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

Zee,

In January, will you be posting the numbers on how many Openspace Sims were released back to LL from sim owners and the number of Openspace Sim being converted to Full sims from Nov 1st to Jan 1st?

Also if there was not a problem with Openspace sims when there was only 1750 prims on them why are you cutting them back to 750? You killing the Virginia Tech Memorial on the Openspace Sim that has only 1750 prims on it since day one. Zee do you think you culd get 5 Lindens together to dontate 10usd a month to Memorial Park. Maybe Philip, M, Robin, Cyn and yourself could be the 5 that donate to the sim. Im sure 10usd a month wont hurt your pockets. What 2800L$ a month you can create them out of thin air. And then it doesntcost LL anything. And if you dontated it out of your own pocket, ou just haveto cut back on Starbucks for a day each month. I know if I have donated over 2500usd over the last 18 months in tier fees and cost of set up. You can help out also. Dontate 10usd a month or make Openspace Sims 1750 prims like they were before, you created this Openspace problem.

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 Sorry if I sound a bit like a commercial here. I just wanted 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.

I have a question, i believe Zee or whoever has the authority to answer...
L$ exchange and money supply;

You recently changed the Lindex trading range, why ? Where will the L$ be trading in the next few quarters ?

I don't mind changes, but i like to know where we're heading, so i don't do something wich may be "unintended"

Given the USD recently made many smaller currencies worthless i find this move quiet strange if you want to attract foreign investment.

Zee, this question is deeper than it may appear, for at least a couple of reasons.

First, it would be helpful to LL management to have very fine-grained information about the detailed financial performance (cost and revenue) of different membership plans and payment categories, different products (Estate/Openspace/Mainland/Zoned Mainland, group or individually owned or rented), etc., to make better pricing and marketing decisions. That information is too vast for *reporting* but very much subject to automated analysis for trends and relationships hidden in the larger-grained numbers. If this isn't being done, you might want to lobby M for some tools to do it.

Second, note that Ann is asking specifically about sinks. Although some posts seem to dismiss L$ sources and sinks as real financial metrics, I think that's just mistaken. But if sources and sinks have real impact to LL's bottom line, analyzing what promotes and deters relevant resident behavior is of equal importance.

The press release was once again a misleading statement from LindenLab:

The charts and details below indicate that Q3 was a very strong quarter in Second Life with significant growth in land AS WE TRICKED RESIDENTS WITH A CHEAP OS PRODUCT THEY FALL FOR.

We expect it will have no impact on our Q1 09 results, as we will cover the returning OS from people who cannot afford them with the bold price increase we made on OS.

Should we not be able to cover that loss, we will increase the tier on private islands in Q2 09, which might have an impact in Q3 09, if residents protest again and we have to calm them down with postponing the increase to Q3 09.

QFT

I would like an answer to this as well as it seems LL is putting spin on it prior to getting rid of stipends and based on recent track record make the premium accounts actually worth less than they are now.

Don't hold your breath as we all know how much the management listen to us as customers. Thank god there are still Lindens in world that care about the job they do and are always ready to help as management don't give a rats arse about the customer base anymore imho and thats sad SL was a great place to be and fun.

I think the LindeX is pretty awesome too. When you let the exchange rate slip like this it causes a great deal of drama among the small number of people who pay attention to it. I wonder if it would be possible to make announcements ahead of time about what you plan to do a bit like the Fed does. If you hinted that you might be letting the exchange rate move then businesses could plan better.

Or, alternatively, make an announcement right afterwards. If after the fact you announced that you had let it slip deliberately and planned to leave it that way then we could all get back in the market with more confidence knowing that some kind of crazy catastrophe wasn't underway.

I really appreciate that you took the time to actually engage in this discussion Zee, but these are difficult times for customers too and stiffing them with a planned 67% price increase at a time of uncertainity really is not appreciated. You guys knew how the product was being used and why it was selling so well.

The rise covers your backs but does nothing for your customers.

It says: October results indicate that we should expect land growth to slow in Q4 as Residents reconfigure their land holdings to accommodate the change in pricing and addition of the “Homestead” island type. We expect to see some Residents consolidate their holdings to adjust to the new pricing and product types.

I read: We're already beginning to see those poor residents who cannot afford our new 'shaft you' tier increases have to give up the sims they paid us good money for in the first place.

Am I wrong?

