Avatar walks into a disco in the Second Life virtual world. Scantily clad avatar riding a poie says: "Hi. Tipping is encouraged." Avatar responds slowly while scanning the other avatars on the sim, "Hi." Avatar on the pole types: "so, what do porno, students and nuclear war have in common?" Avatar is a bit lost still. Scantily clad avatar then answers for him, "yeah, I don't much care either."

These three topics would however appear to be very important to Linden Lab. The new guard of management seem to have take charge of the ship and headed it toward more revenues opportunities by doing more and more with the porno trade, universities and the military industrial complex in the United States specifiically.  So much for the idealism of Phil and Mitch. Now the game is all about making money where you can, while you can.

Recent info from Linden Labs:

 The piece on the Guardian by Glyn Moody about "Second Life's New Ruler" stirred the usual bland reaction across the blogsphere. Some called it positive, but really it is just more of the same old puff and circumstance about the virtual world. Another bit of coverage with more of the rehashed noise from Kingdon that we have seen for the last year since he joined the wacky world of Linden Lab. (btw Glyn---Kingdon started on 5/15/08 so, is a year in a job really make someone new?)

Generally I have not been too interested in following the spew news from Linden Lab. It seems to me that largely no one cares about what the Lindens are doing or where Second LIfe is headed. It's a marginalized and eccentric thing (game or platform or technology??). Most residents just take what they can get without much hope that SL will actually be anything more than it currently is. Which is not nothing btw. There is still a lot to do in SL (check our cool enough directory of places here).

Thanks to Mark Kingdon for reminding me to downgrade my premium account -- is like $USD 108/year when I was paying quarterly. I guess only reason to have this is to be able to have a parcel on Mainland? Anyway, there is a nice little feedback form that pops-up when you downgrade. So I suppose another chance to let the Linden Lab team know about why I am not spending more money with them.

It doesn't really take a lot of effort to see that the price “jack-up” on the Voids that became OpenSpaces means anyone who keeps that simulator product will be paying a lot more for a lot less. And not just less prim density--but less peformance. Aren't hosting+server costs supposed to go down over time? Isn't performance meant to improve over time? Isn't efficiency meant to improve over time? LL seems to have it all backwards (...again).

The offering from M Linden (= Mark Kingdon, CEO Linden Labs) does little to make this mess right and adds a new layer of confusion and technical nonsense to the already stressed Second Life user-base and the SL virtual world platform as well.

Anyway, here are some comments and more detail on why the OpenSpace offering looks so terrible. I am not sure this commentary is new, but some of the ideas explaining what the issue really is might be interesting enuff.  * Warning danger of boringness is high and I show a spreadsheet*  (Better to go watch a fun machinima here!)

Hamlet gets special communique from Linden Lab bunker posted at Gigacom: In a statement provided by his publicist, Kingdon told me, “We understand that this price adjustment will affect businesses and other projects of some our Second Life Residents,” and emphasized the cost increases were only directed at select landowners, who have until January 2009 to adjust themselves to the new rates. “To be clear,” Kingdon continued, “this price adjustment affects only a portion of land in Second Life; it does not apply to private islands or regular mainland property. We made this change to ensure an optimal Second Life experience for all Residents.”

Mark Kingdon interviewed in the london-based Times, by Murad Ahmed, claims “Our economy in Second Life has been growing this year,” he said. “In the last 12 months its been up 67 per cent, which is a heck of a lot more than the real-world economy.” Amazingly the reporter did not ask for any details on this. Is Tech press all puff and no investigation still? The media vanguard once again digging deep into the hype to find the real story for the public.

The first question would surely be--er...what is the "economy" comprised of? What are the key drivers? Why is it growing when the whole world is tanking?  SL has been throwing out the $1million/day number for years already? What are the key sectors and which are growing more than others? If the user base is flat--then why is the "economy" growing?

I spent the day over at the Virtual Worlds London show is the very big and confusing QE2 conference center scenically overlooking Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Labs gave the opening keynote address (check official excerpts here). M pumped his appearance on the SL blog, although actually he did not take any questions after his speech.   I am there tomorrow at 11:45 spewing discussioning advertising and sponsorship opportunities--questions welcome (in fact hecklers welcome also..it is a bit staid)

Here are a couple of points that I caught and my comments related:

* "SL is an expansive platform for virtual world innovation" -- yup, we like that and totally agree. LL is cranking out the ideas faster than spider-monkeys chuggling mountain dew. SL is still the leader in practical virtual world operations, research and activity.

 Secondlife CEO Kingdon on current state of SL: "The third wave is now where consumers find the experiences that are most relevant to them, like live music, or participating in groups with common interest. Also, we are seeing businesses re-enter Second Life with a focus on collaboration, learning and product development. We’ve been through substantial expansion as a platform."  Full Venture Beat interview here.

Think he is spinning it or telling it like it is over at LL? What reality is LL rl? Come to London next month and ask him yourself! Kingdon is speaking at the Virtual World conference.  Info on the conference here and get a discount if you really wanna show up irl

I'll be at the conference, so if you have any questions for Kingdon or LL please send them along and I will ask and make video clip maybe. Hmmm what to ask? Hmmm....

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