how Threads and some other sites do a GOOD job of "suggested" posts in your feed even if you don't follow them..I want that feature in an SL social media platform. Mastodon is too "affinity" related. FB requires RL connections. Most have some "deal killing issue".

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hmm..when I tried early PrimFeed, it didn't only show you who I "followed". I liked that, just didn't like that it was mostly ads.

Similar to how Threads and some other sites do a GOOD job of "suggested" posts in your feed even if you don't follow them..I want that feature in an SL social media platform. Mastodon is too "affinity" related. FB requires RL connections. Most have some "deal killing issue".

Your feed is populated solely by those you follow -- although of course you'll see reposts of things by other people from those you follow.

There is a public "gallery," and a "Discovery" feed, that will show you pics and posts by those you don't follow.

My chief issue has been discerning the fuzzy line between bloggers who are really just producing ads, and those who are producing pics well done enough to be worthy of attention in their own right. I'm not especially interested in straight-up shots of clothing by such-and-such, but there are many bloggers (including many of my friends) who produce fantastic and imaginative pics even as they are blogging items.

Oh, another great thing about Primfeed is that you can have posts (and threads) that are exclusively text-based discussions, a la Twitter. I've done a couple of these, and they work quite well.

[Janet Voxel]

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

There is a public "gallery," and a "Discovery" feed, that will show you pics and posts by those you don't follow.

That's it! I liked this, just not the ads.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Best case outcome : Linden buy prim feed, and close it (before a competitor desiring easy access to SL's user base does).

Does that sound backwards? The business needs for growth are often counter to end user needs.

So, you want LL to buy a successful and popular platform that residents are using to connect with each other, advertise new goods, and produce art . . . so that they can kill it, because it's not doing what you think it should be doing -- i.e., providing SL with free-of-charge content for marketing provided by unpaid residents.

Your point being, by implication, that destroying the platform that people actually like will force them to use one that they don't like nearly as much, but which does what you think this one should be doing (i.e., producing marketing for SL) but isn't.

AND you think that the platform we should be pushing people onto instead is Mastodon?

As of April of this year, Facebook had over 3 billion users, Instagram 2 billion, Twitter/X 611 million. Even Flickr has, as of August of this year, 60 million monthly users, and a total of 112 million users.

But you think SL should raise its public profile by moving to Mastodon, which seems to have peaked at about . . . 10 million registered users.

Right.

[WeFlossDaily]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yes, Twitter and Flickr have problems, the best course of action to fill that void would still be an official Second Life mastodon server.

What's Mastodon? Never mind, I googled it. Why would SL need a marketing presence on a Facebook clone? Worse still, the social media thingy called Mastodon doesn't even rank No. 1 on the search results. It is beaten by a band's website that has the same name. So for a social media platform, Mastodon, hits like an egg taco, which is to say: It probably works but probably wouldn't be great without some special sauce. But unless LL fixes the accessibility problems that are currently plaguing users on average-to-lower-end machines, it won't  really matter where they advertise, because the average passerby will not have a machine powerful enough to hop into our world and enjoy it. I shouldn't need to name the giant invisible elephant in the room, but there's a direct correlation between that topic and this one. One hand washes the other, so they say.

 

 

[Honey Puddles]

40 minutes ago, WeFlossDaily said:

What's Mastodon? Never mind, I googled it. Why would SL need a marketing presence on a Facebook clone? Worse still, the social media thingy called Mastodon doesn't even rank No. 1 on the search results. It is beaten by a band's website that has the same name. So for a social media platform, Mastodon, hits like an egg taco, which is to say: It probably works but probably wouldn't be great without some special sauce. But unless LL fixes the accessibility problems that are currently plaguing users on average-to-lower-end machines, it won't  really matter where they advertise, because the average passerby will not have a machine powerful enough to hop into our world and enjoy it. I shouldn't need to name the giant invisible elephant in the room, but there's a direct correlation between that topic and this one. One hand washes the other, so they say.

 

 

I think the intention was that, when ELon started pulling his shenanigans at Twitter, there was a big push for something 'else'. Mastodon appeared to fill that role. No one is saying that Mastodon is the end-all-be-all of social media as an alternative, but as far as I know it's 'open source' and 'free' to start one, as it is to say 'start your own IRC server' or 'start your own usenet group'.

The idea of Linden Lab taking a ready made, open source solution like that, and creating something akin to 'connect.secondlife.com', where you could be weflossdaily@connect.secondlife.com, where the things you post to your 'profile feed' could have a bit of interconnected reach, with apps that already exist for phones and desktops.

Suddenly you could share a pic via the viewer, choose your 'reach' and 'rating' setting, and based on that, your pic could be visible to friends, followers, to all SL users, maybe SL users with a given rating setting, or the greater 'all' of mastodon users who happened to discover your feed.

Edited August 19 by Honey Puddles

[Feorie Frimon]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

That's it! I liked this, just not the ads.

The filters on the Gallery help with this a lot. Now having ability to turn off ‘commercial’ has made it really nice. 
 

I like the Discovery feed too - it’s like the wild Wild West. You never know what you are gonna get…and that’s what I use it for - when I want something different 

When Primfeed has video, it will likely be my favorite SL social media. 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 minutes ago, Honey Puddles said:

The idea of Linden Lab taking a ready made, open source solution like that, and creating something akin to 'connect.secondlife.com', where you could be weflossdaily@connect.secondlife.com, where the things you post to your 'profile feed' could have a bit of interconnected reach, with apps that already exist for phones and desktops.

Suddenly you could share a pic via the viewer, choose your 'reach' and 'rating' setting, and based on that, your pic could be visible to friends, followers, to all SL users, maybe SL users with a given rating setting, or the greater 'all' of mastodon users who happened to discover your feed.

This is, I think, what we all thought "My SecondLife" was supposed to evolve into. Instead, it was permitted to stagnate after a brief but interesting period of relative popularity. It's now all but unusable.

I'd be thrilled if LL did something like this, whether with Mastodon (which, although the open source thing is good, is pretty clunky and would not, I suspect, get a lot of traction) or Primfeed. But they almost certainly won't. And if they do, we'll all have to hold our breath to see if they botch it up again.