Second Thoughts

Prok's Rentals in Island Life!

Eat your heart out, Desmond. I'm on to such a sweet deal -- it's going to make your Blue Mars caper look like an Etch-a-Sketch. Anshe? Yes, I've beaten you for once after all these years, because, well, I showed up, and put my hoe to the ground, and while you were busy flattening Adam's cliffs into pancakes, I was parlaying my modest cabbage and palm trees stake into a multi-extension island empire with a flourishing raspberry-tomato-melon-asparagus farm, and yards full of sheep, chickens, turtles and more, powering me to level 15 -- and more adventures ahead.

Yes, I've already gotten the 20,000 metabux lighthouse. Nyah.

Really! I'm part of an exciting new invitation-only beta program for renting land in Island Life, an existing new Facebook game invented by Raph Koster and the other fabulous devs at Metaplace, the Place That Became Meta, and exists forever more in our hearts, where the best virtual things go.

Instead of scratching on Governor Linden land chasing prim hogs and security-orbing cybersexers like my fellow SL landlords, watching my chickens grind to a halt and not lay for days due to the new sim-laggy 8-to-a-server "neighbors" policy, I'm basking in the sun, sipping my raspberry-tomato-melon-asparagus smoothie, lying on a towel under a yellow umbrella, watching my never-die, never-feed Island Life chickens bob their heads up and down approximately 6,000 times a minute and listening to the waves crash on my rocky shores that never balloon up on me like sculpties, but always, every day, any hour, reliably look like what they are: virtual rocks. 

But I need company. This is where you come in.Did you know you can *chat* in IL and come over to other people's islands, just like the Sims or Second Life?

And where there's land, there's rentals and land barons not far behind!

That's right, you can now *rent my land* in Island Life, just like you do on the sunny green sim of Juanita in Second Life, whose name is like a prayer. But unlike Second Life, where you can't grow plants like sioncorn without using up every prim on the server just to feed your chicken for a day, in Island Life, you can enjoy a rich, lush, prosperous faux-farming and object-placement experience for ever more, with my great new rentals plan.

As you can see, I have plenty of fertile, lush squares that I've carefully tended with a series of environmentally-sound companion planting of cabbages, then pineapples, then melons, then onions, then strawberries -- things that go together like a fish goes with a bicycle and help make that marvelous humus that we love to dig in here at Island Life just because it manages to smell like that time the freezers went dead at Gristedes during the New York blackout, even in a game where there isn't any smell! Perfection!

When you get a square -- or 10 or 20 -- come on in, we have plenty -- you know you are going to be doing business with somebody who has stayed on the servers of Second Life for more than 2,000 days and nights, and who has been in IL since beta. We don't do angry inches here like Jerry in Detroit, making you buy tiny parcels where you can't possibly grow anything and have to step over all kinds of other weird people just to see your property.

No, at Island Life Rentals, we offer happy squares -- only Raph-Protected Land, which like Linden protection, means that you have an open view not on to something ugly your neighbour is doing, but clear blue sky and waving palm trees. Perfection!

Now, you may be looking around right now at these lush graphics and asking yourself, "But hey, Prok, I can't seem to dig my spade down into this here land here at your rentals. Can you send me an invite to the group? Or do you need to turn on terraform for me? I'm new here."

Well, I'm glad you asked. First of all, there's no group to join because there's *no autoreturn in Island Life*. Joy! Never worry about your belongings flying off the server into some data dump in Texas where some Linden on a smoke break never bothers to send it back to your Lost & Found folder. *There are no lost and found folders at Island Life* Never lost inventory! Like, I said, the Joy of Island Living!

OK, but I see what you mean there. You can't *actually* dig into Prok's Island Life Rentals. But what you get when you rent my land is what we like to call out here in the Metaverse *a limited license to access content*. If you can't figure out what *that* means, let me explain -- and I'm always here to help.

No, you can't dig in your earth that you'll be renting -- yet. But no worries. Raph and I are in talks about my proposal for an exciting new API called CropShare (TM) that would enable visitors not only to dig on your neighbour's land to help till the fields, but share in the proceeds from your planted crops if they pick them for you -- while you are doing boring things like going to work or feeding your children instead of doing the important stuff in life like picking your acres of IL mushrooms that spring up like, well, mushrooms after you plant them.

And very soon, I expect Raph will be rolling out CropShare (TM) with other social media hooks that will enable you to tweet and twitter and yammer and yimmer about how you picked my crops, got a pittance for doing so, but enabled me to avoid a rotting mess when I finally got to log on because the M16 was stuck in a flood and took an hour to get across town. We have our priorities straight here!

But for now, let me share with you this FANTASTIC plan I have that will save you money, save you time, but preposition you to be "in the know" and "with the groove" with all the "cool kids" just like Desmond, who gets invited to the Lindens parties.

Code as Code: The New TOS Linked to Newly-Formulated Policies is a Mess and Contradictory

The new Linden TOS required to log on to Second Life is a mess of rules leading to a large potpourri of policies, which further confuse and even contradict what is said in the TOS, leading to legal loopholes, legal nihilism, and legal nonsense.

Or, wait a minute. The new TOS is a slick, corporate, calculated lawyer-chiseled set of regulations privileging the corporation, linked to a carefully-hewn set of policies that leave huge latitude for corporate discretion, which is the heart and soul of the unconscionable TOS, as the judge in the Bragg case called it.

Both or true, and as it tries to be several things to several constituences, it isn't all human rights for all, and can probably serve as a flexible codification of the ability of Linden Lab to do anything it likes, "for any reason or no reason".

This isn't even "code as law," a concept I loathe because it privileges bytes over human actors; this is just code as code -- i.e. not law, with consistency, due process and reason, but a set of unjust, arbitrary rules matched with technical coded means of control to induce their enforcement.

The only good thing about it is now, in addition to the TOS, all the various edicts, writs, read-outs, "something Jack said on the forums and Pink said in an office hour or Blue told me inworld" which have made up "the common law" of SL surrounding the TOS and Community Standards are now all in one place, in "stone" so to speak, with lawyerly diligence linking TOS to corresponding policy on a non-editable wiki.

I wish I had saved the various redactions of the TOS over the years (maybe someone has) and studied these archeological layers as the Lindens went through the Age of Heroes, the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, the Industrial Age, Information Age and so on. Basically, we have no choice -- if you want to log on and access your property or wait on your customers, you have to check the box, but there are problems.

I suppose first to strike most landlords smack in the center of their foreheads, is the bit about how we "don't really own land any more". Well, we never did, but of course, those of us who were of a mind to try some sort of long-term bait-and-switch sort of thing could indeed reference website ads that ran for years saying "Own your own land!" (The Lindens could get around this by saying that land was a virtuality, a fiction, and the ad didn't say you owned the server from which the land was generated).

It's not surprising that the Lindens reached this decision to verbally devalue their already-crappy-in-places land with this language; it now sells for .85 Lindens a meter, where once it proudly sold for 8, and was artifically kept at 5 for years and years. When the Lindens stop valuing their own land; then they themselves stop trying to sell it at all; when they view it as merely a shelf or bracket upon which they arrange content, and not a commodity or a location, then it isn't surprising that, just like the currency, which is also a "limited license to access content," they think up this "limited license to access" stuff instead of saying "ownership".

One could panic, but...land is already selling for nothing or being abandoned, so, no need. The point is, the Lindens want to indemnify themselves. They make the point that you can't expect a buyback. So if the music stops and you land on a chair where you didn't make back your investment yet, you are SOL, and they are not responsible. This ain't no Happy Birthday.

Still -- and this is truly scraping the barrel -- I don't recall seeing this language in the TOS before, which in fact, while it sounds like "not such a great deal," represents at least slow and painful progress toward the rule of law which I personally, and many others, have tried to urge and compel the Lindens to move for six long years. This language in fact circumscribes -- in a way -- that "any reason or no reason" stuff, and shows you that Bragg, after all, left its mark. Your land is only a "limited license to access stuff" but it's something, it's yours, and they can only take it away as follows:

Linden Lab may revoke the Virtual Land License at any time without notice, refund or compensation in the event that: (i) Linden Lab determines that fraud, illegal conduct or any other violations of these Terms of Service or other Second Life policies is associated with the holder's Account or Virtual Land; or (ii) the holder becomes delinquent on any of that user's Account's payment requirements, ceases to maintain an active Account or terminates this Agreement.

Regretably, that means that a permaban from the forums "violations of these Terms of Service" can lead to a confiscation of your land. But I think it also means that the "any reason or no reason" clause actually isn't set out in relationship to land "ownership," and that's progress. They have to show that you violated the TOS if they take your land.

Even so, this hurts:

You acknowledge that Virtual Land is a limited license right and is not a real property right or actual real estate, and it is not redeemable for any sum of money from Linden Lab

But...it hurts to find that the Brooklyn Bridge you bought is not going to be the lovely backyard accessory you thought it was going to be, too. I do wonder why it can't be otherwise. Could it *really* be so hard -- if you are not burdened by the exigencies of technocommunist diktat -- to recognize and guarantee private property?

Well, as Eric Rice once famously said about all our efforts to conceive of ourselves as like citizens with property, or like serfs under a king, or like nomads with grazing rights, here's the deal:

"Linden Lab is a software company. We are its customers. The end."

Gomi Mfume

Gomi Mfume is one again banging on me inworld with annoying IMs, and filling the spam files on this blog -- where he lands because he is banned from this blog.

Once again, he's blathering on that he isn't related to Woodbury, and gosh, no  one should be associated with guilt.

He admits he was "once" a member of W-hat and that he "quit a few years ago". But that's all in the past.

"Many of the older members of W-hat aren't to pleased about recent W-hat / Woodbury crossovers as far as membership and what have you go," says Gomi.

To which I say: bullshit, bullshit, bullshit and -- bullshit again.

Once a W-hat member, always a W-hat member. This never changes; this never dies; this never gets removed -- ever.

And W-hat and Woodbury are very much intersected now everywhere in various groups, notably "Digital Woodbury Hat" and visibly associated in their "Ravenglass Campus" and many other places. That's because they are basically "on the same page" ideologically and behaviourally. Saying they are different is like saying Fatah and Hamas are "different" or are "not pleased with each other" because they fight, and are ostensibly "miles apart" ideologically -- but of course they are not, and have the same basic ideas and methodologies.

Every once in awhile, the W-hoods do one of two things:

1) they pretend to quit, pretend to be unaffiliated, pretend to be outraged at being associated because "everyone knows" they fight among each other and those who don't know this are merely woefully out of date and not in the know. But...this is merely *another form of griefing and another manipulation* so it can never be accepted -- ever.

2) they actually have some scuffle or falling out or one of them really does quit or there are dramatic (but usually fake) departures and renunciations of the life of crime, blah blah blah. But...they never condemn what their group did. They never continue to condemn what their "former" group did. They never disassociate themselves *publicly*. They go through fake dramatic "apologies" and say they have changed their ways, but they never publicly denounce the *ideas* and *practices* of these groups. Ever. That's because once a W-hood, always a W-hood.

Why do they do this? Well part of their Leninist strategy is to seem to make solidarity with former enemies but it's only to lure them into their movement and ultimately discredit them (Intlibber's trajectory in SL was all about that; so is Corsi Mousehold's trajectory).

