Sunday 30 November 2008

Linden Labs use techo babble and spin to cheat second life users.

Second Life, Linden Labs, User Base Retention.

[QUOTE=Katt Linden]As we have mentioned previously, tailoring the Second Life platform to make it easier for new Residents to begin experiencing the virtual world is one of our primary objectives moving forward. With that in mind, we’re pleased to announce that Linden Lab has engaged award-winning interactive design agency Big Spaceship as a partner in transforming the Second Life experience.

....

[/QUOTE]


WOAH THERE.....

Yes, please, Katt, I have been, for my sins, one of those people, employed by larger companies and organisations, to teach their employees three simple things.

1) A retained customer is worth three new customers.
It is simple logic, the existing customer already knows the system, the costs, the benefits, the methods, the people, the product. They have a good experience working with you and will prefer that, to having to gain all that experience again with another company. Further, the existing customer spends little time balancing your company against the opposition, its often ‘easier’ to stick with what you have, the customer normally does not court imbalance, frustration or the need to see great change. In your jargon, it is a win-win situation.


2) Existing customers will generate new customers.
Call it buzz, hype, anything, but the existing customer base, and the easy way you work with them, is seen right away by new customers trying to find a better customer experience. In other words, they will see how much your existing customers are happy with their relationship with you; they will want to be a part of it. You cannot lose. Treat your customers fairly, happily, promptly and courteously, and the new customers will do all they can to be a part of that experience. Keep your product priced at a level that keeps existing customers, and new customers will want to fall into step very quickly to take advantage of what they perceive the existing customer are enjoying.


3) Simpler and easier communications, wins customers.
It is easy, like you were taught in University, or by the boss of your early Company where you shined, or when you told your own employees, Keep It Simple! When communication is hard, multi faceted, meaningful jargon and complicated ways of saying things, you’re telling people you do not value them. Yes. By being complicated clever, you are setting yourself up to be apart from the people you need most, the customers. If they, for example, want a red doo-hicky, or a green one, let them have one, please, if you try to tell the customer he actually wants a blue thingy-ma-bob, you lose them. Simple. Keep it Simple.

The news media, refer to the over complicated language below, as spin... Its actually quite meaningless and does nothing for you when you apply it to a customer. It means, You have little to say, but like to use clever words. In the old days, it was called smoke and mirrors...


[Quote]... Big Spaceship will be working with internal teams at Linden Lab to research, design, prototype and test web sites and user interfaces that dramatically lower the learning curve for experiencing Second Life.
Big Spaceship will employ a user-centered design methodology to develop innovative solutions for streamlining the complexity of Second Life without limiting the freedom and expressiveness that makes Second Life so powerful for so many people... [/Quote]

Lets re-write that horrible paragraph.. Together...

A company called ‘Big Spaceship’ will be working with us to improve things for new players.

The second sentence above doesn’t actually say anything of value.

It does show one thing that all your customers will see and recognise instantly Katt, you have no idea what to do or say so you fill the space with techno babble. You could have said the entire post in three sentances.

Example,” We feel if we make the start-up time for new players better, we can retain more customers.” We have employed a company called ‘Big Spaceship’ to work for us to help us get it better for new players. We think it will improve things for Second Life, part of Linden Labs.
That’s all you needed to say, dressing it up in spin shows you have lost the ability to keep it simple.


http://rivers-rock.blogspot.com responding to http://forums.secondlife.com

Sunday 23 November 2008

Mismanaged to destruction by Linden Labs, Second life dies.

Blog by: River Ely
Date: Nov 24th, 2008.

River Rock was sold tonight for the cost of transfer, VAT and a couple beers. Two years ago we started Rivers Rock as a we had moderately good land sales on the mainland and my partner had about six sims of her own. In those days, as we bought a sim, we would divide it into lots, sell them in a couple days or so and from the proceeds, fund the next sim. We literally had people falling out of the sky snapping up the lots as quickly as we could mark them out and price them.

Some days we would all join forces just to deal with the influx of visitors all hungry to buy the land at whatever price we set it for. At about this time, the Lindens broke the land search gizmo and we noticed other sellers dropping out of the sky onto our property too, staying for a few moments, and then leaving. They wanted to know our secret. We found that customers were drying up, so we set up arrival mats that greeted the customer in their own language and underneath the mats; we set the land for sale for a dollar a plot to raise it up the land listings on the land search.

The mats worked. It found us customers and ensured that we had our islands filled as quickly as we could without needing four of five of us babysitting the land for sale. In those days we snatched it back right away, else some of the people that bought out land set out for sale again so that they would get the profit without owning it. Heady days!

