Greed Shepherd's Big Fleece: The Sheep Grab the Search

Bots land at the infohub.

Wow. I knew the Grid Shepherd sheepbot SEARCH, scraping all the parcel data in Second Life against your will unless you hear about it and decide to opt out in their data base, would lead to something pretty grim some day. I called it "The Greed Shepherd" in the Herald back in April 2007. I just didn't realize it would be this big, this bad, and this fast.

On October 24, millions of viewers of CSI:NY, a popular detective show on television, will cross over into Second Life, sending viewers to go look for clues on specially-created islands in Second Life. The Sheep, CBS, and a special team of Lindens are working on this strenuously, and many people are hoping the servers won't burn out, and the cross-media expedition will work to create a huge new infusion of customers to prop up Linden Lab's languishing overall growth of sign-ups and declining growth in premium accounts. It might be the Lindens' Hail-Mary pass, quite frankly, before they succumb to the inevitable loss of their customers to newer and possibly better platforms coming along. It's also Hail Mary for TV, as well, which is losing their customers to the Internet more and more.

To make the notoriously user-un-friendly and clunky SL experience better for those who want instant gratification from their perches as couch potatoes, the Sheep are making a new viewer. Who couldn't be more happy about that?! It sounds like a great solution, if some of the cluttery and geeky stupidities like BUILD buttons are removed or revised to ease the new user's experience.

Except...the Sheep got greedy in doing this and also decided to make the SEARCH not hook up or relate to the SEARCH inworld run by the Lindens, for which we pay $30 for SEARCH or $50 minimum for CLASSIFIEDS, but to make THEIR OWN SEARCH which ONLY finds ONREZ shopping site and other products and what is scraped by their bot scanning parcels in SL. Giff Constable, when confronted about this, says that "hopefully" his viewer will "offer both" but that's like saying, on a new easier-to-use viewer, "You can take the bus to Buffalo over there for 9 hours, or hop on this shuttle here we'll provide complimentary drinks with, it's up to you."

Well, who could disagree with a company paying for what they do by featuring a special button for their own shopping site? That doesn't bother me, even though frankly, I continue to find the offerings on OnRez pale and hard to find by contrast with the resident-run Slexchange.com. But...it's not just a SPECIAL button, apparently, from everything we've heard, it's the ONLY button. The other things will be "hidden" or "invisible". Just how hard to find, remains to be seen when we can actually examine the viewer, which we can't do yet (I signed up for a beta list, but it is so overwhelmed with requests I'm unlikely to see it -- and that's essentially the problem with the Sheep, as always, is that they create something in secret, sign up everybody to NDAs, you hear about and express concerns about it, then they whack you over the head for not knowing this or that detail about it which was...uh...secret anyway).

It seems pretty clear, from all accounts I've received from those that *have* seen the viewer, that SEARCH PLACES is not part of the big party on October 24th. CLASSIFIEDS is evidently also hidden from view. Can anyone comment?

So this idiotic Linden mantra that this dedication of their time and resources to just one special company will "eventually help everybody" is utter bullshit. It won't. It will help that one special company they've been nurturing since the dawn of time. The TV viewers won't get to use the SEARCH and find the REST OF the businesses in SL outside the Sheepscape.

In fact, did our retarded Lindens here realize that THEY will suffer a hit to their classifieds and search ads, when they become obliterated by the fact that MILLIONS of new customers will no longer see them, but will by default, by ignorance, by choice, by exigency of circumstances, go on using one company's viewer that only sees what Grid Shepherd could scrape?

If you opted out, or didn't opt in more carefully to make sure the right things were showing up (remember when every single TV set out to sale temporarily to deed to group was showing up as an object for sale by the Shepherd?!), you may not be viewable.

I opted out long ago, and urged a boycott of the Grid Shepherd. This was merely a token protest, but I was surprised a number of people wrote to me that they were doing it. I continue to see people spontaneously ban Grid Shepherd from their lots.

But now, if you didn't opt IN you will be invisible. Some people may hastily go opt-in by October 24th to prevent the eventual death of their businesses. Don't forget that this influx of TV viewers, about which SLifers are skeptical, could in fact BECOME the next Second Life community itself, as I've explained in what I think is a hugely important article.

