Sheepish

The much-ballyhooed cross-media TV-SL mash-up in CSI:NY is now mashed -- and after a week since the first SL-related episode aired, the Electric Sheep Company, hired to handle the inworld production for CBS, has been forced to cut 420 islands down to 28. Perhaps they will claim that was "planned" -- but for a program tie-in that was supposed to last until February 2008, I don't think so. Traffic on the sims set aside for CS:NY hasn't been more than 14,000 (I'm told the average is 4,000); contrast that with the Greenies at 18,000, and the sex palaces at 180,000, and heck even Coney Island of the Mind, Home of Prok's Seafood, at 579 lol -- or camping free money Freebie Island at 127,000 -- which put "CSI" in their key words.

I've been watching the map night after night, and I never see more than 100 green dots on those islands at once, so it's understandable that they had to reduce the real estate -- which they may have been renting by the week or getting for free from SL anyway (we don't know the deal -- it's unlikely they actually bought 420 sims, which would have cost them $711,900 -- a lot even for a television company that views a campaign in SL merely as a "rounding error" in their PR budget, as Satchmo Prototype explained.

During this week, no full sims have been available on the mainland land auction and there's a "sold out" message, so we will probably see some used, slightly bloodied and trampled sims appearing as mainland next week, possibly named with the quintessentially quiet humour of the Concierge Lindens -- how about "Clueless," "Stumped," "Boggled," "Sol," "Upcreek" "Pwned"?

As inworlders, we've been watching the green dots -- but of course, who cares about green dots? Green dots are for chumps, as those only reflect the hardy salmon that swam upstream past the client download and load balance problems and had the right graphics card to land and turn around. The industry executives more likely want to see figures like "sign-ups" or "downloads" or something that they can at least claim as something in their sales reports.

We're not helped by SL's counter being broken since Oct. 24 (no accident?) with problems in the active users numbers.

Wayne Porter has some SL CSI:NY metrics, but they are merely taken from the Lindens' own pages, and don't look like anything new, not even the "baby avatar" increase -- and I don't know where he even gets 50,000 concurrent as I was watching assiduously, refreshing and keeping a record, and I actually saw it go to 41,000 then down to 38,000 over 3 hours. To be sure, a few days later it crept up to 56,000. Sales of Lindens are brisker, and went up to a whopping L$70 million today, but that's to be attributed to Halloween.

The real numbers to look at for CBS and the Sheep are their actual sales sites, shop.onrez.com and the special CBS site -- which I can't even find in Google right now.

shop.onrez.com has traffic shown on Alexa of 52,867 -- it was 42,000 yesterday, I saw it higher around the show date, but nothing earth-shattering.

contrast this with OnRez's main competitor, Slexchange.com, on alexa today: 13,725 -- and that's with no television show, just with Halloween (it was at 15,000 something a few days ago--the lower the number, the better the ranking on Alexa).

Slexchange.com shows a pretty stable traffic for that range in the last month.

Shouldn't we have seen a big spike for shop.onrez.com given the TV show and that special SHOP button?
There is a spike, but it doesn't appear that major of one.

I'm trying to figure out if this "126,000 sign-ups" that I *think* Chris Carella was claiming at the Metanomics meeting (not clear if he meant downloads of the OnRez viewer or actual creation of SL accounts -- and then how many came inworld?

I stopped by the sims very early this am and found a greeter fully confident that he would not end up unemployed as the Herald is saying. "If it's in the Herald, it must be true, right?" he snickered. "The show has only been shown in the US; the world is yet to see it :); ergo: we win."

This kind of arrogant hubris is typical of Sheep -- this twit told me he was booked through next June as a builder, but might be able to fit me in then (*rolls eyes*) and that he was ostensibly getting more than minimum wage as a greeter -- huh? Another greeter told me there were 40 of them to cover the sims 24/7, and they didn't anticipate losing their jobs next week.

This is the waning end of the era when we can give the lie to this sort of corporate hype because we can see traffic, green dots, figures with our own eyes. The Lindens will be taking all that away soon.

Most of the people I saw on the Sheep sims were either in appearance mode or flirting with each other and giving ages and location. The only person I saw actually following the clue trail was some Spanish TV station or something.

Another orientation had a whopping 3 greeters bunched up who told me they had to work, and couldn't talk. There 5 other people on the sim besides the reporter and me; two of them were trying to get SL just to work, but they'd joined a group called CSI:NY Fans which has now 1,498 members. An RP group that says they've been playing CSI in SL on their own for a year have 175 members. One savvy rentals groups offering board rooms and apartments has named themselves CSI Lab lol.