I've talked to Rodders and if a person spends 4000US$/month you will say, this person haven't the money to call Linden Lab? You're kidding, right? Let me give you one option to call very cheap Linden Lab: try a Voice over IP Provider, affordable for the most people. From germany i pay € 0,03 / minute for a call to the US.


I don't think that the price changes are on topic in this thread, yes.


Ok, if everyone has it's own home, where is space for the community?


Actually i spend 100-150 US$ (not Linden Dollar) to Second Life. I've never tried camping or other things to get money. And places where i like gets also donations, and i don't talk about 50 or 100L$.


I know in fact many beautiful places who exists since 2006. And yes, Second Life isn't a cheap hobby. If you can't afford a SIM you shouldn't try it. It's like RL economy, you have to spend money first before you're able to collect money. Too many people things "Ok, lets buy some SIMs and rent them as home, in two month I'm a millionaire." Second Life is a mirror of the real world. In the real world, everyone can afford a ferrari, a villa or other luxury items? I don't think so. Second Life exists since 2003 and I'm sure Second Life will exists even if 60% from the OS are gone.


As first you can't own a openspace SIM only, so you will have always 295US$ + 75US$. Thats a fact. On the other hand, if you own one full SIM and one openspace, where is the problem to look for another land baron who owns three OS and sell yours to them? There is also the option to transfer it only and share the incoming from the full SIM after converting.


In fact I've saw many bad openspace regions, more then really good ones. I've saw also complete empty OS without any other connected island and they where laggy (Time Dilation 0.8 SIM FPS 35 and less).


You don't know me and you can't compare me with other people in Second Life. All places where i like gets a donation, and, as next example, i help also my land baron to find new tenants - for nothing. She offered me 1-2 tier free weeks, but i won't it. Why? Because i know how SL works and i know also how expensive it is.


Every time when i'm there.
Here is a little suggestion: don't judge people you don't know. My post was related to Robbers only. If you find yourself in this post, it's up to you. I will give you another example. I'm not a SIM owner, I've rented two spots, one for living and one for my "business". My business brings in... mh... 2-3000L$ / month, but i have to pay each month round about 25.000L$ for my two plots. But i don't care about the incoming, because Second Life is a kind of escape from my RL. I run my own RL business with employees, that why i have a different sight about Second Life. It's a wonderful distraction to do complete different things as my RL work - and it's more constructive as to watch TV.

If you haven't that much money, try some of the low budget grids, there are some around, based on the same technique.

Zee : "I founded a hosting company in 1999 and we sold dedicated servers"

Did that company fail too?

Good point Zee, many ppl forget this complete. You can compare it with a car. All pieces may cost 1000 US$, but you have to pay 10-20-30-40.000 US$ and more for a car. Why? Development. Of course, the software (SIM and Viewer) are (partially) under GPL, but this don't means, that the development costs nothing.

ZEE, the message in my original Post was that customers have no interest in these key metrics! It is like telling a 'terminal cancer patient' that he is not sick at all !

U can ofcourse by doing it, take temporary away the focus from the 'customer base' from the 'real issues' that are affecting SL, but always remember your customer base contains also some intellectual RL business people who cant be pleased with 'popcorn & soda', THEY WANT RESULT (and the clock is ticking).

thx
Wildcat

They should be, they are very much part of the economy. The price changing is mentioned in the blog post as is the predicted downard turn of land mass.

I won't be at all surprised to see this spun as an issue of the global RL economy problems rather than Linden Lab's ineptitude.

Zee , Hi !

I think you will find that your Q3 figures are the peek of SL potential .... Its all down hill from here .

Q3 The grid was running better than it had been in months .
Q3 Customers was paying a fair price for a product and finaly getting a decent place to live and use the 3750 prims they payed for

I would bet that in Q3 complaints went down , It was the first time in a long time here that people here seemed to be happy with SL , This in turn will produce customer confidence and therefor spending .


I would bet my left nut that Q4 figures will show a stark contrast to Q3 .... and no one will be left thinking " hey what happend ... why is the big number getting smaller ? " cos we all know .

The numbers are inflated by bot's , More free accounts asking " How do i get money here ? " are being directed to camp spots , So a lot of the transactions in L$ will be down to some club owner paying a noobie L$ 10 every 15 minz .

