Remember that scene in the Silver Chair in the Narnia series where the children and Puddleglum realize that the Giants want to have them for lunch as sauteed humans?
The Lindens have eaten up two of our resident shopping sites, OnRez (which will be swallowed whole but dissolved) and XStreet (which will be swallowed whole and look like the big frog lump in the snake for awhile).
What next?
I was discussing this with Metanomics, which is supposed to be a group to discuss "the economy" (laugh). Here's the list I came up with as likely tasty morsels for the Lindens:
o Hippo vendors and Hippo web-based rentals system -- yes, they'll kill the vendors, but they may buy the web rentals system and install them in the client.
o Subscribe-o-matic
o Crap Mariner's i-Tunes links and displays for SL musicians
o Adam Zaius' OpenSim (the Lindens will want to control the making of little boutique offgrid grids that they may or may not hook up)
o Cristiano Midnight's sluniverse.com (Snapzilla, not the forums -- eating the forums would require eating Siggy and they won't do that)
o Sasun Steinbeck's networked art gallery listings kiosk
o Metanomics (it's easier to eat now that Dusan Writer ate Metanomics, and M Linden likes Dusan's blog, so they could eat the blog, the meetings, and especially Chatbridge -- and ditch the backchat. Will Beyers Sellers betray backchat to make a deal?
o Gwyneth Llewelyn's consulting firm Beta Technologies (localizer, think tank)
o Tao Takashi and planet.worldofsl.com
o Fairchang Islands
o Azure Islands
o Tableau Island (Barnesworth was eaten in the Dept. of Public Works, but he will want to be eaten better as a boutique design firm for the library
o Dedric Mauriac
o Timeless Prototype
o Bear, Miramare, Grignano, Violent Infohubs
o BlogHud
o JenZAA Misfit's poses
(Don't forget that the classic way to become eaten is just to become a Linden -- the way residents became Ben Linden, Torley Linden Adam/Chadrick Linden, Coffee Linden, etc.)
Here's what the Lindens won't eat:
o Intlibber and Woodbury
o Prokofy and Ravenglass Rentals
o Gor
o the Extropians and the Thinkers -- too far out
o Ordinal Malaprop
o Desmond Shang and Caledon -- too niche and they need to leave some things uneaten
o D'Alliez Islands
o SL musicians (no way to get a percentage out of tip jars without also paying heavy costs of sim venue)
o Lusk (Lindens are done with furries totally)
o Neva Naughty
Well, you can just go on forever deciding about the eat/not-eat list -- it's a great parlour game.
One thing is clear, however, there are those who *do* lunch with the Lindens, like Rivers Run Red, which has a partnership of equal rights with the Lindens, and those *are* lunch for the Lindens, like Windlight or XStreet.
The Lindens will want to pay particular attention, now that they have gotten the best builders eaten (LDPW) and two main shopping sites (OnRez and XStreet), to all the comms. The first thing, let's seize the telegraph station, says Lenin, and they're late on that. So they will want to take over forums, blogs, myspace-type social networking, blogs -- did I say blogs? By making a blogging software that has Blog-Hud coopted or cloned to enable inworld adventure reporting and a myavatarname.secondlife.com address, the Lindens will start siphoning readers away from the Herald and sluniverse.com -- sluniverse.com will want to either get eaten, or be left to grow stale in the refrigerator for eternity.
This was all predicted and in fact then-GIGAS, which was Adam Zaius' company of that era, tried to create an all-world blogging site to bring all the SL blogs in under his wing. Crazy.
Look, I just can't tell you enough, go and read this thread -- all the way through. It is mind-blowing. People clawed me to death for saying this, and simply wouldn't hear it:
"Thus handily, without so much as a whimper and barely a protest, four large companies made up of older players with concentrated wealth, some of which they obtained by living under idyllic past days with free 4096s, etc., have created monopolies over some of the most basic functions of the game -- having a convo, taking a screenshot, buying a product from the Internet, and blogging about SL."
Where are they now, these monopolists -- who I had always conceived of as privileged partners in thrall to the Lab, but not actual Lab lunch?
