Gone with the wind

And now he is gone again!

http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/10/19/changing-my-role-and-searching-for-a-new-ceo

I have been thinking about what to write about next, but it seems like something else has popped up in the right moment. Of course I knew, that Philip said, that he would only be the interim CEO, but now reading this short paragraph still makes me shudder somehow. I kind of think a bigger note would be nicer and maybe prevent the usual speculations to pop up again about how there is infighting, disagreements and general chaos with the management grabbing any dollar they might get their hands on on the expense of the residents.

I doubt that any of this is true, but I stay with my opinion, that LL is in financial trouble. However now the positive feelings people had towards Philip are gone for good I guess. Not much has changed, and LL has not improved in it's key areas of customer satisfaction. It has made some progress on the technical side and I am happy about this. The viewer 2 is making nice steps towards something usable and must be by now much better then it is believed to be … what is not a surprise since it could not get worse then it already has been. But anyway, I very much look forward towards mesh even when it has been described to me as having the problem of keeping a delicate balance between grid impact and the possibilities of this new creative tool. One could joke, it is LL, so expect chaos, but maybe it will work. I don't know, I will wait and see and spend the time with reading the different views and opinions about this topic. The 40 groups announcement and the other improvements they want run is interesting and worth to look forward too as well, but I might also think, that this is a PR stunt. Like they know that it is very difficult and most likely wont work, but they still announce it to rise a positive feeling in their customers again.

However so far it all has been little fun, not fast and neither easier or harder then before. The biggest improvement of SL in the past few months has been most likely the introduction of Phoenix as one of the most widely used TPVs. It is so far the most stable viewer and works nice what is of course again nothing special considering the overall performance of LL, but also once more shows, that not much has changed.

But this is not really true. Just like the technical side got better in the last few months of Philips rule, the management side got worse. It seems like this at least but the comments on the inability to deal with support tickets, unanswered question and even outright rude behaviour of their phone support have increased. Just like the times this support is available has decreased now leaving almost everybody, no matter how much they pay, with little chance to get the help that would be expected of a reputable company. Now of course bigger companies are known of worse customer service but this does not make things better. It actually make it all worse since now LL can be put into the shamefull corner of those people who are seen as greedy bastards and who have a following of people saying not to do any business with those firms under any circumstances. Not the best image and definitively not the way to attract investors. But maybe this is not their goal. Some people have stated the opinion that this all is being done to finally get rid of the company as a whole by pushing the residents out first and then sell the tech to whoever might need all those servers. I don't know and I kind of don't believe it. But it is a possibility not to be ruled out.

If this will happen … OpenSim should be the way to go and I have promised myself to have a deeper look into it and maybe see to set up a little sim for myself up on my computer but so far lacked the time to do it. RL is busy and when it is not, I tend to distract myself with other things. I am like this and admit to enjoy my lazy moments immensely ^_^

However now comes the funny question.

Who will be the new CEO and will this person be better then the last one that has been chosen to replace Philip? This wont be hard I think but it is just as easy to find some MBA imbecile again who still believes into the delusion of newer ending growth. Or that SL is like Facebook and that there are the same people with the same expectations who frequent those places. It will be interesting to see who they will find for the job. Whoever it will be, will have a tough job to do, but at the same time a giant opportunity to show improvement. It is easy at this point to rise the faith into the company since it is already so far on the bottom that there is little room left for it it sink further. Maybe they should announce the requirements for this position on their website together with the 'normal' job postings and even do it right on the front page for all the residents to see. There might be one between us who would be willing and qualified for the job. At least this person would know the world and while this is no guarantee for success it give a slightly better starting point. On the other hand, I don't really believe that one would be found this way, but it would still be a nice gesture and generate some fun with reading the more silly responses for it.

I actually don't know what kind of knowledge a CEO must bring into the job. Knowing the product would be good I think and some business sense. Coding skills not really, but at least some experience in working with programmers and online systems. Someone from the online game industry might work or someone from one of the bigger online business sites. That is, if LL is not up for sale and destruction and this job does not include the clause to accept to be the one who will forever be associated with all the drama that will flood the whole internet once SL gets closed without providing systems to allow people to continue their build up existence on other grids … one could still say, that the future is bright, but all this light is so blinding that it is impossible to say if it is all the shiny things or the explosion of drama that is causing this.