BBBC Day 2 - Dream More

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Today's BBBC topic: Write about three positive things going on in your Second Life.

Storytelling
Last week Himon Brown died at the age of 99. Himon became one of the most influential people in radio storytelling by mastering the art of sound to create imaginary worlds. In 1974, he resurrected his famous creaking door for the ghoulish tales of "CBS Radio Mystery Theater," which aired seven nights a week for nine years and won a prestigious Peabody Award.

Have a listen from the Inner Sanctum "Beyond the Grave", courtesy of the Internet Archive project.

I think about Second Life® the way I imagine Himon thought about radio - as a powerful storytelling model that allows the "listener" to sketch out their own personal narratives. While Himon Brown unleashed our imaginations with the most basic elements of sound, we have so much at our disposal - the construction of place, built through personal relationships, toward immersive shared experiences that can transform individual thinking.

The beauty of Second Life is that we can be both storyteller and listener in a gigantic arc, in fact you can change the story just by logging in. The presence of the world and unscripted perturbations are nothing short of remarkable when you think about it - it's a storyteller's dream. I like to write stories about the places I've encountered. I fancy myself a storyteller every time I perform in world; I try to capture the story of a song and tell it my way. So far Musimmersion has been my most ambitious storytelling project, but really it just scratched the surface of what I hope to do in the future.

Dreaming
I think the word dream gets a bad rap sometimes as if it meant simply an idle mind and wasted time.  To me it's one of the most liberating words (noun, a verb and an adjective!)  in the English language.

Letting myself dream has been one of the most positive parts of my Second Life experience. And by dream I don't merely to fantasize without recourse, I mean to consider outrageous ideas and then move them to action. Dreaming has allowed me to express myself as a musician, and it's opened a thousand doors to other worlds and other people.

Sometimes exploring Second Life feels like walking around in other people's dreams; I love that.

Shared Experiences - presence, place, people
I wrote this in an earlier post, but it bears repeating. For me, the most compelling attribute of Second Life  is the synchronicity of presence, place, and people that allows you to have this compelling shared experience.

One might argue that shared experiences are the underlying human engine that powers much of the Social Web - online shared experiences allow us to feel deeply connected despite whatever boundaries like geography, ideology, etc. the physical world might present. For me, Second Life makes those experiences more meaningful, somehow being immersed in the same space and dealing with the same things, changes the equation.

I often wonder of all the people I've come to know in world if we had met on the street, would we even say hello? Would we give each other the benefit of the doubt? Some I would just never, ever have the privilege of knowing at all. That serendipity, that collision of human connectedness, cannot be easily replaced.
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BBBC Day 1 Like a Virgin

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I'm a Big Bad Blogger Challenge (BBBC) virgin so I'll do my best to act like I know what I'm doing, but really I'll just be watching people like Botgirl and Lalo and doing my best to stay in line. (This is pretty much how I got through marching band - but don't ask me how that worked out).

Alicia Chenaux started BBBC in 2008 as a way "to give SL bloggers a little kickstart, and give people something to read. But it turned into a great sharing opportunity!". This year's challenge starts today and runs through June 18th. I think it's a brilliant idea (even though it's probably one of the worst weeks ever for me to try blog every day) so I'm going to give it a shot.

Fortunately, Alicia is kind enough to draft a topic for the day. And today's topic is:

Why did you become a blogger? How has it enriched your life?

I had to check my archive to see when I started this blog - which was in October 2006, about eight months after my Rez Day - but I do remember distinctly why I started to post and that was the most notable "Augmentation versus Immersion" discussion started by Henrik Bennetsen. Yes, I was intrigued by culture from the beginning.

My first post was brief, but I think answers the question best.

A few months ago I was wondering how I would find the time to do the things I wanted to do - write, philosophize, explore, and meet new people. Somewhere between the cracks of daylight I found enough time to immerse myself in the virtual world of Second Life and suddenly I had a platform that allowed those things and more. 

This blog will be "late to the game" in the midst of the recent media frenzy surrounding Second Life, but I hope to add some new dimension to the conversation - to highlight what I have experienced in my exploration of Immersionist to Augmentationist in this emerging state of virtuality. 

I am Grace McDunnough, and this is the state of phasing grace.

It wasn't long before I became completely fascinated with the possibilities in Second Life and this is why I was (and still am) so drawn to the world view that Philip shared - as a means to "improve the human condition". Phasing Grace was a play on the idea that with broad adoption, virtual worlds might stimulate some kind of phase shift in individuals and society as a whole. I guess we still have a way to go.

