Remember the $50,000 sims-in-a-box? SL Enterprise? Nebraska was its code name.
Yeah, that's closing, too.
We civilians first heard this at SLCC last weekend by accident when an IBM guy presenting about IBM's work in SL mentioned casually that the Lindens were discontinuing SL Enterprise.
His presentation consisted of basically saying, "We got thousands of IBM people to sign up. We don't know how many of them kept logging in. We found some great use cases for SL like poster talks. But then we decided not to use it and dumped our islands. The End." I have to find the link to his talk and/or my notes, but what was "news news" out of this session was that the much-ballyhooed and Techcrunch.com-deadpooled SL Enterprise was deep-sixed.
I immediately hastened to ask Philip right after his keynote on August 14 if this were true. He acted surprised that I was asking about this if it were news and confirmed that yes, it was being closed. Another reporter was standing near him with serious tape equipment and a boom so I moved on, but when I asked if getting rid of SL Enterprise was part of the "Back to Basics" of sticking with their core business (consumers, socializers, etc.), he said "Yes."
Funny, only a few weeks ago, when they were laying off the first huge bunch of Lindens, the "30 percent", I asked Amanda Linden, who was usually the Linden spokesperson on SL Enterprise, if SLE was being canned, too. She said, somewhat grimly, after a pause, "We're still here."
But...now they aren't. I have to wonder what happened to poor Fizik Baskerville over this.
One of the things that happened in the corridors after Philip's keynote is a guy came up to Philip and asked rather pointedly, hey, what am I going to do about that build I did for customers in SL Enterprise? How am I going to get that out now that you're shutting it down? He was one of those Gold Service Providers who had made things for clients inside those sims-in-a-box set-ups.
It was a bit of a fake question because he actually had back-up copies he'd made privately, but it was more of a principle-of-the-thing sort of question. And perhaps he couldn't control every copy he'd made out there for clients now.
I'm often puzzled why these work-a-day service-providers don't accept the 'work-for-hire' concept more than they do, but some of the things they do are art, and should be treated as art. I do think there's an AWFUL lot of fake edgecasing and hysteria-mongering based on the false premise that it is somehow very hard to copy your build legally. It isn't. You get 100 company names. You hire builders to build from those avatars with that company name. You move those avatars and their inventory. End of story. Why are we fussing about this here!
Philip said very clearly in answer to AJ Brooks provocative question seeking to push the envelope on copyleftisim in SL that no, you will not get to swipe other people's creations just because you "have it in inventory" and it is "yours". Yeah, we get all the stuff about this. The point is, there is no way for the creator to guarantee the integrity of their work in another grid setting. So Philip said most definitely that while there would be functions put into the viewer allowing back up of copies for transport elsewhere if it was your own creation, if you were shown as the creator, for other people's stuff, you could not do this. And that how that might be done someday has to be discussed, but interoperability is not something the Lindens are making a priority now; the program, like others, is closed/suspended. Good!
SL Enterprise is not missed by any residents. It had no impact on them. The only remote consideration is that it might have helped give some infusions to the Lab of $50,000 from selling the behind-the-firewall 4-packs of fancy sims. I can't imagine there were more than a dozen of these kinds of customers. I imagine that if they really want to, they can continue the firewalled set-up as IBM did originally even before there was the Nebraska program.
But in another way, it is very, very good riddance for all the reasons I screamed and screamed about when it was first born. That cost me the friendship of Fizik, because he was terrible about trashing ordinary resident content as tacky; it also cost me the friendship of Blue Linden, who used to be a friend more often than not, although I'd go through periods of boycotting him.