I won't be opting in, even if it means that the next generation of customers to Second Life are in a skin under which I and my rental offerings are invisible due to the grab by one company.

Because we all have to fight for a plurality of companies in SL, and not have it dominated by one. The problem of LL's domination of search now, and its crappy search, isn't to substitute it all with one third party. (I'm actually not the big critic of LL's SEARCH that Forseti/Giff Constable has been, and of course his criticism has been dictated by the big grab he was about to make for eyeballs under his control).

I personally simply don't like the idea of the ESC having all my proprietary data instantly available. And you should care, too. Your business is now completely transparent to Linden Lab, whether you like it or not. They know exactly who your customers are, what they do, when they log on, where they travel, how much they pay, what your occupancy rate and sales data are, which parcels you've checked off for adult activity. It's bad enough the Lindens have all this (and that means big businesses like IBM or Cisco wouldn't entrust their comms to this platform), but it's far, far worse when an uncontrolled third-party that didn't sign the TOS of privacy restrictions that LL provides, and whose privacy policy is merely a confirmation of what I'm saying, not a mitigation, takes it over. Yes, the ESC policy merely says "we will use all your search data, ktx, bye).

Oh, I don't think we have to worry that Forseti will start a blog saying "Did you know that avatar X, whose IP shows him to be in Y country, is visiting Hard Alley and spending 4 hours?" That's not my point,.

Of course their harvesting of search data will be in the aggregate, so that they can tell what are the most popular places, really, outside of those gamed by camping; where are the most log-ons, etc. etc. AND STEER THEIR ADVERTISING BUYERS TO THEM.

You see how it works?

And no accident that they are also creating a huge ad network in which they will not place ads on existing properties themselves, but have you offer to them space to place their ads. This *might* be an opportunity to clean up the microbaron expire -- but more likely it will be an infusion of capital that will sustain them for a long time to come, unless ESC can make rules against signs being on land set to sale at extortionist prices (or any price) or unless ESC can in advance refuse to serve known ad farmers like Robo Marx or Ancient Shriner or Chrischun Fassbinder or BTE or the list of all those using this unscrupulous ad tactic.

Big companies doing big destructive and disruptive things in Second Life always tell us this is for our own good, and that it will bring in more customers ultimately that will raise the tide of all boats. But not if they are invisible.

The good news is that so far, when people have tried to bring in television shows, like L-word, for example, they just don't stick in such large numbers as to become disruptive -- or rather, to have the greed of their handlers become destructive. They don't get traffic. As good as they are -- and I was the first to praise the Sheep's job on the L-word orientation center -- they cannot replace user-generated content and user-driven story lines and experiences -- they can only supplement them.

But...TV companies and ad companies are very greedy now. They want to overtake the scene in VWs to help replace their diminishing audiences and revenue. Meanwhile VWs are desperate to have more customers, as they are still very much a niche activity with booming and bust populations and lots of competition between platforms. Destroying the village in order to save it, however, just doesn't work to build the industry.

Hopefully, this giant Sheep grab for eyeballs and the Google role of Second Life will impel our feckless Lindens to improve and roll out their own better SEARCH. I'm told that is exactly what is happening. Then they can continue to grab new sign-ups outside the maw of the big TV grabs hopefully -- unless they decide simply to cave and let third-party companies do all this because it's just too much work for them.

There's another option, and I wish LL would step up to the plate: they can license these special browsers only if a) the companies sign the LL TOS ensuring the level of privacy that the current LL TOS does and b), far more importantly, they insist that the search data aggregated and analyzed are made public and accessible to all, and not turned over to become the proprietary information of just one company to exploit for its benefit.

Comments

[Tenshi Vielle]

Prokofy, are you becoming senile in your age?

The search button, while missing certain elements we had on the Linden viewer, now contains a hit-all search that allows LINDEN content and PROFILES and other in-world things to pop up under the SAME search area. It's just like using the general search. Nothing different.

I'm not sure what search you're talking about that only hits up Sheep-related things. :)

[TheDiva]

Gawd...I can't even read past paragraph the 5th paragraph. I've been using the OnRez viewer and I'm not sure what sort of conversation you conducted with Giff, but you see misinformed. Search, Places, Classified - it's all here.

