All Out by 2009?

Good points. There are some "closed door" activities for virtual worlds that could be very valuable to corporations--I think Chip really nailed this one with the mention of Corporate Training, a *huge* market for which a 3D environment can be indispensable, and virtual proximity of participants can mean big savings. But for that, one really doesn't need a Grid at all.

What Linden Research has in its SecondLife product is a wealth of experience in how to keep a grid online and address all kinds of problems that arise in its operation, maintenance, and support. They also have some shiny technology, but ultimately that's not what will differentiate them from competitors. Whilst I suspect Phillip groans a little every time it becomes necessary to address non-technical problems, resolutions to those very problems will be LL's greatest assets.

I really have to question this oft-repeated idea that somehow RL business is funding the show.
There is absolutely no difference in the revenue that LL from a RL business and that they get from others.
You want an island? That's US$x up front and US$y per month
You want to buy mainland? That's US$z per month, and you buy a sim at auction or buy from another resident.

How many mainstream RL businesses are in SL?
What proportion of LL revenue are they generating?
Would it be so bad if they went away?
What are they actually doing here anyway? Did they buy into some marketing hype? Is their main problem here the fact that SL is not RL? - and not the borkiness??
Did they think that they could have their builds constantly jam-packed with hundreds / thousands of avatars out of the "millions of residents"?


I don't remember being asked to select something like Corporation / SME / Home when I signed up.
We don't know how many RL businesses are in SL.
I'm not sure that LL do either. How would they know apart from manually scanning the RL details of anyone on Concierge level.

Yes.
LL could easily set up an entirely separate premium (for want of a better term) 'grid' for corporates who wanted a private operation.
That grid would be entirely self contained, with it its own database servers. It would not be subject to the same concurrency/database load/bandwidth-sharing that is endured by the main grid.

With that approach, and a cut-down client, much of the issues identified by the Gartner report would diminish or disapear.

Fair comment Pie. Yes, I was thinking corporately. In short if you put a few hundred pounds into a "business" its fun.

However, it becomes different when you have serious money at stake, and you want a return on it.

Many so called businesses in SL are just someone with what they think is a good idea and a few hundred pounds or dollars to try it out, some even try to start with a few hundred Lindens! -

Perhaps the bigger business in SL started that way back in 2004 when it was all new and untried. But today the likes of Dreamland and Caledon are run on strict first life business terms with return on capital and risk clearly evaluated. That is why they are successful love

From 2003 SL has been heavily dependent on external investment to support it's activities.

I suspect that recent news of SL's profitability has been slightly exaggerated and to be honest, due to the fact that investors will be expecting some return, simply breaking even on business activites/operations isn't an option.

Even if LL was to have set out originally simply to break even and to support an alternative lifestyle utopia (as motivating a prospect as that might be ) , It's a certainty that in their pitch they had to offer some sort of ROI to the investment community.

So when I talk about business/corporations supporting and footing the bill for SL, I'm actually talking about the investors.

Current investors waiting on their return include Globespan Capital Partners, Benchmark Capital, and Catamount Ventures. Anyone thinking that those guys aren't investing on behalf of corporations and business doesn't have a grasp on what's going on.

So yes, unfortunately SL isn't a self funding cooperative. Current estimates are that it takes around $20million sunk cost and 3 years development overhead to build and bring to market an environment like SL.

Small change to big business and in no way a barrier to new entrants should the niche prove itself, but certainly not financed by a few SIM rentals and some tier.

Sorry guys.. but SL always was a business venture and those nasty businessmen were always the ones who picked up the ticket on "your world".

Given all that, I am interested in LL's success or failure currently and am in the process of sourcing some up to date financials for the business, so will report back if you're interested.

This is entirely separate from the thread topic - which is driven by the Gartner report.

Gatner was all about corporations *using* SL.
It was not about corporations *investing cash* in SL.

Investors want to see a return in cash and/or PR and/or feelgood depending on what is driving them to use the funds that they control.
That return is not dependent on corporations signing up to use SL.

Well, in their minds their return is most probably linked to how many RL businesses buy into SL.

If business wasn't so key to LL's overall strategy and sentiment, why do they make such a big deal everytime a corporation even sniffs in the direction of SL..?

If nothing else, from a business point of view, if negative sentiment deters you from using a service it will certainly deter you from investing in it.

Sure, I understand that, being a fairly successful niche business owner myself in the non-virtual world with an annual company revenue of just over a half million dollars.

Business business business, blah blah blah.

What I really want is a world I can have some fun in, and I am totally willing to pay a membership fee for access to such a world. Because after I'm done being a serious businessperson IRL, I just want to kick back and relax.

This shift from paid subscriptions to micro economies as a business model for these platforms is what I find ... unattractive.

Where is the world not hung up on trying to emulate reality by making me get a job, work my ass off, invest ridiculous amounts of money to gain access to proper support or resources, that lets me be creative and social on my own terms?

