Q3 closed on a high note with an unusually strong September. Talk 11/12 w/Zee Linden

I think there would be a good market for Linden Labs to offer some additional account services and some custom things people want. They may take a little manual work just like is done with many premium support tickets, but You could offer some services that might take 5 minutes to have some one on the support team log in the changes to but people would be willing to pay US$100 or so for, in addition you could offer more expensive membership plans with some added bonus features that are regularly asked for and probably most who want the upgraded accounts wouldn't really need stippends to be increased as it would be pay for more custom support / services / options

I think the user was asking for a graph showing Openspaces sales over a daily basis. The graph would show an incremental increase culminating in thousands of Openspaces.


This would no doubt be an embarresment to you as it would clearly demionstrate that something was wrong way before you as a Company elected to suddenly change the prices by 66%. Zee, can we have that graph the user asked for so that we can see the numbers of sims being sold over the 1/4 concerned. I appreatiate your candour but 20 - 30 per day doesnt stack up...


See if you sold 20 a day over 90 days you would have 2240 openspace sims, if you sold 30 a day over 90 days, you would have 2700 open space sims, I got the impression from Mark Lindens figures that we were talking 5 thousand openspace sims, thats more like 60 - 65 sims per day for 90 days.
best idea is to just show the information Zee then we can see for ourselves that Linden Labs are not adjusting the figures to make best sense.

I feel confident you will agree with me Zee


River

LOL! No, Les, it didn't fail. Lots of companies that raised money in 1999 did fail. Mine didn't. We had raised $60m and I like to say that we did better than most and not as good as some. We ended up selling the company for a good price in 2007 to http://hostway.com - so the company I founded is now about half of one of the largest web hosting companies in the US.

So it didn't turn in to eBay, certainly, but it also wasn't Pets.com. Better than most not as good as some. And it was a lot of fun & I learned a lot from all of my mistakes then. Still more to learn = still more mistakes to make.

I think the issue is that the openspace forum was billed as a discussion with M and Jack. This generated 10,000+ resident posts, 6 posts by Jack and 0 posts by M.

Got it. Us to. We've got a new CEO, a new SVP of Network Operations, a new Chief Product Officer & we've hired lots of new people all over the company - more than 100 in the last year. We'll be over 300 people by the end of the year. I'm seeing lots of progress across the company. Yes the clock is ticking & we're working hard. We've got a long way to go. But we've come a long way since 1999 and I believe we can do it.

...
Why does that worry me? LOL.
Linden lab should NOt make any more decisions, I am simply too affraid to face another new policy.

Maybe Zee or Katt Linden can explain what they are meaning with this.

Thank you!

Thanks Lostmedia - that's hopeful.

You can certainly believe that if you want to. I've been in the internet for 10 years at 4 different companies. All of them have had worse times than Linden Lab and Second Life are having now. This is certainly a tough time, but when I get up and go to work in the morning, I see the fire in the bellies of everyone who works here & I know -deep in my skeptical CFO heart - that its not all downhill from here. And then when I meet with residents in Second Life & I see the amazing things they are doing & the passion they have for their part of the community and the people they've met in SL - I know our best days are ahead. Ok, enough with the Audacity of Hope speech.

We've got our work cut out for us and we're up for it!

You guys encouraged it Zee, surely you can see this? Not only is Jack on record as saying it's ok to rent them out, but back in July you yourself enthused about them. A few posts back someone mentioned that they wanted M to apologise, this is what we want the apology for, your encouragement of the use of a product and then turning around and saying "Hey you weren't supposed to do that" when it was obvious to all and sundry what was happening. I commented on your July post exactly the problem with Openspaces, this was in July and nothing was done to stop the growth.

Blaming the users and not accepting your share of the responsibility is what people want an apology for.

I won't get into the technicalites but folks who were using them "as intended" can't use them "as intended" due to the changes in prim limits.



Zee you're a financial expert, however surely you realise that there's only so much money to go around. You can't squeeze blood out of a stone. The extra money has to come from somewhere and that's going to lead to downturn in other areas, be it people not spending so much inworld, which affects other business interest.

Generally governments around the world are looking at making tax cuts and interest rate cuts to stimulate the economy, Second Life is one of the few places that thinks huge price rises are a forward step at this time. It's a very big gamble Zee and the added issue of people losing trust and faith in your company is not helpful at all to the Second Life world as a whole.

There are issues such as the strengthening US dollar and certainly in the UK the faltering pound, this is obviously outside your control but this is another issue that is starting to bite.

However I am very pleased to see that you show a shining example to your fellow workers of how to engage in a discussion and whereas I don't agree at all with the steps you've taken, I do very much appreciate the fact that you take time out of your busy schedule to actually address the issues.

Phil - Q4 will certainly not be as good as Q3. Sorry about the timing of this. We post every quarter no matter what's going on. I think the second change to the OS pricing did help many residents. Not all of them, certainly, but many. Why didn't it affect you? Do you own a full region or land on the mainland?