Comments

[Khamon]

"'Clueless,' 'Stumped,' 'Boggled,' 'Sol,' 'Upcreek' 'Pwned?'" - Prokofy

Okay that's just really funny.

"This is the waning end of the era when we can give the lie to this sort of corporate hype because we can see traffic, green dots, figures with our own eyes. The Lindens will be taking all that away soon." - Prokofy

Dunno, realtime graphical traffic representations are a keen tekkie mainstay. The cool featureness of it may outweigh the need to kill the messenger.

[Wayne Porter]

What is the point of the continual assuaults? Especially when

The linden system is poor, but it is SLOWLY getting better.

Actually "real-time" graphic represenations" are key and used in many metrics programs and if you look at early Google acqusitions, which neither of you do, you would know that. You have Second Myopia.

BTW I am glad Nick tossed you off the podcast show- you were the reason I stopped listening. Just start your own. I am sure there is a crowd of the unhappy.

I downloaded one and it just seemed to be an angry person showing how it was everyone' fault but theirs . I really feel bad you are that angry inside or that Second Life consumes so much of your time and energy in a negative way.

Rather than bother "witch hunting" you how about a disussion via phone or skype? Honest. Ill be nice as long as you are, probably longer.

I gather from in-world feedback you are a not really liked- that is ok neither am I at times.

But it doesn't deter me that you are disagreeable and abbrassive. I am sure you do something well (besides complain). Please enlighten me- no need for witch hunts. Let's hear some of your solutions or you can e-mail me privately if you just want to talk. I'll listen if you get beyond complaining about everything but your behavior, or we can do a cage match debate as someone suggested elsewhere. I do enjoy debates and it has been awhile.

(BTW sorry I thought you were a man at first).

Best,
Wayne

[Cocoanut Koala]

"Sheepish" - hahahahaha! You kill me.

I don't think they will ever get rid of green dots, even to protect corporations.

How would anyone know where anyone was, if they did that?

Now, they might get rid of the mouse-over thing that says "7 avatars" present, or whatever.

But we can always count green dots, no matter what, surely.

coco

[Cocoanut Koala]

Wayne, it looks to me like the concurrency difference was probably due to the fact that Prok was checking the figures at night, when the show was on.

Looks like that 50k you report was at 2p.m., well before the show aired.

Alexa is, of course, just another thing to look at. But that doesn't mean that it is invalid, for what it is, or that for some reason we should assume that SLExchange would game their numbers, and ShoponRez would not.

One can assume that both are doing it, neither is doing it, or one or the other is doing it. Because you can't know, you actually can assume nothing, and must just take it for what it is worth - just another of only a few available indicators.

Also, why don't you stick to the discussion, as Prok's blog entry here did, rather than all that personal commentary regarding what you like and don't like about Prok?

coco

[Cocoanut Koala]

Edit: I should say, "don't like."

[Prokofy Neva]

My, aren't you a dickwad, Wayne. You're one of the reasons we really have to fight hard against geek culture on the Internet.

We don't have "Second Myopia" -- you suffer from the Geek Keyhole, however.

I support Second Life the way it counts -- with my tier and my presence and my work. I feel more than entitled to criticize both the Lindens and the corporations that I believe destroy its openness and possibilities. What are you, a day-tripper?

I really am not impressed with anything called "real-time graphic representations" and "early Google aquisitions" if you can't live, work, interact, buy, sell there. It's not a world. And if it is, great, but, perhaps not the best of all possible worlds.

Quite a few people have written me or posted that they were unhappy that the podcast was ended but keep in mind: it wasn't my idea. It was Nick's idea. I went along with it, after being asked several times in fact. If it can't be free from pressure from advertisers or big players I wouldn't want it anyway. His "tossing me off it" was a mean-spirited and fearful act, and done under pressure -- and that's just not good for such an enterprise as a web site purporting to represent "news" -- which of course, isn't really what it has become. It's sort of a tech PR watering-hole.

I don't care if I'm "not well-liked" -- I have my conscience, and I live by its light, like it or not.

I am a male in Second Life. What are you? A kitten?

I'm not really interested in debating people who come just to poke and harass me because they enjoy trying to pull the wings off flies. I'll answer your response on your website. You have a lot to learn.