In the end, I cut the cards on both of them because Fizik trashed the concept of one world for all content sellers and Blue temp-banned me from the forums when I tried to make the point that there were a dozen resident stores with just as good office furniture as anything a GSP could produce in the "special closed store" of SL Enterprise Marketplace. He claimed this was "advertising". It wasn't. There could be a list of 10 *other* places. The point was to show *they exist, and you can't do this to us, you can't marginalize us.*
I didn't hear any Lindens comment on the entire Pink Linden/Xstreet commissions and changes fiasco. It might have been good to have a post-mortem on that, but the Lindens had enough fields of broken glass to walk through on Viewer 2 and the Teen Grid without also demanding them to stand up and get darts thrown over Xstreet. Even so, that discussion needs to be had.
It's funny, looking back -- less than a year. Ten months. I was concerned this would become fairly popular and the SLE Marketplace would displace content makers and content revenue and its side effects just like the invasion of the corporations in 2007 displaced content makers and streams of revenue in SL and made it so that good architects didn't want to build for the world or run their own inworld business, but only wanted to build for corporate sims.
It didn't.
The IBM guy raised an issue in his talk. He said that if he wanted to buy a fountain from Fountains 'R Us across the street from his mainland sim, let's say, to put in the foyer of his corporate headquarters even on mainland, let alone his in-the-box IBM office in SLE, he couldn't. Because the person couldn't warrant the work was his. Or there wasn't at least an existing system to do that. Which is why Amanda Linden, Fizik/Justin Bovington, and everybody else began agitating about this.
I pointed out later to Zha Ewry during his session that when IBM goes to buy furniture in bulk at IKEA for its offices, it doesn't fuss about whether the designer can warrant the design is his own. Zha took the point, but replied that but in RL, he would know where to go. IKEA would have a law office or a corporate customer desk or something...
I find this all specious, quite frankly. These people play the California business model plan when they want to, liberating content and waiting for the DMCA notices to be filed, making traffic and ad clicking off other people's content all the while, and then they suddenly fuss about a fountain, that they can't buy it from a resident because it may be cloned.
There has to be an easier way. Pink Linden's certified merchant plan never happened, and I hope it doesn't in the way it was being contemplated with discretionary Linden clearance.
There are standard translator's contracts and freelance web writer's contracts where you warrant the work is your own. Find them all over the Internet. They adapt to certain states like NY State with slightly different language about where you litigate. These are standard issue and immediately sent by email and you scan a signature and send them back. If I can do that in RL over an article or a translation effortlessly and seemlessly, sending my W-9 form while I'm at it, why can't this sort of function be easily done by an IBM buying a fountain? Instead, they pretend it's some insurmountable obstacle that needs a "solution" like hiring one content provider to make everything on the sim under a detailed contract.
There's something about virtuality that always makes people go into convulsions and become literalists and geeky in ways that only cripple progress.
IBM should construe that all products in the marketplace are made by people who signed the TOS. The TOS has no warrantee that your work is your own and is only work-for-hire. But it does have an implicit construct called "creator" which has a definition. I think in entering the service, you have to have a basic good faith that creators work is their own, and if someone can prove otherwise, they can come forward. I don't think that means caving to the California Business Model in a regime where we do have a DRM and we do have signifying intent on the object editor.
Is there a lesson to be learned here? The Lindens announce terribly awful things in their PainPoint program, and it doesn't actually come to pass. They wanted it to; it didn't. I'd love to know how those sims-in-a-box actually got populated with content. I'd love to go peer at those boxes and see what they did. If it is anything like the corporate sims of 2006-2007, it would be acres of Soviet-style cement stadium seating, modern sculpture structures made out of glass and steel, and Albert Linden's modern black couch in the foyer. I doubt it got beyond that.
Remember how Clever Zebra ripped off all the freebies that Lordfly and other builders could supply in this caper pulled off by Nick Wilson (57 Miles), in the belief that if you gave all these corporations a set of free buildings as components to use on their sims, they'd still hire you as "service providers"? Um, that worked out real well, didn't it!
There is more to be said about how content can and should be provided in spite of the analog hole/analog asshole argumentations of the inevitability of copyleftism -- for now I will have to say nobody, even the Lindens, likely mourns the passing of SLE.
