Sat, 07/08/2010 - 17:05
So the big meeting happened. I didn't get a ticket so I only watched it over Treet TVs webstream:
http://treet.tv/shows/specials/pages/transcript-slmeeting-30jul10
And later read the transcript provided there. After all, I didn't really wanted to start writing anything without knowing for sure, what has been said. Not that it was that interesting actually, but it is still much better to be precise about such things:
http://treet.tv/shows/specials/episodes/slmeeting-30jul10
Anyway, on with the meeting and I guess I might start with a reminder of what I have written before about my thoughts towards what LL has decided to do. Don't get me wrong, I still like the idea and hope for more meetings and communication in the future, but what we have witnessed here has indeed been a wildly spinning corporate speech exercise with some technical shortcomings that somehow proofed for me that SL is not yet usable as what LL has marketed it as for some time. No business would buy a platform where it needs to use Twitter for communication because the provided communication possibilities are inadequate for what is needed to make many people participate. Oh well … I think Philip has spoken about this in the meeting so I might be getting ahead of myself.
So who was there? Wallace Linden, who lead the discussion, Philip Linden, the interim CEO until they found someone willing to get this job and BK Linden who has the function of CFO, the chief financial officer, in the company. With other words the right person to stop all the rumours about how LL is in trouble and might be sold to Google or maybe to someone else. Of course I am not sure if such rumours are totally unfounded but it can be said with some certainty that the recent reduction in the Labs workforce have saved some money. I guess the biggest part was M's pay-check and I actually hope that he did not get any of the usual 'leaves a company in ruins and still get millions'-payments.
But he is gone so on into the future.
And it starts with Philip saying that Bob is a super star. Sadly he does not mean our little greater bot but Wallace Linden who I think took over a position, that I have heard was empty since 2 years. I think Zero Linden had it before moving on to Blue Mars but that is not really checked and I might be terrible wrong on this point. It is however not important for now. The important thing now is what has been said and after Bobs introduction, Philip explained why he has returned. It was not because he could not take it any more or feared for LLs future – not that he would ever admit such a thing – but because he still believes in it. That it wont go away despite the claims that media does not care about it any more or that it has stopped growing. Judging from it being mentioned in TV programs, newspapers and books media does not care about SL any more not because it is old and will be forgotten and pushed aside by the next short-lived hype, but because it has reached a level of mainstream that is not interesting enough to be brought to the attention of all those people that the great media analysts only see as brain dead zombies who swallow anything shown to them on their TV screens. On the other hand SL has actually stopped growing to some extend and so far no amount of spin could cover that up completely. However while much slower, SL is still getting bigger and the hope is not unfounded that this process could be increased again. It needs the right decisions and investment into the right areas but I agree with Philip on this point. Virtual Worlds are here to stay and while SL has not been the first, it was the first that reached this level of attention and overall importance. Will it affect people in, as Philip said, 'profoundly positive' ways? I don't know. It will affect them in one way or another for sure but if that is both Philips dream and the companies mission, then they deserve a big hug. Like for the 'your world, your imagination' slogan but .. that one was forgotten and it makes me want to whisper into their ears while hugging that nice words wont make us forget about what has happened before. Google too said it does no evil but ended with being a internet based data mining octopus with it's tentacles spread all over the world. I am thinking, that Philip went to far ahead to claim that virtual worlds will have a huge impact on humanity. At least they will have a hard time reaching that if they stay as they currently are. And I don't mean the technical side that for sure will race ahead as everything else, but the social and economical model behind it. As long as virtual worlds stay on corporate servers and don't develop into a bigger metaverse, the new internet, they will stay nothing but islands people visit when they don't have anything else to do in RL or on the flatweb. Interoperability is key here and, in my opinion, one of the most important technological development that is needed for virtual worlds to come to the point where what Philip describes as his vision can become reality. Of course he might only be in it for the money, but I rather assume, that even after all those years SL is around there is still some vision behind it. Therefore the biggest challenge the company as well as the community faces is the need to move beyond the early boundaries of this world as well as of those present in our minds that like to think in old and known ways instead of moving ahead together with the technology and keep up with what we are being presented with each time we look into the advancements of today technology. That is my vision and it goes well beyond SL even when SL has been the tool that helped me shape and develop it. Just like Philip said, I too receive stories and feel what is happening but other then the way he said it, I am not sure that it is all positive. It can all move into a different direction too and it for sure will when the greed takes over again. LL is of course a company and greed is what companies are about, but that does not prevent them from being innovative and looking into the future instead on the next report to their investors who I think rarely think much about long term developments and much more about short term profits.
