Web or World?

A lively discussion on whether Second Life should go in the direction of Web or World?

Given the Lindens' hell-bent determination to make it "go Web," perhaps nothing can be done about it.

But it is worth thinking what you get when you webify the world. Do you want to be in it then? If you are on the web, are you in the world?

Clubside Granville: I thought I saw some forum posts from some of the idiots saying some of your signs were "ads"
Eshi Otawara: here Mistress- with FLOWERS too
brinda Allen: well prok is the blood pressure down?
You: what signs?
brinda Allen: oh dont get me staryted
Eshi Otawara: hey prok, can i give you a makeover?
Carl Metropolitan: We have some ads on our campuses. But they don't fit the (in most any way) the defintion of an adfarm. I can show you if you like. The people bringing it up I think were trying to muddy the issue.
You: no, Eshi you cannot, stop it
Eshi Otawara: alright. i just asked once.hehe
Clubside Granville: I didn't think there was a problem Carl, just curious if the actual ad farmers were "pushing back"... good that they're not!
You: STart by making yourself over
Carl Metropolitan: Not against me, at least.
Carl Metropolitan: I'm surprised, actually. I've been pretty vocal about them
You: which forums which signs? you mean NCI signs? surely you jest?
Clubside Granville: In the first forum post (the one that got locked) Prok...
Carl Metropolitan: In the SL Forums discussion.
Malburns Writer: Hi all
You: oh that one that was locked awhile ago?
Carl Metropolitan: There have been three
Clubside Granville: Howdy Mal
Carl Metropolitan: Two are locked now
You: Hi
You: haven't kept up
Tara Yeats: HI folks!
You: yes locking is a great solution to deal with the masses eh?
You: well why were they locked? did all those Friends of Nature show up like Ancient and ROBO?
Clubside Granville: brinda you should ask your question about your sign again now that more people are here and the topic hasn't started
Ara Voom: 000
Clubside Granville: The first one was locked for that, the second probably because it was over 100 pages and had run its course
Carl Metropolitan: They degenerated into flame wars when people like those--and Cynthia "Your White Man Laws Don't Apply to Me" Eagle showed up
You: oh dear
Tara Yeats: HI Eshi :-)
brinda Allen: ok can i set a mega prim sigh on top of my shop as long sas it doest rotate
You: I bet when this is all over we'll find out that Cytherea isn't Indian lol
brinda Allen: 30 meters tall?
Carl Metropolitan: I thought she had been banned.
You: well she's back
You: back and with a partner
You: and as I discovered, the Concierge is NOT dealing with ad qeustions
Carl Metropolitan: I may have her name wrong, then
You: I thought they were, and you could file tickets on the Concierge ticket thing
Carl Metropolitan: She doesn't show up on Search/People
You: but I've now been rebuffed three times while doing that
brinda Allen: ok
Carl Metropolitan: Hi Something
You: oh AGAGIN?
Carl Metropolitan: Good to see you.
Something Something: Hi Carl :)
You: I'm showing her as back in the list again Carl
brinda Allen: well the linden sent my sign bac cause it wasnt grounded
Carl Metropolitan: I must be misspelling her name then
Carl Metropolitan: What do you have as the correct spelling?
brinda Allen: and it was like 6 meters
You: I tried to get the Lindens to deal on Baileya -- they wouldn't
You: The only thing I got done this week was to finally have them turn over a Governor Linden 16 m2 that has been a plaguing nuisance
Clubside Granville: That shouldn't apply to signs aboive actual shops, just land exclusively used for ads, brinda
You: I see Cytherea has removed her signs, but her land is still in her name, and still has ban lines up
Carl Metropolitan: Ah
You: I got nowhere protesting her ban lines but I was bucked to do an AR instead of a Concierge ticket
Carl Metropolitan: That's the spelling
Clubside Granville: Nice that group announcements actually worked this week, eh Prok?
Tara Yeats: Prok - I'd bet they have a list of sims & are working thru it in some order - stuff has definitely disappeared and/or stopped rotating in my sim
You: You know, if other people on the Internet came on your website, and put up their own ad, taking up 16 m2 of your website and putting some flashing thing on it, that's what ad farms would be like
Clubside Granville: Which was the reason for my 512m2 minimum ownership per region suggestion
Tara Yeats: Hey Dizzy
Eshi Otawara: hi Banjo
You: You can't put an ad on anything but your own page, and it doesn't then block other people's pages on the Internet -- unnless of course they agree to host your ad, and usually for revenue sharing
Kevni Koolhoven: Has it started yet?
You: so these Lindens that want to make "SL like the web" should heed that argumentation
Dizzy Banjo: hi ! :)
You: you want SL to be like the Web? Where on the Web can I invade someone else's entire page and put up a small ad?
Malburns Writer: heya Dizzy
Dizzy Banjo: hi
Kevni Koolhoven: SL is better as a World than the Web (imho)
Kevni Koolhoven: (or worse)
Dizzy Banjo: something something.. lol nice
Arabella Steadham: sure beats blah blah
Eshi Otawara: oh hell something something- we met
Eshi Otawara: hi
Clubside Granville: The whole "like the web" will never be true, especially from the standpoint that they can't realistically support "free hosting" like WordPress/BlogSpot/etc. (or the fact that accessing information through a 3D interface is inefficient)
You: I agree Kevni, I think chasing after the one, they lose the other, and never gain the Web either
Malburns Writer: yes - wants web in my world not my world on the web
You: Last night I went to the Chilbo Connectivism Village
You: and Fleep had built this delightful sort of library
Something Something: Hi Eshi
You: and then of course she tried to "web it up"
Eshi Otawara: <3
You: so it has all this stuff like radios and TVs you press on
Ravenglass Rentals in Patagonia 5 $1700: A rental has expired.