Unlike the Teen Grid, it's not clear there were people there, and at any rate, if there were, they have plenty of other places to go on their corporate dime.
Prok, and this is the point...
"SL Enterprise is not missed by any residents. It had no impact on them".
It had no impact, no direct involvement with you or SL residences. It was an LL side project, and therefore nothing to do with you or I. You never knew the 'facts', and you just speculated.
Some facts about SLE, and somethings you never knew:
1) Content was controlled and deployed by LL. Not because of the need for a Soviet like controlled store. It was down to the good old Uncle Sam's fear of litigation and being sued for supplying unathorised or copied content. Every object submitted, every texture or script had to be verfied and signed off by the original owner. In some cases, this could involve 100's people! It therefore was unmanageable as an open market opportunity.
2) If you supplied an application type product, you had to also supply an end-user-agreement and a service level agreement. Which is standard, and would been expected from any corporate who is deploying behind the firewall. It also covered LL, who would only cover their own code and service etc.
3) Content like chairs, clothing and avatars were pre-made and supplied by hand picked SL residences. Who supplied these at a buy-out rate. These are the same people who supply the pre-made areas in Second Life, starter avatars or LL supplied INV objects.
4) The boxes supplied were 'closed' environments. Meaning, that it was created and deployed at LL. This meant once deployed, they wouldn't have access to any third party 'marketplace' outside their own firewall. Creating further objects was therefore only achievable by the company, and from within their own firewall.
5) From what I was told, SLE was always a true Beta launch. With clients understanding that this may not eventually launch, or progress to a further stage.
6) I can though assure you, the many Lindens who have lost their jobs, are missing SLE and the other projects.
7) I can also assure you, that LL have left a developers scratching their heads. After the departure of Chris Collins and Ginsu in March this year, SLE seemed to be left without any true leadership
8) The guy from IBM is wrong! the SLE continues in the BETA phase. It's just parked at this stage. No further development beyond what has been supplied; my organisation has just signed off another year.
One last point...
One of the people you mentioned as a 'lost friend'? Told me that the very nature of collaboration is the fact you can work with and partner beyond the firewall. SLE was great for the military and closed off Government agencies. Their clients were 95% on the SL grid... They also had no control or direct engagement with the clients using their products or applications on SLE.
Spark
Posted by: Spark Henshaw | August 18, 2010 at 06:03 AM
this is old news, but Enterprise was $50,000. sounds a bit steep. i would have had a hard time selling it to my customers. especially when you can set up your own open sim grid behind your firewall on your own intranet. for free. ibm *is* pulling out of SL, largely because of this strategic decision. watch the ibm sims go poof.
Posted by: Wizard Gynoid | August 18, 2010 at 07:24 AM
My issue with SLE was that there are really better ways to work and have meetings on line. There are several services that allow multiple people to log on, video conference, text chat conference, view movies or powerpoint presentations, share word documents like Word or Excel files, and even work collaboratively on things like Word or Excel files.
SL doesn't do some of those things well and some of them at all. You can view a power point presentation by uploading jpg's of the slides or running it on a web page shown on a prim. The viewers have to figure out how to zoom in on the presentation and it's not as clear as a pop up window used by the other services. SL can also be crashy, something I've never experienced in the other services.
In an online meeting, you are trying to keep people's attention. In any platform, you are battling against distractions in their office or home (the phone, someone walking in, browsing the web, etc). SL gives you another layer of distraction in the form of the avatar. While your presentation is going on, folks could be poking around in their inventories trying to figure out this SL clothes thing or checking out the form other attendees decided to take.
SL has wonderful strengths and possibilities, it just doesn't seem efficient for business meetings.
Posted by: Sioban McMahon | August 18, 2010 at 08:08 AM
Wizard,
I worked for IBM. This is old news. IBM was gone long before any SLE announcement. IBM developed a *very* Beta OpenSim project based around Lotus Sametime. They moved their experimentation phase work into a 'work silo' many moons ago. Hence why the 'glory boys' like Ian Hughes left in a huff; he lost his easy conference-attending-life and didn't want to go back to his day job. Boo-hoo.
