Declaring War on Justin Bovington of RiversRunRed

Wow, just wow. I'm stunned. You don't expect a long-time friend and seeming promoter of the world of Second Life to do this.

I can see I did absolutely the right thing by cutting Justin Bovington's friendship card in Second Life and on Facebook. Justin, who is Fizik Baskerville in Second Life has really betrayed all of us who work in the inworld economy of SL.

I thought at first he was going along with this bad idea of SL Work Marketplace because he wasn't directly involved in it and/or didn't know much about it -- but that's never an excuse.

Now I can see that he is saying things that are absolutely fucktarded and need the absolute biggest pushback that anyone can muster - he's asking that it become MORE closed. (And BTW, not for the first time -- he's gotten flak before for complaining about low-quality content in SL).

Here is how he is quoted in Infoweek -- and please, don't tell me his is misquoted or out of context, as these PR campaigns are carefully prepped and staged way in advance:

However, Bovington sounded a note of caution on the Second Life Work Marketplace. "It has be less Xstreet, more Wall Street. It has to reflect relevance, rather than drowning us all in deluge of content: clothing, furniture and avatars," he wrote, adding "if [Linden Lab] attracts the right people to develop these apps, this could be the tipping point."

What a raging fucktard. And what an amazing bunch of dupes on the Metanomics list right now claiming that "this gives us more choices". 

It's as if he isn't realizing -- or pretending not to know! -- that he and his fellow elite FICs on the GSP list are *already* the "right people" attracted to develop these apps. It's as if he is predicting some "flood" to come *even among these filtered ranks*. !!!

I could see how Bovington could support SL Enterprise -- his company Immersive Workspaces sells to it. Understood. Well and good. I could see how he even might tacitly support the closed Soviet store because he didn't think it through, or he didn't realize its ramifications or just didn't think it would be that big a factor. Understood, but not forgiveable.

But now I see that not only does he support it, he is enthusiastically *aggressively* telling Enterprise to stay away from XStreet, and to build a WStreet that doesn't "flood" content and has only very filtered "relevant" content. What an asshole! so he and his friends can sell a refined set of goods just to their special business friends and cut others out of the market. I find this absolutely shameful and appalling, if not criminal.

"X" is of course discredited with the idea of porn and X-rated items, although they do not make up the bulk of items on there. Easily discredited, given all the slutwear and naked butts and barely-covered boobs on the page when you open it up.

It just boggles the mind -- not only him doing this, but all the sordid little fanboyz and wannabees cheering it on.

Since when do we have economic rules in free enterprise liberal democratic *America* that can creates closed Soviet-like stores where only the elite can sell to other elites, and also make public calls to stop "flooding" the market?

It's as if an elite craftsman of Shaker tables first worked with the federal government to create special maximum security zones no one could enter except an approved, classified list, then signed a deal with IBM to sell furniture to them in a secret and closed store, then made a public warning to Ethan Allan and Ikea to stop trying to sell to IBM anyway, and stop flooding the market with their tables-- and told IBM that they can't shop at Walmart or Ikea even with bulk contracts. It's insane. No one would ever find that *necessary* to do in an open and free economy. That the Lindens and this sordid little wannabee list of 30 GPSs need to do this shows us that without a monopoly, without a closed economy, *they can't compete*. It's ugly corporate protectionism of the worst kind.

What's especially deepy fucked about Justin Bovington's claim to "stop the flood" is that there isn't any flood. Duh! Precisely because it's a closed shop, where only his little friends get to sell stuff -- or recommend their friends. He needn't have worried -- most of the few 14 customers already grabbed all their stuff from SL with copybot or Builderbot or other lovely products the Lindens have done nothing to stop (and now we understand why! They needed them for this short list of customers paying them $55,000 a pop!!!). They will get their content into their grids as they need to, and likely won't even go to Linden, or if they do, they will upload it all on one big sim as Glenn Linden has advised, basically using the exploit deliberately that Stroker Serpentine discovered and litigated about in his first lawsuit that involved the "restore sim" exploit to recreate another copy of items. Imagine that!!!