Cocoanut, remember how Daniel Linden (may he rest in peace -- he's gone to a better place!) had that vlogcast at Stanford? Where he talked about how great it was to erase even the very view of your fellow human being online in a world? And that tekkies freaked at the idea that "presence" wouldn't show? But that he was trying to win them over to this concept. Oh, I don't doubt the Lindens will put it in some day. Then you may not see green dots except those you've filtered YES to see.

Once again: I began watching during EST, at night. I refreshed my page ever 15 minutes for 3 hours. No, I didn't take breaks. No, I'm not retarded, I can refresh a page, and see what the number says. It went DOWN. Over the very hours of the show -- one hour before, during, and after, EST, at night. Silly me, something called CSI:NY seems to me something you'd monitor for peak times during um the time it was on in New York? Where I live. So...whatever.

Sure, they may have still been watching somewhere in the world, the West Coast, whatever. But it went DOWN. It did not go to 50,000. I don't even see where the 50,000 came from, except perhaps Tateru came up with it somehow, but she has written how the counter is broken.

I have no idea why you are stumping for big business running scared from losing their customers, and rooting for greedy metaversal sherpa companies. Hello? What stake do you have in it???

Everybody bitches about Alexa. We get all that. If you have some other place to go, let's hear it. Alexa is valuable for one thing: comparing two things measured with the Alexa system *to each other*. And here, we could see two shopping sites, one with one million new customers pouring in *cough*, one without. And the results are just...strange!

Seriously, I really don't understand what Wayne's dog is in this hunt, and what metrics he can point to, to show us there was some kind of surge from CSI -- when the Sheep cut down the number of their islands from 420 to 28, any idiot can see that, and they have 100 dots, any idiot can see that, and their traffic is 4000-5000 on most of the sims. I mean, these numbers do tell a stark story.

That doesn't mean the project is worthless -- 100 people on a project, 5000 people in traffic, hey, that's great, that's something, say, Greenies would be happy with and consider they'd be worth it. But...Greenies has 18,000. With no TV show. The Pond guy has 15000 -- with no TV show. Etc.

In fact, that's why the Lindens are getting rid of this visible traffic metric on sites like that which DO NOT use campers. And that's galling to the TV people and the Sheep who don't have the traffic.

[Wayne Porter]

Hi Cocoanut Koala

>Wayne, it looks to me >like the concurrency >difference was probably >due to the fact that Prok >was checking the figures >at night, when the show >was on.

Not sure how it was checked, so a bit more methodology is helpful.

>Looks like that 50k you >report was at 2p.m., well >before the show aired.

I reported what LL reported, no more no less. I have done a lot of my own analysis and I think there are better metrics. That was the quick point of my post...

>Alexa is, of course, just >another thing to look at.

No- Alexa is a very, very poor judge for factoring comparisons. So are most SEO tools (LI, PR, KPI etc). I used to think that but spent extensive time studying it critically. To throw it out as a figure and make a broad statement is just erroneous.

>But that doesn't mean >that it is invalid, for >what it is, or that for >some reason we should >assume that SLExchange >would game their numbers, >and ShoponRez would not.

Or that EITHER did. Again have seen it in numerous malware strikes. Also it depends heavily on the audience make-up...a number of factors. I am not accusing anyone of gaming numbers, but over 25-50k and the numbers are so dicey as to be almost useless. Anything over 100k is totally useless. OIll try to dig up podcast where Sam. H and I develop a methology to test the efficacy of keeping numbers "good". Child's play... :(

>One can assume that both >are doing it, neither is >doing it, or one or the >other is doing it. >Because you can't know, >you actually can assume >nothing, and must just >take it for what it is >worth - just another of >only a few available >indicators.

I would take it for what it is worth- about nothing. Same as achieving high SERPs for high KPI keywords, etc. Again plumb crawl the setup with Tor or something similiar and it is astounding.

That is why we are working on a new theory and new way to look at many "marketing problems" in some ways Sl is ahead and in many ways it is a dinosaur.

>Also, why don't you stick >to the discussion, as >Prok's blog entry here >did, rather than all that >personal commentary >regarding what you like and don't like about Prok?