[Prokofy Neva]

Gawd yourself, Diva. Giff himself says it is "hidden".

Please send a screenshot so we can see what's up, Diva. I've had report after report that the Search and Places is for Sheep stuff, not the generic stuff -- and that the Sheep stuff is fronted and the regular stuff is hard to find, and buried.

It's not that I'm "misinformed," as I took the trouble to ASK about this and ask on Giff's blog, and got an answer already.

[Prokofy Neva]

Tenshi,

Um, I'm not senile, I'm talking to the Sheep themselves about this.

And in their description -- read it! -- they say they are featuring SHEEP STUFF and they admit that in fact the other stuff is HIDDEN.

If you are one of those lucky feted few with a viewer already, send a screenshot : )

[Prokofy Neva]

Here's the answer from his blog:

"#

BTW, we are not taking Linden Lab’s search out of the viewer, but hopefully offering both and allowing the user to choose and set their default.
# Prokofy Neva
October 15th, 2007 16:53
4

Giff,

I really need to hear a LOT more about what “hopefully” means. You had said before quite explicitly that it is “hidden”. And by forcing people to chose and not toggle, you are going to make sure you win, especially on a browser that in fact is easier to use with your customized features. There are very, very troubling implications here as your company instantly Googlizes the world and becomes the Google without even a Yahoo in second place really visible.

http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/10/greed-shepherds.html

Only if ESC publishes the aggregated search data so that we can all share in what we all generate as data about what advertising hot spots are could you hope to rectify this situation."

Also, neither of you two gals seem at all troubled by the attention economy statistical windfall that one copy gets from this.

BTW, are you both on the Sheep payroll in any way?

[Prokofy Neva]

If you have to chose, then the other one becomes HIDDEN.

[Prokofy Neva]

Could anyone else who is NOT on the payroll and not a fanboy who has the viewer please look at these issues:

o how prominent is the Sheep Onrez search by contrast to the Linden search

o do you have to chose between one or the other

o if you opt for OnRez/Sheep, can you even still access the Linden search without going through a set-up again

o Is the Sheep search so demonstrably visibly better or easier to use or something that it makes the Linden search obsolete -- with all those paid classifieds in it.

IN short, I have a simple question: I'd like to know if I and thousands of other classified buyers need to NOT buy ads the week of October 24th because that interface is about to be BURIED by a million new members of Second Life.

That's all!

[Tenshi Vielle]

Wait, you don't even HAVE the viewer, Prokofy? SHUT UP THEN! Cripes almighty, you don't even know what you're talking about.

On the other side, I have a viewer and you don't? HAH!

[TheDiva]

http://nwn.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/10/15/onrezviewer.jpg

Notice in the search you see the SL Logo - there is an option for SL or OnRez. Additionally, when you search (using that area) by key words/names/places - the old search you know and love will appear.

[Tenshi Vielle]

Also, you misquoted Giff to your advantage and linked to it :) Being a tard is hard, I know. It's okay.

[Giff]

You are so funny Prok, and by funny that I mean bizarre. First of all, I love the fact that you call SLX a "resident-run exchange" when Apotheus and Anshe Chung are business people just like anyone else.

Second of all, I never said that LL search would be hidden but that users would be able to choose. Where did you get "hidden"?

You've had "report after report"? No one has seen this viewer, Prok, not even Nacon, who is also screaming about something he has never seen and knows nothing about.

I say hopefully we will have both search services in the OnRez viewer because there is a chance we will only have the Linden Lab one, and *not* ours.

You are amusing in how you flip flop from capitalist to socialist like (insert metaphor). It's not LL's viewer, and we have no requirement to support their search service. The money you pay Linden Lab's search service carries no weight, anymore than your listing fee on Monster.com should carry over to a listing on CareerBuilder. You rail against the Linden gods and yet you do everything in your power to scream about anything that might be an option to the Linden gods.

We want to offer services that contribute value to the user, and Linden Lab's does exactly that, which is why we will include it.

We want to provide a useful viewer so people CHOOSE it, because they have a choice, and we fully understand and appreciate that.

As usual, you are full of sound and fury, but (you can finish the phrase, oh erudite prokofy)

[Prokofy Neva]

Giff,

People using this viewer reported that it is HIDDEN.

