Renate Kiranov

Despite all the "blah blah it's only business" replies--yes, the ads cheapen SL, especially for anyone who might be thinking of joining who happens upon the log-in page. It no longer seems something special--and attractive. And in the past two days, the ads have gone over the top--Thai models and Ukrainian women looking for lonely hearts? And just today, ads for other virtual worlds? A golf game with 6 million members? And as I write this, I"m invited to "rebulid Middle-Earth by playing the Hobbit." That's rather like GM running ads for Ford. Is LL hoping to shut themselves down? I've been in SL for 6 years, and this is the first thing LL has done that truly leads me to think it's sinking fast.

Even more basic...what is this all about? I just received IM to my email from LL telling me that someone is now "following" me. What does that mean? What is a profile feed? Making sl like facebook and twitter seems idiotic. I've searched the knowledge base on "following" and come up empty, and this post is about all I find on the blogs. It's already impossible to have a private life in sl. How about a toggle switch that disables ALL your friends' ability to see that you're on so you can wander around in peace for an hour or so just like rl without anyone being able to locate you? Some healthy downtime. But instead they now want people to "follow" us. Am I supposed to send tweets about what aisle I'm in at Xcite? pfffft...