New World Notes

Linden Lab's Social Media Team Should Promote User-Made Marketplace Content (Comment of the Week)

Popular Flickr post from Strawbery Singh's pre-Linden Lab days

News that Second Life social media queen Strawberry Singh just joined Linden Lab as a social media employee has provoked some interesting reactions in the SL social media ecosystem, chief among this comment from reader "irihapeti", which at first seems seriously controversial:

A thing that Linden Lab should reconsider is to allow the LL marketing team to provide marketplace and/or in-world shop links to the stuff that appear in the pics and vids blog posts.

A big reason why [SL] content-influence blogs are popular is because of the links to where the readers can get the stuff shown. Not just in SL but in the real world as well. Some well-known person wears something and the next day the shops are full of people wanting that garment.

I'm fascinated to find out how often real world fashion in pop culture immediately influences virtual world fashion shopping. But irihapeti's core argument is this: Linden Lab should actively promote user-owned SL brands and commercial content on its massive social media channels.

This despite the fact that when Strawberry announced her move to Linden Lab, she also announced "I will no longer be sharing style credits or reviews on items in-world" to avoid favoritism. irihapeti argues this is the exact wrong direction to take:

Listen: Philip Rosedale Interviewed by Linden Vet About Building Virtual Worlds

Here's a great podcast interview of Philip Rosedale on the podcast show Stayin' Alive in Technology hosted by Melinda Byerley, former Head of Marketplaces at Linden Lab, and known in SL as Pink Linden. And because she is a Linden vet, this is a much more substantial, in-depth interview, and brings up some points I've not heard Philip discuss before. (Streamable above.) It's also an important companion piece to the recent bombshell video where Philip announced scaling back High Fidelity content and making it more desktop client-focused.

Byerley is now founder of Timeshare CMO, a data marketing firm where Catherine Smith, another Linden Lab veteran, also works. "It's a recap of Philip's history, his thoughts on the 3D web and the future of VR," Catherine told me, when sending over the podcast. "What he's learned over the years. It was very Philip and made me laugh and smile and miss working for him!" So this is an interview with the founder of Linden Lab, speaking with a Linden, which was promoted by a Linden, and is now being blogged by a Linden. 

Here's the key highlights -- my favorite being what he says about "the 3D web" as a term -- with my biggest point of contention being what he says about the original goal with Second Life:

EEP, Second Life Environmental Enhancement Project, Makes Acclaimed Developer Say EEK!

Example of reported EEP display problems featured in Niran's post

I haven't been closely following Environmental Enhancement Project (known as EEP), Linden Lab's bid to greatly improve legacy WindLight environments while introducing new inventory objects for defining the environmental settings. However, SLer NiranV Dean, creator of Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer with a cult following due to its amazing graphics, has been following EEP quite closely. And according to him in an epic, before-and-after illustrated rant he recently posted on the official community board, EEP as it currently exists is an L of titanic proportion:

I am absolutely speechless what a pile of broken mess you want to sell us. This has been by far the worst experience i have had in Second Life so far, it was a displeasure from login to logout and i could cry tears, that is how much this hurt me... [Rendering is] absolutely, totally and completely broken from back to front. Shadows, let's start with shadows. Shadows have become noticeably worse, they are ugly, pixelated, bad, inaccurate and constantly bug out, clip away and shadow blur is at a point it basically starts destroying itself when i turn around the camera and that's with the minimum draw distance...

And so on like this, except with more salty language. He's not the only one: Among the follow-up reader questions I just sent to Linden Lab after my talk with Ebbe Altberg is this one: "EEP has ruined teleports and region crossings for a lot of people."

Fundamental to Niran's objections is a monetization option for EEP, at the expense of users being able to edit WindLights:

Second Life Hires Second Life's Top Influencer to Help Promote Second Life

Remember that Linden Lab job posting for a Second Life content marketer? To no one's surprise, that job went to Strawberry Singh, who over the years, has created a network of social media influence around her Second Life content that is almost as large as key official company channels:

• Strawberry has 11,000 followers on Flickr; the official SL Flickr account has just under 13,000.
• Strawberry has 14,000+ followers on YouTube; the official SL YouTube account has about 27,000.

"Hopefully I'll continue to do what I did before, in terms of tutorials and images and exploration videos," she tells me. "The only thing that will stop is the promotion of brands." (When she announced her hiring, she also published some policies distancing herself from SL brands she's formerly worked for and/or blogged.) Lucky for her, she's not relocating to be near Linden Lab's HQ in San Francisco (where rent would eat up most her salary) but working from her home office in Florida:

My Take & Reader Reaction to New World Notes' Chat With Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg -- Three Good & Not So Good Takeaways

Results from my survey of readers asking how they felt about the future of Sansar and Second Life after watching my interview with Linden Lab CEO. (Which you can watch below, if you missed it, or watch again because why not.) With 79 people voting, almost 51% said they were more confident after hearing Ebbe Altberg speak, with less than a quarter saying they were less positive. Voters also submitted several really good questions, which I'll follow up on with Linden Lab and his communication team.

