« DeviantArt's Top Artists Get Tens of Millions of Views | Main | Open Forum: Mesh Finally Goes Gridwide Across SL, What Do You Think & What Have You Seen? »

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Flashing Merlin

I disagree with the premise that the current business model is unsustainable. Sure SIMs close down all the time (that's happened to three I've owned property on), but new ones also start up. The innovators who can make their SIMs pay will stay. My gallery is on a mainland plot, and I'm not going to move that to OSGrid, or any similar virtual world - no traffic there compared to SL. People who live in SL because their community is here are not going to move because cyber real estate is cheaper somewhere else. Sure, SL has to grow the user base if it wants to grow, but they don't have to change the business model to accomplish that. In fact the steps Rod has been taking (changing the join up procedure, changing the viewer) seem to be in the right direction. Once SL is optimized, all it may take to grow the user base is a major advertising campaign.

Nalates Urriah

Nah! I'm not buying into either of those two directions.

With Phillip's last round of direction setting and Rob's new ideas I think we may something interesting happen. It is unclear who solved the registration problem. But, it has definitely been improved.

We are in the middle of a Basic Mode viewer change to improve new user experience. Plus other changes.

We may find that Rob has a keener appreciation for what is here than we may suspect. We may see Rob develop more creative spaces with results from those coloring SL. By the end of the year we will know if Rob has it right or not.

Nexii Malthus

@Nalates it would help if you could start off by spelling his name correctly.

Dizzy Banjo

@Flashing Merlin

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd say that SL is currently unsustainable. I'd suspect it would be possible to run it at a profit for some time. But as far as I understand its growth has reached a plateau.

I think this in itself is not necessarily a problem if Linden and indeed the community, aren't really bothered about SL growing, or even eventually becoming mainstream.

It also affects the speed at which Linden will be able to improve performance - as their profit will directly relate to the amount of staff they can employ to fix bugs / improve performance. ( Unless they get more funding - I understand its been a number of years since this happened last for LL. )

I've got a lot of respect for the approach Rod Humble and LL are taking now too, and indeed that of many ex Lindens. I think my comments were more about a path forward to either achieving stability / good user experience in SL with existing revenues, or working on a totally new project, or both.

I think there reasons why a major advertising campaign wouldn't necessarily work, but I'll go into this more in my other post.

Hamlet Au

*I* certainly say the sim revenue model is unsustainable. If you follow Tyche Shephard's Twitter account, you'll see private sims consistently disappearing almost every week, usually by the dozens: https://twitter.com/#!/tycheshepherd

I've seen no evidence that these disappearing sims are being replaced. Why? Common sense, really: Not many people out there willing to pay thousands of dollars a year to own virtual land.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Your Information

(Name is required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)

Thumb Wagner James Au Metaverse book
Wagner James "Hamlet" Au
Dream Seeker SL Estates
Competitive rates, 24/7 English, Spanish & Dutch support -- visit online or in SL!
Dutchie SL furnishings
Click above to Dutchie Design's site!
Wagner James Au Patreon
Making a Metaverse That Matters Wagner James Au ad
Please buy my book!
IMG_2468
My book on Goodreads!
Wagner James Au AAE Speakers Metaverse
Request me as a speaker!
Making of Second Life 20th anniversary Wagner James Au Thumb
PC for SL
Recommended PC for SL
Macbook Second Life
Recommended Mac for SL
my site ... ... ...
ADD store SLurl
Visit ADD's SL mainstore, creator of sexy styles you want to wear!
Intellivision game console book Tom Boellstorff Braxton Soderman
Get the latest book from the author of "Coming of Age in Second Life"!
Meow Meow Making SL flowers
An SL flower shop for all occasions!
Rapture
Original SL mesh fashion since 2014
Vmuseum NWN Ad
Click to visit all four sites!
Second Life virtual world coffee table book
Coffee table book available now -- click above!
Juicybomb_EEP ad

Classic New World Notes stories:

Woman With Parkinson's Reports Significant Physical Recovery After Using Second Life - Academics Researching (2013)

We're Not Ready For An Era Where People Prefer Virtual Experiences To Real Ones -- But That Era Seems To Be Here (2012)

Sander's Villa: The Man Who Gave His Father A Second Life (2011)

What Rebecca Learned By Being A Second Life Man (2010)

Charles Bristol's Metaverse Blues: 87 Year Old Bluesman Becomes Avatar-Based Musician In Second Life (2009)

Linden Limit Libertarianism: Metaverse community management illustrates the problems with laissez faire governance (2008)

The Husband That Eshi Made: Metaverse artist, grieving for her dead husband, recreates him as an avatar (2008)

Labor Union Protesters Converge On IBM's Metaverse Campus: Leaders Claim Success, 1850 Total Attendees (Including Giant Banana & Talking Triangle) (2007)

All About My Avatar: The story behind amazing strange avatars (2007)

Fighting the Front: When fascists open an HQ in Second Life, chaos and exploding pigs ensue (2007)

Copying a Controversy: Copyright concerns come to the Metaverse via... the CopyBot! (2006)

The Penguin & the Zookeeper: Just another unlikely friendship formed in The Metaverse (2006)

"—And He Rezzed a Crooked House—": Mathematician makes a tesseract in the Metaverse — watch the videos! (2006)

Guarding Darfur: Virtual super heroes rally to protect a real world activist site (2006)

The Skin You're In: How virtual world avatar options expose real world racism (2006)

Making Love: When virtual sex gets real (2005)

Watching the Detectives: How to honeytrap a cheater in the Metaverse (2005)

The Freeform Identity of Eboni Khan: First-hand account of the Black user experience in virtual worlds (2005)

Man on Man and Woman on Woman: Just another gender-bending avatar love story, with a twist (2005)

The Nine Souls of Wilde Cunningham: A collective of severely disabled people share the same avatar (2004)

Falling for Eddie: Two shy artists divided by an ocean literally create a new life for each other (2004)

War of the Jessie Wall: Battle over virtual borders -- and real war in Iraq (2003)

Home for the Homeless: Creating a virtual mansion despite the most challenging circumstances (2003)

Newstex_Author_Badge-Color 240px
JuicyBomb_NWN5 SL blog
Ava Delaney SL Blog
Virtual_worlds_museum_NWN