Philip said, he will help in whatever way he can. That's good, but it might be better for him to actually do it and not only want to help. He is now CEO again and if he wants to shape the future into his vision now is the time to act and implement those ideas. He is on the helm so it is not about him wanting to help but him having the job where doing this is expected as part of the job description. At least in my book. I'll keep watching them and do what any customer can and should do when things go wrong. Scream and shout demanding change. I have done it before and will do it again until the 'basic user experience' is truly up in the level where I expect it to be from a company like LL. Now it might be indeed important to pull back and fix the basics for LL. I have criticized this in the older blog posts saying that this only proofs that they have been sitting on their hands for the last two years. Of course, in reality they have not and especially when it comes to grid stability they have done a lot. On the other hand SL is still suffering those moments where everything lags,
fails and has the feeling of near brake down on it. There are 250 people … 100 less then before ... in the company now so while the new slogan sounds nice, it is yet not filled with anything of substance.
Fast – Easy – Fun
Three words at the top of LLs strategy that 'capture what SL should and can be for users'. I actually can see a part of the grid moan painfully now screaming about like there needs to be money (for them) somewhere in this slogan too, but that is not surprising. Both because greed is a universal condition humanity is suffering form and because we all see something different in virtual worlds and their use and potential. That is as true as Philips words that followed this. SL is lacking in those and the user experience was not up to the claims in those words either. He could not have said anything else about it as there is no doubt about the state SL is in and the user satisfaction with it.
Back to basics – What does that mean?
Lag! Crashes! The basics means that and more but I am sure everyone was happy about Philip addressing this first. It is the one problem that is visible to most residents and might only be second to what is going on with the search function and the ever present horror of sim crossings. We all knew it, we all suffer it but getting to lag and crashes is a good start. At least when it comes to those created by the servers and the viewer since a lot here is caused by the users computer and connection. LL can't do much about that but they still can't blame everything on it. After all Philip himself admits that the viewer crashes are a problem and that they need to bring the crashing rate of viewer 2 to the level of where the viewer 1.23 has already been. Now of course v.2 is a new system and it is only natural that it develops bugs and problems but what was going on here was rather extreme. Especially compared with the stability 3rd party viewers achieved. Similar things are true for lag and I really really really hope that the 'performance improvements, system changes, ways you experience the world' Philip mentions are not just a hollow line like all the claims LL has made before. Of course, I don't really believe him, but it is logical for a company to actually try to improve customer satisfaction. Not like LL has acted logical before but who knows … maybe the recent screaming has been finally heard.
Re-architecture of the chat and group chat sounds nice. It is something that will help for sure and other then Philips says, it is not magic and anything user created that addresses problems that LL is supposed to solve should be a reason to look back and ask, why the company was unable to provide this solution. It is also a great way to embrace the community since once encouraged more people will work and help in solving problems. It is interesting here that Philip says, that:
'We as a company feel, and there's evidence, we've fallen behind the lead on these technical changes.'
I think, and I have written this in former bog posts, that this is right. LL is not in the lead any more and it is there, because all the time they have neglected to fix the basics. Now they not only have to catch up, they have also to fix all the problems they have ignored for so long. Their competition might do the same mistakes but it is not certain that human stupidity is, despite what Albert Einstein said about it's level, truly infinite. It is not the best idea to hope for other people mistakes because they might not do them and then getting back in the lead will be difficult. Feedback will help in this but once again I am not jumping in joy because Philip said how important it is. I know that it is important but the track record of LL in this field is less then good. When they not only start to ask about feedback and actually also start to listen to it, then maybe things will run better. Not like before when any decision was already decided on before the community has been given a chance to comment and the infamous 'residents have asked for this' wont be easily forgotten either. Maybe until LL decides to finally answer who was asked and what the questions have been. Then maybe the claim that now they will try to get feedback will be more positively received in the community. Open development of the code will be well received I think and with so many viewer developers out there, it might even lead to good results despite some people claims that all open source is evil and techno-communist propaganda. It is the way to move towards the community and make people get involved into what they love enough to spend lots of time in it. And effort, creativity and money.
Something definitively lacking in those people who cooked up viewer 2. Now of course some people like it for good reasons, but now it is official that the 'release of 2.0 seems to have created a product that doesn't completely satisfy needs of any user group' and that 'Many are frustrated with it. I apologize for the frustration'. Now if they would have listened to feedback in the first place this all might have been avoided. Let's hope their claims are true and that the more open development will make sure that it wont get repeated. Not that I have high hopes but I admit that I want to believe it. But there is a long way until it will become the most commonly used viewer. Not when 3rd party viewers stay ahead in usability as well as in technology.