1. Nexcom went under, because other clients that worked with RL phones and such began to be built, and the issue of Nexcom's possession of all that resident chat on their servers with no accountability was worrisome likely to the Lindens as much as anybody. Chad Statosky, a teen-grid kid who strayed into the adult grid and back to the TG and went on to become a griefer and boyfriend of Shaun Altman, doesn't seem to be doing anything these days that the Lindens might eat, but for all I know, he's become a Linden himself
2. GIGAS (then-name of Adam Zaius' empire) ran a huge mall and vendor system and then went on to make Azure Islands, a mega rentals empire that made as much money as Anshe with less land, because they used more scripts and less real people. At the time of my post, Adam wanted to create a big blogging conglomerate as well -- that failed. The rest thrived. Adam went on to work with others who reverse-engineered SL and made OpenSim, which is the independent opensource version of SL. Linden will eat this when its cooked through.
3. Cristiano's Snapzilla (once put on the Lindens' front page supposedly without Cristiano's knowledge, now available to be eaten, with or without the forums and the sagging anims business).
4. Slexchange.com, later known as X Street, which I identified as the lead shopping site monopoly even when everyone else though SLboutique.com was more FICy and better.
And here we all are.
Even if I didn't get some of the details right, the overall premise was right: the Lindens picked and chosed favourite residents to groom into partners/subsidiary companies that they allowed to become monopolies and privileged companies at the expense of other companies on the grid. They then proceeded to incorporate those companies and their functions into the client and into Linden Lab itself.
The FIC in this thread tries every argument in the book:
o but they aren't monopolies
o but the Lindens don' really favour them
o but anyone can be innovative and compete
o but you are a whiney loser
o but the Lindens are a private company and can pick their friends
o that networking isn't a conspiracy
o but you must not be for capitalism if you aren't for big companies succeeding
o
It was the snotty little ass-wipe Enabran Templar, robot-maker (long gone from the scene), who, in parodying what I said, actually made the right forecast:
"3. All monopolistic services provided by residents shall be seized by the new, more enlightened and incorruptable Linden Lab."
Scary to read now, eh lol?
or look at this hilarious nugget, from the scornful Chip Midnight, implying I'm a nutcase:
"Hmmm, so let's see if I have this straight... if someone comes up with a great idea... an idea so good that everyone wonders why someone else didn't think of it first... and it becomes very successful and popular... then it should be taken away from them and auctioned off? For the public good? Anyone too successful should be hobbled? You've really outdone yourself Prokofy. This is a new level of absurdity even for you."
Except, it's the Lindens who put this extreme into practice, not me lol.
Or take this gem, from Kim Anubis -- again, June 2005, and the topic is FIC favouritism:
"But this whole thing is a sham anyway. If LL did decide to work a deal with a particular SL biz owner, well, there's nothing wrong with that. This is not the whole world. It's a (A -- one, un, singular) Web site. Linden Lab isn't a government agency. It's a private company. If they wanted to, they could just funnel all the land-parceling biz to Anshe, cut a deal with Chip to integrate his skins as the default, and buy a pile of planes from Cubey and give one to every newb who walks in the door."
Or read Forseti, who went on to be a big gun at the Electric Sheep:
"The business opportunities within SL are really minor right now in the grand scheme of things. Who knows whether SL will really be the platform that is the winning (i.e. critical mass) metaverse. That some see the potential and are investing/risking their energy in hopes of a future -- that's called being an entrepreneur and i say "good for you!"
prok has his own ventures, but can't resist tearing everyone ELSE down and perpetually spewing venom masked in populist nonsense. Oh I'm sorry -- that's right, prok is really the victim here.
Once a metaverse really forms (whether it be SL or something else) and the economic opportunity become real, SO many people are going to pour in that there will be tons of competition. Some talented amateurs will able to compete but it will become much harder. To say that the field is getting locked up now is ridiculous. So there will be incumbants to beat. Big freaking deal -- that exists everywhere."
Tons, Forseti?
Later, Forseti again:
"I still disagree with your "metaverse is being captured by a few" line.
First of all, the metaverse isn't here yet, not really. It's definitely not "captured".
Second, do you really think LL is signing perpetual, exclusive contracts here?"
And my own lament:
"When I see the touchy, angry, and even imbecilic reaction, that lets me know that I've been right to question the hold that certain companies get on our world. It might be benign now. It won't be down the road. It's all just a game, right? Except, it's not, and you get to run it LOL. Nice!
What I'd like to hear is some mature, thoughtful response about how areas of the game like communciations within and between this game and the Internet can remain open to others and not become the plaything of a few, with Linden blessing. You wonder why they even made their game public.
