A Quick Word

I’ve been blogging about my SL times since the end of 2007. As I post rather eclectively on both D/s and Second Life in general, I’ve now split my blog up. This one deals with living in a virtual world in general. My i-Squared blog is the place to go for information on i-Squared designs and builds. My peysworld blog deals with all matters relating to D/s relationships and D/s in Second life. I hope you enjoy reading them, and that you’ll leave any comments that come to mind!

XStreet: time to move on?

Linden Lab recently announced a “roadmap” for the future of XStreetSL (XSL). The entire thing has been so debated, ranted and screamed over in the so-called Commerce Forum that I’m not going to rake over the coals here. Suffice it to say, I’m not overly please with what has happened – not for the reasons you may suspect (I’m not rabidly against the charges per se) – but for reasons that will remain personal, if only because I prefer not to go around insulting people.

Instead, I’ve been looking around at potential alternatives to listing my wares on XSL. To date, I’ve found three alternatives I’ve found to be of interest, and thought I’d take time out to write-up my initial impressions on each. They are: Apez, Slapt.Me, and Metaverse Exchange.

Note: My focus here is purely on the out-world, web-based marketing environments offered by these services. For that reason, I’ve not touched upon any in-world, vendor-based shopping solutions that may also be on offer; noe have I included any ancilliary services offered by these sites – such as SL-related wikis, banking systems, tools for building your own web stores, etc.

Apez

This is possibly the oldest competitor to XSL. Apez provides both in-world selling solutions, with a range of support tools, and a web-based marketing website.

The website: It has to be said that the Apez web design does speak volumes in regards to its longevity. In comparison to other sites, it comes across as “early noughties”: black background, a layout that appears to be put together with the most basic of HTML, untidy banner ad positioning, etc.

Which is actually a shame, as the site is actually very informative. For example, this is  the only web-based merchant environment that is totallyup-front as to its popularity: to the right of the home page is   Statistics Box that breaks down all activity across the Apez environment (in-world and out-world). Most useful here is the VEND entry, which spells out the sales volumes in terms of number of items sold through the website for the preceeding 24 hours, and the total value of said sales. It also gives the total number of products available for sale through the site. These figures alone allow one to view the overall popularity of the Apez site, and calculate such interesting figures as the total number of sales as a percentage of the total number of available products, the mean value of items sold, etc.

While other websites may provide this information, the fact that you have to go digging for it tends to make finding it that much harder.

Product Placement: Those using XSL will find Apez a little irritating to use at first – but again, it needs to be remembered that Apez is designed for both web-based and in-world selling; certainly, those who have used purely in-world vending systems will find Apez’s approach very familiar. The basic steps to getting an item on Apez are:

1. Open an Apez server and place it in-world.
2. Transfer your (suitably prepared and packaged) goods to the server.
3. Upload your goods information to the Apez web server.
4. Create one or more “product lines” with which to define your goods.
5. Define your goods in terms of web page descriptions that include the product line, the item, price, prims, etc. – much as you do with XSL.
6. Add your goods to the Apez inventory.

The idea of product lines may be unfamiliar to those who sell via XSL exclusively, but more than familiar to those who have used the likes of Hippo Vend, etc. The concept isn’t hard to grasp: a product line defines a grouping of products into one Apez-based category (not to be confused with the XSL-style categories) that can then be assigned to in-world vendors, so that individual vendors can display subsets of your overall product range. It has no bearing on your ability to sell on the website.

Defining your goods within Apez is also very XSL-like. You simply navigate to your INVENTORY listing (VEND -> INVENTORY), click on the name of the item you wish to see listed, and complete the displayed product form.

The latter is in two parts, and they need to be independently completed to one another.

The main portion of the form will be instantly recognisable to XSL users and users of vending systems alike. In it, you spell out the item being sold in terms of a description, price, number of prims, the XSL-based categories under which the item is to be found when the Apez website is searched, etc.

The lower section of the form relates to any images you wish to assign to the product item and which are to be displayed on the associated web page.

The best way to complete the form is to fill-out the top-level section first. Again, because Apez uses in-world vendors, this section includes drop-downs to allow you to select an image to be displayed by the vendors, and a notecard that can be given to those browsing the vendors (providing both have been placed in your in-world Apez server). If you are using Apez purely for web-based sales, both of these drop-downs can be ignored.

For the rest, the form pretty much follows the XSL “standard” – other than the fact it excludes any ability to note the permissions associated with the product. This is because the permissions are obtained from the product item itself. In theory, this is great for items you have prepared and boxed yourself. However, when using pre-packed items such as rezzing systems, the permissions can become confused. To this end, it is advisable to spell out the object permissions within the PRODUCT DESCRIPTION part of the form.

One irritant with the PRODUCT DESCRIPTION part of the form is that it will does not particularly like text pasted into it from other sources (e.g. copying a product description from a notecard or from text you already have on XSL) – it will frequently add unwanted characters to the text, and getting rid of some of these can be a pain. However, on the plus side, the form allows bold, italic, etc., text to be embedded in descriptions using simple buttons rather than a reliance on manual coding, vastly improving readability with simple mouse clicks.

When the form has been completed, make sure you click the UPDATE button within the main portion of the form BEFORE you attempt to upload any images – failure to do so will result in the information you’ve entered being lost on uploading the first image.

Images themselves are added using the lower part of the form, and follow the XSL norm for such uploads – although you can actually add a description to each picture at the time of upload; while this is currently not displayed with the images, it is apparently “coming soon”.

Displaying Goods: Once you have created a web page for your goods, Apez includes a nice facility wherein it is automatically displayed in the “Newest” listing on the Shopping pages. How long it remains there is down to the volume of goods being uploaded, but anything for 2 to 24 hours appears to be the norm.

However, a major bugaboo for me is the fact that merchants aren’t given the ability to identify themselves through something like a unique ID – thus it is not possible to generate a listing page of your own goods. Nor is there any means for a shopper to click on a link within a displayed item to display a listing of all the items sold by the given merchant. This does severely limit the effectiveness of Apez when used by the casual browser, and while content creators can be individually searched for from the search tool, the ability to do so does not wholly compensate for this particular lack of functionality. This is for two reasons: a) it assumes from the outset the shopper knows the name of the merchant they wish to search for – the casual shopper may /probably won’t know this; b) the generated URL resulting from a search cannot be usefully saved, as re-use will simply return one to the main Apez Shopping page, not a defined list of products from a merchant.

As with XSL there is an option to display goods purely be pre-defined category (Apparel, Art, Building Components, Home and Garden, etc.). Or you can search based on a number of criteria: free form (enter a generic name like “houses” or a category or even a creator’s name) or in combination with options to narrow the search based on a prices range and / or sorted by price, age, etc.

Apez Pros

• Well established
• Ability to have one item recorded under up to three search categories
• Good interweaving of in-world and web-based sales vending
• Search somewhat superior to XSL
• Low commission (4%)
• No upload fees
• Good supporting tools
• Forums routinely browsed by staff and responses to issues given fairly rapidly
• Ability to market goods directly from your own website via “ezbuy” utility
• Good product / sales management tools

Cons

• Product listing form can be initially confusing.
• The main menu bar is annoying: sub-topics to menu items are listed below the main menu in a horizontal bar (rather than a drop-down submenu), meaning the cursor has to be dragged around the screen.
• Occasional issues with permissions recording & no ability to override manually.
• No ability to link from a specific item to a list of items produced by the same merchant.
• Despite age, relatively low web-based usage compared to XSL.

