Your2ndPlace

Early reports are filtering back from the traffic meeting with the underlying message that they are a waste of time. I'll hold judgement on that until I attend one, I think I'm booked in for Thursday.

However one issue that is related is the showcase and I'm having a hard time not finding it unethical in a world where we're supposed to have a marketplace. I'm simply uncomfortable about the idea of stores being promoted in this way. I wouldn't find it so objectionable if places with stores were being promoted, but highlighting a particular store makes me a tad uncomfortable.

The first thing that should be made transparent about this, the very first step to retaining business credibility, should be that no Linden Lab employees, their family members or their close personal friends are promoted via this process. The sort of thing that happens when companies run competitions, employees not allowed.

Personally I'd prefer them to have awards and the winners showcased, that would have more of an ethical feel about it. The winner of the best building designer for whatever period, a month, a quarter or even a year, gets a showcase spot. The winners would have course have to be picked and probably by the very people making the picks now, but the whole process would appear to be more ethical, and maintaining standards is a very important issue in a business environment.

I wouldn't even mind if the showcase featured those paying the most for their adverts, I know some don't consider that fair, but it's a metric that's hard to dispute and I don't object to those who pay more, getting greater exposure.

Places, I don't mind them picking their favourite places, as long as they have the heart and will to follow it through. So many times we see Linden Lab rolling out the bold new frontier only to see the solution to be half assed.

Avatar rendering cost, as blogged yesterday by Pastrami Linden in his own stylish way is a good move in my opinion. Inevitably a Linden blog has rubbed some people up the wrong way and some of the wording isn't exactly tactful but in the wider scheme of things, the underlying message is a good one.

People have mentioned before that residents should take some responsibly for issues in Second Life, back in early february Dandellion Kimban urged people to reduce the clutter from their inventories to reduce load on the asset servers, an ecology drive it was described as, but the message was similar to the one Linden Lab are encouraging.

After that I attended an office hour with CG Linden where the issue of alpha textures was raised, with a sigh, that too many people employed them. My point then, which is the same view I hold now, was that education was required. Many photoshop tutorials mention alpha textures and many people therefore believe they must be included. I'm not a clothing designer myself, but I do believe there's an issue with a white chalk line feature if alpha textures aren't included, but I'm not sure exactly what the issue is, hopefully one of you bright readers can help me out on that issue.

The blog by Pastrami is a step in the direction of education and it should be welcomed. I know there's an impression of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted and I don't think implying that residents will be able to restrict visitors using this scoring method is helpful for the community at this point in time, but educating the community regarding the implications of their creations is important.

Recently, I got an email on the Solution Provider List about a Solution Provider Council which raised my hackles - a Second Life Solution Provider Council was formed of (you guessed it) Solution Providers. I've omitted their names from the quote below because my thoughts really have little to do with the who, but rather the how.

Dear Solution Providers,

We've created a Solution Provider Council to give you a more active voice in the development of the Solution Provider Program. Several weeks ago, a notice and survey was sent out to the SLDev list regarding the creation of the Solution Provider Council. The SP Council, comprised of Solution Providers from a cross-section of the community, serves to provide a more formalized venue where ideas and feedback can be gathered from the SP community and actively work with Linden Lab's Solution Provider Program Team to advance the SP program and provide guidance and feedback to Linden Lab on the operation, features and promotion of the Solution Provider Program. Each member has a 6-month, renewable term of service.

After gathering feedback about the structure of the SP Council, interest in participation and ideas for nominees for SP Council members, the LL SP Team has selected the following members from those nominated:...

...The SP Council will be reaching out to the larger SP community. Please feel free to talk with them, ask questions and share your thoughts regarding the SP Program...In the near future, there will also be an opportunity to meet with the SP Council.

Thank you to all who expressed interest in participating in the Council and who shared your ideas and suggestions with us.

I sent an email response that never seemed to pass moderation on the Solution Provider List - so I'll publish it here where my dissent, at the least, can be made public. Here is what I wrote in response on 4/28/2008 and which never made the rounds:

The discussions on the future of traffic have raised some important issues, highlighted scalability and created a great new scapegoat: camping.

The discussions seem to suggest that camping is the most heinous event in the Second Life World. Forget griefing, forget obscenity, forget extreme violence, forget ageplay, camping is the number one evil.

I'm just waiting for someone to link camping to rising fuel prices or the subprime crisis. Really, this is getting ridiculous already.

Apparently if camping goes, all the problems go. The sun will shine, the birds will sing, Second Life world peace will break out, there will only be shiny happy people around and every single ill of the world will be magically cured.