Zee, this is the part that bothers me and most SL residents. Void sims were fine as they were with the 1800 prims at 75 USD a month. It really is unfair to reduce that prim allowance significantly, whilst increasing restrictions. yes LL is limiting these people... the very people the sims were originally intended for. Even though you seem to be a lovely Ombudsman, it does not white wash the situation. This will greatly impact the sailing association inside Second Life.

At least allow people to keep the original Void sims. As much as I do love Second Life, I hate to say this.. but as soon as a worthy competitor comes along, masses will leave. Sure new users will come and Second Life will continue to live on but at what costs?

It is certainly not too late for Linden Lab to reconsider this policy of Void sims before it is implemented in January.

Thanks.


Vryl Valkyrie

Zee, since we have your attention: We're beginning to see the start of another mainland price bubble, land prices (or my personal measure of land prices which doesn't jive with Jack's in any way) have risen from about 2.2/sqm to 3.5/sqm in about a week and they seem to be accelerating. I'm sure it's all speculation on the OS news or something. Anyway, are you guys going to do something to stop the prices shooting through the roof again? It's obviously much harder to control than the LindeX but is there something that can be done to stop land prices rocketing back up to 16/sqm over the next couple of months? Stable land prices are just as critical as stable L$/USD rates I believe.

Yes, we sold many many more than 20 to 30 per day when they were first introduced.

Zee, thanks to the slashed purchase prices in April of this year and now the hiked monthly fees coming shortly, there aren't "many folk" who will buy openspace regions. There are many folk who will offer to cover the US$100 transfer fee so as to take the OS regions off our hands, but they are not offering us any money for the regions. The regions are worth nothing.

As far as consolidating, I can imagine an awful lot of people are doing that. I am awaiting it to happen to four of my regions. Regions which were purchased as a four-pack when they had to be, for US$1675, when the prims were 1875 per OS region. Regions which have been used as open spaces, anchored to my fullprim regions. Regions which have never been 'abusive'.

I am pleased to see you are here communicating with your customers, but remain sad about the actual message. To offer us three poor choices (massive cut in service for the same price; massive price increase with a moderate cut in service; delete the regions and walk away from the setup fee and 100's of hours of work) as a solution for Linden Lab's lack of foresight is unethical, and borders on illegal in some locations. To blame the situation on your customers (As Jack did in his first blog post, and M hinted about in his) is just low.

Frankly I find it inconcievable that LL a) continued to sell OS regions right up till the moment of the announcement despite knowing of these problems, and b) refused to consider grandfathering for existing customers. I don't understand how anyone could think those were wise acceptabe decisions.

-Atashi

Yes however since it is my understanding that money sent to a Linden is destroyed can I make a donation to a good cause (probably NCI, The Shelter, or Relay for Life) in your name so that way the money is at least put to good use?

Zee,

Why drop the OS to 750 prims, when they were at 1875 there was not a problem, untill you gave 3750 prims, dropped the set up fee from 375usd to 250 usd and allowed them to be stand alone sims. How can you say this was not the plan the whole time when everything points to it. Jack Linden made the comment that OS are ok to rent out as residental sims. But yet with all these facts you still blame us for your mistakes.

Also you say there is no fee for the conversion, but when it takes over a week or more to convert 4 OS to a Full sim, Im still paying tier on the 4 OS that have to sit empty untill you get around to convert them. So far I have lost about 100usd in tier fees for the time I have waited for the convertion.

Will you let us know the numbers of OS as of November 1st 2008, compaired to the number of them when we get to January 1st 2009. The number that were returned and the number of converted between this time.

Thanks
Bart Heart

It didn't affect me because I'm totally mainland and always have been.

The first of the two changes was diabolical because LL were still selling OS sims right up to the announcement. That was so unscrupulous because you were selling to people when you knew that what you sold them would be devalued the next day. The second change, the one you mentioned, did help a few people, as you said, but only those who can make their 'open' sims fit the now devalued prim limit of 750. Everyone else who owns OS sims lost out.

But the worst thing is that M asked for discussion with him and Jack in the special thread, and he's been either too afraid to discuss anything about it, or he considers himself to be 'too far above all this' to bother with mere customers. And that's after falsely accusing OS owners of fault for using the sims in ways that LL endorsed in writing.

Zee, you dissapoint me, I asked, over two posts, some very simple, adroit, honest questions. I invited you to not give a throw-away comment about the open space sales, but to deliver real figures.

I tried to do it in a way that could be understood by all players with an interest, as well as some one with ten years internet experiance and a CFO to boot. If you do not have those figures, then admit it.

If you do have them ( and I hope to heck that if you are a professional CFO that you would have them plus a raft of other figures) then show them.

The questions are realy quite simple.

Treating us as idiots with yet another throw away line (above) really does not do any favours for you, it demonstrates that you really might not care as much as you want us to beleive.

Zee, please stop hiding behind quips, and deliver the numbers and the stats we asked for.

