Rene Erlanger

What about the other lawsuit (Sexgen & Nominee owners)...that one started in 2009

There will be enough mugs throwing money at this...purely out of frustration or even desperation of not being visible using LL's other marketing tools like All Search, Classified adverts or Marketplace searches. I won't be participating for 3 reasons - Providing RL details to a 3rd party Advertising site - Does not accept Lindens nor the USD SL balance...nor Paypal - Waiting for LL to show some goodwill by starting to fix All Search, Classifieds and Marketplace searches.

lol what jokers Linden Lab have become....manipulated All Search, crippled Classified adverts...delivered a half baked/ half working Marketplace......and now they want to sell you more flashing Ads. If this was 1st April...i'd be really laughing

Yes, I and everyone else I know who plays PC games does exactly that. When a significant upgrade to a PC game comes out it's not unusual to need a higher end computer to play it. The only people who really complain are the people playing casual games with low-end computer. The problem is that Second Life is a casual game with fairly high-end requirements. When Sims 2 and Sims 3 were both released fans of the previous version complained that the newer version had such higher system requirements that EA had done a terrible thing and ruined their game. Then they went out, bought or upgraded a computer that could handle it and the complaining stopped (at least for that part of it). Total nonsense...Second Life is supposed to be a world-wide platform for a world wide audience.....and it should not be based on the spending habits nor the disposable income of citizens from North America or Western Europe (i'm based in UK). It should not be the determining factor of one's abilities of upgrading computers to meet game performance! For instance, the costs of buying a high end computer in some Developing & 3rd world countries are extraordinarily high (deemed a luxury item) when compared to average national salaries. This is one of the main reasons why Blue Mars has not grown and still has a relative small concurrency...it's Tech has priced itself out of the World Market in the middle of a global recession. You ideas, would render Second Life a niche product...which in fact is what it has become. Do you notice any concurrency growth over the last 2 years? Linden Lab made 2 mistakes.....well 3, if you count the unscable architecture of the Game to begin with. Their Land tier pricing model was based on North American citizen's affordability (spending power)....thus pricing out a great segment of it's community. (how many Brazilian citizens could afford a whole SIM let alone a small piece of land?)......and the technology, each step by step increase in Computing demands marginalises more & more customers due to game performance. Linden Lab made a fundamental mistake very early on....it should have developed a "Full version " and a "Lite version" of the downloadable client. One of the biggest attractions and selling points of Second Life is the ability of meeting people from all over the world in one medium.

Ty for continuing to address Designer Greeds, not User Needs. I can assure you Display Names are the last thing that either Designers or Merchants in general ever wanted. It leaves us wide open to scamming. It's most like Roleplayers that wanted this change....so they can inter-change with differing RP characters, without having to log onto various Alts. Nope this is not a change Designers asked for....they're probably the last segment of the Community that ever wanted this.

Well, display names isnt bothering me at all! First I did was to disable it^^....and most time I use a TPV, a good one. So, I dont see any display names and out. The perfect solution...maybe the only solution!

I wonder what it's like on their side of the fence. I think Jack is sincere when he says he's "delighted" with display names... I doubt that he's delighted with our reactions. Do the Lindens have the same sense of futility and struggle that some of us residents have? Imagine working hard on the display names project, and finally feeling satisfied that it works as advertised, and then seeing... well, not the blog of course! but tweets about how people hate it. I mean, they didn't make it to irritate or alienate us. It's just that there is a fundamental incomprehension. Talk about "getting back to basics" -- I hope that's one basic element that could some day go away. Who actually requested Display names? ....it appears only Roleplayers like Haru were keen to see this being introduced.....the masses didn't care for it one way or another.....much like their Voice morphing! On top of that, they throw in a naff 2.3 Viewer that crashes for some users......that's not great if it's the default download for New Users......doesn't exactly help retention rates does it? I think LL have lost the plot......the rudder has broken!

Have you thought of applying for a Public Relations position at Linden Labs? I doubt any LL employee could have written a better promo. Maybe you should search out an interview with M.Linden (2008 or 09) where he reveals that LL has never had an effective marketing budget. If you want to see a proper Marketing budget yielding significant login growth....look no further than IMVU. It now has peak logins of around 110k ....that's about 60% more than SL.

You know...there were around 10,000 posts that spoke out against Zindra and age-verification. Did LL take any notice other than making some cosmetic concessions? Resistance is futile

Prok- from what I have read here...you can uncheck "Display Names" in Preferences and then those group Titles should show up as per normal..and i guess activated same way.

I was just pulling your leg. The jist of my message, was that there are many fundamental issues with this platform that needs working on....some of which have been around since year dot! LL would best channel their energies in that direction on fundamental baseline improvements rather than adding more and more shinies .....which the majority of users don't even care for. The stack of Jiras are piling up.....why can't they fix the many issues with Marketplace...how about in-world Search which has devastated so many in-world businesses? Instead we get Voice Morphing and Display names......and a version 2.3 Viewer that seems to have suffered from a premature ejacu.....

