Project Open Letter

Project Open Letter

Cristiano N. Diaz (Cristiano Midnight in SL) has intiated an open letter to Linden Lab regarding the on-going instability and difficulties in a few key areas including Inventory loss, Find and Friends List, Build tools, and Transactions.

I'm not sure there's much more to say about this initiative other than read it and act according to your own perspective.
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Second Life Economics vs. Entitlement

I spent so much time thinking about the title of this post that it was making me slightly nuts, so this morning I sat down and tapped out what was at the top of my mind. In my life I've had the good fortune of a few writers and editors trying to teach me how to craft an appropriate title, but for whatever reason, I continue to fail them as a student. Nonetheless, this post is purely my opinion on what I see as a natural turn of events as the Second Life population grows and the attendant market and cultural evolution. Evolution, as it were, that sometimes feels more like a retrograde than forward movement but that's just this one avi's opinion.

While the growth of Second Life has been media-hyped, there are market effects felt in world that are not necessarily understood by those merely reporting. The recent onslaught of new residents has done at least two things: 1) saturated some markets and 2) presented new market and social normality challenges that were not otherwise present when the world was considerably smaller, and therefore more "small townish". These changes came on as quickly as the newbs, and it's left some residents in a quandary about how to stay solvent, if not thrive.

On the Marketplace and Value Chains
If you read my Defining Virtual Worlds post, you'll know that I believe that the marketplace of Second Life, enabled by Linden Lab's brilliant decision to allow content creators rights to their digital creations, is critically important to success. I place it on equal par with the other two points I made, as it's very existence is what motivates some people to participate well beyond the social aspects of the environment. I hesitate to categorize the Second Life platform as a true economy because of a few nuances, such as things like the lack of a central bank and stipends, but let's not debate those here. Regardless, there is a true marketplace, and much of what drives successful businesses in SL is the ability to tap into a market and serve it accordingly.

NOTE:
1) The live music case below was stimulated by a recent dialogue within the Live Music community and assumes that the value chain participants want to profit or stay solvent. The cases where an individual merely wants to participate at his own expense is provided as a counter example in the Second Life Artists discussion.
2) Among other things in Second Life, I'm part artist and part performer but certainly not an economist. I concede that as a human that the following represents my own thinking and observations from that vantage, not as an economic treatise.

Live Music as a Market
Recently, one of the most vocal discussions about marketplace dynamics and social norms has been in the Live Music community. Live Music is certainly not the largest entertainment draw in Second Life, but it does present a valuable and unique opportunity for the marketplace participants which include listeners, venue owners, performers, promoters, distributors and publishers. Just as the real world, a many-person value/supply chain can be complicated to navigate, and if you do not realize what part you play, understand what value you add, know what each contribution is worth to the consumer, and how to play nicely with the other contributors, you will fail. [If you don't believe me, read any article on the success of Toyota or Walmart.]

For the Live Music community, there are sore spots all along the value chain but I'm going to focus solely on Venue Owners and Performers as Publishers/Promoters have been fairly silent. Unfortunately, the case has been generically presented as "should live music be free or not?", the utterance of which is simply an ignorance about how a marketplace thrives so I am not answering that directly.

Music Venue Owners
There are many types of venues in a endless resource market, from pure music venues to casinos, each with their own value proposition. Slim Warrior, performer and proprietor of the Menorca sim, started a free form discussion regarding the inability of music-only venues to stay solvent given the current overhead of paying performers as well as on-going land, streaming server and maintenance fees. The fees Slim outlines are real, but as part of the value chain, do consumers distinguish between venue types and if so, what is the value they place on a "not for profit" or music-only venue, versus a revenue-supported venue (e.g. a casino) and most importantly is there a cost value within that distinction? One way to test is to charge admission, which to the consumer may present itself as "I'm paying to enter this venue" or "I'm paying to hear this performer", or both. Does that matter? It matters only if you plan to have a successful marketing campaign.