So Gomi Mfume, go fuck yourself. You remain banned, and you remained "associated with guilt" forever. Your fake "departures" from W-hat; your fake "disassociations" from Woodbury never taken an authentic and convincing form -- they *only* take the *griefing* form of browbeating inworld or pestering to be published on my blog, so that somehow anyone seeing you as still associated with these groups is to be blamed, and *not you* and *not the groups* -- but that's what in fact has to be done: robust, public, denunciation of these groups, their beliefs and practices, and ALL of their members, none of who are accidently "associated with guilt" but are part of the whole cynical conspiracy.

Gomi Mfume, I might add, is the partner of Huns Valen. Huns Valen is one of the notorious secret- sharers of the entire Woodbury shtick in SL, a long-time W-hat operative in SL and infamous for not-so-secret victory-dances with b-tards and PNs and all the rest. Being a partner to a notorious W-hat operative is like saying "My husband is a Black Panther radical who bombs police stations, and I know all about all his raids, and I know all his friends and all the people he parties with who also commit crimes, and I hide everything under my pillow and I even cook and clean for all these people and give them my couch to flop on, but oh, no, I'm not part of the Black Panthers at all."

Another thing these people all do, of course, is try to get various bloggers and papers like the Herald to be their sounding board. Of course, the different factions have played the Herald like a fiddle for years.

BTW, while I think of it, Loki Clifton is another one who swears he has left the W-hat/Woodbury griefing scene, takes his griefing picture of himself griefing Ravenglass out of his profile, and telling me that the person who chalked my name on the Lab's building during SLCC was Plastic Duck, i.e. Patrick whatsis from Canada who is also Gene Replacement and some other alts -- and then swears he has turned to business and given up griefing. Then I find him hanging out again at the Woodbury Sandbox, where I go in order to file an abuse report over a bunch of the "girls" sending me dollar and ten dollar payments to annoy me.

P.S. This time of year, the W-hoods are more active -- Hitler's birthday (April 20), Spring Break (next two weeks), and for extra credit, Lenin's birthday (April 22, which is also Earth Day, and no accident comrade).

P.P.S. I'm personally of the persuasion that it isn't even a conspiracy to find that extreme American leftists, who were very much in touch with and cooperative with the Soviet KGB-controlled "international peace bureaus" could very easily be suggested to do something on the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birthday, which was an EXTREMELY big deal in the Soviet Union, and something they'd want to be able to show had involvement in "fronts" of "progressive forces" all over the world. And neither the Soviets or Lenin had to be an environmentalist to manipulate a green movement in the U.S. which they saw as helping defeat capitalism and corporations. Yeah, I'm aware of the endless Wikipedia protestations that this is not the case:

• Senator Nelson chose the date in order to maximize participation on college campuses for what he conceived as an "environmental teach-in." He determined the week of April 19–25 was the best bet; it did not fall during exams or spring breaks, did not conflict with religious holidays such as Easter or Passover, and was late enough in spring to have decent weather. More students were likely to be in class, and there would be less competition with other mid-week events—so he chose Wednesday, April 22. Asked whether he had purposely chosen Lenin's 100th birthday, Nelson explained that with only 365 days a year and 3.7 billion people in the world, every day was the birthday of ten million living people. “On any given day, a lot of both good and bad people were born,” he said. "A person many consider the world’s first environmentalist, Saint Francis of Assisi, was born on April 22."^[22
  
• April 21 was the birthday of John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club. This was not lost on organizers who thought April 22 was Muir's birthday.^{[citation needed]}
• April 22, 1970 was the 100th birthday of Vladimir Lenin. Time reported that some suspected the date was not a coincidence, but a clue that the event was "a Communist trick," and quoted a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution as saying, "Subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them."^[15] J. Edgar Hoover, director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, may have found the Lenin connection intriguing; it was alleged the FBI conducted surveillance at the 1970 demonstrations.^[23] The idea that the date was chosen to celebrate Lenin's centenary still persists in some quarters,^[24][25] although Lenin was never noted as an environmentalist. Some far-left groups have also stated that they "influenced" Nelson to pick April 22 during the initial organizing period, but it seems not to have been a conscious decision of his.^{[citation needed]}

Funny how Nelson couldn't just say "No, definitely not, I have no use for Lenin." Instead, he had to distract from that problem of his refusal to condemn Lenin with an angry redirect to a math problem and a saint. What was so hard about saying, "No, I have no reason to glorify Lenin."

Nelson fought in World War II, and might have come to see the Soviet Union as a progressive force through that profound experience.

Here's what he said in an interview:

Nelson: I just organized a nationwide event in 1970. This year it's going to be a worldwide event. The Soviet Union will participate, all of the Iron Curtain countries, all of Western Europe, Canada, Mexico, India, Japan, lots of other countries. The Green Parties grew up in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union under very tough dictatorships. It's much greater pollution, say in Leningrad, than there is anywhere in this United States.

Nobody would have "organized" the Soviet Union like that without intimate involvement with the Soviets, and ANY foreigner would have DEFINITELY had a KGB officer assigned not only to watch them, but to "guide" them.

Terrorists

It's not every day you have two big terrorist cases occur, one in Russia and one in the United States, so that you can actually compare real details, in ways that endless moral-equivalency debates have to do artificially.

The sickening terrorist attack on the Moscow subway, likely committed by terrorists from the North Caucasus, made anybody who has ever ridden on those endlessly long and deep Moscow metro escalators feel an instant empathy for the people trapped in those stations yesterday -- and for many more to express their condolences even if they couldn't picture the scene. It's the 6th such attack in the metro, and staged to have maximum generation of fear, striking near the KGB's old building, a symbol of secret police power, and Gorky Park, a symbol of strolling people's power, and the start of Holy Week in the Orthodox Faith. I had a blog about it on my Minding Russia blog, which was picked up by the New York Times -- looking more over the old and new media coverage today, I am left with the same impression -- a strange lack of actual true citizen journalism, and an awful lot of use of social media to retransmit the official line -- I frankly find it nauseating to see how the slick pro-Kremlin TV and website Russia Today has captured the narrative and given it the semblance of thoughtful intelligent discussion, all the while parroting the official line. The very scarce eyewitness reports of bloggers on Live Journal, which is very popular in Russia, don't contain anything different than the official story, that two female suicide bombers, possibly accompanied by two women with Slavic appearance, blew up trains at the two metro stops, with the two Russian-appearing women getting away and now wanted by police, and the two suicide bombers, even after blowing themselves up with something like 5 kg of explosives, still intact enough supposedly to show maps of future planned hits...

There are many unanswered questions about this tragedy, and I know from following such stories in Russia in the past, there will never be answers, and pushing to get them will make you wind up dead. The masterminds may never be found; the wrong people might be arrested and charged. Soon after the bomb went off the prosecutor and mayor and then president were all saying the same version of the story; nobody except the sort of opposition leaders that the government doesn't even have to work hard to discredit were saying it was an "inside job". The eerie quiet across the social media is what I find disturbing -- videos with no people talking, only holding  up cell phones; tweets with only links to official media; blogs with only pastes of official stories without any commentary. My own blog got hundreds of hits from Russian bloggers who merely pasted the one line of my link into their Live Journals, without saying a thing. The Russian blogosphere is a curious thing like that -- very robust and animated in hundreds of pages of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy-like commentary on issues like whether foreign cars should be allowed to be imported with a tax or not, and then very little to say on a dramatic incident in yet another terakt, as they are called for short everywhere in Russia -- because there have been so many of them --  hundreds all over, with thousands of victims, often with the death toll made worse because of bungling by swat teams, as occurred in Beslan where hundreds of schoolchildren were killed in a storming of a school where they had been taken hostage.

Contrast this with another case of terrorism -- and I think from this debate we *can* conclude it is terrorism -- where the perpetrators are found before a single shot is found or bomb actually planted; where the conspiracy is exposed and cut off; where we not only see the names and faces of the plotters, but we learn a lot about them from the thorough investigations of a free media checking out every conceivable angle.

While they didn't *do* anything yet -- that's what "sedition" charges are all about -- this Christian militia in Michigan had plans that qualified it as terrorist -- plans to kill not just the people they had a beef with, say, some policeman or tax authority, but bystanders, relatives, people who would have come to a funeral (both Russians and Chechens have used that awful technique, as mafias do, of first killing somebody, then killing the people who come to their funeral). They had guns and equipment and were already practicing to make a hit, but it's not clear when or where.

Here's a couple things I noticed about all this.

Response to T Linden

Just so it doesn't get buried in the comments below, I'm reprinting T Linden's response to my blog about worrisome signals from the economy here, and my response below:

From T Linden:

Provocative and thoughtful as always, but permit me to leaven the conversation with some insights and facts.

1. It's hard to imagine that Viewer 2 has had much of an impact on the economy yet. The number of users / user hours etc of the public beta is not large enough to have an impact on the economy. That's not to say that it won't - it probably will when it goes into distribution, but not yet.

2. Noobs are not using viewer 2 yet. It's not in the default registration download, and the Residents who are taking a look are the most committed, most interested users of SL.

3. Xstreet is ~1% of the inworld economy today. And the number of buyers on Xstreet in a given month is still ~8% of the economically active in Second Life in a given month. So the vast majority of activity still happens in world. Why? Because shopping in world is a big part of the experience - it's social, it's visceral, more like shopping in a store than shopping on amazon. Remember that in the 1990s ecommerce didn't destroy retail stores. But most successful retail chains now have both an estore and a retail store.

4. To be sure, Xstreet is growing fast, but it's not large enough yet to have an impact on land sales. Some Merchants are "xstreet only" merchants, but the biggest most successful inworld businesses still have significant in world presence. Xstreet is more like Etsy - giving smaller merchants a platform to merchandise their wares.

5. We *are* driving more and more new users into SL this Quarter via our affiliate and search marketing programs. So there *are* more new residents who tend as a class to be less economically active (it takes about 3 months for a cohort of new residents to became economically active). Interestingly enough, the numbers you quote about residents active in the economy does not include xstreet figures (as until recently the two transaction systems were separate). But we'll wait for the close of this quarter to provide some more visibility for you.

6. One insight is that Second Life has gotten to be quite big - in Landmass, in Residents, and in the Economy. It's a very diverse economy and a large, heterogeneous population. That is a state of affairs different from "how it used to be" for most longtime SL users - and today the closing of a sim or the departure of a high profile resident does not have quite the same impact on the larger economy. Not that we Lindens do not mourn these departures - we do - but the cry of "the SL sky is falling" sounds more and more like chicken little.
 

Response from Prokofy:

Thanks for stopping by, T Linden, but I'll be countering you on each and every point vigorouly, as you make a number of misleading statement with partial truths.

First I'll note that you simply failed to answer some of my questions: are the commissions you take on Xstreet sinks or sources? This is a valid question. The reason is because under the previous private ownership, the commissions were income for those residents which they then cashed out into real dollars. Today, I'm assuming because the commissions are Linden-dollar-denominated, they are sinks. But are they? And what's the total figure? And will you be providing these figures transparently in the economic figures tables as you do for every other sink like group fees, etc?

1. Indeed, SL 2.0 has had an impact on the economy, especially as emblematic of a cumulative process of various attacks on inworld business, whether the price dumps and hikes, the freebie policy on Xstreet that led to departures, the failure to police adult advertising in Mature that is undermining the good-faith timely move to Zindra by many businesses, and so on. One look at what SL 2.0 does -- steer people to Destinations that are all Linden-selected windfalls for Linden chosen -- lets many people realize that they will be slipping down the slope of your pyramid again. One look at Linden Homes, which  has 10,000 or more subscribers and is cutting into the resident rentals and prefab markets, and people realize you are in the content business pushing others out of the market. That makes them scale down and leave.

