Some days I feel like going to a major press outlet, and writing an op-ed which essentially says "don't go to SL, you would be an idiot to do so." The simple reason is that it is clear that they are completely intent on orphaning their current content producing base of customers. Simple things get worse with every release. One of my parcels now sits on a voice enabled sim. It is also much, much, much, much laggier in the current release. Simple things get worse with every release: once upon a time my AO caught hte splat on the ground animation every time, so I landed and it looked graceful. Now it almost never does.
Paying more and more and more, and getting less and less and less, that seems to be the SL way.
Simple things get worse with every release: script time has now doubled forr the sims that I have parcels on. Everything is slower.
Simpke things get worse with every release: spammers can now send things without knowing who sent it. You can't stop it, you can't report it, and you just have to wade throught the garbage. Thanks again, another quality feature for spammers from Linden Laboratories.
Simple things get worse with every release: more and more of my teleports end up with all my attached objects, shoes, hair, AO, in my nether regions.
Simple things get worse with every release: pose balls take longer and longer to sync, and so more and more couples dancing is spent with the man hither and the woman yon.
Simple things get worse with every release, a friend of mine has only been able to put on clothes occassionally for four days now. My textures are more and more often broken.
Now how can I be a great evangelist for a platform which takes a great deal of money from people, including the group I am part of, and does not provide good service, better software, or a stream of users to buy and use my wares. If I am supposed to get my own customers, why don't I just set up my own web site and give out phone sex? I mean, it is a proven job, and the ability to do it without my real voice is absolutely not related to second life.
What I am supposed to say to people? Come to SL they will take your money and dump it into a system designed to let horny obnoxious stupid people shout lewd come ons at you?
You say "orphaning their current content producing base of customers". I consider to be a part of that group (as small and insignificant I might be compared to others). So why do you think Linden would do something like this?
ReplyDeleteI am actually convinced that sooner or later they will get bought by Google. If there is ONE thing Google knows, then it's maintaining a responsive, distributed network. I don't know how drastically SL will change if bought by Google, but lag will be a thing of the past.
I can give my thoughts on this.
ReplyDeleteLinden Lab (LL) is trying to sustain a profitable company. They reached the peak amount of users that they are going to get a while ago. Some pay, some don't. Add to that the fact that LL has shifted focus. Did you know that they don't call it Second Life at LL anymore? Internally they call it "The Platform." While this seems innocuous, it isn't. It demonstrates a shift away from what SL was to what they would like it to be.
SL started out as a simple virtual world and, to some degree... a play thing for people to have fun on and to take the title of it literally... it is a "Second Life" not First Life 2.0.
Then, enter some of the executives and investors in LL. What they see is a multimedia platform with 3d chat capability and that is all. So, what do they start to do? They start to sell it to business. Why? Because they want companies like IBM, Nissan, Toyota, Nike, Coca Cola to pay them money for their presence in SL.
So, what LL is doing is listening to the corporate giants and not it's residents. They are adding things that the corporations want without consulting the residents at all and, in some cases, they are actively hiding what they are doing from residents. They want to turn SL into a "platform" for corporate communication.
What they didn't count on, though, is the fact that many residents DON'T WANT THIS. Forbes recently published an article decrying SL as a failure because a number of firms have tried and failed to sell in SL.
Anyway... that's my 2 cents.
As for Google buying SL, I hope not.
Anony Mouse
"Google... hehe."
Anony Mouse, I know it's futile, but I'd really like to get to know you inworld... I like the way you think.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I see this corporate aspect. Again - as I did in a previous post - I am VERY doubtful. I don't see the added benefit compared to 1:2 phonecalls, 1:n phone conferences or webexes. It seems to me that doing meetings in SL adds more noise for less signal. Prove me wrong.