You: and they drop down a big blue screen like an execution, and drag you out to the web
You: and you go kicking, lagging, and screaming to that web
You: leaving all your SL friends behind
Kevni Koolhoven: right!
You: until they get that web on a prim stuff, it's wack
You: it is not worth peddling
You: I'd be better off with a notecard or a talk script
Kevni Koolhoven: when you go to the Web it breaks whatever illusion is going on in world
You: yes you are being literally dragged and often lagged out
You: that blue screen is a killer
You: so why keep trying to make all that happen
You: I was just reading the eightbar people were doing some clever thing
Clubside Granville: And you had to go or find her parcel to begin with... what's the point? why would you want to build an interface to an outside technology that is more cumbersome to navigate than the destination is to begin withy?
You: I think it involved having real life sites send instructions into SL to build prims up
You: one of the problems I think is that Quicktime is the only thing you can have play a movie
You: so I think YouTubes don't play without some jimmying
Sutherland Dam Tip Jar: Received donation of L$1000 from brinda Allen.
Kevni Koolhoven: yes, SL interfaces are pretty limited
Eshi Otawara: it's quite simple really
Eshi Otawara: for youtube videos
Dizzy Banjo: recently you can access the mp4 from youtube
Eshi Otawara: yeah
Clubside Granville: How much is this discussion about the Lindens wanting to change landmarks versus a more concerted "webification"?
Dizzy Banjo: which will play in the sl quicktime client
Malburns Writer: YouTube you can get the mp4 versions into qt - prob is for our flash based live feeds
Kevni Koolhoven: you need to be able to do more than stream a .mov or put a jpg on a prim
Clubside Granville: I'm not sure what other initiatives they've hinted at beyond the "new client" is why I ask.
Kevni Koolhoven: so going to the 2D web fills a gap
You: here is an educator complaining about all this:
http://homepage.mac.com/jessid/iggy/iggyssyll10.html
You: thanks brinda
brinda Allen: yup
Malburns Writer: hey Prok - that's "web" lol
Kevni Koolhoven: we have to read all this now?
Kevni Koolhoven: wait, brb
Clubside Granville: They could embed Flash if they wanted to pay Adobe, just like they pay for Havok.
You: yes Mal!
You: and for later perusal, don't lag out your game now! lol
Malburns Writer: he he
Dizzy Banjo: more and more these days i feel like SL is going down its own path of increased immersion, which is in some ways quite different to a lightly immersive hugely interoperable web integrated metaverse
You: Dizzy you have GOT to be kidding
You: it is going down a path of LESS immersion
Dizzy Banjo: lol
You: it is chasing after interop, and thin clients, and all that jazz
brinda Allen: way too many sylables for me
You: what do you mean MORE immersion? where?
Clubside Granville: I still think they don't know what their endgame is Dizzy... they've changed it more than four times since I joined early 2006
Dizzy Banjo: windlight, higher system specs..
You: and you know, all those flash worlds that aren't downloadable? The dirty little secret there is that they constantly say LOADING...LOADING even if they aren't 'downloads' -- have you tried playing some of them?
Dizzy Banjo: increased need for lack of multitasking
You: like Lively, IMVU, they all have their attractions,b ut they load up like SL does at the end of the day
You: I mean, kids are used to WoW patches and downloads galore
You: Did you know a whopping fifty percent of web traffic now is Bittorent? And that means WoW patch type stuff
You: so downloads are NOT the obstacle one imagines
Clubside Granville: That is the dirty secret I've always complained about whenever someone talks about web "thin" clients Prok... they ain't so thin!
You: if people can sit and dl a bittorrent movie or came, what, they can't spend a minute on SL? that's not the problem -- it's the camera angles and movement
Ara Voom: ....It is our world that nureshes our souls. We do not need to be turned into a web brouser.
Carl Metropolitan: I would guess that most of the bittorent is file sharing of movies and tv shows and music.
You: Ara well said
Dizzy Banjo: even WoW can run in a semi streaming mode now
Something Something: I wonder how SL would be different if we all had the very high speed Internet connections of Korea or Japan, an order of magnitude faster than US
Ara Voom: :)
Tara Yeats: probably the biggest difference is the web-based "worlds" are mostly designed to run on less horsepower than SL demands
You: and I could also ask the unmentionable question: what have we gotten out of having this opensource browser? Well? Besides not even a lousy t-shirt? We have gotten chaos, security leaks, and no improvements -- and people who make improvements not even included. So...what was the point of OSing the browser?
Tara Yeats: and they're not nearly the immersiveness of SL
Clubside Granville: It's strange that obvious uses aren't initiated here but in outside systems, like the New Xbox Experience which will let multiple users share a NetFlix streamed movie and voice chat like they were all in the same room watching
You: Tara, but what can you do in them? I mean, I wore out Slim Jim world after like 10 minutes lol
You: I keep trying to get on Hello Kitty but something is wrong
Ara Voom: Second Life more abundantly not less. He He
brinda Allen: :=))
You: Twinity also, I got on it originally, then it keeps crashing now
Tara Yeats: Prok - I agree - the ones I've seen are decidedly pitched at teens or less
You: Dizzy, what did you mean, exactly?