The "positive Linden flow" accounts are where we see the voting with feet -- every category is depleted, despite a longer term trend of the last years where these figures were rising. That's not just Adam Zaius and his officers leaving Azure -- and BTW, hardly impressive, is it, that your favoured son of so may years, winner of all your Linden prizes, recipient of all your new features first (before everyone else, like void sims), then goes and clones your code, opens up a competitor, and siphons away customers -- as well as creating an enabling environment for stealing content. Despite several years of *that* you turn over to him free MOTD advertising later valued at thousands of real dollars a pop. And he *still* leaves, and Anshe's pick-up of the continent inevitably means losses for you and her as some leave due to lack of stability. Do you ever wonder with friends like that, whether your FIC system is really working as planned?!

SL Economy Battered by SL 2.0

Friends, store owner tenants, colleagues are all telling me their sales are slumping since the deployment of SL 2.0 which is already being used by newbies. In part, it's people going out to real life and Spring Break and refunding or refraining from inworld purchases because they want real money for the real world, but I also think it is SL 2.0 Shock. I think we will get more shock waves to come, as the losers in the new search wake up and discover they are missing from view and that only people who type rental Zynga rentals Zynga rental Zynga into their description will show on top. I noticed former bot-runner Ninja Rentals has used that lovely aesthetic method, as have others. It's not something I'll be doing. Apparently Google views this as "free expression" especially when things like "miserable failure" are Google-bombed with George Bush's name, so we are unlikely to see the Lindens change anything, despite their flapping about "keyword stuffing".

A look at those well-hidden economic statistics before T Linden has a change to buff them up and make them shine also has some rather unpleasant news.

I see something quite disturbing: for the first time since these numbers have been published in this form, since about 2006 or so, the numbers of people who have spent more than one dollar inworld in a month have dropped, from 487,919 in December 2009, to 477,036 in February 2010, more than could be expected even with a shorter month. By contrast, you can look at March 2009: 458,783. There's just not enough people joining the economy and spending.

Another grave sign: the average price for resident-sold land was 0.85 per meter -- down from it's high of 6 or even 8 in its day, or 5, which is what the Lindens tried to keep it at artificially for a long time when it was climbing to 10. Today, they've stopped doing that.

Tateru is posting that the Lindens have painted themselves into a corner, in an incoherent and rabid post that seems to be about castigating the Lindens for not opensourcing the code or making a road radical technocommunist map to her satisfaction. It makes no sense. They haven't done anything of the sort. They do know their own mind, only to well. They've brought together the best people they can muster in this industry from every big company, whether AOL, Adobe, Intuit, or Microsoft. Linden Lab is now like a United Nations of all the best, major tech companies preoccupied with the issues of scaling and management and growth; there is even a VP with a rabbinical degree in Talmudic logic, which is precisely what you need if you are going to sort through problems like whether the Xstreet commissions are sinks or sources and whether they should be balanced by MOTD or search places, whether search should be broken to favour Ninja Rentals or Cherry Tree Rentals, whether Desmond should go into Destination Guide, and how to load my inventory of 28,000 pieces and rez it variously over 60 sims.

This constant resident whine about alleged Linden incompetence gets old -- but I don't say this as a suck-up; rather, I conclude that they are in fact *very* competent and hell-bent on going in a direction that is fundamentally hostile to inworld business, and fundamentally destructive because a) they can't scale b) they can't make enough money off land anyway c) they need more people and the old models didn't work fast enough. I think they will succeed in it, and make something like a kind of shallow IMVU connected to Facebook, Avatars United, Xstreet, and make money from things other than land, but it's going to come at a price.

That price is inworld business as we know it, which is going to become essentially even more of a literal pyramid, and some would say pyramid scheme, than it is now.

SL Culture

UPDATE:  I now have more of the Sutherland Dam Club transcript from from Friday. Thanks to Angela Talamasca fand Miranda Dreadlow or coming up with this. 

Since I had to read it anyway, I decided to a) correct my numerous typos from a broken keyboard and b) add some parenthetical comments to some people who desperately needed a push back but I kept getting distracted with having to ban people.)

The conversation picks up talking about the outrageous Nany.

And a follow-on incident that occurred is that some guest demanded that Crap Mariner remove the video he took of this event, which was primarily a parody of M, his "M Poster" M Linden parody, which happened to have footage of the Sutherland dam in it. I don't know who this is, and Crap wouldn't tell, but I suspect Madeline Oleander from some of the bizarre and possibly totally trumped-up comments she made, i.e. pretending to be "insulted" because Crap made a crack about her inability to sit down. I'll bet Madeline is Woodbury, and just creating havoc, but maybe not, she could just be an annoying noob. Apaprently she -- or whoever it was! -- got Jenzaa Misfit to put pressure on Crap to withdrew the video. How could she do that? Because this person came to the meeting due to an announcement in the Metanomics group.

Each week, I endure a few assholes in Metanomics that scream at me because I've put a one-line notice of this discussion in Metanomics, an open group. And each week in fact I get a slew of Metanomics members who drop in because in fact they are interested in the discussion which sometimes flows more freely and with less long waits to speak than in the Metanomics program. And each week I say that as long as Saijani Kuhn get to post his opensource meetings in the group, I get to post my meetings too. If Jenzaa feels she can't have a one-line notice about an actual economics discussion -- something her group has LONG since ceased actually having, as they chase all kinds of other fads, then let her close the group or cut off the ability of members to speak in it, something all the girls do. I don't, because I don't fear one line notices from people, and those whose retinas are burned can close the window.

Another possible candidate for the annoyance who bitched about being filmed in a public place, with a giant sign on the wall that says ON THE AIR which you can click and which contains the policy statement about the space, which also has hover text (should I also rent a blimp?) is Nms Kochav. He was a typical thin-skinned geek.

What's a Synonym for Suck-up?