Slim's personal initiative started a fire storm of debate and discussion, which highlights an interesting aspect of the Second Life community insomuch as there are not yet standards bodies, unions or organizations from which structured discussion can emerge. Hence, basic human nature leaves us with cliques, collusion as well as soap box theatrics.

Performers
I chose not to use the word "musician" here, because I am making a market judgement that the live music market value proposition in Second Life is as much about performance as it is raw musical "talent". This subtlety regarding value from the market's perspective- not the performer's perspective - may be where this case breaks down the most. Arguments stemmed from Slim's discussions that performers are not making "what they deserve". At one performance on Menorca, a live musician took time out of a set to complain that it was unfair that escorts were making more than live musicians.

This is how Entitlement came to be part of this post's title. In a marketplace, you are "entitled" to what the market will bear, and how you compete against the other market entities. The Second Life market is not the same as the real world market. While some can leverage the aspects of the real world market toward their in world value, the simple argument of " I make this in real life, therefore I should make this in Second Life" is critically flawed, even in the case of escorts.

There have been a number of outspoken performers on this issue. Silas Scarborough chose to use his position as the performer for the Dreams Community Fair American Stroke Association benefit concert to announce his personal perspective regarding live musicians playing casinos and asked musicians to strike until casinos delivered what he called fair and reasonable pay for musicians. He also used in world live music groups as a distribution platform for notecards and t-shirts reiterating his views. Likewise, Flaming Moe, a long time performer in Second Life, scoffed at an offer of $25USD for a single hour of play at AOL Pointe - arguably one of the most successfully promoted corporate venues in world to date, right behind the L Word sims. I won't use any space here debating Silas' or Flaming Moe's points, since if you've understood any of what I'd said in the opening paragraphs, you know my opinion.

A different view to the above has been eloquently presented by Komuso Tokugawa. Komuso started his discussion here, but today I read a follow on comment post from him on the subject, citing a brilliant article by Bob Lefetz . Komuso's comments are on target, from which I must quote:

I think in this changing environment indie musicians [esp indie musicians with dreams of making it “big”] need to seriously start questioning conventional wisdom concepts such as “exposure”, “cd sales”, “promotion”, “marketing” and other so called traditional routes to musical “success” and start devising ways to connect with and communicate authentically with the only people that really matter…the people who are moved by your particular style of sonic manipulation and will ultimately put their hands in their pockets to reward you for doing that…if financial gain happens to be your core objective [or one of them] from being a musician.

If music is art, how are the other "artists" in Second Life managing the same market dilemma? I think the answers can be found in any number of places, but this Reuter's article is packed with an interesting contrast to the above case. From the article:

“My experience is that 99.9 percent of the artists here are not just out to make a buck. They just enjoy having their art seen and if they sell a piece here and there, it’s icing on the cake,” said Sasun Steinbeck, who maintains a list of art galleries for Second Life. “I know for me I get much more thrill out of watching someone have that ‘oooo aaaah’ moment when they see my sculpture than in the ‘cha ching’ sound of making another sale”.

And finally, to my friend DrFran Babcock- an individual that in real life has a "day job" but has embraced Second Life for the opportunity it affords us all. In Dr Fran's Friday podcast about the success of her bird buddies:

"I think of Second Life as my creative and social playground. I would rather not make money, than spend all my time in SL preparing objects for sale ... Poor but happy is what I'll be, and that's a conscious decision."

You are entitled to be happy, you are not entitled to profit simply because the platform allows it. Leverage the endless possibilities that Second Life affords its resident to think creativity about your craft, your "brand", your existence and your business. Allowing yourself to be trapped in the models and attendant expectations of the real world will leave you shallow, unfulfilled and probably the subject of one of my next postings.
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Second Life Indagatrix: Geek Squad Island

I saw the announcements earlier this month, but just recently found my way to Geek Squad Island. The build promotes the Geek Squad services, and has office hours from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. EDT, seven days a week which may come in very handy after Wednesday's update. According to the Geek Squad site,

Geek Squad Island will act as the virtual home for Geek Squad, a place where customers and Agents can interact in digital space. Housed atop a pair of volcanoes connected by a steel-and-glass transit system, the island is an immersive environment in which residents can explore the Geek Squad mythos, interact one-on-one with real life Geek Squad Agents in avatar form and test out a virtual representation of real world support services.

