The 'normal simulator' to '4 voids' change, and Lindens counting that as a 3 sim increase on the numbers, is an interesting assumption. And would be really 'gaming the numbers'. I wonder if there is anything 'official Linden' statement or so on that one.
What catches me most is the lack of 'positive promo' LL gets out. We had 'gameworld' in Belgium, a 3 day fair about very old & very revolutionary games, and unique in it's kind. The only 'second life' presence there was going to be the documentary by Mr Molotov Alva, which was last minute cancelled. Au contraire, there were about 10 pc's were you could learn how to play WoW. (Organised by a Belgian games/pc/whatever shop, but still.)
We had our share of documentaries about SL on Belgian TV - one belgium made, interesting one too, with Coolz0r and some others which showed both the benefits as the drawbacks of virtual worlds. And then there was that docu from the BBC, which they aired, about the 'relationships grown and marriages ruined by virtual world'. Pfff. Definitely a missed chance to present to people who are looking for a 'new thing'.
I really wonder what they marketing plan is: I mailed them tons of time about the Garden of NPIRL Delights - quality content, which proves a good use of Second Life, artists getting a platform beyond RL possibilities - but they refused to feature it in the showcase. We rezz an obesitas Greenie on a birthday cake and voila, it makes - a crappy snapshot, but none the less - it makes the homepage. There is no clear roadmap of where LL is heading, there is no clear marketing plan. Or at least not ones they are willing to share with the residents & companies that are in-world.
It's also still unclear what SL's targeted audience is. Whilst Torley states that Hamlet Au was writing up 'mindjunk' when saying you can buy an SL capable system under 500USD, he must have been... well... high on melons? 500USD is 317 Euro's... In Belgium you pay at least 500 euro's for a below mid-range PC, which will have an onboard or crappy graphics card (forget about all nice SL options) and probably won't run SL anymore in about 1 years time. Let alone your email client and SL. At the moment the viewer is just to heavy. If people disable voice, disable the voice part process completely, not only mute them. Oh, and my best guess is there all still some memory leaks around, looking at my PC's performance after an hour of SL. So they should start with straightening that out: what users are we targeting. It would help the companies a whole lot!
Next, we need an 'easy' client. For people who don't want to spend the rest of their lives in SL, but just need second life to go to a conference - the current BlogHer one is a perfect example -, a business meeting, or want to see content that is unique presented in Second Life. Give it a button 'update to full functionality', if they wish to stay, but it should be simple, they should be pre-dressed to look nice and it should take them to were they want to be. Which brings us to your issue, 'skinable' clients. Awesome! Give them to us now! Most of the companies don't have the staff - and obviously, Mr Nicholaz is not for sale - to constantly update their clients, let alone patch LL bugs. Give the companies an overlay, where they can add their own LM's, library content, ... their customers will need. We'll take care it's filled of usefull goodies & LM's, LL makes sure the code stays up to date. Dusan Writer's client UI contest is a great idea, and I hope Lindens are watching that one closely.
And last one, talk & listen to your content creators. Keep them up to dated on what you are planning to do, and I'm not talking about a two day advance notice about rolling restarts here. Communicate to all your residents & content creators - not only those on the dev list - about your planned changes , updates, new possibilities, ... . Don't make unannounced changes that frequently. And hey, what's up with the verification system? How did that go? Is it being useful, or was that just another water balloon?
So far for my rant and frustrations. I love Second Life, and I still believe in it's possibilities: I visited a lot of different virtual words and non of them had the same amount of user options, smooth moving avatars, creation freedom, and most important: large user base that Second Life has. But the Linden Lab should urgently communicate clearly what their plans are, and if they plan to stay a 'provider' more than an active participant in content creation (see Bay Area and Linden Lab's Public works) then what they are planning to do about giving the content creators, the people that actually drive traffic into SL the necessary tools to continue to do so.
PS. Still wondering & speculating what the 'big huge news' is they will announce at the end of SL5B. I was hugely disappointed by Philip and M. Linden's speeches, as they talked a lot of the past and how great it is now, but did not mention future plans much.