In that $50,000 was the hardware (two servers at over $15,000 - including the Vivox voice etc) and an unlimited user license... I don't think it was a question cost, more about the 'need' and the 'relevance' at this stage. I think it was too early for some, and too much REAL work for the Lindens. Besides, most of the exciting results are coming from direct collaboration beyond the fire wall world.
Either way, it's a damn shame, as having SLE in market was ultimately good for us all. It validated the use of VW in business. Which was good for SL. I'm surprised though, as the boxes we have are stilling under license and running. As Amanda Linden said: "we're still here".
We're also trying to sell in OpenSim, but anything beyond 'experimentation' is a no-go. OpenSim is not ready for primetime. OpenSim as even developers say, is very much a work in progress.
Posted by: Spark Henshaw | August 18, 2010 at 08:31 AM
I know very little about most anything...but at my age I do know that it's vitaly important to do your core business really well. Linden Labs core business is those of us that signed up as individual avatars.
Posted by: brinda Allen | August 18, 2010 at 11:33 AM
Um, both Philip *and* the IBM guy, from a company that is the biggest SLE customer, is not "wrong". You're wrong. It's closed. Just because something is in beta and they technically still "have it" and "could bring it back" doesn't mean it isn't "closed" -- they said so.
You're not telling us anything new, and while it was a black box, the Lindens and GSPs talked about it and we heard all these points, and in fact I debated them in my blog repeatedly.
It is about the Soviet store, just as much as it is about copyright fears -- which are fake, as I pointed out, as these big companies use the California Business Model when they feel like it. IBM may not do that, but then, they don't run a massive social media platform.
It wasn't unmanageable as an open market, any more than real life, and the rest of the Internet, is unmanageable on the open market. That's a fiction that people impose because they think virtuality gives them an excuse.
Just as IBM buys things in real stores in bulk; just as IBM hires independent contractors to do work on the web, so they can do the same thing in virtual worlds in streamlined ways if they put their minds and will to it. They didn't.
It's not true that content could only be deployed behind the firewall. Lindens spoke explicitly of a plan, their plan indeed for SLE Marketplace, whereby they would put content on sims, and then upload the entire sim with its content to the firewalled grid -- which is a trivial matter. And we made the point that if they can essentially use the caper that was used as the exploit by the thief in the case Stroker et. al. tried, then they could use it not just for a select group, but anyone. Anyone could put their content on the sim if IBM bought it, and have it uploaded in this fashion without all the ridiculous sequestering and filtering just by putting in some basic common-sense routines. These could even be the certified merchants system. This could even be merely signing of an automatic license the way you have to sign from Sion Chicken every time you open up any single box from Sion Chicken. If Sion Chicken can do it, geez, IBM can do it. It's a trivial matter of creating a drop-down blue screen in a scripted device with questions or statements to say "yes" or "no" to.
When you have the will, you find the way. The will was not there.
I don't wish ill on Lindens or wish them to lose their jobs. I do wish them to have honest market feedback about their product and not live in a goddamn utopia and to adjust their work accordingly.
You don't need $50,000 to work with an partner with people behind a firewall, as even IBM demonstrated before there was the Nebraska program. And there are likely more concessions that could be devised that would enable people both to keep their sims closed and still interact with the mainland. Yes, maybe that means the hated interoperability (hated by me because its a stalking horse for copyleftism) eventually, but I think it's more likely that the Lindens will regularize the system they were going to use anyway to move between two products they controlled to some extent.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | August 18, 2010 at 11:50 AM
Prok,
The biggest SLE customer was the US Military, not IBM. They even had a dedicated team to serve our girls and boys in flyers, navy and army.
The IBM experiment ended a longtime ago.
