Randall Ahren Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 I've been looking at the highlights of Apple's lawsuit against Samsung. In its complaint, Apple writes in Paragraph 4: Instead of pursuing independent product development, Samsung has chosen to slavishly copy Apple's innovative technology, distinctive user interfaces, and elegant and distinctive product and packaging design. Later in Paragraph 56, Apple concludes: The copying is so pervasive, that the Samsung Galaxy products appear to be actual Apple products.Sadly, the same accusations could be made about SL's copying of the wall feature from Facebook. It's ironic and deeply disappointing that an organization whose slogan is in part "your imagination" has shown so little of its own imagination in attempting to revitalize SL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiked Anton Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 i also wonder about all the other generic devices that are similar ti ipads n such.....there are lots of them. and its reported that this case is in Australia...why not anywhere else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 The case is world wide. Apple has had the least success in Australia and I think the most in Europe. There is a good analysis of the case here with respect to US law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 At some point a product becomes a commodity and one looks and operates much like another. That point is being challenged and Apple may prevail but eventually its novel designs will become commonplace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innula Zenovka Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Randall Ahren wrote: Apple concludes: The copying is so pervasive, that the Samsung Galaxy products appear to be actual Apple products. Sadly, the same accusations could be made about SL's copying of the wall feature from Facebook I don't understand. By no stretch of the imagination could anyone mistake their Facebook page for their SL "wall" or vice versa. So, I guess the statement "the same accusations could be made" is true, but it's pretty groundless. It's no more justified, to my mind, than is saying OpenOffice or LibreOffice are "copied" from Microsoft Office -- the functionality is broadly the same, you're never going to confuse the one for the other. Just take a look at your Wall and at a Facebook page, and you'll see what I mean. Indeed, the differences between Facebook and SL are considerably more pronounced than those between the various Office-type products, in that the Wall feature is pretty minor adjunct to LL's main product rather than, as in Facebook's case, the product itself. To my mind, the idea behind the Wall is to enable people who are used to keeping in touch with their friends via a variety of online media to touch bases with their SL friends, when they have a bit of spare time they can't, or don't want to, log into SL, to do it within the SL website rather than to have to go to Facebook to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 wow this just kind of makes ya want to go and watch pirates of silicon valley all over again doesn't it? heheheheh poor Xerox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefertiti Nefarious Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Facebook copied "the wall" from other websites. There are a limited number of usable ways you can arrange information on a page and "the wall" is one of the more efficient and attractive ones. Something very similar was used by AOL in the 1990s for their on-line service. As for the Apple/Samsung squabble, there are a limited number of ways to design a hand-held device with a viewscreen: constrained by the size of the human hand, the materials that can be used in manufacturing, the information they want to display, and the need to satisfy user expectations created by earlier user interfaces ... throw those requirements at 10 teams of industrial designers and you will come up with something very close to an iPhone from at least 9 of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WADE1 Jya Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 but SL profiles are so much prettier than facebook! The white black & green is much more appealing than the horrid monochromatic facebook blue which is so bland it made me bored to tears & then I had to quit using facebook. One big difference I see is Lindens listening to users and respecting our privacy. That's two things you will never once see over in facebook land. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 i don't use facebook myself..but my family does..they just have to know every bit of every moment on what is going on with everyone they know.. to me it just looks like that thing that used to be around ..i think it was called friend finder or something like that..i had a couple of friends that used that.. but not using them i am sure there are some sort of differences in them all.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 Innula Zenovka wrote: To my mind, the idea behind the Wall is to enable people who are used to keeping in touch with their friends via a variety of online media to touch bases with their SL friends, when they have a bit of spare time they can't, or don't want to, log into SL, to do it within the SL website rather than to have to go to Facebook to do it. I don't the understand the purpose of the wall in-world. Why does the feed come-up as the default? Instead of sending an IM, am I supposed to leave a message on their wall when I want to chat to someone? I just downloaded the latest viewer and tested it and I think it has some serious problems. First, as noted, the feed comes up as the default. Second, if you opt out of sharing your stuff, nobody can see your profile with the latest viewer. What hurts the most about this slavish copying is the complete and utter lack of vision and leadership. Management has no vision, so they went out and copied someone that did and it's not compatible with the way SL works. They've spent years polishing a turd and what we have is polished dung. Yes, it's very shiny and facebooky, but it's excrement. There´s nothing startling or fresh about the new viewer. There's no fire, no juice to it. It looks and operates like it was developed by people with no motivation and no direction. All they want is money. They see Facebook and plaintively whine "why can't we have lots of users like them and be rich like Zuckenberg?" They don't believe in themselves and I don't either. I expect poorly tested, crappy software from them. I expect stupid ideas and spam on their official forum. SL is dying and deservedly so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Randall Ahren wrote: They don't believe in themselves and I don't either. I expect poorly tested, crappy software from them. I expect stupid ideas and spam on their official forum. SL is dying and deservedly so. Which begs the question, and I mean this with the utmost respect, Randall, why do you continue to use it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 i agree..profiles suck now with them being the way