[16:05]  Prokofy Neva: Hi Angela
[16:05]  Prokofy Neva: Hi Millie
[16:06]  Millie Wilkinson: hi
[16:06]  Angela Talamasca: Hi there. :-)
[16:07]  Peli Dieterle: Hi
[16:07]  Prokofy Neva: Hi Peli
[16:07]  Peli Dieterle smiles
[16:07]  Prokofy Neva: did you save the transcript last night
[16:07]  Peli Dieterle: no - i left as everybody seemed to crash
[16:08]  Peli Dieterle: i looked for it on the blog tho
[16:08]  Prokofy Neva: it was deliberately done by those Woodburies
[16:08]  Prokofy Neva: well I sort of hastily put on this meeting and nobody may come on a Saturday
[16:09]  Peli Dieterle: yes it is unexpected
[16:09]  Prokofy Neva: Angela, maybe we should retire the poll in the infohubs about the TPVs and put in something about earch
[16:09]  Angela Talamasca: ok
[16:09]  Prokofy Neva: there are so few discussion events that you stick out if you get it into the calendar, which I did actually some hours ago
[16:09]  Prokofy Neva: but in 2.0 of course it would be impossible to find
[16:09]  Prokofy Neva: that's just it
[16:09]  Prokofy Neva: I just went on the latest fix of 2.0 and it is still awful
[16:09]  Angela Talamasca: i just sent a note to my csi lab group
[16:10]  Angela Talamasca: though, not many of them seemed to be online
[16:10]  Prokofy Neva: Tom Hale actually goes and types in "concert" to search all, and gets a load of crap that he doesn't even accurately portray in his slide shows
[16:10]  Prokofy Neva: well yes Saturday in spring break week, what will you get besides Woodbury students lol
[16:10]  Prokofy Neva: it's cold today or I'd go outside
[16:11]  Prokofy Neva: have to relog
[16:11]  Prokofy Neva: or I'm lagging or something
[16:11]  Prokofy Neva: anyway what questions should we ask?
[16:11]  Prokofy Neva: I have a poll going already that asks what people use most to make purchases
[16:11]  Prokofy Neva: so it has "classified" an "pick" an "search/all" etc
[16:12]  Prokofy Neva: Peli have you seen 2.0
[16:12]  Marsha Warwillow: Good day everyone
[16:12]  Peli Dieterle: ah i still refuse to use the 2.0 viewer
[16:12]  Angela Talamasca: hi marsha!
[16:12]  Angela Talamasca: i am on 2.0 right now
[16:12]  Prokofy Neva: what I want to do is send a notecard to all the major landlords, all of whom have search/places as a way to list lots of rentals
[16:12]  Marsha Warwillow: I have used it, yes
[16:12]  Prokofy Neva: hi Marsha
[16:12]  Peli Dieterle: Hi Marsha
[16:12]  Angela Talamasca: i think they will be offering rental listings on xstreet... for a fee, of course.
[16:13]  Prokofy Neva: they do already and have for years for a fee
[16:13]  Prokofy Neva: but that's just it, they work terribly
[16:13]  Angela Talamasca: for sale, though, right?
[16:13]  Prokofy Neva: there's a huge list that doesn't sort except by category
[16:13]  Prokofy Neva: no people put rentals in there too
[16:13]  Marsha Warwillow: Is the Destinations Guide intended to be a Search replacement?
[16:13]  Angela Talamasca: oh, ok
[16:13]  Prokofy Neva: I have 10 listings on there
[16:13]  Prokofy Neva: Hi
[16:14]  Terran Mavendorf: hello everyone
[16:14]  Peli Dieterle: hi
[16:14]  Prokofy Neva: but you're right, the Lindens will buy out dissenting landlords on this by saying, oh, we'll put you on Xstreet where you can stand out, and we'll take a commission, but you won't notice because you will have more sales
[16:14]  Angela Talamasca: i hate this camera control. it's way too touchy
[16:14]  Terran Mavendorf: will i need voice?
[16:14]  Prokofy Neva: no
[16:14]  Prokofy Neva: text
[16:14]  Terran Mavendorf: ty
[16:14]  Prokofy Neva: that just occured to me
[16:14]  Rook Mistwalker: Is someone singing?
[16:15]  Angela Talamasca: i see one of your t0rlls is outside the gate
[16:15]  Prokofy Neva: that basically, this shill that they are making to the merchants is, "register with us with your RL name and pay us a fee and we will make sure your stuff gets delivered and you get visibility"
[16:15]  Prokofy Neva: no I thikn that's just somebody stuck
[16:16]  Angela Talamasca: oh, ok, i thought i recognized their name from last night or your blog.
[16:16]  Prokofy Neva: hmm she had Emerald Viewer in the groups too
[16:16]  Prokofy Neva: oh well
[16:16]  Prokofy Neva: oh, you mean over there?
[16:16]  Prokofy Neva: ok
[16:16]  Angela Talamasca: yeah, from the "bye post"
[16:16]  Angela Talamasca: yes
[16:16]  Prokofy Neva: yeah that one needs an AR
[16:16]  Rook Mistwalker: I have a question if I may
[16:16]  Prokofy Neva: shoot
[16:17]  Rook Mistwalker: I am trying the beta viewer and its not posible to search for anything but general
[16:17]  Rook Mistwalker: so mature and adult places are not searchable .. is anyone else having this problem?
[16:17]  Prokofy Neva: you have to check off boxes on the panel
[16:17]  Prokofy Neva: btw how can somebody sit out there when they are banned?
[16:17]  Rook Mistwalker: boxes are greyed out
[16:17]  Prokofy Neva: oh that's odd
[16:18]  Prokofy Neva: at least the mature should be open
[16:18]  Rook Mistwalker: you guys dont have this problem?
[16:18]  Eject failed because you don't have admin permission for that parcel.
[16:18]  Rook Mistwalker: I go to adult sims all the time so I am verified
[16:18]  Peli Dieterle: I did not try 2.0 yet
[16:19]  Rook Mistwalker grimaces
[16:19]  Marsha Warwillow: Acessing content via Search in 2.0 is very unweildy
[16:19]  Angela Talamasca: accessing anything via 2.0 is unweildy
[16:19]  Angela Talamasca: but it is purty. lol
[16:19]  Rook Mistwalker misses pie menus
[16:20]  Prokofy Neva: I don't mind the lack of pie menus, but it's ridiculously hard to send inventory to other people
[16:20]  Prokofy Neva: that isn't supposed to happen in a shared-media facebook blah blah world
[16:20]  Prokofy Neva: I'm just thinking maybe a better poll than "what do you use for search" is needed
[16:21]  Prokofy Neva: like "How does search work for you in 2.0?" answers: 1) broken 2) great 3) what is 2.0 etc
[16:21]  Prokofy Neva: did you see Liana Linden's comment on all this
[16:22]  Marsha Warwillow: I wonder why it is broken to begin with. It has never been perfect, but for it to be so horribly mangled in 2.0 seems odd.
[16:22]  Prokofy Neva: well it's no accident, I thikn they are making a deliberate assault on inworld purchases and steering people to Xstreet
[16:22]  Prokofy Neva: that may sound conspiratorial, but look at how it functions, not how they hype it
[16:22]  Angela Talamasca: that's bc the search is now really a web page.
[16:22]  Prokofy Neva: they claim that it gets rid of keyword stuffing -- I now see that it has even more stuffing
[16:23]  Prokofy Neva: like rentals rentals rentals Zynga Zynga written over an over
[16:23]  Angela Talamasca: ad they apparently don't know how to configure the google machine.
[16:23]  Angela Talamasca: or build web pages, for that matter.
[16:23]  Prokofy Neva: well it would likely be possible to change the number of lines per entry, surely that' a trivial matter, just reduce it to one, ot fit more on a page?
[16:23]  Prokofy Neva: what do you see as them doing wrong with Google?
[16:23]  You decline NCA 3rd Saturdays Concert Series, Nautilus - Anath (232, 30, 64 from A group member named Jean Swashbuckler.
[16:24]  Marsha Warwillow: There are some very basic content concerns, for instanc if I type "goth club" I receive results for places that I know are not the most "popular"(for lack of better word) or that I have barefly even heard of.
[16:24]  Peli Dieterle: hahaha yes event the showcase links don't work
[16:24]  Prokofy Neva: why do you think that is happening?
[16:24]  Marsha Warwillow: Apologies for my typoes
[16:24]  Prokofy Neva: yes, they have changed the algorithm, but there's some very basic things wrong
[16:24]  Prokofy Neva: you can't get a further refinement of your search results
[16:25]  Prokofy Neva: so if you type "Ravenglas Rentals" you can't get a sort by "name" for just those results, or by traffic, for just those results
[16:25]  Prokofy Neva: instead, it goes back to sorting the entire database
[16:25]  Prokofy Neva: see how that works?
[16:26]  Prokofy Neva: Marsha try a search of your own term an see if that happens
[16:27]  Marsha Warwillow: I have seen many blogs/forums where residents have given excellent feedback to the Lindens, very specific kinds of feedback. Are the Lindens responding?
[16:27]  Angela Talamasca: you can sort by both name and traffic, but the paid classifieds column covers up part of the info
[16:27]  Marsha Warwillow: I'm not using 2.0 atm sorry
[16:27]  Prokofy Neva: oh ok
[16:28]  Prokofy Neva: Angela, but look at what happens
[16:28]  Prokofy Neva: go to search an type in Ravenglass Rentals
[16:28]  Prokofy Neva: then go and sort by PLACE
[16:28]  Prokofy Neva: so yo uget a list
[16:28]  Prokofy Neva: now click on NAME -- and whoops, that list disappears, and you get the entire data base ordering by name under those terms again so that other people's rentals are put in
[16:28]  Prokofy Neva: or sort by traffic, and you get the highest traffic parcels in general, not "Ravenglas Rentals"
[16:29]  Prokofy Neva: an PLEASE spare me lectures about the need for Boolean gimmicks
[16:29]  Prokofy Neva: that doesn't help
[16:29]  Prokofy Neva: and people don't know them
[16:29]  Prokofy Neva: and that doesn't happen in 1.23
[16:29]  Marsha Warwillow: It is also not fuzzy, if you type only part of a name or word, no results render
[16:29]  Prokofy Neva: if I search on Ravenglass Rentals and then further refine with "name" or "traffic" I get a sort of *thoe results*
[16:29]  Angela Talamasca: yeah, and you get like, a measly 10 results. and then u can click on name, traffic, or relevance (relevance is the default). but the classified bar seems to hide part of the page.
[16:29]  Prokofy Neva: yes
[16:29]  Prokofy Neva: no but Angela, that really isn't the issue
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: the classifieds doesn't hide part of the page; *it is* part of the page
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: that could be both good and bad
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: but I'm talking about the way that it *will not refine your search results*
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: instead it circles back and searches again to put those words under traffic sort
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: so you get not 10 results, but millions
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: you can't page through them
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: and they are irrelevant
[16:30]  Prokofy Neva: because it's not a sort of *the terms you just found*
[16:31]  Prokofy Neva: can you see what I mean?
[16:31]  Angela Talamasca: ah, k, nm, i see, it pushes it to wrap
[16:31]  Marsha Warwillow: The viewer works like that in other ways, not just search. Notice how the tabs on the right "inherit" previous actions.
[16:31]  Angela Talamasca: but still 10 results is rediculous, and the search doesn't tell you what the traffic is
[16:31]  Prokofy Neva: explain to me how something that is suppoed to be a superior Google appliance sorts WORSE in 2.0 than 1.23 where it sort the results alphabetically on "name" click just fine
[16:32]  Angela Talamasca: but the thing i think is most "broke" about it, is the results returned aren't relevant.
[16:32]  Prokofy Neva: the 8 or 10 results is riiculous
[16:32]  Angela Talamasca: or rather, a lot of them.
[16:32]  Prokofy Neva: it i the most broke piece of it
[16:32]  Marsha Warwillow: That sounds to me like a data memory management issue. They are probably using a kind of on the fly data rendering that is based on previous actions.
[16:32]  Prokofy Neva: the low number of things to meet the eyeball
[16:32]  Prokofy Neva: well they are copying Google exactly
[16:32]  Prokofy Neva: go out on Google and search
[16:32]  Prokofy Neva: no 50 items per page like search/places on one line
[16:32]  Prokofy Neva: but 10 or 12 with lots of white space, classifieds, and 3-4 lines per entry
[16:33]  Prokofy Neva: it's EXACTLY like Google.com
[16:33]  Angela Talamasca: i set up my google search results to list 100 per page. but that is a configuration option that this viewer does not provide.
[16:33]  Prokofy Neva: On 1.23, you get 25 returns on a single line on the left, and of course the pictures on the right, another issue that requires an extra click on 2.0
[16:34]  Prokofy Neva: and with the slider, you can go look at 50 quickly
[16:34]  Prokofy Neva: on 2.0, I see 8 per page, and a painful turning over of 10 pages to get the same effect
[16:34]  Prokofy Neva: how many people will page through 8 or more pages of results, especially when so little is visible per page?
[16:35]  Marsha Warwillow: The first 2 pages at most is what the average resident might have patience for.
[16:36]  Angela Talamasca: yeah, esp considering how slow the results return
[16:36]  Prokofy Neva: Angela, do you know if it is a difficult programing job with turning those results into one line instea of 3, fitting more on each page?
[16:37]  Angela Talamasca: well, it's basically html. so, one thing they could do is to use ajax, have one line listings and then use mouse over to display the info
[16:37]  Angela Talamasca: then u could show at least 20 items per page
[16:37]  Angela Talamasca: plus, it would be a lot more "sleek" imo.
[16:37]  Prokofy Neva: why only 20> you get 25 or 30 on the inworl viewer
[16:37]  Prokofy Neva: yes I see no value add from the padding with space
[16:38]  Prokofy Neva: I realize they will not back down from having clasifieds, that's revenue for them and they will sell it as revenue to the classified ad buyers
[16:38]  Prokofy Neva: so they take up the spot that used to be with the picture and teleport with that
[16:38]  Angela Talamasca: that has to do with the font size.
[16:38]  Prokofy Neva: well but it's layout too
[16:39]  Prokofy Neva: first, they have that "New to Second LIfe?" idiotic copy taking up space
[16:39]  Angela Talamasca: so, they could possibly squeeze 25-30 res per page
[16:39]  Prokofy Neva: try to send me a notecard on 2.0 Angela, you will see it' ridiculous
[16:39]  Prokofy Neva: you can't right-click on my in world and push it out of inventory
[16:39]  Angela Talamasca: oh, i've tried dropping inventory. it's a royal pain
[16:40]  Prokofy Neva: you have to find the person, then go down to the bottom of their page and fin "share"
[16:40]  Angela Talamasca: yup, and you have to launch the chat for that. it is very annoying.
[16:41]  Prokofy Neva: I'm going to count how many click, I think it is more than the old one
[16:41]  Prokofy Neva: I"m on 1.23 now because I simply can't take 2.0, I need to get work done
[16:41]  Angela Talamasca: exactly
[16:42]  Angela Talamasca: b4 i could go to, say your profile in two ways, from my friends list or through search. both took one click to bring up the profile, then a click to launch the inventory, and then a drag and drop
[16:42]  Terran Mavendorf: if you forced the 2.0 viewer to display the old tabbed chat style, youll notice the new update now forces double line breaks on the old tabbed chat window so you can only see 4 lines at once
[16:42]  Prokofy Neva: this is supposed to be something with a big hit called "Shared Media TM" yet it is way too hard to share *stuff*
[16:42]  Angela Talamasca: now, you have to find the im button to launch the profile in the im screen and click share, then go to the inventory and drag and drop.
[16:43]  Angela Talamasca: it is a pain in the butt.
[16:43]  Prokofy Neva: supposedly there is a fix for having the chat not bunch up on the "chicklets"
[16:43]  Prokofy Neva: they are dreadful
[16:43]  Prokofy Neva: I never saw a more stupid system
[16:43]  Prokofy Neva: what could possibly be of benefit to newbies?
[16:43]  Angela Talamasca: yeah, well, wait till they start getting reports of avies wearing pr0n hats.
[16:44]  Angela Talamasca: that ought to go over like a lead balloon
[16:44]  Prokofy Neva: yes