I never really thought about people reading this blog in the beginning - it really was more like a digital satchel, a place to capture the things I was thinking about or things that struck me as interesting. I never thought about it "enriching my life" either but it has in subtle ways I probably cannot even articulate.

It's a challenge to put your thoughts out there and have someone say "Yeah, that's bullshit Grace". But if someone takes the time to really read what I wrote and respond, and if I can accept that they aren't attacking me personally (ok, some are) then I believe that every time I grow as a person. The diversity of thought, shared experiences and ideas, for me, are the riches.
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The Second Life Why Stories

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This long weekend could not have been more timely.  I needed a refresh and while Saturday was framed by 6am and 6pm Grace O'clocks, I've had the luxury of time to explore artists markets, movies, research papers and books. Now it's Monday and I need to turn my attention to Three Thanks - right after I get this post out of my head.

One book I finished was Simon Sinek's "Start With Why". I ran across Simon's TED Talk "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" (also the subtitle to his book) and was left wanting more, so I grabbed a copy of his book. 

Unless you are seriously into marketing texts, I think Simon's TED talk is just enough to get the main point across which is an elegant idea that Simon calls his "discovery".  Simon embodies his discovery in what he calls the The Golden Circle. It's a simple concentric circle model with WHY at the center, surrounded by HOW and WHAT.

He describes the implications as this:

Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows WHAT they do, 100 percent. Some know HOW they do it, whether you call it your differentiated value proposition or your proprietary process or your USP. But very, very few people or organizations know WHY they do what they do. And by "WHY" I don't mean "to make a profit." That's a result. It's always a result. By "WHY" I mean: what's your purpose? What's your cause? What's your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? 

Simon predominantly uses three case studies to demonstrate how the idea of WHY is a differentiator for success: 1) why Apple has become a predominant technology company, 2) why the Wright brothers succeeded despite lack of funds, and 3) why Martin Luther King inspired the nation not with what should be done, but with the why of his beliefs.

He argues that organizations that begin with a strong sense of WHY and keep themselves centered there are far more effective that those that focus on WHAT they do or HOW they do it.

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Second Life Retention Recipe: Chat More

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Chun-Yuen Teng and Lada A. Adamic from the School of Information at the University of Michigan have just published some interesting research on user retention in the virtual world Second Life ®.

The researchers observed that a high percentage (95.4%) of users who had made some financial investment in SL were likely to remain.  From there, they set out to determine which factors were the best predictors of retention. The findings are quite interesting and I'll summarize, but please read the detailed report for the analysis.

Linden Lab provided the research team a dataset on user activity including snapshots of the social network, group affiliations, as well as summary interaction data such as first and most recent login, user-to-user transactions and pairwise chat frequencies. The researchers focused on the slice of data spanning May-June 2009 and evaluated four different facets of the user experience: usage (time spent), networking (number of contacts, groups and social cohesion), interactions (frequency and regularity), and financial transactions (selling and buying).

1) On Usage
The total length of time spent in SL was not a significant predictor, however the intensity (total time spent in world) was a strong predictor.

2) On Networking
While all parameters of networking (# friends, # active friends, % active friends, clustering, # groups, group overlaps) were highly correlated with retention, the number of raw contacts and groups, were key to identifying which users stay. The diversity of those contacts was a positive predictor but not a strong correlation.

3) On Interactions
For this I will quote directly from the report:

We observe that almost all chat parameters are more predictive that the static network measures above.  Furthermore, one need not resort to complex metrics because the best predictions are also the simplest, e.g. the number of chat partners (not necessarily friends), or the number of days on which the user chatted.

In other words, talking with people matters.

4) On Financial Transactions
Here, the researchers looked at data on purchases, sales, and transfer of goods as well as proximity within the social graph.  The results indicated that while economic activity was correlated with retention, it was less so than chat.  Spending money was more highly correlated than making money.  Having a high proportion of free transactions was highly predictive. Profits did not improve the predictions of whether a user would stay.  The amount of money paid to Linden Lab versus other users was only weakly predictive.