Meant to put that in the one where she was "ejected from metaversed". However, the commentary is important I think because after reviewing all the posts, talking to a variety of people (I DO NOT know this person personally) all I hear are from them id doom and gloom without solutions. SL is flawed, some can be repaired, and some platform may very well annex it. But sitting through paragraph after paragraph of acid "nothing". e.g. basically rehashing problems that anyone can see. There really is little substance to the entries, just a lot vitriol. I'll reserve total judgement for the AV when I get to meet them in the world. I do have a complimentary I hate wayne porter shirt for em.

regards,
Wayne

[Prokofy Neva]

LL's reports are skewed. And not to be trusted. Nor are their faithful FIC friends at the Blingsider to be trusted. If you really are an industry metrics maven, you have to triangulate, and not just use these game companies' or world companies' own figures. Everyone knows that.

I'm not required to come up with solutions just because I expose the lies and the fallacies -- but in fact I constantly have solutions and constantly write long blueprints for SL all over the place, about how land or the community should be managed. I don't rehearse all my blog posts immediately at the drop of every gauntlet laid down -- scroll back, google, and if you can't find it, too bad, I'm not here to please you.

I made an important critique to your fatuous regurgitation of LL's numbers, Wayne, suck it up, you dine out on being some kind of metrics guru and don't even come inworld and open up your eyes and count the damn green dots, and then you piss on people who do. What a poseur.

The vitriol comes from someone like you, who has to ask what someone's background is, and hash over what their real gender is, and indulge in all kinds of speculative personalities, just because you're challenged. And then you feel entitled to be a dickwad. If pushing back against THAT is "vitriol" -- too bad. But it isn't -- it's normal stuff, it's self-defense, and it's defense of common sense and normalcy in this world very much skewed by companies.

[Prokofy Neva]

BTW, I'm amazed that someone like Wayne Porter, who acts like a 20-something griefer in his language and nasty approach to anyone challenging his "supremacy" *cough* could be in business lecturing governments on security. His mentality is one of the griefer himself.

Here's his bio:

"Wayne Porter is one of the original founders of ReveNews.com, and served as the CEO and founder of XBlock Systems a specialized research firm on greynets and malware research before being acquired by IM security leader, Factime Security Labs. His projects include the popular SpywareGuide and the X-RayPC Process Analyzer His recent work includes working with the Federal Trade Commission to help shape spyware policy and the creation of two patent-pending technologies to contain unwanted software on corporate networks. Wayne is a frequent speaker at e-commerce business events. Wayne currently works for FaceTime Security Labs , the world's leading IM and greynets security company, as the Sr. Director of Greynets Research. His hobbies include reading science fiction, playing chess, fishing, writing, collecting shiny digital gadgets, playing raquetball and studying memetic engineering."

http://www.revenews.com/wayneporter/

[Khamon]

"I don't even see where the 50,000 came from" - Prokofy

At church we call this 'ministerial rounding.'

[Maklin Deckard]

"That is why we are working on a new theory and new way to look at many "marketing problems" in some ways Sl is ahead and in many ways it is a dinosaur." - Wayne

And of course, your 'new theory' will be the ultimate solution to these 'marketing problems'? And like any good techie turned marketeer/PR flak, you complement the customer to puff their ego, then hit them with the 'dinosaur' part to sell the product. Seen that in tons of meetings, ain't buying it.

Prok's right. Just another tech-weenie who migrated into marketing and is tossing out three-letter acronyms to show off his 'leetness. I particularly loved the the typical 'well you're an amateur and your tools are not right, but I'm professional and MY tools are infallable' attitude that permeats the post.

Honestly, if this guy believes ANY numbers coming out of LL or the Electric Creeps, he's a complete chump. They all have an agenda to push, and all have motive to hide just how big a flop the CSI non-event was (from 420 to 28 sims in under two weeks...hrm, may such 'sucess' never find its way to the doorstep of my endeavors).

[Maklin Deckard]

"His hobbies include reading science fiction, playing chess, fishing, writing, collecting shiny digital gadgets, playing raquetball and studying memetic engineering." - Wayne

Memetic Engineering...hrm, let's find that on google....

Memetic engineering is a term developed by three individuals; Leveious Rolando, John Sokol, and Gibran Burchett while they researched and observed the behavior of humans after being purposely exposed (knowingly and unknowingly) to certain memetic themes. The theory is based on Richard Dawkins theory of memes.

* The process of developing memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others in society or humanity.
* The process of creating and developing theories or ideologies based on an analytical study of societies, cultures, their ways of thinking and the evolution of their minds.
* The process of modifying human beliefs, thought patterns, etc.

Hrm, Prokofy...you wondered what his dog was in all this? My guess is Memetic Engineering (aka, propaganda) on the payroll of some metaversal agency or corporation...or out of sympathy with their corrosive and misleading propaganda campaign lead by ESC. AKA, he's here to make us 'think right'.