The fact that Justin had to come out and acitvely lobby to keep out what he sees as "crappy content"   lets us know he was reacting to pressure from not only me but others who have been saying "open it up". He's now trying to intellectually justify NOT opening it by implying a flood of cheap Anshe Chung sculpties will invade his precious aeshetic "immersive" workspaces.

Choice would, in fact, involve an IBM or an IndusGeeks or any other kind of firm having the right and freedom to buy Anshe Chung if they want, or buy from Kim Anubis and her friends. THAT is what freedom is; people think having these big customers in the first place is the freedom.

So, why am I using swear words and yelling at an old friend that I used to respect?

Because you and I are powerless to stop this, it's a done deal, and in fact, they are going to make it worse than we knew.

So while they own the servers and people like Justin have wormed their way into the co-management of those servers, we can at least make this have a transaction cost.

And that transaction cost has to be naming and shaming in public in the strongest possible way. It will come from me with sharp, quick, vulgar attacks as strong as I can muster.

It will come from others eventually like Dusan Writer or Saffia who will scratch their heads elegantly and write poetic expressions of sorrow and bewilderment that this is happening.

The big wheel of Second Life and its crappy, crass and tacky mass content that Justin is so neuralgic and about and allergenic to will keep on turning, as IBM and others go on scraping from it what they need to (bluepill with their b-places for example, grabbing all the hotspot data).

For many, there won't be any discernible difference in their Second Lives as they will go on buying their slutwear from XStreet, and if XStreet is bought out by a giant entertainment company someday that is getting its start now from one of the SL Enterprise customers currently, or will come down the line, they won't care. These big companies ALWAYS bank of consumers not caring as they change hands.

What's different about Second Life, however, is that the killing off of the inworld merchant class isn't just a killing off of Luddites by industrialists with streamlined factory manufacturing, or the killing off of independent bookstores by Barns and Nobles and amazon.com

It's different, although the same, because it involves killing off the very feature that makes the world a world and attractive even to casual consumers, and that is the idea that they, too, can sell like they do on ebay and amazon. That they, too, can "make it" along a clearly-marked pathway that enables anyone will talent, skill, hard work, perserverance but also some investment and even luck to make it big in SL with a popular and profitable inworld business.

Killing off *that* faculty, which is indeed the killer app of Second Life the Lindens never, ever want to admit, let along celebrate (it competes too much with their chosen ones), is something that really will gut out the world. The chief factor that distinguishes failed worlds and worlds without much following like There.com and Sony Home and even Blue Mars, which has proved disappointing already to some, is that they have vetted, cleared special lists for developers/creators who work with those companies in a closed shop. The closed shop there isn't the exception, as it is with SLE, it is the rule.

This is where the power curve meets the Long Tail, and has Dusan has been writing, it is not a pretty picture. In fact, it's an ugly picture with not only barriers that occur through natural processes of "talent" or "investment" but barriers that occur with "protectionism" and "warfare" against small business through brutal and unfair practices. The charts and graphs that Dusan is abstractly drawing on his website in fact contain real human lives in them right in Second Life and right under the boot of him and his fellow GSPs and SPs, a system very much promoted by Metanomics, his show owned by his company.

The Long Tail works for Google and the other big ones only if they get to be the snake swallowinging a frog that is never digested for the rest of the body, otherwise they lose too much income and power.

The problem of an office "solution buyer" in SL to obtain high quality work and products is a valid one. It's a valid one in RL where there are market and media mechanisms in a free society to solve it. There are want ads, recruitment firms, procurement offices with trained people and discretion who solve these issues in a context of a free society. They don't require making a closed shop to succeed.

That this is being claimed as a necessity for the shabby virtuality of SL is ridiculous and is merely protectionism of the most blatant and sordid sort -- if it is not racketeering. I hope someday RICO will investigate.

Comments

[cube inada]

ive decided to call it the "ETERNAL TALE" not the Long tail

and its for sure that only corporations and transhumanists expect to "live" long enough to cash in on it.

meanwhile, try giving a "furby" to a kid who wants "dancing elmo" THIS christmas.

anyhow-- content does live in context, and that "need" and "perception" does drive buisness where humans are involved.

