Sheep 'Dance on Eggshells'

READER's DIGEST: Some 126,000 signed up to check out the CSI:NY sims, but the numbers of actual log-ons and retentions, and the ROI that might be expected from their clicks on CBS websites are not being revealed. The controversial SEARCH ALL in the new OnRez browser covering the more refined search in the LL browser was a matter of "chosing the poison" -- no other option was considered. No project under $1 million is likely to get ROI, surmises Sheep Chief Creative Director.

Almost no hard numbers for sign-ups or log-ons or traffic -- let alone ROI -- came from the Metanomics meeting today with Chris Carella (Satchmo Prototype), who told an audience of some 100 or more avatars on a half dozen sims that he was "sorry" he had to "dance on eggshells around the numbers we don't own."

At the end of the day, the Electric Sheep Company, as much as they rule our world -- or hope to -- are only the sherpas at the foot of the Metaversal Everest being attempted by Gentlemen Explorers like CBS. Satchmo volunteered a number of "126,000 sign-ups" -- but acknowledged this could have been far lower than possible due to server problems that sent the newbies from one Amazon server to another -- and even caused some CSI:NY watchers to go to the Lindens' website to download the regular client. Satchmo said LL reported a "surge" in sign-ups, but the *log-ons* for 3 hours did not reflect any surge, and in fact bounced around the 40,000 mark, going to 41,000 and then down to 38,000 even while people on the West Coast were still watching (regulars may have logged off for fear of log -- or even to go watch the TV show!)

Trying to get a handle on what the real numbers are for a caper like this seemed impossible, while CBS wasn't talking. Contrary to rumour, CBS did not "acquire" ESC; they have a minority stake in the metaversal development company with a $7 million investment that includes not just this project, but others like the L-word and some to come. After paying the Sheep for the build and the event management, whatever CBS got after that from their own website hits or however they measured their clickthroughs -- remains a secret.

Satchmo didn't provide any information about how many people actually showed up, stayed on the islands, and played the clue game. However, he did say he and staff were surprised at how these numbers continued to rise in the next few days, so there may be a asynchronous effect that might eventually help the whole world -- as the Lindens claimed to me when I asked them why they sold off the viewer to the highest bidder.

ASKING THE HARD QUESTION ABOUT SEARCH

Prof. Robert Bloomfield of Cornell University did attempt to tackle the "controversial" question of SEARCH (there's no controversy; instead it's community confrontation with the facts of a massive ESC spin cycle) -- but apparently didn't feel he could stay on the topic past the first blithe Sheep spin cycle.

What about the SEARCH ALL, and the button that only takes you to SEARCH ALL and requires you to figure out later to drill down to other tabs? Bloomfield asked.

Satchmo ducked and said "we had to chose our poison" -- and chose SEARCH ALL because supposedly something had to be chosen among all the tabs.

He did not explain why a pull-down browser couldn't be coded -- there are such things in the viewer already -- that would enable choice, or why a single button SEARCH wouldn't lead to a fully viewable set of search tabs. He said the objective was to get SEARCH off the bottom of the viewer -- a goal we can all agree on -- but then once on the top, their engineering decision was to simply make the Geek Keyhole called "SEARCH ALL" which many geeks say they use (Robert Bloomfield noted he wasn't a user of SEARCH ALL, as he found it useless).

Although some opinionated geeks go around claiming "search is broken," one rarely, if ever, hears *newbies* complain about search, although some find it difficult to locate the button at first, and have difficulty understanding sometimes why the returns all look different, because they all include the key word of the search term, along with other proximate words (there are actually people in SL not familiar with Google, either; they just aren't very educated, or are very young or conversely, very old and new to the Internet).

One person asked if the Sheep could have focus groups to discuss changes to the viewer -- the excuse there was that there had been such a rush to make and issue the viewer that there was no time.

One never understands what the "rush" is, when the Sheep had an NDA with Linden about some kind of project -- evidently related to search and the viewer -- as far back as 2006, and that they made the deal with CBS in January 2007. They've always been interested in a new viewer and a new search and have worked on it all year.

I don't see any good reason why SEARCH cannot be a button that has no SEARCH ALL box that merely confuses, and can't lead to the fully-tabbed browser. By forcing people to use ALL and get bad results returned, even if technically they can drill down to other tabs, they have to keep putting in new terms or drift to SHOP -- and that's the idea.