[Khamon]

or wrongly, whatever pays best.

[catherwood]

Data point of one: me.

I am a big fan of CSI and CSI:NY as well as a lurker on the fringe of virtual worlds, so i was anticipating this episode. I signed up with SL for the first time just a week before it aired, to get my feet wet. (I had a mixed experience, btw.)

I do not normally watch primetime television after 10pm, as that keeps me up too late. But this was a special event, so I tuned in live. I giggled in spots, and made note of the URL (which wasn't a dedicated landing page, to my surprise), but I did not log into my computer. At 11pm, I turned off the TV and went to bed. I'm on the west coast, but for your statistics that doesn't matter. I delayed my visit to the CSI site until the weekend.

And still, I haven't gotten into the lab. My initial reaction was, "this looks like I need a special plug-in, not the standard SL viewer which I bothered to preinstall? Oh well, maybe later." Maybe this weekend. Or not, since Myst Online: Uru Live is having an episodic update that I simply must make a priority. This CSI thing will be available for months to come, so what's the rush?

Again, it's only a data point of one, but I am a motivated fan who will not become a "green dot" at any particular slice of time. Aggregate numbers will be the only real measure of success, and you cannot unique the visitors by a simple graphic overlay (in my limited understanding of the service).

[Prokofy Neva]

Memetic Engineering, dear God, I've heard of that, what a dick. Whether engineering or reverse engineering or social engineering with a site like that, fuck it, I don't play memes.

And I guess the moral of the story is this: if you refuse to "engineer" to accept my memes, then I come and stalk and harass you and call you names and even reference your real life and all the rest, anything to try to subdue you to my agenda. Ugh. Well, it's a classic case of the way many geeks have behaved in Second Life.

catherwood, we all realize that this game is asynchronous, that the "million" could potentially come over time, in dribs and drabs. That's been said by some. But when they bragged about the "million" or even "the 27,000" they implied it would so overload the existing servers that they had to do special tricks to accommodate it, and that's why they had all these islands and a team of Lindens dedicated to this project.

I'm quite prepared to believe that people will keep coming, especially if they hype another episode for February. But...it's way, way less than they anticipated. They don't have enough other kinds of events and hype -- only the game itself which doesn't seem terribly compelling.

I can imagine that just like many of us who couldn't get SL to work the first time, or it worked badly, there will even be some people so excited they will go out and buy a new graphic card, or even save up for a new computer, and eventually log on. That would be fine, if CBS and ESC hadn't bragged that they'd be burning down the servers, if they'd been more modest in their proclaimed explanations.

But they weren't, and we have to call them on this.

[Cocoanut Koala]

1. Well, Wayne, the world just doesn't function in a 0's and 1's - either perfect or entirely useless.

The Alexa thing DOES provide information. It is information that can be added to other sources of information. By collecting information from various sources, one can become more . . . informed.

Now, how reliable any particular set of information is is another question.

Reliability is on a continuum, and can be assessed or estimated numerically (or by being given a letter grade, as Sir Bruce uses when assessing the reliability of his various sources of information regarding membership numbers, gains and losses, for online games).

That things such as anomalies, or gaming the system, sometimes occur which would skew the results, would, of course, lower the confidence factor of any source, but would not necessarily render all information gleaned through that source to be meaningless or irrelevant.

So it makes more sense to estimate reliability and validity of each source, while taking the information on board as information, coupled with a confidence factor, than to simply reject any source out of hand because it isn't perfect, or because you don't like it, or because it doesn't show what you would like to see.

You seem to be saying that the information posted on Alexa is always so close to random that one may as well not even look at it. I would disagree with that.

I would accept the information and put it into the overall mix, while bearing in mind to what degree I consider that information might be flawed.

In any case, I always find the Alexa stuff to be pretty interesting, and in addition,the things we are talking about here were never over 100k.

The information on Alexa regarding SLExchange and OnRez also corresponds quite well with the anecdotal information I've read and heard from people as to which site receives the greatest use and the most hits, and which site delivers the most sales.

And all that also corresponds with my own experience in using both sites to make sales.

(If Alexa showed opposite findings, now that WOULD be a surprise.)

2. Moving on: Regarding the numbers going down over the evening for concurrency, that is what I observed too, and what I've read others observed. (I don't think I've read anyone who DIDN'T observe that.)

I bore in mind that at least part of that might be due to regular SL players not logging on, knowing that CSI was going to air that night, and thinking the grid might be overwhelmed.