Suffering from lag? Eliminate campimg.

Asset server issues? Eliminate camping.

Can't find shoes to fit your avatar? Eliminate camping.

What next, a rampaging mob on the hill trying to burn out the evil camping monster?

I welcome the debate on the future of traffic, I also welcome a discussion about ways to reduce asset server problems, crashes and general stability. However I'm not buying for one minute that everything will be solved by getting rid of camping. Just how many problems does camping cause?

Technically I don't see how a camper is causing more stress on the servers than someone teleporting from sim to sim in search of something. I don't see how a camper is causing more stress than people using scripted objects, sensors, networked vendors yadda yadda yadda.

I've never looked at the showcase page on the website before, I've never taken much notice of that at all. Now that its pointed out to me by the blog I'm left wondering why the heck Linden Lab are promoting inworld business?

The issue now is that this is going to replace the popular places tab inworld. Who chooses these business ventures to promote? Is it fair? If people were paying to be highlighted that would be one thing, but I don't really think Linden Lab should be in the business of promoting inworld business like this.

I'm all for Linden Lab promoting innovation, events, arts, culture, campaigns, news, health, fitness, well being, education yadda yadda yadda but I'm extremely reluctant to give a thumbs up to free advertising. The fact that it has been going on for some time via the website makes some of my concerns a little redundant, but the blog highlights it and states that this promotion will go further and it makes me a little uncomfortable, it's like the government endorsing a brand.

The bigger issue in all of this is the discussion on traffic. The future of traffic is up for debate and it's going to be a very complicated debate, because love it or loathe it, traffic has a place in all of our hearts. If you're looking to rent a store, nine times out of ten traffic will be a factor. The more important factor is visitors to business transactions, how much business you do there, but traffic is a metric that people check.

The estate price arguments rumble on. It's hosting/no it's not, "Oh yes it is", "Oh no it isn't"

Amongst the angst and the moaning, amongst the gloating and the jeering there are some points to consider, one of which is whether estate land will actually rise in price again.

I buy a lot of IT equipment in my day job. Prices have indeed dropped, although I'm not aware of such a rapid price drop on new equipment as Linden Lab have instigated it has indeed been dropping for quite a number of years.

At work we generally operate PC's on a three year life cycle, some linger on a bit longer depending upon budgets but it's generally a three year cycle. During that time some of those PC's go faulty and need parts replaced. There usually comes a point in year two or three whereby the service contractor phones me up and says "We don't supply that part anymore, do you mind if we replace those parts with a better motherboard and a better processor". Of course I complain vociferously about this ...oh hold on, no I don't! Although there can be slight implications of a change in hardware with regards to imaging the said PC, we get around that easily enough.

Then when I'm going to tender to replace those three year old PC's, the price is a bit lower than last time, but my money is going further. I'm getting better equipment, faster equipment, more RAM, better graphics, better performance all round and when you take inflation into the equation, yes my money goes further.

However the scenario I describe doesn't seem to apply to Linden Lab's model. The transcript from Monday's Metanomics event is available here and it makes pretty interesting reading, especially at the end when they speak to Zee Linden (John Zdanowski). Zee makes some comments that suggest to me that Linden Lab aren't buying ever evolving kit:

I attended the best Robin Linden office hour for quite some time this week. The discussion largely centred around the trademark policy. However bigger issues were forthcoming such as the grid, be it the Second Life we know and love (no really we love it) or the bigger Second Life grid of which the Second Life world is just a part.

Personally I think Second Life should be the world, ran on Second Life technology but the grid, the bigger beast, the all encompassing umbrella, should be the Linden Lab grid. What's in a name? Perception and perception is everything. Business whom have read horror stories of being griefed by flying penises in Second Life, can incorporate their own little universe under the umbrella name and avoid the dirt of being associated with Second Life.

Business is far from dead in Second Life and we're entering a phase of maturity on how business should use Second Life technolgy. There's a very good article in The Times that I am reluctantly linking to, reluctantly because The Sunday Times carried a story at the weekend about ebay which carried a quote that was so uncannily similar to one of mine on the ebay discussion boards that I'm having a hard time believing they didn't just lift my quote and make up a name to go alongside it. However that's a discussion for another time.

The article: McKinsey: ignore Second Life at your peril is with regards to the management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company saying that in the case of virtual worlds, companies are "ignroing them at their peril"

Cheap shot number 1: You'll note that journalists don't follow Linden Lab's trademark guidelines, indeed you'll notice that they still say "Linden Labs" when we've all had it beaten into us that it's "Linden Lab".