Linden Lab’s CEO steps aside
March 16, 2008
According to a Reuters story, Philip Rosedale (SL: Philip Linden) is standing down from his role as Linden Lab CEO. From what I can see it’s a Bill Gates-like decision of getting away from the day-to-day burdens of running a company to focus on wider issues.
If anything, this is likely to help the company and the initial response seems to be positive. I can’t see any fundamental shift in Linden Lab’s approach beyond getting some more discipline in its business operations. If the new CEO can achieve that discipline whilst maintaining Linden Lab’s relatively good transparency, there may be promising times ahead.
What do you think? How’s this likely to change Linden Lab and Second Life?
Other coverage:
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All bulked up and nowhere to go.
February 20, 2008
I didn’t write last week. Why? Writer’s block, plain and simple. All bulk, no fiber, no water. Nothing flowing. Staring at blank document. No juice. Cranial constipation. (And, at the moment, I am battling some kind of cold that really, really, really, wants my attention, like a needy 5-year-old tugging on the kitchen dress of my awareness; shooing it away with a flour-dusted hand is ineffective and laughable.)
As it happens, I am kind of experiencing a similar thing in Second Life. (God, are my segues cool or what? Inelegant at times, but it comes with the territory. Suck it up. I have. ) I’ve found I’m running into a similar malaise in-world. If it weren’t for the building I’ve been doing for a friend who is developing mixed-use facilities on a private sim, and my SL girlfriend who– despite our occasional miscommunications and her somewhat lengthy bouts of afk, is still my source of energy– I’d be in-world a lot less these days. RL pressures are mounting, and I am a lot less inspired to hang around a sim. I continue to beta-test, running to SL in order to escape some RL grindings, only to find similar grindings in SL. However, the approach in SL allows me to work out some RL things, if only by virtue of the fact that I can de-pressurise the brain long enough to allow some blockage to clear. This is not a fool-proof theory; to wit, last week’s absence. But with a little more application, it might be a workable one. “Keep banging it with a hammer, you’re bound to fix it, somehow!”
On a marginally related note (and this does not qualify for a ‘cool segue’ award)…there’s an interesting backlash of sorts beginning to occur. I find myself wishing I could walk to the bottom of the lake that I live next door to, as easy and as unencumbered as in SL. What would I do there? Dunno. Can’t rez an object, so I might be limited to sucker-punching a couple of aggressive fish. But walking at the bottom of the lake or ocean or other body of water, to get to the other side, is starting to sound perfectly doable.
On a more practical note, I was out shooting photos on Sunday–good day for it, too… overcast, snowing, big city–and I found myself wishing–nay, expecting–to be able to fly up two or three stories to get that particular angle of Union Station I wanted to, without having to burden myself with contacting the tenants of the offices above me, explain my request, and jump through hoops to point a camera out a window. It’s amazing how quickly one can adapt to the creature comforts of SL. The line gets blurred with mental statements such as “Well, I’ll just fly up there and….oh, hell.”, statements that suddenly seem perfectly normal in RL carry the reality of encouraging men with white jackets to engage in footchase through the city streets.
I looked up the offices in the building directory…I’ll ring them this week.
Y’know, whoever makes this daytime cold medicine–shilling on the premise and promise of “non-drowsiness”–should really own up to the other side effects of the concoction. The pine trees outside my townhouse are bending down, trying to open my windows from the outside, my cats are dialing the telephone and ordering pizza (in perfect German, no less), and the entire contents of my closet are rearranging themselves in order of color. To make matters worse, I can’t really focus my eyes.
Perhaps that’s a good thing.
Maybe it’s even better I don’t have a wetsuit.
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A timely treatise on virtual worlds and enterprise
February 17, 2008
I’ve mentioned next week’s Enterprise 2.0 forum in Sydney previously. At Stanford University in the US, an event called MetaverseU is well underway and in recent hours a session was completed on the role of virtual worlds and work. It’s a timely coincidence of events. This excellent report is worth a read but I thought I’d highlight some of the key points from that information:
“The opportunity for these worlds to be entertaining pales in their opportunity for work,” said Reeves. “If we could figure out how to entertain a couple thousand call center employees and keep them in a virtual world while they were working and they stayed around for three months longer at their jobs, I think we’d have a multi-million dollar business on our hands.”
This is a key component that most businesses fail to grasp with virtual worlds and enterprise: it’s one of the likely ways in which productivity can be enhanced whilst ensuring some degree of entertainment. I doubt anyone would argue the reason for widespread use of the internet for non-work purposes on work time is anything other than boredom and a time-constrained lifestyle. Imagine a call centre employee being able to interact with a customer in a virtual world context, demonstrating the product they’re supporting or selling.
“Something the industry needs to understand is to put yourself in your customers shoes,” he explained. “They have a lot of risk in taking this technology on. They might get a lot of benefit, but there’s the risk that this technology isn’t going to be there tomorrow. We need to, as an industry and as customers, put a lot of work together to make this more of an affirming cycle.”
There’s no doubt that the majority of customers don’t see virtual worlds as an obvious business route, but as the opportunities that route offers combines with easier access and improved usability, the business equation becomes a lot more attractive.
