Oh! And I Forgot to Tell You That OTHER Thing the Lindens Are Canning

That is, I didn't exactly hear them say this in so many words at SLCC, but damn, I should have been better at my Kremlindenology and figured this out.

At the "town hall" (air quotes required) in July, Philip did say something in passing about canning Welcome Areas.

A frustrating aspect of this "town hall" is that the Lindens made no official transcript and the Treet TV people didn't either, and there is a summary for the disabled which is helpful, but not the full text for those textual analysis junkies that are now fighting over what he said or didn't say.

So now we get it from the unknown Delby Linden that the Lindens are closing the Community Gateway program.

Carl Metropolitan and Desmond Shang, who have a CG for Caledon called Oxbridge, got the notice for this about a day ago. So they were blindsided, like some people were with the Teen Grid of SL Enterprise.

It doesn't sound like there's a plan in place to replace CG coherently, other than just dump newbies on the Welcome area but then get them to go to Destination locations.

So the game now is to get yourself into Destination. Let's hope they grandfather the CGs as choice Destinations, and rotate them on the front page as well.

I've sounded off on the forums about this, and of course, there's the usual fanboyz stuff telling everyone to suck it up, change your business model, don't be surprised what the Lindens do, blah blah.

Yeah.

I'll get right on that.

Read the thread, it's an eye-opener. Imagine, a gay continent, 149 sims, travel programs, clubs, games, rentals, and a way to position the gay scene not as a teleport into a sex club, but a well-rounded full life and community. And that's killed off. That's described as not retaining people. And so on. Read some of the stories there. Awful stuff.

I can't do more than say what I've been saying for years:

o sell advertising in the welcome areas so that people with businesses catering to newbies who have the profit motive, or for that matter, nonprofits that accept ads that have at least funds for ads, can attract newbies rationally through the market

o let newbies chose from a huge list on signup and from signboards in world and rotate that list

o make Destination more open, transparent, accountable, refreshed, and buyable

etc.

Too tired to keep writing the same thing.

Comments

[brinda Allen]

Damn sad is what it is....
While I didnt necessarily agree with the RP CGs...there were so many that were language specific...and that was so important.

/me wonders if the Lab is trying to drive all of us away

[Desmond Shang]

Blindsided by the specific announcement, yes, but saw it coming anyway.

And I'm ok with that. Might have even been part of the cause of it, great stats notwithstanding.

Yes, I wanted us to have something for all the good we did, rather than pay to do it. So did others. Even just region tier would have been enough. The soft benefits certainly didn't make a lot of difference.

Would I do it all again? If it was a fair deal, yes. If not... I'd pass.

They have my email if they want to know how we did so well at Oxbridge.

[cube3]

what des.. they didnt give you an achievement badge?;)

[Desmond Shang]

I don't need no stinking badges :)

[Ann Otoole InSL]

LL wants to rid SL of the "oldbies". (necessary to attract mindless fb dumbasses that don't want 3D and like having their bank accounts emptied)

Expect more hate.