I wonder if the AI robot overlords spawned by the geek loins of today will require such pyramid schemes to excercise authority amongst themselves.

Gort DID travel alone in that Saucer.-;)

[cube inada]

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/singularity-university-day-one-infinite-in-all-directions/

Building a better TALE...lol

[Prokofy Neva]

There's another piece of this I keep forgetting to mention -- and research.

and that is that I'm hearing the SLE customers sign away their rights to resell their own content created in the SLE. That seems hard to believe. But I see it on the forums. Does anyone know?

[cube inada]

virtuality is a world of licenses built on/ over/ without licences...

so belief? who knows?

;)

[AnnOtooleInSL]

Oh well the elitists are in control. And demanding more control judging from what is going on in the so-called commerce forum that looks to me like it needs to be renamed Axis forum since the worst insulter of all time appears to be given free reign to openly insult people. My suspicion is LL is allowing it to go on so people can disqualify themselves from the new axis youth content seller program by getting suspended whilst the leader ranting into the microphone is exempt. It is all so very 1930's ish.

Best bet is to just hold on and let Klingdon drive the ship into the reef. The pirates will carry off the good parts and start a new island civilization as SS Second Life slips beneath the waves forever.

Did Klingdon forget that if he pisses off all the content creators they can file a total take down order and almost all content in Second Life will have to be deleted? People seem to forget who is actually in control here.

[melponeme_k]

"and that is that I'm hearing the SLE customers sign away their rights to resell their own content created in the SLE."

I wouldn't be surprised if this were true. LL will no longer allow spectacular builds to be built on their grid without their control. And as the GSP program sucks in all resources and Xstreet dies, what is left will belong to LL totally.

I said they wanted their own Caledon, Drowsy etc...and the "build your dreams" ethos left them high and dry. Which meant the scrambling to get content with "mentoring" Lindens.

[Kyle]

A written declaration, this is laughable, the so called ‘elite’ are not above copyright infringement. When I was noob a nice man took me under his wing, gave me hair, skin and clothing. It was quiet sometime before I realized it was copybotted content, by then it was way too late.

This nice man was a respected content creator, him and his little gang of fellow merchants and creators where at the very least dappling in copyrighted materials. A written declaration isn’t worth the paper it’s written on IMHO

What’s next- an SL exile for the criminals to live in, rip each other off, copybot each others shit, oh no wait, that’s the main grid!

[Kyle]

I am doubtful a lot of creators would sign away the rights to their work. It’s sounding more and more like the BM business model.

[simone]

.... Yeah, what SL definitely needs is more empty spaces, corporate logos plastered all over mediocre, bland, boring builds. Gotta say dude, I had to PAY people to come into one of your corporate builds so it appeared to have life. What *you* need to grasp is that you can't segregate yourself from the people who actually visit virtual worlds. This isn't a website; people can actually *see* whether your presence in this virtual space is tanking or welcome. That's what you can't accept here. That's what you're not addressing. The 'right' people are already in SL, are already available and professional enough to successfully market virtual spaces for corporate types. But no one's listening to them. You and a host of other 'development teams' thought you could build it like a website and run like hell. You forgot the word before 'virtual world', which is INTERACTIVE. Until Reebok, Sony, Toyota and the plethora of others who paid for virtual spaces and only thought about getting people in the virtual door as a chuckle-worthy afterthought come to grips with INTERACTIVE marketing, there's not a thing you can offer that has more attraction than a pretty build, which is good for about 5 minutes of entertainment. No one's going to take these virtual spaces seriously until you can start demonstrating INTEREST in their product or service, and no one will be interested till you give them a reason to be.

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, thinking about what you're saying here, Simone, I'm wondering if in fact that's why both Linden and the corporations had to design these behind-the-firewall spaces so they could hide their sorry asses from the public which would be critical of their absence of meaningful and productive activity.

[cube inada]

One must remember, the Companies and organizations that LL "is" targeting the SLE product for "already" exist behind large fields of parking lots, gates ,and security posts at Campuses, or Corporate Parks in Suburbia or in the new PLEXs of a Google.