And yes. This all here is not only about making money. Not all is business and while I think that Philip said this only to make the normal content creators, who felt rather neglected in the last two years, feel a bit better he is fundamentally right. Success of world builders is not only the key, but indeed it is beyond software and tech. It is the vision I written about before. The very thing that SL needs to get back into if it's want to stay ahead of the competition. And it will only get there if everyone feel like they can freely explore and build. Try out themselves and their abilities. Be what they want and change this every day if they feel like it. Of course, the success of this is difficult to measure but I guess it does not even need to be measured. It is there or is not and once it is there it is visible and can be felt each moment we are logged in into this virtual world. Money flows and transactions can be measured and those economic numbers are a good indicator if things are going well or not. But they are for sure not everything and they should not cloud the overall view of what is truly going on. Looking from the top might not give the observer the best picture about what is going on at the bottom. It might even hide the true effects of new features being implemented. Like mesh that there is lots of talking about since the day it has been announced. Will it be useful for everyone? Philip asks and continues with the statement that he can tell if they are doing good work by focusing on the success of economy. Now I would say that they can rather tell if it is good by focusing on success of the technical implementation but that is a different topic. Actually one that has been talked about in length already too. What however is clear, that once it is implemented it will be used economically. That is a given considering that if something can be used to make money, then someone will use it to make money with it. The point is, that once it has been implemented it should not lead to problems with all the existing products already on the grid. Virtual content creators will succeed no matter the tools because someone will for sure drive their possibilities to the very limit. And when it comes to creativity then this limit might be something that no one has envisioned at the start. At least I am convinced that LL has not envisioned what happened in SL in terms of the sexual content and all the kinks and fetishes that can be encountered all over the grid. And if someone really would start looking for it then I am sure tons of scary stuff would come out to the surface.
But well, on with the text and right to the one thing people are screaming about since .. weeks .. months .. I think even years since this one has never fulfilled the expectations of those using it. You know what it is .. yes ..
[10:23AM PDT] Search needs to work well.
At 10:23 Philip said it himself: 'Search needs to work well'. Now of course this should not become one more hollow phrase in the usual corporate vocabulary of casting a shadow over the truth and hoping that the customers wont look too closely or forget what has been said and written just a few days ago. However he has not said much on this topic and moved on the the next that is the one that made me giggle a little when I read about it in the first of his blog posts before the meeting. The problem of increasing the speed people can put their cloths on. There is actually a way to do this already by attaching the box and dragging all contents right form to the inventory window from the build menu. Now that is of course a bit complicated and no newbie would ever think of that unless they have looked very closely at the building tools before they ever got something that was boxed and thought about how to get the things out but still being in a no-rezz area. Finding a rezz-area is luckily relatively easy but adding a copy to inventory from attachment function might be a good idea and save shop owners and customers alike some headaches. Besides I love shoes and especially my collection of boots so getting them faster might also increase the speed I am buying them. So well … let's get clothing on as fast as we can get it off and all will be fine >.<
Let's get serious again I would say.
They will shift the way people enter SL for the first time. Sounds a bit like the rather ill-fated community based entry points that I think never took off and reached the expectations put into them. It was a good idea and I think it is still being used but why would LL want now t circumvent the welcome areas? I guess it is cheaper then actually managing them and having stuff look over the various volunteers trying their worse and best to help newcomers find their way around this strange experience we are by now addicted too. It however sadly is about learning the interface. Viewer 2 even more so I guess but while it was a step back for sure, the original viewer has been far form perfect as well. At least it was a bit better and I must confess that I never had problems understanding it. But then, I am usually going through all the functions and learning the interface before starting to use it and in my first days, I have spend some time in a quiet place trying out what brought me into this world: Building. That is why this point is still so important for me and why I feel unconditional love for anyone who builds and shares their creativity with anyone and who not only develops their own creativity but also helps others do the same.