Slapt.me

Slapt.me is perhaps the newest of the market suites that can be used with SL. As with Apez, the system can be used both for web-based or with in-world vendors, and like Apez and XSL the system uses in-world servers to house goods for sale.

As with XSL, Slapt.me charges a 5% commission on all sales.

The website: The Slapt.me website is very mindful of SL Exchange before Linden Lab grabbed it and morphed it into XSL. Visually, the site is much cleaner and easier on the eye than Apez, banner ads are better placed and the main navigation bar is clearly identified and avoids the need to select a main topic and then drag the cursor around to select sub-topics as well as avoiding the need for more user-friendly drop-downs.

As with XSL, the home page has a main “featured items” display where people can pay to have their items displayed at a cost somewhat lower than XSL, and comparable to those of Metaverse Exchange (see below). However, it is unclear whether or for how long these fees will remain at their current levels – the Fees Page indicates the current fee levels are a “special offer”, and that fees nearer to XSL will be applied in due course.

Where Slapt.me’s homepage benefits over XSL is that a) it has direct access to product categories on the left, thus simplifying getting started when looking for items – a feature LL stupidly cut from XSL; b) the forums links are reduced in size and placed to the right of the page, under the clearly defined login area.

There is a certain paucity of easy-to-find help within Slapt.me: while there is a link to a wiki, the wiki itself is not specific to the sales tools, etc., but rather relates to issues surround the SL Adult Changes. As this matter is now a done deal in most respects  – whether one agrees with it or not – most of this information could do with archiving and replacing with more relevant information. Similarly, while there is also a seemingly helpful “Getting Started” link in the menu bar, it to has limited information and could do with an extensive revamp. Help is located in the forums – but really, when merchants want to get up and running ASAP, this should be far more prominent, whether or not the site is intuitive.

The forums themselves are well-populated and are clearly monitored by staff – responses to questions are generally rapidly responded to, and informational stickies are frequent and clear-cut.

Search is not so definable as with Apez, and suffers some of the drawbacks associated with XSL in that totally unrelated items can pitch up fairly regularly (a search for “Homes” can result in listings for eyes, as an example).

Product Placement: follows the XSL format, with a couple of overall improvements. Once suitably packaged items have been added to an in-world server, information relating to them is uploaded to the slapt.me web servers, and the creator can then access them by logging-on to the website and clicking on the clearly identifiable MY ITEMS link on the right of the page (there is also a link there to access MY INVENTORY that allows management of actual slapt.me in-world servers, vendors and setting-up product groups, etc., but this falls outside of the scope of this review).

Once on the MY ITEMS page, clicking on the ADD ITEM link (top right of any inventory listing) displays a product form that will again be instantly identifiable to anyone with XSL / SL Exchange experience. Here you enter the details of the product you are selling, and link the details to a given item of stock. The form itself is far more compact that the form used in XSL and as a result a lot quicker to use – itself a major benefit when you have a lot of items you need to display.

The item description box also works flawless with cut and paste from other sources. Slapt.me also supports text emphasis, but via manual coding (e.g. [b]text[/b] for bold text).

Also unlike XSL or Apez, the form includes a sub-menu to bulk upload up to 5 images for an item in one pass – again, a MAJOR time-saver compared (especially) to XSL, where image uploads can be exceptionally tedious. Also benefiting Slapt.me is the fact that loading pictures will not clear-down anything else you’ve entered into the form – which is a source of annoyance with Apez.

Once the details of an item have been updated and images uploaded, it is a simple matter of clicking the ADD ITEM button displayed at both the top and bottom of the form to see your item added to the slapt.me database and have the resulting item added to your inventory list.

Displaying Goods: Again, as with XSL, Slapt.me assigns you with a merchant’s ID, this means that it is easy for the casual shopper to browse the listings, examine a specific item and then display a listing of all other items by the same merchant. It also means that a merchant can use a dedicated URL from the site to list their wares in Picks, notecards, etc., in-world and from any other website / blog they operate.

For high visibility, Slapt.me follows the XSL format of paying for visibility through the aforementioned “featured listings”. In this, it scores well below the Apez approach of having a “newest items” listing on the main shopping page. This latter approach enables merchants who cannot afford even Slapt.me’s reduced featured listing fees to gain at least some up-front exposure and the potential for increased sales.

Slapt.me Pros

• Well-presented, easy-to-use website, very familiar to XSL/SLx users.
• Well-executed product form that greatly eases the process of physically listing an item on the site.
• Ability to view all items available from an individual merchant.
• Ability for merchants to created dedicated listings of their products.
• Good documentation
• Very good service support, both via the forums and in-world
• No upload fees
• Decent range of admin tools

Slapt.me Cons

• Reliability – the site has been subject to accessibility issues (some admittedly beyond the control of the owners). There have also been issues with in-world servers (“Slapt.me” boxes) breaking easily as a result of issues with the website. While these issues have been rapidly and expertly dealt with by staff, they are nevertheless of concern.
• Possible integration issues with the website: elements of the website do not appear to be properly integrated with the rest: the “links” section, for example, requires a separate log-in / account. While this is a minor issue, as with the need for multiple log-ins with XSL / SL, it is somewhat irritating.

Metaverse Exchange

Metaverse Exchange (MVX) has been around somewhat longer than Slapt.me (commenced operations around April 2009), but not as long as either XSL/SLx or Apez. Like Slapt.me, those familiar with XSL will immediately feel at home with MVX, and will doubtless like the “extras” it offers for both shoppers and merchants. Unlike Slapt.me and Apez, MVX is purely a web-based marketing system, and in that respect, is perhaps closest to XSL.

One important thing to note is that MVX is not restricted purely to SL – other grids with economies can be supported (currently only Legend City is active), and this potentially gives merchants with suitable products to sell into grids other than SL in the future.

Website Design: MVX has perhaps the cleanest web design of all four environments. It is minimalist in approach, and potentially by far the easiest to use. The home page dispenses with banner ads to focus on content, with a clean, easy-to-grasp menu bar, a search window to the left of the screen and a listings window to the right.

New users arriving at the site will find the search window provides an input box for custom searches, and three pre-defined search links: Featured Listings, New Listings and Merchants. These three option control what is seen in the larger window to the right. By default, this displays Featured items  – however, clicking on New Listings search link will display a list of the most recently added items – a-la Apez, while the Merchants link displays a list of all merchants registered with MVX – and clicking on a merchant’s name from here displays their products.

Once logged-in to MVX, the search window expands to display a full list of familiar product categories – clicking on any of these will both display a listing of subcategories on the left, and a set of initial items in the right hand window, allowing users to further refine their search or start browsing.

As with Slapt.me, MVX charges a standard 5% commission on all sales, but avoids upload fees. However, MVX’s featured lists fees are substantially less than XSL’s fees, although currently comparable to those of Slapt.me.