Put up, or, admit you cannot.

Where is the XLS for download ?

I really wish this !

I don't understand the thought behind raising OS's 50 bucks a month.

If the problem is 4 is too many per cpu and your converting to 3 per cpu that would warrent a 25 dollar increase not 50.


Why did they not just reduce the prims back to where they where originally for openspaces, then offer homested as new product as a half a sim at 500 setup 150 a month with 2 per CPU then offer an upgrade for those that where running homested from open spaces.


The whole reason people are really pissed is it looks like a strong arm rip off that has several potential side motives. One of them is driving people out of bussiness that are compeating against with LL and anyone that rents land basicly is.

You all hold all the cards and have total control of the market and can twist it to suit you best. People feel victumised by LL and have no recourse other then to suck it up, actually taking you to a court of law or leaving. The general feeling is basicly you're cheating you way to drive customers back to mainland by driving your competitors out.


Thats where the loss of trust come into place.


You also said your not seeing all that many drops... i want to point out "yet" since many people are holding on to the hope that LL will wake up and smell what they are shoveling.
I think the real drops will be after the december tier is gone and people are positive your going to go through with it.

This may or may not be the case but its exactly what it looks like.

For example:

27 september : XX open sold
28 september : xx open sold
etc ... to the 28 october

a graph, it is possible or not ?

Thank you

Well Zee if Linden Lab keeps cutting the throats of the people paying Linden Lab all the fire in the bellies of the Linden's will be quite worthless. As for me I gave back one region and an returning another on the 25th, so all "my" great creations are lost to Second Life and are being met with open arms and thank you's from the staff of Open Life. 3 scripters 1 interior designer, 2 furniture makers and 2 landscapers are coming with me. So the downhill slide 'has' pretty much started but then again I'm sure a few new residents will pick right up after us and instantly have the combined knowledge we have amassed in our time here. With your 10 years and 4 company experience has any of those been with a company that has "so little" regard for their customers as Linden Lab has. Linden Lab shows more contempt toward it's customers than any other company I have 'ever' seen. So maybe you should reevaluate that deep down feeling as you see less and less amazing things to see in Second Life.

Renee Faulds

Gone on the 25th

Why don’t you let others do the work that Linden Lab is incapable of doing? Let’s be brutally honest, less residents want to remain on mainland and more have been moving to private estates. There is a reason; mainland is chaotic, laggy, ugly, and unmanaged (at least in the opinion of people I speak with).


Think about this, even though private estates are more expensive then mainland, they have been flourishing. Why – MANAGEMENT. Yes, we land barons, the good ones, take care of our customers. We know them by name. Residents IM us with problems that we resolve quickly. They request help with terraforming and we assist them. We monitor our sims for laggy scripts. Various estates have different “zoning” policies and residents choose the estate that suites them. We do our best to ensure our residents have a great place to live

Mainland on the other hand has no such support system and the results are visible and evident by the vacancies there. Linden Lab can never provide the level of support that the “Land Barons” provide. In spite of what is obvious to many people, Linden Lab continues to expand and try to sell Mainland and they do this by hurting the very people that support (supported?) them the most – us “Land Barons”. Yet, you have devalued our assets (cut prices of SIMs), offered a product that changed our whole business model and then destroyed it (openspaces). Also, someone in your chain of command thinks we are too stupid to realize it is all about your failing Mainland. Why don’t you change your business model to one that helps the people who help you most. Have a model that supports land barons. We are the middlemen that benefit both you and the residents. It is in our best interest to keep our customers happy and in turn keep you supplied with a large customer base.

Come on Zee, present this radical idea of supporting vice screwing us land barons. Stop destroying those who were (past tense) both your biggest ally and the best support system for the residents. Present this idea and maybe get rid of Jack Linden, because he certainly does not get this concept.

Does linden labs even see how unpleased everybody is?
How angry people are?

The other forum topic is dead, no Linden employee post something anymore.
This is just another foolish policy that we (residents) have to accept, or we give up our sims. That is so unfair.

For the last time, Linden Lab, please listen to your residents and dont change anything at all. If you are too stubborn to continue this foolish things... SL might end up being a dead society.

After the open space announcement, I bet that 44% drops drastically. Estate I manage is dropping approximate 40 Open Spaces (and irritating a lot of residents) and consolidating them into full sim thanks to that. Not a fun thing telling 90+ people that they gotta move cause no one wants absorb a 67% price increase. I know, off topic but to the Q3 numbers, but I'm sure Q4's outlook won't be as good due to the number of people the openspace change affected.

Customer Experience

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When considering complaint information, please take into account the company's size and volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm's responses to them are often more important than the number of complaints.

The BBB processed a total of 40 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total of 40 complaints closed in 36 months, 28 were closed in the last year.




Why do the BBB only rate Linden Labs as 'Unsatisfactory'? your reports seem to suggest that the report on line at: http://goldengate.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=99&bbb=1116&firm=57373# is not in accord with your own. Zee, why is this?