Need Input From SL Content Developers --- L$10,000 reward

Dear Resident,

I am part of a group of students from a Harvard Business School who are doing a project on Second Life to learn more about the different types of Second Life users.

More specifically, we want to better understand the needs and motivations of the residents which are significant contributors to Second Life. In particular, we are targeting the users who are content developers in Second Life (the game developers, designers, scripters, animators…).

We would like to gather your views and opinions through a telephone interview lasting 45-60 minutes. There is a reward of L$10,000 for each participant. Your input is vital to the continued development of Second Life but you are under no obligation to participate in the interviews nor do you need to answer any questions that make you feel uncomfortable. While the HBS team will be giving Linden Lab interview feedback, it will be in the aggregate and no identifying information will ever be shared.

If you are interested, please email me, Mike Pearsons, at [email]mpearson@mba2005.hbs.edu[/email]. Thank you for your cooperation.

P.S. The Harvard Business School team has read and agreed to Linden Lab’s Research Ethics clause. You are under no obligation to participate in this survey or answer any questions that you don't want to answer. Finally, the information gathered during this survey will come back to Linden Lab in the aggregate and no personal or identifying information will be used.

Can a linden who is familar with this project add some comentary?

+ Will the research be generally available as a published paper?
+ Should we make more than X amount before participating in this?
+ How is this 'vital to the continued development of SecondLife'?

So what you are saying is, lazy, sexually deviant, ne'er-do-wells need not apply?

Sheesh..and we are the ones that could use the L$10,000!

blaze, if you wanted my phone number all you had to do was ASK. You didn't need to set up this huge farce via your Alibaba Groshomme alt to trick me into it. Sheesh!

Oh, I didn't merely create an alt, I also applied to HSB, got accepted and got funding all in hopes of getting your phone #.

Still, I suspect this is pretty serious and very interesting. A tiny bit of clarification from the Lindens would be nice before moving forward, though.

Sorry. I only date Columbia men.

Sorry. I only date Yale men.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt.


Anyhoo, there is this:

By "telepohone interview" you mean a telephone in Second Life right?

You can't just ask for residents phone numbers on the forums??

Thanks for your questions blaze. I hope can provide some satisfactory answers....

1. I'm not sure if the research is actually going to be published. I'll the let the HBS team update us on that.
2. My understanding is that this request is for Content Developers. I don't believe there's a financial requirement.
3. Getting to know one's customers is always vital to the continued development of a product or service. Basic account holders and Premium account holders have different needs and motivations and it helps to better understand what interests you and why you use Second Life.

Jack - if you choose to participate in the interviews they will be via phone. Noone has to participate if they are not comfortable with the format and noone's phone number will be posted publically or shared with us.

Let me know if you have any other questions - thanks,
Catherine

I find this very wierd.

I've been involved with inWorld University class orientations and LL was clearly in the driver's seat as to how it all works.

How can a "...group of students..." do a project on SL users' without this being announced by LL first???

Doesn't sound Catherine like LL knows what's up with this research...yet this group of residents are going to have people's phone numbers and other RL information?

What am i missing?

It was announced by Catherine on the Announcement forum a few days ago.

LF

My bad! Thank you LF!

(See Catherine why I ain't the Lone Ranger?)

Just a suggestion here..

If people seem to be wary of giving out their phone numbers, you might want to arrange some interviews through voice chat programs, such as TeamSpeak, which a lot of SLers use anyway.

Whew! Thank goodness Lordfly defended my honor (this time!!).

Merwan, sorry if I wasn't clear before - I worked with with the HBS team to guide this project and ultimately approved it. So, I know exactly what's going on. However, this is still a class project for them so I am not sure if it will be published. Maybe it won't even be interesting!

And I want to emphasize - the community's privacy is a top priority for LL. Everyone who does research in SL must sign an Ethics in Research document. The reason for the phone interviews is mainly efficiency. But secondly, phone interviews allow the interviewer to take conversations in different directions. Typing doesn't allow for subtlties, unfortunately.

Finally, if you want to participate in the project but don't want to give out your phone number, you could always call them!

thanks,
Catherine

This sounds like a great project to me, but I have two questions:

1. Are the aggregate results of this study (i.e., without any personal information about individuals) going to be shared with the community? Or are we simply tools for LL's devious plot to provide us with a gratifying online experience? No but seriously, I do feel very strongly that we deserve to see whatever results this project turns up.

2.



Alibaba, do you mean "residents WHO are significant contributors"? Or does "significant contributor" refer to the needs and motivations.