they are..i mean all you have to do is go on an older viewer to see what they have hidden..so this whole secrete thing doesn't stop anyone from seeing them.. but it is a pain..profiles used to be a big part of Sl..now everyone is cutting everyone off.. i shut a lot of my stuff off because i don't like the options on the settings..they are not consistent some have nobody on the setting and some have all three..second life everybody or nobody.. i don't want to take a half a day trying to figure out if i just made a huge mistake by letting everyone see this option or nobody seeing this one..so i just said screw these profiles and go with the most protective i could find..why would i want the web to see anything on my profile.. why an everyone setting..to me that says outside of the grid..screw outside of the grid..i just want my sl profile for sl..not facebook or anywhere else.. so profile will suck until they make them more user friendly for people..i mean heck a lot of the new users have no idea where their out of world link is.. they were not broke but yet they had to fix them when there is so much broken crap that needs fixing.. LL you can run a race that has hot rods in it even if you are invited to run it in your love bug.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 Venus Petrov wrote: Randall Ahren wrote: Which begs the question, and I mean this with the utmost respect, Randall, why do you continue to use it? Evidently for the same reasons that Lindens continue to show up at their offices and pretend they care: for the money. I'm certainly not going to make any investments in SL at this juncture. Land prices have collapsed to L$0.2/sqm on mainland, If it gets any worse, LL is going to have to start paying people to buy mainland. @Ceka, yes I agree. You would think management would get a clue and do something to restore a little goodwill like bring back last names. It's like they're deaf, dumb, and blind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Randall Ahren wrote: Venus Petrov wrote: Randall Ahren wrote: Which begs the question, and I mean this with the utmost respect, Randall, why do you continue to use it? Evidently for the same reasons that Lindens continue to show up at their offices and pretend they care: for the money. I'm certainly not going to make any investments in SL at this juncture. Land prices have collapsed to L$0.2/sqm on mainland, If it gets any worse, LL is going to have to start paying people to buy mainland. @Ceka, yes I agree. You would think management would get a clue and do something to restore a little goodwill like bring back last names. It's like they're deaf, dumb, and blind. i heard last names are coming back..but that we are also gonna get to keep display names.. why they didn't do that at first is beyond me..just another M thang i guess.. i'm just hating the profiles mostly..because they were something that was nice to read..now those are just getting cut off.. i wanna see your picks..but now i can't and people won't be able to see mine if i cut those off also..that just sucks to me.. i'll sit down one day and take the time to open up my settings..but they shouldn't have sent people over the top with this yahoo face space crap when they were fine before.. want feeds..just make a feed page..stop clumpin everyone in the same stuff trying to make us get off the grid when we want to be in here escaping out there.. bleh..their defaults sucks ..viewers with everything on when you first start them up..with the media risks going on it's like they didn't hear a damn thing when Zboy was picking users off like flies for his database..bleh.. put some filters on the viewers and find a way to filter media on a prim and get off things that were working already..like profiles.. we can't even add images from our SL unless we save them to our computer and upload them to the profile..why take out a great feature like dragging and dropping to our profile? bleh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sigren Panthar Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Possibly, I am guessing, because SL itself was - and still is - brilliant. LL, however, are a customer disregarding disaster, no matter how much you and the other apologists apologise for them. Also, as a customer, he has the right to expect a reasonable, and improving level of service, and not the shambolic mess the chimps at the lab are giving us under the 'dynamic' leadership of Mr Bumble. But do feel free to pretend otherwise, by all means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 Ceka Cianci wrote: i heard last names are coming back..but that we are also gonna get to keep display names..... If last names were brought back, I would consider it a sign of good faith that LL listens occasionally and responds to legitimate user criticism. My understanding though, is that the jira to bring last names is unassigned and waiting review, so I'm not particularly hopeful. I did see a new resident having a rezz day of December 6, 2011 with a last name. There are still a few loop holes around to get a last name for new accounts, which indicates to me that it would take an insignificant amount of effort to bring back last names on the part of LL. It seems like the features that are being developed are being implemented by people who don't really use SL. That's why the new viewer seems so devoid of usefulness: it was developed by coders with no passion for what it was being developed for. They come into the office, drink a few cups of coffee, copy some stuff from Facebook, and then hit the road early before traffic builds up on the Oakland-Bay bridge. They view users as an inconvenience and not especially bright. They thought we were so stupid that we wouldn't notice that they copied the wall from Facebook and plopped into SL. @Nefarious, hindsight is always 20-20. The iPhone et al. may seem obvious now, but it wasn't at the time of its development. Throw the same requirements at 10 teams of industrial designers and you will come up with something that sucks almost everytime until an uncompromising, creative genius gets a hold of it, that obsesses over the details. Many attempts were previously made to come with a hand-held computing device that would find widespread consumer acceptance. Even Apple had a failed attempt under their belt with the Newton. However, Apple found that magic combination first with the iPod, then the iPhone, and finally the iPad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canoro Philipp Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 i dont see a problem in having a feature that has been useful to many people and its legal to have, there are internet features that everyone can use, like hosting user generated content, having images on a website, have a support section, have a feed, the fact that others have done it before with great results, doesnt mean that we should restrict ourselves to not have it because we want to be very original. we already have original things, Second Life is very unique, we should also include things that other have done if its gonna benefit the users. the feed is here to