Why didn't they just take resumes to accept only the highest class people, and weed out the "feebs and choads" as Cory called them?"
Remember, this is my very last post before being permabanned, and I reply:
"Forseti, the Metaverse is being captured by a few, while you think I'm the problem. Look again. There are no people pouring in the door. They can't get to square one when they do pour.
I have no venom and no jealousy. I don't need to be or become any of the things these people are. I'm critiquing their hold on the world and asking them to justify it. That's all.
Cristiano, it's pointless to keep raising Anshe as some kind of "gotcha" with me. Because she may be a huge presence in the land market but she doesn't so control it that no one else can enter it. And there's plenty of Anshe-bashing in other threads, so I don't need to rehearse my critique or anyone's critique of Anshe here.
What can be see from outerspace, Cristiano, is your touchiness over this issue.
I never attacked your success, your hard work, your innovation. I criticised -- not attacked -- the idea of having only ONE of you monopolize the airwaves leading from the game, to the stop at the Linden's website, to your website. That's all. That's a reasonable issue to raise. As a generic issue. That doesn't denigrate what you do, but questions how others are going to get to have their hard work, innovation, and expertise count or have entree in his world that is getting sewn up -- and yes, with insiders' networks.
There is nothing petty about asking the biggest question there is to ask: how our Metaverse, our Virtual World, will get formed, since we will be spending so much more time in it in the next century. These are damned important questions. They're worth dropping everything to discuss and experience. I'm sorry you can't accept this world-historical debate for what it is, and have to obsess on the petty issues of your pride and your touchiness and "saving face"."
"As Kim put it so well, "If they wanted to, they could just funnel all the land-parceling biz to Anshe, cut a deal with Chip to integrate his skins as the default, and buy a pile of planes from Cubey and give one to every newb who walks in the door."
Well...that's what they did. They are a private company, they can pick the sub-contractors they want to help develop their product, they can do what they want...and they did.
I'm reporting on that fact. And I'm pointing out that while that might be a great technique for developing entertainment and for-profit software, I'm not at all certain this is a great method for developing a WORLD called the METAVERSE, which is now imbued with lots of meaning by lots of people of all kinds. I'm just not sure it's the right thing at all!"
Anshe Chung even weighed in on this thread:
"Monopolies usually exist if one of following conditions are met:
o One party has exclusive access to resources or the market that others don't have
o One party controls one platform or standard like EBay, Windows etc.
Both don't apply to land market since there is constant supply of new land that everybody can access. I dunno if Nexcom or Snapzilla can be called monopolies though. Basically any kinda website or database that becomes standard for something and has loads of content contributed by users has the danger of becoming one monopoly."
I would definitely say something with land. That is where they keep failing. They need people with community building skills. Right now, they think they can just slap on a beautiful build and beautiful people will automatically set up house.
Your rentals business stabilizes the Alice Sim. I saw that, and the sims surrounding it are falling apart. It wasn't a mistake that a Linden set up a garden there. Just as it wasn't a mistake that IBM set up next to Caledon and it's sister communities. It was like buying office space on Park Ave.
So maybe they will buy one of the island estates just to see how things run. What kind of sweeteners could they use to make that happen?
Posted by: melponeme_k | January 23, 2009 at 06:53 AM
I think they have bigger plans to put a rentals function into the client, in the land menu, or in some sort of web-based system. They will say newbies can't easily shop for homes in a big catalogue. Despite plenty of systems inworld like Rental Central, the Lindens will say it's "hard to find" things.
They will get people on board by saying it will help keep track of business better, or stop fraud better.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | January 23, 2009 at 07:18 AM
Well, a built in rental system would be very helpful. In fact it is very hard to find rentals and compare prices with different estates.
As for buying up estates, what do you think they did with the Sailing Sims thingy? I mean, they didn't literally buy the sims but they coopted them into managing chunks of mainland for them.
One thing they're definitely going to do is put land sales along with resident run auctions on the web. Jack has mentioned it several times in his office hours now. Of course, that sort of thing will potentially put me right out of business but then I didn't really expect it would last this long.
Posted by: Elanthius Flagstaff | January 23, 2009 at 07:49 AM
Elanthius, if you can think that resident-run auctions would put you and other land dealers out of business, why would you find "putting rentals into the client" a good thing?
It means that all those with scripted rental boxes who don't set up rentals system through the land menu or a Linden-run web-based service will be perceived as unofficial, and scammers.