These are not urban office buildings like in NYC.:)

Hot dog vendors DO NOT fill the streets of these organizations. And if they do, they already have corporate licenses to be on campus.

The extentions of media are just clearer when objectified in 3 dimensions than as text or a line of code.

The question is where will the PUBLIC virtual Spaces Be, if we continue to allow private companies to excercise more of the controls over virtuality and its extention either serving or Over us..

after 20 years newsgroups(usenet) have been removed from "free" access in almost all big cable company ISP services. Cuomo in NY said no porno- no news...shame. thats binary politics too.

Typepad can erase these ideas ina blink. Geocities--CITIES- finally deleted its users histories this last week... as dead as Atlantis.:) Yahoos of the moment made this corporate decision all over user gen content.

Eventually, its gotta give. the machine always stops.

[Prokofy]

Well Cube, sure, I take your point, they have these big corporate campuses. BTW, we have them, somewhat smaller in size, just outside New York City, in the sort of places where Dale Innis works at IBM in a suburb of NYC. But still, there is likely more integration between that IBM building and its surruonding communities of stores, businesses, factories etc that there might be between these California behemoths, I don't know. Even the Googleplex has to buy toilet paper, and it likely buys it in bulk from Kimberly-Clark or something,but maybe it gets pallets from Sam's Price Club.

I don't have as much angst and bitterness and just plain weirdness that you do about big corporations because I've worked in them, and my family members have worked in them, and like everything else in life, they are made up of people.

I never liked usenet. From the very beginning, I hated the culture of geeks which came from the Well and MIT that drove others away with nastiness, knowier-than-thouness, obscenity, hatred, sexism, etc. I don't see why we need to make the world safe for usenets.

If someone has an urgent need to type obscenities all day that SL doesn't fill for them on free accounts hanging out in the infohubs, then surely they'll find a forums like Second Citizens whre frankly somebody has to pay, if not Mother FIC or somebody, for the hosting of the spot. So let somebody pay, I fail to see why maintaining adult anonymous social sites should be a utility like water or electricity, it's an entertainment like cable TV, pay a little for it because managing it and keeping it from anarchic crime is a challenge.

I can't get all up on the man over the fact that this sort of thing has to be paid for and regulated.

I realize all that about the big monopolies, I call *them* the Users, more than us. They use *us*. But, whatever, host your own dedicated servers where you don't do that. Typepad is unlikely to erase paying accounts, and in fact provides ample opportunity to back up your blog.

[Inara Pey]

Surprised? No.

I've always stated that the Work Marketplace is not about creativity in SL - as such, I'm totally unsurprised by Bovington's attitude. Which is also not to say I agree with it.

There is a clear dichotomy of views as to what SL should be. Those of us who have been around a goodly while have one view, and the corporate mind will obviously have another, and the two will have a hard time meeting simply because of the latter's world view (in every sense).

For now LL are content to go with the corporate mindset - while attempting to keep the rest of us nicely corralled should the Brave New World trip over its overly ambitious feet....

[Tracy welles]

Prok must be an American. Only an American would declare war on something beyond their control.

War on terror, war on drugs, war on poverty, war on big business, war on insurance... oh well you get the idea. We have more wars we declare in a single day than most countries do in their thousands of years of history.

A prok war against everyone she knows wouldn't be all that unusual.

Someone mentioned LL new business corp ideas.

This whole behind the firewall thing is no big deal anyhow. Not sure why people are making an ordeal out of it.

Oh, but it's a corporate firewall, sorry, gotcha... a real one, we are not talking about iptables. We make it sound even better by putting it behind a Cisco IOS Pix.. Wow.. impressive. Now it's all "corporate".

The whole goal of this corporate deal was to improve Linden's image. They have been trying to clean up their mess for years so someone would take them seriously. Same with the moving the pornsters. You couldn't possibly take what they are doing now serious. And most likely no one else will either. Maybe a handful.

And with people like Stroker suing over his virtual porn gizmo's, Linden's model as anything for a serious platform continues to nose dive. What better way to prop it all up then produce a product for the corporate user?

Linden plays whack a mole and seldom hits the target. Shouldn't be any fuss over what's going on, it's just there for looks. Which in business is not any different than knowing sales in a grocery store are better when the shelves are fully stocked and the boxes of cereal aligned straightly.

