Town Hall Meeting Thoughts (NO HATE)

Yay, I got the Town Hall Meeting post started first!

...

Awesome meeting, I thought. Haney did a great job with fielding questions, Philip did a great job candidly answering them, and the staff did a good job making it happen.

Key points I love:

1. Declaration of SL as the Metaverse, officially, by Philip Linden. Further, "SL will totally take over the world." Philip, definitely no one did anything great by thinking small. Props to you!

2. Very candidly admitting that 1.5 was rushed, that Linden Lab has learned. (among other very candid statements) This reflects the overall open nature of Linden Lab with its customers. It builds trust, reputation, and it's the big reason I know Second Life will not crash and burn like other MMOs. (There, TSO, et al)

3. Announcement that funding is providing rapid expansion, both in game and in Linden Lab.

This is a very exciting time for all of us!

too short

I didn't attend, but I read the transcripts and was impressed with the admission by Philip that 1.5 could/should have been done better. The good thing is that they recognize it and it sounds like they will try to avoid a similar issue next time.

I was happy to hear that they are financially doing well. While those are just words, the open positions and the mention of additional open positions shows that they are doing OK and not hemorrhaging money.

The comment about minors in SL was interesting. I found it very interesting considering the additions of language in the TOS that covers LL's proverbial a$$ if a minor *were* to get IW. Personally, I think the inclusion of minors is inevitable. I'm definitely not for it, but I wouldn't be surprised if a year from now it has come to be.

On the upside, LL has been very vocal about taking our ideas/concerns serious and addressing them or using them to craft SL.


**edited to fix my crappy spelling!

VERY important point... as in comic book mythos, people like to find out the origins of the superheroes and supervillains.

Philip addressed how Neal Stephenson didn't talk about the beginning of the Metaverse within SC -- so conceivably, it could all begin here and tie in with the future. Kinda like how early Skynet is supposed to be around, but wayyy more optimistic.

And you echo the great advice of Donald Trump:

"If you're going to think, think big!"

I think it was a great meeting... but I was amazed how many people act like such fools in front of such an important man. I think Haney and staff had alot of patience at this meeting, and at the next one, they should just save time..and start kicking people out.

I just finished reading the entire transcript.



Kudos to the entire team, for their efforts, for their knowledge and caring, for their honesty, and for pushing the limits each and every time.

It's so good to hear that SL is continuing to grow, and as the population of SL'ians grows, so will SL.

Here's to more talent!

FANTASTIC!

I'm new but continue to be more and more impressed with the amazing achivement here in SL. Now that I know a little more about what's planned I feel more comfortable signing up for premium as soon as I get back from vacation!

It would be cool if they'd host a "prime time" town meeting, sometime. Sounds like this was one not to be missed.

Regarding your point, Sensual -- I wonder if LL might look into a feature like Centra Symposium, which is used to facilitate networked seminars and the like. During a meeting, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and have to click a "raise hand" button to ask a question. Obviously an entirely different product and platform, but I'm sure the wizards in LL development could whip up something lickety-split.

Just a thought.

Ironically, one of the things Philip said was how much the staff has been volunteering overtime.

Bah, I missed it But I should've expected I wouldn't be back in time anyway... I'm not surprised *sighs*

In any case, this has been a pretty interesting read! *comes back from reading the transcript*

I about fell out of my chair when I read the Linux port is around the corner. *droool*

On another note.. I was slightly bothered by some of the comments regarding Philip not being a "businessman" or whatever. I'm glad he's not just that... that he can get down and dirty with us and talk about the technical details of just about every aspect of SL.

I agree. One of the best aspects of SL is that the CEO knows his shit and talks to the residents.

What else would you expect from someone whose company was bought by RealNetworks, became an exec, and then off and started an MMO?

Stand back and let the devs & customer support do the talking. Philip is the man.

Well, what is prime time? Prime time is different in every timezone. Regardless what time is set there will always be somebody who will be left out!

I thought it great that for once a time was set that made it possible for europeans to attend too, without having to either stay up until well into the morning or get up at an ungodly time!! I found that quite often american companies tend to forget that the world consists of more countries than just america (it really does!) and treats its international customers accordingly.

Philip stated that SL is to become a global company, so that is how they will have to think and set the future meetings at perhaps a rotating schedule so that everybody has the chance to attend once in a while ....

Till Stirling

I was a bit surprised that Philip's idea was that entertainment would be the killer app for SL.

While the entertainment field is fairly big, I think SL's cut of that field is going to be pretty pretty narrow.

Generally when people like to be entertained, they like the entertainment to be relatively mindless. Obviously, not everyone is like that, but I'm pretty sure the majority is.

SL doesn't seem very mindless.

Valid point. Perhaps prime time could be defined as the time range when the highest average volume of players are in-world. Or, perhaps host two sessions, one earlier session like this one, and one later session around 6PM Pacific.

I got excited about when ocean sims were brought up. I love the idea of maybe filling in the holes in the grid with some oceans.

Since the transcript was put on a no-reply thread, it's already fallen off the radar for those of us who use "View latest" to browse the forums. Here's the link:

Town Hall Transcript

I IM'ed Haney with a question the night before, since I knew I wouldn't be able to make it online during the chat. It was one of the first things Philip addressed:Excellent!

Possibly the most significant thing said: "We are making money." I was concerned that LL might still be living mostly on venture capital, but that appears not to be the case. More excellent news!

You totally missed the point, blaze. Philip was referring to the fact that designers are / will be making fun things for people to do, and that would be one factor that would increase land prices. (As cost of people buying admission goes up.) Such things are like clubs, sports games, racing, combat, etc.

Yeah, I get that. I guess I was just a little sorry to see that he wasn't setting his sights higher than entertainment...

I wouldn't say his sights aren't set higher... he's just stating what will be the majority. I think its clear from the environment that Linden Lab has provided is one that empowers artists, intellectuals, dreamers, etc.

But, take a look at the Internet: games, casinos, pornography, chat rooms, forums such as this one - they are all under the umbrella of entertainment, and are by and large a majority of the content of the WWW.

Add to that the 3-D nature of SL, it begs to be made into fun things.

Yeah, I can see how it might make sense to someone.

Personally, I always compared SL to the wild wild west. First came the saloons, poker rooms and brothels and then came the schools, universities, etc etc.

LOL! That's rich!

In that analogy, remember it was the explorers and pioneers who came first.