[16:44]  Terran Mavendorf: what can you expect from the company that (re)designed the blog main website
[16:44]  Angela Talamasca: the overall viewer is simply not ergonomic
[16:44]  Prokofy Neva: I just got a thing in my email from Linden Lab, "Second Life Weekend Guide"
[16:44]  Prokofy Neva: like they're the New York Times
[16:44]  Marsha Warwillow: They have the Destination Guide, which has a whole section on the SL website, and a prominent place in the 2.0 tab structure.
[16:44]  Prokofy Neva: an it has their Destination picks flogged an extra time
[16:45]  Angela Talamasca: lol, yeah, they've turned into spam meisters.
[16:45]  Prokofy Neva: well the Destination guide is fundamentally flawed as a FIC favouritism thing
[16:45]  Prokofy Neva: but if it were more democratic it could be a good thing
[16:45]  Prokofy Neva: it is good to be able to say to newbies, see, there's that page on the side there, click on that
[16:45]  Prokofy Neva: of course, it fans only their friends whom they pick
[16:45]  Prokofy Neva: and can't make up ultimately for a robust search
[16:46]  Marsha Warwillow: I agree it is a good idea to have a Destination Guide, but I do not think it is a Search replacement, which I feel right now - that is what it is.
[16:46]  Marsha Warwillow: For 2.0
[16:46]  Prokofy Neva: well even classifieds aren't as good, money makers that they are, you can't find them on people's profiles
[16:46]  Prokofy Neva: not sure they are tsill there
[16:47]  Second Life: You have left the group 'Metanomics'.
[16:47]  Prokofy Neva: you know, I can only hope that the combination of oldbies complaining an newbies leaving or complaining, too, will make them change
[16:47]  Prokofy Neva: but clearly they will steer people to Linden Homes; they will have them go to their Destinations; they will push them on Xstreet
[16:48]  Prokofy Neva: they took out the inworld terminals, which i now the last connection to an inworld store build-up coupled with Xstreet
[16:48]  Prokofy Neva: now, there will be no separation, as the Linden balance on your account can be applied directly to X street
[16:48]  Prokofy Neva: so why even go to a store?
[16:49]  Celebrate Difference: they are trying to cut out the middleman
[16:49]  Celebrate Difference: landowners
[16:49]  Marsha Warwillow: It's disconcerting to me this emphasis on web, outside of the client. I myself keep a website (it's down) but feel the future of communication is this virtual medium - why direct people outside of it?
[16:50]  Marsha Warwillow: I suppose that is a different discussion.
[16:50]  Angela Talamasca: i generally use xstreet to look for things, then tp to ppls store
[16:50]  Peli Dieterle: i fear not being able to read anything without an extra magnifier in 2.0
[16:50]  Angela Talamasca: not everyone does that but i figure, why give linden a percentage of my purchase?
[16:50]  Peli Dieterle: i like to be able to put flash on prims tho
[16:51]  Angela Talamasca: peli, it's just the opposite for me. i can finally see the chat! lol
[16:51]  Peli Dieterle: ah i have user interface at 1.050
[16:51]  Prokofy Neva: they think the future is the web
[16:52]  Prokofy Neva: they think with casual games like Farmville on Facebook making scads of money with 75 million players, they can't be lagging behind here anymore
[16:52]  Prokofy Neva: they don't realize what they have, or maybe they do, but they can't scale it fast enough
[16:52]  Marsha Warwillow: They have given up?
[16:52]  Prokofy Neva: so they have to be come like Facebook
[16:52]  Angela Talamasca: yes, i think they have$$$ in their eyes over FB
[16:52]  Prokofy Neva: well maybe they are annoyed noboy appreciated them but now they are chasing FB
[16:52]  Marsha Warwillow: Well, I see the facebook and Twitter as a "bridge" for them, that is how I have come to rationalize it for them :)
[16:53]  Angela Talamasca: but FB will fall out of favor, just like MS did
[16:53]  Terran Mavendorf: no they have to balance their media resources, right now its like everythings competing with everything else
[16:53]  Prokofy Neva: I don't see where they will monetarize an FB and Twitter presence
[16:53]  Angela Talamasca: it's in the hype cycle for now, but that will change.
[16:53]  Terran Mavendorf: theres no compliment
[16:53]  Prokofy Neva: it's not like people will send a notice 20 FB friends and say "Here's an Easter Egg in SL!"
[16:53]  Prokofy Neva: like they will with Island Life
[16:54]  Marsha Warwillow: I naively hope they are using it to being those people, into SL
[16:54]  Prokofy Neva: where will the money come in from FB?
[16:54]  Marsha Warwillow: bring*
[16:54]  Prokofy Neva: their fan group has 45,000 people in it
[16:54]  Angela Talamasca: i agree, they don't realize what they have.
[16:54]  Prokofy Neva: with only a few months work
[16:54]  Prokofy Neva: that's half the concommitant log on
[16:54]  Angela Talamasca: check out this vid, for example, that schobles has been flogging on twitter lately => http://bit.ly/dwcFkq
[16:54]  Prokofy Neva: so that makes them think, wow
[16:55]  Angela Talamasca: it's 4 guys who started their own company, and are talking about how ppl like to just get together with a small group of ppl.
[16:55]  Angela Talamasca: like we are here.
[16:56]  Marsha Warwillow: It makes sense to me to somehow form merging activites with other social media, because that is a primary reason residents use SL - to socialize. But of course, it could be more.
[16:56]  Marsha Warwillow: Right, at some pont it is like, quality over quantity.
[16:57]  Angela Talamasca: imo, part of the draw for places like sl involves the world-like feel. the place, aspect
[16:57]  Prokofy Neva: well the Pipio guy is brilliant that people are compromising their social graph
[16:57]  Angela Talamasca: yup
[16:57]  Prokofy Neva: they really are, an anything that dials it back better and makes it more narrowcastable is good
[16:57]  Angela Talamasca: and M seems to want to force SL users to do just that. compromise their social graph
[16:57]  Angela Talamasca: so he can somehow make money off it
[16:58]  Prokofy Neva: you get things on FB like my daughter doesn't want some friends to see her pictures and wall posts to other friends, just because, because she feels they are separate
[16:58]  Prokofy Neva: so people want work people separate or family separate
[16:58]  Angela Talamasca: from the last info i've read, they get the majority of their revenue from their virtual land
[16:58]  Prokofy Neva: of course you can make lists, but you can't control what is on the wall from other people
[16:59]  Prokofy Neva: please tell me why a company that gets most of their money from virtual land kicks land owners in the teeth then?
[16:59]  Marsha Warwillow: But Mr Nevka, and I say this with tongue and cheek, we are supposed to be accomodating and sharing - to do no less makes us anti social and not with the hive collective ;)
[16:59]  Prokofy Neva: compete with them and makes them tier own?
[16:59]  Prokofy Neva: drives sales away from their land to Xstreet?
[16:59]  Prokofy Neva: forces merchants to drop inworld stores an have web stores?
[17:00]  Prokofy Neva: makes people just go socialize and pose on destinations instead of rental homes?
[17:00]  Prokofy Neva: of course, there's still the glue of cybersex that runs counter to their desire to webify the world lol
[17:00]  Marsha Warwillow: There is a belief that Corporations are somehow mure suitable, more appropriate, to manage business and mold experiences. It is of course, frankly disgusting.
[17:01]  Angela Talamasca: and that is what is odd. bc, imo, if they tick enuf ppl off by competing w/them, they will leave, and the lab will lose revenu.
[17:01]  Angela Talamasca: then again, perhaps they think they can get a hook into the FB deal, and don't really care
[17:02]  Angela Talamasca: also, if you consider the limits they're setting, it could be they want to scale back.
[17:02]  Marsha Warwillow: They are looking for more structure, and less Wild West
[17:02]  Angela Talamasca: co-los cost a lot.
[17:02]  Angela Talamasca: so, scale back, and stream sl from the cloud into facebook via otoy, or something like that.
[17:02]  Angela Talamasca: then say, hey look, you guys liked farmville? well, this is farmville on steroids.
[17:03]  Marsha Warwillow: They would need to fix the client and make it workable to a larger group of computer users, and for some reason this is so hard for them. It is easier to make FB deals and say fuck 3D lets go back to Flash and web.
[17:04]  Ciaran Laval: Something is seriously amiss with the current business plan, they seem to be discouraging us from paying tier
[17:04]  Prokofy Neva: well I'm trying to do the math
[17:04]  Marsha Warwillow raises hand, I dropped my tier
[17:04]  Prokofy Neva: perhaps 1,250 x .02 percent commission - $25 is a better way for them to earn than 4096 with $25 a month
[17:04]  Prokofy Neva: or something
[17:05]  Prokofy Neva: I 'm trying to see whether commissions and currency sales could actually generate more than land
[17:05]  Angela Talamasca: yeah, i let go of all my sims. so now i am on, what is that you call it, prok? assisted living. lol
[17:05]  Prokofy Neva: hahahaha
[17:05]  Ciaran Laval: But it's all Linden dollars, it's a sink, unless they plan to charge rl money for Xstreet, which they might, I don't get the plan at all
[17:05]  Angela Talamasca: i have my linden home and a store i rent from prok.
[17:05]  Prokofy Neva: commissions on Xstreet for the Lindens are not sinks
[17:06]  Prokofy Neva: classifieds aren't a sink either
[17:06]  Prokofy Neva: only search places is a sink
[17:06]  Marsha Warwillow: They are follish to base their revenue model off of commerce sales, to begin with. But, this means they will make other deals with content creation companies, most likely ones that already develop MMORPG's, to design "interactive spaces." The days of the regular resident creating, are being squelched.
[17:06]  Prokofy Neva: well all other worlds like habbo Hotel make money from selling content and currency not land
[17:06]  Marsha Warwillow: A resident needs land to create, unless they love sandbox living.
[17:07]  Prokofy Neva: land is hard to scale, they can't grow it fast enough to make real money
[17:07]  Angela Talamasca: oh, absolutely. think about it. they've got mesh coming and are moving the scripts from lsl to c++
[17:07]  Prokofy Neva: any land lord could tell them that
[17:07]  Ciaran Laval: Not sure what you mean Prok, LL have to sell Linden dollars to convert them to RL money, they can't just take Linden dollars and declare them as dollars
[17:07]  Angela Talamasca: that narrows their dev market right there.
[17:07]  Prokofy Neva: you can buy 100 islands and make US $15,000 a month in "income" but you will take a year or more to pay back the expense
[17:08]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran, Linden Lab gets a commisison *from sales of content on Xstreet* an that is revenue in real money
[17:08]  Prokofy Neva: they get commissions from sales off the Lindex and that is real revenue
[17:08]  Ciaran Laval: Lindex sales agreed, that's real money
[17:08]  Prokofy Neva: they get money fromdirect sales from Supply Linden printing money and selling it, half a million in US dollars
[17:08]  Prokofy Neva: all this is real money
[17:08]  Angela Talamasca: yes, the xstreet bit is in response to the report last year that came out saying microtrans were gonna be a 5B dollar industry
[17:08]  Prokofy Neva: but so are Lindex commissions, what are you talking about?!
[17:08]  Angela Talamasca: the lab obviously wants a piece of that pie.
[17:09]  Prokofy Neva: you are impossible Ciaran truly
[17:09]  Angela Talamasca: the prob is, to get that, they need to lure more ppl
[17:09]  Prokofy Neva: your post on the search terms was despicable
[17:09]  Ciaran Laval: Lindex sales are real money
[17:09]  Prokofy Neva: and your claim now that it is a sink for them to get commissions on Xstreet is just ignorant
[17:09]  Ciaran Laval: Linden dollars are not real money, this isn't rocket science
[17:09]  Prokofy Neva: the whole reason why Lindens are charing more on Xstreety, an getting rid of freebies is to increase their commissions
[17:09]  Prokofy Neva: of course they are real money
[17:10]  Prokofy Neva: like the classifieds are real money
[17:10]  Ciaran Laval: No they're not they are only real money when sold
[17:10]  Prokofy Neva: they can convert them just as well as the next guy
[17:10]  Prokofy Neva: look at the economic statistics, Ciaran
[17:10]  Prokofy Neva: Xstreet commissions are not shown as sinks
[17:10]  Ciaran Laval: They have to sell them to convert them
[17:10]  Prokofy Neva: classifieds are sources, not sinks
[17:10]  Angela Talamasca: actually, they're real money (for the lab) when they're bought
[17:10]  Group Joiner 1.0: Cloeh Ormidale has touched the group joiner
[17:10]  Prokofy Neva: only search places is sinks
[17:10]  Prokofy Neva: I will find it and you can see it
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: Lindens have two huge piles of slush funds
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: one is the float from all the dollars on account
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: where does that go, o you think?
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: 5 days to go to PayPal
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: when every other merchant in the world pays instantly
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: so where is that going?
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: like your bank takes 5 days to cash a check
[17:11]  Prokofy Neva: the other slush fund is the Linden sources from classifieds, which a Linden confirmed to me was not a sink
[17:12]  Angela Talamasca: yeah, speaking of which. 30 minutes to xfer from xstreet to paypal, 5 days from sl to paypal.
[17:12]  Marsha Warwillow: LL used to cut checks, but now we can only use PayPal, right?
[17:12]  Prokofy Neva: and of course isn't not a sink when people pay US $100 a week!
[17:12]  Prokofy Neva: no they have checks but they require 30 days
[17:12]  Angela Talamasca: paypal or checks.
[17:12]  Prokofy Neva: http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-data.php
[17:13]  Prokofy Neva: http://s3.amazonaws.com/static-secondlife-com/reports/marketplace_stats/2010-03-27/LD_sources_and_sinks.xml
[17:13]  Prokofy Neva: oh wait, interesting!
[17:13]  Prokofy Neva: classifieds are sinks
[17:13]  Prokofy Neva: but sinks translate to money anyway due to the nee d to buy on the Lindex
[17:14]  Prokofy Neva: but look at the MOTD payouts1
[17:14]  Marsha Warwillow: Well I must be going, thank you for inviting me. For my own comments - I am interested in helping keep resident content as the forefront of content in Search, and am supportive of efforts that surround content creation (including land), thank you again and please let me know if there is something specific you would like me to help with.
[17:14]  Ciaran Laval: Linden dollars are not real money, as I said
[17:14]  Prokofy Neva: This is what some people paid LL for MOTD: 19933936
[17:14]  Prokofy Neva: nearly 2 million Linden, and they only just started
[17:14]  Prokofy Neva: that is booked as SOURCE
[17:14]  Peli Dieterle: bye Marsha ty
[17:14]  Ciaran Laval: So Xstreet fees don't translate to real money, they have to sell them
[17:14]  Ciaran Laval: MOTD is real money
[17:15]  Prokofy Neva: Look at the Linden Lab sales on Lindex!
[17:15]  Prokofy Neva: 60000000
[17:15]  Prokofy Neva: higher than ever
[17:16]  Angela Talamasca: ciaran, L$ are real money to the lab.
[17:16]  Ciaran Laval: Angela they have to sell them
[17:16]  Ciaran Laval: Xstreet fees do not equal money
[17:16]  You decline NCA 3rd Saturdays Concert Series, Nautilus - Anath (232, 30, 64 from A group member named Jean Swashbuckler.
[17:16]  Angela Talamasca: that is money that ppl paid them and that they have to account for if everyone one day decided to convert to dollars.
[17:16]  Prokofy Neva: yes they do
