Deltango Vale

Hi Rod and welcome. May I recommend the following article on the immersive nature of Second Life: http://deltango.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/a-strategic-assessment-of-second-life-part-2/

This is good news. Many thanks.

While Shockwave and I do not necessarily agree on every detail, I believe that he and Ceera and many others are converging on a general theme, which I believe can be expressed in a comprehensive article: http://deltango.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/a-strategic-assessment-of-second-life-part-2/ Apologies to those who have already seen the link, but, at 485 posts, it is perhaps not unreasonable to provide it again for those who have not read through the entire thread.

The problem is not free accounts; the problem is unlimited, unrestricted, disposable, anonymous accounts.

Never have I seen such vitriol in a Linden departure announcement, not even for M. While many of the replies here are indeed rude beyond measure, I believe the negative tone of this thread captures a genuine feeling of anger and frustration among residents toward Linden Lab - especially those deemed responsible for the failed policies of the past three years. A more comprehensive analysis can be found here: http://deltango.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/a-strategic-assessment-of-second-life-part-2/

Linden Lab made a serious error in the pricing of Openspace sims. Firstly, by decoupling Openspace sims from existing Estate sims and increasing the prim count to 3750, Linden Lab created a new product. Whereas Openspace sims had been decorative additions to existing Estates, they became low-cost substitutes for Estates (at 1/4 prims, 1/4 setup fee and 1/4 monthly tier fee). Yet an Openspace sim remained the same physical size as an Estate (65536m2), not 1/4 the size, which created a price advantage to owning an Openspace sim over an Estate sim. In other words, the size bonus of the Openspace sim was not factored into the price. Needless to say, Estate owners made a perfectly rational decision to acquire Openspace sims instead of more Estate sims. http://deltango.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/a-history-of-private-island-pricing/ Over the past three years, Linden Lab has made many such errors. Cumulatively, they constitute incompetence and/or negligence.

My wish list for SL includes a revival of customer service and support. The level of response has gotten so low that it is really disconcerting. If something serious goes wrong I am afraid I will not be able to get any help with it. I have been waiting for more than a month for a botched region order to be straighted out. The mix-up is blocking progress on a time critical project. Yes, customer support has essentially collapsed. Worse, paying customers are being ignored as Linden Lab runs around cleaning up the mess of free, unlimited, unrestricted, anonymous, griefer accounts.

Rod, Ceera Murakami's article above is spot-on. Linden Lab's key problem has been a failure to understand the core nature of its own product. while Second Life is a place to have fun, it is not a game while Second Life is a great place to meet people, it is not a chatroom while Second Life is useful for education, it is not a school while Second Life is universal, it is not a charity Second Life is an immersive, pluralistic, international, New World virtual country. As such, it is 10 years ahead of the market. Think Windows 3.0 or Netscape Navigator or even cellphones. All were considered niche products when they first came out. Because Linden Lab cannot grasp this concept, the company has been trying to convert Second Life into a 3D Facebook, a virtual Disneyland, a corporate conferencing system, a virtual schoolroom and now a teen chatroom. All attempts to turn an apple into an orange have failed. The apple is now starting to rot. As CEO, your job is hands-on, heads-down, day-to-day management, but raise your eyes to the horizon and see the first glimmers of a new dawn in the ongoing Information Revolution. Be one of those cool people who saw the future and grabbed it with both hands. Again (and for those who missed it), a more comprehensive analysis can be found here: http://deltango.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/a-strategic-assessment-of-second-life-part-2/

Yay..a fellow Brit! We must be cautious, Rene. A fellow Brit who works for Waitrose of Amazon.co.uk is vastly different from one who works for British Airports Authority or British Gas. Let's just say that good managers are a rare exception in the UK. Also, as you know, 'entrepreneurship' and 'enthusiasm' are still dirty words over here.

Hi Rod, Welcome. I can offer you a full assessment of Second Life here: http://deltango.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/a-strategic-assessment-of-second-life-part-2/

Y'know, it's astonishing. A hundred billion people have hated that sidebar from day one. It blocks HUDS and maps on screen, it's a pain to fiddle with (detach/attach) and awkward to use (click, click, click, click, click, click, IM). It stands out like a sore thumb as a major design failure - and Linden Lab just sits there with the headphones turned up, eating a bag of peanuts. I sometimes wonder if Linden Lab is a giant Turing Test run by gnomes in the basement of the Pentagon: "Yes, colonel, the residents truly believe there are humans working at Linden Lab." "Well done, Torley."