OPEN SOURCE = CLOSED SOURCE?

Several audience members asked how it came about that the Sheep could take an open-sourced viewer, that many residents had contributed code to, and now sell it to CBS as a proprietary licensed code. Satchmo went lurching off to talk about closed-source jpegs and Vivox or whatever code that is closed within the OS browser and at first cited *that* as a reason why the ESC viewer had to be closed, but then a more savvy audience member from SCTV pressed him further, asking why the usual custom with OS projects was not followed, whereby those using the code give it back.

Now Satchmo delivered the real story: that in his/ESC's interpretation, if Linden Lab had a dual license under GPL with their OS code for the viewer, which they released both as an OP code and, as he claimed, still claimed the right to sell it as a proprietary item (and they must have gotten some payoff, too, when they licensed the Sheep to have a "commercial use viewer), then by analogy or by precedent, the Sheep, too, could turn the open into the closed.

So let's get that straight: the one precedent where we know that the Lindens have sold their otherwise free viewer (anyone can sign up for free and download it) -- the licensed sale to the Sheep -- now becomes the precedent and justification for the Sheep turning it into a proprietary code.

Satchmo saw no contradiction and said that we should all read up on dual licensing. No doubt there will be those who shall, and will counter these claims, but it is disturbing to think of people working for what they imagine to be an OS project, only to find it swiped and sold for one company's profit.

Indeed, it's hard to understand what *is* so proprietary to this viewer, other than it has buttons that deliver people to the SHOP properties of the Sheep -- and here is where we all need to ask the questions of how much data they mine off the viewer or from avatars using the viewer inworld.

INWORLD ADVERTISING? VENUES FOR INWORLD BUSINESSES?

Someone asked about the Sheep's planned for an advertising system -- the question remained without an answer, though Sheep execs have discussed their plans for a networked ad service that would make use of existing resident properties for placement, evidently.

IntLibber Brautigan of Ancapistan had some very hard questions that both Nick Wilson and Robert Bloomfield completely ducked: "Why is it that while CSI showed off fictional SL businesses (none of which were actual SL businesses), why did ESC provide absolutely no advertising channels to other SL businesses on CSI sims? This seems inherently anticompetitive and ghettoizes the CSI fanbase from the wider SL community."

Of course readers know that the Sheep did have a Fashion Avenue that is the site of my latest comic strip called Watching the Detectives.

FIC reg Caliandras Pendragon said "that ain't true," and Intblubber retorted: "I checked out the CSI islands, there were no adboards anywhere, no SL businesses advertised."

That's an idea I hadn't considered -- having inworld businesses be able to sell on these islands through signboarding -- but of course that was never in the ESC plans -- they have enough to do displaying signage from CSI:NY and their main sponsor, Cisco. I suppose what we have to do is go not to ESC or CBS but Cisco and ask if they can weave in things like Prok's Seafood into their elaborate Human Network interactive advertising off the CSI/SL mash-up lol.

Of course enterprising SLers have already figured out how to put "CSI Special Sex Cum Tits Free Money" etc in their key words to lure in the detectives. Even I have some cabins that say "CSI! Fly Out of TV-Land Into Your Own Private Beach Cabin!" ROFL.

Some people asked if there were jobs as walk-ons at the CSI:NY sims -- apparently people got walk-on jobs in the The Office episode, but couldn't resist hamming it up. I guess aspiring actors and actresses have to realize *we are all walk-ons in Second Life but we pay for this privilege*.

TRAFFIC OR TRICKLE?

Last night, there were 56,000 log-ins -- about 6,000 more than usual. The first cold and rainy night of the season? The combined effect of The Office and CSI:NY? The Information Week article?

Satchmo noted that there was a "dramatic increase" in the traffic to the shop.onrez.com site -- no accident, comrade, when the SEARCH ALL sucked in the viewer, and people naturally glanced in the right-looker's position and saw SHOP and pressed it! Curiously, he seemed to claim that wasn't a desired effect -- but I can't help wondering if the Sheep *are* tugged towards helping their friends (like FlipperPAY's wife Jennyfur Peregrine, who was coded to show up higher than naturally possibly at OnRez) and not even doing enough for their big client, CBS.