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Virtual World Views

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For me, the most compelling attribute of a virtual world like Second Life ® is the synchronicity of presence, place, and people that allows you to have a shared experience. One might argue that shared experiences are the underlying human engine that powers much of the Social Web - online shared experiences allow us to feel deeply connected despite whatever boundaries the physical world might present. Shared experiences can be most powerful when people share some resonance of situation such as cancer, or a shared belief, or culture. Online, the vehicles that enable shared experiences can be artfully designed and offline, businesses (such as Starbucks) can leverage the power of experience to lucrative ends. 

As I'm still exploring the edges of this concept of "a Second Life Culture" one thing has struck me, and that is how the very same experience can be perceived so differently by individuals. The unscripted nature of Second Life, the lack of structure and goals as it were, affords the abundance of world views. These world views are self-constructed and are based on either our past experiences or our vision of what the world should be; they become the lens through which we evaluate our virtual existence.

If you understand how someone came to discover Second Life, you may have some insight into their initial world view.  When a gamer wanders into Second Life they may start to evaluate the experience with a few questions:  What do I do? How do I level up?  What are the goals?  These are perfectly valid questions for a gamer to ask; they frame the essence of a gamer's world view.  

So when Scott Carmichael posts a great link bait headline "Why Second Life Will (& Has To) Die" the first clue to his world view is that the blog is boldly titled Scott Carmichael's Gaming Blog. His world view is largely if not completely framed by gaming and furthermore he's convinced that his view is the majority view. From the comments he notes (emphasis mine):

To clarify once again (in what will probably be my last comment on the post), here are the problems with Second life:

#1) It has no purpose. It’s a sandbox with no objectives for users. And 99% of internet users NEED a reason to use something if a company expects them to do so. Right now, SL offers no significant benefit over traditional email/chat/social networking/VOIP/etc. sites to facilitate communication/interaction.

#2) The guy in charge of SL thinks (as recently as a couple months ago when interviewed by Robert Scoble) that SL is actually doing well and on the right track and doesn’t plan to overhaul one iota of SL. From what I’m understanding, he — and the users right now — seem perfectly content to leave SL as-is. A niche program/site/service full of elitist, extreme-minority 3D modeling/scripting/animating-savvy users.

#3) If it ever wants to TRULY be a REAL, TRUE virtual world that could reach the level of popularity and usage the SL creators probably originally envisioned, they have to fundamentally change the way the world and its users operate. So, in effect, that would mean killing off the current version of Second Life. Since that most likely isn’t going to happen (that would mean admitting what SL has been since the beginning was a failure), SL is simply doomed to die and fade to irrelevance over the next couple of years (for the most part it already has).

Some of Scott's observations are intriguing, but when bundled up and justified in the cloak of a gamer world view, it's tough to see even the bright spots unless of course, you are part of Scott's 99%.  It's also difficult for Scott to see any other point of view than his own when it comes to Second Life.

What this means is that Scott and I may not have a happy shared experience in Second Life at all - even if we are at precisely the same virtual place, at the same time. While I may revel in the beauty of the place, he may be equally annoyed at the lack of goals or direction. What I might see as an intriguing emergent economy, he may view as an unfair or unbalanced playing field.

Scott has just one world view among many and in Second Life there are far more, certainly more than Henrik Bennetsen initially outlined in "Augmentation vs Immersion".  Some are based on past virtual experiences such as TheSims Online or There.com, some on the notion of seeing Second Life as a "platform" verus a "world" (more on this in a later post) and still some are blank slates until people spend more than a few hours in world - this is why the poorly named "first hour" user experience is so critical.

One thing is for certain, your world view can have a direct effect on whether your Second Life experience is a happy one.

So the natural question is: Is there a way to make us all "happy" or at least "happier"?  Maybe not, but there are a few clues about the implications of shared experiences and how Linden Lab might help themselves at least for the existing non ex-user base.

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Chicken One Day, Feathers the Next

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Recently, Hamlet Au posted a blog entitled "Avian Fever: Virtual Chickens (Briefly) Added 60K Paying Users To Second Life's Economy!" in which he highlighted an interesting footnote to the latest Linden Lab economic report as he quotes:

The June 2009 spike is correlated to the dramatic rise in popularity of the Sion Chicken in that month. 

I couldn't see a spike in June but rather in July, thanks to the on-going and heroic efforts of Tyche Sheperd and the "Total Customers Spending Money In-World" graph, there was clearly a jump in July followed by an almost equal decline in August. So, indeed something "blipped" on the Second Life economy and I suppose only Linden Lab has the data insider advantage to note the distinction between chicken-induced correlation or causation.