Product Placement: MVX offers what at first glance is a convoluted means of displaying goods for sale on the site – however, there is a solid logic behind the approach, and it is still pretty easy to actually use. The process can be broken down as:

1. Placing all suitably packaged goods for sale into an in-world MVX server (obtained from the website).
2. Uploading the goods information to the MVX servers.
3. Defining each item in terms of an inventory item on the website itself.
4. Creating a listing page for the item.
5. Displaying the finished listing.

It is in steps (3.) and (4.) that MVX differs from the likes of XSL and Slapt.me, wherein these two steps are largely combined into the act of creating an actual listing page for the product.

Defining an item in terms of inventory means selecting an item for sale and giving it a suitable name, defining the price, number of prims and the permissions associated with it, and also uploading any associated pictures to be displayed once the item is attached to a listing.

Once this has been done, a Listing must be created for the item. This involves displaying a form similar to those found in XSL, etc., and using it to enter the product search category (again, MVX uses pretty much the same categories as defined by XSL: Apparel, Buildings, Home and Garden, etc.), with associated (and selectable) sub-categories), a description of the item being sold  – and then linking this to the actual inventory item. Text sued is the description field can easily be cut and pasted from other sources and emphasis cane be coded (again, [b] text[/b] for bold text, for example).

Once the Listing has been linked and saved, it is combined with the inventory listing to form a product page shoppers can browse as with any of the other sites.

While this may sound convoluted, the system has significant benefits over other systems:

• One Listing can be created that contains several inventory items. For example, a clothing outfit available in several different colours needs only a SINGLE Listing, which can be linked to all the individual colours for the outfit uploaded from the in-world server.
• “Seasonal” and other listings can be easily created, again allowing you to display multiple items under a single listing.

Displaying Goods: Again, as with XSL & Slapt.me, MVX assigns you with a merchant’s ID, this means that it is easy for the casual shopper to browse the listings, examine a specific item and then display a listing of all other items by the same merchant. It also means that a merchant can use a dedicated URL from the site to list their wares in Picks, notecards, etc., in-world and from any other website / blog they operate.

MVX Pros

• Clean, esay-to-follow website.
• Excellent predefined search / browse options offering the widest choice of home page listing options.
• Very favourable and affordable featured listing prices.
• Ability for merchants to create dedicated listing pages.
• Rapid access to merchants’ listing via main search and/or from item listings.
• Active community within the forums.
• Clear-cut help pages and excellent staff support.
• Bulk upload of images – up to 20 images at a time via your personal Images Page.
• Definable in-world locations: if you move a store, you can update all listings at once.
• Merchants can reply to buyer reviews.
• Very flexible listing mechanism.

MVX Cons

• Low take-up.
• Currently very low user awareness of the site as an alternative to XSL.

Conclusions

Apez, Slapt.me and MVX all offer viable alternatives to XSL. Each has specific advantages and few genuine disadvantages, but all three suffer from both a lack of exposure to the user base within SL and from the fact that, sadly, XSL is terribly convenient and “safe” for users in that it is managed by Linden Lab and is (somewhat) integrated with the main SL website.

However, these latter factors should in no way prevent any of these alternatives reaching a wider market and achieving higher visibility. In this regard, it is as much the responsibility of merchants using the systems to see this is the case as it is the site owners themselves. Within MVX particularly, there is very much an awareness that this is the case, and merchants are pulling together to actively promote MVX and so increase traffic throughput.

Of the three, MVX probably offers the best set of overall features combined with a very high ease-of-use. However, it probably currently lags behind both Apez and Slapt.me in terms of user awareness and merchant take-up. However, as stated, it does have a very active community of merchants, many of whom are actively working to increase the site’s overall visibility within SL.

I’ll be staying with all three for now – and with XSL (with a greatly reduced inventory). However, I’ll be watching developments closely with each.

Surveying Content

I’m a content creator. I’m not a major player; I’d don’t build as a “business” I build because a) it is creative, and I can build better than I can paint or draw in rl;  and b) the things I make are comparative quality-wise with other items in the same market categories and so selling them helps offset my land costs.

So… being something of a small fish, I was surprised to find an e-mail from Pink Linden (she who is “in charge” of XStreet and commerce). Here’s the content:

Second Life always seeks to improve your experience with us. In order to improve that experience, we are surveying merchant opinions to understand more about how you sell virtual goods now and how you might like to sell them in the future.

The survey presents several concepts that are example of ways Linden Lab might be able to further support Second Life merchants and the inworld economy. None of these concepts are currently on our development roadmap, they’re just hypothetical scenarios that we’d appreciate your thoughts on.

Please take the survey (link below) and give us your input. It should take about 10 minutes to complete.

Follow this link to the Survey:
[removed]

If you have questions about the validity of of this survey, I invite you to contact me in world.

Thank you in advance for your time,

Pink Linden

The link in question lead to a multi-page survey relating to XStreet, merchandising and what Linden Lab “might” do (and I’ve long ago learned that “might” in Lindenspeak tends to mean “will”). And it makes largely horrifying reading. To summarise:

• LL are considering introducing an in-world vendor system that will provide a “guaranteed delivery” and “comprehensive sales statistics” that will allow merchants to sell the goods they have listed on XStreet in-world. The lab will take between a 10-15% “commission” on all sales passing through these vendors.
• LL are considering a “cross listing service” whereby you can sell your item in-world, on XStreet and get a featured classified for 5-10USD per item you chose to have in this promotion.
• LL are considering establishing a mall where merchant of any size can have a store for “free” (as in no tier), but LL will take a 30% commission on each and every sale.

Even if the above are being posited as being mutually exclusive to one another, they are all insidious.

• In-world vendor system: err, these already exist and supplied by a range of in-world creators. Think Hippo, think Jevn, etc. So Linden Lab are now proposing extending their content creation efforts (which started with prefab sims) to compete drectly with established names in SL. Is this the thin edge of the wedge? Even the terminology “guaranteed delivery” is offensive as it is suggestive both that a) other systems are not as reliable (they are, almost ALL failures to deliver goods can be attributable to failures within the SL infrastructure rather than external websites) and/ or b) these vendors will magically circumvent said failings in the SL infrastructure.
• Cross-posting: many content creators are not in it for the business, they are here for pleasure. As such, a $5-10 US DOLLAR (not Linden Dollar) per item would cripple their ability to “make” money. Thus, LL are immediately creating a favoured nations status of classified ads and promotions only available to those merchants with high turnover, while the smaller merchants are left to struggle onwards.
• LL-defined mall: again, another opening to LL-defined and controlled content. And that’s assuming it would be “a mall”. Practically speaking, were any decent number of merchants to sign up for this option, LL would have to think seriously about multiple malls in order to (among other things) a) avoid crippling lag; b) provide sufficient space for creators (they promise to support “everyone”, so just 4 or 5 builders of residential properties are going to represent a massive investment in land area). And again, how many store holders will benefit? How many actually have 30% of their income floating around to justify taking up space in the “mall”? What about any existing stakeholdings in land they have? Again, high turnover merchants may benefit – but what about the smaller people. And there’s more: how is this “super mall” or mall network going to be promoted? What impact will it have on existing malls and stores? With (no doubt) MOTD banners point to it, e-mail drops to users, etc., just how much interference will it cause to other businesses of this time?