The 'normal simulator' to '4
Thu, 06/26/2008 - 20:30 — Vint FalkenThe 'normal simulator' to '4 voids' change, and Lindens counting that as a 3 sim increase on the numbers, is an interesting assumption. And would be really 'gaming the numbers'. I wonder if there is anything 'official Linden' statement or so on that one.
What catches me most is the lack of 'positive promo' LL gets out. We had 'gameworld' in Belgium, a 3 day fair about very old & very revolutionary games, and unique in it's kind. The only 'second life' presence there was going to be the documentary by Mr Molotov Alva, which was last minute cancelled. Au contraire, there were about 10 pc's were you could learn how to play WoW. (Organised by a Belgian games/pc/whatever shop, but still.)
We had our share of documentaries about SL on Belgian TV - one belgium made, interesting one too, with Coolz0r and some others which showed both the benefits as the drawbacks of virtual worlds. And then there was that docu from the BBC, which they aired, about the 'relationships grown and marriages ruined by virtual world'. Pfff. Definitely a missed chance to present to people who are looking for a 'new thing'.
I really wonder what they marketing plan is: I mailed them tons of time about the Garden of NPIRL Delights - quality content, which proves a good use of Second Life, artists getting a platform beyond RL possibilities - but they refused to feature it in the showcase. We rezz an obesitas Greenie on a birthday cake and voila, it makes - a crappy snapshot, but none the less - it makes the homepage. There is no clear roadmap of where LL is heading, there is no clear marketing plan. Or at least not ones they are willing to share with the residents & companies that are in-world.
It's also still unclear what SL's targeted audience is. Whilst Torley states that Hamlet Au was writing up 'mindjunk' when saying you can buy an SL capable system under 500USD, he must have been... well... high on melons? 500USD is 317 Euro's... In Belgium you pay at least 500 euro's for a below mid-range PC, which will have an onboard or crappy graphics card (forget about all nice SL options) and probably won't run SL anymore in about 1 years time. Let alone your email client and SL. At the moment the viewer is just to heavy. If people disable voice, disable the voice part process completely, not only mute them. Oh, and my best guess is there all still some memory leaks around, looking at my PC's performance after an hour of SL. So they should start with straightening that out: what users are we targeting. It would help the companies a whole lot!
Next, we need an 'easy' client. For people who don't want to spend the rest of their lives in SL, but just need second life to go to a conference - the current BlogHer one is a perfect example -, a business meeting, or want to see content that is unique presented in Second Life. Give it a button 'update to full functionality', if they wish to stay, but it should be simple, they should be pre-dressed to look nice and it should take them to were they want to be. Which brings us to your issue, 'skinable' clients. Awesome! Give them to us now! Most of the companies don't have the staff - and obviously, Mr Nicholaz is not for sale - to constantly update their clients, let alone patch LL bugs. Give the companies an overlay, where they can add their own LM's, library content, ... their customers will need. We'll take care it's filled of usefull goodies & LM's, LL makes sure the code stays up to date. Dusan Writer's client UI contest is a great idea, and I hope Lindens are watching that one closely.
And last one, talk & listen to your content creators. Keep them up to dated on what you are planning to do, and I'm not talking about a two day advance notice about rolling restarts here. Communicate to all your residents & content creators - not only those on the dev list - about your planned changes , updates, new possibilities, ... . Don't make unannounced changes that frequently. And hey, what's up with the verification system? How did that go? Is it being useful, or was that just another water balloon?
So far for my rant and frustrations. I love Second Life, and I still believe in it's possibilities: I visited a lot of different virtual words and non of them had the same amount of user options, smooth moving avatars, creation freedom, and most important: large user base that Second Life has. But the Linden Lab should urgently communicate clearly what their plans are, and if they plan to stay a 'provider' more than an active participant in content creation (see Bay Area and Linden Lab's Public works) then what they are planning to do about giving the content creators, the people that actually drive traffic into SL the necessary tools to continue to do so.
PS. Still wondering & speculating what the 'big huge news' is they will announce at the end of SL5B. I was hugely disappointed by Philip and M. Linden's speeches, as they talked a lot of the past and how great it is now, but did not mention future plans much.