Jack, In my opinion, you are largely responsible for failing to formulate a coherent mainland management strategy in the autumn of 2006. As a result, mainland supply has been: erratic (massive undersupply 2006, oversupply 2007, massive oversupply 2008-2010) sloppy (extending the patchwork of Mature and PG sims to the newly created continents) The high volatility of mainland prices from 2007-2010 and the recent collapse have done considerable harm to the vast majority of residents during Second Life's growth phase. Linden Lab's primary product is virtual land. It was pure negligence to destroy customer confidence in that primary product. The patchwork of Mature and PG sims has become a serious problem in light of Linden Lab's policy reversal on underage players in Second Life. I also believe you are partly responsible for the Opensim/Homestead fiasco and Linden Homes (contributing to the current glut with little value added for those who joined the program). All of this misery could have easily been avoided with proper planning. I believe your departure is long overdue.

My campaigns were supposed to begin 6 December. Several days late, my ad appeared briefly in the wrong slot. I got a response from customer services within four hours saying the problem was fixed, but my ad has never appeared since. I shall contact customer services again. So far, US$50 (two overlapping campaigns in the same slot) has bought me ZERO exposure.

The ads are only on SL webpages, not inworld.

Yes, I agree with you. The whole thing should have been integrated with SL from day one. It confused me greatly at first that it wasn't. I kept trying to log in with my SL account. Finally, I created a new account. I have no idea what will happen when the accounts are reconciled at some point. Seems messy to me.

In theory, my ad was moved to the correct slot, but the slot is not rotating the ads. Someone else's ad is fixed in the slot, so not sure if mine will ever appear

Rene, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands. The current discount price of a campaign is ample compensation for testing the system. I think I spent a measly 50 bucks so far, but if this system works, I will gladly up it to hundreds. The SL economy is in serious trouble - serious trouble. In four years, I have never seen things so bad. I question my sanity for not pulling out while there is still time. I guess I am a silly romantic living on hope and a miracle. You saw Desmond's analysis in another blog. The fear is spreading to the big players now. http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/10/28/the-second-life-economy-in-q3-2010#comment-791557 Confidence in Linden Lab is at an all-time low. The company has made terrible mistakes over the past three years that have undermined investor's faith in the whole enterprise. Linden Lab is in trouble and it knows it. The VCs see it all slipping away and they don't know what to do. Ergo Philip's panic secondment and the drive to create a workable SLM and SLA. I will be very frank. Without SLM and SLA, I would be dead in the water. I would have had to bail out of SL with huge losses. I hang on by a thread only because of SLM and SLA - two projects that finally add value to SL instead of the litany of failures (VAT, OS, AU, V2, mainland supply, AC, Zindra, Teens) that have been gnawing like termites at the entire political-economic infrastructure for the past three years. For once, I agree with crazy Prok. Linden Lab has got to wake up from its acid trip and turn professional. Otherwise, Second Life is going to crawl to its 10th birthday as the 'CompuServe' of the virtual universe. Therefore, I am bloody impressed with SLM and SLA. They are the only good thing to happen to SL since Windlight. They might possibly save my business and the businesses of thousands of other SMEs. Finally, something to be happy about in SL.

Having tried this beta, I remain baffled as to the whole V2 project. From day one, it was a kludge. Now much effort is being expended to bring it up to the design standards of TPVs of two years ago. Cut your losses. Begin work on V3.

Followup: I sent a note about the wrong position of the ad via SLA site help. I got a positive resolution within four (4) hours! Wonderful. Thank you. If only all SL could be like this.

A couple quick points: Feedback email link does not work. For some reason, Gmail is not recognized. One must manually open Gmail and type the address Ads appear in the wrong slot. Purchased top slot, but ad appears in bottom slot Campaign seems to have begun two days late (8th instead of the 6th)

Change the debug setting SidebarCameraMovement to True and it will allow your huds to remain visible when the sidebar opens. This actually reverts back to the former action of the sidebar in viewer 2. Yes, it simply pushes everything on the screen to the left - like the original behavior. The entire sidebar concept remains a major design flaw.

The sidebar remains a design failure because it blocks HUDS, maps etc when it slides onto the screen (making it detachable does not really help). Also, the microscopic media control buttons remain squeezed into the top right corner instead of on the bottom bar where they belong. Sigh. These are basic design mistakes. In my opinion, V2 is, was and will ever be a kludge. I'm sticking with Phoenix.

So this and mutterings about the seedier sex side of SL were enough to make these RL companies run for the hills in their over priced training shoes! Second Life is where it’s at for sexual play in an online environment... Second Life was continually credited with holding the cutting edge on adult content. (March 2006) http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2006/03/27/gdc-2006 RL companies did not flee SL because of sexuality. Indeed, sexuality has long been used to sell products in RL. They left because they did not know how to exploit the virtuality of Second Life and because they could not trust the integrity of the property-rights structure. The release of Copybot in November 2006, changes to the TOS and a series of policy reversals undermined confidence in Second Life and Linden Lab.

Right, I'm confused. Do we create a new account? Do we use our RL name and info? Or do we use our SL name and RL info? How does this work?

For those who might think I and others are merely letting off steam, I point again to a comprehensive article about Second Life that may have been overlooked in the preceding 530 posts: http://deltango.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/a-strategic-assessment-of-second-life-part-2/