Towards the end of last summer, we found that selling land as a ¼ sim bought our land higher up the search ladder and that many Second Life users were keen to own safe land with a high prim count. The margins were ok as well. Life for a while was good. Even with the onset of last winter, sales were slow, but were working if you babysat the land for long enough. Then the Lindens changed the rules on the voids. Voids were low prim islands, and you needed to buy them in fours, and at least one, had to abut your main sim. The change was to enable the sims to be sold individually and without the need to butt up to a primary sim. They upped the prim count to 3750 and dropped the tier to 75USD month.

We watched helplessly and inexorably as tenants that had been with us for so long slowly migrated to the new open sims. The fact they were laggy, and sharing servers seemed to be offset by the ability to have loads of space, a good prim count and a very low tier.

Our sims began to show more and more open places, with sales not being taken up by customers. The land sales gizmo was page after page of open space sims, as fifteen thousand open space sims flooded into the market like some kind of candy confectionary currency. The lindens must have made a fortune selling them.

Finally, the Lindens, realised they had missed a massive market potential and giving away open sims was brought to a halt. Additionally they hiked the tier by 66% causing an instant massive swing away from open sims. Sadly, this was one more failure on the part of Linden Labs and instead of users returning to the normal sims, they elected to leave SL. The economy is ripe for giving up luxuries and as the USD, EURO and GBP fall in free fall on the worlds markets, food and light is more important. We paid the tiers on the islands, and the lack of income from missing tenants came from our surplus in the hopes of hanging onto the islands until the residents realised they needed real land again. The erosive nature of paying for others to play has now eroded my bank account surplus to zero and there is no more honey in the pot to sweeten the experience for those few who stayed loyal.

So tonight, I approached a lovely lady and close friend and invited her to buy the sim from me for the cost of transfer, VAT and a couple beers, she accepted. I enterd the word 'SOLD' into the status box on my spreadsheet, and logged out, for the last time, as a sim owner in Second Life, a company mismanged to destruction by Linden Labs.

Green Dot Terracotta Armies

Written by River Ely: Nov 23rd, 2008-11-23

(Written in response to http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2008/11/how-many-bots-i.html )
(based upon a posting on Second Life Forums at http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p=2230625&postcount=374

I pointed out in February the financial stability of owning small islands in Second Life with the intention of renting out space was declining. I was poo-poo'd It is madness in anyone’s eyes, to continually generate more and more land while the user base has been visibly shrinking, its as though they are printing money to satisfy the cost of hiring employees.

They (Linden Labs) are aware of the issues, but have (in my opinion) no way of altering the decline as the original motivators have either left the company, retired with fat cat pensions or have been fired. The bot population was evident at the beginning of the year and I found an island near one of my own, with a platform at 700 meters, crammed with 40 avatars, all in neat lines, all facing the same way and all in newbie player clothing and dress style. We called them 'Ruths', and could not understand at the time, the logic of so many people standing still for no reason. had they been dancing it might have been a party, but like Chinese terracotta armies, they stood in silent rows facing a nonexistent orator.

With the introduction of a relaxed rule set governing Voids or Open Space Sims, the final decline was initiated. A greedy move to generate more income was exploited and made available open space sims to about anyone at low cost. We had regular renters abandoning sound high prim low cost lots on conventional sims, in favour of the open spaces Sims that were starting to flood the market. For a while, it seemed the only way to retain these customers, was to convert main sims to open spaces and to buy in more and more open spaces. Still, the Europeans like myself, were fighting a losing battle in the early summer, as profit margins dropped, USA players could settle on a ten percent profit line. Sadly, with a European Player being hit with an additional VAT cost, 17.5% to 25%, we become early victims in the price cut wars. We watched our islands empty as the users followed the trail of cheap rentals and lots of space.

The Linden Income Generation factory has now changed the rules with a huge price hike on the cheap plentiful oversold Open Space population. The global economic downturn is not evident it seems in Linden Labs as they raised the cost of an Open Space sim by 66%. With some 15,000 open space sims to be affected, the price hike, if accepted by the users, would generate a massive income boost for the company.

The shifting USD-GBP ratio means that now I pay considerably more for my open Sim than I did in February, so my margins compared with the USD holder are more than depleted, they are trashed. If you are not a United States Player, I feel it is no longer an option to own islands in Second Life, that is if your aim is to generate income to cover your own player costs, plus a small profit. The frequency with which I have been giving islands away, asking Linden Labs Concierge Service to switch off open space sims and letting them expire in order to stem the flow of Money Out compared to Money In is alarming. I am but one player in SL, I had 12 Full Islands and number of open space sims, I am down to one island, with a single open space due to close in a few days time as tier rolls around again.