Economics aside, the story of the sionChickens developed by the enterprising Second Life Resident Sion Zaius is equally fascinating when viewed through the lens of collision between Sion's new technology and that of the Second Life socio-cultural norms.

I was a chicken-owner and I was crushed by a few of these collisions myself. When I became a bunny owner recently, I recounted the myriad of issues I experienced with the sionChickens.  Can they die? Can someone else kill them? How long do they live? Are they lagtastic? Do they breed? How much does it cost to feed them? These questions might seem strange to someone who missed the sionChicken era.

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Search for A Second Life Culture or Omphaloskepsis

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I'm going to continue my journey for "a" Second Life® culture and risk an omphaloskepsis outbreak. If you've found your way here from other places, welcome. This is my third post in a series on "The Search for A Culture in Second Life". You may want to read the first and second posts.

This week a quote trickled through my twitter feed from @MeganMurray 7:29AM May 6th:

I sometimes think we talk abt tools and metrics more because they are easier to grasp & less combustible than talking about being human.

I agree. This entire discussion of culture - virtual or otherwise - is messy stuff.

Questions, presumptions and world views - are we just navel gazing?

More than one person has asked me why I started this particular set of posts; some ask from curiosity, some with a taint of suspicion. Some have gone so far as to attack me personally, and some suggest that I'm wasting my time that could otherwise be spent on more important (albeit undefined) endeavors. Still others encourage me quietly from the sidelines.

I wasted a lot of time agonizing over answers and second-guessing myself but I've come out on the other side still believing one thing with certainty: There are no right or wrong answers, there are merely more questions. And I do believe that it's our ability to ask questions, and our willingness to try to answer them - each in our own way - that matters. Questions drive progress and innovation. On the flip side, unspoken presumptions and assumptions thwart it.


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The Search for A Second Life Culture - Part 0

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"Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of tradition (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; cultural systems may on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action." [1]

In 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn [1] compiled a list of no less than 164 definitions of culture; it's not surprising that the question "If Second Life® has a culture, what is it?" becomes as unwieldy as a broadsword.

Kluckhohn suggested that "culture is to society what memory is to individuals" which leads me to believe that culture is not absolute but rather like a collective hunch, or a recollection based on certain characteristics. Culture is then, as Eric Champion explains, "impossible to clearly demarcate" and is not a single thing but a "connection and rejection of threads over space and time". [2]

I really liked Tateru Nino's perspective: "Culture is an aggregate appearance of many entities, just as your skin is an aggregate of many types of cells." To which I'd add: And therefore, there are no right or wrong answers, just shared insights.

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Is There A Culture in the Virtual World Second Life?

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My fourth rez day was February 6th, and I feel like I've spent the entire time getting ready to write this next series of posts. In some ways I am no more ready to start than the day I found my way off that dreaded little island in a purple t-shirt, faded jeans and really bad auburn hair, but now is certainly the right time to take the first step.

I recently wrote I am convinced that Second Life® is facing a Tipping Point and some people have asked me how I know. There is no way to articulate precisely how I know, I just do. What I cannot say is if tipping in this case is a good thing or a bad thing; good and bad are relative to your point of view. However, I do know that this type of event can result in a seismic shift in what one might call a cultural base - a commonly held set of beliefs, a set of rules and practice, forms of governance, etc. This assumes that there is a "culture" upon which these systems were built.

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Linden Lab - Please Raise Your Grok Factor

In October 2008 I wrote a post about the Linden Lab changes to the Open Space sim policies and pricing.  At that time there was JIRA fury (this remains the most-voted issue on JIRA by an order of magnitude), blog posts, open letters, flickr groups, berets, protests and micro-hysteria about the changes to the Second Life Ecosystem.  The post was about how closely Linden Lab was emulating John Sutter and his fateful demise.

Based on my observations at the time, I was convinced that the highest risk to Second Life was a rampant and deep misunderstanding of the cultural tenants of Second Life and a wholesale disregard for the gifts the Lab had been bestowed - a healthy, passionate, engaged consumer base the likes of which most "beta" companies only dream about.

Since then, my time in Second Life has moved from blissful experiential to ethnographic in nature.  I find myself acutely aware of things such as policy changes, customer support, as well as search and affiliate marketing.  There are nuggets of insight buried within each of these.

I think a lot about strategy and entertain my gray matter with Gedanken exercises to see if I can understand what Linden Lab might be thinking but I also pay equal attention to their direct actions and interactions with current Residents.

