Letter to the Lindens

SL is *huge*.
Zooming way back out of SLURL gives an impression of size, but for me at any rate, actually flying completely across a continent really brings it home.
I think many people live in a TP'ed SL and never really get the sheer size.

I fly, drive and sail big distances - a lot!
Last night, for example, I flew from the South of Satori continent right up to Nautilus City. I flew along the road that runs NE through Satori from the Southern edge.
Just in that narrow long strip there was a hell of a lot of "bread and butter". There might have been some corporate and educational sub-sim parcels in there, but I kinda doubt it.

I could have flown up through Nautilus continent and into the East of Corsica, then right Across Corsica and into Gaeta V. That would have been more bread than I had butter for at the time.

I'm not sure the assumption that corporate customers are not LL's bread and butter is correct...

Unless they have several hundred significant-sized estates that don't show up on the main grid, or they're getting paid many many times more for the corporate islands than they're being paid for residential ones, the majority of Linden Labs income is not from corporate customers.

I dunno that corporations would ever sink their teeth into SL in a big way. They can do the same on their own internet turf (create a small virtual shopping world)/websites and have total control and pay less.

The ones with no (or few) other way(s) to do that are the current bulk of customers - the rank and file consumer. Us.

I have been on the periphery of a few large projects that lead me to believe it's possible that there is a lot going on that is not visible to the general population. Or not.

It's far more likely that Linden Labs want corporate customers in order to reduce long-term churn. LL talk a lot about short-term churn of new users who become confused or who just don't get along with SL, but even of users who absolutely loved Second Life, there are not very many left from 2003, and those who remain are almost entirely business owners - who would be at risk of leaving if their businesses stopped being profitable. As long as that's the case they will always face the "Ponzi" argument that SL and SL's economy are being driven only by newly arriving customers, and although I wouldn't agree that this makes SL a scam, I can see why it might worry LL a lot.

Maybe. Who are the corporations' bread and butter?
What is the draw of SL to a corporate? Is it all purely internal to the individual corporations?
Are all the corporations just in a relatively low-cost proof of concept stage?
If it's purely internal corporate activity, do they need the economy features of SL?
Why not switch to an internal opensim once the virtual world concept becomes part of the corporate IT structure?
Once a critical mass of corporates go down the private opensim route, the thing will be mainstream corporate IT purchase.

Yeah, good points. And really I'm sure I know less than you and just about everyone else here.
But the way things are now only one or two people in a large organization are needed (and not full time either) to hire an SL developer and get whatever they want set up for a pretty small amount of money. Then a fairly large number of people can participate from where ever they happen to be in the real world for practically no money at all...

Which is why I don't think corporations can be paying LL enough to be their "bread and butter" if LL doesn't have some kind of large scale secret product offering that costs more than anything we, as residents, know about.

*Applauds Lindal, and adds her own signature in support of Lindal's statements*

Well said!

I would e-mail that to M and to as many other high-ranking Lindens as I could.

The problem will be getting them to read and consider it. Linden Lab has a TERRIBLE history in terms of listening to advice from customers. If thousands of residents tell them that the desired direction is "North", then they are extremely likely to put in a course heading of "South" and order "Full steam ahead!". Sad, but true.



My letter would be a simpler one:

Dear M Linden,

The best thing you could possibly do for Linden Lab, and for its Residents, would be to insist that 100% of Linden Lab's employees attend and recieve a passing grade in a course on "How to provide excellent cistomer service". That includes all the top brass at the Labs. No passing grade, no paycheck.

The most valuable thing I have ever learned, in over 30 years as an IT Professional, is that the individuals and companies who truly listen to their customers, and provide exceptional customer service, will do far better than the ones who fail to listen, or who treat their customers like replacable cattle. Linden Lab needs to learn that lesson. Badly.

Kindest Regards,
Ceera Murakami
3-year resident of SL, Content Creator and registered Solutions Provider

Well said in turn! How could I have forgotten that one?

Hey Lindal - I just got this in my email box. I think it was meant for you. No idea how they could possibly have gotten confused.

(if any Lindens are actually reading this, I'm kidding - really. it's what I do. Please don't ban me again)

Dear Ms. Kidd:

It's us again. The Lindens. Hey, listen, we noticed you posted some sort of letter-thingy to us in the forums and wanted to respond. Well, actually, we didn't "notice" per say. We stumbled across it when we discovered the forums while we were surfing the web for cheat codes to Zuma. Who knew we actually had forums!

Anyway, your letter was awfully long, so we just skimmed it while we were refueling the servers with code. M just loves the smell of fresh code, but it makes him sort of dizzy, so we don't let him drive after he's been sniffing it. Every once in a while we catch him in the server room with the lid up on one of the servers, head buried in it, like a 'possum over a garbage can, inhaling the sweet sweet scent of a fresh batch of code we poured in there just minutes before.

But we digress. It's Digression Wednesday, so it's what we do. Digression Wednesday is WAY worse than Wet T-Shirt Wednesday, but the lawyers made us stop the latter, and we needed something to do. Anyway, we saw some stuff in there about our corporate clients. Thank you for taking an interest in the Second Life Corporate Island Program (tm). If you would like us to consider you for a corporate sponsorship, please send us details about your corporation, including whether you make anything cool, or whether you recently received and government bailout money that should go towards re-building your empire and buying more islands. Once we receive this information, we will be pleased to sponsor you by providing an island for your use. We may have to displace some non-corporate residents, but who needs those dirty squatters anyway?

Again, Ms. Kidd, thank you for your interest in the Corporate Bailout and Island Redistribution Program. Unless you weren't interested in that, in which case, we revoke our thanks and advise you to immediately pack your belongings and prepare to be displaced. Don't forget to pay your tier!

XOXOXOXO

Enron Linden.

(edit for typos)

Again?

/me picks herself up off the floor.

Oh my GAWD, A Trout Letter From Teh Lindenz for ME?!

I feel so special.

Yeah that makes sense. I think you must be right.

Who knew there were cheat codes to Zuma?

Lol. Trout never fails to deliver.

Now we need to work in a Bollywood Video Classic.

Ask and ye shall receive.

(and once again - just joking, Lindens. I love you guys. Please - no banning Trout)

http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index.php?module=see&lang=uk&code=9c39470632c4e7056b31941b2233ba65

I know this is not an original thought, but it just hit me for the first time, the possibility that the Lindens are not even AWARE that anyone is using these forums...

that someone left the server running, and a few of them stop by... and so... this conversation by the water cooler:

A Linden: ... and yeah, I posted that in the Forums.

B Linden: In the what now?

A Lindens: The Second Life Forums.

B Linden: Oh! I haven't been there. Can you send me the SLurl for that?

Sometimes I think there are Lindens who don't even know what SL is.......

i read that out loud to my wife and her reply was "well that would not be too surprising..."

The next installment...

http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index.php?module=see&lang=uk&code=097e69f97b14493506536152d865a95e

Lol @ both. This *needs* to be a series. (Love his sweater)