Reuben Steiger at Clickable Culture

Considering it's a paraphrased, hastily jotted quote from a blog...

It was probably not construed or meant as such.

Instead they probably mean that, to Joe Q. Avatar, trusting a third party with additional credit information (in this case GOM) in order to play more of SL after already giving LLab their credit card is a bit of a stretch. Not a big deal to most of the kids in these here forums, but for the ton of people who only buy 20 bucks a month or whatever, it's a bit of a leap of faith to trust *another player* with their financial info, however tenuous the links are.

Yes yes, I know, GOM didn't have your bank account, blah blah. But there are a ton of people (my parents included) who think that there are 500 people at every router waiting to snatch your credit card information from the digital ether, whether you supplied it or not.

Paraphrased, yes, that could explain it.

coco

Well then, assuming it is a misunderstanding, I anticipate a quick explanation and apology.

Oh holy shit Schwan that made me laugh so hard I nearly had a 'lil turtle' poke his head out --- at work no less.

Originally Posted by Reuben
- LL has a few cardinal rules. one is that we will not compete with our residents. Gaming Open Market (GOM) was a case where they were taking a 3% cut of transactions. when they started, transactions were infrequent and in small amounts... late last year the volume was $100k per day... the bind we were in was that these two guys (GOM) weren't making the service trustworth and work well... we tried to buy them... our final recourse was to introduce a competing product. [/Quote]


That is utter bullshit!

GOM was trust worthy, and GOM did work. Sure it had room for improvement, but which early SL innovators didn't need improvement?

GOM was the first successful business that enabled/enpowered the L$ via. their currency exchange - and today's economy would be non-existent if not for Zeppi and Ricky's efforts.

I trusted GOM completely. Linden Lab: Too many mouths, not enough brains.

GOM was great, and the two who ran it were beyond reproach.

HOWEVER, please note that that is NOT a quote from Reuben, its a note hastily taken during a panel.



Regards,

-Flip

Interesting, but Reuben posted a comment on that blog and he did not say he was quoted incorrectly, just that he was "speaking off the cuff about both real and hypothetical examples" and " I'd like to
state very clearly that I had no intention of disparaging Gaming Open Market or the guys behind it, Jamie and Tom, and I am sorry if my comments could be interpreted otherwise. Again, I deeply and personally apologize to Jamie and Tom." Surely if he's been quoted incorrectly, he'd point this out, no?

I've always found that off the cuff generally speaks volumes about where a mind really is, rather than the back-tracking afterwards.

I just read the so-called "article" under discussion it started with the very confidence inspiring:and as others have noted, it is reportage in the sense the Walsh wrote down what was said, or what he thought was said and Walsh added an update thuslyIt takes work to make Matt Drudge look like Edward R. Murrow.

I initially felt this way, too. I was intensely loyal to GOM because they helped feed me and seemed like solid guys.

Their conduct after the disclosure of the GOMing of GOM, though, really smacked of unprofessionalism and made it a lot easier to swallow Linden Lab running the currency trade instead of GOM. More than that, the bitter, nasty comments are even more galling because, in fact, Lindex is a vastly superior product than GOM was in terms of convenience, usability and integration with the economy. Obviously Linden Lab has an advantage, but there was no significant value-add for GOM that Linden Lab couldn't match. I don't even have to pay PayPal transaction fees anymore.

So it was a good choice all around and I'm very happy to have the improved functionality.

I'd like to pleasantly and politely add "Oh, bullshit!" at this point. Please, LL, show us your documented internal review processes that ensure you are ever-vigilant to monitor this cardinal rule. I, for one, believe you have no such process at all.

I really tried to hold my tongue on this one, but this rang like a Bush Administration statement to me, where I'm being asked to distrust what I've seen with my own eyes.

Sooooooooo, since Philip had no idea what Herr Steiger meant, would anyone else care to bloviate ?

For the record, I never retracted anything in my notes (no "article" was ever written), because no errors have been pointed out by the panelists, who, incidentally had opportunity and invitation to do so. There was one notable omission, which was referenced in my update. So, what I thought was said appears to be close enough to what was actually said.

As far as my reportage goes, the entry in question is quite clearly labelled "Notes" in the headline, and was originally published with this designation. Point form and incomplete sentences were used in the notes. It was never an article, and was never intended to be. Complaining about the lack of journalistic quality of the notes (and I'm not saying you are) is like drinking from a bottle clearly labelled "water" and disparaging the quality of the wine.

Sorry for the late reply/bump. I just wanted to make a correction to the clickable culture article, since GOM's reputation has been questioned:
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/notes_how_to_be_a_virtual_world_entrepreneur/



I'm familiar with the story that Thomas is recounting, and he is factually incorrect. It was IGE's transaction mismanagement, not GOM's that resulted in 'some people were left with no money to spend at the conference'

In fact, the people involved were quite happy with GOM's service before it closed.

1) It's not an article. I took notes.
2) The notes are not incorrect. The panelist (according to you) is incorrect in his statements. I recorded what he said, even if what he said wasn't factually true.