The immediate use case for virtual worlds in the enterprise, said Steiger, isn’t dealing with his clients and partners. 70% of his business is with people he’s never met. The difference is in an employee-to-employee relationship. A hosted, behind-the-firewall solution could make that easier.
And that’s where the big success stories like IBM have demonstrated their key wins and why Australian companies like Westpac have made the investment.
“You can’t understand the primitive engagement that comes from puppeteering a cartoon character that looks kind of like us,” said Reeves. “When you look at the physiological response when an avatar gets touched, there’s a complementary reaction in the user. Brining those responses in for an ROI presentation is tough, but those responses that we see in the lab give me confidence that the bandwidth for communication is a value add for the engagement.”
Business is rightly skeptical about anything proposed for core operations that can’t demonstrate ROI - but the intrinsic nature of human interactions and the power virtual worlds bring to that can’t be underestimated. And the key point from the presentation for me:
The scary thing for executives, he says, is that guild leader gamers could be reporting to stockholders.
“IBM just did such a survey [looking for those gamers in management] and found 1000s,” said Reeves.
As the gamer generation is growing up and leading the workforce, game mechanics become much more appealing than spreadsheets for getting work done.
“To do that is not going to be quick in the enterprise,” said Reeves. “One strategy we’re looking at is to look at the recipe for why these worlds are engaging or why games are engaging and see what you can extract. Can you take the economies from the virtual environment? They’re fun and we know they light up the same neurological regions in the lab as real money does. They leave behind self-representation and 3D environments, but they’re worth looking at.”
It’s fair to say that developments in virtual worlds are something that enterprise needs to be at least aware of. Ideally they’ll have the resources to dip their toe in the water or even jump right in. The only option not on the table from an enterprise viewpoint is denial.
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Will virtual worlds get a guernsey at Rudd’s summit?
February 10, 2008
In recent weeks there’s been significant coverage of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s summit (two examples here and here). Some commentators see it as an opportunity to get some ideas on the table bt it’s fair to say most see it as a talk-fest unlikely to generate any lasting policy initiatives. I wouldn’t be quite as cynical as that, but I have my doubts on how much can be achieved with a thousand people in a room for two days. The ego quotient alone will pose a challenge.
Given the focus is Australia’s future in 2020 you’d hope there’s at least a studied mention of the impact virtual worlds are likely to have in the future. The potential downsides of heavy virtual world use on its own should draw some interest let alone all the great opportunities to be had in the virtual sphere that could benefit Australia in coming years. Some of the more obvious challenges for government in regard to virtual worlds include:
1. Australia’s lagging broadband infrastructure;
2. Consumer protection in virtual world transactions;
3. Clarity on taxation and financial regulation;
4. Appropriately trained addiction and counselling services;
5. Expansion of research and development funding for business, non-profit, education and health in the virtual world sphere.
Who would you like to send to the summit to wave the flag? What questions / issues would you like to see raised?
(I’ve already declined an invitation - I’m washing my hair that night ).
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A personal comparison of Second Life and World of Warcraft
January 5, 2008
I’ve been a Second Life resident for well over a year now. In November I finally took the plunge and signed up for World of Warcraft and have been grinding through the early levels. I’ve reached Level 15 as both a Dwarf Warrior and Human Mage and have reached a little below that as a Night Elf. I feel I’ve spent enough time to grasp the basics of the game and to at least partially understand its appeal. I thought it might be worth doing a short critique of both platforms as they sit in a wider virtual world context.
A disclaimer - this is probably only going to interest someone who hasn’t used both platforms. Veteran users of both will find most of the points below fairly obvious. For brevity I’ll use WoW for World or Warcraft and SL for Second Life.
Onto the critique:
1. Second Life is by far the most ‘free’. WoW by its very nature requires rigidity as far as areas you can explore at particular stages of the game. If you’re a Level 1 human mage in WoW then you won’t be exploring the Westfall area as it’s inhabitated by critters of well over Level 10. You can go there but you’ll spend your time being killed time after time or constantly running to avoid each critter. This isn’t a criticism of WoW, just a gameplay reality. Second Life in comparison only has limitations set by users - if someone owns land in Second Life and doesn’t want you to be able to access it, then you won’t. Because there are no overarching game objectives in Second Life, you’re free to explore at will.
You’ll get used to being dead in the early stages of WoW - unless you have more experienced friends willing to help while you level up
2. Both are extremely social experiences. It’s a very obvious statement but when I signed up for WoW I was actually expecting that the gameplay would interfere with the great social interaction achieved in SL. What I didn’t realise was the social fun to be had in the main cities like Stormwind and Iron Forge. Plus, groups of avatars tend to congregate pretty much anywhere for a chat, some dueling or even some dancing.
Aussies socialising in SL
3. Graphically, it’s no contest. WoW has stupendous graphics that make SL look pretty poor in comparison, even with Windlight on its way. Of course, it’s very easy for WoW to provide great graphics when the main grunt work is being done by your own computer. SL’s centralised server model makes that much more difficult - it remains one of SL’s biggest challenges but it’s also one of it’s strengths - see point 1.