Based on recent observations - the development of Viewer 2.0 with its epically failed search, the events unfolding with the open source community and third party developers, the poor customer support,  the unannounced release of a new Terms of Service combined with the Policy on Third-Party Viewers and the recently outspoken T Linden, I am equally convinced of what I wrote over a year ago.

This in fact, is the crux of Linden's on-going problem. They are grokless, generally lacking so much of an inkling of their resident base, their passions, their normally predictably irrational behavior. They continue to miss the obvious, launching missiles at unarmed nations, killing off their own tin soldiers in an on-going series of blundering friendly fire.

This general lack of awareness will be the demise of the virtual world of Second Life, not some up-and-comer in the virtual world space, but Linden Lab will in fact run themselves out of business because they have not, or can not, tap into the richness of their standing army of residents.

The challenge of crossing the chasm and cashing in on a gold rush is having actionable insights.

Actionable insight has two parts:
1) tangible data of which I believe the Lab has more than plenty,
and what's equally if not more important:
2) the SL Resident "Grok Factor" (from Oxford grok: "to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with" ) of which they appear to have so little.

I emphasized the word appear because of all people I would have guessed that Mark Kingdon, (M Linden) might understand this very notion because in 2005 he wrote this for ClickZ:

When a company thinks about how to present its brand online (whatever interactive medium it chooses), it must start with a clear understanding of the problem it's solving. Then it needs to dig into its target user's needs, wants, desires, and behaviors. They'll move beyond understanding the customer to having empathy for her.

Dictionary.com defines empathy as the "identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives." Understanding is a rational activity; empathy is an emotional one. It's not just about listening or seeing, it's about touching, feeling, and experiencing. With empathy, an experience designer can create something truly exceptional. True empathy is what separates ordinary experiences from exceptional ones.

The $17 billion spent globally on getting smart about customers doesn't buy empathy. Sure, it provides critical facts, figures, and insights about the target. It's a very necessary starting point. But true empathy is earned. How can you build empathy for your target?

• Live their lives. Visit their homes, read their magazines, eat their food, and drive their cars.
  
• Feel their feelings. Imagine their challenges in life; figure out what gives them joy.
  
• Find their motives. Understand their online behaviors and actions: What motivates them? What are they looking for in the experience?

Let me repeat and emphasize one part of that extract.

But true empathy is earned.

Mark, I agree with you completely.  But this is precisely where I am stuck with the Lab. You seem to have no grok factor; your earnings are low.

You don't grok by analyzing numbers, or from an academic treatment, or from exchanging rafts of email.  You grok by living, feeling and finding via appreciative inquiry.   Appreciative Inquiry is a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. In so doing, it enhances a system's capacity for collaboration and change.  Appreciative inquiry would have been a great way to pursue the recent Terms of Service and Third Party Viewer Policy changes.

I believe Residents of your Second Life ecosystem are ready for change despite the "no one likes change" mantra, but critical collaboration and change requires understanding where you are (data) as well as understanding and appreciating who and how you are (the Grok Factor) in order to move forward.

John Sutter, despite being a brilliant business man, didn't understand this and his fate is well documented. You know it; right now is the time to start living it.

Please raise your Grok Factor. 


The following is the rest of my initial 2008 post about John Sutter, much of which stands today.

Linden has (had?) captured that which most fledgling businesses only dream. No, it's not Electric Sheep. I'm referring to a passionate consumer base that is willing to pay shockingly large sums of real cash on a regular basis. We used to call those "subscriptions" but since that's become a forbidden word in the new media vernacular, we pretend like paying tier for virtual land is somehow akin to an investment. In some cases it is an investment, but for the most part it's a payment for the privilege of access to content.

So let's review what Linden has at their disposal: paying, passionate and prolific content consumers and creators. Isn't that the equivalent of Social Media Nirvana?

What is that you say? Linden Lab is a virtual world builder, not a Social Media company! Oh, that would explain it. Everyone knows there are few easy and vibrant Social Media business models; there's far more gold in those virtual hills!

But we know the end-game here, it is the very same that plagued the California gold rushers intent to find fortune among limited resources. But who profited from the gold rush? Anyone that could leverage the irrationality of those seeking fortune profited mightily. Prostitutes made a healthy wage, as did general store owners, saloons and bankers. However, very few of the one(s) that discovered gold.