IBM have always begrudged having to 'deal' with LL. It's IBM, why should they we have to deal with anyone!! godammit!? Dig a little deeper, IBM arrogantly thought, the success of SL was solely down to their team and PR. hmmm.
Soviet vs CBM: I agree though, LL are using the rules that suit their purpose at that moment. They have a history littered with the remains of broken promises; reworking the story and hiding behind TOS or even, the very worse, forgetting that people here have long and accurate memories. They keep on trying to re-write their own history. We know better, right?
Interoperability? Of course, only if you work within an IBM network of products and services ;)
I'm concerned how LL are dealing with the recent announcements. SLCC was just a fan-girl-boi event; they come with hard and probing questions. When faced with the opportunity, they instead gush platitudes and stare in awe at the mighty Linden God Philip. Shame.
LL have mismanaged the opportunity. Don't take my word for it. This is the Tweet via Cory:
Cory Ondrejka RT @SecondLie: "We're changing from SCRUM to SCROTUM software development strategy. Anyone w/ the balls to speak up gets sacked."
Philip was asked to step down, or at the very least was asked to step aside. I think the sacrificial lamb was M Linden, who as the last vestiges of his tenure, made the decisions to get rid of so many developers. For then Philip to sweep back in, as if he was the 'returning hero'. The reality? He was never actually gone, everything was still passed through his decision making hair. He was Chairman of the board. He was their to make sure the CEO delivered on his vision.
I have a feeling, LL has not only effected Linden Lab employees. I understand, that most the Gold Solution Providers have simply upped and left. Or are now working on alternative platforms, or working on different business models.
Fools Gold Solution Providers: the kool aid is not being supped anymore...
Spark
Posted by: Spark Henshaw | August 18, 2010 at 01:55 PM
1) the U.S. military is moving to other worlds, including customized worlds and spending way more on those other worlds and providers than they did on SL.
2) the peak of the IBM experiment ended on the main grid, but it continued in SLE, just as it continues now on Open Sim. So what? They have a dozen islands; they may pull them or leave a symbolic presence. SL was always a project that only some people at IBM supported and some opposed.
3) My own take on Linden Lab is that they have steadily, albeit it very painfully and incrementally, moved toward the rule of law by their TOS and more importantly, their written policies. I don't underestimate the significance of those developments. I don't view this operation as a place littered with broken promises when the Lindens finally made a policy on ad farms and implemented it; made a policy on "ageplay" and implemented it; made a policy on gambling and implemented it; made a third-party viewer policy and implemented it; made a machinima policy and implemented it. You may find these overbroad, incomplete, etc. but they are now in writing and now part of the legal regime.
4) I disagree that SLCC was a fanboyz event. I was there and I'm not a fanboi. I and others asked the hard questions, and you can see us on tape on the Ustreams and such. So I don't find that at all. Yes, there are people who stare in awe at Philip Linden. It's ok. He's awesome. There are plenty of other people saying where the hell's my business revenue, you fucked up search.
5) Nobody needs interoperability except a handful of extremist geeks. Those that seem to have some vital need pay for it. Then they discover they didn't need it so much and then they don't. If interoperability was really a public demand, we'd see many more operations caring about it, working on it, etc. It's not. It's fake.
6) That's a very interesting RT coming from Cory, eh? But, it's not about balls. Cory always had authority issues with Philip. I remember after SLCC1 when he mocked Philip right to his face, picking up a gourd from a Korean deli, and mimicking it talking with a squeaky voice, "I'm the CEO of the Metaverse" and Philip not thinking it was so funny.
7. Cory's idea of fun was to release the server code. After he winked and nodded at the griefing and copybotting libsl operation reverse-engineering the viewer. People who file tweets telling us only when they arrive in Doha or San Francisco and never tell you how they saved the music industry's lunch despite theft are not really relevant to this discussion.
8. Nobody ever asks for accountability from Mitch Kapor, then CEO, who had to have endorsed or instigating Philip's stepping aside and asuming *his* ostensible job; who had to have endorsed the hiring and firing of M Linden. Again, these people never speak or do anything but file the occasional cryptic tweet.