And if they CHOOSE ONE, i.e. the one that it defaults to, or the one that looks cooler, then the other is HIDDEN. Sure sounds like it to me!

They aren't BOTH available.

And you are no longer a resident company, you are a big business representing a real-life company, CBS. Sorry, but Anshe Chung and Apotheus at Slexchange.com may be "big" but they are not outworld, real-life businesses in the sense that their major center of gravity is outside the virtual world.

With a huge client like CBS and some of your other clients, you are a real-world business, and whatever your "indigenous" roots, you are far from them now.

But people *have* seen this viewer, Giff! Hello!

You've just powerfully revealed your hand with this flippant remark, Giff:

"It's not LL's viewer, and we have no requirement to support their search service."

Wow. That's just -- just total blue-balled arrogance, Giff. Then hey, if you don't have any "requirement" to support the search service of a company that just SET ASIDE A TEAM OF STAFF, that takes away from the rest of the many things that need to be done in SL, then um, ok.

There's no comparison between monster and careerbuilder. The difference is like saying "There's Google, and then uh...nothing else. Oh, well, you can use the print copy of the Yellow Pages".

We don't have a variety of services in SL -- we have one or...another one apparently. And that's the problem. So all classified ads that people spend on the week of October 24th are POINTLESS -- and clue up, Linden Lab, you are chumps if you think we will pay you for those ads when the Sheep will have a million people from a TV show coming in that will obviously default to the Sheep browser, and not the LL search.

I sure to rail against not only Linden gods, but third-party gods who become merely a WORSE substituite to the Linden gods. Because when the Lindens scrape my business and attention data, I can be more or less assured that they will stick to a privacy policy better than yours, and that they will not really be using it to try to screw with the inworld economy, by, for example, selling advertising to hot spots they've identified from their own server logs.

You will be. Once you suck out all the data from the search on your browsers.

It's good that this is coming out now and you're admitting it, rather than flat out denying it, which is what you've done with my past blog posts.

Um, you're the one who Signifies Nothing, Giff, because people hate greed. They just hate it. They may go along with it when they don't have a choice, but the minute they do, they will drop you so fast your head will spin.

If choosing the Sheep viewer means opting for a SEARCH that doesn't include the Linden search where we all pay $30, and the Linden classified where we all pay $50 or more, then I have to say: boycott the Sheep viewer.

And tell the Lindens they're chumps if they think we'll play this way where they license a viewer that undermines even THEIR OWN system of classifieds. My God, that's retarded. I'll bet they never even thought of this!

[Prokofy Neva]

1. I didn't misquote Giff, I cut and pasted, don't be ridiculous.

2. Tenshe, um, you're on the ESC payroll now? I guess we won't be getting any independent examination of this issue from the Herald! *cough*

3. The jpg I'm looking at from the Diva's link shows SHOPPING -- and hey, we know what THAT hooks up to -- OnRez stuff! -- and then a giant SEARCH -- just one box -- with the SL hand. But having a box for a huge big grab bag of all search stuff -- events, people, places, etc. without separate buttons/interfaces is a recipe for kasha to be generated, driving people to use the Sheep search.

And Giff just got done explaining, you will CHOSE. That means one is visible, one is used, the other is not. Uh...how many people, just logging on, will care about this issue?!

Only those existing residents might who also use the Sheep viewer, but if there are tens of thousands of new customers pouring in they will opt to advertise on either ONREZ or they will buy JoelG's ad networked ad space.

[Prokofy Neva]

BTW, why is everyone raving about this viewer? The buttons are really tiny, and they don't all make sense.

[Just Some Guy]

I for one welcome our new unsearchable woolen overlords.

[Wynter Loon]

Mr. Neva, where is the link to this new viewer? I would like to take a look at it and see for myself if you are correct or clueless.

[Prokofy Neva]

Wynter, it's not supposedly open to the public yet. Of course, being a fangirl and a suck-up, you may likely get one of them to show you. Try calling Giff or Cory Edo. Or else just get in the beta queue on their webpage.

Those who have seen it report. And read what Giff just wrote! You have to toggle between the searches and CHOSE one.