The summer surplus that has in the past kept me afloat until the autumnal players return like snowbirds flocking in for the perceived winter sunshine has been eroded over the last winter, hammered in the summer and is now all but dried up completely and I can no longer afford to sit on empty sims in the hopes that renters will any moment, flood in and restart the income generation.

The business model I had was sound, as was that of countless hundreds of other sim owners. The failing was the assumption by Linden Labs that everything in the garden was rosy and they failed on three counts.

One, they skewed the traffic stats and believed their results were the truth, regardless of the shouts from people like ourselves, Island owners with more empty sand than was comfortable

Two, generated more and more land for the nonexistent players thus deforming land prices beyond the point of stability.

And three, rather than introducing a package that encouraged land owners to retain and promote their land, they increased the cost of ownership to a point the market no longer would bear. They seem to have been blind to the loss of money spending account holders, and seem to have been treating bots, campers and alts as if they are real players all needing to own their ‘space’, a ludicrous and unsustainable situation to find themselves in. I bet the original creators, having sold second life to the current board, are laughing all the way to the bank.

We have been predicting the failure of Second Life for some time, it is a shame the Linden Labs Board Members could not have done the same.

Saturday 22 November 2008

JAGI, call it what it is...

May I add to...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble Parx
First, please refer to us as customers, not residents, when discussing the parts of SL that we pay for. Maybe it's just me, but I find the tone of the announcements directed at 'residents' as quite patronising. ...

Another JAGI from River Ely:

This might sound odd, but please change the wording of "Selling Land". You do NOT sell land, selling implies the buyer has something they can take away and or something they own, We don’t 'own' anything in second life, things don't actually exist. Refer to a new island cost as a "Set up fee" for that is what it is. When a land owner sells land onto the next owner (or more often on mainland, speculator), they are transferring the 'setup cost' plus a profit margin of their own.

When an island owner rents space to a user and charges them a tier, they are actually sharing a proportion of the expected tier, to Linden Labs, plus a profit margin. But they don’t actually sell land, they share the cost of server time rental, nothing more, nothing less. How about Linden Labs calling it what it is, instead of fancy real world names that imply something that doesn’t actually happen.

Example

Say I 'buy' a region of mainland, then I should have the option of having that region lodged on my home computer system or another place I choose.

Say I buy a collection of primitives, (math coordinates with image textures stretched between nurbs), and I should be able to store that collection of information on my own system, so that I become responsible for its retention and or subsequent loss.

If I am not buying, as you suggest, but renting or gaining the freedom to use, then state that.

The concept of buying things is well understood in society, so is double talk, smoke and mirrors and clever people cheating less clever people to make a profit is something most of us do not like.
Change the wording Linden Labs, You don’t sell land, or islands, you charge a set up fee and you charge an ongoing maintenance fee (tier), My JAGI, call things what they are, not a fancy name that alludes to something completely different.

[url]http://rivers-rock.blogspot.com/2008/11/just-another-good-idea-jagi.html[/url]

Just Another Good Idea (JAGI)

Hi [Enter name of new hire], Welcome to Linden Labs.

I recycled the above, I used it for a whole bunch of other people who have come to the forum and said “I am new but we are going to change things for the better, we need to listen to you, give us your ideas”. And we do, we give you all ideas, concepts, suggestions. Some good, some awful and some not worth printing, and every now and them, we come up with a terrific idea and somehow, after all is said and done, it turns into just that, “Just Another Good Idea” (JAGI).

Your product has a lot of rough edges, is sloppy in some parts and is broken in others, the JIRA tells you that but I understand it will cost money and brains to fix a lot of the issues and that could detract from immediate income generation.

So a new JAGI needs to not detract from Income Generation while at the same time, fixing something that is broken.

Your ideas over the past two years have been perplexing, Windlight, Voice, Banning Gambling rather that create local servers, updates needing a whole package to be re-downloaded instead of a module for that package (huh!) so a new JAGI would have to have a value and a point and that could be implemented with minimum disruption.

You product has a huge addicted user base. No matter how much you mess up (and admit for once that mistakes in judgement are too frequent), we are still here. If you ever had a company that needed customer generated feedback, it is this one, but it seems no one at Linden Labs listens to their customers here. So a new JAGI needs to come from listening to us, your user base. (We are for the most part friendly, but remember, we outnumber you a million to one).


To round up, a JAGI needs to continue to generate income and hopefully improve it.

A JAGI needs have value that does not require disruption or a change in infrastructure.

A JAGI needs to be easy to implement, (Those are the best kind, low outlay, huge return)

And a JAGI has to be borne from your customers.