Tara Yeats: and aren't remotely accessable for user-generated content
Malburns Writer: IBM release Forbidden City project today and doesn't even run under SL - is yet another download which seems to have surprised some
You: I was just reading Tateru's article about Sony world and tortured prose about avatars, I'm not quite sure what she's getting at, but I think she's saying that the SL avatar is "different" as it is more embedded in the world, n ot just a sort of voyeur of game-god content
Dizzy Banjo: i dont doubt that Lindens intention is to cover as many bases as possible, including thin and purely IM versions, but in relation to the topic of this discussion - i think the uses of SL itself are driving it in a more immersive direction, its most interesting in that way I think
Something Something: How is Lively doing these days, I haven't been following it. In general, Google seems to have attention-deficit syndrome when it comes to noncore projects, they often fade from neglect after the initial splash
Clubside Granville: Mal, Torque is an engine behind multiple Xbox and PlayStation titles as well, it just doesn't support connected regions... so they have to spawn multiple instances when too many users are on
Dizzy Banjo: about WoW - I meant they have changed it recently so you can play almost straight away, ie, there isnt a multi Gb DL as necessity anymore, and it streams sections of content
Clubside Granville: But it is much more powerful than SL
Sutherland Dam Tip Jar: Received donation of L$250 from Carl Metropolitan.
Tara Yeats: Something: what I heard was the reception of Lively was pretty underwhelming
You: well there is no 60 day improvement tho
You: the concurrency is greater, but not the 60 days
Clubside Granville: Lively is DOA
You: I think even Hamlet said that, but I see it when I do my newsletters, and compare the figures
Carl Metropolitan: I think Google does that on purpose. They throw lots of stuff out and see what sticks to the wall.
Sutherland Dam Tip Jar: Received donation of L$300 from Kevni Koolhoven.
You: You know, I ducked out of Lively after getting griefed by Woodbury even there
Tara Yeats: seems that way, CaRL
Dizzy Banjo: Lively is developing, to be honest I dont think Google really care if stuff isnt very well received on initial release
Dizzy Banjo: gmail wasnt
Something Something: I wonder if Google will end up like Microsoft: dominant in their core area, but floundering at trying to make a business out of anything else :)
Kevni Koolhoven: I think Lively and SL are fundamentally different, not competitors
You: Google is like Russia, they just show up to be in the space
Clubside Granville: Has anyone here used There or Kaneva? If so, what about their use of a browser in-world as opposed to the mythic "web on a prim"?
Malburns Writer: self is getting awful fond of chrome with SL though
You: you know Clubside I have been in both
You: and both have a kind of clunkiness
You: I mean, when you DO have the capacity to put a YouTube inside a little room
You: a room where mind you you can't move the furniture very much or make the furniture
Something Something: Lively and SL are competitors, if only for mindshare.
Clubside Granville: Oh, they are awful, but how is there web integration as an option for Linden desire?
You: you ask yourself even more: why am I here? Shouldn't I just go on the web itself and watch this thing?
You: And let's say the purpose is I'm supposed to sit there with other people and discuss these Youtubes
Kevni Koolhoven: what is meant by "web integration"?
Dizzy Banjo: yes Prok
Kevni Koolhoven: runs in a browser?
You: but...when yo u watch a YouTube, you want to watch it, not chat
Malburns Writer: mindshare - lively is for mindless, sl is for minds - lol
Clubside Granville: That's a problem for me Something, Second Life is a virtual world, its a connected world, these other systems are disconnected, chat spaces
You: I mean, during that 10-20 minutes you are watching the YoutTube, you aren't like having a discussion
Dizzy Banjo: I think web as a surface isnt really that interesting, web type functionality within a 3d world can be though
You: Yumi was bitching on my blog that SL is just so many chat backgrounds. I guess I don't feel that, it always feels more "there" to me and having "depth"
Octavia Sorbet: You cant really socialize on the web like you can on SL. It's nice to have tools avaolable here so that you dont have to run a lot of apps at the same time.
Malburns Writer: we discuss while watching in SL though - that is why inworld media is valid - we share experience not passive
Carl Metropolitan: The closest thing to SL are the old MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons). Those were connected worlds that also allowed for some user-created content, too.
You: Do you think if they get video working better as interactive and overlay of info on it like Microsoft is talking about, that could overtake VWS?
Ara Voom: but we are also being here
You: Yes, Carl that is the lineage
You: but it's odd that all those old MUD types hate SL
You: all those Mudsters on Terra Nova or whatever, they don't like SL
Kevni Koolhoven: who is "they" Prok? SL?
You: even though SL has more text than you know what to do with
Kevni Koolhoven: Linden?
Carl Metropolitan: Only the ones that aren't here :)
Something Something: In the end, it may be users who decide whether SL becomes more like the other worlds. If Openspaces continue to grow in popularity and the mainland continues to decline
Clubside Granville: That was what I was trying to illustrate through the New Xbox Experience mention earlier Mal, why aren't the Lindens going for that kind of deal, to encourage shared space entertainment?
Carl Metropolitan: I've run into lots of MUD types who love SL.
You: Well, I was witness to a historical event last night.
You: It was quite dramatic.
You: Khamon Fate sold Slate.
You: He sold it for $1.5 million Lindens
You: amazing deal
You: He is leaving the Mainland, selling his other old world properties too
Clubside Granville: OpenSim is like how Prok describes Forum users: they are loud so there appears to be a lot more use than there really is
Carl Metropolitan: Pardon my historical ignorance--what is Slate?
Ara Voom: its about being and living. no other "game" has that.
You: it was purchased by his neighbour Jopsy Pendragon
You: Slate is like one of those original sims
You: where all the FIC people were
You: Slate was where Bob Bunderfeld had the Wild West village
You: and then like a sort of newbies builder school
Carl Metropolitan: Ah
Carl Metropolitan: Okay
You: and then Khamon put up Fate Gardens there, with the trees
Carl Metropolitan: Jopsy bought it? I didn't know he had that kind of money.