Its great to sing about how well your doing .... IF your actauly doing well ..... Inflated numbers do not reflect SL or LL sucsess if we all know they are inflated .

Was a time that the blog hardly got a look at ... then a few started taking notice ...then more and more .... Up untill a few weeks ago many residents had never even read the blog OR knew about or posted on the forum .

LL have used the blog to transmit messages to the world " Look how great we are " and " Hey SL is cool " ... And was a time the people on the outside would read the blog and think " Hey SL & LL is doing great " ...... But its changed days ..... the people who just looked befor now dig deeper .... they look in the forums .... and what they see is the responces from customers that in NO WAY reflect the PR noncence on the blog .


If i own a resterant .... and fill it up with non paying family members all eating my resorces ..... How can i sing to outsiders that my resterant is doing great ... "look at the numbers! " ? ... sorry your numbers are way off .

I would allso like to express that the timing in this announcment is normal for LL ... it would be about now that this kind of thing would be issued on the blog ...so no big drama about it being bad timing .... just unfortunate .


Look forward to the Q4 numbers .....if i still care by the time they are issued .... if they ever are!

It's a damned pity that residents don't have LL decision makers who try to help them. It's all one-way.

I'll give you one thing, Zee. You have a lot of balls for telling Katt to post this "LL is doing well" thread at this time. It's a shame that your boss (M) doesn't have the balls to answer the residents about his decisions that cost them significant real money. There are some excellent people working for LL, but the management is just too scared to face the customers.

The OS caper didn't affect me in the slightest, but I was angered by it. But that was nothing compared to the anger I felt when this particular thread was posted at this particular time. Rubbing salt into the wounds doesn't come close to what this thread is.

Q3 might have finished well for LL, but I sincerely hope that Q4 is a real shock for the company.

Quite the opposite, I think we are all very interested in these metrics. There are some flaws for sure. It's hard to know what the numbers mean since what they measure can be quite fuzzy and in some cases useless. We can all agree or disagree with Zee's rosy assessment of the "unusally strong September". Regardless, having these metrics which are comparable one month from the next is extremely useful.

70 Bots in a sky box handles group functions? You're kidding, right? I'm sure that only 10-15% from all bots are well used, maybe with group functions, greeters, support etc. But the en gros from the bots are nothing more then traffic bots.

But the quoted post makes an excellent point that the "good bots" exist only because LSL has been the red-headed stepchild of Development for so damned long. With Mono and a trickle of new functionality, there's some hope that this lack of attention isn't a long-term policy, but the jira is filled with plaintive requests to make scriptable the most basic of user operations.

Maybe banning bots--good bots and all--could get Development to bestir themselves to work down some of the four year backlog of uncompleted and ignored LSL functionality. (Can you say "llTeleportAgent()"? I knew you could.)

There are some very popular groups, y'know

And your point is?

Btw, the word you were looking for is "than".

And you? Will you refrain from attacks as well? Pot...Kettle

I've said this for quite some time now, the one single thing that is destroying Linden Lab is the UNPROFESSIONALISM.

I'm sorry if consider this an attack Katt, but then again, I didn't just tell a frustrated Resident to blow off; nice Customer Service!

What's the point in that? Why not abandon LSL to decay and focus more on making bots more efficient? openmv is already a million times better than using lsl, why waste time trying to get lsl to catch up with it?

/me stares at the screen with mouth hanging open.

Zee you just apologized for the open space sim debacle. I think this is something that many many many people have been looking for. I wish M could pony-up and take a little blame as well. Kudos to you Zee.

Elan, it is all about strategy, the Q3 key metrics will ofcourse show no negative trends, which is perfect to launch those figures towards the media right now and win time to see the effect of RISK ACTIONS as the OS announcement who was targeted to launch in Q4.

95 % of the FIX customer base wants rather to know what the 2009 LL action plan will be, so they can decide moving forward to invest further in SECOND LIFE or to leave. At the moment the LL business strategy is unclear and non transparant (a rather arethic approach)! This leads to common frustration (see OS blog 2592 posts). Our RL group froze on monday all investments in SECOND LIFE, not 1 l$ will be further invested, untill we have a clear sight into the future.

Due to the lack of a business plan, risk actions not liased with the 'fix customer base' can end a company also LL, the strength of any company is the CUSTOMER.

So therefore the LL 'key metrics' are to my opinion worthless, as long if they are not measured againts a clear business plan.