Here is my JAGI

Premium Accounts

The value of the premium account is miss understood when compared with Non Premium account holders. I would change little for the premium account holders. I would make a change to non premium account holders to widen the gap between account holders and non account holders.

1) I suggest that non premium account holders, Alts, Bots, Campers, Greifers etcetera are rewarded with in inventory scrub every 24 hours. ( yes, remove all created and or purchased content). Reason: if the account is to be used to sample SL then it is no loss, allow the character to be persistent but with an inventory cleaned out after 24 hours.

2) Allow non premium account holders to forcibly expire after thirty days. With the name being locked for 30 days more against re-use. How many times do you need to log in and explore before deciding you want to retain inventory and a name?

3) Remove the option to hold funds from non account holders. That way they can’t be ‘gifted’ funds from other avatar accounts and buy weapons or other things that can be used to reduce the quality of game play for those of us who invest into Second Life.

4) If the account is an ALT account, and the account is riding on the strength of a premium account, then for account purposes, it should be part of that account and counted as the main avatar. So if there are 40,000 logged in and 10,000 are ALTS camping or taking up numbers, the true account of logged in accounts should be 30,000.

Or

4a) If an premium account is logged in, and an alternative account for that holder tries to log in, the premium account avi should be bumped off. Restricting one avi to one user. If the second account is a premium account, then allow the second avatar to add to the total number of avatars on line without bumping off the first or primary avatar.


Remove negativity

I am not suggesting Camping Avi’s should be banned, but if you want to set a dozen or forty avatars to camp to swell the numbers for your sim, then pay premium for each one, then we will see how ineffective campers are and Linden Labs will make a tidy sum in the process.

I am not suggesting that people create alts for negative reasons, or for attacking those who have displeased their owners, but if you had to pay premium for your avi in order to attack the other player, then losing your accounts upon detection would be a far more costly process.


Resolve

Simple changes, they have defined values, they increase the revenue for Linden Labs and go some way to creating more visible numbers with more accuracy. It means little or no change for the vast majority of users who already contribute heavily to the success of Linden labs, and the removal of some free accounts ability to grief, camp or clutter, would be an impact appreciated by every premium member that ever existed.

Please vote for my JAGI.

http://forums.secondlife.com reply# 374

Thursday 13 November 2008

Message to Second Life Users: Zee Linden was there and listening.

After so many heated words from so many perspectives, Zee Linden invited anyone who cared to, to join him in Second Life for one on one conversation. We were given a chance for us all to talk to the CFO in world and place our questions openly and in context. Sadly no one turned up.

We get so drawn into the forums when a Linden is present.

I was unable to attend the in-world meeting as I have to be at work tomorrow and its gone midnight here in the UK already. However, Zee contacted me in Immediate Message Mode as I had written my questions out on a note card and allowed Zee to respond. I never thought for one moment that Zee would respond as I held the view that the CFO would either give me answers he thinks I want to hear, or he would give me answers he believes are correct, even though we have reason to doubt the legitimacy of his replies.

I have promised Zee that I will create a fair and balanced reply to the article in my blog, complaining about skewed metric, complaining about Bots camping and inflating the figure, about land dumping and churning. I am not perfect and never find the time to comb the myriads of stats released by SL, I, like many, become confident in the knowledge I have and hold onto that, and when it is not in a good light, I too can become tightly focused. Another reason not to expect Zee linden to reply, after all, he is on a losing streak as far as the facts I hold are concerned.

This of course is unfair.

I have had a good dialogue with Zee tonight, simple straightforward honest facts have been shared, not all glowing and rosy as earlier suggested by the tide of the news feed, but some facts have been presented in a more meaningful presentation to me, enough to get me thinking and enough for me to do three things.

1) I am withdrawing the barb from my tone, Zee has shown he is not only willing to communicate effectively but is also willing to share exacting and precise information. Though we may have to learn the best way of asking those questions as the dialogue and circumstance of Zee’s financial world is critically different in so many ways to our day to day work in Second Life.

2) I am acknowledging Zee has made every effort to reach out and discuss the trends and the events that are affecting residents. He has been attracting comment on the Forum here for the best part of three or four hours, and for a CFO that is indeed valuable time. Further, Zee has been in-world publically available to listen to our concerns in order to gain insight from our experiences. Again, consider the absence of other senior staff and then admit for Zee to spend valuable time face to face with us is a welcome change. None of us are happy at the seemingly madcap way the Linden managers are translating solutions currently, so Zee’s appearance on the forum and in world is got to be seen as a welcome opportunity.

3) I will publish a balanced article on my blog to follow up and counter balance the existing negative publications. I will review what I have learned from Zee tonight and will make that result available in RL along-side and balancing my other comments. I am going to be away for a few days and will not catch up until Monday, but catch up I will.