[17:16]  Prokofy Neva: that's why they drive people there
[17:17]  Prokofy Neva: because if they sink them, and I haven't found proof yet they DO sink them, that forces the money supply to contract and require people to buy more or for them to SELL more
[17:17]  Ciaran Laval: LL cannot take Linden dollars and declare them as US dollars
[17:17]  Prokofy Neva: 60000000
[17:17]  Prokofy Neva: just last month
[17:17]  Peli Dieterle: is it true that you can only take 2000USD per month out of SL?
[17:17]  Angela Talamasca: though, if we go with your model, and get everyone to think its not real money, then the lab can close down the L$->USD$ exchange and just have it go one way, then ppl like you can proclaim, well, it's not real money anyway.
[17:18]  Angela Talamasca: however, considering the recent revived campaign to advert that ppl can make "real money", i can't imagine them doing that. after all, that is their lure.
[17:18]  Ciaran Laval: Angela, Ll cannot take Linden dollars on Xstreet and say they are US dollars, they simply can't do that, they have to sell them to be able to put them in their bank and the commission they take from all Linden dollar sales is real money
[17:19]  Prokofy Neva: Linden lab makes US $250,000 out of its sources each month, or last month
[17:19]  Ciaran Laval: Xstreet is not a source unless it's a paypal sale
[17:20]  Prokofy Neva: and that is not including commissions on Xstreet which *are not shown on the statistic pages as either sink or source*
[17:20]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran
[17:20]  Prokofy Neva: you don't know that, and in fact I don't believe it, now that I see they've hidden it
[17:20]  Prokofy Neva: unless it's 'other" but oesn't seem so
[17:21]  Prokofy Neva: You're also failing to grasp intellectually that sinks aren't lost money that mean the company doesn't have income
[17:21]  Prokofy Neva: Sinks are removal of a monetary system of cash, creating a need to sell more cash
[17:21]  Ciaran Laval: LL cannot convert Linden dollars to US dollars, the only way they could declare a Linden dollar as a source would be if the Linden dollar were declared a real currency
[17:21]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran
[17:21]  Prokofy Neva: you can't seem to SEE WHAT THE CHART SHOWS YOU
[17:21]  Prokofy Neva: The Lindens DO HAVE sources in Lindens!
[17:21]  Prokofy Neva: they earn $250,000 worth of them per month
[17:22]  Prokofy Neva: look at the damn page
[17:22]  Prokofy Neva: http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-data.php
[17:22]  Prokofy Neva: just read that and stop arguing stupidly
[17:22]  Ciaran Laval: From sales on the Lindex and Supply Linden sales
[17:22]  Prokofy Neva: no
[17:22]  Prokofy Neva: read what it says
[17:23]  Prokofy Neva: they show stipends as sources even
[17:23]  Ciaran Laval: No Linden dollar commission can equal income for Linden lab directly, none, they have to convert it via a sale
[17:23]  Peli Dieterle: I think it is good that the tax offices don't crasp that Linden currency can equal real money income
[17:23]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran, will you look at the fucking statistics page and stop being a dick?
[17:23]  Ciaran Laval: Stipends are sources to the economy
[17:23]  Prokofy Neva: and also try to grasp the obvious point here
[17:24]  Prokofy Neva: that sinks create a need for more sales of cash, more transactions for them to get commissions
[17:24]  Prokofy Neva: so if they get sink off the land auction
[17:24]  Prokofy Neva: that's a commission sale nonetheless
[17:24]  Prokofy Neva: AND a supply Linden cash sale which they do to keep the rate even
[17:24]  Angela Talamasca: well, its more like this. they set an arbitrary value (ala the lindex). ppl pay x$USD for y$Lindens + a fee. the fee is what linden pockets.
[17:24]  Prokofy Neva: anyway, you can't seem to grasp what most people on Concierge get instantly: the Lindens are motivated to get more commissoins on Xstreet, not just because of dollar sales there, and are driving sales to Xstreet for that reason
[17:25]  Ciaran Laval: Yes Angela, they can convert the percentage on a Linden dollar sale, they cannot convert Xstreet commission
[17:25]  Angela Talamasca: as for xstreet, linden gets the fee by charging their linden dollars, so instead of all l$ going to the purchaser, they don't.
[17:25]  Prokofy Neva: er, "cannot," and yet they do not include it as a description
[17:25]  Prokofy Neva: so where is it?
[17:25]  Angela Talamasca: so that is fewer lindens the lab has to acct for, whcih they then, via their books, consider profit.
[17:25]  Prokofy Neva: is this Linden's black economy?
[17:25]  Prokofy Neva: where is it?
[17:25]  Prokofy Neva: how much is it?
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: it's not on the statistics page, which they could get away with when the accounts were separate
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: now that they are merging them, I wonder if they will go on hiding it
[17:26]  Ciaran Laval: Well that's a different point Prok, how do they deem Xstreet commission worthy and what exactly happens to it
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: you keep insiting they don't convert it
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: how do you know?
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: it's hidden
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: perhaps they funnel back into stipends
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: perhaps they keep it on account for when things might change
[17:26]  Ciaran Laval: They have to sell to convert, whether they use Xstreet toi fund Supply Linden is the issue
[17:26]  Prokofy Neva: whatever the story they are HIGHLY motivated to make sales on Xstreet
[17:27]  Prokofy Neva: and that colours their "search product"
[17:27]  Prokofy Neva: and that's how Liana can say "search places is not the place to search fo rproducts; only Xstreet is"
[17:27]  Ciaran Laval: Or whether hey use Xstreet to fund stipends
[17:27]  Prokofy Neva: they put stipends in as a SOURCE on this chart
[17:27]  Ciaran Laval: Liana is an eejit
[17:27]  Angela Talamasca: ciaran, this isn't about "converting" it's about having x$USD for y$L per consumer.
[17:28]  Ciaran Laval: Stipends are a source
[17:28]  Prokofy Neva: she's a smart eejit because she is in charge of destroying search
[17:28]  Prokofy Neva: you could look at them a purchaesd for $9.95 a month in a packet on the Linden
[17:28]  Angela Talamasca: it's all on paper.
[17:28]  Ciaran Laval: I have no idea why Liana would want to say that Xstreet is the way to find places, LL need tier, not one prim Xstreet boxes
[17:29]  Prokofy Neva: well I keep saying: she is evidently making a calculation where her commissions are going to be more than tier
[17:29]  Prokofy Neva: her commissions, her dollar sales, her currency sales, her ads sales, her MOTD sales, are going to be more than tier
[17:29]  Prokofy Neva: and I bet that is what she is finding
[17:29]  Prokofy Neva: and she is helped to find that by grid monkeys telling them they can't scale this, and get more people logged on
[17:29]  Angela Talamasca: jack already said they were moving the places & land sales searches to the web so bots would be rendered useless.
[17:29]  Angela Talamasca: so, i am not surprised that they broke search.
[17:29]  Prokofy Neva: and they need them off campus
[17:30]  Prokofy Neva: the end of SLIM is not the end of that idea, it's an indicatoin they are going to GOM someone else or do their own thing or something
[17:30]  Angela Talamasca: what will happen is, ppl will be in so much pain, that when they come out with their shiny new toy, ppl will embrace it.
[17:30]  Angela Talamasca: or, rather, that's their hope
[17:30]  Prokofy Neva: well land sales moved to the web will be greete by people currently unable to find anything becaue 2.0 has it broken comletely
[17:30]  Ciaran Laval: jack They're upto something I agree, but Liana is way off the mark in terms of income
[17:30]  Prokofy Neva: and even in 1.23 it is impossible to use because it ha s a break on rapid searching to defeat bots
[17:31]  Prokofy Neva: multiple bots defeat it, but humans have to wait
[17:31]  Prokofy Neva: she may reason that if she can increase all searches by moving them to Xtreet, and that gets more sales, then people will create more and stay in SL more hours
[17:31]  Prokofy Neva: and they may cyber more and for that they need land
[17:31]  Prokofy Neva: she may merely have made a more circuitous route back to land, making sure her commissions are in there on the trip
[17:32]  Prokofy Neva: ultimately I think the Lindens would like to shake free land lords and just sell homesteads directly
[17:33]  Ciaran Laval: Jack is in charge of Xstreet now, Liana is just plain odd
[17:33]  Angela Talamasca: i agree.
[17:33]  Ciaran Laval: I can't work out what her game is at all
[17:33]  Angela Talamasca: imo, they're losing money but don't know how to get out of the homestead fiasco they created.
[17:34]  Angela Talamasca: so, they've doubled up sims on servers (ala 8 sim per server for full sims, and 32 sims per server for HS).
[17:34]  Prokofy Neva: yeah I think so too
[17:34]  Angela Talamasca: and wait till script limits goes into effect.
[17:34]  Prokofy Neva: the last 2 weeks have seen the absolute worse performance on sims ever in years
[17:34]  Peli Dieterle: I only today discovered that there is already a separate business grid by LL
[17:34]  Prokofy Neva: they are all stuffed 8 to a sim
[17:34]  Prokofy Neva: so they bring infohub sims like this one to their knees
[17:34]  Prokofy Neva: you can get a bad neighbour on the 8 and be ground to a halt
[17:34]  Prokofy Neva: even showing 99 and 45
[17:35]  Angela Talamasca: yup, and yet, they've got their linden homes @ 4 to a server.
[17:35]  Angela Talamasca: so, drive everyone out of the land business, and make everyone live on assisted living.
[17:35]  Prokofy Neva: on this infohub sim, 75 percent performance
[17:35]  Ciaran Laval: wait they're only sticking seven to eight to a server on new hardware and the only private estate to be there was Azure according to Tyche
[17:35]  Prokofy Neva: no, look at the new neighbours page
[17:36]  Prokofy Neva: and Linden have admitted it to me
[17:36]  Prokofy Neva: and they even moved one of my sims that was sharing with another sim with 50 houses
[17:36]  Ciaran Laval: Oh on Mainland yes
[17:36]  Prokofy Neva: http://secondlife.mitsi.com/Secondlife/tools/tools.htm
[17:36]  Ciaran Laval: Mainland and Azure Tyche told me
[17:36]  Prokofy Neva: new neighbours tool half way down the page
[17:36]  Prokofy Neva: I counted 11 on a server one day
[17:37]  Prokofy Neva: of course, that tool is unreliable
[17:37]  Angela Talamasca: the thing is, imo, they're in a pickle. back when i used to do cto stuff, we neg co-lo prices. and they are literally not cheap.
[17:37]  Second Life: Your object 'Script Performance Meter' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by Ravenglass Rentals from parcel 'SOCIETY FOR VIRTUAL ARCHITECTURE' at Warmouth 204, 230 due to parcel auto return.
[17:37]  Prokofy Neva: well that's what I think they can't scale, they can't scale land
[17:37]  Prokofy Neva: they need othe revenue
[17:37]  Angela Talamasca: right, and land is their main revenue
[17:37]  Ciaran Laval: I honestly think that Mitch kapor's speech last summer, was it last summer? Was basically a thanks for all the fish now fuck off to most existing residents
[17:37]  Angela Talamasca: so, they are looking for another source
[17:38]  Angela Talamasca: lol, yeah, i heard that one.
[17:38]  Prokofy Neva: yes he said the early pioneers were freaks and masochists and should piss off
[17:38]  Prokofy Neva: but I think really, that applies to *the Lindens* not us
[17:38]  Prokofy Neva: and now they did shed a bunch
[17:38]  Angela Talamasca: lololol
[17:38]  Prokofy Neva: of course shedding some good ones on the way
[17:38]  Prokofy Neva: pathfinder is no loss
[17:39]  Prokofy Neva: Infinity Linden wa in the opensource lobby
[17:39]  Angela Talamasca: didn't another one just bite the dust last week?
[17:39]  Angela Talamasca: or did i dream that?
[17:39]  Ciaran Laval: I didn't know Which had gone
[17:39]  Prokofy Neva: Phoenix has been let go
[17:39]  Peli Dieterle: hahaha we just have to accept that the place where the artists go turn into a giant discoteque in a few years
[17:39]  Prokofy Neva: which is crazy, as he has run the servers since the dawn of time
[17:39]  Angela Talamasca: i have pathfinder on my linked in list. he's got some org that he founded.
[17:39]  Ciaran Laval: Glenn too
[17:40]  Angela Talamasca: http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=8496871
[17:40]  Prokofy Neva: let me see how many islands they sold last month
[17:40]  Ciaran Laval: Robin tweeted that for a company who used to pride themselves on a low turnover it was disappointing to see so many ex Lindens on linkedin
[17:41]  Angela Talamasca: yeah, there are quite a few
[17:41]  Angela Talamasca: i imagine morale is another issue they're dealing w/right about now.
[17:43]  Ciaran Laval: As an aside, I'm not sure what you find so despicable about my post on search terms Prok, it was a heads up to people
[17:43]  Prokofy Neva: this number is till now growing: only 477,000 or so people spent more than a dollar inworld last month
[17:43]  Prokofy Neva: because it's false, it's misleading, and doesn't go to the heart of the problem, which is to oppose the Lindens in doing this
[17:43]  Prokofy Neva: it's a fake helpful Hal bullshit post meant to act like everyone should adapt
[17:44]  Prokofy Neva: but also false, as in fact changing your words cannot help, it's that broken
[17:44]  Prokofy Neva: I've taken it apart on my blog
[17:44]  Prokofy Neva: it's totally full of shit
[17:44]  Prokofy Neva: They are n ot showing number of islands sold
[17:44]  Prokofy Neva: so that's worrisome
[17:44]  Ciaran Laval: ITyche will tell us that
[17:46]  Ciaran Laval: I didn't say anywhere people should adapt, I pointed out those doing well in the current viewer have a quandary but whatever
[17:46]  Angela Talamasca: 60 members in the linden alum => http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1956935
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran, again, can you HEAR the fact that you are INCORRECT in your statements
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: read my blog
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: the people winning in search are not more clever, they are merely repeating their words
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: they are writing rentals rental rentals 1000 times
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: they are using $ or * or +
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: etc
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: all gimmick that should be weeded out
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: keywording i not going to fix the problem
[17:47]  Ciaran Laval: This is a completely different issue to what I blogged about
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: traffic is reduced in significance, and shouldn't be
[17:47]  Prokofy Neva: no
[17:48]  Prokofy Neva: you claimed that fixing your key words more cleverly would put people higher
[17:48]  Prokofy Neva: which is bullshit
[17:48]  Prokofy Neva: it will not
[17:48]  Ciaran Laval: I was talking about synonyms
[17:48]  Prokofy Neva: synonyms don't help to put people on top
[17:48]  Prokofy Neva: and you r notion that "oh, let's help the customer search for more options" *when he is only on one page with 8 results on it is retarded
[17:48]  You decline NCA 3rd Saturdays Concert Series, Nautilus - Anath (232, 30, 64 from A group member named Jean Swashbuckler.
[17:49]  Ciaran Laval: My point was that people who score well in viewer 1.23 might not score well in viewer 2.0 due to synonyms