WHAT ARE YOU GUYS SELLING?

The most fascinating part of this meeting came when Robert Bloomfield very professorially asked: what about economic rents? Only scarcity can make an economy, when there is some obstacle or friction, and people have to pay something. What's scarce about a freely downloadable viewer?

As LL always does when confronted with hard information about their business model after open source, Satchmo, too, did some dance-steps and talked about how Mozilla sells its home page to Google. He then went on -- you'll be blinking your eyes at this one! -- to say that ESC did not place advertising on the viewer or in the SEARCH. Huh? What do you call the SHOP button?!

Bloomfield pressed -- "How should inworld proprietary search model that you guy control, a Yellow Pages, a be a revenue model? Surely you expect to direct people to your busineses, your land, do you have a response?"

"It's completely Linden Lab's search, we're not directing people -- they're coming out with a new one," says Satchmo, incredibly.

Of course they're directing, by having SEARCH ALL which then drives people to SHOP -- and of course they're directing, with Fashion Avenue that has all their dozen or so select vendors! (Not sure of the traffic route of CSI newbies to getting to this venue -- that bears checking).

To palm off the problem of SEARCH ALL -- selected BY THE SHEEP -- on the Lindens as THEIR problem is completely disingenuous. You don't *have* to chose SEARCH ALL -- you can have the fully-tabbed browser. You could even build into the user experience and orientation even one sentence that lets people in on the secret that SEARCH tabs can be used to find the OTHER stuff in Second Life besides the CSI venue (!).

NO ROI IN PROJECTS UNDER $1 MILLION

But the most troubling statement out of this meeting for the long-term prospects of the Metaverse came in Satcho's finally frank statement:

"There is no ROI in smaller budget [i.e. $1 million] projects." They're finding that those who essentially came to SL, and just made a kind of rounding error in a marketing budget to accommodate projects under a million, don't see any ROI. Surprise, surprise?

But there is a market, says Satchmo, in "owning the whole experience" and having much larger budgets for walled proprietary gardens.

Walled proprietary gardens. Hey, isn't that what the geeks tell us are evil, evil, evil? That there must be constant efforts to overcome? Interop conferences? Open-source scripts and open systems that are "like the Internet"?

Satchmo is right -- probably MTV's Laguna Beach, which takes place within a walled garden, does better with product placement and ROI.

And the sad thing is that companies who *could* have a rewarding experience in SL -- and even an ROI over time spending anywhere from US $25 for a 2046 to $2500 for a mainland sim -- could be discouraged at the idea that unless they spend $7 million, they get nothing back. And frankly, with all the eggshells and dead rabbits strewn on the set, we can't even tell what the big guys will make.

Comments

[Alex Nikolaides]

They didn’t reveal the CSI:NY numbers because if they did, they would have to admit that the project was a huge expensive flop, probably the biggest in the SL corporate/media history.

If the numbers of the SIMs in CSI continent provide any indication, I just noticed that they cut back the SIMs from the initial 420+ to 108 (!?!), in less than a week after the show!

I almost feel sorry for the ESC and CBS “metaverse evangelists/executives” who have to explain to their bosses why and how their predictions and expectations (which came with a 7 million price tag) were so much out of touch.

[Prokofy Neva]

Alex,

The $7 million isn't just for this one show, but all their projects.

The numbers that may matter more to CBS are the numbers of people hitting their own website as a result of this campaign, and clicking on the ads. People inworld may be merely a sidebar to them, we don't know.

[Maxx Something]

I think anyone would be hard pressed to spin the CSI fiasco into a success. Honestly, I expected a crushing load on the servers that day but nothing of the sort seemed to have happen. 7 million dollars seems an awfull lot of money to me, even for several projects in world where only a handfull of people make $1000 a month. I haven't seen the ESC gloating about the CSI whatchamacallit, so I'd guess even they didn't see it as the success they hoped it would be. Had it been such a great success, I imagine they would be sharing their numbers with the general public.

[Dave]

LL are not the first people to use a dual license. All contributers have to sign a form agreeing to this.
For another example of this look at Trolltech, the authors of Qt and KDE.

As for the traffic, it went up 10%. What were you expecting? A bit of delusion if you expected much more...