You: Khamon had 50,000 m2 of it that he put together over time
You: well I dropped my jaw
You: that's a lot for any sim
Kevni Koolhoven: indeed
Carl Metropolitan: 5650 US$
Kevni Koolhoven: so, why the premium?
Carl Metropolitan: Well--any of the older color sims are full terraform (+/- 40 m)
Kevni Koolhoven: so?
Clubside Granville: I wonder what the Lindens think when deciding to pursue some initative when they read all the write-ups of the "Kesse Wars" in various books... does that sort of activity which at least in the authors' minds was significant, get them to thinking of other ways to get attention/feed user need?
Carl Metropolitan: They also have some prestige value, too.
Clubside Granville: Jess Wars I mean
Dizzy Banjo: re : The Bartle "hate SL" phenomena : its because they incorrectly think they invented multi user shared environments and perfected them, MUDs are generally digital implementations of roleplaying, which id say has been around for a very long time. SL is fundamentallly different I think becuase the shared hallucination has far more shared input outputs. In MUDs you largely imagined your own world, together.
You: yes the premium comes from the fact that it is highly terraformable, has Linden land near it and also good neighbours
You: so it's contiguous, and nice, ad free
Dizzy Banjo: sorry for being way behind the conv ;)
Kevni Koolhoven: ohh, yes, ad free!
Kevni Koolhoven: I like that!
Malburns Writer: muds seem more like interactive novels Dizzy
Carl Metropolitan: Also--one side of Slate, is on a Linden ocean sim. I just brought it up on the map.
You: it's interesting what you say Dizzy, I would have thought they were the same in terms of shared
You: MUDs had more solo activity with robots or NPCs didn't they? I never played them
Carl Metropolitan: No--MUDs were mostly player to player roleplaying
Dizzy Banjo: well the fundamental difference is they are non visual, you render your own scene
Dizzy Banjo: SL renders for you
Ara Voom: we live in a world.
Dizzy Banjo: to a certain degree anyway
Malburns Writer: maybe they trigger imagination - here imagination is realised - different thing
Clubside Granville: I wish the Lindens would abandon all the "web initiatives" and get back
Ara Voom: in time
Dizzy Banjo: anyway, neither are perfected.. lol
Clubside Granville: to the business they have: solve things like
You: well but they won't, they are hell bent
Clubside Granville: region crossing which is easy if they
You: and I don't know what drives them
Clubside Granville: rebuilt the infrastructure to be distributed
Kevni Koolhoven: what drives them? I think $, prok
You: if they think the competition is successful using these models, then it's not the flash or web that makes them successful, it's the fact that all the content is pushed
You: so they can't have it both ways
Tara Yeats: I was just gonna say, what drives them is which side they see their bread being buttered on
Kevni Koolhoven: simply, there are more people available on the Web than in world
Tara Yeats: i.e., enterprise and education
You: but Tara, who is buttering?
You: where is this butter of which you speak?
Tara Yeats: Prok - enterprise and education - sim purchases
Tara Yeats: and resulting tier
Clubside Granville: As "real world branding" has failed so will non-starters like collaboration and education... work on what the peoplepaying the bills (the land owners) want or NEED... lol
You: but Tara, this is the number one question: HOW MANY SIMS? IN EACH CATEGORY?
You: I do not think they have more purchases from education and enterprises, truly
You: the end user and the land or content businesses inworld buy more sims
Tara Yeats: Prok - they might not at the moment but that's where the growth is
You: all their growth with openspace sims comes from end-using socializers and businesses inworld
You: not from the other categories
You: but it's not where the growth is, is my point
You: it's only where the *better image* is
Tara Yeats: and you won't see private sims such as what IBM is partnering on developing
You: I found that announcement about FIT to be FILLED with hype
Kevni Koolhoven: hmmm, I think growth will come from without, not within
Clubside Granville: IBM is soooooooo last century
You: I found that really something that I wonder will pan out
Clubside Granville: Hooking your wagon to the IBM cart is like saying Sun isn't a dead horse
You: those sims never have anything on them now except one well known lovely couple
You: so I have to wonder -- what will they produce?
Something Something: One thing SL has going for it is the new deep-freeze and credit crunch environment. Venture capital investment as an asset class has a much lower risk-reward ratio now, it's much harder to exit via an IPO. So, overall, SL has much more breathing room in terms of getting their act together and not being blindsided by some ambitious new project
Carl Metropolitan: Prim Babies, Prokofy. Prim babies.
Ara Voom: places where people don'r have to make real desisions are always going to score bigger with the public, who wants to hear stories. It is what the companies would learn from being in world that would be the most rewarding thing, not the emediate business.
You: hahahaha
You: but they are supposed to something about fashion technology
Clubside Granville: Primk Stem Cells, Carl, this is about Education!
Kevni Koolhoven: what is "Prim babies?"
You: If it's anything like the IBM green server farm, it will be a yawn
You: I did have fun jumping on the mobile thermal unit tho
You: that was fun
You: then I tried to set the server on fire to see if the mobile thermal unit would chase me
Tara Yeats: lol
Malburns Writer: yea - and recessio0n normally leads to greater interest in escapism - could be boom for SL
You: Something, are you saying that LL is merely lucky not to be starting out now?
Carl Metropolitan: Something--on the other hand with the stock market in a nose dive, people with money are more likely to be looking at the private equity markets, too. Not as much risk as venture capital; but not as much exposure as the market.
You: Doesn't Silicon Valley think it's immune from the recession?
Clubside Granville: Kevni, "Prim babies" can be a joke or related to various objects meant to simulate family bits, which are still funny...