But well, will a link to the Destination Guide be a good starting point for new users? I guess only if the new user is showed how to look for the right place they are interested in and the places are all equipped with up to date landmarks to locations of similar topics what of course will make them into welcome areas in themselves. And I hope those are moderated and staffed with guides because otherwise newbies will end in empty locations not knowing where to turn to or they will be snatched by griefers or even land in places that require some understanding of SL to really enjoy. I think it is rather a move by LL to get one problem out of their mind and finally get rid of those ill-fated welcome areas they never really shown any interest in. Of course they wondered why the user retention of SL was so low but when no linden ever put a virtual foot down into those griefing pits then it is understandable that they never got this point. Until now it seems but I would rather put my money on tighter regulation and a thought through learning process for newcomers. But I have not yet seen what they have in store so maybe this new plan will work out in the end. Lets hope so because the welcome areas have always been a shame for everything in SL. It is also shame that apparently they don't know who is using SL. They hoped for business and educators and the latter seem to be there but other then that it is all normal people loging in form home and work alike. Some of them are merchants but much more of them have other reasons to be here. I would say that educators are a small minority of those in SL. Merchants and small virtual content businesses are a bigger part and the various interest based communities might be the biggest of all. Thinking that it is 'educators, those casual users and people at work' is a rather strange thing to admit for LL. I mean, how could they not know what kind of people are active here and who their target audience seem to be. It would however explain a lot about the what has happened in the last years and this strange mantra of 'education and business' LL has been repeating all the time.
It would be interesting to know now what kind of work is going to be stopped that don't support all users. The 'behind a firewall' project would for sure fall into this description and while it is surprising that Philip announces it to be discontinued it is not a surprise either. It didn't seemed like LL has ever been able to turn this into a profitable business idea. It was stupid actually in my opinion, but the explanation of why I think this way would be too long. I might include it in a later blog posts so for now we can be happy that LL seem to commit itself to the main grid again. The very thing that is their product and our second life.
Now what is next?
The questions and while it is good to state to be reading all sorts of emails it does not say much about the actually listening to the suggestions and opinions presented in those. After all no one sees if LL does not have a 'laughing board' put up in their office where they present the more fun emails to the public or if they actually think about that some of those might actually include good ideas. But I guess emails, blogs and forums are too much for one person to read so expecting Philip to be up to date on everything would be a bit much. But at least the SL forums not only need some overhaul but actually need to be moderated and seen by the LLs as a way to communicate with their users. So far it was more a way to block communication then to encourage it. Not only between the residents and LL but actually also between residents themselves. It would be easier to respond to questions and blogs if the format would not make it difficult to sort through them and actually see who responded to what. A lot in economy depends on communication and even more when it comes to community development and creativity. Good communication is most important and that is another area I wish for LL to improve beyond their claims that now magically all will be better. It might be even more important then the methods of economy used in SL themselves. We have inworld shopping for that and it suffers both form lag and rezzing delays in textures as well as from the search engine most often hiding search results instead of displaying them. I rather shop by looking through the picks in profiles to see who might have good suggestions for new shops and locations to visit. It is a great way to do so just as XStreet is good to be used the SL shopping catalogue. At least it's search seem to deliver better results. It remains to be seen of course if the new marketplace will hold up to the expectations the LLs have build up about it and also if it will proof the merchants wrong who now scream about every little and big bug found in the system. Now of course it is only logical to be sceptic considering how LL is known to release pre-alpha stage software as a final release. Anyway, the 2D shopping experience is a nice addition but in no way anything central. It is online shopping for online shopping and I think it's only advantage is that it actually allows me to find what I am looking for. A good search inworld would I think eliminate 90% of my XStreet use. If I can find what I want inworld why should I start up my browser to look into a different window? I am good in multitasking but why going through the trouble when it could only be done in one? The possibility of such a site is great but I like inworld shopping more. But people are different so others might think otherwise and be therefore happy about those improvements. I am I think too but if LL goes through with the improvements already mentioned, then XStreet will loose some traffic. Those things complement each other for sure but with SL already being a online store .. and one in 3D where we can visit actual shops that might impress us by their design in addition to the products offered .. I don't believe it is the same as with RL stores and websites. It is in some way a step back. We got 3D but still go back to the flatweb instead of working towards a true rise of this technology where shopping is more then scrolling the sites down and clicking on the links. We are there already, we know how it works .. now it is time to walk around and enjoy the third dimension.
But of course the search need to be fixed for that. And lag, crashes, rezzing times and sim crossings. A lot is degrading our ability to move in SL so once more we are back at the basics LL has never bothered to solve in the past.
But yes … What's happening with mesh?
That was mentioned before and it is of little surprise, that it came up again in the question answering part of the meeting. People are waiting for it after all and even when I have not much idea right now about the true impact I think it will change this virtual world just like sculpties did in the past.
More important however is I think the question that was answered next. Many people in SL are disabled so even when it was just one question and it has been singled out by LL to give them a nice 'we do good for the community' spin it will for sure be received well by many. On the other hand this is directly tied to the viewer and there was a lot written about that already.