And guess what else! I complained to the Lindens about this. And a senior Linden said lamely, "Our viewer will be out soon enough". They also imagine people will come back to the "regular" viewer. And...why do they assume that?

If you log on to a game with one viewer and get used to it, why would you go back to something else?

As I said on Giff's blog, it's as if you said, oh, there's the bus to Buffalo for 9 hours, or toggle to our jet plane with complimentary drinks.

If you ever were to become part of the inworld economy and run a business inworld, Wynter, instead of jetting off to San Francisco all-expense-paid for SL Views and doing IT consulting or whatever the hell it is you do, you might have some grasp of these issues. But...you don't. So kindly STFU. You're the clueless one here.

[Veronique Kaminski]

"If a company has an investor who pays for a large chunk of that company’s investment, and that investor wants their own line or visible brand separately visible from the other brands, what of it? They pay. It’s like Martha Stewart at K-Mart. Hello?"

Prokofy Nevas comment on the fact that Ashne, when launching here 10L$ line, had a seperate catagory (=search) on SLexchange..

(http://www.vintfalken.com/10lindens-acs-anybody-pro/)

Now... what is different with the fact that searching for OnRez is made more "visible" on this viewer??

disclaimer: before you start your accusations Prokofy :no, I am not on the payroll of the Sheeps, neither on the one of Rezzable or whatever SL company. Even not payed by a RL company with presence in SL..

[Veronique Kaminski]

@ Giff; you mean:

"..a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more.."

I am afraid its just wishfull thingking...

[Giff]

This is illuminating:

"People using this viewer reported that it is HIDDEN."

There is only one search available to anyone using our viewer right now, and guess what, it is from Linden Lab. It is also smack dab in the middle of the top toolbar -- even more accessible than the current Linden Lab SL client.

So... you and your "sources" have no idea what you are talking about. Gee, when have we been here before? Copybot accusations perhaps?

[Prokofy Neva]

Giff,

Um, what happens when you press SHOPPING? Hello? What does *that* hook up to?!

And as we can see from the screenshot, that "one search box" is a box which contains ALL of the functions of the LL search -- Classifieds, Events, Places, People, etc. They are BURIED. They are no longer VISIBLE. There is no tab PLACES or CLASSIFIEDS, containing the ads which we pay for! There is one big SEARCH box.

That means EVERYTHING has to come out of that one box -- there's no more differentiated browser. That means the search returns are kasha. And you know it.

I'm glad it's smack dab in the middle at the top, where I have long asked that search be put, but having one box to return all the categories that are differentiated on the LL browser is hugely problematic.

Furthermore, you yourself just told us that there would be CHOICE, that it would toggle back and forth.

Gee, where have we been here before, Giff? I do hope you aren't still denying that Sheep employees knew about Copybot before it was launched and sold, and did nothing to publicize it and stop it.

Finally, people put in a search term into that one box that returns LL searches and...where do those search results go? Into the Sheep dbases.

What are you going to be doing with that information?

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, nice try, Veronique, but do you *read* and *comprehend*? Nobody would confuse you with being on the Sheep payroll *cough*.

As I've already said in this article (read?) and my post to Giff on his blog and elsewhere: nobody could care that if Anshe, or the Sheep, or Mickey Mouse, made a browser in which they put their own buttons advertising their own products, as the Sheep have done with the SHOPPING button. It only stands to reason that if they pay for the development, if they land a client like CBS and have a project like CSI, obviously they put in their own products.

But to put them in *to the exclusion of others and access of the regular search* is what is at issue here, Veronique, duh.

Giff has talked about how you can CHOSE -- you will *have to chose* and that means one will be visible, and the other isn't.

And as anyone can see from the screenshot, and what Giff is saying here about the one SEARCH box, the tabs that people pay for -- CLASSIFIEDS and SEARCH PLACES are now BURIED. Those tabs are no longer visible! They are underneath, in a huge big search grab bag that contains people, events, whatever. The returns are likely to be as much kasha as they are on the Lindens' web page, where they also only have one search box with no categories. There's no draw down menu, like Amazon.com when you can chose Books or Electronics.

And that means it is buried.

Furthermore, there is the ethical and proprietary issue that all search results, such as they are, go into the Sheep's hoppers.