The freedom to call yourself what you like? That really does seem reason enough to me. Ahh...and that increases your Second Life experience tenfold does it?? Ahh, gotcha! Does it also help rez textures in a more timely fashion?......or stop you from rubberbanding at Sim crossings? or maybe increase your success rate in TPi'ng? or gets you instant Marketplace deliveries? If the answer is "Yes" to all..then.... /me must get one of these "Display names" /me thinks "Icantgetnosatisfaction" would be a good name! .

I don't know what were the main driving points for having "Display Names" ? I guess they could be useful for Roleplay instead of using titlers or through role names via Groups......but what other mainstream usefullness do they have other than a few edge cases? Completely baffled! It's like that other shiney they introduced recently ---> Voice Morphing. I mean who uses that shit?....who are LL exactly catering to? These are like for extreme minorities.

If I Google "InWorldz" I can get the link to register there... Right? Yep you can....I registered my SL name over there when they first opened....just in case it ever got big & popular!

Maybe this whole "Display names" thing is a ploy for Linden Lab to happily announce that they've reached 1 million active users!! It looks like lots of SL regulars are rushing out to acquire "Display name" alts...., judging from the SL forums gossip. Referring back to Tom Hale's (ex-CPO) interview in Feb 10, when he predicted 100k peak logins & 1 million active users by year end!! Well obviously they won't get close to the 1st target (although there seems to be a rise in Bots & camping again in-world)....the 2nd target could be achieved with increases to Alt accounts creation by SL regulars. So watch out for more smokescreens in Q4 SL Economy Review. (Yes, 1 Million active users --> never mind that it might be made up of 200k new Alts, 300k are Noobs who left after their 1st login experience) lol

My computer stumbles and stammers on SL. Is it my computer? Nope....just duff Ukrainian coding! .......the "Odessa Files"

I had to reinstall 2.2 just to get my CPU to stop maxing out. (Intel 2.66ghz Core 2 Duo) Freezes every time i rez to a new Zone. takes a good 120 seconds or more for things to settle down so I can actually walk around. Back on 2.2 CPU is at 68% not 100. I dont know guys... you need to work this stuff out. Thats why so many people use Viewers like Phoenix. They try it once.. it freezes up on them and they move on. Running: Vista 32bit , 4 gigs or Ram, Intel Core2 Duo 2.66, NVidia 6800 GTX card. No other programs running while running SL. Sometimes Firefox in the BG That's why Second Life won't ever attract mass userbase because not everyone has that sort of spec Desktop PC at home....and it takes a good laptop to make it run decently. Anyone with a below average computer will just appear as a mushroom cloud Avie in SL using any of those V2 Viewers .....and LL wonders why it's retention rates are really poor. They really don't help themselves. They've wasted nearly 18 months on this V2 Viewer (since they first started development)......you'd think it's long enough to recognise a failed project. I describe it as a failed project ....because still a great percentage choose to use TPV Viewers even after the "Emerald saga".....and if V2 wasn't made the default download, the percentage of V2 users would even be lower. My suggestion is wait for the TPVs to develop their own version of V2 viewer.....i'm sure lots of the bugs will be ironed out.

Some answers to other posts on here: The limit of 64 characters only appears to apply to entering classifieds - this is because they failed to correct a line in the xml that said '64' to '255' - may have been that they didn't spot it until immediately before release. It has been fixed in the soon to be released Viewer 2.4 Beta. Classified for as long as i could remember could contain near on a 1000 characters. Why are Merchants paying the same and getting far less? Thankfully in the 1.23 viewers you can still see the expanded version of a Classified. I hope the TPV's when they get around to doing there V2 versions will look into this ...and at least make sure we have 512 characters at a minimum.

.......Good god almighty, what does it TAKE? Instead of wasting time, money and effort on this crappy viewer just make SL WORK!. And all this for an interface that is frustrating to use. Functionality? don't get me started on it's functionality. And my god people, "Display names"? so what? who the *#@! cares? My avatar's name was fictitious to begin with!! You brag that you added display names. It's like Toyota saying "Never mind the cars are running wild on thier own, we changed the location of the MP3 jack on the radio". Lol Betty......but Jack Linden says it's important for us to have Display Names......it's what the masses has being asking for (most likely, all 100 of them! )...and was delighted to announce this! ...or it might be another LL preconcieved notion that new users won't stay long in SL if they can't choose their own Avatar name. You can place that one in the LL archives of "unproven theories"

This is just silly. No company would release a piece of software where basic functions like these did not work. Every new version of the viewer is more buggy than the previous, and I'm slowly getting fed up with it. I've liked it from the beginning, but I'm now thinking of finding a TPV that works. Not because of the features, but because of the errors and bugs that seems to multiply over time. - Luc - Pay peanuts...get Monkeys from Odessa, Ukraine! Never mind...you still got another shiney to play with ala "Display names"

Yep- OS Grids are the future of 3D Virtual Worlds.......it can't be stopped, it's an unstoppable juggernaut. I know i'll end up being there someday. If LL and Avatar Reality fails as companies...you can kiss goodbye to SL and Blue Mars.....OS can't be closed......too many different Grid owners & companies. Soon they will match the server side tech....just a matter of time!