I have to ask a couple more questions of Zee before I can ( looking at my notes) fully respond, but I am confident that even though Linden Labs have cocked things up a bit, there is opportunity for some of surviving this and hopefully , going forward with realistic expectations and exploring real opportunities in the coming months.

Sadly, the world is suffering a slowdown in growth and this may exacerbate the decline in the short term for many companies, not just Linden Labs, but I feel a lot more confident now knowing Zee is reachable and is willing to listen to constructive argument. Hopefully we can work together if we can all agree to talk the same language, listen to each other, and pose sensible and correct solution opportunities.

Another island gets switched off. Thanks Linden Labs for trashing dreams and stealing rainbows.

Tonight , the renter on River Mouth 4 vacated the property. I raised another ticket to have it switched off and in the nick of time, a buyer surfaced and is willing to take the island. After the deduction of 100 USD and the tier, I make, 25 usd, thats 12 GBP or after tax about 7GBP, enough for two pints of cheap beer. What a crying shame.

The island was a home for some, it was a playground for others, and it has been a thriving and affordable business for a lady driven to do charitable things.

The island is going to become part of a full sim again and hopefully carry on delivering hundreds of sim time hours for residents to shape, use and enjoy into the future.

Letter to Zee Linden.CFO Linden Labs (Secondlife.com)

I had a reply from Zee, it was evasive but seemed to honestly court interest> Sadly it was to join him in world to ask those questions, and i know form bitter experiance, such question and answer sessions degrade into meaning cross conversations with tens of avatars asking different questions at the same time. Typing seems so slow whern you need to fire off a quick question and a small typo can change the question to become meaningless. I knew I had no chance of asking real questions, so I created a note and dropped it onto Zee's Profile...


It reads...



Hi Zee. I know if you are in world the chances of having a realistic conversation with you is about as realistic as hoping a chocolate fireguard will survive the winter. In world too many people talking at the same time, conversations become incredibly disjointed and only fail spectacularly to create meaningful results for the many, unless you are seeking nodding approval from those that have no real concerns and fail to grasp the basic importance of having a CFO actually meet customers.


My concerns are many fold, and though it may seem like I am asking silly questions, its because a year ago I had 12 sims, two of which were open spaces. Over the following months, more and more open spaces came on stream until I started, like many others, to lose residents to cheap and freely available open space sims, and seemingly supported by the Linden Fabric that coalesces to create what we see as second life.



I sold some, had some switched off, nearly lost a seven sims to a thief (Atown Fall) and had it not been for Ethan and Spike Linden intervening to get my sims back to me, I would have lost them. Sadly, the residents had been scattered so I got seven sims back, and no residents to help me create tier. I don’t know if you can imagine what it feels like to go from 12 full thriving sims, to one sim and three open spaces, in less than a year? Through sheer bloody incompetence on behalf of Second Life trend management teams, a catastrophic migration of customers seemed to go un-noticed, yet, I and friends and colleagues were screaming out daily to you asking for help , support, information and most of all, the bloody nosed truth.


I feel if you had been due diligent, you would have compared two important numbers together, the same numbers every sim business owner ran every day, "How many residents do I have, and how much land do I have?"


For me, I had the alarming trend of fewer and fewer residents while my land holding stayed static until I realised my surplus was being eroded paying tier on empty regions. I reduced my holding again and again until I am where I am now, scared stiff I might not make tier next month unless something changes soon. For you and your colleagues, you should have seen a huge growth in land sales, yet not the same proportion of population growth. Had you, like many of us, looked at the map, you would have seen that about 1 user per sim on line at peak logins. That should have rung alarm bells while at the same time swelling your income with the “kerching” of land being created and sold. The numbers must have been there for you. I have gone, in less than a year, from giving you happily tier of $3,500 USD to a very desultory $300 USD.


I am a little angry and a lot sad, for we had settled on a stable and simple business model, and through no fault of our own, it was eroded and taken away from us, I am scared to think of how the big guys were affected, as we are small fry compared. Oh I am happy to deal with market forces and changing trends, happy to play with predictive spikes in sales, pre ordering, buying just in time, manipulating tiers to establish sound customer residences, adjusting covenants until we strike a balance that works, even having to deal with an unfairly allocated VAT. Instead of normally being inclusive, you for some reason that has never been explained, elected to add it to the sale price, thus out pricing Europeans from our American cousins by some 17.5%. When we are talking profit margins of 4, 5, and 9 percent, a 17.5% tax is enough to wipe out any hard earned income completely. That Zee, was squarely your doing as the CFO you cannot elude that responsibility.