We don't know what happened. They aren't telling us. I suspect that the board isn't a functioning governing board as it is in other operations. This is a club where the kids put in their own money, not OPM.
9. GSPs are not people I weep for. Those that get value out of SL for their clients still quietly work away. Don't forget GSPS, as special and FIC as they are, and as annoying as they are, *themselves* have to PAY the Lindens to have that status, like a bribe to an official in a third-world country to do business.
10. What's to provide? People bring their own devs. The GSP concept is only a temporary hold while people figure out what they can do with SL. There is no reason why a competent web dev or other relevant arts or tech person in any operation in RL can't come and work SL. If I can work it, they can work it.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | August 18, 2010 at 02:10 PM
Even when they said Enterprise wasn't gone, I knew it was. Even LL can't magically wish that successful when it wasn't.
IBM may make up silly excuses about not being able to know who made their virtual furniture as the reason, but that's not telling the whole story.
There's nothing in IBM's Virtual World Guidelines (http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/virtualworlds.IBMVirtualWorldGuidelines.html) that prevents them from buying content they don't specifically know the creator of.
The truth is, IBM liked SL so much, they bought the company. Oh wait, they couldn't, so they did the next best thing, they cloned SL:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/27831.wss
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2009/06/ibm-releases-opensim-based-collaboration-tool/
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2009/07/ibm-offers-four-opensim-regions-for-50000/
Basically IBM stole the Enterprise business from LL. Who would you rather buy a sim from, LL or IBM?
Posted by: Darien Caldwell | August 18, 2010 at 03:20 PM
... I was going pretty much going to say the same thing that Darien said :) when I saw his comment.
No, I don't think that IBM is "evil" (I even applied for a job with them :) ). I think, however, that long-term it'll be the IBM/Intel pseudo-consortium (not formal one) that will push SL — or rather, OpenSim — into a workable technology, both for academic, business, and even the residential markets, in spite of LL's failure to do so. Now, the good side of this story is that LL is not discarded yet, it's still part of the big picture, and the leading developer in innovation — and Philip wants that to become even more true, and that's good.
Nevertheless, something must have happened between LL and the IBM/Intel gang (to that gang we can also add the more casual contributors like Microsoft, Novell, even Sun (before they were bought by Oracle). All of them, for one reason or another, have congregated around SL (or rather, its derivative clone, OpenSim). They all had their own platforms and products, and most even look "nicer" than SL. But the truth is that they haven't abandoned SL/OpenSim.
On the other hand, the end of all interop developments announced by Philip is quite interesting — a month after the first official draft for the interoperability protocol, VWRAP, was announced. People like Zero Linden were amusingly labeled as siding more with IBM/Intel than with his employer, LL. I cannot validate those claims, of course, but I think it's significant that Zero was also fired.
So, what happened? I guess that LL made an effort to "show the world" — and by that I mean the heavy-duty industry giants that have been collaborating with LL — that LL could develop, deploy, and sell a corporate solution. Allegedly, they even made more sales than they expected; but on the other hand, perhaps the amount of sales was not enough. So LL dumped SLE and turned back to the residential market.
IBM/Intel, however, continue their work. IBM's endorsement and support of ReactionGrid is one of many examples where things are moving: educators, frustrated with the high prices of tier and the impossibility to get schools on the main grid, leave and flock to another grid which not only has the industry giants behind it (even if not as actual shareholders), but which has an educator-friendly ToS — and allegedly (so my clients tell me!) a level of support that LL doesn't match (and doesn't want to match; thus the kicking-out of Pathfinder).