Beyond this, one has to question how any of these ideas will sit with some of the “content management roadmap” proposals. For example: Merchant A meets all the criteria outlined in the “roadmap” (has an account in good standing, has a turnover in excess of X, etc.), and goes through all the pain of registering as such. Merchant B however, forgoes sign-up because he does not have an account in good standing but opts to use “LL certified vendors” and/or take a slot in the “LL certified mall”. How do buyers distinguish between the two? Both would appear to be equally-well “certified”….

Some have said that even if enacted, these proposals will be voluntary, not mandated, and so they don’t present a “risk” or aren’t a matter of concern.

Wrong. While the programmes may not be mandatory (so those screaming about having to shell out more money can calm down) – the fact remains they will create more of a two-tier content retail environment. The are also setting a precedent for further direct competition with merchants – today vendor systems tomorrow houses or furniture or (God help us) “LL certified BDSM toys”? The mind boggles at the potential avenues for direct competition this opens up for LL.

True, were any one of these proposals (and I do rather suspect that, in typical LL “tried and trusted” “programmes” in the past, it’ll be more a case of were all three of these proposals rather than just one or two of them) to be implemented, the impact on in-world commerce would be initially small – but it would be cumulative over time. And it would be the smaller merchants hit the hardest due to their inability to compete with those who can afford LL’s effective patronage.

Then there is the risk of abuse – the risk that unscrupulous merchants can use these proposal to their advantage simply but throwing money at LL. As mentioned above, people can gain the appearance of being “LL certified” simply by using so-called “certified tools”.

These are bad ideas.

The only idea that potentially has merit, and the one I’ve not mentioned so far, is the “Merchant Marketing Program” which, in the LL spiel:

would provide exclusive use of branding systems, customized store systems (such as a custom URL/SLURL and web storefront), and automatic consideration for large scale promotions. Also included is a data dashboard to enable you to track purchases in real-time. Customer service tools such as AvaLine mean that you are always able to talk with your customers.

Membership in the merchant marketing program would be available at a cost of $10-100 USD monthly, depending on sales volume.

Providing people with the means to break out of the god-awful XStreet listing environment and present their goods in a branded, manageable web store is clearly a valuable and viable option. What is more, the fact that the commission charged is based on sales volumes means that this option becomes as affordable to small merchants (who may already be paying around $12 a month for promotional listing on XStreet to get noticed) get a dedicated storefront and URL they can promote themselves any way they like for potentially the same cost. For merchants operating large land areas, the option is equally attractive: land holdings (and associated tier) can be reduced in favour of a custom on-line store, with the need to retain only land sufficient enough to demo goods to those who wish to view before they buy.

Beyond these specific proposals, a final issue I had with the survey was it’s sheer intrusiveness. LL demanded to know, for example, my gender, age range, the hours I spend in SL, my preferred activity (singular) while in-world (I regard my interests here as being divided between building (+scripting / texturing), role-play, socialising and exploring – yet I could only define my time in terms of just one of these). It is hard to see how such questions could have an impact on any decision to implement one or more of these proposals – so why include them.

At the moment, the vociferous (and partly ill-informed) firestorm over on the LL blogrum related to this survey is a little over the top. BUT, by the same token, that yet another “marketing specialist” in LL is pushing an agenda that comes across as potentially hostile to some sectors of the community, people should be aware of these suggestions, and have a right to be concerned.

Further Confirmation

The other day, I posted a response to the Behind the Firewall product announcements. In it, and in a reply to a comment / question from Prokofy Neva , I stated pretty much that I felt that people were misunderstanding the SL Enterprise (as it is to be called) “model”  – and on two scales.

The first, and more trivial, is that some in SL have perceived the new product as applying to them  – even to the extent of expressing shock at the quoted price of $55,000 (I think people were expecting it to be a kind of “pay-to-use” content-populated OpenSim competitor.

The second mistake I tried to sum up in my response to Prok’s comment, where I stated:

This is why I really don’t think that the new channel [the "Work Marketplace"] is “the mecca for all content creators to aspire to”. The majority will be excluded simply on the basis of what they make. Joe Schmoe (or indeed Inara Schmoe) who makes nice houses and skyhouses isn’t going to cut the mustard. If corporate minds are going to want a shiny edifice in-world or on their squeaky-clean sim in a box, they’re going to want a Name behind it; someone with a Reputation and Qualifications. They are also not going to need comfy sofas, beds, lamps, cars, planes, boats, BDSM gear… and so on.

Thus, the channel will remain more of a funnel, bottlenecked at one end to prevent the “unsuitable” getting in while directing others to the status of favoured elite.

In other words, the Work Marketplace will be carefully filtered, throttled and guarded to prevent the likes of you and me participating because our wares are “no good enough”.

With the possible exception of Anne O’Toole, I seem to have been somewhat alone in voicing this view – even though the evidence is abundantly clear elsewhere. Hence, I’m a little surprised that Prok herself states outright disbelief at a recent statement by none other than Justin Bovington, CEO of Linden Lab’s bed mate, Rivers Run Red.

In the piece, Bovington states in reference to the Work Marketplace, “”It has [to] be less Xstreet, more Wall Street. It has to reflect relevance, rather than drowning us all in deluge of content: clothing, furniture and avatars,” he wrote, adding “if [Linden Lab] attracts the right people to develop these apps, this could be the tipping point.”"

In other words, it will be the jealousy-guarded filter I described.

Bovington’s comments also tend to support the idea that the grid is to be further messed with – or as Amanda Linden euphemistically calls it, “improved” – as he also states “We also think that Corporates will create a mixture of hybrid behind-the-firewall closed-off spaces on their Intranets and a private, gated Internet-accessible space for their partners and collaborators.”

In other words, if he and his ilk get their way, stand by for a scenario I touched upon while commenting in Prok’s blog earlier today when commenting on the idea that avatars may soon be “streamed” by “type”:

“This might be good from a sign-up perspective to some degree, but IF carried beyond that (admittedly a big “if” at the moment) I’m not entirely sure it’ll do SL any favours. With users so corralled / siloed, how hard would it be to start demarking areas of the grid as “no go” based on avatar type (e.g. your avatar is recorded as “role-play”, therefore “business only” regions are off limits to you)?”

In reviewing the SLE product release, I referred to Amanda Linden’s seeming hostility toward the user base at large. In Bovington’s comments the hostility is now approaching a state of warfare.

The writing on the wall is becoming clearer every day. There are those  – as again I stated in my last post – who see SL a world of to unequal halves: those involved in corporate endeavours – and everyone else. And those of us in the latter category are to be tolerated, rather than embraced. To use a phrase I believe (in all fairness) Prok herself used not long ago: we are now the “legacy product”.

We are not the Web!

Tateru Nino over at Massively cornered Mark Kingdon (I still have to grit my teeth and swallow hard when attempting to say “M”, and will do until Second Life is renamed “Fantasy MI6″ or something similar) and put some questions to him last week.