[Alex]

I've just seen a neat hack of the OnRez viewer that can open *any* URL when the 'Shop' button is clicked! Marvelous stuff :-)

[Desmond Shang]

They might have had copyright issues, with regard to weaving in the usual metaversal native businesses.

I can't talk about it much, but with regard to some things that I've been involved in, I can give permission for corporations to 'visit' my Caledon sims but I can't really speak for what content they are allowed to record as machanima there, for instance. It's my region, but not my digital content.

Not that I think it would be much of an issue, unless someone really hit it big and made millions with "Prok's Seafood" as a major location in a movie, for instance.

I've noted the humble cash register that I made back in 2005 appear on the SL home page (yay! what fun! my 15 milliseconds of fame!) ...and then again saw it upon the cover of an SL book.

Which is just fine by me, but what if it wasn't? I can imagine eventual SL paparazzi getting some rather lurid shots of SLebrities someday, and things getting sticky re: copyright and privacy. Maybe.

Pure speculation, but that's my guess as to why the experience was so sanitised of native businesses.

[Aldo Stern]

That's an interesting theory, Des, but it still doesn't explain why away the fact that there was no process by which the creative producing population at large might have been given the opportunity to submit their work for consideration. Even if it was an issue with regards to "rights" I would imagine most content makers would have been happy to sign a release for use of their materials in the show and related promotional materials in return for an opportunity to fairly compete for a presence in the areas that ofer the chance to market directly to the captive CSI sign-up market.

[Prokofy Neva]

The idea that public spaces, and publicly visibly spaces in Second Life, should become proprietary and sold off with location fees to entertainment or media companies is pretty awful -- it's like selling the Brooklyn Bridge or the Trump Tower *viewing* rights and paying those owners fees to have them be in the background of movies. I realize there are actual wars about this even in New York City, but that's no reason for everyone to start insisting they get paid a fee for every screenshot or machinima -- that's a killer. That is -- let them try to collect a location fee, but don't let them try to sue somebody who snapped the Loch Ness Monster in Caledon in the background of their movie.

Aldo, I agree with you fully, but to think in that way -- of open bidding and fairness -- you'd have to be not-a-Linden and not-a-Sheep. The Lindens set the tone for insider dealing and privileging early on, feting certain ones they liked for whatever reason and giving them the exposure, and opportunities, and not others. They don't behave like an elected and accountable government that sends out 3 bids for every job transparently; they run a corporate insider system. Hey, it's not even a good practice for private corporations, but they say "this is how it is done in Sillicon Valley". Not sure that's even TRUE, but the fanboyz claim it is.

The Sheep feel under absolutely no obligation to open up opportunities for the rest of the world with whom they essentially compete when they land a big client like CBS. They want to make sure they front their friends and connections and give them the berths in the L-word and CSI stores, not just have "anybody" to whom they owe no favours. It's run like Russia or China, and run like a small town Chamber of Commerce in America, I guess.

[Desmond Shang]

>>That is -- let them try to collect a location fee, but don't let them try to sue somebody who snapped the Loch Ness Monster in Caledon in the background of their movie.

* * * * *

This was a fairly interesting question, so I made a quick call to Nessie's agent.

After the usual appropriate timing, indicating neither desperation for work nor disdain for business, her people got back in touch with my people.

According to Nessie's spokesperson, it seems that Nessie is okay with being filmed. But there are complications.

The agent is alright with it provided the exposure is good. Basic twilit, mysterious camera work supportive of Nessie's media image might even be as handy as a press release; it's good to stay in the public eye.

But things got hung up at the legal stage.

Nessie's SL lawyer is still trying to work out a cameo appearance on a possible CSI: SL Scotland Yard project, and is wading through metaverse contract law as fast as Ashcroft and the Neufreistadters can write it. It's not every day that a virtual animal made of prims cuts a deal with Old Media.

Admittedly it's a backroom deal, but such things have to be done with sensitivity. A sudden, unflattering change in Nessie's media image might ultimately affect the possibility of bringing her talent onboard.

Perhaps things wouldn't be so touchy, but Nessie has been sighted recently displaying behaviour that could only be described as, well, not very monstrous.

And one can't be too careful with one's media image these days, especially if you are an out-of-work lake monster hoping for a gig with the professionals...