Customers will ask why you aren't using the inbuilt or web based approved Linden system. And there may be reasons you wouldn't want to, if it has less features than you have, or you simply don't wish to turn over your entire business information stream so easily to the Lab. Yes, they can get at it any way as they own the servers, but this way, they can do all kinds of things to compete themselvs -- which is what they do with things like Bay City or Nautilus -- it makes it easier.
If the Lindens made a giant web-based rentals system, merging all rentals companies into one big grab-bag, I'd try to stay out of it anyway, banking on my reputation as an honest independent, but eventually they'd likely force me under.
It isn't at all hard to find rentals. The island rentals get to put themselves in the land for sale list, something none of us mainland rentals have never really been able to bitch about because there are so many more zillion island sims than mainland. You can find rentals in search all, search/places, the land-for-sale list, and the classifieds. What more do you want?
There are also sites like Rental Central that aggregate rentals for a free. Linden would put them out of business.
By turning this over to Hippo, and putting the Hippo Rental system into the client as automatic as the land-for-sale interface, and of course taking a fee off each transaction, they'd basically make rentals a symbolic hobby, or a business for only a very few giant enterprises with hundreds of sims.
I think once you kill off the independent land business, that is already pretty much dependent on them anyway to fix prices by controlling land flow, you have really killed off free enterprise. Freedom of the press belongs to him who owns one.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | January 23, 2009 at 07:59 AM
The odds of them eating me are less than zero.
Taken my licks, gotten chewed on, and spit out.
Besides from the fact that I'm a unapologetic loose cannon Zionist who, when pushed, won't take crap from deranged SLLU eurofascist anti-Semites (especially those who openly support terrorist organizations who are in violation of US Law on servers based in the US), I have more value as a customer than as an employee.
Not that I have much value as a customer, since I do little to generate revenue, traffic, products, or buzz. And thought SecondTunes is as dead as a doornail, TRAX is making a big push and appears to be generating positive results.
Add to that the fact that my Tunes inSL project is a combination of low-tech hardcoded tech (for the moment) and a social networking push, using resources like Apple and Amazon and CDBaby in a way that a small-time independent developer can get away with, but LL itself likely can't without inking deals.
Where product developers in SL are building for the SL platform, SL is just one outlet for musicians - they have options like live performances, house concerts, open mikes, festivals, album sales, and other revenue generators outworld. It's just one piece of the puzzle, and not even a helpful corner piece at that.
The day that LL does something that benefits musicians in a manner that they can't do better or easier for themselves (example - the mailing list is dead while Slimmie's SLMC forums still buzz), that'll be the day y'all will be standing over me, waving the smelling salts under my nose (or lifting my wallet).
-ls/cm
Posted by: Laurence Simon | January 23, 2009 at 10:36 AM
People always want to eat me but I never let them.
Posted by: Ann Otoole | January 23, 2009 at 02:02 PM
Well if they purchased Hippo it would make sense to purchase Subscribe-o-matic as both offer solutions to the group problem, so they could buy both and close one down, which would probably be subscribe-o-matic because Hippo also have the vendor solution.
The only way I can see them offering an inworld rental system is if Linden Lab go into the rental market, which wouldn't actually surprise me.
As for finding rentals and comparing prices, this could be useful to the consumer, the same as finding any for sale item and comparing prices. Search has a long way to go before it can offer that sort of functionality, even with the SLX purchase.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | January 23, 2009 at 02:46 PM
Ciaran, they claimed at their press conference on the 22nd that they aren't going into the content *making* business but just facilitating shopping and taking a cut. They could exactly the same thing with rentals.
Ciaran, you still don't get it. When you control the entire rental market like a giant MLS through one company taking a cut of all the sales, you *have* no comparison shopping. Compare what with what? One serf to another serf paying Linden quit-rent? We already are in a near-serf-like situation with the controlled exchange rate and controlled release of land.
It's like my post about Lady Bountiful, when these goofs on the Concierge act like there's some big price range between A and A and a half and B...which is of course all a function of fixed tier costs, duh.
Yes, it's precisely that shill the Lindens will use, and get people like you to chat it up and endorse it, making it seem like wow, now we have better search and better comparison shopping.
Right now, I don't have to pay the Lindens per transaction, as I used to do long ago when I had Hank Ramos' Usurers' Edition of his rentomatic, which enabled me to buy the copy version for less if I let him take a percentage of the sales ever after.