Speaking of Trust...in trusting the Game owners to implement fair systems for all types of SL businesses, we can now witness something more sinister operating in the background. How can any start-up or small or even medium size SL Business trust the Game owners, who are blatently favouring large businesses and big spenders.. In the last few weeks, Jack Linden via his Search Dev team has implemented a "Parcel size" bias into the in-world ALL Search system, which now handicaps any Business of a certain land size ....even though it might sell more relevant content, it will not rank as high for their targetted Keywords as it should do. This is particularly visible in the most popular keywords like "Skins or Hair or Prefabs or Furniture" etc etc.....fortunately it's not too bad in the niche keywords though that have less than 1000 results. Not content with that, they have changed the way Classifieds appears and searched on in their V2 Viewer. Historically you could have type around 1000 characters or so in the Advert description box. Now some outsourced Ukrainian coder from their Odessa office seems to think 256 characters is enough for us Advertisers. Take a look how these Adverts have been chopped up in mid-sentence in Viewer 2.0. So one pays the same for their weekly advert and get less exposure for it! Did LL announce it anywhere? Did they speak to any of their customers who pay for these adverts? https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-577? That's not even the worst of it. Classified Adverts worked from "exact phrase" match...meaning that the exact phrase needed to appear in the body of the text of your advertising. It was ranked according the amount you spend on that Advert. It was a pretty straight forward and fair system.....the more you pay, the higher you're listed for that keyword (or phrases) searched. Now in Viewer 2.0 (in 1.23 viewers its still works fine thank god!)....it searches the adverts on "partial match"...or if they contain the keywords anywhere in the body of the advert. Example : Fantasy Fashion If you do a PG+Mature search on using the V2 Viewer...the no.1 position advert Pulse Skins, it doesn't even have the word contained anywhere in the body of text nor it's Title. That no.1 result has absolutely nothing to do with selling Fantasy Fashion....it was listed top, because of it's 300,000 L spend and the fact that it sells "Fantasy Skins" If you look at the same search in 1.23 Viewers, you'll see there are only 19 adverts shown...because they are based on "Exact match" which it should do. The top advert is 1500 L in this very niche market. By Contrast, Viewer 2.0 is displays the first 100 results (most of which are totally irrelevant to Fantasy Fashion anyway) The 100th listed result is an advert for 500 L.......it means 13 of the 19 legitimate adverts that sell Fantasy Fashion in Viewer 1.23 are totally excluded in the same Classified search using Viewer 2.0 It's a total Sham.....and Linden Lab need to be called out on such practices. They are taking your money and not providing an adequate & fair Service for it. Same can be said for those 30 L Land Search fees for small/ medium size land owners.....again being handicapped in the ALL Search system, regardless on whether they create & sell more relevant content than some of the larger & higher listed entries.

Welcome home Montana ! LL had it all at one point..a thriving platform, community, economy and lots of Media attention....everything seemingly pointing upwards. People were having fun and there was a general buzz around the Grid. Somewhere down the line LL derailed...lost it's vision...wanted to be all things to all people, flipping from one failed strategy to another. Were the VC's putting too much pressure on the Management to deliver increased profits? Most likely yes! I'm not sure where LL goes from here. The current figures and indicators don't look great! They lost something precious down the line, which they won't reclaim too easily......"trust from the Community"

Considering all the other major indicators are down, you ever wonder why Land has never decreased? Well at the beginning of the year LL introduced the very secretive "Atlas Program" which was designed to benefit medium-to large estate Barons (any estate over 20 Sims)...who would receive discounted deals to pick up Sims and lands at cheaper cost providing they increased there holdings by 5% each Quarter. A.C's Dreamland Estate was a notable beneficiary. So its not true growth as such, otherwise the Land picture would be quite different....and most likely lower too, just like the other indicators. You can read about here http://alphavilleherald.com/2010/06/will-lab%E2%80%99s-over-half-off-sale-for-large-landowners-continue.html and http://secondlifesecondchance.blogspot.com/2010/06/atlas-program-finally-name-to-linden.html In reality it just another daft (& desperate) LL strategy...because whilst the largest Estates might grow and be able to offer cheaper rents...the flip side is that smaller Estates unable to compete and thus followed by reduce occupancy...will end up abandoning. (rob Peter to pay Paul). The net effect to LL's Grid growth is almost negligible.......due to the main driver remaining constant (in fact lower).....and that is active Users on the Grid.

Depends how you use SL...depends how heavily you tied & invested into Second Life. If i didn't have any investments and was homeless...and just used Second Life as a glorified chatroom and a place to listen to music, I probably wouldn't have a care in the world and i doubt anything LL does would effect or bother me! If Second Life were perfect and properly managed.....there wouldn't be a need to whine at all......the fact that the volume of decent has been turned up over the last couple of years...should tell you something!!