Now…I’m really aware that I seem to only write negatively about LL, which is odd, because I genuinely enjoy SL in many different ways. However, it has to be said that the company itself is largely responsible for much of my negativity, and interviews like this one – while well-intentioned on the part of Tateru – do much to further promote feelings of ire. Not so much because of the questions asked, but for the answers are given.

Leaving aside most of the opening commentary on the Typical Kingdon Day, I find it somewhat laughable that for someone who professes to spend time each and every day in-world, Kingdon clearly doesn’t “get” SL.  The evidence? His comments around the “first five hours” of user experience and the new “Viewer 2.0″.

Now, with regards to the “first five hours”, I could throw in a snide comment here and point out that this work originally started as trying to improve “the first hour” experience for a new user in SL, and that now we have reference to the “first five hours” – isn’t that what project managers who find things slipping out of their control ’scope creep’?. But I won’t. Oh, damn, too late….

However, snide comments aside, that the “first five hours” is being looked at is worrying. Yes, Second Life can be a bewildering place to enter. Some people do find it difficult to grasp what “it” is “about”. They can flounder. And much of the “first hour experience” in terms of sign-up, etc., appear to have gone some way to solving the more major issues. BUT….by the same standard, there is a lot of content already in-world available to help the new user; much of it – resident-developed infohubs, etc. – works very successfully. Also, I think it fair to say that few entering SL are completely naive – they may not totally “get” SL, but they’ve been around games, potentially other 3D worlds, etc., enough to grasp the basics and use the “first hour” “improvements” as a means to leverage themselves successfully into SL. Others are doubtless here due to friends already using SL, and thus have a cache of help in-world on which to draw.

So why are the “first five hours” now on the radar as needing improving by LL? What could possibly come of pre-packaging that time and sanitising it to the Nth degree? Other than pre-packaging it? And therein lies the answer. As Kingdon himself says: “Over time, we’ll develop unique entry paths for different types of Residents. If you are interested in role-play, there will be an entry path for you…if you are interested in starting a business there will be an entry path for you.” In other words, LL are now looking at SL as (self-contained?) market silos. If you are a role-player, you fit in X, and X shall be your domain. If you want to start a business (and here I think it safe to say Kingdon isn’t referring to “simple” content creation or land rentals  – he’s referring to a “real” business, serving LL’s corporate efforts) then Y shall be your domain.

I hinted at something in this direction in my last post, while responding to Prokofy Neva’s question that followed it. “Adult themed” play has been corralled to Zindra and private estates. Could this be a prototype run at starting to “silo” users? One can’t help but wonder – not that quite this complexity of siloing is actually required.

Why? because Kingdon only sees two audiences for SL: “role players” and those wanting to “start a business” – a theme that is entirely in keeping with Amanda Linden’s apparent view that SL is a world of two halves: those here for “serious” stuff, requiring a clean (er, “improved”) Mainland, et al, and “work avatars”, and …. everyone else, regardless as to whether role play, a desire to “socially network in SL (ugh!) or tinker around with prims and “make things” is your motivating urge.

It seems clear that if you’re not in any way connected to “business” (either as a corporation or as a GSP or one of the yet-to-be-defined “Work Marketplace” creators), then you are definitely in the “everyone else” (“role-play”) category. Thus we have two market silos, each undoubtedly to be managed, controlled and (well, for one of them at least) constrained; and possible confirmation that those at the top of LL miss the fact that what makes SL so attractive, so vibrant, is the freedom of interaction we all enjoy; freedom that is to be artificially limited in the drive for “corporate value”.

Then there is the Viewer 2.0. Here Kingdon slips into lyrical web metaphors. He talks of SL being more a web experience, and glowingly describes the “address bar” functionality of the new viewer that will “instantly” drop someone to any desired location in SL without (apparently) all that tedious mucking about with landmarks.

Well, cool, eh?

Actually, no. Possibly not cool at all. I’m not sure if Kingdon, as he frequently claims, uses “web metaphors” because that is the terminology  / reference everyone will “get”, or whether it is because he himself is actually incapable of looking at SL outside of a web frame of reference. If it is genuinely the former, then at times the metaphor is badly placed as it leads to confusion rather than clarity. If the latter – well, that’s deeply worrying, as it means he simply cannot see SL as anything other than a glorified web.

And if there is one thing SL is certainly not (OK, one thing among several LL seems to have become hung up on over the last 18 months) – it is not a successor / extension to, or enhancement of, the world wide web and to consider it in these ways is the route to disaster.

Again, the “address bar” sounds great in principal….but what does it mean for the humble land mark upon which we all rely? Will it become obsolete? Discarded? How do we trade points of interest with one another then? Grab a bookmark a-la the web and then start cut-and-pasting it in and out of chat or IMs when wanting to share? And how do we give out the locations to our little stores and the like. LM’s are great because they are both a location on the grid and a physical object that can by easily passed around and stored in notecards and objects. Simply replacing them with an idealised SURL (which is really what Kingdon is talking about) could kill this flexibility.  Are store owners to be left with having to place their address on a notecard inside a sold item and hope people will cut and paste it into their “favourites”?

Of course, if the idea is just a metaphor, and the system actually compliments the “old” LM system, then fine – but why not say so from the outset? Bundling it purely in “webby” terms without giving some reassurances of what this means cannot fail to generate worry and concern.

The webby focus gets worse. When asked what he’d most like to see in Second Life, Kingdon proposes: “A Web 2.0 oriented data model with an array of APIs that expose data streams so that developers can create more apps for Residents to find, discover, connect, transact, share, create and build.”

Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh. So in other words, his focus is on ways and means to deliver yet more web content  – information, video streams, etc., into SL, further turning it into some kind of glorified web browser. And not the emphasis on “developers” in the comment. It’s pretty evident here that he’s not discussing an enhancement for the likes of you and me (although we may well benefit in getting improved media streams into SL we can harness for our home entertainment, or which may have some novelty value to our SL-centric business). No, here again, I think it safe to say he’s talking about ways and means to deliver all that juicy enterprise-oriented information out on the web into the hands of the residents who matter – corporate entities, GSPs and the like.

While these abilities may will have a role within “Second Life” it is hard to see how they benefit the majority of the current user base as a whole, or how they will appeal to future casual users coming into SL. As such, surely these aspirations are better suited to the Enterprise Tools (the behind-the-firewall “solution” et al), rather than goals to be applied to SL as a whole.

We are not the web. We never have been. And the fact that we’re not has never made understanding and getting involved in SL an insurmountable problem. But it could easily become so if we’re all forced into looking and using SL as if it were just an enhanced web tool.

Behind the Firewall

Well, it’s here, with ballyhoo aplenty. The much-vaunted “behind the firewall product”.

Yippee, one might state. Others might be more ecstatic. Some, poor benighted souls, might even think it is for them (I did find it hilarious that one “SL businessman” expected the new “sim in a box” to cost around $100 USD, and was stunned at the $55,000 price tag!).

Make no mistake. This “solution” is not about, for, or really involving “business” as the majority of us in SL go about it. Nor is it really geared towards the education sector LL has (until recently) been treating as a possible bedfellow. No, make no mistake, the Behind-the-firewall “sim in a box” is aimed at one market and one market only: the big corporations.