One of the strongest forces for getting rentals is the social network. People attach rentals to clubs, stores, groups, languages, locations, etc. etc. People in the hobby rental business market especially just break even, but they give their rentals to friends.
All of that will flatten and not long-tail, but kill off the lowest producers in the market. The cost of paying for each transaction will put them under, or bury them in the sea of results. Where once, their rentals could work by word of mouth and literal face-to-face relationships among avatars, now, people can find the next lowest-cost rental and skip the club or the mall or the language, even.
I think there must be Ph.D. students out there somewhere who study what happens to markets when giant websites come and do listing services, like room mate finders or Craigs List type of websites. It raises visibility and sales for some; it kills them for others.
Ebay was ultimately killed by raising the fees too high.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | January 23, 2009 at 03:46 PM
Points taken, I didn't actually endorse it and I doubt I'd ever endorse it, I'd endorse a search category in search all for rentals however.
I wasn't actually envisaging that they'd take a cut for the service, I was thinking more of a listing by highest or lowest price, or largest or smallest parcel, similar to the current land sales tab, which is woefully inadequate in many ways overall but that's a different issue. The only cost I had envisaged was a show in search places cost.
However can any of us afford to say we fear having our prices compared? We'd look like we have something to hide. The thing with rentals is that renters need to do more than just look at the price. I have renters who leave and come back to me because the new service isn't as good and I'm sure you have many many more people whom have done the same.
I agree that the social network is poweful for rentals, I get tenants that way, they invite their friends and SL family over.
However from a consumer point of view more search options is good, I use such features in both my full time job and personal usage. I don't always go for the cheapest option, I'm sure many people can see beyond the idea that the cheapest option is the best option. If I was comparing two parcels from the same landlord for example, it would depend upon my planned usage which parcel suits my needs more, surely plenty of people think this way?
When you're renting land or a store, you don't want to have to pack up and move if the place closes down. Elanthius hinted at how those who have been charging higher rates are in a better position to deal with issues such as a slowing rental market and the Openspace fiasco, he has a very good point. I've just been handed a notecard from the owners of Old London Docks that they're closing down, now they're not new at all and as I don't speak German I can't read the support ticket transctript they've handed out, but it's a blow to most people when this sort of thing happens. At least O.L.D management have informed me, unlike the country and Western lounge who went awol last January.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | January 23, 2009 at 04:19 PM
If your instincts about rental search is true, then I can only take it as an active move to hobble or even destroy the rental and estate business.
LL doesn't want long term squatters on their land. It will just be a revolving door in which they can take a cut whenever anyone buys or leaves a parcel. No perm residents means no mucking about with zoning problems etc. The rest can go to the estate businesses who survive this possible change.
I rather think it would make good communities harder to break into and the rest of SL even more ghettoized. But LL will get their cut so it won't matter.
Posted by: melponeme_k | January 23, 2009 at 04:21 PM
Ciaran, the reason the land list is so horrible is because a) they've allowed island sales into it, which aren't sales but rentals and b) they've deliberately throttled it to prevent frequent refreshes and discourage land botting and use of scripts to buy land.
That's insane now, because as Elanthius well knows, if the land list isn't refreshing on one of your bots, it can refresh on another, and thus you are at a huge advantage with bots and that throttle than we as humans are, trying to refresh the list organically. That means
You can currently sort the land for sale/island rentals list by price, size, and type. Few people seem to grasp that and bother with it, so I fail to see why they will magically do this when offered a separate web or tab.
If you had a rentals tab in the search, like search/places, then you'd have only mainland rentals in it, because island "sales" have populated -- and made very confusing for some -- the land-for-sale list.
We already have these search options for rentals:
o search all
o search places
o land-for-sale (island rentals)
o classifieds
Putting all of these on an external website in one big grab bag with one button inworld, on the analogy of "shop," merely kills search places and its merited traffic as a use for rentals (and that may be their deliberate plan to assuage the clubs who scream the loudest about getting rid of traffic so they can stop bot arms racing and camping expenses).
Island dealers will fight to keep themselves in the land-for-sale list and fight to be perceived as having "land for sale" even when it's more of a rental -- that was a long protracted battle that people like Cristiano, who opposed it bitterly and fiercely on ideological and self-interested groups, lost 3 years ago.
