Fri, 25/06/2010 - 13:34
It is strange, how fast things can move from time to time. A few slow weeks, following by a large explosion of news and rumours that spread aorund the grid and beyond. Of course, that was suspected since the SL birthday exhibition is usualy the time for speaches and so shortly after the viewer 2 debacle, the reductions in the LL workforce and right in the middle of a 'the sky is falling around us' atmosphere it was almost certain, that something would happen. And it did with Mark Kingdon, the Linden CEO, not apearing for his sheduled speach claiming a emergency that forced him to stay away. Shortly after this the rumour apeared, that M would leave the company and it quickly triggered a largely positive reaction from the residents.
http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/06/24/returning...
Interestingly it also caused people to state how this move has given them some of the spirit back to continue thier presence in SL, what shows rather clearly, what kind of image M Linden managed to get during the time of his rule. No matter Phillip Lindens own faults and the, sometimes rather disturbing, blindness of the cheering crowds that now welcome him back in the position of LL CEO, I guess his return will be better for SL. M was .. well .. the wrong person in the wrogn spot and only managed to drive the faith SL residents, LLs customers, had towards the comapny to new lows. Maybe things will change, but right now that is hard to predict.
After all, the recent LL restructuring is still on many people minds and while on one hand, there are future plans for SL visible on the horizon (new marketplace, mesh import) the overal future remains clouded like a unrezzed avatar. The recent jumping in the exchange rate of the L$ (for some time it reached a low of over 300 L$ for 1 US$) has done it's part to make people nervous as well. Some peoople have said, it pointed towards a mass sale of L$ to cash out before the restructuring of LL leads to a collapse of the overal L$ value, but it seems like the panic was short and didn't triggered any massive events. However while this was just a short hick-up in the system, the quick response by the then still CEO M Linden himself, seemed to me like a panic reaction itself trying to reasure everyone, that all is fine while in the backgorund everyhting was crashing down:
http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/06/16/an-update...
Now this is of course a bit of a exageration on my side, but that was the first idea I got after seeing this post. The L$ exchange is of course very important and the best description why, I have seen in the following blogpost:
http://www.massively.com/2010/06/12/the-virtual-whirl-the-bottom-line/
It is a interesting article and gives a good insight into the how and where LL is making their profit form the grid.
Of course, that was all before the birthday exhibition started and some people in LL managed to damage the companies reputation a bit more. Not that people would not have expected this happening, but the way the case of nothing less then art censorship has hit right at the start of the 7th SL birthday exhibition was a good reminder about all the shortcomings LL has in actualy following thier own rules or provide definitions or even treat everyone equally. I wont write up a full description of the events here because the text of this blog post is already getting way to long and rather point towards the following two articles:
http://justjoonie.blogspot.com/2010/06/naked-barbies-ejected-from-sl7b.html
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/06/the-director-the-avatar-his-rose-and-he...
It is rather disturbing to think, that LL allows itself to be draged down by over-conservative people who are to narrow minded to see everyhting that is further away then the tip of their nose. Especialy when this is happening at a event that was announced as being one where SL art is a major part in. Of course, it can be blamed on the 'moderators' who are volunters doing this for LL, but people selected to do this kind of work for tha lab represent the lab almsot like any regular employee. So their actions fall on LL and need to be acted on. Of course, it was acted on and the artists found themsleves banned form the exhibition lands and prevented access to the rest of their work still on display.
I can say .. great work, LL. Lets see, if the new change in the company will lead to a decreased influence of the narrow sided few who think that the human body is evil in itself and should never be seen by anyone. Now of course, I am getting angry not only because any such censorship is the last thing we ... also those people over there in the 'land of the free' ... should ever accept, but also because those isntalations have been, in my opinion, some of the best pieces in the whole birthday exhibition. Even when this year the whole set up is much better then last years, when everyhting had a almost depressive feel and a chaotic look like the worse piece of mainland. It was the future of SL, that, as I have written in my blog post about it, I didn't wanted to be part of. Now the future looks brighter and nicer, but it is still rotten within. Some nice colors and forced happiness wont cover the stench of censorship that was following me around when I have been visitng it. It is sad, that decissions by LL will ruin the whole exhibition for me ... so much of hard work and great instalations by other people there will remain unseen now. At least by me and the people who shared the opinion, that they can't visit the place anymore without having the feel of censorship eating away on thier opinions about what they see and encounter when teleporting to one of those sims.
But maybe .. maybe .. who knows? Things might change again. The future is hard to predict but the level of anger and critique directed at the lab in the past months was impossible to overhear. I guess that was the only good thing that came out of viewer 2.
Until next time (and I promise to write more often now .. really .. I write that only to make this claim official because otherwise I might get lazy again)
Rin Tae