If you want to talk to residents who are "significant contributors," how are you going to decide who these are? Is this a self-selecting group? Fine, go for it. Or are you making some on-the-fly decision as to who is a "significant" resident here and who is not. I think there are about 25,000 residents here who would take issue with being cast as "insignificant" contributors to the experience. This is not a place only of content developers, game developers, scripters and animators. There are a whole bunch of content *users* who support the developers and moreover contribute to the collective culture that is Second Life.

I do understand wanting to look at the content creators here, but remember that they're a subset of the population and many of them wouldn't be here at all if there weren't people to buy and/or use their creations. So I'd be interested to hear what your criteria for "significance" is and how you hope to measure this.

Thank you, Walker, well said, well said. EXACTLY the point. Should I mention the three little letters again?

This is how elite networks get set up...HBS is steered....by...whomever...to...the "content barons".

Now why am I not surprised>

Why only content providers? No land barons? No ordinary players? No non-profit or artistic groups?

HBS has skewed their study in advance by fastening on the FIC again -- I'm sorry but it must be said tirelessly. Fastening on the scripters, designers, and animators, as if that is all that is SL, or "the best of SL" or "the most important of SL".

What's hilarious about this is that HBS, which is supposed to be an um...business school...is not studying so much businessses in the game, as they are the content kings, some of whom have businesses, but all HBS can see this as, is a testing group for people to try in a small 3-D model toy train set something they will sell in the real world.

They don't see the virtual world can have its own reality and its own demands and products. they are merely looking for the RL tie-in. The guy who sells his game to the real game companies. The gal whose fashions get RL fashion attention. Etc.

I agree that HBS should make the results available to the community. When we see them, we can point out huge swathes of the real economy that HBS (and LL who steered them?) left out.

Even using just Phil's somewhat cramped information, you could see where some of the economic powerhouses are in the game, and it is not just the content barons.

Well, I'm withholding judgment for the moment. I'm just curious to see what they're after. It's not entirely clear from the way the post is worded.

Yes, truthfully, if you were serious about this you'd go in world and you'd interview a random selection of consumers and offer them $100 l$ for their time.

Because your subset of content developers are going to be a very statistical subset and quite likely will exagerate their claims, while consumers will have little reason to (sure some might brag about spending lots of money, but not most).

In terms of what content developers want, just visit hotline to linden and feature suggestions. That's a pretty good summary of our particular needs.

The consumers will also give you a very accurate picture very quickly of

a) what money is getting spent on
b) how much money is being spent
c) where money is being spent
d) why money is being spent
e) how they find out where to spend money

You'll also be able to break it down by age (age in world, not in RL) and sophistication of the user.

Really, you're going about this all wrong. Plus your $10,000 incentive, while very cool, is not going to get you more accurate answers but probably less.


Hmmm, I guess the phone thing also helps the determine age and gender of user. Perhaps after the interview is done you could offer them another $1000 to do a quick phone verification.

Alibaba email me at my address on my signature and we can discuss a time to discuss this.

Sincerely, Shadow Weaver

Thank you Catherine for setting me back onto the path...

A thousand virtual flowers must bloom upon your desk, for the next 1,000 days. Small penitence for my missTyped words of blame.

What other amends can I make?

I am stunned by the continual, unnecessary class baiting that plagues these forums. I don't even know what to say, so I'll start by quoting an excited utterance I made in IRC in response to these replies:

<Enabran> Could it be that BUSINESS students want to talk to BUSINESS people involved in a new form of electronic BUSINESS to aid in their BUSINESS studies?

Also, there seems to be this perception that Harvard Business School, in an official capacity, is here to bless the Feted Inner Core and whisk them all away to a posh, Ivy League retreat wherein they will join forces and rule the worlds of commerce united in unholy greed. From what I understand, we're dealing with a small contingent of students who have elected to spend part of their studies on us, the residents of Second Life.

Hmmmm. I wonder what would be interesting to a business student. Someone who logs in once a week, blows their stipend on something, and idles in a club waiting for a money ball? Or maybe, and stay with me here, because this one is a bit startling to think about, maybe they'd like to speak to people who create ideas and content for commerce. Maybe they'd like to learn a bit about how business works in Second Life from people who are... in business?

I wonder if it could be that.

The HBS team's study focuses on a variety of different types of users including Basic account holders and Content creators. They posted for Content Developers in the forum because we thought we'd get the best response since the most ... ahem ... impassioned and dedicated users seem to spend alot of their time here. We also sent out email requests to groups that would not likely be in the forums. These emails were chosen randomly from groups of active users who met specific requirements.

We're trying to cover all our bases and talk to a representative cross section of the community. Sorry, no smoke filled, cocktail swilling FIC focus groups taking place.

Thanks!
Catherine

How DARE you deprive the underclass of the foundation they require to maintain their sense of smug superiority (albeit persecuted!) for being unpopular or refusing to be assimilated!