At the time, I didn't oppose it because I never thought we'd see the day where island land would go for $0 or $1 per meter, filling the list with dreck. I thought it would retain its value. It didn't.
Google is that big search of everything that rules knowledge and commerce now, and I don't think it's a net positive that only one giant Borg gets to rule all of that for all of us. I think it's good if there is competition and not everything is swept into its maw in the name of "progress".
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | January 23, 2009 at 04:27 PM
I wouldn't mind if they allowed me to identify my estate land for sale as estate land for rent, I rent estate land, I go to great lengths to try to point this out in my description and adverts but yes, it does appear in land sale search, I sell my land for the first week's rental price rather than L$1 please pay a rental box an hour later so I'm way down the list.
I agree that this quirk of the system probably shouldn't be allowed, and of course even by charging one week's rent, I'm still appearing in a list I shouldn't. I wouldn't object if LL told me my parcels wouldn't appear in sales, although I would then definitely want a rental tab.
I'd also not object to a mainland rentals only list, although I'm biased there as I deal in mainland rentals too.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | January 23, 2009 at 05:07 PM
I was looking for rental land the other day. I gave up after an hour. Everything is listed at L$1 and all the ads are false. Well maybe not Prok's but I gave up before I got there. Land rentals need to be handled in a separate place so there is no confusion. And then a rule be set in place about truth in advertising.
Posted by: Ann Otoole | January 23, 2009 at 05:15 PM
Meant to add this, don't get me started on ebay, I've been pointing out their flaws on their forums and to their management for almost twelve months now. They have completely lost the plot and forgotten the people who made them what they are, it's an important lesson for Linden Lab to pay attention to.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | January 23, 2009 at 06:56 PM
i quit sl along time ago...
i was curious about the illuminati and sl connection is why im here.
i knew ever since i seen the logo...
cmon its an all seeing eye who can't see that?...
good ridance sl application and LL
home of the human-bear-pigs.
sl sux i never bought L i made stuff and sold it. my store still selling so i cashout when the money is right
Posted by: seanshizzyda Magic | January 23, 2009 at 07:19 PM
I think you can add NCI safely to the list of things that the Lindens won't eat.
* We don't currently have any sort of real life infrastructure for them to pay money for.
* Many of our helpers and officers are at NCI because they could not work effectively within the confines of the LL volunteer programs.
* We pay our teachers--something LL got out of in December 2006.
* We are very much community supported with a fairly distributed base of financial support.
* We are closely linked with Caledon, another place on the "do not eat" list.
* Most importantly--if LL wanted to do what NCI does, they could have done so at anytime. So far they have not.
That said, it would not surprise me at all to see them raid some of my staff. To which, I say: go for it! They are great people, and NCI could use some more friend at LL.
Posted by: Carl Metropolitan | January 23, 2009 at 08:16 PM
So mmmh I guess that the question is not really "what will Linden Lab eat next" but really "who regulates monopolies", is that it?
Put it into other words, if you create a product/service that is immensely popular so that it drives away all competition, should it be allowed to continue? (The question is, of course, who regulates that?)
If it's not even popular, but actually *unique*, then it gets nationalised — ie. bought by Linden Lab.
Mmmh.
So a good strategy is to be good enough not to attract attention and make enough money out of your obscure service/product to be happy, but not enough to get noticed ;)
Alas, I can't tell what's best. Both Apple and Microsoft are known to buy companies that have created immensely popular applications and include those as part of their operating systems, just pushing all others out of the business. Both have also been at some point in their past accused of being monopolies, and in some cases fined for it (allegedly Microsoft is still paying a lot of fines every day just to keep their monopoly — it pays off). One wonders if this means that LL is liable to be sued under anti-trust laws :)
- Gwyn [FOR SALE]
Posted by: Gwyneth Llewelyn | January 23, 2009 at 09:32 PM
Yes, Carl, you're right, they won't eat NCI, they won't eat you, but they may eat...something. Staff, or maybe your advertising system or your orientation kiosks. For a snack.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | January 24, 2009 at 02:07 AM
I must admit i looked in the 'land rental' box the other day when looking for a home. What a mess I gave up within 10 mins i wasn't so patient.
Search places found what i needed after a wealth of time but I can imagine a newbie to Secondlife wouldn't even consider land after wading through that mess. I had no idea it was so difficult to find rentable land on Secondlife.
