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Saturday, July 24, 2010

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Rober1236 Jua

http://thegreatslexpedition.blogspot.com/2010/07/failure.html

I have been thinking that maybe it is impossible to escape the conclusion that SL is dying. Empty stores, SIMs and homes. Is it really going to make it in the competitive market?

Little Lost Linden

"I have been thinking that maybe it is impossible to escape the conclusion that SL is dying."

I have to admit, it sometimes feels that way lately. This year is some kind of different that's for sure. Perhaps this will just be a rocky year and the ship will pull out just in time to avoid sudden disaster...OR, the ship will crash right into the inevitable, and then there will be a 2 for 1 sale on Linden Land.

It would be just like in that old movie called Night Patrol with the Unknown Comic where there was that hooker offering the very same sale (2 for 1). We'll just have to wait and see.

BTW, little known fact, that movie also starred the then unknown Andrew DICE Clay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDMs-UO1jxM

Ann Otoole InSL

There was a dot com bubble that burst. The internet is still alive and growing so fast we are less than a year from IPv4 address exhaustion.

SL will survive. Albeit it without all the businesses that thought rezzing a prim would turn them into a millionaire.

Adric Antfarm

SL has been dying since 2004 according to who you wish to believe, it's just now we start to see who the rats are pushing others out of the way for life rafts and trying to ensure they can keep their prices high and get something out of this short term.

For those of you with the old rez dates, thanks for sticking around. For those of you spreading doom, I know it seems right, but it just fans the fire.

For some reason, when we got on boats and left Britain, we left something behind. Something they still have...

When a British Airways flight lost power in all four engines and doom looked close at hand, the captain made the following announcement to the passengers;

"'Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get it under control. I trust you are not in too much distress."

They landed safely, but even if they did not, all the screaming in the world was of little help.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-431802/The-story-BA-flight-009-words-passenger-dreads-.html

Rober1236 Jua

I am not one who wanted SL to die. I very much enjoy meeting people in SL. My conclusion comes from a combination of my continual travel through Second Life, where I have made thousands of unique observations from, and the traffic on my own blog on Second Life.

I have seen the hype of a few years ago fade away, searches done on Google to SL drop off, and I have seen more and more empty stories, ads taken down, and business fail.

It is impossible for me to continue to deny the possibility that SL won't make it. I don't want it to fail and I would be very happy if somehow it turns it around, but the mounting evidence is scary to me.

Little Lost Linden

It's times like these that remind me of true hero's. Hero's like Max Rokatanski.

Max once said "Two days ago I saw a vehicle that could haul that tanker...You wanna get outta here, you talk to me."

http://www.moviesoundclips.net/movies1/roadwarrior/talktome.wav

Hamlet Au

It's extremely unlikely Second Life will "die" -- what's more likely at the moment is that it will start shrinking down to the absolute hardcore user base, which is maybe 100K or so, and Linden Lab's investors will pare down the operational costs to the bare minimum required to keep it profitable, if only just. However, this is not the most likely scenario, IMO -- but is the most pessimistic scenario that's also the most plausible.

Adric Antfarm

Hamlet has a valid point here. Unless Linden is bleeding money (and we have no reason to believe that is the case), there will continue to be some form of Second Life just as you can still spend $9.99 a month to join whoever the hell is still on AOL.

That form I imagine will be a lot like the Teen Grid (no offense to you fine young men and women) and not something I want to be part of as this "paring down" will be fatal with all the resources in the yard with price tags on them.

What Second Life needs at this point is for us all to do a lot less predicting, crying, and all but accepting the end is near. Get your asses out there. Build, buy, enjoy, and stop this pathetic display of defeat.

Some of you I can understand (and expect it from), but a lot of you honestly know better. You've made your SL-fame or bucks off the grid and now you've written it off.

Where to now?


shaqq

I'm studying Virtual Worlds for many years and see no other way forward rather than investing into A.I. Also, just buying and selling purely virtual goods that only make sense in SL itself is not a sustainable long-term strategy. Only a virtual world that offers clear connection to goods and services of the physical world can survive. My prediction (and not only mine) is that within the next decade many things we do online in a traditional form-based way will migrate into a 3D Virtual World. And such migration can only happen if there will be intelligent embodied assistants (bots) who will automate some tasks for the user and will replace the forms of traditional Web 2.0. Will this future virtual world (Web 3.0) be Second Life or not.. I hope it will.

Rober1236 Jua

I profoundly doubt Linden Labs will be able to keep SL going at a loss year after year just as a public service. They are a company. If that is the outcome: than SL will survive but as OpenSim.

Virtual Worlds may be like Encyclopedias, best done without a major company online.

Crap Mariner

Um... where did the weekend go?

-ls/cm

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