They needed something else for the shelf.

[Cristal Menges]

This is the same RRR who delivered the epic failure of Immersive Workspaces (what happened with that trademark by the way?).

It was a pile of *** in usablity. Another pointless use of trying to make Second Life fit into some corporations where really the cumbersome model is never going to meet the dynamic needs for communication.

Regardless, Linden are in charge of this. I think we can all sit back and watch it become unfocused, misdirected and within 12 months be lost in blog posts and forgotten.

[Tracy Welles]

"SL Enterprise Immersive Workspaces"

"Second Life Enterprise to focus on security, apps for instance, the service offers LDAP integration"

Layman's terms:

A chat room with graphics behind a Cisco Pix/or MonoWall firewall ran on the GNU/Linux operating system and their new hired help that actually understands how to correctly configure PAM modules and host confs.

LDAP Integration? What's so impressive about that? Mest all free open source CMS and other gateway proggies on the planet have LDAP integration and have since Al Gore invented the Internet.

Whoopee doo.

[Tracy Welles]

"SL Enterprise Immersive Workspaces"

"Second Life Enterprise to focus on security, apps for instance, the service offers LDAP integration"

Layman's terms:

A chat room with graphics behind a Cisco Pix/or MonoWall firewall ran on the GNU/Linux operating system and their new hired help that actually understands how to correctly configure PAM modules and host confs.

LDAP Integration? What's so impressive about that? Most all free open source CMS and other gateway proggies on the planet have LDAP integration and have since Al Gore invented the Internet.

Whoopee doo.

[Sioban McMahon]

"Until Reebok, Sony, Toyota and the plethora of others who paid for virtual spaces and only thought about getting people in the virtual door as a chuckle-worthy afterthought come to grips with INTERACTIVE marketing, there's not a thing you can offer that has more attraction than a pretty build, which is good for about 5 minutes of entertainment."

Bravo, Simone! That goes for ANY group in SL, not just the corporations. If you build something, marvelous or not, people will look at it once or twice then move on. You need to have staff, activities, events, a community to keep people coming back. Each time I visit the area of a non-profit or charity in SL and see a few posters hung around, maybe a notecard giver, I want to grab the person and shake them. SL will never be a replacement for a web site. It's easier to read a website and download information. Camming in on a poster in SL and reading detail can be a pain. Do things in SL that promote your business/nonprofit/whatever that take advantage of the medium. When someone hangs signs and posters then declares success they are just kidding themselves or the person paying their bills.

[David Peter]

Prok,

This is a very simple argument, you've stated it well in earlier blogs posts.

Correct me if I'm wrong here?

This is what you're saying:

Linden Lab are creating a list of preferred suppliers, reportedly for the first round of SLE clients. I also understand, LL are also going to take a considerable chunk of revenue as commission out of Marketplace sales. Content will be vetted, signed off as "authentic". The problem, you don't like that this is happening. You feel that the xtsreet content developers should be the basis of the supply chain.

Is this correct?

We hear you. I'm sure LL also hear.

The problem?

This is turning from an Idea and Suggestion, into a torrent of Abuse and Dogma. Which is a shame, as it's starting to smack of blog-bullying.

You have even used provocative language like 'Declaring War!'. War on what, Linden Lab or their messengers who are just repeating the party line?

From what I can tell, from that article, it would seem that Mr Bovington is saying something quite interesting:

"It has to be more than just content to succeed. It has to offer the Enterprise real reasons for adoption. Which means applications and extended solutions on top of the SL base platform. This is not about the color of the fabric of the reception chairs..."

I have found no mention of any reference in his quotes to a mention of 'substandard content'?!

You also seemed to have left out that he mentioned the 'hybrid' set ups? Where corporates will have the two world's of Private and Open running in conjunction, although not connected. Which means, that content could and will come from XStreet for Open developments.

My concern, this seems to have turned into an excuse for blog-bullying: Kim Anubis last week, Justin today... who next? I'm sure other people are firmly in your sniper sights.