[17:49]  Angela Talamasca: no, their search is completely broken. what we in industry would refer to as a, pardon my french, cluster fuck.
[17:49]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran
[17:49]  Prokofy Neva: and you are wrong
[17:49]  Angela Talamasca: has nothing to do with synonyms
[17:49]  Prokofy Neva: because you aren't seeing what is HAPPENING
[17:49]  Prokofy Neva: you tried one search, men's clothes
[17:49]  Ciaran Laval: Angela viewer 2 uses synonyms
[17:49]  Prokofy Neva: try "rentals"
[17:49]  Prokofy Neva: and see each and every return
[17:49]  Prokofy Neva: so what?
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: synonyms can't beat rentals rentals rentals
[17:50]  Angela Talamasca: it has to do with a) not knowing how to configure their google machine, and b) not knowing how to write a decent html page
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: which isn't weeded out in this fabulous new sytem
[17:50]  Angela Talamasca: right. they're google bombing
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: that's why we see this new behavoiur we never saw before!
[17:50]  Angela Talamasca: that's why they have rentals (or whatever) repeated)
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: we never, ever saw people waste their key words on repetition
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: no we see it
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: NOW we see it
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: because they are google bombing, precisely
[17:50]  Prokofy Neva: and no "fix" will stop that just like it doesn't on Google
[17:50]  Ciaran Laval: Oh this is fucking absurd, all I pointed out was that people who score well in 1.23 might not in 2.0, end of fucking story
[17:51]  Angela Talamasca: yup, very old trick based upon the way google scores search results.
[17:51]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran, NO FUCKING WAY
[17:51]  Prokofy Neva: you purported to show them SOLUTIONS claiming that synonymsn and more creativity will help
[17:51]  Prokofy Neva: when that is NOT FUCKING the case
[17:51]  Prokofy Neva: GO AND FUCKING LOOK
[17:51]  Ciaran Laval: No I did not
[17:51]  Prokofy Neva: well I can read what you wrote, and answer it, so whatever
[17:51]  Ciaran Laval: I said there was an issue for those who do well in 1.23
[17:51]  RT Store Greeter: starman Aldrin has entered your store.
[17:51]  Prokofy Neva: you are often very dense, Ciaran, on really important issues, which is completely destructive
[17:51]  Prokofy Neva: as much as you seem to "know," you are dense
[17:52]  Prokofy Neva: no, that is hardly all you said
[17:52]  Prokofy Neva: you said, "oh, look how it works, try this"
[17:52]  Prokofy Neva: and you aren't being truthful
[17:52]  Prokofy Neva: because it i fucked in 10 ways, and fucked with bombing
[17:52]  Prokofy Neva: anyway, your need to suck up to the Lindens makes you write retarded stuff
[17:52]  Prokofy Neva: you want to be liked and fit in
[17:53]  Prokofy Neva: you want to show how you are blogging happily about 2.0 and finding ways to adapt
[17:53]  Prokofy Neva: understood
[17:53]  Prokofy Neva: but it's a lie
[17:53]  Angela Talamasca: Ciaran, the prob is, you end up confusing things when you suggest ppl be more creative in their ads, or whatever
[17:53]  Prokofy Neva: it's irresponsible to run a blog and tell people tips, when in fact they won't work
[17:53]  Prokofy Neva: it's like Liana telling us that 2.0 search i "improevd" when it i garbage
[17:53]  Prokofy Neva: and you were late in admitting that
[17:53]  Angela Talamasca: it ends up making it look like its ppls fault bc their ads don't show up. when in reality, it is the lab's fault for the way they set up the serach.
[17:54]  Prokofy Neva: Here is what you wrote, Ciaran, have some accountability!
[17:54]  Prokofy Neva: "Synonyms of course can be helpful for a consumer, so the logic of their use is sound. However in terms of optimising your parcel search it means that you will need to reconsider your search terms. For the purposes of my example I'll use a broad search term of "Mens Clothing" to demonstrate how this works and why it's important to note that some words that worked for you in viewer 1.23 might not work in Viewer 2.
"
[17:54]  Ciaran Laval: Telling people to check synonyms is a good tip, that you're such a cunt you can't see that says more about you than me
[17:54]  Prokofy Neva: you are telling pepole to optimize by reconsidering the terms
[17:54]  Ciaran Laval: Absolutely
[17:54]  Peli Dieterle: I know how to make an HTML page and put searchwords in the text and i know how to use google to bring up my keyword combination as the top using booleans yes
[17:54]  Prokofy Neva: no, that you're such a cunt and can't see that people in fact shouldn't BOTHER
[17:54]  Ciaran Laval: what;'s the point in using a term that is going to be buried?
[17:54]  Prokofy Neva: because they are facing Zynga Zynga Zynga and rentals rntals rentals
[17:54]  Prokofy Neva: tell them to pam more
[17:55]  Prokofy Neva: you're the one telling them to optimize with synonyms, not me
[17:55]  Angela Talamasca: yep, and the problem is, that's false info based upon a faulty premise.
[17:55]  Ciaran Laval: Because they need to optimise by checking synonyms or else the only people getting custom wil,be the big stores
[17:55]  Prokofy Neva: Here is what you IRRESPONSIBLY wrote: "This is a difficult time for small business owners and they need to look at their search listings and consider what's best for them, if your sales are falling then check your relevancy in viewer 1.23 and Viewer 2.0 and see if you need to alter your descriptions."
[17:55]  Prokofy Neva: Ciaran, you are such a fucking RETARD
[17:56]  Prokofy Neva: everyboy alreayd uses all the synonyms
[17:56]  Prokofy Neva: look at the actual ads
[17:56]  Prokofy Neva: people ALREADY do that
[17:56]  Prokofy Neva: but the wons winning NOW are the ones putting repetition!
[17:56]  Angela Talamasca: right, google bombing
[17:56]  Ciaran Laval: Are you some sort of fucking eejit? Never before has a search for mens clothing returned results for male fashion, never
[17:56]  Prokofy Neva: and here is where you REALLY take the cake as a total dick sucking little asshole:
[17:56]  Prokofy Neva: "those businesses at the top may well see an increase in income, but will that increased income line just their pockets or will they expand and share the love with Linden Lab, at the end of the day for all of us, we need money to find its way to Linden Lab as well as to business owners.
"
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: we need to share the love with Linden Lab?
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: are you fucknig out of your fucking MIND????
[17:57]  Angela Talamasca: so, utnil they fix that, then it really doesn't matter much what others do, bc the google bombers will still get their ads listed on top.
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: why?
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: we pay them fucking TIER already!!!
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: we're supposed to turn over MORE?
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: we are not suppoed to finally pay some bills around here>?1
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: honestly you take the cake
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: you are constantly doing this Ciaran
[17:57]  Prokofy Neva: it really is disguting
[17:58]  Prokofy Neva: I'm done with this conversatoin
[17:58]  Angela Talamasca: lolol, sorry ciaran, but i can see why prok is enraged by what you wrote. i mean, seriously, that's rather revolting. lolol
[17:58]  Ciaran Laval: and people won't be paying tier if they don't make sales, it's not rocket scoence but hey having a twat who thinks Linden lab can take commission from Xstreet and just bdeclare it as a US dollar try and lecture me if fucking hi9larious, Prok you're a cunt and will always be a cunt, enough with this bullshit of putting up with your ignorance, fuck you
[17:58]  Prokofy Neva: you are not going to change from being an asshole regularly and often, and I will denouce you regularly and often becaue it' s a travesty
[17:58]  Angela Talamasca: on that friendly note!
[17:58]  Angela Talamasca: sorry, but...
[17:59]  Ciaran Laval: You;re more fucking stupid than I believed was possible
[17:59]  Ciaran Laval: fuck you
[17:59]  Peli Dieterle: was this an academic dispute?
[17:59]  Avatar ejected.
[17:59]  Prokofy Neva: no swearing in PG asshole
[17:59]  Prokofy Neva: I'm glad you can at least see the point, Angela
[17:59]  Prokofy Neva: it's juts AWFUL how he sucks upo
[17:59]  Angela Talamasca: well, that comment was gross.
[17:59]  Prokofy Neva: it's like a combination of craven fear and sycophantism
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: he's partly mad at LL for losing him money and then sucking up hoping he will get in good with them
[18:00]  Angela Talamasca: even if what they were saying about synonyms and search was true (which it isn't).
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: look, everyone is advised to use synonyms
[18:00]  Angela Talamasca: share the love, fffs?
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: we get all that
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: we do al lthat
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: we can always be more creative
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: ok, I'll add the word "condo"
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: happy?
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: but that will not make me show up
[18:00]  Angela Talamasca: not against google bombing
[18:00]  Prokofy Neva: not againt people putting ! Tropical Rentals rentals rentals rentals
[18:01]  Prokofy Neva: which I would never do
[18:01]  Angela Talamasca: they really need to fix that, and they should know how
[18:01]  Prokofy Neva: I hate meaningles ads
[18:01]  Prokofy Neva: I like people to read a sentence
[18:01]  Prokofy Neva: to me the coherent sentence is more important than the key words in it
[18:01]  Angela Talamasca: well, if they really knew how to configure the thing. i don't think they do.
[18:01]  Prokofy Neva: well I wouldn't assume that
[18:01]  Prokofy Neva: they have some of the industry's best people
[18:01]  Angela Talamasca: one would think.
[18:01]  Prokofy Neva: but this business where not your own results sort but the rest of the list -- surely they will fix that?
[18:02]  Prokofy Neva: it's terrible when they can't come clean and ADMIT search is broken

