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

Gordon - do I get the L$ 100? I responded to Rodders & indicated that I would talk to him but it would be best for him to talk to Concierge who could actually do something about his specific situation.

Aminom - I generally try to use the same metrics every quarter. If you look at my old posts you'll see that. Its true not all the metrics are looking great. There is contraction in October and I expect more in Q4. Pricing changes, new products and the RL economy are all going to be a factor. We have had stronger quarters than Q3, but we still set a number of records in the quarter - so that's good.

Perhaps the harshest measure of our growth is in the LindeX. The LindeX grew the slowest of all the charts that I made - that's where the real money is transferred between residents. In the past 3 quarters its inched up from $26m USD to $27m to $28m. Slow and steady is all there is to say about that.

I got one of my questions answered, and I'm asking the second question again so it is easier to reply to.

Does Linden Lab ever buy L$, in the same way that Supply Linden sells L$?



Is this new land market equilibrium a key part of Linden Lab's economic policy choices?

More good ideas - I passed them on. Some I know we have thought about. Thanks!

We do not, as a policy, buy L$ as a sink. We do sink approximately L$ 187 million per month worth of L$ as can be seen at the bottom of this page:

http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

Managing the sinks and the sources are how we have kept the exchange rate stable for some time.

If we increased the stipends without increasing sinks, that would have the potential of changing the supply in the face of the same demand which would mean that the value of the L$ on the LindeX would have to drop relative to the USD.

Here's one for you Zee. I have a public photo garden that is busy 24*7.
Do you track sinks by sim or parcel?
I think it would be interesting to see how much L$ was collected from snapshots on that parcel lol.

I haven't seen any data internally or externally that looks at this. I can see how many logins come from various players using the Reg API, but I don't think i can get to user hours through that data. This afternoon I asked about if I could tell where the bots were coming from based on their registration source, but the answer I got was that we couldn't - or at least we couldn't based on the historical information that we captured. I'm going to keep digging on this because I like your suggestion - I'm not sure we'll actually end up publishing the data - but I do appreciate the direction you've pointed me in.

This in no way addresses my comment on page 5. Gordon responded to part of my post but your answer is about Zoning Nautilus and not about the old mainland and the promised mainland zoning in the third quarter.



You stated that the sales at Nautilus proved that some users want a more structured experience. Will only the new customers on the mainland recive this structured experience or will there be attempts to include the customers that have contrbuted financially to Second Life for the last 4 years?

.

Thanks Shibari - I'll give that feedback to M directly. I'm answering anything that I do know the answer to. On Open spaces, I am going to put the specific questions to Jack just because he knows better than me.

They have had a huge impact on the economy - first positive and now negative. The change we made was important. I was part of the decision making around it. I wish we could have done it better. I'm sorry again for that. Hopefully things will settle down as the changes take hold and all of our great residents re-evaluate their need for open spaces an reconfigure their holdings or even re-sell them. Changing prices is just about the hardest thing we have to do here & I'm glad we have Jack and T on the team now taking the helm.

All the linden's love our residents. All the time? Everyone? That is sometimes difficult.

Thanks for your continued support.

Let me know what the name of it was and I'll see if I can find out. I'm going to go see it tomorrow too. I'll post here when I'm there and those who are interested can meet me there. I don't have my calendar handy just now so I don't know exactly when, but I'd love to come and see it!

Lias - I do think we need to find a way to let new and older users enjoy that type of space. Its a lot of fun. Right now auctions set the price & there is high demand because there is limited supply. Hopefully we can use this as a model to rejuvenate parts of the mainland. Jack would definitely be the right person to talk about our plans in this area and when we might see some actual progress.

I'm going to sign off for the night now. Thanks for everything and see you in world tomorrow.

Zee!

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)

There is high demand for two very simple reasons...first, almost all of it was bought up by so called land barons....then dumped back on the market after being marked up 150-200%....and the only reason people are interested in it...is it is devaluing older mainland sims by offering twice the number of prims, for the same amount of tier.

If people were really interested in a "more structured environment" as you claim in an earlier post...they would leave the blocky builds that were on it when they bought it...wouldn't that keep it "structured"?...but they arent...they are jumping on it for the double prims at the same price the rest of mainland is paying for single prim properties....

Duh...

Temporal

No...there is no real demand for a "more structured experience"...there is a demand for 2x the prims for the same tier...and I checked the current auctions, and of the thirty or so auctions I looked at, there are only two of them bid up above 30L/sm...



stipends? I don't even pay attention to stipends as a reason to have/not have a premium membership...I do it because I need one to own mainland, pure and simple...and I think that most other residents will agree. The stipend had no bearing on why we paid for the premium account at all...it was required to own mainland...so if others are at all like me...and I think I am typical, what does the decline in premium accounts REALLY mean? Maybe it means they have figured out that unlike other companies that offer enhanced service for a premium price, they dont receive it here? Hmmm..and since only premium members can purchase mainland property....exactly how will that not impact your sales of mainland property?....