Let's not lose focus here, you have a good argument with LL. Besides, do you think people like Justin have that much influence on LL? As I said before, you're shooting the messenger. The problem here, we're easily derailed into sub-arguments. The real blame is firmly at the feet of the New World Order (NWO) within Linden Lab. They have an agenda. Philip's jump to the left, is purely cosmetic. He's still Chairman, still in charge. The NWO report to the same board, the same Mr Rosedale. They've been told to build up LL into something new. So they can either IPO or Sell it on.

David Peters

[Marco Van Struten]

Siobhan and Simone,

You really don't have a clue do you? Do you actually understand how LL are positioning the Second Life Enterprise (SLE) ?

Obviously not! Let's take a look at your quote in reference to Second Life Enterprise.

"Until Reebok, Sony, Toyota and the plethora of others who paid for virtual spaces and only thought about getting people in the virtual door as a chuckle-worthy afterthought come to grips with INTERACTIVE marketing, there's not a thing you can offer that has more attraction than a pretty build, which is good for about 5 minutes of entertainment."

This is for behind-the-firewall use, not a consumer facing product. This is the world of Forterra or Protonmedia, the rather dry and prosaic corporate world of training, military, collaboration and application development.

Separate your own ideals of how you want SL to run. Instead think about where this is going in terms of an Enterprise proposition.

Why are you getting this confused?

Do you not understand the difference?

/FAIL

[Sioban McMahon]

Marco,

Thank you so much for your kind response.

I actually DO know the difference between corporate presence behind and outside of a firewall. I was talking about efforts outside the firewall. Sorry you missed that.

[Marco Van Struten]

Sioban,

So what does this have to do with Enterprise? Again, I was commenting on your comment about 'empty' builds.

This was the quote you replied upon:

"Yeah, what SL definitely needs is more empty spaces, corporate logos plastered all over mediocre, bland, boring builds. Gotta say dude, I had to PAY people to come into one of your corporate builds so it appeared to have life. What *you* need to grasp is that you can't segregate yourself from the people who actually visit vi..."

This is missing the point, this is not "marketing" spaces, or an excuse to "advertise". As I said, this is the prosaic world of Enterprise: training, on boarding, facilities training, military simulation, meetings...

What has this to do with:

"I actually DO know the difference between corporate presence behind and outside of a firewall?"

That wasn't your comment. You described Enterprise space on the basis of it being a consumer led proposition. Which is not what we're discussing here.

Marco

[Sioban McMahon]

Marco,

I was hijacking the discussion, basically, to talk more broadly about corporations in SL.

My opinion of the new SLeek? Pretty darn expensive for what the corporation is getting. The novelty of it will be fun for a bit, but I honestly think that the companies will go back to using video conferencing or other simpler approaches. SL can be a tool for them, but I think its as a public outreach mechanism but done differently than most of them have in the past. How should it be done differently, see my previous attempt at thread hijacking.

Now, Marco, why don't you add something productive to this discussion rather than simply fussing at me?

Have a great day.

[Marco Van Struten]

Let's be constructive. As your comments were, as you said, an attempt to Hijack the conversations for your own purposes.

Virtual Worlds are part of the mix of communication tools, there is no doubt. I work in a famous Orange bank in the Netherlands, we're all frustrated by the lack of immersion in Audio conference calls. Video is too intrusive and makes for an uncomfortable experience.

Virtual Worlds are something different again. They give us the ability to connect in an immersive way, something that has it's time and purpose.

As for 'novelty' factor? Look at the ROI on these experiences. Less cost of flights, also hotels etc. Also the need for all Enterprise to reduce CO2, these are not 'fun and games' frolics. These are real business advantages. Proven and actually giving REAL COST SAVINGS, in some cases TOTAL COST RETURN.

Now is that 'novelty' or a business tool? Again, I cannot help thinking you're projecting your own 'business' experience with your West of Ireland project?