There is an underground amphitheater and transit system from which you can take a transit tube ride to either the House of the Future or The Volcano and History Museum. If you are sensitive to motion, I would recommend that you just fly. The transit tubes are interesting, but a blur of grey and orange was not my personal favorite although I did get this great inside shot.


The House of the Future has a tour HUD; don't miss it like I did on the first visit. It provides you with a description of the elements that a well-equipped futuristic house might have such as a Murphy bed. Yes, I said Murphy bed. Who needs a Geek Squad when you have a Murphy bed?


The Volcano area has a spinning disc platform over the volcano on which to entertain yourself with bumper cars. If you've come alone you may get bored quickly since there aren't any NPC around to abuse or bump. And a note to the ladies or gents wearing kilts, you have to wear a bumper car attachment that will attach where your skirt *was* so be forewarned.
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Defining Virtual Worlds

It would appear that a few of you actually expect me to make good on my intention to share my definition of virtual worlds as forewarned in my last post. After some thought, I've decided that this would be a foolish endeavor as I consider myself far better at perspective than absolutes, but I do appreciate that several of you took the time to nag, or rather, remind me.

Your appeals were not entirely wasted, thanks to Clive Jackson who's shared his white paper, "The Metaverse 2.0". This read should satiate your Webster hunger for definitions. It's packed with some great insights, and you will especially appreciate it if you were around when VRML was "all that and a bag of chips".

To be honest, my attempts at definition were trapped in my thinking about what would, or could, or should make a virtual world like Second Life successful. Defining "success" in this way is a rabbit hole of thought so don't go there, but if you do I will tell you - red or blue?- it matters not. Today I stumbled upon someone else who fell into the void along this trail of tears.

Onder Skall has a brilliant post entitled "Alternative to Second Life - Uber Edition" in which he explores a few worlds of note on the basis of his own personal criteria. His criteria based on his opinion of what makes Second Life successful - not - a general criteria against which to measure or define virtual worlds. Someone got rather confused about this subtlety, which I missed since I stopped reading TN due to the prevalence of ill informed drivel a couple of months ago, but I digress. Orun outlined his criteria, which aligned well if not completely, with my perspectives about the success of a virtual world platform such as Second Life.

1) Socialization - There must adequate means by which people socialize, form and maintain affinity groups, communities and even whole new societies. Socialization is overwhelmingly the reason people are online and the enablement of such cannot be overemphasized, over-supported or over-maintained. [rant] It's here that I'll take out a brief moment and smack LL over the head with their product management road map. This is where all things start and end, and if you cannot get socialization right, stop. If group notices for some of the largest in world groups do not work, you've failed. If profiles fail to load, guess what? If my friends don't show on line and I can't teleport someone I just met ... do not collect $200, go directly to jail. [end rant]

2) Immersive and Participatory Media - Orun's bullet point is "users must be able to create unique content and retain ownership over it", but I expand my point to imply or rather demand, that there is an underlying dialogue associated with the creation. Users create; but there is equal part to play in consumption and evolution of someone else's creation. Mediated or otherwise, creation and consumption is not one-way, but rather it embraces both the immersiveness and synchronicity of the platform.

3) Marketplace - Here Orun says: "Users must be able to create unique content and retain ownership over it. RMT (Real-Money Trading) is designed in, not forbidden by TOS." I agree that Real Money Transactions (RMT) are important, but not that they are the key. The key is something more subtle. It's the ability for people to define value and to transact on items of value on many levels, RMT being one of them, but not the only. In fact, I can imagine a mechanism by which there were two forms of virtual currency - one that is only usable in world, and the other that can be traded in RMT. Imagine the complex and interesting economy that might arise from such as system. Oh wait, we already have that in the real world - it's called social currency and it is the fabric that ties points #1-3 together. It's value it entirely subjective, the market shifts and your ability to "cash out" is entirely dependent upon your ability to socialize, your participation and a market against which to trade.