You might say it is 2006-in-a-box. Remember back then, all the hype and trumpeting about SL being “the place” for business, with the like of NBC, Toyota, Nike, Coca-Cola and others flocking into SL….doing next to nothing and then stampeding out again six months later….

I really don’t know that this new product has a market or whether it has been built on wishes and daydreams. To read the hype, a lot of it has been specifically engineered in ways that suggest it goes far beyond the capabilities of the main grid. However, seeing is believing, and as I’ve not seen, I can say either way. Certainly, as a “next generation” communication tool, it’s going to have its work cut out to effectively and efficiently compete with the millions big corporations have invested in direct-to-the desktop communications and collaborative tool sets, the ability to host face-to-face meetings with the participants hundreds (or thousands) of miles apart (or separated be several floors in the same building) without the need to either ldeav their desks or poke around with some 3D “image” of themselves in a digital utopia…..

But…that isn’t my concern. so long as LL don’t hang all their hopes on this yet-to-be “solution” and as a result crash and burn should it crash and burn, I don’t really care if they hit the mark or shoot themselves in the foot.

What concerns me is what else they are doing alongside this announcement. Because frankly, this “sim in a box” now seems to be the thin end of the wedge (or chisel) that could fracture SL.  Ciaran Laval, in his blog, cuts to the heart of the matter.

Several times I’ve fought shy of posting to the official forum “discussions” challenging Amanda Linden as to why LL simply can’t develop a “Corporate mini grid” to which, if they wish, those corporations employing the new “sim in a box” product can connect at some future date. It’s been obvious for some time that the tool on its own would be limited in scope in terms of a revenue stream and that  – given the emphasis on collaboration – somewhere would be needed where corporations could meet, not only with each other but with LL’s vaunted “Gold Solutions Providers” and perhaps with potential customers; so why not simply section-off server capacity and build a grid specifically for that purpose?

Now we see the reality: LL don’t have to go that route, as they appear to have already earmarked the main grid for this purpose. Many suspected this when they thrust the “Adult Content Policy” on us. I and several others challenged LL on precisely this point, and were told we were wrong.

Well, seems we were wrong in a rightish sort of way.

What is really worrying though, as Ciaran makes clear, is that now the gloves are really coming off. LL is moving beyond inconveniencing its user base (vis-a-vis the OpenSpace sim fiasco, the Adult changes, etc.), and into open hostility we’re being told “our world” is now a “serius” place of work, that if we want to be taken seriously “in business” we must start wearing suits. The implications in Amanda Linden’s post on the sim in a box are clear: if things don’t match the corporate-friendly image LL require, then “improvements” will be made – so step aside!

In this respect, I actually disagree with Ciaran’s assessment. He refers to the move as a “stealth takeover”. Actually, I’d say that up until now it has been “stealthy”; but not it is blatant and in our faces. And the stink is even worse for that.

Of course there will be the inevitable cooing from LL about how their “core business” – you and I – still matter. And we will; so long as we stay in our nicely corralled environments, overseen by the Lindens themselves (Zindra) or by their new Land Baron friends, who will doubtless vigorously police their estates and “themed lands” in accordance with the meme that “residents should be seen (on a map) but not heard”.

I’d given go so far as to say that LL are actually looking to keep us around, albeit nicely constrained and within markets that the new “big boys” won’t want to touch. To name but two of the markets and the reasons I say this:

• Markets like land (corporations are going to be interested in running zillions of sims and renting out parcels, obviously) – but the big land barons are, and guess who are already being enticed with “beta programmes” by Jack Linden et al to buy more land, and to possibly take on management of “themed” Mainland.
• Markets like the Adult community. Sure, we might not be appealing to LL’s corporate image, but we’ve all now been brushed under the carpet, tucked away in private sims or on Zindra. And while we may be “unsavory” – the fact remains that the Adult community is one of the most creative in SL, and one where businesses can thrive with huge turnovers (and Stroker Serpentine isn’t alone in this). It has a lively, nay, bubbling community that cannot help make T Linden’s quarterly reports look good. Ergo, so long as we behave, we Adult Market users stay – which is likely the real meaning behind all the hollow assurances LL gave back in the Adult Change fiasco that they were not “changing” their attitude towards the Adult market.

And the reason both stay? Two words: fall back.

It’s insidious and it is nasty. LL are aware that they are taking a gamble. They are aware that if it succeeds, then they break their reliance on the “casual” or “home” user – those who have, as many keep saying, made SL the “success” it has been. They can finally move beyond the “narrow” opportunities we afford them and move into a bigger marketplace and Do Things, as I seem to remember Mitch Kapor demanding of the company back just before Mark Kingdon showed up.

But…they can’t just let us go. Oh no, not yet; because everything still might go, as my father was once fond of saying, tits-up. If that happens, LL will need a fall back position – you and me – in our nice, constrained environments in SL, still turning our hard-earned cash over to the Lindex mill in order to keep their coffers topped-up.

It’s a pessimistic view on things, I admit. And I hope to high heaven I’m wrong.

Dynamic Shadows

Yup! They’re finally here in Emerald, providing you have the graphics capability!

Here’s how – but be warned: dynamic shadows ARE still experimental, and I give NO guarantees the following may work, and take NO responsibility for any unforeseen results:

1. Enable the Advanced menu in Emerald (CTRL-ALT-D).
2. Open Debug Settings.
3. Type “RenderDeffered” (without the quotes and the command should auto-complete as you type). Make sure the flag is set to FALSE.
4. Type “RenderUseFBO” (again, no quotes, and watch for the auto-complete). Set the flag to TRUE.
5. Enter “RenderDeffered” again and set the flag to TRUE.

Shadows should now be enabled on your machine….if you get anything remotely psychedelic, set RenderDeffered back to FALSE.

Here’s what things can look like at sunset, as a simple example

 

 

LL Announce Third Party Viewer Policy

Jack Linden isn’t the only one setting up new programmes within SL now the Adult Change fiasco is “sorted”. Cyn is back, with an announcement concerning third party viewers.

On the whole, this can only be seen as good news: while open source viewers are not the root of all evil as some would have us believe, it cannot be denied that there are several out there that exploit weaknesses in the SL environment in order to make activities like content ripping easier. As such, it is right and proper that LL work with the community as a whole to develop the means of keeping such unwanted elements – Neillife, Cyrolife, and their ilk – well out of SL for the good of all.

However, this does not mean that all third party viewers should be condemned. While the usual voices can be heard again screaming the house down over the Emerald viewer in particular and to the exclusion of all else – again, it cannot be denied that open source development on the Viewer has also been a power for good. It has allowed those who experience uneven results with the “official” Viewer to find a degree of stability with one or more alternatives that has dramatically enhanced their SL experience; it has allowed those so-minded (and who can remember back far enough) to enjoy the benefits of some of the “old” UI that were lost when LL forced us into acceptance of things like the catch-all “Communicate” window (which was a terror when it first came out). Third party viewers have eased the use of legitimate API functions, they have provided improved menus, improved access to building tools (Imprudence being one of the first in this regard), and so on. Perhaps most importantly, they’ve introduced genuine bug fixes and helped clean up code far quicker than would have been the case had the Viewer remained closed – and in doing so, have directly benefited the “official” Viewer itself, as these changes and fixes have been fed back into the code – something those all too keen on screaming “ban the open source!” seem to forget.