Even the barren areas are damn pretty
4. ‘Safety’ is an issue for both. The media attention on Second Life in regard to ageplay, gambling and addiction. WoW has similar challanges but they’re less overt than SL. Addiction is an issue that spans across all virtual worlds and it’s one that isn’t well understood, though that is changing. SL does have its Teen Grid but it’s under-utilised and arguably under-supported by Linden Lab.
5. Fun is provided differently. I’m going to make some broad statements here. Both WoW and SL are immense fun but in very different ways. For pure gaming / questing fun, WoW wins hands down. For more whimsical, sophisticated and free-ranging amusement, SL has the upper hand. No, that doesn’t mean WoW users are unsophisticated, nor that SL users are not interested in games / quests - the fact is they are very disparate beasts. There’s also no doubt there’s a significant cohort of people who participate in both worlds and my hunch is they do so because of the different experiences they offer.
It’s all about education in Second Life
So which is ‘best’? The answer of course is neither. I need to spend more time in WoW to fully grasp its possibiities but my gut feel at this stage is I prefer the less constrained environment of SL - it’s educational opportunities alone keep me coming back day after day. But if I want some fast paced gaming, then WoW is the place to be.
I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts. Have I got it totally wrong or does your experiences match those I’ve outlined above?
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Australia and Virtual Worlds - 2008 predictions
December 28, 2007
It wouldn’t be the end of a calendar year without making some predictions for the coming twelve months. Here’s a handful of predictions - some are fairly safe, others push the envelope a little:
1. Australia will see its first legal action in regards to a virtual world - Second Life is likely to be the battlefield and it’s likely to involve an intellectual property dispute or financial regulation issues.
2. Second Life viability will remain under question - there’s not likely to be a sudden improvement in the technical issues confronting the platform. The reality for Australian users of Second Life is at least another 6 months of laggy virtual world experience. There’s been rumours of a deal between Linden Lab and Telstra to locate Second Life servers locally - we can only hope. Expect lots of negative mainstream and Second Life blogosphere press if the status quo remains.
3. VastPark will flourish - we’ve covered the VastPark virtual world platform a few times and its evolution has been promising. If the platform delivers what it promises during 2008, much interest should be garnered. I wouldn’t be surprised to see VastPark acquired by one of the bigger players. Vastpark’s Australian operations make this one we’ll be watching closely.
4. Google will not launch a virtual world - they may have launched OpenSocial and continued to develop Google Earth but 2008 will not be the year of Google truly entering the virtual world domain.
5. There’ll be failures aplenty - World of Warcraft will remain the dominant gaming MMO and of the swathe of launches touted, some will obviously fail. Claims are being made about the Conan and Warhammer franchises making some serious inroads. I’m not convinced that either will be enormously successful although neither lack significant backing and associated marketing power. And it’s not as if Blizzard will be sitting on their hands - the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft is on its way.
6. Australian business will remain conservative - 2007 saw the entrance of corporations like Telstra, the ABC and the REA Group into Second Life. I doubt there’ll be as many large presences launched in 2008. There’s still major skepticism out there about virtual worlds as a business tool - it remains only a research and development option in the eyes of business and 2008 is unlikely to change that. One disclaimer - if Google do launch a virtual world product, then all bets are off. On a related note - I predict Telstra’s SydSim development in Second Life will not cut the mustard for larger businesses and for those that do set up in that location, there’ll be consternation of how little traffic is generated.
7. Mainstream media will continue to get it wrong - aside from some of the more savvy technology journalists, mainstream media reporting on virtual world developments will remain hit and miss. 2007 had some real clangers and you can expect that to continue.
Most importantly, what are your predictions for the coming year? Make a comment here and see how right or wring you are when we revisit the predictions in a year’s time.
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Another perspective on virtual worlds as time-wasters
December 25, 2007
A friend of mine in Second Life, Leyah Renegade, wrote an observation on “wasting time” in Second Life that struck me as being particularly prescient:
“If you feel like you’re already wasting time, SL is as good a way as any to waste time. And it just might inspire you to do some good things in RL, or you might meet some cool people, or even sell some art in RL.
I got into it mainly to play music, with the nice bonus of being able to hang out with some of the homies that I don’t get to see often in RL. But now I’m doing a couple of very worthwhile educational projects, which have also allowed me to develop my building and scripting skills to the point where I’m now about to make quite a lot of real money messing around in SL. None of that would ever had happened if I’d gone into SL with the intention of being “productive,” but I think I’m coming out ahead of most people who do go in with that intent. Not that I would consider my time in SL “wasted” if the work thing had never happened, but it’s funny how things like that often work.
I think if you’re an artistic type, the ability to do things spontaneously and seemingly without purpose (”wasting time”) is actually extremely important, and it’s those activities that often dictate the course of your life moreso than the more goal-directed activities that most people find necessary. And I think we’re better off for that, frustrating as it may be to people with goals and deadlines. And SL is a perfect medium for doing completely spontaneous, imaginative things, as well as finding like minded people who “get” the need for that.”
A fitting perspective on a significant day for many Second Life “time wasters” 
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