I realize this doesn't go a long way toward a beautifully illustrated definition, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about what makes a platform like Second Life successful. Please use the comments if you can, I'm often delinquent in email.
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Second Life Search

If you read CNET's article in February or if you've spent any time in world trying to actually, you know *find* something in the vastness of Second Life, you know that search is, well .. "She's dead, Jim".

Cracking the search code is a critical component within the virtual world arena and the challenge within Second Life is fraught with the usual issues about privacy, ownership, etc. A few early entrants including Second 411 have struggled to develop a significant user base in part because, well no one can find them either, and quite possibly because they chose the opt-in path which requires action on the part of the searchee. An opt-in service is difficult to get going, but it is commonly considered more community friendly than something like the real world Do Not Call Registry, but now there's a new spider in town.

On April 7th, a new avatar was brought forth into the grid, and they called it's name Grid Shepherd. Grid is a automated scan bot or spider, developed by the Electric Sheep Company (ESC) as lauded by 3pointD.com, was unleashed on Monday to scour the Second Life grid once every 24 hours, gathering publicly accessible data on items that were marked for sale.

There is the predictable community rebuff, with some angst around performance, a generally community unfriendly deployment, privacy and the requirement to opt out rather than opt in. As is often the case, some of the more intriguing arguments (i.e. there is something to be learned here) are about *how* the bot was deployed, and not *that* the bot was out and about. In general, bots are a touchy subject in Second Life, if you aren't aware, catch up on the Copy Bot and the Land Scanners.

Opt Out for You, Opt In for Me?
The ESC service is an opt-out service and to do so, you need to get up and visit Sheep headquarters, find search.sheeps.com sign and change your privacy settings. I hope it works better that the Do Not Call Registry.

Ironically, the ESC Labs Terms Of Service require that automated querying of Grid's output is not allowed without expressed permission or an "opt in" by ESC.


For a first start, I'd say this was a fine effort technically although a bit of a blundered deployment. Too often, we technologists adopt the "shoot, shoot, look" rules of engagement and in the new renaissance, we really must consider many more perspectives about not only what we do, but how we do it.

Now I am off to modify the metadata of my for sale items to optimize those blasted bot results.
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Virtual Worlds 2007 Observations

Last week, the "first" Virtual Worlds conference subtitled "The Future of Marketing and Media" was held in New York. I've been sitting on this post for a week and after much deliberation, I've decided to unleash it in a form that is nothing more than my observations and commentary.

You can find plenty of posts about the "news" of the conference and you can watch a few celebrity interviews, so I won't bore you with additional minutia about suits, overbooking, under planning and poor execution. Those elements are the subject of most of my scribbled conference note expletives, but there are others so let's get going.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” - Winston Churchill

I've been working in this space for about a year now and aside from technology, my primary motivation for attending the conference was two-fold: 1) find out what strategies are being employed in this space, and 2) get some *data* regarding results of the much publicised endeavors. The conference was run more like a fire side chat, so I got very little of either despite agenda headliners such as: "Defining you Strategy, What does ROI mean to you?"

Matt Bostwick , Jeffrey Yapp and Steve Youngwood of Viacom's MTV Networks and Nickelodeon provided the most comprehensive information with their aggressive virtual world progenies Virtual Laguna Beach (VLB) and NICKtropolis in tow. Viacom announced new "niche" worlds in development including Pimp My Ride, LOGOWorld and a nightclub/music project based on Doppleganger's music lounge where the intent is the further blur the lines between TV, the web and a 3D world. They have branded their strategy "4D TV" which in mathematical terms is 4D TV = TV + 3D, a true representation of the blurring lines between pure linear TV and on-line engagement models. To quote Bostwick from CNET's article:

"Our goal is to let them create their own story lines and content. We think this will come full circle when the content flows from inside our worlds onto the screen."