So in this regard, policing third party viewer development, such as through the use of a register that places real life accountability against viewer code, can only be a good thing if handled correctly. There can be little doubt that those “honest” third party viewer creators – the guys at Imprudence, the team behind Emerald, those working on the various flavours of Cool Viewer  – all will be the first to sign-up to a properly thought-out and implemented policy and registration / policing process.

To this end, and leaving aside the banshee wailing and biased finger-pointing that repeatedly singles out just one viewer for vehemence, there have been many very excellent ideas posted in the blogrum discussion following Cyn’s post. Anne O’Toole hits upon one important element, while others offer ideas for helping ensure the development process can be more properly integrated into SL – the worry that any policing could inevitably drain the patience of “legitimate” open source developers if it puts unreasonable hurdles between them and their goal of improving the SL experience for everyone. And while it may require a lot of technical input (and possible cost), Marine Kelley possibly hit upon one of the best solutions.

Right now, the real question is, will LL actually engage fully and openly with those most involved in the development of third party viewers? Macabe Maxstead from Imprudence raises a genuine concern with his question, and has every right to be worried when Blondin Linden announces that while there will be Brown Bag meetings  – they will be run more-or-less like those for the Adult Content changes – i.e. open only to a select few, with the criteria for selection known only to LL themselves.  That the latter were carried out as closed-door sessions gave people cause for much alarm at the time – alarm that was all too easily justified as it became clear just how little room there was for actual engagement with LL and discussion around their decisions relating to Adult Content.

It’s a cleft stick to be sure: no-one can justifiably stand against measures that control third party viewer use on the grid when the control is fairly aimed at reducing the ease with which those so minded can carry out malicious acts. But, by the same token, Linden Lab need to be prepared to engage fully with the open source development community to ensure that the actions they take both safeguard those of us who use Second Life and allow those passionate enough about SL to continue to work at their own expense to improve our in-world experience.

Signs and Portents….

Two recent events involving Linden Lab reps have caused yet more head-scratching.

The first is a posting from Amanda Linden on the subject of “work avatars“, espousing the view that if people are to do “professional” business in SL then they should consider having a “professional avatar” as distinct from their runabout everyday avatar.

I’ve found two things interesting with this – one of which is somewhat amusing, the other is more alarming. The amusing element is in the number of replies from people who have somewhat missed the context of the post. This isn’t about all of us engaged in SL commerce having to ditch our current look and come over all business-like. Nor is it about any form of “outing” real identities behind avatars on the part of LL.

No, the article is aimed squarely at the question of “professional” (read “corporate”) employees being in-world as representatives of their organisation, and the need for these individuals to keep their “professional” identity both divorced from any “social” identity they may have and use outside of working hours, and in line with the professional / corporate image they are trying to promote.

While many have mistaken the posting, as mentioned above, giving rise to a range of misguided (…?) responses, those that have realised the intent of the post have, in fairness given interesting feedback on the matter relating to the “validity” of “business” (or “professional”) avatars, the question of naming rights / abilities, etc. However, with one or two exceptions, no-one has really addressed the question of why is Amanda even raising this issue in the public forum?

Second Life was never designed to be an engine of business. Period. It was designed – if such a term can be used – as a fun-based social networking platform (and I never thought I’d hear myself say that!). Yet, in the drive to make it sustainable, Linden Lab have been increasingly forced to look at the corporate environment as a means of generating sustainable revenues and growth (again, this drive is to me one of the clearest indications that all is not well with the SL economy as an “engine of commerce”, despite the rosy pictures painted every quarter by those juggling with the finance figures). To this end we’ve had much focus from LL on their “behind the firewall” product which (I gather) is designed to be the nirvana for all corporate communications needs.

And, in its own way, this is fair enough. Second Life does offer some unique opportunities for internal management to corporations. Whether they can compete with established tools and technology (video streaming, desktop-enabling video conferencing, secure collaborative work tools and information sharing, etc.), is obviously debatable – but one cannot simply discount SL on the basis of existing technology, or for LL for trying to leverage what they believe is a potential market.

Where this becomes an issue, however, is in the way it impacts how Linden Lab view the grid as a whole. Until recently, the grid was a place of open interaction, creativity and development, where many different lifestyles and communities could converge and mix and share (largely) without rancour or fuss. Sure, groups were/are prone to their own bouts of drama; yes, Linden Lab did and does sometimes show an insidious favouritism here and there – BUT on the whole, for those in SL it really was a case of “our world, our imagination”.

That is no longer the case. The “big business is everything” mantra is one that is spreading across the whole of Linden Lab, resulting in a grid that is slowly but surely being sanitised, and individuality squirreled away on private sims and small holdings. “Adult” content has been largely removed to its own continent or private sims; any that remain on Mainland are (theoretically) unable to advertise or gain much visibility unless people stumble upon them – and where they do advertise, users are encouraged to AR them so they can be taken down.

We’re now seeing discussions emerging between Linden Lab and a favoured few relating to “zoning” areas of Mainland for “community building” – words that again subliminally suggest “homogenising” the Mainland into a nice, clean, “safe” environment where Corporate Daddy will feel safe letting his children (employees) “play”.

In this, Amanda’s enthusiastic posting is but the latest demonstration that there are those within LL who view Second Life as being “all about business” – and very little else, despite the lip service they may pay to the rest of us. The only reason the idea of having a “professional” avatar is being promoted is because Amanda and others in LL want to see the grid as a confluence – not of communities and lifestyles and interests – but of corporate marketing and exposure. A place where all those behind-the-firewall grids can safely connect and where their minions and roam outside the hallowed portals of their corporation and “do business” with others “safely” (and by “safely” I don’t necessarily mean “securely”, I mean simply without the “risk” of running into any one of two dozen exotic avatar styles we all take for granted in SL).

And this is the worrying aspect of Amanda’s post; not that we’ll all have to somehow be “outed” (as some on the blog comments are decrying), but that here again we see Second Life – a place never designed to support Big Business – being slowly but surely forced into a business suit, shirt and tie….

Nor, in passing, do I find this kind of commentary being followed by Philip Rosedale’s recent bombshell unconnected. Other the last several months we’ve seen several departures from Linden Lab that have raised questions concerning the company’s intended future direction. Until now, the hardest of these was perhaps Robin Linden’s departure.

While Robin caused a mixed range of reactions from those around her, she did, in many ways, having the “community” of Second Life at heart. Not all of us agreed with some of her actions all of the time, but she was committed to the idea of Second Life being an open community. As, I think it fair to say, was Philip. And now he, too – despite all the comforting words – is off. Why, exactly, is unclear. Lots of promises and pleasing words – but one cannot help but feel that in sharing the same workspace as Mark Kingdon, Rosedale finally realised the yawning gulf between his dreams and ideas and Kingdon’s (Kapor’s?) vision for the future of SL, and the fact that the two can no longer comfortably co-exist.