fill a need for some people, obviously not to fill a need of the ones who dont use it, and dont plan to use it because is "like Facebook", ignoring the fact that has been a useful tool for millions around the world to communicate in its many forms across the web, even before Facebook. if some people have the ability to opt out, completely or to a certain level, thats a good thing, the control is where it should be, at the hands of the owner, not on the reader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 Can you explain what the feed is for? How does it enhance the experience? Examples would be nice. When Apple rolled out a new product or updated model, Steve Jobs would give a presentation and explain why it was so cool. His presentations typically concluded with the remark that it was "insanely great". I don't think you'll see any Lindens explaining how cool the wall is because it's not. They only thing the Lindens seemed slightly proud of was the ability to put a photo into a feed using the snapshot function. However, once again, you can tell that it was developed by people that don't use SL. The developers seemed unaware that typically one takes many photos and uploads only the best few that have been saved to your hard drive. With the feature as implemented, you have to get the snapshot perfect the first time. I don't expect Facebook to come after SL, but if they did, it would be a problem simply because Facebook is much bigger and growing. I'm sure Facebook recognizes that SL is much smaller, shrinking, and will soon be of historical interest only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canoro Philipp Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 it makes a record of pictures and comments that people want to share with each other, and allow a conversation about it, at difference from IM that the back and forth is flow of ideas where many things get forgotten, it enhances the social part of Second Life, it makes a home for the ideas of the user, it strenghten its identity, just like bloggers, it gives them a way to share an idea simultaniously, it works better than group announcements, that you click and dissapears, and you can include pictures. for example, someone wants to announce he is getting married, so he post at his feed his wedding date, the name of the bride, the place, and his friends or the whole world knows about it, and the announcement stay there with a nice presentation. just like any company, Apple selects what products are going to have a big presentation to which ones are going to be introduced without much announcement, same with Linden Lab, Linden Realms got a lot of presentation while the new features of the Marketplace not so much, the feed got some mention in the official blogs, so they were proud of it. i agree that there is still room for improvement, and i hope it always will be, so the feed will be a product that can benefit us more as time goes by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 LL's new slogan: Your world. Your Imagination. We have a wall just like Facebook! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Clarence Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Randall Ahren wrote: LL's new slogan: Your world. Your Imagination. We have a wall just like Facebook! Your Wall. Your Imagination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzee Devin Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 This seems to be a spreading problem. Even YouTube have copied the wall feature from FB. It's crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Ahren Posted December 14, 2011 Author Share Posted December 14, 2011 To me, SL has a unique characteristic in common with both Apple Computer and Harley Davidson Motorcycles. That characteristic is extraordinary loyal customers. If you post something critical of Apple, fans will viciously attack you. The same is true with Harley Davidson. The reason for the attacks, is that the fans identify with the product. They don't seem themselves as separate and apart. An Apple product isn't a just a tool or a utensil, it's a lifestyle. It makes you special. You think different. When you're working on an Apple computer, you're not working on a spreadsheet or wordprocessing, you're working on yourself. The same is true with Harley Davidson. You don't ride a Harley because you want to get somewhere. You ride a Harley because it makes you feel different while you ride it. From 9-5 you may have the most boring job in the world, but when you get on the Harley for the commute to your nothing special home, you're communing with the gods. Facebook has an entirely different approach. People don't signup for Facebook to change their life. They signup for it because everybody has signed up for it. They're pressured into it. It feels forced. It's nothing special. It's like using MS Office. You don't use MS Office because it's a great product, you use it because 95% of other computer users have it. You're just another smuck. SL in contrast makes you feel special. In RL most of us are nothing out of the ordinary and maybe even below average in many categories. But when we come in world, we can be anything we want, limited only by our imagination. We can fly and leap tall buildings and be better than we are. The Facebook wall intrudes on that and reminds us that we're not special. That's why eliminating resident names was so unpopular. When you're born, someone else sticks you with a name. But in SL we could pick and choose and find something that fits and makes you unique in a way that you like. That's why Disneyfying SL didn't work. Disneyfying tries to make us all normal. We're not normal. We're misfits. That's why we're here. We think different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cinnamon Mistwood Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Randall Ahren wrote: SL in contrast makes you feel special. In RL most of us are nothing out of the ordinary and maybe even below average in many categories. But when we come in world, we can be anything we want, limited only by our imagination. We can fly and leap tall buildings and be better than we are. The Facebook wall intrudes on that and reminds us that we're not special. That's why eliminating resident names was so unpopular. When you're born, someone else sticks you with a name. But in SL we could pick and choose and find something that fits and makes you unique in a way that you like. That's why Disneyfying SL didn't work. Disneyfying tries to make us all normal. We're not normal. We're misfits. That's why we're here. We think different. Wow, Randall. Nicely said! /me raises a hand, "Hello, my name is Cinnamon and I am a misfit. I like being a misfit, seeing the world differently and I like meeting people just as weird as I am. Thank you." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theresa Tennyson Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Just checking here - you think differently because you do what the other people who think differently do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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