Now that readers have weighed in, here's my own take: I was definitely impressed by Altberg's passion and deep dive knowledge about managing and planning for the future of Second Life and Sansar, and overall, his ebullient Swede engagement. (Linden staff tell me his enthusiasm has boosted internal morale, which floundered as CEOs before him came and went.) Some key pros and cons and stood out to me:

Positive:

• Openly admitting SL land tier is Too Damn High: Specifically saying, "We've been over-monetizing land". Previous CEOs and Linden staff have been loathe to admit the obvious, even as sims disappeared all around us. 
• Acknowledging that launching Sansar as a VR-centered product was fueled by hype: We were at hair-pulling levels of frustration when it looked like Sansar was being promoted as a VR product even when VR sales prospects were so small (as they still are).  During the peak, Palmer Luckey-on-the-cover-of-Time hype period when Sansar launched, Ebbe says, "It was all hot and hip and interesting to talk about VR so we kinda rode that a little bit". Hopefully there's still time to change Sansar's focus to be PC -- similar to what Philip Rosedale just announced with High Fidelity. 
• Announcing plans to add game mechanics to Second Life's first time user-experience: Something I've been pleading for, for fricking years. I'm a bit disappointed the apparent plan is to confine those mechanics just to the first-time user experience, instead of applying them to all users. But it would be a good start.

On the negative side of the ledger, in my view:

Survey: Did New World Notes' Interview with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg Change Your Outlook on the Future of Second Life and/or Sansar?

Now that most of you have had a chance to watch my interview with Linden Lab Ebbe Altberg, let me know how it's changed your opinion on the future of Second Life and/or Sansar (if at all) -- and suggest some follow-up questions I can ask the company.

Haven't seen the interview yet? Watch below!

Watch: Interview With Ebbe Altberg on the Future of Second Life & Sansar

Update, 4/5: Bumped up for weekend viewing and discussion!

Here's my near hour-long chat with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg during GDC week in March, a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation we had at Linden's HQ in San Francisco. Related to Second Life, we chatted about land discounts, the upcoming mobile app, cloud deployment, improving performance, and new user game mechanics for SL; related to Sansar, we discussed its low usage so far, its evolution as a PC-focused product, and finally, why Linden Lab is plowing profits from Second Life into Sansar. (Among many other topics.) Specific highlights include:

• Second Life saw growth of revenue and subscribers in 2018.
• "We've been over-monetizing land" in Second Life, Altberg acknowledges, and says new pricing options/discounts are coming soon (see below).  
• We debate how much content in SL qualifies as "Adult", and the use of Adult ratings on SL land.
• His 5 year tenure as CEO at Linden Lab, and the user anger he faced when he first came onboard. "There were some policies that didn't make sense that we fixed." 
• Lots of new features for Second Life are coming out "within weeks".
• Linden Lab's efforts to grow new user growth -- including the introduction of game-like mechanics, such as a quest system, and targeting mainstream users as opposed to niche audiences.

Many more highlights below:

Linden Lab Should Bring the Latest Technology to Second Life -- Even If It Means Breaking Old SL Content (Comment of the Week)

Pictured: SL animesh, circa 2017

During my GDC week interview with Linden Lab's Ebbe Altberg -- I'm running it in a few days, promise! --  we talked a fair amount about trying to improve Second Life graphics and performance without obsoleting old SL content. Reader "Seph", however, argues otherwise:

[A]t what point are the possibilities of new, better looking, better functioning, and more attractive to modern audience content worth more than stuff in our inventory from 2012 or before? The Internet is used to having old features deprecated and then taken away to usher in the new. Why is Linden Lab so religious about content from 2006 still working today when often it means falling even more behind your peers in tech? Because of this devotion to not breaking olds things, Second Life will never again be apart of GDC or other trade shows that're about evolving with and pioneering new tech in rendering and simulated experiences. Linden Lab would probably be ashamed showing off Animesh and how it works to a room full of creatives at whatever gathering you met with Ebbe at, and the reason for that shame is Linden Lab religiously embracing technical debt and backwards compatibility to stuff creators are desperately hacking around and trying to get rid of.

But won't obsoleting content cause the community to revolt? Seph's reply to that concern:

Reader Questions & Comments I Wish I Put to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg

Last Friday I had a long, fascinating, occasionally testy talk with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, and plan on posting the video later this week. I asked variations of some questions suggested by readers, but here's some other solids queries I wasn't able to put to him that still deserve an audience:

It's very quiet about the possibility to choose a second name for the "Resident" avatars. Is that cancelled - or can we hope to see it this year?

Posted by: Yadleen (Clara Mayef)

Why can't we have a modernized prim system that allows for more constructive modelling and voxel terrain editing? IOW, make Second life on par with many of the dozens of games and systems that it is competing with for attention?

In the older days, people would stand around and watch other people build things. They would have conversations and learn to build together. With the arrival of sex toys and mesh, that is all basically gone.

It was the community that made Second Life to enthralling. Now it's just a cesspool of deviant behaviour.

Posted by: Todd Adams

Several more, about the mainland, Premium accounts, and an intriguing idea to certify content creators:

Open Forum: What Should I Ask Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab

If all goes as planned, later this afternoon I'll be chatting in person with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg about Second Life, Sansar, and the company's future plans. I'll try to incorporate as many reader questions into our conversation as possible, so please post queries in Comments below.

Pro tip: Highly technical questions are probably less easy to immediately answer and better addressed by the CTO, while questions on policy and strategy are better put before the CEO.