So what of SL and the rest of us? I have no idea. But, like many others, I’m concerned about further developments coming out of Jack Linden’s office, as reported by Ciaran Laval and variously-reported elsewhere.

First off, the issue here – and Ciaran states – is not that LL have discounted a bulk sim sale to the likes of Dreamland (who are a huge customer well aware of their potential buying-power – thus discounts are hardly surprising). What is worrying about the deal is – again – the degree of obfuscation apparent in Jack’s responses to valid questions pitched during his Office Hours, and as reported by Ciaran. So much so, that Jack himself had to admit he was coming over as evasive – before hiding under the excuse that this is some kind of “beta program” – a laughable response at best.

Discounts are discounts. End of story. They are a legitimate part of business practices and require little in the way of hiding from others – so they fact that Jack (again) feels the need to obfuscate (just as he did over OpenSpace / Homesteads, and with the Adult Changes, and with the Blake Sea situation….), suggests that either favouritism is involved here, and a programme to edge-out the smaller land owner and private sim owners is in the process of being developed, or – frankly – Jack is (again) demonstrating a degree of incompetence in his ability to deal openly with his clients.

Personally, given the push for a bigger Big Business presence in SL, the erosion of the voices and dreams of those who made SL possible, and moves such as this latest “beta programs” from Jack, I’m beginning to get pessimistic about the future of SL.

These moves simply do not bode well for the smaller, independent player or player groups within Second Life. Again, leave us not forget that, after the special “beta testing” Jack developed with USS over Blake’s Sea, we’ve now got the much-touted Community Partnership Programme, which is utterly biased against small independents – right from the opening words: “a new initiative focused on expanding Linden Lab’s relationship with large, inworld communities“.

Indeed, taken together, one cannot help but view the CPP and this latest behind-closed-doors deal between LL and Dreamland as part and parcel of moves to sanitise Second Life ready for the Second Coming of Big Business, as heralded by Amanda….

Score One….

OK…I bash LL quiet a lot. So, in a pleasant change, I’m going to blow them (or some of them – notably Soft Linden) kisses.

Anyone reading this blog knows that content theft is a genuine issue within SL and that, as a content creator myself, I’d like to see LL become more proactive in dealing with it.

Well, now they have, as reported by Tateru Nino over at Massively – no fewer than 50 rippers have been summarily banned from SL for blatantly stealing assets from the Linden servers.

The culprits in question had been using a Viewer called Neillife (unfortunately built on the Emerald codebase) that utilises an purpose-built exploit that fooled the Linden asset servers into providing them with items to which they had no rights to own.

This is very much a step beyond “simple” copybotting or Viewer copying as evidenced with the likes of Cyrolife. It borders on outright computer crime that can far more easily be acted upon with legal measures than protracted DMCA actions, as the violations in question were directly against Linden Lab.

And it was becasue the Viewer behaved this way that Soft and co were able to get the hackers – by identifying the object the hackers were going for, they simply substituted the original item with one that effective “phoned home” with the user’s account information each time it was illegally copied….making it a cinch for LL to round up the culprits and ban them – including the Viewer’s creator….

It’s not clear how this kind of action by LL can be broadened, but the fact that they have quietly taken such a step is very welcome; and while it would be very easy to say “well, they only took this action as a result of the class action against them”, I’d beg to differ and simply say that kudos falls where kudos is due – and that LL are to be unreservedly congratulated in the action they have taken.

My one real worry is that this success will leads to greater cries from the ill-informed (or those carrying certain grudges) for other “safe” Viewers such as Emerald, Meekat and Cool Viewer to be  “banned” as third party viewers are “evil”…..

Linden Lab and content creation (2)

Well, it seems that LL are determined to capture more and more of the market represented by incoming new users. I’ve previously commented on the fact that they appear to be going up against private estate owners by providing prefab sims. Now, with (I’m assuming) huge swathes of Mainland cleared of the “pesky” Adult Content, it seems that Linden Lab are about to effectively bite the collective hand of the Mainland landowners there who feed them through tier, with this announcement, which will provide (quote) content already in place, including busy commercial districts and residential areas.

Given the way Linden Lab has handled land over the last couple of years – yes, the OpenSpace sim debacle is just coming up on the first anniversary of the original hike announcement – this seems a pretty sharp kick in the teeth for those actively engaged in the Mainland market as land owners, as Prokofy Neva lucidly states in response to Courtney Linden’s latest (and totally inappropriately-titled) post on the subject of land.

Whether one agrees with Prok vis-a-vis her comments on FIC-status land barons (although I personally can see this being the case only too easily) one cannot deny that the that fact LL are now moving on both private and Mainland “themed” and “pre-fab” land underlines the fact that the die has been cast as far as Second Life content is concerned and LL’s role here.

If this is the case, one cannot anticipate anything less that the out working of the recently-proposed content roadmap will further the move towards greater control of content (and potentially content creators themselves) by Linden Lab, under the guise of “controlling” the genuine issues around content ripping – in much the same way as the genuine technical issues relating to OpenSpace sim performance was used by LL as a thin excuse for the massive price / tier hikes implemented at the start of 2009. (And I’d point out that those underpinning technical issues still haven’t been fully addressed, 11+ months down the road from the original OpenSpace sim announcement.)

But why are LL making these moves into pre-fab sims, Mainland or otherwise? I don’t for a minute buy the spin that it is to improve the “new user experience” – people have managed perfectly well within Second Life for the last six years without any need for intervention on the part of Linden Land when it has come to the provisioning of land, homes and the like. And as Prok rightly points out – the issue is not one that couldn’t be solved through vetted advertising at infohubs and greeting centres and better-up front information on the options and alternatives people can find as they explore SL.

Can the need to maintain a cashflow be so great that LL are now feeling compelled to enter their own market in direct competition with the people they ostensibly support and enable? Again, that doesn’t read right.

Taken together with the Adult Content moves though, one cannot help but wonder if elements within LL are trying to “sanitise” SL – at least in part. If this is the case, one has to ask why….is it purely to make SL more attractive to “big business”? Last year, Philip Rosedale, speaking at Metanomics made a passing comment that he’d like to see SL and the teen grid (which some regard as an epic fail in and of itself – although whether this is the case or not, I can’t say; I’ve never been there as I’m entirely the wrong age!) at “some point in the future”. Well, the “future” gets closer each day….

Or is it simply because LL are once again moving towards that other chestnut that gets raised from time to time: they’re seeking to IPO Second Life and focus their efforts in technology licencing in terms of the grid technology….?

Speculation is rarely accurate given the traditional lack of information  / feedback / commentary from those within Linden Lab itself – but if I were to be pushed into indicating which of the above scenarios I’d consider to be the case – I’d be edging towards the desire to “sanitise” Second Life in order to make it more attractive to Big Business.

For one thing the other two don’t entirely stand up to close inspection. But, more prevelently, it’s pretty clear that with all the recent blog and other efforts (Amand Linden’s sadly laughable Open Letter to Your Boss, her myraid of other posts relating to SL as a platform of “business” and the oft-promoted “behind the firewall” “solution”), that LL are very much pinning their hopes on “cracking” the commercial market. As such, a more “sanitised” (or “uniform”) approach to mainland development seems to fit the picture. Sadly.