But even if so, the numbers of CSI participants (who could have been on more than just the CSI sims)were still not coming in great enough numbers to cause concurrency to rise overall, rather than fall overall, that evening.

In addition to keeping an eye on the sims all night (- in case I haven't mentioned this in this particular blog entry -), I also counted the people in each sim cluster starting at 11:30 pm SL time, when I CSI had aired on the West Coast and I figured it had gotten as good as it was going to get.

The total of people in the 105 sim clusters at this snapshot in time: Roughly 802.

This was a disappointing number, and overall, the entire evening was disappointing. Far fewer people came than most of us expected, I think, and certainly far fewer than ESC were expecting, and indicating that we could expect.

The small numbers at any given time during that night would further indicate that the number of people on the CSI sims had little effect, relatively speaking, on the concurrency number. There were just too few of them to make any meaningful difference.

Again, I'm not sure how the 50k concurrency at 2 pm could be tied to the CSI show, which didn't come on till later.

One would have to think that most of the CSI viewers got on early in anticipation (highly unlikely in my opinion, since I had checked the CBS CSI fan forums earlier, and found almost a total lack of buzz on them about the event), and then left before the show aired, rather than coming on after watching the show.

My conclusion is that the 50k concurrency at 2 pm likely had nothing to do with CSI.

And of course, I also bore in mind what Catherwood has said here, which was that not everyone would rush to their computer the minute the show ended, and we might see it pick up speed in the days and weeks ahead as the whole thing gradually "catches on."

(I'm surprised, from my perusal of the CBS CSI forums, that Catherwood even knew it was happening that far ahead of time!)

For me, though, the disappointing performance of the first night kind of dampened my enthusiasm, and I haven't been following it since.

Prok has, though, and it looks like it has yet to "catch on." Oh well.

coco

[Prokofy Neva]

Cocoanut,

I can't even find these forums now -- but yeah, I heard there was a lack of buzz. Do you have the URL?

I keep trying to find something in Google -- can't find it. Gave up.

Alexa is good for comparing to each other, no need to keep trying to argue with Wayne, he's being a contrarian.

50,000 concurrent is what we've already had in SL. Sorry, but CSI is not responsible for that. Read back issues of the www.secondlifeinsider.com now at massively.com and go see what the numbers and sign-ups before CSI were. Read the economics statistics. There is no 50,000 due to CSI -- far from it.

There were rubber-neckers from existing SLers who went to the sims at 2 pm possibly, but not the TV people. All you have to do to follow this is do some old fashioned reporters' shoe-leather work. Go to the sims. Talk to people. And find out -- there are some real TV people; and there are too many greeters like Tienshe tripping over each other.

The traffic doesn't lie, either, It's at 4000-5000 on most of the sims.

I get that on an average day in the infohub which supplies newbies coming off OI and also just repeats from those wanting tutorials. So 4000-5000 to me is a number you get *anyway* from any newbie orientation portal.

[Stephen Keaveny (JoiKoi )]

Here a nice release for everyones Sheepish frustrations http://www.sheepsofrage.com/
Enjoy....
I know its shameless branding for Sony but its still fun!

[Wayne Porter]

Prof,

>LL's reports are skewed. And not >to be trusted. Nor are their >faithful FIC friends at the >Blingsider to be trusted. If you >really are an industry metrics >maven, you have to triangulate, >and not just use these game >companies' or world companies' >own figures. Everyone knows that.

I have not proclaimed myself a maven. I simply cut and pasted what they report and offered what I feel would be "better analysis". I do not accept anything at face value.

>I'm not required to come up with >solutions just because I expose >the lies and the fallacies -- but >in fact I constantly have >solutions and constantly write >long blueprints for SL all over >the place, about how land or the >community should be managed. I >don't rehearse all my blog posts >immediately at the drop of every >gauntlet laid down -- scroll >back, google, and if you can't >find it, too bad, I'm not here to >please you.

Granted. I am not asking you to please me. However, unbarred negativity without some sort of counter productive simply turns me off. You seem to have a good grasp of the problems (we both agree there are a myriad)- I prefer to see what you think would be a better work around.

Lengthy blueprints I know get ignored, I have proposed some things in the past, maybe micro-chunking them into palatable and bit sized amounts will get the uptake of good ideas.

>I made an important critique to >your fatuous regurgitation of >LL's numbers,

Again read carefully...I offered what I thought would be better metrics and for that matter have some of my own metrics that are more telling.