NCI has always been an interest for me why haven't the lindens taken a more active role? I've never seen a linden teach a class, no lindens present in their sandbox or greeting areas but masses of newbies.
Does NCI make profit of it's own?
I see places like Sarah Nerds and NCI at Telehubs but don't see places where others can buy advertisments there, is this a special priority given by the lindens?
As for things on the eat list, whoever made the first AO, I'd say the majority of SL wear AOs if that was incorporated into the browser some how it'd be a lot of script saved. Probably the same for Mystitool, people love that radar.
Out of world? Well personally I'd love to see a flickr and blog network come as part of Secondlife premium accounts.
I pay for a flickr account but it's mainly pertaining to Secondlife images, money the lab is missing out on there. Never tried Snapzilla, I guess to me it's looks as confusing as Apez does to the web merchants of SL.
I've also been surprised they haven't followed the video path more considering the popularity of youtube, machinima and of course Torley's own videos. Does anybody at present have an SL version of youtube?
Posted by: Porky | January 24, 2009 at 07:02 AM
Oh huh.. looks like I've already been eaten. I only settled for Mole status though, which I guess means I cut myself short.
Dang.
Posted by: Prad Prathivi | January 24, 2009 at 07:16 AM
Prokofy, do you rent just land? I have been trying to find a 1/4 sim to rent and keep finding crappy islands...
Posted by: Clarrice | January 24, 2009 at 08:11 AM
Porky, if it were so hard to find rentals, I don't see how even day-old newbies, not alts, could in fact find my rentals -- they find them in search/places and classifieds.
Anyone can use those infohub advertisers, they are open to the public, and rotate.
NCI doesn't make a profit to my knowledge, but uses the proceeds to pay teachers, tier, etc.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | January 24, 2009 at 10:56 PM
Clarrice, I usually don't have that large a size available, but have a few around that size, do to search/places and use the term "Ravenglass Rentals" to see some of the available listings or go to the store in Alston and pick up the landmarks card.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | January 24, 2009 at 10:57 PM
Porky wrote: "NCI has always been an interest for me why haven't the lindens taken a more active role? I've never seen a linden teach a class, no lindens present in their sandbox or greeting areas but masses of newbies."
That's because NCI is independent of Linden Lab. We are resident-run and resident-financed. The only association we have with LL is that they contract with us to use NCI's "SL Info" and "FreebieNode" networked systems on their Help Islands for an amount of L$ (less than 5% of our monthly budget).
Some Lindens show up from time to time at our campuses, but they are not part of the NCI organization (as far as I know; maybe some Linden alts are).
Porky wrote: "Does NCI make profit of it's own?"
We are not-for-profit. We make money, but we spend it on payments to teachers, event prizes, rentals, tier, and server expenses. We still pay our teachers 500L$ per class (like LL did up until late 2006). We've found that it makes a huge difference in being able to maintain quality teachers who show up on time. It must be working, as we offer 60+ classes and events a week to an audience of ~600 to 750 people each week.
Our main sources of income are L$ donations, tier donations, AdNode advertising sales at our campuses, and payments for classes we run at the locations of companies and non-profits.
We are currently running a decent surplus, but we try to save money for times when we are running at a negative so we don't have to cut services. We've had both many times over the past three and a half years.
Porky wrote: "I see places like Sarah Nerds and NCI at Telehubs but don't see places where others can buy advertisements there, is this a special priority given by the lindens?"
Any space NCI has near InfoHubs (formerly called Telehubs) is on land we have purchased or rented. We've been snarfing up plots for two years now to build our InfoNodes. Those are on NCI land and that's probably where you saw the Sarah Nerds ad. We promote her Freebie Paradise (along with other places) as good places for new residents.
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to get some special treatment from LL and be able to park an NCI InfoNode near some of the newbie spawning points we aren't at (Ahern, Violet, Waterhead). So far my FIC-fu has not been strong enough...
Posted by: Carl Metropolitan | January 24, 2009 at 11:35 PM
2 points, one tired and one that should be more obvious:
1 - "Adam Zaius's opensim" - we all know that's a lie, please stop saying it (like asking prok to stop saying something ever had an effect.......)
2 - How do you buy an open source project and "regulate" its use exactly? Even if LL controlled the main SVN repo and tried to relicense it (note "try", they'd need consent of everyone who's ever contributed to the project) the only result would be a fork
Posted by: Gareth Nelson | January 25, 2009 at 10:42 PM