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

they're happy about stats, but the only thing i see is that there is more land, with no significant increase in currency exchange -> they're takling money in tiers and people won't keep sl business working... stop propaganda and read newspapers from all countries, sl is dying

Inn Box

Zee, your metrics are never fully released, and you know perfectly well the huge amount of data that is available takes an expert to interpret, that is why we ask you simple questions, simple as how many Open Sims were sold in the last quarter and what was their growth rate. Information you should have simply distilled before you created the 66% price hike, unless you plucked figures from thin air.

You have the answers, so why not share them?

Hi Zee,

first, many thanks for actually engaging in a dialogue with residents. You are the first Linden Labs manager for some time who is actually doing that. What a stark contrast to the "talk with Jack and M Linden" where these two have been conspicuously absent.

Are you able to comment on a coming expiration of island grandfathering (195 $/month tier rate)? Is this on the horizon or may this be ruled out for the next 1-2 quarters?

Thanks.

Sorry, but I have a few more questions. There's a lot of unknowns, and you are helping fill those in I'll try to keep them short.

The largest sink category is "other" (this was why I asked the Supply Linden buy question.) What types of sinks are included in that?

There's also an other category in sources (though far smaller.) What are those?

Was a new desired land market equilibrium (more emphasis on mainland) a factor in the SL economic side of the openspace decision? (as opposed to the cost/resource issue)

Well, I'll give you credit for stating that, Zee. The "We're not blaming our customers." bit is inaccurate - you only need to read the blogs by Jack and M to know that the customers were being blamed - but thank you for coming clean about it. It's a pity that Jack and M have prefered to hide all week after inviting the discussion "with" them.

Another way to describe overhead would be leadership. I think we've hired some great leaders. They'll build great teams and get the best out of their people. Lots to do.

Thanks for your comment. 3 stages instead of 2 seems reasonable but I'm not the sole decision maker. I'm also hearing calls for grandfathering. Grandfathering creates some other problems, but I'll make sure we consider it again.

Point noted. Definitely not a good resident experience is it.

Thanks. Its difficult to stand up and take responsibility. So I thank you for your support. I'm still here reading every post. I'll be leaving this forum open until 5pm SLT and then I'll have to shut it down. But I will be back next quarter as well.

Why no report on the average cost of mainland?
I would like to know the cost of mainland and how this compares to previous quarters. When LL flooded the market with new mainland, you announced that the goal was to keep the supply at a level to insure some value remained. How has that worked out?

Personally River, I would never trust what the US BBB puts out. I have found them to be totally inaccurate in two of the largest US states, TX and FL. I don't have reason to believe they would be any better in CA. That's why I was chagrined to Kalyrra's signs on her towers in Nautilus. My two cents, but using the BBB to collar LL is weak.

The way to handle the issue would have been to allow buy back of OS sims at the cost we paid for them. Anyone with a bit of ethics can see this. You lose nothing (refunding pigs in pokes/vapor ware) and have your resources back. Instead you decided a 67% price hike...with a more restricted (weaker) product was the way to go. It would allow you to keep the same income with lower resources(dumped sims) and damn the suckers who bought the OS

Right? Is this not clear to everyone and their brother? It's a freaking supernova seen by all.

So stop with the happy talk pretending that you are a bunch of idiots who didn't have a clue how things would fall. Though I'm tempted, I can't believe you are all really that clueless at the lab.The facts lead me to believe that you are more unethical then completely stunned, by slight degree perhaps.

What ever motive it leads to the same result. We don't like you right now. Not one bit. We won't recommend you, in fact, we will bitch about you to anyone who will listen. We will call you liars and thieves and do. We look eagerly for other options. Some people are so desperate they sign up to the largely insane opensim projects...reversed engineered titanics ftw.

The only solution is for jack to be shown the door...and really he stumbles on his own feet every time he tries to do something. For the good of all, can him or demote him to coffee boy (though he will charge you double the cost for a cup, leave out sugar and find some sucker volunteer to actually make the coffee). Do it now. I'll wait....

...ok.

The next step to removing your reproductive organs from our colons would be for Mister M linden himself to resign. To step down as the complete ineffective failure he is.

We might even consider you ethical and a company worth dealing with again.

Or you can just keep pretending that everyone, everywhere, is a brain-dead sheep and keep feeding us crap, because, after all...."Q3 closed on a high note with an unusually strong September."

That post writes: "Instead they usually steer us to examine user-hours, which notably fell in September." I should have pointed that out...user hours did fall in September. August is a 31 day month & september only has 30 days. Hours per day basically stayed flat I think.

It also says "So, taking Zdanowski's advice on the forums, we should be using LindeX currency exchange volume instead as a measure of economic activity. Unfortunately that also fell in September; and again in October, as it happens."

That's correct. LindeX volume did fall in September and October. August would have been the unusually strong LindeX month. November MTD is up about 1% over October.

This option is definitely on the table when we re-configure premiums. Glad to hear you like it and will consider being premium if we did it.

On your second paragraph, the initial sale of land is much smaller than the monthly recurring fee. We have not expanded the mainland in some time (except for Nautilus) as we let the price per meter grow as I indicated in an earlier response.

River - sorry, I did go to lunch. I went with my kids to in-n-out. I'm back. Trying to answer all the questions I can. Happy to talk. I'm in Waterhead 173,83,26.

Good question. We use the price level to gauge the supply and demand. We balance the supply and demand by increasing the supply when the price gets too high. If the price gets to low we refrain from increasing supply.