>Wayne, suck it up, you dine out >on being some kind of metrics >guru and don't even come inworld >and open up your eyes and count >the damn green dots, and then you >piss on people who do. What a >poseur.

I was in-world and counting "green dots" doesn't mean much if you can't trust, as you say, the very system you critique. I have never proclaimed to be a "guru". However, I do have a background in online metrics.

>The vitriol comes from someone >like you, who has to ask what >someone's background is, and hash >over what their real gender is,

Gender was an honest mistake. I apologized for that. As for background- yes- if you are arm chairing and making conclusions based on rather flawed systems you are leading people on the wrong path. Thus I don't care if you have a degree, etc. but I would like to know what experience, etc so I can judge that it isn't someone barfing into the blog pool, but making astute observations.

>and indulge in all kinds of >speculative personalities, just >because you're challenged. And >then you feel entitled to be a >dickwad. If pushing back against >THAT is "vitriol" -- too bad. But >it isn't -- it's normal stuff, >it's self-defense, and it's >defense of common sense and >normalcy in this world very much >skewed by companies.

I am not upset at Prof. Dish out what you like. Again, commendable that you reveal things or fallacies, some counter balance makes it come off as a better critique.

Ultimately, based on MY numbers, Second Life has improved since year and half or so ago when I first joined in, but there is a long way to go. However, I appreciate the complexities of a dynamic system like Second Life.

regards,
Wayne

[Prokofy Neva]

Wayne, you truly are stubbornly test. Green dots represent individual avatars. They are as trustworthy a measurement as you will ever find in this world. The sim can be set to hold 40 or 70 of them -- and that's it, no more. So sorry, but green-dot counting is totally objective; if you can't grasp that much, it's not even worth talking to you.

Um, I'm not obliged to "micro-chunk" for your "uptake". Go fish. My ideas are proposed all over the place, I'm not required to regurgitate them. And what we're doing here is discussing specifically the Big Lie of claiming before this event that "a million people come in the door" and seeing we don't even quite have 130,000, of which perhaps 30,000 might be coming -- and not even. We're looking at metrics to measure hype, and finding it terribly wanting. Many of the assumptions made about the whole thing were wrong, and it's been hard for the producers to admit. This doesn't require some positive program of reform concepts; it requires telling the truth about what happened in the field.

I've made a lot of astute observations about the Sheep hype. I'm not required to produce my resume. I can always be Google witch-hunted for the prurient.

Online metrics do not mean shit with Second Life. Sorry, but try-mes, downloads, even subscriptions -- they are all false measurements. Only really hard numbers matter -- say, those who spent more than one dollar inworld. I've written about this repeatedly, that it must be judged not as a game, though we might call it that merely as a convention, but as a world, one that has a GNP and a population, not subscriptions and expenditures during log-ons. Once you recast your thinking to understanding it like Estonia or Fiji, and stop trying to see how it's a pale version of Facebook or World of Warcraft, you will stop spinning your wheels and huffing about web metrics, which are irrelevant.

[Wayne Porter]

As for "memetic engineering"...I study it it is not even a canonized science. It revolves around how ideas can replicate, or their fecundity, etc and move like genes (memetic, genetic) throughout the compressed mediums that we have today. How resorting to ad hominem attacks on a person serves a purpose I don't know. If you took my gender correction as an attack, apology has been made and I say it again.

but..

"Alexa is good for comparing to each other, no need to keep trying to argue with Wayne, he's being a contrarian."

No, I appreciate argument or debate. I am not out to "win" anything. I am not being contrarian. I was simply posting, based on a decade of experience in metrics, that your conclusion is flawed. Alexa has been (although it has improved too) gamed, manipulated, and based on a small subset of users. Thus using it as the sole yard stick is just as bad as using LL words and accepting them as gospel, and if LL's metrics are skewed as you say (and they are I think) using them and Alexa together is still flawed.

Server logs would be the best, but they don't paint a perfect picture either- e.g. cookie attrition, javascript off, cookie deletion, use of proxies, affect by web agents, affect by malware, etc, etc.

TO Cocoanut Koala:

Yes it does provide information. But it is like SEO practitioners using select pieces of information to defend the decaying SEO industry. It is simply not the best metrics. It is easily manipulated. Granted the closer you get (say top 1000) accuracy tends to improve.

Ultimately the metrics provided in-world are sub par. That is the sad truth of it. It looks like they are making an attempt to factor in emergent metrics (Stickiness, engagement, Lift, curiosity) but not doing a good job of it.