Maybe I'm smoking too much from the pipe, but thats what I hope one of these new grids popping up will be. If I can't find one, I might just make my own. Coz I dont care how many corporations find it useful, I'm really just interested in how much fun I can have.

Because to me, business and fun are seperate. I may have fun at my business, but I never want business at my fun.

In all seriousness, I have to take the Pie on this one. I don't want First Life V2. The fact that people can run serious business here is fine, a lot of them are what I spend money on in SL, but I don't want all the RL Companies hawking their wares all over the place here. I'm not going to buy a car or a television or anything else based on an ad or display here LL has the right to make whatever money they want, and in however manner. I just want them to make up their minds, so I can decide whether I want to stay or not.

That's why my Bird and I were perched on a tree branch over a path in Felwood, awaiting some poor unsuspecting Horde traveller to catch Pie. Except I got killed by some devious rouge who stealthed along the branch and surprised me damn it. -

Yes, I take your point. World of Warcraft is ALL about fun, there is very little first life commercialisms, except for the gold miners. Second Life is both personal and corporate, and because it is totally dependent on user added content, part of it will always be commercial.


If you both (you and Brenda) want pure fun and no added commerce try WoW or maybe LoTR, just a thought

Hello Pie,

I've been thinking along the same lines myself. Started off as a vague and laughable idea but as time goes by and I've researched the hows and the whys and more importantly the "how much", it's not completely out there.

Maybe we both need to lay off whatever we're taking.. just until our heads clear..

If you need someone with solid Customer Service management skills ... lol.

Good Grief.. a Europe Centric SL... a place that doesn't go to sleep just as I wake up..

It's a pipe dream (literally and metaphorically) surely..

Is that analyst that didn't foresee the growth of Linux phenomenon?

Fortunately Gartner previsions almost never come true [this prediction is true at 90% ].

Besides jokes, it is not serious to list at the first place a silly issue about NVIDIA or ATI support as a primary cause for companies to not invest in SecondLife. And my laptop is not gaming class it is a standard computer that my company distributes, it is 2 years old has an ATI card installed and runs SL very well.

Server updating procedures are going better, and I wonder why we can stand a Skype downtime (we use Skype for limited tele cnoferencing) and don't stand a planned limited SL downtime.

New platforms. SL is not only technology it is a network of human relationship, i'm not leaving SL because all my virtual relationships are in SL. SL is contents that took years to be built.
Only boredom can kill SL.

I like my fun to be of a contemporary nature, all that dragon slaying nonsense never appealed to me, and I've never even seen a Lord of the Rings movie or read any of the books.
I don't mind the inworld commerce, that is what makes SL fun. I would rather see resident's businesses get any attention .

Not even Harry Potter?

This is my billionth post to this forum trying to make this point: corporations will use SL for things other than advertising. LL can be successful with corporations without a single advertising dollar being spent in SL. Given that every corporation which has tried this so far in SL has failed, why waste neurons worrying about this?

Yes, some corporations have been trying this. They will continue to do so. But, that is just exploration and play -- the tools for effective mass marketing in SL don't exist, and it is going to be a long time before they do.

In its current form, LL's product is much better suited for what IBM and SUN are exploring --- "closed door", intranet activities, in many cases separate from the Second Life grid, in the case of the burgeoning education industry, on the Second Life grid. Does the fact that Princeton, Ohio University and MIT have active presences here disrupt your Second Life? No.
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It's simpler than that.
Is someone wants pure fun and no commerce then stay in SL - and don't engage in commerce.

Where does the idea come from that people *have* to engage in commerce in order to enjoy SL?
What brought me to SL was the capability to build terrain, structures and machines in a 3D world and that others via their avatars in that world could look at or use.
It's nice that there is a micropayments system embedded in the system. I'm accustomed to trading in RL. That could assist cash flow - or maybe I could be a zillionairess in time.
However the primary draw is the creative and interactive capabilities.
The micropayments are secondary and optional.

WoW ??
I have zero interest in combat games.
Why should anyone have to go into a combat game just to escape commerce?

Monopoly! There's a board game where the object is accumulating wealth to the point where you own just about everything.
SL isn't Monopoly. It isn't a 'game'. It's an online 3D world in which all sorts of activities happen.

I'm completely confused by the people who say other places are for fun, and SL is for serious business.

Why the hell would we buy 99% of the things for sale in Second Life if we weren't using SL for fun.

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Also I remember how goofy grown men and women act over just video conferencing, I highly doubt a 3D meeting would be taken any more seriously.

People in business go to far too many meetings anyway.

The value of SL/ 3D worlds as a business tool is what is overstated.