Tara Yeats: I heard recently that sales of chocolate, alcohol and cigarettes are all up in response to the recession ;-)
Ara Voom: shoppers should come here.
You: they are always bragging that they add value, and financiers in the East don't add value
You: why they think Yet Another Widget on Social Media adds value...
Carl Metropolitan: People make scripted babies out of prims and carry them around and role-play having a baby. Usually after roleplaying being pregnant (complete with pregnant shapes)
You: I can't help thinking Silicon Valley has to crash too
Something Something: Prokofy, I'm mostly just saying that it will be a lot harder for any potential competitors to SL to start out or survive
Clubside Granville: They need to make them non-copy, and auto-delete Tara, otherwise one purchase and we're virtually set for Second Life!
You: because all they do is invent stuff, but it isn't real hardware, it's stuff that one company sells not to consumers, but to VCs, who then trade it around among themselves until it falls
You: well Something, aren't these competitors like Sony positioned already tho?
Tara Yeats: LOL Clubside
Clubside Granville: It depends Prok, Sony's Home is meant as a promotional tool for the games as well as the virtual chat/doll dress-up
Dizzy Banjo: yeah Home will be interesting, to see what happens when that many PS owners suddenly get presented with a virtual world
Ara Voom: yet people will try to live in it
You: I think I can correlate some of my customers leaving when gas prices got higher as they had to pay more to get to work, then coming back when gas prices fell and they also didn't go anywhere on vacation so they got land in SL
You: I wonder how much people will want to chat outside their game environment, when they do that in the game environment
Dizzy Banjo: yes
Clubside Granville: But it's not a world Dizzy, it's instanced, and you can't visit friend's rooms unless they are online, so it's at best 40 people crowded into a virtual chat room
Ara Voom: yes
You: It's like The Sims Online, you could have bosom buddies there when you were all working job objects or levelling up in the factory, but transport them ehre, you have nothing to talk about anymore
Ara Voom: not the beauty and reality of our world
You: This is my biggest objection to this idea of "the need" supposedly to port all your friends from one game to another, or make games interop
Something Something: Companies like Sony or Google will have enough money to fund projects, but on the other hand those projects will suffer from being side projects in a huge corporation, not core or vital, and may die of neglect or mismanagement. It's the small-company competitors that could have produced some kind of rival to SL, those will have a much harder time in the current environment
You: worlds are worlds, and your friends are friends in those worlds
Carl Metropolitan: Already many people use SL as a way of having fun shopping and only having to pay a very small amount of RL $. I expect that sort of use to increase.
Malburns Writer: social worlds are very powerful, but less compelling if you cant explore and create too
Clubside Granville: Carl, imagine husbands trying to get their shopaholic wives to become virtual shopaholics? lol
Kevni Koolhoven: what are we talking about?
Dizzy Banjo: yeh i think many game users are not necessarily that concerned about persistance or contiguous worlds, they tend to concentrate on a particular experience, even say a counterstrike map, their "world" is their IM client. Of course i think this is boring..
You: So you think people would rather buy virtual goods than go on the web and just make "my wish list"
Kevni Koolhoven: virtual goods are different than goods bought on the web
Carl Metropolitan: Of course
Kevni Koolhoven: those are "real"
You: No one ever buys me my Amazon wish list, and I end up going to the library.
Carl Metropolitan: They can have the fun of "buying" and then show off their stuff to friends in world
Tara Yeats: Club - does that mean wives need to support virtual SL football leagues for their couch potato hubbies? ;-)
Ara Voom: if google makes a world people can live in... then slshould be worried...untill then .....they can only go wrong by not having a world,
Carl Metropolitan: You need to mention it more on you blog. Hype is your friend.
You: Well, elsehwere in the news, I sold my Starax lion for $100,000
Carl Metropolitan: L$? right?
You: US $365 for a pixel lion that changes textures.
Clubside Granville: The difference for me Dizzy is that you can already be in a game you want to play and have people jump in your "room" rather than wandering a virtual space blithely asking avatars, "you wanna play game x?" The current model already works more efficiently...
You: talk about a recession buster
Malburns Writer: marketers want to sell virtual goods that are samplers or replicas of RL items - to create familiarity inworld so ppl buy same outworld
Dizzy Banjo: yeh clubside
Kevni Koolhoven: recession?
You: When I see things like that lion selling or Khamon's land selling, I think, aer these just exotic aberrations in the end times? or the new value of virtual worlds we can expect more of?
Clubside Granville: I think the wives have their hands full with "fantasy baseball" and the like already, don't they Tara?
Carl Metropolitan: And they usually miss the point, completely, Malburns
Something Something: Prokofy, it's hard to tell what people will do. We need to wait for a generation to grow up natively within virtual worlds, then we'll see. All of us are sort of first-generation immigrants into virtual worlds
You: I sold my skilled-up sim with his rares in TSO for $165 on ebay
Kevni Koolhoven: that's right, something
Ara Voom: yes
Something Something: Prokofy, you should have hung on to your Starax lion :) I have four of them :)
You: and that was my stake to buy my first SL land
Malburns Writer: lol - marketers often miss the point indeed
You: you know, Something, these days, I don't get in the way of somebody in SL who wants to give me a lot of money : )
You: but hang on to them if you will, they may increase in value! mine did : )
You: What enabled me to sell it was that I didn't enjoy it.
Dizzy Banjo: lol herecy Prok
You: If I don't actively enjoy a thing and it just sits there and I never even went to see it and change its textures, why not let someone who WILL enjoy it have it and take their money?
You: well I'm aggressively middle brow -- but then, so is Starax : )
brinda Allen: hmm...i should sell my significsant other then
Tara Yeats: haha brinda
Kevni Koolhoven: sell everything! The time to panic is now!