What is exciting is that better metrics can be developed (and I offered up a chance to talk voice or via mail if you want too)...snip from earlier post here:

"Much like Second Life and actually building and vending products in the 3D world…when you throw in that Z coordinate suddenly things like Engagement, Curiosity, Influence, etc can be measured. :) I am ashamed to say it took me months to puzzle that out, but it is a reality and why it still holds my fascination- among other reasons…e.g. acceleration of relationship formation, the impact of the lack of accountability, Avatar as proxy, etc, etc. The issues are multi-fold and momentous and only way to get a grasp on them is to participate. Easy to get into but a steep learning curve to gain mastery.

- Performance marketing companies don’t and won’t get it because they are classically too focused on product improvements instead of pure R&D and rewarding change agents. Rather than improve a system it is about gaming the system…although I argue some gaming is healthy and a little entropy is good because it destabilizes the system. Sidenote: If you cannot control the entropical forces acting on your system you join them or buy them."

In summary, I think it is great you are using a sharp mind for critical thinking. I do applaud that, but this researcher would also like to hear alternative solutions from the same mind. Based on feedback others would too.

Just my personal preference, and as you said "not here to please me", but I think your ideas would go farther by tempering the salt with a little sugar. Fair enough?

Otherwise, like the podcasts, you come off as a disgruntle caitiff. Not fair, since I don't know you, but that is how it comes off.

regards,
Wayne

[Wayne Porter]

"Wayne, you truly are stubbornly test. Green dots represent individual avatars. They are as trustworthy a measurement as you will ever find in this world. The sim can be set to hold 40 or 70 of them -- and that's it, no more. So sorry, but green-dot counting is totally objective; if you can't grasp that much, it's not even worth talking to you"

Thanks. If LL's metrics cannot be trusted, as you say, then why trust "green dots"?

You can't say LL continually provides faulty metrics, then use their "green dots" as objective. Ad Hoc Fallacy. Does that make sense?

The only way is to build third-party systems to audit such things. Since it appears Google is now alive and well in the Second Life system (and I continually see where they rub shoulders) I imagine if anything happens metrics might get better. Then again Google isn't perfect either.

truly yours,
Wayne

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, well, it's only in the foolish consistency that is the hobgoblin of little minds that the aggregate numbers represented for the day off the web site *couldn't* be wrong; and if they *are* then that renders the green dots invalid. But...the green dots are valid, as anyone can see, when one is among them. The website numbers are screwy, as Tateru Nino, the tekkie extraordinaire obsessive who follows them daily, will tell you. Go read her back issues *shrugs*.

I imagine Google will stay out of it and pretend to take a low profile.

The metrics aren't so "sub-par" that we can't use them to expose the Big Lie of saying "a million" were coming in.

The job here at hand isn't to develop some alternative metrics system; that's someone else's job who has the technical capacity and interest. Preferably it should be some credible person who isn't building a career from it and who isn't looking to make a living and a reputation to get consulting gigs from it *cough*.

The Lindens spent enormous amounts of time and capital on R&D, probably more than they should.

I don't need to temper anything, add sugar to anything, or change a thing. Um, you get to be an asshole on your blog and on my blog without some pushback from me? No.

[Wayne Porter]

"But...the green dots are valid, as anyone can see, when one is among them."

Prove their validity? That is circular logic.

"I imagine Google will stay out of it and pretend to take a low profile."

I don't know. I thought that at first, but the more I think about it...not so sure. Who knows eh?

"I don't need to temper anything, add sugar to anything, or change a thing. Um, you get to be an asshole on your blog and on my blog without some pushback from me? No."

No you do not. You may act as you please. I am not being an asshole, I am point and counter pointing some of your assumptions and flawed analysis (Alexa). I *fully expect* push back. That is the type of debate that is healthy. You should expect some push back on your analysis too.

Think of me what you will, I am not trying to change your opinion. Once again I think it is great you expose and give counter viewpoints (and I commend that), however, the consistent stream of venom laced rhetoric (or that is how I perceive it) makes it look more like a disgruntled AV with an axe to grind and detracts from the value of the message.

Then again, perhaps that is just you and it takes all kinds. I'll leave your blog to rest and retort on my grounds so as to be a jerk on your turf.

best regards,
Wayne

[Khamon Fate]

For the record, I've counted heads for years and always found the green dots and mouseover summaries to be accurate counts of the number of avs in a sim.