So I am not happy, and when I ask to see figures that will confirm my collapsing business is not my fault, i earned a flippant remark from you, that Zee, annoyed me. I wish some days I had time to nip out at lunch and be with the kids. damn, you can switch off for an hour and chill while we are all bashing away on the boards because you forgot to say, 'be back in an hour'. I guess that is some measure of how much you respect some of us.

I want to see the truth, I do know that many of your daily logins are bots, many are alts, but Zee, how many are active customers, and how many of those are capable of buying land. Simple questions I feel. Unless we know how many real land buying residents are in game the rest of the numbers don’t add up. You can visit countless sims that are full of people and they are bots, camping, placed there to swell the numbers, to make those sims look busy, Its cheating and you know it is, yet you simply seem to add them to the figures and happily state that a million people logged in last month. A question I asked was how many of those million were actual accounts? You never say...


My questions you recall were:-

3) What are the current figures for:-

a) Number of avatars per region as I regularly see clutches of sims with not more than one or two avatars on?

b) Percentage of avatars who pay Tier to other players or Linden labs?

c) Number of daily logins divided between Premium members (able to hold land) and non premium members (capable of being a bot)


Another quick point, if you are still reading Zee. I see plots on the mainland where speculators are asking large sums of lindens for, hoping to make a good income no doubt. My question revolved around this. How much land was sold: how much land was reclaimed: how much land was up for sale


Yes I used those colons again as I know what a ratio is and I know too that the figures are not that simple to answer, but the proportional relationships should be leaping off the page at you in all honesty. They will support the fact that you have been creating land at an alarming rate, recovering land at an alarming rate and seeing land churned without being settled upon as the numbers of paying residents does not spread out over the amount of land you have made available.


Am I wrong? Show me I am wrong and I will write an article supporting you to offset the last couple articles I wrote sending messages of gloom and despondency. I would like to do that.

Rivers Rock: Alarm bells at Linden Labs could they Herald the death of Second Life?

Rivers Rock: Alarm bells at Linden Labs could they Herald the death of Second Life?

Alarm bells at Linden Labs could they Herald the death of Second Life?

I am for some reason alarmed by the latest entry here, in particular one element that alarms me is the following excerpt.

Originally Posted by Katt Linden
Linden Lab is pleased to announce results for the 3rd quarter of 2008.
Over 357 auctions have closed in the new Nautilus region where property is selling at L$60 per meter or 12x the average cost of mainland property, indicating that some users have a high demand for a more structured experience.
-- Zee Linden





The reason I am alarmed is that it tells me that whom ever produced this report is not in touch with the reality of the way Second Life is running. I get the feeling it has been written by some one who has no active working interest in Second Life and from some one who rarely gets to interact with real people on the grid. Zee may have posted the report and I know that Zee has a reasonable working knowledge of second life.

The sales above, we are told is where land in Nautilus Region is changing hands at a whopping 60L$ per square meter, and the inference is that tenants really want to live there so they are snapping the land up at really high prices. That from what I have seen is wrong. I have seen land barons buying the land at auction and then selling the plots with crazy prices of upto 120,000 L$ per plot. These are not residents moving in, but players trying to sell land at grossly inflated prices. (I am not calling them realtors as realtors that I have met are not as misguided).

These figures we are led to beleive are from a quarter when the Lindens announced a hold on new sims as there was a decrease in the demand for sims. So what is happening? I do not want to write something negative here as I know posts get pulled pretty quick these days if the Lindens disagree with the content. (Thus skewing opinion and creating an untrue bias in perception)

My questions are:
1) What percentage of land sold on Nautilus, has been resold or is up for sale? If residents were buying it to move in and stay, I would expect a low figure. If it being bought and sold, churned, I would expect a high figure.

2) What percentage of land has been reclaimed by Gov Linden in the same 1/4? How are land returns matching up to the new land being introduced, In other words, how much land made available is new, and how much has been owned before.

3) What are the current figures for:-

a) Number of avatars per region as I regularly see clutches of sims with not more than one or two avatars on?

b) Percentage of avatars who pay Tier to other players or Linden labs?

c) Number of daily logins divided between Premium members ( able to hold land) and non premium members (capable of being a bot)

The reason I ask these figures is that I get the distinct impression from your figures that the hundreds of bots we see are actually contributing to the land purchasing, user to user transactions and active daily registrations. Nothing could be further from the truth as at least one sim near my own has upwards of 40 users at a atime on it and they are all camping, many are still ruths. They are bots, not active players, and your figures dont seem to differentiate between them and regular users. That means your figures are being presented wrong, and that Zee, to be perfectly honest worried the heck out of me. If you are prepared as a Company to present figures that are not being shown correctly, what else is being hidden?

warmest but worried regards:

River Ely



I then made a second post to Zee Linden of Linden Labs:


quote
Originally Posted by Zee Linden
I'm not sure if I completely understand your question - but we were selling about 20 to 30 open spaces per day before that time. Is that your question?