Think though on great projects in your field, let's for argument sake take SLDublin by Ham Rambler as a benchmark. Imagine if that was the basis of an Enterprise training division. Imagine again now that division has to handle and connect with 7500 people per year alone, just on training. Which is actually a reasonable example of the size Enterprise has to engage with. You can now see why your $55,000k is not expensive? In fact, I would say that a well run and managed SLE would probably cost around $500k. It's not hard to see that the ROI is very high. It cost's us alone on average about 3000EURO per person per training module, which the majority is in travel, hotel and expenses. Going back to our SL Dublin example? This is not about social space, although people do like the community aspect. It's more about helping them not have to travel and waste energy and time. That's enough incentive, as everyone wins. See now why Virtual Worlds have a future? We could also touch on meetings, conferences as another example.

I hope this is constructive?

Marco

Again, I'm being constructive. But seriously, if we're in a thread that is attacking a lot of people. We should have the courtesy of keeping this on track.

Marco
Training Officer

[Sioban McMahon]

"we're all frustrated by the lack of immersion in Audio conference calls. Video is too intrusive and makes for an uncomfortable experience."

Then you aren't doing them right. There are options out there for real time collaboration that greatly exceed the capabilities of SL. SL just had the breakthrough of putting a web page on a prim, remember? In the competing business applications, I can work jointly on documents while talking to participants, show a powerpoint presentation, and stream video. I can't do that sort of thing simulataneously in SL. One or two of those things, but not all of them in an easy split screen.

"Virtual Worlds are something different again. They give us the ability to connect in an immersive way, something that has it's time and purpose."

Yes, they give an immersive experience in which your company can introduce it's products, approaches, and atmosphere to the public. If the company decides to do it correctly.

"As for 'novelty' factor? Look at the ROI on these experiences. Less cost of flights, also hotels etc. Also the need for all Enterprise to reduce CO2, these are not 'fun and games' frolics. These are real business advantages. Proven and actually giving REAL COST SAVINGS, in some cases TOTAL COST RETURN."

Return on investment comes from comparitively cheap business apps that allow you to hold meetings, efficiently share information, stream video, share documents, and work collaboratively. SL doesn't do some of those things well and it doesn't do some of those things at all.

"Now is that 'novelty' or a business tool?"

It's a novelty. SL adds distraction and a learning curve for participants and actually is less effective for sharing information than are other business apps.

"Again, I cannot help thinking you're projecting your own 'business' experience with your West of Ireland project?"

I was drawing from my experience running a nonprofit in SL, certainly, but more so my experience at my RL job that has nothing to do with SL but does extensively use business apps for meetings and collaborative work across distance.

"You can now see why your $55,000k is not expensive?"

$55K is cheaper than physical travel, but is more expensive than the well tested alternatives that already exist for collaborative long distance work.

"I hope this is constructive?"

Not really. I suggest you do some research into other options already in use for online meetings and collaborative work. SL has a "neato" factor that the other options don't have (dressing your avvie, looking around a build, for instance). SL lacks, however, the effective and efficient means of presenting and sharing information found in the other systems. Camming in on a slide show in SL is a terrible, by comparison.

SL should:

- Integrate something like google docs or a similar system to make viewing of docs easier and to allow collaborative work. Currently, you'd have to have SL open, then google docs or your other sharing app open at the same time and be switching between them. That will cause your participants to lose track. Make collaborative or shared documents show up in windows within SL, but be saved back as a Word file, rather than dealing with notecards.

- Make presentations easier. Saving powerpoint presentations as a set of jpeg's and uploading them? Puuuulease. People are trying to improve this, but the systems are still finicky and you still have to cam in on a screen within your screen. Make a presentation option that appears as a pop up window within SL and has high pixel count so we can SEE the info on the slides. Allow two means of viewing: speaker/moderator controlled viewing of slides as well as an option for the viewer/participant to scan through them at their own pace. Give the viewer/participant the ability to save the presentation to their hard drive.

- Voice and chat. Give the moderators of a meeting greater control over voice and chat in their sim. Who speaks, the volume at which they speak, a queuing system for questions. This will reduce chaos. There is some control now, but for a business meeting, the moderator needs some god abilities.

Honestly, in my RL work, the ability to have my meeting participants log in and virtually sit in chairs near each other doesn't balance out the decrease in efficiency/effectiveness of the other aspects of the meeting.

It's a novelty until SL catches up to the existing business communications apps.