You: Well, I wanted to make up some of my losses from this last summer when times were hard, I sold some of my land too
brinda Allen: offeers?/
You: again, if someone wants to buy something and asks me to buy them, who am I to stop them? unless it's rented already
You: I think that Avi Arrow hoarding all that old world land for $100/m is insane
You: nobody then gets the value of it
Something Something: They may increase in value, because Starax isn't making any more of them (under that avatar name anyway), and because with the advent of sculpties, nobody is going to bother making multi-prim statues anymore, so it will be a lost art form. Rarity = value :)
Kevni Koolhoven: awww, c'mon prok, can't you sell places that are already rented?
You: well it's a rare for sure, and his name is gone from the people list
You: he did make this other lion under his new name but it's sort of transparent
Clubside Granville: Everything's a sculptie now\
Sutherland Dam Tip Jar: Received donation of L$200 from Kevni Koolhoven.
You: thanks Kevni
You: see how his new ones are?
You: they're sort of wispy
Something Something: Hoarding land makes no sense at all in SL. In RL, if the "property tax" on land was equivalent to repaying the initial purchase price every six months or so, forever, no one would hoard land in RL either
Malburns Writer: when sculptie becomes norm, hand-crafted primwork will prob become valuable again
Clubside Granville: I'm gonna do a plug for Mal and Tara since they don't mention it... Sundays at 1pm EST (10AM SLT) they host a vcideo at BlogStar.com called the Metaverse Week in Review... check it out!
Something Something: Malburns: yes. Just like handcrafted items became valuable when machine-made items become common and inexpensive
Something Something: in RL, I mean
Malburns Writer: yep
Tara Yeats: thanks, Club :-)
Malburns Writer: tks club - blushes!
You: I don't like sculpties
You: they don't see solid enough to me
You: I really don't like that Black Swan sim
brinda Allen: Ok thank all of you...youve made my pixel head hurt bye for this week **hugs**
You: lol thanks brinda
Malburns Writer: and they sure do some acrobatic rezzing too Prok
Ara Voom: i should go now too
Carl Metropolitan: I never learned how to do them. It's one of many NCI classes, I really should take :)
Ara Voom: thanx all
Carl Metropolitan: Bye
Malburns Writer: bye brinda
Clubside Granville: Everything I've bought in the last month has had sculpties to some extent, including houses, couches, you name it, in-world of SLC (or Xstreet SL as their new name is, ugh)
You: yes that new name is sad
You: I guess they lost their battle to keep the SL name
You: due to that trademark thing
You: I might go to hear that guy speak, Metanomics is finally having an inworld business speak
Carl Metropolitan: I wonder how the "Second Life Herald" is getting away with it.
Carl Metropolitan: They even still have the eye-hand logo in their logo
You: yes the Lindens probably don't dare go after them
Clubside Granville: I'm not giving up my sights, they've been in use for years before this...
You: at least, they aren't picking a fight now but eventually, they may
Dizzy Banjo: one thing with primitives is they created more a particular SL visual language, because people were forced into using them. Sculpties have brought alot of advances, but somehow make SL look like a poor version of a proper mesh in non streaming architecture ( which would have a lot more detail )
You: Dizzy, you are so right!
You: that is exactly the problem
You: it's neither fish nor fowl
Dizzy Banjo: Prims are like a sketch
Tara Yeats: true, Dizzy, tho it's certainly handy to have them for keeping prim-counts under control
Clubside Granville: And the sad part is there is an easy solution... import mesh. It's not like you can really build
Clubside Granville: sculpties live in-world (yes I know
Clubside Granville: there are a few tools) but ultimately
You: you know worlds that have mesh often load slowly and only show you that mesh stuff
Clubside Granville: the tweaking is happening out of world, make a new mesh object for christ's sake
You: well, what if web on a prim really started working? would that be revolutionary?
Kevni Koolhoven: no
Kevni Koolhoven: not revolutionary
You: I must say that I found it a historic moment the first iteration of that the Lindens did
Tara Yeats: yea, the inworld sculpty tools aren't really that useful
Clubside Granville: That's part of the bigger "why not cache as much as possible" issue Prok
Carl Metropolitan: Yes--but that sort of de-democratizes building. It may be how SL is going, eventually. But it would be sad in a way.
You: I felt, yes, a hole is being punctured in the world, and it might have some potential
Malburns Writer: nah - will be "web on a sculptie" now ! he he
You: but...then there's the problem of: why go on the web? I could just...be out on the web and not lagging out from in here.
Tara Yeats: eeek, Mal!
You: eek Mal that sounds *viscous*
Tara Yeats: it's hard enuf to get textures to behave on sculpties!
Clubside Granville: Web on a flexi-sculptie
Carl Metropolitan: Lots of people can't run a browser and SL at the same time.
Carl Metropolitan: So web on a prim would be useful for them.
Tara Yeats: haha Club - now that really stretches the envelope
Kevni Koolhoven: we need real-time streaming on a prim!
Kevni Koolhoven: (or sculptie)
Tara Yeats: to torture a metaphor
Malburns Writer: brings new meaning to web becoming "fluid" of course
You: well Clubside didn't you have a proposal to fix the groups by putting them off on the web and in a browser too?
Dizzy Banjo: ive been down the "create a big library / install cache" with Lindens many times Clubside, I think they are primarily interested in a world that is as much streaming as possible
Dizzy Banjo: which i think is right, it makes SL unique
Clubside Granville: The real issue Kevni is to add non-prim objects (like pre-meshed joined prims) for these special purposes rather than everything being a prim
You: well what I keep coming back to, all these other worlds, Kaneva, Twinity, Lively, they all put in better "web on a prim" by not having prims but having, whatever they have. And...so what? I mean, it only doubles the sensation of -- but why am I here?