I think the user was asking for a graph showing Openspaces sales over a daily basis. The graph would show an incremental increase culminating in thousands of Openspaces.


This would no doubt be an embarresment to you as it would clearly demionstrate that something was wrong way before you as a Company elected to suddenly change the prices by 66%. Zee, can we have that graph the user asked for so that we can see the numbers of sims being sold over the 1/4 concerned. I appreatiate your candour but 20 - 30 per day doesnt stack up...


See if you sold 20 a day over 90 days you would have 2240 openspace sims, if you sold 30 a day over 90 days, you would have 2700 open space sims, I got the impression from Mark Lindens figures that we were talking 5 thousand openspace sims, thats more like 60 - 65 sims per day for 90 days.
best idea is to just show the information Zee then we can see for ourselves that Linden Labs are not adjusting the figures to make best sense.

I feel confident you will agree with me Zee

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Zee responded with a throw away line, not what I expect from a CEO:
he said... Yes, we sold many many more than 20 to 30 per day when they were first introduced.

Thats it, in response to my simple questions above?

it prompted me to chance my arm and make a statement.
Zee, you dissapoint me, I asked, over two posts, some very simple, adroit, honest questions. I invited you to not give a throw-away comment about the open space sales, but to deliver real figures.

I tried to do it in a way that could be understood by all players with an interest, as well as some one with ten years internet experiance and a CFO to boot. If you do not have those figures, then admit it.

If you do have them ( and I hope to heck that if you are a professional CFO that you would have them plus a raft of other figures) then show them.

The questions are realy quite simple.

Treating us as idiots with yet another throw away line (above) really does not do any favours for you, it demonstrates that you really might not care as much as you want us to beleive.

Zee, please stop hiding behind quips, and deliver the numbers and the stats we asked for.

Put up, or, admit you cannot.

-------------------------

comment

It seems to me that Zee Linden, CFO of Linden Labs, may not have the business acumen he claims to have, or is dancing around the points of concern in the hopes that no one actually works out that Linden Labs is in deep water and starting to flounder. I for one am extremely cautious of investing in Linden Labs if the CFO cannot tell the simple truth when so asked by one of their investors.

Monday 10 November 2008

Linden Labs Loses Direction

Heading: Announcing the $10,000 Linden Prize
Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 10:55 AM by: Robin Linden
I am very excited to announce the inaugural Linden Prize.
The Linden Prize will award one Second Life Resident or team with $10,000 USD, paid in Linden dollars, for an innovative inworld project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world. The award is intended to align with Linden Lab’s company mission–to connect all people to an online world that advances the human condition.


It strikes me that Lindens labs, having failed by botching up several measures intended to grow the lindens lab purse content while at the same time eroding the benefits and effective game play for those who not only supported Linden Labs, but contributed to their income and once again being shafted, although this time, is the guise of 'winning a prize'. A prize and I doubt the use of that word explicitly denotes something of sparkling gain, it should mean something of great value, something maybe unique or even outstanding, but in this case refers to the monopoly money or linden dollars, of which there are about 250 to a USD.

So the ‘winner’ of this purse is going to have to convert a load of loose linden bucks back into USD as we cannot spend Lindens lottery leaflets in the shops to the best of my knowledge. Why not pay the money outright to the winner in USD? Why not lodge it now with a third party?

Oh wait, the winner, in converting it will pay you a fee, OH YES!! Of course... You profit yet again!

Ok, so you don’t actually have the prize money, the real incentive, you have funny money worth only a 250th of the real deal. The fact this was earned on the backs of the business and entrepreneurs that have filled Second Life for the last two years may have little to do with it. Point is, you have lost direction, have no sound ideas for the future and everything you try backfires on you.

Let’s look at your objectives for the winner to satisfy to gain this effervescent multitudinous income. (Incalculable riches),

1) Work in Second Life that also achieves tangible, compelling results outside of Second Life.

Ok so we have to create a solution or propose a solution or dream up an idea, or suggest something that might work if.... er, and has to have tangible results, so you mean we have to design or create a solution and implement it, ( how do you measure an abstract like ‘compelling’, maybe you mean addictive, results outside second life. Outside second life? Wait

Create a second life solution inside second life that has compelling and real results in real life that has tangibility? I think this could be like using second life to teach people in the back waters of some dry forgotten country how to use Vaseline to save their children’s lives. But we can do that without lugging around computers and satellite systems to show people cartoon like figures speaking in a foreign language. Maybe that is not what you mean. Hmm then I am not sure what you mean at all here. Maybe the second definition will help me understand better.