Ultimately I guess that Darien asks the relevant question. For a corporation or a large university, the choice is paying a lot for tier on the SL Grid and submitting to the whims of an insane ToS from a "minor" company that never has listened to the needs of their customers (although, in all fairness, at least there has been an effort); or to buy the same service from IBM, or rather, IBM-endorsed companies, for a fraction of the price. Even the lack of content (due to the end of the interop efforts on LL's side) might slowly become irrelevant. People like Rezzable have shown that you can easily hire the best content developers for your own grid — just jump over to SL, see who's best, and hire them. The argument of "lack of content" and "mistrusting grid operators" will slowly (yes, it'll take years) become less relevant, as technologies like Hypergrid 1.5 have shown: now you can jump across grids, buy content safely which will continue to show the original content creator's name no matter in which grid it was orginated, and the way your inventory is now being safely kept away from the sim you log in to, will go a long, long way to make "grid hopping" more feasible. For the first time in 3 years, I managed to buy content developed on a different grid and bring it to my own :)
So, well, this new model will require some readjustment of mentalities. In a sense, I find it ironical: I always imagined that SL would become more and more corporate and academic, while OpenSim would be populated by geeks with too much free time on their hands, and who aren't consumers of high-quality content anyway. Surprisingly exactly the reverse is happening! The SL grid will become more and more residential, while the corporate world and the academic world move over to be with the big guys (IBM, Intel, and the other industry giants) in their network of interconnected grids... I would never have thought that to happen so soon!
The extreme irony is that since my company left the Gold Solution Provider programme (there seems to be no point in it, now that LL's enterprise division was for all purposes dismantled), our OpenSim-based grid, which has pretty much nothing to see except for one project (the rest are just backups of content formerly displayed on the SL grid, from clients whose projects have finished a long time ago), got more visitors in a month than our sim on the SL grid... and I've just set Hypergrid 1.5 up two weeks ago!
Posted by: Gwyneth Llewelyn | August 18, 2010 at 06:58 PM
I remember when the program was announced and the reaction from we hoi polloi was Who, What, Why? Not many I spoke to thought that this plot was going to hatch right and it didn't. No company wants to be associated with a perverted version of Honest John's Pleasure Island.
I don't think it will work so well for IBM either. The platform is just too cumbersome for anything worth the time. Plus its a distraction, people will be goggle eyed over the avatars not listening to presentations. Especially people who don't have experience with such things.
I'm glad to see some level headed action with it's closure. But not after throwing good money down the toilet in the process.
The military certainly spared no expense while they were here. Their experiments will drive the industry along with all of us Lampwicks doing our Pleasure Island tour.
Posted by: melponeme_k | August 18, 2010 at 07:25 PM
So alike with SL its uncanny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzwjv5Zfw4M
Posted by: melponeme_k | August 18, 2010 at 07:34 PM
Mel.
great and interesting clip...
whats intersting is that at 45 i never really saw it... I have some imaginary memory of the movie--probably clips from 1970s disney sunday shows..but i probably saw the movie in late 60s as a very young kid...
of course Disney locked this stuff away in the VAULT for decades-or until dvds- which ever came first..lol but the specific actions- like the cigarettes- model house trashing etc. all escaped me..
i wonder is any sub 30s ever saw the movie... even with dvd sales... or was the movie just too old fashioned to compete with ALADINS Robin Williams Genie, or Pixars stuff...
not that pixars stuff isnt great...but its main stories are adult themes, decorated with animation for the kids to digest.
im not sure an 8 year old gets most of pixars films thematic subtext..they just see the pretty shiny cgi relections...and demand the mcdonalds/mattel toys after.:)
maybe thats the key- the story and the presentations... swapped from which targeted which- adult- kid. from Disney 1940s to Disney 2000. and why we now have such a disfunctional EPCOT experiment like SL.:)
Posted by: cube3 | August 18, 2010 at 08:24 PM
btw- i just watched the release of facebooks places..you cant hide- system via streaming video..
seemed very much like the pinocchio clip.. all "men" boys... looking like scott pilgrim, all not answering questions beyond tech congrads and monetary /control we dont knows, and all so very old, for those who actaully did make it to the stanforf sociology libraries and didnt use the cliff notes.:)
scary stuff when one knows the end game is monetization power and not " private property memory palaces" for everyone...
