more hype or some meaning--looks like hype on the back of the hype curve. Our man Hamlet got into the "spacious" rl sl offices and poked M about the SL mission in this Gigaom interview http://gigaom.com/2008/07/19/will-mark-kingdons-reign-boost-second-life/ says Mark Kingdon LL CEO: “We’re working on three things really intently,” he said. The first is “solidifying our proposition for what we’re defining as our core markets.” That includes the traditional personal user of Second Life, which is typically someone in their 30s, as well as the “enterprise segment,” which addresses the many corporations that use Second Life for conferencing, job fairs and other business applications. And finally there are the educators that use the virtual world as a teaching tool. “I think 18 of the top 20 educational institutions in North America are in Second Life and doing wondrous things,” Kingdon said. The second task, he went on, is improving Second Life’s complex user interface, especially in relation to its confusing first-hour experience, which he admitted prompts many people to give up. “We’re also working very hard to make Second Life intuitively, and maybe even delightfully, usable,” he told me. The third crucial task relates to what Kingdon called the “stability and scalability of the platform.” The Second Life client and server grid is notoriously crash-prone, but he said they’ve been working on it for months and were showing good progress so far. Hmmm...all nice blah, blah, blah--but how are the top 18-20 wonderful education institutions going to support the existing SL economy? Anyone have any evidence of these wondrous things? Maybe some ok enough things? I don't get out enough to have any comment really--but not seeing too much wonder from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, McGill and/or 15 others on the NPIRL blog? Bettina is like everywhere, so maybe they should add her to their wonder list? Maybe we need a better guide to all this stuff, so we can feel more positive about the energy across the more than 21,000 SL island atm. I still find it odd, that LL can focus on lowering paying educational organizations than its "core" landowners and merchant operators. I guess we are not wondrous enough or something? My own info is that most corporates are NOT using SL as they are burned in last year or find the SL brand too risky/sleezy. Enterprise? Like big companies or small companies? I guess IBM now equals an interesting enough enterprise segment all by itself. Of course Microsoft, Google and Sony are a bit active in SL--only to study it and use this info to create more powerful competitors. Again, like Netscape... For SL actions will speak more meaning than more hype.