Clubside Granville: It's already sad that 1/3 of the prims are other prims with cut settings
Kevni Koolhoven: yes, quite right Clubside
You: The web consists of a lot of links, and then, a truck at the end, as I always say. A big telephone, and a truck.
Dizzy Banjo: hahaa yes prok
You: So while you are on the linky parts you want to just...look and press. You don't want to chat.
You: I mean, every time I hear Philip tell that story
You: which he tells like a zillion times
You: about being on this web page and realizing there are 17 other people
You: and wow, you can now socialize with them
You: i have this stark memory of the girl's locker room in gym
Tara Yeats: hahahah!!!
Dizzy Banjo: gosh
Clubside Granville: Would work for porn... Weblins dancing on silicone!
You: you know, that sort of sweaty cameraderie with people you don't REALLY want to be next to, but there it is
Kevni Koolhoven: I dont have that same memory Prok
Dizzy Banjo: lol
You: yes well I was a girl in a previous life : )
You: I have a feeling the boys' locker room was even more sweaty!
Sutherland Dam Tip Jar: Received donation of L$300 from Something Something.
Dizzy Banjo: ew
Malburns Writer: love weblins but ignor most of strangers
Kevni Koolhoven: yes, perhaps
Tara Yeats: I remember those days, Prok... with the same degree of ambivalence!
Clubside Granville: Carl, did you read Prok's post about the Mentor/Greeter study?
You: but you know, where you have to like forcibly socialize in a sort of atmosphere of good cheer and team spirit, hooray for our side sort of ting
You: Carl I wonder about your insights on this A/B stuff
You: I don't get Greeters vs. Mentors
You: they have their own website now even
Kevni Koolhoven: now this sounds interesting ...
Clubside Granville: I wondered if the Lindens ever thought of using NCI as part of a "blind study"
You: yes that would be the right thing to do
You: they've done studies of Orientation Station and Ben and Jerry's and such
Dizzy Banjo: i agree with your post, the mentor situation is wildly out of control and just needs shutting down imho
You: they didn't show much
Malburns Writer: greeters greet, mentors patronise?
You: well I think Blue Linden originally conceived of shutting down or putting a moratorium on Mentors
Kevni Koolhoven: maybe we need "Certified" Mentors (barf)
You: I think it's a monster
Clubside Granville: I still would like an answer as to why all but one of the Infohubs in on one continent...
You: 3312 of anything isn't workable
Ravenglass Rentals in Erie $1700: Store rented for 7 days...
You: Clubside the funny thing is, they have infohubs that are sort of ice in some continents
You: have you seen them?
You: they aren't in the list yet
You: I don't get what's up with that
Carl Metropolitan: I don't know if they have or not
Dizzy Banjo: i think there have been unofficial moves to try to rationalise the behaviour of some mentors
Carl Metropolitan: They are doing Certified Mentors
Clubside Granville: I just look at the three eastern continents, which are now huge, and no Infohubs...
Carl Metropolitan: They are not accepting new people into Mentors
Kevni Koolhoven Barfs
Cocoanut Koala: better late than never!~
Carl Metropolitan: They are creating a new group called Greeters
Tara Yeats: Hi Coco
Carl Metropolitan: That will have higher requirements than Mentors
Kaylee Ember accepted your inventory offer.
Cocoanut Koala: hiya!
Malburns Writer: Hiya Cocoa
Carl Metropolitan: And they will only be allowing Greeters access to Help Islands (and similar) once the program is up and running.
Cocoanut Koala: hiya!
Kevni Koolhoven: nononono! Mentors should be higher than Greeters!
You: hi Cocoa
Cocoanut Koala: hiya what did i miss?
Tara Yeats: Certified Mentors... for some reason reminds me of Certified Mentals
Carl Metropolitan: And I expect another round of "Renew your mentorship or get dropped" too
You: well Greeters were something they had before, no?
Kevni Koolhoven: (barf)
Carl Metropolitan: They weeded out about half of them with that.
Carl Metropolitan: Yes
You: I think my postscript summed it up: the Lindens need a new category of people who aren't ask skilled who take orders better
Carl Metropolitan: There were Mentors, Greeters, Instructors, and Live Helpers
You: you know, if they ran it like Ravenglass Rentals
Kevni Koolhoven: oh, that clarifies it
You: you get booted after 30 days if you do not pay rent
Malburns Writer: yay - let's hve InfoBots!
Carl Metropolitan: I will read Prokofy's post.
You: I think just sell the slots, rent them out
Carl Metropolitan: I've not had a chance to yet.
You: I will buy a greeter position for $50.000
You: you know, auction them
Clubside Granville: Carl, I wish they'd set up some Infohubs on the newer continents and let groups like NCI and others run a few as part of their "retention" study... of cxourse I don't know if you guys have the time for something like that
Kevni Koolhoven: yes!
You: then I flog my rentals, we all get paid, everybody's happy
Kevni Koolhoven: free market!
Carl Metropolitan: Clubside
Carl Metropolitan: They plan to do that
You: Clubside they do have them even built out
Tara Yeats: do not pass Go, go directly to Jail....
Carl Metropolitan: There are two InfoHubs under construction on Gaeta
You: I keep flying into this one Barnes made on one of those new ones up north
Carl Metropolitan: The newest continent
You: yes that's it Carl, Gaeta
Carl Metropolitan: They both have places that are set aside for resident help groups
You: if you go up to the new camp where Magellan Linden is
You: it's next to that
Carl Metropolitan: I don't know who they will decide who gets the space.