I liken Linden Lab to John Sutter. You remember Sutter, right? John Sutter was a wealthy land developer and it was at his mill where James Marshall first discovered gold in 1848. Now Sutter could not immediately profit from the discovery, since he didn't own the mineral rights on the land on which the gold was found. Those rights still belonged to the Culluma Indians and while Sutter fought a losing battle to keep interloping miners off his mill site and obtain the mineral rights, the gold rush boomed and busted and the once wealthy land developer died a poor man. To summarize:

Instead of becoming a wealthy man from the precious gold that was discovered at his mill, Sutter's domain was ruined when the Gold Rush hit. His employees deserted the Fort for riches in the foothills, leaving crops to rot in the field and abandoning businesses. He was swindled by unscrupulous partners. His cattle wandered off or were slaughtered by hungry miners, and squatters took over much of his land. He went broke and ended up near Washington, D.C., trying to convince the government to reimburse him for his losses caused by the Gold Rush. His attempts for compensation failed, and he ironically died a poor man in Pennsylvania. Source

Does this sound vaguely familiar? John Sutter - a man of resources, wealth and business savvy - missed the largest opportunity afforded to him because he lost sight of what was right in front of him. Why? Because he tried to protect his current thinking, his ownership, his existing business model instead of adapting to the situation that was rather difficult to ignore.

Sutter was a real estate developer. Did he erect the boom towns? No.
He had farms, cattle and labor. Did he feed or supply the miners? No.

John Sutter put his time, attention and wealth of resources into that which he was comfortable, and as a result he missed the gold rush, quite possibly the largest financial opportunity for which he was uniquely qualified to leverage.

Ironic, isn't it?

M Linden, meet John Sutter.
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Choices and Viewer 2.0 Assimilation

 cc image courtesy Niklas Bildhauer

It was a day of changes today for the Second Life ecosystem.  T Linden talked fast and furiously at today's Metanomics weekly chat about some of that change.  He spent a lot of time talking about choices, and how Linden Lab believes that choice is important.

Some of those choices were clear today if you wanted to exercise your license of the services afforded to you by the virtual world Second Life.  Some were, well, not so much.

For example, if already a Second Life Resident, when you logged in today you had a choice: Accept the new Terms of Service (ToS), or don't log in.

If you were new to Second Life today (welcome) you got two choices:
1) Accept the Terms of Service (ToS) or don't log in.
2) Download and use Viewer 2.0 and only Viewer 2.0, or don't log in.

One choice no one got to exercise was well, ironically about choice.  Once you agreed the new Terms of Service, you personally also agreed to the terms of the recently released Policy on Third-Party Viewers.

Any access to or use of the Service through a software client other than the Linden Software that logs into the Servers (referred to as a "Third-Party Viewer") is subject to these Terms of Service and the terms of the Policy on Third-Party Viewers. The Policy on Third-Party Viewers provides required and prohibited functionality for Third-Party Viewers as well as other terms for those who use, develop, or distribute Third-Party Viewers; however, Linden Lab offers and supports the Service only as offered by Linden Lab and is not obligated to allow access to or use of the Service by any software or means not provided by Linden Lab. You understand and agree that Linden Lab is not responsible or liable for any aspect of the Service that is accessed or experienced using software or other means not provided by Linden Lab.

Any use of the Service, including Content on the Service, other than as specifically authorized in this Agreement, without the prior written permission of Linden Lab, is strictly prohibited and will terminate all licenses granted herein.

What's the Policy on Third-Party Viewers?  Well if you have to ask, maybe it's best just not to use one!  Essentially this means that for the majority of people, the choice to use a third party viewer (even those on the approved list) is paired with immeasurably high risk, thereby essentially nullifying that "choice". 

Sadly, this point was completely missing from (update to my initial post which wrongly attributed the post to T Linden) M Linden's blog post "Updated Second Life Terms of Service" summarizing most of the significant ToS and Privacy Policy changes.  I'm not sure why this was overlooked.  It would have been a simple paragraph to write, in fact a sentence would have sufficed.

By agreeing to the ToS you are personally accountable for the compliance of your chosen viewer with our Third-Party Viewer policy.

That resonates with the rest of the ToS emphasis of limited liability, personal accountability and choice. It's much better than the alternative:

Welcome to Viewer 2.0, you will be assimilated.

In my other capacity, I'm writing a blog post about the latest Facebook policy changes and its approach to governance.  No wonder it feels like a Monday.


Be careful out there.  See you around a grid.
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