[18:02]  Prokofy Neva: and are publishing blogs saying it' fabulous

[18:02]  Angela Talamasca: part of the prob is, they look at it from the pov of ppl who use all sorts of tricks to get what search they want. what they fail to realize is that most ppl just know how to do reg searches, so, the search ends up as bad as the reg searches on the web.
[18:03]  Angela Talamasca: but, i am guessing they plan to start including google adsense in their searches so they can try to monetize those.

The Social Media Guru Bubble: What Umair Erases

The wonderboy Umair Haque is someone I've long had on my to-do list to take on, because he's really one of the preeminent technocommunists disguised as a cool new media entrepreneur who has endless capacity (and funding) from the large ad agency Havas, Harvard and the conference circuit to spread his bad ideas all over the Internet. I've seen him crop up here and there on Twitter, usually in some ecstatic post by some middleaged white tech guy in Silicon Valley with a hard-on for a younger 30-something brown guy who seems "entrepreneurial" and "start-upy". There's a lot of that love-hate stuff that goes on between the old white Christian or Jewish white guys in Silicon Valley for the Hindu boys, as they acquire a greater presence on the scene, have you noticed? It's because the guilty white-guy liberals get to PC-love a minority this way, but a minority that has an engineering degree and wants a tech-start up visa, and doesn't place social demands as other minorities might. But despite this great middle-aged white guy/young Indian guy collaboration, the Indian gets uppity and the white guy becomes bitter.

But it's also because white guys are out of ideas, especially American white guys who aren't as well educated as non-white guys in Europe, or for that matter, even in Asia these days. So you get people who become adoring, uncritical fans of Umair's system, like this blogger, simply because they've never seen a coherent system in all their half-paragraph media pablum diet.

But wait. I though Umair or his ancesters were from India. But maybe he is Pakistani? French? Or Palestinian? Or maybe he's Black Irish? You're not supposed to care or know, but it's part of that anonymous Internetry nowadays that cleverly in fact avoids, even in a deluge of information, any explication of one's "roots" by appealing to a new transnational identity of cyberspace. Like the Soviets created with homo Sovieticus, "beyond" nationality.

So it's partly because of the smartness and sophisticated Haque *system* that I've been waiting to study more, and bring my "best game" so to speak to a critique. But now, as he spreads and spreads with only very, very rare criticism, like this hilarious post, I think I'll still try to do my shabby best to counter him.

Umair has achieved a modern miracle: he has *no Wikipedia entry*. Can you imagine? A guy this famous, at Harvard, at all the major conference, endlessly blogging and being retweeted, endlessly flooding his memes and "change agency" and "thought leadership" to the masses and he *has no Wikipedia entry at all* -- like a vampire that cannot be seen in a mirror. Uncanny. Usually people like this make vanity Wikipedia entries of themselves, but he's avoided that, possibly because he couldn't avoid people then changing the text, even under the draconian arcane editing rules of Wikipedia.

That "Wikipedia-free" Internet presence is something that Edelman and other major ad agencies know how to ensure for their people. Nowhere do you see anything about Umair but this very spare bio: "Director of the Havas Media Lab. He also founded Bubblegeneration, an agenda-setting advisory boutique that shaped strategies across media and consumer industries."

So it is hard to tell who he is, where he was educated, what his past jobs might be, etc. and hard to understand how he came to his socialist anti-capitalist views, which I call "technocommunist" to reflect their renovation in the technical age -- of course he and his fanboyz strenuously deny that they are socialist/communist and insist that they are healthy and robust capitalists but merely want to "reconstruct" capitalism and make it "constructive". Like Constructivism itself, its roots are primarily in a mixture of karma mysticism, utopianism, old-fashioned collectivism, ecstatic group-think and merging with the masses as one, and of course, a prominent role for an avant-garde that will lead these masses in their "deep democracy.

Interestingly, without me having to do a thing, Umair has now come under fire -- by none other than the TechCrunch people who you would think have had him in awe. I guess sometimes Arrington's bunch have to behave like journalists, because they simply reporte that when Umair interviewed Ev of Twitter fame at the fabulous SWSX, people actually walked out of the keynote. Imagine walking out from the keynote of the founder of the most talked-about, revolutionary device since, well, Facebook! I'm waiting for someone to point me to a video of this to get the nuance, because frankly, while the transcript makes Umair up to be a prancing self-promoting ninny, it doesn't seem as if he overshares *that* much.

In any event, Umair is also getting lots of retweet love because he's now been babbling about the overselling of social media and the disappointment of the Internet.

It's actually a very, very telling that Umair's manifestos and credos are under serious fire from reality, and really indicates a crisis of the soul for this particular comrade. Yet, true to form, instead it is greeted as penetrating insight and business acumen.

I replied, but I got erased, not surprisingly, by this no doubt thin-skinned geek. Here's my rejoinder:

No Transcript for Sutherland Dam Due to Woodbury University Crashing

Unfortunately, with all the viewer crashing deliberately caused by Woodbury goons last night, I didn't get the transcript. If anyone has it, send it to me.

You might also IM this nit and tell her to send it, and stop being a dick.

Gwynn Gunawan: Hi! I'm reading the log on your talk last night and I must say you are so completely and utterly full of shit it drips from your ears if you open your mouth. You ignorance is staggering and I would say your opinions would befit a toddler but I don't want to insult the toddler.
Prokofy Neva: Oh well give me a copy I'd like to publish it
Prokofy Neva: Your griefing friends crashed us so we couldn't save the log
Gwynn Gunawan: edit -> preferences -> communication check the boxes
Prokofy Neva: they're checked dear, but they did not survive repeated crashing
Prokofy Neva: duh!
Prokofy Neva: room chat doesn't save as a log anyway, only IM, avatar chat, group chat
Gwynn Gunawan: I'm reading it, I didn't reach the griefing part yet but I heard of it. What makes you think they are my friends?
Prokofy Neva: Because you are an asstard just like they are? You sound like a royal asshole, through and through, and your groups and profile back me  up on that hasty impression : )
Gwynn Gunawan: yes, you do seem to jump to conclusions rather fast
Gwynn Gunawan: not burdened by actual knowledge and understanding
Prokofy Neva: I think I don't need much burdening when I see your groups, cupcake
Prokofy Neva: but do share the transcript, if not with me, on your blog, lots of people wanted to see it
Prokofy Neva: or don't, whatever, being an asshole seems to come naturally to you
Gwynn Gunawan: oh, from the log I'd say it's not just my groups or profile but a general tendency
Prokofy Neva: obviously you are blind to the implications of what a marker for assholery it is to dial up a complete stranger and insult them as a "toddler" merely becaues they don't hold the techocommunist views you appear to
Gwynn Gunawan: I'll contemplate spending time and effort but actually, insulting people is in general not the smartest way to get what you want
Gwynn Gunawan: oh, I'm quite happy that you think I'm an asshole
Gwynn Gunawan: anything else would insult my intelligence
Gwynn Gunawan: I'm thinking some quotes and ripostes would be the best way to summarise this rather tedious slab of text