2) Distinctive, original work using Second Life that clearly demonstrates high quality, execution, function, aesthetics and technical sophistication.

Distinctive original work, (ok with you so far) using Second Life, that clearly demonstrates (execution, function, aesthetics and tech sophistication) something happening that looks good and is technically clever! So putting 1 and 2 (above together, we get make something, a solution, that employs second life to solve a real world problem or dilemma in a way that is original, clever and looks pretty).

Now forgive me for being Naive, but any business man worth his salt does exactly that to survive in their chosen line of business, and 99.999 percent of them don’t use second life to do that. It’s called finding a niche and exploiting it. Here you want us to do that so that you can show how good second life is, and if we succeed, you pay us in funny money that will cost us a fee to turn it into real money! Am I on track so far?

Please look at your members and people who have been doing exactly that for the last two years that I have been here. We have been creating clever articulate solutions, that people have found sufficiently rewarding they paid real money to be here and join in. We sold land, clothes, gadgets, we sold the sky and smoke and mirrors, we made libraries, we made business, from newspapers to photographic studios, we created so many diverse businesses, you had to invent restrictions as we were getting too good and they included you less and less.

Mr Linden, that prize money should be paid to all the content creators and land estate agents that have spent the last year growing your business for you, they have been the real winners. You know the folks I mean, the ones you raised vat on and then cut their investment by 40%, those guys, the ones that supported you nonstop.

Ok let’s look at the third definition as so far all you have asked for is that which you should be doing, so maybe I am reading this all wrong.

3) Work that has the capacity for inspiring and influencing future development, knowledge, creativity, and collaboration both inside and outside of Second Life.

Wow! You mean you want us to create the tool or vehicle that will construct an ongoing business flow for you to enable you to gain a perpetual income flow based upon the work of another person or group, and for this, you pay what, a one of f, ten thousand USD dollar equivalents in Fuzzy Money.

You have got to be kidding Mr Linden.

Second Life and their constantly changing politics.

I was building something in Second Life when the Concierge common chat group chimed with a new message”. Torrid offered a Full region (or Sim) for sale, Tier date 13th, unique swamp woodsy build that can stay. Please IM me
We asked for the price and he gave us the asking price.

I said “I realised something last night, we have all been hoodwinked by Linden labs into believing that we are buying islands, islands that don’t exist, other grids charge a 'set up' fee, and that makes sense, so an island that has been set up once, would only need transferring, so it should be pointless selling an island, because in reality, your only asking for the reimbursement of your set up fee, whole different ball game”

Chade agreed with “You are right River...though I was lucky”

I continued “What so annoys me on this realization, is for a while linden labs were charging us 1760 USD set up fee, and those of us who bought have nothing to sell but the current set up fee, crazy. I don’t think they actually thought about it to be honest, I think someone said wouldn't it be a good idea if... and the ass lickers chimed in with "yes indeed Mr Linden Sir".
Torrid added “Well for me this is a hobby and my sim is a role play sim. It is dealing with the constant complaints and whining that I am tired of dealing with or paying to entertain others”.

This prompted Chade, “I have argued with tenants for hours about it is better for them to rent from me than to buy...but I finally gave up....now I say if you want to pay me to take risk be my guest”.

Meanwhile, I was typing, “So maybe it is a result of many things, miss conceptions, poor thinking and the inability for Linden Labs to refute a misconception, instead they let it roll and roll and roll, and after five thousand sales, tell us the way they think it should be. I too tire now of constant wining, but now as I am more in OpenLifegrid then SecondLife , I don’t care, I rent my regions out for cost plus vat and if they stay they stay , if they leave, I sell or close the island. I have some good friends on my regions now, not just 'customers' so it is theirs as long as they stay.”

“I found giving them their own rights etc took a weight of work away from me”, I said and continued with “, best thing I did, they sort it out themselves instead of asking me all the time”.

Maybe the Lindens did get it wrong, but what seems to matter now, is they are getting too much too wrong and it is causing people to leave, and tired of their indecision and constant rule changes. The only constant seems to be the need for the Lindens to treat us like cash sources and find ways to soak us for more money. Changing their promises is a defacto standard in Second Life and more and more it becomes ‘caveat Emptor’

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Exploring Virtual worlds that come with 45000 prims and NO TIER FEE

I have started another blog, with separate interest, but if you ever wanted a development area, to sharpen your skills or create content for second life, this has to be a solution.
Read OpenSim Blog