That's all well and good. Educationals, Technology Development. have a logical reason to be here, either closed or open. love the NASA and JPL sims. But see no need to see Coca Cola, or Pontiac, or Nike or whatever blaring their ads at me in world. Admittedly, what Companies that were here when I came kept a low profile, I didn't have to see any sign of them if I did not want to. I don't care if they have their own Sims, and sponsor events, whatever. But maybe being overly cynical I see SL becoming the Ad infested, overly marketed wasteland RL is becoming. I admit it, I have a bias concerning The Modern Corporate World. , and I try to avoid it as much as I can. And it isn't easy, being the materialistic creature of comfort that I am.

I think the idea is that you as a person don't have to engage in commercial activity in SL. Just that at some point someone has to pay.

In the analogy you use of monopoly, I'm assuming you paid the going rate for the board game when you bought it. This included a profit margin for the manufacturer as well as covered the costs of manufacture etc.

The free accounts in SL pay nothing, so they got their copy of monopoly for free. This means you either pay double for yours, or some big company comes along, subsidises the difference, and in return gets to put a little insert advertisement in each box, marketing their version of .. I don't know.. backgammon..

I agree with most people that SL can't really just charge more for tier or land in order to finance the free accounts or to make more profit. They're pretty much at the top of the price range people will pay. So they try really hard to convert more free accounts to paying..(which doesn't seem to be working).. or they pull in business.

Yes business will try and sell you something.. even if it's just the idea that their RL product is best..but for that you get a cheaper SL... swings and roundabouts really..

Possibly. But it won't take a huge amount of usage for LL to be successful as a company. 3 good-sized deployments with a bunch of smaller ones would probably do it. And it is hard to imagine NOT being able to get that level of penetration, if they can just get the software in shape.

If 3D environments succeeded at the level of videoconferencing, that would be a runaway success! But I don't think anyone believes that will happen soon. Despite the fact that videoconferences have limited utility, remember that for some purposes, they are vital. The world logs a LOT of videoconference minutes per day. Nowhere near the amazingly useful audioconference, but still useful for some purposes.
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I don't see 3D "virtual conferences" replacing video-conferencing though, not even a portion of it.

And sure theres a huge amount of video and audio conferencing.

Id estimate at least DOUBLE what there needs to be. And I think I am being fairly conservative.

There are too many meetings, and most meetings are so poorly run and organized they are longer then they need to be.

Really whats needed is just easier ways to communicate for the 25% of the staff that does 75% of the work on most projects. Those would be the people watching the clock, tapping their feet during inane meetings waiting to get back to actual work.

The problem is that the commerce angle limits the forms of fun that SL can deliver, and many of those forms of fun that are left are better gotten somewhere else - unless you have another investment in SL somehow.

There are basically five activities in SL: chat, gaming, creation, exploration, and business.

If you find social creation fun then SL is unbeatable because nothing else can compare for social creation at the moment. The problem is that the commerce angle is weakening it by supporting the high fees for creation and land ownership, and by removing the social factor for many users - users who aren't interested in creation tend to want the higher quality content, and although you might be able to make that, you probably aren't going to produce it right away, and so the idea of working your way up with others beside you is gone.

SL is good for exploration, but the business environment is killing it, because explorers don't generally pay to explore, and if your land isn't making money it's losing it. So interesting builds fall apart and become malls or generic clubs.

For chat, SL is not really any better than any other talker with a good community. You can create an avatar, but just as with all other chat communities that use avatars, it will make basically no difference to how you are treated - unless it's ugly, in which case you'll be treated worse. Beyond that, though, it's just a fancy dress party - dressing up can be a lot of fun in itself, but at the end of the day you're just partying with your friends and the costumes are forgotten shortly after the introductions.

For gaming, there are many excellent games in SL, but it just can't compare technically to dedicated game engines - especially since the gambling ban removed a unique feature SL offered. I mean, I know there are many excellent in-world combat and RPG systems but they are not going to replace WoW or Halo any time soon.

"Role-playing" in SL tends to come down to either chat or gaming with a different theme, so I don't count that as a separate activity.



If you find that social creation is fun then that's fantastic and SL will be the best choice for you for a long time.



Because to get beyond chat and random games, you have to get into a world where a) people are differentiated from each other, but b) all people still have reason to stay. WoW's levelling system, although despised, allows that - you can replace it with something else (although no-one has invented a really good alternative yet) but you can't just throw it away without losing a significant amount of immersion (there are research papers by Raph Koster and Richard Bartle which discuss this). In SL, non-creators have almost no way of differentiating themselves from each other (apart from spending more money than the other person, and most people will correct for that), and anyone hoping to differentiate themselves by creating things faces a strong possibility that they'll just be told that a) they just can't do it because they don't have the natural talent needed or b) if they do it they'll have to work on it 6-7 hours a day in SL and thus not do any of the other things they wanted to be differentiated for.

"let's have a meeting to discuss what we will discuss at our upcoming meeting".