You: have you been recognized as a helper yet Carl? I mean an official helping presence?
Kevni Koolhoven: official?
You: well am I wrong about this A/B stuff? I think they didn't A/B it enough.
Clubside Granville: Well is there anyone in particular to contact to recommend independents getting a shot Carl?
Carl Metropolitan: We are a member of the Resident Help Group network.
You: I mean it's like A and A/B, where the second is too admixed.
Carl Metropolitan: What sort of Independents?
Dizzy Banjo: lol.. radical : maybe they should just stop using volunteers who have ambiguous responsibilities, and pay a properly interviewed group of help staff ( even if its in Linden dollars ) then scrap the rest or deem them completely unofficial
Clubside Granville: Groups like NCI getting to own the land as part of a test...
You: well Dizzy I'm all for that, outsource it, but be careful what you wish for
Carl Metropolitan: We very likely will be.
Carl Metropolitan: But I'm not depending on it.
You: I find it really staggering, they opensource the viewer, and in the end, they end up with kasha, the Lindens make Dazzle which is then trashed, the Lindens have a security blowout, and they outsource making a landmarks/navigator viewer to a third-party company, for a fee
Carl Metropolitan: LL's approach to New User orientation is scattershot and subject to change without notice
You: now that's how they should have done it two years ago
You: Open source is so PAINFUL.
Kevni Koolhoven: nice discussion folks, but I g2g Rl ... see yas soon!
You: not that this landmarks thing is any cup of tea either
Carl Metropolitan: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Resident_Help_Network
Clubside Granville: I just ask because back when I ran my sandbox I got lots of newbs asking "What do I do now?" and I just didn't have the passion you guys show at selling SL in those cases...
You: thanks Kevni
You: well what do you do in that Resident Help Network?
Malburns Writer: Bye Kevni
You: what are your rights and responsibilities?
Dizzy Banjo: i think my issues is there needs to be people held responsible things, volunteer based initiatives are very difficult to enforce responsibility etc
Dizzy Banjo: yeah
Carl Metropolitan: So far--nothing.
Carl Metropolitan: We've created the requested Wiki page and went to one meeting.
Clubside Granville: lol
Carl Metropolitan: It was typical V-Team Rah Rah
Cocoanut Koala: i haven't heard anything about all from the certification group I'm in, in ages
Cocoanut Koala: which is of course GOOD
Tara Yeats: Dizzy - agreed - having run online volunteer host teams... not easy
Carl Metropolitan: They asked (for example), "Do any of your groups have any upcoming events or classes?" Tateru and I were there and restrained ourselves from saying "You mean, besides the sixty five we run every week?"
Clubside Granville: I guess all the new Lindens are here for ARs... lol... they never seem to get these things moving (new Forums? not like I want them...)
Dizzy Banjo: lol
Malburns Writer: hah Carl
Clubside Granville: Well that's it for me... hope to see some of you at the Metaverse Week in Review! Thanks for the chat!
Carl Metropolitan: They need more people looking at ARs.
Carl Metropolitan: Bye
Cocoanut Koala: bye clubside
Malburns Writer: nite Club
Tara Yeats: Cya Clubside :-)
Carl Metropolitan: What is Metaverse Week in Review?
Something Something: bye Clubside
Malburns Writer: http://www.metaverseinreview.com
Carl Metropolitan: Thank you
Tara Yeats: Carl - it's the weekly live videocast Malburns & I do at blogstar - http://www.... Mal's ahead of me - LOL
Carl Metropolitan: http://www.metaverseweekinreview.com/
Carl Metropolitan: You left out week.
Malburns Writer: http://www.metaverseweekinreview.com
Malburns Writer: forgot week
Malburns Writer: hah
Dizzy Banjo's mystitool goes mental
Dizzy Banjo: lol
Tara Yeats: heh - give him a break... it's 3:30am in London!
Dizzy Banjo: i had something interesting happen this week
Dizzy Banjo: my main project HD crashed
Malburns Writer: tell dizzy!
Dizzy Banjo: and for some time i thought i had lost everything
Dizzy Banjo: ( this does relate to SL )
Dizzy Banjo: I found myself wishing my content was all in SL
Dizzy Banjo: that it was hosted in world etc
Dizzy Banjo: which was an interesting sensation
Carl Metropolitan: I need to run, too
Carl Metropolitan: Goodbye everyone
Tara Yeats: jcya Carl
Dizzy Banjo: c u Carl
Malburns Writer: nite Carl
Something Something: bye Carl
Dizzy Banjo: anyway its now recovered
Malburns Writer: great Dizzy
Tara Yeats: whew - yay Dizzy!
Dizzy Banjo: but it made me realise how i kind of take the grids persistance for granted ( even though its borky )
Cocoanut Koala: well i'm off too, guys!
Cocoanut Koala: see you later!
Dizzy Banjo: c u
Malburns Writer: c u cocoa
Something Something: I have to go too...

Comments

[Crap Mariner]

Sorry I missed it. Grievous office chair injuries combined with a steakhouse run with enough courses to wreck any plans of a New Year Diet.

As for Eshi's offer for a makeover, I say go for it. What could it hurt?

And, yes, Lively's dropped out of sight. I'm sure they're working on all the hooks to let their other Google properties integrate with it. *sigh* I miss the days when all of Yahoo's elements were simple quick-loading text in simple frills-free menus.

[Prokofy Neva]

Eshi is just being a controlling and nasty bitch when she asks me if she can do a makeover, Crap.

I don't enable such behaviour in other people -- I resist it, so they can take a look at what they are doing.

Actually, she desperately needs one. Shoulder pads went out in the 1970s.