vatican 3.0 it really felt like a church meeting... watch the replays.... open transparent, but in the end, just like philips slcc speech... asking for todays faith, but asking you to ignore yesterdays actions...
all to somehow end up at that "better tommorow"?
really the birth of the borg
Posted by: cube3 | August 18, 2010 at 09:35 PM
OMG Prokofy, STFU. You need to take a hike and stop your crazy blogging. I really hope that you reea this and UNDERSTAND THAT YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP because you are way off as awlays. Go get a job and become a productive member of society, if you can. I hope you are not a welfare puke.
Posted by: Imhiding Underwood | August 18, 2010 at 09:56 PM
Cube, it is an enlightening clip. Because today's society would NEVER allow it to be made. Children's entertainment hasn't gotten more advanced it has degenerated. Children instinctively understand fairy tales and folk tales and all the nuances behind them. Its the world they live in. We have denied them that atavistic story power by defanging the fairy tales. The Pixar/Modern Disney stuff is nice but it comes nowhere near the moral fear and lessons in this short clip.
I remember as a child loving those tales especially the gory, uncut ones straight from the Brothers Grimm. I would share the real stories of Cinderella, Snow White,and The Robber Bridegroom with my friends at school. We loved that stuff. The tales state truthfully that children are small and powerless in an adult world but are not without resources. The Pixar tales now state that "Adults" are small and powerless against other adults. Where does that leave the heroic child who used to throw that witch into the fire.
Yes, Disney hid all their old films away. I used to love when they released them into the movie theaters or occasionally allowed them to shown on TV. I never missed them. And I purchased them on VHS and DVD. I think they realize they will never reach such heights again in artistry. We aren't mature enough artistically at the moment. Which is why they hoard their past.
Posted by: melponeme_k | August 18, 2010 at 10:41 PM
i think disney is just a buisness, so as to why they horde or market the way they do. its all just about getting the best roi.
the pixar stories vs traditional fairy tale morality plays for children is an intersting issue.
pixars works are adult stories for adults... ther about slowing down to apperotctae life(cars)... ecovr fetish (walle) and mostly "nostalgia for baby boomers" there done well, but look good but the stories are not for actual 5-10 year olds. only 30 year olds.. rememebering the surfaces of the past.
its all part of the comic book cartooning of adulthood and the looping mediation of our culture...
heroic individual child? pretty much gone.... today the hero is acheived just for buying the bonus pack..... or buying a coffe at starbucks and reporting it to his friends via facebook places...
these things make me feel old..;(
Posted by: cube3 | August 18, 2010 at 11:42 PM
nicely written and another example of LL and a half-baked plan. it is a shame though for some of the people that spent the time and effort to become a gold solution provider
and LOL imhinding underwood (cute name) if you want Prok to shut up, just click away, there are a few other things on the web you can look at
btw, thanks Prok on the heads up about Nick Wilson, i had no idea - he interviewed me once for some report he was going to sell, but never used me - thank goodness after reading what he did, hmmm =(
Posted by: twitter.com/iliveisl | August 19, 2010 at 12:33 PM
GSP are just fodder for the companies machine..always have been, even if "special" for a few months.. it was never going to be sustainable. Its the History of software driven rules on other service businesses no matter how much they suck up.
Posted by: cube inada | August 19, 2010 at 12:53 PM
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/29999/Study_90_Of_US_Tweens_Playing_Games_Online_Industry_Missing_Opportunity.php
no idea what real research was behind these numbers... but i still cant believe the gamerz say that actual immersive shooting as the number one male tween activity isnt "affecting culture" and isnt any different than the same ages wacthing Rambo -R rated/M rated films 2 decades ago.
its all sounds like a sri lanka or africa in the virtual training making....
well at least they win badges....
;)
Posted by: cube inada | August 19, 2010 at 02:28 PM