For the next two quarters - I don't think we - or you - could handle another change. I think we're good through Q1. I don't see the price of full sims changing. I'd love to see us improve premiums improve in the first half of next year - that may affect mainland pricing and 512 vs 1024. More than that I do not know.

I don't have how many were sold, but I do have how many we charged maintenance fees for - maintenance fees happen one month after they are sold. By that measure the number of open spaces increased 5,557 from the end of Q2 to the end of Q3. It started the quarter at 4,780 and ended the quarter at 10,337. I hope that helps. If you let me know what you're trying to get at, perhaps I could answer that more directly.

Checking.

Lindens eat? And have families? My God, you truly do have feet of clay...

I'm mainly a detached observer on this issue, but I do think you deserve credit for attempting to address the issue here, anything is better than the usual silence and incomprehensible blog posts that we've come to know. And admitting the situation was mishandled is also refreshing. No rational person expects you to be here constantly, so make sure you get some dinner later on as well.

I've listed all the sinks below. Not sure which of these are in "other". If its not specifically listed in the summary, then its other.

Desired land market equilibrium was definitely a factor. Less between the mainland and open spaces than between full regions and open spaces.

Stipend Delta
Stipend New User
Cancel Account
Land Claim
Group Create
Group Join
Upload Charge
Land Auction
Classified Charge
Web Listing Fee
Parcel Directory Fee
Classified Renewal
Object Sale
Gift
Land Sale
Inventory Sale
Land Pass Sale
Payment
Object Pays
Currency Exchange
Group Dividend
Partnership Registra
Partnership Dissolut
Linden Adjustment
Linden Grant
Linden Penalty
Event Prize

In an earlier forum response I listed the trend in pricing on mainland since the beginning of the year please refer to that.

Zee, though I personally think that the Openspace issue has been decided and will absolutely not changed, I must make an appeal here, as it seems you have a considerable hand on the economic side of LL.

You have stated that one of LL's current goals is to aggressively invest in Second Life's technology. Increasing revenue is one way to do this. However, there is another way: tap the power of the community you see before you to bring massive, meaningful benefits for both LL and its customers. However, to do this, major changes in the way LL works with its customers must take place.

First, let's look at the raw brainpower residents have devoted to this issue. Around the 9th, I did some figuring and testing, and found that if you take all the meat of the posts (leaving out unnecessary text) in the JIRA issue on openspaces, and the two forum threads, then pasted it as plain text in font 12 in Word, it would take 1400 pages to print out. 1400 pages of feedback, problem solving, and input, in less than two weeks. This doesn't include in-world discussion, or third-party blogs or forums. Everyone from professional coders, to seasoned residents, to casual users with a strong emotional connection have been involved. All of this has grown organically, being a true grass-roots movement, without any direction or leadership, and even so they have been able to form a powerful collective voice (even if LL has not listened.)

What if LL could tap the power of this community to aggressively develop SL? LL at current has around 300 employees. To this, it could add an army of _thousands_ more users. Motivated users without technical backgrounds, given the right, easy-to-use tools (beyond JIRA) could serve as bug and problem testers that could fast-track the QA process (which, from what I can tell, is a huge part of development.) Technically minded users could be used as think-tanks to figure out coding and technical solutions, and be used to quickly determine which solutions and fixes are among the most feasable. And the many professional programmers who use SL could tear apart the code to look for weak points, bugs, and other problem points.

All of the above is currently seen, but in a much smaller scale to what is possible if LL motivates them. The way to motivate them is to end the constant clashes and lack of communication. A possible first step is to post a weekly blog detailing some of the current concerns and issues LL currently has- before they act upon them. Until the openspace announcement, LL was silent on its concerns of this issue. This is a gap of 7-8 months between the first policy that resulted in the Openspace problem, and the given solution. Doubtlessly in between the problem was increasingly realized; it didn't come as a sudden epiphany. On the first sign of trouble, LL could have said "We are seeing Openspaces used in a way we did not expect. Here's our concerns: XXXX We are forming an in-world discussion group to address this issue, as well as a forum where possible solutions can be addressed. We will study possible solutions and give an update with some of the solutions that seem the best for further input." This would have began the conversation before it ballooned to a huge size (and the Openspace issue did indeed), and would show pro-active attempts to rectify problems at the first sight of trouble. This would not give a few an advantage because everyone would be able to see concerns and possible solutions, because of the transparent discussion.

A second step is to give credit for resident-led help in a way that shows that residents have a meaningful, valuable impact on SL for the better. If 200 residents were involved in the fixing of a certain bug, give that number. Post monthly reports that detail the immense help that Residents gave on issues. And, most importantly, show that through working together, LL and its customers were able to benefit both's interests, resulting in tangible things such as performance increases, more features, and lower costs passed on to the customer.

A third step is to open the door both ways. Form intensive communication tools that allow customers to address their concerns about Second Life- what their own needs and desires are. When such feedback results in change, admit it proudly- showing customers that what they want has affected SL is not something to hide at all.

Most of all, the above approach would only build customer trust- something that is the most important thing in a platform such as SL. All this passion you see before you could be re-directed towards positive improvements that would greatly enhance community in SL- the core aspect of what makes SL what it is.

Aminom - Great ideas. I've copied and sent them to our executive team. Our residents do have a massive problem solving capability and I think M and Tom have both learned a lot from our mistakes in the Open Space re-launch, price increase and product change. I'm going to log out of the forums for a couple hours, I'll check back in around 3:30 SLT and be on until 5pm, then I will be closing down this forum because I can't moderate it anymore after that.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. I wish we could do them all. And do them all now.

Hi Zee. I hope the break you're taking doesn't cause you to forget that you were checking about the possible end of grandfathered sims