Oh...I see this is where you try to tell us how it wont affect your business...I am really confused now, since the decline in premium account could conceivably only affect how many folks purchase MAINLAND...so if the number of premium accounts wont affect the overall growth of SL, because you dont need a premium account to purchase ISLANDS...I see...now...why are island sales not only declining...but posting negative numbers?...

Let me make sure I get this straight...

(Decline of premium accounts = decline in mainland land purchases) + (don't need a premium account to own islands = the number of islands owned declining dramatically) = Fantastic growth for LL and Second Life...wow...thats a whole lot like adding two negative numbers, and telling me it results in a positive number...right?

This spin you folks are putting on the numbers for September reminds me of what my grandaddy use to tell me...."Son...don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining"...

Yes, some not even a Linden can love

LOL

OK, OK, Thanks Zee for answering, it is appreciated.

Zee, you rock! Thanks for staying positive and informative in the face of so much unnecessary and misdirected negativity.

Although your enthusiasm and admiration of your Service Provider representative is touching - your back-handed attack on your fellow residents was completely unnecessary. I saw no misdirected inquiries - everyone stayed on the subject and when Zee skipped many questions - some reminded her she was falling behind or not answering the harder questions at all. Clarity in policy is important. People spend their time, efforts, creativity and MONEY on this platform. When a person who's salary we pay says she will respond in a public forum she will definitely get some disgruntled customers if she does not. And customers respind to such posts to find out what went wrong - not to inquire if she had a nice lunch. In this OS scam climate Zee knew she was stepping into a hotbed.

.

.

Zee Linden,

If you would like to reduce the number of bots in world and thus the load on your servers, you need to expand the LSL language to do the functions bots do.

A large number of bots perform GROUP functions. Add members, Remove members, Get List of members etc. These group bots are the ones that stay in world 24/7 to handle group membership requests that should be handled through LSL.



Darling Brody.

Thanks for the economy update. That's always interesting reading.

I know from the economy webpage that it is possible to roll up numbers among avatar "alts" to the Unique Customer Level. You are doing that for PMLF. Hence it should be possible to adjust U2U transaction values to Unique Customer level, too.

Would you be able to share any insight into unique user 2 user transactions over time?

Zee and I are logging out for the evening, thanks for all your interest and great questions.

-- Katt

Will Linden be so enthuised to publish there figures for Oct/Nov? I imagine there is a huge drop in revenue that will be extremely embarrassing to them? I am pleased to say I am one of the protestors removing themselves and their work from this very unpleasant corporation. I am not alone!

Hello Zee Linden

It is possible to know, how many SIM open space, has been sold (full transfer), per residents before the Monday, October 27th, 2008. Day per day ?

Thanks

Yes, that would be something interesting to know

Hi Zee, thanks so much for the report and also for clairfying that just because premium membership may be down, does not mean land owner numbers are down. They clearly are not. Of course there are also the renters, who are equally important in this equation since they in effect pay the tier for the land owners who basically have all the rights.

I also feel that despite the current ecnomic situation in the world, Second Life will experience an economic boom. Often during times of ecnomic hardship, people have spent more on enterntainment since they have less to spend on taking holidays away from home. Especially in these more advance technologically times, people online will look for various ways to escape and have fun. I would not be surprised if people spend more for online communities and games such as Second Life than going to the movies.. simply because they can relax at home and have fun with a ton of people that normally they would not be able to. Also, more will rent films or just buy dvd's and wait for the new release to make its way to the DVD shelves. Whilst they are waiting.. well, they will discover programs like Second Life. So yeah, I definitely expect those numbers to go up Zee. The cool thing about Second Life is that because it is all about supply and demand, it will survive the "recession" and prove that social economy is indeed prosperous, alive and well... and in Second Life.

Let's face it, building, buying, living, interacting, etc in a virtual world is addictive. It's fun to interact in a diversive immersive online world such as Second Life. So much to do. So many communities to choose from. As most know in the gaming industry.. Community IS the focal point and is what keeps the average user inworld long after the freshness and newness wears off. I guess, for programs like WoW, it would be more like after one attains all of the high stats. Of course one of the great things about Second Life, from a gaming perspective is that there is really NO high stats. There are no limits to what skills and levels one can attain.. that can be said in terms of RolePlay, Commerce, Creativity, Education and so on.

Only a fraction of online users are even aware of virtual worlds. Once they are, there is going to be a huge supply and demand. Companies will even create new technology to enhance our virtual world experience.

Basically, what I am saying is that despite the virtual world's slow 14 year start.. there is a big future for us all in virtual world domain and yes that means Second Life.

As for premium account holders, I, myself keep my premium account even though I know there is really no need for it since I do not currently own Mainland. I do feel that there should be perks to having a premium account other than the weekly stipend. Personally I feel that all users who want to access adult material should be premium account holders. It would also be nice to possibly consider to allow premium accouint holders the opportunity to purchase Homestead regions without the need to own a private estate. Another option would also be to only allow premium account holders to partake in selected events or meetings.


I'm sure that is going to change soon.



PS I guess I just rambled on a bit here to encourage Second Life users. I know that it seems we are experiencing a slight recession but it is short lived if you can even call it one in the first place.