Have I heard that somewhere before?

I found a few tidbits of the Viacom self-reported data below intriguing and if we knew how much they have invested in these properties, we'd have some insight into the 4D equation.

• For VLB in-game advertising, 99% of the resident population were exposed to ads, and 85% of those chose to interact with the brand element within 2 weeks of deployment
• Last month, over 92,000 people clicked on "Add a buddy" from virtual MTV
• NICKtropolis launched in January and has over 2.4 million registered users, of which 1.3 million users have created rooms
• The Neopets site gets 11 million uniques a month and the "average" person spends 3 hours a week on Neopets

So that was a big media company perspective, but if you want data you look to IBM, right? After all, IBM announced that they are investing $10M over the next year in virtual worlds including an expanded presence in Second Life and their own 3D intranet.

“Every time we've moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something new.” - Thomas J. Watson

It didn't take *that* long for some IBM suits to put their head on the block for virtual worlds. But most people don't know that the IBM onslaught into Second Life was actually led by individuals with a passion and some forward thinking, not a top-down strategy, and that may be the best strategy lesson that was not told. If some of these IBMers, rather than Collin Parris, had addressed the conference I expect the discussion would have been more lively, engaging and not laden with big blue speak, jargon and a lesson on value chains which sounds vaguely like the old IBM strategy, with just a new "D"imension.

IBM had a chance to impress the attendees with their VW expertise when a question was raised as to whether there was anything that small businesses could learn from what the large businesses are doing in virtual worlds but the answer was "No, it's too early to tell". No?!? If you asked that question -- call, Skype, email, Linked In, Twitter or smoke signal me and let's talk. There are plenty of lessons learned to date, even in these primordial times.

"What is reality anyway! It's nothing but a collective hunch." - Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe

My largest and possibly most depressing discovery from this Virtual Worlds conference, is that collectively we have no definition for the entity we call "virtual worlds". More than once MySpace was touted as "the largest virtual world" which to me is a resounding call for at least a collective consciousness instead of the collective hunches about this emerging platform. I've been working on my own definition which will be the subject of a future post once I've drawn the pretty graphics.


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Second Life Indagatrix: Get Your Trek On

I knew the time would come when I'd admit my secret weakness for .. Star Trek. And yes, it was with great glee that I stumbled across an event listing today which read:

Admiral - There Be Whales Here!
The Star Trek Museum invites you to meet the newest members of our family, George and Gracie. These humpback whales were brought here from the 20th century by Admiral James T. Kirk in an effort to re-populate the species. They can be viewed from the observation area to the south of the Star Trek Museum. TovaDok II (89, 213, 23)

I had to read it three or four times since oddly enough, the only reason I found this little slice of heaven was that it was listed under the Live Music category. Yes, I have heard the mermaids singing, but whale watching listed under live music events? I think it's a creative stretch. Live music in Second Life is so popular that it's practically the only category people actively seek out from the events which has made it vulnerable to piles of misplaced (i.e. spam) listings. But, this was Star Trek's George and Gracie, and most was forgiven.


Sabri Piccard is the TovaDok II owner and Star Trek Science museum curator, and his handiwork is a skillful mix of creativity and collaboration, as many of the museum pieces such as the star field are shared or open source works. The museum itself is expansive and well done with abundant literature about each section. There are far too many features to list here, and Sabri's museum site offers far more interesting content than I could hope to produce. Hop on this SLurl and take a look for yourself. Take your time and look around, I think you too will be impressed.

I got a sneak peek at George and Gracie, both fine examples of Megaptera novaeangliae and the creation of Kaikou Splash of Splash Aquatics. I could not gather images to do them justice, but here is a machinima piece of another humpback whale resident at Commonwealth. If you go to the watch watching platform, be sure to pick up a note card which contains many interesting tidbits and a bonus whale plushy, courtesy of T'Sora Enoch.


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