And with this BK takes over who I think might soon find himself the focus of a discussion about what BK might mean. The B stands for Bob for sure but maybe it mean Butt Kicking Linden or something else along those lines. Some butt kicking is for sure necessary even when the amounts of butts in the company has decreased significantly over the last months. However he is the financial officer so the events that have triggered this drastic cut in work force are directly tied to the field of work he has apparently been hired to do. So he says, that his focus is on improvements on the operations of the company. That is needed and might involve butt kicking too. And it should start soon with those people who have brought SL to what people perceive as a drive to move SL closer to social networks like Facebook that usually stands for all that is evil on the internet when mentioned by SL residents in this context. It is good, that Philip recognizes now that SL is not Facebook. As he says: 'SL is an immersive high-presence, profound impactful experience' that 'you submerge yourself' into. But what follows those sentences is rather strange. It does not say yes or no in the way I am sure many people would have liked it to see. It is right that people need to connect with each other, that they bring people in and tell their friends about it. But this statement wont stop the fears many have and I am sure this question will be asked in future again. I guess it is hard to give a definite answer to such a question from a corporate standpoint and I think that what has been seen as the move towards Facebook by the residents is nothing Philip disagrees with. I am sure, that everything that happened in the past was not done without his knowledge. Who knows, maybe Philip read his Machiavelli and used M to do the dirty work and chopped of his head to present himself as the saviour. A tactic right out of the book.
But I don't think it will bring the million + 1 person that tell them what they are doing well. Right now they have thousands who tell them what they are doing bad with the + 1 being the one writing this blog here I guess. But I have always said, that those who scream care about it because otherwise they would pack up and leave. But we need to be listened to from time to time because here and there someone will have a truly good idea or suggestion that we all, residents and LL, will benefit from and when so many people are saying that something is wrong ignoring it wont to any good for sure. It happens in the past but it does not have to happen again! That is one answer to the question about what they would do differently when starting over. It is not a butterfly effect but actually one about good corporate behaviour and listening to the customers and their concerns. BK puts it well and kind of describes what many residents feared the working culture in LL looked like:
We should ask if it works for everyone. Are we done? If we'd said "no" internally, it would have been easier to fix things then.
Yes. If things would have been tested properly and the feedback was more then a 'feel good exercise' for people who already hate everything then it would be surely easier to fix things. They might have listened since while the words spoken by Philip before might have not cleared out the fears people have towards Facebook those spoken now might help in reassuring everyone that what LL is planning is different:
We won't change nature of product or depth of experience in SL.
And he expands this to other platforms as well even when it would be rather difficult to imagine SL to be possible to run with full capacity on a cell phone. According to him, 'browser 3D experience is coming in a few years'. Google's Lively, that I think was planned to be be step stone towards this is gone for two years so the next implementation of this idea will be interesting. Now of course the fear expressed in this question is, that LL will turn fully towards this idea and the way it was worded at first has not done this any good. It might even be, that M really had this plan but at least for now Philip seem to be going a different route. And then a cell phone SL, a browser SL, a grid SL and who knows what kind of SL will be interesting to watch. It might even become the 3D internet but only if it frees itself from LL servers and moves out into the internet as a server application anyone can set up. It will be easier to cater to the needs of more people this way and it might lead to increased growth as well. But only in the future since neither browsers nor mobile devices are there yet and SL needs more work on itself before it can move on. I would not be surprised to see a competitor beat LL on this with something designed from the start on to work on different platforms while SL would need to be reworked first and it even might prove to be impossible.
It will be interesting to watch that developing or folding up should LL once again show that their words are hollow claims without substance backing it up. They might sell it next month and run away with a bag of money before the new owner realizes what they got or they might actually start looking at SL and what they can do with it. More open source will help here for sure since especially viewer 2 showed that whoever has designed it, had little idea about the needs of most residents. Other then Philip, I think it is possible to make a viewer work for all sorts of different people and remembering the blogs and discussions about the viewer I have read many good suggestions about how to solve this. So when they look around, then I am sure LL will find many in the open source community giving them good ideas and suggestions. They just need to look out and listen. The new CEO they are now looking for will have a difficult job but maybe this time they will get one with more ideas then the last one. It has not been the best pick after all.
I wonder if they take applications .. ^_^ .. I guess Philip will read them through just like the questions, suggestions and ideas he asked for:
Philip@Lindenlab.com
Flood him with those and maybe some will stick.