Anshe Chung didn't create an interface where only her products are visible, and nobody else's are.

[Veronique Kaminski]

Well... if I read and comprehend what is written here, we are not talking about the Linden viewer..

So, excuse me for my ignorance, but why should a viewer of another company, who has his own (comercial) interests, show adds you pay LL for anyway?
Do you start ranting at Le Monde because they dont show the classifieds that you payed the New York Times for?
I think it is even more then fair that the whole search range is included, even if it isnt "ergonomically" structured..

"Giff has talked about how you can CHOSE -- you will *have to chose* and that means one will be visible, and the other isn't."

Well my dear Prokofy, fact of life: choosing for one thing most of the time means NOT choosing for something else..excluding something else.. you, with all your experience and wisdom should know that..

So, the same,you did make next choise about Grid Shepherd:
"I won't be opting in, even if it means that the next generation of customers to Second Life are in a skin under which I and my rental offerings are invisible.."

That is of course your good damn right and fully understandable. In the light of privacy issues I would do the same..

But I dont go venting off my frustrations about loss of clients in an article about the phone companys directory services. Especially not after first refusing to be listed in the yellow/white pages..

It seems to me that again we have a post here that at first sight fights for plausible causes, but really, bottom line, is as usual merely about Proks own little interests...

[Prokofy Neva]

I realize this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, Veronique, because you evidently substitute notions like "collective" and "bureaucratic centralist socialism" for another higher notion called "the public interest" -- and I can't fix that. The public interest isn't achieved through bureaucratic socialism.

SEARCH should be a public utility. When Verizon or ATT undertakes the job of making a giant yellow pages distributed in every home, while they are one monopolist company, they understand they have undertaken a public trust. You can buy larger ads in their book, but basically, everyone is sured of an equal "platform" -- there is an alphabetical list, and a category list, with all the businesses with telephones in it.

That's the spirit in which you have to undertake a search in a virtual world, too.

The choice here isn't a choice: it's like my doorman, who distributes the Yellow Pages to the entire building, saying "You have a choice: you can just get the K-mart yellow pages that only feature K-mart and their related properties they find interesting OR you can get this other yellow pages with everything".

That's not a choice; it's a funnel. Anyone can see that.

My "little interests" happen to be the interests of everybody who is in SEARCH paying $30 a week or CLASSIFIEDS for at least $50 if not $50,000 a week. And frankly, that's the public interest.

The New York Times covers the news, more or less accurately covering what the major stories of the day are. The NYT and IHT are a world standard. If they only covered what was of interest to the more leftist Le Monde and only from the French perspective, we would say, hey, that's a funnel. The New York Times simply has a greater reputation for covering more objectively. You may find Le Monde more objective; most people do not.

These aren't classifieds that are just viewable under the SHOPPING button -- as I keep explaining, that would be understandable.

It's the entire search. It's everything. People, places, events -- all buried.

And no, I won't opt in to a system that scrapes the parcels of my land without my consent, forcing me to opt out -- which is how it worked -- and I don't feel I should turn over my hundreds of tenants' privacy on their parcels, including their stores, to this scraper. I don't think that's right. I don't care how fancy and cool the skin is, I don't think all our search data should be turned over to one company.

You are so typical of the European socialist, Veronique, it always ends up defaulting to this horrid centralist bureaucratic and hegemonic response, under the guise of altruism. It's really quite sordid.

I simply do not see why the proprietary data, and the attention economy data out of our entire world has to get sucked up by one company.

When Linden Lab, owner of the servers, sucks up that data, we at least get the economics page back. We get at least some transparency of the statistics.

Do you think we'll be getting that from the Sheep?! Of course not! They aren't about to reveal to you the ad hot spots where they will discover they can best sell ads. But...that's our collective public data.

I imagine some of these things I'm saying will only begin to dawn on you when you log on with this Sheep viewer, and see how much is buried, and how every key stroke you make on that browser will be captured and sucked up into a proprietary dbase that you will never see any output from.

Maybe when that begins to sink in more, you will understand why search has to be a public trust, a public utility.

[Tenshi Vielle]

Prok, who said I was on ESC payroll?Or are you doing the usual crap-media thing of makng an assumption and hoping it strikes a chord.